Why Do Mormons Have a Tendancy to be Judgmental?

[_harmony]

But to the issue at hand: I don't know if any of my prescriptions could ever really happen. I tend to doubt it based on my historical knowledge of the church as an institution. I don't think any movement to change it from within would have an effect without other threats to its overall existence: economic or political threats.

I suppose that's why, in my own life circumstances, I have taken more of what can best be described as a "cafeteria Mormon" approach.

I believe the basic core of the gospel, but as far as callings, time commitments, etc., I try to balance these things very carefully, and family always takes precedance. I have no problem telling a bishop or any other Church leader "no" if I am asked to do something that conflicts with family or work commitments.

Some, like Plutarch, brand me a hypocrite because of my approach. But I really don't care. It's that judgmentalism creeping in again, I suppose. ;)

I just don't understand why, as members of the Church, we have to be so hard on each other. Everyone has their own set of trials to bear. Instead of looking down on each other, why not offer support? There is a difference. You can accept another person for who they are, and help them in their circumstances if it's possible without making a judgment.

This is where I disagree with all of the hierarchies in the Church which have been established. I think that these were created more out of cultural means than spiritual.

The heirarchy of the church was created for one reason: to sustain the status quo. From the beginnings of the church, the leaders have sought to fortify their personal gain first, the status of the church itself second, and as an afterthought, they worried about the members only as circumstances forced them to.

I think the reason for the judgmentalism is rooted deep in church history. Our ancestors took great pride in being a "peculiar people". Due to the circumstances under which they lived, some of which they brought on themselves, they were persecuted, threatened, and driven out for being peculiar. It became a badge of honor, to be part of this peculiar people. Marching to one's own drummer was not acceptable; one had to march to the drummer called to lead the peculiar people in order to be acceptable. They judged, and judged harshly, based only on gossip and rumors. The same system is still in place today. Members are called into the bishop's office for a little chat, based on rumors and gossip. People are excommunicated, based on rumors and gossip. Some of our most basic foolishness, or as Packer says, "the unwritten order of things", a woman and man not married to each other are to not ride together to a meeting, eating with someone not one's spouse in a public place is forbidden, missionaries cannot ride in a car with a single woman, a single woman or family of only women cannot feed the missionaries in the family home, men should never openly visit women who live alone, etc. It is all based on accepting gossip and rumor as fact, which the Saints have done for generations, going to back to when Joseph was maligning the women who refused to marry him as whores. (That's one of the reasons why women are told to stay home with the children. What happens in many office settings? Women and men must work together, eat together, go to meetings together. The church cannot control the office setting, so they strive to control the women.)

[_Yoda]

Thanks for making me rethink the whole "cafeteria Mormon" thing...

Its something I've always had a problem with, not because I'm TBM, but because I'm no longer a member, never liked church, and really, really dislike it now. I've always seen it as a selfish position that just uses what parts of Mormonism fit best for individual reasons, ignoring any problematic issues and blithely caring less about the less than beneficial effects the church-as-total-institution might have on others.

I don't think this fits you, from what I've read, so its instructive to me to see other variations. Living as a "critical" Mormon is something I've run across before and I need to think again about my responses. It strikes me as such an impossible position in so many ways...

You've probably discussed this before--probably to death. So, no need to respond at length, I'll just keep reading and thinking...

And who knows? Maybe "cafeteria Mormonism" is not the right description. I tend to live my life using the basic gospel principles as a guide. Being honest...being kind to others....These are all attributes I try to employ in my daily life. I think it's why I enjoy teaching so much. It appears we have this in common. Do you teach college or high school students?

I guess where I differ with the "TBM" mentality is that I feel that God gave us a brain, and he gave us common sense for a reason.

[_Blixa]

I'm a university professor. With an upcoming sabbatical. Just. Three. More. Weeks.

Speaking of which, must catch my train to campus...

[_Yoda]

I'm a university professor. With an upcoming sabbatical. Just. Three. More. Weeks.

Speaking of which, must catch my train to campus...

Bless your heart! I would be counting down the weeks, too!

I teach Computer Science at a local community college. I have a Master's, not a PhD. I'm working on the doctorate, but it is slow going. LOL

We roll straight through the summer, so no upcoming break for me. :(

[_Blixa]

eh, we should talk some Liz, off board...I'd be interesting to hear about your teaching, etc. And I'll tell you about my project that the sabbatical will help produce (don't want to give away my secrets indiscriminately!)

Anywho...later.

[_wenglund]

Judgementalism is one of the characteristics that most defined my experiences with Mormonism. I tend to agree with runtu, and even more with Satanwassetup that there are specific features of Mormon doctrine (that hazy blur) and culture that both produce and encourage it. The tendency to only address outward behaviors, to overemphasize the visible as exactly correlative of abstractions like "worthiness," is built into Mormonism in many ways. Combine that with a hierarchical pecking order which demands and assigns surveillance and you've got your explanation.

There's nothing wrong with encouraging neighborliness and looking out for one another. Those are comendable efforts. The trouble comes with the structured enforcement of checking up on people, tallying observations, passing on information, and the obsession with record keeping that extends to retaining every untutored jackass in authority over you's half-thought-out opinion in a "jacket" that follows you throughout your life, around the globe, and into the eternities, apparently.

What can be done? Well, a lot needs to be done on many levels including restructuring the instutional organization of the church, actually training its much vaunted "lay ministry" in psychology, counseling, and common sense, repeated exhortations from the pulpit for people to regard each other with compassion first and foremost, and a refocusing of GA attention from the outrageously petty (earrings) to the serious.

Its a daunting task. Wade says "the best place to start with most any solution to interpersonal issues is with me," and I couldn't agree less. I think that the best place to start---with any issue---is with as accurate a conceptual grasp of the problem as possible. In other words, looking beyond one's own experience ("me") in order to understand a given situation in all its historical and institutional complexity. Only with this in place can one create a strategy for attacking, solving, or changing as the case may be.

It's a basic lesson I often address with my students, usually through a close reading of A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. I use this text repeatedly, not as an artifact of "the past" but as a narrative about pedagogy: a story about learning and acting on the basis of that knowledge applicable well beyond its "period."

Douglass had first to grasp slavery as a system before he could do anything other than merely react to it as an individual. No matter how he changed his behaviour: becoming a good submissive slave, or a continually rebelling one, it wasn't going to affect an institution much larger than himself. Once he committed to educate himself on it (by teaching himself to read, then reading, then thinking, then observing, then more reading, etc.) then he could truly see what he was up against. This led to his strategy: escape and join with others to combat it systemically, not just individually. As Douglass said, thus a slave was made a man. A man, I might add with an accute grasp of the interdependence of self and community.

I am not sure that judgementalism is so much a systemic issue as it is a personal issue. Certainly, I don't see it as on the order and magnitude of slavery.

However, let assume, for the sake of argument, that it is systematic. And, intstead of looking at the issue solely from the standpoint of those on the receivng end of the social ill (as was the case with Douglass), let's also consider it from the standpoint of the perpetrators (i.e the slaveholders).

I think, given the posts on this thread and others, it is safe to say that all of us here are too judgemental. In other words, we are, at times, the perpetrators. We are part of the problem. We are to judgementalism what the slaveholders were to slavery. Accordingly, would it then have made sense for slaveholders, wishing to stop slavery, to continue acting as slaveholders until the the issue was addressed systemically? What potency would anti-slavery slaveholders have in convincing others to stop slavery if they were unwilling to stop their own slavery first? Wouldn't those were enslaved by the anti-slavery slaveholders have benefitted early on were the anti-slavery slaveholders to have first stopped their own practice of slavery prior to addressing the problem systemically?

I don't know about the rest of you, but I believe it best were the anti-slavery slaveholders to have begun with "themselves" in ending slavery, rather than waiting until after they had educated themselves about and addressed the issue systemically.

I believe the same is even more true of we judgementalists. We, as well as those we are too judgemental with, stand to personally gain by first addressing our own Judgementalism, whereas the hypothetical anti-slavery slaveholders would have had to sacrifice their competative edge in the marketplace and society.

Also, from what I have seen in discussions such as this, where instead of looking inward, the focus is on what the others need to do to correct the problem, it ends up being much talk and little or no action--in part because the issues may not engender sufficient passion to carry it through to resolution, and/or because those doing the talking arent' anywhere close to being in a postion to effect systemic change, and/or some are lulled into mistakenly thinking that by jaw-boning about the issue, they have done their part and need not go any further. So, aside from a lot of hot air being expended and discipated, nothing changes. Nothing is resolved.

For that reason as well, I think it best to start with "me", because at least then, change would be affected in one person....and who knows what influence that single change may have exponentially on others?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Yoda]

I believe the same is even more true of we judgementalists. We, as well as those we are too judgemental with, stand to personally gain by first addressing our own Judgementalism, whereas the hypothetical anti-slavery slaveholders would have had to sacrifice their competative edge in the marketplace and society.

Also, from what I have seen in discussions such as this, where instead of looking inward, the focus is on what the others need to do to correct the problem, it ends up being much talk and little or no action--in part because the issues may not engender sufficient passion to carry it through to resolution, and/or because those doing the talking arent' anywhere close to being in a postion to effect systemic change, and/or some are lulled into mistakenly thinking that by jaw-boning about the issue, they have done their part and need not go any further. So, aside from a lot of hot air being expended and discipated, nothing changes. Nothing is resolved.

For that reason as well, I think it best to start with "me", because at least then, change would be affected in one person....and who knows what influence that single change may have exponentially on others?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Very well-stated, Wade! :)

I agree that if we set an example of NOT being judgmental, it's likely to catch on.

OK...Wade and I are agreeing on an issue. Let's see if lightning strikes! LOL

Couldn't resist...love ya, Wade! :)

[_Runtu]

Wade,

Very well said. But now I have that awful Michael Jackson song stuck in my head.

"I'm starting with the man in the mirror. I'm asking him to change his waaaaayyyys." Egads!

[_wenglund]

I believe the same is even more true of we judgementalists. We, as well as those we are too judgemental with, stand to personally gain by first addressing our own Judgementalism, whereas the hypothetical anti-slavery slaveholders would have had to sacrifice their competative edge in the marketplace and society.

Also, from what I have seen in discussions such as this, where instead of looking inward, the focus is on what the others need to do to correct the problem, it ends up being much talk and little or no action--in part because the issues may not engender sufficient passion to carry it through to resolution, and/or because those doing the talking arent' anywhere close to being in a postion to effect systemic change, and/or some are lulled into mistakenly thinking that by jaw-boning about the issue, they have done their part and need not go any further. So, aside from a lot of hot air being expended and discipated, nothing changes. Nothing is resolved.

For that reason as well, I think it best to start with "me", because at least then, change would be affected in one person....and who knows what influence that single change may have exponentially on others?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Very well-stated, Wade! :)

I agree that if we set an example of NOT being judgmental, it's likely to catch on.

OK...Wade and I are agreeing on an issue. Let's see if lightning strikes! LOL

Couldn't resist...love ya, Wade! :)

I value very much you saying so.

Love ya too, Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_wenglund]

Wade,

Very well said. But now I have that awful Michael Jackson song stuck in my head.

"I'm starting with the man in the mirror. I'm asking him to change his waaaaayyyys." Egads!

...worse yet, you called to memory the surgically altered face of Micheal Jackson in the mirror. So, not only do I have the song ringng in my ears, but the disturbing image as well. ;-)

Thanks, -Wade Englund-