It’s not that bad

A while back I started watching the series Under the Banner of Heaven. It’s a mini-series based on a nonfiction book of the same name. The story explores the murder of a woman and child by men who claimed it had been instructed of them by God. They used their spiritual framework as a guise for justifying their extremist views. I couldn’t really get into it, and found the theme more triggering than anything else and so discontinued.

Not long after, I came across this Deseret news article which shares a negative opinion on the film (not surprising for the church-owned media outlet). The author complains that people excuse the film for taking creative liberty and casting the church in a negative and violent light because critics of the church believe the LDS church fosters a culture of psychological violence and misogyny, even if it for the most part eschews physical violence.

“…in certain circles, it’s become acceptable to talk about church teachings and moral norms as a kind of psychological “violence” that leaves people emotionally “traumatized.” As someone who has actually experienced sustained trauma, misogyny and violence, these pronouncements strike me as detached from reality, so much so that they could only come from someone whose life has largely been shielded from actual violence and trauma. That shielding is often a benefit of their association with the church.”

The author then goes on to describe her own violent and traumatic upbringing and how in contrast, the church is like a light in the dark. How the values promoted in the church train youth to be disciplined, respectful, and considerate, unlike the predatory and exploitative men from her life in the ghetto. It was in this harsh and vulnerable state when this writer first met the missionaries at the age of 15.

On so many levels, I can resonate with the sentiment of the author. How can someone attack something that has brought so much good to her life? It feels unfair, undeserved, and extreme. One might even say “detached from reality”. Only someone living a life of peace and comfort could have anything to criticize about the church…

What is bad?

A few months ago, I finished a novel by one of my favorite authors in which two characters had a dialogue I found thought-provoking. One character was a god and the other was a man who had just died. The man asked the god why he let so many terrible things happen. The god talked about how agency was important to him and he needed to let mankind grow by not making life too easy for them. The god worried he had already made life too convenient and as a result, mankind did not work hard enough to improve their situation.

The man who had just died asked why not create a threshold where the god might prevent the worst things from happening. Surely mankind could still grow without such extreme suffering. To which the god responded he already had…

I found this revelation interesting because it made sense that this character couldn’t know what terrible things the world had not experienced that they could have experienced if not for the hand of this god. In essence, his understanding of suffering and joy could only be relative to his own spectrum of experiences and knowledge of others’ experiences.

Deriving bad

When I was a teenager taking my first calculus class, I came up with a theory about human happiness. I’m not sure if there’s any merit to it, but I think it’s interesting to consider. The main idea was that our happiness and satisfaction have nothing to do with our exact circumstances, and everything to do with how our circumstances are changing. We feel happy when our life is getting better, and sad when our life is getting worse, but once we become accustomed to a certain standard of living, we resort back to our default level of happiness. I tried to explain it with graphs and a math-y analogy in this doc, but I think it was more distracting than helpful. Of course I imagine happiness is a bit more complex and involves more variables than just our circumstances, but I think they might have this kind of rough correlation.

Another way to think about this idea is to consider the effects of heroin on the brain. When someone tries heroin for the first time, they are flooded with dopamine and experience a high and euphoria like no other. What happens next though, is the brain tries to go back to a point of equilibrium. The brain becomes tolerant to the drug and neurons become less sensitive to the drug stimulus requiring more to achieve the same effect. Finally comes withdrawal, where normal day-to-day activities are not enough to stimulate the reward center requiring the drug user to take the drug just to feel normal again.

A part of me wonders if this same process that happens with drugs like heroin, happens on a smaller scale for everyone. It doesn’t matter what our circumstances are in life, we all may experience roughly the same range of emotions, sadness and happiness, because our brains adapt to our circumstances to create an equilibrium.

It’s getting better

My last semester in college, I took a class on China.  My teacher mentioned something that still stands out to me. I don’t remember the context, but it had to do with the peoples’ satisfaction, protests, and the Chinese government— something about how the people were happy so long as their lives were getting better.

Recently I read a similar article regarding how Russians feel about Vladimir Putin. While many don’t think he’s the best guy, they support him for what he’s done to improve the life of Russians who have had it very hard since the collapse of the Soviet Union. No, he’s not perfect, but life under him is better than what they were experiencing before.

And so has been the mantra I’ve heard regarding the LDS church, especially among those who are older. “It’s getting better”. It’s not as bad as it used to be. It’s changing.

Such is the generational divide between those who have experienced worse and those who now have a higher standard for what to expect from life. Things may be getting better, but are they getting better fast enough to still be relevant and “good” in this fast-changing world?

Empathizing with another

So finally back to the author of that Deseret news article who thinks those who have been traumatized by the church are “detached from reality”. It’s true. Our reality is clearly much different than hers. You could say we are “detached” from her reality. We have a much different standard for what to expect from life.

I mean… What’s wrong with being emotionally abusive? It’s not like being physically abusive. Racism isn’t that bad. It’s not like we’re still segregating races. Even that wasn’t terrible. I mean, we’re not keeping people as slaves anymore.

…

I am certainly proud of how far we’ve come as the human race. I do still feel like we have much farther to go. I don’t think we can ever eliminate pain and sorrow from the world because I think it’s the relativity of experiences that make things meaningful. I do, however, think we can still do better.

One way we can do that is by validating each others’ experiences. Rather than saying “at least [what you’re experiencing is not as bad as this other thing]”, we can focus on the very real feelings that people have regardless of how their experiences compare to ours.