 Okay. Well, yeah. I'm Joseph West. I'm a director and founding member of the MTA, sociologist by training, kind of to just give you the full disclosure of where I'm at. I consider myself a believing authentic Mormon. I'm a member of the LDS Church, not currently active. My last two talks, so the title is The Demands of Authentic Mormonism, which I always think that I'm bad at titles. I don't know if that's really an accurate description of the talk, but previous talks that I've given have sort of laid out what I mean by authentic Mormonism. Okay. And I'm so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that other than to say that I've made sort of historical and sociological arguments for claiming that authentic Mormonism means basically kind of like Nauvoo Mormonism. Okay. So the essential beliefs are theosis, radically humanistic interpretations of atonement, the king fall at discourse. And in terms of practice, I'm talking about development of temple ordinances, attempts to tie communities together in new ways, sometimes radical ways, willingness and open-mindedness towards radical social experiments in terms of how we organize families and how we organize economies. Okay. So that's what I mean by authentic Mormonism. So I want to talk about the Mormon people, who we are and where we're going and who I even mean by we, the diversity of Mormon of expressions in Mormonism and in subcultural movements within the Mormon world, the Mormon field of cultural production as I kind of like to talk about it. And so just to begin with a little bit of sociology, there's lots of ways to think about collective action. But when social movement scholars talk about a social movement, they mean something specific that contrasts with other ways to think about collective action. So a social movement, which I'm going to argue that the MTA is or at least should consider itself, is collective. These are the features of the definition sustained over time. So basically like a riot or spontaneous organization of people is not a social movement, seeks to change society or something about society and seeks this change. This is sort of the key. Seeks this change outside of institutionalized means of airing grievances. Okay. So like a political party is not a social movement. And because it's not because a political party is engaging in these institutionalized process that does bring about change. Okay. And so assumed by this definition of a social movement is a kind of basic model about how society works and how it changes. And this is an agonistic view of the social world. Okay. There are dominant groups who have power and society changes when people acting collectively meet those who are in power with sustained resistance from below. And what I kind of want to point out about that is that this, I think, I mean, I would argue, and actually Christopher's talk was kind of goes against this point, but that for Mormonism, the idea of an opposition in all things implies this similar view of the world. Okay. So the thing that Christopher said was that second Nephi chapter two is not about conflict, but about contrast. And maybe I'm not understanding him completely. And I think that I do want to say something about that because it's essential to kind of what I want to argue is that trying to say that when Mormons believe this oppositional things, meaning is the result of conflicting desires. And to reduce it to saying it's just about contrast or distinction is kind of an inflection that takes away the inconvenient details of that distinction is the basis for oppression. And so I think that, so anyway, I don't know, I think that when I'm talking about social movement theory, I just want to make the argument that this is consistent with a Mormon view of the world. That's the main point. Okay. Okay. One other point about that, that for Mormonism, we have like a model of how this, of how the world works. And there's two ways that are presented in our canon, our scriptures, for how to deal with this conflict, okay, to archetypes. And Lincoln actually talked about this in his talk, that there is the archetype of Satan who deals with this problem through the oppression of those whose desires conflict with his own. Okay. And on the other hand, there's the archetype of Christ, which is about seeking mutual fulfillment of all individuals in spite of this conflict and desires, even if that requires sacrifice and sometimes suffering and even death temporarily. But both archetypes are about this struggle, okay, over this conflict of that is our world. And, okay, all right. There are several forms of collective action, several movements. These aren't all social movements, but these are all sort of forms of collective action within the world of Mormonism. Obviously churches are organizations, any kind of organizations. I'm going to talk about symbolic boundaries and how the MTA, trying to make some practical recommendations here, should be defining itself relative to two of these. So I'm going to kind of talk about like the MTA defining itself in terms of like liberal sort of secular post Mormonism on one hand and a more kind of like conservative Protestant Mormonism on the other hand. Okay. So, but first, just a tiny bit more sociology. I'll try not to make it too boring and be quick with it. Let's see. The most important question in the contemporary study of collective action social movements is how to maintain it, okay? So contemporary social movement studies begins with the observation that grievances are ubiquitous. There used to be this idea that if people were just mad enough, they will collectively act and do something to change it, okay? But the beginning of a contemporary social movement studies begins with this idea that, well, grievances are actually ubiquitous and collective action is actually very rare, very difficult to maintain and sustain. So why? How do we explain an attempt to be scientific about it? How do we explain when those movements are successful? And economists can talk about this problem, the thing that prevents collective action from being sustained, they call it the free rider problem, which basically means that whenever you have people gather together in a community, they tend to create collective goods, okay? And those goods are, those are good for the people in the community, but there's an incentive for, quote unquote, rational actors to partake of those collective goods without putting in the effort to sustain and build that collective entity, okay? So this is the free rider problem, and it ends up being, it is a huge problem. It ends up being what bogs down collective actors and prevents mobilization from occurring and sustaining itself, okay? And sociologist Rodney Stark, who some people might be interested in because he did extensive work on the sociology of Mormonism, and Stark and his colleagues took this insight, this sort of economic insight, even though he's a sociologist, to explain why strict churches tend to be stronger in our contemporary culture because strict churches create strong symbolic boundaries, and strong symbolic boundaries enable members of the group to monitor each other, because if you have strong symbolic boundaries, everyone within those boundaries knows who each other is, okay? So you can monitor each other and make sure that there isn't free riding, that's kind of, and I would say that the things like the temple recommended were actually sort of directly in sociological terms, kind of like addressing this, making sure that there isn't free riding going on, and, but I actually think that there's another way, non-economic way to think about this, it's a similar thing, it's called subcultural identity theory, and the theory has two parts, and I'm going to talk about one. The first is explaining why religion still exists in a contemporary world, despite the science, the advent of science, that's the subcultural identity theory of religious persistence, but the thing that I want to talk about is this theory of religious strength, so it's a very similar thing, it's like how do we maintain successful collective action mobilization, okay? And he's talking specifically about religious groups, the book that this comes from is actually about explaining why American evangelicalism was so, remained so strong, it was written in 1998, but here's what he said, in a pluralistic society, those religious groups will be relatively stronger, which better possess and employ the cultural tools needed to create both clear distinction from and significant engagement and tension with other relevant outgroups, short of becoming counter-cultural, okay? So what that means is that part of the reason why these strict churches are stronger is because they are good at picking fights with groups that are different, making those conflicts public in the sense that people can observe it, and this creates strong symbolic boundaries that empowers the people on the inside, and let's see, so okay, I guess another thing, I keep, I kept like adding to my notes, that's why I'm worried about going overtime, based on all the talks, because I thought these were such so many great talks, but okay, I think this is why not from a theological perspective, but from a practical perspective, energy towards universalism tends to have difficulties succeeding, and okay, so, oh yeah, oh one other point, on this sub-cultural identity theory, on Carl's talk, he talks about to the Jews a stumbling block to the Greeks foolishness, but that is exactly an illustration of this point, so like a group that's capable of identifying themselves and defining themselves against the Greeks on one side and the Jews on the other side, that is in part, according to this theory, an explanation for their success, okay, because they have strong symbolic boundaries and are able to to be mobilized on the inside of those symbolic boundaries, okay, eight minutes, here we go, I'm going to do this quick, frames just means, it's like a term in social movement theory that's whoever, who has the power to frame what happened to frame the meaning of events, that's very important in determining outcomes, and then the last one, this is the most nerdy one, sorry, discursive opportunity structures, that means that in these, when we experience these sort of like events that happen and then there's discussion about it, we have to pay attention to opportunities that arise that allow us to put in our discourse, okay, that are favorable to what we want to add to the debate, and okay, because I'm going to talk about that, all right, collective action in the world of Mormonism, first just some brief thoughts about sort of the Mormon stories community, which I'm kind of lumping these together, I don't know if they go well together, but probably some people within those communities would disagree with that, but I'm going to kind of try to speak generally, so this is a picture of John DeLynn whose high profile was excommunicated as he's the founder of Mormon stories, okay, so here is a critique of Mormon stories that was written by Rosalind Welch a couple of years ago, so there's been a lot said recently about this same thing, but I think these quotes are particularly illustrative of a way of thinking about it that I kind of want to critique, okay, so Mormon stories has not brought to light any new historical interpretation, the organization does not feel any actual intellectual void, okay, so the assumption that it's an intellectual void that's needing to be filled, still it did represent a novel contribution to the landscape of Mormon, and that's Mormonism, and she's talking there about the ways that enabled people to come together in unique ways using technology, but she also says, this is hardly a remarkable achievement, feelings of community are easy to generate on the internet, simply by provoking any intense emotion in the audience of providing a place for discussion, okay, so I think that this, what these illustrate is a sort of, I don't know, I kind of want to say they're representative of what I think is kind of a myopic perspective from faithful Mormon intelligentsia on, as they see these kind of like post-Mormon communities and Mormon stories type of things, okay, so, and let's see, I'm running out of time, okay, so I want to argue instead that not because of some intellectual contribution, but that John DeLynne has forever shaped the path of Mormonism, okay, 50 years from now, you're not going to be able to tell this story by telling how, what took place in these communities shaped the way that we think about Mormonism, okay, and the reason why that is is because this is going to get us back to discursive opportunity structures, Theodore Adorno said, the need to let suffering speak is a condition for all truth, okay, and so going back to this how things become reconciled in this world of conflict and what social movement theory has to say about that, social movement theory doesn't have a moral prescription for that, but it does offer us a chance to examine empirically the prescription that is made by our religion, which is this following this archetype of Christ, become Christ in seeking mutual fulfillment, okay, and when Adorno talks about allowing suffering to speak as the condition of truth, we're still in the Mormon world talking about truth as defined in this 93rd section of the Doctrine and Covenants as knowledge of things past, present, and future, okay, defined both in terms of knowledge which is subjective and things which is objective, so this kind of gives this existential emphasis where truth rather than being about a set of propositions that corresponds to a set of things in the world is more about talking about truth as a path to truth, okay, and it introduces this social element, this socially constructed part of it, and we cannot attain that without allowing those who are suffering under the current sort of like discursive regime to make their feelings known, and that is what Mormon stories did on a mass level, and that's why it caught on so fast, and so, okay, what I want to say about that in terms of what the MTA, how the MTA should respond to that is one other quick thing, so this is, this book, it's a document, a letter to a CES director, which has gotten a lot of attention, and it's basically kind of a kind of a anti-Mormon might be too strong, but it's basically this particular author as the subtitle indicates felt a need to explain why his testimony was lost, and I mean to sum it up is just all this evidence after evidence that, well, the reason I don't believe in these things anymore is because these things are kind of stupid, these beliefs are dumb, and that's why, and so, but what I see in all this kind of discourse is not just an explanation of like, well, these things are dumb, and so I don't believe them anymore, and you shouldn't either, but also it's a condemnation of where the individual used to be, okay, so it's sort of like an expression of shame of the past belief in those things, and I think that this shame, and actually this is like hugely related to another earlier talk, that recognizing a deeply misrecognized, but deeply influential shame that's at the result of a lot of this kind of post-Mormon, ex-Mormon discourse has huge implications for understanding where we should place ourselves discursively, the MTA, relative to that, okay, and I think the reason, and what we can offer that is I think the source of this shame is ultimately rooted, actually, in the romanticism of Mormon discourse. Can you totalize? Can you make whole? Can you make perfect? And if you can't, disappointment, okay, of course Mormonism is a romantic project, we are striving for perfection, and we do claim to believe that we're the only true and living church on the face of the earth, the LDS church, but if these romantic ideas are understood too literally and in two concrete ways, they become this mess of lies that distract us from practical tasks, practical questions, okay, because Mormonism is a very fragile religious project, but it's also predicated upon a fragile religious project that has great potential, but is predicated upon marginalization and subjugation of women, past marginalization and discrimination of people of African descent, and even present discrimination against gays and lesbians, so that's not, okay, so it has great potential, but there's a notion that we have it all, or that we will ever have it all, that's got to go, you got to push that to the side, and once you push that to the side, it tends to evacuate this language of disappointment from the inability to totalize and to make whole, and I think that because the MTA's practical orientation towards the outcome of this diverse prophetic visions of Mormonism, we have an opportunity to create a discourse that can do just that, okay, that can sort of take away this romanticism that is at the root of sort of these shameful feelings of what we, of people think that they were lied to, that they feel that they were dumb for believing these particular things, and okay, all right, conservative Protestant Mormonism, just, this is, I have to make this point so briefly, but this is a chart of LDS growth rates, I think I still need to speak into the mic, and this is kind of, I'm just making a coy little point here, is like growth rates for the LDS church is, this only goes 2008, it's gone, it's continued to go lower each year, and actually if you net out birth rates, there's actually attrition in all industrialized countries and high and very low retention rates in non-industrial countries, and so I just put a, this is a thumbnail of the book Believing Christ by Stephen G. Robinson and the year that that was published, and I'm not, okay, I'm suggesting, I'm suggesting that there is a relationship between what I would kind of call the Protestantization of Mormonism, or what sociologist Armand Moss calls assimilation, okay, there's this assimilation process that really was kind of completed around this time, and it's only a few years after the after the publish of this book that Gordon B. Hinckley has asked, do you believe that man, that God is as man once was, and that man may become God, and Gordon B. Hinckley says, oh, I don't know if we believe that, okay, so this assimilation process of trying to dissolve the some symbolic boundaries that make us strong collective actors is kind of what is, this keeps changing, how much time do I have? Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, all right, okay, I'm done, I'm done, okay, okay, last point, one last point, and this is where I think, so I think that in terms of liberal discourse, there's less to be done, okay, all we have to do in terms of creating symbolic boundaries on that side is to say, is to affirm an authentic Mormon identity because people who are engaging in this discourse, this is Asip's fable of the Fox who says those grapes are sour, okay, he can't see those grapes, he's reaching for them and he can't reach them, so he says, well those grapes are sour, I don't want them anyway, okay, and to participate in the field of cultural production of Mormonism, of Mormon culture, you have to first affirm the value of the outcome, okay, so we just don't need to do anything that we're not already doing, and I think the MTA is putting too much effort to finding out itself against a liberal culture, the liberal Mormon discourse, and on the other side, I think that a lot more needs to be done to define ourselves against these assimilation processes, okay, I'm talking about the faithful Mormon, the faithful good Mormon in an Elder's Cormor Relief Society class that does not think that we need to do anything practically towards some of these outcomes that we want, and I think that it will only serve to strengthen, I think in the past what has happened is the MTA has been hesitant to marginalize those people and alienate them and scare them away, okay, but I think that to define ourselves more strongly relative to this kind of more conservative Protestantization and assimilated Mormon culture is only going to serve to strengthen the MTA internally, okay, and further empower us and enable us to accomplish the collective goals that we want, sorry I took so long.