Interesting Quote from Hugh Nibley

Love it!!

I have noticed a number of brethren in our ward, and these are some of the mainstreamers, who have eschewed the white shirt in favor of other colors. Could it be a quiet act of rebellion?

Yes, I take whatever is clean and ready to go!

Isn’t it just a little bit ridiculous that it would even be considered an act of rebellion to not wear a white shirt to church?

I think the quote was Nibley complaining about the way the dress and grooming portion of the BYU honor code was applied.

I remember taking some summer classes at BYU. I had driven all night from Las Vegas and went to register. The person behind the desk asked me if I had shaved that morning. I responded that I hadn’t and the question seemed quote irrelevant to me (perhaps I had neglected to read the facial hair small print in some document that I had signed). The person behind the desk said that they could not register me until after I had shaved. I was convinced that I was on some hidden camera TV show but alas, no. I was directed to the gift shop where I could purchase a razor.

I’m absolutely astonished by this.

Isn’t it just a little bit ridiculous that it would even be considered an act of rebellion to not wear a white shirt to church?

Yes, actually, although I accepted that it WAS considered a bit rebellious (or perceived to be) by the leadership, so I stopped doing it out of rebellion. However, I like your idea of doing it out of creating a sense of a balance — the number of times I’ve seen non-mems offended by people who criticize them for their attire is far too high for my liking.

Is there a source or additional context for this Nibley quote? Unfortunately, it sounds too spot-on for me to take at face value – incredulous me. 🙄

Waterman, Brian and Kagel, Brian Kagel. The Lord’s University: Freedom and Authority at BYU. Signature Books. 1998. ISBN 1-56085-117-1

You can also check out the wikipedia reference which quotes him as saying this, and yes, it may well have been in reference to the BYU policies on grooming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Nibley#cite_note-10

It would seem that Bro. Nibley was much more complex than I had originally assumed.

It’s easy for many to write off Bro. Nibley, since in some ways some of his scholarship has become outdated with new information and since he was quite sloppy in many ways in his scholarship – but he was a very, very complex man.

On a personal note, his family also went through their own personal Hell when one of his daughters accused him of sexual abuse – something she discovered through “hypnotic memory recovery” decades after she claimed it happened and only after she officially left the Church because of her sexual orientation (the reason given by her gay former husband) and was trying to sell a book about her reasons for leaving the Church. (That is NOT a negative statement about her orientation. It only points out that she never said a word publicly until she was trying to sell her book – which really is so riddled with inconsistencies and obvious fallacies that it is impossible to take seriously.) The source of her “memory” was SELF-hypnosis, and she actually was molested by a boy in the neighborhood as a child.

I don’t remember if I’ve ever linked to FAIR here, but Boyd Petersen (one of Bro. Nibley’s sons-in-law) wrote a very good article that is housed there about Martha Nibley Beck and her charges. If anyone is interested, the link is:

http://www.fairlds.org/Reviews/Rvw200506.html

Back to Bro. Nibley:

He also wrote some things in his day that only now are starting to be validated, imo. In that way, he really was way ahead of his time.

For an early teen who needed to know it was OK to have an intellectual understanding of scripture that was different than almost everyone around me, he was a Godsend. He probably did as much as anyone to keep me from a full-fledged crisis of faith as a teenager. For that alone, on a deeply personal level, I admire and respect Bro. Nibley.

DAllin H. Oakes gave a talk on that logic — as many BYU students were arguing that the early prophets had beards. Oakes responded that the beards and long hair were a reference to the hippie movement in his day, and that he thought it would change eventually. Eventually seems like a long time….

Because of the evolution of cultures and the continued reinforcement of the underlying values through history, stories, and socialization, cultures tend to be fairly rigid once established. In fact, even as people come and go, the culture tends to persist, which is why trying to change an organization’s culture is so difficult.” Human Resource Management: Managing Employees for Competitive Advantage

Concurrent with this is the Seven-S Model put forward by McKinsey. They said that shared values (culture) is a product of a number of things, such as the skills of the people in the organization, the management style, the systems, the overall structure, the staff hired, etceterera.

In our case as a Church, the staffing characteristics are against change because the leaders of today at the top are there for life. So, there is less opportunity for new blood willing to make large scale changes. The style of the people at the top is autocratic, which strengthens the existing culture. The structure of the Church, with the long arm of the stake in the Wards since the priesthood holders report to the SP, and with the wards crawling with High Councilors, also tends to squelch divergent practices at the Ward level. I think our CHI also is a system-like feature in that it enforces these cultural values. All of these things are self-reinforcing, and several of these “S” factors would need to change simultaneously for their to be rapid change.

Look at what happened with the new CHI. There are some more liberal ideas in it — but the Wards don’t get it, don’t implement it, don’t follow it. It would taking changing a couple of the other S’s in the Seven-S model simultaneously to make the change happen at more than a snail’s pace — if it ever happens.

Someone actually posted something about music in another forum (a TBM one) and suggsted we expand the number of instruments allowed in Sacrament meeting. This was met with mocking and jeers by some long-standing members of the forum, with comments that the proponent of such changes would need “permission from the Prophet” to do that. Well, it came out later in the discussion that all the “new” instruments suggested were in the CHI, as were the cutting-edge suggestions to expand the hymns to songs which are not traditional LDS Hymns but which have a hymn-like quality.

Even with more inclusive statements being made in GC, change is hard and change is long.

Yes, for the reasons I’ve given as at least a starting point.

The tent gets a bit larger every day. Or at least my perception of it does, but isn’t it amazing how much depends on perception? I can feel persecuted in my blue shirt by the sea of white shirts and ties, or I can add balance and contribute my uniqueness to a ward in need of color. Barring an overt act of persecution arising (which hasn’t happened to me yet), the current available data could be interpreted either way.

Love the mochrome/color spin-off from the white shirt/colored shirt issue. I find that if I’m not in leadership, then no one comments on my colored shirt. But if I get into leadership, they insist on the white shirt and tie, and a jacket in one Ward. Yes, we do beat up on the most committed, don’t we?