Last week I listened to a TED talk by Michele Gelfand called The Secret Life of Social Norms. (You know Bishop Bill is a nerd when he listens to TED talks for fun). Gelfand also wrote a book called Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World.
She has a PhD in cross culture psychology. She talked about how some cultures have very strict rules. They are what she calls tight cultures. They have a lot of rules and a lot of reliable punishments when people violate them. On the other side you have cultures where there are looser norms, where there’s a wider range of behavior that’s perceived as permissible. An obvious example is people crossing the street. In Germany, pedestrians will not cross the street against a red light, even if it is 1 AM and there are no cars within sight. Contrast that with New York City, where people cross willy-nilly at all times of the day.
From her TED talk
So tight-loose is a continuum. Some groups like Japan and Singapore, Austria and Germany veer tight. Other groups like New Zealand or Brazil, Greece or the Netherlands veer loose. And what we found was that tight and loose confers really important trade-offs for groups that we don’t recognize. So tight groups have the corner on order. They have a lot more law enforcement and also security, and they have much less crime. Tight cultures, with their strong rules, have people also regulating their behavior more. They have more self-control. Tight cultures have less alcoholism. They have less debt, and they’re less fat. Loose cultures tend to be more disorganized. They have more crime. They have less synchrony, and they have a host of self-regulation failures.
But loose cultures corner the market on openness. They’re far more open to many different types of people – people from different religions, from races, immigrants, people with disabilities, many stigmatized people. In one experiment I did, I asked my research assistants from all over the world to wear fake facial warts, tattoos and nose rings, and they were asking for help on city streets or in stores. And there was a very clear pattern. People in loose cultures were much more likely to get helped when they were wearing these stigmas as compared to tight cultures. Loose cultures are also open to more ideas. They’re much more creative and they’re much more open to change, and tight cultures struggle with openness.
So why does this happen? She found that when a country, group of people, or culture is threatened, they have a tighter control over the group, lots of time for their survival.
From her talk
So you might be asking by now, what causes these differences? Tight and loose cultures don’t share any obvious characteristics, geography or language or religion or tradition. But there is a hidden rationale, and it has to do with threat. When cultures have a lot of chronic threat in their histories – you can think about threat from Mother Nature, like constant natural disasters or famine – or they have a lot of human-made threat – think about how many times your nation has been potentially invaded over the last several hundred years. When you have a lot of threat, you need rules to coordinate to survive. And the idea is that loose cultures might have had less threat, and that can afford more permissive norms because if there’s less coordination needs, then you don’t need to have tighter norms.
In her talk, she talked about countries that have authoritative leaders who will create an enemy so the the they can have more (tighter) rules, and control the populace. She mentioned Trump as an example of this happening. She said these threats don’t even have to be real, and that these authoritative rulers will make up an enemy (immigrants anybody?) as a common enemy to justify tighter control of the people.
In her book, she spoke about how some states, particularly in the South of the US are seen as tight states. These tight states had a higher belief in the supernatural. She talked about how the Southern States are more religious. She then said
Similarly, in Utah, over 60 percent of the population are Mormon, and strict regulations abound in their daily lives. Tea and coffee are banned at all times. Premarital sex is forbidden, as are pornography, masturbation, and homosexual acts. Sabbath Sunday is reserved for worship: working, shopping, eating out, playing sports, or other activities that may involve worldly temptations are not permitted. Bishops privately interview every adult Mormon to assess how well they’ve been adhering to the Mormon way of life and whether they’re worthy of entering the temple. Much like an intelligence-gathering agency, the Mormon Church’s Strengthening Church Members Committee (SCMC) keeps tabs on local Mormons to identify those who may be publicly criticizing the faith or its leadership. When it does, the SCMC promptly notifies the dissenter’s bishop, who may charge the member with apostasy-the abandonment of religious faith.
These explains a lot on why the Mormon religion is a “tight” culture. We had threats early on to our very exitance, although those threats were almost always self inflicted. Also, have you noticed how the rhetoric from our leaders always has a reference to the threat to our spiritual lives? There is always something that is going to take away our religious freedoms. That justifies the tight control of our lives. If the threat goes away, they will need to make up a new one. In my life time I have seen the threat change, from the imminent Second Coming (get a years supple of food), to women’s rights (ERA will destroy our families), to pornography, to gay marriage. None of these threats have come to fruition, the social order of the family did not break down when women got equal rights, when two men got married, or when Johnny played with his little factory.
Gelfand ended talking about a middle ground. Too loose, and society falls apart, life is too unpredictable, too tight and life become unbearable. She talked about the “Goldilocks principle of loose and tightness”. We need a balance of rules. Too far to either side causes problems. Nations that are too tight or too loose have more suicides than those in the middle. She said the best leaders of organizations are ambidextrous, they know how to deploy tightness and looseness at the right time.
Do you think the LDS Church could find this happy middle ground of tight and loose, or will we always be a tight society?
What would a middle ground Church look like?
(I did not do her talk justice, and I high recommend you listen to it, it is only 17 min long. I didn’t even cover why people driving more expensive break the law more often that those in cheaper cars)
Wheat & Tares 
This is a fascinating concept. It makes me think of Patrick Mason’s book Restoration. He makes the argument that we no longer have to be a fortress church, trying to be safe from the attacks of the world.
Recently, I was helping my mother clean out her room. I found a whole bag of signs she had cut out of old garments. She didn’t know what to do with them.
I explained we are no longer under attack. She lives in Idaho. I asked if any of her neighbors would fish these out of the trash in order to make fun of the church? She said no. I threw them away.
I live in Nevada, and I can tell you it is sooo loose compared to Idaho, Utah or California, even in the maga northern community (you could see that on the map).Tattoos are extremely common. People save up to get them. Nobody thinks anything about them. Most of the college age girls have nose rings these days. We are a purple state smack dab between California and Utah, so we have to learn to tolerate people from both political parties, or at least be brave and stand up to those who don’t tolerate differences.
Take a drive across California, Nevada and Utah, and stop in Walmarts along the way. There’s a striking difference in how women dress in Nevada vs Utah (and California to an extent). In Nevada in the summer most the women show a lot of skin, and that skin often has tattoos (to this Wyoming girl it looks trashy, but my kiddos like it). Stop in a Walmart in Utah and you know what they will look like in their conservative, clean looking modest and feminine clothing. It is a big contrast.
Contrary to the usual wealth looseness affects she discussed in the ted talk, Nevada people are in general poorer and less educated than surrounding states, but still our norms lean towards tolerating many things that aren’t tolerated in other places. We have interesting laws compared with other states, allowing government regulated prostitution and gambling. You see a lot of unfettered dirt bike and 4 wheeler recreation kicking up dust all over Nevada that you will never see in Utah or California. I think Nevada is looser because of the empty spaces, fewer people, and warmer weather. There’s less to fight against perhaps.
I wish the church felt there was less to fight against.
I know BB likes to slip in typos to keep us on our toes. So when I read “If the treat goes away, they will need to make up a new one”, I started wondering if the Q15 often had to gather together to consider what the next dessert after jello with shredded carrots and whip cream will be.
While I find much value in the premise of tight vs loose culture evolving out of response to threats, I was initially somewhat baffled by the statement that Southern states were examples of tight cultures. I suppose it matters on what particular aspects of life you are thinking about. Moving from Utah to Tennessee, TN seemed much looser in many ways. Certainly both score high on religion being used to make laws and what is taught in schools and public discourse. But Southern states barely enforce most laws and have almost comically no regulation on things that Northern States would carefully regulate. Want to build a house with no insulation and shoddy wiring in TN? Sure, go right ahead. Want to own 15 guns and threaten your neighbors when you get drunk on weekends? No problem, unless you are a person of color. Want to smoke in public places? Feel free. Let your dog run loose to poop in others yard and bite their kids? That’s fine too. So I think it’s a bit more complicated than all that.
In terms of the Mormon church and tight culture, I really see little hope for change, looking at who is in line of succession.
I think the TED speaker is significantly overstating the tightness of Mormon culture. The brethren want the culture to be tight, but the fact is members ignore them all them time and the only consequence is another naggy talk in conference. When I visit Walmarts in Utah, I don’t see any difference from those in Virginia. And how many of the “loose” participants on this blog have had the SCMC contact their bishops?
I like the discussion of loose versus tight, but don’t really have a comment to add.
Does loose versus tight culture correspond at all to guilt versus shame culture?
In some ways, the Church wants to pretend it’s a loose agency-based culture: “teach them correct principles, and let them govern themselves.” But there is also a fair amount of policing, so in practice it’s a tight culture. Certainly a lot tighter than the average church, even the average conservative church.
I’m fascinated with how tight cultures are tight in different ways. In Germany and Austria, people are very uptight about traffic rules and following them to a T. They’re also very uptight about private space. I was driving around Austria and stopped my car just briefly in a private hotel parking spot aside four other empty spots and just seconds later an old man came to yell at me that that was his private space and that I needed to leave immediately. And yet the Germans are extremely free when it comes to public nudity. Go to a sauna and men and women change in front of each other. Regulated prostitution is fully legal. Brothels abound.
Mormons are extremely uptight about not drinking tea and coffee, but Swig abounds. I was talking about this with my nephew the other day who was visiting with his girlfriend from Minnesota. She is not Mormon and has visited Utah only once before. She was fascinated by all these soda places around Utah that did not exist in Minnesota. You would be making a much healthier choice to get your caffeine fix from coffee than sugary soda.
We traveled to Denmark last year. It is defiantly a tight society and has many, many positives associated with it. I innocently got on a wrong train and was given a ticket with zero forgiveness, despite a good explanation and had to pay a fine. We loved Denmark and would learn to adapt with the tightness for the positives, if living there. It was not so tight that there we still felt personal/group freedom. Whereas Sweden, which previously was equal to Denmark, opened its’ borders and is now in decline, following the path of Amsterdam. Alike, I would rather live in Utah county (I think), than San Francisco.
Historically when people relocated from a loose to a tight society, they were expected to adapt. However, increasingly immigrants are not adapting and with increased numbers expect the tight society to accept and it change to their loose habits. I personally want to learn and associate with new groups and people to expand my horizons and learning. Society can also benefit from new blood and ideas. I am married to an immigrant and work within the immigrant population. I have also lived in 5 US states/4 time zones. However, I do not want the excessive loose ways, for the people who do not want to adapt to the aspects of the tight society, to obliterate my current society and its’ benefits. Please follow the traffic rules and do not play your loud music at 2 AM. If someone left their homeland for new opportunities, because of the problems/lack of opportunity there, why do you want to repeat the same patterns in your new location and not expect the same problems of the homeland? Not wanting to offend, but if (such and such country/state) was so wonderful, do not elevate your homeland and downgrade the new land with your perceived problems of it. I appreciate the immigrants who are grateful and embrace their new surroundings. Likewise, some Utahans when they leave the tight Intermountain belt can not adapt and associate with their loose neighbors, remain in their mini-Mormon bubble known as a Stake or have to relocate back to the Jello-Motherland. But has Utah is changing b there is a gulf of culture with little middle ground. As 10ac mentions, it depends on the topic. Over regulation in California vs limited in Tennessee has advantages and disadvantages, depending on the topic.
Where is the balance? No one wants to live in a totalitarian state, but also no one wants to live with unregulated chaos. We want rules for our protection but not to be point of stifling. Again, I work with the immigrant community, I expect my clients to be punctual which frequently falls on deaf ears. Many times they arrive with their broken watch system. I have learned to adapt (expected them to also adapt), but increasingly that leads to difficulty in running the business and lower quality care since I can not maintain a schedule. I have empathy, compassion, and understanding. But someones poor personal planning and disorganization is a daily occurrence and then multiply that by thousands and even millions, we have a societal problem. This is not only a topic of simple punctuality but can be assessed on dozens of topics. The broken windows theory was effective in NYC, Albuquerque, The Netherlands and Mexico city by enforcing jaywalking, littering, and graffiti.
I have observed, tight cultures tend to take responsibility over themselves. There are and need to be standards. Loose cultures have high risk of eventual resultant of cultural poverty and decline. I have seen loose cultures ignore consequences of poor decisions. This then creates new threats. The tight culture can continue to allowed “looseness” and its’ fallout or try to get society back to the middle ground, with the risk of taking the culture to a tight extreme, like happened with the Iranian revolution.
Back to Mormondom, the LDS missionaries have better stats in regions that are loose and struggle in populations that are tight. However, few individuals can retain their loose ideas within a institution that is defiantly tight. Hence, a retention convert rate of 5-20%.
From what I learned in the New Testament, is that Jesus Christ introduced loose ideas in an excessively tight culture. Christ adhered to tradition, but tried to get the pendulum to swing toward the middle from the extreme orthodoxy of the decision makers.
The COJCOLDS has indeed faced threats historically speaking. But when was the last time the Church was really under any kind of threat? Is there anyone reading this who can claim that their religious freedom was under any kind of threat (hint: it isn’t true just because Oaks or Bednar say so). Honestly, the Church can do anything it wants. Look at the way it confiscates money (OK OK it got fined $5m). LDS folks who claim religious persecution are just pretenders.
I find it ironic that Mormon folklore describes a ‘war in heaven’ with the winning side opting for a society based on freedom of choice (i.e., loose). Yet Mormonism has evolved into an orthodox culture only slightly behind Judaism in terms of rules and penalties. Most ‘respectable’ Mormon lawmakers follow suit in terms of implementing restrictive laws (e.g., Utah banning LGBT flags in public places, removing library books with the word sex, etc.). All conforming nicely to Satan’s plan of limiting free agency.
The church did make progress towards openness in the McKay and Hinckley regimes; however, Nelson/Oaks successfully implemented their versions of conservative rules and penalties. All trends indicate an even tighter structure going forward.
It is depressing to look at the line of succession and realize the march towards a more restrictive orthodoxy will proceed without interruption. Even more difficult to imagine Oaks, Bednar, etc. ever seeking a middle ground. Combine that with the majority of Mormons embracing MAGA politics and buckle up for a depressing ride.
The war is over, and Satan emerged victorious.
I don’t know how anyone can say with a straight face that the LDS tradition isn’t extremely tight. One example out of dozens: drink green tea at peril of your eternal salvation – just ask your stake president.
Faith gets the prize with her observation that Jesus was, for the most part, embracing a loose paradigm in his teaching. How does that get translated into a tight LDS church culture?
Most things in the church come from top down, but I feel like how tight or loose the culture is, is something that is affected by members at a grassroots level. There are a lot of Physically In Mentally Out (PIMO), members of the church, and a lot of nuanced members of the church who have differing beliefs and practices, but historically they’ve stayed pretty quiet. Since they stay quiet, the more orthodox voices, thoughts, and opinions are the only ones that get shared, and the culture remains very tight. Even TBM members who wish that they culture was a little more loose usually stay quiet and the hardline opinion is what gets shared.
I felt like if all the members were more open about their thoughts, opinions, and actions, then that is what would change the culture from being so tight, to a little more loose. I think the membership of the church could create a change to the culture by sharing their true thoughts, regardless of what the top leaders of the church say or want. (And I think this is happening- just very, very, slowly.)
RMN should ask the peepstone if there are any church standards that could be adjusted or loosened.
Also, it seems like our first church president practiced a pretty loose form of plural marriage.
Speaking of tight LDS culture, two weeks ago the visiting high councilor spoke on “testimony”, or more specifically, what constitutes the kind of testimony we would like to emphasize on that hailed first Sunday of the month.
Clearly the cows had gotten out of the barn, and it was time to get them back in. Out came the testimony glove, the cliches, tired platitudes, and aged Boyd K Packer quotes, suggesting that a testimony is a “declaration” of truth.
It was the “silencing of the lambs”, sheep, lambs, you know the shepherded livestock spoken of in the Bible, and those loose lipped mutton needed to be busted. I began writing a piece about when testimony meeting becomes witness tampering, which I’m still working out.
The fact is, holding “open mic” day at church is risky, but if you are going to hold the meeting, as maddening as it sometimes is, I believe the risk is far better than the authoritarian attack on the actual stories expressed, which serve as the potential evidence for making a convicted declaration. The proposal is to instruct witnesses to say nothing other than, “I know the defendant is innocent”, as if a jury member will be more moved by reducing the whole proceeding to an oversimplified declaration, rather than hear the evidence (the story) of what they actually saw (experienced). I actually somewhat like this weird, quirky meeting we have once a month. It holds a certain potential possibility to share the “wrestle” with God, to bind us through our mutual humanity and shared experiences of trying to make sense of the nonsensical, but instead we are instructed to water it down and repeat institutional talking points.
Star Wars paraphrase: “The more the church tightens its grip on testimony meeting, the more testimonies will slip through their fingers.”
Honestly, living one’s religion is a creative enterprise, with both individual and community efforts. But having leaders declare or order what your faith should look like (or sound like) is not only counterproductive but a violation of spirit. Testimonies are as unique as individuals.
“Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
“And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.”
Seems like there’s a little of both. Christ is the only name given under heaven whereby salvation can come–that’s very strict. And yet he–the Savior–will receive anyone who comes to him.
toddsmithson, you mention testimony, the testimony glove, and then compare it with testimony in court. The church is so tight with what they want members to consider as testimony, that they have actually redefined the word itself. A testimony is, according to church usage, something you can obtain, have, and lose. It isn’t simply the declaration of belief, but belief itself. In modern court usage, a testimony is not something that can be lost. It is simply something that can be given. It is nothing more than a formal statement or declaration before a court of something that the testifier truthfully witnessed. In does not mean belief. Only declaration. In other usages, testimony can mean evidence. “His quivering lip is testimony to his nervousness.” But only the Mormon church (as far as I have heard) does testimony mean belief. And the church uses it that way to shame people who change perspective as weak and lost. It is used that way to make followers think that firm belief can just be obtained through sheer willpower, out of thin air, without regard to evidence. It is used to make believers fear that if they think different things or entertain different ideas that they’re belief will vanish and that they will have then “lost their testimony” something stronger than just losing belief. In English parlance outside Mormondom, there is no way to lose your testimony. Only perhaps of the stenographer’s notes in the courtroom of a witness giving their testimony were lost.
@Brad D. Yes, Exactly. People have asked me if I lost my testimony- and that question doesn’t even make sense to me. (Although I know I’m still not using the word exactly correctly) I respond by saying, “No. I have a strong testimony, and beliefs. It’s just that my beliefs are different than correlated LDS doctrine.”
Well said Brad D.
Brad D,
I think latter-day saints can lose their testimony–because what we mean by “testimony” usually has to do with a living witness. Knowledge through the Holy Ghost is something that lives within us; it is typically more than a one time event. And so if we lose the influence of the spirit–then we run the risk of losing the “knowing” that we had gained by its companionship.
So Jack,
An LDS person don’t “know” anything in and of themselves, they only know if they are connected to the Matrix?
Jack, that logic makes zero sense with regard to something declared as a literal fact. When you say the Book of Mormon is true, your statement suggests that its truth depends on “you” having the spirit. I don’t think that’s what RMN or the typical member means when they say, the Book of Mormon is true. If, the statement of “truth” is not making a factual claim, then your logic may have merit, otherwise, its undermining your own claims. Can the Book of Mormon become “not true”? Is the truth you mention really more a perception? Is the Church “true” as an objective statement, or only as a matter of subjectively having the spirit. That seems like very flimsy logic.
There are most definitely truths in the Book of Mormon, just as there are truths in Les Misérables or Harry Potter, but nobody is claiming those books to be historical works. Again, your logic is like saying a jury member declares the defendant’s innocence or guilt based on a feeling, and maintaining the conviction of that declaration depends on keeping that feeling. A jury’s job is to reach a verdict based on the evidence, not a feeling. Now, certainly emotion and feeling play a role in their final decision, but I think it would be rare for someone to have an initial “feeling” of innocence and then hear overwhelming evidence of guilt and then base their final verdict on the “feeling”.
I don’t think our way of understanding “the spirit” or its application is nearly as solid an epistemological method as is suggested. You are using the Holy Ghost as a magic information genie, which then excuses people to both ignore reason and vilify it.
I think Alma says it best in chapter twelve of Alma:
9 And now Alma began to expound these things unto him, saying: It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him.
10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.
11 And they that will harden their hearts, to them is given the lesser portion of the word until they know nothing concerning his mysteries; and then they are taken captive by the devil, and led by his will down to destruction. Now this is what is meant by the chains of hell.
This implies that the increase or decrease of our spiritual knowledge is based on our willingness–or lack thereof–to receive it. And that our knowledge of sacred things might actually diminish to the point where we have no connection at all Deity.
I think of the knowledge that I have of my relationship with my wife. I know that I love her–and I know that she loves me. But if we were to become separated–God forbid–what would my knowledge of our relationship look like after 20 years of being apart from her? I could talk about what my feelings are in the present–as compared to what they once were. But I could not say with any confidence that I know she still loves me the way she used to. So in a certain sense that knowledge is “lost” to the living present.
So it is with spiritual things. The word is a living thing–and it thrives in our relationship with Deity. But if that relationship is diminished or cut off then it withers or even dies. And then we’re left with only a memory–a postcard–of the living relationship we once had.
The (re)name game seems to be popular within the church over the last several years to tighten the bolts of institutional loyalty. Most notably, we’re not “Mormons” anymore, we’re “members of the Church of Jesus Christ [takes breath] of Latter-day Saints.” In the same vein of calling a spade a spade when” tithing settlement” became “tithing declaration” (funny how the only annually recurring scheduled interface with church leadership has to do with money), let’s just change “testimony meeting” to “orthodoxy declaration.” Then, people can “O.D.” on institutional loyalty all they want to that first Sunday of the month, perhaps allowing the concept of “testimony” to be rescued and returned to its experiential roots.
Jack – so, are you saying that “love” and “truth” are synonymous?
If one reads the Book of Mormon and receives the stereotypical spiritual witness that it is “true”, are you saying that, if they stop reading it, losing the frequency of that relationship, as you said with your wife, that the Book will become “not true”? It seems that the less frequent reading might diminish the “love” for the book, the closeness you feel to it, but I’m not connected that to the “truth” of the book. If it’s true, doesn’t it always remain true?
And, what exactly is spiritual knowledge?
What are the mysteries of God Alma speaks of? He doesn’t define them, but the church seems to place certain pieces of information into the category of “mysteries of God”, but Alma does not state anything.
What is the “Word”? I don’t think Alma is using this term in the plural form, but as a representation of Christ. Like John said, In the beginning was the word, which gets personified in Jesus, but also is the “logos” spoken of in the creation story in Genesis.