My local library went into deep freeze about two months ago, not even accepting book returns. So I’ve had my current pile of library books for about three months now. Which means I have read every page of Stanley Fish’s The First: How to think about hate speech, campus speech, religious speech, fake news, post-truth, and Donald Trump (2019). Let’s talk about the last chapter, “Why Transparency Is the Mother of Fake News,” then relate it to the ongoing discussion of transparency within the LDS Church. Is there such a thing as too much transparency? If so, what is the optimal degree of transparency?
The Author. First, a word about the author. Stanley Fish is a postmodern literary theorist who started out life as an English prof and is now a law prof. In Europe, if you are a postmodern literary theorist you are also a philosopher of sorts. But Anglo-American philosophy at the university level is much narrower than Continental philosophy. So the broader field of Continental philosophy is often found in English departments in the United States. Fish has expanded beyond his academic discipline, becoming something of a public intellectual like Noam Chomsky or Paul Krugman. He published op-eds at the New York Times, including ‘Transparency’ is the Mother of Fake News (May 7, 2018), on which the chapter in the book is based. Most importantly, Fish is a bright, clever guy who writes very interesting books.
The Law. Why does an English prof turn into a law prof? The obvious reason is that law profs are paid better. But it turns out a literary theorist, an expert in putting words and sentences through a literary grinder and spitting out something interesting, can bring some real insights to the study of law. This is evident in a couple of earlier chapters in the book, “Why Hate Speech Cannot Be Defined” and “Why Freedom of Speech Is Not an Academic Value.” Short version: The law is a lot messier than you think. But I can’t talk about everything in the book in one blog post. So let’s talk about “transparency.”
Transparency in General. Fish examines the claim “The more speech, the better” in light of The Internet, which puts that slogan to the test. The promise of The Internet and its cousin Social Media is a copious free flow in unfiltered information that will somehow improve life for you and me and everyone else. The key claim is that The Internet gives us access to unfiltered information. Instead of journalists and editors and publishers deciding what could be put in print or not, we get access to everything. Fish spends most of the chapter showing that access to everything has negative consequences as well as possible benefits.
First, open-meeting laws. Maybe forcing your local town council or state senate committee to conduct its meetings in public rather than behind closed doors inhibits open and candid discussion by participants. It almost certainly does. Remember your American history course when it talked about the Constitutional Convention in 1787? The members met for four months over the summer … behind closed doors. They were very careful to avoid leaks. James Madison took careful notes of the proceedings, but did not publish them for fifty years. So forcing meetings to be open and public may suppress meaningful discussion. Had the Constitutional Convention been a public affair, we might not have a Constitution.
Second, the illusion of neutrality. Fish questions whether the claim of unfiltered information via The Internet really holds up. “[T]he more this gospel is preached and believed — the more the answer to everything is assumed to be data uncorrupted by interests and motives — the easier it will be for interests and motives to operate under transparency’s cover” (p. 156). Fish critiques the idea that more communication and engagement between everybody would solve the world’s problems. He quotes a Facebook press release that claims, “By enabling people from diverse backgrounds to easily connect and share their ideas, we can decrease world conflict in the short and long run.” Fish calls this magical thinking. He believes “human difference is irreducible” and no amount of Internet or social media interaction is going to eliminate conflict and difference.
One last quote from Fish, then we’ll get to the Mormon stuff. He rejects the idea that there is neutral, objective language that we can use resolve conflict and settle differing opinions. As you read this quotation, think about Mormon discourse, what you read in The Ensign or the Gospel Topics Essays, or what you hear in Conference.
There are only vocabularies attached to particular practices and constituencies, vocabularies whose meanings derive from those practices, meanings that are local, shared by members of these constituencies and opaque to outsiders. When persons from different constituencies clash, there is no common language to which they can refer their differences for mechanical resolution; there are only political negotiations … the content of which is not truth-telling — although truths are occasionally told — but propaganda, threats, insults, deceptions, exaggerations, insinuations, bluffs, posturings, in short all the forms of verbal manipulation that were supposedly to have disappeared in the internet nirvana. (p. 158)
Mormon Transparency. Let’s think about transparency in a few Mormon contexts. First, financial transparency. Yes, it would be nice if the Church released financial statements to show tithing revenue collected, investment revenue and gains, assets held, and expenditures on various activities. Until the early 1950s, the Church did release such financial statements, so the idea that the Church can’t do that or that it is some wrong for the Church to release financial statements doesn’t hold up. But you have to balance that against the fact that if financial statements were released, the primary result would be critics of the Church, both internal and external, would simply have a shiny new resource for criticizing the Church. The tithe-paying membership isn’t that interested in the details, but all the critics are. So from the point of view of the Church, there is little to gain. Government entities and corporations are required to release audited financial statements. But the Church isn’t, so it doesn’t. Personally, I think the Church ought to release audited financial statements, but there are good points on both sides of the question.
Next, what I’ll call document transparency. Opening the archives. For a long time, access to LDS archives (a blanket term for whatever basements, vaults, or safes store various documents and artifacts the Church holds) was fairly limited. Given the Church’s history of conflict in the 19th century with both the government and critics, it’s easy to see how a “don’t give them anything” mentality developed. When Fawn Brodie wrote her pathbreaking biography of Joseph Smith (first published in 1945), she consulted a lot of documents, but she was not granted access to documents in the LDS archives. Contrast that with John Turner’s recent biography of Brigham Young. He received broad access to documents in the LDS archives. They have even released the Council of Fifty minutes, long withheld from any access. (The image to this post is the title page of the published minutes.) With sixty bucks and three clicks, you can own a copy yourself. It’s easy to forget how far the Church has come on this measure.
It gets trickier when we talk about historical transparency. It’s tempting to think that senior leaders or LDS historians or the functionaries who maintain the LDS archives know what really happened on this or that particular topic and the world would be a better place if they’d just be candid about it and tell the real story. This attitude is pervasive in certain Reddit groups and discussion forums critical of the Church. Some of us may feel this way on particular topics. But this is a messier problem than it appears. Fish’s commentary quoted above is on point here: “When persons from different constituencies clash, there is no common language to which they can refer their differences for mechanical resolution; there are only political negotiations … the content of which is not truth-telling …”
Truth about disputed historical issues is not like some nugget sitting on the ground that you can pick up and show the world. On almost any historical issue worth discussion, there are different points of view championed by professional historians, much less the wildly differing opinions held (and circulated on the Internet) by non-historians of various stripes. And religious issues are more contentious than the average historical topic. And Mormon issues are more contentious than the average religious topic. Most of the time, there simply is no historical nugget lying around to be grasped and displayed. It’s always messy. There are always different points of view.
I think the Church deserves credit for all of the resources directed to the Joseph Smith Papers Project, which represents substantial progress for both document transparency and historical transparency. The Gospel Topics Essays are a little iffier. They certainly engage in controversial topics and do so more candidly than any previous official LDS publication, which represents real progress for historical transparency. But there still seems to be a goodly measure of exaggeration and misrepresentation going on.
Let’s throw one more category into the mix: revelatory transparency. The term “revelation” is used a lot more freely in LDS discourse now than previously. The D&C is full of revelations that are printed texts. If you say, “Joseph received a revelation about kingdoms of glory in the afterlife,” and someone says, “Oh yeah? Show me,” you pull up D&C 76 on your smart phone and say, “Read this.” But the ending of the priesthood and temple ban under President Kimball and the more recent gay marriage policy statements under President Nelson don’t have texts. They are definitely claimed to be revelation by the Church and are termed “revelation” in LDS discourse, but there is no text. Any answer to the “Oh yeah? Show me” question is a lot messier, partly because there is no canonized text (just letters, speeches, and various articles or books discussing it) and partly because LDS leaders simply don’t want to talk about it.
Conclusion and Questions. Long post, sorry, but maybe it’s worth it. I think the bottom line from this short discussion is (1) that “transparency” is more complicated than is generally acknowledged, and (2) in several areas the Church is doing better than you might have expected.
Here are some suggestions for the comments:
- Name your favorite Gospel Topic Essay and what it was finally transparent about or what it was still deceptive about. It’s nice the Race and the Priesthood essay officially acknowledged that black men received the priesthood in Joseph Smith’s day.
- Say something nice about LDS transparency: “It’s really nice that the Church finally ….” It’s really nice that the Church finally released the Council of Fifty minutes.
- Share a gripe about LDS transparency: “I sure with the Church would ….” I sure with the Church would release financial statements.
Here’s my experience with the Church’s transparency via the Gospel Topic Essays. My initial reaction in 2013 was positive. I thought it was great that the Church was finally addressing these issues. However, once the novelty of these essays dissipated, I was left with incomplete and misleading text that was unsigned and semi-hidden from the average member. And that got me thinking. And the result was my conclusion that the essays were crafted in order to inoculate members who bothered to research certain topics, not material intended to honestly deal with inconvenient truth. And of course they were a direct result of the ubiquitous nature of the Internet and on-line research by members, not some new enthusiasm to be transparent.
In sum, the essays seemed refreshing upon first examination but they ended up leading me down a very skeptical path. So for me, the Church’s transparency was counterproductive. Is that my fault (lack of faith) or the Church’s (false narratives)?
I appreciate this perspective. Pretty much the “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” script plays out for much of the transparency choices of the church. Just this last week, people were calling on Pres. Nelson to speak out on racism. When he did, he didn’t name names so it was not good enough. When he did name names with the NAACP, it was also not good enough because it did not match the fervor of the Prop 8 pronouncements. In many ways, being silent and secretive would have the same people complaining and the faithful would still follow.
It’s a lose-lose situation for the Church in many ways. Overall, I think they’ve straddled a line fairly well.
A favorite essay is the one on Exaltation. I’ve appreciated the transparency on the Joseph Smith Papers as well but will freely admit I haven’t gotten to them yet (adding them to the dozens of other books I still need to get to).
I sometimes wish the Church would be just a little more transparent with the fact that so many things people say are covered up from Church History can actually be found, with few exceptions, in many Church sources with just a little digging. Even with this I’m somewhat forgiving. I’ve thought about this as well with BB’s recent “Mormon History Pandemic” post. When a family introduces themselves to me, they don’t start out saying “Hi, I’m Bob, this is my wife Mary. I stole some things as a kid and spent a few days in jail. Mary was three months pregnant with our first child before we got married. We also belonged to some pretty messed up political factions when our family was young. I hope you’ll be able to enjoy getting to know who we are now.” In some ways this would be refreshing, but I think my preference is to get to know what a family’s current status is and what they stand for now. Finding out about the other stuff later rarely changes what I think now, and in some ways makes me admire the family all the more. One could argue the Church should be held to a higher standard, which is true in many ways, but I have a hard time doing that with the mere mortals that made and make up its leadership. The main points of the Church–all the basic elements of testimony– that God lives, Jesus Christ is His Son and our Savior, that He reveals His Plans through prophets, the Book of Mormon being the Word of God, and that the Holy Ghost will bear witness of those things are all the things that really matter about the Church, and things I’ve felt they’ve been fairly up front about from day one. While it may not diminish some of the problems of the past, I feel like it most definitely emanates a brighter guiding light than many of those problems.
Several commenters have talked about how transparency has affected the church strategically.
But at church I learned I was supposed to do the right thing no matter the consequences.
If the church is an institution that wants to have moral relevancy, then the church should take the moral high ground no matter the fallout.
You do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do.
Well, I was going to make a snide remark on how because the Church plays politics with transparency, maybe I should as well in regards to them–but then I realized I already do during the temple recommend questions for that exact reason. Two can play the game. And I still fee like I’m answering the final question with full honesty and transparency.
So, does this mean that I think it’s okay for them to do it if I am as well? Well, no. If they didn’t play the game, I wouldn’t feel like I had to. They are the ones in the position of power. If they want different behavior, they should model it.
I must say that I appreciate all the Gospel Topics Essays – new translucency if not transparency.
The big “but” is that many are designed to deceive and some even have outright lies (such as Race and the Priesthood that has been discussed extensively here the last couple of weeks). Yes, one may click on the footnotes and the footnotes to the footnotes to get to the source material and the see how the story has been spun. But isn’t that disingenuous? “It’s all there – you just didn’t look hard enough. It’s your fault. We gave you all the tools”. “Please don’t bring up Mormon slavery of Native Americans.”
Then there’s the essay on the Book of Abraham: “It isn’t what Joseph said it was – not by a long shot – but here are a couple of theories, they’re pretty much mutually exclusive, that might help you feel better about it. Gosh – hope this doesn’t give anyone second thoughts about the origins of the BOM”.
Pioneer violence: “Mountain Meadows happened. Glad no one is asking about the massacres of Native Americans in Utah County – 100 heads on pikes around Fort Utah in Provo.”
That seer stone. “Yeah, it’s been right here in the vault all along (the U and T got taken back). D. Michael Quinn, sorry for ruining your career and excommunicating you for publishing about such things back when we were keeping this on the down-low.”
The Corporate Church is obsessed with its image. Looking good seems to be more important at times than being good – when in fact, the Church does so much good throughout the world that they can afford to be honest and forthright. Instead, fear leads the way.
The Essays were big contributors to both my wife and I leaving. Not because of the history they revealed, but because they demonstrate that the Church ‘s top leadership is willing to deceive us. They approved of each essay (so recently released Church Historian, Elder Snow tells us). Such a deception on my part would require repentance – confessing to those to whom I had been dishonest and asking for forgiveness.
Interesting thoughts. Let me say this with regards to Saints Volume 2. I’ve been listening to the podcast (which is different than the book), but I have been amazed at some of the Church historians who have acknowledged that the prophet made mistakes (especially Brigham Young and the race ban.) That has been a pleasant surprise. Has it pleased everyone? No. Some will never be satisfied. But the Church is improving and telling its stories better.
Is there a difference between transperency, and honesty? Is there any question that claiming to be the church of Jesus Christ, but not being fully honest, undermines your claim, greatly. Being more honest? Can they do it by degrees? Can you be half honest?
Moral problem!
There still seems to me to be an element of propaganda in all the stuff put out by the church. Not fully trustworthy.
Moral problem!
Thanks for the comments, everyone. Great discussion.
josh h said, “My initial reaction in 2013 was positive.” Yes, when they first came out they were groundbreaking in the sense that the Church addressed many issues directly that, in the past, were simply avoided. But that then sort of becomes the new baseline and we move on to issues inadequately addressed in the Essays or other issues that weren’t addressed. We’re tough to please.
Gilgamesh said, regarding any statement the Church makes, they are “damned if they do, damned if they don’t.” Well, sometimes they do get it right. The quick repudiations of racial folklore that had continued to circulate in the Church (still does) issued in the wake of the Randy Bott statements a few years ago were spot on. Publishing photos at LDS.org of the seer stone in the Church’s possession along with some explanation was a straightforward move. But it’s tricky. The Essays were a committee effort (drafted by scholars, mulled over and then edited by bureaucrats and senior leaders) are a committee affair and naturally embody a variety of compromises, not unlike legislation that issues from Congress — any bill that gets passed reflects some compromises.
Math Nerd said, “If the church is an institution that wants to have moral relevancy, then the church should take the moral high ground no matter the fallout.” Yes, that’s true, but that’s tougher for any institution than for an individual. But yes, we all sense the Church would be better off in the long run if there was less avoiding issues or misrepresenting them and more straightforward disclosure along with whatever mitigating explanations are appropriate.
Been There: I like translucency versus transparency. As in, “I can see there’s an issue here, but it’s not quite clear what the Church is saying about it.”
Rick B., yes the Saints volumes have a few surprises, some pleasant and some not so much.
Geoff-Aus, our man down under, said, “There still seems to me to be an element of propaganda in all the stuff put out by the church.” Well, I’d call it apologetics rather than propaganda, and we can’t really be too hard on the Church for generally trying to give faith-promoting explanations along with uncomfortable disclosures.
“The tithe-paying membership isn’t that interested in the details, but all the critics are. So from the point of view of the Church, there is little to gain.“
I don’t believe this is correct – I think there are a lot of tithe-paying members that want to know the details. How did you arrive at this conclusion?
TC, I have never heard an in-the-pews-on-Sunday member complain about the lack of financial disclosure or even comment on it. Maybe your experience is different.
Dave B – Your assessment of how the essay sausage is made visa vie institutional processes is fair and accurate.
My criticisms and concerns remain because this particular institution claims to be the foundation of the Kingdom of God on earth, lead by a prophet that is God’s only authorized mouthpiece to the world.
Should an institution be called on to defend a written statement in a court of law, the standard is to tell the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth. The Essays, which as you described, were extensively labored over. If the goal was to give us (members and the world) the Truth, they failed miserably: gaping omissions, obfuscation, and even outright falsehoods.
I can’t give them a pass on something this important to which so many resources were devoted. Those with the final approval made the call. The call was to make messy and ugly facts go down easy, even at the expense of the truth. This is the COJCOLDS – not Nike or Twitter or a political party. The bar is much higher.
Dave B.
It seems like you’ve drawn a fairly important conclusion based on minimal information and research – esp. considering that many in-the-pew members are reluctant to voice an opinion that goes against the flow.
I’ve heard both from members – some want transparency and others could care less. I also know of some that have quit paying their tithing because of this issue.
Also, your response seems like you’re saying, that If there are complaints then they must be coming from inactive members. I would disagree with this, too.
Chiming in that I know a *lot* of tithe-paying, in-the-pews members who would like better transparency about tithing.
And ditto Math Nerd.