This morning I heard from an aspiring biographer with no better sense than to ask for my thoughts.

In the book he has under way, he attempts a psychological diagnosis of an historical figure. For a mental health professional, that’s already a risky proposition. For all but the most versed layperson, it can border on foolhardy. Worse, the American Psychological Association is considering retiring the diagnosis the writer came up with. They’re beginning to suspect it isn’t a thing.

All of which I pointed out.

The aspiring biographer was grateful for the tip. “Thanks,” he said, “I had no idea. I’ll do more research and fix that.”

Har! Just kidding. What he really said was, “I’m not a professional. These are my opinions. I urge readers to draw their own conclusions.”

Without realizing it, he had just defended perpetrating fake news. With bit of tweaking, his statement could be a slogan for Fox News or One America News Network.

I agree that writers can and should opine. But facts are not matters of opinion. I believe that writers have a responsibility to check and double-check anything they present as fact.

Moreover, writers must exercise caution when it comes to opining outside their respective areas of expertise. It’s wiser, more responsible, to quote, with attribution, experts from the field in question.

And, it should go without saying, it is imperative to be sure that quoted experts really are experts.

I hope he heeds the advice. No matter how well-intended, the world doesn’t need another Fox, OAN, Beck, Limbaugh, or Rogan.

“After reading the excerpt in the Salt Lake Tribune, my wife has discouraged me from reading your book. So congratulations on the book, but it is currently sitting on my dresser.”

So wrote a devout Mormon friend after purchasing a signed copy. I was disappointed but not surprised.

“I’m sure it is scholarly and well researched and well written,” he continued. “It’s the subject matter that concerns her—and me, frankly.”

Um, the subject matter took him by surprise? Long before publication, we had discussed the project at length, face-to-face. Moreover, the title is Behind the Mormon Curtain: Selling Sex in America’s Holy City. You’d think that alone might have made the subject matter at least somewhat clear.

I might add that Behind the Mormon Curtain is NOT porn. I would be surprised if anyone found it arousing at all. Rather, it is a sociological look through a rare window, a glimpse at a world most of us never see. It humanizes sex workers and their clients in heavily Mormon Utah, exposes hypocrisy, looks at legal and law enforcement issues, and discusses Mormon history, doctrines, and practices as they apply to the topic. It is at times grim, at times witty (or so I flatter myself), and at times sardonic. And it is, as my friend speculated, well researched.

Yet it was his closing comment that troubled me most: “You never know what that subject can do to ignite the wrong passions in a man.”

Ignite “the wrong passions”? I suppose I could have asked what he meant by that, but I didn’t need to. A former Mormon myself, I knew. He was worried that the book might get into his head, entice him to misbehave, and ultimately interfere with his access to guidance from the Holy Ghost.

All of which points to a cultish tactic that I find particularly disturbing.

Every cult leader understands, or at least intuits, that curtailing reading — aka keeping people in ignorance — is an effective means of keeping people in line. Hence the pre-Civil War American South criminalized teaching enslaved persons to read, Nazis burned books, and Christian extremists continue seeking to ban selected titles from public and school libraries.

The Mormon Church’s approach is a bit more subtle. Mormons simply dismiss any work casting the least shade on their religion as “anti-Mormon,” which is code for “you shouldn’t read this because it could damage your faith or tempt you to be naughty.” And make no mistake: it is a threat that devout Mormons take seriously.

Which is rather revealing, for it tells you something about the fragility of and commitment to faith. Also revealing is that the panic doesn’t go both ways. I would never presume to tell my readers they “shouldn’t” read the Book of Mormon.

If you’re a Mormon and you’re worried that reading Behind the Mormon Curtain will shake your faith or lead you into sin, it seems to me that your faith and resolve could do with a good shaking. They will emerge stronger or weaker.

Either way, that is all the more reason to read it.

❖

Recently my personal values collided with my fiduciary responsibility. Please read the tale, which I share with some reluctance, by clicking here (which will take you to my other website).

If you write, or, for that matter, if you open your mouth, you will sooner or later risk running afoul of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is the all too human tendency to overestimate our knowledge or ability in a given area by failing to realize that there’s way more to it than we think there is. Like the time that Senator Jim Inhofe thought that a snowball disproved global warming.

I offer two methods for protecting yourself, from yourself, Dunning-Kruger-wise:

Method 1. Don’t venture out of your areas of expertise. Even experts in one field bare their ineptitude when they dabble in another. Like nearly every time Richard Dawkins, a brilliant biologist, has commented on any social issue.

Admittedly, that’s not easy, which is why there is also:

Method 2. Increase the odds of knowing what you’re talking about by setting aside your biases as best you can; doing homework; and running your tentative observations and conclusions by people who know more about the topic than you do.

Oh, wait. That’s not easy, either.

But if you ignore those methods, you’re a bloody fool. Worse, you may cause harm.

A few years ago, fed up with the umpteenth white guy complaining that They always “play the race card” (itself a shining Dunning-Kruger manifestation, not to mention a showcase of empathy-lack), I decided to satirize the expression in my Free Inquiry column. Now, if you happen to have seen my mug on this website’s Books, Articles, and More page, you may have observed that I’m an old white guy. In other words, I was venturing out of my lane. Concerned that instead of helping I might betray myself as less woke than I fancied, I ran the piece by a number of African-American friends. The piece landed well — perhaps you can imagine my relief — but they nonetheless offered valuable tweaks. (Here’s the result, called Rules for Playing the Race Card.)

Flush with that success, I decided to write about transgenderism. I had only one trans friend at the time, so I ran a draft by her. She said she couldn’t figure out what the heck I was trying to say. It was clear that I didn’t really understand the issues after all. Hell, I didn’t even have the terminology down. I appreciated her feedback and deleted the piece. Maybe I’ll try again after I have learned more. Maybe.

Nearly every chapter took me out of my lane in my new book, Behind the Mormon Curtain: Selling Sex in America’s Holy City. I know Mormon history, practices, and beliefs well, but for everything else I interviewed people who know more than I: Salt Lake-area sex workers (female and male), massage therapists, sexual service clients, law enforcement officers, attorneys, and mental health professionals. I was particularly concerned about the chapter on Asian massage parlors — in no way did I want to contribute to anti-Asian sentiment or promote Asian stereotypes — so I ran it by female Asian friends. Again I was relieved when it landed well, but my friends nonetheless  provided valuable tweaks, saving me from myself.

The best way to hide ignorance is not to hide it, but to wipe it out by seeking out and replacing it with solid information. Trouble is, it’s difficult to know when you’re un- or misinformed. Good luck to us all.

Sometimes I actually think before opening my eager-to-set-the-record-straight yap.

Not often. But sometimes.

Like the time a friend called a biopic a documentary, the time my next-door neighbor trotted out the myth that doing crosswords and Sudoku staves off dementia, or the many times someone misconjugated lie or lay.

I could have invoked the infamous skeptic opener, “Well, actually …” But upon brief reflection, which was all I had time for, I felt that—in those specific instances—correction would have been needless and, therefore, annoying, possibly humiliating, and not at all helpful. So I let it go.

I am not the only skeptic whose Tact and Timing switch has rusted. It’s easy to forget that not everyone shares the skeptic’s zeal to dethrone misinformation—and that not all misinformation is created equal. If you think sugar makes kids hyper, you’re wrong, but not on an anti-vax or climate change-denial level of wrong.

Before you @ me, permit me to acknowledge that there’s something to be said for nipping in the bud all misinformation large or small. Granted, thinking that embraces benign misinformation may sooner or later embrace malignant misinformation. Still, I submit that there is room for judgment and restraint.

I know of no hard and fast rule for determining when correction is needful and when it’s only tiresome. I suspect that placing yourself in the Other’s shoes might help. And perhaps learning to recognize the difference between a desire to help and a need to appear smarter-than.

Wherein I critique the copy on an Arby’s cup, in the process admitting that I actually bothered to read the copy on an Arby’s cup. It’s on my marketing website. Read it now by clicking here.

To say that I prefer being called Steve is to understate. It’s more accurate to say that I detest being called Steven. Why I detest it would take too long to explain. Besides, that I want to be called Steve is really all anyone needs to know.

Most people are great about that. But some jerks, upon learning that I detest the version ending in n, think that using it makes them hilarious.

No. It makes them jerks.

Some jerks actually argue with me. More than one jerk has said, “It’s just that I like to use more formal names.” What the hell? Am I supposed to say, “Oh, well, in that case, carry on”? This is not about what you like. It’s about what I asked you, as a friend, to call me. Why is that so hard?

Even more unbelievable is this one, which I also often get: “What does it say on your birth certificate?” What the hell? If my birth certificate adds the n, are you going to overrule me? This is not about a piece of paper. It’s about what I asked you, as a friend, to call me. Why is that so hard?

If you can bring yourself to understand or, even better, empathize, wonderful. If you can’t, that’s okay, too, as long as you do me the favor of calling me what I ask you to call me. It is common courtesy.

Now, shall we switch gears?

Suppose you’re asked to use names and personal pronouns that, for whatever reason, make no sense to you. Do it anyhow. Refusal is not taking a stand. It’s being a jerk.

And for Pete’s sake don’t ask what’s on that person’s birth certificate. This is not about a piece of paper. It’s about what a fellow human being wishes to be called. Why is that so hard?

MORE THAN one “expert” advises targeting an eighth-grade reading level when writing for the average adult.

​Not sure what that means? Never fear. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level measurement will help you. There’s even a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level measurement feature built into Microsoft Word.

To the eighth-grade-level assertion, I say balderdash (with a few caveats that I shall list below). Write well, and you needn’t worry about how many of your readers didn’t make it to ninth grade.

Consider typical tips from eighth-grade-level writing proponents: keep sentences and paragraphs short, keep it clear, use active voice, avoid jargon, always choose the smaller word if it will do, eliminate redundancies, and edit out all superfluous words. All of that is great advice for skillful writing. If the Flesch-Kincaid Guide and the Word feature help you to that end, good for you, avail yourself of them. 

My gripe is that too-long sentences and paragraphs, lack of clarity, overuse of passive voice, excessive jargon, needless use of big words, redundancies, and unedited, unpruned prose are not hallmarks of post eighth-grade-level writing. They are hallmarks of bad writing. 

If readers can’t follow you, before you dismiss them as having a too-low reading level, consider that maybe your writing sucks.

​Now for some caveats. ​No matter how skillful your writing: 

(1) You should always know who your reader is and write to reach that person. “Write to” is not to be confused with “talk down to.” Knowing more about a given topic than your reader is not the same as thinking you’re smarter than your reader.

(2) Skillful writing can do only so much to make a difficult subject accessible. More than five decades have passed since I completed my eighth grade reading class, but you will lose me no matter how skillfully and accessibly you write about, say, trigonometry or physics. 

(3) There’s no guarantee that people will grasp what you weave between the lines. For instance, not everyone gets underlying themes, sarcasm, or the unreliable narrator technique. It may not be your fault if some readers “just don’t get” what you’re trying to say. But then, it may indeed be your fault. If precious few readers get what you’re trying to say, it is definitely your fault.

(4) Reading level and breadth of knowledge are not the same thing. I can reference a hypnogogic state without defining it when I write for Free Inquiry, but you can bet I’ll define it if I’m writing for the Salt Lake Tribune. Or I’ll make it clickable, as I did here.

(5) The United States and, indeed, the world has a serious literacy problem. The cure isn’t to dumb down writing, but to promote education.