The MADhouse on Sunstone

[_harmony]

We have no report on Sunstone yet? Or did I miss it?

[_Cicero]

Blixa: What do you think of this comment made by Duffy in the article? I get what he is saying, and I definitely see far too much blind faith in science on forums like RFM (particularly from Steve Benson), but do you think he is using the term "Postmodernism" appropriately?

Second, revisionist critiques of apologetics invoke a view of scholarship that in today’s postmodern climate seems naïve. As non-LDS observer Massimo Introvigne points out, many revisionists profess an Enlightenment-era faith in the possibility of arriving at truth through objective, rational method—hence revisionist complaints that apologists have an agenda, the implication being that true scholarship would simply follow the evidence to its logical conclusions. Postmodernism, however, maintains that there is no scholarship without an agenda; there is no such thing as simply following the evidence to its logical conclusions. Some orthodox scholars have espoused this postmodern outlook to rebut accusations of pseudo-scholarship and to lend academic credibility to the notion that LDS scholars should work, without apologies, from the distinctive perspective of their faith.149 In this regard, these orthodox scholars are more in tune with prevailing trends in academia
than are Mormon revisionists

[Guest]

I just want to say, for the record, that the bigotry on display in this thread is an embarrassment to the Church, the board, and the entire enterprise of Mormon Dialogue & Discussion. It's a helpful reminder of why I stopped posting here. I think I'll return to that policy starting right now.

for what it's worth, I reported several posts to the moderators and waited twenty-four hours before posting the above. It's not so much the comments themselves that drove me away from there as the moderatorial double-standard that allowed them to stand. If anyone there characterized a group of devout, orthodox Mormon scholars as nincompoops, I'm certain the statement would not be allowed to stand. But because in this case the discriminatory comments were directed against a group that welcomes fundamentalist, liberal, former, and never Mormons as well as orthodox ones, religious bigotry is suddenly permissible.

[_Nightlion]

I don't know why Celestial Kingdom slums it over there at the MADhouse. They're incorrigible.

I think he finds it hard to give up hope that if you disagree with unreasonable people in a nice calm way they may learn something and change a little.

You got to amp it up to get results.............am I right?.......huh?

[_Blixa]

Blixa: What do you think of this comment made by Duffy in the article? I get what he is saying, and I definitely see far too much blind faith in science on forums like RFM (particularly from Steve Benson), but do you think he is using the term "Postmodernism" appropriately?

Second, revisionist critiques of apologetics invoke a view of scholarship that in today’s postmodern climate seems naïve. As non-LDS observer Massimo Introvigne points out, many revisionists profess an Enlightenment-era faith in the possibility of arriving at truth through objective, rational method—hence revisionist complaints that apologists have an agenda, the implication being that true scholarship would simply follow the evidence to its logical conclusions. Postmodernism, however, maintains that there is no scholarship without an agenda; there is no such thing as simply following the evidence to its logical conclusions. Some orthodox scholars have espoused this postmodern outlook to rebut accusations of pseudo-scholarship and to lend academic credibility to the notion that LDS scholars should work, without apologies, from the distinctive perspective of their faith.149 In this regard, these orthodox scholars are more in tune with prevailing trends in academia
than are Mormon revisionists

No and the fact that he's quoting Massimo Introvigne is, well, disturbing on several counts. I suspect he's picking up "postmodernism" as filtered by Introvigne, which was the source of it as a veritable fad at one time on MDD. At best it's "vulgar" postmodernism: a reductive caricature used to score points (i.e. "it's the critics who are the real fundamentalists!") And you can see the way this framed with Kuhn, no?

This article dates from 2004, I would expect Duffy to have fine tuned his arguments since then. Even so, the article is still quite useful as a research aid. He's assembled some very helpful material in his notes. Things like this:

9. A joke at the SHIELDS website hinges on the idea that anti-Mormons are so stupid they have to have things explained to them three times. “Jokes,”http://www.shields-research.org/Humor/Jokes.htm. Elsewhere on the SHIELDS site, an animated graphic of an ape shakes its head at anti-Mormon absurdity. “The Anti-Mormon Crusade,” http://www.shields-research.org/Critics/AMC-ASco.html. At his Mormon Fortress website, Michael Ash writes “that those who are engaged in an enterprise to destroy the LDS Church . . . do not have all the facts, do not have a full six pack, or do not have the little plastic thing which holds the six pack together. AND GUESS WHAT? I’M GOING TO POKE FUN AT THEM!” “Fun Stuff,” http://www.mormonfortress.com/fun2.html. One of the ways Ash pokes fun at anti-Mormons is placing a link on his site labeled, “Anti’s Enter Here”; when you click the link, a message informs you—falsely—that your hard drive is being reformatted. “Apologetics: Defending the Faith,” http://www.mormonfortress.com/apolog1.html. (All webpages accessed 1 April 2004.)

I think it's interesting to look back at this stuff now, over a decade later, because I think a corner has been turned. This kind of "fun" not only looks pretty embarrassing, it also doesn't seem to have much appeal for younger Mormon scholars who are currently taking stock of the possible relations between scholarship and apologetics.

[_lulu]

I haven't read Duffy yet but Midgley and Bohn wrote articles about post-modernism and faithful Mormon history back in the early '90's in Sunstone.

[_Bob Loblaw]

The only nincompoop I saw at Sunstone was Van Hale.

[_Darth J]

The only nincompoop I saw at Sunstone was Van Hale.

I know. That switching back and forth between Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth just bugs me.

[_Bob Loblaw]

I know. That switching back and forth between Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth just bugs me.

I can't picture that guy fronting any kind of band:

[_Cicero]

No and the fact that he's quoting Massimo Introvigne is, well, disturbing on several counts. I suspect he's picking up "postmodernism" as filtered by Introvigne, which was the source of it as a veritable fad at one time on MDD. At best it's "vulgar" postmodernism: a reductive caricature used to score points (i.e. "it's the critics who are the real fundamentalists!") And you can see the way this framed with Kuhn, no?

Yes, and that bothered me, and I suspected that you would disagree with that as well. I really hate it when people use Kuhn to argue that all "paradigms" should be equally valid, which is what Duffy seeemed to imply in this article. I have seen the term "postmodernism" used and/or misused in so many contexts (both within Mormon Studies and in historiography) that I don't know what it really means anymore.