Glenden BrownTalking across the divide
The discussion about liquor law changes in the D-news quickly became the ususal Utah Mormon versus non-Mormon discussion.
The discussion is painfully typical of Utah’s religious divide. On so many issues, for Mormons some issue is purely religious and moral in nature - for non-Mormons, it’s largely an question of personal choice and taste (even someone who is an alcoholic is making a choice about their personal health). As a result, both sides in the debate make a sizable set of assumptions, which remain unstated in the discussion and result in both sides talking past one another.
From the D-News site, this quote perfectly exemplifies the Mormon perspective:
So you are looking to “bridge the divide” between Mormons and Gentiles, are you? Let me guess, that would entail Mormons lowering their standards so Gentiles don’t have to feel so bad about themselves when they have a drink?
For the writer, not drinking alcohol is an inherently moral act - drinking it is an inherently immoral act. Within the context of Mormon morality as lived, the Word of Wisdom is an ironclad moral code. Many Mormons are brilliant rules lawyers with regard to it. Consider the knots so many Mormons twist themselves into with regard to caffeine - the actual text is “hot drinks” so Diet Coke is okay, no it’s really the focus on caffeine, so Diet Coke isn’t acceptable but hot chocolate is acceptable, conversely, hot chocolate actually contains trace amounts of caffeine so it’s not acceptable, but Postum is acceptable, it also has the advantage that it tastes like ass so you don’t enjoy drinking it, caffeine free herbal tea is acceptable but it may not be acceptable because it’s a hot drink and so forth. Infusing such choices with intense moral value creates a natural response to find ways out. The implication is that drinking coffee or tea is a pleasure, giving it up proves ones obedience to the moral code. In a moral system that values obedience to authority as a primary virtue, giving up things you enjoy (or might enjoy) is a sign of one’s morality. Not drinking alcohol is a sign of virtue - even more virtuous if other people enjoy it greatly.
In this context, there is no way to morally drink. When people talk about responsible drinking, for a Mormon audience that’s utter nonsense. It’s like saying, “I steal responsibly.” It’s an incomprehensible concept. You can’t responsibly break rules. The substance of rule is irrelevant - the relevant issue is obedience to the rule. When Mormons offer a series of reasons for not drinking (alcoholism is a danger, drunk driving is a problem, alcohol plays a role in many crimes or acts of violence) these reasons are window dressing. These arguments added after the fact to convince people who are wavering - a sort of “If you won’t accept that it’s immoral, maybe you’ll admit it’s unhealthy and dangerous.” When drinkers hear these arguments, they naturally respond by identifying a series of ways to reduce the risks of drinking (moderating consumption, deisgnated drivers) which have no impact on a Mormon audience. When drinkers offer a series reasons to imbibe - wine improves a meal, it is fun, whatever, these reasons reinforce the belief that Mormons are doing something virtuous (giving up pleasure), in the non-Mormon context that sacrifice makes no sense.
And so Mormons and non-Mormons talk past one another, circling the same thing and never saying it.
I think the solution begins in acknowledging the separate assumptions - both sides need to acknowledge the differences in values. The biggest challenge for Mormons is refusing to judge people who drink as immoral; simple as that may sound, when Mormons tell peoiple who drink that they’re immoral, it guarantees a breakdown in communication. Honoring and respecting the Mormon perspective is the biggest challenge for non-Mormons. Non-Mormons far too often condescend to Mormons (for years, I’ve joked that having wine with dinner is the way amongst civilized people which is a perfect example of what I’m talking about it); it simultaneously insults Mormons and deepens the miscommunication.
Talking across the divide may begin as simply as non-Mormons starting by saying, “We know that for our Mormon neighbors, this is a question of morals. For a Mormon, drinking is immoral. Within my moral system, within the morality taught by my church, drinking is not a moral question, it is a question of personal taste. So how can we as a community arrive at a solution?” For Mormons, it means acknowledging that what they see as a moral question isn’t one for other people. Let’s start by seeing each other’s assumptions and refusing to judge. It’s not as easy as it sounds. But it’d have to be a start.
October 7th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Glenden,
You paint Mormons with a wide paintbrush by describing a grossly over generalized Mormon paradigm. Many Mormons fit in the box you delineate, however, very many do not.
I am an active Mormon and also a libertarian. It is my choice to not drink, however if others wish to that should be their perogative and not my concern nor the concern of the nanny government.
Part of the problem with “the great divide” is that we too often attribute binary paradigms to the tensions and divisions when the reality is far more complicated and nuanced.
October 7th, 2007 at 6:26 am
Tom - I don’t disagree. There are a nuances and shadings and there are people who don’t fit into the broad portraits I’ve painted. These discussions seem so often to occur in predictable patterns, the same points are raised over and over and over again and nothing changes. Again and again and again, the conversation goes around and around and around and both sides basically repeat their talking points but they never seem to understand where the other is coming from.
That suggests to me that we need to start analyzing what is being said and what it implies. It also occured to me that for non-Mormons it’s not that alcohol consumption is absent moral issues, but the moral issues are almost never explicitly identified. The moral issue, for instance, behind responsible consumption is the idea of not harming others. If I have a glass of wine with dinner, I’m not drunk, I can safely drive home. By contrast, if I’m at a bar and I knock back a half dozen drinks, I am drunk and I should get a cab or have a designated driver. If I demonstrate repeatedly I am unable to drink responsibly, I need to learn responsible drinking or stop drinking until I do. These actions all imply that a person can drink alcohol in ways which are consistent with being responsible.
Discussions about alochol consumption do seem to break down into a pretty binary debate - one side supports looser laws, the other side opposes them and may even want stricter laws - with almost mathematical predictability. Both positions seem imply a set of values that are never stated.
So let’s state those values. Let’s be honest that Mormon morality requires (and enforces) that members in good standing not drink alcohol; breaking the rules gets one’s privileges reduced (Temple recommend, for instance). There’s nothing wrong with that, but it begs the question of why that moral code should be codified in state law. Conversely, non-Mormon values accept that the choice to drink is personal not moral - the moral questions start after one has chosen to drink. That moral system chooses to inform people up front of consequences (drinking wine enhances dinner, over indulging leads to hangovers, driving drunk can get you killed and arrested) and then asks people to be mature enough to make ones own choices and accept the consequences - it expects people to be informed.
There are middle grounds and gray areas, but those seem to me the most commonly articulated positions so I want to understand them.
October 7th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
How are Mormons lowering their standards? If Mormons don’t want to drink then don’t drink. Simple enough. Why is every organized religion not content with just worrying about themselves? They have to make sure to stick their nose in everyone else’s business.
October 7th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
These discussions always remind me of Calvin Grondahl’s classic cartoon that showed a battered and bruised BYU student under a huge pile of rocks, muttering to a campus policeman, “All I said was, ‘He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.’”
October 7th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Nice post.
It would be good if more people could look at issues from the other side’s point of view. It’s difficult sometimes, but makes life much easier.
October 7th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Marshall - that’s a common question. It’s one I’ve been pondering the last few days - if I don’t drink, what does it matter what the law says? It seems to me the answer connects to the “location” of authority. For someone who sees alcohol consumption as a personal choice, drinking or not drinking is as simple as that, the authority concerning alcohol consumption is internal.
Within the context of a moral system that locates authority externally (for instance within the Word of Wisdom, although certainly the fire breathing versions of Southern Baptist faith are similar), the individual is presumed to need an external authority since he/she cannot be trusted to make decisions by themselves. (It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the big picture.) In the broadest sense, for many Mormons the fear is that htey won’t be able to resist the temptation of alcohol and so they want the external authority to reinforce their refusal.
George Lakoff talks about this in Moral Politics where he explores the ways in which people raised in “strict father” households often suffer from an inability to make decisions, to trust their own judgment and trust themselves. Having been taught obedience to external authority as the highest value, people functioning from the strict father perspective often believe the law should reinforce the “right” moral choices and punish the “wrong” ones.
Allie - thanks! I think we as a community need to work on these things together. It’s going to be tough. How do you reach across the religious divide in Utah when there is so much mistrust on both sides? When there is a very long history of mistreatment on both sides? We’ve fallen into some very set patterns of behavior that are profoundly difficult to break. I hope we can get more Mormons involved in naming their assumptions about these issues.
October 7th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
I think we just need to be a little slower to jump to conclusions, which again can be difficult.
For instance, part of me feels like getting upset about your statement about needing the word of wisdom to protect us from our own bad decisions- but I realize/hope you don’t mean it like that.
I view it more as it is my personal choice to follow the word of wisdom. Just like it’s your personal choice to drink or not.
As for the liquor laws, I don’t really know anything about them, they don’t affect me, so as long as any changes don’t affect me (as in laws about drunk driving and underage drinking) I don’t particularly care what the laws are. Maybe I would feel differently if I knew what the actual laws were, but maybe not.
October 7th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Allie - It’s not that the word of wisdom protects people from their bad choices; it’s a question of using secular law to reinforce the moral code established in the Word of Wisdom.
Ages ago at Frameshop, Jeffrey Feldman discussed it in terms of sexuality but the same principal applies. Humans are naturally wired to surrender to temptation, once we do, we will find it easier to give in again. Immorality is powerful and only powerful forces can keep us from surrendering - those powerful forces should include moral laws, governmental laws, and social shaming. We have to keep ourselves from temptation - not because we’re weak, but because temptation is powerful and human nature is not to be entirely trusted. Strong, clear rules established by authority figures are required to establish boundaries. In progressive Christianity the distinction is often drawn between “law” and “love” Christians - it’s not an entirely fair distinction since application of the law is loving - a way of keeping people from going awry. In this moral system, humans need guidance from external and established authorities - authorities whose validity is proven by their long standing existence.
Liquor laws in Utah, restrictive and absurd as they are, are an example of using laws to reinforce a moral code, to keep the taboo against drinking in place.
October 7th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
“Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be Happy”.
Ben Franklin.
Good enough for me.
I rather like the German Laws on beer dating since 1516. The Rheinheitsgebot declares brewing beer, using anything but Malt, Hops, Yeast and Water, is a crime. That is an orthodoxy that I can accept.
October 8th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Everybody likes to put other people down, because it make them feel better. It’s part of the human condition.
I think George Carlin said it best in a routine about peoples attitudes about driving that when something like this:
Everybody driving faster then you is a MANIAC!
Everybody driving slower then you is an IDIOT!
Of course the funny thing about it is that we’re all maniacs AND idiots depending on lots of variables.
October 13th, 2007 at 7:48 am
[...] righteousness bone, yet lacks a funny bone. I mentioned a post I’d seen lately about how impossible it is for people to talk across a religious divide, because they have completely different frames of reference that often don’t [...]
October 16th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Most denominations of Judeo-Christian belief strive to create a society that mirrors the one they believe in. Though not as theocratic as Islam in their striving for a “heaven on earth,” most believe there is merit in enshrining their beliefs in law. However, the US government must create laws that do not favor one religion over another, and Jewish religious celebrations require wine, which is of course prohibited by the LDS Church.
Utah, with over 100 years of LDS driven government, is a unique place with reagard to this type of law. Mormons have wanted government to stay out of areas that regulate religion because historically they were the losing side of these laws. Now, with the power to make these laws, they are on the other side of the issue.
Personal moral decisions are not the government’s place; laws must protect from harm not impose another’s religious ideal. The constitution is fairly clear in this regard. Members of the LDS church need to realize that their freedom to practice their religion does not come with the right to impose their beliefs on everyone who resides in Utah.
October 16th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
but.. if you can get away with it, then you save more souls for the Almighty in the process. The ends justify the means to the believers, every day they can defy the law, and control behavior saves souls, in their view.
So how is mormonism different from islam? They both have the go forth and covert germ that infects their religion, one more extreme than the other, but only in the face of constraints for mormons.