From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #721 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Wednesday, May 22 2002 Volume 01 : Number 721 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 13:50:57 -0700 From: harlowclark@juno.com Subject: Re: [AML] How We Make Decisions (was: Mormon Environmentalism) On Thu, 09 May 2002 12:41:11 -0600 Eric R. Samuelsen writes: > To a certain extent, what we believe on any subject is based on > evidence and reasoning. Absolutely true. But we get lots of > information on any subject, and often the information conflicts, and > advocates for any position also spin their information so we'll > agree with them. Up to a point, then, it seems to me that we > believe what we choose to believe, independent of evidence. I've long thought this, and appreciate Eric's eloquent statement. I've occasionally heard people say things like, "Oh, you just believe what you want to. You don't care what's true." But imagine a world where we could be forced to believe things we didn't want to believe. I'll have more to say in another post about how metaphors influence our decision making. (I'm way behind because of a small physical error on my hdd a few weeks ago that happened to be in the sectors housing the system.dat file--still haven't been able to get the computer to recognize my USB flashcard reader, which makes news photographing much harder.) But right now, I just want to comment on Eric's story about why he doesn't believe G.O. Warshington posed for Arnold Friberg at Valley Forge. > If one believes, however, that the history of America is a history > of people seeking religious freedom, driven here by God, then it > follows that George Washington must be portrayed as righteous man > actively seeking God's blessings. Not necessarily. You can portray God's inspiration as working through people despite themselves. There's a lot of scriptural precedent for that. I'll bet there was even scriptural precedent for that before Moses wrote down the story of Balaam's trying to prophesy against Israel and ending up prophesying against Balak. (Indeed, I wrote a paper several years ago called "I Have Come to the Whirlwind to Converse with the Father: The Book of Job as a Ceremony of Irony," which explores the notion that the Job story is a retelling of the Eden story, where God knew beforehand Satan's intents and set up a situation where no matter what Satan did he would be furthering God's purposes. I may add to a revision of that paper the idea that Satan is not necessary to fulfill those purposes, that the purposes of God cannot be frustrated even by the most cunning plans of the evil one.) In the fall of 1987 I got married and started my last semester (quarter?--what does UW use?) of grad school. It being the bicentennial of the Constitution I took a class on the literature and culture of the Constitution. In my class paper I worked with the idea that when the D&C talks about the Constitution as inspired it's referring to the way the document fractures government, dividing power between an executive, a legislative and a judicial branch, giving all three powers that check the powers of the other two branches, then pitting them against each other so they couldn't band together to form alliances, and designing the judicial and legislative branches to be internally fractured: the legislature divided into two chambers, one designed to favor smaller states by giving them the same vote as larger states, the other designed to favor larger states; the judiciary divided both by lifetime appointments that would likely outlast the appointing president and his successor, and by being an odd number so they couldn't be evenly divided. (I'm not sure if I specifically mentioned the D&C or the BofM, but I was clearly working with the idea that the government outlined in the Constitution embodies the kinds of oppositional checks and balances without which, Lehi says, the universe could not continue to exist. (I should note that oppositional checks and balances are not necessarily adversarial--when Donna and I kneel across the altar in the temple as (someone's) husband and wife, we are opposites, but I hope not adversaries.)) > As it happens, that's not how I > see him, nor how I see our history. I don't see him as a righteous > man, or a spiritual man, I see him as a competant man; someone who > was pretty capable at a number of tasks. I see the history of > America as primarily a history of genocide and slavery, with a > search for religious freedom pretty secondary. The Founding Fathers were not necessarily paragons of virtue, whether the virtue being discussed is chastity (Ben Franklin's syphillis) or the belief in human freedom and equality. But I'm not sure it's necessary to see them as such to believe that God raised them up with particular talents to accomplish a particular work. Despite the fact that many of them violated human rights by owning and treating as animals other human beings, they still managed to turn out a document that eventually abolished slavery and became a beacon of hope for people seeking human rights the world over. Of course, I should mention a story from Tom Rogers that still haunts me occasionally. He and Arthur Henry King had a debate over censorship once in the ELWC courtyard (back when they still had one). Tom was arguing against censorship and King was arguing that our leaders, being called of God, have the right to censor. Anyway, at one point, he made it clear they were discussing ideas, not personalities, and that the students could trust that Rogers was making his arguments in good faith, that they came from his rock solid integrity. I've noticed that a lot about Tom (also about Eugene England). He studies literature and history and other things from a firm grounding in the Gospel and when he writes something that challenges his culture he intends it to be received as coming from a person firmly grounded to a person firmly grounded, and he is surprised sometimes when people are offended by what he sends forth. So it was that he prepared a hometeaching lesson one Sunday about the Founding Fathers and their politics, something along the lines of what I've discussed above. I think he was drawing on a priesthood lesson someone in the History department had given. The details are fuzzy, but Tom later got a call from that good brother, who said, "I will be up all night trying to reconstruct everything I said in that lesson." Seems the home teachee was deeply (or shallowly) offended and called one of the high mucky mucks at BYU. Harlow S. Clark, who has just suggested that another way we make decisions is by recasting things that make us uncomfortable in a way that lets us take comfort from them. ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 14:47:00 -0600 From: "Clark Goble" Subject: RE: [AML] Money and Art ___ Thom ___ | Putting on a ward play may appear to be something easy to | someone who hasn't done it but, if you want to do it right, | you're going to have to put as much blood, sweat, and tears | as if you were to produce the play professionally. ___ Well, if that were the case, won't *anyone* who takes the calling have the same problem? Why are the artists somehow required to do so much more? Seems like you are suggesting that if one is an artist one can't tone down the work. Every work must be professional. Having put on a few road shows, plays and so forth, I simply don't think you have to put that much work in. If you want to, fine. But don't say that the extra work beyond what is necessary is this requirement the church is giving. - -- Clark Goble --- clark@lextek.com ----------------------------- - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 20:23:35 -0500 From: lajackson@juno.com Subject: [AML] Re: Money and Art Clark Goble: ___ Thom ___ | Putting on a ward play may appear to be something | easy to someone who hasn't done it but, if you want to | do it right, you're going to have to put as much blood, | sweat, and tears as if you were to produce the play | professionally. ___ . . . Why are the artists somehow required to do so much more? Seems like you are suggesting that if one is an artist one can't tone down the work. Every work must be professional. . . . _______________ Thom is good at what he does because he works hard at it and puts his whole heart and soul into it. And directing the ward road show is probably as close as it gets to what Thom tries to do for a living. So, I think I see where Thom is coming from. It appears to me that he would be very uncomfortable if, given the assignment, he did not try to "do it right" and make the road show as professional as possible. Given those circumstances, Thom might not be a good candidate to direct the road show. On the one hand, some professionals are not able to move from the professional mode back into amateur hour. There is nothing wrong with this, in my opinion. I believe this is part of what made them professional in the first place. I have the same problem in my work. I hate it when there is not enough time to do something well (as I define it). Often, in my Church assignments, the time allotted doesn't even come close to the time needed to do a halfway decent job, even when I give my all. And many times, those asking don't understand the difficulty and significance of the assignment, either. (After all, those who work hardest and best make it all seem so simple, don't they?) Does that mean I shouldn't do it? Or that they should ask someone to do it who isn't as concerned about the outcome? Or that I should better learn the art of "scaling back"? Or is "scaling back" really an art form? Larry Jackson ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 15:51:48 -0600 From: "Marianne Hales Harding" Subject: Re: [AML] Money and Art >And you can bet that, in every case, they are taking tax deductions for >doing this. Which eventually inures to their benefit. And in some situations donating money via tithing can be a tax benefit too, but that's not a compelling reason to donate 10% to the church. Tax benefits are icing on the cake and often the icing isn't too thick. My brother is one of those tireless docs who gives away free medical care to needy ward members. He isn't buying a summer home with his tax deductions, if you understand my meaning, and he'd be far better off monetarily to charge for his services. If I were said tireless doc I would be offended at the implication of your comment. Pretty much the rule of thumb in a ward situation is if you're good at something you'll be asked to do it for free. Personally, I've done so much theatre work for free in the name of "career building" that I would feel like a hypocrit if I refused to use my God-given talents in a not-for-my-profit church venture simply because of the issue of payment. After all, "spiritual career building" is even more important to me. Marianne Hales Harding _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 14:53:25 -0700 (PDT) From: William Morris Subject: Re: [AML] Money and Art - --- Thom Duncan wrote: > It may be all right for Eric Samuelsen to direct a Stake play. He has a > full-time job during the day. In my case, since freelance > writing/producing/directing is my only current means of livelihood, I > would > run the risk of losing money to direct a road show. > > Would the Lord want me to do that? > Thom makes a great point here. It's up to him as an individual to decide how to consecrate his time and energy, and we are in no position to judge a person by their outward-showing consecrations of time and energy. For instance, my fellow Elders seem to enjoy my teaching and have mentioned appreciating the time I put into my lessons, but to be honest I'm getting by on natural talent and knowledge acquired a several years ago. I probably only put 20 minutes into each lesson I teach. That's not to brag or to self-flagellate, but to illustrate how we vary in what we do for our fellow saints and *how* we do it. Another example: yes, there are professionals (doctors, lawyers, dentists, accountants) who do *extra* work for their wards. At the same time, some of them also benefit from their membership because their fellow saints will go to them as clients. If more church members were attending Thom's plays and supporting his professional efforts, then perhaps he'd be more likely to be in a position and the state of mind to donate his time to direct a roadshow. To bring this back to a more literary discussion, I'm fascinated by the interplay, the overlap, the tension between church members church service and their professional lives. Neal Chandler's short-story collection _Benediction_ deals with this area to a certain extent, but do any of you know of other works that do this? I see a fascinating novel being written about the rise and fall (and maybe redemption in the end) of a Stephen Covey figure, or of the NuSkin people. We've talked about how money influences art. What can art tell us about money? ~~William Morris __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #721 ******************************