… and “the spoken word”
Evans, Richard L. 1945. … and “the spoken word,”. First ed. Harper & Brothers.
Rating:
3
Summary:
an occasional good thought
The book is a collection of thoughts on various subjects. The thoughts went with the weekly broadcasts of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The author is the person (turned General Authority) that wrote and read the thoughts during the broadcast. The broadcast is called “Music and the Spoken Word”, this is the ‘spoken word’ portion.
Review:
I actually gave this one two stars, mostly for some witty thoughts and sayings and for one essay that I’m sure the Mormon Church would never have allowed published today, but it is great.
So, I’ll start with the witty thoughts:
“We might well think twice before offering a kingdom for a horse – until we are sure that we want a horse, and need one, and can afford to give a kingdom for it.” (p. 15)
“Unless there is a constructive purpose and an honest reason for doing so, don’t look for things that it would be unwise to find.” (p. 28)
“More tragic than he who thinks there are no more worlds to conquer is he who thinks he has finished his education – he who supposes that there are no more truths to be revealed.” (p. 50)
Now on to some of the problems. Evans employs quite a few straw man arguments – fictitious counter arguments that are easily defeated. On page 79 for example, he attacks agnostics using a straw man. As an agnostic, I know what I believe. If I believed what he claims agnostics are supposed to believe then he might have a point, but I don’t – it’s a straw man.
The book is pretty boring and repetitive; my mind drifted quite a bit. I also started wondering after about 20 pages of reading why I should be taking advice from Richard L. Evans? What makes him so special? I never came up with a good answer, which might explain the majority of his advice.
On page 25 Evans talks about how you shouldn’t follow the crowd, especially if you believe you are right (a similar argument is presented on pp. 98-99). What I found interesting is that the Mormon Church doesn’t tolerate dissent? Don’t throw rocks when you live in a glass house doesn’t apply to religions?
On pp. 33-34 he talks about how some parents are choosing not to force religion on their children. He compares this to essentially not telling your kids anything that might be good for them – like not to touch burning stoves or stabbing yourself, etc. What he fails to see is that you don’t have to push religion AND everything else on your children. You can choose to teach your children certain things and not teach them others. With some things it might be better if left for the individual to figure out later on. Anyway, I think you get the point.
On page 13 he talks about freeing women to have equal rights, but then turns around and argues that women should still be treated as special and not be introduced into ‘men’s spheres’ (the workforce) – a separate spheres argument. I just don’t understand the logic of talking equality and then telling women that they can be equal but not work and not leave the house. How is that equal?
Evans also has conflicting ideas about education. He wants teachers to teach values and live them, but only if they are the ones he agrees with. Just a few pages later he criticizes the Nazi’s for doing this very same thing; of course, the Nazi philosophy wasn’t one he agreed with so I’m sure he felt justified.
On page 60 he talks about not being afraid, but he doesn’t tie this into the ‘the fear of god’ that most religions advocate. Interesting.
On page 11 Evans says, “To call a man something he isn’t doesn’t make him what we call him, whether it be good or bad. Labels are useful if they tell the truth. They are treacherous if they don’t.” Interestingly this is now called ‘labeling theory’. If I’m not mistaken, Evans is wrong. Often when we do label someone something they end up becoming that very thing. Guess science won this battle.
Evans doesn’t have a clue as to causal relationships (p. 22), “To begin with, unchastity is the forerunner or the companion of most other evils – certainly of drunkenness, of hate and jealousy, of distrust, of disease, of broken families, and of broken lives.” He then continues with a thought that runs counter to Mormon theology, “Unchasitity is the greatest evil of the age and to give way to it is to set out upon a road on which there are certain regrets and from which there is no sure return.” (p. 23) Has he never heard of repentance?
I particularly liked this thought, “It is an encouraging note in an otherwise dark picture, and we have reason to hope that there may come a day when faith and belief will be as popular and as fashionable as doubt and skepticism once were.” (p. 74) If current trends hold, which I don’t think they will, he might just be right, but I doubt it.
He made a point on pp. 90-91 that people need to be for something good, not just against something bad. I think I liked this because I occasionally listen to conservative Republican talk radio and all I ever hear them talk about is how wrong the liberals are. Apparently they aren’t for anything, just against liberalism; no creative thoughts, just counter-creative thoughts.
On page 99 Evans argues that modernizing trends are removing humanity from their fundamental nature, but he defines the fundamental nature of humanity as religion. I think our understanding of the fundamental nature of man has changed from religion to something else – evolution maybe.
I found his essay on loving your job (p. 101) to be particularly un-insightful. It’s pretty easy to say something like that when you are getting paid to write thoughts and not shoveling dirt or hauling garbage; kind of naive if you ask me.
I thought that this phrasing sounding an awful lot like George Bush Jr., “What are we fighting for? We are fighting for the destruction of evil wherever we find it, and we must no more tolerate it among ourselves than we do among our enemies.” (p. 110) And, as with Bush, I think this is a rather ethnocentric perspective; why are Americans right and everyone else wrong?
Evans also had an interesting interpretation of utopia, “Though armed conflict were to cease, though the thunder of cannon, and the sound of marching feet were heard no more, yet no man and no people would long enjoy the fruits of peace, except on the basis of personal and national righteousness, and continuing conduct in accordance with those principles on which righteousness is based. that is what it means to win the peace.” (p. 115) I guess writing as a Mormon he probably thought religion was necessary. I think utopia is much more plausible without religion – but what do I know?
This last essay I reproduced in full because I found it a scathing rebuke to the Mormon Church for excommunicating its dissenters and disallowing counter opinions:
p. 98 – The Minority Voice
“In spite of a long-advocated tolerance, there are times when all of us find annoyance because someone has disagreed with us. But the fact remains that to establish something on the basis of opinion without proof, or authority without reason, is as difficult now as it ever was, or more so – even though it may be annoying. In governments, as long as we have known anything about them, as far back as history has anything to concerning them, men who have attempted by sheer authority to impose edicts without reason and fiats without the conversion and support of those whom they affect, have seen the beginning of trouble – but not the end. But governments are not the only ones who have been historically guilty of such things. Men in their private lives have been guilty. Social, religious, scientific, and professional movements, societies, and institutions have sometimes been guilty. Oft times constituted authorities, like individuals, have made the mistake of assuming that anyone who had an opinion contrary to the majority was necessarily wrong, or of unsound mind, or disloyal, or dishonest. Indeed, it has gone further than that. In those places where a single sovereign will has held dominion over all the destinies of all his subjects, men who presumed to have a contrary opinion have often been obliged to change their views, or have their mortal existence cut short – a sort of permanent censorship designed to insure unanimity of opinion by liquidating all contrary views. A more civilized and refined form of the same kind of practice is to call a man a name when he disagrees with us – publicly proclaim his disloyalty or incompetence or dishonesty – discredit his reputation. “Name-calling,” it has been said, “is a subtle way of diverting attention from the facts.” We shouldn’t call a man a name merely because he has an opinion of his own. He may be right – and even if we’re sure he isn’t, it doesn’t necessarily follow that he is dishonest or disloyal, or of unsound mind. In the name of tolerance and reason, it must be recognized that he who disagrees with us is not necessarily an undesirable citizen. If that were true, then everyone is an undesirable citizen, because no two people think alike in all things. The minority voice – the unintimidated right freely to express honest contrary views – is essential to the survival of freedom and to the maintenance of progress. In the affairs of men, any institution or any country in which there is the imposition of one mind and one will in all things, is a fundamentally weak institution or country, leaning perilously to one side, and lacking the structural strength of opposing forces.”
