Mormon Conformity

The Mormon Church encourages conformity. Everyone is encouraged to think, dress, groom, and act the same way. Individuality is discouraged, and those who wear too many earrings, or whose opinions may be a bit unorthodox, are often looked down upon and even punished. Mormons who fit this pattern of homogeneity are often referred to as "clones" or "morgbots" by ex-mormons.

I grew up in a ward on the east coast in which most of the members were converts and still retained much of their individuality. My Priests Quorum advisor was a construction manager who used to tell stories of barfights and pranks during his wild and woolly days and
laugh his ass off at our dirty jokes. I haven't seen him for years, but I still think he's one of the coolest people I've ever known. He was genuinely caring, and very tolerant compared to Corridor Mormons.

During my mission, I noticed that all missionaries tend to sound alike. That was partially due to the fact that we taught standardized lessons almost word for word. We didn't just teach the same things though- we used the same words, the same vocal inflections, and the same false humility that we learned from each other. I even caught myself dumbing down my speaking style to be more like the "aw-shucks" Utah and Idaho farm boys I served with. This excessive homogeneity got on my nerves a bit, but I figured it was just the mission environment and that we would all get our personalities back after the mission.

Post-mission, I moved to Utah and attended BYU. There, I noticed that the sameness persists among most returned missionaries. I found this especially annoying among the returned sisters. Far too many of them always sounded like they were talking to 3 year olds. Even as an active believing mormon, I never wanted to marry a girl who had served a mission, because they were all so damn annoying.

In BYU wards, I started to notice how everyone who gave a talk or lesson tried to sound like general authorities, but most of them weren't articulate enough to pull it off, and their effort made them look pretentious and stupid. I loved it when these guys would try to gratuitously use 50 dollar words, but would either use them incorrectly or end up using a word that sounded kind of like the word they meant to use. ("Expand the scriptures" instead of "expound the scriptures," etc.) Very few seemed to have their own style, and very few seemed to have much of a sense of humor, at least at church.

I became the guy in the back of the room trying not to snicker when some pompous general authority-wannabe elders' quorum instructor verbally tripped over his own feet, rolling my eyes when some weepy sister recycled the same tired inspirational story yet again in her sacrament meeting talk, cringing at the uninspiring amateurism displayed in "musical" numbers, and trying like hell to keep my mouth shut when someone preached Pharisaic rules over the spirit of the law.

Eventually, I put the scriptures on my PDA, so I had an excuse to bring it to church and play Solitaire when things got boring or irritating.

Here's the ironic part: As much as I wish I had been smart enough to debunk the church before serving a mission or attending BYU, the time I spent in those environments was probably a critical part of my deconversion. If I had not spent so much time in the belly of the beast, wondering why I couldn't fit in with the clones, and why there were so damned many assinine rules to follow, I might never have thought deeply enough about my beliefs to question them.