Late Nephite Principles
On the steppe, when one tribe got big and genocidal and attacked the tribe next to it that tribe fought for a while and then fled, usually by launching a genocidal attack on the next tribe further on. You got these domino effects.
(The Mfecane I mentioned yesterday worked like that also).
But the Nephites at the end stopped fleeing the Lamanites. Why?
Maybe they were completely surrounded by the Lamanites in great depth. But that is not the picture we get from anywhere in the Book of Mormon, nor from the ending period.
Maybe they realize that in fleeing they would have to leave behind many of their people to die, especially the women and children. But if they were all that wicked, why wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t they act on the wicked principle of each man for himself and devil take the hindmost? King Noah and his wicked priests did.
That is one question – why didn’t the Nephites flee? It actually takes quite a bit of courage and cooperation and self-sacrificing spirit, in other words, virtue, to stay and fight to the death when you have a chance to run away.
Here is the second question. Why didn’t the Nephites desert?
We know the Lamanites were still willing to take deserters, or in Nephite parlance, dissenters. Mormon writes in chapter 6 of his book that a few went over to the Lamanites and were accepted before the final battle. But only a few.
Why wouldn’t wicked people each be trying to cut the best deal for themselves that they could?
Here is my pet theory. I think the late stage Nephites were wicked in a peculiar way. I think they had principles that they were committed to. They still had a real Nephite religious identity in some sense–we should imagine them arguing about who is more Christlike as they commit depravities, or whether Adam had a belly button. But we should also imagine there was some good left on their identity. I think there were vile Lamanite practices that they utterly rejected. So going over to the Lamanites would be anathema.
Maybe those principles would also keep them from abandoning their own or smashing into and trying to commit genocide on innocent distant foreigners who might happen to be in the way of their flight.
Read Mormon’s lament for them. “O ye fair ones…” It’s heartfelt, there were definitely still things to love about them.
But at the same time some of their principles were a commitment to wickedness. They had made some kinds of sin a matter of honor. Think of a modern woman who runs a charity and is so sacrificing and trying to do good in that way . She would never, ever, ever murder someone no matter the temptation. She is also a fanatic for abortion. I think that is what the late stage Nephites were. Their principles had ceased to be part of a living system, they were just acts of will, their principles lacked integrity in the technical sense, the Nephites had already died on the inside before they died in battle.
E.C.
October 30, 2020
In response to your last sentence: Isn’t that exactly what Mormon mourns? It wasn’t the physical death of his people so much; it was that he’d seen them dying inside, dying spiritually, ‘since [he became] sufficient to behold the ways of man’.
nakedrat
October 30, 2020
Perhaps it’s just partisanship taken to the extreme. Red vs. Blue.
At the end, you’re still playing the game but you’ve retreated too many times. The opposing team now has most of the resources on the map (women and children). Only one thing left to do…
Bookslinger
October 30, 2020
I think it devolved into a war of annihilation after the first round of revenge-battles. So neither side was going to let the other just run away.
Even in Moroni’s day, after the big final battle, the Lamanites went on “mop up” operations.
Hugh Nibley drew some interesting parallels between the BoM and what little we know of ancient american culture and wars.
I once read one of the books of Garcilaso de la Vega, one of the first Peruvian mestizos, son of one of the Incan royalty. He wrote down the Incas’ oral history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Garcilaso_de_la_Vega
and although I forget the details, I remember some things that seemed to tie in to the BoM.
[]
October 30, 2020
Big BoM principle is the higher you’re lifted the harder you fall. Being a chosen people is incredibly risky and no one was more chosen than the people of 4th Nephi. Falling from the spiritual high of King Mosiah could be fixed by reforms, falling from Captain Moroni’s level led to destruction from heaven, falling from Christ led to monstrous posterity.
Anonymous
October 30, 2020
“Think of a modern woman who runs a charity and is so sacrificing and trying to do good in that way . She would never, ever, ever murder someone no matter the temptation. She is also a fanatic for abortion.”
Have you been reading BCC? Over there it’s a sin to vote for Trump but absolutely acceptable to practice eugenics and abort your Down Syndrome baby.
Eric
November 1, 2020
When I’ve thought about why the Nephites gathered at Cumorah for a final big battle, I have to wonder if it was Mormon’s idea. He knew the Lamanites outnumbered them, and perhaps saw this as a way to put a quick end to everything, and selling the idea as analogous to when the Nephites gathered against the Gadianton robbers in the first few chapters of 3 Nephi.
Perhaps it might have been the idea of whoever else was leading the Nephites, though besides Mormon’s leadership of their armies nothing is said about what kind of government they had from Christ’s visit onward.
Bookslinger
November 2, 2020
The final big battle at Cumorah, 385, was as far removed from 210 as 210 was from the Lord’s visit in 34. Everyone who would have heard the stories/testimony from the witnesses of the time, had passed away. So the events devolved into legend.
385 is to 210 as 2020 is to 1845.
Then consider exponential population growth. That first and second generation (at each inflection point) become smaller and smaller proportionally to the total population. The witnesses, and the witnesses of the witnesses, became smaller and smaller minorities.