Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Womens' Study Group
Link for the Austin Study Group Sister Sly wants everyone to know they can follow along with the group by following the blog.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Massacre at Mountain Meadows
This is a cross post from my personal blog discussing the latest Book Club Book. The book club is an unofficial group that reads a church related book and discusses it in their free time. I will try to post a list of what we have already read and if anyone wants to borrow one of them, including this one, just let me know. Now for the review:
Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr, Glen M. Leonard
Oxford University Press
For a short synopsis of the book please see the Ensign article buy Richard Turley.
This book is an excellent case study of how seemingly good people can commit acts of horrific evil. Phillip Zimbardo in his book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how good people turn evil, documenting his work The Standford Prison Experiment, theorized that we feel comfortable seeing bad acts as if committed by a few bad apples; that we are above such things. As if to say "I would never had done that." That we would have been the hero, standing up to all those weak people who went along. The truth though is just a bunch of ordinary apples in a bad barrel, all susceptible to going bad. Anotherwords, if you can create the right environment, just about everyone can and will be corrupted.
This book lays out very nicely the events surrounding the southern Utah pioneers, from the harsh rhetoric of Brigham Young, to the widespread rumors and false gossip of the citizens, and the old grudges that killed the soul from within. This led to an atmosphere that made such a heinious crime seem reasonable, but as Juanita Brooks said:
"Exaggeration, misrepresentation, ungrounded fears, unreasoning hate, desire for revenge, yes, even the lust for the property of the emigrants, all combined to give the justification which, once the crime was done, looked inadequate and flimsy indeed"
Typically 3 social factors are in place for great violence to take place.
1. Limited authoritative leadership
2. Conformity (often enforced) among the group
3. Dehumanizing of the victims
All three were strongly present in southern Utah during 1857.
As to the individuals who participated they tried to excuse themselves that they were just following orders (page 180), the past the moral buck forward (page 189), but in the end the guilt and shame for what they had done stayed with them (pages 209 & 214).
For me two of the take away points were:
If any leader, Priesthood or otherwise, tells you to do something that you feel is wrong by saying "If it is wrong and I told you to do it, don't worry the punishment will fall to me", you can know of a surety that they are wrong. All great tragedies are begat by leaders who were sure they were right and demanded blind obedience (page 189). And as the participants above can tell you, the guilt never leaves.
Second, having the attitude that you are somehow better and above it all is precisely the attitude that leads you to such great crimes. Pride comes before the fall, and as the Milgram Experiment shows, you the regular citizen are not above it all. You are all in the same barrel and if we are not constantly on guard we will just go along with the flow with everyone else.
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said:
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiuosly committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart if every human being. And who wants to destroy a piece of his own heart."
The Memorial at Mountain Meadows
Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr, Glen M. Leonard
Oxford University Press
For a short synopsis of the book please see the Ensign article buy Richard Turley.
This book is an excellent case study of how seemingly good people can commit acts of horrific evil. Phillip Zimbardo in his book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how good people turn evil, documenting his work The Standford Prison Experiment, theorized that we feel comfortable seeing bad acts as if committed by a few bad apples; that we are above such things. As if to say "I would never had done that." That we would have been the hero, standing up to all those weak people who went along. The truth though is just a bunch of ordinary apples in a bad barrel, all susceptible to going bad. Anotherwords, if you can create the right environment, just about everyone can and will be corrupted.
This book lays out very nicely the events surrounding the southern Utah pioneers, from the harsh rhetoric of Brigham Young, to the widespread rumors and false gossip of the citizens, and the old grudges that killed the soul from within. This led to an atmosphere that made such a heinious crime seem reasonable, but as Juanita Brooks said:
"Exaggeration, misrepresentation, ungrounded fears, unreasoning hate, desire for revenge, yes, even the lust for the property of the emigrants, all combined to give the justification which, once the crime was done, looked inadequate and flimsy indeed"
Typically 3 social factors are in place for great violence to take place.
1. Limited authoritative leadership
2. Conformity (often enforced) among the group
3. Dehumanizing of the victims
All three were strongly present in southern Utah during 1857.
As to the individuals who participated they tried to excuse themselves that they were just following orders (page 180), the past the moral buck forward (page 189), but in the end the guilt and shame for what they had done stayed with them (pages 209 & 214).
For me two of the take away points were:
If any leader, Priesthood or otherwise, tells you to do something that you feel is wrong by saying "If it is wrong and I told you to do it, don't worry the punishment will fall to me", you can know of a surety that they are wrong. All great tragedies are begat by leaders who were sure they were right and demanded blind obedience (page 189). And as the participants above can tell you, the guilt never leaves.
Second, having the attitude that you are somehow better and above it all is precisely the attitude that leads you to such great crimes. Pride comes before the fall, and as the Milgram Experiment shows, you the regular citizen are not above it all. You are all in the same barrel and if we are not constantly on guard we will just go along with the flow with everyone else.
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said:
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiuosly committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart if every human being. And who wants to destroy a piece of his own heart."
The Memorial at Mountain Meadows
Friday, October 10, 2008
Preserving the Divine Institution of Marriage
The Church has launched a website called Preserving the Divine Institution of Marriage. This is in some respects an effort to explain our position as regards to California's Proposition 8, and about our views on marriage generally.
I have added the link to the sidebar.
New Baby
From our former Bishop:
We welcomed baby #5 into our home on Monday, 8-11-08, Nathan Brent Christenson. He was born weighing 8 lbs 9.5 oz and measured in at 20 inches in length. Our hospital room had a beautiful view of the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg, PA. Both Mom and baby are doing great and the children can't get enough of their little, baby, brother. Bryant had calculated out how many months, days, and half days he had gone without having a brother and he is so excited to have him here now.
New Website - The Red Brick Store
A grop of LDS related magazines and journals have created a joint website called The Reb Brick Store in order to foster LDS themed writing. I will post the link to the sidebar.
Some history of the Website name:
Many important events occurred at the Red Brick Store while The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was first established in Nauvoo. The Relief Society was organized on March 17, 1842; the first endowments were administered in the third level of the store on May 4, 1843; the Prophet Joseph Smith instructed the twelve to investigate the possibilities of going West in a meeting held in the store; and Joseph Smith completed the translation of the Book of Abraham here.
General Conference Transcripts are now Online
The transcripts - printable files - for the 178th Semiannual General Conference, October 2008 are now up. Download to a word file and read at your leisure.
You can also obtain downloads for the audio and video files at the same place.
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