posted
Also in their world, Mormons don't read fantasy and forbid Harry Potter. Did they do any research at all?
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The one starred customer review on the first page sums it up clearly, concisely and intelligently.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Also in their world, Mormons don't read fantasy and forbid Harry Potter. Did they do any research at all?
Maybe they have them confused with Jehovah Witnesses?
It sort of sounds like a "Christian" romance my wife stumbled on for a quick beach read. It too had an abused Mormon girl who was "saved" by a "Christian" boy.
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quote:Originally posted by BaoQingTian: Religion is probably one of the more common and currently accepted targets of bigotry.
I'm not defending this book, in particular, since I haven't read it and don't really know anything about it. However, let's say that someone's experience is of growing up in an abusive Mormon household (and anyone who thinks there aren't any is kidding themselves). If this person tells an honest story about their experiences, is this automatically bigotry? Is it possible to relate an experience that paints an unflattering portrait of specific Mormons without it being bigotry?
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One of the reviews says the author did a bunch of research by interviewing ex-LDS. I am sure that gave her a non-biased view to write the story.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Also in their world, Mormons don't read fantasy and forbid Harry Potter. Did they do any research at all?
The LDS Church may not, but I imagine there are some Mormons who do. There are Mormons who forbid pop music because of fear of backwards masked messages from Satan. There are Mormons who forbid D&D because of "satanic influences". There are Mormons who forbid Coca-Cola as "against the Word of Wisdom". I've known all these. Does the book portray the Church as forbidding these? Or does it portray a pathologically strict Mormon father forbidding these? (I honestly don't know, but I think it's a critical question in judging issues of bigotry and misinformation.)
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Karl, I think it is mentioned those things, then it would show some more verity. No one mentions if the fact that the father being an alcoholic would automatically mark him as not a faithful Mormon is in the story, but it doens't sound like it. Forbidding Coke would be something a Mormon family might do. Forbidding Harry Potter and fantasy just isn't. It's little details like that that make a story, I think.
There are DEFINITELY abusive Mormon families, and there are definitely parents who turn principles of the gospel to evil ends. That's a story that should be told, I think. I don't that this book is it, though.
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quote:Originally posted by scholar: One of the reviews says the author did a bunch of research by interviewing ex-LDS. I am sure that gave her a non-biased view to write the story.
If a main character is a person fleeing from the influences of a pathologically strict father, and has been brought up to believe that his authority to act that way was a product of his church's teachings, interviewing less-than-unbiased real-life people who may have had the same experience might not be the worst place to start. I almost want to read this book so I can actually defend it, or jump on the bandwagon denouncing it from a position of actual knowledge. Has anyone read it?
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Look at this quote from the book, Karl: "I shadowed her to Tolkien's Middle-earth and Rowling's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, places no upstanding Mormon should go." Sounds to me like the author is portraying this as a Mormon doctrinal issue, in which case I'd call it bigotry and misinformation.
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Well, I haven't read the book so I don't know if all Mormons are portrayed that way. But certainly there are abusive hypocritical fundie nutjob Mormons out there, and they do great damage to their families, so it's a fair enough topic for a book. So yeah, what Karl said. I'm just grateful that most of the Mormons of my acquaintance do not fit that description.
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quote:Forbidding Harry Potter and fantasy just isn't.
You apparently don't know many Mormons from small southern Utah towns, nor many Mormon converts from even stricter religious backgrounds. I don't think that statement is accurate as a blanket statement. I have known Mormons who forbid D&D. They weren't that much different from people of other sects who forbid such things. I'm not saying it's a rampant opinion. I'm just saying that it's very possible there are a few who have forbidden HP in the same un-critical way many fundamentalist Christians do.
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: Look at this quote from the book, Karl: "I shadowed her to Tolkien's Middle-earth and Rowling's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, places no upstanding Mormon should go." Sounds to me like the author is portraying this as a Mormon doctrinal issue, in which case I'd call it bigotry and misinformation.
That sounds just so wierd to me as I know a Tolkien scholar who taught me Book of Mormon at Institute and I know there's always huge lines at bookstores every time a Harry Potter book comes out.
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As an aside, I got a long lecture from a Branch President about reading OSC. He had seen me reading a copy of Folk of the Fringe and berated me for reading an author who could portray such blasphemy as the Salt Lake Temple under water. Every group has people like that. Should none of them be portrayed in fiction?
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: Look at this quote from the book, Karl: "I shadowed her to Tolkien's Middle-earth and Rowling's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, places no upstanding Mormon should go." Sounds to me like the author is portraying this as a Mormon doctrinal issue, in which case I'd call it bigotry and misinformation.
Who utters this quote in the book? Her father? Sounds like a perfectly realistic quote given what we already know about him. I'd have to know the context. I mean if the father is a Mormon fundie nut job, shouldn't he sound like one? You can't make a determination from that quote if it is being portrayed as doctrine, or as the opinion of a misinformed member of the church (or even that much, for that matter.)
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quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: As an aside, I got a long lecture from a Branch President about reading OSC. He had seen me reading a copy of Folk of the Fringe and berated me for reading an author who could portray such blasphemy as the Salt Lake Temple under water. Every group has people like that. Should none of them be portrayed in fiction?
sure, but would you say the crazy ultra conservative religious figure has not received enough representation in media/literature?
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No more so than the unbelieving atheist, the liberal tree hugger, the rapacious consevative corporate hog, etc. I can't believe there is such irritation from such a literate group of people, none of whom have yet even admitted to reading the book. If you haven't read it, the best response is "Meh, there are nutjobs in every religion."
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posted
Although I'm still trying to construct this hypothetical Mormon fundie nutjob alchoholic in my imagination. I can't get those Legos to fit together.
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Well the person asked for the reactions of people, and not specifically those who have read it. I haven't detected "Irritation" from anybody thus far. Certainly nobody has exploded at this book, the fire breathing seems to be quite at a minimum.
I'd read it if somebody around had a copy but I am not going to purchase it just so I can post in a thread about it.
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Sounds like it all depends on whether the author portrays Mormons as fundie nutjobs or whether the author portrays one father as a fundie nutjob. The quote isn't telling, since it sounds like the young girl's understanding of Mormonism as taught by her father. So, I won't judge before reading the book. And since I don't read books (by modern writers) written entirely "in elegant free verse", I'll just pass Posts: 170 | Registered: Mar 2001
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More frustrating than the idiotic, ill-researched premise behind the book is the reminder, never far away, of how willfully ignorant people can be.
I found that reminder in the numerous positive reader reviews. The airheaded acceptance of what was written in the book as gospel (no pun intended) was as frustrating and baffling to me as fans of Coulter or Moore.
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Let me argue a hypothetical, for a moment. Suppose we could show that <Religion X> families are significantly more likely to be abusive; to be overly strict in applying doctrine; even to forbid Harry Potter. Is it bigoted, then, to show families doing this, and even to imply that it is the doctrine? I am of the opinion that churches are as churches do, and if a given church has a lot of over-strict members, then it is to blame even if its official doctrine may be more lenient.
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I read the excerpt- sylistically, I don't think I could make it through the whole thing. The offensiveness of the LDS references is hard to say from the excerpt. The C. S. Lewis reference made me think that the author doesn't know much (The girl reads C.S. Lewis and then asks in a whisper for more fantasy, knowing a good LDS girl would never go there). I have heard so many C.S. Lewis quotes in Sacrament that it made me go, wait, is she saying Lewis is bad, cause it would be hard for me to believe a LDS girl would say that. But, really, someone would need to read the whole thing to say and there is no way I could take 544 pages of it.
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I think people are as people do, and since abuse stems from a multitude of reasons (starting with every society of human beings includes it), then blaming the religion that counsels against it does not seem like a search for the true cause.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Let me argue a hypothetical, for a moment. Suppose we could show that <Religion X> families are significantly more likely to be abusive; to be overly strict in applying doctrine; even to forbid Harry Potter. Is it bigoted, then, to show families doing this, and even to imply that it is the doctrine? I am of the opinion that churches are as churches do, and if a given church has a lot of over-strict members, then it is to blame even if its official doctrine may be more lenient.
Your hypothetical situation certainly justifies it.
Whether Mormonism fits the bill to the extent you or the author of the book have outlined I think is what most people are arguing.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I think people are as people do, and since abuse stems from a multitude of reasons (starting with every society of human beings includes it), then blaming the religion that counsels against it does not seem like a search for the true cause.
Are you seriously saying that if a given religion attracts or creates abusive parents, whether or not in spite of doctrine, that is not a problem with the religion?
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Sorry Karl for the slow reply, I had a couple of issues to deal with here at work.
I would consider the falsely sterotyping of a group of people in a certain way as bigoted. If I wrote a book about a pedophilic homosexual that implied that homosexuals are pedophiles as a matter or course, wouldn't that be called bigoted? If a wrote about a violent black man who held up 7-11s for drug money while leaving a trail of bastard children behind, and implied that a significant portion of black people behave that way, wouldn't that be bigotted?
Not having read the book, I obviously can't conclude with a certainty that the author is strongly linking the Mormon faith to these negative and incorrect stereotypes. That was my impression though, due in a large part to the phrase "places no upstanding Mormon should go" and the assumption that a similar pattern is present in the book. The author seems to have stopped writing about a certain character and broadened statements to include an entire group of people. That is where it becomes wrong and bigoted in my opinion.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I think people are as people do, and since abuse stems from a multitude of reasons (starting with every society of human beings includes it), then blaming the religion that counsels against it does not seem like a search for the true cause.
Are you seriously saying that if a given religion attracts or creates abusive parents, whether or not in spite of doctrine, that is not a problem with the religion?
KOM: I always thought you believed people would do wrong in spite of any religion. Most religionists say that religion does not FORCE change upon people, it simply shows them how they ought to act, as well as the results of those actions.
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quote:If a wrote about a violent black man who held up 7-11s for drug money while leaving a trail of bastard children behind, and implied that a significant portion of black people behave that way, wouldn't that be bigotted?
The only thing wrong with that is the final implication. There are violent, black people who have kids and drug habits and stick up stores.
I even think that it would be okay to slip the final implication in there, if you tell the story from the robber's POV, and the robber believes that he is just doing what anyone else would do in his situation.
There are hypocritical fundie nutjob mormons. There are even children of hypocritical fundie nutjob mormons who believe that the church support their hypocritical fundie nutjob parents.
If we are going to tell the story from such a child's POV, then so be it.
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quote:If a wrote about a violent black man who held up 7-11s for drug money while leaving a trail of bastard children behind, and implied that a significant portion of black people behave that way, wouldn't that be bigotted?
The only thing wrong with that is the final implication. There are violent, black people who have kids and drug habits and stick up stores.
That was the point I was attempting to make. Certainly the people like that exist. But to say the person exists like that because they are black (or the pedophile because he is a homosexual, or the abusive, HP hating, alcholic because he is Mormon) is where character development crosses a line.
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"Is it possible to relate an experience that paints an unflattering portrait of specific Mormons without it being bigotry?"
Yes. But you have to (1) know something about Mormons first, and (2) make it clear that your portrait does not extend to Mormons in general. (My favorite unflattering literary portrait of a specific Mormon has got to be Sister LeSueur from Lost Boys. I swear, her long-lost twin lives in my ward.)
Judging from most of the customer reviews, the author has done nothing to distinguish mean Mormons from the regular kind in the minds of readers with no outside knowledge of the subject. The readers are left with the perception that all Mormons are like that, that Mormon men abuse women regularly and get away with it because the women are considered property by church authorities, and that teen girls are not allowed to learn to drive.
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And as regards the fantasy thing, for crying out loud, the quite conservative Church-owned bookstore chain SELLS Harry Potter! How could anybody be clueless enough to think that HP is forbidden for Mormons?
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Irami- From my interaction and observation of you on this forum, I suspect you'd be very upset if the story was a little different. A black girl ran away from her druggie, criminal, abusive father. She concluded that black people were all like that, expressed by a beautiful line of prose, "I shadowed a white family to the library, university, and watched them help in a soup kitchen, places no real black man would go." So she finally finds redemption, dignity, and fulfillment by moving in with a WASP family.
Does this help illustrate where I was coming from with my bigotted remark earlier?
Edited for clarity, a phrase was left out
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You are still writing a point of view story. If you are writing a character who feels this way, then that's the character you are writing.
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quote:KOM: I always thought you believed people would do wrong in spite of any religion. Most religionists say that religion does not FORCE change upon people, it simply shows them how they ought to act, as well as the results of those actions.
No, no - I believe there is a certain baseline of doing wrong, that happens regardless of religion, and then there is a significant addition to that when you add religion to the mix.
In any case, though, you seem to be ignoring the hypothetical context of my question. I am postulating, for the sake of argument, that some given religion has more (statistically significant, controlled for other factors) abusive parents than the baseline. In such a case, is it bigoted to conclude that the religion is the cause, and write your book accordingly?
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Correlation and causation are distinct things and should not be confused. So, not sure you would be bigoted, but definately making a logic error.
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quote:You are still writing a point of view story. If you are writing a character who feels this way, then that's the character you are writing.
I actually agree with Irami here. If the story is from the POV of this girl, and the only Mormons she's ever known are hypocritical fundie nutjobs, she may well make the determination that all Mormons are like that. Does that mean the author feels that way? Maybe, maybe not.
I've written a story where a young woman hates Christians, because she's had terrible experiences with some. As a Christian I certainly don't hate my own religion. But my character did. From her point of view, that hatred was justified, even if I didn't agree with it.
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The bright side is that this book proves anyone can be published, no matter how many blatant misconceptions and how much lack of research their book contains.
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quote:Originally posted by scholar: Correlation and causation are distinct things and should not be confused. So, not sure you would be bigoted, but definately making a logic error.
Sigh... I did very carefully specify 'other things held equal' and 'cause or attract'. Precisely to avoid this problem.
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quote:KOM: I always thought you believed people would do wrong in spite of any religion. Most religionists say that religion does not FORCE change upon people, it simply shows them how they ought to act, as well as the results of those actions.
No, no - I believe there is a certain baseline of doing wrong, that happens regardless of religion, and then there is a significant addition to that when you add religion to the mix.
In any case, though, you seem to be ignoring the hypothetical context of my question. I am postulating, for the sake of argument, that some given religion has more (statistically significant, controlled for other factors) abusive parents than the baseline. In such a case, is it bigoted to conclude that the religion is the cause, and write your book accordingly?
It is impossible to tell whether the religion is the cause. In order to make an accurate judgment one would have to actually see the way the person acts without said religion in their lives. That being said, there are many people in the LDS church who don't even remotely understand what it really is. Often these people will take liberties in interpreting church doctrine and use their own interpretations to force others to bend to their own will. Our own scriptures and all of the leaders of the church have expressly forbidden this type of attitude. However, because it is impossible for church leadership to really determine how parents treat their children in their own homes, such people who abuse the religion to hurt their families often go without correction.
I don't think that interviewing ONLY ex-LDS and getting their perspective is very un-biased at all. Unless the author's purpose in the creation of the book was to show how a teenager would fall away from the church and choose to not be a member anymore. It would certainly be more balanced if the author had put in the effort to find some members who had been abused but stayed members of the church. I would be infinately more interested in someone like THAT'S story than someone who was abused and chose to blame it on the religion rather than their parent.
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By that logic, it's impossible to say whether antibiotics save lives, because you can't see what would have happened if you didn't give the medicine. Is the concept of 'statistically significant, other factors held constant' really so difficult for people to grasp?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: By that logic, it's impossible to say whether antibiotics save lives, because you can't see what would have happened if you didn't give the medicine. Is the concept of 'statistically significant, other factors held constant' really so difficult for people to grasp?
Yeah, so where are your numbers stating that religious people are more likely to be abusive to their children? Or should I remind you that Correlation doesn't equal causation?
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Perhaps you did not spot the 'hypothetical' in my previous posts? And fer ghu's sake, correlation does equal causation when you've carefully controlled for confounding factors!
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Perhaps you did not spot the 'hypothetical' in my previous posts? And fer ghu's sake, correlation does equal causation when you've carefully controlled for confounding factors!
So where would the control be, here? You can't place controls in real life, my friend. There are so many factors that have to be accounted for that an answer to your hypothetical is impossible to determine.
edited for redundancy Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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