Thursday, July 09, 2009
Thursday, July 02, 2009
activist university, pt. II
BYU reserves the right to curtail an expression of thought that “contradicts or opposes…fundamental Church doctrine or policy.” The issue at hand is how BYU promotes a conservative worldview as fundamental Church doctrine.
What’s wrong with that?
From a personal perspective, my experience at BYU left me feeling alienated from the Church that I love and serve. I got into the habit of constantly second-guessing myself, and felt intimidated into not expressing my own personal convictions. I feel bitter and somewhat betrayed to this day. As if it’s not hard enough trying to overcome selfishness and improve oneself, the things that I saw as my improvements marginalized me from a community which is supposed to exist to support individuals in their betterment.
Some, specifically those on the same side of the Church’s culture war, will say “tough break.” A lack of empathy is defensible in the case that people like myself are genuine enemies of the Church and its mission; maintaining a community inevitably requires some sort of exclusion.
But is it appropriate to equate a particular social philosophy with revealed doctrine? The doctrine of the Church, as I understand it, is unique in relation to other philosophies. While it is in harmony in some instances with other worldviews, it often offends the same worldviews at other points. The social philosophy and political agenda that BYU implicitly endorses and equates to fundamental Church doctrine—limited government, personal responsibility, anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-feminism, anti-relativism, and the enshrinement of Western cultural products as morally and aesthetically superior--is exactly in line with this country’s religious right. In fact, by all indications, it appears to be its product.
The threat of communism united two rather divergent groups--fiscal conservatives and social conservatives—under the banner of “American” values. While fiscal conservatives are known for their disdain of government intervention, social conservatives favor the government’s sponsorship of their particular, traditional, Judeo-Christian values. At the end of the Cold War, the undergoing shift in values in America—away from sexual morality and towards emphasizing fairness, inclusiveness, and tolerance—provided conservatives with a new threat of invasion to unite around. The new enemy, seen as corrosive to “American” values as communism was to capitalism, was multi-culturalists, feminists, and so-called moral relativists.
Where the Gospel is an eternal set of principles, the conservative worldview is easily contextualized historically and will likely follow the typical arc of humankind’s ideas, namely overcompensation and correction; one might say that the Republican Party is currently split over the notion that now is the time for correction.
Divine inspiration guides the LDS Church, and so the argument may be made that the Church’s leadership takes into account some knowledge of future events that hasn’t been revealed to the general public. But if this is the case, why isn’t it explained as such? Why do most reconciliations of conservatism and the Gospel, aside from the ones that are purely tautological and rely on the fact that there are few contrary voices, appeal to the scriptures and not to new revelation?
If our current leadership is privy through revelation to something that supports a conservative worldview, why do the teachings of the early leaders of the Church seem to support what are now progressive causes? If those teachings were mistakes, the preferences of men speaking as men and not as prophets, why do the most fervent supporters of LDS conservatism imply the infallibility of our current prophets? Given the logical paradoxes of such a stance, maybe there is a supplementary motive for putting caps on free inquiry.
Why, if support of a worldview that exists in service of a political agenda comes from revelation, doesn’t the leadership acknowledge the problematic relationship of doing so and attempt to reconcile the points at which conservatism conflicts with LDS doctrine? These loose ends suggest to me that the likely explanation is that our leadership, like much of our membership, simply prefers conservatism and, as a result of movement conservatism’s fatalism, attempts to essentialize it as inherently more moral and correct than liberalism in an effort to save our society from some supposed cataclysm (the former BYU president Ernest Wilkinson’s actions were premised partly on a belief that the U.S. was ripe for destruction due to the corruption of the Kennedy administration).
I mentioned the conflicts of conservatism and LDS doctrine. If you’re familiar with this blog, you’ve read some that I’ve outlined before. I’ll run some of them down quickly, for the sake of a self-sufficient post.
The scriptures and the teachings of early prophets are not as friendly to capitalism as conservatives would like to think. Where free-market capitalism values greed as a motive for material growth, greed is roundly denounced in scripture, and material growth is treated more as a temptation than something to vie for. Military aggression is expressly denounced. Self-sufficiency, the primary conservative value, would likely fall under the “lack of faith” or “pride” category. While conservatives fear the company of those with different philosophies, Jesus welcomed sinners and publicans and offered forgiveness to those who offended him. Where conservatives frame multi-culturalists and feminists as rabble-rousers who threaten traditional values, Joseph Smith campaigned for abolition and women’s rights, radical causes of his time. He was a fierce defender of the freedom of religion, while conservatives push for state-sponsored Christianity. Additionally, the spirit of LDS doctrine and of Christianity communicates that there is no need to fear if one is living by certain principles. Movement conservatism promotes fear of societal change and the advancement of historically marginalized groups as a political force, even to the point of abandoning certain principles (constitutional rights, freedom of inquiry) in favor of a political outcome.
While Mormons can relate to the threat of invasive outsiders, we seem to forget that EVERYONE to us is an outsider, as detractors of the Church have come from every religious and cultural persuasion. Joseph Smith held the strongest criticism for other religions, while intellectuals and progressives didn’t draw nearly as much ire. In the contemporary Church, in pursuit of our political goals, we’ve tried to make good with the merchants of religion that Jesus and Joseph Smith derided. (By the way, judging by the Republican reaction to Mitt Romney, we haven’t nearly succeeded.)
Furthermore, what are some of the potential drawbacks to BYU’s close relationship to conservatism? First of all, the alienation of otherwise strong, valuable members like myself; I’ve heard plenty of similar stories. Secondly, the alienation of those to whom we’re supposed to be bringing the Gospel. Walk into any LDS chapel in the country and tell me if you don’t find a predominance of white, middle-class conservatives. It’s not that liberals and minorities aren’t receptive to truth, it’s that we deride the aims of people who don’t share our zeal for preserving the privileged class status of white, middle-class males. The insular mindset, the one bent on preserving the purity of a certain community, does not seem to work well with our mission to bring the Gospel to the lost tribes of Israel.
And aren’t we shooting ourselves in the foot in another way? Conservatives paint fear-inducing pictures of an open, tolerant society, but the old guard that progressives are trying to tear down contains some of our most feverish opponents. A tolerant, pluralistic society, while still fundamentally opposed to the principles of revelation and eternal truth that the Church is founded on, would nevertheless be more wiling to coexist in disagreement than the conservative activists we unflaggingly try to woo.
As a final word, I want to make it clear that I am not trying to tear down the Church, or at least what the Church means to me (I’ll tear down conservatism nearly every chance I get). I debated whether or not I would publish this. It’s cathartic for me to articulate my grievances with what have been very negative experiences for me. But ultimately, I hope that this post will be of some value to those who have felt like myself. Another effect of BYU’s close alliance with conservatism is the co-opting of LDS discourse by conservatives. Those who feel differently are left without a vocabulary, as it were, to discuss their spirituality. As a consequence, we feel alone even though there are many of us. This post is part of an effort to create a discourse for us others.
If you disagree with me and view my perspective as sinful, I would invite you to try to help me through my sin with the same compassion that you might show someone addicted to smoking. I’m skeptical that this would happen, however, as you view me (someone who lives the commandments and standards of the Church and attends church regularly, by the way) as someone who pollutes the otherwise pure LDS community, and I’m better off being excised than allowed to compromise the Church’s integrity. I know the way you think because I internalized this attitude at BYU and almost kicked myself out of the Church.
For everyone else, this post is also an affirmation of my comfort in being a practicing Mormon and in trying to change what being a Mormon means.
What’s wrong with that?
From a personal perspective, my experience at BYU left me feeling alienated from the Church that I love and serve. I got into the habit of constantly second-guessing myself, and felt intimidated into not expressing my own personal convictions. I feel bitter and somewhat betrayed to this day. As if it’s not hard enough trying to overcome selfishness and improve oneself, the things that I saw as my improvements marginalized me from a community which is supposed to exist to support individuals in their betterment.
Some, specifically those on the same side of the Church’s culture war, will say “tough break.” A lack of empathy is defensible in the case that people like myself are genuine enemies of the Church and its mission; maintaining a community inevitably requires some sort of exclusion.
But is it appropriate to equate a particular social philosophy with revealed doctrine? The doctrine of the Church, as I understand it, is unique in relation to other philosophies. While it is in harmony in some instances with other worldviews, it often offends the same worldviews at other points. The social philosophy and political agenda that BYU implicitly endorses and equates to fundamental Church doctrine—limited government, personal responsibility, anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-feminism, anti-relativism, and the enshrinement of Western cultural products as morally and aesthetically superior--is exactly in line with this country’s religious right. In fact, by all indications, it appears to be its product.
The threat of communism united two rather divergent groups--fiscal conservatives and social conservatives—under the banner of “American” values. While fiscal conservatives are known for their disdain of government intervention, social conservatives favor the government’s sponsorship of their particular, traditional, Judeo-Christian values. At the end of the Cold War, the undergoing shift in values in America—away from sexual morality and towards emphasizing fairness, inclusiveness, and tolerance—provided conservatives with a new threat of invasion to unite around. The new enemy, seen as corrosive to “American” values as communism was to capitalism, was multi-culturalists, feminists, and so-called moral relativists.
Where the Gospel is an eternal set of principles, the conservative worldview is easily contextualized historically and will likely follow the typical arc of humankind’s ideas, namely overcompensation and correction; one might say that the Republican Party is currently split over the notion that now is the time for correction.
Divine inspiration guides the LDS Church, and so the argument may be made that the Church’s leadership takes into account some knowledge of future events that hasn’t been revealed to the general public. But if this is the case, why isn’t it explained as such? Why do most reconciliations of conservatism and the Gospel, aside from the ones that are purely tautological and rely on the fact that there are few contrary voices, appeal to the scriptures and not to new revelation?
If our current leadership is privy through revelation to something that supports a conservative worldview, why do the teachings of the early leaders of the Church seem to support what are now progressive causes? If those teachings were mistakes, the preferences of men speaking as men and not as prophets, why do the most fervent supporters of LDS conservatism imply the infallibility of our current prophets? Given the logical paradoxes of such a stance, maybe there is a supplementary motive for putting caps on free inquiry.
Why, if support of a worldview that exists in service of a political agenda comes from revelation, doesn’t the leadership acknowledge the problematic relationship of doing so and attempt to reconcile the points at which conservatism conflicts with LDS doctrine? These loose ends suggest to me that the likely explanation is that our leadership, like much of our membership, simply prefers conservatism and, as a result of movement conservatism’s fatalism, attempts to essentialize it as inherently more moral and correct than liberalism in an effort to save our society from some supposed cataclysm (the former BYU president Ernest Wilkinson’s actions were premised partly on a belief that the U.S. was ripe for destruction due to the corruption of the Kennedy administration).
I mentioned the conflicts of conservatism and LDS doctrine. If you’re familiar with this blog, you’ve read some that I’ve outlined before. I’ll run some of them down quickly, for the sake of a self-sufficient post.
The scriptures and the teachings of early prophets are not as friendly to capitalism as conservatives would like to think. Where free-market capitalism values greed as a motive for material growth, greed is roundly denounced in scripture, and material growth is treated more as a temptation than something to vie for. Military aggression is expressly denounced. Self-sufficiency, the primary conservative value, would likely fall under the “lack of faith” or “pride” category. While conservatives fear the company of those with different philosophies, Jesus welcomed sinners and publicans and offered forgiveness to those who offended him. Where conservatives frame multi-culturalists and feminists as rabble-rousers who threaten traditional values, Joseph Smith campaigned for abolition and women’s rights, radical causes of his time. He was a fierce defender of the freedom of religion, while conservatives push for state-sponsored Christianity. Additionally, the spirit of LDS doctrine and of Christianity communicates that there is no need to fear if one is living by certain principles. Movement conservatism promotes fear of societal change and the advancement of historically marginalized groups as a political force, even to the point of abandoning certain principles (constitutional rights, freedom of inquiry) in favor of a political outcome.
While Mormons can relate to the threat of invasive outsiders, we seem to forget that EVERYONE to us is an outsider, as detractors of the Church have come from every religious and cultural persuasion. Joseph Smith held the strongest criticism for other religions, while intellectuals and progressives didn’t draw nearly as much ire. In the contemporary Church, in pursuit of our political goals, we’ve tried to make good with the merchants of religion that Jesus and Joseph Smith derided. (By the way, judging by the Republican reaction to Mitt Romney, we haven’t nearly succeeded.)
Furthermore, what are some of the potential drawbacks to BYU’s close relationship to conservatism? First of all, the alienation of otherwise strong, valuable members like myself; I’ve heard plenty of similar stories. Secondly, the alienation of those to whom we’re supposed to be bringing the Gospel. Walk into any LDS chapel in the country and tell me if you don’t find a predominance of white, middle-class conservatives. It’s not that liberals and minorities aren’t receptive to truth, it’s that we deride the aims of people who don’t share our zeal for preserving the privileged class status of white, middle-class males. The insular mindset, the one bent on preserving the purity of a certain community, does not seem to work well with our mission to bring the Gospel to the lost tribes of Israel.
And aren’t we shooting ourselves in the foot in another way? Conservatives paint fear-inducing pictures of an open, tolerant society, but the old guard that progressives are trying to tear down contains some of our most feverish opponents. A tolerant, pluralistic society, while still fundamentally opposed to the principles of revelation and eternal truth that the Church is founded on, would nevertheless be more wiling to coexist in disagreement than the conservative activists we unflaggingly try to woo.
As a final word, I want to make it clear that I am not trying to tear down the Church, or at least what the Church means to me (I’ll tear down conservatism nearly every chance I get). I debated whether or not I would publish this. It’s cathartic for me to articulate my grievances with what have been very negative experiences for me. But ultimately, I hope that this post will be of some value to those who have felt like myself. Another effect of BYU’s close alliance with conservatism is the co-opting of LDS discourse by conservatives. Those who feel differently are left without a vocabulary, as it were, to discuss their spirituality. As a consequence, we feel alone even though there are many of us. This post is part of an effort to create a discourse for us others.
If you disagree with me and view my perspective as sinful, I would invite you to try to help me through my sin with the same compassion that you might show someone addicted to smoking. I’m skeptical that this would happen, however, as you view me (someone who lives the commandments and standards of the Church and attends church regularly, by the way) as someone who pollutes the otherwise pure LDS community, and I’m better off being excised than allowed to compromise the Church’s integrity. I know the way you think because I internalized this attitude at BYU and almost kicked myself out of the Church.
For everyone else, this post is also an affirmation of my comfort in being a practicing Mormon and in trying to change what being a Mormon means.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
activist university: FIMY reviews BYU
“Activism: The policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change”
Oh BYU, my alma mater. I just finished reading a damning report of BYU’s run-ins with academic freedom—The Lord’s University. The verdict: BYU only cares about academic freedom insofar as they can get away with keeping liberals out of the university while satisfying the accreditation committee that they’re not doing so. If it were up to the administration, they would require every faculty member and student to subscribe to their traditionalist worldview. But as the virtue of a university is universally recognized (outside Utah County) as being a sanctuary of free inquiry, the administration must use underhanded tactics to enforce their thought control.
This is what I feared as a Cougar. But a couple things surprised me as I read The Lord’s University. First of all that I was right, that there was a systematic effort in place to marginalize those who threatened the relationship between the university and Republican values and worldview. Secondly, that it was coming from the top. The First Presidency, as members of the university’s Board of Trustees, played intimate roles in everything from articles published in the Daily Universe to the firing of controversial teachers.
Back to the aforementioned underhanded tactics. The university over the years has fired faculty members who don’t fit the administration’s view of what a university professor should be. Is this acceptable at a private university? Sure. But in these firings there was (and still is) a pattern of a lack of due process and giving dubious reasons as the official causes of termination. You can’t exactly fire a professor by saying “We don’t like what you teach” without legal repercussions. So the pretense of poor performance is used bald-faced against professors with stellar records.
Who exactly gets fired at BYU? Feminists, primarily, and those with postmodern worldviews. Boyd K. Packer targeted feminists as enemies of the Church, along with gay rights activists and “so-called intellectuals and scholars.” But really, anyone who ruffles any feathers up the chain of command is dismissed, as evidenced by the firing of Todd Hendricks, a student employee who wrote an editorial critical of the BYUSA election process. Naturally, his performance was cited as the reason for his termination. Later, when it became clear that all of his performance reviews called him an excellent employee, the administration faulted him for not going through the proper channels.
And this brings us to the Machiavellian nature of BYU. Such things as “proper channels” exist for employees, not the university. The university is beyond reproach, for example, for faulting a professor for violating a policy that had never been implemented. Academic freedom, as it turns out, is to be enjoyed by the administration and not by the faculty or students.
Interesting, then, that the university’s statement on academic freedom reads:
“Individual freedom lies at the core of both religious and academic life. Freedom of thought, belief, inquiry, and expression are crucial no less to the sacred than to the secular quest for truth. Historically, in fact, freedom of conscience and freedom of intellect form a common root, from which grow both religious and academic freedom.”
Despite the official position citing no conflicts between religious and academic freedom, the freedom of thought, belief, inquiry, and expression is quickly curtailed when it runs up against the thoughts, beliefs, inquiries, and expressions of the administration and Board of Trustees. Needless to say, an unprotected freedom of dissenting thought is no freedom at all.
More double standards: liberal protests are deemed a childish embarrassment to the university, yet conservative protests earn an attentive ear. The university is supposedly not run by popular will, yet the administration frequently refers to the letters of complaining tithe-paying members in justifying its decisions. The university decries the politicization of academia, yet is one of the largest activist institutions for conservatism in the country.
Ernest Wilkinson, when he was president of BYU, campaigned to institute a policy through which bishops of student wards would keep tabs on “troubled” students. Faced with resistance from bishops and stake presidents, he promised that these lists would not affect their attendance at the university. With the policy in place however, Wilkinson denied registration to over 200 students based on supposedly confidential interviews.
This shouldn’t be surprising, as the university encourages anonymous snitching on Honor Code violators (and Wilkinson recruited students to spy on liberal professors). When a complaint is filed against you, even anonymously, you are treated as guilty, sometimes resulting in academic probation or expulsion, without so much as hearing. In a theology that claims free agency as a requisite for spiritual progression, how can a university that claims to subscribe to this theology use such Gestapo tactics?
To refer back to the academic freedom statement, the university’s defense lies in this clause: “a limitation is reasonable when the faculty behavior or expression… contradicts or opposes, rather than analyzes or discusses, fundamental Church doctrine or policy.” The question over what exactly composes “fundamental Church doctrine or policy” is the source of concern both for BYU faculty and the accreditation committee, who complained that such language was too vague.
What kind of agenda might the university have that would justify occupying such ethically shady ground? Naturally, it would be protecting the university from the danger of secularization. That’s right, multiculturalists, feminists, and gay rights activists everywhere are trying to get into BYU so they can pollute the doctrinal purity of the university with their diabolical propaganda. Even the appearance of evil might weaken the university and make it vulnerable to adverse influence, hence the Honor Code with its emphasis on a clean-cut, modest appearance. We wouldn't want young Mormon kids looking like those liberal rabble-rousers at Berkeley.
In the university’s defense, the Church has suffered intense persecution of all kinds from its inception. Adding to its tenuous position, though, is its mission of proselytizing the world. We want to simultaneously be left alone and have everyone agree with us. In a university setting, we want to be universally regarded as a great university, but without acquiescing to the world’s standards of greatness.
Additionally, our narrative of a secure Zion that is under threat of infiltration jibes with the neoconservative Cold War worldview. Once the Cold War ended, the political right needed a new subversive enemy to unite around, and that enemy became the tenured radicals of the university, the multi-culturalists and other supposed enemies of the foundations of Western civilization. Conservatives, with the unlikely alliance of Brigham Young University, became the self-appointed defenders of our country’s moral foundations.
President Bateman specifically targeted moral relativism as the poison that threatens the pure well water of BYU. Out of this mindset comes the rationalization for all of BYU’s shadowy activism.
But what’s so wrong with this worldview? I will answer that question in part II.
Oh BYU, my alma mater. I just finished reading a damning report of BYU’s run-ins with academic freedom—The Lord’s University. The verdict: BYU only cares about academic freedom insofar as they can get away with keeping liberals out of the university while satisfying the accreditation committee that they’re not doing so. If it were up to the administration, they would require every faculty member and student to subscribe to their traditionalist worldview. But as the virtue of a university is universally recognized (outside Utah County) as being a sanctuary of free inquiry, the administration must use underhanded tactics to enforce their thought control.
This is what I feared as a Cougar. But a couple things surprised me as I read The Lord’s University. First of all that I was right, that there was a systematic effort in place to marginalize those who threatened the relationship between the university and Republican values and worldview. Secondly, that it was coming from the top. The First Presidency, as members of the university’s Board of Trustees, played intimate roles in everything from articles published in the Daily Universe to the firing of controversial teachers.
Back to the aforementioned underhanded tactics. The university over the years has fired faculty members who don’t fit the administration’s view of what a university professor should be. Is this acceptable at a private university? Sure. But in these firings there was (and still is) a pattern of a lack of due process and giving dubious reasons as the official causes of termination. You can’t exactly fire a professor by saying “We don’t like what you teach” without legal repercussions. So the pretense of poor performance is used bald-faced against professors with stellar records.
Who exactly gets fired at BYU? Feminists, primarily, and those with postmodern worldviews. Boyd K. Packer targeted feminists as enemies of the Church, along with gay rights activists and “so-called intellectuals and scholars.” But really, anyone who ruffles any feathers up the chain of command is dismissed, as evidenced by the firing of Todd Hendricks, a student employee who wrote an editorial critical of the BYUSA election process. Naturally, his performance was cited as the reason for his termination. Later, when it became clear that all of his performance reviews called him an excellent employee, the administration faulted him for not going through the proper channels.
And this brings us to the Machiavellian nature of BYU. Such things as “proper channels” exist for employees, not the university. The university is beyond reproach, for example, for faulting a professor for violating a policy that had never been implemented. Academic freedom, as it turns out, is to be enjoyed by the administration and not by the faculty or students.
Interesting, then, that the university’s statement on academic freedom reads:
“Individual freedom lies at the core of both religious and academic life. Freedom of thought, belief, inquiry, and expression are crucial no less to the sacred than to the secular quest for truth. Historically, in fact, freedom of conscience and freedom of intellect form a common root, from which grow both religious and academic freedom.”
Despite the official position citing no conflicts between religious and academic freedom, the freedom of thought, belief, inquiry, and expression is quickly curtailed when it runs up against the thoughts, beliefs, inquiries, and expressions of the administration and Board of Trustees. Needless to say, an unprotected freedom of dissenting thought is no freedom at all.
More double standards: liberal protests are deemed a childish embarrassment to the university, yet conservative protests earn an attentive ear. The university is supposedly not run by popular will, yet the administration frequently refers to the letters of complaining tithe-paying members in justifying its decisions. The university decries the politicization of academia, yet is one of the largest activist institutions for conservatism in the country.
Ernest Wilkinson, when he was president of BYU, campaigned to institute a policy through which bishops of student wards would keep tabs on “troubled” students. Faced with resistance from bishops and stake presidents, he promised that these lists would not affect their attendance at the university. With the policy in place however, Wilkinson denied registration to over 200 students based on supposedly confidential interviews.
This shouldn’t be surprising, as the university encourages anonymous snitching on Honor Code violators (and Wilkinson recruited students to spy on liberal professors). When a complaint is filed against you, even anonymously, you are treated as guilty, sometimes resulting in academic probation or expulsion, without so much as hearing. In a theology that claims free agency as a requisite for spiritual progression, how can a university that claims to subscribe to this theology use such Gestapo tactics?
To refer back to the academic freedom statement, the university’s defense lies in this clause: “a limitation is reasonable when the faculty behavior or expression… contradicts or opposes, rather than analyzes or discusses, fundamental Church doctrine or policy.” The question over what exactly composes “fundamental Church doctrine or policy” is the source of concern both for BYU faculty and the accreditation committee, who complained that such language was too vague.
What kind of agenda might the university have that would justify occupying such ethically shady ground? Naturally, it would be protecting the university from the danger of secularization. That’s right, multiculturalists, feminists, and gay rights activists everywhere are trying to get into BYU so they can pollute the doctrinal purity of the university with their diabolical propaganda. Even the appearance of evil might weaken the university and make it vulnerable to adverse influence, hence the Honor Code with its emphasis on a clean-cut, modest appearance. We wouldn't want young Mormon kids looking like those liberal rabble-rousers at Berkeley.
In the university’s defense, the Church has suffered intense persecution of all kinds from its inception. Adding to its tenuous position, though, is its mission of proselytizing the world. We want to simultaneously be left alone and have everyone agree with us. In a university setting, we want to be universally regarded as a great university, but without acquiescing to the world’s standards of greatness.
Additionally, our narrative of a secure Zion that is under threat of infiltration jibes with the neoconservative Cold War worldview. Once the Cold War ended, the political right needed a new subversive enemy to unite around, and that enemy became the tenured radicals of the university, the multi-culturalists and other supposed enemies of the foundations of Western civilization. Conservatives, with the unlikely alliance of Brigham Young University, became the self-appointed defenders of our country’s moral foundations.
President Bateman specifically targeted moral relativism as the poison that threatens the pure well water of BYU. Out of this mindset comes the rationalization for all of BYU’s shadowy activism.
But what’s so wrong with this worldview? I will answer that question in part II.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
RIP Michael Jackson
A lot of people have been taking jabs at Michael Jackson after learning of his death today. It makes me a little sad that such a talented, tortured man became such a joke, almost as sad as the news of his death made me. I want to pay a sincere tribute to Michael Jackson, because without him music as we know it wouldn't be the same.
Not only did he have an amazing voice, he was an amazing songwriter. Not only was he an amazing musician, he was an amazing showman and the best dancer in the world. I remember watching a Thriller documentary that showed rehearsals of the choreography. They recruited world-class dancers for the video, and they spent all day learning the moves. Then Michael Jackson came in at the end of the day and caught up to the rest of them in minutes. He had a singular ability to pull off technical moves like the moonwalk with superhuman fluidity.
With such an abundance of talent, he had the makings of the world's biggest superstar, but that doesn't mean that being the world's all-time best selling artist was an easy task. Watching him perform, you can see the hard work and devotion he gave to his craft. I get chills watching concert footage of him. It makes me very sad to know that now I will never have the opportunity to attend a Michael Jackson concert in person. As such a critical person as I am, Michael Jackson gave me (and gives me) the rare, enjoyable experience of basking in pure greatness.
He is the King of Pop because he took pop music to a new level. It's extremely rare that I attend a dance party where at least one Michael Jackson song isn't played. He was the rarest of artists, the kind of high caliber who achieved extraordinary popularity. That is the ideal that I strive for, and his music reminds me that it is possible. Because of this, I pay tribute to a genius taken before his time.
Not only did he have an amazing voice, he was an amazing songwriter. Not only was he an amazing musician, he was an amazing showman and the best dancer in the world. I remember watching a Thriller documentary that showed rehearsals of the choreography. They recruited world-class dancers for the video, and they spent all day learning the moves. Then Michael Jackson came in at the end of the day and caught up to the rest of them in minutes. He had a singular ability to pull off technical moves like the moonwalk with superhuman fluidity.
With such an abundance of talent, he had the makings of the world's biggest superstar, but that doesn't mean that being the world's all-time best selling artist was an easy task. Watching him perform, you can see the hard work and devotion he gave to his craft. I get chills watching concert footage of him. It makes me very sad to know that now I will never have the opportunity to attend a Michael Jackson concert in person. As such a critical person as I am, Michael Jackson gave me (and gives me) the rare, enjoyable experience of basking in pure greatness.
He is the King of Pop because he took pop music to a new level. It's extremely rare that I attend a dance party where at least one Michael Jackson song isn't played. He was the rarest of artists, the kind of high caliber who achieved extraordinary popularity. That is the ideal that I strive for, and his music reminds me that it is possible. Because of this, I pay tribute to a genius taken before his time.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
FIMY reviews the curious case of benjamin button
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, contains a fantastic premise: Benjamin is born as an old man, and instead of growing older throughout life, he gets progressively younger.
The genius of the movie, however, is that the emotional weight of the movie comes from the entirely normal parts of Benjamin's life--meeting people, falling in love, leaving, watching people die. It doesn't take a person growing younger to experience the discomfort of life's changes.
It is in this sense that Benjamin Button is a truthful movie, in that it exposes through a narrative conceit our collective fantasy of permanence. Since we all grow older, we perpetuate a delusion that we are all traveling along the same timeline, something like traveling together on a train. Benjamin Button explodes this myth by creating a character that is traveling the opposite way on the tracks. The other characters in the movie seem to regard him as some sort of abnormality, which thrusts his entirely normal life into relief.
The myth of traveling along the same timeline, like a train on tracks, fools us into thinking that there is a path that all of our lives follow. But the movie, through Benjamin's "unusual" situation, shows us how impermanent our lives are, how subject to change through others and ourselves.
Amidst all this deconstruction, there are a couple of thematic threads in the narrative that I don't entirely agree with. The American ideal of a disassociation from history is present, even romanticized. Benjamin ultimately returns from his wanderings to be with Daisy, but the mooring to his past is seen as willful. By contrast, The Great Gatsby offers a much sterner critique of the American idea of total reinvention.
Furthermore, the movie uses the premise to glorify the adult adolescence of Benjamin, indulging a male fantasy of ditching responsibility in favor of wanderlust. Benjamin's forgiveness seems to come merely by virtue of Daisy's love for him, which continues through her maternal care of him as an infant, another male fantasy.
The cinematography and directing reinforces this critique of timelines, with clearly stylized ocean scenes and frequent references to time. Through Benjamin's story, we realize that the other characters' adherence to these fictions of temporality is a frame of mind rather than a hard and fast external reality.
Conclusion: overall, a really good movie. Really good performances, good pace, good directing. Better than Slumdog.
The genius of the movie, however, is that the emotional weight of the movie comes from the entirely normal parts of Benjamin's life--meeting people, falling in love, leaving, watching people die. It doesn't take a person growing younger to experience the discomfort of life's changes.
It is in this sense that Benjamin Button is a truthful movie, in that it exposes through a narrative conceit our collective fantasy of permanence. Since we all grow older, we perpetuate a delusion that we are all traveling along the same timeline, something like traveling together on a train. Benjamin Button explodes this myth by creating a character that is traveling the opposite way on the tracks. The other characters in the movie seem to regard him as some sort of abnormality, which thrusts his entirely normal life into relief.
The myth of traveling along the same timeline, like a train on tracks, fools us into thinking that there is a path that all of our lives follow. But the movie, through Benjamin's "unusual" situation, shows us how impermanent our lives are, how subject to change through others and ourselves.
Amidst all this deconstruction, there are a couple of thematic threads in the narrative that I don't entirely agree with. The American ideal of a disassociation from history is present, even romanticized. Benjamin ultimately returns from his wanderings to be with Daisy, but the mooring to his past is seen as willful. By contrast, The Great Gatsby offers a much sterner critique of the American idea of total reinvention.
Furthermore, the movie uses the premise to glorify the adult adolescence of Benjamin, indulging a male fantasy of ditching responsibility in favor of wanderlust. Benjamin's forgiveness seems to come merely by virtue of Daisy's love for him, which continues through her maternal care of him as an infant, another male fantasy.
The cinematography and directing reinforces this critique of timelines, with clearly stylized ocean scenes and frequent references to time. Through Benjamin's story, we realize that the other characters' adherence to these fictions of temporality is a frame of mind rather than a hard and fast external reality.
Conclusion: overall, a really good movie. Really good performances, good pace, good directing. Better than Slumdog.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
gripe
I'm annoyed for several reasons, and I don't know what else to do about it, so here goes. The Protons ended up having to pay $10 for the privilege of playing in Velour's Battle of the Bands. Thanks, Corey Fox! Mind you, this is in addition to the FREE LABOR that we already provided in writing, rehearsing, and performing our songs (without which he wouldn't have any attraction for people to pay him $5), promoting the stupid thing, and moving our gear and bodies down to Provo. Can I get you a drink, too, Corey? Need your feet rubbed? Thanks soo much for providing little Provo with the coolest venue ever, without which Provo's "scene" would surely dry up and blow away.
After the show I was offered some unsolicited dating advice from someone who has no knowledge of my dating life. Wtf?
On my way out of my favorite city in Utah County, a police officer on foot had set up camp with a radar gun on the corner of Center St. and 500 W. He shined a flashlight at me and told me to pull over. Apparently I was going 28 in a 15 mph zone. After he informed me of this, he went back to his police car and made himself a cup of tea and watched an episode of Sanford & Son, or at least that's what he could have done with the amount of time he was gone. His partner meanwhile pulled over another speeder, who happened to be a Velour crony who liked the Protons. The cop came back and told me he would give me a ticket, but for 24 mph instead of 28 mph, as if he was doing me a f****** favor. He wouldn't tell me what the fine was, because I have to call a number after 4 days but no later than 15 days on the 3rd wednesday of a waning gibbous or some equally byzantine arrangement.
I've been wearing mesh bottoms all day.
To top it all off, I live in a society that persecuted a beautiful religion to the point where it had to bury its most profound, peculiar doctrines and live in some freakish Disneyland simulacrum in order to survive. By all indications, the leadership and most of the membership of said religion are still preoccupied with demonstrating to a particular American demographic its loyal patriotism to American values, even though said demographic will never accept us and probably barely exists anymore anyway, unless you count the members of the religion who now seem, oddly enough, to be keeping afloat the values of the same culture that for generations tried to extinguish said religion. And, in the thick of the bizarre machinations of this P.R. stunt I'm getting chewed up and thrown to the wayside because I represent in my thinking and speech EXACTLY THE SORT OF RADICAL, ICONOCLASTIC RELIGION THAT THE CHURCH USED TO STAND FOR.
And one last thing while I'm bitching. People who worry about being cool are insecure and overprivileged.
After the show I was offered some unsolicited dating advice from someone who has no knowledge of my dating life. Wtf?
On my way out of my favorite city in Utah County, a police officer on foot had set up camp with a radar gun on the corner of Center St. and 500 W. He shined a flashlight at me and told me to pull over. Apparently I was going 28 in a 15 mph zone. After he informed me of this, he went back to his police car and made himself a cup of tea and watched an episode of Sanford & Son, or at least that's what he could have done with the amount of time he was gone. His partner meanwhile pulled over another speeder, who happened to be a Velour crony who liked the Protons. The cop came back and told me he would give me a ticket, but for 24 mph instead of 28 mph, as if he was doing me a f****** favor. He wouldn't tell me what the fine was, because I have to call a number after 4 days but no later than 15 days on the 3rd wednesday of a waning gibbous or some equally byzantine arrangement.
I've been wearing mesh bottoms all day.
To top it all off, I live in a society that persecuted a beautiful religion to the point where it had to bury its most profound, peculiar doctrines and live in some freakish Disneyland simulacrum in order to survive. By all indications, the leadership and most of the membership of said religion are still preoccupied with demonstrating to a particular American demographic its loyal patriotism to American values, even though said demographic will never accept us and probably barely exists anymore anyway, unless you count the members of the religion who now seem, oddly enough, to be keeping afloat the values of the same culture that for generations tried to extinguish said religion. And, in the thick of the bizarre machinations of this P.R. stunt I'm getting chewed up and thrown to the wayside because I represent in my thinking and speech EXACTLY THE SORT OF RADICAL, ICONOCLASTIC RELIGION THAT THE CHURCH USED TO STAND FOR.
And one last thing while I'm bitching. People who worry about being cool are insecure and overprivileged.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
music
All I want to do is music. So imagine my delight when I came across 8 or 9 old bits of songs lately that I can turn into real songs. Imagine your delight when I drop a couple on you pretty pretty soon. The Super Midnight stuff was a detour, so I'm going back to pop music. But I'm keeping the ambient drones. Plus distortion.
Also, I've got Adam and Darcie in the live Straight Up! show, and I think it's sounding pretty good. You should all come June 19 to the Au Revoir Simone show. (A&D's new album is terrific, btw)
In addition to Straight Up!, I'm also going to play in an emo band with Phil Smallwood called Will Darkness Listen. And there has been talk of a Neil Young cover band. And I've been talking to Mr. Rook about recording, because I've been serving him up some fresh beats. Best summer ever.
Also, I've got Adam and Darcie in the live Straight Up! show, and I think it's sounding pretty good. You should all come June 19 to the Au Revoir Simone show. (A&D's new album is terrific, btw)
In addition to Straight Up!, I'm also going to play in an emo band with Phil Smallwood called Will Darkness Listen. And there has been talk of a Neil Young cover band. And I've been talking to Mr. Rook about recording, because I've been serving him up some fresh beats. Best summer ever.
Monday, June 01, 2009
speaking up days XII and XIII: personal virtue and mass rape, respectively
Ok, so I missed a Speaking Up Day in May. I meant to do it, but didn't have time in my busy schedule of bike rides to the library and playing with Susan the dog.
May's Speaking Up Day wouldn't have really fit the form anyway. Going along with my manifesto post, I want to challenge those of you who would accept to improve yourself as a means of social change. Specifically, find the one thing that makes you the angriest, find the worst criminal you can imagine, and purge yourself of that very impulse; find the proverbial beam in your own eye.
June's Speaking Up Day has to do with mass rape. Rape is often used as a weapon of war and terror, but doesn't tend to get acknowledged as such. During the Civil War in Liberia from 1989 to 2003, 75% of Liberia's women were raped. In an article, Nicholas D. Kristof (who I really like) describes how this atrocity of war persists to the present.
So I'm piggy-backing on his idea:
"This is one of those fields where links and support from around the Web could create a groundswell to focus more attention on sexual violence, and that’s the first step toward getting respectability for the cause — and, then, for prevention efforts" (from "Silence is the Enemy").
If you're concerned, read the article, link to it, write your Congressperson, do something that will break through our distaste for discussing sexual violence.
UPDATE: There is now a Facebook group.
May's Speaking Up Day wouldn't have really fit the form anyway. Going along with my manifesto post, I want to challenge those of you who would accept to improve yourself as a means of social change. Specifically, find the one thing that makes you the angriest, find the worst criminal you can imagine, and purge yourself of that very impulse; find the proverbial beam in your own eye.
June's Speaking Up Day has to do with mass rape. Rape is often used as a weapon of war and terror, but doesn't tend to get acknowledged as such. During the Civil War in Liberia from 1989 to 2003, 75% of Liberia's women were raped. In an article, Nicholas D. Kristof (who I really like) describes how this atrocity of war persists to the present.
So I'm piggy-backing on his idea:
"This is one of those fields where links and support from around the Web could create a groundswell to focus more attention on sexual violence, and that’s the first step toward getting respectability for the cause — and, then, for prevention efforts" (from "Silence is the Enemy").
If you're concerned, read the article, link to it, write your Congressperson, do something that will break through our distaste for discussing sexual violence.
UPDATE: There is now a Facebook group.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
interpretive communities and no-clothes emperors
I read an article about Han van Meegeren, who was a painter who copied the style of Jan Vermeer to pass off his own paintings as lost Vermeers. He was so successful that one of the most prominent Dutch art critics called a painting by Van Meegeren the greatest Vermeer.
Naturally, the public and critical opinion of the painting dropped precipitously when it was discovered to be a "fake."
Errol Morris, the author of the article, alludes to "The Emperor's New Clothes," suggesting that everyone agreed on an opinion to bolster their reputations. This comparison casts an unfavorable light on the art community at large, as it suggests that art lovers only care about the name of the artist, which is to say they only care what everyone else thinks.
This is true to a point. We all belong to interpretive communities, to use Stanley Fish's term, which goes for everything from fine art to things as mundane as our everyday speech. The ideas that we use to communicate within our communities carry agreed-upon meanings, which also means that they carry agreed-upon value.
This idea clashes with the typical discourse on art--a successful work of art is a communication between the artist and the viewer that is felt personally and deeply. We like to think that there is something transcendent about great art that speaks to our soul, something that we can feel but not explain. To ground such a feeling in something as explainable as an interpretive community seems to rob us of our personal feelings about the art that we love.
But we can't entirely explain away our personal feelings about works of art. Even if we take into consideration the confluence of our many interpretive communities, we still have favorites and dislikes that are idiosyncratic.
Besides, why is it so disappointing to see works of art as things that bind us to our communities, shared cultural experiences? I still love classic rock because my older brothers listened to it when I was growing up. When I hear certain songs, a large part of my enjoyment comes from knowing that my brothers enjoy it too.
There is also enjoyment in your idiosyncratic tastes; I proudly dislike some Van Halen songs, and I enjoy The Fall even if no one I know listens to them. But it's a false hope to try to attain 100% idiosyncratic taste. If artists and art lovers in the West would own up to the extent to which our communities shape our opinions, we would be less vulnerable to detractors who claim that art lovers are merely dilettantes. Thoughts?
Naturally, the public and critical opinion of the painting dropped precipitously when it was discovered to be a "fake."
Errol Morris, the author of the article, alludes to "The Emperor's New Clothes," suggesting that everyone agreed on an opinion to bolster their reputations. This comparison casts an unfavorable light on the art community at large, as it suggests that art lovers only care about the name of the artist, which is to say they only care what everyone else thinks.
This is true to a point. We all belong to interpretive communities, to use Stanley Fish's term, which goes for everything from fine art to things as mundane as our everyday speech. The ideas that we use to communicate within our communities carry agreed-upon meanings, which also means that they carry agreed-upon value.
This idea clashes with the typical discourse on art--a successful work of art is a communication between the artist and the viewer that is felt personally and deeply. We like to think that there is something transcendent about great art that speaks to our soul, something that we can feel but not explain. To ground such a feeling in something as explainable as an interpretive community seems to rob us of our personal feelings about the art that we love.
But we can't entirely explain away our personal feelings about works of art. Even if we take into consideration the confluence of our many interpretive communities, we still have favorites and dislikes that are idiosyncratic.
Besides, why is it so disappointing to see works of art as things that bind us to our communities, shared cultural experiences? I still love classic rock because my older brothers listened to it when I was growing up. When I hear certain songs, a large part of my enjoyment comes from knowing that my brothers enjoy it too.
There is also enjoyment in your idiosyncratic tastes; I proudly dislike some Van Halen songs, and I enjoy The Fall even if no one I know listens to them. But it's a false hope to try to attain 100% idiosyncratic taste. If artists and art lovers in the West would own up to the extent to which our communities shape our opinions, we would be less vulnerable to detractors who claim that art lovers are merely dilettantes. Thoughts?
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
mormon causes that mormons ignore
So I’ve been reading The Lord’s University, an account of issues of academic freedom at BYU. I recommend it for anyone who attended or who is otherwise interested in BYU. Of course, the Honor Code devotees who most need to read the book would never open it or else summarily reject the meticulously detailed research somehow.
Anyway, it’s got me thinking again, for better or worse, on the clear conservative bias of the leaders of the Church, many of whom have been intimately concerned with the affairs of BYU.
What I don’t understand is why the Church decides to inject itself with a hard and fast position in messy debates like the Equal Rights Amendment and gay marriage. Members and leaders of the Church appear to subscribe to the opinion that the world is steadily devolving, and all our efforts should go towards stemming the tide, even though we know that eventually the world will become irreparably wicked. Ernest Wilkinson, the former BYU president who gave us the modern Honor Code and in whose student center BYU cool kids regularly gather to eat from the Word of Wisdom-flouting Cougareat, believed that the USA would soon be destroyed for wickedness and that requiring Cougars to dress modestly and keep their hair short would stave off the liberal agitation that was tempting the Apocalypse.
Anyway, if gay marriage will really ruin the fabric of society and call down the wrath of a vengeful god, it’s probably not the only thing about our society that will. So here’s my list of progressive causes that the Church has ignored in favor of more patriot-friendly ones.
“It is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin” (D&C 49:20).
Income inequity has proved historically to provoke more societal unrest than any other issue. If we’re concerned with the unraveling of society, why do we continue to shout down any support for a system that doesn’t promote a gulf between rich and poor? Putting aside the fact that we accept capitalism a priori as the best imaginable system, why are we so opposed to progressive taxation and business regulation, including actually enforcing the tax code on the 80% of US corporations who use offshore tax shelters?
The oft-cited defense is that even though income inequity has been steadily on the rise since the 60’s, we are all better off than we were then. Well, real wages have actually dipped since then, but beside that, there is absolutely no evidence that the Lord cares about our having a DVD player and two cars. Instead, “this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low” (D&C 104:16). If equality comes at the expense of ballooning wealth for the super-rich, so be it. Yet it’s a sacred cow, even in Mormonism, that those with means are entitled to an ever-expanding piece of the pie. This is a clear case of cultural bias taking precedence over LDS doctrine.
“Renounce war and proclaim peace… And again, this is the law that I gave unto mine ancients, that they should not go out unto battle against any nation, kindred, tongue, or people, save I, the Lord, commanded them. And if any nation, tongue, or people should proclaim war against them, they should first lift a standard of peace unto that people, nation, or tongue; and if that people did not accept the offering of peace, neither the second nor the third time, they should bring these testimonies before the Lord; then I, the Lord, would give unto them a commandment, and justify them in going out to battle against that nation, tongue, or people” (D&C 98:16, 33-36).
The Iraq war has cost a half million Iraqi lives, cost the US $2 trillion and thousands of soldiers’ lives, alienated many of our allies, galvanized terrorist opposition, set unsettling precedents in terms of torture and privatized warfare, and overall displayed a bumbling, naive effort full of selfish power struggles and unaccountable immorality.
With every day that passes since its miserable inception, it becomes clearer that Bush et al. engineered a case for the American people and Congress with the predetermined conclusion of invading Iraq. At our most generous, we could say that Pres. Bush truly believed that Saddam Hussein had WMD’s. But even then, according to the above passage of scripture, this is not justification for war.
Where were the Saints in pushing back against the rush to war?
“It is expedient that I, the Lord, should make every man accountable, as a steward over earthly blessings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures” (D&C 104:13).
There can be no doubting the importance of the earth’s Creation in LDS theology. What is less certain is our collective commitment to taking seriously our stewardship of it. Salt Lake City has the 6th worst air pollution in the country, and Utah County gets an F for air quality. We blithely watch industrial mining tear down the mountains around us, favoring industry in the imaginary economy/environment opposition. Utah Lake, thanks to the indiscriminate dumping of waste, is practically a dead swamp.
Furthermore, we fail to get involved on a broader scale, even as environmental decay threatens God’s greatest creation: humanity.
“I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose” (D&C 101:80).
Mormons’ cultural allegiance to the Republican Party left us blind to the realities of Pres. Bush’s power-seeking, filling us up instead with the veneer of patriot rhetoric and opposition-bashing. The Bush administration took executive privilege to a startling degree, bypassing the court’s checks on surveillance. He convinced Congress to grant him their Constitutional power of declaring war, and even was allowed to sign into law an act that strips habeas corpus from US citizens deemed (by the Executive Branch, of course) to be “enemy combatants.”
My purpose with this is not to argue for more political intervention from the Church, but for less. The mix of politics and religion, I’ve said before, make for bad politics and worse religion. Additionally, I would like us all to take a step back and try to distinguish our culture from the Lord’s culture and strive to more fully adapt the latter.
Anyway, it’s got me thinking again, for better or worse, on the clear conservative bias of the leaders of the Church, many of whom have been intimately concerned with the affairs of BYU.
What I don’t understand is why the Church decides to inject itself with a hard and fast position in messy debates like the Equal Rights Amendment and gay marriage. Members and leaders of the Church appear to subscribe to the opinion that the world is steadily devolving, and all our efforts should go towards stemming the tide, even though we know that eventually the world will become irreparably wicked. Ernest Wilkinson, the former BYU president who gave us the modern Honor Code and in whose student center BYU cool kids regularly gather to eat from the Word of Wisdom-flouting Cougareat, believed that the USA would soon be destroyed for wickedness and that requiring Cougars to dress modestly and keep their hair short would stave off the liberal agitation that was tempting the Apocalypse.
Anyway, if gay marriage will really ruin the fabric of society and call down the wrath of a vengeful god, it’s probably not the only thing about our society that will. So here’s my list of progressive causes that the Church has ignored in favor of more patriot-friendly ones.
“It is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin” (D&C 49:20).
Income inequity has proved historically to provoke more societal unrest than any other issue. If we’re concerned with the unraveling of society, why do we continue to shout down any support for a system that doesn’t promote a gulf between rich and poor? Putting aside the fact that we accept capitalism a priori as the best imaginable system, why are we so opposed to progressive taxation and business regulation, including actually enforcing the tax code on the 80% of US corporations who use offshore tax shelters?
The oft-cited defense is that even though income inequity has been steadily on the rise since the 60’s, we are all better off than we were then. Well, real wages have actually dipped since then, but beside that, there is absolutely no evidence that the Lord cares about our having a DVD player and two cars. Instead, “this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low” (D&C 104:16). If equality comes at the expense of ballooning wealth for the super-rich, so be it. Yet it’s a sacred cow, even in Mormonism, that those with means are entitled to an ever-expanding piece of the pie. This is a clear case of cultural bias taking precedence over LDS doctrine.
“Renounce war and proclaim peace… And again, this is the law that I gave unto mine ancients, that they should not go out unto battle against any nation, kindred, tongue, or people, save I, the Lord, commanded them. And if any nation, tongue, or people should proclaim war against them, they should first lift a standard of peace unto that people, nation, or tongue; and if that people did not accept the offering of peace, neither the second nor the third time, they should bring these testimonies before the Lord; then I, the Lord, would give unto them a commandment, and justify them in going out to battle against that nation, tongue, or people” (D&C 98:16, 33-36).
The Iraq war has cost a half million Iraqi lives, cost the US $2 trillion and thousands of soldiers’ lives, alienated many of our allies, galvanized terrorist opposition, set unsettling precedents in terms of torture and privatized warfare, and overall displayed a bumbling, naive effort full of selfish power struggles and unaccountable immorality.
With every day that passes since its miserable inception, it becomes clearer that Bush et al. engineered a case for the American people and Congress with the predetermined conclusion of invading Iraq. At our most generous, we could say that Pres. Bush truly believed that Saddam Hussein had WMD’s. But even then, according to the above passage of scripture, this is not justification for war.
Where were the Saints in pushing back against the rush to war?
“It is expedient that I, the Lord, should make every man accountable, as a steward over earthly blessings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures” (D&C 104:13).
There can be no doubting the importance of the earth’s Creation in LDS theology. What is less certain is our collective commitment to taking seriously our stewardship of it. Salt Lake City has the 6th worst air pollution in the country, and Utah County gets an F for air quality. We blithely watch industrial mining tear down the mountains around us, favoring industry in the imaginary economy/environment opposition. Utah Lake, thanks to the indiscriminate dumping of waste, is practically a dead swamp.
Furthermore, we fail to get involved on a broader scale, even as environmental decay threatens God’s greatest creation: humanity.
“I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose” (D&C 101:80).
Mormons’ cultural allegiance to the Republican Party left us blind to the realities of Pres. Bush’s power-seeking, filling us up instead with the veneer of patriot rhetoric and opposition-bashing. The Bush administration took executive privilege to a startling degree, bypassing the court’s checks on surveillance. He convinced Congress to grant him their Constitutional power of declaring war, and even was allowed to sign into law an act that strips habeas corpus from US citizens deemed (by the Executive Branch, of course) to be “enemy combatants.”
My purpose with this is not to argue for more political intervention from the Church, but for less. The mix of politics and religion, I’ve said before, make for bad politics and worse religion. Additionally, I would like us all to take a step back and try to distinguish our culture from the Lord’s culture and strive to more fully adapt the latter.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
manifesto
“If you want to make the world a better place
Just look at yourself and make the change”
-Michael Jackson
Words of sage advice from (still) the world’s greatest entertainer. In this post, I will in all seriousness make the case that the best way to save the world is to begin with self-improvement.
The systemic injustices of the world seem to demand sweeping, systemic solutions. However, these repeatedly miss the mark, not least of which because we tend to boil systemic problems down to one factor and propose its binary opposite as the cure—more food will solve global hunger, more money will solve global poverty, more force will solve war and terrorism, etc. Any student of development quickly realizes that systemic problems are not so cut and dry.
One reason is that human systems are not some external mechanism, but will inevitably reflect the humans that compose them. Dumping money into a country will never solve its poverty, because the system for distributing wealth will reflect the souls of its members. If an ethos of selfishness exists, even among the poor (it is a mistake, tempting though it may be, to lionize the unfortunate), an unequal distribution of wealth will occur. This is one reason why late capitalism and its championing of greed will never cure poverty. The humans behind the system do not value anything above their own self-interest.
As long as humanity has had a history of oppression and exploitation, it has had a history of systemic solutions, typically a revolution of some sort. Most revolutions have been doomed to repeat the excesses and injustices of their parent societies, as they are performed with the assumption that the aggrieved are in the right simply by their being mistreated. Seldom do they have the foresight to see their enemy in themselves.
The American Revolution is a notable exception. (I’m not going to launch into an American Heritage lesson; don’t worry. There was plenty of abuse, exploitation, and hypocrisy in the U.S.A.’s founding.) What they got right was to anticipate that revolutionaries themselves, once out from under the king’s grasp, would try to set themselves up with as much power as possible. So the founders designed a form of government that would pit aspirations for power against other aspirations for power. The result has been a remarkably stable (if wholly unspectacular in the realization of its ideals) nation.
Even this breaks down. The U.S. system isn’t perfect, as we saw in an alarming degree during the Bush presidency. If the electorate doesn’t mind a lopsided executive branch, it will get it.
So what is the hope for humanity?*
If we can’t depend on systemic solutions, we have to reform the individuals within the systems. The problems that have faced humanity throughout recorded history are not simple enough to be pinned on the Republicans, nor are they external to those who acknowledge the myriad problems facing humanity (but it is a small victory to acknowledge them). They are present in each of us, like a kind of virus in our DNA. That’s why I feel that all of liberal orthodoxy isn’t worth one of Jesus’ teachings:
“How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye” (Matthew 7:4-5, NIV).
If we want to scrub humanity of its greed, lack of compassion, intemperance, cruelty, violence, and covetousness, we have to first get it out of our own hearts.
But once we start with the proverbial man in the mirror, we have to remember not to stop there. We then have to help someone else do the same.
Again, as humans are complex creatures, there are bound to be complications. First of all, how do you know when you are actually helping someone and not simply projecting your own guilt and insecurities onto someone vulnerable under the guise of helping them? I would say that if it feels like you’re giving someone a present that you received in turn, you’re helping them. If you don’t feel like you’ve been given any presents, take time for yourself, ignore the pressing problems around you, and learn to forgive and take care of yourself. This will feel selfish, given the urgency of the problems the world faces, but it is necessary. Saddling yourself with guilt is part of the problem, not the solution.
Another challenge is that humans offend each other even when not willfully malicious; sometimes people are careless because of a lack of appreciation for others’ circumstances. While the victim has every right to be offended, this isn’t productive. Saving the world will require both a sensitivity to justice and a generous talent for dissociating oneself from offense.
Reforming oneself and helping others to do the same requires discipline. It means giving up self-destructive behaviors and habits—if you don’t care enough about yourself to preserve yourself, how can you care what happens to humanity?
Saving the world requires an intolerance for injustice (others’ and our own) but also a sense of mercy for those (others and ourselves) who perform it or are complicit with it. It’s a marvelous balancing act.
Even if we did solve the world’s problems for a generation, there would be the issue of raising our children so as to not revert to the ancient patterns. If we became too jealous of our state of being, our distaste for injustice could turn to panic, leading to overstrict parenting, which would leave our teenagers to find psychological comfort in indulging in what we find abhorrent.
To be explicit about my influences, my view on this comes largely from my religion, both the doctrines and my personal spiritual experiences. So I have to acknowledge that my religion teaches that humanity will continue to polarize itself into good and evil camps until we have practically destroyed ourselves, at which point Jesus Christ will destroy the wicked and transform the Earth into the home of the righteous forever; salvation will come from above. But I don’t think it’s contradictory to believe that we can salvage humanity into a more peaceful, prosperous existence for everyone.
Of course, we would have to abandon oppressive systems, such as our lack of regulation of pollutants and our exploitation of the world’s poor; I’m not suggesting that we halt entirely efforts at systemic reform.
Ultimately my point is that saving the world is best done counterintuitively--that is to say, person to person. A personal injustice assuaged makes it less likely that injustice will be waged on a grand scale.
*The attempt to save humanity is a fight against nature. We’re trying to save cultures that are failing to adapt to modernity. The Marxist notion of a linear progression to utopia where capitalism is the only obstacle is a fantasy and a hindrance. A global, pluralistic, peaceful, prosperous society is an uphill battle, folks.
Just look at yourself and make the change”
-Michael Jackson
Words of sage advice from (still) the world’s greatest entertainer. In this post, I will in all seriousness make the case that the best way to save the world is to begin with self-improvement.
The systemic injustices of the world seem to demand sweeping, systemic solutions. However, these repeatedly miss the mark, not least of which because we tend to boil systemic problems down to one factor and propose its binary opposite as the cure—more food will solve global hunger, more money will solve global poverty, more force will solve war and terrorism, etc. Any student of development quickly realizes that systemic problems are not so cut and dry.
One reason is that human systems are not some external mechanism, but will inevitably reflect the humans that compose them. Dumping money into a country will never solve its poverty, because the system for distributing wealth will reflect the souls of its members. If an ethos of selfishness exists, even among the poor (it is a mistake, tempting though it may be, to lionize the unfortunate), an unequal distribution of wealth will occur. This is one reason why late capitalism and its championing of greed will never cure poverty. The humans behind the system do not value anything above their own self-interest.
As long as humanity has had a history of oppression and exploitation, it has had a history of systemic solutions, typically a revolution of some sort. Most revolutions have been doomed to repeat the excesses and injustices of their parent societies, as they are performed with the assumption that the aggrieved are in the right simply by their being mistreated. Seldom do they have the foresight to see their enemy in themselves.
The American Revolution is a notable exception. (I’m not going to launch into an American Heritage lesson; don’t worry. There was plenty of abuse, exploitation, and hypocrisy in the U.S.A.’s founding.) What they got right was to anticipate that revolutionaries themselves, once out from under the king’s grasp, would try to set themselves up with as much power as possible. So the founders designed a form of government that would pit aspirations for power against other aspirations for power. The result has been a remarkably stable (if wholly unspectacular in the realization of its ideals) nation.
Even this breaks down. The U.S. system isn’t perfect, as we saw in an alarming degree during the Bush presidency. If the electorate doesn’t mind a lopsided executive branch, it will get it.
So what is the hope for humanity?*
If we can’t depend on systemic solutions, we have to reform the individuals within the systems. The problems that have faced humanity throughout recorded history are not simple enough to be pinned on the Republicans, nor are they external to those who acknowledge the myriad problems facing humanity (but it is a small victory to acknowledge them). They are present in each of us, like a kind of virus in our DNA. That’s why I feel that all of liberal orthodoxy isn’t worth one of Jesus’ teachings:
“How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye” (Matthew 7:4-5, NIV).
If we want to scrub humanity of its greed, lack of compassion, intemperance, cruelty, violence, and covetousness, we have to first get it out of our own hearts.
But once we start with the proverbial man in the mirror, we have to remember not to stop there. We then have to help someone else do the same.
Again, as humans are complex creatures, there are bound to be complications. First of all, how do you know when you are actually helping someone and not simply projecting your own guilt and insecurities onto someone vulnerable under the guise of helping them? I would say that if it feels like you’re giving someone a present that you received in turn, you’re helping them. If you don’t feel like you’ve been given any presents, take time for yourself, ignore the pressing problems around you, and learn to forgive and take care of yourself. This will feel selfish, given the urgency of the problems the world faces, but it is necessary. Saddling yourself with guilt is part of the problem, not the solution.
Another challenge is that humans offend each other even when not willfully malicious; sometimes people are careless because of a lack of appreciation for others’ circumstances. While the victim has every right to be offended, this isn’t productive. Saving the world will require both a sensitivity to justice and a generous talent for dissociating oneself from offense.
Reforming oneself and helping others to do the same requires discipline. It means giving up self-destructive behaviors and habits—if you don’t care enough about yourself to preserve yourself, how can you care what happens to humanity?
Saving the world requires an intolerance for injustice (others’ and our own) but also a sense of mercy for those (others and ourselves) who perform it or are complicit with it. It’s a marvelous balancing act.
Even if we did solve the world’s problems for a generation, there would be the issue of raising our children so as to not revert to the ancient patterns. If we became too jealous of our state of being, our distaste for injustice could turn to panic, leading to overstrict parenting, which would leave our teenagers to find psychological comfort in indulging in what we find abhorrent.
To be explicit about my influences, my view on this comes largely from my religion, both the doctrines and my personal spiritual experiences. So I have to acknowledge that my religion teaches that humanity will continue to polarize itself into good and evil camps until we have practically destroyed ourselves, at which point Jesus Christ will destroy the wicked and transform the Earth into the home of the righteous forever; salvation will come from above. But I don’t think it’s contradictory to believe that we can salvage humanity into a more peaceful, prosperous existence for everyone.
Of course, we would have to abandon oppressive systems, such as our lack of regulation of pollutants and our exploitation of the world’s poor; I’m not suggesting that we halt entirely efforts at systemic reform.
Ultimately my point is that saving the world is best done counterintuitively--that is to say, person to person. A personal injustice assuaged makes it less likely that injustice will be waged on a grand scale.
*The attempt to save humanity is a fight against nature. We’re trying to save cultures that are failing to adapt to modernity. The Marxist notion of a linear progression to utopia where capitalism is the only obstacle is a fantasy and a hindrance. A global, pluralistic, peaceful, prosperous society is an uphill battle, folks.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
super midnight
I uploaded the last track of Super Midnight. You can now download and enjoy the full ep at my website: fridayismyweekend.googlepages.com
what I wrote for my mom for mother's day
Whenever anyone learns that I’m the youngest in my family, they always joke about my being spoiled. I tried to deny it for so long, but it’s true. I am spoiled.
Of course, everyone thinks of being spoiled in the material sense—getting whatever toys and clothes and money that one asks for. I can’t say I didn’t get more of that than my older siblings, but I also refused quite a bit of it, conscious of the stigma. No, when I say I’m spoiled, I mean I’m spoiled by how my mother, Carolyn Housley, sees me. I can do no wrong in her eyes. I’m always right, always noble, always the hero.
The downside of this is that I want everyone else to see me that way, to look past my mistakes and questionable judgment calls and see me as a hero. I tend to test girlfriends by pushing them away, trying to see if they can value me in the same way my mother does. I’m almost offended when prospective girlfriends look at my lack of marketable skills and aversion to conventional employment and don’t see me as destined for greatness.
But the upside of my being “spoiled” greatly outweighs any downside. My mother’s love has helped me to value myself when others haven’t, when I’m tempted to measure myself by my failings.
A couple of winters ago I was going through a really hard time. I had just graduated, moved across the country, and was preparing for law school in the fall while working at a law firm. Most significantly, I had fled the pharisaical culture of Utah County Mormonism, realizing that not only was it making me increasingly edgy and bitter, but I was myself was beginning to adopt the prevalent keeping-up-with-the-Johnsons spirituality.
I was confident in my assessment that such an attitude wasn’t intrinsic to the LDS Church, confined only in the self-righteous bubble of Provo, Utah. Consequently, it was devastating to find the same kind of attitude in the same kinds of kids in the same kind of ward in Washington, DC. I felt inadequate—even with the plan of going to law school, I felt directionless and foolish for having moved there without a short-term plan. I felt undervalued—no one seemed to want to talk in Sunday School about the kinds of questions that I did. And, I felt lonely. Mormons in DC were absorbed with things that I cared nothing about—titles, salaries, position, power, influence, esteem.
It was at this low point that I heard a talk from a member of the stake presidency at stake conference. The talk was pleasant enough, if not entirely memorable, up until one of his last points. He began to extol the virtues of “good” music, opining that the natural order of God’s creation is reflected in harmonious, sonorous music. He scorned discordant music, likening it to contention and confusion.
The point was innocent enough, unless you are attuned to its subtext as I happened to be. His point, aside from being medieval (a particular musical interval was banned by the Church in the Middle Ages for being demonic, based on its dissonance) hewed closely to the culture war of the last few decades that I had studied in my last semester. What he meant was, Don’t listen to the noisy music of the unstudied, unwashed riffraff—heavy metal, punk, rap, etc. Probably 80% of my beloved music collection wouldn’t pass his bogus consonance litmus test. I left after that meeting on the verge of a panic attack, breaking my personal Sabbath music rule to blast the most dissonant, tuneless music I had while I drove home.
His stance on music deconstructs easily enough—any music is meaningless without tension and dissonance (not to mention that any one definition of dissonance is not the same across cultures). But that wasn’t entirely the point. I didn’t need to prove to him or to myself or to anyone that he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. It was such a fleeting point, practically an afterthought, that most of the congregation probably didn’t even register it. But because of this, it felt like God Himself had singled me out and rubbed it in my face that I didn’t belong.
I called my parents that evening.
Before I continue with the narrative, I want to first tell a friend’s story for sake of contrast. The grandson of an apostle, he would try to talk to his parents about his doubts and frustrations with the Church. They couldn’t sympathize, or at least wouldn’t allow themselves to show that they did. This is the expected Mormon response. In talking about the Church, any opinion that isn’t simultaneously a bearing of testimony makes Mormons uneasy. The typical response is usually a prescription—read the Scriptures, pray, don’t fault-find—instead of an expression of sympathy. The Church is perfect, so it must be your own damn fault. This friend left the Church not long after his mission.
So when I called my parents that evening and told them I didn’t think I could go to church anymore, my dad did the wisest thing he could have done. He handed the phone to my mother.
She asked me a question that betrayed her incisive intuition: “Is it the culture of the Church or the teachings of the Church?”
“The culture,” I replied. I went on to tell her the story of the talk I had heard earlier.
“Well, Nathan,” she said. “You’re just more intelligent than everyone else, so it’s hard on you. You’re a musician, and you know more about it than he does.”
I fully had not expected to tell my parents that I wanted to stop going to Church and hear a compliment in response. But it was exactly what I needed to hear. She reminded me that what I valued in myself actually is valuable, despite how much others may fail to appreciate it. She was wise enough to build me up, not kick me when I was down. I don’t believe that in actual fact she had traded on her loyalty to the Church to do so, but the fact that she was willing to even make it seem that way when so many others wouldn’t is a testament to the love she has for her children. This love has been a sustaining force for her children and will be passed down through the generations of her descendants.
Happy Mother’s Day, mom.
Of course, everyone thinks of being spoiled in the material sense—getting whatever toys and clothes and money that one asks for. I can’t say I didn’t get more of that than my older siblings, but I also refused quite a bit of it, conscious of the stigma. No, when I say I’m spoiled, I mean I’m spoiled by how my mother, Carolyn Housley, sees me. I can do no wrong in her eyes. I’m always right, always noble, always the hero.
The downside of this is that I want everyone else to see me that way, to look past my mistakes and questionable judgment calls and see me as a hero. I tend to test girlfriends by pushing them away, trying to see if they can value me in the same way my mother does. I’m almost offended when prospective girlfriends look at my lack of marketable skills and aversion to conventional employment and don’t see me as destined for greatness.
But the upside of my being “spoiled” greatly outweighs any downside. My mother’s love has helped me to value myself when others haven’t, when I’m tempted to measure myself by my failings.
A couple of winters ago I was going through a really hard time. I had just graduated, moved across the country, and was preparing for law school in the fall while working at a law firm. Most significantly, I had fled the pharisaical culture of Utah County Mormonism, realizing that not only was it making me increasingly edgy and bitter, but I was myself was beginning to adopt the prevalent keeping-up-with-the-Johnsons spirituality.
I was confident in my assessment that such an attitude wasn’t intrinsic to the LDS Church, confined only in the self-righteous bubble of Provo, Utah. Consequently, it was devastating to find the same kind of attitude in the same kinds of kids in the same kind of ward in Washington, DC. I felt inadequate—even with the plan of going to law school, I felt directionless and foolish for having moved there without a short-term plan. I felt undervalued—no one seemed to want to talk in Sunday School about the kinds of questions that I did. And, I felt lonely. Mormons in DC were absorbed with things that I cared nothing about—titles, salaries, position, power, influence, esteem.
It was at this low point that I heard a talk from a member of the stake presidency at stake conference. The talk was pleasant enough, if not entirely memorable, up until one of his last points. He began to extol the virtues of “good” music, opining that the natural order of God’s creation is reflected in harmonious, sonorous music. He scorned discordant music, likening it to contention and confusion.
The point was innocent enough, unless you are attuned to its subtext as I happened to be. His point, aside from being medieval (a particular musical interval was banned by the Church in the Middle Ages for being demonic, based on its dissonance) hewed closely to the culture war of the last few decades that I had studied in my last semester. What he meant was, Don’t listen to the noisy music of the unstudied, unwashed riffraff—heavy metal, punk, rap, etc. Probably 80% of my beloved music collection wouldn’t pass his bogus consonance litmus test. I left after that meeting on the verge of a panic attack, breaking my personal Sabbath music rule to blast the most dissonant, tuneless music I had while I drove home.
His stance on music deconstructs easily enough—any music is meaningless without tension and dissonance (not to mention that any one definition of dissonance is not the same across cultures). But that wasn’t entirely the point. I didn’t need to prove to him or to myself or to anyone that he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. It was such a fleeting point, practically an afterthought, that most of the congregation probably didn’t even register it. But because of this, it felt like God Himself had singled me out and rubbed it in my face that I didn’t belong.
I called my parents that evening.
Before I continue with the narrative, I want to first tell a friend’s story for sake of contrast. The grandson of an apostle, he would try to talk to his parents about his doubts and frustrations with the Church. They couldn’t sympathize, or at least wouldn’t allow themselves to show that they did. This is the expected Mormon response. In talking about the Church, any opinion that isn’t simultaneously a bearing of testimony makes Mormons uneasy. The typical response is usually a prescription—read the Scriptures, pray, don’t fault-find—instead of an expression of sympathy. The Church is perfect, so it must be your own damn fault. This friend left the Church not long after his mission.
So when I called my parents that evening and told them I didn’t think I could go to church anymore, my dad did the wisest thing he could have done. He handed the phone to my mother.
She asked me a question that betrayed her incisive intuition: “Is it the culture of the Church or the teachings of the Church?”
“The culture,” I replied. I went on to tell her the story of the talk I had heard earlier.
“Well, Nathan,” she said. “You’re just more intelligent than everyone else, so it’s hard on you. You’re a musician, and you know more about it than he does.”
I fully had not expected to tell my parents that I wanted to stop going to Church and hear a compliment in response. But it was exactly what I needed to hear. She reminded me that what I valued in myself actually is valuable, despite how much others may fail to appreciate it. She was wise enough to build me up, not kick me when I was down. I don’t believe that in actual fact she had traded on her loyalty to the Church to do so, but the fact that she was willing to even make it seem that way when so many others wouldn’t is a testament to the love she has for her children. This love has been a sustaining force for her children and will be passed down through the generations of her descendants.
Happy Mother’s Day, mom.
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