It Is Not Personal

[Bill Hamblin]

If the article is about your ideas, and I publish an article that questions whether you really believe the ideas expressed in your article, then it becomes personal. If I claim to be writing a review of your article, then why do I need to go to your personal Facebook page and criticize the ideas you present there, and hunt for any contradictions, unless my review is actually a review of you, as a person?

Good grief. If writing about a person's ideas is a personal attack, then all scholarship everywhere at all times is nothing but personal attacks.

Critiquing contradictions, inconsistencies and incoherencies in a person's public statements is not a personal attack. It is critiquing ideas.

[Bill Hamblin]

One can grow weary at times having to explain the seemingly obvious. I marvel at your stamina.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

It gets very much like grading student papers some time.

[Cobalt-70]

Good grief. If writing about a person's ideas is a personal attack, then all scholarship everywhere at all times is nothing but personal attacks.

Critiquing contradictions, inconsistencies and incoherencies in a person's public statements is not a personal attack. It is critiquing ideas.

It is one thing to attack someone's ideas in a publication, based on the merits of those ideas. It is quite something else to go to the author's personal Facebook wall and find evidence that he does not actually believe the ideas he presented in the publication. The latter is a personal attack that goes beyond the merits of the ideas presented. You can either attack the ideas, or you attack the character or consistency of the person presenting those ideas.

Edited March 1, 2013 by Cobalt-70

[Ahab]

Good grief. If writing about a person's ideas is a personal attack, then all scholarship everywhere at all times is nothing but personal attacks.

You don't have to be attacking a person's ideas when writing your review, but it's still personal to the extent that those ideas are held by the person you are writing about. To him, all his ideas are personal. I know all of mine are. Aren't yours? And not that doesn't mean we can't change our ideas if we see some we like better than ours, but at that point those would be our own personal ideas about those things too.

Critiquing contradictions, inconsistencies and incoherencies in a person's public statements is not a personal attack. It is critiquing ideas.

And ideas are held by persons, which is what makes them personal.

Maybe what you mean to say is that a personal review of someone else's personal ideas aren't necessarily meant to be a personal attack of or a personal assault on those other person's ideas, but instead just some personal ideas about another person's ideas.

Just stop saying it's not personal, because you look silly when you say that.

[Cobalt-70]

It gets very much like grading student papers some time.

You're not really saying, are you, that you see yourself as the professor, and the rest of us as students learning from your wisdom?

Edited March 1, 2013 by Cobalt-70

[Louis Midgley]

It is one thing to attack someone's ideas in a publication, based on the merits of those ideas. It is quite something else to go to the author's personal Facebook wall and find evidence that he does not actually believe the ideas he presented in the publication. The latter is a personal attack that goes beyond the merits of the ideas presented. You can either attack the ideas, or you attack the character or consistency of the person presenting those ideas.

Pure bunk! Why all that talk about attacking? Why use partisan polemical terms to talk about academic writing? You are not a particularly convincing apologist for what you are trying to defend..

[Cobalt-70]

Pure bunk! Why all that talk about attacking? Why use partisan polemical terms to talk about academic writing? You are not a particularly convincing apologist for what you are trying to defend..

Who says you can't use partisan polemical language to discuss a partisan polemical article?

[Pahoran]

Who says you can't use partisan polemical language to discuss a partisan polemical article?

Greg Smith's well-researched, soundly-reasoned and calmly-toned article could, in some respects, be regarded as both "partisan" and "polemical." That is because those words have technical academic meanings.

They also have popular meanings, which only incidentally overlap with the technical ones. It is pure equivocation to argue that the article in question is "partisan polemical" in the same way as your outburst is.

I have observed that not one of Mister Dehlin's loyal followers have managed to cogently rebut any of Greg Smith's arguments. I don't know that any of them have even tried. Even Saint Dehlin himself has declared that he has no substantive response to make, which is probably as close as he will ever get to admitting that there is no substantive response to be made.

But who knows? I may be wrong on this point. How about it, Cobalt? Are you willing to have a crack at it?

Regards,

Pahoran

[Kerry A. Shirts]

Who says you can't use partisan polemical language to discuss a partisan polemical article?

LOL!

[Louis Midgley]

Who says you can't use partisan polemical language to discuss a partisan polemical article?

It seems that no one can convince you from getting down in the rhetorical gutter.

[William Schryver]

If the article is about your ideas, and I publish an article that questions whether you really believe the ideas expressed in your article, then it becomes personal. If I claim to be writing a review of your article, then why do I need to go to your personal Facebook page and criticize the ideas you present there, and hunt for any contradictions, unless my review is actually a review of you, as a person?

Is there something peculiar about a Facebook page that causes one to cease propounding his or her ideas when s/he posts something there?

Is there something peculiar about a Facebook page that renders it somehow less "public" than, say, a blog? Or a message board? Or an online newspaper comment section? What exactly is the difference?

Edited March 1, 2013 by William Schryver

[sethpayne]

Is there something peculiar about a Facebook page that renders it somehow less "public" than, say, a blog? Or a message board? Or an online newspaper comment section? What exactly is the difference?

Hey Will,

I'll give you may $.02. A lot of folks set FB to only display their posts to their friends. Others make it public. So, my feeling is that if a person posts something on FB and has not set it to be publicly available the post remains somewhat private.

HOWEVER, anyone who actually thinks any FB post will remain private is incredibly naive.

Seth

Edited March 1, 2013 by sethpayne

[emarkp]

Is there something peculiar about a Facebook page that renders it somehow less "public" than, say, a blog?

Indeed Facebook is a typical (if not the typical) example of microblogging.

Dehlin seems to have no problem seeing his Facebook as a public microblog. It seems odd that anyone else should.

Edited March 1, 2013 by emarkp

[William Schryver]

Indeed Facebook is a typical (if not the typical) example of microblogging.

Dehlin seems to have no problem seeing his Facebook as a public microblog. It seems odd that anyone else should.

Confronted with such things at almost every turn these days, it no longer seems odd to me.

[Calm]

Hey Will,

I'll give you may $.02. A lot of folks set FB to only display their posts to their friends. Others make it public. So, my feeling is that if a person posts something on FB and has not set it to be publicly available the post remains somewhat private.

HOWEVER, anyone who actually thinks any FB post will remain private is incredibly naive.

Seth

So were JD's comments in the public viewing section or "private"?

I put that "private" in quotes because I don't judge something as "private" as far as a conversation goes if it involves more than 15 people more or less unless they are all family or members of a certain organization or something like that...a closed community with definite boundaries and definite purposes. If in real life I would see a group of people all together discussing something and I would think "that's quite a crowd" AND I see members of the crowd waving others to join them, I generally don't think of that type of conversation as private unless there are stated limitations of membership that are enforced, thus there are people being refused to join because they don't have the needed qualifications (as opposed to being kicked out because what they said upset someone).

I have just joined Facebook and am honestly feeling overwhelmed about trying to manage all the info inputted from those I would like to keep track of. I wish there were a variety of filters/organizers one could use such as one just for family, one for social, one for work, one for church or other organizations one is involved in. Instead it is like being shouted at all at once from a variety of conversations...too difficult to keep track of to make it worthwhile.

Edited March 1, 2013 by calmoriah

[Louis Midgley]

Hey Will,

I'll give you may $.02. A lot of folks set FB to only display their posts to their friends. Others make it public. So, my feeling is that if a person posts something on FB and has not set it to be publicly available the post remains somewhat private.

HOWEVER, anyone who actually thinks any FB post will remain private is incredibly naive.

Seth

I am no expert on Facebook, but we queried Greg Smith about his use of items posted by to to John Dehlin from Facebook, and Greg explained that he only quoted and cited what is called, if I remember correctly, the public Wall that Dehlin maintains--that is, it was not some feature of Facebook where he could expect those not in his inner circle to have access.

Some of this same issue turned up in exchanges with Rodney Meldrum. He complained long and loud that his critics had made a fuss about something he had said in what he called a private communication. It was a newsletter that he sent to those he thought were his devoted followers. He could not see that the real question was not that he had blurted out some outlandish things in his first venture at having a newsletter, which turned out to be a profound embarrassment to him, and which he then insisted were somehow private, but whether he had actually written and published those strange things.

The Facebook complaint doe snot cut it.

[William Schryver]

Some of this same issue turned up in exchanges with Rodney Meldrum. He complained long and loud that his critics had made a fuss about something he had said in what he called a private communication.

"Private communication," in this context, meaning: "something publicly said to one group that was not meant to be heard by others I was not thinking about when I said it." John Dehlin is notorious for deleting from the "public record" these kinds of accidental revelations of his mind and will.

Edited March 1, 2013 by William Schryver

[Calm]

This Facebook page is definitely public: http://www.facebook.com/johndehlinpublic?fref=ts

This one looks to be as well, but if it isn't, the wide range of friends seems to me to demonstrate a lack of expectation of privacy:

http://www.facebook.com/johndehlin?fref=ts

[Darren10]

John is employed by the corporation he runs. I am fairly certain this is John's only source of income, though his wife might work. He is also going to school if you remember. I'm not sure why you think his income is tax free? I mean the organization pays no taxes, but John most certainly pays taxes on his income. If you look here http://openstoriesfo...n.org/finances/ you will find that his take home after paying for benefits and taxes was around 13k for 2012.

Anyway, I'll stop pressing the issue. If it works for you to say John has to be influenced by the money, but also say people who make similar claims about church leaders and founders is not okay, that's fine. Different people experience the world in different ways to each their own I guess. To me, both are just tasteless and splitting hairs in this manner makes my head hurt.

Here's the full quote from your link:

In 2011 John Dehlin received $37,473.32 in gross salary as Executive Director of the foundation. $20,000 of that was owed to John for the previous year’s salary (2010) which was deferred by John until a board of directors was established. John also receives no benefits from the foundation, so his total net salary after insurance for 2011 was $12,541.

For 2012 John Dehlin’s salary has been set by the board of directors at $40,000.

For 2012, he was to receive $40,000, for 2011 he received a "net" salary of around $12,000. Even that's quite a bit for simply having a foundation. Granted, he needs to put in al ot of time but there's no reason he can't have a side job. It's not like this is his chosen career.

Here's Dehlin assisting Dr. Michael Twohig in researching, "people who have excessive immoral thoughts, confessions or religious activity", regarding how their obsession with morality debilitates their normal living. It's not uncommon to be paid, and at times quite well in terms of part time jobs, for this type of work.

The disorder can cause people to pray for hours or confess sins they only imagine they committed, said John Dehlin, a doctoral student in psychology who's assisting Twohig.

http://www.deseretne...obsessions.html

Also, from another link:

Graduate Research Assistant

A research assistant is a graduate student assigned to work under faculty guidance on 1 or more research projects (GRAs are not paid from E&G funds).

Research assistantships are granted through departments. Students must be nominated by someone in the department to be eligible for a research assistantship.

The salaries and workloads for research assistants vary, with a maximum workload of 20 hours per week. Students conducting research that will be used for their thesis or dissertation may register for 4 research or thesis credits above the 12-credit limit.

(bold mine)

http://rgs.usu.edu/g.../assistantships

Adding $40,000 to what he may be currently making does add up to living nicely. On the $40,000 alone he could affectively retire from all other employment though granted that in and of itself would not permit Dehlin to live lavishly. Comfortably ,yes, but not excessively.

Edited March 1, 2013 by Darren10

[sethpayne]

I am no expert on Facebook, but we queried Greg Smith about his use of items posted by to to John Dehlin from Facebook, and Greg explained that he only quoted and cited what is called, if I remember correctly, the public Wall that Dehlin maintains--that is, it was not some feature of Facebook where he could expect those not in his inner circle to have access.

Some of this same issue turned up in exchanges with Rodney Meldrum. He complained long and loud that his critics had made a fuss about something he had said in what he called a private communication. It was a newsletter that he sent to those he thought were his devoted followers. He could not see that the real question was not that he had blurted out some outlandish things in his first venture at having a newsletter, which turned out to be a profound embarrassment to him, and which he then insisted were somehow private, but whether he had actually written and published those strange things.

The Facebook complaint doe snot cut it.

I'm inclined to agree with you, Lou.

And let's not forget that FB makes it extremely difficult to keep anything private and they do this intentionally. I think the old rule of thumb: "If you wouldn't want your words to be on the front page of the NYT, then don't put them in an email" applies to FB as well.

And to be fair, I think John knows this very well. He is a technologist after all.

Edited March 1, 2013 by sethpayne

[sethpayne]

So were JD's comments in the public viewing section or "private"?

Not sure, Cal. I do know that this can be set on a post-by-post basis.

But again .... anyone who thinks what they post on FB, whether posted "publicly" or not, will remain private is kidding themselves. (And again, John knows this so I'm sure he wasn't surprised that Greg had access to his comments/posts. In fact, Greg may be a FB "friend" of John's. I know Greg is my friend. But that's only because I have developed a hobby of collecting canadian FB friends.)

[Cobalt-70]

Is there something peculiar about a Facebook page that causes one to cease propounding his or her ideas when s/he posts something there?

Is there something peculiar about a Facebook page that renders it somehow less "public" than, say, a blog? Or a message board? Or an online newspaper comment section? What exactly is the difference?

The issue is that Smith's article claims to be a review of Mormon Stories. But as soon as he starts citing John Dehlin's personal Facebook wall, it becomes clear that the review is actually about everything John Dehlin ever wrote or said in any forum, and thus a review of John Dehlin himself. So yes, it's personal.

Edited March 1, 2013 by Cobalt-70

[Cobalt-70]

I have observed that not one of Mister Dehlin's loyal followers have managed to cogently rebut any of Greg Smith's arguments. I don't know that any of them have even tried. Even Saint Dehlin himself has declared that he has no substantive response to make, which is probably as close as he will ever get to admitting that there is no substantive response to be made.

How many months or years has Smith been working on this article, quietly surveilling John Dehlin's online movements and collecting evidence for his 100 page exposé? How fair is it to expect a rebuttal in just under a week? Besides, I don't think the factual accuracy of any particular statement in Smith's article is really at issue. The major apologetic criticism of One Nation Under Gods was not that Abanes got his facts and citations wrong. It was that, in the words of Midgley and Bitton, the work "falls squarely into the category of agenda-driven exposé."

Edited March 1, 2013 by Cobalt-70

[Scott Lloyd]

How many months or years has Smith been working on this article, quietly surveilling John Dehlin's online movements and collecting evidence for his 100 page exposé? How fair is it to expect a rebuttal in just under a week?

A full-scale footnoted scholarly paper on the level of what Smith produced might be too much to expect. But why not a cogent but less formal comment on a message board or blog somewhere on some specific aspect or argument? I don't think that's beyond the capability of an intelligent critic, even within a few days. The fact that there has been none of that so far says a lot, really.

Besides, I don't think the factual accuracy of any particular statement in Smith's article is really at issue.

Quite an admission.

The major apologetic criticism of One Nation Under Gods was not that Abanes got his facts and citations wrong. It was that, in the words of Midgley and Bitton, the work "falls squarely into the category of agenda-driven exposé."

Although an apt characterization of Abanes's work, I don't recall that being "the major apologetic criticism" of it.

Edited March 1, 2013 by Scott Lloyd

[Cobalt-70]

Although an apt characterization of Abanes's work, I don't recall that being "the major apologetic criticism" of it.

The authors' criticism was mainly directed to Abanes' synthesis and presentation of the largely-undisputable facts and quotations. How many apologists would have taken seriously a complaint by Abanes, a week after he published his article, that no apologists have come forward and pointed out any of his factual statements or citations as clearly wrong?

Edited March 1, 2013 by Cobalt-70