BYU - Call to Arms


mikbone
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Elder Holland's recent talk has got me wondering.  

 

The General Authorities have known about the problems @ BYU for many years. 

From my perspective, the problems at the institution have worsened over the past 3 decades and it was bad 30 years ago when I attended.  

Our beautiful daughter is currently attending BYU and although she is straight she had many gay friends and classmates.  She also dated many BYU boys.  And many of those boys, in my opinion, had a poor understanding of masculinity.  She finally did find a real boy and they were sealed in the Temple, but she had to kiss a lot of frogs.   

Two of her boyfriends were particularly worrisome.  The first had traits that I would neither call masculine nor feminine.  He was weak, had a fluid understanding of honesty, comfortable wearing capri leggings, and expected his eternal wife to support the family financially, etc.  We came to visit her on campus and during our introduction, we spoke, and I was not terribly impressed.  He did mention that he was interested in courting our daughter and asked if I had any advice.  I sent him a favorite book of mine Man of Steel and Velvet.  He did read the book but told my daughter, who then told me, that he thought the book was dated.  The second boy we totally disapproved of and were very concerned that she even considered going out on a date with his caliber of person.  They dated for months, and I eventually threatened to withdraw my financial support.  We flew her back home and she was angry with us.  He was aware of our disapproval and tried to convince her to come up with enough money to purchase a bus ticket to return.  When she recognized that he had neither the desire nor wherewithal to collect her with his own car or fly her back to Utah she started to change her perspective.  She was mad with me for a couple of weeks but has since thanked me profusely.

So what can we do?  The following are some of our suggestions:

1) New BYU statement that entails details embracing family, education to prepare our men and women to help build greater communities.  Explaining that we do want to educate women as much as we do men, but that if women stay at home and only teach the upcoming generations then their education will have been successful. (BTW, when I went to work this morning, it was myself and 18 women.  Every other surgeon, anesthesiologist, nurse, scrub, or janitor was female.  Where are the men?!)

2) Offer to dismiss any professor who disagrees with the new statement with a year's severance pay.  

3) Offer to refund the tuition of any student who disagrees with the new statement

4) Remove the admission decision-making decisions from the admission department and farm it out to volunteer Alumni who are professionals and endorsed by their stake presidencies.  There should be a database that can display which Alumni are good at picking adequate candidates and which are poor.  

5) There is a horrible culture at all universities that wants to mold students into University type thinkers.  We need to stop this.  Universities need to mold students into professional thinkers.   Most of the students must be taught how to DO.  Not just how to recall the most recently approved university dogma. 

6) When I was at medical school, there were 2 types of teachers.  PhD's  (for example the anatomy teacher who got a degree in anatomy and then taught anatomy via the dissection of corpses).  And MDs (we had an orthopedic surgeon come in and taught us 2 lectures on surgical anatomy).  Guess which lessons were better?  I don't know why we can't have professional BYU Alumni volunteers to teach classes to give variety and perspective to the courses.  

 

Toxic masculinity is a problem.  We as a church need to come up with an understanding of nurturing masculinity that guides and protects.  Men after the pattern that Jesus Christ exemplified.

Instead of trying to equalize the sexes, we need to cherish our differences and use them to synergize the family as an institution.

 

When Brad Pitt says the following in the Movie Meet Joe Black it makes for great scene.

Say, you and I, if we were married, I would... No, for an example, okay? If you and I were married, I would want to give you what you need. That's all. I'm talking about taking care of each other the best you can. What's wrong with taking care of a woman? She takes care of you.

         You'll have a hard time finding a woman like that these days.

- Shoot, you think so? - Mm-hmm. I don't know. Lightning could strike.

But If a normal guy were to say the same thing in a University he would be labeled a sexist.   How did we get here?

Can it be salvaged?

 

 

 

Edited by mikbone
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14 hours ago, mikbone said:

They dated for months, and I eventually threatened to withdraw my financial support.  We flew her back home and she was angry with us.  He was aware of our disapproval and tried to convince her to come up with enough money to purchase a bus ticket to return.  When she recognized that he had neither the desire nor wherewithal to collect her with his own car or fly her back to Utah she started to change her perspective.  She was mad with me for a couple of weeks but has since thanked me profusely.

With our woke crowd, you would be considered a very unloving and controlling father. Sometimes you have to make a difficult decision, and I must admit that is one of my biggest worries for my older children -- son and daughter.

How far does a father and mother go to protect their daughter/son from a potential bad experience? I hope I can make hard decisions that may cause disapproval at first and then love and thanks afterwards.

Great talk from Holland, and it is a little amusing to see our woke members and ex-members attack him for a good analogy/metaphor.

Edited by Anddenex
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In hindsight this was a good learning experience for our daughter.  But it could have turned out much differently with what I consider to be eternal consequences.

I know that the brethren have been agonizing over the situation.  

Personally, I would rather injure the sensibilities of all the apostates then see one of our innocents irrevocably damaged by the current landscape.

Edited by mikbone
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To point #1 - 

Many colleges, for the sake of "diversity", have - deliberately or inadvertently - hindered the ability of men to seek higher education through academia. 

A key part of this is the infamous "Dear Colleague" letter that the Obama administration issued. 

The letter was intended to light a fire under colleges to take reports of on-campus rape and harassment seriously, but it led to many colleges essentially running witch hunts. If a young man found himself accused of wrongdoing, the college would presume him guilty even if local law enforcement cleared him. He would not be allowed to even present his own defense, let alone bring a lawyer or cross-examine witnesses. 

Basically, the college had already determined him guilty just on the accusation alone, and any hearing they did was a formality. 

This has so terrified many young men that they're avoiding colleges outright. They're either favoring trade education programs (where there are shortages of skilled workers), favoring the protective services, taking internships, using various programs to teach themselves skills, or just going straight into the workforce and giving that a go. 

Trump's Secretary of Education realized that this was creating a gender divide in higher education and sought to hold hearings on whether or not the "Dear Colleague" letter had done more harm than good, but the very fact that she was even questioning this led to the usual suspects engaging in such manufactured moral outrage - especially when it was revealed that she was in communication with several young men who had their lives altered by false accusations - that the whole thing became a faux controversy. Even though she officially renounced the "Dear Colleague" letter and tried to move the pendulum back to the center, it's pretty much taken for granted that Biden will re-issue the letter if he remains in charge long enough. 

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1 hour ago, Jane_Doe said:

I’m going to passionately disagree with you on about every point here @mikbone.  Honestly I’m not even sure where to start. 

👌🏽

Do you not perceive a problem @ BYU?

Genuinely interested in a constructive dialogue.

Just to be clear, I’m not blaming the women.  I cherish femininity (in women).  My co-workers are great (mostly)…

It’s the omega-males that I find disturbing.  

I can’t imagine getting a phone call from my daughter crying telling me how her eternal mate has realized that he is gay and wants out of the marriage etc.

Edited by mikbone
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16 hours ago, mikbone said:

Instead of trying to equalize the sexes, we need to cherish our differences and use them to synergize the family as an institution.

This is why I used to contribute to the Friends of Scouting program, even though I thought the whole thing was stupid.  As I'd hand over my yearly check, I'd say something dry and witty like "I expect you to use this money to produce boys that will be worthy of my daughters' time and attention when they get that old."

About a third of the time, that did not go over very well.  And now look at what happened.

Edited by NeuroTypical
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Neal A. Maxwell - But for a Small Moment, BYU Devotional Sept 1, 1974

Quote

I am surprised (I would be amused if the cost were not so great) that people think they can remove the foundations of our social structure—things like work, chastity, and family and then wonder why other things crumble. You can’t remove the foundation of a building while standing inside and not be hit with falling plaster. We are now in the interesting position in the kingdom of trying to warn about what is happening in the world and, at the same time, of keeping ourselves personally secure. We must be Christ-centered individually. We must have his and God’s power to do our work, and we must take seriously the challenge of becoming more Christlike. You’re soon going to go out into a world full of marshmallow men. Like the act of putting a finger into a marshmallow, there is no core in these men, there is no center, and when one removes his finger, the marshmallow resumes its former shape. We are in a world of people who want to yield to everything—to every fad and to every fashion. It is incredibly important that we be committed to the core—committed to those things that matter, about which our Father in heaven has leveled with us through his Son, Jesus Christ, and his prophets.

We were warned.  

Edited by mikbone
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1 hour ago, mikbone said:

👌🏽

Do you not perceive a problem @ BYU?

Genuinely interested in a constructive dialogue.

Just to be clear, I’m not blaming the women.  I cherish femininity (in women).  My co-workers are great (mostly)…

It’s the omega-males that I find disturbing.  

I can’t imagine getting a phone call from my daughter crying telling me how her eternal mate has realized that he is gay and wants out of the marriage etc.

I’m going to answer this in general, as I don’t have any particular ties to BYU. 

For starters, a person should be thier best self, independently of how well anyone else is doing.  We should also congratulate others for being better verisions of themselves without feeling threatened by thier progress. Hence a girl doing well, including getting get a education & job, doesn’t threaten a boy, or vise versa. 

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33 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

I’m going to answer this in general, as I don’t have any particular ties to BYU. 

For starters, a person should be thier best self, independently of how well anyone else is doing.  We should also congratulate others for being better verisions of themselves without feeling threatened by thier progress. Hence a girl doing well, including getting get a education & job, doesn’t threaten a boy, or vise versa. 

How do you see anything that you wrote above as contrary to anything mikbone wrote?

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5 minutes ago, Vort said:

How do you see anything that you wrote above as contrary to anything mikbone wrote?

Im first establishing  groundwork.  Hence the phrase “for starters”.  And yes, I have seen people whom do disagree with this groundwork, hence my stating it to make sure that this foundational point is discussed & clear. 

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18 hours ago, mikbone said:

And many of those boys, in my opinion, had a poor understanding of masculinity.  She finally did find a real boy and they were sealed in the Temple, but she had to kiss a lot of frogs.   

Two of her boyfriends were particularly worrisome.  The first had traits that I would neither call masculine nor feminine.  He was weak, had a fluid understanding of honesty, comfortable wearing capri leggings, and expected his eternal wife to support the family financially, etc. 

 

2 hours ago, mikbone said:

 

It’s the omega-males that I find disturbing.  

I can’t imagine getting a phone call from my daughter crying telling me how her eternal mate has realized that he is gay and wants out of the marriage etc.

While you raised some valid concerns, I worry that your idea of "masculinity" is one-dimensional at best and maybe warped entirely.

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3 hours ago, Jane_Doe said:

I’m going to answer this in general, as I don’t have any particular ties to BYU. 

For starters, a person should be thier best self, independently of how well anyone else is doing.  We should also congratulate others for being better verisions of themselves without feeling threatened by thier progress. Hence a girl doing well, including getting get a education & job, doesn’t threaten a boy, or vise versa. 

Oh, Im not threatened.  Believe me.  

I courted my wife while she was enrolled at the BYU School of Law, J. Reuben Clark.  At the time I was majoring in Track & Field.  She graduated with her JD but never practiced law.  Luckily I was able to get into medical school and over time a surgical residency etc.  It was our decision that I would financially support the family while she raised the children.  We have a quiver full.  

I get much more satisfaction by raising my children than I do by going to work and fixing the lame.  I am thrilled that my wife can devote all her energy to raising and educating our children, as well as taking care of me.  😉

I would rather have a conversation with my 7-year-old daughter than a board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon.  (You would too!)

There were times that we had to struggle financially, but we never considered sending her to work outside the family.  

I believe that men were blessed to work by the sweat of our brows all the days of our lives because we generally will get ourselves into a lot of trouble if we have too much time on our hands.  Luckily women are much better at doing great things with their free time.  

I have great co-workers at the hospital and clinic.  And I do my best to be fast and efficient so that they can get out of the hospital and be with their families.  

 

One of the most intelligent women I knew was my grandmother.  She had a high school education but read books voraciously.  Universities don't give educations.  One earns an education by thinking.  It doesn't take a piece of paper to make one smart.  I have a crap ton of diplomas.  You would never want to play a game of pinochle or scrabble against my grandmother.  She would destroy you. 

Edited by mikbone
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2 hours ago, Godless said:

 

While you raised some valid concerns, I worry that your idea of "masculinity" is one-dimensional at best and maybe warped entirely.

Valid.  You don't know me.  

I try to follow our Savior.  If you were really that curious about my idea of masculinity you would read the following book.

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AC3CC1C2-CFF3-476F-9173-3A92E2A549EC.thumb.jpeg.55fd4f716fa20dade66d58687b37dcfa.jpeg

Edited by mikbone
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14 minutes ago, mikbone said:

Valid.  You don't know me.  

I try to follow our Savior.  If you were really that curious about my idea of masculinity you would read the following book.

191C7D75-CC20-4DB8-969E-65F8FF6545B9.thumb.jpeg.fb5b80786f1c07a92f23c55fb1c6266c.jpeg

AC3CC1C2-CFF3-476F-9173-3A92E2A549EC.thumb.jpeg.55fd4f716fa20dade66d58687b37dcfa.jpeg

I actually amazoned that (is that a verb?) when you brought it up the other day and copies were from $60 to north of $400.  Got any leads on a cheaper copy?

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IIRC, and I probably don't, Man of Steel and Velvet was written by the husband of the author of Fascinating Womanhood. The latter title caused quite a stir in 1970s feminist America, preaching as it did a woman's return to traditional roles and encouraging women to acquiesce to their husbands, subjecting themselves to their husbands and then manipulating them to get what they (the women) want.

I have never read either book, so don't take my word for it. What I have written above is what I remember from my childhood, hearing people (mainly my mother) talk about Fascinating Womanhood (Mom wasn't a fan). I seem to recall hearing that many Relief Societies began using Fascinating Womanhood as a de facto teaching text, to the consternation of many of the sisters. Again, I'm speaking from the gossip I heard, not from any first-hand knowledge.

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30 minutes ago, Vort said:

IIRC, and I probably don't, Man of Steel and Velvet was written by the husband of the author of Fascinating Womanhood. The latter title caused quite a stir in 1970s feminist America, preaching as it did a woman's return to traditional roles and encouraging women to acquiesce to their husbands, subjecting themselves to their husbands and then manipulating them to get what they (the women) want.

I have never read either book, so don't take my word for it. What I have written above is what I remember from my childhood, hearing people (mainly my mother) talk about Fascinating Womanhood (Mom wasn't a fan). I seem to recall hearing that many Relief Societies began using Fascinating Womanhood as a de facto teaching text, to the consternation of many of the sisters. Again, I'm speaking from the gossip I heard, not from any first-hand knowledge.

I never read the Fascinating Womanhood book.  I did read Man of Steel and Velvet at age 14.  

I noticed that it’s teachings helped my dating, courting, and fathering considerably.  The male version of the book is heavily based on the scriptures.  I think that the female version is unfortunately much more anecdotal.  

The male ideal is very well represented in the a scriptures, unfortunately we don’t have a female corollary to emulate (in the scriptures).

Edited by mikbone
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On 8/25/2021 at 7:24 PM, mikbone said:

From my perspective, the problems at the institution have worsened over the past 3 decades and it was bad 30 years ago when I attended.  

With all its problems, would you prefer rolling the dice with another college regarding who your children might come across?  Personally, I'm a big fan of BYU-Idaho.

PS - Meet Joe Black is one of my all time favorite movies. Tip of the hat to you, sir.

Edited by clbent04
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23 hours ago, mikbone said:

The second boy we totally disapproved of and were very concerned that she even considered going out on a date with his caliber of person.  They dated for months, and I eventually threatened to withdraw my financial support.  We flew her back home and she was angry with us.  He was aware of our disapproval and tried to convince her to come up with enough money to purchase a bus ticket to return.  When she recognized that he had neither the desire nor wherewithal to collect her with his own car or fly her back to Utah she started to change her perspective.  She was mad with me for a couple of weeks but has since thanked me profusely.

I had a similar experience with BYU.  In 2013 during my little sister's freshman year (she was 18 years old at the time), she met a gym trainer (he was 39 years old at the time) who charmed her into a relationship.

I discovered the gym trainer was living a double life, and unbeknown to my little sister, he was married with 6 kids. Our parents passed away several years prior to my sister attending BYU, so it was up to me and my older sister to try to split them apart when we got news of the development.

I called him at his workplace, threatened to expose him, then flew out to Utah to expose the truth to my little sister and possibly pull her out of BYU. We drove to the guy's ward and had a sit down with my little sister, the guy's wife, the local bishop, and me and my older sister. After the truth was out in the open, my little sister apologized to the guy's wife and we left to relocate my little sister from her current apartment to another.

We were prepared to take her out of BYU and send her to Washington where my older sister lives.  As we were preparing to move her out, I started talking with my little sister's guardian who had called me from Texas.  Her and her family were one of the staple families of our Texas home ward and is considered one of the upstanding, fully-fledged LDS citizens. Her and her family had graciously took my little sister in when our parents passed away in 2009. 

She was very adamant on the phone to not take my little sister out of Provo. She told me she prayed about the situation and even talked to a church psychologist who said it was monumentally important we keep my sister in Provo so that she could prove to herself she could make the right decision. At the time, being inexperienced with parenting as well as receiving revelation, I trusted her and changed course.

We left my little sister in Provo. Shortly after my older sister and I left, my little sister got back with the 39 year old married guy. From that point, married guy and my little sister soon left Utah, and a year or two later, married guy divorced his wife, then married my little sister, and fast forward to 2021 they now have 2 kids together. 

They've moved from state to state about 5 times since then. What he does for a living is still questionable to me and many others.

Soon after my little sister left BYU with married guy, my little sister's guardian from Texas told me that my little sister is never welcomed in her home again. She has two biological daughters of her own, and to this day I'm left wondering if she would have left one of her own biological daughters in Provo like we did with my little sister.

Edited by clbent04
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2 hours ago, mikbone said:

Oh, Im not threatened.  Believe me.  

I courted my wife while she was enrolled at the BYU School of Law, J. Reuben Clark.  At the time I was majoring in Track & Field.  She graduated with her JD but never practiced law.  Luckily I was able to get into medical school and over time a surgical residency etc.  It was our decision that I would financially support the family while she raised the children.  We have a quiver full.  

I get much more satisfaction by raising my children than I do by going to work and fixing the lame.  I am thrilled that my wife can devote all her energy to raising and educating our children, as well as taking care of me.  😉

I would rather have a conversation with my 7-year-old daughter than a board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon.  (You would too!)

There were times that we had to struggle financially, but we never considered sending her to work outside the family.  

I believe that men were blessed to work by the sweat of our brows all the days of our lives because we generally will get ourselves into a lot of trouble if we have too much time on our hands.  Luckily women are much better at doing great things with their free time.  

I have great co-workers at the hospital and clinic.  And I do my best to be fast and efficient so that they can get out of the hospital and be with their families.  

 

One of the most intelligent women I knew was my grandmother.  She had a high school education but read books voraciously.  Universities don't give educations.  One earns an education by thinking.  It doesn't take a piece of paper to make one smart.  I have a crap ton of diplomas.  You would never want to play a game of pinochle or scrabble against my grandmother.  She would destroy you. 

*Thumbs up to your awesome sounding wife and hilarious grandma*

I totally acknowledge and respect you & your wife's decision of how to do things.

I am assuming that at least some of your female coworkers are married and that they (your coworkers) choose to work.  Do you find that in anyway reflects badly on said female coworkers or their husbands?

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8 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

*Thumbs up to your awesome sounding wife and hilarious grandma*

I totally acknowledge and respect you & your wife's decision of how to do things.

I am assuming that at least some of your female coworkers are married and that they (your coworkers) choose to work.  Do you find that in anyway reflects badly on said female coworkers or their husbands?

Yes, It almost always reflects poorly on the husbands.   Women are awesome.  

Men are Dogs.

I clearly remember one of the conversations of a very cheerful, spunky, and helpful Filipino nurse.  She told me that when she came to this country she wanted to find, fall in love with, and marry a man with three traits:  Tall, full head of dark hair, and a hard worker.  She then told me that the man she found had 2 out of 3 of those traits.  I said, please tell me that he's bald.  She then shook her head in a downcast manner.   I told her that I was so sorry.  She said it's OK I still love him.

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1 hour ago, clbent04 said:

With all its problems, would you prefer rolling the dice with another college regarding who your children might come across?  Personally, I'm a big fan of BYU-Idaho.

PS - Meet Joe Black is one of my all time favorite movies. Compliments to you, sir.

Id like to see some changes at BYU and I have 6 more children in the pipeline who may want to go to college.  We may send more to Provo or Rexburg.  But we will watch them closely.  

Gets me every time.  The integrity.   Hopkin's character reminds me of my father that passed.

William Parrish:
Should I be afraid?

Joe Black:
Not a man like you.

 

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16 minutes ago, mikbone said:

Yes, It almost always reflects poorly on the husbands.   Women are awesome.  

Men are Dogs.

I have spent a good portion of my life trying to overcome this poisonous philosophy and to teach my sons and daughter that it's a Satanic falsehood. We appear to agree on most matters, but if your summary above is sincere, we certainly disagree on this.

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