“God, I thank you that I am not like other people: even like this jock. I watch my language, am always worthy to pass the sacrament, am on the honor roll, and I give a tenth of all my income.”
As a note, I put this post in the queue for the 5th a long time ago, not realizing that it was General Conference weekend, I’ll keep it up, but in posting on General Conference Saturday I’m in no way trying to draw attention from what should be drawing your attention today.
With high school almost 20 years in the rearview mirror for me now it’s interesting to see individual trajectories and how they surprise or do not surprise me.
There are myriad topics that could stem from this theme (for example, who would have thought the X-Box junkie became the most objectively accomplished person in our graduating class?) However, given the subject of this blog, and the fact that my high school was nearly all Latter-day Saint, an obvious variable of interest here is later-life relationship to the Church.
And on this I noticed a seemingly paradoxical theme that I’ve also picked up elsewhere. Many (though not all) of the “goodie good” kids have left. These were the ones who were into seminary council (when that was a thing), drama, and The Beatles (in kind of a faux rebelliousness borrowed from their parents), and who actually read the book in English Lit.
However, in sort of a “first shall be last” situation, many (thought not all) of the (male) jocks who were into Eminem, four-wheeling, girls and more girls, are by all appearances now family men and many are active (and the ones that aren’t don’t have any particular beef with the Church), even though of the two groups the former was much more churchy and checked off many more of the boxes.
I don’t know why it turned out this way in my particular context, and I don’t want to extrapolate too much from the idiosyncrasies of my one experience (for my wife it was the opposite at her school). I’m not arguing that drama kids leave more than jocks do, or that drama kids are necessarily always the “goodie goods” like they were in my high school, but just to speculate for a moment…
For some of the kids in that very LDS environment being a kid who went to firesides and such was one of the things you did to be a Good Kid according to what the overarching subculture deemed to be good. Later in their lives when they are exposed to alternative frameworks they are just as likely to get into saving the whales, Palestine, or what have you. I’m not saying that these aren’t noble causes or that this explains all activism in these areas, just that it’s another moral target for a certain personality type that is drawn to causes.
In some cases their new paradigm places themselves within an Overton Window for which the Church’s position is outside of it, so they leave. In some cases the obnoxious companion on the mission interrogating you about why you were there is being obnoxious about another issue. The consistent theme is moral preening, stridency and righteous indignation. Of course that’s one extreme. I’m not saying all or even a large portion of the seminary council/ drama kids (or people who leave the Church) were that extreme, but it was a common theme, and many fell somewhere on that continuum.
On the other hand, the high-testosterone jock lifestyle with its often accompanying toxicities and issues was such that the stability offered by the gospel was clearer. Even if they’re not active themselves they often respect it (one calls to mind a statement by the greatest Mormon athlete of all time, Jack Dempsey, that he was “proud to be a Mormon. And ashamed to be the Jack Mormon that I am.”)
For them the gospel wasn’t another thing to excel at for an honors student that tried to excel at everything, but was a balm and anchor as they grew into adulthood after high school (especially for those who didn’t have a super stable family life), and as the Mormon “Sacred Canopy” is punctured, there will (hopefully) be fewer people who are disciples because that it what good straight-A honor kids do, and more people who are disciples because they have learned that without it they smart from the God-shaped hole in their life.
As a high schooler, I thought that the goodie-goods were my moral superiors, but as I see them age I realize that in many cases their churchy behavior wasn’t from any inherent advantage in spiritual sensitivity, but instead from a personality disposed towards moralizing, which can be turned towards good ends, but isn’t necessarily a virtue in and of itself.
As a middle aged man who attended a nearly all LDS high school I concur with many of your observations about retention and the reasons.
I am curious if the “goodie good” kids are both more likely to leave the Church, and also more likely to ascend in Church leadership when and if they remain. My sense is that’s true as they are the types of people who end up in the professional managerial class are more likely to be represented in leadership. In that case some of the behaviors you describe are just a risk/reward proposition for the institution cultivating this class. At the very least I have to question whether some of the behaviors you ascribe to them, not incorrectly, are institutionally promoted, especially among adolescents.
When you state that those from a “high testosterone jock culture” benefit from the “stability” of the “gospel,” it strikes me as a kind of moralizing that you claim the “goodie goods” stake out. Almost like the “high testosterone” folks need this gospel/church culture to tame their dispositions while the “goodie goods” don’t. That might be true, but I see it as a kind of moralizing for a class of people, not far off from what the “goodie goods” offer up. I also think their continuing respect for the institution, even after they leave, is just indicative of the political conservatism of the class.
Lastly, I disagree about the consequence of the sacred canopy collapsing. I think those in the “high testosterone” camp ended up staying in the institution post adolescence because the canopy existed with a sense of rigidity or familialism that promoted retention and tradition. Once that rigidity is gone IMO this type of person is less likely to serve a mission, where they gain stability and inoculation.
I second the part about more likely to ascend Church leadership if they remain, although there does also seem to be a generically accomplished class of jocks that tend to go into things like finance and do quite well who also tend to be in the leadership class (it seems like the Seventies in particular have had their fair share of college athletes).
“I also think their continuing respect for the institution, even after they leave, is just indicative of the political conservatism of the class.”
That’s probably true, but I would say that it’s indicative of a more general disposition that is upstream from political identity.
I do think that the promotion of education and secular accomplishment is, rightly or wrongly, part of the package of overall righteousness and goodie-goodness. (Less formally, the fact that I presume it’s been a long while since a blue collar worker became an apostle is more powerful than any general conference talk on the subject).
(Another aspect of this risk/reward is that I suspect people who are generically elite sometimes quietly take their foot off the pedal for Church-related stuff if it clashes with their professional aspirations or position among the cultural elite, threading the needle between ecclesiastical acceptance required for ladder climbing while trying to be one of the cool kids in certain circles).
Of course I believe that both sides benefit from the stability of the gospel, but the way it’s manifested for high-testosterone/jock culture is more obvious; for example, risky, sometimes criminal behavior, drugs and drinking, whereas for the professional goodie-good class you can check all the boxes of a stable job, no criminal record, a mortgage, a long-term pet, a long-term partner, etc. (Of course, in the absence of the writing in the sky telling me otherwise I don’t see why the latter is inherently superior to a more eat, drink, and be merry lifestyle of the jock class–frankly that lifestyle seems more fun).
My comment about the sacred canopy collapsing was directed towards the goodie-good class, but I do basically agree with your take on its influence on the jock class. For example, a common trope on the mission were jocks who barely made it on the mission, but once there they thrived under the structure. High school football coach-type mission presidents did wonders for these personality types.
You know it is an interesting time when the LDS call for civility when they act like terrorists. No, nobody is going to listen to the LDS anymore. We all know who you are. You are terrorists!!!!!!