215: Fear, Labeling, Dismissing, and False Peace

We don't like it when situations get complicated. We hate being confused. We want everything to go back to making sense again--and right away. One way to make this happen is to find someone to blame. It's that person's fault. Whew! 

We label that person and never again consider them in their wholeness. Reducing someone to a label is a sure way to turn them into an object lesson rather than a complex human being who may a different story to tell rather than the one me make up so we can feel better.  A great example of an attempt like this shows up in the Book of Mormon story of Korihor, labeled "Anti-Christ" and someone who had done evil at Satan's bidding. Through touchstones with personal stories of theirs and other ones we often meet in LDS culture, Terri Petersen, Mark Crego, and LDF host Dan Wotherspoon dive into the Korihor story to name and expand on this basic dynamic of Fear/Blame/Label/Dismiss, and how it can be so harmful in our lives and culture.  What if we interrogate this phenomenon? Might we flip the script on the Korihor story? Who is writing it? Why are they telling it in the way they are? What might be missing from it? With such questions in mind related to the tale of Korihor, could that help us dive deeper into the stories we tell ourselves? And wouldn't it be good to give others the privilege of being more complex than a cautionary tale? We hope you'll find this conversation thought provoking!