DCP Invokes Orwell

[_3sheets2thewind]

From: Daniel Peterson
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2012 3:18 PM
To: <[M. Gerald Bradford] xxx@xxx.xxx> [18 other recipients, redacted for privacy]
Subject: Re: Charting a new course

Dr. Bradford:

You've achieved your goal. I resign.

I resign as Director of Advancement, effective immediately. You've already fired me as editor of the Mormon Studies Review.

emphasis added

and this from MDDB

Daniel Peterson: I have absolutely not sought to divert donations away from the Maxwell Institute. I simply resigned as the Institute's fundraiser. I have no moral obligation to raise funds for the Institute.

[_Chap]

Life on the boards was more interesting before the Great Deflation occurred.

Wade Englund (Thanks) is really no substitute.

[_Doctor Scratch]

and this from MDDB

Daniel Peterson: I have absolutely not sought to divert donations away from the Maxwell Institute. I simply resigned as the Institute's fundraiser. I have no moral obligation to raise funds for the Institute.

See for yourself:

I feel obliged to try to make it a good trip and to go, but it will, I think, be my last effort on behalf of the Maxwell Institute, and I won't solicit a nickel more for the Institute from any donors. Given their interests, I think their money should go elsewhere. And, though I won't be so disloyal as to solicit funds from them for anything else during the trip to Turkey, I will feel entirely free to do so thereafter. And I'll be vocal about why I no longer regard the Maxwell Institute as an appropriate recipient of their money.

A significant chunk of his message contained threats about how he intended to undercut the Maxwell Institute's funding.

http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/vie ... =1&t=24378

[Guest]

I did resign, just as Isidor Straus really did pass away on a sea cruise. Just as Abraham Lincoln really did die unexpectedly during a theatrical performance. The nuances, though, are significant.

Yes Dan, you are the great US president who abolished slavery (and you know how much Blacks benefited from slavery, almost as much as Jews benefited from the Holocust) and brought us united through the Civil War.

At the same time you are a Confederate (interesting choice) who was one of the main impetuses behind a great department store chain (which happened buy out ZCMI). So great was your chivalry that you deferred your place on the life boats to the women and children. So manly that you created such great love in your wife she chose to go down on the Titanic with you.

And yet . . . and yet . . . you are still here blathering on on the internet.

Speaking of nuances and theatrical performances.

[_Kishkumen]

I should think that he chose to declare his resignation as Director of Advancement for a reason. Or does his idea of "nuance" amount to an alternate history in which Lincoln committed suicide in Ford's Theater?

[_Chap]

I should think that he chose to declare his resignation as Director of Advancement for a reason. Or does his idea of "nuance" amount to an alternate history in which Lincoln committed suicide in Ford's Theater?

I think we can see a man here who bitterly regrets sending his resignation in that email, and wishes he had not done it. But he did. I mean, this is a resignation:

From: Daniel Peterson
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2012 3:18 PM
To: <[M. Gerald Bradford] xxx@xxx.xxx> [18 other recipients, redacted for privacy]
Subject: Re: Charting a new course

Dr. Bradford:

You've achieved your goal. I resign.

I resign as Director of Advancement, effective immediately. You've already fired me as editor of the Mormon Studies Review.

Note how he explicitly distinguishes this resignation from his previous firing as editor of MSR.

There is no way this side of self-delusion that he can claim that he was fired as Director of Advancement instead of resigning. But his need to believe that he was fired does seem to be moving DCP steadily towards the dividing line, and perhaps over it.

I am really sorry to see all this happening.

Edited to add:

Oh my goodness, there are comments on DCP's Patheos blog:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterso ... l#comments

Just have a look, particularly at what Bob Jones says.

He ends with

Grow up and stop bitching about “resigning.” People get laid off or lose their jobs all the time — especially when they are so arrogant to try and dictate to their boss how things should be done. BYU wants to make the MI a respectable place for scholarship, not a publishing house of tabloid reviews masquerading as legitimate intellectual work.

Who on earth puts 4-5 reviews of the same book in ONE PUBLICATION??? Do you really think BYU would let this nonsense continue?

Your behavior now clearly demonstrates why BYU forced you out of the MI. You are behaving like a petulant spoiled child.

[_Kishkumen]

Note how he explicitly distinguishes this resignation from his previous firing as editor of MSR.

There is no way this side of self-delusion that he can claim that he was fired as Director of Advancement instead of resigning. But his need to believe that he was fired does seem to be moving DCP steadily towards the dividing line, and perhaps over it.

I am really sorry to see all this happening.

Exactly. Now he claims that he has this special insider version of the tale to tell which exonerates him of any gaffe in the affair. How may times have we heard this song and dance about his special, insider information?

Yet another fig leaf.

All of this could end at any time. When? When Daniel Peterson puts on his big-boy pants and moves on.

[_Doctor Scratch]

This bit was classic:

Eventually, I’ll write up my account of the episode. Sooner rather than later, I hope. I almost certainly won’t publish it. Not, anyway, for a very, very long time, if at all. It will, however, go into my life story or autobiography, and a copy of it will surely go into my papers, wherever they end up. I was serious in citing George Orwell above; I take seriously the idea of controlling, or at least of having a say in, how future historians will understand their past (my present). I won’t permit the story to be told solely by those either hostile to me or uninformed. I feel that I owe that to myself, and, frankly, to the truth.

What, he imagines that some archive is going to be interested in his "papers"? Is this the place where, at last, we'll finally get to see everything we expected about his Skinny-L exchanges, and his gossip about Quinn, Ritner, and others? The thing is: he's hoping that he can singlehandedly control whether or not vast numbers of people have a low opinion of him, but the fact remains that he's done nothing to apologize for or assuage all the damaging and abusive things he's done over the past 30 years. Nothing can erase the 30+ years of FARMS articles, SHIELDS fight-picking, messageboard condescension and nastiness, L-Skinny shenanigans, and now the embarrassing stuff on MI. He could try to pursue other, more positive projects in the hopes that they will overshadow all the past stuff, but I kind of think that it's too late, and that his days are numbered. Him writing down some whiny missive for future historical interest is not going to exonerate him.

[_Kishkumen]

Just have a look, particularly at what Bob Jones says.

He ends with

Grow up and stop bitching about “resigning.” People get laid off or lose their jobs all the time — especially when they are so arrogant to try and dictate to their boss how things should be done. BYU wants to make the MI a respectable place for scholarship, not a publishing house of tabloid reviews masquerading as legitimate intellectual work.

Who on earth puts 4-5 reviews of the same book in ONE PUBLICATION??? Do you really think BYU would let this nonsense continue?

Your behavior now clearly demonstrates why BYU forced you out of the MI. You are behaving like a petulant spoiled child.

Seems to me like one of our MDB friends has decided to comment at Sic et Non.

[_Kishkumen]

What, he imagines that some archive is going to be interested in his "papers"? Is this the place where, at last, we'll finally get to see everything we expected about his Skinny-L exchanges, and his gossip about Quinn, Ritner, and others? The thing is: he's hoping that he can singlehandedly control whether or not vast numbers of people have a low opinion of him, but the fact remains that he's done nothing to apologize for or assuage all the damaging and abusive things he's done over the past 30 years. Nothing can erase the 30+ years of FARMS articles, SHIELDS fight-picking, messageboard condescension and nastiness, L-Skinny shenanigans, and now the embarrassing stuff on MI. He could try to pursue other, more positive projects in the hopes that they will overshadow all the past stuff, but I kind of think that it's too late, and that his days are numbered. Him writing down some whiny missive for future historical interest is not going to exonerate him.

Well, Doctor, I do believe we have a donor waiting to add a new wing to Cassius University's Charles Anthon Library. Our extensive collection of Mopologetica is ever open to new acquisitions.