Some understanding
I have continued to read the comments about the FLDS show on Oprah on her blog. If you are interested, look here:
http://www.oprah.com/community/thread/104502
This is a public post.
Many are, as I said, quite reasonable. But some people are so in favor of the FLDS from this show that it boggles my mind. However, I have forced my self to read what they are saying and trying to figure out why. This has made me a little less panicked and depressed about the future of humans in general.
It's the canning. And the home schooling. It's "Little House on the Prairie" fantasy life. It's a lack of understanding of what cults do, and just believing that if people SAY they live in Christ like love 24X7 and they enjoy weeding in Texas wearing long underwear, sneakers and a full length dress then it MUST BE TRUE.
(Personally, I am all for STRIVING to live in Christ Like Love. Saying you are there is just a TAD arrogant.)
I think there is a totally unrealistic sense of nostalgia in Working Moms for the "Road Not Taken", a sense of nostalgia that is based on having never HAD to live the stay at home mom life because you had no other choice. I think that the appropriate cure for this is to locked in a room listening to "Stand by your Man" and reading the 1970's newspaper section titled "Want Adds: Ladies" for a whole day.
There are some real human needs that our society is not fulfilling. The sense of extended family, of not raising your kids alone, of raising the barn together with your neighbors. A sense of satisfaction in your work that is not related to your paycheck amount. I think that we could do so much more to get this sort of support and satisfaction than we do. The nuclear family, capitalist greed, two working parents model has some serious negative trade offs. But the thing is SO DO THE OTHER MODELS of living. We can always improve, and I think with the economic collapse and teenage girls sending people nude pictures of themselves on cellphones, there is a certain amount of assessment going on about what's wrong with our society. But let's not throw personal liberties and education and capitalism and other little details of our lives out the window cause we're worried about the kids and the car payment.
Folks, think about your relatives, neighbors, people in your church or barony; your community. Your real ones, not the fantasy Little House on the Prairie community where everyone pitches in and no one is a neurotic dead weight, but your real community. Do you REALLY want to share a house with them? Buy land together? Start a business and depend upon it with them? Forever? Do you really want to share a kitchen with 4 women (whether or not you share your husband....just focus on the idea of letting some other woman chose the paint and curtains and counter top and what your kids are going to eat today).
There is also a kind of 'noble savage' thing going on. The idea that because you weed vegetables, you are morally superior. This is incredibly stupid and sort of dangerous idea. The fact that you take care of cows does not make you NOT a child molester or wife beater. In fact, I think when there is very little external oversight like school teachers, outside doctors, parents at the soccer game who don't go to the same church, etc....then nothing is putting the brakes on many forms of abuse and dysfunctionality. These people not only abuse their daughters, they have trained their daughters to be GRATEFUL for the abuse. When the daughters are unhappy, they think THEY have failed, not the abusers. You can't do that with outside influences - you HAVE to move to the compound and cancel cable to pull that off.
Another thing that's happening philosophically inside of me is a total distrust of high-dogma religions. Don't get me wrong, I am a religious person and I have my own beliefs. But it seems to me to really get some bad stuff going in a group dynamics sense, you need some serious structure to your belief system. Once you start saying with feeling that you are God's chosen and everyone else is doomed and your children should not be tainted by THEM so let's close the library and not let anyone leave the 'ranch', look out. The minister is about to have a sex scandal. Really. And someone is already embezzling money. Trust me on this.
http://www.oprah.com/community/thread/104502
This is a public post.
Many are, as I said, quite reasonable. But some people are so in favor of the FLDS from this show that it boggles my mind. However, I have forced my self to read what they are saying and trying to figure out why. This has made me a little less panicked and depressed about the future of humans in general.
It's the canning. And the home schooling. It's "Little House on the Prairie" fantasy life. It's a lack of understanding of what cults do, and just believing that if people SAY they live in Christ like love 24X7 and they enjoy weeding in Texas wearing long underwear, sneakers and a full length dress then it MUST BE TRUE.
(Personally, I am all for STRIVING to live in Christ Like Love. Saying you are there is just a TAD arrogant.)
I think there is a totally unrealistic sense of nostalgia in Working Moms for the "Road Not Taken", a sense of nostalgia that is based on having never HAD to live the stay at home mom life because you had no other choice. I think that the appropriate cure for this is to locked in a room listening to "Stand by your Man" and reading the 1970's newspaper section titled "Want Adds: Ladies" for a whole day.
There are some real human needs that our society is not fulfilling. The sense of extended family, of not raising your kids alone, of raising the barn together with your neighbors. A sense of satisfaction in your work that is not related to your paycheck amount. I think that we could do so much more to get this sort of support and satisfaction than we do. The nuclear family, capitalist greed, two working parents model has some serious negative trade offs. But the thing is SO DO THE OTHER MODELS of living. We can always improve, and I think with the economic collapse and teenage girls sending people nude pictures of themselves on cellphones, there is a certain amount of assessment going on about what's wrong with our society. But let's not throw personal liberties and education and capitalism and other little details of our lives out the window cause we're worried about the kids and the car payment.
Folks, think about your relatives, neighbors, people in your church or barony; your community. Your real ones, not the fantasy Little House on the Prairie community where everyone pitches in and no one is a neurotic dead weight, but your real community. Do you REALLY want to share a house with them? Buy land together? Start a business and depend upon it with them? Forever? Do you really want to share a kitchen with 4 women (whether or not you share your husband....just focus on the idea of letting some other woman chose the paint and curtains and counter top and what your kids are going to eat today).
There is also a kind of 'noble savage' thing going on. The idea that because you weed vegetables, you are morally superior. This is incredibly stupid and sort of dangerous idea. The fact that you take care of cows does not make you NOT a child molester or wife beater. In fact, I think when there is very little external oversight like school teachers, outside doctors, parents at the soccer game who don't go to the same church, etc....then nothing is putting the brakes on many forms of abuse and dysfunctionality. These people not only abuse their daughters, they have trained their daughters to be GRATEFUL for the abuse. When the daughters are unhappy, they think THEY have failed, not the abusers. You can't do that with outside influences - you HAVE to move to the compound and cancel cable to pull that off.
Another thing that's happening philosophically inside of me is a total distrust of high-dogma religions. Don't get me wrong, I am a religious person and I have my own beliefs. But it seems to me to really get some bad stuff going in a group dynamics sense, you need some serious structure to your belief system. Once you start saying with feeling that you are God's chosen and everyone else is doomed and your children should not be tainted by THEM so let's close the library and not let anyone leave the 'ranch', look out. The minister is about to have a sex scandal. Really. And someone is already embezzling money. Trust me on this.