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Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ
I'm not hating on you, jay, but I do want to make a point. And it isn't so much about hurt feelings as it is that some people are encouraged to express their views (and even to assert that they are Church Doctrine) while other people are not. Read Mauss' book and you'll get a sense of what the issues are in Church leadersip. His argument is not hastily asserted.
What do you want, an inquisition? There's plenty of evidence for anyone who'll take the time to look for it. Moreover, the point is that intellectuals are silenced. The silence of intellectual discourse IS evidence. Do you hear many intellectual perspectives in Church meetings? Intellectuals are being encouraged to self-censor or be forever removed from official influence. Not exactly in line with God not being a respecter of persons is it? It's not the way Jesus did things either: He had dialogue with the learned, the outcasts, children, his disciples, everyone.
And your response here typifies the problem. You haven't addressed hardly any of my arguments, you've just ignored them in favor of asserting your own opinion.
Infiltrate the ranks? Here's more of your calloused American Consumer Culture thinking: everyone for himself. How very un-Christian. You are evidencing a serious case of hegemony: you're asserting ideological practice as objective reality.
And I have no interest in striving for a leadership calling. Actually, in some senses I'm glad to have been in the Primary organization for the last three years because it insulates me from attitudes such as yours.
And here you concede the argument in whole. Mauss' point is that the Church is biasing one style of thinking over another. This is exactly what you are suggesting should (and does) happen. Thank you for embodying his argument.
Moreover, your use of dicto simpliciter (over simplification) in terms of intellectual activity is ridiculous. Many intellectuals are just as dedicated as anyone else when it comes to church activity and testimony. I begrudge your insinuation to the contrary.
If you have credibility you will now admit that you have an ideological notion of "best" and are basically telling intellectuals in the Church to "eat cake."
Whining? Interesting. To suggest whining is to assume that you are in a position of power and, in this instance, to arbitrarily assert criticism as a diminuitive. What Mauss is engaging in is constructive criticism, and your assertion of whining only furthers that there is a problem in the Church. You think that your approach to the gospel is superior, and implicitly, that you deserve the privilege you receive. "All is well in Zion," in this sense, according to you. Mauss and I are arguing that a healthy tension between styles of thought is in the best interest of the Church. I'm not trying to drive out fundamentalists or Mauss' "herd" (not the best word choice), just looking for equal ground.
I wouldn't say that an intellectual is someone who is smart. Intellectuals often have smarts of a kind because they are dedicated to study. Many lawyers, physicians, professionals, construction workers, and others can be smart without being intellectuals. Fundamentalists can be smart (like Cleon Skousen, for example), they just aren't considered intellectuals or "learned scholars" by the people who determine such things (Academics, mostly). Put simply, intellectuals, in the way Mauss describes them, while often "smart," certainly don't have a monopoly on High IQs or some other measure of superior intelligence. For him, intellectual is a style of thinking that is cultivated by scholarly activity.
I am now going back to my discussion with UtahDan, as it is actually productive.
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I know we're not going to make any headway here, so let me just hit the highlights without trying to make it too personal.
1. I'd like you to replace the word intellectual with academic. You're a good guy, and you're a smart guy. But what seperates you and your academic peers from the thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of other professional, successful, intelligent men in the church is not your ability to think with an "intellectual style cultivated by scholarly activity", it's simply your status as a professor. If you try to create an illusion of more of it than that, then you will lose me and the rest of your audience.
2. I don't see that your peer group is underrepresented at high priesthood levels. Based on what I'm hearing is your definition as an "intellectual", it sounds like you're excluding business people, lawyers, medical professionals, engineers, IT professionals, accountants, actuaries, teachers (high school and below), and scientists. And you're including only college professors, but not just all college professors, I imagine you're excluding college professors of engineering, business, law, science, computer programming, etc. and only counting college professors of history, humanities, philosophy, politics, etc. Is this correct? What percent of the total of priesthood holding, dedicated, faithful Mormon men does this group make? Do you deserve to be overrepresented in church leadership? I don't, and this is why what you're saying sounds like whining to me. I think you're missing the mark on what makes a good priesthood leader. Dedication is valued ten fold over intelligence (and this is my definition--if it's your definition that it's valued hundred fold). I'm hearing from you that you think that is wrong and that you and your peers in a small, niche group should be given special treatments.
3. Show me some stats. Don't give me anecdotal evidence of an intellectual getting inappropriately disciplined. There are many problems or perceived problems in the church when it comes to "personnel" issues: racism, regionalism, nepotism, bias against short people or fat people, bias favoring athletes or schmoozers/butt kissers.