At Mormon Mentality, bbell asked “What lessons have you learned from LDS immigrants in your wards and stakes?” His own reponse and that of others seemed to center around the idea the life is harder—poorer, less free, more violent—in some other parts of the world. The immigrants that people had learned from had all lived through some sad, undesirable experience. No one had learned anything from anyone from a prosperous village where citizens loved and nurtured one another.
At By Common Consent, John C. asked people to share their experiences with the Holy Spirit while watching movies. Again, the common experience seems to be that depictions of awfulness—war, genocide, underclass misery—are what viewers find inspiring for the most part.
A few of you will recognize the following names: Ellsworth, Rowley, McArthur, Stoddard, Christiansen, Robinson, Bunker, Evans. My experience, though, is that most of you didn’t. When asked to name three handcart companies, it is a rare person who can think of one of those eight names. Nearly all name the Willie company and the Martin company, and that is as far as they can go.
In General Conference, President Monson spent some time with the story of a refugee mother fleeing the advancing Soviet army at the end of Word War II. As she went, the cold and deprivation killed her children one by one, and she buried each using a spoon. When the woman was down to her last child, I knew what had to happen next in the story, and sure enough it did. She lost the spoon and dug a grave with her fingers for the final dead child.
It is a teaching of the Book of Mormon that the devil, because he is fallen from heaven and miserable forever, seeks the misery of all mankind. We seem to get a lot out of contemplating his works.
Interesting observation. I suppose, depending on one’s level of cynicism, this would be explained either as appealing to emotion in lieu of the spirit (with powerful negative emotions being the easiest for a manipulator to provoke), or as nobly rising above the trials of life to reach for something better. Readers and writers have recognized, like, forever the fact that drama, an almost necessary component of storytelling, requires conflict of some kind.
I checked my “Latter-day Saint Lives” section of Keepa’s topical guide to survey what kinds of stories I tend to find and tell about people. Sure enough, there’s a heavy dose of people facing terrible events in their lives. But there’s also a significant number of stories of actresses, musicians, successful businessmen, church members living reasonably comfortable lives who extend themselves in acts of service to people who are in need of some kind, and cheerful others finding joy in living the gospel. And I’m glad to say that with few exceptions, the point of the stories of even those who are suffering great horrors is not to wallow in their grief but to celebrate their achievements despite difficulties.
I hope that when tales of woe form the basis of a written story or a talk that the point is not to experience vicariously the misery of mankind, but to show that hope shines through misery despite all the devil can do. Maybe — no, certainly — we need to be more explicit about that.
I guess, sometimes those of us who “dwell” on the misery and fall of man just get tired of the dishonest, “Just wear rose colored glasses, ignore the negative, and focus on the positive.”
True honesty with ourselves requires ignoring NEITHER the positive nor the negative, and recognizing that both EXIST.
Ardis, you’ve done a very nice job of portraying the fulness of life, which includes happiness. That I concentrated on the examples I did and not such work as yours shows some of my own focus on the gloom. Let me repent a little by noting that danithew responded at Mormon Mentality with a quick, gloom-free tribute to his immigrant relatives and their choice to make a new start in America.
John M, this is actually one of the reasons I personally avoid a lot of books and movies that don’t have uplifting messages. I read a lot of new fiction and try to go to a lot of movies, but if the outlook is constant gloom, I avoid it. I used the example of “Saving Private Ryan” as a good R-rated movie, and the reason is that despite its depiction of war and horror it is really a story about sacrifice, honor and love. “Schindler’s List” is really a story about a man learning to love his fellow man. So, stories about gloom can teach us other, more important lessons.
Let me add, however, that if you are reveling in the gloom you are on the wrong path (imho).
I suspect that one reason one doesn’t hear stories about the prosperous, happy immigrants is that people from those circumstances don’t often make the difficult decision to immigrate to a new land.
But why should stories of difficulty be viewed as dwelling on unhappiness? Isn’t the ultimate promise of the immigrant experience that people escape the troubles of their native land and find freedom and opportunity here in the U.S.? I don’t think that’s an unhappy story. (Unless, of course, Russell Pearce and his ilk show up in jackboots at your door.)
I’m not sure I agree with the conclusion of this post, even as I am not a fan of gloom and doom kinds of entertainment. I think often it’s in the recognition of pain (opposition) that we can understand what true joy is, and what faith is all about.
For example, the story Pres. Monson told does not stop at burying her child with a spoon, but at her coming to peace with her trials and truly giving her heart to God — and finding that He was there in her darkest hours. When I went back and re-read his talk, I felt he was reaching out to those who truly are at the end of their ropes, wanting to die rather than continue on. There are people in such a place, and they need to know there is hope.
Think of that white-haired man from the handcart company who talked of them finding God in their extremities. Faith is worth it. God is real. That’s the message there.
I think it’s important to separate the difficulty and pain of life and our desire to learn from it from the devil’s misery, caused by rebellion and deliberate and selfish works choices away from God’s light.
I say that, again, agreeing that too much focus on the dark and hard stuff can be problematic, esp when we don’t focus on the saving hope of the Atonement. But not all the examples you gave leave out the Savior and His gospel message of hope and peace. That’s a far cry from staying stuck on the misery and perpetuating the devil’s work.
Sometimes we do this in our personal lives too. I recall that during college nearly all my friends had difficult childhoods with abusive parents or relatives. A few of us, myself included, had no such stories to tell and we’d joke that my childhood had been “dull” (thankfully).
Looking back I think a couple of the tales may have been embellished. They were perhaps following the saying “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” We do that even when the story is true like with the Wille and Martin Companies, by adding dramatic details that didn’t happen. Somehow the service rendered at Sweetwater wasn’t enough unless the boys who helped the survivors cross paid with their lives.
Not only is happiness not enough, but the misery is not even miserable enough.
Conflict makes the story.
“Opposition in all things” is needed.
“Things to act, and things to be acted upon.”
Think of any good movie, novel, or story. There has to be a conflict of some sort.