Posted by:
Gay Philosopher
(
)
Date: February 18, 2012 11:38PM
Grey,
What you're talking about is what, in philosophy, we call the metaphysics of identity. What is a person? This is a question that, on practical terms, is best answered by sociologists.
I suggest that it's possible to "deconstruct" your identity until you're left with a naked, isolated, Homo sapiens sapiens animal, but we don't see that "in the wild." People are rooted in culture, which is rooted in history, and religion is a particularly potent fabric in which to clothe the human animal and root it in a collective identity that stretches back for thousands of years and renews an unbroken community lineage.
Forget about Mormonism as a religious philosophy that makes various ontological and moral truth claims. What it really is, on a practical level, is an institution that reinforces various values and modes of living. It provides a template--an outline. It's up to each individual member to paint within that outline--to paint out his or her life.
Mormonism is, first and foremost, a way of bonding through culture, which comprises shared meanings and an identity that transcends the individual. It provides adherents a roadmap for life and a social niche in which there is a place for them.
Of course, nationalism achieves the same objective, but the more people that you add (e.g. going from a local chess club, to a state association, to a national group, to national-ISM), the more diffuse (loose) the association among members becomes, usually. What you're ultimately talking about is group affiliations. You're asking people: Which groups do you affiliate with, and why? Have you ever thought critically about your affiliations, or simply accepted them by default?
These are good questions. One criterion that I would use as a measuring stick by which to evaluate the wisdom of being part of any group is this: Does your affiliation with a group cause you or others harm? If so, it's wise to leave. In some cases, the opposite is true. But, the opposite can be true, even while the founding tenets of an association are provably false, as is the case with Mormonism.
As with most things in life, logic only takes one so far. Life is sloppy, murky, and ambiguous. There are lots of tradeoffs. Rarely is anything clearcut. For that reason, there are some very brilliant individuals who know better than to believe in resurrected Jesi, and yet, they retain the Catholicism of their parents, and grandparents, and so on, to retain a connection to a tradition that gives them an identity that feels meaningful to them.
We don't have much choice to affiliate with one group or another (and usually, many). Each accomplishes something different, from providing emotional support, such as a religious group usually does, to entertainment, such as an amateur theater company might, to education, such as a computer club might.
Our affiliations are modes by which we enter into a community that transcends just our own egos. In joining, we become parts of superorganisms, which demonstrate emergent properties--new and novel behaviors that can't be inferred by examining the individual members.
Group affiliations come down to practicality (the satisfaction of individual needs) and are also shaped by Darwinian forces, such as dominance hierarchies. That's why, in any group of sufficient size, a leadership hierarchy emerges. There are alpha males, and betas, and gammas, and...
Thus, if you call patriotism (I think you meant to say nationalism) a cult, then so is everything else, really. The alternative is to live life as a hermit, but that wouldn't be very successful.
Do you agree?
Steve