“Bad men on paper”

(by Dan Peterson sic et non blog)

Back quickly to a passage that I marked while re-reading Richard Lloyd Anderson’s classic Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981):

Anyone following this discussion can soon see that authentic statements from the Book of Mormon witnesses are voluminous and always repeat the reality of their experience.  Yet the first anti-Mormon book was written in 1834 within a dozen miles of their residences and set the precedent of not contacting them but devoting most space to show them to be either superstitious or dishonest.  This became a formula: ignore the testimony and attack the witness, the same pattern as the detailed current treatments.  That method is sure to caricature its victims: lead off with the worst names anyone ever called them, take all charges as presented without investigating, solidify mistakes as lifelong characteristics, and ignore all positive accomplishments or favorable judgments on their lives.  Such bad methods will inevitably produce bad men on paper.  The only problem with this treatment is that it cheats the consumer — it appears to investigate personality without really doing so.  (166)

I would have to say that the playbook that Brother Anderson outlines above has not changed significantly over the nearly two hundred years since the experience of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon.  And, as I can testify from personal experience, it isn’t deployed only against those witnesses.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2020/07/bad-men-on-paper.html