Groupthink vs. dishonesty

This blog has been critical of Jonathan Neville’s claims, but we’ve always at least attempted to give him the benefit of the doubt on his sincerity. In other words, we think he’s often wrong, but don’t believe that he’s (usually) trying to be deceptive.

That, unfortunately, doesn’t apply to this post.

Neville’s July 5, 2019, blog entry, “Antidote to groupthink and 3 rules of groupthink” (published here and here) is simply dishonest. Neville either has an exceptionally poor memory or he is lying.

In his post, he accuses the “M2C”* theory Book of Mormon geography—which he claims is a massive conspiracy that operates at all levels of the Church, including “the curriculum of CES and BYU, the visitors centers, and Church art and media”—of being an example of “groupthink.”

Neville cites a July 3, 2019, article on Breitbart by James Delingpole that notes the passing of Christopher Booker, “the world’s greatest climate change sceptic.” The article quotes Booker on the subject of groupthink, a term invented by Yale psychology professor Irving Janis. Neville reproduces Booker’s quote, claiming that it “explain[s] how Book of Mormon Central and the rest of the M2C citation cartel maintain M2C” as the “default position of the Church”:

What Janis did was to define scientifically just how what he called groupthink operates, according to three basic rules. And what my [Booker’s] paper tries to show is the astonishing degree to which they explain so much that many have long found puzzling about the global warming story.

Janis’s first rule is that a group of people come to share a particular way of looking at the world which may seem hugely important to them but which turns out not to have been based on looking properly at all the evidence. It is therefore just a shared, untested belief.

Rule two is that, because they have shut their minds to any evidence which might contradict their belief, they like to insist that it is supported by a “consensus”. The one thing those caught up in groupthink cannot tolerate is that anyone should question it.

This leads on to the third rule, which is that they cannot properly debate the matter with those who disagree with their belief. Anyone holding a contrary view must simply be ignored, ridiculed and dismissed as not worth listening to.

Neville doesn’t tell us why he believes these “three rules of groupthink” apply to the Mesoamerican view of Book of Mormon geography (at least not in this short blog post), but all three of them are manifestly untrue, and the last one is an outright lie—and Neville knows it.

On Janis’ first rule, the Mesoamerican view is certainly widely held within the Church, but not because it’s “untested.” No theory of Book of Mormon geography has had more evidence presented and published in support of it. The works of John L. Sorenson alone dwarf anything else any other author has published on the subject. (Book of Mormon Central’s online bibliography lists 103 published works by Sorenson.) Certainly, Jonathan Neville and other Heartlanders are free to disagree with Sorenson’s evidence, but they can’t simply dismiss it as “untested”; they must engage with it and explain why their views are superior. (Neville recently claimed he was going to review Sorenson’s book, Mormon’s Codex, but he completely failed to even cite one piece of evidence from the book.)

Regarding his second rule, it’s Neville who insists there is a “consensus,” not the Mesoamericanists. To the best of my knowledge, not one scholar who’s published on the Mesoamerican Book of Mormon geography has claimed that that view is correct because it is widely held. They hold that view because that’s where the strongest evidence points; if better evidence were to be presented for an ancient civilization in the Americas that met the descriptions in the Book of Mormon, those who hold to the Mesoamerican view would be attracted to it. So far, Heartlanders have failed to present anything compelling about their theory that withstands scrutiny. It’s up to them to come up with evidence that holds up; it’s not enough to (falsely) claim that their opponents are stopping their ears and shouting “la-la-la-la-la.”

Finally, we get to Janis’ third rule, and this is where Neville is simply deceitful. Applying this rule to “M2C scholars,” Neville claims that “they cannot properly debate the matter with those who disagree with their belief,” but, instead, “ignore, ridicule and dismiss” Heartlanders “as not worth listening to.” This is a bald-faced lie, and Jonathan Neville knows it.

In June 2016, Jonathan Neville, Rodney Meldrum, Wayne May, and other prominent Heartlanders visited ancient mounds and museums in Ohio with a group of well-known Latter-day Saint scholars who believe in the Mesoamerican Book of Mormon geography. In January 2017, many of these same people—including Jonathan Neville—met again in Midway, Utah, for a three day conference where each side gave presentations of their views and offered criticisms of the other side. Both sides made sincere efforts to promote goodwill. The “M2C” scholars did not ignore, ridicule, or dismiss the Heartland view then, and they have not since.

It’s disappointing and saddening that Jonathan Neville feels compelled to malign those with whom he disagrees by fabricating supposed bad feelings and movivations that they do not have. Hopefully, he will reconsider his views and actions.

—Peter Pan

* “M2C” is Jonathan Neville’s acronym for the theory that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica and that the hill Cumorah in the Book of Mormon is not the same hill in New York where Joseph Smith received the plates of Mormon.