The Individual or the Group as Basis for Mormon Art?
Outsiders like to stereotype Mormons as group-think cultists, but insiders know that Mormons are all about individualism. Granted, Mormons have many standardized social patterns, and there are behavioral expectations that configure practicing Mormons’ ways of expression. All of that can translate into some retraint with respect to how individualism is expressed (socially or artistically), but just because there is a list of things we don’t do doesn’t make Mormons less individualistic, especially in artistic matters.
I’m thinking about types of art that align more with the individual and those that require or favor the group (either in how such works are produced or experienced). Writers are usually rather solitary, as are readers. Musicians, on the other hand, are probably more socially oriented (if in performance if nothing else). Visual artists are probably more like writers in this respect, but filmmakers are definitely more socially oriented–it generally takes a solid group to create a film and a film is typically intended to be experienced in the company of others.
I’ve done a lot of thinking and writing about Mormon film in the last while, and as Tom Lefler and I point out in our article in the Mormons and Film issue of BYU Studies (2007, 46.2), we ought to consider a group aesthetic based on the body of Christ. On the other hand, I’ve been helping a lot of people compose their memoirs over the last few years, and I remain convinced that the personal essay and biographical writing may in fact be more LDS than any other genre. That type of writing fits well with the LDS emphasis on the authority of personal experience and the practices of journal writing and testimony bearing.
I think the individual vs. the group is a fundamental paradox to human existence, and I don’t hope to arrive at either position as a final one for Mormon art, but I throw it out there as something to take into account: to what extent is the art that I am creating or experiencing succeeding (or not) based on its orientation to the individual or to the group?
March 7th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
I agre that the most natural type of art for LDS people to participate in is memoir/personal essay. And I think that type of writing sheds light on the individual/group question. After all, writing a memoir is the act of taking personal experience and recreating it as something meaningful for a group, typically one’s posterity. This fits right in with the Mormon belief system of the family being the fundamental unit of society. For a lot of typical readers it’s the question of family that drives their reading choices (i.e. If I buy this and my children stumble across it how will I explain it to them?) And maybe it drives our writing too. After all, when writing for the Mormon audience it isn’t about our religion. It’s about culture–creating and solidifying our cutlure. And in a lot of ways culture works like the ideal Mormon family. It provides acceptance, validation, and a place to ask questions where we don’t need to spend so much time explaining ourselves. So, I suppose the Momorn art that succeeds tends to take into account the purpose of the individual as a promulgator of the family group. It has to orient itself to both.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
[…] Laura H. Craner: I agre that the most natural type of art for LDS people to participate in is memoir/personal essay…. […]
March 19th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Theatre as a form seems group-oriented, but there are numerous aesthetic traditions in theatre which focus intensely on the individual (the expressionist movement in theatre comes to mind). Man vs. society is an old theatre plot. Despite the seemingly communal nature of theare, a lot of it is written for individuals to identify with as individuals and by doing so increase in their sense of individualism.
My point is that it’s more a matter of aesthetic than form how much an artistic experience is focused on the individual vs. a community.
I think an integral part of the Mormon worldview is seeing oneself existing in the context of numerous relationships: with family, God, friends, even strangers. We also think of our “integrity” by which we mean our relationship to our code of morality…and that code seems to be based on doing things that lead to sustainable harmonious communal living.
One of the reasons our memoirs might be so resonant is that the seemingly individual form highlights the reality of our interconnectedness. We see our lives less as a consisting of occupation and purely personal experience, and more in terms of our relationships, our struggles, triumphs, and growing ability to relate to God and those around us.
Group-think cultists we may not be, but communally-minded, certainly yes. Communist Zionist Honeybees. :)
November 12th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
iolyi3ya9xqyzaaf