Academia, Mormons, and the Ivory Tower

So I just returned from an oh-so-lovely jaunt with my fellow academics. Graduate school has a way of clearing up one's view of world, much in the same way a 2x4 clears up the thinking of a donkey. And that's no compliment...

Tonight, I think I saw the academic community for what it is: a cloistered, slightly delusional, crew of self-congratulating elitists. Harsh words for some of my own people? Perhaps, but it is only because I feel that academics have betrayed academia--and traitors have no illustrious legacy in my world.

Tonight, I listened as a professor decried the evils of the religious right all the while seriouslyclaiming that he could not fill out an NCAA bracket; his wife was a psychic and had not informed him of the eventual outcome. I watched as professors chatted with professors about theorists, obscure books, and arcane theories, most of which your work-a-day hoi polloi would dismiss as, at best, irrelevant, and at worst, a near-criminal use of their tax dollars. Bush-bashing is considered a given, almost a religious rite necessary for purification from the sins of common society.

Yet I cannot distance myself from the academic process, a process that has done so much for me. Rather, I am disappointed that the process I found so noble in adolescence is so crudely political. While this comes as no surprise to most, I really believed that academics, so intent on the pursuit of truth, would have at least some freedom from the taint of schoolyard alliances.

These feelings run hot, paradoxically, because I might not be as passionate as I could be about the issues and get upset at anyone who is; perhaps I am not really a democrat (note the small "d"). Why? I trace it to my Latter Day Saint faith--a seemingly odd source until we consider the real political dynamic. Aside from a couple social issues, the politics and culture of the Latter Day Saints really makes for the American wild card. Our cultural roots produces enough ambiguity that we might, if we chose, march to our own political drum. Harold Bloom has accused us of blending too neatly into the American right; perhaps on the grassroots level he is right. Once Latter Day Saints recognize this, Utah--indeed, the whole of the intermountain West might be in play again. Democrats would be more than happy to overlook our stances on abortion and same-sex marriage--such things happen all the time (see Joe Lieberman's endorsement of McCain).

We do not recognize our own potential. Maybe I'll write a book someday about Mormons, the Wild Card in America, about how we have sold our political birthright for a mess of political porridge (namely Republican support for our same-sex marriage and pro-life stances). We do not need the Republican party or any party for these views to be legitimized. We can support constitutional amendments on same-sex marriage; you know that the instant we begin making overtures to the Democrats on other issues, they would be more than happy to take over a key Republican stronghold for the small price of softening their rhetoric on abortion and not demonizing for supporting a marriage amendment.

Latter Day Saints...recognize your power. As a Latter Day Saint first, a conservative second, and an academic third, I hope that Utah Latter Day Saints can show the political world that they're not easily manipulable...unlike the constituencies of the Huckster.