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This may sound off the wall, but I’ll try it anyway. This morning North Korea announced the death of Kim Jong Il.
The state news organization showed (again) the reaction of the people in this country prostrate with grief.
As I understand it, he is looked on as a (or almost) God. If that’s possible in a communist country.
The thoughts that came to me:
1. Is it human nature to want a strong leader to follow? In this way we don’t have to figure things out for ourselves. It makes life similar. We just have to look to the leader for answers. We look to the leader for approval. When they die, we feel emotional grief even when we don’t really know them.
2. Do we also want strong leadership in the church for the same reasons?
3. In the early history of the church, strong leadership was needed. Is it needed today?
4. Why?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to make a comparison between communist North Korea & the LDS church. I’m just reflecting, in my simple way, on the nature of mankind. Are there similarities?
Mike from Milton.
Great springboard for a topical discussion. But wow, there’s just nothing like “Supreme Leader” and North Korea. I don’t think you can compare anything you see in the news there to reality or anything that makes sense to us here in the west. The events you will see are staged. It’s impossible to know if the people you see are expressing real emotions. Heck, the news footage might not even be shot in a real city. I have seen a whole Hollywood-style fake village across the border with my own eyes (through binoculars) where they truck peasants in every morning to tend their happy gardens for propaganda purposes, and then truck them out in the evening to where ever it is they really live. The place is truly surreal.
I was active duty in Army Intelligence back in the early 90’s and that was my area of specialty.
I think they look to leaders when there are pressing issues they can’t solve for themselves. Not only do we not have to figure things out for ourselves if we lay down our agency at the feet of leaders, we also don’t have to feel responsible for failing or for the harm we might do to others. The classic and tragic phrase from WWII concentration camp guards: “I was just following orders.” Brigham Young even spoke of this in a sermon when he said this type of blind obedience to leaders and abdication of agency made someone incapable of enjoying exaltation, robbing them of the power they might give to the cause of the Gospel. (note: I think that’s just a powerful example of people in general who obeyed leaders for the wrong reasons. The LDS Church is not a concentration camp.)
I like the theme of “king-men” in the Book of Mormon, coupled with some of the themes of kingship in the old testament. Human nature likes strong leadership to fix intractable problems…sort of a go-to person to fix the chaos.
The ugliest story in the bible, in my opinion, is “the incident at gibeah”, as reflected in Judges 19-21. It is a fascinating story, resulting in a levite sending is whore wife out to be gang raped in gibeah, and then dividing up her dead, ravaged body into 12 pieces and mailing her remains to the 12 tribes. It caused a reaction to say the least, where the 11 tribes, with god’s blessing, killed off most of the benjaminite men, because they refused to give up the alleged guilty to be mob-lynched. The story is commenced and finished with idea that this happened when (and because) “there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” This then is followed up with the selection of Saul to be king in Samuel.
Later, in Hosea, the Lord reveals that when Israel, after the incident at gibeah, insisted on being led by a king instead of his spirit, the lord gave them kings…bad ones.
The hard part for me of laying down my agency at the feet of leaders is that some people really do put their brain on the shelf in the process. If you try to talk about alternative ways of doing things that break from established norms, even as mere philosophical chit chat, people pull the apostasy card on you. I find that very frustrating when it has happened to me in the Church. The key is to recognize when you are talking to someone who has the capability to think, create, and challenge, without seeing it as a threat to their testimony or evidence of disloyalty — at least, in the Church. I don’t think it is ever wise to put your brain on the shelf — particularly when the status quo requires you to do something which violates your conscience.
Now, one theory of ethics indicates that you make ethical decisions based on consequences. You look at the cost of being ethical, and compare it to the cost of violating your ethics. If the cost of obeying your ethics is higher than the cost of violating those ethics, you might consider acting unethically.
Mike wrote:Is it human nature to want a strong leader to follow? In this way we don’t have to figure things out for ourselves. It makes life similar. We just have to look to the leader for answers. We look to the leader for approval.
My wife comes to me all the time wanting me to make decisions or at least ratify her decisions. She asks me, “Would it be bad to do this?” And I tell her that it would not be “Bad,” that it is a cost benefit analysis and one should weigh the options both of which usually carry some risk. Then she may ask me what she should do and I tell her what I would do in her shoes. If I’m feeling particularly ornery I may follow up by saying that there are unknown variables for both options and that when those variables become known (through the passage of time) I may very well be proved wrong.
Am I teaching her to think for herself or just depriving her of the comfort and confidence of a more sure answer?
Roy wrote:Am I teaching her to think for herself or just depriving her of the comfort and confidence of a more sure answer?
You are answering a question she didn’t ask, and likely has no interest in knowing the answer to. I have the same tendency.
It is interesting to consider the leadership styles of other churches & religions. Most Prodestant churches seem to have weak leadership at the top & no enforcement of rules & regs.
As a Methodist, I can never remember anyone being excommunicated. Or at least, they didn’t announce it.
The Catholic church seems to have a strong top leadership & little (or selective) enforcement of the rules.
The Evangelical churches usually have strong top leadership & strict belief system & I assume enforcement.
For the LDS church, we seemed to start with JS saying “I teach them correct principles & they govern themselves”.
Currently, we have to have tithing settlement & temple interviews to receive the fulness of the gospel.
My guess is: over time, as a church grows & doctrine becomes more complicated, the top leadership makes a series of decisions about
control. Do we want to control? To what degree? & How do we enforce control?
I wonder if the church does “cost benefit (type) analysis” to determine what areas of the world are best serviced by our Missionaries?
Areas where the missionaries would have the most success. For example: high areas of Prodestant population 1st, Catholics 2nd & all others 3rd.
Am I being too stereo typical?
I think I have too much time on my hands.
Mike from Milton.
At the extremes, there is either: 1) Rigid control of everything
or
2) Chaos
Leadership is trying to figure out the best balance between those two extremes – and the proper balance varies, sometimes greatly, depending on the organization and the situation. Sometimes the proper balance changes even for a single organization – and being able to change the balance without ruining the organization isn’t easy. Most small business that once were successful yet ultimately fail do so, at the most fundamental level, because they mismanged necessary change – by refusing to change or by changing too much or too quickly.
We have issues of control and bad leadership for one reason:
It’s inevitable.
It just “is” part of life.
There ain’t no way around it.
Figuring out the balance that works for you personally is the key – and that’s not easy, when “you personally” is part of multiple organizations with multiple needs and multiple leaders with multiple personalities and leadership qualities.
I think the issue is information. From what I gather the average North Korean is spoon fed information that is conducive to the regime. It is very difficult to get any kind of non biased news. It is natural then the people would follow the leader that is portrayed as near God like and infallible, even when the country is falling apart around them. Do you really think the people in North Korea would be so willing to follow their leader if they had a true representation of all his exploits and failures. Some would still becsue they are so vested in the current system that to change and believe something new would be to much to process. Easier to go along with what you are told. But many would make the leap if given the information.
It is a familiar pattern played out in many places and organizations throughout history. So you might say the Internet is the game changer for the world to come. Access to information is a dangerous thing to those who are in control.
Cadence wrote:From what I gather the average North Korean is spoon fed information that is conducive to the regime. It is very difficult to get any kind of non biased news. It is natural then the people would follow the leader that is portrayed as near God like and infallible, even when the country is falling apart around them.
This is correct. They are the most isolated nation on the planet. The average citizen has no access to information from outside their country, and few people are even left still who remember clearly what life was like before the Korean War. They are constantly fed a story about how lucky they are to be “free” and prosperous, and how important it is to defend their homeland against the capitalist aggressors who are waiting at any moment to pillage and enslave them to work in their factories and farms. This is reinforced with selectively edited news from the west about violent crime, protests and suffering. I bet you anything they are eating up the Occupy Wallstreet news and video footage, and turning it to look like widespread revolution against the western “dictators.”
The DMZ, the border between north and south at the 38th parallel, is the most heavily fortified place on the planet. It is beyond surreal to be there. The war never ended. It’s just a cease-fire agreement that has managed to last, barely, for 50+ years.
Quote:Brian Johnston ยป 20 Dec 2011, 07:53
Brigham Young even spoke of this in a sermon when he said this type of blind obedience to leaders and abdication of agency made someone incapable of enjoying exaltation, robbing them of the power they might give to the cause of the Gospel.
This quote sounds wonderful. Do you have the exact words and/or its source? I’d love to get a copy.
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