fetchface wrote:I really can't see any circumstance where a true believer is going to enthusiastically share information that challenges their worldview. It just isn't going to happen. First instinct is going to be to reject the evidence as suspect and hide it (out of genuine concern at first, right? Who wants to spread misinformation? As it becomes more and more clear that the evidence is not faulty to the true believer, the next step is going to be to assimilate the information with a complex explanation about why it isn't a problem, or for evidence that cannot be assimilated, a complex theory explaining why the "false" evidence looks so true, usually involving a vast conspiracy.
I accept that initial rejection of adverse evidence is only natural. It's even quite reasonable. Plenty of true things have been confronted with pieces of seemingly contradictory evidence, only to have been vindicated eventually. If clear vindication doesn't come, though, but only awkward excuses, then my feeling is that one can only go on accepting the excuses for so long before it becomes irresponsible for a leader to keep on telling the flock that all is well.
What I see when I look at the evolving Mormon faithful historical narrative is a group of true believers following this process. I mean, read Jeffrey Holland's talk from the '70s about the continents rearranging themselves under a global flood ca. 2300BC. That's nuts! You don't see him giving talks like that today. He's definitely assimilated some facts into his not-so-dodo mind.
Wow. I may have been failing to take into account just how bizarrely benighted a lot of supposedly educated Americans have still been in my lifetime. I've never lived in those parts of the country.
The arguments that I am seeing in favor of the brethren's behavior being immoral seem to assume that the brethren know the validity of the contrary facts. While this may be true of a particular fact and a particular leader from time to time, I think that the vast majority of unflattering historical facts are still being fought against in most leader's minds, sitting in a pile of insane spaghetti logic between their ears.
This whole process is stupid, and strongly illustrates how flawed human reasoning is on average, but I just don't see it as "immoral." I just see it as unfortunate and sad.
Well, if the Mormon leaders are really still in a stage of recognizing problems themselves, then maybe they're mostly still in honest territory, and just moving more slowly than I would have expected people of their intelligence and experience to be moving at this point.
Perhaps what I would say is that for the Mormon leaders to maintain their current position indefinitely would be immoral. If they keep moving on from here then maybe I'll accept that they were doing the best they could, given their personal starting points.
I still think that leaders have an obligation to do the right thing more quickly than ordinary members, because if there are cats that finally get let out of the bag five years from now instead of this year, then in five years there may be hundreds of thousands of people who are angry at having wasted five years of their lives that could have been better spent.
Ultimately the unfortunate and sad situation is one that the leaders do have the power to change. At some point that buck has to stop with them. Leaders, and especially leaders who are supposed to be prophets and seers, cannot just plead forever that they are only dust in their cultural wind.