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Understanding the Driving Force of a Movement

For a traveler of the interior West, few books are more natural to choose than Wallace Stegner's "Mormon Country." Nevertheless I had never read it until recently, after a friend put it into my hands. Stegner did an admirable job of being unprejudiced about Mormonism per se. Clearly, he was more interested in the human story of the Mormons than theological doctrines, and rightly so, considering the drama of the Mormon story.

Somewhere in the book, Stegner said (more or less), "After the faith had subsided a bit, the driving force was still there." But then he didn't say what that driving force was! That is really the question that interests me. Although the non-Mormon reader today may have no interest in Mormon theology, it was important to the Mormons of the time. Their great efforts were predicated on a theology that convinced them...but of what?

Stegner can be forgiven for not really explaining what the Driving Force was. It is difficult to look back into time and guess people's psychology merely from external actions or their beliefs-on-paper.

Cause and effect become confused here. Was there something unique in the theology that created the Driving Force, or was the theology merely the rationale for real forces that lay underneath?

One clue comes from looking at the geography of their birthplace: western New York state, a land of displaced New Englanders. Harvard didn't believe in God anymore. The thin soup of Deism and Unitarianism didn't meet people's emotional needs, which is really what religion is all about. But perhaps the Puritan DNA was looking to erupt in some new direction, and Mormonism was one of those outlets. (Abolitionism and Prohibitionism were others.)

Mormon culture took on characteristics redolent of the early Puritan settlers of New England, who had suffered persecution in the old country, and had crossed the Atlantic Ocean in an era when that was no small accomplishment. The Puritans had carved their New Jerusalem out of a wilderness; and had established a theocracy and a culture of hard work, cleanliness, and order.

But let's put aside the Puritan-American perspective in looking at the Mormons, and look for something more universal. Consider the psychology of the early days of the French Revolution or the Bolshevik takeover of the Romanov dynasty in Russia. It might seem paradoxical to compare religious eruptions to overtly atheistic revolutions. But the two extremes share more than they think: they are intoxicated by the notion that 'all things are now possible', and that the old world of vice and suffering are to be left behind. They all visualize a New Jerusalem, a shining city on the hill, and a heaven on earth.

Normally most people have more common sense than that. What would intoxicate them with the idea of Utopia becoming real? They needed to feel strong and confident because of some all-powerful outside force: Liberté! Egalité! et Fraternité! in the French Revolution, 'History' and Dialectical Materialism with the Bolsheviks. 

Here again, the Mormons had an advantage over other Protestant cults during the Second Great Awakening. The rest of them were too mainstream. Pioneering in the American West was a popular and prevalent idea for many impoverished Americans of that era. But Mormon theology was way out of the mainstream: it was a New Dispensation, a new vision, and not just a tweeking of the Protestant revolution of northern Europe in the 1500s. 

Make an analogy with the stock market: the New Dispensation of Joseph Smith was like a new semiconductor transistor stock in the 1960s, or Amazon in 1999.  Mormon competitors were like today's Intel or Hewlett-Packard announcing a new product line.

Comments

XXXXX said…
Interesting. One can only wonder and speculate about the causes of huge shifts in society. These shifts can take a religious or social form or a political one and the causes must be complex, some more evident or obvious than others. But figuring out the exact recipe of the soup is probably impossible.
When I was a kid, I had 2 hamsters. All day long they would strive to find a way out of their cage. Their cage had everything in it they needed to survive yet they constantly strove to get out. Sometimes they succeeded and I couldn't find them for days. I remember thinking, as a kid, that people were a lot like that. Even though they could have a warm house and good food, there always seems to be a striving for something more. Whatever it is, it results n what we call human progress.
The other interesting thing about my hamsters is that they would fight with each other and eventually they inflicted such damage that they both died. People are like that too. Somehow aggression is also part of the driving force.
Anonymous said…
The “Driving Force” of any cult-like religion is a good salesperson. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism certainly was. Think of Mary Baker Eddy and the Christian Scientists; Charles Taze Russell and the Jehovah’s Witnesses; L. Ron Hubbard and the Church of Scientology; Wallace Fard Muhhamad & Louis Farrakahn and The Nation of Islam. These are only a few examples. All these leaders were charismatic and appeared to their followers “to possess supernatural, providential or extraordinary powers” and were the driving force in recruiting disciples.

Chris
It's too bad that YouTube wasn't around in Joseph Smith's day. I would really like to see if he was charismatic or not.
George, let's not just say that the causes are "complex", because that encourages one to give up trying to explain something important. Human beings like to look for one silver bullet when they try to explain something. They dislike seeing four important and explainable causes add up.
Ed said…
kaBLOOnie,

You don't need YouTube; Joseph Smith was charismatic simply by definition. Someone with a quality to influence or the power of authority over large numbers of people. He also claimed, and people believed, that he had a divinely conferred power or talent which is charisma in the theological sense.

Your wish to see him on YouTube would tend to use the definition of charisma as having "compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others". From what little I have read I don't think Joseph Smith would measure up to that definition.

Many years ago I read a a couple of Wallace Stegner books and liked them very much, I'll put him on the 'want' list when I'm making trades. Finding one of his books in what RVers leave in the exchange library is rather doubtful however.
Some of these towns DO give library cards to visitors. Don't limit yourself to the "exchange bin" at the RV park.
Ed said…
I know that most of the towns that stay in, or near, do allow visitors to check out books. But most of them also have some terrible hours of operation. Since I'm making more trips into Sierra Vista than is my usual routine I may try the library here and get a card since this is my 'domicile'.
John V said…
Who were the salespeople for the catholic, jewish, hindu, and muslim cults? They all start out as cults. They graduate to religion status when the membership gets big enough. All the so-called "great" religions had the advantage of being able to develop before the existence of the printing press and other mass media.
John V, when you go back far enough, it seems that the growth of a religion was so slow that maybe it no longer makes sense to talk about an individual charismatic founder. But Mormonism was a sudden eruption.
Ed, wouldn't an AZ library card of some kind also allow access to e-books run by AZ state? Ask the library about that.
sooperedd said…
Humans fear death and what will happen to them in the afterlife. Telling people their only path to eternal salvation is what your "selling" AND all the others are wrong hooks 'em every time. It's that pesky human consciousness again; our own worst enemy...at times.
I agree with what you said, but it doesn't apply especially to the Mormons.
XXXXX said…
It applies to Mormons and every other human alive. Those who see through it though are found in every category of people...every race, every nationality, every religion, both genders, old and young, etc.