Guerrilla BYU
Rather than see my wives and daughters ravished and polluted, and the seeds of corruption sown in the hearts of my sons by a brutal soldiery, I would leave my home in ashes, my gardens and orchards a waste, and subsist upon roots and herbs, a wanderer through these mountains for the remainder of my natural life.
-thus Brigham Young
In June 1858 a disgusted Johnston, as ordered, marched his men through abandoned Salt Lake City past Utah militiamen with torches at the ready in case of a federal misdeed.
Last night I had a dream.
In 202X, federally-sanctioned accreditors come to BYU to investigate rumors that the institution has been insufficiently compliant with the Current Thing. The accreditors have mentioned that insufficiently complying with the Current Thing will probably lead to BYU losing its accreditation. After all, it is 202X.
They come to an empty campus. The only people present are students wearing hard hats. They are demolition teams from the College of Engineering. The buildings are all wired with explosives. The boys from the engineering college stand by the plungers, grinning at the accreditors. One pats his plunger when the accreditors pass by.
The accreditors are abashed.
The accreditors can’t help themselves, though. One starts arguing with a student about why we just don’t conform more, and with a sigh one nearby engineer pushes his plunger down. As his building collapses in a cloud of dust, the plume is a signal to the others. All around campus, all the buildings go down.
The beautiful campus is empty rubble. There is no place.
BYU becomes guerrilla BYU. Students gather at random places in the country, descending on the Motel 8s and trailer parks. We build mancamps, we get good at putting up tent cities, parents buy their kids RVs and campers to go to school. Professors teach classes in McDonalds, passing the hat for donations at the end of each lecture. Older couples, volunteers, pull semi-trailers full of books from spot to spot. Friendly businessmen let us use their facilities for labs afterhours.
We are all profoundly happy.
Half the poetry in the world–half the technical insight in the world–comes from guerrilla BYU.
***
You may say that I am a dreamer and this is a romantic vision.
Guilty as charged. But I’ve got bad news for you. I am also ferociously practical. This is the only way.
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
Zen
February 21, 2023
Amen
My only question, is if we wait until we are compelled by ‘the current thing’.
Rozy
February 21, 2023
Do any employers check the accreditation of colleges listed on job applications? Why does accreditation matter? Why is BYU so attached to federal money and worldly acceptance? I think your dream is wonderful.
Years ago I thought BYU needed to have required courses in “real-life” living skills, like cooking, sewing, changing the oil in vehicles, unclogging sinks and toilets, gardening, basic handyman skills, etc., because too many college graduates seem to not know how to do even the most basic tasks of life. I think this was during President Hinckley’s time as prophet. He was my hero and model for the “perfect” man. He knew the scriptures, was mentally sharp and knowledgeable, and could build or repair almost anything! What a role model!
I don’t know what the answer is, but the current model of education seems not to be working very well.
sute
February 21, 2023
“We had to destroy the BYU in order to save it.”
The problem is, the evolutionary approach that the progressive left is taking. And it is evolutionary, survival of the fittest, make no mistake.
Once infected with progressive ideology, it wins a majority of the time. Not every time, but on average it wins more than it loses.
We might point to the clearly defective logic and declare it unfit, but as long as it multiplies, it’s fitness is clear. Is the gospel logic multiplying across the world more than the progressive logic? I shudder to say it’s not.
Ask yourself this, would the BYUs destroy themselves over federal regulation of toilets? It would seem a foolish mockery to do so, at least from the public perspective. So the BYUs will acquiesce time and again to the progressive agenda which has demonstrated its fitness in spreading and multiplying across all facets of life and regulation.
And even if, at some future date, you manage to convince your tri-gender blue haired engineering student to depress that plunger, who’s to say they would even be willing to listen to the McDonalds side hustling professor?
When we look at the progressive ideology with an evolutionary lens, even the literal birthrates don’t matter much. Progressivism is spreading everywhere faster than Mormons and Muslims.
That being said, an argument in favor of your destroy the institution in order to save it, is the church’s approach to scouting. But there too, we left it, replaced it with something a little more guerilla in the approach, and it’s by and large not doing as well in the more active wealthy units at least. Surely, it’s better than no scouting at all, which was happening in most of the world.
And there I think the church made the decision on scouting because it was so clearly a financial liability with all the sex abuse cases mounting with no end in sight. So, that would suggest the exit point for the church at running a university.
Once it becomes too expensive to comply with progressivism, the church will abandon it.
Another thought — ZCMI. Different rationale, but the church took a brand name of some value (BYU) that for whatever reason was too costly in time/resources/focus and sold it off (Macy’s).
So the BYU will never be detonated. It will be sold to someone else. If I was putting on my predictor hat, it would happen within a couple years of BYU being renamed to something away from “Brigham Young” after frequent and national attention level raising racism protests. Similar to how Dixie State was renamed Utah Tech.
So, what will the name change be?
sute
February 21, 2023
Should read…
“Another thought — ZCMI. Different rationale, but the church took a brand name of some value (ZCMI) “
sute
February 21, 2023
Just to add on this point in case it wasn’t clear:
“even the literal birthrates don’t matter much. Progressivism is spreading everywhere faster than Mormons and Muslims.”
Progressives don’t need to have kids, as long as they rule over the financial system, regulate, and teach yours.
Annie
February 21, 2023
Making a similar point at another blog: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/02/academia-is-a-cancer.php
G.
February 21, 2023
Sute,
I think you are too pessimistic.
sute
February 21, 2023
Entropy is pessimistic. Ultimately, I have hope. But I suspect everything will fall apart before it gets better.
But you’re probably correct about my post being pessimistic. Positing the willfully and necessary self-destruction of the BYU is not exactly optimistic though!
Eric
February 21, 2023
Progressive winning trends remind me of how it went for the Lord’s people in the Book of Mormon. The Nephites were almost always at a disadvantage to the Lamanites; a great prophet or leader might stop the decline until the “rising generation” comes along and sets things on a downward course again. The only thing that stopped it was divine intervention, but even that delayed things for just a few more generations.
For all the faults people find with BYU around here, I’ve always appreciated their weekly devotional addresses. One that I heard as a student there, “Trusting God when Things Go Wrong,” by Todd A. Britsch, has long been a favorite of mine. An excerpt:
“We also know the final score for the history of this world and for the life of the righteous. The Lord and his people will triumph. It is true that the sorrows of this world and the strength of Satan’s forces will win a number of the skirmishes. I am reminded of a wonderful cartoon that appeared in the New Yorker magazine many years ago. It depicts on a baseball scoreboard the battle between the optimists and pessimists. Each inning the pessimists are ahead, sometimes by rather large scores. But at the end of the game, the score reads, “Optimists 1, Pessimists 0.” So it is with the history of this world. Satan and his followers, as well as the natural circumstances of mortal life, will inflict many bruises and win many battles. But God, who knows the end from the beginning, has promised that those who serve him will receive the fullness of his blessings. When we realize that righteous living puts us on the winning side, we can learn to trust him during trying times.”
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/todd-a-britsch/trusting-god-things-go-wrong/
G.
February 22, 2023
Sute,
I view it as optimistic that our troubles ultimately come down to our own lack of heroism
Eric,
Much thanks
Zen
February 22, 2023
At times like this, if is comforting to remember that if is not my job to win the war. I am a soldier. We have a General who is more than capable of winning the war. The question is not will we win, but where will we stand, even when things are adverse.
I was recently listening to an discourse on the miracle when Christ sent the demons into pigs. The words could also mean a local Roman legion, whose symbol was a boar, suggesting that Christ could get rid of the Roman’s at any time he felt like.
Isaiah
February 22, 2023
Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God. For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee. Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake. Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.