This essay was published in the October 2003 issue of Sunstone magazine. Here are two excerpts.
by Joanna Gardner
When I graduated from high school in western New York, as optimistic and bright-eyed as any incoming college freshman, I packed up my books and stereo and headed straight to Brigham Young University. Ah, Utah, where well-dressed, eternal families live together in perfect harmony! Unfortunately, Provo's Stepford-Wives-style conservatism gave me a nasty case of culture shock.
I left BYU after two years, choosing to finish my degree at the University of California at Berkeley. That would be much better, I thought. No conservative thought control in that oasis of liberalism! Indeed. Friends say I couldn't have chosen two more bizarrely different schools, and on the surface, BYU and Berkeley do seem like opposites. However, having marinated in each environment, I believe that both schools share essentially the same defining characteristic: a ferocious grip on ideology. Their ideologies happen to be at different ends of the cultural spectrum, but in all the ways that count, BYU and Berkeley might as well be twins.
BYU epitomizes traditional and official Mormon culture. The school's mission statement reads:
The mission of Brigham Young University--founded, supported, and guided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--is to assist individuals in their quest for perfection.... All students at BYU should be taught the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Any education is inadequate which does not emphasize that His is the only name given under heaven whereby mankind can be saved. 1
Hence its nickname, "The Lord's University." However, administrators don't seem to trust students to agree with this agenda, so they have legislated righteousness in the form of the Honor Code. This document, which all students must sign and date to indicate their acceptance, mandates honesty, chastity, virtue, the use of clean language, abstinence "from possessing, serving or consuming alcoholic beverages, tobacco, tea, coffee, or harmful drugs," avoiding any clothing that is "sleeveless, revealing, or form fitting," and "encourage[ing] others in their commitment to comply with the BYU Honor Code." So, if your roommate has an illicit stash of English Breakfast tea or possibly a tank top under her mattress, you're supposed to "challenge and council" [sic] her "in the spirit of love," 2 then narc on her to the Honor Code Office.
Berkeley, on the other hand, brings new meaning to the idea of wild-eyed liberalism. Here is how one booklet describes the city and school: "Berkeley has a long history as one of the most lively, culturally diverse, and politically adventurous communities in the country." 3 To say the least! Political activism is a way of life at Berkeley. It often seemed to me that students were only happy when they had something terrible to protest, and if they couldn't find something horrible, any old thing would do. In 1992, a student named Andrew Martinez led one of these demonstrations, a "nude-in" protesting "social repression." Martinez began attending classes in the altogether and became known as The Naked Guy. We have him to thank for Berkeley's version of a dress code: students must now wear clothing on campus. 4 As for coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, students at Berkeley possess, serve and consume these with the joyful abandon of the Relief Society handing out mint brownies and sparkle punch at a BYU fireside.
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On the bright side, BYU and Berkeley each gave me one of my two favorite classes in the world. At BYU it was English 391, "Introduction to Folklore." Professor Poulsen wore jeans and flannel shirts to class, bless him, when all my other professors seemed unthinkably uptight in their Sunday best. Better still, he read Joseph Campbell to us, the mythologist who interprets religious stories symbolically, not literally, who finds a transcendent unity in the myths and religions of all human cultures, and who suggests that a full life begins with killing the dragon named "Thou shalt." 6 I adore Professor Poulsen for that gift.
Similarly, Berkeley's English 118, taught by Professor Turner, focused on John Milton and Paradise Lost. At a time when every one of my other teachers was busy training me to ferret out the misogyny, racism, and capitalist-pig-ism in great works of literature, Professor Turner explicated the Adam and Eve story from Genesis in one of his lectures. Except he didn't mention feminism at all, or why we must break down social barriers. Instead, he spoke about how the story celebrated the power of two lovers embracing life together in all its joy and suffering, how experience and knowledge enrich existence, and how disobedience can be an excellent thing. I didn't take a single note in class that day; I sat perfectly still, drinking in those ideas like cold lemonade in the heat of summer.
But the single best thing about BYU and Berkeley is the lesson they both taught me: you can cling to the right or you can cling to the left, it doesn't much matter: you're still clinging. The problem, of course, is that you need your arms free if you're going to dance, or swim, or fly, if you're going to live actively and nurture the spark of divinity that animates your existence.
One of the Book of Mormon lessons I remember from my teenage days is that denying the Holy Ghost is an unpardonable sin and results in being cast into outer darkness for eternity. I have since come to believe that the Holy Ghost is a metaphorical spirit, the spark of divinity within everyone on Earth. I believe that if we deny our own divine powers, we snuff out our spark and float our lives away in a figurative outer darkness. I can think of no better way to make that happen than to keep a death grip on ideology.
BYU and Berkeley showed me that letting go of the Establishment's rules and living fully can fan your spark of divinity into a flame that lights up the lives around you, the way that Professors Poulsen and Turner seemed like beacons to me, shining over dead seas of conformity. Perhaps that's a lesson I couldn't have learned better at any schools other than BYU and Berkeley, together in all their wacky glory.
NOTES:
1. A copy of the mission statement can be found at: http://www.byu.edu/about/factfile/missionp.html
2. The Honor Code can be viewed at: http://campuslife.byu.edu/honorcode/honor_code.htm
3. "Introducing the University, 1993-1994," Student Academic Services, Office of the President, University of California, Oakland, CA, May 1992.
5. Schedule of Classes, Brigham Young University, Fall 2002.
6. Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, ed. by Diane K. Osbon (New York: Perennial, 1995).
Copyright 2008, Joanna Gardner. All rights reserved.