Abducted in Plain Sight

[_Kishkumen]

In that case, please set me straight. What are the differences between the myths Joseph Smith created and the myths this guy created? Because the net result was exactly the same: They allowed the perpetrator to get into underaged girls' pants.

OK. When it comes to the idea that there was an angel threatening Joseph Smith to polygamy or else, there is little doubt that the same kind of pernicious behavior was at play. I don't contest that. We can add the idea that families would be saved or damned according to their compliance or lack thereof with Smith's revelations that he must marry their daughters. Again, no excuses. We see Berchtold behavior in this.

But when it comes to the Book of Mormon, the idea of a restoration of primitive Christianity, and many other aspects of Mormonism, we can't say, "Well, gee, the fact that Joseph Smith ended up using his position and teachings to sleep with young girls means the whole thing was entirely about that, just like Berchtold used a story about aliens and the end of the world to rape a prepubescent girl in Pocatello."

[_Maksutov]

In that case, please set me straight. What are the differences between the myths Joseph Smith created and the myths this guy created? Because the net result was exactly the same: They allowed the perpetrator to get into underaged girls' pants.

OK. When it comes to the idea that there was an angel threatening Joseph Smith to polygamy or else, there is little doubt that the same kind of pernicious behavior was at play. I don't contest that. We can add the idea that families would be saved or damned according to their compliance or lack thereof with Smith's revelations that he must marry their daughters. Again, no excuses. We see Berchtold behavior in this.

But when it comes to the Book of Mormon, the idea of a restoration of primitive Christianity, and many other aspects of Mormonism, we can't say, "Well, gee, the fact that Joseph Smith ended up using his position and teachings to sleep with young girls means the whole thing was entirely about that, just like Berchtold used a story about aliens and the end of the world to rape a prepubescent girl in Pocatello."

It looks to me like Shades confuses the popular use of the term with its more academic one. I've done it, too. But your point is valid, that there really is some difference. Is it merely a difference of scale, duration, complexity, quality? When does laxness of boundaries turn into surrender to exploitation? Is there a particular profile of the groomable, exploitable Mormon? Questions. So many pathologies, so little time and vocabulary.

[_Kishkumen]

It looks to me like Shades confuses the popular use of the term with its more academic one. I've done it, too. But your point is valid, that there really is some difference. Is it merely a difference of scale, duration, complexity, quality? When does laxness of boundaries turn into surrender to exploitation? Is there a particular profile of the groomable, exploitable Mormon? Questions. So many pathologies, so little time and vocabulary.

Those are difficult questions. They are also important questions. We make a mistake in not acknowledging those questions and the fact that we are still groping for good answers. I think there is a connection between the behavior of Berchtold and Smith, but we ought not to get carried away in imagining that they are exactly the same in every respect and we can now confidently conclude that Mormonism is rooted ultimately in strategies of sexual exploitation.

[_Maksutov]

It looks to me like Shades confuses the popular use of the term with its more academic one. I've done it, too. But your point is valid, that there really is some difference. Is it merely a difference of scale, duration, complexity, quality? When does laxness of boundaries turn into surrender to exploitation? Is there a particular profile of the groomable, exploitable Mormon? Questions. So many pathologies, so little time and vocabulary.

Those are difficult questions. They are also important questions. We make a mistake in not acknowledging those questions and the fact that we are still groping for good answers. I think there is a connection between the behavior of Berchtold and Smith, but we ought not to get carried away in imagining that they are exactly the same in every respect and we can now confidently conclude that Mormonism is rooted ultimately in strategies of sexual exploitation.

Smith was always interested in "keys". I wonder if he also mastered the keys to people, like other cult leaders have: finding what they want, what they think they need, then offering it with a steep price.

The process of lulling away some folks from their families is a sort of seduction. The weaker and more desperate are targeted for conversion in a way similar to targeting for sexual abuse. That there is overlap is unavoidable.

[_Kishkumen]

Smith was always interested in "keys". I wonder if he also mastered the keys to people, like other cult leaders have: finding what they want, what they think they need, then offering it with a steep price.

The process of lulling away some folks from their families is a sort of seduction. The weaker and more desperate are targeted for conversion in a way similar to targeting for sexual abuse. That there is overlap is unavoidable.

Conversion to a new group and lifestyle often follows on dissatisfaction and/or upheaval. I saw this on my mission. People like Smith offer others a new sense of purpose, meaning, and identity. That is a big part of the seduction. The Brobergs seemed to be in a kind of malaise and looking for excitement. Berchtold had easy pickings.

[_Maksutov]

Smith was always interested in "keys". I wonder if he also mastered the keys to people, like other cult leaders have: finding what they want, what they think they need, then offering it with a steep price.

The process of lulling away some folks from their families is a sort of seduction. The weaker and more desperate are targeted for conversion in a way similar to targeting for sexual abuse. That there is overlap is unavoidable.

Conversion to a new group and lifestyle often follows on dissatisfaction and/or upheaval. I saw this on my mission. People like Smith offer others a new sense of purpose, meaning, and identity. That is a big part of the seduction. The Brobergs seemed to be in a kind of malaise and looking for excitement. Berchtold had easy pickings.

It kept reminding me of the Kirtland Temple killings. Lundgren played all kinds of mind games that became even more lethal.

[_huckelberry]

In that case, please set me straight. What are the differences between the myths Joseph Smith created and the myths this guy created? Because the net result was exactly the same: They allowed the perpetrator to get into underaged girls' pants.

OK. When it comes to the idea that there was an angel threatening Joseph Smith to polygamy or else, there is little doubt that the same kind of pernicious behavior was at play. I don't contest that. We can add the idea that families would be saved or damned according to their compliance or lack thereof with Smith's revelations that he must marry their daughters. Again, no excuses. We see Berchtold behavior in this.

But when it comes to the Book of Mormon, the idea of a restoration of primitive Christianity, and many other aspects of Mormonism, we can't say, "Well, gee, the fact that Joseph Smith ended up using his position and teachings to sleep with young girls means the whole thing was entirely about that, just like Berchtold used a story about aliens and the end of the world to rape a prepubescent girl in Pocatello."

I remember the previous thread about the value of myth as showing that the value of a specific myth could vary widely. I picture variation in how a myth helps understand reality. It could image a basic principal of how things or people work and be valuable. On the other extreme it could falsify and cause serious confusion and damage. On another axis a myth could follow actual history, perhaps loosely relate to history or facts or on the other extreme have no or contradictory relationship to historical facts.

With different myths and perhaps different use of myth peoples lives may be illuminated energized or on the other hand a person could be confused and damaged by a myth.

I can see the idea of a flaming sword demanding polygamy is immediately dangerous in a way that the larger myth of a restoration of the real and lost Christianity does not have. The larger myth carries the possibly positively elements of the Christian myth as well as a possibilities of rethinking and renewing a myth encombered by bad historical choices. There is a difficulty in the Mormon restoration myth. It is only the leader who is supposed to be directing the renewal. The insights and moral sense of others do not count. The flaming sword myth draws its power over people from the restoration myth.

[_Gadianton]

What is this about a "BS" story? All he was doing is creating myth.

The word "myth" itself is a little vague. In the original discussion as I recall, "community myth" was the crucial concept, and in my opinion, the crucial part of community myth as myth, is weighing in of community imagination and excitement, which may by definition include substantial invention (if this were not true, then the community agreed-upon equations of relativity would also by mythic, which doesn't make a lot of sense). There is "Larry" the man and "Larry" the myth. While it's true that no good myth (good as in effective, not moral) sees itself from a third party mythic perspective and mandates that the man of myth be the man himself, the scholar knows that this is not that case and can look at the myth decoupled from the man himself. In this particular case, there are not enough people involved to be talking about community myths, except in the sense that the players themselves are part of a greater mythic fabric.

Imagine this scenario: A farmboy, Johny sees a fireball in a field and comes back with a tale about UFOs. The tale gets passed around town and twenty years later, Johny contacted the ambassadors from Varavara 8 was a 4.0 student who became a physicist and now advises for SETI, and the small town will surely be world famous one day.

We will be returning to this scenario momentarily.

It doesn't really matter where the myth comes from, as we recently learned--we all need myth in order to function effectively in society.

I think the verdict is out on the bold, I think the only indisputable point would be that society creates myths, and myth can be beneficial or not in material or moral terms. Although the larger the scale, the more difficult it is to evaluate by objective standards.

So, just like Joseph Smith and Mormonism in general, no harm, no foul. Let's not start talking about this guy the way Bill Reel would, since his way is simply naïve to reality.

Now to return to the scenario. A "Bill Reel" figure passes through the small town, down on his luck, and the friendly townsfolk cheer him up, offer him a place to stay, and are soon speaking enthusiastically about Johny. This figure, we'll call him Steve, is taken quickly by the generosity of the townsfolk and his imagination runs away with the otherworldly tale, and quickly finds himself striking up conversations about Johny with the townspeople. His yearning for both belief and companionship gets reinforced by the excitement the townspeople feel by having an outsider validate their beliefs, their town, and themselves as good and true people. Steve gets a job and lays roots in the town.

As the excitement cools, Steve is bothered by differences in the way the story is told and seeks to get to the bottom of it. After a lot of searching and digging, he makes some shocking discoveries.

Scenario A) Steve discovers that Johny was a 3.0 student, that he dropped out of college after a year and took a job with a bank in the city, had lost contact with the town long ago, and there is evidence that on the eve he reported his UFO, that a neighboring farmer had a controlled fire going.

Scenario B) Steve discovers that Johny was a D student who had taken a neighbors pet, killed it, and burned the body in a field on the eve of the sighting. He left town to find work elsewhere and eventually ended up a criminal and in jail.

Steve takes on the town and calls it out. He points to the truth, in either scenario. In either scenario, the history of the town is about the same. Now a historian comes through, Kishikumian, and shrugs his shoulders at the "real" Johny, as he wouldn't have expected anything in particular and certainly wouldn't have bought into aliens himself. should Kishi find that the positive social bonding over the story is null and void as he's educated by Steve? Should those who believe the myth be more suspect in scenario B than A? Would Kishi be giving animal cruelty a free pass by finding virtue in the mythic Johny? Myth has its bad side too. There's some bad things that happened in the town. Some of those who align themselves with Steve find metaphors in the life of Johny in scenario B that explain bad things that happened in the town, and indict some of the prominent townspeople while drawing on allusions to the real Johny --- the evil deed of Johny explains behavior of the current town, even though the two have nothing to do with each other. But let's face it: he's speaking to the town in their own language, as the town's mythic Johny sheds light on the modern goodness of the town even though the two have nothing to do with each other.

I can see the objections coming from several angles as to why this story doesn't pace Mormonism very well. But that wasn't my goal, my goal is to show that in principle, the myth isn't dependent on the man for the objective observer.

[_Kishkumen]

Great stuff, Dean Robbers. I also applaud your patience. I have seen you provide excellent parables of this kind in earlier threads. I have found them highly persuasive. Hopefully they will be more effective in the minds of other readers this time around. There is no reason they should not be.

[_Dr. Shades]

Thank you, Dean Robbers.

I suppose, in the scenario you drew up for us, that the Johny myth does not require the townspeople to send 10% of their income to SETI, even at the expense of their retirement? I also suppose the Johny myth does not require children to be interviewed about their sexual proclivities by strange older men? And that it does not prohibit the children of gay-married parents from settling in the town? And doesn't actively teach the existence of ancient civilizations that didn't, in point of fact, exist? Or to disbelieve in the clear science that (for example) the earth is much older than 6,000 years old? Or teach its young girls that a woman's highest calling is stay-at-home motherhood, in spite of any goals she may have to the contrary?

If not, then there probably isn't a need for Steve to go all "Bill Reel" on the townspeople.

But if so . . .