Let me just stress again, Dan stood up before a paying crowd of Mormons at a FAIR conference and systematically misinformed them. They paid money to be edified by a scholar who is a brother in the faith, and Dan had so little regard for them that he didn’t even bother to do basic research into a book he quoted from heavily. He simply doesn’t care that he pretty much insulted the intelligence of every person in that room, he simply doesn’t give a damn about it.

FAIR hosted Dan, have his talk up on Youtube and host a transcript of the talk. I’m pretty sure they are aware of what I’ve written, but will probably not bother to get around to even putting an asterisk next to anything, much less issue a retraction, because they share Dan’s attitude.

They don’t care about things they should.

This reflects on their faith and their moral principles.

They. Don’t. Care.

If you don’t care either, nor your mythical friends you are using as a hook to troll people with, then you’ve lost any pretense of honesty.

You talk as if intellectual dishonesty and indifference to morality and truth are bad things.

I don't think so. Yes, Mormon culture has issues with the way it treats the sexes, but not to the extent that the average Mormon would think nothing of William's behavior. That's why my thread was so devastating. Even die-hard defenders of patriarchy and opponents of feminism could see the problem with the way William was acting.


This.

The only times I have ever seen Dan Peterson speak out against a fellow apologist or an apologist fanboy was: (1) To reprimand Bob Crockett for his own remarks on William Schryver, and (2) When Papa said some stuff about Islam that he didn't like.

As long as you're on the same team, anything goes.

Says the person who thinks that space aliens are visiting the Earth and that the Book of Mormon was produced by automatic writing. You also have no idea what the story of my whole life is.

And if there is a double standard between Paul and Mopologists, it is one that the Mopologists have invited. Paul does not claim to be a chosen generation and a royal priesthood.

This.

There are two kinds of circumstances where I've seen DCP be openly critical of fellow Mormons. The first is when a Mormon is implicitly or explicitly critical of his apologetic circle. The second is when they make harsh, inapt criticisms of Islam or Muslims. That's it. Both of MsJack's examples qualify, but I've seen more than that. Otherwise, he obeys a strict rule of never calling out his fellow Mormons. This is especially hypocritical when you also realize that he's made a habit of praising his non-Mormon interlocutors for their intellectual honesty and courage when they vocally split with fellow critics.

That said, there is a difference between DCP's silence and his vocal defense. It's hard to know what he actually thinks when he's using silence to avoid criticism of members of his tribe. I'm 99% confident that Juliann's "postmodern" kick would've driven him up the wall privately, but he never spoke any meaningful criticism of it. It's Reagan's 11th commandment, only with Mormons. But when he openly defends something, then he probably is cool with it. I haven't known him to be disingenuous in that way. He might defend someone's character, but I think he keeps his opinions to himself if he actually disagrees.

I find this behavior appalling. Since I have a reputation for disagreeing with anyone if I think being reasonable is in the line, that probably is unsurprising. I've mentioned several times how Don Bradley's joy at being accepted by people like DCP as someone to be treated kindly as a friend creeps me out. That's because it suggests what matters to them is not truth or friendship based on personal character, but rather fellowship with the faith. That reads to me as vaguely cultish where loyalty rises above all. Doubtless those bonds will just as easily be severed should Don apostatize once more. What kind of friendliness is that? What kind of discourse can you have with that?

Yeah, Mormon culture has serious problems with gender, but it's more subtle than what Will was doing. That probably would read poorly to just about everyone, perhaps even especially to those who are sensitive to being (rightly) charged with more subtle forms of sexism. American society still has all sorts of problems with racism, but darn never everyone recognizes that derisively calling a black man "boy" is bad form. Will is closer to that. He projects the the sort of obvious sexism that those still in the clutches of more subtle forms use to tell themselves they aren't sexist.

One of the hard facts about human behavior is that we’re all hypocrites, to some degree or another. Some are undoubtedly better than others at monitoring this tendency, and some are in total denial in regards to possessing the tendency, but we all possess it to some degree. There are a couple of reasons why this is so. One is that we evolved as tribal animals, wired to condemn behaviors in outsiders that we overlook or outright condone in members of our own tribe. Humans would not have survived in the ancestral environment otherwise, because we needed the loyalty and altruism of our fellow tribe members to survive in a harsh world where food was scarce and predators large with sharp teeth. All we had was our brains and our ability to truly work together as a group. And when attacked by another tribe, ours wouldn’t survive if we didn’t favor our own above the outsiders.

Another reason is that our brains are wired with confirmation bias and motivated reasoning (ie, reasoning motivated to defend our positions, which are often arrived at outside of reason or logic). Our conscious reasoning evolved to be our lawyer or PR agent, arguing to defend our positions, rather than scientists searching for truth. So when people say things with which we agree, it’s more difficult to recognize the problems with their presentation or logic. So when Will defends eternal polygamy by referencing his status as an alpha male with the need to plow fertile fields, since I disagree with that position and find it obnoxious, it’s going to be much easier for me to recognize the problems with Will’s equally obnoxious presentation of his position. So when Paul uses vulgarity to rip into the LDS church for its destructive attitudes and behavior towards homosexuals, it’s harder for me to criticize his presentation because I agree with his basic position.

That doesn’t mean I approve of Paul’s vulgarity. It just means that there is less motivation for me to criticize him for it. (and criticizing him for it would get tiring and repetitive, and it doesn't work, either) Being hypocritical in this way is so universal, and requires so much effort to recognize and overcome, that pointing it out in others is not particularly compelling, although irresistible. It’s irresistible because we are as wired to sniff out and highlight hypocrisy in others as we are to be hypocrites ourselves, and blind to our own hypocrisy.

Recognizing my own hypocrisy, I will point out that the two circumstances are fundamentally different. While believers often protest the “double standard”, believers do claim to adhere to a certain standard of behavior that nonbelievers usually do not claim to the same extent. So if you proclaim yourself a follower of Christ and then go about making sexualized, vulgar insults to people, while criticizing the behavior of others, then you are, indeed, a hypocrite in a way that a nonbeliever who does the same thing is not, unless that nonbeliever has made a stance regarding his/her standard for behavior. And then, of course, lying about your behavior while making up a fantastical story about forgery is above and beyond that basic hypocrisy.

I concur with those who find the OP suspicious. It reminds me of an earlier similar thread, in which the poster was, IIRC, suspected of actually being a Will sock puppet. This poster also claimed to be sincerely seeking the truth of the matter, and read Jack's thread, and yet could not find evidence of Will’s bad behavior therein and asked for additional evidence. LOL. Seriously, lol. If anyone reads this thread and walks away unconvinced of Will’s bad behavior, they are just refusing to see what they obviously don’t want to see, and nothing can persuade them.

OK, I'm bound to be attacked for this, but here goes:

I am a woman and I'm very offended by misogynist behavior when I see it. I think calling Schryver a misogynist for saying things like you quoted here does a disservice to condemning real misogynist behavior. I also thought a good portion of the quotes in the big Mormon Apologists and Misogyny thread did not rise to the level of misogyny either. I mean, I take my brothers as a good example. They are TBMs to the nth degree, but they're also joke-sters and make breast comments about women all the time. They all loved the Kate Upton "Cat Daddy" video that went viral a while ago. But they're not misogynists. They're just not. They're just typical "boys"----even though they're supposedly grown-up men in their 20's and 30's. Seriously people----there are so many authentic examples of misogyny that deserve our condemnation. I've seen lots of it on this board in the past couple years, and it's mostly coming from male ex-Mormon posters.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to excuse Will for things like calling Emma Smith a champion bitch and calling a couple women "bitchy". That is not becoming a good Mormon priesthood holder--I just don't consider most of his quotes in that big thread to be terribly misogynistic. And quite honestly, after reading everything that was said about the "c"-word incident, I just don't believe that Will really would have said something like that on a public message board. Sorry, but that's how I see it. In my opinion, it's better to save the label for clear-cut examples of real misogyny.

I am open to changing my opinion, but it would take some better examples than what I've seen so far. My objections to Schryver have much more to do with what I think are ridiculous apologetic arguments about missing scrolls than him making jokes about someone wearing a skimpy dress or having breast reduction surgery.

So you think that a man making jokes about breast reduction surgery is a good example of misogyny? Really?

I'm sorry, but we have much more insidious types of misogyny to deal with in this world. At least in my world. I think we need to avoid cheapening the term misogyny by applying it to things like men making breast jokes.

When breast jokes are intended to demean women (and in this case a particular woman), they are misogynist.

Post of the year. No, make that the decade!

I didn't say misogyny. I said his bad behavior.

I actually agree that a distinction could be made between outright misogyny - ie, the hatred of women - and basic sexist behavior. Will, without a doubt, engaged in repeated, obnoxious, sexism. Does that mean he hates women and was engaging in misogyny? I'm not sure, to tell the truth. His posting behavior certainly diminishes women, and relegates them to sexual objects. Is that the same as hating women? The answer to that question may be above my pay grade.

BTW, joking about breast reduction was obnoxious, but hardly his worst behavior. EA gave better examples of his worst behavior, in which he dismissed the comments of female posters altogether and deliberately made sexist remarks while doing so to provoke anger, or in which he insulted women in a sexualized manner.

I'm really on the fence about his misogyny. I actually lived with a real misogynist, so I understand the reluctance to so label Will based simply on this evidence. He's a sexist pig who is a bad example for his religion, no doubt, and that's enough for me to point to his obvious bad behavior.

I bumped this up so Garbo can see that the OP just called for examples of his "offensive online behavior", and not misogyny in particular. Again, if someone can read Jack's thread and walk away unconvinced that Will engaged in "offensive online behavior", then they just don't want to see it.

That's just it. I read the breast jokes in that thread, but I didn't consider them "demeaning" in the way you seem to think they were. IIRC, Will was complimenting the woman on her breast reduction surgery. How is that "demeaning"?

Sure, you can say that "a good Mormon man would never talk to a woman about her breast reduction surgery". But why? Are we so uptight about talking about such things that we're now going to label them "misogynistic"? Really?

I'm sorry, but the kinds of misogyny I see in my world are much more subtle and insidious than someone saying: "Hey baby, looks like your breast reduction surgery went well."

Calling a women that you've repeatedly demeaned in a sexist way "baby" while telling her that she's in over her head, then telling her to instead grab her pom poms and cheer for her boys after insulting her looks is most certainly misogynist. Just because it's not a forced clitorectomy doesn't mean it isn't misogynist. It's a difference of degree. Just because slapping woman in the workplace on the ass isn't the same thing as demanding sex for a promotion doesn't mean both aren't sexual harassment. It's a disservice to women (and men) to ignore sexist behavior simply because one can always point to more serious examples. Hey guys, it's not like Will is a ringleader in the white slave trade! Yeah, I guess there's that.

+1 Well said beastie.

Took the words right outta my keyboard!

By the way, dismissing women as bitches for traits that get a pass in men is about as classic of an example of widespread, insidious misogyny as there is. It's especially insidious because it is one of those things that enjoys widespread buy-in from women too. It constrains gender roles lest you be a bitch.

Exactly.

Also, sleazy "compliments" are not compliments. They are sleaze. They are leering, jeering, patronizing and objectifying.