In the 1950s, a psychologist named Solomon Asch conducted a series of experiments studying the effects of group conformity. You can read about it here, or watch a short four min YouTube video here. In brief, Asch took a group of people, all of them in on the experiment (actors) except one real test subject who did not know he/she was the lone real subject. He showed them a reference line of a certain length and then had them select which line on the second grouping most closely matched the same length as the reference line.
He then had them voice their answers out loud, starting from one end of the group. The real test subject was always at the other end of the line, and had to hear everybody else’s answers before he or she gave theirs. With the actors giving the right answer, the test subject had an error rate less than 0.7%. When the actors all gave the same wrong answer, the test subject had an error rate of 35.7%. What I found most interesting is when just one of the actors gave the correct answer against the majority, then the test subject’s error rate dropped to 5%. He now has a like-minded friend that he can relate to! This is obviously not a new idea, as Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” from the 1800s touched on this idea of group conformity.
There are so many applications of this that I can see in the Mormon Church. The first that came to me was Fast and Testimony meeting. After 10 people (actors) get up and say “I know the Church is true”, it would be very difficult for a person (test subject) to get up and say anything different. I also thought of the Q15, and the tremendous pressure for group conformity. Once the FP and senior members have voiced their opinions (all in agreement), how can newer members ever go against that?
The Endowment Ceremony in the temple is the perfect example of group conformity. How else can you explain why 19 year old Bishop Bill did not run screaming from the ceremony mid-way through? Well, all the “actors” were pretending this was OK, my mom and dad and other ward members I admired were sitting there telling me line “a” was the correct answer (this is all perfectly normal) even though I could see that the answer was “c” (i.e. this is all crazy!)
Now onto the case when one of the actors gives the correct response and the error rate drops by 85% for the test subject. I see this phenomenon in classes, either Gospel Doctrine, or Elders Quorum. We will be talking about something, and everybody just goes along with whatever is being said. Then somebody breaks out (usually me!) and says something contrary to the party line (e.g. polygamy did not end in 1890, the translation of the BofA facsimiles do not agree with Joseph Smith’s translation, etc). Sometimes other people now feel free to speak up, as they now have a like-minded friend. More often nobody will say anything in class, but will approach me afterwards and thank me for my comments.
Could this “like-minded friend” part of the experiment explain why Pres Nelson warned Church members to “Never take counsel from those who do not believe”? All it takes is that one person that breaks out of the group conformity to get you to go against the majority with a like-minded friend as Asch proved in his experiment.
What examples do you see in Church of group conformity as demonstrated in Asch’s experiment?
Wheat & Tares 
I think that it’s not only that the influence of the like-minded friend has a powerful effect on a person’s belief, but the truthfulness of the thing under scrutiny— to be trusted or found false— as perceived by said person, has at least as much impact on what he chooses to affirm.
I’m curious to see examples from actual experience, to see if this bears weight.
As a social worker, I often led support groups for things like domestic violence or sexual abuse. At one point, I had a support group for rape, but many of the women came into the agency for other issues, and when their counselor uncovered a history of child sexual abuse they were referred to me for that issue. So, I ended up with many clients with multiple victimizations, such as childhood incest, adult or teen rape, and then as an adult, domestic violence or homelessness. So, working in Utah, most of my clients were also Mormon.
Once there was a lesson in Relief Society in the lives of the prophets series where following the prophet was the main subject of the lesson. So, in my ward someone has said something about “when the prophet has spoken, the thinking has been done.” I of course as the heretic I have always been rolled my eyes and kept quiet. Nothing was said to contradict the blind obedience idea and about ten women reinforced that no matter how hard, they would always do as the prophet asked. So, that Tuesday our support group met, and this subject came up as something that had upset some of them during the week. The same kind of blind obedience idea was voiced in every ward, and none of the wards had anyone dare challenge or soften the absolute unquestioning obedience idea. So, we had our frequent discussion of “trust your own feelings” and don’t be afraid to act on it when you feel something is wrong because that is how one protects themselves from acquaintance rape, domestic violence, and other such violations of trust. Even if you decide to not say anything in a situation like a church class, know how you feel and that you do not have to agree with the crowd, so that later you can act on it if you need to. We talked about the dangers of being talked out of your real feelings by family and friends who want you to pretend that being beaten, raped, abused, is no big deal and you should just go on with life and “forgive” so as to not inconvenience them with your pain.
Later, I wondered if it was just me and my clients who objected to the direction this lesson had taken in so many wards because of our experience with abuse. Or were there were ten to twenty women in each ward who disagreed and did not dare publicly declare themselves a heretic, because the blind believers sound so confident and sure of their faith.
Thanks for this post. How I wish sentiments like that described above ““when the prophet has spoken, the thinking has been done” could be given as examples of irresponsible behavior rather than laudatory behavior
My “The Emperor Has No Clothes” moment was during a third hour adult meeting on Sunday a member of the Stake leadership was teaching “Six Consequences if Prop 8 passes” and one of the alleged consequences would be “ ministers who preach against same-sex marriage may be sued for hate speech and risk govt fines. It already happened in Canada.”’
I raised my hand and called it nonsense, pointing out the fact that Canada and the U.S. don’t have the same constitution.
5th Sunday discussion today – “how can we help our children stay firm in the faith?” – thankfully the nuanced crowd won the day and the takeaway was “just love them.”
PS there was no mention of Dua Lipa or basement videogamers.
In addition to the Q15 and all too vociferous orthodox crowd, Mormonism employs a cadre of apologists as another insidious layer of mind control. The objective is obvious – LD$ Inc. can trot out these so-called ‘academics’ to guide those horrible Mormon intellectuals to the ‘truth’ (at least as they claim to see it).
Clad in their agenda-driven robes and armed with questionable academic credentials, the apologists adopt an air of superiority and disdain for the masses as they make outlandish ‘truth’ claims. It is an industry unto itself as they handsomely supplement their incomes with books, guided tours, donations and paid firesides. It is a lucrative industry – I have firsthand knowledge.
Talk about Priestcraft. The Peterson, Gee, Sorensen, Muhlestein, Meldrum et al., crowd are among the worst elements of Mormonism. The hierarchy never attempts to control them. The financial consequences would be too great. The apologists’ victims include truth, critical thinking and naive members. They are evil personified.
It seems like the bloggernacle is another example of the “like-minded friend” phenomemon. Prior to the internet, it was very difficult for thoughtful members of a Mormon congregation to find a “like-minded friend”. Even if there were people in their ward who were potential “like-minded friends”, it was very risky and took a lot of time to try to find them. Anyone who spoke out too loudly was quickly silenced by local leadership. As a result, many members often wondered to themselves if they were wrong or if they were the only one with concerns or questions since everyone else seemed to be in full agreement.
With the advent of the bloggernacle, it is now easy to find like-minded friends that make you feel sane for having opinions or thoughts about issues in the Church that seemingly go “against the grain”. It’s also easy to remain anonymous while having these discussions, so Church leadership can’t really control them any longer. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who thinks that it was prophets and not God who was responsible for the temple/priesthood ban. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one that thinks that polygamy was not revealed to Joseph by God and was likely one of Joseph’s biggest mistakes with disastrous consequences that remain to this day. It’s nice to know that I’m not crazy for thinking that the statement, “when the prophet has spoken, the thinking has been done” is blasphemy. Instead of living with constant cognitive dissonance while everyone else at Church is agreeing with something that seems wrong to me, I can now find like-minded people who make it easier for me to have more confidence in my own thoughts, beliefs, and inspiration.
Of course, the bloggernacle also has a dark side as well. The same technology that allows me to anonymously find like-minded people, also allows preppers, deznat, Q-anon, book banners, etc. to find like-minded people and enables them to spread hate, fear, and false ideas in ways that were previously not possible. Indeed, I’m sure that orthodox members of the Church find my usage of the bloggernacle to find like-minded people to share my progressive/unorthodox ideas about the Church to be a bad thing.
I found in my life the more I studied the less I adhered to the “like-mindedness.” The thing I miss the most since I don’t go that often now is not being able to stir the pot. I guess it was sanity before inclusion.
I suppose the phenomenon you speak of is real enough. But that doesn’t preclude fact that the Savior’s name is the only one given under heaven whereby salvation may come–regardless of how we may influence each other in our expression of that doctrine.
With a wink and a smile: on this site ’tis I, the orthodox latter-day saint, who is the heretic.
Instereo
I as well have become more progressive in my thoughts as I have studied more. President Nelson may want to rethink his advice about “lazy learners”, it appears the most studious are the least “like minded”. Maybe we will see RMN next conference encouraging members to stop studying altogether.
How many times do you hear people say in a talk, lesson, or comment at church that their missions were “the best two years of my life” or something like that? People nod their heads in agreement. Youth leaders seem to love impress that statement on others. Yet, the reality for almost every single missionary is that missions were tedious, boring, depressing, discouraging, mentally/physically/emotionally exhausting, shame-inducing experiences most of the time, perhaps, if you were lucky, punctuated by very occasional flashes of light. Because so many are invested in the culture–they don’t want to admit that the mission years might have been spent more usefully and/or they want their children to keep up with the missionary tradition–we line up and laud and dissemble about the missionary experience in so many settings. It is refreshing and real when the one person tells the truth in public settings in the church.
I remember a colleague once saying, “That was the best two years of my life. Too bad I wasted them on a mission.”
I reached a point where I just couldn’t go along with the head nodding and agreement on everything but I can’t say that it went very well as it’s scary territory for a lot of folk. The last time I did it was in RS and it was a ‘when the prophet speaks’ type lesson and I couldn’t help myself, especially when it went to the church’s position on LGBTQ+ policies. I really liked the teacher and we had a nice presidency so I felt a little bad but I’d just had enough. A short time after this we had boundary changes and I was asked to teach Primary and although I wasn’t particularly keen to do that it did keep me out of harms way, so as to speak. When classes started back in person during the pandemic I asked to be released and we stayed home and would watch the sacrament meetings online, which is still actually running. We are older and my husband has some health issues so we only returned in person this past year. We don’t tend to stay for second hour which keeps me out of trouble – mostly.
I am in India for work and spent my weekend off visiting a unesco heritage site that is a temple complex that is thousands of years old. It isn’t used for active worship anymore but my work colleagues and I visited some active temples to see current worship and had some very good conversations with my Hindu colleague that toured us around about his beliefs and the historical Hindu gods and religion.
One of my old friends who served a mission I. India asked me to visit the lds temple and take pictures for her of its current construction. I did not go. That she would ask is to me evidence of this kind of blind conformity. I can remember multiple vacations where I wasted my Sunday going to the local lds ward and took pride that it was exactly the same as my home ward in the Midwest. The church is pushing so hard on temples and that it is the only way she can imagine. This becomes a sort of arrogance. I see it in myself from before when I was a missionary thinking I could and should tell someone to give up their culture and beliefs for Mormonism.
It was a much more spiritual experience to walk around the temple complex near Mysore and hear my friend tell how his Hindu beliefs translate into good action and spiritual practice. The lds church, and Jack of course, would tell you that it has the only way, but it is a big world with a rich history. If there is a god or gods then the version of it I was told to follow as a Mormon is missing such a rich tapestry of the world.
Mormonisms recent messages I realize more and more is just pray, obey, and pay. And we are missing out on so much if we let us keep those blinders on.
To reiterate the point that we expect all wards to look and sound and feel the same around the globe is so bizarre looking from the outside. That the dress code is white shirts and ties and the hymns are all 1800 Protestant hymns sung badly and too slow with piano or organ and that the lessons are correlated and centrally mandated to be the same globally is unnecessary unless the objective is to enforce conformity and thought stopping.
I don’t want a god that demands this. I love seeing the diversity of language, dress, food, religion, and culture as I travel the world and can’t imagine that god really wants us all to look and act like 1960s anti hippy conservative evangelical Christian’s and be all the same.
Kudos to Jack for not giving into the conformity on this blog. And I applaud him for sticking around and reading the opinions of people who do not agree with him. That’s not an easy thing to do.
I will admit that I get sucked into conforming. I often don’t speak my true feelings at church, and that’s partially because I don’t feel like I am able to do it tactfully. I am working on finding ways of tactfully expressing my true opinions. I don’t say things I don’t believe, so I mostly find myself staying quiet at church.
I also stay quiet because I don’t want to be judged. So again, I admire Jack for putting himself out there.
I’ll admit that I judge Jack, (sorry Jack), because it seems to me like he reads the opinions of others, but it doesn’t seem to me like he really considers them, or considers the possibility that there might be another way of looking at it besides his way, or that he’s not right. (It’s easy to not-conform if you are certain that you are right and others are wrong) So, as I give Jack’s comments thumbs down, I’ve been really trying to consider other ways of looking at it, like Jack’s way of seeing things, rather than just assuming I’m right. And as I conform, and don’t conform, I hope to be able to really see both sides. (Sorry if it’s a double comment)
Two weeks ago, the bishop asked the congregation, “how many of you have witnessed a miracle in your life?” About everyone’s hands shot up. Mine, however, did not. Many believers use these sorts of experiments as evidence of the truthfulness of the church. Since lots of followers claim to have had spiritual experiences that guide them to accept the church as true, it must therefore be true. Sorry, but much larger religions that teach belief systems that are diametrically opposed to Mormonism, such as Islam (although many apologists I have debated with have tried to maintain that Islam and Mormonism are similar despite the fact that it is a core tenet of Islam that it is blasphemy to believe that God has a son), contain millions upon millions of followers who claim that some sort of too-sacred-to-share spiritual experience has showed them the truth of their religion. This is all confirmation bias and groupthink. And we should never underestimate just how powerful the phenomena of confirmation bias and groupthink are. In many ways, these psychological phenomena make the world go ’round and explain a lot of human behavior across time and space. People think that they’ve witnessed miracles because they’ve long believed that other people have experienced miracles and so they strain their minds to construe some mundane event as a miracle, such as the birth of a child or overcoming a problem in spite of what were thought to be odds against such an outcome, or a stubborn person relenting, or some new piece of technology. And what Mormons do share about miraculous experiences are always in a certain pre-accepted framework. I’ve never heard any Mormon talk about how they witnessed the Virgin Mary appear to them or speak to them in some miraculous way. And I’m quite sure that if someone did say that, that would be denounced by the leadership and congregation as experiencing something that wasn’t really true.
Brad D, “we should never underestimate just how powerful the phenomena of confirmation bias and groupthink are.”
Amen to that. And I’d recommend that anybody who wants to ponder the extremes of our human potential to go with the flow should read up on the Dancing Plague of 1518 and the 1962 Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic.
All of my life I’ve felt like a “fringe dweller” in the church. Although I have pioneer ancestors, my father was a convert to the church so I also had many close non-member relatives that I recognized were also wonderful people.
I’ve spent a lot of time examining what I believe and why I believe. Consequently, I’m often that initial or lone dissenter. Regretfully, it most often takes until nearly the end of a meeting before I have the courage to speak up.
I’ve also come to the realization that I will never again be called as a teacher, especially to any group that is young and impressionable. Nevertheless, I attend because I love to worship, not because I’m “supposed” to. And my testimony is completely non-standard nor aligned with the prescribed form.
Mormons who are progressive have been that friend for a very long time. When I was TBM, and heard some mind-blowing (destructive) conservative group think ant church, initially I didn’t know how to respond. I’d think through multiple angles of the concept. I would find a way to respond that a few others might be able to hear. Quite often, the group think would come up later. When that happened, I’d carefully say something to understand it a different way.
JACK – We love you and are so glad you are still here. Thx for contributing.
Jack,
It’s the idea that so many think there is an orthodox position in the LDS Church that there is the problem. Joseph Smith despised creeds. I side with Brigham Young who disliked the notion that there was a stereotypical Mormon. I loved the “I’m a Mormon” campaign. The best teachers and proponents of Mormonism seem to have a rebel streak, a bit of the rogue, a heterodox nature. Think Hugh Nibley, Eugene England, Juanita Brooks, James Talmage, B.H. Roberts, John Widstoe, Sterling McMullin, Richard Bushman, Terryl and Fiona Givens… I better stop there and acknowledge the limitations of this list because I risk missing vital persons.
But Mormonism as a culture and as a church has always been healthier and more edifying than it would be because of those LDS don’t allow the movement or institution to get bogged down by the phenomena the Op describes. Many of these adopt a vibrant openness, keep the discussion going and do not let human tendencies to forge a stifling and even spiritually dead culture come to pass. It is possible (I hope) to stay intellectually open and not declare war on what the faith has to offer.
Old Man,
I appreciate your comment naming several teachers and proponents exhibiting a rebel streak. However, I don’t see Hugh Nibley as one of those. His scholarship was suspect in and out of the church but, as far as I know, his writing and conclusions always supported the official church position.
geraaldo121,
There is a side to Nibley you really need to get to know. While I believe that his criticism of Fawn Brodie was embarrassingly misplaced, and in spite of being a devoted Latter-day Saint, he was also a serious critic of the political conservatism unbridled capitalism embraced by many LDS leaders (Nibley was a Democrat and some of his comments can be seen as nearly Socialist in nature). Here is a quote from his rebel side:
“…the worst sinners, according to Jesus, are not the harlots and publicans, but the religious leaders with their insistence on proper dress and grooming, their careful observance of all the rules, their precious concern for status-symbols, their strict legality, their pious patriotism. Longhairs, beards, and necklaces, LSD and rock, Big Sur and Woodstock, come and go, but Babylon is always there: rich, respectable, immovable… We want to be vindicated in our position and to know that the world is on our side as we all join in a chorus of righteous denunciation; the haircut becomes the test of virtue in a world where Satan deceives and rules by appearances.”
Nibley was a rebel because he questioned the very establishment that most 20th century LDS wanted to join. Tip your hat to the man!
The Asch experiment is interesting and pulled back the covers on some seemingly irrational human behavior, but I also think it gets interpreted way more broadly than it should.
First, it helps to be clear about the actual results of the test (this is from the first variation):
– Control group (i.e. no pressure to conform): 99.3% of people gave the correct answer about which line was longest…unsurprising.
– Actor condition group (i.e. actors would give wrong responses): This is where we always talk about conformity…but 64.3% of people never conformed and still answered correctly! Now that on the other side of the equation, the jump from an error rate of 0.07% to 35.7% is huge…but a clear majority still never conformed.
– Many of the people in that 64.3% group did feel pressure to conform even though they didn’t, and also had lower confidence in their answers.
First of all, questions of faith and religion are far more complex and nuanced than comparing the length of three lines. Also, it’s reasonable to assume that the majority of people in church on Sunday are the ones who genuinely believe it. So most of the time it’s not even a question of coerced conformity in the face of an obvious right and wrong answer, it’s a complicated issue of faith with layers of nuance and meaningful context.
Now there are certainly cases where you get a misinformed or just bad teacher, and I’m totally in favor of the Bishop Bill approach and speaking up, but there are days when I just have no interest in going toe to toe with some uninformed, misguided zealot. I’d rather just run out the clock and complain about it later to my wife as we make dinner. Also on the other hand, when I’ve taught classes it’s often nearly impossible to get ANYONE to participate in a discussion – people will barely volunteer to read a scripture, much less bring up a cogent contrarian argument. As a teacher, I loved when this happened…but it just didn’t happen very often.
Now where I do see attempts at coerced conformity in the church is around specific practices like tithing- this sort of thing is more in the lane of Milgram than Asch though. I feel like temple recommends are sometimes weaponized to induce conformity, although not always. I’ve had a few bishops who were openly liberal with giving temple recommends to people who didn’t quite check every box, because he said those are probably the people who could benefit from the temple the most. Also, there is pressure to conform socially as well.
As far as having a consistent experience throughout the church worldwide, this is just how churches work. If you go to Catholic mass in Utah or in Rome there’s going to be a lot of similarity…there’s nothing necessarily wrong with it. You may get some cultural differences, but the flavor will be very familiar. The same holds for virtually all denominations. The goal is to create a community where you feel like you belong anywhere in the world. (Mormon Sunday services can be so boring because their roots are very 19th-century Protestant in flavor).
Finally, we talk about conforming as though it’s always maladaptive…it just isn’t most of the time. What Asch showed is that it can be intentionally tampered with. Most of the time socially conforming is normative and safe, especially when walking into a new situation where you’re surprised by what’s going on. It’s natural human behavior to try to fit in, at least long enough to get your bearings. Interestingly however, some studies show that rule breakers are perceived as more powerful, but if you push the rules too far you’ll end up socially ostracized and lose any power you had.
Old Man
Thank you for your response. I certainly appreciate your perspective in quoting Nibley in the comment above. Yes, in that regard Nibley was a rebel. I wasn’t aware of the quote. So be it. Still, my opinion was based strictly on his research technique and the view of many scholars in and out of the church who criticized his research methods and sometimes inaccurate presentation of facts. I am sure that you have more knowledge than I do about his role as an apologist for the church. However, from what I’ve read he was the champion spokesman for the church. An apologist extraordinaire. The Wikipedia discussion on his life and accomplishments is informative and clearly denotes his life’s accomplishments along with a pier assessment of his research and publications. The analysis of his work is both pros and cons. Again, thank you for this discussion.
Old Man
Thank you for your response. I certainly appreciate your perspective in quoting Nibley in the comment above. Yes, in that regard Nibley was a rebel. I wasn’t aware of the quote. So be it. Still, my opinion was based strictly on his research technique and the view of many scholars in and out of the church who criticized his research methods and sometimes inaccurate presentation of facts. I am sure that you have more knowledge than I do about his role as an apologist for the church. However, from what I’ve read he was the champion spokesman for the church. An apologist extraordinaire. The Wikipedia discussion on his life and accomplishments is informative and clearly denotes his life’s accomplishments along with a pier assessment of his research and publications. The analysis of his work is both pros and cons. Again, thank you for this discussion.
Pirate, the experiment that Bill describes is not really even coerced conformity. It is more about being willing to be wrong to conform. There are other experiments that upped the pressure, all the way to Milgram which is more about obedience to authority. There are lots of factors, the number of people in the group you are disagreeing with, fear of punishment, how obviously wrong the answer is, and authority of the person you are going along with, to name a few.
Mormonism uses many methods of gaining conformity to its rules, and as you said, most times going along with the group is not bad, but actually the safest option.
The problems come up though when obedience to authority or going along with the group is dangerous to ourselves or others, or when the rules are arbitrary (or even stupid) and being different leads leads to shunning from the group. Take the stupid story about the girl who “disobeyed” and continued to wear two sets of earrings so her fiancé dumped her. This was held up as a glowing story of faith and lack of faith, but what it really was, was a very old man telling what was in style when he was young and people responding by punishing anyone who put the modern style above the opinion of that man. This is not healthy conformity, because it led to shunning over style. So, the young person has to choose the conformity to their peer group, or conformity to an arbitrary religious standard. Styles change and the old are always horrified. That is part of the point of young people cutting the apron strings, is to be different than their parents, thus new styles that horrify their parents. And rather than allowing the young to cut the apron strings in a normal way, it was demonized as evil. The church has done that with every style of music, grooming, and dress since it became ruled by the opinion of old men, and I have no idea what they are demonizing now because as an old lady, I just might agree.
So, how can we teach healthy conformity from unhealthy conformity, and teach our young when conforming to their peer group is really harmful and when it is harmless? Wearing two + sets of piercings is really pretty harmless, but the church made a big deal over it. And that can seriously distract from conforming to the peer group in ways that are actually dangerous, say taking up vaping or the latest drug. So, how can parents teach when conforming to the peer group may be bad, if the church is screaming about all kinds of harmless styles as if they are dangerous. An example of how this can go wrong is my brother who wanted fashionable long hair in the early 70s, and my dad had a fit about the hair, and absolute fit, so brother dug in his heals and got into a bunch of more dangerous stuff such as alcohol, and became a long haired alcoholic. Now, if dad had taught him the difference between dangerous styles and harmless styles, and not worried about the harmless stuff, brother may have avoided becoming an alcoholic but kept the long hair. How do we know when to go along with others and when not to?
Acknowledging the risk of this devolving into a tangent, I must admit that the example about missions being the best two years jars a bit, if only because each person’s experience is so unique. Is there often pressure to “conform” and say one’s mission was the best when it wasn’t for that one person? I think that is a real possibility. But that is not always necessarily the case. For example, recognizing that there can be a lot of tedium, and that I personally really really (no, really) dislike talking to strangers, I still look back at those two years as some of the best of my life. For me, it was because of the singular focus I had during that time on “the work.” And I loved being in a foreign country and still dream of it. It was absolutely hard. But so was college, and I look back with distinct fondness on that too. Again, because my scope of focus was much more limited than it is now – I didn’t have kids, a full-time job, and got distinct dopamine hits with the more frequent milestones. Now? Raise my kids well and do well at my job. It is so much more nebulous and long-term!
Now, to the main scope of the OP. I’d like to at least point out that there CAN be two sides of the coin. Again acknowledging the risk of conformity to something one does not believe in as a negative, I’d like to point out the positive side. For example, if one is in a ward that is very inclusive in culture, someone new moving into the ward can benefit tremendously from it – both from others being welcoming (obviously), as well as from being influenced to act similarly. Especially if the newcomer arrives from a different area where being welcoming is not as much at the forefront. My wife and I still think of a particular ward where there was a particular kind of turnover of a large part of the ward every 6-24 months (foreign service officers would move in and out during training stints). That ward had adapted to become incredibly welcoming to people for however long they were there. It was wonderful, and we wanted to adopt the habits. As we have moved to other locations, we’ve tried to be just as welcoming and willing to invite people into our homes with varying degrees of success (on their part and on ours).
Raymond Winn,
Thanks! You’re very kind.
Old Man,
I look like an old biker–with long hair down my front and back. And my orthodoxy has primarily to do with the foundational claims of the church–not least of which is that it (the church) is led by living prophets.
I love most of the folks you list as examples of roguish members. And I think the reason that someone like Nibley was able to get away with his criticisms of the church was because there was absolutely no question of where he stood with regard to his commitment to the Kingdom and his witness of the restoration. He was rock solid.
Anna, the story about President Hinckley and only wearing one set of earrings is even more interesting when you learn that he was going to initially say not to get your ears pierced at all, and Marjorie convinced him to relent a bit. (My grandmothers were a similar age and one of them never pierced her ears, so to me it’s obvious it was a man-of-his-time preference.)
My youngest son came back from a multi-stake conference for 16-18yo youth here in Western Canada, and he mentioned one of the presenters talked about the evils of “modern music.” I was surprised and said, “Wait. Modern music? How old was this presenter?” “I dunno….. 30s? 40s? He was bald, it was hard to tell.”
I responded wryly, “Modern music, huh? Because the music of the 90s, that was wholesome stuff.”
On further questioning, he mentioned the presenter used two examples to illustrate how depraved rock musicians were, and as he started to talk about the “conversation on the plane with the GA/BoM being defaced during a concert,” I burst out laughing.
I’d heard the exact same stories as a teenager, and I’m in my 50s – although I wasn’t told them at a youth conference, they were just repeated to me in a similar vein as Three Nephite stories.
What I found really interesting is that the *names* of the musicians were left out when he was told these anecdotes, because my son had no idea who Mick Jagger was, and only recognizes Alice Cooper’s name because we’ve been watching classic Muppets episodes – my kids enjoy the absurdity of the humour – and he was in one.
I’m shaking my head that someone thought this kind of get off my lawn energy would reach teenagers in 2023.
Oh, and that 16yo son of mine? Has shoulder-length wavy hair that Farrah Fawcett would be envious of. A bunch of adults in my ward have commented on how nice his hair looks as he’s passing the sacrament, but my 79yo father hates it.
All the fawning over Nelson’s crusade against the word “Mormon” has made it hard for me to feel comfortable using the term (which I still very much embrace) at church. I’m still willing to do it in the right context, but I find myself measuring my words more carefully than I’d like to admit. I just need that one fellow “Mormon” in my ward to know I’m not alone, I suppose.
@Anna: Coerced was the wrong word – “Pressured” is maybe better? Just “conformity” alone is probably most accurate.
My point was just that people are often quick to negatively label the conformists in Asch’s experiment and extend that label to anyone who conforms to something they disagree with. We should be willing to stand out when necessary, but need to also be careful how we label those pesky “conformers” who are simply different than us.
I completely agree that teaching the nuance between good and bad conformity is extremely challenging… especially before executive reasoning fully develops well into adulthood. (Interestingly Asch’s subjects were almost entirely male college students. This is a very narrow population that’s also probably used to having their ideas challenged by smarter, more experienced/educated people at university.
Some elements of Mormonism certainly pull the levers of conformity in questionable ways. The LDS church in particular has such a hierarchical, authoritarian structure that powerful people can impose their bad or arbitrary ideas onto others down the chain. Your examples about long hair and multiple earrings are perfect illustrations…then these get chalked up to “being a peculiar people” BS.
I think we mostly have to teach kids the nuances of good/bad conformity by example and by being willing to coach them through their own social interactions. I’ve realized in my own parenting that I have to tolerate a degree my kids challenging me to help teach them how to handle themselves in the real world…which sometimes can be infuriating when it comes to doing household chores, but pays off when sending kids out into the world.
I think Nelson’s crusade against “mormon” was BS and I use the term frequently just to piss people off.
RMN versus the word “Mormon” did seem super silly at first, but I really think it had more to do with branding internationally. I know from personal experience that there is often a lot of confusion about Mormons vs Jehovah’s Witnesses vs the Amish and several other groups.
The Amish one is particularly hilarious in Europe. When the Harrison Ford movie “Witness” (about Ford’s character protecting an Amish woman and her son), the word “Amish” was mistranslated to “Mormon.” So there’s this vast swath of Europeans of a certain age who think Mormon=Amish because of a Harrison Ford movie. As a missionary in Europe we were constantly mistaken for Jehovah’s Witnesses. So we’d then tell them we’re Mormons…and then invariably get asked what it was like living without phones, cars, or electricity. I had that conversation hundreds of times.
So a bit of rebranding and asking the media to use certain wording makes sense to me to help step around any past confusion with other groups. Now all the fuss with members shaming others for saying “Mormon” or “LDS” is plain silly. I don’t care what you say, “LDS” is a way better acronym than “COJCOLDS” and I’ll never stop using it, lol.
In places like W&T I think the distinction makes a whole lot of sense. I like to think of Mormons and Mormonism as encompassing ALL the different branches that stem from Joseph Smith. Then we can talk about Mormonism as a whole and distinguish the different elements of the larger movement (LDS church, CoC, etc).
Pirate priest observes: “Also on the other hand, when I’ve taught classes it’s often nearly impossible to get ANYONE to participate in a discussion”
Very often at church I answer first when a teacher asks a question. If I am first to be wrong; others feel more comfortable to be wrong, should it come to that. As a result we can get to a meaningful discussion more quickly. Sometimes even before the end of class.
I was teaching on the day the topic was how do you know that Jesus Christ is risen? Well for many people, even some apostles apparently, you don’t actually KNOW it and that’s okay. As it turns out, a few class members knew it perfectly well and had their own miraculous stories to tell. Spencer W Kimball had a story to tell in his biography. He had been called to be an apostle, and he still did not KNOW. His description of getting that knowledge was so powerful I never finished reading the biography.
One of the gifts of God is to know this; but another gift of God is to *believe* on the testimony of others. Many gifts exist. Children saying “I know the church is true” is public speaking practice. I doubt many people take such sayings as legally binding testimony or what exactly it means.