{"id":11565,"date":"2012-10-07T11:32:48","date_gmt":"2012-10-07T18:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=11565"},"modified":"2012-10-07T11:32:48","modified_gmt":"2012-10-07T18:32:48","slug":"legitimizing-unrighteous-dominion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/07\/legitimizing-unrighteous-dominion\/","title":{"rendered":"Legitimizing Unrighteous Dominion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Weekend read: “Legitimizing Unrighteous Dominion.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Unrighteous dominion is a Mormon term. The author of the linked essay is LDS and so is the friend who sent it (thanks, JG!). The origins of the phrase <\/a> are interesting. Having been a victim of mobocracy — state sanctioned crowd violence — Joseph Smith wrote:<\/p>\n

We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men<\/i> [italics mine], as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:39).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No matter what you think of Smith (and I don’t think much of him), he was dead on there — and eventually died from that very thing.<\/p>\n

Now “ldsphilosopher” explores the deeper, broader meaning of unrighteous dominion, and the ways we persuade ourselves and others that the unrighteous is, in fact, just hunky dory. He (I’m supposing he) covers some familiar territory: the Milgram experiments, Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment, social pressures, etc. And some less familiar (and disgusting) territory<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Then he turns and aims straight at the heart of a great sacred cow:<\/p>\n

The researchers gave participants an imaginary scenario in which they were being ordered to perform objectionable duties by their government (e.g., to arrest and jail protestors who were simply exercising their right to free speech). In one condition, the participants were led to believe that their commanding officer was Nicolae Ceausescu, a brutal dictator in Romania. In a second condition, the participants were led to believe that their commanding officer was John F. Kennedy, a freely elected and ostensibly democratic leader.<\/p>\n

What were the results? Well, people were more willing to obey Kennedy\u2019s abusive order than they were Ceausescu\u2019s abusive order. According to the researchers, \u201cthe results underlined that the participants obeyed more when the request was made by an authority with a perceived legitimacy, such as President Kennedy (the democratic condition).\u201d According to the data, the single biggest predictor of whether or not the participants would obey or disobey the order is how democratic they perceived the government they were operating under was.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Long, but very well worth a read. Good comments, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weekend read: “Legitimizing Unrighteous Dominion.” Unrighteous dominion is a Mormon term. The author of the linked essay is LDS and so is the friend who sent it (thanks, JG!). The origins of the phrase are interesting. Having been a victim of mobocracy — state sanctioned crowd violence — Joseph Smith wrote: We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men [italics mine], as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:39). No matter what you think of Smith…<\/p>\n

Continue readingLegitimizing Unrighteous Dominion<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-mind-and-spirit","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}