The Benedict Insurgency

I will be interested to see if other chip-in with ideas on this extremely important topic.

As an external observer, it seems to me that the CJCLDS is being forced to change its basic relationship with the USA for the first time in more than a century – due to the actions of the mass media, the Supreme Court and Federal Government, this is being unilaterally imposed.

It looks as if the General Authorities are well aware of this, and ‘have a plan’ but I’m not clear what that is (why would I be?) – no doubt it will be unveiled at the right time.

I was raised as a patriot (if not precisely a superpatriot) and on that basis I’ve made a career working at Death Star, Inc., in the belief that my adopted country needs a giant space laser deterrent.

But I recall a mentor at the Jedi Temple, a wonderful man who was like a father to me, who had worked for the Navy for many years before giving up his career to accept the call to mentor young Padawans. This was a man who in his youth had flown Catalina flying boats on reconnaissance against the Japanese in the Pacific, a job where the grim joke was: “We have located the enemy carriers. Please notify next of kin.” (He had better eyesight than I at age 60, but was very hard of hearing from the incessant roar of the engines.) He was the last man you would think would discourage any kind of patriotic service. But he strongly advised me to avoid accepting a job working for the government after I had passed the Jedi trials.

I didn’t take that advice, largely because I discovered that virtually all occupations reserved for Jedi ultimately were being funded by the government, and I figured I might as well be up front about it. I am planning retirement in five years. It may be a very near thing whether I can continue to serve this government in good conscience for that long.

Any my retirement plans assume I can find some small college at which to mentor a new generation of Padawans. That option may soon be closed as well.

This concerns me a lot. Let’s talk about Disney as a microcosm of the larger issue.

I am much less sanguine than you are. Most Mormons that I know–good, decent people who are trying to raise their kids right–are immersed in Disney. They drink in its products like a firehose. When doing so, its easy to rationalize a few tainted messages here and there. They may not be a huge percentage in relative numbers. But in raw quantities they are still great. The end result is massive cultural exposure to evil as good. Worse, even apparently innocuous Disney products often are not. They usually contain narratives that do not fit well with the gospel: you can be anything you want, the hero-rebel who defies authority to win, etc. None of them are formally incompatible–but they basically are incompatible, in thrust and intent. Most enemy propaganda uses tropes and themes from these narratives, so Disney exposure is like long, long, prolonged conditioning for hypnotism. Finally, even if the narratives were not at least dangerous, the human mind was not meant to have this much narrative exposure, especially divorced from a social context.

But, unfortunately, there is a culture shaped hole in the human heart. You cannot just bar media without having something else vibrant and whole to replace it. At the moment we do not.

But moderated and limited exposure to the media does not work well either because we lack a Schelling point that says this is accepted, this is forbidden.

From my limited understanding, Opus Dei is something like an insurgency. One of its main goals is to “sanctify work”, and by doing so to sanctify society. They have founded universities and business schools for the purpose of training devout Christians to “infiltrate” business and government at high levels, thereby hoping to exert a Christian influence on society and culture.

The privately-run (non-diocesan) Catholic school that my kids attended had a similar attitude: The intention was not to withdraw from the world but to nurture Christian tradition and culture so that the students would take those things with them to college and beyond, and of course pass them on to their kids. A certain degree of withdrawal from the culture is necessary in order to impart these values to the students. You can’t just send kids to public school, and expect them to imbibe Christian culture and tradition via a once-a-week catechism class or something. But this was done with the understanding that the students would not be separated from the culture permanently, but only held aloof to a certain extent during their formative years.

I think this is a good strategy. I would certainly encourage Mormons to found more Mormon schools separate from the public school system, in places where there is a sufficiently large Mormon population to support them.

I lean towards G’s sentiment. I find the mouse and most of his associates creepy, and involuntarily cringe at Disney’s logo and items they promote. I don’t want to raise my kids to associate the mascots with good/wholesome as they are wholly owned by a company I totally distrust.

We do watch some of the older things, like 101 Dalmatians (but even then I find the ending of the young couple living with far too many dogs and no kids depressing, lol).

When family values types “controlled” the major corporations, homosexuality’s, gay marriage, teen sex, etc was only talked about on the fringe.

When the family values types lost control or didn’t replace those that retired, within a few short years our culture was turned upside down.

I don’t think those things are coincidence.

I guess I just disagree.

I hew quite strongly to the Moldbug school of thought, that order is a big deal, is a good thing, and you screw with it at your peril. There are worse things than a society being corrupted; anarchy is one of those things. If you find yourself in the midst of a corrupt society, it might be tempting to go to war against it. But if it’s on its way out anyway, and meanwhile it’s shielding you from the Old Gods, well, maybe your time could be better spent.

One niece or nephew who remains faithful is more valuable than a corrupt media entity destroyed. Because the latter was going to happen anyway.

The mental model I have is of Noah and the ark. Sure, you can spend some time going to war against the wicked, I guess, but don’t neglect that ark.

Valuable points, SPDI. At the same time, Moldbug’s view is skewed by him being an atheist materialist. He sees no hope, and therefore nothing to live for, beyond this world.

Sorry, but insurgency just really feels like the wrong model to me. Insurgencies are built on lies. Moral problems aside: lies mess with your frame, and you can’t take a culture without frame.

That doesn’t mean you should discard the military mental model. But the situation we find ourselves in is more like regrouping after a chaotic airdrop:

“The Landings
Units found themselves scattered all over the Cotentin Peninsula. In almost every case, several hours were spent just trying to find out where they were and to find others in the same Battalion or even Regiment. In some cases, contact with other friendly units were not made for days. Commanders who had landed in the drop were forced to gather any men they could find on their way to their objective – in the dark. Teams that had formed to blow up communications center or bridges found themselves without the necessary equipment because either it or the men carrying it were lost. About 60 percent of the equipment dropped was either lost by falling into swamps or into enemy-controlled areas.”

http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/dday/airborne.aspx

And then there’s my personal favorite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcDazkqVCKA

G, re: Moldbug—agreed on atheistic materialism, but I think he just has his head screwed on straight on this topic. You can’t wield the Ring for righteousness, you can’t wield pop culture against the populace. To the extent that niche attractions exist (LDS musicians, mormon mommy bloggers), there’s no need to be “insurgent” about it, because who are you being insurgent against?

An example of an actual modern insurgency in the culture war would be Reddit’s /r/theredpill community. It’s not pretty. Sure, it’s the enemy of our enemies, but…

Lest I be (sensibly) accused of providing problems but no solutions: there is a wide spectrum between anti-Commie self-reliance, and the United Order. Cooperatives, group buying, friendly societies; there is room for exploration here.

Solve this first:
http://www.jrganymede.com/2014/11/18/large-families-large-houses-traditional-role-models-and-single-incomes/#more-13992

“But moderated and limited exposure to the media does not work well either because we lack a Schelling point that says this is accepted, this is forbidden.”

Interestingly, I think the Disney fixation among Mormons took hold precisely because it was a convenient Schelling point. If it was Disney, you knew it couldn’t be bad. Obviously that no longer holds.

“Moderated and limited exposure to the media” is more or less what I’m arguing for here. It isn’t without problems, surely. I may be like the casual drinker who doesn’t understand why some people can’t seem to drink in moderation.

But, as I mentioned in my homeschool post,* I think that merely protecting kids from evil influences is at most half the battle. They have to be imbued with a sense for what is good and ennobling, and to recognize counterfeits. This is why I never liked the Rated R standard that used to be in the “For the Strength of Youth” pamphlets. Not that it excluded Rated R films, but that it implicitly placed PG-13 movies with horrible messages on a moral plane above movies that happened to show one too many bullet wounds.

Case in point: My wife has declined repeated invitations to join some other LDS ladies to watch “The Bachelor,” another fine specimen of programming from Disney. Based on the depressing number of Mormon women who watch the show, I assume there is no nudity or very much swearing. There is only a trivialization of sacred matrimony and chastity. But hey, at least no one dropped an F-bomb, right?

But if I had a 10-year-old child, I’d rather find out that they watched “Saving Private Ryan” behind my back instead of “The Bachelor.”

Absent a move to the proverbial mountain compound, I don’t see much choice but to tell kids, “Watch This, Not That.” And to give them such a firm grounding in the good and true that they can make these decisions on their own.

*(http://www.jrganymede.com/2016/05/03/rage-against-the-machine/)

[Edit: Unnecessarily snide remark about peoples’ TV habits removed- MC]

Maybe I’m just getting hung up on terms, because as I read MC’s stuff what he’s suggesting is not really an insurgency. Really, the only points of disagreement I find with his post are the citation of Alinsky, and the idea that it’s a good thing to be perceived as transgressive. The best way to be perceived is “just better,” but the most important lesson on perception is that it comes second.

SPDI,

“Sorry, but insurgency just really feels like the wrong model to me. Insurgencies are built on lies. Moral problems aside: lies mess with your frame, and you can’t take a culture without frame.”

At the risk of getting hung up on terms, the way I see it, we’re faced with four main options:
1. Open Warfare with the Left
2. Surrender
3. Retreat/Withdrawal
4. Resistance/Insurgency

Number 1 was the option chosen by the Moral Majority, and I agree with Weyrich that it was a failure. I think we all agree Number 2 is out of the question.

So we’re left with a model of withdrawal or of insurgency. The withdrawal model is sufficiently defeatist that I doubt whether it can work. There is no longer any mountain valley to flee to. And even if we built all of our own, self-sufficient institutions (which we should be doing anyway), they could be stripped away from us by Leviathan.

So I think the more sustainable model is one that draws some strength and resources from the larger culture. That may require us to conceal certain motives, but that’s a necessary condition of being different. When I invited my co-workers to an Easter concert, I didn’t say, “By the way, I hope you feel the Spirit and want to learn more about the Gospel,” even though that was probably true.

“Maybe I’m just getting hung up on terms, because as I read MC’s stuff what he’s suggesting is not really an insurgency. Really, the only points of disagreement I find with his post are the citation of Alinsky, and the idea that it’s a good thing to be perceived as transgressive.”

I accept full responsibility for the confusion because my own thoughts are not fully formed, and I wanted to spark a discussion. But let me try to convey what I mean by insurgency.

You say, “To the extent that niche attractions exist (LDS musicians, mormon mommy bloggers), there’s no need to be ‘insurgent’ about it, because who are you being insurgent against?” But I actually think this is a good example of insurgency. Silicon Valley, nowadays, is hostile to traditional values. An insurgency takes the technology they invented and uses it to promote those values. At a more theoretical level, the Mormon musicians are borrowing heavily from popular music styles, while mommy bloggers employ the “confessional” style of writing that became so popular in the 20th Century. You could look at this at parasitic on the larger culture or symbiotic with it. But I think it is more effective adaptation to the current environment than withdrawal.

Although he was responding to another argument, Vader’s point about working for the government is relevant here. A withdrawal model might say that he’s spiritually better off to cut off involvement with a wicked government. The insurgent model says that there are lots of good-paying government jobs, and why should good people sacrifice career opportunities just so the position can be filled by an obedient Leftist? Let Vader make that money, support his family, pay tithing, and undermine Leviathan in whatever small ways he can.

As an example of this from the Left, the FDA recently spent $36 Million in anti-smoking ads for gays, lesbians, trans, etc. http://hotair.com/archives/2016/05/04/the-fdas-36-million-campaign-to-curb-lgbt-tobacco-use/ Conservatives weakly protested the promotion of the gay agenda in the ads themselves, and of course that was part of it, but I don’t even think that it’s the main point. This is a jobs program for gay activism. Every time the government takes your tax dollars and gives it to these people, they sustain the infrastructure of the gay agenda. The Left has always understood the value of a good sinecure.

I don’t think it’s inherently good to be transgressive. It all depends what is being transgressed. What I think is undeniable is that non-conformism is appealing to the young, and to creative types. And while some conformity was a fine thing for Mormons in a saner time in America, we’re being forced to either embrace our “otherness” or cease being meaningfully Mormon at all.

At what point does a corrupt order cease to be orderly? I am not calling us to try and burn the system down, but it is anarcho-tyrannical enough that I do not see a whole lot of percentage in expending effort to keep it going either. And its getting more anarcho-tyrannical every day. Best do what we can to position ourselves for the wreck.

“And even if we built all of our own, self-sufficient institutions (which we should be doing anyway), they could be stripped away from us by Leviathan.”

I think I predicted once at this blog that BYU would be taken from us in a very few years. In light of developments since that time, I see no reason to rethink my prediction.

It follows that, as visible institutions are stripped from us, we must develop new ones that are not visible. This seems like a pretty good definition of the kind of insurgency MC has in mind.

And the thought just struck me — One of the possible benefits of having a relatively elderly leadership is that they face less of a temptation to try to look too far down the road. They can better focus on dealing with the evils of this day.

If I understand correctly, by “insurgency” you mean use the enemy’s resources against them—technology for family history, etc. Here’s what seems discordant to me:

1. They’re not the enemy’s resources. Power chords and craft blogs belong to God, not Satan, and not society. We are subjects of the King; as priesthood holders we are also stewards of parts of the kingdom. We are not soldiers, and we certainly are not rebels. A pillar of our faith is legitimacy based on orderly transfer of priesthood authority. Adam was here before The Bachelor, and he was on our side, so who is really the insurgent here?

2. There is no “enemy,” because a) these are our brothers and sisters*, and b)where there’s a mob, there’s no agency. They can’t sustain an attack. A real enemy would have followed the Saints to Salt Lake and executed the Extermination Order.**

If what you’re suggesting is using available materials in the surrounding culture, I heartily agree. But I think this process is closer to exercising dominion over the earth than making life miserable for the infidel invaders.

Why am I quibbling over this? Because someone who thought they were in an insurgency might waste time posting “Thanks Obama!” memes on facebook, when they ought to be setting up a joint FHE with another family in the ward. An insurgent would look for enemy supply lines to cut, when the truth is that there are no supply lines, the stuff grows spontaneously, the important thing is maintaining your own.

*I know, cheap shot. But it stands. Imagine me writing it without being smug.
**Historically, societies that are well-organized enough to make meaningful choices of this magnitude, and make the wrong ones, get meteors dropped on them.

Addendum: to the extent that they produce anything we can use, they’re on our side.

“The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, “It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.””

@MC – Option 3 is a possibility, I think – although a desparate measure. For example, there could be a negotiated purchase of lands and another mass migration – maybe to South America, presumably somewhere undeveloped – to set up a new nation. Something like what happened with Israel, but on a larger scale. It’s not impossible – not least because the church membership have considerable wealth and and (compared with the surrounding culture) young, vigorous, intelligent.

Presumably not everyone would want to do this – but a few million might: enough to make a country.

Whatever is done has to be constructive and creative, I think. The big problem is that mainstream culture is purposivley net destructive – not just passively so. The Good is being actively sought-out and subverted, suppressed, inverted etc.

The elites are – perhaps for the first time ever – strategically working for destruction. This means that normal rules don’t apply, and historical precedents are misleading: there has never before been large scale, sustained, official promotion of moral inversion.

Maybe the problem is best tackled at a personal level – as wit hthe recent encouragement for CJCLDS members to use social media positively. This will probably be ineffectual at the mass scale, but may be effectual for the individuals involved – faith promoting, courage-building.

In the end, hope lies with non-material causes and effects, unperceived realities – things that mainstream culture regards as non-existent.

“They’re not the enemy’s resources. Power chords and craft blogs belong to God, not Satan, and not society.”

Title in fee simple to power chords has nothing to do with it. My point is that cultural isolation makes this kind of adaptation impossible. To the degree that kids are isolated from any engagement with popular culture, they’ll lack the cultural vocabulary to make even a minor impact. Sometimes the danger of engagement outweighs the benefits, however, which is why it’s a tight rope.

“We are not soldiers”

There’s a bright crown in store.

“Adam was here before The Bachelor, and he was on our side, so who is really the insurgent here?”

That’s easy; we are, because we are under occupation. The Algerians were in Algeria before the French, after all.

“There is no “enemy,” because a) these are our brothers and sisters”

Not mutually exclusive categories. I’ve heard even Jesus had a recalcitrant brother…

“A real enemy would have followed the Saints to Salt Lake and executed the Extermination Order”

So the Missourians were not real enemies? John C. Bennett was not a real enemy? “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

“someone who thought they were in an insurgency might waste time posting ‘Thanks Obama!’ memes on facebook, when they ought to be setting up a joint FHE with another family in the ward.”

This is a minor point, but I’m highly skeptical of “waste time” arguments. “Why are we wasting time teaching kids chastity when what they really need to know is safe sex?” Usually it just means, “I like X, and don’t like Y, so I think Y is a waste of time when we could be doing X.” Lots of people share Facebook memes and also fellowship IRL. Some people even fellowship through Facebook (shudder).

“An insurgent would look for enemy supply lines to cut, when the truth is that there are no supply lines, the stuff grows spontaneously, the important thing is maintaining your own.”

This is a much more germane criticism, but I still think it’s wrong. Why is it that we need supply lines but the enemy magically doesn’t? The Left has been drawing down the cultural and economic capital of the West for decades. Is it so hard to imagine that they are in some sense dependent on that capital to function?

I view homeschooling as one form of cutting of supply lines, both of money and future recruits. Christians should also be happy to let many over-priced, loan-dependent colleges fail.

I think the usefulness of the insurgent mentality is that it allows us to be in the world but not of it. Realistically, we aren’t going to move to Siberia and make homespun, so we have to have a framework for existing within the present culture without actually becoming a part of it. In many instances, the pressure to conform will be so great that we may need an insurgent mentality to render unto Caesar without surrendering our will. To say, “I can’t fight the system on this battlefield, but I can fight it over here where it isn’t looking.” I hadn’t made the “visible/invisible” connection before Vader mentioned it, but I think he may be exactly right.

With that being said, I really want to read Rod Dreher’s book, because he may unearth some ideas that work without the (admittedly prickly) insurgent mentality.

BC,

I used to dread the idea of another gathering of Zion, as we sometimes talk about all the Mormons uprooting and moving to Missouri in anticipation of the Second Coming, but I can honestly say that I would welcome the prospect now. (Voice in my head: “What’s stopping you?”)

We agree vastly more than we disagree. Good post.

Thanks, SPDI.

MC,

>I can honestly say that I would welcome the prospect now.

Obviously we have a wealth of scripture and past teaching on a physical Zion and a physical gathering, but I see no signs (yet) of this discourse being revived. I too crave a call to gather in the Stakes of Zion not just in atomized Zion homes. Like you I hear the voice in my head, and yet, counting my own experience as unexceptional, we seem hell bent on being a diasporic people contrary to God’s explicit call to gather.

Why flee to the wilderness in South America or Canada and procrastinate the day of eventual armed conflict which will surely come like the Utah war as surrounding nations grow suspicious. The mountains and valleys of the West are our new Zion. Maybe there’s a good reason most of the land in Utah and Arizona is federal. When the Lord seizes it in the latter days, it won’t be the church “stealing” private property. The BLM is thus keeping God’s land underdeveloped not for hippies to feel good, but for Gods people to rightfully reclaim.

I’m all for procrastinating ‘the day of armed conflict’

Yabut, actually, Jackson County Missouri is still the new Zion, at least as far as I know.

Any truth to the rumors that the church has long been buying up property in Jackson county Mo and surrounding areas?

Just FYI, Jackson County Missouri contains the cities of Independence and Kansas City (Missouri).

The last 1/3 or so of my short story collection circles around these issues.

Also: my fear is that the desire for respectability by U.S. Mormons that was teased to us (and, to a certain extent, achieved for some Mormons) post-WWII and that drives so many families today will be stronger than the pull of gospel living and Mormon identity.

It’s interesting, MC, I take a more optimistic view than you seem to toward the wider culture in general, but a much more negative view of Disney in particular. I guess I think there is much good in the wider culture, and even if it is to be found in isolated pockets, I think we can successfully engage with those pockets. I largely agree with your bullet points, though homeschooling is very much dependent on local conditions–in my case, local conditions are great–with the exception of the mormon prom trend.

The whole prom thing is just bad, in my opinion. So much focus on pairing off (but not because of a real organic connection as in normal dating, but just because everbody has to find a date), exclusion, social status, worldly appearance, etc. When our kids do it because it is part of their school I see it as the kind of thing that is bad, but can be grudgingly tolerated to some degree. But when I see the mormon prom trend starting up, it seems to take all the bad of prom (with the exception of alchohol and sexual immorality, which is not nothing), and add to it a sort of holier-than-thou pride–and worst of all, all this bad stuff seems to have the endorsement of the church.

(Perhaps relatedly, one of my major pet peeves is when priests in the ward wear their rented tuxedo to church the next day–or even worse, wear it to church and bless the sacrament while wearing it. What is the point, other than to advertise the fact that you went to prom the night before, rubbing it in the faces of the unpopular kids who didn’t get asked or got rejected? Not to mention that as a matter of style wearing a tuxedo to a morning event is just wrong 🙂 I don’t think I would, were I in a position to do so, forbid a tux-wearing priest from blessing the sacrament, but I don’t think it is right.)

My opinion, for what it’s worth is that it is far better to teach our kids to reject the societal message than prom is the magical best night of your life to that point, and that if you don’t have a magical prom, your school experience is wasted, than to concede that message and just provide a safer way to fulfill that dream. It keeps kids safer for one night, but in the long term, it just buys in to an unhealthy way of thinking. But that’s just one guy’s opinion.

Not long ago, I walked into my ward building and found myself looking at one of our young women in her prom dress. My jaw involuntarily dropped and out came a quiet “Wow.”

She blushed and said “Thank you, Brother Vader.”

What makes it worse is that she is the sweetest young woman imaginable.

Point? Do I have to have a point?

JKC,

In a vacuum I’m not a huge fan of “Prom,” but once you take the promiscuity and risky behavior out of it, I don’t see much of a problem. Ideally, it could be a great tradition insofar as young people could get a dose of refinement, although most of that ethos has been wrung out of it. And I’m not sure whether having them pair off just so they have someone to go with, rather than as part of a “relationship,” is a feature or a bug at that age.

In general, Mormon Prom fits in with the pattern of finding a middle ground between isolation (Prom is a bad thing and you shouldn’t go) and surrender (sure, here’s my credit card, just make sure you use a designated driver). So I’m in favor.

But I’m with you on wearing tuxes to Church. I guess we can count Vader as a vote in favor of wearing prom dresses to Church. ?

That last ? was supposed to be a 😉

“I can picture a future where public school becomes a place for “losers,” because every responsible parent will have abandoned them.”

I do not think that we should give up on the public schools. I live in a town that is only about 3-4 percent LDS. Yet, members of the church are disproportionately represented on the school board, the administration, the faculty and the PTA. They also make up a disproportionate share of the student council, the athletic teams, the band, and the choir. The public schools are one of the few institutions in our society that are at least somewhat accessible to our influence. And the Mormon kids are, for the most part, doing fine. Every year we even see at few converts from the high school. Why would we want to withdraw?

I dunno why, but I dislike seeing the young men in tuxes at church … and love seeing the girls in their prom dresses.

Yeah. My knuckles bleed from all the dragging.

Paul – What control do LDS board members have over “transgender” locker rooms?

(We have access to some pretty good Christian and Cathholic homeschooling groups in my area, perhaps because the public schools are so horrible, so perhaps I am biased)

Andrew, the number of transgender high school students is vanishingly small. On the very remote chance that one of them were to turn up in a locker room at our local high school, LDS students would have the sense to stay out of their way, just as they now do with gay students.

“Insurgencies are built on lies.” Wait, what? The American Revolution was an insurgency, as was the French Resistance, the list goes on…

@MC, I’m flattered. I will not claim expertise in strategic insurgency, but I have spent considerable time replicating rebel operations for the Imperial Army at the Galactic Training Center, as Vader would say. I’ll therefore add my two cents on building an insurgency and try to keep the comment shorter than the post.

First off, though Rules for Radicals employs some insurgent tactics, transporting such an approach whole cloth does not fit with Mormonism because its Marxist roots causes it to oppose ALL establishments (which would include the CJCLDS) and because it is inherently oppositional, defined by what it hates, and therefore incompatible with Christianity.

Insurgencies are so effective because their strengths and weaknesses compliment those of nation states (despite being called irregular warfare, insurgent warfare is by far the status quo, not the exception). The strength of the State, Establishment, Hideous Strength, whatever you want to call it, is its ability to mass resource on a critical point. When Bob the Baker refuses to make a gay wedding cake, an army of reporters, SJW protestors, academics, federal judges, an IRS are prepared to destroy his livelihood and ostracize him from society. But that strength highlights its weakness because coordinating those efforts requires a concentration of power and resources, and once those have been consolidated they are not easily devolved. The stewards of power will not just hold on, but will do so at the expense of the original ideology or principles that justified their aggregation.

Thus homeschooling. The state aggregated power to improve education and placed that power in the hands of unions, who will hold on to that power even as the very purpose of schools crumbles around them (disclaimer: I will probably not homeschool my daughter who is now almost four. More on that in a moment). We tend to focus on the enemy’s strengths because that alarms us, but if we focus on their weaknesses -those institutions that they will defend even to their own detriment- I think there are plenty of opportunities. Here are a few I can think of, maybe others have more:

Mammon. The system is beholden to those who keep it funded. I think anything we build needs to be free, nearly free, or based solely on unsolicited free-will donations (like tithing, where the law is taught but never harped on or insisted on). This is a huge potential strength of the Church because the CJCLDS and many of its members have sufficient wealth to do a lot of good in poorer areas that the establishment cannot or will not help because of its massive machinery.

Academia. One of the key bludgeons of the left is its PC Thought Factories. BYU is a great affront to this, but it’s not big enough to educate everyone and the left may soon double down on the college bubble. If anyone is poised to burst it, I think the church is. I don’t know exactly how, but I think Mormons could be at the front of restructuring economies at the community level so that people whose talents tend toward lower and some middle class professions aren’t pursuing expensive degrees they don’t need. It may be as simple as public ed alternatives, so that kids don’t turn eighteen and realize their only skill set is thinking and doing what teachers say.

Media. I’m out of my depth on this one, but it seems there must be a way to leverage the internet’s free content to get out messages and correct lies and do more than post OMGosh this scripture really impacted me today. I don’t know how long it will be until Mormon.org is only free because the church abides by complicated and difficult standards but NPR.org is free AND funded by federal mandate.

I’m sure there are others but my comments are already too long and there are two other important aspects of insurgencies I’d like to bring up. First: Latent Protest is the term for those who sympathize with the insurgency but do not actively engage in it, though they will if the insurgency gains enough momentum or if they view the Establishment as having forced their hand. I feel this way about homeschool because I live in a community that tends to be pretty good about schools (for now) but if a better option became easy enough or if the government decided to make it a do or die fight, I know where my allegiance lies. It’s important to keep in mind that the message is just as important as the action. Many people can be won to the cause without joining it.

Transition: successful insurgencies will gain power and when they do the establishment will shift their focus and mass their power against it. The insurgency must then decide if it is going to retract and find another way to attack and continue its whack-a-mole tactics or if it has enough strength and popular support to transition to a toe-to-toe fight against the enemy. I can imagine a scenario where Mormon Prom becomes the Cool Prom and Loser High’s prom is the Loser Prom. This will make headlines that will not address the reason for Mormon Prom, but instead will say, “Transgender Teen Kicked Out of Local Prom.” By then the Benedictines may have enough support to ignore it, but maybe not, and they need to be prepared to find ways to keep fighting without going to court and making every culture war conflict a make-it-or-break-it fight over terrain. That’s what’s going on now and it’s not working.

Good thoughts, James.

Word to the wise, though, that BYU is not entirely not a PC Thought Factory. Its profs have almost all spent years in PC Thought Factories being educated themselves, and this leaves a mark.

@G point taken. I went there I definitely agree. BYU has always gone through an ebb and flow in faculty loyalty to the church. Whether or not we see another realignment to eliminate underground LGBT activists at BYU in the next couple of yeats will determine whether it goes over the edge or not.

James: “I think Mormons could be at the front of restructuring economies at the community level so that people whose talents tend toward lower and some middle class professions aren’t pursuing expensive degrees they don’t need.”

I think that’s part of the reasoning for the Perpetual Education Fund (and one of the main complaints I hear from those on the Left in the LDS Church is that the PEF funds a lot of trade schools, and doesn’t send enough people off to get a university education – for me, and I say this as someone with a PhD in English, that’s one of the strengths of the program).

Coincidentally, Rod Dreher posted this today:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-forever-culture-war/

I agree with Wm, the desire for respectability is one of our greatest weaknesses. I’m afraid that our current Mormon cultural space is so weak that if we tried to make a stand anywhere we would most likely just hemorrhage the youth and young families until there was no virility left in the church (although there is a part of me that wants the Lord to get on with the sifting already and separate the ‘many’ out from the ‘few’). Our first areas of insurgency need to build up the Mormon identity in a sustained generational way…something that allows us to feel our culture is superior to everything else out there not just because the other is decaying, but because ours is aspiring.

So I propose, knowing full well it may be too late for this, that one important area of insurgency would be the fine art world. Contemporary art, in the broadest sense, leaves the vast majority of people cold and indifferent…and thus hungry for quality. Why pick at the peripheries of liberal culture when you can strike at its core? Mormons inherently have a leg up in music and theater, and I think the large group of crafters could easily be channeled into drawing and painting. A mass of talented artists who are primarily interested in creating artwork that is concerned with beauty and divinity could have the distinct advantage of being ignored by the urban taste-makers. We train our artists rigorously, and we train our non-artists (through actually having a parent at home who can properly influence our children) to deeply respect and appreciate good art…to be patrons. Then we paint the best paintings, compose the best concertos, build the best buildings, write the best novels, make the best films. The work is all seen as Mormon because of it’s beauty and quality, not because of it’s references. Ultimately we win over more and more non-Mormons (to our cultural values at least) because they will gravitate to the qualities we make material, those same qualities that are actively destroyed by the left’s cultural output.

@Aardvark,
high culture is a rich target area. It is fully of good things that can feed the human need for culture, but that have been rejected by our society, so that exposure to them is not exposure to the fleshpots of Egypt. However, a living culture requires participation, like you suggest. Unfortunately, as a people we participate less, rather than more. We used to have churchwide dance competitions, and theater. Over time this has all diminished.

Homeschooling allows more of this than the public schools seem to do. That is one of its strengths.

“Our first areas of insurgency need to build up the Mormon identity in a sustained generational way”

What this makes me think of is that a healthy culture starts with a healthy family culture, which means traditions and customs that pass generations. As with family religion, we are deficient in that respect but need not be.

There are some high quality comments here.

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The population within my ward’s boundaries if 1.1% LDS (number of people in the ward directory divided by census tract totals). Whenever I attend a school function some other LDS parent is there. Last night it was a meeting for high school marching band. The count of band members is 69. Two of the five parents running things are my home teacher and his wife. With myself, a high councilman, and a Primary music leader also present that made for five known LDS adults. Last month at a meeting to plan parents’ assignments for a middle school musical play, there were three LDS out of a dozen present. One of them was the director of the play, one was me, and the other was the wife of the neighboring ward’s bishop. At the show I spent a few minutes chatting with the choreographer, and then we surprised each other when we met again both singing second tenor at a stake choir rehearsal. Two years ago, we had a girl in my ward and another in the stake serving as senior class presidents of two high schools near one another.

The church still manages somehow to teach youth and parents to stand up and do something.

[…] / Shutterstock.com) A Mormon and frequent commenter here who blogs under the name MC on the “Junior Ganymede” blog has some long, interesting thoughts about how the Benedict Option might p… — and some advice on how it should. […]

I see that your experience with the public schools is similar to mine.

Forty years ago, the left would talk about the “long march through the institutions,” gradually taking over the institutions of power from within. The left was successful in that endeavor. Instead of talking about the Benedict Option, I think that we should be planning the long counter march. And the public schools are a good place to start.

The long march through the schools had precisely nothing with sending kids to those schools. It had to do with becoming teachers, bureaucrats, and judges. Cultural Marxism was not imposed on the schools by the students.

Those are good arguments for staying involved in Public Schools – especially the hope of showing light and saving souls (but at the possible risk of losing them too).

Mormons perhaps handle this by also controlling a large percent of free time.

I can only see two comments. Where did all the others go?

[Ye Ed.–fixed]

I will second the advice of aardvark. There are giant gaping holes in the current fine art world that traditional artists can fill. It is abundantly clear that good artists can find a niche and gain widespread acceptance by many segments of the culture.
Some examples: Mack Wilberg would probably be considered far superior in teaching music theory/composition to the local university professor by most music consumers. His style of music just sounds more pleasing than the pinnacle of university performance. Family movies are another area where explicitly Christian themes are growing like crazy, at least around here.
Homeschooling instruction in fine art can really improve the overall education of our children. Only the largest public schools around here could have orchestra, but my 12 year old has been in a private one for a couple of years. No competition with the marching band for her talent.

i don’t think parental involvement in extracurricluar stuff is sufficient to overcome the leftist brainwashing that is built in to the curriculum, specifically the english and history classes,

JM,

You’ve nailed my biggest reservation about homeschooling. In my senior class of 500 students, there were 5 Mormons. Two of us were class President and VP. I feel a bit uneasy taking that kind of opportunity out of my kids’ hands, but I suspect that by the time we’re evaluating high school options, they won’t care very much about that.

@MC – The thing is, what Mormons have been doing hasn’t worked (at the cultural level) — and (I think) Mormons are not going to be allowed to continue doing it anyway. Would a class President nowadays be elected if they opposed, say SSM and the rest of the ‘inclusive’ agenda? Will any position of public responsibility (as widely defined as possible) be open? There are already massive areas of the public sector, education, law, the military, mainstream ‘Christian’ churches etc which are effectively closed from Christians who are not on board with and advocates-of the sexual revolution. This can only get worse (unless there is an unmistakably seismic change, of course). When it comes, the choice will be clear – although what exactly to do about refusing to join the moral-inversion bandwagon is not clear.

BC,

That’s a good point. Hard to imagine a senior class president outside of the Mormon Corridor who isn’t on good terms with the Gay-Straight Alliance at the high school.

We’ve already seen the California judiciary closed to persons associated with the Boy Scouts (though that was reversed when the Boy Scouts surrendered.) Expect more of the same.

The U.S. Constitution forbids a religious test for office, but the Constitutional protections for religious liberty have always been interpreted so narrowly by the courts as to be nearly nonexistent.

I’ve been meaning to write up a piece on Mormonism and the Benedict Option for a long time.

My basic position is that if you look at what Dreher talks about when he says ‘Benedict Option’, Mormons are already doing it. A post explaining how Mormons build communities, the general rules we all follow regarding media use, tec. ought to be put together and explained.

It’s still possible to be student body president without support of school gay-strait alliance. That’s just one club among many; don’t overestimate that kind of thing’s influence. It usually isn’t the student led orgs that cause trouble–not at the high school level. We need to make sure we don’t confuse what is happening at universities with what is happening below them. Dynamics are very different.

Also, I think a lot of Mormons in America, especially the Jello Belt, are going ot have a hard time with the conceptual takes necessary for them here. In many ways the Church is leaving America behind. This is intuitive to me, as I went to the Mormon school that is majority international and live international now. But demographically the Church is shifting towards places that don’t have the same kind of crazy SJW ideology ascendant in the USA. This will eventually be reflected in our leadership and policies, though it may take decades for things to filter up.

But it means breaking the identity between super-Mormons and super-Americans will be all the easier.

I just got back from having my teeth cleaned. I was startled that the background music, which came from a classical music station, was an elaborate piano arrangement of “I Know That My Redeemer Lives.” Or at least of the tune, which may not necessarily have originated with the hymn.

Subversive?

@ Vader, The tune name for that song is “He Lives” and the composer was LDS, so it is probably safe to assume it was written for that song. My source is Our Latter-day Hymns: The Stories and Messages by Karen Lynn Davidson.

“I Know That My Redeemer Liveth” is part of Handel’s Messiah. Classical music is one area where banishing religion from the repertoire would be suicidal. The canon is just too much imbued with it. Even here in L.A., the hosts of the local classical radio station, once in a while, can’t avoid the elephant in the room, and say things which acknowledge the role of Christianity in inspiring the greatest music of all time.

The tunes for “I Know That My Redeemer Lives”, from the LDS hymnbook, and “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth”, from Messiah, are dissimilar. Nevertheless, you’re quite right. Classical music is an embarrassment to the more artsy secularists.

However, even 26 years ago, the top tier science and engineering university where I was a visiting Sith had a small scandal over the tradition of singing the Hallelujah Chorus at graduation. The dean in charge seemed to have gotten the idea in his head that there was something of genuine religious feeling in the tradition. (There wasn’t. It was pure irony.) He wondered why the music couldn’t be something more up to date and modern. Y’know, proressive.

The students, to their credit, essentially shouted him down. But I fear it may have been a harbinger.

The homeschooling question is one that many people grapple with, apparently. For so long I didn’t even consider it, because of precisely the “but if you take all the good kids out of the schools, who will be the good influence” argument. And for a kid with strong parental involvement, the hope is that the “worldly” influence will be counteracted. And I can’t say that isn’t still working out well for lots of people. Certainly I wouldn’t dare say everyone should homeschool.

For me, though, when it came down to an actual battle for my child–not against drugs or whatever, as he was only in first grade–but for who he would be, his identity, his conception of self—I suddenly found myself not caring a bit about those abstract others he might somehow influence by remaining. I wanted him home, with me, where I could cultivate his love of learning and let it overcome any creeping sense that he was dumb or bad or incapable of good behavior. and I’ve been grateful every day that I acted early (with the spirit deserving credit for shoving the idea on me almost against my will).

The benefits to that child have exceeded expectations, but it’s also astounded me how beneficial the move home has been to my other, well-fitted-for-public-school kids. Again, I know it’s not for everyone. But in weighing it, we finally decided that our kids couldn’t be a good influence on the culture if they weren’t aware of and somewhat apart from the culture. And I think public schools are perversely good (perversely, because it’s one of the ONLY things they’re good at, but I suppose it’s what they are truly set up for) at indoctrination. So subtle that it’s not easily detected and counteracted by after-school parental questioning “what did you learn today?” And no, I don’t think it’s some grand conspiracy most of the time, but how does a parent detect and root out a lesson like “I learned that religion is a vaguely comical, pitiable delusion” or “I learned that human life is only valuable when it meets the culture’s standard of ‘meaningful’ or ‘dignified,’ otherwise killing is an act of mercy.”

And I realize that the schools aren’t the only places that teach those things under the surface (popular culture is a huge part too, obviously; thus your post) but they are SUCH a big part of the child’s life, and I just feel like if I can even give my kids a rest from that temporarily, clear a space for them to think and learn and consider for themselves without the involuntary immersion in those things, then they’re going to be more prepared for engagement later on. They’ll (hopefully) know what they’re choosing instead of passively absorbing it. Or at least, they’ll be passively absorbing some good stuff as well.

I’m sure some people manage this without homeschool. I don’t know if I could, though.

Marilyn,
a big amen to all of that.

For reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZTZRtRFkvk

There are worse things that could happen on May 24, 2016, than having Messiah playing in the background.

“[The Benedictines] need to be prepared to find ways to keep fighting without going to court and making every culture war conflict a make-it-or-break-it fight over terrain. That’s what’s going on now and it’s not working.”