Mormonism's Cultural Defecit

[_KimberlyAnn]

I think you exaggerate, but no doubt your experience is different from mine.

We have a woman in my ward who wears muu-muus to church. Long flowing muu-muus. Not exactly mainstream, ya know?
We've had women who come in slacks, and men who come in jeans. And in one ward I've been in, the only guy who was clean-shaven was the bishop and the ones who were too young to grow a beard. The bishop was also the only guy who wore a white shirt and tie. All the other men wore plaid shirts and some of them wore overalls. (It was a ward 'way back in the hills near the Canadian border. Most of the cars were pickups, and all of them had a rifle in the window gun rack).

The organist in my ward attended the Julliard school of music. When she puts on a concert, the whole neighborhood comes out. I took my (non-member) mom and a couple of her friends to a concert sponsored by a neighboring stake last winter, of the Young Ambassadors from BYU. It was pretty amazing, as far as entertainment goes. I'm sure she didn't think it was representative of the blandness you're positing is rampant in Mormondom. When the Choir put on a concert in the stake a few years ago, they attended our ward. OMG. I've never heard anything like it, before or since, and I attend a lot of musical events (musically, they were much better than the Kenny Chesney concert I attended a few weeks ago, but I'm still holding to the idea that the Brooks and Dunn concert was the overall best I've ever seen).

I don't mind stereotyping, but at least see it for what it is. You're painting with a pretty broad brush. Not everyone sees Mormon culture with quite the jaundiced eye you do. I don't know of another culture where my kids could have had some of the experiences they did: road shows, dance festivals, talent shows, even the funny lip-sync contests were parts of their adolescence that most kids simply don't get to experience, let alone participate in them all.

Harmony, I have honestly never attended a ward like yours. When I was a very little girl, we went to church in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and I do remember a few eccentric women there, at least they seemed that way to my young mind, but after I was eight or so, I don't remember anyone wearing jeans to church, except one man who drove in periodically from the tiny country town where he lived, and he was marginalized in our ward. Very few men had facial hair, and those who did didn't hold leadership callings in the ward.

There was an active ward gossip mill in every ward I attended, and the subjects of gossip were the people who stood out by not conforming to the Mormon culture which permeated our ward. They were all very cliquish. I don't remember a single member of color, though there was once a black investigator to whom I took cookies (love bomb), but she didn't join. She would have been the only black in our ward. I know all wards aren't like the ones I attended, but without a doubt in my mind I can say that conformity is central to Mormonism.

Oh, and I had roadshows as a girl, but none of the other things you mentioned, and our roadshows stopped before I graduated from high school. I think the Mormon church is very different today than it was even thirty years ago. It's my opinion that it's become more centralized and bland since wards have had much of their autonomy stripped from them by the codgers in Salt Lake.

KA

[_KimberlyAnn]

The central control of the Mormon church from Salt Lake City by a bunch of stodgy old white men insures conformity.

On Wednesday and Thursday, incidentally, my wife and I sat behind one of them up in Logan, through performances of Giuseppi Verdi's Il Trovatore, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's Show Boat, Frank Loesser's The Most Happy Fella, and George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

Good for you! Not that you sat behind the stodgy white man, but that you enjoyed such lovely music.

Last week at my husband's Methodist church, as a part of the service, they had African dancing, complete with the full dress regalia and drums. All those dancers attend his congregation. It's extremely multi-cultural. I never saw that when I attended the Mormon church. Too bad. I think Mormon God might even like it if he could just loosen up a bit.

KA

[_harmony]

There was an active ward gossip mill in every ward I attended, and the subjects of gossip were the people who stood out by not conforming to the Mormon culture which permeated our ward. They were all very cliquish. I don't remember a single member of color, though there was once a black investigator to whom I took cookies (love bomb), but she didn't join. She would have been the only black in our ward. I know all wards aren't like the ones I attended, but without a doubt in my mind I can say that conformity is central to Mormonism.

There's always a gossip mill. It's part of LDS culture, I think. Which is no doubt the reason we gets talks about gossip occasionally in conference and in the Ensign. Just to remind us that we're a long ways from what we're supposed to be.

Oh, and I had roadshows as a girl, but none of the other things you mentioned, and our roadshows stopped before I graduated from high school. I think the Mormon church is very different today than it was even thirty years ago. It's my opinion that it's become more centralized and bland since wards have had much of their autonomy stripped from them by the codgers in Salt Lake.

KA

You didn't have dance festivals? Wow. That's too bad. You really missed out. We had one in our 5 stake area last summer. I took my office manager and her 3 little girls. Very colorful, very funny (if you knew who to watch), a great way to spend a summer's evening, picnicking on the hillside with friends and family. A great experience for the 600+ kids, one most of my kids got to participate in. And you didn't have talent shows or lip sync contests? Heck, those go back to my teenage days (one of my fondest memories of Mutual when I was still a non-member was when I was asked to be in the lip sync contest--probably because I was the one with the tape of Along Came Jones). Some of my best memories are watching two of my sons rock out to Shake It Up, Baby, on the now-high-councilman's rock band's instruments for the annual ward talent show. They had a blast, dressing up in 70's style clothes and wigs (we even borrowed my mom's peace symbol necklace).

What I'm trying to get across is that your experience isn't much like Mormon culture where I live. I'm not a true defender by any means, but I try to be evenhanded, and defend that which is good (in my perception) as often as I condemn that which is not good (again, in my perception). These activities are great memories for my kids, things they did while growing up that not every kid gets to do. I'm glad they got the opportunity. I don't think they'd agree that it was bland and colorless. The street dances in the parking lot every summer were worth the price of admission alone. Maybe nobody else Virginia Reels these days, but all my kids can do it, and they love it. The family home evening movies at the church, the ward dinners and picnics, the mother-daughter campouts, etc. are all part of Mormon culture here, as much as the white shirts and flowered dresses.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I have it on good authority that non-Mormons never gossip.

Ever heard Betelehemu, performed by the BYU Men's Chorus or even by the Tabernacle Choir? Great Nigerian carol.

I'll admit that I've struggled with some elements of Mormon culture over the years. But I don't think it's nearly the wasteland that you seem to think it is.

One of our close Mormon friends is an excruciatingly avantgarde composer, another is a professional cellist, yet another is an internationally famous linguistic theorist, still another is a political philosopher and an accomplished translator of French thought, one of my sons is very seriously into the very most extreme forms of jazz, I have a very large library of classical music and a much larger library of books in various languages. My very Mormon neighbors include a retired nuclear chemist, a retired economist for the state of California, a professor of statistics, innumerable doctors, a professionally trained choral conductor, a psychologist, several engineers, etc., etc. No shortage of readers or exotic travels. Speakers of German (at least five in the immediate neighborhood), Norwegian, Spanish, Finnish, French, Japanese, Danish, Arabic, Portuguese, Korean, Thai, etc. My wife and I haven't missed the Utah Shakespearean festival in roughly twenty years, and we never miss the Utah Opera or the Utah Festival Opera -- and we regularly meet neighbors and friends there, too. (In Logan, for example, over the past two days, we ran into our former bishop, as well as the fellow to whom I used to be an assistant in the high priests group leadership, in addition to a former dean of mine, and their wives.) We're not all that unique.

I read from time to time about the narrow cultural horizons within which I'm supposed to live as a believing Latter-day Saint, and about my Church-mandated blandness, but I can't really say that I feel the truth of the charge.

I hear, sometimes, that we're just "white bread" and boring, but, to be candid, even though I'm a professional student of a very non-white-bread culture for which I have enormous respect, I have never understood why the term white men is supposed to connote lack of interesting culture. Nietzsche, Michelangelo, Sophocles, Bach, Emerson, Dante, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Sartre, Beckett -- "white men," all.

[_Some Schmo]

It should be rebranded McMormonism

Over a billion BS stories served!

You're right, K. The church is set up to pump out clones. In fact, they might as well all dress in stormtrooper costumes and fight for their empire.

But let's face it; when you're brainwashed from primary age to act and think a certain way, you're not going to get much variety from your people.

Meh... what can you do? That's why the smart people leave: to be themselves.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I'd like to respond to this, but the receiver-implant in the back of my head seems to be malfunctioning, and I can't pick up instructions from HQ as to what to say what to say what to say what to can't pick up instructions what to say say what say.

[_Some Schmo]

I'd like to respond to this, but the receiver-implant in the back of my head seems to be malfunctioning, and I can't pick up instructions from HQ as to what to say what to say what to say what to can't pick up instructions what to say say what say.

Not only do they brainwash you, but they use cheap equipment, too? Bastards.

[_Mister Scratch]

I have it on good authority that non-Mormons never gossip.

Ever heard Betelehemu, performed by the BYU Men's Chorus or even by the Tabernacle Choir? Great Nigerian carol.

I'll admit that I've struggled with some elements of Mormon culture over the years. But I don't think it's nearly the wasteland that you seem to think it is.

One of our close Mormon friends is an excruciatingly avantgarde composer, another is a professional cellist, yet another is an internationally famous linguistic theorist, still another is a political philosopher and an accomplished translator of French thought, one of my sons is very seriously into the very most extreme forms of jazz, I have a very large library of classical music and a much larger library of books in various languages. My very Mormon neighbors include a retired nuclear chemist, a retired economist for the state of California, a professor of statistics, innumerable doctors, a professionally trained choral conductor, a psychologist, several engineers, etc., etc. No shortage of readers or exotic travels. Speakers of German (at least five in the immediate neighborhood), Norwegian, Spanish, Finnish, French, Japanese, Danish, Arabic, Portuguese, Korean, Thai, etc. My wife and I haven't missed the Utah Shakespearean festival in roughly twenty years, and we never miss the Utah Opera or the Utah Festival Opera -- and we regularly meet neighbors and friends there, too. (In Logan, for example, over the past two days, we ran into our former bishop, as well as the fellow to whom I used to be an assistant in the high priests group leadership, in addition to a former dean of mine, and their wives.) We're not all that unique.

I read from time to time about the narrow cultural horizons within which I'm supposed to live as a believing Latter-day Saint, and about my Church-mandated blandness, but I can't really say that I feel the truth of the charge.

I hear, sometimes, that we're just "white bread" and boring, but, to be candid, even though I'm a professional student of a very non-white-bread culture for which I have enormous respect, I have never understood why the term white men is supposed to connote lack of interesting culture. Nietzsche, Michelangelo, Sophocles, Bach, Emerson, Dante, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Sartre, Beckett -- "white men," all.

I note this list of cultural "landmarks", and yet I also cannot help but notice how "safe" and "classical" all of these names are.... Where is Lolita? Last Tango in Paris? Portnoy's Complaint? These things the Good Professor mentions are all "Brethren-Approved" works.

[_Inconceivable]

I have always been impressed by homes that sport pictures of loved ones, family members etc. It's been a good thing in our home. Some of the artsy "family of one heart" and "love at home" has been ok too. "Return with Honor" has really lost it's meaning though - I would prefer just "be honorable".

But even before my disaffection, I really had a disdain for certain pictures:

Olsen, Friberg and Kinkade (and we still have them because my wife won these battles).

It's not crap, it's just so predictably common that it loses much of it's spiritual meaning and uniqueness.

There is so much more out there if you are willing to look (and get over prosperous member envy).


Now if the Mormon is into MLM, it's usually two unframed magazine pictures side by side: Jesus and the new Cadillac

[_Dr. Shades]

There's a disconcerting sterility to Mormonism that I didn't notice when I was a member, but which is striking to me now, and the worst part of it is the sameness of everything. Members seem a little like clones, there's very little physical difference in most of the buildings and their interiors are bland and lifeless. The LDS seem make no attempt to adapt to the cultures of their members or conform their buildings at all to their surroundings.

Believe it or not, that's actually a plus in my book. I vastly prefer strictly utilitarian architecture, conformity to the surroundings be damned. (If the surroundings suck, why follow suit?)

I once took a tour of the Masonic Temple in Salt Lake City, which is about as diametrically opposed to the traditional LDS chapel setting (that you describe) as you can get. The interior decoration and symbology, the pictures on the walls of the ritualistic clothing, etc. gave me the creeps like I'd never had the creeps before. I had a nightmare about it that night.