Novak's Rule

[_Gadianton]

but on the subject of the titanic, monolithic evils of "Mopologetics" and my disreputable role in all of alleged wicked deeds of darkness

Are you sure it's not the people who don't like Scratch who invent a monotheism out of all those who appear to get along with Scratch at all?

This statement here is outright false. Once in a while, I will quote you, given that you are an authority on apologetics, but I don't recall ever starting a thread about you or that even really mentions you. My interest has been in particular kinds aplogetic activities, foremost, the apologetic treatment of Chapel Mormons. This is my own, shall we say, specialization. And quite honestly, it hasn't involved you at all.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Are you sure it's not the people who don't like Scratch who invent a monotheism out of all those who appear to get along with Scratch at all?

Yep, I'm sure.

Once in a while, I will quote you, given that you are an authority on apologetics, but I don't recall ever starting a thread about you or that even really mentions you. My interest has been in particular kinds aplogetic activities, foremost, the apologetic treatment of Chapel Mormons. This is my own, shall we say, specialization. And quite honestly, it hasn't involved you at all.

Right.

Don't worry. I realize that you're a subordinate Scratch, and have never suggested otherwise.

[_Gadianton]

I don't understand what you mean. How do all my posts on the Review's articles spitting on the publications of Chapel Mormons, none of them having been authored by yourself, somehow secretely support what you claim to be Scratch's agendas of making you look bad? Really, go back and read my articles and take my exam. None of it had anything at all to do with you, or to do with any existing feuds between you and Scratch.

And what do you mean that "I've never suggested otherwise?"

[_Daniel Peterson]

I don't understand what you mean. How do all my posts on the Review's articles spitting on the publications of Chapel Mormons, none of them having been authored by yourself, somehow secretely support what you claim to be Scratch's agendas of making you look bad? Really, go back and read my articles and take my exam. None of it had anything at all to do with you, or to do with any existing feuds between you and Scratch.

I'm the editor of the FARMS Review, GS. I founded and created it, too.

And what do you mean that "I've never suggested otherwise?"

I think it's obvious that Mister Scratch is the guiding spirit of Scratchism. He's the one who launches all the personalized, gossipy threads, and the one whose personal, obsessive hatred for me is far and away most overt and obvious. (I exclude from consideration here the non-Scratchite small-fry like poor antishock8, Some Schmo, and the like, who express their personal hostility toward me from time to time, but who plainly don't function on the same intellectual level as the various Scratches.)

[_Daniel Peterson]

It strikes me, Gadianton Scratch, as really quite disingenuous to try to pretend that your opening post was not, to at least some extent, about me:

What I find most disquieting about "Novak's Rule" isn't its straightforward mean-spiritedness, but its wide acceptance by the apologists proves that for some time now they have been trying to "trick" critics into being OK with the label "anti-Mormon". Famously, professor Daniel Peterson of Brigham Young University often writes -- the lattest incident of this writing being just the other day,

Anti- means "opposed to." As in anti-Semitic, antacid, anti-Catholic, anti-Communist, anti-abortion, anti-depressant, anti-Nazi, anti-allergen, anti-war, anti-antihistamine, and anti-discrimination. "Anti-" terms don't necessarily indicate evil. I, for example, am both anti-Communist and anti-abortion.

I suppose there is some semantic wiggle room here regarding the interpretation of the word "evil", but clearly, the intention is that it's not necessarily bad to be "anti-Mormon". The "setup" here turns on getting the critic to accept this dry exposition on logical necessity only to find herself snickered and laughed at as the butt of a joke as the apologists also hold tightly to their (supposed) certain though contingent "Novak's Rule".

Come on.

[_Mister Scratch]

I don't understand what you mean. How do all my posts on the Review's articles spitting on the publications of Chapel Mormons, none of them having been authored by yourself, somehow secretely support what you claim to be Scratch's agendas of making you look bad? Really, go back and read my articles and take my exam. None of it had anything at all to do with you, or to do with any existing feuds between you and Scratch.

I'm the editor of the FARMS Review, GS. I founded and created it, too.

Flip-flop. Back on forth we go. On the one hand, DCP has "nothing to do" with certain Mopologetic activities (such as certain SHIELDS pieces), and yet, on the other hand, criticism of non-DCP-authored FARMS pieces is somehow a condemnation of DCP. Well, which is it? Is he going to accept the mantle of "the spirit of Mopologetics" generally? Or only when it suits him?

And, I don't hate you at all, Prof. P. I would never threaten you with violence, for example. Nor would I try to use any of your private information against you. As you yourself have said, you are a "nice" guy. So why would I "hate" you? I think you're just trying to paint me in a bad light.

[_Gadianton]

This OP may be the closest I've ever come to writing an article "about you" and it still isn't about you. And in case you didn't notice, I haven't demanded answers from you, or even endorsed those who have.

I do think you can get something positive from my article. If you continue to stand by your definition of an anti-Mormon, I think you will in the future understand better why many people won't accept your definition. Given that apologetics isn't a monolithic enterprise, your definition, which is kind of narrow and pedantic, is simply one of many definitions of the word. People will take into account how the term is generally used in a number of contexts by Mormons and apologists, and the defitions those other than yourself, like Novak, have come up with.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Flip-flop. Back on forth we go. On the one hand, DCP has "nothing to do" with certain Mopologetic activities (such as certain SHIELDS pieces), and yet, on the other hand, criticism of non-DCP-authored FARMS pieces is somehow a condemnation of DCP. Well, which is it? Is he going to accept the mantle of "the spirit of Mopologetics" generally? Or only when it suits him?

I'm the editor of the FARMS Review. I've signed off, to some degree, on everything that's ever appeared within its pages.

I hold no position whatever with SHIELDS.

So yes, I'm intimately connected with one, and scarcely connected at all with the other.

Not hard to grasp, I should think.

I don't hate you at all, Prof. P.

I have several years of experience with you that argue persuasively to the contrary.

[_Gadianton]

Back to the issue of you as the editor of the Review, every article I've ever seen from FARMS is prefaced with:

The views expressed in this article are the views of the author and do not represent the position of the Maxwell Institute, Brigham Young University, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I think it's pretty clear you are covered here. Since the Review denies any connection between the authors of the pieces I've criticized and yourself, and since I've never criticized you in those articles I wrote criticizing the authors of FARMS, you'll really need to be inventive in order to call my articles on FARMS pieces by others as personal attacks on you.

Mister Scratch does bring up a good point though, and to rephrase what he wrote, would you disagree with this preface I've cited above? Are you personally responsible for what others have written in the Review?

[_Gadianton]

And one more thing, you didn't clarify here, "Don't worry. I realize that you're a subordinate Scratch, and have never suggested otherwise."

It strikes me, absent any requested clarification that would speak to the contrary, that what you're saying is that since I have supported Scratch on many points he's made, and since I've never openly repudiated any points by Scratch you read as personal attacks on you, that this means you have reason to believe that my personal condemnation of you can be found in Scratch, in whom you think I am in full agreement with.

At his point I feel called to invoke the thrity-first verse of the sixth chapter of Luke, "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."

You have recently said,

I'm responsible for what I do, not for what others do. I don't answer for them, and they don't answer for me.

If you take the gospel of Luke seriously, Isincerely hope that you will find it within yourself to condemn me for the positions I explicitly take a stand on, and not for the positions you think I'm a tacit subordinate of.