Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

When we share the gospel as members or full-time missionaries, our friends and investigators need to feel our convictions and testimonies about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Yes, we are teaching a deep concept, but we should also be sharing a deep conviction about that powerful doctrine.

Saved by a Dolphin

Herodotus (I.23-24) tells the story of Arion, a Greek poet. In his day he was the most famous singer in the world. Arion got his money in Taenarum. Sailing back home to Corinth, the sailors decided that they could use the money that he had earned far better than he could. So they decided to throw him overboard and take the money that he had raised. He, however, sang one last song and when he jumped ship, a dolphin saved him and swam him back to Taenarum. In the end, Arion made it back to Corinth where Periander, the ruler of Corinth, caught the sailors in their lies and punished them appropriately.

At least one aspect of this ancient tale has now been called into question. Too bad.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Whom the Lord Loveth (2003), 66:

We are free to choose, but choices bring certain consequences, affecting us and others and bringing happiness or misery. Outcomes do follow decisions, even if we did not directly choose the outcomes and their many consequences.

Situating a Book in Context

Several years ago, I published a review of a work by an eminent scholar, who generally seems to be a decent individual and whose work I normally like. The book was a commentary on a text of a religion (Mithraism) that flourished a thousand years ago but has long since perished and no living adherents survive. The work was erudite and about as exhaustive a commentary as could be done on the particular text from the particular point of view favored by the author. I thought, however, and still think that the author had situated the text in the wrong context. As I demonstrated at length:

We have a text found in Egypt, coming from an Egyptian temple archive, dealing with an Egyptian subject, in an Egyptian fashion, in an Egyptian format, using Egyptian offering

lists, invoking Egyptian deities, employing Egyptian words, and calquing Egyptian grammar that poorly matches Mithraic material. Nothing in the text is necessarily Greek or Mithraic, but several of the subjects dealt with in the text are definitely not Greek or Mithraic; on the other hand, there is nothing in the text that is not Egyptian. The simplest explanation is that that the text is Egyptian, not Mithraic.

Of course the native Egyptian religions have gone the same way as Mithraism. The point was, in a sense, purely academic. I concluded from this that the particular

book demonstrates that it is possible to provide a highly learned and seemingly plausible commentary for a work while still setting that work in the wrong contextual framework. The result, while neither useless nor worthless, is ultimately irrelevant.

Context of a work matters. If you situate the so-called Mithras Liturgy as written by Greek stoic adherents of Mithraism, you will end up with a very different reading of the subject than you will if you suppose that it is written by Egyptian priests in Thebes. The context makes a huge difference. This is why biblical scholars fight over when to place the various books of the Bible (and they are all disputed) and why there are scholarly arguments about when and where to place the Book of Mormon in history. The context is basic and makes a huge difference, which is why one can never say that the issue can (or should) go away.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Whom the Lord Loveth (2003), 65:

Evil always constitutes direct deductions from human happiness and direct additions to human misery. No wonder scriptural words about evil are harsh. Thus, trying to rationalize evil—nothing is finally wrong or a crime—is not merely naïve but terribly tragic (Alma 30:17).

A Bibliographic Notice

I see that my colleague, Alexandra van Lieven's very important article, "Book of the Dead, Book of the Living," has finally been published:

Alexandra von Lieven, "Book of the Dead, Book of the Living: BD Spells as Temple Texts," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 98 (2012): 249-67.

This is an extremely important paper for understanding the Book of the Dead in the context of Egyptian religion. Though many of those engaged in research on the Book of the Dead have known about the article for some time, it deserves to be more widely known

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

In striving for ultimate submission, our wills constitute all we really have to give God anyway. The usual gifts and their derivatives we give to Him could be stamped justifiably “Return to Sender,” with a capital S. Even when God receives this one gift in return, the fully faithful will receive “all that [He] hath” (D&C 84:38). What an exchange rate!

Words Without Context

One of the biggest problems in understanding Egyptian religion is not lack of texts but lack of contexts. My colleague, Martin Stadler, writes perceptively about problems with certain types of research:

Die bisherige Forschung zu Thot wird dominiert von einer eher additiven Nebebeinanderstellung der Belege ohne analytische Ordnung oder dem Versuch, einen Zusammenhang zu finden, wenngleich einzelne Arbeiten das Material thematisch gliedern und dabei einen zentralen Wesenszug indentifizieren möchten, aus dem alle anderen Zuständigkeiten des Gottes hergeleitet werden. (M. A. Stadler, Weiser und Wesir [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009], 36.)

Although his purpose was not such, he has identified one of the problems with computerized research in the humanities. It is the same problem that often plagues philologists, like those who have preceded him in researching aspects of Egyptian religion.

While today we can gather large amounts of data, we can digitize books and have the computer turn them into text, and have the computer search them for words, we still may not know what is in the book. Our philological analysis will consist, as Stadler points out, of merely a continuous stream of passages without any analytical system or the attempt to find a context. The computer is great at finding words or phrases in a work but the mere ability to do so does not give the researcher any sense of context unless the researcher already knows the work. Thus the computer can only help to a certain extent and does not relieve the researcher of the burden of reading the text.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

Regarding trials, including of our faith and patience, there are no exemptions—only variations (see Mosiah 23:21). These calisthenics are designed to increase our capacity for happiness and service. Yet the faithful will not be totally immune from the events on this planet. Thus the courageous attitudes of imperiled Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego are worthy of emulation. They knew that God could rescue them. “But if not,” they vowed, they would still serve God anyway (see Dan. 3:16–18). Similarly, keeping the unfashionable but imperative first and seventh commandments can reflect the courage which three young women displayed anciently; they said no with their lives (see Abr. 1:11).

More on the Death of the Humanities

Walter Russell Mead's blog has a post on the death of the humanities, but he also suggests how the humanities might still survive. He points out that the humanities died because the professors abandoned the great books and great ideas, which they were supposed to be engaged with, for the latest fad.

Great teachers teaching great books and great ideas are exactly what most students need. Unfortunately, too many people in the field in the last generation were interested in producing bad or indifferent teachers who taught dull and impenetrable books filled with tendentious and superficial ideas. And as for concepts like character and spiritual development, forget it.

Mead notes that not only have the students abandoned their support for the humanities, but the donors and other supporters have too. No one really has an interest in supporting people who are not doing what they are supposed to be doing, or who argue that what their doing has no interest or relevance to anyone. Those who abandon the best books for the mediocre probably deserve to be abandoned. As Mead puts it:

The priests deserted the gods; the gods have deserted the temple.

Yet, no one really wants to hold the guilty accountable.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

There are real dangers—subtle and obvious—when members fall into lockstep with the world’s ways. In so many respects, the world’s ways head in opposite directions from gospel destinations. Moreover, as a covenant people, our behavioral loyalties are to be with the Lord, not with the Caesars of this world. But the tugs of the world are real and persistent. Besides, following the fashions of the world is merely to pursue eventual obsolescence, “for the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Cor. 7:31).

Typically, President Brigham Young spoke sternly concerning popularity and what can be its ruining acclaim:

‎“I do not want ‘Mormonism’ to become popular. … I would rather pass through all the misery and sorrow, the troubles and trials of the Saints, than to have the religion of Christ become popular with the world” (in Journal of Discourses, 10:297).

President N. Eldon Tanner cautioned, “This craving for praise and popularity too often controls actions, and as [people] succumb they find themselves bending their character when they think they are only taking a bow” (Ensign, Nov. 1975, p. 76).

Furthermore, not only must we forgo erosive popularity, but we are to be unsurprised when “at that day shall he [Satan] rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good” (2 Ne. 28:20).

Yet Another Reason to Keep the Word of Wisdom

A reader passed along a news report (in German) about the town of Lazaret near Gjirokaster in Albania. It seems that the major industry in the town is growing marijuana. The news report is that the entire town got stoned and about 700 people (mostly women but also children) are suffering from Cannabisvergiftung ("cannabis poisoning"). The comments on the article sound typically European with heavy doses of denial. I suppose this is what a "victimless" crime looks like.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Deposition of a Disciple (1976), 65-66:

First Questioner: Doesn't the revelation dealing with the Word of Wisdom (D&C 89) make the impending conspiracy prophesied therein a little dramatic?

The Disciple: No. Combine the profit motive with the fanning of human appetite in things narcotic, or near narcotic, and the warning is not too dramatic at all. Suppose those who now profit from cigarettes were to seek dominion over the legalized use of marijuana. You can be quite certain that those who were resistant to calling attention to the harmful effects of nicotine will end up extolling the harmlessness of "pot." There is already a built-in, national constituency favoring such legalization.

Now, if such were to happen, and time and real research were to demonstrate the harmfulness of marijuana, how easy do you think it would be for a whole society to disengage? Whose lock-them-in style does this sort of consequence suggest? Such a condition would be brought about by the very "conspiring men in the last days" who brought us accelerated alcoholism, prostitution, and gambling. Such conspirators will not view with favor a minority of sin-resistant souls who seem to block their path, any more than their evil counterparts tolerated the Old Testament prophets who were an irritating interruption centuries ago!

Kill the Kids

Esarhaddon had a different way to punish "the guilty soldiers who plotted to make my brothers rule over Assyria." He admits: "I killed their children." (Esarhaddon 1 ii 8-11). He deemed this punishment sufficiently severe (kabtu) for their heinous crime of not supporting him.

But Esarhaddon was actually not next in line for the throne, his brothers were. At least one of them, however, had assassinated his father in order to claim the throne, only to be out-maneuvered by Esarhaddon. In a military coup it is seen as important to kill the old guard. The soldiers might have been loyal, but had the misfortune of having been loyal to the wrong side.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

Orthodoxy ensures balance between the gospel’s powerful and correct principles. In the body of gospel doctrine, not only are justice and mercy “fitly joined together [for] effectual working,” but so is everything else! (Eph. 4:16.) But the gospel’s principles do require synchronization. When pulled apart from each other or isolated, men’s interpretations and implementations of these doctrines may be wild.

Love, if not checked by the seventh commandment, could become carnal. The fifth commandment’s laudable emphasis upon honoring parents, unless checked by the first commandment, could result in unconditional loyalty to errant parents rather than to God.

How Not to Do Literary Analysis

Ben McGuire has a clear debunking of an ill-attempted literary analysis over at Interpreter. It is well worth the read.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

Knowing beforehand how we are determined to respond to temptation is vital. When Joseph resisted the entreaties of Potiphar’s predatory wife (Gen. 39:7–12), he was prepared, and he firmly declared his loyalty to Potiphar, but chiefly to God: “How … can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Gen. 39:9.) Joseph’s obedience was an act of many-splendored loyalty—to God, to himself, to his future family, to Potiphar, and, yes, even to Potiphar’s wife, perhaps sick from her sensual searchings.

The inconsistency of immorality with caring about other matters may be illustrated thusly. What if our increasing care and concern for the environment of nature around us were applied to human nature? Anyone about to commit adultery or fornication or a homosexual act would first be required to submit an environmental impact statement. The rippling consequences of what was about to be done would be assessed and set forth beforehand so the predatory and the misled could at least contemplate, in part, what they are about to inflict on themselves and others.

Matthew 24:14

Throughout his prophecy of what will happen, Jesus has repeatedly told his disciples that certain things were not a sign of the end. Wars and rumors of wars, for example, are not signs of the end (Matthew 24:6). Plagues, famines and earthquakes are just the beginning (Matthew 24:7-8). Afflictions, offenses, hatred, betrayals, persecutions, false prophets must all be endured before the end (Matthew 24:9-13). Finally, Jesus gives his disciples a sign of the end:

καὶ κηρυχθήσεται τοῦτο τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς βασιλείας ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ οἰκουμένῃ εἰς μαρτύριον πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν, καὶ τότε ἥξει τὸ τέλος.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the civilized world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14)

The end comes only after the voice of warning goes to all nations.

Two questions, however, remain unanswered in the passage. What is this gospel that must be preached? The end of what? Each of those questions needs to be considered.

Matthew uses the term gospel four times (Matthew 4:23; 9:35; 24:14; 26:13), three of them in the phrase "the gospel of the kingdom." But for all that, he never tells us what it is, probably because he and his original readers already knew what it was. Probably the closest we get to understanding it is the final charge in Matthew 28:18-20, but that is probably a summary statement.

What end Jesus is referring to also needs to be considered. Many assume that the end is the end of the world. Some assume that it refers to the end of things as we know them. Hugh Nibley, in an unpublished manuscript entitled "The End of What", argued that it was the end of the Church. Another way of looking at the matter is to consider that τὸ τέλος means the end in the sense of the goal. So the goal is to have the gospel preached in all the world. The initial question was about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, the appearance of Jesus, and the end of the world. It would appear that if Jesus took those questions in order (and they do not refer to the same thing), that the end in question is the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. This would seem to be supported by the next verse which talks about the abomination of desolation.

Whichever it was, the preaching of the gospel was the key prediction.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

The day the Prophet Joseph ended his bondage in Liberty Jail, 6 April 1839, involved yet another significant event. Heber C. Kimball recorded in his journal that on that day

the following words came to my mind, and the Spirit said unto me, "write," which I did by taking a piece of paper and writing on my knee as follows: . . . "Verily I say unto my servant Heber, thou art my son, in whom I am well pleased for thou art careful to hearken to my words, and not transgress my law, nor rebel against my servant Joseph Smith, for thou has a respect to the words of mine anointed, even from the least to the greatest of them; therefore thy name is written in heaven, no more to be blotted out for ever, because of these things." [Words, p. 18]

Note how much importance the Lord attached to our being loyal to his servants! It is no different now.

Some Older News Finally Makes the Headlines

Two recent reports (here and here) talk about how the so-called Affordable Care Act (apparently Congress is exempt from truth in advertizing laws) is making life as an adjunct instructor in colleges, which was already abysmal, even worse. In response to the claim that adjuncts are now in purgatory, John Rosenberg claims:

More recent data suggests that the adjuncts and other contingents are no longer in purgatory but are being rapidly transported to a much hotter location. - See more at: http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2013/10/obamacare_hits_adjuncts_hard.html#sthash.XzF4TKZG.dpuf

More recent data suggests that the adjuncts and other contingents are no longer in purgatory but are being rapidly transported to a much hotter location.

Perhaps this realization is just hitting some colleges and universities (and thus media outlets), but my friends who are adjuncts were hit by the problem a long time ago (also noted here back in April). Several of them were dropped and those who were not have had their hours severely curtailed. Yet for all that, university administrators are behaving in a strictly rational manner. I do not fault them. (I do think there are individual instances where one could make a case that productive adjuncts have been dropped when unproductive employees were retained.) It seems that universities that have relied heavily on adjuncts will either have to hire more of them to do less work, or rely more on full time faculty. Either option exacerbates the problem for adjuncts.

Mor

e recent data suggests that the adjuncts and other contingents are no longer in purgatory but are being rapidly transported to a much hotter location. - See more at: http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2013/10/obamacare_hits_adjuncts_hard.html#sthash.XzF4TKZG.dpuf

More recent data suggests that the adjuncts and other contingents are no longer in purgatory but are being rapidly transported to a much hotter location. - See more at: http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2013/10/obamacare_hits_adjuncts_hard.html#sthash.XzF4TKZG.dpuf

More recent data suggests that the adjuncts and other contingents are no longer in purgatory but are being rapidly transported to a much hotter location. - See more at: http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2013/10/obamacare_hits_adjuncts_hard.html#sthash.XzF4TKZG.dpuf

More recent data suggests that the adjuncts and other contingents are no longer in purgatory but are being rapidly transported to a much hotter location. - See more at: http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2013/10/obamacare_hits_adjuncts_hard.html#sthash.XzF4TKZG.dpuf

More recent data suggests that the adjuncts and other contingents are no longer in purgatory but are being rapidly transported to a much hotter location. - See more at: http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2013/10/obamacare_hits_adjuncts_hard.html#sthash.XzF4TKZG.dpuf

Today's Maxwell Quote

From A More Excellent Way (1967), 34:

One of the great qualities Jesus had was his ability to demand of his disciples quality in thought and action, which, while temporarily uncomfortable, finally produced a cohesive kind of loyalty based on a sense of accomplishment which all followers very much need to have. One wonders if the tolerance of unnecessary mediocrity in others isn't at some deep level of consciousness, a way of protecting ourselves or excusing ourselves for our own personal mediocrity. In human relationships there are too many tacit, silent deals in which one person agrees not to demand full measure, if the other person will agree to mediocrity when excellence may be possible. In any event, the unwillingness of most leaders to set standards, to administer feedback when standards are not met, to praise clearly when standards are met, stands in the way of the development of excellence on the part of followers with inevitable loss in follower effectiveness and follower satisfaction. The leader who makes no demands of his disciples cannot really lead them at all. The sense of new excitement and new challenge generated by the gospel will be blunted by leaders who shield followers from the full demands of followership.

Solutions that Do Not Work

A recent article by an economist on a particular problem have wider application. I would like to highlight a couple of proposed solutions that she says will not work because they have wider applicability than the particular problem she is discussing.

The first of these is denial:

For those of us who are not Jedi warriors, refusing to admit it when something has gone wrong usually makes the problem worse, not better. Once people understand that you’re willing to lie to them about how well things are going, you lose a lot of the support that you’ll need to fix the mess you’ve made.

The second of these she terms blamestorming. This neologism has a particular meaning:

it describes the tendency of an organization in which things have gone wrong to waste a lot of time looking for a scapegoat rather than, say, fixing the problem.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

The ecology of effectiveness in human affairs suggests, for instance, that concentrating on the quality of life in the home is, ultimately, the best way to raise the quality of life in society. A concern for justice in the home—experienced and discussed—could do much to assure concern for the underprivileged, which could undergird wise legislation or even make legislation unnecessary. One of the best ways to replicate love, trust, discipline, and concern is for children to experience these, to know their fruits, and to refuse to be satisfied with a world devoid of such qualities.

Some Useless Trivia

In honor of my one year anniversary of blogging, I look back at the most popular posts with some notes:

11. A report on the resignation of a university administrator. It is not often that people publicly tie their actions to repentance, even rarer that people will repent of their improper actions relating to someone else's crime.

10. The debunking of a certain malicious rumor.

9. A report on book burning at San Jose State. The irony of someone opposed to carbon emissions deliberately burning something is both astounding and hypocritical.

8. A response to the accusation that I believe the Book of Abraham is pseudepigrapha.

7. A memorial about some great people that I have been privileged to work with. These were and are really great people.

6. A report on an article discussing a bullseye from the Book of Abraham.

5. A report on Syvia Nasar's lawsuit against her own university for misusing the funds of her endowed chair.

4. A retrospective on Hugh Nibley's famous (or infamous) talk on Leaders to Managers. This talk was one of Nibley's more popular talks but was very unpopular in certain quarters. Nibley's reading of the Book of Mormon was usually very careful, but I think he distorted it a bit here to make his point.

3. A report about an archaeologist claiming to find the city of Abraham. There are reasons to be cautiously optimistic about this particular site.

2. The survey of things that Elder Maxwell had to say about doing ancient scholarship.

1. The day's Maxwell quote back on March 29th. From this quotation we know exactly what Elder Maxwell would have thought about one issue because he directly addressed it.

A number of people enter my blog through the very first post, so I do not count that one.

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Those were not necessarily my favorite posts. Some of my favorite posts, in no particular order, were:

One can find some very strange practices in the apocrypha. This one from Tobit I find amusing.

There is a different way of looking at the Christmas story in Luke which would probably dramatically rewrite your typical Christmas pageant.

Looking at leadership and management among the Vikings. In many ways I think the earlier Vikings had the right idea. The earlier notions of leadership may have worked better than the later ones.

You would not normally think about foreign relations between the Roman and Chinese empires, but there was some ancient Chinese influence on Roman economic policy. The ancient world was much more interconnected than many of those of us who study it would like to think.

I have always found the notion of Coptic Buddhism amusing, but it actually exists in a way.

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All told I have published 758 posts in the past year on this blog, averaging just over two a day. Originally I thought that I would be putting out about one every two weeks.

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One of the constant themes in this blog was expressed by Screwtape in C.S. Lewis's book, The Screwtape Letters (chapter 27):

Only the learned read old books and we have now so dealt with the learned that they are of all men the least likely to acquire wisdom by doing so.

Old books should be read by more than just the learned. Things in old books enlarge the memory of people (Alma 37:8) and seeing their mistakes might help us to avoid those same mistakes (Mormon 9:31). Perhaps that is being too optimistic.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Things As They Really Are (1978), 58-59:

One reason the Church can stand with comparative independence is that it is founded upon the truth about things as they really are. Though the "way of truth shall be evil spoken of," and though such "pillars of the truth" are a temptation to some who want to try to pull them down, the living Church will stand. A dying civilization can, of course, be annoyed by the living Church. People who are cut to the very center by the truth, the laser of our Lord that emanates from the living Church, will gladly "turn away their ears from the truth, and be turned unto fables" (2 Timothy 4:4); it is so much less painful.

Singing Hymns in 1 Maccabees

After a big battle, the Maccabees sang a hymn:

καὶ ἐπιστραφέντες ὕμνουν καὶ εὐλόγουν εἰς οὐρανὸν ὅτι καλόν ὅτι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ

And they returned singing hymns and they praised heaven: "For he is good and his mercy endureth forever" (1 Maccabees 4:24)

The line "For he is good and his mercy endureth forever" is actually the name of the psalm that they sang. It was Psalm 118 which repeats the line a number of times during the course of the psalm. It is also said to have been sung in 2 Chronicles 5:13; 7:3; and Ezra 3:11. It appears to have been one of the more popular of the psalms. It seems to be less popular in modern times.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Things As They Really Are (1978), 45-46:

The revelation of 1830 in which Christ said that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was "the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth" (D&C 1:30.) . . . was, and is, a designation so significant that the key words contained within it must not be passed over lightly.

The word only asserts a uniqueness and singularity about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the exclusive ecclesiastical, authority-bearing agent for our Father in heaven in this dispensation.

Had the Lord said the Church is a true and living church (or if the name given had been A Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), this would have implied there are other fully acceptable alternatives available to man. Thus what was said by the Lord in 1830, not surprisingly, was consistent with the instructions given in the grove to Joseph Smith in 1820; the answer to Joseph's prayer about which church to join was, "Join none of them."

Euphemisticly Speaking

Academia loves both jargon and euphemisms. It probably loves jargon more, but the two are closely related because both are a means of avoiding plain talking. Arthur Henry King used to emphasize to his Shakespeare classes how little plain speech there was in Shakespeare because the characters were more interested in affectation and impressing others.

So, a piece by Charles Krauthammer on the subject of euphemisms this week caught my attention. He is talking about politicians; I will excerpt a few quotes that I think apply to academia and elsewhere as well.

Krauthammer lists a number of recent cases of egregious euphemisms and asks why they should be used.

After all, famously declared Hillary Clinton, what difference does it make?

Well, it makes a difference, first, because truth is a virtue. Second, because if you keep lying to the American people, they may seriously question whether anything you say — for example, about the benign nature of NSA surveillance — is not another self-serving lie.

And third, because leading a country through yet another long twilight struggle requires not just honesty but clarity.

Euphemisms, Krauthammer argues, lead to confusion.

The confusion of language is a direct result of a confusion of policy — which is served by constant obfuscation.

And whither does this obfuscation lead?

The result is visible ambivalence that leads to vacillating policy reeking of incoherence. 

In academia obfuscation is often used to mask muddled thinking and incoherent arguments.

The wordplay is merely cover for uncertain policy embedded in confusion and ambivalence about the whole enterprise.

I understand the need for disciplines to have specific jargon. Sailors, for example, have a name for every rope on the boat. Apprentices were required to "learn the ropes" (the origin of that phrase) so that they would then "know the ropes" (the origin of that phrase) so that when an order to do something specific with a certain rope was given, the sailor would know exactly what to do, which could mean life or death for the whole ship in some situations. From an outsider's perpective, all that nautical terminology is jargon; from an insider's perspective it is necessary specificity. But the advantage of knowing the ropes, is that in calm seas you can teach someone else the ropes. Too often in academia, obfuscation is used to obscure the fact that you really do not know what you are talking about. As Hugh Nibley once said, "If you cannot explain it to a five-year old, you probably do not understand it yourself."

Euphemisms are often failed attempts to candy-coat a policy reeking of incoherence.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From A Wonderful Flood of Light (1990), 6:

Words that are harsh-sounding and uninviting to moderns are woven into the fabric of the gospel—words such as repentance and obedience. In his "careful" conditioning process (see 2 Nephi 28:21) the adversary has seen to it that words like these give religion a bad name. In a world with a marketplace orientation such words have no soothing or appealing "marketing" dimension to them.

Blessed are the Meek, for They Shall Inherit the Earth

Visiting grade schools occasionally one cannot help notice the prominent displaying of posters about what a child should do when he or she is bullied. I cannot imagine that these measures would have been effective when I was in school. The very presence of these sorts of posters (which were not around back then) makes me wonder if bullying is more common now than then. When I see these posters, I also wonder how effective the advice that they give actually is. My guess is, not much. Two reports out this week confirm my hunch.

In the first one, it is noted that

what’s really changed is that real bullies don’t face consequences anymore.

It used to be that bullies had something to worry about. The bullied kid might catch them alone and beat them up. These days, that’s hardly a risk at all. We’ve become a society that views physical force, even in self-defense, as unacceptable.

This is not just idle talk:

Across the country, there are stories of bullied kids who fought back . . . and were promptly suspended or expelled. Last year, 9-year-old Nathan Pemberton of Colorado Springs fought back after his bully physically attacked him. He was suspended.

Furthermore:

Last week in Stafford, Texas, a bullied girl who was getting beat up by her tormentor dared to not just take it. She was promptly expelled despite the fact that this was a modern sort of fight — that is, caught entirely on cell-phone video. Is the official policy to just quietly surrender when you’re being pummeled?

Though we often talk about blaming the victim, this is actually punishing the victim. The author notes that two teenage girls, who bullied a classmate so much that she committed suicide and then bragged about it, are unlikely to receive any punishment for their actions.

The bullies of our youth could be stopped with a surprise punch. The ones of today have protection from that, thanks to our zero-tolerance policies. We’re raising a generation of superbullies.

The other story is about what happens when schoolyard bullies grow up and enter the workplace. If "between 30 and 37 percent" of people "have been bullied at work," then there certainly is a problem there as well. Reportedly

workplace bullying can lead to psychosomatic illnesses, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal thoughts and increased medical expenses, not to mention reduced productivity.

One would think that the reduced productivity alone would be sufficient reason to be concerned about the problem.

The article cites Pamela Lutgen-Sandvik who

calls the worst workplace bullies "high aggressives."

"They don't have a well-developed sense of empathy," she says. "They are high on narcissism."

They are horrible one second to a target, she says, then perform beautifully with smiles for a supervisor.

Consequently,

the way bullies treat others has a lot to do with perceived social status. People above them get treated well, those "below" not so well.

Lutgen-Sandvik says that bullies

target anyone perceived as a threat. Bullies fear losing their place of power. Driven by fear, she says, they don't care about others' feelings. 

Bullies are concerned mainly with themselves.

"Bullies target kind people," [Sam] Horn says. "Popular people. People others respect. Bullies see such people as threats. Bullies feel intimidated and target their victims to diminish them — thinking that if they shrink their victim it will make them taller."

Because the victims often have high senses of empathy and morality, Horn says, they are confounded by the bully. "They can't believe that someone would act this way," she says. "Because they are people of integrity, they question themselves and ... feel powerless."

 The common advice is to confront the bully. That advice might not be the wisest.

[Gary] Namie says confrontations or reporting the incident to a boss or human resources officer may only increase the bullying as the bully feels threatened and retaliates. A study by the institute says 69 percent of victims have confronted the bully and 93 percent of those confrontations failed to stop the bullying.

When the odds are one in fourteen, you have better odds at craps. The problem with several recommended strategies in dealing with bullies is that they work only in exceptional cases.

[Sam] Horn admits, however, there is no one right way to deal with bullies.

Other proposed strategies also do not work.

It may be, however, because of his position in the company, the bully won't be cowed, reprimanded or fired. In cases where the victim was required to go through mediation with the bully, 33 percent of the time the victim was fired or quit. The perpetrators were fired only 3 percent of the time.

So working through mediation or human resources has only half the success of confrontation. And in a third of cases, it is the victim who is punished. Any strategy that is eleven times more likely to punish the victim rather than the perpetrator is not an effective strategy for justice.

In the end,

a company has to tolerate bullies for them to exist [in the workplace].

This is why I am not sanguine that a program or push by a politician, no matter how well intended, is going to stop bullying in the schools. If there are no effective methods of stopping bullies, then good intentions alone will neither prevent nor stop bullying. One could legislate that the tide should not come in and that might be as effective. Such well-intentioned efforts are even less persuasive if the politician in question resorts to bullying himself. Some of them do not even realize the irony or the hypocrisy.

Historically, there have always been bullies. If the conventional wisdom is that rewarding behavior generates more of it, then we should expect bullying to increase.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Men and Women of Christ (1991), 59:

Lest we worry overmuch that our meekness might be an open invitation for others to abuse us, it is well to note some of its less-understood features. For example, meekness may not always "win", especially in worldly matters or in the short run; but in the long run the meek will inherit the earth. And meekness is not the acceptance of imposition; it can still be firm, still insist on fairness, even reprove with sharpness on occasion. Meekness also can ask inspired, piercing questions. Meekness impels us to speak the truth in love. Meekness brings its own compensatory blessings, especially that of an enhanced direction from the Holy Spirit.

Reading Between the Headlines

This news story tells about the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the dedication of the Liberty Jail visitor's center. This is the list of speakers for the two day event:

• M. Russell Ballard (member of the Quorum of the Twelve)
• Robert C. Gay (member of the First Quorum of the Seventy)
• Karl Ricks Anderson (local historian from Kirtland, Ohio)
• Donald Keyes (president of the Missouri Independence Mission)
• Alexander Baugh (professor of Church History and Doctrine at BYU)
• Susan Easton Black Durrant (professor of Church History and Doctrine at BYU)
• Daniel C. Peterson (professor of Islamic studies at BYU)

I have heard rumors that say that Professor Peterson is not in the favor of Church leaders in Salt Lake. I have a hard time squaring such rumors with the fact that he was invited to speak on such an occasion. I suspect that the rumors are wishful thinking on the part of those circulating them.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From That My Family Should Partake (1974), 81:

Sometimes opposition is undeservedly intimidating simply because we do not know of or use the resources available to us with which to deal with that challenge; we lack the perspective necessary to place that challenge in proper perspective. It was G. K. Chesterton who asserted that the humble man often sees big things because, first of all, he strains his eyes more than the average man in order to see what other men miss. Second, the humble man is both genuinely overwhelmed and uplifted by his adventures in wider perspective. Third, the humble man is apt to record such remarkable experiences (in his mind and for others) more accurately than if he were processing these experiences through proud, perceptual screens.

One cannot read of Moses, though raised in a royal court, still being described in the scriptures as "very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth" (Numbers 12:3), without pondering the importance of meekness, since the meek shall inherit the earth.

Replicating Research

Two recent pieces discuss endemic problems in research, one from a general perspective (from which I will quote), and one from a specific case (warning: unnecessary crude language). The problem is replication of results.

In scholarship findings should, in theory, be able to be checked. In epigraphic disciplines, one should be able to collate the texts. In historical disciplines, one should be able check the footnotes. In experimental disciplines, one should be able to reproduce the experiment. For years I checked Hugh Nibley's footnotes. I developed a sense for how accurate he was based on how much time I spent finding things. Then I decided to actually count the percentages. My guesses were wrong. I spent much more time looking for problem footnotes and so overestimated the number of them that there were.

Analysis of a random chapter showed that of its almost seven hundred citations, Nibley was completely accurate 94 percent of the time, and in more than half of these remaining forty cases, one could explain the problem as a typographical error. (CWHN 16:xx.)

Checking footnotes is very time consuming and can be quite expensive. It is thus rarely done. I concluded that for Nibley it was probably an unnecessary expense. My recommendations were ignored, in part because many individuals had unfairly accused Nibley of faking his footnotes. (I remember checking the footnotes of someone who accused Nibley of faking his footnotes and found that a third of the footnotes of the accuser were wrong.)

But the sciences ought to do better at this, right? Well, not necessarily:

A few years ago scientists at Amgen, an American drug company, tried to replicate 53 studies that they considered landmarks in the basic science of cancer, often co-operating closely with the original researchers to ensure that their experimental technique matched the one used first time round. According to a piece they wrote last year in Nature, a leading scientific journal, they were able to reproduce the original results in just six. Months earlier Florian Prinz and his colleagues at Bayer HealthCare, a German pharmaceutical giant, reported in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, a sister journal, that they had successfully reproduced the published results in just a quarter of 67 seminal studies.

So only about one in nine to one in four key drug experiments were replicated. Nibley was a lot better than that.

But peer review is supposed to catch errors. Unfortunately, it often does not.

The idea that there are a lot of uncorrected flaws in published studies may seem hard to square with the fact that almost all of them will have been through peer-review. This sort of scrutiny by disinterested experts—acting out of a sense of professional obligation, rather than for pay—is often said to make the scientific literature particularly reliable. In practice it is poor at detecting many types of error.

John Bohannon, a biologist at Harvard, recently submitted a pseudonymous paper on the effects of a chemical derived from lichen on cancer cells to 304 journals describing themselves as using peer review. An unusual move; but it was an unusual paper, concocted wholesale and stuffed with clangers in study design, analysis and interpretation of results. Receiving this dog’s dinner from a fictitious researcher at a made up university, 157 of the journals accepted it for publication.

Dr Bohannon’s sting was directed at the lower tier of academic journals. But in a classic 1998 study Fiona Godlee, editor of the prestigious British Medical Journal, sent an article containing eight deliberate mistakes in study design, analysis and interpretation to more than 200 of the BMJ’s regular reviewers. Not one picked out all the mistakes. On average, they reported fewer than two; some did not spot any.

And there are other problems with peer review:

As well as not spotting things they ought to spot, there is a lot that peer reviewers do not even try to check. They do not typically re-analyse the data presented from scratch, contenting themselves with a sense that the authors’ analysis is properly conceived. And they cannot be expected to spot deliberate falsifications if they are carried out with a modicum of subtlety.

Still, these things get corrected eventually. Perhaps not:

Academic scientists readily acknowledge that they often get things wrong. But they also hold fast to the idea that these errors get corrected over time as other scientists try to take the work further. Evidence that many more dodgy results are published than are subsequently corrected or withdrawn calls that much-vaunted capacity for self-correction into question. There are errors in a lot more of the scientific papers being published, written about and acted on than anyone would normally suppose, or like to think.

The trouble is that few scholars check their colleagues work, especially when there is pressure to continue publishing one's own work. Furthermore, pointing out your colleagues' errors is a good way to make enemies (academics often have extremely thin skins), so most people will not publicly point out when their colleagues write garbage even if they recognize it to be such. Besides, one would like to think that one can trust one's colleagues. In such cases (which may be more prevalent than one would like to think) collegiality is the enemy of academic progress.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Even As I Am (1982), 81-82:

Modern prophets in our day, like the Galilean fishermen, utter truths that many people are not able to bear. The establishment in the meridian of time was not threatened by the exalted Beatitudes of Jesus, but by the direct and clear testimonies of the exalted role of Jesus of Nazareth. Sufficient unto each dispensation are the stumbling blocks thereof!

On Religious Studies and the Death of the Humanities

Se-Woong Koo, a lecturer at Yale (poor fellow), recently wrote about the death of the humanities in Inside Higher Ed. Here are some highlights:

In all those years I was pursuing a Ph.D. in religious studies, thee [sic] question of what my profession really stood for rarely came up in conversation with fellow academics.

So those in religious studies rarely discuss what the discipline is really up to. Critical thinking apparently is something applied to others, never themselves.

I saw my teachers and peers struggle against the tide of general indifference aimed at our discipline and succumb to unhappiness or cynicism. It was heartbreaking.

So the practitioners of the discipline are unhappy and cynical and the public is apathetic. This matches my experience too.

The author went to teach in Bangladesh.

My new students came from 12 different countries, and many of them had been brought up in deeply religious households, representing nearly all traditions practiced throughout Asia. They, however, knew about religion only what they had heard from priests, monks, or imams, and did not understand what it meant to study religion from an academic point of view.

So the intrepid author was ready to teach these poor benighted rubes about what religion really is about. After all, he had a degree in religious studies.

But what was meant to be a straightforward comparison of religious traditions around the region quickly slipped from my control and morphed into a terrible mess. I remember an early lesson: When I suggested during a class on religious pilgrimage that a visit to a Muslim saint’s shrine had the potential to constitute worship, it incited a near-riot.

Several Muslim students immediately protested that I was suggesting heresy, citing a Quranic injunction that only Allah should be revered. . . . Instead of provoking a thoughtful discussion, my idea of comparative religious studies seemed only to strike students as blasphemous.

So here was someone who knew a little about a bunch of different religions trying to teach a group of students about their religions about which he knows a little and they know a great deal. He did not know enough about their religion to know that some of the things that he was saying were deeply offensive. In other words, he knew a little, but not enough.

I have found that, in general, those in religious studies do not understand blasphemy very well. They have no visceral response to it, whereas those who are actually religious usually do. Practitioners of religious studies also do not understand that the basic ideas of religious studies are largely blasphemous. (A kindly man once pointed out to me that my calling his faith a religion was, itself, offensive; I changed my paper accordingly.)

With my early enthusiasm and amusement depleted, I was ready to declare neutral instruction of religion in Bangladesh impossible. But over the course of the semester I could discern one positive effect of our classroom exercise: students’ increasing skepticism toward received wisdom.

Increased skepticism is a positive effect? I think his earlier conclusion was wiser. Religion is not neutral ground. Anyone who thinks differently does not understand it.

The author continues his narrative and came to the conclusion that:

The humanities is not just about disseminating facts or teaching interpretive skills or making a living; it is about taking a very public stance that above the specifics of widely divergent human ideas exist more important, universally applicable ideals of truth and freedom.

Yes, some things are more important than others and it is important to be able to articulate what they are. Specifically,

humanistic endeavor is meant to make us not only better thinkers, but also more empowered and virtuous human beings.

When scandal befell his institution (which involved appointing someone to fill an administrative post without proper academic credentials--in this case any academic credentials), most of his colleagues advised him to do nothing.

Several of my colleagues on the faculty, though wonderful as individuals, demurred from taking a stance for fear of being targeted by the administration for retribution or losing the professional and financial benefits they enjoyed.

Neal A. Maxwell once wryly observed:

Professors of philosophy often discuss the reality of reality, sometimes with great intensity and sometimes with bemused detachment-but they always cash their paychecks.
(Things As They Really Are, footnote to chapter 1)

While some faculty, at least those who are not cynical, might still have some devotion to ideals, administrators tend to have no vested interest in being virtuous or promoting virtue, and are often petty tyrants.

It was simultaneously flummoxing and devastating to hear a humanist say that when called to think about the real-life implications of our discipline, we should resort to inaction.

 He notes that his students

gave up and succumbed to cynicism about higher education and the world, seeing many of their professors do nothing to live by the principles taught in class, and recognizing the humanities as exquisitely crafted words utterly devoid of substance.

 So, the author too concludes:

I can only conclude, with no small amount of sadness, that most humanists are not, nor do they care to be, exemplary human beings.

And so,

the humanities will always appear irrelevant as long as its practitioners refrain from demonstrating a tangible link between what they preach and how they behave.

It seems to me that Koo has provided two interesting insights, one intentionally and one unintentionally. The first insight, which was unintentional, is that the branch of humanities that he studied, religious studies, is a blasphemous parasite on the religions it studies. (This is not to say that it has to be that way or should be that way, but that mostly it is that way.) The second is that the humanities has failed to make people better people. It fails as a religion. Hugh Nibley recognized this more than half a century ago in a discussion of his own education:

Typical was the committee's rejection of my first subject for a thesis: I wanted to write about the perennial phenomenon of the mob in the ancient world; the the committee found the subject altogether too unreal, too irrelevant to the mood and spirit of the modern world, to appeal even to normal curiosity. How could you expect such men to be aware of the desperately lonely and unhappy young people all around them, seething with resentment and building up to some kind of an explosion (which occurred in the sixties), frustrated at every turn as they asked for the bread of life and got only processed academic factory food served at an automat? (CWHN 17:13).

Those searching for the bread of life will not find it in the humanities, much less in religious studies.

Time after time, scholars note that various ancient cultures have no word for religion. (Notice that English has to use a loan word from another language.) Religion was just what one did because of one's relationship with God. Religious studies, as presently practiced, does nothing to improve behavior and neither does the humanities. They are a poor substitute for religion or faith itself.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Even As I Am (1982), 76:

Power and authority and position, as Jesus taught and showed us, are not to be misused by us for personal gain or self-gratification. Almost all—not just a few—succumb to this particular temptation. Jesus was the enormous exception. Gloriously, Jesus did not succumb. Our opportunities to do selflessly likewise will occur more than once in our lives, and we are much more likely to do likewise if we are meek and humble.

Who Would Have Thought We'd Make the Top Ten

A rather unusual entry speculates that in the future there will only be ten universities, and BYU is on the list. Of course, we are listed tenth out of ten, below three universities that actually do not exist yet. But I notice that UC Berkeley, Claremont, Yale, Utah State, and University of Virginia did not make the cut.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From The Smallest Part (1973), 32:

Verity in theology makes for accuracy in action, while doubt and disbelief lead to disjunctive action. Secularism has even drawn some churches behind it with the result noted by Samuel Callan, in which: ". . . the church will wed herself to the culture of the day and be a widow within each succeeding age. . . ."

Where men reject absolute truths and legitimate authority, there are subsequently no criteria for decisions, no direction, and no brakes, while an ever-present sense of hurrying moves such individuals forward to "catch the fashionable insanity." All too often we see a "perversion . . . become a convention."

Accepting the Will of Heaven

At the end of a rousing speech urging the defense of the temple, Judas Maccabees tells the people:

ὡς δ' ἂν ᾖ θέλημα ἐν οὐρανῷ οὕτως ποιήσει

Whatsoever be the will in heaven, so it will be done. (1 Maccabees 3:60)

This, of course, is echoed in the Lord's Prayer:

γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς.

May thy will happen, as in heaven, so also on earth. (Matthew 6:10)

The hope is that the will of heaven will happen on earth, which does not seem likely to be the case most of the time. This life is a time when terrible things happen on earth. Men do terrible things to each other. Sometimes these terrible things are feigned to be the will of heaven. I have a hard time believing that firing a single mother who has done nothing wrong, for example, and leaving her without means of support is really the will of heaven. (James 1:27 argues against such a perverse notion.) What this means is that after two thousand years the Lord's Prayer is still valid.