Notes to Self Regarding Terrible Florida Landlord

Years ago I read Herbert Hoover's memoirs. In it, he writes about being a poor college student attached to a geological field team. Hoover was in charge of accounting for use of government property. Once they had a mule break its neck in the night. The mule was tethered and had tried using its hind leg to scratch its head. The leg got tangled in the tether and when the mule tried to jerk its leg free, it snapped its neck. Hoover had to write to some bureaucrat in Washington explaining why the expedition lost a mule. The bureaucrat wrote back that he didn't accept the explanation, that mules didn't do that, so Hoover had to reimburse the government for the cost of the mule. The head geologist told Hoover he would cover the cost, but it began a life-long obsession for Hoover with proving that mules scratch their heads with their hind legs. Anytime he would see a work of art showing the behavior, Hoover would buy it.

I start this post with that story because that's how I feel about our last landlords in Jacksonville, Florida. I would include their names here if I remembered them. All I remember is they had one of those Christian-adjacent LLC names, like Crossroads or Lighthouse or Abundance or whatever. They were a married couple. The husband was reasonable and the wife refused to spend any money at all. Evidently someone had told her being a rentier was passive income and she couldn't abide the idea of nonpassivity.

When we moved out after living in the house for three and a half years, she did not return our security deposit, telling us that the entire amount was needed to repaint. When I told her that Burley v. Mateo (2010) established that Florida law does not permit retaining a security deposit for ordinary wear and tear, including painting, she stopped replying to my letters.

Last month I was in the library and saw a book entitled Every Landlord's Legal Guide. I flipped to the index and within two minutes found this:

Typically, you may charge for any cleaning or repairs necessary to restore the rental unit to its condition at the beginning of the tenancy, but not the cost of repairing the results of ordinary wear and tear.... One landlord we know uses the following approach when tenants move out and repainting is necessary: ... No one who stays for two years or more is ever charged a painting fee. No matter how dirty the walls become, the landlord always repaints when it's been more than two years since the previous painting. (pp. 228-30)

A side-story about another terrible Floridian I met: I had a woman run a red light and crash into my car. She was very concerned that I not call the police because she was not a legal driver. Her husband arrived and agreed that she ran the red light. They told the insurance company that he was driving and that their light was green. I found two employees from nearby businesses who heard the crash and looked up to see that her light was green, but the insurance company wouldn't take their statements because they were not looking at the light AT THE MOMENT OF IMPACT, only immediately after hearing a noise. The husband of the driver never returned my calls or texts.

I will never forget what it is like to be poor and to have rich people take advantage of you.

NOTES: Nibley, Enoch the Prophet

<p>I recently reread Hugh Nibley's <i>Enoch the Prophet</i> with an eye toward what it has to say regarding Millennial Social Thought (MST). Most of these passages come from the end of the book, and I will relate them here without much comment, just some ideas about Latter-day Saint Zionism.</p><ul><li>Their gathering together is the first step in a long process of withdrawing from a wicked world. (p. 252)</li><li>The interests of the Latter-day Saints in the city of Enoch is not simply a literary or even a scientific one. It is historic and prophetic. The city of Enoch is very much our concern. (p. 255)</li><li>...we are committed to forming as quickly as possible the closest possible partnership with that society. (p. 255)</li><li>Prophets emphasize the moral aspect of Zion, while the Psalms...favor the political. (p. 255)</li><li>...Zion actually has been on the earth in the past and can be enjoyed by the Saints again as soon as they are willing to "return to the original relationship with Yahweh".... (p. 256)</li><li>the only order of society acceptable to God.... (p. 256)</li><li>Zion is any society in which the celestial law is operative.... (p. 256)</li><li>Yachad (lit. unity, oneness) it was a reminder that <i>unity</i> is the first law of Enoch's society by which the Saints are expected to live in every dispensation. (p. 263)</li><li>Until the separation is complete the powers of destruction are held in check. (p. 266)</li><li>The Church itself, never again to be taken from the earth, must ever more closely approximate the Zion of Enoch.... Even though the work is still in its preliminary stages, one is justified in saying "this is the new chapel," when only the foundations are in. (pp. 272-3)</li><li>Let our anxiety be centered upon this one thing, the sanctification of our own hearts.... (p. 274)</li></ul><p>I also ended up with notes to look into the following sources: <i>Journal of Discourses</i> 9:3, 10:306, 15:3, and 17:113; <i>Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith</i> p. 66; Doctrine and Covenants 78, 105, and 119; and "Abraham the Seer" by Martin Buber (1956).</p>

REVIEW: Strickler, This Could Be Our Future

<p>I recently read a book that has a few ideas that could relate to Millennial Social Thought (MST). The book is <i>This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World</i>, by Yancey Strickler. He is a cofounder of Kickstarter, the crowdfunding website. The two points of the book that relate most closely to my interests are Strickler's condemnation of profit maximization as a guilding influence in decision-making, and the idea of Public Benefit Corporations (PBC), a different legal structure for businesses.</p><p>Firstly, he says modern society has been based on the premise of financial maximization, which he says has three components:<ol><li>the point of life is maximizing financial wealth,</li><li>we live in an adversarial world, and</li><li>the first two points are inevitable and eternal.</li><ol>Of course, my training as an economist would tell me that (1) is the result of the liquidity of money and the limitless sources of utility, and that (2) is the result of scarcity. People want to maximize their money value because, as Homer Simpson's brain explains to him when he finds $20 instead of a peanut, "Money can be exchanged for goods and services." Even if I satiate my desire for one means of wellbeing, there are others. Uncertainty about the future and the natural desire for novelty mean that I'm almost never going to get to a point where I think, "I have enough for the rest of my life." Even if I <b>did</b>, I have people around me whose wellbeing is of interest to me, like my children, and they have circles of affinity, too, which might not even exist yet, like their children. How many of them are there going to be, and what are their interests and needs going to be in the future? The safest gameplan is to maximize my financial wealth.</p><p>That's before we even address the fact that the world has finite resources. I know a lot of futurists picture a world where scarcity might no longer hold for some resources, but unless we end up with a superabundance of all sources of utility, there will always be scarcity at least in some metric. So while Strickler presents the dominance of financial maximization as a recent phenomenon (which he pins on Milton Friedman), I view it more as the human condition.</p><p>When Strickler writes (p. 71), "More than employees, customers, or its own future, shareholders and the stock price were the priority" of business, he intends it as an "ain't it a shame" line, but I view this as just the legal necessity of business. The owners want to maximize their welfare, and liquid money allows them to each do that in their own way. When Strickler writes (p. 110), "The case against financial maximization isn't anti-money. It's pro-money. It's just pro-people, too. In service of people, money can be a very positive force," I think the same can be said of financial maximization within a value system. It's not financial maximization that Strickler has a problem with, it's the amoral application of it.</p><p>Strickler wants us to have a constraining value system, which is the idea of PBCs. Instead of existing for the benefit of the shareholders, which produces the motivation of financial maximization, PBCs have explicit values. As Strickler writes, these firms are "maximizing and optimizing for a different set of values" (p. 163); "a broader spectrum of values is so crucial" (p. 152).</p><p>In the 1950s Simon Kuznets and Abraham Maslow developed ideas about humans' ability and willingness to solve problems. Maslow's hierarchy of needs shows that people must solve basic concerns before they are in a position to address advanced ones, and the Kuznets curve shows that we will accept worsening of less-crucial problems as we pursue the improvement of more-pressing ones. If I had to sum up Strickler's argument, I would say that we've become rich enough of a country to sacrifice some financial maximization for the purpose of other goals. That may be true, but it's also something that maybe only someone in a privileged economic position could argue. But that's the audience Strickler is addressing, the people in the influential positions who determine what values their corporations will pursue. He writes, "To go back to Maslow's hierarchy, there are people and organizations that have fulfilled their safety and security needs. They can afford to be more generous and more long-term oriented because they aren't facing profound existential threats every day" (p. 175). Of course, different people will have different opinions about when they've reached that level of security. The more the social contract disintegrates, the more you have to grab for yourself because there will be no safety net should you miscalculate. Retaining more for yourself then further destroys social goods. But things can work in the opposite direction, as well: a more-generous society can encourage me to be less grasping because I know my peers won't allow me to end up destitute. I see Strickler's book as an attempt to coordinate the change of direction. He quotes John Maynard Keynes: "When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals" (p. 194). But it requires a great change to the moral code to dislodge wealth accumulation from the pinnacle of social importance.</p><p>I argued at the beginning of this post that concerns for the future and for others in my circles of sympathy can drive wealth maximization. Strickler sees rational self-interest as producing financial maximization only for me and only in the present (pp.130-3). I think that's just a matter of disagreeing about how much concern people have for their kin and future selves. As Bruce Cannon Gibney argues in <i>A Generation of Sociopaths</i>, the Baby Boomers are a uniquely selfish generation that can't see social or future goals that would discourage the maximization of personal consumption. As Deirdre McCloskey points out, the lack of ethics in economics doesn't mean that we should make economic decisions without a system of ethics. It's the return of public ethics that Strickler needs for his system to work. He tries to convince the rich that they have enough that they can now afford to behave ethically. But I'm not sure that any amount of money is enough to convince an unethical person of that. The ethics have to come first.</p>

REVIEW: Desmond, Poverty, by America

I once read a quote from the author Nick Hornby about how he regrets naming his About a Boy the way he did because it makes for awkward sentences like, "I'd like to ask about About a Boy." I wonder if this author feels the same way about his book Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond. Or perhaps it creates the opportunity for fun, like I can say this post is a review of Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond, by Brandon Minster. Then YOU can write a reply to a review of Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond, by Brandon Minster, by whoever you are. Eventually one of these will get the attention of Matthew Desmond himself, and if HE then replied.... But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

As someone interested in Millennial Social Thought (MST), I take an interest in poverty. The stated goal of economic zionism is the end of poverty. Desmond's book ends with three basic ideas of how to reduce, if not end, poverty in America. But the majority of the book makes an argument that what causes poverty in America is not so much the improvidence or fecklessness of the poor, and not even the indifference of the non-poor, but the actual carefully uninformed approval of the middle class. It's a bold take, given that most people who read the book are probably going to be in this group. But by the time you've read all of his argument, it's hard to disagree.

To begin with, Desmond would define poverty a little differently. Most folks would probably say poverty is a shortage of money, but Desmond writes, "Poverty isn't simply the condition of not having enough money. It's the condition of not having enough choice and being taken advantage of because of that" (p.78). Just as the benefit of money comes from the opportunities and experiences it facilitates, the thing that matters about poverty isn't the small amount of cash in your hand but the exploitation that results. Desmond sets for himself the task of convincing exploiters that they exploit. Not some nebulous, "somewhere" rich person, but you in the suburbs. And to paraphrase the famous Upton Sinclair quote, it is difficult to get a man to understand his exploitative gains when his social position and self-regard depend on him not understanding it.

Hiding most of this from the prosperous is the duality of American life. The middle class think they understand the poor because their lives include the same basic activities: procuring housing, buying food, working for income. But the fact that these things have the same name doesn't mean they are the same activity. As Desmond explains (p. 78),

There is not just one banking sector. There are two--one for the poor and one for the rest of us--just as there are two housing markets and two labor markets. The duality of American life can make it difficult for some of us who benefit from the current arrangement to remember that the poor are exploited laborers, exploited consumers, and exploited borrowers, precisely because we are not. Many features of our society are not broken, just bifurcated. For some, a home creates wealth; for others, a home drains it. For some, access to cresit extends financial power; for others, it destroys it. It is quite understandable, then, that well-fed Americans can be perplexed by the poor, even disappointed in them, believing that they accept stupidly bad deals on impulse or because they don't know any better. But what if those deals are the only ones on offer? What good is financial literacy training for people forced to choose the best bad option?

I once had a job working for a firm that advised banks on schemes to increase financial literacy, but nowhere in those schemes was the underserving of poor neighborhoods addressed. You cash your paycheck at the check-cashing store when the bank branch is a multi-transfer transit ride away, not because you have been misled to think that the check-cashing store is better than the bank.

Desmond also seeks to undermine middle-class anti-welfarism by identifying the many ways the middle class benefit from welfare by a different name. The largest example is the home mortgage interest deduction, which results in a transfer many times that of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Desmond identifies three possible reasons for not seeing tax deductions as welfare. The first is just economic confusion--it can't be a government handout if it never came from the government's hands, right? He patiently explains how letting you keep a sum of money is financially identical to sending you a check for that amount. His second reason is that the well-off believe they are entitled to government assistance, but the poor are not. I guess this would be like looking on government as an insurance program, and if we have paid in through taxes we feel entitled to withdraw. If this is the case, then progressive taxation is actually shooting the poor in the foot, and they'd be better off with a flat-tax system that allows the poor equal claim on government resources because they paid into the system, as well. Finally, Desmond's third possibility is "we like it. It's the rudest explanation, I know, which is probably why we cloak it behind all sorts of justifications and quick evasions" (p. 102).

This is in line with Leo Tolstoy's conclusions in What Then Must We Do?, which Desmond quotes (p. 119).

I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means--except by getting off his back.... It is really so simple. If I want to aid the poor, that is, to help the poor not to be poor, I ought not to make them poor.

But the self-awareness of Tolstoy is missing in the American discourse. We aren't on their backs, they have drug problems. We aren't choking them, no one wants to work anymore. Desmond writes, "If this is our design, our social contract, then we should at least own up to it. We should at least stand up and profess, Yes, this is the kind of nation we want. What we cannot do is look the American poor in the face and say, We'd love to help you, but we just can't afford to, because that is a lie" (p. 102).

Desmond ends with three propositions: "Life the floor by rebalancing our social safety net; empower the poor by reigning in exploitation; and invest in broad prosperity by turning away from segregation. That's how we end poverty in America" (p. 170). It's the second idea that I want to spend some more time pondering. Desmond advocates for replacing profit maximization with profit sufficiency, but what would we take as the idea of sufficient? The long-run growth rate? That's doable, but how do we still get the efficient allocation of resources without the availability of supernormal profits? Extremely high marginal rates? But then how do we undermine the view that government resources are for the wealthy because they paid for them with taxes?

While those questions might remain, Desmond's book is still worthwhile and important. The first step to correcting an unjust system is recognizing the injustice. Poverty, by America does just that, and goes a long way towards making the average American face up to it.

REVIEW: Mason, Restoration, Pt. 5

So there isn't a lot about economics in Mason's book, but what's there is good. However, there are also some areas where I think Mason sails a little too close to the prevailing winds of "enlightened contemporary Mormonism," to coin a phrase. This final post is about those areas.

There are three main areas of what we might call enlightened contemporary Mormonism. They are gender equality, sexual orientation, and ecumenism. The first of these shows up on Page 1, when Mason writes of being called as branch president that "my main qualification being my possession of a Y chromosome and hence the Melchizedek Priesthood." It is NOT the case, as implied by the word "hence," that priesthood ordination is a matter of male DNA. Many men in the world have not been ordained to the priesthood. Many men in the Church have not been ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood. And while it might have been intended as good-natured self-deprecation ("Ha ha, I'm not that great; the only qualification I have for being branch president is that I'm a dude"), it comes across as dismissive of the very idea of divine callings. God doesn't call branch presidents; he has district or mission leaders look around for a male and then say, "Good enough." It is reflective of the hubristic view that says, "God hasn't explained to my satisfaction why we can't have female ordination."

Now, as I've mentioned before, I don't believe that the current situation regarding female ordination is the Lord's final state of things. And I think one of the lessons of the 1978 revelation on the priesthood is that God doesn't force improved structures upon us if we are satisfied with imperfect ones. As Jesus tells the Nephites in 3 Ne. 15:16-24, His disciples at Jerusalem were left with a lesser understanding because they thought they already knew the answer. Mason writes that "one remarkable gift the Latter-day Saints could give would be to more fully reveal our Mother to her children around the world" (p. 81). In the sense of making the limited amount we know about a Heavenly Mother more-widely known, I agree. But we can't reveal something that God hasn't revealed first. We can humbly ask for more information, but we can't petulantly insist upon it. This formulation, that priesthood is male just because, is an assumption that has no doctrinal basis, as is the assumption that anything said of Heavenly Father could be equally said of Heavenly Mother. For instance, Mason writes of "a divine Mother and Father whose entire work and glory is for us to become like they are" (p. 52). While that might be a safe assumption, based on Moses 1:39, the fact is it IS an assumption; we don't know our Heavenly Mother's work and glory. We can't just read "Parents" into every scriptural reference to "Father."

Sexual orientation arrives when Mason criticizes the "nuclear family" focus, saying it can become an idol. He writes, "Our Heavenly Parents' plan of salvation was never focused on preserving your family so much as reconciling and exalting theirs" (p. 52). That's a big stretch that isn't supported by any doctrine. The 132nd section of the Doctrine and Covenants makes a lot of references to having your family, not just some random relatives. Mason's statement ignores that the extended family of God is only exalted in sealed nuclear-family relationships. As Elder D. Todd Christofferson said last General Conference, quoting President Russell M. Nelson at Sister Pat Holland's funeral, "Salvation is an individual matter, but exaltation is a family matter." We don't help our LGBTQ brothers and sisters by pretending that heterosexual sealing is just a policy decision.

Finally, Mason undermines unique truth claims in the effort to sound more reasonable and open to members of other faiths. His explanation of requiring rebaptism of early Church members completely ignores claims to priesthood authority. "This is why rebaptism was necessary for the first members of the church in April 1830," he writes. "It wasn't because God had shut his eyes to the sincere proclamation of faith as demonstrated in many centuries' worth of Christian sacraments" (p. 30). Unauthorized sacraments are not valid ordinances, irrespective of sincerity. This ecumenism is summed up by the laughingly-misconstrued quotation of the 13th Article of Faith (p. 75) that is cut down to only "We believe all things." Is that what Paul was talking about, a "you do you" Christianity that believes any sincere sacrament is valid in the eternities? When Mason writes with little explanation that "a more expansive view of the Restoration can embrace some aspects of secularism" (p. 77), he seems to belittle the heartache of Church members whose family members have followed elightened contemporary Mormonism out of their holy covenants. "What are you so worked up about? They answered the question of 'what does the Restoration mean for you' (p. 34) and decided that sincere sacraments binding their non-Proclamation family unit were just as valid. If you have a problem with that, maybe you've let your nuclear family 'become an idol that blinds and alienates' (p. 52)."

In short, it's tricky. Christ wouldn't have us be too restrictive and live in what Mason calls the fortress church, but neither would He have us too permissive and reduce "the only true and living church" to our idiosyncratic faith tradition. Probably no one is ever going to completely agree with someone else's perferred mix of restrictiveness and permissiveness. Where Mason advocates more permissiveness in economic thinking, I agree. Where he delves into gender equality, sexual orientation, and ecumenism, I think he is not restrictive enough. Loosening our views enough to allow both views in the same Church without loosening them so much that the Church disolves is the challenge of our times.

REVIEW: Mason, Restoration, Pt. 4

From my area of interest, the core of Mason's book is the two pages where he details Church members' current baggage with respect to economic inequality (pp. 65-67). This is more applicable to Millennial Social Thought (MST) than the later section recommending action on refugee and immigrant issues, social justice, and community (pp. 83-7), because those are Zion-adjacent projects that can only be approached once the average member's aversion to consecration is addressed.

Mason begins with the observation that "one of the most consistent targets of divine condemnation throughout Restoration scriptures is inequality" (p. 65). In the Book of Mormon this is mostly tangential--if you don't want to see the economic aspect of the pride cycle, you can pretty successfully ignore it. Even the Zion society built in 4 Nephi can be viewed as a result of the Savior's preceding visit. The reference to the Zion society built by Alma by the Waters of Mormon is a blink-and-miss-it moment (Mosiah 18:29). The only explicit discussion of economic inequality and its evil nature is in Jacob 2.

The Doctrine and Covenants, however, contains many sections with strong condemnation of inequality. Section 38 of the Doctrine and Covenants, received in January 1831, introduces the topic of economic inequality to the Church. It is in this section that we get the repeated instruction to "let every man esteem his brother as himself" (vv. 23-4). We can think of the rare instances that the Lord immediately repeats himself as Tyler Durden verses (from the man who devised the second rule of Fight Club). Another example of Tyler Durden verses is contained in Ezra Taft Benson's April 1989 General Conference talk "Beware of Pride," when he first says, "Pride is the universal sin, the great vice. Yes, pride is the universal sin, the great vice," and later says "Pride is the great stumbling block to Zion. I repeat: Pride is the great stumbling block to Zion." When the Lord or His prophets immediately repeat themselves, you can bet it is important counsel that is widely ignored.

Mason writes, "Jesus was not a capitalist" (p. 65), which to many (too many) members of the Church is fighting words. Perhaps recognizing that, Mason walks it back a little when he adds, "It may be that free market capitalism is the least bad economy that humans can devise and implement in a telestial world" (p. 66), but I disagree. Scriptural Zions were built by mortal people in this, the telestial world. I used to think Zion was something Jesus would bring back with Him, and all we had to do was be ready to enter it. The reality is that Zion is something we are to build that will be here to welcome Him. We can't cling to capitalism until Jesus shows up with its replacement. We must get over our capitalism fetish on our own. That is going to require us to acknowledge that it is NOT the least bad economy that humans can devise. We can do better. Mason mentions an 1875 denunciation of capitalism by the First Presidency (which will be my next project here), wherein the Church leaders called for "an alternative economic system based on the principle of cooperation, not competition" (p. 66). Mason recognizes this duty when he writes later

While the Restoration eagerly anticipates the return of Jesus, it also impels us not to wait until he comes to renovate the world. At the heart of the Restoration message is the clarion call to build Zion--here and now, not tomorrow and somewhere else. [p. 78]

When we adhere so tightly to American capitalism is it any wonder, then that "we picked up America's allergy to talking about inequality" (pp. 66-7), as Mason writes? He adds

At times we have even verged dangerously close to embracing a Latter-day Saint version of the "prosperity gospel," the operating assumptions of which are that God wants us to be rich and comfortable, and that wealth is a sign of his favor. [p. 67]

I will look later at how Jacob 2:19 and Doct. and Cov. 67:2 might support or refute the prosperity gospel. But let's start with an honest assessment of the responsibility we face. We aren't asked to be good capitalists until Jesus arrives with a better system. Recently we've heard more reminders in General Conference that the Restoration is an ongoing process, not something that happened in the 1820s. Mason writes it "will remain ongoing and incomplete so long as there are any poor or 'any manner of -ites' among us" (p. 20). Marion G. Romney once said

This welfare program was set up under inspiration in the days of President Grant. It was thoroughly analyzed and taught by his great counselor, J. Reuben Clark, Jr. It is in basic principle the same as the United Order. When we get so we can live it, we will be ready for the United Order. You brethren know that we will have to have a people ready for that order in order to receive the Savior when he comes.

The welfare program is the training ground. Capitalism is not.

REVIEW: Mason, Restoration, Pt. 3 [EDITED]

[The first version of this stopped after two points because I planned my day poorly.]

So Patrick Mason wants Latter-day Saints to sally outside the fortress church and pursue goal he calls re-enchantment, human identity, religious freedom, refugees and immigrants, social justice, and community, as covered in the previous parts of this review. But before outlining those six goals, Mason identifies six areas where our historical baggage hinders this:

1. racism
2. patriarchy
3. nationalism
4. cultural colonialism
5. inequality of wealth
6. fundamentalism

Now this is where things get even shakier, in terms of keeping everyone on board. The six goals Mason proposes are close to running foul of some members' cherished political views, but these baggage items run foul of some members' cherished doctrinal views. That's because these members have doctrinal understandings that are not doctrine itself, but that's a lot bigger of an argument to undertake. And one foul step in the attempt can wreck the whole enterprise.

Nevertheless, I think Mason is right in all six of these items. But being right isn't enough when you're trying to change someone's mind about what they think are the principles of their religion. You have to have flawless arguments, because if there is any error in your logic, the target audience will latch onto that error as proof that the entire premise is flawed. And this is where I start to find the little particulars that I think are bad.

RACISM (pp. 59-60): Early Church leaders were wrong to be so accommodating to the racism of their day. Later theologians were wrong to gin up "doctrinal" rationalizations for that racism. The Book of Mormon itself seems to indicate the same types of racist pseudo-doctrines were held by some ancient Nephites. The overwhelming whiteness of many US wards and branches can lead to behaviors and cultural practices that would make many of our neighbors uncomfortable to worship with us. My ward has about 100,000 people within its boundary. Probably half of those are non-white. But we have a very small number of non-white attenders, and they often have to deal with obtuse comments and behaviors. We had two Congolese brothers move in about a year ago and many older ward members still cannot tell them apart, and aren't particularly ashamed of that. That's not a great look. The defensiveness of some white members when the discussion turns to racism is keeping us from honestly accessing what we could be doing better. It can be true that you aren't racist and that people from a different background aren't comfortable around a group of people who are all like you. Nobody is calling you racist when they point out that we could all do better welcoming others.

PATRIARCHY (pp. 61-2): Just as Church members of the past were sure their racist cultural heritage was doctrinally based, today we have a lot of sexist views that we calmly accept because we think they have a doctrinal basis. Personally, I am convinced that the true role of women in the Church is far from clearly understood today, but until we have a desire to learn the truth we won't receive it. But can we at least start with the simple things? Stop assuming women are for childcare and food preparation, stop referring to men as "the priesthood," stop creating any explanations for the absence of female ordination beyond "that's our current understanding of the Lord's direction," and stop trying to "even things up" through the creation of a cult of motherhood.

NATIONALISM (pp. 62-3): Someday I might relate the stir I created in my ward when I didn't stand during the national anthem. Let me just say here that a calm explanation of the difference between patriotism and nationalism fell on deaf ears. Since the 1950s Church membership in the United States has identified more with the Republican Party, and since the nomination of Donald Trump in 2016 the Republican Party has been more nationalist than perhaps ever before. There are good signs regarding our rejection of nationalism, such as Trump underperforming for a Republican in LDS-heavy states like Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah. There are bad signs regarding our embrace of nationalism, such as Trump still winning LDS-heavy areas easily. Jesus isn't coming again to be an American.

CULTURAL COLONIALISM (pp. 64-5): Many years ago I had the realization that a lot of the Church's culture can be explained by Joseph Smith growing up in Protestant 19th-century America. God told Joseph to start a church and Joseph said, "I know what church is supposed to look like," and God said, "Sure." But if the Restoration had begun in Africa or Asia our meetings would be drastically different today.

INEQUALITY OF WEALTH (pp. 65-7): This is the only one of these six projects that lines up with my area of interest, millennial social thought (MST). As such, I will write a separate post dealing just with this.

FUNDAMENTALISM (pp. 67-9): I think we've come a long way in a short time with rooting out personal opinions masquerading as dogma. We have men in bishoprics and stake presidencies with facial hair. We have boys in plaid shirts passing the sacrament. You can buy caffeinated drinks at BYU. But like the old saying about science advancing one funeral at a time, this process seems to be moving at the speed of generational replacement. Which is ironic considering that at the forefront of this change is a prophet who must be among a very small group of oldest Church members. We still have work to do, though. The Church contains a large number of members who view science and religion as foes. I had a Seminary teacher who taught against evolution and radiocarbon dating.

Next I will review in-depth the section on wealth inequality, and finally I will address the small bits that undermine the valid arguments.