Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert (who, with his book God’s Debris makes a bid for the stoner philosopher of the 21st centrury) just made, on his blog, an interesting comment about Mormons.
I respect the Mormons for doing a great job of creating good citizens. Whatever they’re doing seems to be working. You rarely hear about a gang of violent Mormons terrorizing a town. But must I also respect their practice of wearing special underpants to ward off evil? Is it a package deal, no pun intended?
A few members went jump into the comments to make some corrections/clarifications, but that isn’t what interested me in the comments. Here are some comments that interested me:
I suppose the key word in this sentence is “rarely” but…not to burst your bubble, but sadly, even the Mormons can be scary, homocidal fanatics — read Under the Banner of Heaven (Jon Krakauer) if you want to read some interesting/scary things about fundamentalism, especially the Mormon variety. If you can’t be bothered, here’s the short version — polygamy + child molestation = Mormon Fundamentalism; also, it’s ok to kill people if God tells you to (that’s where the gang terrorizing a town comes in).
or
Want to read about violent Mormons*? try
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon KrakauerI think you’d enjoy it.
*The church says they’re not real Mormons. Where have we heard that one before.
Not that I think the Dilbert Blog is the source of all that is true and good on the internet, but it seems like these comments show that Krakauer has done some serious damage to the reputation of the church. With polls showing that 39% of Americans view Moromons unfavorably, I wonder.
Perhaps it’s just random internet noise. But it may also be an early warning signal. I wonder if Romney’s (possible) presidential bid might actually trigger a huge cultural backlash against Mormons, rather than create understanding.
The problem is that selected facts validate pre-existing prejudice, even when the facts, viewed objectively, give no basis for the bias or prejudice.
For example, if 1 in 10,000 people (randomly spread thoughout the population) is a homicidal maniac, the fact that some of those 1 in 10,000 are Christians who think that God told them to drown their kids in the bathtub will not make most people leap to the conclusion that Christians are homicidal maniacs. But when one of the 1 in 10,000 turns out to be a Mormon, some Christians seize on that as validating their (biased) view of Mormons and Mormonsism. That response says more about some Christians than about Mormons, I think.
dave –
why just Christians?
I know quite a few atheistic academics in my field of study who all they really know about Mormonism comes from Krakauer, and when they find out I’m LDS, they often ask me how I can be part of such a violent religous faith.
Also, I think this statement: For example, if 1 in 10,000 people (randomly spread thoughout the population) is a homicidal maniac, the fact that some of those 1 in 10,000 are Christians who think that God told them to drown their kids in the bathtub will not make most people leap to the conclusion that Christians are homicidal maniacs.
isn’t necessarily true. I know lots of left-leaning academics who are convinced the religous right in America is worse than the most extreme members of the Taliban (heck, look at Yale).
I liked his idea of having a to-the-death-cage-match between all religious beliefs.
Come on! We can take em!
Ivan,
I agree with your post. Perhaps I naively believed that a book such as Krakauer’s could open up some kind of dialogue on important issues. But truly, most of the people I’ve talked to who read it (that aren’t members) came away with the impression that the Dilbert commenters have: namely, that the mainstream church is somehow connected to or somehow responsible for fundamentalisms abuses and/or violence. In other words, people come away with a mistaken view of things. It’s unfortunate.
Seth R.,
I admire your zeal and optimism…count me in (unless you are serious).
Too bad, Seth R. Turns out his ‘cage match’ is just some kind of big, televised debate. Lame.
Adam, you’d prefer to spill blood?
It’s an interesting post, but the blog sucks. Just hundreds of random comments, with no discussion at all.
DKL –
part of the problem there is that Scott Adams has all comments moderated, and so they wind up getting approved in batches of 100 or so.
I don’t know Adam, we haven’t been authorized to actually kill anyone as of yet. No slaughtering the Ammonites!
I guess you’ll just have to settle for BYU football for now.
If you would like a view of Krakauer supposed objectivity, read his book Into Thin Air. Then read Anatoli Boukareev’s The Climb. They are such vastly different accounts of the same event that you wonder just how oxygen-deprived Krakauer was (and is).
at my office, one of the managers read “Banner” and passed it around over the past couple of months. I know of 4 people who have come to me to ask about the book and one woman said “I thought mormons were such nice people. Maybe this is the part they won’t talk about”. I think “Banner” just the beginning…
Every Big Love discussion I’ve read on non-LDS forums has had at least one person bring up Krakauers book. It seems to be some people’s only referance to Mormons. I think a Romney backlash will start as easily as the comments on that blog started.
I put together a book review of Krakauer’s book that is (I think) both thorough and readable. It’s available here.
My mind immediately thought of …
[“The Wentworth Letter,” HC 4:539Â40]
And how does one define ‘Mormon Fundamentalism’? .., For me, ‘Mormon Fundamentalism’, means a focus on the atonement and continuing revelation … as far as how others view ‘Fundamentalism’, I guess it is to focus on splinter groups that make for news and documentaries? I don’t mean to belittle Krakauer and his experience on Everest at all, but one has to wonder if the lack of oxygen on that trip continues to skew his judgement in this case.
People who take Krakauer’s book as describing Mormons don’t read very well. I think he made a good effort of distinguishing fundamentalists from practicing Mormons. He made mistakes, but less than others. People think what they want to think.
What people don’t seem to get is that Krakauer’s thesis was not “believing Mormons are inherently violent.”
His real thesis was that “ALL religious believers are inherently violent.”
When you look at it this way, the silliness of his whole argument starts to show.
But it’s a mistake to think he was just ripping on Mormons in this book.
Here is a premise for discussion: Aside from DKL’s astute review/rebuttal of K’s diabolical mess, what if K was bang on in his diatribe in that everything he outlines was actually the way it happened, would that change the reality of the any of the truths that our church purports to substantiate? Would it change your own testimony of the church, or are our testimonies based upon circumstantial evidences in the most minute detail just like everyone else’s except that we tend to believe some of the details and other don’t? Would these historical “truths” invalidate the First Vision, or the Book of Mormon because they are about as fantastical as some vision or some book purported to be translated from G-O-L-D plates presented to some late teens religious truth seeker? Do forged documents purchased by the church make the BofM a complete forgery just because of a small few forgeries which the church has hidden?
I ask this because if you really think through this in detail, you come to one conclusion that either this church is completely true or it is the biggest religious scam that has ever existed, period! I know people have used this argument in the past, but it again provides a very curious basis upon which we wish to coninuously discuss how perhaps someone outside of the church has brought the church into disrepute, when that could clearly never be the case for the simple reason that the church speaks for itself and does not speak by the actions of non-members in whatever relation they have to the church! There is no dismantling of reputation by one person because they wrote a book that a small populous has read, but simply a differing opinion of past events within the church. If this one book belittles the reputation of the church in anyway, then on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, the Book of Mormon gives the church it’s reputation back in every way!
Thank goodness for the Standard of Truth (Thank you, Jason, #34) which makes this clearer than ever!
Seth R, my review (linked to from my preceding comment) makes exactly that point. His line of reasoning is that violent fundamentalism and mormonism are two sides of the same coin, and mormonism is a reasonable prototype for all religious belief.
Nice review, DKL!
I tend to be an optimist: I think Romney’s candidacy (and I think he will be a very serious candidate) will do more good than bad for the Church. The truth will come out about the Church, and people will shrug off the Krakauer types and the underwear comments. I think the Church PR dept does a good job trying to bring out the truth.
Having said that, the poll Ivan linked that showed us with unfavorables nearly as high as Muslims was a bit unsettling. I guess we really are a “peculiar people.”
I’d like to see a survey of how many people have heard of Krakauer or his book. I’ll bet that most people who dislike Mormons haven’t heard of Krakauer.
“Under the Banner of Heaven” is ranked 232,231 and falling in the current Amazon ranking (in the 228000s yesterday). “Into Thin Air”, by comparison, is ranked 1,398 (and gaining; it was in the 1700s yesterday).
By comparison, the Book of Mormon is ranked 207,959 on Amazon.com.
It is both thorough and readable. Good work.
I agree with what Annegb said about Krakauer’s book. He did a pretty good job of distinguishing between us “mainstream” Mormons and the so-called fundamentalists. People can get out of the book what they want, but it wasn’t slanderous to Mormons in general.
In terms of the LDS image, I’m not sure what to think or expect. I think Geoff B is probably right about Romney; he’s a decent fellow with moderate political views and will probably be opposed by the religious right, so at least people who don’t know much about the faith won’t be lumping us in with people such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.
On the other hand, there has been a lot of polarization in this country over certain issues. Our church leadership is taking a somewhat nuanced view toward homosexuality, for example, and President Hinckley has said on more than one occasion that it’s a good thing that women have a wide array of educational and professional opportunities available to them. But no matter how accommodating we are toward diversity and that sort of thing, there will always be those who picture us as wanting to put women in their place and beat up gays. I know several active LDS women who are highly educated and involved in academia (one is working on her doctorate), and they have said people are surprised to find out they’re LDS, because people didn’t think Mormon women were allowed to get an education!
Finally, a note about “peculiar people”: The word as used in the King James Version doesn’t mean “odd” or “bizarre.”
copedi, I completely disagree with your and annegb’s assessment. Though he does distinguish between the portions of his book wherein he describes mainstream mormonism wherein he describes fundamentalist cults, he is rarely explicit about any differences in belief or outlook besides the disagreement over Wooley or the practice of polygamy. What’s more, when he does talk about the LDS church, nearly everything that he says is false. Lastly, he fails to distinguish between the practice of polygamy in cults vs the practice of polygamy in early mormonism; e.g., he gives the impression that sexual abuse, incest, and welfare fraud type behaviors were common in late 19th century Utah.
Copedi I know several active LDS women who are highly educated and involved in academia (one is working on her doctorate), and they have said people are surprised to find out they’re LDS, because people didn’t think Mormon women were allowed to get an education!
Are you trying to imply that Mormon women are allowed to get an education?
David, I think you’re holding Krakauer to an impossible standard. Judging him against other non-Mormon writers, he does okay. Of course, he didn’t get it. I haven’t read anyone who does, outside of our faith, and we miss the boat a lot.
But I think he made an honest effort. I guess I’d have to read the book again line by line, but my impression, based on faulty memory is that he did distinguish between fundamentalism and the LDS church of today.
I don’t recall your last comment from his book, but isn’t some of that true?
annegb, I don’t think that I am holding him to an impossible standard. In the review that I wrote (linked to above), I try to outline very clearly that the book simply fails to describe Mormonism in any meaningful sense.
But life in Utah in the 19th century was very different from life in a polygamous cult. Only about 1 in 8 families practice polygamy, so that the vast majority of believing Mormons did not practice it. Furthermore. the kind of systemic abuse that occurs in cults was simply absent in 19th century Mormonism.
According to Scott Adams, the only way to solve this is a cage-match between Krakauer and DKL!
OK, the cage-match was my idea … um … well … yeah.
Sure. I’m not scared of Scott Adams.
or Krakauer.
I don’t know DKL … Have you ever climbed Mt. Everest (even with a sherpa hauling up all your sorry gear)?
Cause, you know, if you ain’t climbed Everest … well … there just isn’t anything else to say, now is there? =)
16 David Bednar said pretty much the same thing at a recent CES fireside. There is no “intellectualized” middle ground. We either accept it or reject it. Its either all true or none if it is true.
I highly doubt if 39% of Americans have read the said book. (my point being of course that if 39% view Mormons unfavorably, it’s not because of one book)