When I first moved to Salt Lake City for my first professional librarian position back in 1979, I had of course heard about the Mormons. I remember wondering if I would be able to identify them immediately on sight. Slowly I learned what it feels like to be in a tiny minority living in a total theocracy. The good news, when you are in such a minority within a large and dominating culture, you make very fast and close friends.
We had lots of fun learning about Mormonism and making fun of their many silly traditions. But the one saying that has stuck with me to this day, “If ignorance is bliss, than Utah’s UTOPIA!”
Salt Lake back then was a bit like stepping back in American history, back to the 1950s when young women burst into fits of ecstatic bliss on campus when, at age 19, their boyfriends finally popped the question. Yes, early marriage was practically required. We used to joke about the Mormon’s approach to sex education, which seemed to be based on the theory that kids would never figure out how to “do it” if nobody told them how.
Fast forward to today and the illustrious “TEA PARTY,” whose apparent goal is take us all back to the “good old days.” If you have any understanding of life back in the 50s, or any understanding of how the world economy and globalization works, you will quickly see that trying to recapture life in the 1950s would probably be a mistake for us. Let’s take China for example. When I visited there back in the early 80s, I also felt like I had traveled back in time. There were almost no cars on the streets, all bicycles and horse drawn carts, even on the road into Beijing from the airport!
Today the Chinese economy has caught up extremely quickly. How? Certainly not by waxing nostalgic about the good old days. They are making gigantic advances in technology. My husband works on the cutting edge advancing solar technology. These are the technologies that will change our world while also cleaning it up.
Let’s face it, the good old days were NOT SO GOOD! Especially if you are a woman with a brain and plans to use it! That old time religion is not what this country needs more of in this critical time of economic development. Going backward is just that, backward. It is now critical that we get our children interested in successful careers in science and technology, not sitting around hoping the good old days will return. If we aren’t very careful, we may end up with the good old days of minimal health care, 50% unemployment, another Great Depression, and soup lines.
