Smoot the Satirist

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_Kishkumen
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Smoot the Satirist

Post by _Kishkumen »

I would like to extend a warm hand of fellowship to Stephen Smoot, who with his recent blog post, "How to Be a Successful Millennial Ex-Mormon (A Guide for Beginners)," has joined the ranks of Mormon satirists.

See: http://www.plonialmonimormon.com/2015/10/how-to-be-successful-millennial-ex.html

Overall, I would have to admit that I was impressed and entertained by Young Smoot's efforts. He managed to capture and package together a collection of some of the most common foibles of "Millennial Ex-Mormons" or, more generally, disaffected and ex-LDS folk, who populate the Internet with their complaints about the LDS Church.

Here are some highlights (many of which apply equally well to the ranks of amateur apologists):

1. Remember, all of your ideological opponents are acting in bad faith

Rule number one of any ideological warfare is the delegitimization of your opponent. For your new purposes, that means delegitimizing faithful Mormons (or, as you're hereby required to pejoratively call them, "TBM"s or "true believing Mormons") as insincere, conniving, avarice-soaked, unscrupulous, brainwashed, emotionally-stunted idiots who only continue to believe in the face of the CES Letter because of social or monetary reward.


2. Don't think too hard about this stuff. After all, homework is for squares

One trick the TBM apologist typically tries to pull is to encourage you to do some reading and research beyond the CES Letter and Mormon Stories podcasts.



4. Root out conspiracy (even where it doesn't exist)

We live in a dangerous world where dangerous forces are lurking in every corner. No institution, however, is more dangerous than TSCC. You must, therefore, quickly learn to implicitly trust those authorities who, out of their sense of moral duty to the good of humanity, have infiltrated the nefarious cabal of TSCC and have returned to Reddit to (anonymously, of course) report their findings. No time to waste seeing if the person's claimed identity as President Monson's personal assistant's cousin is legit. You have those poor wretches in the pews to save from the clutches of The Brethren.


All of this was quite fun, and I think it manages to lampoon fairly well many of the characteristics of MDB culture, depending upon the target.

Young Smoot is still young in this business, however, and he is finding his footing. One thing I have noticed about his persona is his tendency to ape his hero, DCP. Unfortunately this applies equally well to his ill-advised use of images of minorities. In section #2, where Smoot pokes fun at Millennial Ex-Mormons for being too lazy to read the scholarship that would validate, or at least render plausible, the truth claims of the LDS Church, Young Smoot chooses the image of an urban black woman to give voice to the laziness of Millennial Ex-Mormons. The meme's message reads: "Ain't Nobody Got Time For That."

You can see it for yourself in his blog entry:

http://www.plonialmonimormon.com/2015/10/how-to-be-successful-millennial-ex.html

My advice to Young Smoot would be to keep all of the other great material and jettison this unfortunate choice of memes. Yes, you may get some chuckles from people who are racist but apparently don't understand all that racism involves, or really what the word means, but I ask you, "Is it worth being pegged as a racist yourself?"

The clear answer is, "No."
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Sammy Jankins
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Re: Smoot the Satirist

Post by _Sammy Jankins »

You consider that meme to be racist?

Origin
_Sammy Jankins
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Re: Smoot the Satirist

Post by _Sammy Jankins »

I didn't care for the "satire."

The Ex-Mormon community is at chronic disadvantage. It is defined by people in transition, and the people in transition often make mistakes. They latch onto certainties that aren't merited. They can be guilty of prosetlizing too aggressively. They in large part are struggling to find their footing. Part of the difficultly of that transition is the stigma they will be assigned by their friends and family for no longer believing.

The intent of this article is to increase that stigma. By lumping Ex-Mormons into one group, and associating that entire group with every sin committed by any member of it including "vandalism." It is an excercise in turning a demographic into a straw man and then patting himself on the back for beating up that strawmen.

Writing it as "satire" is not an excuse for any of it. Smoot knows what he is doing. If he has criticisms, let him level them at the guilty parties for their perceived mistakes.

And maybe he can find the courage do it where he isn't protected by being able to moderate the responses.
_Kishkumen
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Re: Smoot the Satirist

Post by _Kishkumen »

Sammy Jankins wrote:You consider that meme to be racist?

Origin


Yes, I do, Sammy. When read in its context, the meme is being used to back up the message that Millennial Ex-Mormons "don't have the time" to read long, boring, scholarly books. Go back and look at it again.

From the section "Don't think too hard about this stuff. After all, homework is for squares."

Smoot taking up role of Millennial Ex-Mormon wrote:Who in their right mind is going to read John Sorenson's 800-paged, heavily-footnoted opus Mormon's Codex: An Ancient American Book? That stuff is boring, hard to read, uses lots of scholarly jargon, and will ultimately just draw you away from precious Reddit time.

MEME: AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT


Now, I am not a mindreader, so maybe Smoot intended something quite different. My point, however, is that what he has done, for whatever reasons, is not worth the risk of being pegged as a racist.

He can heed the warning, which is the wise thing to do, in my opinion, or he can insist, as we have seen others do, that he meant nothing by it.

Am I saying that my suggested interpretation is the only possible one? No. One can always forward other possible interpretations, as we have seen in the past with other apologists using images of black Americans in similar ways. They, too, had their reasons that made sense to them, and I don't think they were undoubtedly misrepresenting the truth. But I am raising the question of whether it is worth being called a racist, when the way the image is used readily lends itself to such an interpretation. I say no, but he is free to think otherwise, as are you.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Sammy Jankins
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Re: Smoot the Satirist

Post by _Sammy Jankins »

2. Don't think too hard about this stuff. After all, homework is for squares

One trick the TBM apologist typically tries to pull is to encourage you to do some reading and research beyond the CES Letter and Mormon Stories podcasts.


Who exactly in the Ex-Mormon community will try to steer people away from reading apologetic literature? I say please do read their best defenses. Like many others have said some of the most faith demoting things have personally come from apologetic literature.

Also when the essays were released, do you know where they were posted the fastest? Ex-Mormon communities. Reddit. They don't run away from apologetics. Hell I found this vapid satire because of Reddit!

This is a strawman of Smoots creation.
_Kishkumen
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Re: Smoot the Satirist

Post by _Kishkumen »

Sammy Jankins wrote:I didn't care for the "satire."

The Ex-Mormon community is at chronic disadvantage. It is defined by people in transition, and the people in transition often make mistakes. They latch onto certainties that aren't merited. They can be guilty of prosetlizing too aggressively. They in large part are struggling to find their footing. Part of the difficultly of that transition is the stigma they will be assigned by their friends and family for no longer believing.

The intent of this article is to increase that stigma. By lumping Ex-Mormons into one group, and associating that entire group with every sin committed by any member of it including "vandalism." It is an excercise in turning a demographic into a straw man and then patting himself on the back for beating up that strawmen.

Writing it as "satire" is not an excuse for any of it. Smoot knows what he is doing. If he has criticisms, let him level them at the guilty parties for their perceived mistakes.

And maybe he can find the courage do it where he isn't protected by being able to moderate the responses.


I get your point, Sammy. But, in all fairness, we tend to do the same thing to apologists and "TBMs" around here. I say we take as good as we give and appreciate the kernels of truth in what is, overall, a distorted (satirical) send up of Millennial Ex-Mormons.

And I still maintain that he should dump the meme.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Kishkumen
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Re: Smoot the Satirist

Post by _Kishkumen »

Sammy Jankins wrote:Who exactly in the Ex-Mormon community will try to steer people away from reading apologetic literature? I say please do read their best defenses. Like many others have said some of the most faith demoting things have personally come from apologetic literature.

Also when the essays were released, do you know where they were posted the fastest? Ex-Mormon communities. Reddit. They don't run away from apologetics. Hell I found this vapid satire because of Reddit!

This is a strawman of Smoots creation.


That's interesting. I thought this was genuinely funny, but for reasons quite different from Stephen's aims. I think it is funny because it shows just how naturally the equation of hard work and study with keeping the faith is among apologists like him. So, to him it must be the case that Ex-Mormons did not study as much as they should have, since they would still be Mormons if they had.

So, Stephen creates his image of an Ex-Mormon, which is far more revealing about him than it is of the Ex-Mormons. His Ex-Mormon is a two-dimensional stereotype who didn't think very hard, but just followed the cool kids and left the square Mormon faith behind. Having found their new, cool tribe, these Ex-Mormons lie, misrepresent, and get into all sorts of shenanigans to hurt their former faith which they never really understood.

That is what makes sense to Steve. He knows it is an exaggeration, but he really does believe that many elements of it apply to numerous Ex-Mormons out there.

I would agree that some elements of this do apply to some Ex-Mormons out there. Do I think there are people who leave Mormonism after reading the CES letter? Sure! Do I think there are Ex-Mormons who lie and do other unethical things? Yes!

Are they in the majority? No. Even close? No.

Likewise, I think there are very few real Mopologists out there. We spend a lot of time talking about them, but there were a very few people who ever qualified as a Mopologist in my view. I would say that a handful of the core FARMS folk were, and some other characters like Tvedtnes. Stephen himself qualifies. But you're looking at a very small demographic here that in no way represents how most Mormons defend their faith. We could balance out those Mopologists with much better sorts like Bushman and the Givenses. I would call them apologists too, inasmuch as their work seeks to defend Mormonism and make it look good (nothing wrong with that), but they did not engage in the Mopologetic game the way the classic-FARMS folk did.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Tom
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Re: Smoot the Satirist

Post by _Tom »

Smoot is trying to ape Hugh Nibley here, but he needs to strive for greater subtlety (e.g., the first paragraph of the conclusion needs a rewrite) and a more consistent voice (hint: don't characterize the ex-Mormon subreddit as a "lovely Internet cesspool[]" or a certain type of atheism as "trendy, hipster pop-atheism that's all the rage these days," and don't place careful research in quotation marks).

I do like his fits of anger in the comments section: "You don't know what the hell you're talking about" and "Again, for your sake, just shut your ignorant mouth." He's a spunky pup.
“A scholar said he could not read the Book of Mormon, so we shouldn’t be shocked that scholars say the papyri don’t translate and/or relate to the Book of Abraham. Doesn’t change anything. It’s ancient and historical.” ~ Hanna Seariac
_Kishkumen
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Re: Smoot the Satirist

Post by _Kishkumen »

Tom wrote:Smoot is trying to ape Hugh Nibley here, but he needs to strive for greater subtlety (e.g., the first paragraph of the conclusion needs a rewrite) and a more consistent voice (hint: don't characterize the ex-Mormon subreddit as a "lovely Internet cesspool[]" or a certain type of atheism as "trendy, hipster pop-atheism that's all the rage these days," and don't place careful research in quotation marks).

I do like his fits of anger in the comments section: "You don't know what the hell you're talking about" and "Again, for your sake, just shut your ignorant mouth." He's a spunky pup.



Thank you for that insight, Tom. I never cease to be impressed by your depth of knowledge and careful eye. And yes, Young Smoot is a spunky Mopologist.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_palerobber
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Re: Smoot the Satirist

Post by _palerobber »

i would prefer Smoot to jack off in private next time.
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