“Leave rationalization behind and begin to practice integrity … ” (from a 12-step manual)
Utopias fail for a number of reasons.
The biggest reasons are:
- Failure of economic alignment
- Generational conflicts
- Collapses of integrity
- Loss of community
- Insufficient resources.
Collapses in integrity can be driven by economic or generational issues, but are often just greed. The early LDS anti-banking society failed (as forensic audits have now confirmed) because of embezzlement. Without that, it would have succeeded. Orderville collapsed, among other things, because the desire for store bought pants led to cheating (there were other issues, but that was the final straw). Beyond those familiar examples, a number of other utopian movements have collapsed because of catastrophic failures of integrity.
Historic examples of failed utopian projects are often histories of infidelity, betrayal and lies, coupled with resentments and recursions. Leadership and self-deception, and all the related concepts are important to preserving integrity (and a sense of community).
Generational conflicts often doom artistic utopian communities. It is fascinating to watch the continual failure of artistic utopian communities caused by the generational conflicts where the community meets the needs of the parents, but not of the children. The parents pastoral paradise is a limited and boring hell for the children. It happens in other venues as well. The blending of Akido and gardening that made a utopian retirement community for some martial artists held no attraction for younger adults or children.
Reprising Orderville, boys in good homespun did not seem as attractive as those with creased pants. The parents ethos was anathema to the children. Just as bad are societies built around adult’s images of childhood perfection that satisfy neither.
Economic alignment is where economic self-interest aligns with society. As it fails, basic forces tear communities apart. Where it succeeds you have Hutterite communities spreading across Canada. (The successes and failures of the Hutterites provide a good number of examples and guidelines for what works, what doesn’t and for whom it works).
Much of Joseph Smith’s United Order template of each person managing property for themselves and turning over to the common storehouse the excess beyond what they could conserve and manage is an example of economic alignment. Orderville, on the contrary, had all the property held in common and all the income turned over, which led to divergences. The economic essays I’ve posted before all feed into understanding how this fits together or fails to fit together.
Insufficient resources — that pretty much sums up many failed experiences. If everyone starves to death, the community fails.
Finally, Loss of Community (or disenfranchisement) is a hall mark of failures for many utopias. It can come when followers and leaders do not feel equally invested or equally respected. Orderville (again) had this, not only from the generational conflicts and the loss of economic alignment, but from the culture clash of a strong willed leader and members who felt divested. The small employee-owned Bessemer furnaces do not survive if they grow beyond 200 or so employees in any site. Community fails somewhere between 100 and 200 adults. It is a surprisingly small number. cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
Other projects seem to survive larger numbers, depending on things such as piece work compensation and other direct economic linkages (as well as linkages that turn a community into a collection of smaller interlocking communities) between work and reward. Social welfare services in such communities tend to be completely separated from work related compensation and endeavors. It is surprising how some approaches can overcome some large degree of disenfranchisement. (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutterite)
The roots of failure for Utopias are important in seeking Zion.
Zion is a utopian endeavor, for a holy people, seeking a higher law.
So, what do you think Zion will be like? How would you approach it? If you were to write a book (or a blog comment), what would it say?
Do you think people can approach Zion in their own lives or as a group?
I’m curious what you think?
Approaching Zion (The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol 9)
what’s your definition of a utopia?
I think Zion is a combination of the two following pieces, from Thomas Jefferson and from Friedrich Hayek
First Jefferson:
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s32.html
and second Hayek:
–page 148 of The Road to Serfdom
Then we could also include some Thomas Paine to spice it up:
Then we might be on our way toward a Zion society.
Here’s what I wrote recently about consecration (which is not, by itself, Zion, but leads there):
http://alatterdayvoice.blogspot.com/2011/04/on-concecration-and-welfare.html
Nibley’s book (which you show) is a fascinating bit of work to me — quite challenging on many levels.
Of course the scriptural definition, that Zion is the pure in heart, is significant. That lack of purity of heart can lead to several of your reasons you discuss above.
Of course it also raises the question: how do we help our children to say “pure in heart” (presuming they are in their pre-accountability years) if we don’t rear them in a Zion society (or even if we do), given their own free will.
Dan, I’m using the word for communities attempting or claiming to reach/embody the dictionary definition. Obviously if they were “real” utopias they would not fail.
😉
I’m off to work, I’ll respond to more posts as soon as I’m able.
I think the utopia will be found when people come to Christ and achieve, maybe not perfect, charity in their hearts and outward actions. So to achieve a utopia it cannot be through the use of violence or the threat thereof, it has to be voluntary.
So people must organize themselves to help, whether it be a large organization, a small organization, or an individual it is all the same. For large tragedies, larger organization can help, even if it is a confederate of smaller organizations. But ultimately it comes down to natural organizations, the core of society, the family. Families must be willing to take care of their sick, elderly, poor in their families. When they cannot help then they can seek help from a larger voluntary group. Ideally help starts with the individual who prepares for future calamities. Of course, the individual cannot always prepare for all future occurrences and sometimes must rely on the voluntary charity of others.
A society that does not seek control over its members is a must because its members will learn to despise the power that exercises unrighteous dominion over him and will just create a people of hypocrites, which necessarily wouldn’t be Zion.
Learning the principles of the gospel of Christ and practicing the principles in each individual will bring Zion about. Being allowed to fail will create a more empathetic and sympathetic people who will more easily understand the pain of others. This will also allow growth in the individual to seek to better himself and his circumstances.
Unfortunately many people toward for violence (force) and unrighteous dominion to create Zion but it cannot work since the heart of the people will not be in it.
Do you think people can approach Zion in their own lives or as a group?
Does not Zion imply group? So in our own families and extended families we can approach Zion. As individuals we can approach the higher laws of Christ which can be an example to others to help them achieve it also. Which implies an approach to Zion through the individual.
Utopias are to economics what perpetual motion machines are to physics.
Asking the lamb to lie down with the lion is and will always be a bad idea.
I would agree that Zion starts within but I think a definition of what is meant by “pure in heart” is another tricky point. The Lord called his people Zion because they were of *one* heart…perhaps true ‘purity’ as is needed for a Zion society to flourish is to cleanse ones mind of distinctions between self and other. Buddhist and Christian teaching harmonize so well on this point…Zion fails due to attachment to I, Me, and Mine…and Buddhism teaches that these ideas of self are no more than ideas. Problematic ones, especially in this context.
we cannot have Zion as long as we are infected with Ayn Rand’s Objectivist self-centered poison. Zion cannot flourish in a society that objectifies the self over the group.
Well said – no one can serve two masters…
What then is the point of improving the self if the self does not matter? How can the self help others when the self doesn’t exist?
once again Jon proves how terrible he is at reading, understanding and comprehending. Since no one here claimed the self “does not matter”, Jon’s question is moot. Since no one here has said “self doesn’t exist”, Jon’s second question is also pointless.
I love you Dan. You’re a great guy and have much potential in life.
I’m not up to speed on all the interpersonal dynamics and/or historic rivalries at play here, boys…I hope the vitriol is in jest.
Actually Jon’s questions are profoundly relevant and ones I’ve been asking myself and anyone else I can find for the last several months. Especially the last one. How can the self help others? The answer I keep running into is ‘not very well.’
A lot of good work and charitable service is performed regardless of the ‘purity’ of the motives of the helper; but the more one has created an identity (i.e. a “self”) around the idea that one is A Very Helpful Person, the less able one is to discern what is truly needed in any situation. We don’t need to get into a debate about the ultimate existence or non-existence of a unique Self here – I’d just propose that whoever that true Self might be gets buried deep under layers of ideas about who we think we are – and all those layers are an obstacle to the kind of genuine empathy and ‘oneness’ of heart that are necessary for an authentic Zion society. When you ask what is the point of improving the self, I think you’ve answered your own question. Our true ‘Selves’ are divine in nature and as such really don’t warrant improvement. In contrast, the selves (and others) that we go around constantly judging as either succeeding or failing are in fact just ideas we’ve formed over time. The only way to really ‘improve’ the self is to lose it.
Out of curiosity (not a challenge), what is your reference on the statement that “LDS anti-banking society failed (as forensic audits have now confirmed) because of embezzlement.”
Who was embezzling?
steve, I am not sure I agree with some of your presumptions. while there were allegations of embezzlement at the kirtland bank, it seems to me the real problem was gross undercapitalization. can you provide a source for embezzlement?
as for orderville, i’ve discussed the pants episode in the past, but it is overly simplistic to blame the fall of orderville to pants. the real fall of orderville was due to the u.s. government’s attempt to confiscate all church property in an attempt to (1) eradicate polygamy, and (2) open mormon markets to capitalism. those were much more significant problems than the petty problems of pants cut from the same bolt of cloth.
So, what do you think Zion will be like?
I believe it will be a polygamous (polygyny and polyandry) tribal anarchy in which all have an overwhelming desire and willingness to share all that they have with everyone else (including spouses) and everyone works to better their society.
How would you approach it?
I’d start by building a polygamous tribe based on gospel laws.
If you were to write a book (or a blog comment), what would it say?
I suppose it would look like all the tribal anarchy posts on the LDS Anarchy blog.
Do you think people can approach Zion in their own lives or as a group?
I think so. The Zion principle is just charity. As long as the people attempting to approach Zion have charity, they will have success. If they don’t, they won’t.
I’m curious what you think?
I think that hardly anyone is interested in Zion these days, because no on has charity. We have interest in sharing some of what we have with some people, but not all with all. Zion, then, holds no attraction to the current generation.
In 2004 I created an Establishment of Zion Think Tank, which demonstrated that there was virtually no interest among the LDS in establishing Zion. The LDS are waiting to be commanded by their leaders in this thing. They are unwilling to do it themselves, which means that this generation of LDS will never receive the reward of Zion from the Lord, as the Lord stated:
Only if we LDS start trying to establish Zion on our own, without waiting for a direct command from the Lord through our leaders, will the Lord reward us with Zion.
Again, Zion is a natural outgrowth of charity. If we don’t have Zion among us, or are not working towards that end, it is a sign that we do not have charity. And so another people or generation will end up establishing Zion. Not us.
Dan — 2 — could you translate those numbers from pounds sterling to U.S. 2011 Dollars? I’m curious how the numbers stack up.
17 — mh — Orderville had significant problems due to autocratic leadership that created a rift in the sense of community as well as economic misalignment and intergenerational conflicts. It also had resource shortages.
Bottom line: It had everything as a problem except for a catastrophic loss of integrity.
Here is another quote of the Lord’s that I like and think applies:
mcarp — 16 — the embezzling was by someone whose name did not stick when I was reading the reports. One of the anti-bank officers I recall. It has been a while, or I’d have linked to a source.
Paul — 3 — the problem of transition between generations is a huge one. In a very slow, very long lived community it is easy to propose solutions. The issue is for how to make it work for humans 😉
Jon — 6 — successful communities usually have some sort of structuring. I agree that coming to Christ is essential for Zion. But to make the community work with less conflict and more heartening, some things work better than others.
LDSA — 20 — initiative is important to unlocking human potential and capital.
LDSA — 18 — I think that any group’s presuppositions will influence who is drawn to it. The moment you define Zion as a polygamous anarchist society, your ability to engage mainline LDS will decrease.
That does not mean disinterest as much as it means that you’ve created a barrier to your vision being able to co-opt the energy of others.
Jon — 7 — Yes, I think that groups are essential. It is an endeavor that requires a people, not just a person.
MoHoHawaii — 8 — the whole point of my series of posts is that a proper approach to Zion or Utopia means that you don’t have lambs and lions lying down together unless their interests coincide. It is the failure to create alignments that result in the lambs getting eaten instead of protected.
mh — 17 — turns out that the anti-banking society was not under-capitalized for its actual needs. I’m aware that is the supposition that most people have when they approach it, and that was part of what the forensic accounting was attempting to establish — how much more would it have needed to succeed.
Turns out, from what I read a while back, that it had more than sufficient capital. At that point everyone was wondering just what happened, which led to the embezzlement discoveries. Warren Parrish embezzled $15,000.00, a rather substantial amount.
To quote a post by MH
the article I’m quoting goes on to state:
Emily & Dan
Ok, I’m not a fan of Ann Rand, so her vision of utopia doesn’t grab me and does not seem to have flourished very well — though large sections of Mexico where the central government has lost influence do fit the Rand model well.
Jon’s questions are profoundly relevant — that is a thread for another day.
Hope that responds to everyone sufficiently.
Stephen #23, the EOZTT was not based upon polygamy, or anarchy, or tribes. It was based upon people voluntarily coming together and brainstorming ideas on how to bridge the gap between were we are now and Zion. It did not seek to define Zion (the scriptures do that), but to merely create a think tank that would come up with ideas on how to approach it.
The only presupposition that the EOZTT made was that there was nothing in the scriptures prohibiting anyone from striving to establish it now. It was this presupposition, not polygamy, not anarchy, not tribes, that created a barrier in the minds of the LDS who visited it. All LDS who I invited had been conditioned to believe that Zion’s establishment had to be a top-down approach. Unless the priesthood leadership was initiating and directing, no one thought anyone had any right to attempt anything. Everyone professing an interest in Zion only wanted to do nothing more than discuss it. Creating Zion plans was considered a no-no and the intent to implement a plan was apostasy. The whole idea of groups of LDS establishing Zion without first being commanded by the leadership was taboo.
So, no. The EOZTT showed and continues to show that the LDS are disinterested.
Currently, I no longer believe that Zion will be established by groups of unrelated people. It will be established only by tribes living in anarchy, connected to each other by marriage covenants and blood relations. I see that now but at the time I created the EOZTT I thought otherwise.
One last thing, there appears to be a growing interest in establishing tribes, so if something were to be created today, like the EOZTT, but directly based upon anarchy, polygamy and tribes, I would not be surprised if the the barriers you think that such a thing would create turned out to be draws, instead.
LDSA #26 – Very curious as to how you came to believe that polygamy (in any potential gender combination) is conducive to living in harmony – unless the tribespeople have also completely overcome their most basic human emotions of envy and jealousy. Do you have examples of non-patriarchally governed societies in which polygamy has flourished? Seems like once you take away the whole, “Honey, God hath commanded me to marry Chloe Sevigny, go along with the program or suffer eternal damnation” (okay, I know Bill was a sensitive modern-thinking guy and would never have said that, but you get the point) the popularity of the concept is likely to wane rapidly. At least among the heterosexual women of the tribe. I can only speculate based on conversations with my mother, someone who would freely and gladly share anything she possessed, with one significant exception.
Steve, using my own words against me! Touche`.
You may think of this as a threadjack, but I don’t think so. I am trying to go after some of the foundation you laid from the original post. I’ve learned a few other things since I wrote that, and I’m not sure we should put all our eggs into George A Smith’s basket.
Richard Bushman in RSR said the bank failed within a month. The bank
I didn’t know about the embezzlement, and would love to hear more of that. My point in bringing this up is that there is more to the story than simply embezzlement. When people mention the failure of the Kirtland anti-bank, they fail to mention that in 1837, “Out of eight hundred and fifty banks in the United States, three hundred and forty-three closed entirely, sixty-two failed partially, and the system of State banks received a shock from which it never fully recovered.”[The financial panic of 1837, The Great Republic by the Master Historians, edited by Hubert H. Bancroft, as found at publicbookshelf.com]
Why did that particular utopia fail? Well, it isn’t simply embezzlement, but includes a bad banking system in the U.S, in addition to a poorly capitalized bank, and perhaps embezzlement. It’s not quite as simple as your post implies. No matter how righteous the people may or may not have been, if they didn’t follow good banking regulations, the house is going to fall like a house of cards. There are many reasons that utopia failed.
Regarding Orderville, Leonard Arrington discusses it in great detail in Great Basin Kingdom. While there was a “generational” problem as mentioned in your post, there were other issues at play. Ordervill began in 1875 and continued pretty well for 10 years. Arrington says,
So why did this utopia fail? I’d say the members were actually very charitable and very righteous. But they weren’t good managers. As you mentioned before, these type of orders work better when small. These good hearted people let the order get too big because they were so charitable, and the economics didn’t work. When the leaders were forced into jail for practicing polygamy, management ceased. I don’t think we can blame this on a lack of righteousness; rather it was a lack of leadership and management skills that doomed this utopia.
So, if the anarchists can properly manage Zion and create a utopia, then I’d love to see it happen. But my advice to you is that you had better stay small, and you’re going to have to limit your charity toward outsiders. Limiting charity and goodwill seems to go against a religious tenet to be generous, doesn’t it?
I just don’t know how to build a utopia in a practical way. There are tradeoffs that create paradoxes that are extremely difficult to overcome.
For those of you that don’t know much about Orderville, I blogged about it here. I also blogged about the bank failure here.
I think the other 2 problems with a community Zion model today are:
1 – unable to compete. The economic model is necessarily agrarian, which is generally not feasible in our global economy.
2 – growth. If you are living in an isolated, controlled community, how can you woo new members to join it in this day & age? Even in the early days of the church this was a problem – nearly as many stayed behind when the Saints moved West as those that joined the trek.
To deal with those difficulties, the church first tried franchizing Zion (sending out colonies), but today’s approach is actually a far better global model.
– tithing as the definition of consecration instead of a communal economic model.
– “bloom where you’re planted” instead of “gather in Utah.”
– growing local leadership vs. exporting talent to non-Utah wards
If you ask me, that’s a more sustainable virtual / global model for Zion.
Emily #27, is it even possible to have charity whlle also having envy and jealousy? Do not the scriptures say that charity “envieth not” and “thinketh no evil”? Therefore, if any man or woman envies or is jealous of another, surely this is prima facie evidence that they do not possess charity, and thus cannot establish Zion, because Zion can only be established by those who possess charity.
Monogamy can never reveal whether we have charity or not. Only a multiwife-multihusband system can. Monogamy actually contributes to jealousies and envy, by creating the illusion of owning a spouse, whereas the multispouse system removes this illusion. (In the gospel, nothing is owned by us because everything is a stewardship.)
Mankind is naturally polyamorous, so overlaying marriage covenants puts our nature in harmony with gospel laws, allowing men and women to reach their full potential, namely, the possession of charity.
Again, it all comes down to charity. The scriptures say that if you have it, it will be well with you at the last day, but if you don’t have it, you will be nothing. So, a Zion society must possess and promote those principles that facilitate its acquisition.
Btw, regarding your curiosity: I came to believe this way through a study of the scriptures. Also, be sure to check out the Sex at Dawn research (linked above.)
oops
Mormon Heretic, just based upon what you wrote in #29, the anarchist in me says that Orderville failed not because of a lack of leadership (due to incarceration), but because they had leaders and managers, period.
I see Zion as fluid and organic, quickly adapting to the conditions found among men. Top-down leadership (the way of the Gentiles), in which the people rely or depend upon their leaders for guidance and management, is not a natural order, is too stiff and is easily broken up (as happened). I believe that Zion must and will be established by the people, acting as equals, without reliance upon leaders.
A group of people who possess charity and are determined to establish Zion, can only be stopped by killing them. If they remain alive, they will establish it, regardless of the circumstances or conditions found among men. It matters not how wicked the world is, or the economic situation. (Enoch’s Zion was set up in the midst of exceedingly great wickedness.) As long as it is the people establishing Zion on their own and not the leaders pushing or compelling them to do it, it cannot be stopped.
But when you introduce leaders into the equation, who are trying to get a people to do something they really don’t want to do, because they do not possess charity, it won’t happen. Then, and only then, can outside circumstances stop it. Because if the people were the ones leading the way, organically, as a natural outgrowth of their charity, all obstacles placed in their way by outside sources would be adapted to and be overcome, and all set-backs would be temporary, at best, and then they would continue on towards their goal.
So, although we can assign a multitude of reasons for past failures, the only reason I see for past and present failures is a lack of charity, because even with everything perfect and ideal, if the people do not have charity, it will still fall short of Zion.
Wow, I’m doing a lot of commenting on this post. Oh, what the hell…
Stephen, the biggest reasons for failure that you list:
•Failure of economic alignment
•Generational conflicts
•Collapses of integrity
•Loss of community
•Insufficient resources.
in my mind are addressed by the gospel-based, multihusband-multiwife, tribal anarchy model.
The law of consecration and stewardships addresses failure of economic alignment, because it allows rapid adaptation to the economic conditions found among men. Generational conflicts are addressed by the fact that the tribe is an anarchy, for everyone has a voice in anarchy. Collapses of integrity are addressed by the principle of charity and the tribal bonds, which principle is more easily practiced as one views everyone else as a relation. Loss of community is addressed by the multihusband-multiwife marriage covenants and blood relations. (In other words, the entire tribe is related to each other, creating an exceedingly profound sense of community.) Insufficient resources are addressed by the tribal bonds, for it will act as a nuclear family does in economic scarcity, pooling resources together to get ahead.
In other words, people in a tribal anarchy act both individually and as a whole tribal unit, organically, or naturally, without compulsion, because everyone has a vested interest in the success of the tribe, being connected in the strongest possible way, to everyone else. A tribal anarchy that uses the gospel as its tribal customs, then, has the door to Zion open up to them.
Tribal anarchy, then, is the easiest way towards Zion establishment, for it is the very model that the gospel is based upon.
MH — There are many reasons that utopia failed. — Yes, the whole point of my post 😉
I don’t think we can blame this on a lack of righteousness; rather it was a lack of leadership and management skills that doomed this utopia. Yes. The collapse of Orderville had a number of elements (which is why I use it more than once — it had every problem other than loss of integrity).
The economic model is necessarily labor managed.
Two useful articles:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cato.org%2Fpubs%2Fjournal%2Fcj12n2%2Fcj12n2-10.pdf&rct=j&q=labor%20managed%20firms&ei=bjrWTdbZMoOXtweLwuWTBw&usg=AFQjCNGfSGaNF558_jj2SJzcRGx7aQG2Mw&cad=rja
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative
Am I the only one reading mixed messages here? On the one hand, you’re saying Orderville failed because it had leaders and managers – period – then on the other you’re stating that all other reasons are pathetic attempts at justifying the lack of charity. If the latter, then doesn’t that suggest that although the tribal anarchy might be the best way to approach this, that having both leaders, managers and people with charity will achieve the same purpose?
I’ve learned that saying Zion can be built only by “a polygamous (polygyny and polyandry) tribal anarchy in which all have an overwhelming desire and willingness to share all that they have with everyone else (including spouses) and everyone works to better their society,” — leaves a bad taste in the mouth of most LDS.
Their ears essentially shut off.
I’ve had better success discussing tribalism with people by describing it more in the terms of, “Currently, I no longer believe that Zion will be established by groups of unrelated people. It will be established only by [families] … connected to each other by marriage covenants and blood relations.”
No one disagrees that a group of related persons [i.e. a family] is the best model we have of what a Zion community looks like and how one would work.
Currently, we focus on keeping many small, separate nuclear families [many small, separated “Zions”].
The Tribal model just takes this and connects the dots on growing Zion — meaning it connects the many small, separate nuclear families so that we may being to function as one of the Lord’s tribes of Israel.
Correction for #40:
Gomes #39:
Top-down hierarchical rulership does not engender charity. Such an organizational model is one of the “works of men”.
As such, with a virtuous people — it may have joy in its works for a season, but sooner or later the end cometh and that group is hewn down and cast into the fire.
Emily,
I think the self does need improvement, hence the reason for repentance, baptism, and the HG. When we seek charity in our own lives we will be able to discern the promptings of the spirit better and, thereby, the self can help others through the spirit of God/Christ/HG (whatever you want to call it).
As much as people don’t like it I think LDSA is right to a certain extent. In ordered anarchy (as opposed to chaotic anarchy) people will be left to choose for themselves how they want to approach Zion, whether it be through a coercive compact that uses violence to get people to be good (a top down approach) or a multiwife/multihusband way like LDSA wants or as my desire would be a society that uses gentle persuasion, where people are left to themselves to decide their needs and desires and how much to give to the poor with spiritual leaders that do not use force to get people to participate in Zion, maybe they would choose to reject those that do not want to live in harmony and keep everyone else, I don’t know. In the end it is the individual who must choose to live the gospel of Christ and then the group can come together as individuals of like minded people and form a group that has a desire to help one another. They would not have to sequester off from others, they can still trade, which creates a wealthier society that can help each other in times of need. They would even be able to help those outside of the group (achieving true charity).
First, the individual helps themselves (all the while pleading with God for guidance), then if they cannot help themselves, then they go to their family, if the family cannot help then they go to their church (a like minded organization), then they go to the community at large for help (without using the threat of violence). Is this not Zion? Little utopias might not even be needed.
Saying that something doesn’t “engender charity” is different than saying it can’t work. I understand you believe that it simply cannot function that way, and generally I agree that Zion will not come from a top-down pronouncement in GC no matter how much folks at LDSAVOW or your regular chapel suggest it will, but I can’t say that it cannot happen/start that way.
P.S. I really don’t think Zion is a goal of this [LDS] people anymore. From inside the hierarchy, no one talks about it, no one writes about it, no one idealizes it… it simply is vanishing from our lexicon [or has]. Those age 18 and younger have likely only heard it discussed in ephemeral references, but when contrasted with the 1,000,000 references/messages/conference talks to focus on education, schooling, families, careers, money making and the like… I highly doubt that it’s set in with more than a handful.
Gomes,
What is Zion? Is it not just a people that are willing to help the poor, sick, fatherless, elderly, and widows? Is it not a people with one heart and mind in the worshiping of God? Does this even require borders? Cannot individuals achieve Zion with other individuals in a loose fashion where they might not even form groups together but have a common goal and help those in need individually. Or if they do form groups do the groups need to necessarily be perfect?
I don’t think Zion necessarily needs to be people sharing everything in common. It can be no more than people listening to the HG and acting on those promptings. The only leader then would be the Godhead.
Jon:
Zion is not just “helping the poor, sick, fatherless, elderly”, etc… I loathe the modern church teaching that Zion is merely the “pure in heart” and that it can be found anywhere and everywhere. On one hand that is correct, Zion does start on an individual level, but in the process the Church has explained away the entire process of gathering together with like-hearted individuals. The Church turned away from this back during the initial great depression because they felt like they couldn’t provide work for everyone, as if work + money was all that was required of Zion. In the process, in order to justify the new stance, Zion is no longer a place, it is no longer a community, it is no longer a gathering.
Now, we’re forced to assume LDSA’s stance that Zion will begin with collectives and cooperatives and leadershipless anarchichal tribes. I’m cool with that, but that doesn’t take away the weeping we do for the lack of a collective society exuding charity at every turn.
Maybe your Zion won’t have “people sharing everything in common,” but that might be one of the few scriptures I trust:
Nibley, one of the few in the church in recent years to actually ponder the concept of Zion in depth or detail, shared this idea which I find interesting:
Obviously, we start at Zero. But we can’t, contrary to current Church teachings, stay at Zero without negating all that is Zion.
Where I differ from LDSA + Justin is their belief in the multi-husband + wife belief. That may indeed happen, but it’s not a requirement. It may be a natural outgrowth of charity, but it’s not a requirement of. It may be the most beneficial usage within the system, but it won’t be a commandment. It may be the only way to make things prosper, but it won’t happen by people telling us that’s what has to happen. I think there will be very few requirements within the community other than charity for others (as LDSA mentioned), but even then it won’t be a requirement because you can’t command or require charity without negating its very existence.
Gomes: “because you can’t command or require charity without negating its very existence” — you’re right.
Often, when it comes to topics such as this — we seem to wish that we could force someone to do something that will only be acceptable if it was done voluntarily.
I guess that, “What are we to do?” is the wrong question. It’s like love — there is nothing that we can do, but there’s nothing I can do by not doing anything either.
Re: establishing Zion without kinship ties — what does the whole thing look like to you? Without tribal connections among members, how do you see any attempt at Zion keeping itself from falling into the failures Stephen outlined in the OP?
Gomes,
I can accept that it is a society and physical location(s). I’m not as well read on this as you (and LDSA, Justin) apparently are. I’ll have to read up on it more. I’m not comfortable w/ the multiwife/multihusband ideas either. Even though the scriptures talk of God giving men multiple wives I’m still not a big fan of it since they usually talk negatively of the consequences of multiple wives.
No comment from Dan on using violence to achieve Zion?
steve, fair enough. i’ll quit beating that drum now.
I have said before that justin is the best spokesman for anarchy, though he is still not persuasive enough to convert me. my problem with anarchy is that it pre-supposes righteousness in order to be successful. well, if righteousness is a pre-supposition, ANY form of government will work, including the benevelent dictator. therefore, anarchy is a completely impractical form of government in the real world.
when I asked ldsa on his blog where anarchy had been practiced successfully in the real world, he said somalia. if somalia is the shining example of anarchy, then I want no part of your utopia. your ideas for utopia are pie in the sky idealism, and completely impractical in the real world.
I would rate brigham young’s implementation of united order as the most successful attempt at consecration, practical, and generally successful. if not for polygamy and the federal government’s coercive attempts to end polygamy and church ownership of property, we could still be practicing the united order as a church. however, we would have farmers in the hierarchy rather than lawyers, doctors, and businessmen that dominate the hierarchy today.
mh,
Anarchy does presuppose righteous of the majority of the people but not necessarily all the people. It also fosters a righteous people more than any other form of governance. So I see anarchy as the goal, the principles. Any time we deviate from it it should be acknowledged and a path should be laid down to figure out how to get back to the principles.
You have to remember Somalia is, from what I read, better off than its neighbors and you have to remember that Somalia has outside influences like the USA that are fomenting violence there. You also have to remember that when a people are controlled before hand that when they do go to anarchy overnight it isn’t going to be as nice as when a people are already experiencing minarchy and then switch over. So for all the things going against them they are doing pretty good.
The best example I’ve read about so far was the Quakers in Pennsylvania for about a 6 year period.
If the people that participated in the United Order were not forced to be there and agreed to the covenants and laws that existed there then according to the definition of anarchy, they lived in anarchy. In an ordered anarchy environment people make contracts and do their best to keep them, this is the very definition of ordered anarchy. The antithesis of ordered anarchy is a society that uses violence against people that have not agreed or contracted with said society.
jon, from what I understand, all adults in orderville lived there willingly. all gave property to the church willingly, and many lamented the demise of orderville. while brigham young gave a great deal of lattitude with these united order order experiments, it is a real stretch to say they lived in anarchy.
anarchy will not be acceptable to the u.s. government. I would love to hear jon, justin, and ldsa start an anarchy community in somalia and see how well the muslim neighbors there accept you. will people flock to your utopia? if so, how will you deal with the influx that caused orderville so many problems? I addition, how will you solve the generational problems of children born into the utopia that didn’t agree to the terms and are not there willingly?
MH #49,
What Jon said above (#50) was my point to you about Somalia (and also about the anarchy in Spain). Everyone expected them to implode without a government, but they didn’t. In fact, the data showed marked improvements in many areas, and this without having a perfect anarchy (as there were still factions striving to control the population.) In other words, on the whole, Somalia was better off (they prospered more) without a government than with one. When left to themselves in anarchy, people always find a way to prosper, and the evidence bears that out.
Governments can’t have such information get out, so attempts to establish a government among an anarchic people or otherwise quash all anarchists is always government priority number one. People must be brought to believe, and be kept believing, that they need a government for an ordered society. But, in truth, they don’t.
You said, “my problem with anarchy is that it pre-supposes righteousness in order to be successful.”
That is absolutely not true. Anarchism does not require righteousness to be successful. We have scriptural proof of that. (See the wicked, yet peaceful tribes established in anarchy in 3 Nephi 7.)
One more thing. Zion is Utopia, plain and simple. But it is not just any Utopia. It is “pie in the sky Utopia.” The principle of Zion is the creating of heaven on Earth, or the transformation of earth-life to exactly correspond to the kind of life that is found in heaven.
Because of this, all the heavenly principles must and will exist in Zion. You cannot have a Zion that does not match the heavenly Zion. The two must be identical twins, otherwise, one of them is not Zion.
What do we see in heaven? How do the scriptures, the word of God, describe the society there? First of all, we see that everyone in heaven is related to each other, a gigantic family, or a tribe, with a tribal chief, the Father. Second, we see that agency reigns supreme, as well as common consent. In other words, we see tribal anarchy there. So, in order to create that society here, we must likewise have tribal anarchy, and use the word of God as our tribal, customary law.
You might think this is impractical and pie in the sky idealism, but that is what Zion is all about. To convert Zion to something less than the heavenly is to pervert the meaning of the word.
This is why only a people who have charity can establish Zion. Only such people are so obsessed with the heavenly to the point that they will do all in their power to transform Earth into the heavenly society. Everyone else who falls short of charity is too busy and focussed on their earth lives to bother themselves about creating heaven on earth. These latter people can never establish Zion, though they may create earthly Utopias of various and sundry forms.
Justin:
Does kinship have to be a requirement? Why cannot it be extended to non-blood brothers and sisters? Either way you answer that, does the tribal connection have to include certain things or can it remain dynamic to accept whatever it may be?
I can see immediate kinship being beneficial (i.e. parents + immediate children), but I’m not confident that extending that to siblings and their children is necessary. I used to think that we needed to rally around like-minded people, to gather together with those who appreciated the same things and thought along similar lines – political, religious and spiritual.
I no longer think that’s a beneficial way of thinking. Like-mindedness creates groupthink, tends to engender feelings of superiority and chosenness, none of which (IMO) are fruits of the gospel… Instead, we should look for like-hearted people, no matter their religious persuasion. People generally disposed of watching out for each other, people who are seeking the gift of charity and people just trying to live gracefully.
My brother and his family, for instance, moved away from home last year in search of something closer to zion. He lived with another one of my brother’s and his wife (they had no kids). Then, a couple months later another family joined them with their kids. Perhaps it was doomed to fail, but it was apparent that even among these people some charity was lacking because there was – from my outside view – too much of a focus on like-mindedness and not enough on like-heartedness.
Some just weren’t dedicated to working a regular job, some weren’t disposed to a communal lifestyle where privacy was limited…
Really, I thought it would work, but less than 6 months later the original brother and his family moved back from whence they came and I’m pretty sure there’s no plan to reunite. That does live two couples living at the same location, one couple with a couple kids… but I’m not close enough to know how it works.
It is apparent, though, that people will have to have a radical change of mind + heart to accept that sort of lifestyle… and I’m not sure how you get there. The short of it, though, I’m not sure you need kinship. You do need a spiritual kinship of sorts, but not physical.
In your story, it appears that the three families remained as separate nuclear families instead of actually uniting themselves as a tribe.
Without kinship — it is not a tribe. What we have currently as LDS is organization by shared belief alone [creeds]. From your story, it appears that’s what the people in your story had done.
They broke away from a community of shared belief alone [the LDS] and created a smaller community of shared belief alone.
I was wondering how you see Zion being achieved without kinship and shared belief — and you responded with a story of a failed attempt to establish Zion without covenants between the members.
How does a spiritual kinship of sorts manifest without a physical one? Aren’t we to combine the physical with the spiritual in mortality?
Gomes #39,
You said:
Anarchy is people leading, or governing, themselves. The cry for leadership is the same as the cry for a king, it all leads to bondage. People who desire leaders do so because they intend to rely upon those leaders for guidance and protection, instead of every man standing or falling on his own.
People are free to choose among themselves men and women for various assignments, including assigned leaders and managers. Such things happens in anarchy. But removing the men and women who filled the assignments should not shut the whole operation down, because the anarchy just chooses other men and women to fill their places. In other words, life goes on and the work continues forward. If Mormon Heretic is right about the Orderville leadership, it means that the leadership were directing the affairs, not the people, because once the leaders were incarcerated, the system imploded.
Now, I don’t have all the facts of Orderville. It may be that they attempted to choose other leaders and managers, yet the government kept interfering with them. But if such was not the case and the people were simply incapable of going forth without their leaders telling them what to do, that would indicate that they had placed their trust in man (their leaders). Their leaders had become a crutch to lean on and thus were the cause of their demise once that crutch was incarcerated by the government.
Is my message a little clearer now?
mh,
Look up panarchy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panarchy
It’s typical of people to flock to places that are more free than where they are living, especially as it gets worse where they are at.
When you think of anarchy you think of disorder and chaos. We’re all talking of anarchy where there is order. Where people are truly free and not farmed like cattle. You would even be able to get with your buddies and elect yourself a king if you would like, just don’t impose it on the rest of us. It all boils down to property rights and there is a plethora of material out there on the subject if you would like to learn more I can point you to those resources.
it makes little difference to me if anarchy in somalia today is better than a corrupt government of somalia a few years ago. the real question is if my life today would be improved is today the u.s. government fell and left us free to create our own anarchy. 99% or more of americans think you guys are wacky, and nobody believes their lives would be improved, but a state of violent chaos. and if somalia is your example of success, you guys are going to be seen as absolute loonies. nobody in america wants to live in somalia (including you I suspect.)
you have zero practical answers for how to create a practical anarchic utopia and conveniently changed the subject rather than answer my questions about your muslim neighbors in somalia. your monday morning quarterbacking of orderville is terrible.
thanks for commenting-I will bow out of a conversation with you all now before you start telling me the earth is flat and nasa faked the apollo moon landings.
mh,
Don’t know why you have so much anger on this subject. We have all answered you very well and are trying to help you understand our points of view.
Just because the crowd believes one thing doesn’t mean we need to either. Just because the majority of people believed that the world couldn’t exist without slavery doesn’t mean that the forward thinkers should have stopped believing and advocated for a world without slaves.
I said before a really good example of anarchy was the Quakers in Pennsylvania. Yet you continue to focus on the absolute negative. Should we focus on Hitler and his country every time you say we need to have a monopoly of violence?
If you want to talk about these things let me know and I’ll see what I can do for your muslim question. There are answers, but let them that have ears to hear listen, obviously you are not seeking for truth on this subject because your prejudices obscure your view for a desire of truth.
Let me know when you open your mind and truly want the truth and dialog vs just wanting to slander and name call. Love is all I ask for.
jon, why do you think I am angry? it’s a false assumption. I seek love too-I hope you don’t think I hate love. but I seek practical answers in the real world. your anarchic utopia is the opposite of practicality in the real world. show me a place where anarchy is a success (besides somalia) and you will get my attention. until then, I will view you like a crazy uncle in the basement. I will still love you, but I won’t be angry and I will still think you are crazy.
mh,
You seem angry because you start name calling and avoiding the arguments made. Like the slavery argument. Statism is but enslaving the people.
Didn’t I show this before or was it someone else?
The Origins of Individualist Anarchism in the US
http://mises.org/daily/2014
Pennsylvania’s Anarchist Experiment: 1681-1690
http://mises.org/daily/1865
I avoid arguments with crazy people because it does no good to argue with them. I’ll also note that nobody answered how Muslims in Somalia will react to Christian anarchists in their land of utopia. Nobody has shown me a successful anarchy (I don’t think Somalia is a success, and certainly not my idea of utopia.)
Jon, I love you, and I am tired of talking about this. I’m really out of this conversation. God bless you! When you organize a barbecue with Dan and JMB, please add me to the invitation list. Even if you’re crazy, I admit you have a good heart. God Bless!
Well, show me a statist system that works and then I’ll believe that statism works. Goodness that makes no sense. You still haven’t responded to my slavery question. I did you show you examples of anarchy that works, did you not read them?
I think you just don’t like learning things that don’t fit with your world view.
Yeah, if I ever go to NY again, or the area, I’ll see if Dan would be up for it. Don’t see myself going there anytime soon, so maybe Dan will have to come to AZ sometime, since his wife makes the big bucks.
Does the cities of Enoch, Melchizedek, and the Nephites not count? Must we throw away the Sermon on the Mount too because taking no thought for the morrow isn’t being very practical either?
I guess that could be a post in and of itself — but don’t the scriptures taken as a whole present a pretty “impractical” way of doing things — one that there aren’t many historical instances of people doing right to point people like MH to?
According to you. I don’t think you have to have a physical kinship in order to make a “family.” A family can be what I decide it to be… whether we be related by blood or by mere association. Methinks you focus too much on the “kinship” aspect.
I answered this earlier. Please refer to my previous responses. Simply put: you don’t need kinship [i.e. blood / genealogical relationship] to make something work.
It’s the same thing with any family. In order to form a new tribe/family, you typically marry someone from outside the family lines. That new person becomes your tribe/family, even though there is no kinship (even after marriage). The new kinship is based on shared, common beliefs (hopefully). From there, you populate the earth by having little munchkins who then form the physical kinship I presume you’re speaking of when you use the word kinship (see the above hyperlink).
The first or second generations needn’t meet your kinship requirements but, eventually, I could see where the spiritual/intellectual kinship and the physical/blood/genealogical kinship meet.
That, in essence, is a (but certainly not the only) melding of the physical + spiritual.
@LDSA
I understand what anarchy is, but the original comment I referred to contradicted itself. I’m as anti-leadership as most, but I can’t say that there will never be a time where a community might select some sort of leadership, and not out of a “cry” that leads to bondage. Mostly, we all live various forms of anarchical laws without acknowledging it – by your definition at least (i.e. “Anarchy is people leading, or governing, themselves.).
Is that not what we do on a hourly, daily and weekly basis? If not, then I’m not sure what you’re proferring with that definition. Most people live their lives without too much interference from governing or religious bodies. Yes, there are those moments of friction but, at the end of the day, we’re all leading and/or governing ourselves.
Do we have too much interference from religious bodies? Undoubtedly. Do we have too much interference from governing bodies? Perhaps.
Do we, however, allow too much interference from outsiders as we seek to govern and/or lead ourselves? Unquestionably.
However, I could easily see where we outsource certain aspects of the community to “leaders” without acknowledging them as such. The baker, farmer, machinist, midwife, etc., are all “leaders” of their respective spheres. We might deem them “experts” or what-have-you, but they’re nevertheless the leader in that aspect of your life if it’s something you don’t do yourself.
And, for all intents and purposes, I doubt there’s a community where you do everything yourself independent of the community anyway- else why even yearn for a community?
Gomes:
tribe:
kin:
kinship:
ORIGIN: Old English cynn, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch kunne, from an Indo-European root meaning ‘give birth to,’ shared by Greek genos and Latin genus ‘race.’
Though I don’t want to underscore our disagreements — when there seems to be much that we can agree upon — it is not “according to I” who says tribal bonds are based on kinship.
It is the marriage covenants that give a tribe strength. Without them, people just use sheer willpower to maintain charity in the group — and the arm of flesh always fails. This is because there are no covenant family ties between members.
That’s what makes a tribe the preferred method for the basis of Zion-communities.
Gome #64, exactly. Most of our lives are lived in anarchy. Professed anarchists just extend the principle (that everyone already lives in their private lives) into the public sector. That’s all.
…the original comment I referred to contradicted itself…
Here is the original comment:
I followed the first initial statement (“because they had leaders and managers, period”) with qualifying statements to explain what I was saying (“Top-down leadership (the way of the Gentiles), in which the people rely or depend upon their leaders for guidance and management” and “without reliance upon leaders.”) It is common in English to first give a general statement and then to add qualifiers to narrow the statement down to the exact meaning you are intending to convey. (Or, at least, it was common back in the days. Perhaps times have changed…)
With this information, maybe now you can see that there was no contradiction.
In case you still don’t understand my meaning, people desiring leaders is people desiring to be led. In anarchy, no one desires to be led, for people lead themselves. Capable men and women can still be chosen to perform certain functions, and they can still be called leaders and managers, etc., but in anarchy, everyone is his own leader and does not rely upon anyone to lead him in any direction.
For example, an army of anarchists could appoint one of them to be their military leader, because of his great skill in tactical warfare, but none of them will feel compelled to obey him simply because he is the leader. They will follow his instructions only insofar as they feel his directions are wise and just. The instant they feel like he is guiding the army in the wrong direction, they have no qualms about taking their arms and walking back home. There is no sense of duty to trust one’s leaders because they are “the leaders.” The “follow-me mentality” does not exist in anarchy, for everyone is equal and is entitled to his own opinion.
Anarchy works because of necessity only the very wisest and skilled of men and women can be chosen among the people for the various leadership and management positions, for no one will follow them out of a sense of duty. This naturally weeds out the wrong people from the various positions to be filled.
So, I am not anti-leadership, as you think I am. But I am against the abdication of one’s agency to someone in a leadership position, also known as blindly following the leader. In hierarchical systems, leaders are above the followers. In anarchy, leaders are at the same level as the followers. In the gospel, leaders are below (subservient to, or servants of) the followers. Orderville leadership strikes me as hierarchical, which I am against. The other two forms I can tolerate.
LDSA,
I think part of your description of anarchists excludes certain people that it could include. Property rights and contracts are important and must be adhered to. If a person so wishes to contract with another to be their master that is their choice and must be adhered to since it was contracted. In this manner we contract (covenant) with God to follow and obey Him.
LDSA #32 – This is probably a topic for a different post or discussion – I confess that most of this discussion has sailed right over my poor little head up there in the intellectual ether. I’m way more interested in how Zion would work emotionally — it’s well established that people (regardless of their gender) make decisions based on emotion and NOT on fact even when they think they’re being quite rational – but since you assert that Zion would have to be a grass-roots effort (an idea I can totally get behind)are you saying that people would be magically purged of all their contradictory/conflicting impulses? (I haven’t been able to investigate the links you provided due to the fact that I’m at work, but I will later.)
Charity *is* kind and envieth not. Charity is the most fundamental, real truth or M.O. of the universe–its description in scripture is the best humans can do at describing the attitude of the Creator toward the Creation. We are each absolutely and perfectly beloved of God, no questions asked, no strings attached – just the way it is. I’ve had personal witness of that truth, but since I nevertheless lapse right back into judgment, envy, greed, resentment, etc. as I inevitably do, the best I can hope for is just to notice what’s happening and not let it run amok. Isn’t the effort to be aware of not-so-charitable impulses in itself a manifestation of Charity? If it’s an either-or, all-or-nothing proposition, then Charity is a fiction as far as human beings are concerned – there is no way to get ‘there’ from ‘here.’
I’m more convinced after reading most all of the comments here that a Zion-like society is not something people can construct intellectually by designing the perfect blueprint. Economic models, forms of governance, tribal relationships, hierarchies, good or bad management, etc etc etc henceforth and forever amen and amen, not going to make it happen. What might work is to work individually to cultivate a ‘Zion’ mind in which our self-vs-other distinctions and judgments and opinions are cast off, allowing charity to shine through as the dominant and most cherished impulse in human relations. Zion will be a natural, unstoppable result of this personal transformation, wherever it occurs, whether it be a Zion of one or two individuals or a thousand – though at some point I think it would have a snowball effect (or a stone cut out of the mountains without hands effect, whichever you prefer).
don’t think Zion necessarily needs to be people sharing everything in common. It can be no more than people listening to the HG and acting on those promptings.
But it is easier in groups with like-minded people, easier to teach to children, more resilient and self-correcting.
Of course, Jon #67. I thought that was self-evident. This is why answering questions of “what do you do in this circumstance?” or “how do you plan for that circumstance?” are not based on an understanding of what anarchy is. People are free to enter into whatever type of contractual (or covenantal) relationship they want. If they want to create their own little State government, they are free to go right ahead and do so. Just as long as they don’t force me into it. All the anarchies that organize themselves will be established according to how the people of that particular anarchic society decides to adapt to those particular set of circumstances. Central planning, or micromanagement, is anathema to the fluid, rapidly adapting nature of anarchy.
An anarchy based upon gospel laws will, of course, contain covenants, linking us to both God and to one another. But there can be other types of anarchies. In fact, there are about as many flavors of anarchists as there are other types of political ideologies.
Anarchy, to me, is like a clean sheet of paper. Two or more people can come together, take up pencils and begin designing whatever organizational chart for an anarchic society that they want, as long as everything is voluntary. All the anarchies designed can be based upon the same principle of freedom, yet appear very different from one another. As new conditions present themselves, those who voluntarily join an anarchy might see the need to flip their pencils around and start erasing a part of the design, and then redesign it to fit in better with the new circumstances. This is the way it is supposed to work.
When I come in and see all these pieces of paper, with the various anarchy flavors, I understand that pretty much all of them are vastly superior to the coercion that is the State. But my concern is: which of these anarchies most closely resembles that of Zion? As I compare the scriptures to these designs, it becomes plain that tribal anarchy is a match.
However, there may be as many different forms of tribal anarchy as there are different anarchic ideologies. No two forms will be alike, since the members of these societies will operate as they see fit.
When you take a tribal anarchy and overlay the gospel of Jesus Christ on top of it, as revealed through Joseph Smith, you get something resembling what Justin and I have been writing about. But even within those parameters, there is still a lot of room for variety.
Emily #68,
You wrote:
Last night, I believe it was, I was flipping through television channels and I stopped on some news program. I think it was Dateline. Anyway, they were talking about a device that used sonic energy to scare away animals. The sound emitted by the device could not be heard by humans, but animals ran away from it. So, they decided to test it. They brought the device to some historical garden that was having a major problem with deer and then dropped a bunch of apples in places, set the device, turned their cameras on, and waited. The deer came and ate the apples, despite the sound. They did a second test with biscuits and another type of animal. The animals came for that and ate it, too.
The news team talked to an animal expert, who said that the urge to eat is very strong and apples and biscuits are a particularly enticing treat. The conclusion they came to was that the device worked as long as you didn’t have apples and biscuits around.
Zion will never be established until we view it as our biscuits and apples. As long as we see it as any other type of food, an inaudible sonic emission will righten us and keep us away. It is only when we see it as something beyond delicious, and crave it to the point that nothing will discourage us from going to it and partaking of it, then, and only then will it be established.
Joseph prayed for Zion, wept for Zion, lived for Zion, strove for Zion and died for Zion. Until we have Zion on our brains and in our hearts, it will remain unapproachable. It must become an urge so overpowering that no amount of discouragement, from any quarter (including church quarters), can stop us.
Think about it, when was the last time you (or me or anyone) thought, “I’m going to do this because this will help to establish Zion.” Or, “what can I do today that will help to establish Zion?” No one plans toward that end, no one thinks about it, no one cares about it and it remains un-established. No one, absolutely no one, weeps for Zion anymore.
Zion, says the Lord, is the pure in heart. You can’t get your heart pure until it is broken and no one is broken hearted. Only the broken hearted are accepted by the Lord. When you are accepted by the Lord, He forgives your sins and visits you, purifying your heart. It is the pure in heart that see God. Who, then, among us has seen God? None of us have. No one has a pure heart. Not a one of us.
Our hearts are set on riches, on our mundane lives, on busybody work, on trivialities, on intellectualism, on everything but Zion. And no one weeps anymore for sin. God can do nothing with us because of the state of our hearts.
We have set up a meritocracy among us. We think we can earn or obtain faith, hope and charity by working for it in church service. But these things are gifts of God given only to the broken-hearted, or those who weep for their sins. It is easier to put on white shirts and ties, clean pressed clothes, smiles and warmly greet one another, than it is to pour out our souls to God. We have created the illusion of righteousness, without any of its real effects.
Any man or woman that obtains purity of heart through their broken heart, contrite spirit and sincere repentance, also obtains charity. And once you obtain it, you become filled with the never-ending desire that everyone else have it, too. That is why those who have charity cannot cease striving to establish Zion. Zion is the heavenly way to temporally and spiritually provide for God’s children, by having all things common.
The apple must overpower the sonic device. Zion’s pull must be stronger than Babylon’s noises. Zion’s pull is stronger, but no one knows this unless they have a taste of its fruit, or a whif of its scent. Once the savor is in you, your mouth never stops watering. This by design.
But, based upon my vantage point, I don’t see anyone around me anxiously engaged in the cause of Zion. Everyone has their noses stuck somewhere else.
@Justin:
I don’t, unfortunately for this discussion, tie myself to any particular definition. Where you believe that kinship + marriage is an absolute requirement, I shrug my shoulders and say, “maybe.” For me, I simply don’t agree that marital contracts are what give strength to the tribe (my definition of tribe, being more inclusive than simple kinship). The strength of the tribe is (a) charity and (b) a common goal. That common goal, which you insist must be achieve through covenant, can be underscored either by covenant (including marriage covenants) or simple devotion to Christ. Likewise, my definition of kinship necessarily includes more than my blood relatives. In fact, I’m pretty sure most of my blood relatives want nothing to do with Zion – the scent of Babylon and her riches is much too strong at this point.
Besides, I really don’t think that it’s sheer willpower that maintains the status in the absence of covenants and contracts. The freedom we gain by following Christ is more than enough to compensate for a lack of contracts, covenants and willpower. I have a hard time believing such a mindset is “the arm of flesh [which] always fails.” More likely, it’s a much-too-rigid mindset which insists things must occur in such-and-such a way or else…
@LDSA
Thank you for (a) the English lesson and (b) allowing yourself to condescend to my level. I am in awe.
In fact, the whole first paragraph I reblocked here is missing the point…again, but I’m tired of rehashing it at this point. H3ll, you’re arguing past me in the 2nd paragraph as well. Nevermind, no harm no foul. 😉
Must be adhered to? I disagree with the premise that (a) property rights are important and (b) that they must be adhered to. There is a bit too much control in that statement to get me on board and I doubt property rights are necessary for either Zion or a well oiled anarchical society.
Does the cities of Enoch, Melchizedek, and the Nephites not count?
No, not really. The scraps of information we have about them do not provide useful practical information. What was the government like for any of these situations? How exactly did they achieve it? Orderville is a much more useful tool for seeing what works and what doesn’t work than Enoch, Melchizedek, or 4 Nephi with the scant information they contain.
Must we throw away the Sermon on the Mount too because taking no thought for the morrow isn’t being very practical either?
Christ is telling us to exercise faith on the morrow. While the sermon is an awesome sermon, Christ isn’t giving a blueprint on how to set up Orderville. The sermon is useful for overall guidance in how to live a good, Christian life, but it’s pretty short on details for how to set up a utopian community. Otherwise, somebody would have figured out how to make it 1000 years ago and it would still work in the long term, not these short periods of utopia in a few places.
I’d suggest that people look more at small scale democracy than anarchy. e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative
Compare the Greeks at war to the Cherokee at war. The Greeks often had military units that elected their officers, etc. The Cherokee were more of a consensual anarchy.
The 40,000 Cherokee were dominated by a neighboring tribe of only about 2000 …
Not that there is not a lot of good to be said for the governmental system they had. It just had weaknesses as well that were significant.
Anyone who wants to study anarchy that worked, better than the current ones, would do well to look at the pre-trail of tears Cherokee.
Worth quoting … 😉
Stephen Marsh,
You can have people working together in anarchy. It’s called contracts and covenants. The people can contract with one another to help defend themselves against enemies.
If small scale democracies actually stayed small I would actually be all for it. I would say that is the compromise position, and would be OK with it but think that eventually we would need to move to a point where the people don’t accept violence as a way to get people to do their bidding. Violence is only acceptable when defending your group or yourself otherwise it is not OK. So small scale democracy that its sole purpose is defense would be OK.
Large scale democracies/republics don’t work because the choice of the individual ends up not mattering anymore and eventually end up in totalitarianism/despotism/etc, like the US is headed (or I would argue already arrived) currently.
Re #23,
I guess we could speculate about all sorts of alternative universe scenarios. I can imagine a world where water runs uphill and babies drink gasoline instead of milk. I guess I don’t see the point of the exercise. It’s a fantasy. This is the world we have, and we’re not doing the best job in managing our stewardship of it. Shouldn’t reality be our focus? I mean this without snark of any kind– I am as bewildered by the mass of human problems as the next person.
MoHo — my series is aimed at ways to work within this world to create alignments that make the reality we are in work better.
Read the links on worker cooperatives to get a start.
— Stephen (visiting an Apple store)
Jon,
There he goes again with the bullcrap.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/2010_failed_states_index_interactive_map_and_rankings
Somalia is the world’s worst failed state. Stop lying Jon.
Jon,
More bullcrap. You don’t even realize how stinky full of BS you are Jon. In an anarchy, exactly who is going to enforce a contract or a covenant? If you and I contract to meet up for BBQ and you fail to show up, exactly how am I going to get recompense for you failing to uphold your part of the bargain? Who is going to make you pay? Me? Should I pull out my gun and hunt you down? That truly would be anarchy. Someone else in the given society is going to have to enforce the contract. So we hire JMB to be our enforcer. He/She (still don’t know if jmb is a man or woman) will be charged to ensure you and I keep our part of the deal. Of course, both of us would have to agree to abide by JMB’s decision on whether or not we’re keeping the contract. Do we elect JMB, so that way we have a way to ensure JMB doesn’t take that job for life and rule over us at will?
Can you see yet how utterly impractical, impossible, improbable and finally, utterly stupid the notion of anarchy is in a given society? There are NO CONTRACTS in anarchy, Jon.
Dan, I love you man, you are such a great person. You always are great at trying to understand my points of view.
Here, let me help you understand. What you think of anarchy is called chaotic anarchy and isn’t grounded in ordered anarchy where the individual is sovereign and people respect others properties (it would be a contradiction of logic to say that a person can be sovereign but has no property rights).
So you got it exactly right. When you and I contract to have a BBQ we set up provisions for a third party arbitrator/enforcer. We pay the third party to do this function, of our own free will. We could also contract that we ourselves are the enforcers of the contract, don’t know why you would want to do that. You could also contract that nobody enforces/arbitrates the contract, but you have found the person to be trustworthy in the past or you don’t care if they don’t keep their bargain, kind of like loaning money to a family member, you wouldn’t prosecute them if they reneged but you also wouldn’t loan them money again.
The arbitrators/enforcers would be in the free market so they would have competition and that would help keep it smaller/local/honest. The current system we are under using a monopoly of violence and so avoids being small/local/honest. Just read blockcop.org for a while or pro-libertate blog or Lew Rockwell blog/site. Of course, you’ve already agreed with me on that point in the past.
Don’t you see how “utterly stupid” your position is? Monopolies of violence, meant to keep the criminals at bay will only attract the smart criminals and dishonest.
Jon,
You still don’t get it. Your worldview is a simplistic utopia that accounts for little of the real world. Hell, you still have yet to acknowledge that even your own father of your philosophy, Friedrich Hayek, thinks social services ought to be maintained and provided for. Yours is a failed utopia. You keep bringing up Somalia as some example, and yet have failed to account for its ranking as the world’s worst failed state. You live in a dream world, that when someone brings actual world problems based in reality, you simply ignore as if it wasn’t staring you in the face. You backpedaled away from Somalia before, saying that only the 6-year Quaker life of the 1700s fit your criteria for utopia, and now are back to the ridiculous notion that Somalia is some utopian society. This is your utopian society:
http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/update/somalia-update-230410.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/03/somalia-faces-malnutrition-emergency
Maybe I should follow Chris H.’s lead and leave Wheat and Tares, let this place become yet another housing ground for radicals and extremists bent on destroying what America has stood for: a united people. Now it’s all for no one and one for Number One. I guess one can only hold his finger in the dike for so long before the flood overwhelms any attempt at stopping the madness. Too few here push back against your stupid notions and beliefs.
Dan,
I didn’t bring up Somalia.
You have still failed to address the fact that people used to not believe it was possible to live without slaves but there were radicals that said it was possible and pushed towards this utopian world. Would you have us still be slaves to the state?
I think we should still be united in the defense of our countrymen, not in the offense against others but defense. I think we should be united in helping one another, not with the use of violence of voluntarily. You keep thinking that all I care about is myself. You never acknowledge that I do care about others and that is why I want the free market because I believe it is the best way.
Sorry, I just can’t believe that we need to use violence against people to make them be good, even the BoM agrees with me on that.
The flood that we are trying to prevent are the avowed socialists like you who wish to make this country into Marxist dream. Collectivism doesn’t work, it leads to despotism.
Jon,
You don’t care about others because you espouse an ideology that at its core only cares about itself. It is best reprised by John Galt who said:
Your ideology could only work in a perfect environment with no variables but your own. It has no basis in real life. It cannot account for anything that might screw things up, that are actual costs, a negative cost to society. You speak of the enforcement of violence as if it were some bad thing, but God does this. You think you’re free, but you’re not. God can take your life (a violent act) at whim, at his choosing. You are not a free creature. You do not live in a world where you get to pick and choose which variables can affect your society. You are on your own to figure out how to deal with things no one has ever dealt with before, and with little to no real guidance from the Creator. And you stick with a simplistic, utterly unrealistic ideology and expect reasonable people to take your ideas reasonably. In the real world, you ought to be laughed off this blog. But alas too many here prefer to live in some strange fantasy. So be it.
the irony of course is that even Friedrich Hayek acknowledged that more must be done in a given society to provide freedom to as many people as possible with the use of the state:
He at least acknowledges some of the variables of actual life that make libertarianism an impossibility to implement in its pure form. There can never exist in this life the kind of society Jon advocates for. That we even entertain such ideas is utterly ludicrous.
I’m glad I got a chance to comment some on this post before Jon and Dan made their way here.
Bring on the Mises links and the rude rebuttals!!
You’re right Justin.
I guess I’ll finish with this thought. I think it is interesting that my world view has space for people that think like Dan, but Dan’s world view has no space for people like me.
Peace out Dan.
Jon,
Um, my worldview has space for you too. It’s in Somalia. Good luck there.
oh, and no one in America who can vote is a slave to the state, you fool. The state is our slave and does our bidding.
Sigh. At least we’ve unintentionally done a thorough job here of explaining Why Utopias Fail. Do you brethren quarrel thus about every topic or just on theories of Zion?
Seriously, though – is a blog discussion worth being in danger of hell fire? (Matthew 5:21-26). Would the world stop turning if we loosened our deathgrip on our opinions for a moment? (no, but all blogging might temporarily stop, and there would be silence in heaven for fifteen minutes or so).
Bless us in the fervor of our beliefs; may it bring us the joy that is the reason for our existence. Sooner rather than later. ❤
Dan #82 said:
I agree and I vote to change the name of this blog to Wheat, Tares & Anarchists.
LDSA #90
I would propose a friendly amendment to change it to “Wheat, Tares & Anarchists, Oh My!”
Awesome.
Emily,
Dan & I have been going at it for a while, don’t know why, we’re both pretty steady in our political beliefs which is part of our spiritual beliefs – I know people say they should be separate, don’t know why though since I think the gospel should be part of all our lives.
A different angle on tribes and utopian building blocks:
http://www.24fightingchickens.com/2011/05/20/tribes/
I’ll note that the Hutterite movement has yet to collapse and continues to grow.
As long as you have just this blog, fine by me. 🙂
Stephen, for the last few years I have benn looking for models for Zion that can work in this world. On the one hand you have the Amish who import very little from “the outside”. They are prospering and growing and have a form of Zion. Is there a model for the industrial world? I think the Catholics have already figured it out over 100 years ago when Distributism was codified. From The Front Porch Republic
So I read this today and thought of this discussion…. :
Kent, the Mondragón, the Hutterites, the Yugoslavian communists and many others have had worker managed endeavors. I did some work for a 14 billion dollar enterprise that was one.
They are fascinating groups, when they work and when they fail. I’m still working towards:
But I hope this series, and the various links I provided, have helped some people see where I was headed.
Kent:
I appreciated your comment on the importance of the principle of subsidiarity. Community always arises in nature by the higher level first meeting the needs of the lower level. The higher level only obtains its identity as a community because it gets very good at meeting the needs of its subsidiary levels.
I’ll be looking more into Mondragon.
I’m utterly fascinated by the random quoting of an un-cited source, as if we all should know where it comes from. Care to share where the quote comes form in #96.
Would that quote mean more or less to you [and carry more or less weight in your mind]– if it was your favorite author, from Mises, from a favorite GA, from an LDS or a non-LDS, or even if it was just from someone you respected for that matter, or someone you have never heard of?
Can’t you like/agree with or challenge/disagree with the quote as it stands without needing its pedigree. Is the authority in the source or in the message?
Also, I’ve found that selected some text from a quote and then searching that text usually brings back the source with very little effort on my part — FWIW.
Justin,
I prefer context, and yes, it does matter where it comes from and who said it. But that’s just me. If you like just the message, that’s cool.
Dan:
Truth is its own authority, independent of who or what said it. ‘Tis up to you to judge whether there is truth in that “un-cited source” or not.
[P.S. You can find the source by clicking on this link. That wasn’t so hard, was it?!]
see Yav, that wasn’t so hard was it.
and as for the importance of cited sources, I give you:
booyah!
http://tinyurl.com/3zx8hkk
The article confuses “utopia” with “intentional community,” and suggests that because the former is impossible the latter is necessarily impractical. The evidence does not bear this out. ICs, in the form of cohosing and ecovillage communities, are proliferating across the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. Even in Utah there is one: the Wasatch Commons in SLC. Such groups do not consider themselves utopian. They seek to cooperation, where possible, and are mostly made of people who think the post-war American trend to anonymous suburbs conneted by freeways was a bad idea. We at the Utah Valley Commons feel likewise. We hope to build 20-30 solar-powered houses, connected by pedestrian walkways, and surrounded by acres of permaculture gardens. Living in community is the wave of the future — even though, in a sense, it represents a return to the wisdom of our grandparents.
Check out the cohousing association at http://www.cohousing.org, or the Fellowship for Intentional Communities at http://www.fic.org.
Utopia’s created by individuals:
http://mormanity.blogspot.com/2011/05/free-wheeling-mormons.html
That’s right, individuals living the law of consecration sharing their property with others for the benefit of communities around them, i.e., sharing everything in common. Is this not Zion? The sharing of people’s property to help one another voluntarily and with an open heart?
I’ve always had a problem with saying everything must be owned by everyone or everything being owned by a single corporation/individual who decides how it’s used. Personally I don’t want to own a boat and maintain it. But I certainly enjoy going out with friends occasionally on their boats and having a good time. I pitch in monetarily to help out, others don’t because they don’t have the money, this is Zion, sure, maybe it needs to be an actual location but it is at least the spirit of Zion.
CW Nuckolls — I don’t say Utopias are impossible at all. Sorry that you missed the point so clearly.
Instead, I’m pointing out why they fail, and in the process noting that some have succeeded that do not have those flaws or fault lines.
Jon, private ownership or stewardship seems to be an integral part of what will make portions of a Utopia work in the long run.
Just because it seems like I’m always calling for civility in these threads, I wanted to say a couple of things.
Re MH-
I seem to have the same problem in my artificial intelligence thread (too many people look at the idea and think it absurd that we could create a conscious robot, without acknowledging the reality of “emergent behavior”). People look at an idea and try to insert it into the context we currently know and they judge it with those presuppositions. Of course anarchism implemented at the flip of a switch in the modern U.S. would be an abysmal failure possibly resulting in chaotic anarchy. No one is stupid enough to think otherwise. Similarly, socialism would be an abysmal failure if implemented at the flip of a switch. These things take time, effort, and diligence to implement successfully no matter which ideal you choose. There would need to be a cultural shift at the very least. This is the nature of the messy world we live in.
Re All
When Jon is talking about anarchism (and Justin, and LDSAnarchist), I believe he is expressing his belief in an ideal. An ideal that, if implemented correctly, based on the rules and philosophy laid out, might be successful. The same could be said about the united order. Frankly, I’m not real interested in being a part of either one of them.
I’d like to add that personally, this is why I put little stock in ideals, and loosely cling to my own philosophies (except as guidelines). Ideals, in my view, don’t account for the messiness of the world. The reality is, physics equations don’t actually work in the real world, and neither does anarchism, or communism, or many other “isms” (or united orders). The world is a messy place, fraught with errors, noise, and problems. I am saddened that so many of us feel we must defend our ideal at the expense of others (even resorting to personal attacks). Why can’t an ideal be acknowledged as an ideal, with the allowance that it might have some downsides for some people?
Nevertheless, I’m grateful there are people willing to fight for and/or die for their ideals, otherwise, I doubt we’d be having this conversation.
p.s. I enjoyed being named arbiter in the BBQ scenario. I’d be happy to take that role as long as I have limitless power to the cosmos! I would enjoy being the dictator…er ummm…righteous king. 😉
jmb,
That is a correct assessment. The compromise is libertarianism. Although, when compromising, one must be very careful, since it easily leads to a loss of all freedom and liberty.
Ayn Rand is the anti-Christ.
Apparently I’m not the only crazy one.
J. Reuben Clark:
Paul the Apostle:
Proverbs:
You’re right, Jon, you’re not the only crazy one. J. Reuben Clark was crazy too. Are you gonna start quoting Ezra Taft Benson too? He was also crazy.
Maybe you don’t know much about Ayn Rand, but she is literally the anti-Christ. She says so herself. She’s the complete opposite of Jesus Christ, thus the anti-Christ.
oh, and I knew you were a revolutionary at heart. You claim you are a peaceful man, but here you quote a crazy person who says this:
So much for peace.
Nice to see you read my stuff. All I was saying is that some of my ideas are espoused by others, even Paul the Apostle. Of course, you would have us a king if you had your way.
dude, it is YOU who would be commanded by a king. You yourself quote a king. Your idea of freedom is to be commanded by a king, and not to be your own man.
Paul the Apostle does NOT espouse your ideas. Most definitely NOT if you endorse Ayn Rand, who had this to say about the Lord.
and this about Jesus and his gospel:
Thus the Spirit of the Lord is NOT with Ayn Rand, thus there is no liberty with Ayn Rand, but only enslavement and the devil. It’s ironic because she’s closer to Karl Marx on religion than anyone else on this planet.
Why do you keep bringing up Ayn Rand?
why did YOU bring up Ayn Rand?
J. Reuben Clark — he is the one who felt we were somewhat at fault for the cold war and that we needed to proclaim peace — you make an interesting point Dan.
I posted a video that made a good point about compromise. I didn’t endorse her at all though. Why do you keep attacking the people rather than the ideas?
Stephen,
Sounds like my type of guy (if he’s anti-war, of course, I would be even more anti-war than what his quote said, using violence to get rid of violent people only foments more violence). I don’t know that much about him, he does sound like he is one of the more prominent Mormons since his name sounds familiar to me, even after he’s been dead for so long.
you quote people before even knowing who they are and what they stand for? Did you know Friedrich Hayek stood for this:
–page 148 of The Road to Serfdom
and for the record, Ayn Rand does not compromise.
Nobodies perfect or perfectly principled. I just take that which is good and use it. That’s why I’ve been able to learn from you, because I see the good parts and take them and add them to my knowledge. Even Satan has good things to teach us, so I imagine the anti-Christ would too.
no, Jon, you don’t just take that which is good. Providing social services to poor people IS GOOD! That’s what you should take from Hayek, if you take anything from him. You should take from Jefferson that the wealthy ought to be burdened with a greater share of social responsibility to ensure the poor are provided an environment in which they might be able to get out of being poor. You should take from Thomas Paine that maybe this country ought to create a national fund that pays everyone upon becoming an adult in order to start up something of their lives. You should take from Jesus Christ that no matter the way, whether a rich man is to sell all that he has and give to the poor, whether a poor woman is to be given health, whatever it may be, whatever method it may take, the poor ought to be helped by the wealthier in society. Because THAT is good. It is proven by historical record that wealth among a greater percentage of the population grew after the introduction of social security and welfare in this country than at any other time. Only once Ronald Reagan and his “freakonomic trickle-down” theory came into use have we seen the middle class and poor no longer have their proper share of wealth in this country and most of it going back into the hands of the top 1%. The more we rely on the economic theories of those on the right, the wealthier the rich get, and the poorer the middle class and poor get. That is NOT good.
Throughout all this, the market is still free. You are free to create whatever business you want in this market, Jon. I am free to start up a photography business tomorrow if I so desire. I am free to start up a Romanian restaurant tomorrow if I so desired. I am free to start up a gluten free breakfast house tomorrow if I so desired (I make a killer gluten free breakfast). Nothing is holding me back. No law is holding me back. No state is holding me back. I can do it. Because our market is free.
It is utterly ridiculous for anyone to claim otherwise. Anyone who claims so does not live in America, or if they live here are willfully blind and stupid. There are approximately 27.5 MILLION small businesses in America today. No other country in the world has such a large number of small businesses, or most likely (because I haven’t checked) per capita either.
I guess in your utopian world of Somalia you could also just pick up and become a small business owner. Somehow find a goat, start milking it and sell it for whatever you can. Just watch those pirates…
By the way, here is an article on the most and least friendly countries to small businesses
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2007/06/01/100049637/index.htm
The United States is number 2. Number one is New Zealand (a more socialist country than the United States). GASP! Canada is number 3. And we know how socialist they are!
I don’t see Somalia on the list….not even at the bottom….maybe because it is such a failed state, they don’t have the ability to keep hardly any kind of statistics…
President McKay:
It seems we have been warned pretty clearly against communism/socialism and they are contrary to the gospel of Christ.
I do think we should help the poor, widows, etc. But to steal from others to help some is not the way of Christ. It’s against the principles of the gospel of Christ.
You call this the freedom of business?
http://overlawyered.com/2011/05/big-food-regulatory-net/
How about if I try and sell marijuana, will the state let me do that? No.
What if I try and start a restaurant, wait there’s so many regulations that I can’t start one unless I have a considerable amount of cash on hand.
What if I want to be a lawyer. I have to get a license from the state and pass through the bar and get a costly “education”. In Arizona they raised how difficult it was to pass the test because there were beginning to be too many Lawyers in the state. So much for licensing.
Jon,
Please, feel free to go to your utopian Somalia if you hate America so much. No one is forcing you to stay here. And as usual in terms of freedom of business, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. In regards to your link, I followed to its origin (here) and for the life of me I cannot find an independent source to verify these claims. Not that I am surprised though.
As for starting a restaurant, yes, our society has deemed that certain qualifications must be attained before you can open a restaurant. This is to prevent you from opening a poisoned restaurant with the intent of killing off your customers. Clearly no one in their right mind has the intent of killing off their customers, but the act of prevention provides security for freedom and life which you otherwise will not get in Jon’s Silly Utopia (TM). And if your claim is that you can’t get a business started because you don’t have enough cash, you clearly have no idea what it takes to start up a business. Are you really this dumb, Jon? Have your brain cells been eaten up this badly by the mises crap you ingest? Com’on, this is elementary. My five year old knows more than you.
Dan you have a lot of anger in your heart.
you clearly don’t know what anger is. Calling you dumb for not knowing what you need to start up a business is not based out of anger. But you clearly hate this world you live in. You clearly hate this country. You clearly hate the people here who don’t espouse your views. We’re thieves and murderers to you. Why do YOU have such anger in YOUR heart toward YOUR fellow men and women?
Interesting talk on United Order and Zion back in 1942 by Reuben J Clark. Interesting points he made, first he made it clear that it was his opinion. He said the UO was not communism. UO was based on private property and individualism. That Zion is all of the Americas.
http://scriptures.byu.edu/viewSession.php?id=8
(Search for “Private Ownership…under the United Order. J. Rueben Clark, Jr.”)
I believe Zion can not be fully approached as an individual. An individual may ascend the ladder of spiritual progression to enter the presence of God for ones self but who then do we share that with, as far as Family & community are concerned ?
Zion is not the persuite of a soul individual. Zion is more than just an individual’s perfect relationship with the Lord. It is also a collective relationship with our brothers & sisters in Christ.
It’s the idea of at least one man reaching that spiritual platue and then being chosen of God to show the REST of us the way.
At lest that is the way it is described in the scriptures…God sending One Man to head the way to Zion with the accompaniment of 144,000 special helpers UP to that very task.
As more and more reach that level of oneness with God through their example & teachings, then those numbers INCREASE. Until such a time & point when all those who will ascend to that level have done so &we are then prepared to meet the Lord at His Second Coming.
What’s so hard to understand ? The Lord describes this process very plainly in the scriptures, yet it’s discussed as though a plan was never devised and we must come up with one by sharing ideas.
What gives here ? Is the Lord’s Plan not good enough ? Are we smater than Him ?
Too much reading the ideas of men are interjected into this subject.
The reason Zion managed to prevail in the days of Enoch & Melchezidek were because the PEOPLE were up to listening and following the EXAMPLE God placed before them.
In Joseph Smith’s day, the PEOPLE DID NOT follow His EXAMLE & INSTRUCTIONS…They FAILED.
What is so TOUGH about this ? God will soon SEND another EXAMPLE for us to follow so that we don’t have to sit around and DEBATE the issue.
We either choose to recognize Him as being the WAY to God & Zion or we DON’T.
But one thing is for SURE…Those who DO choose to follow him will come to KNOW the answer to that question of what it takes to make Zion…
This subject amounts to NO MORE or NO LESS than this.
All other ideas besides the one that God has already formulated long before any of us were born, are just a bit presumptuous.