As we wrapped up the latest Mormon Moment with the Romney defeat, I asked the question, “What Now for the Mormon Moment?” One of the articles we discussed was Stephen Manfield’s The Mormonizing of America from the Huffington Post. I thought it was an excellent article which characterized how and why Mormons are successful and have become disproportionately representative in many areas of American life: politics, business/professions, education, athletics, the arts, etc., in spite of our small numbers relative to the overall population.
It is not unlike the same phenomena we see with Jews and Asians and some other smaller cultures around the world.
Why is that?
According to Mansfield,
“Plant Mormonism in any country on earth and pretty much the same results will occur. If successful, it will produce deeply moral individuals who serve a religious vision centered upon achievement in this life. They will aggressively pursue the most advanced education possible, understand their lives in terms of overcoming obstacles, and eagerly serve the surrounding society. The family will be of supernatural importance to them, as will planning and investing for future generations. They will be devoted to community, store and save as a hedge against future hardship, and they will esteem work as a religious calling. They will submit to civil government and hope to take positions within it. They will have advantages in this. Their beliefs and their lives in all-encompassing community will condition them to thrive in administrative systems and hierarchies–a critical key to success in the modern world. Ever oriented to a corporate life and destiny, they will prize belonging and unity over individuality and conflict every time.”
So, if I read him right, Mansfield is saying that the LDS religion and its corresponding culture breed the disproportional success that he is observing. I think this is true and it has many of the same attributes of my other culture, Judaism. While I’ve never heard anyone at Church say, “My Son, the Doctor,” there is a certain Mormon pride associated with our successful members including folks like Mitt Romney.
What I find the most ironic about this trend is, much like Jews, many successful Mormons tend to turn their back on the very religion and, in some cases, the culture that drove their success. Their education, the new circles in which they travel, their workload, their new perspective, etc., are all factors that tend to move folks away, the doctrinal issues notwithstanding.
On the other hand, there are many highly successful members of the Church who continue to be strongly in the fold and do not suffer from this and go on to have both highly successful careers and maintain loyalty to the Church.
So is this culture attribute that Mansfield identified the Church’s worst enemy moving into the future? Does education and success drive members away from the very thing that drove them in the first place?
Wheat & Tares 
I think we all start out in any endeavor idealistically, believing it to be better than it can possibly live up to being. There’s a honeymoon phase, an illusion. With experience we become jaded and disillusioned, and we deal with the messiness of reality. In the church, though, our success is very tied up in the Mormon formula, and if you achieve success while living this lifestyle, letting go of it feels incredibly risky. Doing so is likely to erode confidence.
Plus, there’s so much to the culture that contributes to success in business or life:
1 – excellent support structure, even if you move halfway around the world
2 – focus on education and family responsibility
3 – focus on “centering” activities like reading scriptures and praying that create mental clarity and instill composure.
4 – frugality
5 – a strong sense of belonging to a community that transcends geography.
Those are just a few that come to mind, and they are also common to Asian (immigrants especially) and Jewish culture.
Add to that a few unique Mormon points that really just help people avoid career ending moves:
6 – not drinking at work events, thereby avoiding unrestrained behaviour in front of colleagues
7 – wearing garments makes it tougher to have an impulsive extramarital affair on the job
8 – paying tithing makes Mormons feel charitable and philanthropic
9 – missions expose some to other cultures and languages, skills that give a leg up in the work world
Those are just a few I can think of off the top of my head. Great Huffington Post article!
Excellent OP and respsonse, Jeff and Hawkchick.
Jeff gives unique perspective, being a convert from Judaism (IDK which sect). Both have a commonality in the faith originating in revealed truths via prophets. Both are viewed often with hostility and suspicion. They both also have admirers, some sincerely and some grudgingly. Since both have to deal with being essentially “strangers in a strange land”, behavioral and cultural aspects that prompt a “survival of the fittest” tend to cull out the weak and unproductive.
Are the LDS numbers that much overrepresented in high places in business, education, and government? Well, outside of “Yew-tah”, I have yet in over 30 years of membership to see any “Mormon Mafia” that gave ME any advantages professionally. The only thing that helped was when I was graduating from good ol’ Bulldog U. with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, that I was aggressively recruited by both the Navy (for the Nuke Sub program) and the Defense Intelligence Agency, in both cases not only my degree but my recent experience as a missionary in Italy. I’m not aware, however, that there was any cadre of Mormons in those agencies looking out for “their own”. Rather, it seems that foreign language proficiency is highly desired in the Federal Government, for obvious reasons. I’ve used this to my advantage not only with Italian but other languages (French, German, Greek, and Russian), where I’ve been able to work with the Defense Language Institute at Monterrey (yes, there’s a bunch of Mormons there, care to guess why?). But again, it comes down to one overriding factor: each of us in our turn, as the late John Houseman would have put it, “urrned it!”.
I suspect we will yet have an LDS US President in our lifetimes. I’ll put a wee wager that she may be our first lady president as well (hope she’s better looking that Geena Davis).
To be honest, I haven’t really seen it either outside Utah. I live in the mid west, and I’ve only seen it be a disadvantage, or just no advantage at all.
And I’m going to be real honest about the Jewish thing – there are MANY people that speak very negatively of it because they feel as though Jewish people ONLY look out for their own. I’ve known quite a few people to feel that way about LDS as well in communities that have higher percentages of LDS.
So, although you speak of the upside, which I do see, there is a whole other side to it all too.
I’m not surprised the Huffington Post would identify conservative principles to the LDS church since it is true, but I am surprised they would acknowledge these principles work –that they would create productive societies and productive people.
#3 – KT, my limited experience with “J-O-O-s” suggest that homogeneity of purpose, unity, and most especially conspiracy, are largely myth. There is SOME commonality of values amongst the Jewish sects and Jewish persons of varying degree of observance of their faith, not unlike the LDS. Still, I’ll wager that in a room of ten Jewish businessmen there will be at least ten and as many as twenty opinions on a given subject. How folks can speak of “them” as if they were, in effect, “Worldwide J-O-O”, and speak of it not only as if it actually existed but that it was a sinister thing, amazes me. Likewise Latter-Day-Saints should firmly reject the notion that we’re all “in cahoots”. This forum along should belie such a notion.
From the OP:
– So is this culture attribute that Mansfield identified the Church’s worst enemy moving into the future?
– Does education and success drive members away from the very thing that drove them in the first place?
For the first question – perhaps. I suppose it depends on how we want to be perceived by the world at large and what our ultimate goal might be. As this article shows, our Church creates successful businessmen and politicians. Major articles about us are entitled “Mormons Inc” or similar. We have built the most expensive mall in the United States. We even dress our representatives like 1960’s businessmen and that has become the unwritten dress code for the church. Our leaders are primarily businessmen and lawyers. If this is our goal as a Church, to look a lot like a business, we have succeeded and have succeeded well.
But it’s probably my biggest complaint about the Church. I have studied a lot of eastern religions. Contrast what people think of when they think Mormon with Buddhist. We perceive Buddhists as being non-worldly, as supporting those around them, as serving others, as not being as concerned with money and titles and businesses, but with a bigger picture. I picture true Buddhists as going around doing good for the sake of doing good.
When I step back and wonder how Christ was perceived when He was here – which model is closer?
As to your second question – whether success and education drives people away – it depends on the person. Someone who is type-A driven to succeed in business and advance in the Church hierarchy (they seem to correlate) will be perfectly at home in the Church. They will become more tightly bound to the structure.
Others, however, might become more disillusioned. This might include those who want less of the structure and hierarchy and corporate nature and handbooks. This might include people who are seeking more spirituality and less religion. This might be people who bristle at checklists and correlation and home teaching tracking and such, and who might be looking for a more organic experience to get to God.
So, it depends on the nature of the individual rather than the Church. For some personalities, it is a perfect fit. For others, they either reject it or else live in an awkward state of imbalance (and look for support other places – maybe online 🙂 )
#6 – I’m looking out my rain-drenched window for flying swine. You and I agree on the cultural perception of the Church as “LDS, Inc.”. Not that it’s bad for administering the business aspects of the Church (real estate, land, social services, handling of tithes and other funds and donations-in-kind, etc.), but methinks at times our “fearless leaders” forget that Christ established HIS Church for the perfecting of the SAINTS. E.G., at times the members exist to serve the CHURCH and swear fealty to it, as opposed to serving the LORD and using HIS organization as his primary tool to effect same. It’s been my experience that the best bishops and Stake Presidents are the ones that think outside the box and dispense with the “Handbook” as the needs of their respective charges dictate. Would at times that our leaders saw the Handbook much like the fictional Hector Barbosa regarded the so-called “Pirate Code”.
“I have studied a lot of eastern religions. Contrast what people think of when they think Mormon with Buddhist. We perceive Buddhists as being non-worldly, as supporting those around them, as serving others, as not being as concerned with money and titles and businesses, but with a bigger picture. I picture true Buddhists as going around doing good for the sake of doing good.” Living in Asia, I have to say bullocks to our Western idealized notion of what Buddhism yields. I live in a country that is by far Buddhist majority, and it is ten times more materialistic than any western country. I suspect any majority faith is diluted to match human nature, not its own ideals. Westerners who embrace Buddhism are simply rejecting (at least some aspect of) the majority religion; they are seeking to restore spiritual balance by striking out in a new direction.
#5 Douglas
Although I certainly understand, and agree to a certain extent with the point you are getting at, I disagree to some extent as well.
When you say, “How folks can speak of “them” as if they were, in effect, “Worldwide J-O-O”, and speak of it not only as if it actually existed but that it was a sinister thing, amazes me.”
You know, I see it from both sides. I don’t view Jewish people as “them”, nor do I view “Mormons” as them, unless ‘they’ give me cause to do so. However, I don’t think you can assert as a RULE that groups of people are never “them”, and that it is never “sinister” either. I have most certainly seen instances where it has in fact been that way. One recent example comes to mind: the many LDS voting for Romney, some of whom were only supporting and voting for him because he was one of “them”, without any knowledge of the actual issues. Group fasting and the like. I guess perhaps the word “sinister” may be too dramatic of a characterization for that kind of conduct, but I certainly would not view it as helpful, or for that matter, respectable.
#9 – If only I could include Val Bagley’s editorial cartoon about the pro-typical LDS family (the details of the disapproving “righteous” LDS family all dooded-up for Church and glaring their disapproval at the proverbial “red-headed stepchild”, who declares his allegiance to Obama though he’s obviously too young to vote, is spot on and hilarious!). Someone who has privileges to do an OP please get it posted!
I agree that IF there were LDS who were voting for one of “us” (or is it “them” to you?) merely due to group-think, that it’s superficial and an insult to the right to vote. As it was for the many “evangelicals” and others hostile to voting for a Mormon who would otherwise stand at attention and salute at the man’s political views and experience. That’s the trouble with a popular vote, as long as one is a citizen and has a pulse (even THAT wasn’t necessary which in Chicago in 1960 which JFK certainly found to be handy) and isn’t a felon or in a straightjacket, you don’t have to justify your choice. Literacy tests which would have had the legitimate objective of weeding out the stupid were long ago found to be unconstitutional because they were used to weed out otherwise qualified voters due to race and/or ethnicity. In Romney’s case, given the realities of the politics of most LDS that would be nostalgic to “one of our own”, it seems superfluous anyway. It’s more folks that were rock-ribbed Republicans that couldn’t stomach a Mormon where it came more into play, so let’s be honest about where most of the silliness lay. Also, KT, where is the anecdotal evidence that any of the LDS voters who were rubber-stamping Romney didn’t have any “knowledge” of the issues, or is it just because they may differ from yours?
However, I never participated in any group fasting for Romney or any other candidate. Frankly, to me it seems inappropriate. If there are issues of grave importance in this country, we have members of the Twelve that oversee parts of the USA as their area. They can make the clarion call if they feel it’s needed. If there’s something more local, a Stake President could pass the message (in a non-political tone, of course) to his charges. I see nothing wrong with always praying that our members of the Congress and the President are guided in their efforts to solve the issues that bedevil the country, but making a show over a particular election just makes us all look silly. Somehow methinks that the work of the Lord is not decided by the outcome of elections, in our country or any other.
On a related and trivial but nevertheless interesting note, there was an LDS man who was also a Presidential candidate, but in either Mali or Mauritania. I don’t recall what the man’s name is, nor how he made out (I assume he didn’t win as it’d be VERY newsworthy, especially since both those countries are overwhelmingly Moslem). Anyone know the man’s name?
Education and career success is positive and healthy to the extent that it facilitates mortal growth along the lines of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs but it is not the end goal. It endangers one’s spiritual growth when as it morphs into an LDS prosperity gospel wedding members to materialism instead of the real spiritual growth once begun (and typically peaking to be left behind in later adulthood) in a humble vow of poverty during their mission. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
Joseph Smith: Yea, thus saith the still small voice, which whispereth through and pierceth all things, and often times it maketh my bones to quake while it maketh manifest, saying…”often times it maketh my bones to quake” is a very good description of the eastern enlightenment process of a kundalini awakening. Joseph was an enlightened man in the eastern sense. Another scriptural example can be found in 3 Nephi 11:3 which includes “insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn.” These are uniquely Mormon scriptures which describe the eastern process of a kundalini awakening as preparation for conversing with God. This is the narrow gate! Not provident living or the LDS pharisaical dos and don’ts list.
Interesting perspectives from the group and very different than what I was expecting.
Douglas: My company very much had a Mormon Mafia as one of the co-founders spent a lot of time in Idaho and one of the major creators grew up as a non-Mormon in Nampa. One of the old-timers told me the stories of how there was an influx of Mormons in certain divisions, many of whom went on to take executives positions because the company leadership like their integrity and work ethic.
One of of the points of the post was to see whether people thought that the Mormon emphasis on education and success is now driving younger people out of the Church. i didn’t see much on that point.
Jeff:
I’m not qualified to comment on “the Mormon emphasis on education and success” because that emphasis is SO ingrained in the regional culture in which I live I couldn’t possibly associate it with being distinctly Mormon. (Here, my wife is constantly dealing with parents of elementary school children who are already looking for some edge that will get those kids into an elite college program someday!) But, from THAT perspective, I would see an emphasis on education as being necessary in this region for young people to stay IN the church.
In my generation (mission from 68 to 70) most RMs in Australia cam home from mission, got married and immediately pregnant, and took jobs as sales reps, to suppoort their family. Required no qualifications just selling experience (mission).
In my ward now the RMs seem to then go to University and get married and graduate before they have children. So the couple both work for a while to get some savings, perhaps a house, and then have children.
As far as the business success I am not aware of any prominent LDS businessmen in Australia. I am only aware of one LDS politician and he is in a state Parliament, and not prominent.
Does it require a certain % of the population to achieve political success. We are only about 0.5%.
Jeff:
I think in my family of numerous siblings, we are more successful than our parents, however the most financially successful of us is the now atheist. It could be that he simply had more time and energy to plough into that part of his life, that the rest of us are required to put into our church callings. Over here, where the wards are smaller, church callings are very demanding, and take up a lot of time. So maybe, outside of Utah, to achieve that success, leaving is the better option, if that’s what you want.
Financial success is intoxicating ego feed that those enjoying it often offer as self evident proof of their superiority and brilliance and few around them see through this clearly enough or feel confident enough to confront them with the truth. A money making formula is just that and nothing more it doesn’t make one a god or a God substitute. Embracing God and conversing with him requires humbelness and ego reduction not ego embellishment therefor it is easy to see why it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
#16 Howard, I like your view.
Jeff,
Also to add that I don’t think the emphasis on education is universal throughout the church. My parents were very encouraging of my siblings and I going to university and studying, but the attitude of not a few Britsh members while I was a teen, including those in my ward and stake, was to finish education as soon as possible (leaving school at 16) and then going out to work. So I think social class also had a lot to do with it. That view may have changed now.
Jeff – I wouldn’t say the Church’s emPHAsis (on the wrong syLLAble?) on education is what drives some members away. It’s not “education” so much as at times indoctrination into liberal secular humanism, which is in effect another false “faith”. Education, like tools of technology (e.g., Boomhauer’s “dang ol’ Internet”) isn’t inherently good or evil, it’s the application thereof. BYU is an odd duck amongst institutions of higher learning in it’s conservative and “Gospel-centered” atmosphere. It’s possible to find similar in other faiths (Liberty U., Bob Jones U. Oral Roberts U. etc etc but not likely so rigidly enforced as at the “Zoo”). Even my lady friend, herself a Baylor alum, experienced quite a bit of ‘liberal’ indoctrination (at least as she relates it) at a school sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas, including an openly lesbian coach. My alma mater (Fresno State), had a similar dichotomy, being a bastion of liberalism in an otherwise somewhat (for the great state of “Calipornia”) conservative town.
It might be the “Cult of Success” that drives men into inactivity. When was the last time you saw a plumber as Stake President? Never mind that at times I rue that I didn’t heed my dear departed mother’s advice to become one, as the money can be great and folks will always need to eat and go to the bathroom. Nay, we fill the ranks of our “higher” Priesthood leadership with lawyers, doctors, and similar professionals, as well as SUCCESSFUL businessmen. Money talks….
Jeff: One of of the points of the post was to see whether people thought that the Mormon emphasis on education and success is now driving younger people out of the Church.
I have a family member who lives in a non-Utah area of the country where Mormons are distinctly in the minority (and even in their ward, only around 100-120 of of 800 are active, I’ve heard). To get into the right PRE-SCHOOL, there was a waiting list. People would put their kids on the list a year or two early. It is at the point now where when you can produce a note from your OB-Gyn showing you are pregnant, you can get your kid on the waiting list. And this is serious – I couldn’t make that up. So, I don’t know that Mormons are necessarily the only ones who emphasize education to the point where it turns people off.
With regards to young people and education and inactivity – I think there is an attitude towards education as opposed to an emphasis on education that turns people off.
There are necessarily going to be conflicts between what any religion historically taught and some new truth uncovered. Religions, including our own, are very slow to change pre-conceived ideals. We know the world is flat, but it didn’t make Catholicism wrong, even though they fought it. Similarly, we hear a number of pronouncements and snide remarks from our leaders about “intellectuals” or “pseudo-intellectuals” (a term reserved for intellectuals with whom you disagree). THIS is one of the things that turns young people off.
A great quote: “The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see” – Huang Po
Is it as simple as this? You join something because you need something. Then you suddenly have the thing you needed or within some period of time you do. Then you no longer value how you got it, and you go off in search of the next thing you don’t have.
Me, I like the Huang Po quote.
I think we all grow up, but when we become teens, we think we know so much more than our parents. And sometimes we do. But even if they did stop progressing, and hopefully we eventually do better than they did (with access to more information, higher education, a progressing world and so forth), we don’t have to reject them out of hand. We should have gratitude for our roots that allow us to grow into what we become. This is one reason I see plenty of room in the church for intellectuals. It’s the weeds that try to choke the intellectuals who are on thin ice, IMO. Nobody thrives on white-washed information. They get by at best, but their brain atrophies.
#19 – It’s more a matter of cachet and credential-ism versus “education”. Some of the most educated people that I’ve met never finished high school. The link between the coveted jobs in Industry and/or Government and the schools that supply the graduates naturally leads to self-perpetuating cliques. For example, in the top Bay Area law firms, some recruit exclusively from Stanford, others from Hastings, but go to Lincoln (Sacramento) and they put down your resume immediately, other qualifications notwithstanding.
I’m reminded of the Family Guy episode of Stewart Gilligan Griffin’s first birthday – Lois reserved the time slot once her OB gave her a due date.
It may be happening to some extent at the “Zoo”. I never went there…I was halfway through my matriculation at Fresno State when I joined the Church , and I still proudly wear my Bulldog Red, so it’s what I recall from my contemporaries telling me of their BYU experiences. It seemed at the time that certainly most of the coeds were getting their “MRS” degree, and the institution, its academic credentials which were of themselves nothing trivial, seemed to be more of an LDS hookup joint. Now, with the University not much bigger in terms of class size, but the Church three times as large, it’s harder to get in, and those that do seem more intent on actually getting their education and are not necessarily intent on getting married so soon. And even those that do don’t seem to be inviting down the little spirits so readily. Now I don’t think this necessarily bad at all. Are the BYU grads still as “faithful” as their fathers and mothers that attended in their turn? I’m sure they are, but they seem to be less inclined to follow the “Zoo” cultural cliches that we’re all familiar with.
Very interesting. A few thoughts:
This is pretty tricky as Hawk alluded to. It’s unfair to give all the credit to Mormonism and its culture – that’s ridiculous. But it’s also not a solo venture. I feel like what you’re really driving at here is a loyalty argument. You’re pointing out the disloyalty of such a course of action.
I think the big problem lies in how we elevate knowledge. Too many people turn their backs on Mormonism because they no longer have the same certainty they feel is expected of them. And can we really blame them? As Hawk said, we need a culture that embraces the messiness of reality from the get-go.
#11/Howard:
Your mention of quaking and kundalini reminds that the shaking is also known as a precursor for astral projections or OBE’s. Must be connected, eh?
Thanks, Steve
Yes I think you’re right Steve, although I had an extended OBE without any shaking but it came years after my kundalini awakening which began with shaking. So I tend to see shaking as preparing your physical body for spiritual experiences, there comes a point when you no longer shake, apparently this was true for Joseph as well.