having lived in utah my whole life i have had several people tell me that the mormons living in utah are the worst and its the utah culture. people say mormons in other states are nicer and not so closed minded. what do you think about this?

I was actually just thinking about that...most of the Mormons I know where I live in Canada are pretty chill and not overly hardcore...but I have been to Utah several times and the Mormons there are definitely something else haha being in Provo is like being in a creepy G rated alternate universe...I think they take it a lot more seriously there

I think it has to do with the Utah Mormons being a majority and being in control, so they have a license to be full of themselves. Not all of them, I know some fantastic dear people in my old home town.

But I think it is a little bit human nature if you are the majority to exploit your position. Add to that the Mormon supremacy mind-set and its not a good combination.

If you are a minority in another state, you can't get away with the holier than thou attitude because you don't have the back up.

What do you think?

completely agree

which is why the worst mormons, imho, are the recent transplants from utah to the 'mission field'

Never lived in UT, but watched the local mormons "worship" the transplanted UT mormons. They were the elite, the chosen, and they would redeem us!

The transplants were agahst at conditions in the "real world". To be fair, I live in a very liberal, environmental, and "herbal" location.

But I agree, the transplants couldn't hack it for long and their disdain and horror were something to behold!

blueorchid Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think it has to do with the Utah Mormons being a
> majority and being in control, so they have a
> license to be full of themselves. Not all of
> them, I know some fantastic dear people in my old
> home town.
>
> But I think it is a little bit human nature if you
> are the majority to exploit your position. Add to
> that the Mormon supremacy mind-set and its not a
> good combination.
>
> If you are a minority in another state, you can't
> get away with the holier than thou attitude
> because you don't have the back up.
>
> What do you think?


yeah that makes perfect sense. its depressing but logical

25 years ago, when i was a TBM growing up in Orange Co California, we totally looked down on Utah Mormons. We thought of them as a bit simple, and prone to obsessing on the letter of the law at the expense of the spirit of the law. That and their propensity to be Jack Mormons.

Mormons outside of Utah have to at least pretend to be tolerant of others since they won't get anywhere if they aren't since there are few Mormons in their area.

Utah Mormons are surrounded by Mormons and can get away with pushing their supremacist beliefs since it is them in control. This can be dangerous for nonmormons and those who leave the church living in Utah. We are treated as second class citizens.

archaeologymatters Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mormons outside of Utah have to at least pretend
> to be tolerant of others since they won't get
> anywhere if they aren't since there are few
> Mormons in their area.
>
> Utah Mormons are surrounded by Mormons and can get
> away with pushing their supremacist beliefs since
> it is them in control. This can be dangerous for
> nonmormons and those who leave the church living
> in Utah. We are treated as second class citizens.


do you think as utah is slowly getting more diverse we should see a change? or will it just get worse?

Oh there has been a big change in SLC. SLC is different than the rest of the state. West Valley isn't as Mormon either.

Utah is becoming less and less Mormon. It will take a long time for Mormons to lose control of the state, but it will likely happen eventually. The farther you go from Downtown in either direction gets more and more mormon though other than Ogden. People are finding the truth. My generation and the generation a decade younger than me are leaving the church like never before. Easier access to information combined with how Mormonism just does not work in 2012. It goes against the morality of the day combined with going against common sense.

Yes. The diversity is going to change it--is already. I do think that as a dominant group loses their precious control, that there is a last ditch effort to hang on, to revive. I actually think we are seeing that phase now.

There is a desperation that wasn't there before. There is a groping for a regained strength. I hope I am right about that.

In my experience, being forced to interract with gentiles on a regular creates a broader spectrum of standpoints for non-utah mormons.

Also, non-utah mormons seem to have a negative view of utah mormons.

You're correct. I've lived in Utah County for 40 years, never really fit in as a Mormon and now wonder why I've wasted my life among all these morgbots. Oh well, at least I have a business trip to San Diego coming up. Maybe I'll stay!

I've been to utah county. It has a creepy twilight Zone feel to it. Ya, if you live there long enough you get used to it. I tried to stay there, but it was just the most strange place. I lasted 4 months. On sundays people would walk around in church clothes, couples would be jogging with extra long shorts and be pushing a baby stroller. the mormon women would be obessed with finding a women gyn.there were many telemarketing jobs there also. people there were survivng on very little money. people had no taste in quality of goods, just quanity. the rich were the TBMs who worked for BYU, ran a MLM, or were Doctors and Dentists. And alot of these people were inconsiderate and seemed like they were in a bad mood all the time. Oh ya, lots of long shorts and flip flops on men and women in young kids

And you know what? When I resigned in 2000, from that same ward, believe it or not, after being away for 31 years, the members were still the salt of the earth.

It is funny though, that I have had more than one Utah Mormon tell me that it is the out of state Mormons that are the zealots.

When my wife moved to Utah, she kept telling me that it was a different church than the one she knew.

I kept telling her that this (the Utah one) was the real one. If Utah is where it is headquartered, and so much of the leadership comes from Utah, then it seems that the Utah version is the real one.

I think the main reason for the strangeness is that in Utah there are so many Mormons that it is a culture, and a religion. Everywhere else the Church isn’t big enough to be the dominate culture, in addition to being a religion, so it is just a religion for the most part.

The culture of Mormonism is stranger than the religion, and the religion is plenty strange.

I had someone in Utah once tell me that Mormons are like manure. The deeper you stack it, the worse it smells.

As someone who grew up in "The Mission" without any Mormon Pioneer heritage my observation is that Mormondumb is a UT-based good ol' boys club with a distinct bias towards filling positions with its own kind.

We, the natives, had our way of dealing with it. For example we made fun of their accents. I remember as a teenager answering a phone call for my mother. When she asked who it was I answered loudly, so the person on the phone would over hear it "I don't know, someone from Utah". We did what we could with a little passive agression to try and keep them in check which kind of worked sometimes.

We got a little tired of their tales of pioneer ancestor righeousness and how everything in "Zion" (aka "Happy Valley") were superior.

Things in "the Mission" are a little more black and white. Most members are both feet in or both feet out. In UT there's a lot more gray which would make it easier to fake it if you have to. Although being apostate there would suck if you work with lots of Mormons. Jettisoning Mormondumb in "the Mission" would have gone completely unnoticed at my work, if I hadn't said anything.

I have to say that UT Mormons these days in "the Mission" are better than they used to be. Although it's kind of funny, my immediate TBM family will still openly mock their very own Lord's Anointed Utarded bishop and his family in front of their apostate father. They just don't like him. They won't hardly utter a Mormon-related thing around me, but it when it comes to that biship it's open season.

The one thing that will make everyone hate you in a eastern Stake, is to get up in Sunday School or priesthood and say, "Well back west, we do it this way." My Dad would always retort, "well maybe we should ask Oak Ridge (they were the next unit West of us) how they do things, because geographically they are probably more right."

I lived in a very mormony town in Utah Valley. I thought that my ward was pretty normal considering the location. There was some piousness as would be expected but it wasn't until I stepped foot on the campus of BYU that I experienced the true depth of closed minded insulation that smothers a lot of Provo. There are people there that are truly afraid to step foot out of Utah Valley.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2012 11:14AM by kookoo4kokaubeam.

It's one reason they can pay so little for jobs, they know they've got educated people who won't move out of area for better jobs.

For me, the big difference between Utah Mormons and every other Mormon is arrogance. While Mormons in general tend to be full of themselves because they think they are God's Chosen, Utah Mormons are arrogant all out of proportion to any sort of accomplishment. They really think they are special WAY out of proportion to any proof of their specialness. I had friends break down in tears because of their gratitude to their pioneer ancestors because they really believed it made them in the elite of the church. The women take great pride in marrying at 19 and having 5 children by 30. They look down on anyone who accomplishes anything that isn't approved of by Mormonism or anyone who in any way thinks or dresses or acts outside the box. I've met some Mormons outside Utah who have that to some extent but that behavior magnified enormously in the Utah Mormons.

The other difference I noticed, and this may speak to the earlier comments about Utah Mormonism being a culture, is the bad manners. I think that people get used to what is accepted behavior in the Mormon church i.e. kids shoving and running everywhere, arriving late, adults and children correcting other adults' behavior, lack of appropriate boundaries etc. And because the church is so pervasive in Utah, they don't realize how boorish they look to outsiders. A lot of Mormon kids grow up running wild because their moms are overwhelmed by the numbers or their parents are always gone at church, leaving the older kids to parent younger ones. They don't learn proper social skills and have no way to to pass any skills to their own offspring. What is accepted as normal in the church is rude and offensive to non-LDS or even LDS outside of Utah. And if you dare mention it to them, they are OUTRAGED! How DARE you criticize them, even if they are making the church look bad with their hillbilly behavior?

I'm surprised there are some outside of Utah who treat Utah Mormons who move to the "mission field" like they are somehow special. My bishop told me not to move to Utah back in the 90s because the members there weren't good members of the church or very good people in general. He was a bit prejudiced, I admit, but the sentiment that Utah Mormons were somehow a bad example of what Mormonism is ... that is very pervasive in California and with other Mormons I've talked to throughout the US.

CA girl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I had friends break down in
> tears because of their gratitude to their pioneer
> ancestors because they really believed it made
> them in the elite of the church.

The pioneer thing always stuck in my craw when I was in the church. We were always expected to be in awe of the mormon pioneers, as if emigrating to the West was a uniquely mormon experience. Well, my ancestors came to California at the beginning of the Gold Rush, and I quietly felt pretty superior to the mormons. After all, my ancestors had to deal with all the challenges the mormons did, plus go 700 miles farther and get across both the Nevada desert and the Sierra Nevada mountains. Not only that, they weren't stupid enough to be in the thrall of a megalomaniac cult leader.

In my extended family, the non-Utahn in-laws are the most orthodox. Examples: no tv on Sundays and 2 yr old girls need to wear dresses that would cover their garments.

Utah has a lot more Mormons then where I am from. In utah they are hard to avoid. The city I am from I can easily avoid mormons. But I think Mormons are the same regardless of where you are.

Utah is a THEOCRACY. That's why I worry about Mitty and the election. TSCC wants the USA and world to be like Utah. Did I mention that I am SOOO HAPPY that I am no lonver in Utah........

You're so right. Utah mormons are 'holier than thou' and more judgmental and arrogant but mormons everywhere all believe in the same stupid stuff LOL so....

My experience as a non-mormon outsider living in Utah for the past 3 years is that middle-aged mormon men take on a strange kind of self-important arrogance that is just as visible from a distance as their garment lines. And I haven't really seen it outside of Utah before. I've talked to a lot of my friends about it and have wondered why on earth this seems to happen with such clonish regularity in Utah. I don't think I have a clear answer but I've speculated several possibilities. One is that it's a defense against feeling trapped. You're in a marriage that you're not necessarily happy in but feel like you have to stay in for the kids and for your standing in the community. There are only just so many leadership positions in the church available and if you don't get one of the more coveted ones people begin to wonder what's wrong with you that you're not gaining rank. Surely I should have been a bishop by now.

You have that envied home up in Olympus Cove but hanging onto it takes herculean effort and the debts mount with aching regularity. You recognize that there is something unique and good about you but your uniqueness is neither celebrated nor encouraged. So you toe the line in your white shirt and tie, you square your shoulders and assume a more arrogant stance while the dissatisfaction and unhappiness continue to deepen. You know you're among god's elite but it doesn't jive with a life that seems to have hit a ceiling. And it's not even that high of a ceiling.

I sometimes think that Salt Lake Valley mormon men are like albino peacocks - they can fan those feathers out in a wild show of bravado but there is no color, no radiant iridescence to mesmerize and beguile the viewer. There are thousands of other feather-shaking peacocks just like them in the valley, each one just as colorless as the next and each one trying just as hard as the one standing next to him to be noticed, to have some dominance, to assert some relevance. All the puffed out chests and manic feather-shaking go nowhere though and in the end it's little more than a turkey farm with sameness as far as the eye can see.

I think the lucky ones are those without a pedigree and without much social standing to begin with. I think they learn early on that their ability to rise within the ranks is a non-starter and so they don't get as caught up in the struggle. I've met many of them and they live quiet, unassuming lives out on the fringes of mormonism where no one gives them much shit about still being an assistant to the assistant's assistant in Sunday School at 55. I've asked some of them why they hang on at all and they just shrug their shoulders and look away. There might be a lot of unrequieted desire in them for a better or more meaningful life but they don't seem to be so caught up in the manic obsession for standing in the mormon community. And in that I find a kind of poignant beauty.

I don't really understand the self-important arrogance that I see so often in mormon men of a certain age in the greater Salt Lake area. But where I used to see it as offensive, now I just see it as sad. A whole lotta shaking going on but in the end it's all for naught as the colorless birds blend seamlessly one into another in an ocean of sameness.

Live and die in a white shirt and tie...

nice post. thanks

Well, I only was in Utah for my time at the mtc so I cannot compare but in my corner of the world a lot of members are more liberal but you have many that are "stuck up" and also many cliques, so a lot of people that are rather judgmentals and that have their nose in other's business, etc.
And all this in both small branches or big wards.