Should Fawn Brodie's Excommunication be Over Turned?

[clarkgoble]

42 minutes ago, Nevo said:

You seem to be drawing a distinction between formal psychobiography and informal psychobiography. But Cohen doesn't describe the book in those terms at all. He never refers to it as a "psychobiography" of any sort.

You're certainly right Cohen doesn't use the term psychobiography. (Although it seems odd to claim Cohen is disputing the psychobiography label when he never uses the term - so aren't you making my argument?) Cohen is dealing with the formal question of psychoanalysis. However most who use the term psychobiography are using it in a loose sense. Secondly as Cohen explicitly states that applies only the the 1945 edition of the book not the 1971 onward version of the book which explicitly makes use of psychoanalysis. 

So when Nibley talks of "Mrs. Brodie’s psychological gymnastics" he's talking of how Brodie isn't just talking about what Joseph did but what he thought in a deep sense. That's what many find objectionable more than Freud. I don't think it's disputable that Brodie speaks of Joseph's psychology in a way stronger than most biographies do. Nibley's objection for all his satire is that it is "a book built up of alternate layers of psychological speculation and haphazard sources that only support them if accepted with a certain peculiar interpretation—such a book is not history."

As I said, I don't dispute Cohen's point about the technical sense of psychoanalysis. It's just that most people when they're complaining about psychology in Brodie don't mean the formal psychoanalysis. That she added that appendium in 1971 that did make use of such pseudoscience just makes the problem worse. Since everyone we're speaking of (except Nibley) are reading that 1971 version it seems a fair charge to make.

So when, for instance, Givens frequently talks of Brodie's psychobiography (The Viper on the Hearth, 106; By the Hand of Mormon, 73) I don't think he's necessarily talking about psychoanalysis but a biography that frequently makes claims of non-obvious psychological states. Cohen's point isn't whether Brodie was doing this kind of psychological analysis. He clearly thinks she is. His concern is, "the anthologist's misconstrual of Fawn Brodie’s psychological expertise." (58) The anthology he refers to is Reconsidering “No Man Knows My History which many have referred to in this thread. His point isn't that she's doing what people claim, just that people are wrong in thinking she's doing so in an informed manner. Thus the quote from Cohen I made earlier about what psychology she is using.

Edited April 29, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Nevo]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I don't think it's disputable that Brodie speaks of Joseph's psychology in a way stronger than most biographies do.

I think it is disputable. You may recall that the most prominent non-Mormon biography of Joseph Smith before Brodie's was I. Woodbridge Riley's The Founder of Mormonism: A Psychological Study of Joseph Smith (1902). Was Brodie's treatment of Joseph's psychology stronger than Riley's?

And if Brodie's biography spoke of Joseph's psychology in a way stronger than most biographies, why did that fact pass without notice when it was first released? If anything, the earliest reviews faulted her for not paying enough attention to psychology! Vardis Fisher, for example, complained that the book lacked information concerning "psychology and comparative religions," while Bernard De Voto criticized Brodie for—as Cohen puts it—"opt[ing] for a literary interpretation rather than seconding De Voto's own pet psychological theory that Smith 'was a paranoid personality in process of becoming a paranoiac.'" "Ralph Gabriel said simply, 'She avoids psychological or psychiatric analysis or speculation'" (Cohen, 59–60). 

Cohen doesn't dispute Brodie's own assertion that "there was no psychohistory or psychobiography 'in the Joseph Smith book except by inadvertence'"—though he goes on to observe that "such a disclaimer does not mean that Brodie brought no psychological interests to the biography" (60).

As for Nibley's reference to "Mrs. Brodie's psychological gymnastics," he seems to be describing Brodie's psychology, not Joseph's—namely, her pivoting between seeing Joseph as a deceiver and someone with "real sincerity." 

Nibley complains about "layers of psychological speculation" but his real objection seems to be to the literary license that Brodie takes in places. It's a fair enough criticism—she does overdo the mind-reading at times. But I don't go all the way with Nibley that "the business of the historian is to tell what happened, not what someone might have been thinking about what was happening." I think imagination still has a place in biography.

Bottom line is I don't consider No Man Knows My History a psychobiography. I don't think the label fits. I think Bushman's description of the book as "a magnificent piece of journalism" is closer to the mark.

 

Edited April 29, 2017 by Nevo

[JulieM]

15 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Mid-20th century authorship and candor meets early-21st century political correctness. Result: Garden-variety presentism.

Not true.  Are you claiming that it was considered acceptable or correct for Nibley to compare what he called Brodie's use of weak sources to:

"young women found making vivid, full, circumstantial and sincere accusations against attackers which are found upon investigation to be nothing more than objects of their own overwrought desires and imaginings."?

That was offensive and wrong to do even back then.  Are you seriously defending Nibley using that as a comparison and calling it "candor"?

I think Brodie's response to Nibley's pamphlet was spot on when she said that even she expected better writing from him.

Edited April 29, 2017 by JulieM

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Nevo said:

I think it is disputable. You may recall that the most prominent non-Mormon biography of Joseph Smith before Brodie's was I. Woodbridge Riley's The Founder of Mormonism: A Psychological Study of Joseph Smith (1902). Was Brodie's treatment of Joseph's psychology stronger than Riley's?

Speaking of biographies in general. Joseph Smith, perhaps because of the nature of what he did, has tended to involve an awful lot of psychological speculation. I just don't see that in most biographies of other people I read.

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And if Brodie's biography spoke of Joseph's psychology in a way stronger than most biographies, why did that fact pass without notice when it was first released?

It was noted in Nibley's.

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If anything, the earliest reviews faulted her for not paying enough attention to psychology! Vardis Fisher, for example, complained that the book lacked information concerning "psychology and comparative religions," while Bernard De Voto criticized Brodie for—as Cohen puts it—"opt[ing] for a literary interpretation rather than seconding De Voto's own pet psychological theory that Smith 'was a paranoid personality in process of becoming a paranoiac.'" "Ralph Gabriel said simply, 'She avoids psychological or psychiatric analysis or speculation'" (Cohen, 59–60)

Going purely from the quotes criticisms aren't faulting her for not doing psychology but rather not using the proper formal psychological methodology or sources. i.e. for doing psychology badly. I'll be the first to admit I'm not up on all the war time reviews of Brodie. So it's rather difficult to discuss that without the sources to make a judgment. We only have fragments quoted by Cohen. But they don't seem to say what you are taking them to say. And again, I'd simply note once more Cohen's point wasn't that she wasn't psychologizing merely that she was doing so out of common sense or intuition.

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As for Nibley's reference to "Mrs. Brodie's psychological gymnastics," he seems to be describing Brodie's psychology, not Joseph's—namely, her pivoting between seeing Joseph as a deceiver and someone with "real sincerity."

Huh. That's probably a valid reading but I confess I hadn't taken it that way. I'll admit that sentence is a bit ambiguous. He has a section heading called "Super Psychology." In that section the whole focus are the leaps Brodie makes to ascertain Joseph's psychology - often (according to Nibley) at odds with a straightforward interpretation. He brings this up many times and I think is what he was talking about earlier when he discusses psychology. But you're right he's at least alluding in his satire to Brodie as well. It might be an intentional double play.  In fact rereading Nibley here I think there's definitely a double entendre in the section. The bits about Brodie's Joseph "being at ease and without inner turmoil" and "never doubting his calling" (despite having forged the Book of Mormon) is I think intended to also be a snide and unkind snip at Brodie. So when he talks about Brodie's "woman's intuition" he may well be playing it off on Joseph's revelatory intuition as portrayed by Brodie. That is he's presenting Brodie's Joseph as a type of Brodie.

I'd never noticed that before but it gets right at that satirical element I mentioned.

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Cohen doesn't dispute Brodie's own assertion that "there was no psychohistory or psychobiography 'in the Joseph Smith book except by inadvertence'"—though he goes on to observe that "such a disclaimer does not mean that Brodie brought no psychological interests to the biography" (60).

Ah - hyphen so it didn't show up in my search. So we were both wrong about his not mentioning psychobiology. He also adds that she wasn't ignorant of psychoanalysis and had taken psychology and sociology in college. The Knopf comment there also undermines your earlier claim.

"One of the judges who awarded her a prestigious Alfred A. Knopf Literary Fellowship six years later explained that he found her portrait of Smith “‘very convincing,’” for although Brodie was cognizant of “‘such special interpretations as those supplied by psychoanalysis, economic determinism, religious bigotry, worship and straight debunking, she steers a path that is not so much a mean between these, as [something] simply better than any of them alone.’” Such evidence, however, does not in itself establish that she was necessarily well-equipped to employ Freud’s ideas systematically."

But of course Brodie's comment about psychobiography was the more technical sense of using psychoanalysis formally, as I mentioned earlier. Cohen notes this is "a reaction against De Voto’s claims." Also she acknowledges she researched the psychology of paranoia for the book but just decided it didn't fit Joseph contra De Voto. This seems irrelevant to the point I made earlier that most of those using the term psychobiology don't mean it in the formal sense - although again I must bring up that the version of Brodie all of us read explicitly does have that psychoanalytic revision.

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Nibley complains about "layers of psychological speculation" but his real objection seems to be to the literary license that Brodie takes in places. It's a fair enough criticism—she does overdo the mind-reading at times.

I'm not sure I'd call that literary license. But it's the mind reading that is what most object to. Literary license to me would be like the infamous Reagan biography in which Edmund Morris included explicitly fictional narration. What Brodie did is just speculation.

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But I don't go all the way with Nibley that "the business of the historian is to tell what happened, not what someone might have been thinking about what was happening." I think imagination still has a place in biography.

Perhaps, but also perhaps justified with better evidence and not quite so much imagination. Again to be fair, if imagination is game then why just follow Brodie's imagination? And can't the same tools be turned on Brodie?

Edited April 29, 2017 by clarkgoble

[california boy]

7 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

Actually, I was referring to civil marriage, state marriage.  The mortal equivalent of the heavenly pattern with no actual power to unite.
The one that is deified by religions and governments alike.  The one that pretends to say "what God has joined together" but God has nothing to do with it.

Gay marriage was not what I was referring to but I guess now it falls under the civil marriage category and is as counterfeit as any other civil marriage.

15 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

So do I have this right?  You believe that any marriage that isn't performed by a church is a Satanic imitation?  Would you go even further and say that any marriagenperformed outside the temple is a Satanic counterfeit?

[JLHPROF]

4 hours ago, california boy said:

So do I have this right?  You believe that any marriage that isn't performed by a church is a Satanic imitation?  Would you go even further and say that any marriagenperformed outside the temple is a Satanic counterfeit?

Civil marriage is the work of man.  God has nothing to do with it.
Eternal marriage is the work of God, is the only one joined by his authority, and the only one of any permanence.

It is not Satanic in that it is not evil.  But it is just a poor imitation of the real thing.
 

[bluebell]

54 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Civil marriage is the work of man.  God has nothing to do with it.
Eternal marriage is the work of God, is the only one joined by his authority, and the only one of any permanence.

It is not Satanic in that it is not evil.  But it is just a poor imitation of the real thing.
 

I don't agree with that.  I don't think, for example, that God had nothing to do with the marriage between Mary and Joseph just because they weren't sealed.

Just like I don't think it's true that God has nothing to do with baptisms performed in another church or performed before the restoration.

[JLHPROF]

45 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I don't agree with that.  I don't think, for example, that God had nothing to do with the marriage between Mary and Joseph just because they weren't sealed.

Just like I don't think it's true that God has nothing to do with baptisms performed in another church or performed before the restoration.

The difference here being organization vs unification.
God may have brought Mary and Joseph together.  But until they were sealed they weren't married by God.
Compare that to Adam and Eve, where they were both brought together and made husband and wife by God.

[Meadowchik]

2 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

Civil marriage is the work of man.  God has nothing to do with it.
Eternal marriage is the work of God, is the only one joined by his authority, and the only one of any permanence.

It is not Satanic in that it is not evil.  But it is just a poor imitation of the real thing.
 

Nope.

The love and intent and godliness of the participants is atleast as significant as which human authority performs the wedding.

Righteousness and faith have godly power. Two gathered in Christ's name, marrying in his name, hearkening to His Spirit cannot help but to have God in their midst.

[california boy]

3 hours ago, bluebell said:

I don't agree with that.  I don't think, for example, that God had nothing to do with the marriage between Mary and Joseph just because they weren't sealed.

Just like I don't think it's true that God has nothing to do with baptisms performed in another church or performed before the restoration.

I completely agree with you on this one.  I think it is pretty ethnocentric to think that only things done by Mormons is the real thing and how everyone else does it is satan's imitation.  I hardly think that Mormonism has complete monopoly on anything that God approves of.  To use JHLProf's way of thinking, one also has to believe that for almost 2000 years, there was nothing Godly happening.  Only  cheap imitation of Satan's version on earth.  That is a pretty big pill to swallow.

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

The difference here being organization vs unification.
God may have brought Mary and Joseph together.  But until they were sealed they weren't married by God.
Compare that to Adam and Eve, where they were both brought together and made husband and wife by God.

I see what you are saying, and I do agree that there is a difference between sealings and marriage. 

But I disagree that someone has to be "married by God" for Him to have something to do with their marriage. 

[Calm]

We allow for blessings of faith bringing in the Spirit to effect a healing even when the participants lack the authority to perform a healing ordinance. I don't see why at least a marriage based in faith in God's desire for them to be joined wouldn't have a possibility of power as well, even if lacking in authority.

[Scott Lloyd]

23 hours ago, JulieM said:

I think Brodie's response to Nibley's pamphlet was spot on when she said that even she expected better writing from him.

So Nibley skewers the author's book with incisive wit, and she doesn't much like it. No great surprise there.

I, on the other hand, have long been an appreciator of good satire, and Nibley doesn't disappoint me.

For example, from Brodie's book:

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He stood proudly before his men, betraying nothing of the tumult and anxiety racking him within.

 

Nibley's wry comment:
 

Quote

 

Since he betrayed nothing by look, word, or gesture of his inner feelings, we take the liberty to report that he was really thinking of a fishing trip made on his seventh birthday; there is no evidence for this, but of course his thoughts were perfectly concealed, you know.

 

 

Another example: Brodie wrote that when Joseph Smith faced his wife Emma for the last time, "he knew that she thought him a coward."

Nibley comments:

Quote

So Brodie knows that Emma knew that Joseph knew what Emma thought! Is this history?

It is to history, perhaps, what the National Enquirer is to investigative journalism.

 

[Kenngo1969]

52 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

So Nibley skewers the author's book with incisive wit, and she doesn't much like it. No great surprise there.

I, on the other hand, have long been an appreciator of good satire, and Nibley doesn't disappoint me.

... Another example: Brodie wrote that when Joseph Smith faced his wife Emma for the last time, "he knew that she thought him a coward."

Nibley comments:

Quote

So Brodie knows that Emma knew that Joseph knew what Emma thought! Is this history?

It is to history, perhaps, what the National Enquirer is to investigative journalism.

 

Well, apparently, Emma was able to come to terms with Joseph's alleged cowardice in that moment, since it was not the name of Lewis Bidamon, her second husband, on her lips, but, rather, Joseph's name on her lips, not just once, not just twice, but thrice as she passed from this life into the next.  

By the way (apologies for going off topic but ...) your coverage of Gerry Avant's retirement from the Church News has been absolutely superb!   While I hope she enjoys her retirement, I certainly hope we haven't heard the last of her.

Edited April 30, 2017 by Kenngo1969

[Kenngo1969]

If Clark Goble is correct that Nibley became embarrassed by No, Ma'am, That's Not History, it seems to me that the author should have had enough pull to prevent that alleged embarrassment from being included in his Collected Works as compiled by (then) FARMS, N'est ce pas?  

[Scott Lloyd]

3 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Well, apparently, Emma was able to come to terms with Joseph's alleged cowardice in that moment, since it was not the name of Lewis Bidamon, her second husband, on her lips, but, rather, Joseph's name on her lips, not just once, not just twice, but thrice as she passed from this life into the next.  

By the way (apologies for going off topic) but your coverage of Gerry Avant's retirement from the Church News has been absolutely superb!  

Thank you kindly, sir!

I have gotten a few very nice emailed responses from readers today, but your compliment in particular means a great deal to me.

Since you bring it up, and in case anyone else is interested, here is the link:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865678749/Editors-career-started-at-a-stop-light.html

[JulieM]

46 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

So Nibley skewers the author's book with incisive wit, and she doesn't much like it.

Well, what Brodie expressed was that even she expected better writing from him (as did many others as well).  This was not Nibley's finest hour and as others have stated, even he seemed to know that and was embarrassed.  

I actually really enjoy reading much of what Nibley wrote.  I've stated before here that each of them (Brodie and Nibley) got things right and each of them made errors in their writing.  I also appreciate his wit and humor just as you do, but I don't find his sarcastic personal attacks and misogynistic insults to be funny here.

How do you feel about his personal attacks in his pamphlet or the sexist references about her?

Do you find the quote to be humorous above (where he insults young women)?

 

Edited April 30, 2017 by JulieM

[Scott Lloyd]

3 hours ago, JulieM said:

Well, what Brodie expressed was that even she expected better writing from him (as did many others as well).  

 

I get what she is saying. I still think it's a rhetorical means to marginalize Nibley's review because she didn't like the points he made. And until you back it up, I'll have to take your "as did many others as well" phrase as mere unqualified assertion attempting to engage in the argumentum ad populum fallacy.

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This was not Nibley's finest hour ...

So you've asserted repeatedly. We get it already.

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... and as others have stated, even he seemed to know that and was embarrassed.  

I think Ken raises a fair point above when he asks why, if Nibley was so gosh darned mortified by his own review of Brodie's book, he allowed that review to be compiled with and published in his Collected Works.
 

Quote

 

I actually really enjoy reading much of what Nibley wrote.  I've stated before here that each of them (Brodie and Nibley) got things right and each of them made errors in their writing.  I also appreciate his wit and humor just as you do, but I don't find his sarcastic personal attacks and misogynistic insults to be funny here.

How do you feel about his personal attacks in his pamphlet or the sexist references about her?

Do you find the quote to be humorous above (where he insults young women)?

 

I wanted to see your quote in context, so I went back to NIbley's review and found it in the following paragraph (I have placed in boldface the part you quoted):

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Comes the problem of polygamy. "Paul had said that in heaven there would be no marriage or giving in marriage, but Joseph taught that this would not apply to his Saints" (299). Quite the contrary, it is the literal acceptance of this very doctrine that makes the endowment work on this earth so urgent. It is remarks like the above that betray a complete misunderstanding or wilful distortion of the most elementary aspects of Mormonism. They also betray something else: Mrs. Brodie deals lightly with the Holy Writ, for it is not Paul but Jesus to whom the remark is attributed by no less than three gospels. To explain the loyalty of sensible women to the institution, Brodie can think of no better line than her old chestnut: the doctrine somehow had great "magnetism." In her treatment of the subject her sources are extremely weak. In any city in the United States almost any day of the year young women may be found making vivid, full, circumstantial and sincere accusations against attackers which are found upon investigation to be nothing more than the objects of their own over~wrought desires and imaginings. This does not mean that such accusations are necessarily false, but it does mean that they call for corroboration. And better corroboration than the words of J. C. Bennett, whom Brodie willingly condemns as untrustworthy--but only after his words have sunk in.

(Emphasis added for reference.)

I've read this several times now, and I'm having some difficulty getting the sense of what Nibley is saying here. What I've tentatively arrived at is that he is endeavoring to counter Brodie's claim that sensible women embraced polygamy in Joseph Smith's day because it had great "magnetism," as opposed to other explanations, such as they became convinced through the Holy Spirit that it was a divinely revealed principle. In saying the sources for Brodie's argument are "extremely weak," Nibley seems to be comparing them to young women who make specious accusations against alleged attackers. In so doing, does he insult young women in general? I don't get that impression, any more than saying some men are prone to attack women is an insult to men in general.

Now then, assuming you selected for your example what you view as the most egregious instance of Nibley being "misogynistic" and "sexist," and being somewhat underwhelmed by this example, I was curious, so I went back and scanned Nibley's review to find other instances that might have annoyed you. I've pretty much come up empty-handed. Perhaps you include in your indictment somewhat dated phrasing or practices, such as referring to the author as "Mrs. Brodie" (they didn't have the awkward contrivance "Ms." in the pre-feminist-movement period when Brodie's book and Nibley's review of it were written). Or when he refers to her as "the lady" (would it have been equally offensive, had the author been male, to have called the author "the gentleman"?).

After thought: If anybody is being sexist here, it is Brodie, for making the very odd argument that women in Joseph Smith's day embraced the difficult principle of plural marriage because they didn't have enough backbone to resist its "magnetisim."

Edited April 30, 2017 by Scott Lloyd

[JulieM]

6 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I've read this several times now, and I'm having some difficulty getting the sense of what Nibley is saying here. 

I think it's fairly obvious what Nibley is stating here.  He was criticizing Brodie for using some of the sources as evidence against Joseph (or others).  And, he had every right to question some of them.  But it's low to use the example of  "young women" falsely accusing their "attackers" because their  claims were "nothing more than the objects of their own over-wrought desires and imaginings" as a comparison.  

And, he didn't need to include this quote in his review:

"on her obsession with sex ('Ms. Brodie delights in the small titillation of finding sexual references wherever possible'). 

Or this quote:

"It seems a shame to deprive her of such innocent fun; but the game becomes tedious to anyone who has not got her endless appetite for it [sex]."

Also, Nibley didn't just refer to her as "Mrs. Brodie" or "the lady" (as you state above).  You forgot to add that he also referred to her as "little Brodie", "our Sybil", "the woman" and "Mrs. B".   

I agree that both her book and his review are dated.  She did write that she believed the doctrine of plural marriage held magnetism for some of the Mormon women in Nauvoo. 

Bottom line for me is that I believe Hugh Nibley could have written an effective review without sinking to the use of such sexist attacks and insults.  There was enough in Brodie's book to critically review without him having to personally attack her or accuse her of being obessessed with sex, etc.  I love many of Nibley's books and respect him.  I don't blame him if he later expressed embarrassment over his review and I'm glad he did.

Scott, I understand that you seem to approve of what he wrote (from your postings here).  We're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one as we've both posted our feelings numerous times.

Edited April 30, 2017 by JulieM

[california boy]

So what I am getting from this thread is that Fawn Brodie got excommunicated for psycho analyzing Joseph Smith. I didn't know that was an excommunicatable offense.

No one seems to be pointing out a lot of errors in her assertions.  Which is odd because when the book came out people said it was filled with lies and false anti Mormon garbage

Was it filled with lies?  Because that would. be interesting to talk about. 

[clarkgoble]

10 hours ago, california boy said:

So what I am getting from this thread is that Fawn Brodie got excommunicated for psycho analyzing Joseph Smith. I didn't know that was an excommunicatable offense.

No one seems to be pointing out a lot of errors in her assertions.  Which is odd because when the book came out people said it was filled with lies and false anti Mormon garbage

Was it filled with lies?  Because that would. be interesting to talk about. 

I don't have a copy but I think the main concern is imputing motives she couldn't know. The excommunication I think was more for heresy presumably because of some of the things she said such as Joseph was a fraud who made up the Book of Mormon and that polygamy was purely out of lust.

[clarkgoble]

22 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

If Clark Goble is correct that Nibley became embarrassed by No, Ma'am, That's Not History, it seems to me that the author should have had enough pull to prevent that alleged embarrassment from being included in his Collected Works as compiled by (then) FARMS, N'est ce pas?  

My understanding, although this is going by a vague memory, was that Nibley wasn't too keen on the Collected Works. He definitely didn't like being put up as this public intellectual figure. He didn't like how students kept trying to have relations with him and honestly he hated even talking with them after class. 

I have a friend who may be able to get a copy of that Student Review Interview. If I can get it then I'll relate it here.

Getting back to the Collected Works the problem is that many of the texts were very dated even in the 90's. Some he was justly proud of but others were basically fire side talks never intended for publication. A few had a lot of errors in. I'm glad we have them but I fully get being uncomfortable with the pedestal he was put on as well as having things never intended for publication publicized.

Edited May 1, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Scott Lloyd]

16 hours ago, JulieM said:

I think it's fairly obvious what Nibley is stating here.  He was criticizing Brodie for using some of the sources as evidence against Joseph (or others).  And, he had every right to question some of them.  But it's low to use the example of  "young women" falsely accusing their "attackers" because their  claims were "nothing more than the objects of their own over-wrought desires and imaginings" as a comparison.  

Are you saying such a thing never happens? If not, I don't understand why it is "low" to use it as a point of comparison. But yes, let's agree to disagree on that.

Quote

 

And, he didn't need to include this quote in his review:

"on her obsession with sex ('Ms. Brodie delights in the small titillation of finding sexual references wherever possible'). 

 

I can't find any occurrence of the above in the online version of Nibley's review that I am searching.

But taking your word for it that what you have quoted is really there, if the author's accusations against the Prophet so frequently involve sex, I think it fair to observe the author seems obsessed with the subject, especially where she invents the accusations out of whole cloth. But again, I agree to disagree.

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Also, Nibley didn't just refer to her as "Mrs. Brodie" or "the lady" (as you state above).  You forgot to add that he also referred to her as "little Brodie", "our Sybil", "the woman" and "Mrs. B".  

The "little Brodie" was a play on the expression, popular in its day (but perhaps you are too young to know of it), "a little birdie told me." The meaning of it is "I was told by a private or secret source." Nibley is commenting here on Brodie's penchant for spewing out unsourced suppositions with regard to the motivation of Joseph Smith. Hence, "The culminations of Joseph's megalomania finds him without courage, 'empty of conviction when he needed it most' (376). Again we search for the little birdie that tells little Brodie these things."

Nibley is being playful here. You might think that makes of him a blackguard; I don't. Again, I agree to disagree.

I can't find the occurrence of "our Sybil" in the text; I don't know what it means.

"The woman" is similar to "the lady." I just don't see the offensiveness of it, any more than I would view it as inherently offensive if he called a male author "the man" or "the gentleman." I see an oversensitive reaction here, if not a double-standard, based on 21st century political correctness. But again, let's agree to disagree.

And saying "Mrs. B" makes him misogynistic? Are you serious? I had a beloved debate coach in high school whom the students called "Mr. B." He never viewed it as disrespectful. In fact, he signed my yearbook with that as his signature.

I've seen Daniel Peterson referred to as "Dr. P." Insofar as I have observed, that has never bothered him.

OK. Agree to disagree.

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I don't blame him if he later expressed embarrassment over his review and I'm glad he did.

CFR that he expressed embarrassment over his review. Clark Goble, from what I can see, has yet to substantiate that claim. Maybe you can help him out. Until then, expressions like "I'm glad he did" are premature.

 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2017 by Scott Lloyd

[california boy]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I don't have a copy but I think the main concern is imputing motives she couldn't know. The excommunication I think was more for heresy presumably because of some of the things she said such as Joseph was a fraud who made up the Book of Mormon and that polygamy was purely out of lust.

So it was her conclusions that were a problem, but what caused her to make such conclusions was pretty accurate?   

Funny, because what I remember is that all of what she claimed that Joseph Smith did was what I remember being outright dismissed.  It sounds to me that she got more right about what actually happened then what the church was teaching as history when I was growing up.  Her whole book was dismissed as made up history, obtained from anti Mormon sources and was a complete fabrication.  

One may disagree with her conclusions, but doesn't the church owe her an apology for the condemnation she received for bringing out a lot of hidden history?

[Calm]

The "Sibyl" was an ancient Greek female oracle.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibyl