Lest we lose focus, let’s remind ourselves how we arrived here. I posted two essays that contemplated Doug Wilson’s claim that he has the right to blame-shift in matters of public adjudication. More specifically, Mr. Wilson asserted the right to blame the parents of a rape victim for the serial rape of their daughter. I then posted the following quote from Mr. Wilson, wherein he repudiates those who blame-shift as not having learned what it means to be a man:
Boys must learn to say, regularly — to God, to others, and to themselves — that they were wrong when they were wrong, and that they were responsible when they were responsible. When they do this, they will discover that authority naturally flows to those who take responsibility. That same authority naturally flees from those who seek to shift the responsibility or blame. When boys learn to do this, they are learning what it means to be a young man. When young men learn to do this, they are learning what it means to be a grown man. (Douglas Wilson, Future Men [Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2001], 23)
A commenter identified a sentence from the quote as belonging to Gary North (and he claims there are others as well). Ten minutes later this post went up and yesterday we saw that the spirit of accusation possessed Mr. Wilson to accuse Gary North of all sorts of sins, including the failure to properly cite his sources. And today we see more of the same. Mr. Wilson posted the following harangue to his blog on July 16, 2014, some thirteen years after he failed to cite Gary North:
Look — and I am taking a page here from the old North, the one who used to actually read the books of his adversaries — if you are going to debate with somebody, CITE THEM. Use a footnote or two, for pity’s sake. Tell us who you are talking about. . . . This whole thing is beyond sad and pathetic. I have read 26 of North’s books — and I have learned a great deal from them. . . . (Pardon My French, emphasis original)
Will Pastor Doug Wilson of Christ Church, Moscow, say he was wrong? Will he acknowledge responsibility for his failure to cite Gary North? Has he learned what it means to be a man? Is he a grown man?
Not a chance. Mr. Wilson will continue to blame-shift, because that’s how his father taught him to elude responsibility when he was a little boy. And if Future Men teaches us anything, it teaches us that Mr. Wilson has yet to grow up, let alone be a man.