I’m already on record as a Jane Austen fan. One of the things Austen fans seem to enjoy is the idea of a confined society in which there are rules that limit what the characters can do and what options are available to them. Likewise, the Harry Potter series exists in a society that has its own unique rules and a limited number of characters. It exists in a specific social setting, and the limits imposed by that setting make it easier to explore the characters’ reactions and relationships, as well as their internal worlds. If everything was an option to them, they would have no limits to chafe against. The Harry Potter books are only one of the most popular and recent in a long line of “boarding school” novels, books set in this type of “closed sytem.”
Closed social systems are those in which interactions, relationships, and information are restricted or confined within a specific group or context, with limited or no interaction with external social systems. Here are some examples of closed social systems:
- Cults and Sects: Some religious or ideological groups can be considered closed social systems. They often have strict beliefs, isolationist tendencies, and limited interaction with outsiders. Members may be discouraged or prohibited from socializing with people outside the group.
- Exclusive Clubs and Organizations: Certain exclusive clubs, societies, or organizations maintain a closed social system by restricting membership to a select group of individuals. These groups often have specific entry criteria and limited interaction with the broader community.
- Prison Communities: Prisons function as closed social systems due to physical confinement and strict regulations. Inmates and staff interact within the prison environment, with limited contact with the outside world.
- Secret Societies: Secret societies, such as certain fraternal organizations or exclusive clubs, maintain a closed social system by keeping their activities, rituals, and membership confidential from the general public.
- Totalitarian Regimes: Societies living under totalitarian governments or authoritarian regimes can be considered closed social systems. Information is tightly controlled, dissent is suppressed, and interaction with the external world is limited.
- Isolated Indigenous Communities: Some indigenous or tribal communities living in remote areas maintain closed social systems by limiting contact with outsiders. They may preserve their traditions, language, and way of life with minimal external influence.
- Exclusive Residential Communities: Gated communities, private estates, or upscale neighborhoods with controlled access can function as closed social systems by regulating who can enter and reside within them. They may have their own rules and governance.
- Certain Online Communities: Online forums, groups, or social networks can be closed social systems if they have stringent membership criteria and limited interaction with the broader internet. Examples include exclusive online gaming guilds or invitation-only professional networks.
- Family Units: In some cases, family units can be relatively closed social systems, especially in cultures where extended families live together and maintain their own customs and traditions with limited external interaction.
- Exclusive Educational Institutions: Some private schools, academies, or educational programs can be considered closed social systems due to selective admissions criteria and the homogeneous backgrounds of their students.
It’s important to note that closed social systems can vary in their degree of closure and exclusivity. While these examples demonstrate various forms of closed social systems, they exist on a continuum, and the level of isolation or restriction can differ significantly from one case to another. Additionally, closed social systems may have both positive and negative implications, depending on the context and the extent to which they restrict interactions with the outside world.
ChatGPT’s thoughts on this topic
We live our lives in closed systems. Our workplace is, in some ways, a closed system. There are rules, and a limited number of people. Our families can be a closed system. Colleges are a closed system. And of course, churches are a closed system. Steve Hassan’s take on undue influence sometimes casts everything that is a closed system as a cult, and there is certainly overlap, but that doesn’t mean all aspects of social confinement are oppressive. Consider this exchange in Pride & Prejudice:
“I did not know before,” continued Bingley immediately, “that you were a studier of character. It must be an amusing study.”
“Yes, but intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at least that advantage.”
“The country,” said Darcy, “can in general supply but a few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society.“
“But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.”
“Yes, indeed,” cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by his manner of mentioning a country neighbourhood. “I assure you there is quite as much of that going on in the country as in town.”
Everybody was surprised, and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment, turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained a complete victory over him, continued her triumph.
“I cannot see that London has any great advantage over the country, for my part, except the shops and public places. The country is a vast deal pleasanter, is it not, Mr. Bingley?”
“When I am in the country,” he replied, “I never wish to leave it; and when I am in town it is pretty much the same. They have each their advantages, and I can be equally happy in either.”
“Aye—that is because you have the right disposition. But that gentleman,” looking at Darcy, “seemed to think the country was nothing at all.”
“Indeed, Mamma, you are mistaken,” said Elizabeth, blushing for her mother. “You quite mistook Mr. Darcy. He only meant that there was not such a variety of people to be met with in the country as in the town, which you must acknowledge to be true.”
“Certainly, my dear, nobody said there were; but as to not meeting with many people in this neighbourhood, I believe there are few neighbourhoods larger. I know we dine with four-and-twenty families.”
Pride & Prejudice, Chapter 9, by Jane Austen
The example from Pride & Prejudice describes a type of closed system that is not a cult, but it is a limited society. Mrs. Bennett feels attacked when she feels her rural life is being compared unfavorably to the larger, more open society in the city of London. (Although the book also reveals how being wealthy and cosmopolitan comes with its own social restrictions that can be confining and closed among a different set of people). Her pointed comment about 24 families is designed to illustrate that it’s not a small town, but of course, the outsiders, Bingley & Darcy, and even her own daughter who frequently travels to London to visit relatives, see this assertion as laughably provincial. Being confined to a smaller society or closed system can lead to the self-important naivete that Mrs. Bennett displays, causing everyone to be embarrassed for her.
I’ve often noticed among my Mormon facebook friends that there are many unexpected connections between people I have met in the Church in completely different geographic areas. The world may be a large place, but our Church connections can make it feel small. Outsiders would find it surprising (and sometimes have) that this type of connectedness exists for Church members, but it is a byproduct of a closed system that operates within the larger system of the world at large, in the world, but not of the world.
Closed systems work well in literature because they place enough limits on the lives of the characters that the number of people is manageable, and the behaviors and activities allowed are predictable; they can also provide conflict such as schisms or oppressive leaders (consider the important role of Dolores Umbridge). It’s one reason that growing up in the Church can be beneficial for teens (provided they are not abused or oppressed in other ways, such as being queer or having families with a culture of shame). It creates a world for them that is smaller and more protected, more limited than what they might experience without it, especially in our multi-cultural society.
The desire to extend this closed system into adulthood and broader civic life is probably an impulse for those who would like to curb LGBTQ rights or women’s access. The closed system feels safer and more comfortable for them (if not for others who are forced to fit rather than actually belonging), and extending the benefits of a closed system longer and more broadly is desirable to those for whom that closed system works well. After all, they dine with four and twenty (white, cishetero patriarchal) families. They don’t experience society as unvarying or limited. It’s sufficient. It meets their needs and provides social interactions and structure that are beneficial.
Where does a closed system stray into “cult” territory? When the following types of things are introduced:
- Authoritarian leaders. Issues arise when a charismatic leader exerts significant control over members’ lives using psychological manipulation and encourages isolation from mainstream society. When a leader’s edicts cannot be questioned, that’s a cult.
- Extreme beliefs and practices. When the group embraces ideas that are far outside the mainsteam and unchecked by reality, it becomes a cult.
- Legal and ethical violations. Cults often engage in fraud, abuse coverups and violations of human rights as well as other criminal activities.
- Reprisal for leaving. Closed systems don’t threaten to ruin or end your life if you move on. Cults do.
Not all closed systems are cults (the small town of Meryton, for example, is not), but all cults exist in closed systems.
- Do you see how the Church functions as a closed system?
- What benefits from closed systems have you experienced?
- What negative aspects of a closed system have happened in your life?
- What has happened when you left a closed system?
- Do you think the Church is just a closed system or strays into cult territory at times? In what ways, if so?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
To me it comes down to whether your closed system is actively intentional in demonizing those outside your group or if the bias comes through incidentally. We all gravitate to the ideas we like best and associate with like minded individuals but when your leader is actively telling the group to “never take council from unfaithful sources” that’s where I think it crosses the line. I certainly felt fear and hesitation when I first heard a strange rumor and decided to investigate it but felt conflicted because the only way to learn more was from “unfaithful” sources. I had been taught my entire life that those sources had a tendency to destroy my soul. For me that’s where it starts to become dangerous and is flirting with cult territory.
Corou: I agree completely (and so would basically every psychologist) that when you avoid all external input, that’s cult/authoritarian behavior. I would hope that’s obvious to everyone, but it unfortunately does not appear to be so obvious. If your belief in an idea requires that the idea never be subject to scrutiny, that’s not an idea worth believing. Reality testing is an important and essential part of idea formation.
It’s also a bizarre and unexpected coincidence that the GC quote you reference happened since I pre-wrote this post well before GC.
I find LDS kids live in a much more closed society than the average Catholic or any other Christian denomination. If you’re active you are attending meetings every Sunday. You are probably attending seminary during the school week. You are told how to date (not until 16 and in groups) who to date (other Mormon kids). And when you graduate from high school, you are supposed to head out on a mission within the first few months and/or attend BYU. And then it’s an LDS temple marriage for everyone. I know not every active LDS kid follows the exact blueprint outlined above but enough di that it seems pretty closed to me.
One anecdote: my wife and I are both BYU graduates but we did NOT encourage our kids to attend BYU, even while we were still active in the Church. And we were amazed at the blowback we encountered from family, friends, and ward leaders.
This concept of “closure” is more of a spectrum than a binary. The bigger the religion, the broader the spectrum of experiences. Some Mormons probably live in a somewhat closed system, but I don’t feel like I particularly do. I grew up outside Utah, attending public schools. My life may have been a bit “closed” on Sundays and Wednesday evenings, but I really wouldn’t say it was the rest of the time. I see much more closure in the modern homeschooling movement, which seems to have both Mormon and evangelical Christian adherents. There were several homeschooling families in a ward I used to live in. Kids in some of those those families appeared have little social interaction outside a select group of like minded families and church community. That looks pretty closed to me. It’s even worse if you’re among people who don’t think higher education is necessary. That kind of thinking may be more prevalent in some non-Mormon groups, to be honest.
As far as the church and cult territory, for a long time I’ve said that Mormonism is not a cult, but some Mormons belong to a cult. Most of the cult-like relationship to the church comes from local and family cultures than from Salt Lake, in my opinion. However, I’m really concerned about the frequency with which leaders lately have been warning about getting information from “unauthorized” sources. That rhetoric seems somewhat new to me, a response to widespread questioning that is going on. What remains to be seen is how seriously that is taken by members.
GC just reinforced the notion that the Church operates a closed system. In Mormonism, eternal status is based on strict obedience to a very closed set of rules. From RMN: “Obedience paves the way for a joyful life for you today, and the grand eternal reward tomorrow”.
Clearly, the implied threat is that non-obedience to the Mormon canon results in family separation and even diminished bodies. To wit again from RMN: “Thus, if we unwisely choose to live telestial laws now, we are choosing to be resurrected with a telestial body. We’re choosing not to live with our families forever.” Help me understand what a telestial body looks like.
Mormonism checks all the closed system boxes: authoritarian leaders (hello DHO), extreme beliefs/practices (polygamy, et.al.), legal/ethical violations (SEC), and reprisal for leaving (shunning/judging and family divisions).
I was particularly disappointed by the GC emphasis on tithing. The notion that donors can have no knowledge or influence of how their hard earned $ are allocated violates the notion of fiduciary accountability. Another evidence of a severely closed system.
De Novo: “Help me understand what a telestial body looks like.” I mean, isn’t this the infamous TK Smoothie, e.g. body with no genitalia, that has been discussed in post-Mo circles? It’s a pretty literalist interpretation of the idea that the CK is the only place where sex will occur and is necessary / part of the eternal reward. Nelson in general is a pretty literalist guy.
Angela C: Thanks for the info – apologize for my naivete. I have no words.
IMO, the only a few facts about resurrected bodies that can be safely considered as hard doctrine are:
1) They are incorruptible.
2) They are made of flesh and bone.
3) They are quickened by a portion of the glory that one is bound to receive.
4) They are not limited by the temporal world with regard to their power to act and move.
5) Those of the highest glory will continue in familial relationships and have the power to propagate.
Of course, there’s a lot that could be said about those facts. But even so, anything beyond that (IMO) is where we cross the line into speculation–not that I’m against speculation so long as we understand that that’s what it is.
Facts are demonstrable, Jack. Nothing that you wrote can be supported through reproducible evidence.
jaredsbrother,
Maybe I’ve chosen the wrong word. Perhaps “teachings” would be preferable. Even so, I consider my wife’s love for me a fact–even though there’s really no way to objectively verify it. There are different ways of knowing.
Not having read any books by Jane Austen, I’m not sure I’m qualified to comment on this post. Nevertheless …
Yes, at times it seems like the Church and our little ward communities are closed systems. But much of the time it also seems quite permeable. We work with many non-LDS and have many non-LDS neighbors (unless you live in Orem, Sandy, or St. George). We watch a variety of shows on Netflix and other streaming services. I doubt many Mormons limit their library finds or bookstore purchases to books written by LDS authors. The average Mormon would have to work very hard to live in a closed system.
It sure seems like over the last thirty years, it’s more of a wide-open world for most Mormons, with the Church occupying a smaller and smaller slice of life. The Church itself has hurried along this change by shrinking ward activities and programs. It doesn’t feel like a closed system to me, but maybe I’m not the average Mormon.
“It sure seems like over the last thirty years, it’s more of a wide-open world for most Mormons, with the Church occupying a smaller and smaller slice of life. The Church itself has hurried along this change by shrinking ward activities and programs. It doesn’t feel like a closed system to me, but maybe I’m not the average Mormon.”
I agree with this assessment. I think that the biggest driver of the church being decreasingly relevant is the economic trends being ignored by church teachings and being disregarded in church policy. With 2 breadwinners becoming the default, fewer individual resources are available to create the activities for activities/programs. With more variations of “disability” (visible and invisible), the choice to standardize into “1 size fits all” and “retrench into traditions” creates mental health issues with church attendance (and in some cases, religious trauma). Enough teachings on “patriarchy” and “gender as a performance” (and a helping of pre-destination as a description of racial tensions) have shown a lot of individuals to the door (the degree that this is an intended consequence varies).
My opinion is that the church is still focusing on maintaining an intellectual “slice of life” through advertising “a higher path”. The church also recognizes that politics is still a place to make a viability gamble (though also with unintended consequences). Again, there is enough “conservative signaling” going on that tells differently aligned individuals where the door is.
I tend to agree with Dave B. here. There are definitely closed-off pockets within the LDS church that may even sometimes wade into cultish attitudes (maybe even some whole wards with that vibe). But the LDS church as a whole is pretty permeable. There is definitely an expected lifestyle and some hardliners, but overall it’s pretty easy to join and leave at will. It’s probably more closed than some other mainstream religions but certainly not the most closed off – it’s somewhere in the middle.
The church is definitely taking up less space in everyday life with shortened meetings, cutting of youth programs, etc. They’ve also backed off on some of the very specific guidelines for both youth and adults that were in place until just a year or two ago.
We can add contrast by looking at other segments of Mormonism: many of the fundamentalist and polygamist communities function much more like closed systems. They’re much more cautious about admitting outsiders and about those who decide to leave. Some groups are relatively benign and mostly just wary of having their families broken up…others are squarely in cult territory.
IMO, even Nelson’s “Think Celestial” GC talk was much more about finding the next LDS t-shirt slogan than trying to tell people to close the community – it was a very typical GC talk. “Never take counsel from unbelievers,” was immediately followed by “Please do the spiritual work to increase your capacity to receive personal revelation.” The quote for sure raises an eyebrow, but it was also a minor point in the talk and was more about following the prophet than about distrusting outsiders.
Quentin,
I homeschooled my children in Nevada. It wasn’t a closed system and I didn’t do it to close them off. We associated with other homeschooling families, some LDS, but mostly Catholic and Evangelical, as well as attending church, LDS scouts, and in the end traditional scouts.
Different homeschoolers do it in different ways for different reasons. Probably our biggest reason was 3 of my 5 kids have serious medical needs and 2 of them have differences in learning. Two of my kids are also gifted, so our homeschooling environment was eclectic and individualized. We worked with the school district. One of my children had a 504, and two had IEPs. Occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech therapists came out to our house sometimes, other times we visited them at school. As my kids got older, they took some classes at the highschool, and some online at the college, and some in person at the college, with varying success (every child is different).
My family loves reading, research and information and my kids as well.
The internet is an amazing resource and opens up the world, even to people who don’t have the health or resources to leave home much.
As a young woman I did picture that homeschooling would protect my children from the evil world. But I raised them to be like me, with a questioning open mind and their own personal and spiritual authority (no regrets).
Still, we did scriptures and prayer every night for 20 years. My oldest son rejected the church at age 14, but continued attending church and seminary and finished his Eagle. My 2nd son spoke up rejecting the church at 18 after finishing seminary and his Eagle. My third son has serious medical issues. He stopped attending everything about age 16 more or less so he could sleep all day. We are still trying to address his health issues at 23. My 4th finished seminary and his Eagle and attends YSA sporadically while attending college. He rejected a mission because he can’t get an answer to prayer. My 5th is attending his last year of highschool and working on that Eagle through a non LDS troop. He enjoys church activities, but tells me he probably won’t attend after he turns 18. Each son has something he has researched and thought about that supports his choices.
There are as many different kinds of homeschoolers as there are different kinds of people at public and private school. There are kids that attend public school that are still severely abused, isolated and controlled by their families, while they are ignored, bullied and mistreated by the other kids at school. Homeschooling or public school isn’t the variable in making a closed system.
I want to add that any parent who wants to keep their children in a closed system today, cannot give them a cellphone, or any computer or device with access to the internet. Having this access specifically prevents a closed system, at least if the children have active questioning minds. I haven’t personally met a kid without that, but I imagine other people’s kids must be that way since they are on missions, married in the temple etc. My kids just have too many questions and there’s NO chance they aren’t going to read something on the internet that will bring more questions.
I think the church needs to face up to these facts, and make room for more people with their own spiritual authority and their own ways of thinking (and quit blaming parents Elder Godoy). But after the last GC, with the bright line drawn that only cis het people sealed in the temple are first class citizens, I don’t feel like there’s much chance for more room in the church.
“Never take counsel from unbelievers”…. the problem is that Nelson’s talk can be interpreted a variety of ways. The low-minded approach will be to justify ethnocentric thinking and behavior, ignore science and justify political divisiveness.
@lws329 I’m with you 100% on Godoy’s talk. I’m hard pressed to remember a more condescending, reductionist GC talk towards parents. This talk definitely promoted a closed-system approach to parenting and life. Essentially, “Stop asking questions…stop your kids from asking questions. Questions are for weak links.”
I question who the real target audience of talk’s like Godoy’s is. If you are a parent of “wayward” children, it’s going to make you more likely to want to leave. If you aren’t, you’re going to act like a smug prick and make it harder for others to stay. Really, who does it benefit? It reduces butts in seats any way you slice it. Parents can’t control their adult kids’ choices any more than missionaries can control which people choose to be baptized. Or any more than church leaders can control who stays in, come to think about it. All anyone can do is share and persuade, but also accept, respect, and practice unconditional love.
I honestly think blaming someone is a way for church leadership to avoid looking at themselves to consider if there is something they should change in order to better retain, attract and serve the membership in a Christ like way (I think there is much they could change to retain the youth, but no one is interested in what I think). It’s much easier to condemn others than it is to listen to the feedback of other people (particularly from people without LDS privilege, such as women, LGBTQ, racial minorities, political minorities, etc.). The true hard work comes when we humbly examine our own actions and work to repent, change and improve. Truly, the only people we can change is ourselves. The only responsibilities we can examine are our own. Sadly, I believe some of the leadership of the church feel more comfortable being angry about failures of the membership to submit properly to priesthood patriarchal and hierarchical authority. It’s more comfortable to vent your anger by condemning parents, than to seek revelation as to how church leadership could behave in a more Christ like way to inspire our youth to see how staying in the church helps them to actually follow Christ. They want to think numbers attending church equals following Christ. It doesn’t. Christ bucked the formal authority of his time. He served the marginalized outside of the synagogue. Our youth are genuinely Christian in their desires. But they don’t see the church heading that direction with integrity and honesty. Messages of fear, exactness, and obedience to ecclesiastical authority and dogma are not the same as invitations to follow Christ.
All of the church’s systems on a local level are set up to point members toward serving other members. They are all inward facing, to the membership’s and the surrounding community’s detriment.
The ministering system is totally and deliberately inward facing.
The current FTSOY guidance now excludes the previous explicit statement approving dating those of different faiths.
The constant rhetoric in general conference talks, both implied and explicit, that it is us – those who know better – against “the world” further encourages a broad culture of insular thinking and conduct.
The food assistance program that is administered on a local level is conditioned on membership. Non-members “are usually referred to local community resources for assistance. On rare occasions, as guided by the Spirit, the bishop may assist them with fast offerings or bishops’ orders. For instance, the bishop may consider assistance for parents or caretakers who are not Church members but have one or more children who are members.”
The church’s geographic organizational structure creates a blind-spot for caring for the un-housed, non-member and member alike. The system necessarily requires the member seeking aid to have an address because that is how one determines what bishop to go to for aid. Although the handbook allows bishops to give aid to members who are un-housed, the nature of the geography-centric system does not easily lend itself to doing so. There is nothing built into the system that encourages or requires bishops (to say nothing of regular ward members) to actually reach out to or serve those who are actually un-housed. If a bishop does help someone without a place to live, it is almost always because that person reached out to the bishop, not the other way around. When I was a bishop we were regularly counseled to seek out those members who needed assistance, but not the un-housed presumably because there was no way to tell if they were members.
Because of the top-down “us vs. them” culture and inward facing policies/priorities/rhetoric, many members end up feeling like it is only safe to give money to help the poor through their fast offering; they trust that the church and bishops will only give it to people who “deserve” it. I have even heard this taught in lessons, which is in direct contradiction to what the Book of Mormon has to say about it (see Mosiah 4:16-18). Even if members don’t feel this way, making a fast offering donation provides members a way to feel like they are helping the poor, like Jesus says they should, without actually having to do anything. And they are helping the poor, but only with money, and only their own – only members. They don’t have to give anything to someone on the street because they paid their fast offering. They don’t have to interface in any other meaningful way with “the least of these”/the un-housed because they paid their fast offering. They are instead content to point at the “world report” they see every six months between conference sessions that touts what the church as an institution does for the poor on a macro level, when there are encampments sometimes within shouting distance of their homes. This all has the effect of reinforcing and perpetuating the inward facing culture because it facilitates guilt-free insular interactions and allows avoidance of “all those drug addicts and crazy people.”
When the bishop does provide aid to people, he does so confidentially. There are obviously good reasons for that, but one of the negative bi-products of this is that there are only 2 or 3 people in the ward (usually the bishop and a member of the RS presidency) who have any meaningful experiences actually interfacing with the poor. The rest of the members typically just pay their fast offering and (deliberately or not) enjoy the “homeless/poverty-buffer” the church’s system provides. It’s no wonder we see attitudes of indifference and hear characterizations of laziness among our members about the un-housed and poor, as they are never put in positions that would dispel those harmful misunderstandings and attitudes.
There are people without a place to live everywhere in my city. I have spoken to many of them during my time volunteering at a local shelter and in helping the state gather data regarding their reasons for being un-housed. Very few of these people are mentally ill or show signs of substance abuse (and even if that is why they are un-housed, so what?). Most can afford housing because of medical bills, loss of jobs, and other practical reasons.
The last time I attended church, in GD class I pointed out the housing crises and said it seems like if we really are the church of Jesus Christ like we claim, then we would be trying to lead the way to help our un-housed brothers and sisters who are everywhere around us in our city. The response I got from the teacher was, “Well, he probably meant the poor in spirit.” He couldn’t have had a response that was more reflective of the problem I’ve tried to describe here.
Gustavo Gutierrez got it right when he said: “If there is no friendship with [the poor] and no sharing of the life of the poor, then there is no authentic commitment to [Christ’s] liberation, because love exists only among equals.” The church’s insularity in many ways obstructs this type of friendship and caring; it obstructs avenues to true Christianity.
*Most CANNOT afford housing because of medical bills, loss of jobs, and other practical reasons.