Symmachus wrote:I don't disagree with any of your general statements about victims qua victims and perpetrators qua perpretators, Rosebud, and I don't think that, if Nibley does need defending from these allegations, I'm the person for that. Nor are his foonotes the plane on which defense should be played out. But I don't see that case as having any relevance here, because I don't think this is where perpetrators should be dealt with either.
I am not going to assume that he was a child molester because one child claims so in a fictionalizing memoir, nor will I assume he isn't because the others say she is a nutso whose memories are inconsistent and lacking in corroboration with any of their memories. I did read her book and it certainly contained fabrications of its own (e.g. the claim that BYU professors are forced to listen to devotionals even in their offices or the claim that everybody in Provo knew who her father was as well as her, or the claim that the Nibleys were Mormon royalty...even in Idaho!), but that doesn't mean her basic story is false. I don't see what she has to gain from making such a bizarre story up (which also, incidentally, Nibley's basic defense of Joseph Smith). But in the end I simply don't know one way or the other and won't pretend to.
Lucky for my interest in the discussion, it doesn't matter. The point that Nibley's inaccurate footnotes are not at all unusual for scholars (as anyone who has ever worked in a scholarly journal in the pre-publication process will tell you), especially for one who was not publishing in scholarly venues with the controls and feedback that entails, does not hinge on whether he molested his child. Nor does it help the victims' or defenders' cases. His misreadings generally are in-text, and that is where engagement with Nibley as an advocate for an ancient Mormonism should occur, not his footnotes nor his relations with his daughter. That he may or may not have been a child molester is an ad hominem argument if we are talking about his footnotes: it might be true, might be false, but it's no reason to assume that someone is inventing sources whole-cloth. The probabilities in your mind for determining that are also irrelevant. There are many thousands of footnotes as a body evidence that can be used to substantiate his deception if it existed in the scholarly realm.
I don't see how asking for evidence that person X invented footnotes is necessarily defending or empowering person X in their alleged capacity as a child molester, and conversely I don't see how it disempowers their victims—unless you think that empowering a victim necessarily entails that perpetrators must be 100% awful, lying sacks of s*** in every single capacity in which they exist. If Nibley were a lying sack of s*** in his scholarship, it shouldn't be hard to detect. What is detectable is that he was a sloppy scholar driven by his obsession on Mormonism as the one true religion and that his published views on scholarship reveal a cynical nihilism about it that makes him indifferent to his own sophistry. That explains everything for me as regards his scholarship, whether or not he molested his daughter.
This reminds me of the case of a very good classicist who went to jail for attempts to seduce a minor. A recent book of his gets a one star rating on Amazon because, as the reviewer explains, he is a convicted sex criminal. That is true, but it has nothing to do with whether his commentary on Cicero is a good and useful commentary or not.
I don't know him but he is probably a terrible human being. On the other hand, I know some pretty amazing people who are awful scholars. One doesn't have much to do with the other.
This is how it disempowers other victims:
1. Public allegations are made (true or false -- doesn't matter)
2. Other victims, who feel very silenced, read public allegations and see that another victim is finding the power to speak (or perceive that another victim is finding the power to speak if the other "victim" is just falsifying)
3. Public discussion occurs. In that public discussion, people call the victim's public account things like a false "sensational memoir," etc.
4. Victim witnesses public discussion and thinks about it. Victim applies public discussion to his or her own situation.
5. Victim realizes that if he or she were to speak, other people would probably not believe him or her. Victim realizes that if he or she were to speak, other people might even attack him or her for speaking. Victim sees other victims get excluded from their communities for speaking about crimes. Victim realizes that if victim tells anyone, victim will probably be excluded too. Victim stays quiet. <------ bad for everyone except perpetrator
This is a common social dynamic that exists because humans have a tendency to support people in power and stay away from people who are disempowered. This natural human social behavior occurs, in my opinion, because our social interactions are animal instincts and evolved over time to give our evolutionary predecessors more access to scarce resources and therefore more likelihood of passing genes onto the next generation (but you don't have to believe in evolution or think that's a reasonable explanation for this behavior to observe it).
5. Perpetrator witnesses public discussion. Perpetrator sees opportunity to use public examples of public disbelief to further silence victim. Perpetrator says things to victim like, "Look what happened to Beck when she told! That's what people will be saying about you if you tell anyone what I did to you," etc.
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I think the main miscommunication here is that I don't care about Nibley or Beck or Nibley's footnotes. I am using them as an example of larger principles of human behavior.
As far as why I think it's more interesting to look at this from a standpoint of principles of human behavior than Nibley's footnotes (since people like to try to win debates by being snarky about it):
I think categorizing human behaviors into recognizable patterns helps the more astute among us gain more self-awareness about why we do and say the things we're currently doing and saying and therefore make better current decisions in the present. (At this point someone might be thinking, "hey... I hadn't considered that... I'll be careful not to slam people like Beck in the future even though I don't think she was right. That way I won't accidentally help perpetrators silence other victims and c'mon... it's not like Beck and Nibley really matter. I have no idea what happened there... how could I? I'm glad that if Beck really was a victim, she found the power to speak, though. That's cool!" And Nibley... doesn't really seem that upstanding anyway... and, frankly, who cares? He's dead and there are a lot of really messed up Mormons all around me. I can see it.")
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What I have to say about Nibley's footnotes themselves and what it has to do with what I care about (what I care about is what has happened in Mormonism over the last several years and, especially, how this affects vulnerable populations today -- not Nibley or Beck):
I already know they're crap because there is no way they couldn't be.
It's falsification to take advantage of a manner in which one has power over students or audiences. (I care about this because I care about principles and power dynamics, not because I care about Nibley.)
In this case Nibley's power is the fact that the rest of us aren't qualified to examine his footnotes so we have to take his word for it until someone who is qualified decides to publicly challenge him -- and that isn't all that likely to happen because when someone publicly challenges someone with authority/influence/power when there isn't a clear and functioning discipline system in place, that person doing the challenging will open him or herself up to attack. Not all that many people will feel incentivized enough to take that on. Plus, that challenge would harm the challenger's social identity. It's not easy to publicly take on someone who has the position of "hero" in a community. It should be BYU's job to clear this up, but what is their incentive? They'll use the arguments to defend Nibley's work that Kish uses.
Falsification is an ethical issue and it speaks to Nibley's character. I don't see any reason why I shouldn't feel fine about writing about this on a message board when it's pertinent to what is happening in Mormonism today. My opinion is that we all would have been a lot better off if he didn't set the example he has for scholars who have followed him. What a mess we've all been dealing with in the last ten years. Nibley used his academic prowess (his power) to take unethical actions which I believe have had a collective deleterious effect that has had a negative impact, in my opinion, on several of us over the last several years (again, this is what I care about -- not Nibley. To h311 with Nibley.) I won't defend scholars whom I think should have been disciplined.
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In other words:
From my perspective, unethical falsification that someone does from a position of power should be challenged because the more such unethical behaviors are challenged, the better the world gets. So I write posts about it. I'm not going to do anything more than write posts because I'd like to think I have an after-Mormonism life now. I've challenged enough authority for a lifetime. Tired.
From my perspective, the more Mormons who start thinking about how these public interactions affect victims, the better. I post this because I'd like you to think about it. There are a lot of Mormon victims who need help and people can do more to help them when they are cognizant of how their actions may hurt victims and help perpetrators.
Hope that makes sense....