This is the third and final entry in a series based on a warning given by Apostle Boyd K. Packer in his 1993 address, Talk to the All-Church Coordinating Council. The first article in this series dealt with the threat of the LGBTQ+ Movement. The second article in this series dealt with the threat of the contemporary feminist movement. This article deals with the most dangerous of all, the ones at the root of all these other efforts to warp science, twist language, and destroy the family all in an effort remake society into their idealized image. This article is about what Elder Packer called, “the so-called scholars or intellectuals.” (Pg. 5) In this article, I explain the dangers of these so-called scholars and academics that drive the very movements that threaten society and humanity itself.
The Root of the Problem
It is really difficult to explain precisely the dangers of the so-called scholars exactly because it is so pervasive and totalizing. Where do you begin the critique of something that manifests in every aspect of society? Perhaps the most correct thing that the economist John Maynard Keynes ever wrote was:
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, pg. 383
Ideas are the most powerful force in existence, far more dangerous than bullets and bombs because ideas are what drive us to invent and use those weapons in the first place. People who imagine themselves “above it all,” who see themselves as “detached” from the demands of life and “working for the common good,” are in fact slaves to ideas indoctrinated into them at an age so young they not only did not realize what was happening and those ideas became the foundation for how they see the world. It isn’t just economics where this is true. Go back and read the articles on the LGBTQ+ Movement and contemporary feminism. Look at the ones leading those movements and promoting their ideas. The leaders aren’t the foot soldiers in the streets protesting society or even the teachers in the public schools regurgitating the ideas they’ve been told to think and words they’ve been trained to say.
At the core of both the LGBTQ+ Movement and the “feminist” movement is an elite class of academics responsible for producing and propounding these ideas, responsible for producing the justifications for manipulating language and twisting ideas in order to manipulate the minds of others, for warping scientific studies by making the facts fit their ideologies, for attacking individual agency, for dismantling the family, for trying to demolish society and rebuild it in their phrenic image. They are the idea makers and it is in their lairs on college campuses all across the nation that they spread their ideologies under the guise of education. I mean, did you think it was an accident that generally even kids from homes that are politically rightist go to college and come back as full-fledged political leftists?
College students aren’t notoriously leftist because facts make a person a leftist; it is because indoctrination presented as facts make one into a leftist. This is the purpose and design of the modern education since the late 19th century when “Progressive” – that is political leftists – began remodeling the American education system after the Imperial German education system by passing compulsory education laws, forcing students to go to schools where Progressive educators would, “teach children the proper values needed to be a productive American citizen,” and, “fit children for their proper role in society.” As Progressive educator George S. Counts proclaimed in 1932:
There is the fallacy that the school should be impartial in its emphases, that no bias should be given instruction. We have already observed how the individual is inevitably molded by the culture into which he is born. In the case of the school a similar process operates and presumably is subject to a degree of conscious direction. My thesis is that complete impartiality is utterly impossible, that the school must shape attitudes, develop tastes, and even impose ideas.
Dare the School Build a New Social Order?, pg. 19
According to Counts and Progressives like him, the purpose of education is not an impartial presentation of instruction, given as objectively as possible. Instead, the purpose of education is to impose Progressive ideas onto students and thereby shape what they believe, what they want, and implicitly, how they then act. To that goal, Counts explained :
That the teachers should deliberately reach for power and then make the most of their conquest is my firm conviction. To the extent that they are permitted to fashion the curriculum and the procedures of the school they will definitely and positively influence the social attitudes, ideals, and behavior of the coming generation. In doing this they should resort to no subterfuge or false modesty. They should say neither that they are merely teaching the truth nor that they are unwilling to wield power in their own right.
Dare the School Build a New Social Order?, pg. 28
Manipulating society to reject conservative ideals and embrace leftist “Progressivism” was the specific role of education according to Counts. Not even the teaching of the truth was the goal. Instead education was a tool to grasp for its power to influence and change the attitudes, beliefs, ideals, and behavior of people while they were still too young and too ignorant to understand what was happening to them. And what was the end goal of this indoctrination? Counts explains:
If property rights are to be diffused in industrial society, natural resources and all important forms of capital will have to be collectively owned. Obviously every citizen cannot hold title to a factory, a railroad, a department store, or even a thoroughly mechanized farm. This clearly means that if democracy is to survive in the United States, it must abandon its individualistic affiliations in the sphere of economics. … Within these limits, as I see it, our democratic tradition must of necessity evolve and gradually assume an essentially collectivistic pattern.
…The fact that other groups refuse to deal boldly and realistically with the present situation does not justify the teachers of the country in their customary policy of hesitation and equivocation. The times are literally crying for a new vision of American destiny. The teaching profession, or at least its progressive elements, should eagerly grasp the opportunity which the fates have placed in their hands.
Such a vision of what America might become in the industrial age. I would introduce into our schools as the supreme imposition, but one to which our children are entitled—a priceless legacy which it should. be the first concern of our profession to fashion and bequeath. The objection will of course be raised that this is asking teachers to assume unprecedented social responsibilities. But we live in difficult and dangerous times—times when precedents lose their significance. If we are content to remain where all is safe and quiet and serene, we shall dedicate ourselves, as teachers have commonly done in the past, to a role of futility, if not of positive social reaction. Neutrality with respect to the great issue that agitate society, while perhaps theoretically possible, is practically tantamount to giving support to the forces of conservatism.
Dare the School Build a New Social Order?, pgs. 46, 53-54
Is it no surprise then that children leave home knowing the importance of family and understanding the differences between men and women only to come home declaring the family an oppressive tool of the Patriarchy, the evils of Capitalism, that homosexuality is good, and that he or she is now transgender? This isn’t some accident or breakdown of the education system. To be able to manipulate and transform society by indoctrinating children into their leftist ideals has been and always will be the entire point of the government funded public education system.
The whole systems in devious in this respect. It is why so many people today identify as leftist even though rightists are having far more children. Normally, when your opponent has a birth rate 41% higher than yours then you will be overwhelmed in a generation or two. But this isn’t happening to leftists. They keep persisting and growing, exerting more and more influence and control over politics and society. By capturing the minds of people at such a young age you can generate a self-perpetuating system. As long as the indoctrination system, the government funded public education system, exists then each generation of the indoctrinated will happily indoctrinate the next generation, fully convinced of the nobility of their work and the righteousness of their cause.
Of course you can’t get everyone all the way, humans aren’t robots and can’t be programmed. But you don’t need to do that. All you need is to get the majority of people to accept the most important of your principles as essential and you have the inroads you need into their hearts to manipulate them into doing what you want. Its regulatory capture for the human mind, with the so-called scholars being the agencies dominating the state and, through it, us.
The False Idolatry of The Experts
There is this kind of spirit that exists today which sees any critique of so-called scholars as “bog standard anti-intellectualism.” The so-called experts themselves simply cannot fathom how anyone would disagree with their assertions, so much so that there must be something wrong with those who do. They must be anti-science, stupid Think about the arrogance of that assumption. “We are the Experts. We know more than you. So do what we command you to do, you idiot.” Nevermind that the entire pretension they have is nonsense, something immediately obvious to anyone who followed the Covid-19 pandemic closely.
I won’t go into it in extreme detail here because of space, you can find the fuller arguments in my articles Not Amnesty But Prison For The COVID Tyrants and Here Is Why Vaccine Mandates Are Anti-Science Insanity. The simple version is that the scientific experts in virology demanded that the entire world shutdown in order to stop the spread of Covid-19. We were told that if we did this for two weeks then it would greatly hamper the spread of the virus and give hospitals the chance to prepare to help those few who were in serious danger of dying from infection. Well, two weeks stretched into a month, then two months, then six months, then a year and the experts, already proven wrong by their two-week prediction failure, called for more and more time. They promised that if we continued to allow our human rights to be trampled and be imprisoned like criminals under house arrest then we would save lives.
But how could they know? Yes, they were experts on the spread of viruses, but even in virology there was a plethora of science demonstrating that lockdowns were and would be failures. And what about employment? Were the people calling for lockdowns experts in employment? Did they understand that over 33 million people in America alone would lose their jobs and their means of survival? Did the experts decide to let these people become homeless and starve anyway? Were the virologists and politicians calling for lockdowns also expert economists? Did they understand that the lockdowns would destroy the global economic web, causing worldwide famine?
Did they know that skyrocketing prices and shutdown business would threaten hundred of millions, billions even, with mass starvation? Did they know they were murdering children and did it anyway? Were the virologists and politicians calling for lockdowns also expert in psychology? Did they know that there would be a worldwide wave of domestic violence, depression, and suicides? Did they know that suicides would double all over the world? Did they know that Japan, for example, would have 5,000+ coronavirus deaths by the end of 2020 (Total Deaths chart) and 37,180 deaths from suicide? Did the experts know they were driving people to murder themselves because of the mental terror and anguished caused by the lockdowns?
The answer to all these questions is a simple, single word. “No.” They were not psychologists, sociologists, economists, employment specialists, historians, or farmers. The virologists and politicians weren’t experts in any of these fields but still spoke and acted as they were. This means even the statement that “experts” were leading the nations of the world and calling for lockdowns was and is a lie. Whatever you want to claim about someone like Dr. Anthony Fauci, he was not an economist and listening to him give economic advice – such as shutting down businesses – is not listening to an expert. It is listening to an uninformed cretin equal to any other person on the street. We were no then nor now are led by “experts,” we are led by people claiming power over every aspect of society based on their narrow and limited knowledge of but one small aspect of existence lying to you about their actual knowledge and their actual expertise to make you feel stupid enough to be subservient to those in power.
But it isn’t enough to merely point out that they aren’t experts. We must realize that the entire claim to possible expertise is a myth.
They did not know what would happen when they started locking down society and they could not know. Human existence is far too complex, filled with far too much information, and containing far too many variables for all person or group of people – no matter how large, how well educated, or how “expert” – to adequately comprehend, direct, or order. Humans are not gods. And to treat them as if they were, to kowtow to the self-proclaimed expert classes and be subservient to the declarations, believing that if we but do their will then they will fix society, is blasphemy and idolatry because it treats humans as if they were gods. The lockdowns, with their millions of deaths from global famines and suicides caused by the lockdowns, are proof of what happens when we forget this truth.
On top of that, as the Great Barrington Declaration demonstrates, there is no singular cohesive view or plan accepted as most logical or best even among the expert class. The “experts” disagree, showing that no singular “most logical” way forward exists. The Cult of the Experts, another name for the Cult of the State, tries to hide this from us because it disproves their claims to expert omniscience and expert omnipotence. But disagreement does exist. Therefore, questioning these so-called experts is not anti-intellectualism. It is just the opposite. Being willing to engage with and challenge the pronouncements of anyone claiming to have the answers is to engage in intellectual action, it is to be an intellectual. What the “experts” want is not intellectualism, to be challenged by an informed populace, but subservient sheep who will do what they’re ordered to do by their self-proclaimed intellectual superiors.
The False Tradition of Their Fathers
One of the great insights into human civilization that the Book of Mormon gives us is the danger and blessings of tradition. As described in the Book of Alma chapter 3, the defining characteristic between the Nephites and Lamanites was tradition. The Nephites believed in, “those records which were brought out of the land of Jerusalem, and also in the tradition of their fathers, which were correct, who believed in the commandments of God and kept them.” (Alma 3:11) As a result the Nephites, though they went through periods of apostasy and wickedness, were generally a more righteous and therefore more blessed society. In contrast to them were the “incorrect traditions” (Alma 3:8) of the Lamanites, who:
were a wild, and ferocious, and a blood-thirsty people, believing in the tradition of their fathers, which is this -that they were driven out of the land of Jerusalem because of the iniquities of their fathers, and that they were wronged in the wilderness by their brethren, and they were also wronged while crossing the sea. And again, that they were wronged while in the land of their first inheritance, after they had crossed the sea…
And again, they [Laman and Lemuel, the founders of the Lamanite society] were wroth with him [their brother Nephi, the founder of Nephite society] when they had arrived in the promised land, because they said that he had taken the ruling of the people out of their hands; and they sought to kill him.
And again, they were wroth with him because he departed into the wilderness as the Lord had commanded him, and took the records which were engraven on the plates of brass, for they said that he robbed them. And thus they have taught their children that they should hate them, and that they should murder them, and that they should rob and plunder them, and do all they could to destroy them; therefore they have an eternal hatred towards the children of Nephi.
Mosiah 10:12-13, 15-17
The tradition of the Lamanites taught that the Nephites were the children of a thief and enemy, therefore the Lamanites were justified in waging an eternal war of extermination against the Nephites. The outcome of this false tradition that justified war and murder (and not inconsequentially the Lamanite monarchy’s claim to power) was to turn them into a wild and ferocious people, savage and brutal, “who know nothing concerning these things [God’s commandments], or even do not believe them when they are taught them, because of the traditions of their fathers, which are not correct.” (Mosiah 1:5)
In short, the outcome of believing in false traditions led the Lamanites (and anyone joining them, such as the Amlicites) into a total ignorance and hatred for the commandments of God and made it easier for those in power to turn the Lamanites into the submissive servants of the Lamanite state. This in turn allowed those in power to get away with war, violence, and bloodshed in pursuit of gaining, maintaining, and exercising power.
Sound familiar?
The Solution to the Problem
So, what was (is) to be done? How do you rescue people from dangerous false traditions? The Book of Mormon also gives us the solution to this problem. The Book of Helaman starts off with the Nephites on the verge of collapse. They’ve just waged an on and off again war against the Lamanites for the last 43 years (approximately 73 BC to 30 BC, Alma 46 – Helaman 4) which, despite some stunning victories, has ultimately seen their defenses disintegrate, the Nephites driven from their homes, and the Lamanite conquest of half of all Nephite lands. As the Lamanite war efforts pause, seemingly so that they can consolidate their rule over their new territorial annexations, Nephite civilization is collapsing and even the church is suffering disruption and disorganization. Everywhere you look, the people seem to be embracing sin and wickedness. What is to be done to salvage things and right the ship of society before things become too late?
Into this gap step the brothers Lehi and Nephi. (Helaman 5)
The sons of the titular prophet, Helaman, the brothers renounce all secular goals ( which for Nephi included a powerful political position as chief-judge) and devote themselves to preaching the word of God all the remainder of their days. (Helaman 5:4) Launching a missionary tour, the brothers first attend to the problems of their own society and travel to the remaining Nephite cities, calling the people therein to repentance. (Helaman 5:14-16) Finding success in strengthening the church, the brothers turn their attentions southward, to the lands now occupied by the victorious Lamanites and decide to try and convert them to the worship of Jesus Christ.
It cannot be over emphasized how dangerous this decision was. The Lamanites had a policy of arresting Nephites on sight, giving them a show trial, and the summarily executing them. That is if the Lamanites didn’t just murder Nephites on sight. On top of it all, the Lamanites had just won a massive victory against the Nephites and surely weren’t ready for preachers from their defeated rivals to come in and start causing trouble. For Lehi and Nephi to decide to go preach to them would be a bit like me deciding to end the threat of terrorism by going to preach to al-Qaeda or ISIS. It was not only dangerous, it must have appeared downright suicidal.
But Lehi and Nephi do it anyway. And in doing so, they change everything.
First they play it a little safe by going to Nephite dissenters, essentially Nephite secessionists who joined the Lamanite side. Perhaps the brothers started here because even after separating the dissenters still have a shared cultural heritage with Lehi and Nephi that will make it easier for the brothers to communicate with the people to whom they are ministering. The results of their missionary work is, “that they [the dissenters] came forth and did confess their sins and were baptized unto repentance, and immediately returned to the Nephites to endeavor to repair unto them the wrongs which they had done.” (Helaman 5:17) The dissenters repent of their sins and, moved upon by the Holy Spirit and the Gospel’s message of repentance, the dissenters work to repair the evils that they have done to the main body of the Nephites. This will prove to be a sign of great things to come among the Lamanites themselves, though the path to that success will be significantly more dangerous.
Buoyed by their success, the brothers decide to preach to the Lamanites directly and travel to the former Nephite capital before the previous war and now major Lamanite stronghold of Zarahemla. For whatever reasons not clearly laid out in the text – perhaps it is because the Lamanites are still getting settled into the new lands they rule, maybe it is because they now rule over a number of Nephite subjects who remained in the lands even after their other brethren fled the advancing Nephite armies, whatever the case – the brothers are able to preach without being arrested and imprisoned by the Lamanites.
And it came to pass that Nephi and Lehi did preach unto the Lamanites with such great power and authority, for they had power and authority given unto them that they might a speak, and they also had what they should speak given unto them.
Therefore they did speak unto the great astonishment of the Lamanites, to the convincing them, insomuch that there were eight thousand of the Lamanites who were in the land of Zarahemla and round about baptized unto repentance, and were convinced of the wickedness of the traditions of their fathers.
Helaman 5:18-19, emphasis mine
Notice what happens when the Lamanites are converted. They do not just become members of a new religion. They realize, because of their conversion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that what they had been taught before was wrong and abandon those traditions in exchange for believing and living the Gospel. This is what the Gospel does for us. It clarifies what the most important truths are, exposes the lies and deceptions of the world, and refocuses our lives on serving God, thereby causing us to cut from our lives the wicked teachings and doctrines of the world.
Finding what must have been surprising success and shockingly little resistance thus far, the brothers decide to go directly into the Lamanite lands themselves. Here they are arrested, tortured, and were prepared for summary execution. Instead, God intervenes and after a miracle that converts their jailers and frees them from prison, the brothers are able to go and preach to the Lamanite people in the Lamanite homelands. (Helaman 5:23-49)
The result of their work?
And it came to pass that they did go forth, and did minister unto the people, declaring throughout all the regions round about all the things which they had heard and seen, insomuch that the more part of the Lamanites were convinced of them, because of the greatness of the evidences which they had received.
And as many as were convinced did lay down their weapons of war, and also their hatred and the tradition of their fathers.
And it came to pass that they did yield up unto the Nephites the lands of their possession.
Helaman 5:50-52
What happened when the Lamanites were converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ? They quit believing in the “tradition of their fathers,” which led to them to give up their hatred for the Nephites, to end the wars they were waging against the Nephites, and to return to the Nephites all conquered and annexed territories. The Gospel completely transformed Lamanite society and resuscitated Nephite society as the now converted Lamanites sent scores of their own missionaries into Nephite lands to reconvert them to the Gospel. A new era of peace and prosperity was the natural result:
And behold, there was peace in all the land, insomuch that the Nephites did go into whatsoever part of the land they would, whether among the Nephites or the Lamanites.
And it came to pass that the Lamanites did also go whithersoever they would, whether it were among the Lamanites or among the Nephites; and thus they did have free intercourse one with another, to buy and to sell, and to get gain, according to their desire.
Helaman 6: 7-8
If we wish to have a free society where people have the liberty to travel where they wish, associate with whomsoever they want, and to live in peace and at least general prosperity, the only way to achieve that is by living the (Restored) Gospel of Jesus Christ today. If we want to root out the world manipulations, distortions, half-truths, and outrights sold to us disguised as fact, the only way to achieve that is by living the (Restored) Gospel of Jesus Christ today. If we wish to overcome the indoctrination we have been subject to since our youth, the wicked and false traditions of the so-called scholars which they have both handed done for generations and those which they are trying to force upon us today, such as the LGBTQ+ Movement and “feminism,” the only way to achieve that is by living the (Restored) Gospel of Jesus Christ today. If we want to be able to recognize the errors of the world we live in today and avoid the mistakes they will certainly lead society into, the only way to achieve that is by living the (Restored) Gospel of Jesus Christ today. If we wish to change the hearts and minds of people, the only way to achieve that is by living the (Restored) Gospel of Jesus Christ today.
The Way Out of This Mess
Apostle Boyd K. Packer once taught:
In many places it is literally not safe physically for youngsters to go to school. And in many schools and its becoming almost generally true it is spiritually unsafe to attend public schools. Look back over the history of education to the turn of the century and the beginning of the educational philosophies pragmatism and humanism were the early ones, and they branched out into a number of other philosophies which have led us now into a circumstance where our schools are producing the problems that we face.
From the very start government funded public schools were created to be indoctrination centers, designed to indoctrinate students into leftist political ideology. That they continue to do so today is no surprise. But the problem exists beyond the public schools. Yesterday’s “Progressivism” is today’s “Conservative” politics and while many private schools are “conservative” they are only “conservative” in the sense that they teach last generation’s “progressive” ideals. As a result, they continue to indoctrinate children into the “progressive” assumptions of the political left. It is all part of the self-perpetuating nature of the system. If you really want to help your children escape indoctrination into subservience to the state you have to pull them out of the school systems altogether. You must quit the education system immediately. The sooner, the better.
This is not to say that you stop educating your children. As the Prophet Brigham Young taught, all knowledge belongs to the church:
Mormonism, so-called, embraces every principle pertaining to life and salvation, for time and eternity. No matter who has it. If the infidel has got truth it belongs to “Mormonism.” The truth and sound doctrine possessed by the sectarian world, and they have a great deal, all belong to this Church. As for their morality, many of them are, morally, just as good as we are. All that is good, lovely, and praiseworthy belongs to this Church and Kingdom. “Mormonism” includes all truth. There is no truth but what belongs to the Gospel. It is life, eternal life; it is bliss; it is the fulness of all things in the gods and in the eternities of the gods
All truth belongs to this church and is part of the (Restored) Gospel of Jesus Christ. We must be educated in it all. As the Prophet Joseph Smith revealed, “The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth,” (D&C 93:36) and taught that:
A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge. For, if he does not get knowledge, he will be brought into captivity by some evil power in the other world, as evil spirits will have more knowledge and, consequently, more power than many men who are on the earth. Hence it needs revelation to assist us, and give us knowledge of the things of God.
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, punctuation added for clarity.
Knowledge is a fundamental part of salvation and exaltation. And education must take place for one to gain knowledge. But the key idea here is education, not indoctrination. To learn errors and lies as the truth, to be ignorant of the eternal truths of Heaven and Earth, will make a person the perfect vessel for spreading the lies of the Defiler as he seeks to destroy humanity and drag them down to Hell. You cannot gain such knowledge in the world, where it is illegal to teach the truths of God and where the Corrupter’s lies have full sway. You absolutely must home school your children so that they may be educated in the truth, both the secular facts of the world and the eternal truths of God. This is the only way to break the cycle of indoctrination. Nothing else, nothing less, will do. Otherwise, you will make the minds of your children fodder for those in power and the evil spirits that lead them.