"Presentism" is Dealt a Staggering Blow

[_harmony]

Nighthawke and Thesometimesaint are now saying that William Law was a character assassin who cannot be trusted and who intentionally brought down persecution on the heads of the Latter-day Saints. I'm never going to make any headway with these people, and this is something of a digression anyway, but it makes me so mad that I almost want to scream. Who lied about poygamy on many documented occasions? hint: it wasn't William Law! Who destroyed the printing press, bringing the whole world down on their heads? Hint: it wasn't William Law. William Law was an upstanding citizen who really cared about his faith and his friends and family, and to see his memory pissed on by would-be apologists in the name of defending a bad argument... argh!

I think I better stop before I explode and my family has to clean up the mess.

Joseph brought his problems on himself. The chances of something remaining hidden decreases every time someone else is added to the circle of people who know the secret. At some point, there is a critical mass, wherein the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. Had Joseph's alliances been an offshoot of the Law of Adoption as posited elsewhere we'd see virtually everyone being sealed to everyone else, or at least all of the leaders would be getting sealed to each other. We don't see that. Instead we see a pattern of behavior strongly indicative of a man with a particular agenda. William Law figured out what that agenda was and did his best to put a stop to it. I wonder how many of our highest most leaders (Quorum of 12 and FP) would blow the whistle like Bro Law did, if the same circumstances existed today?

[_cksalmon]

Nighthawke and Thesometimesaint are now saying that William Law was a character assassin who cannot be trusted and who intentionally brought down persecution on the heads of the Latter-day Saints. I'm never going to make any headway with these people, and this is something of a digression anyway, but it makes me so mad that I almost want to scream. Who lied about poygamy on many documented occasions? hint: it wasn't William Law! Who destroyed the printing press, bringing the whole world down on their heads? Hint: it wasn't William Law. William Law was an upstanding citizen who really cared about his faith and his friends and family, and to see his memory pissed on by would-be apologists in the name of defending a bad argument... argh!

I think I better stop before I explode and my family has to clean up the mess.

Well, CK, don't explode. The posting there is becoming more and more scripted, as the critics are more and more summarily dismissed. Perhaps they really do want an echo chamber there: the appearance of critical interchange without the reality thereof.

I think the "presentism" business provides a rhetorically-useful, but ultimately unconvincing, MO for MAD&B posters who haven't thought it all through as of yet.

After a few hundred critical posts, perhaps the LDS faithful will begin to see that this isn't the best defense of Joseph Smith's practices re: polygamy. I've noticed that no LDS poster has dealt significantly with the counterargument that Joseph Smith was roundly condemned by his own followers for the events surrounding his foray into polygamy, and that with previously-married wives and underage girls.

If Bach keeps bringing it up, he's sure to be banned.

As more than one critic has brought up, presentism is something of which to be wary--with regard to culturally-derived mores that have no commonplace analogue in present-day cultural interactions. But, the idea that Joseph Smith is to be given a blank check for his practices from 150 years ago (that met with significant disapproval even then) is merely, to my mind, a blatantly-rhetorical move that has found favor among certain LDS posters on MAD&B, for now.

Presentism is not despicable, here, but probably inevitable. Still... (Think Gadamer here.)

Presentism is being made to serve an agenda in the service of which it is entirely incapable of providing a useful governance.

by the way, I'd delete any and all comments made either here or there regarding your disapprobation of TBM tendencies in this regard. That is, if you care about posting on MAD&B.

Best.

CKS

[_gramps]

Nighthawke and Thesometimesaint are now saying that William Law was a character assassin who cannot be trusted and who intentionally brought down persecution on the heads of the Latter-day Saints. I'm never going to make any headway with these people, and this is something of a digression anyway, but it makes me so mad that I almost want to scream. Who lied about poygamy on many documented occasions? hint: it wasn't William Law! Who destroyed the printing press, bringing the whole world down on their heads? Hint: it wasn't William Law. William Law was an upstanding citizen who really cared about his faith and his friends and family, and to see his memory pissed on by would-be apologists in the name of defending a bad argument... argh!

I think I better stop before I explode and my family has to clean up the mess.

It really is amazing, isn't it? William Law, from what I have read, is someone you can bank on. He had principles. By the way, didn't Joseph also hit on his wife, or am I confused on that fact?

[_CaliforniaKid]

Yes, he did. Jane Law, however, was not one to tolerate inappropriate advances. She rebuffed him and became immediately a more vigorous critic than William himself. The Prophet, in order to save his reputation, told his friend Alexander Niebaur the opposite story: that Jane, upon being forbidden to be sealed to her husband, tried to seduce the Prophet and was rebuffed by him.

Or at least that's the way I read the evidence.

According to John Hawley, Wilford Woodruff told him that Jane Law had indeed been sealed to Joseph Smith at some point.

See the footnotes on p. 65 of Lyndon Cook's BYU Studies essay, v. 22, no. 1.

[_gramps]

Yes, he did. Jane Law, however, was not one to tolerate inappropriate advances. She rebuffed him and became immediately a more vigorous critic than William himself. The Prophet, in order to save his reputation, told his friend Alexander Niebaur the opposite story: that Jane, upon being forbidden to be sealed to her husband, tried to seduce the Prophet and was rebuffed by him.

Or at least that's the way I read the evidence.

According to John Hawley, Wilford Woodruff told him that Jane Law had indeed been sealed to Joseph Smith at some point.

See the footnotes on p. 65 of Lyndon Cook's BYU Studies essay, v. 22, no. 1.

Thanks. I'll check that out. I thought I had heard what you reported. Really unbelievable.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Now Nighthawke says he questions my integrity because I used an ellipsis to avoid typing the full title of a BYU Studies essay I recommended he read.

[_Jason Bourne]

I started a thread some months back, relating Tal Bachman's point that, even if we're not supposed to judge Joseph Smith by the standards of today, the people of Joseph Smith's own day judged him harshly enough to kill him!

Uhhh this is a bit of an obsfucation. A few people took to mobacracy and killed him. This is jardly THE PEOPLE OF HIS DAY JUDGED HIM harshley enough to kill him. Big diff.

[_Fortigurn]

I started a thread some months back, relating Tal Bachman's point that, even if we're not supposed to judge Joseph Smith by the standards of today, the people of Joseph Smith's own day judged him harshly enough to kill him!

Uhhh this is a bit of an obsfucation. A few people took to mobacracy and killed him. This is jardly THE PEOPLE OF HIS DAY JUDGED HIM harshley enough to kill him. Big diff.

I do agree with you on this. Regardless of how Mormon apologists want to claim that acts such as destroying printing presses and physically harrassing people were simply considered acceptable practices in the early 19th century, I don't believe that the lynch mob which killed Smiith represented standard mores of the day. Smith's attempt to defend himself by firing a pistol, on the other hand, certainly was representative of early 19th century mores.

[_SatanWasSetUp]

I started a thread some months back, relating Tal Bachman's point that, even if we're not supposed to judge Joseph Smith by the standards of today, the people of Joseph Smith's own day judged him harshly enough to kill him!

Uhhh this is a bit of an obsfucation. A few people took to mobacracy and killed him. This is jardly THE PEOPLE OF HIS DAY JUDGED HIM harshley enough to kill him. Big diff.

But surely Joseph Smith's behavior was frowned upon by the majority in his time period, and some were so offended that they wanted him dead. The Saints were run out of Palmyra, Kirtland, and Independence, before Joseph was finally killed in Nauvoo. Joseph wasn't a popular guy because of polygamy, the Kirtland Bank, the block voting, the money digging, etc. Presentism doesn't explain the hatred for Joseph during his lifetime. If anything, history has been kinder to Joseph Smith than his contemporaries were. Many non-mormons today believe that Joseph Smith was treated more harshly than he deserved. The states of Missouri and Illinois have officially apologized for the way the Mormons were treated. However, it's hard to find any non-mormons from the 1820s-40s who were sympathetic to Joseph Smith while he was alive.

[_Fortigurn]

But surely Joseph Smith's behavior was frowned upon by the majority in his time period, and some were so offended that they wanted him dead. The Saints were run out of Palmyra, Kirtland, and Independence, before Joseph was finally killed in Nauvoo. Joseph wasn't a popular guy because of polygamy, the Kirtland Bank, the block voting, the money digging, etc. Presentism doesn't explain the hatred for Joseph during his lifetime. If anything, history has been kinder to Joseph Smith than his contemporaries were. Many non-mormons today believe that Joseph Smith was treated more harshly than he deserved. The states of Missouri and Illinois have officially apologized for the way the Mormons were treated. However, it's hard to find any non-mormons from the 1820s-40s who were sympathetic to Joseph Smith while he was alive.

I agree that it's evidence that Smith's behaviour transgressed standard mores of his day. I think that Bourne and I just wanted to make sure that this particular response to that transgression wasn't represented as part of those mores.