Cwic Show- Agency & Consequences, Gary C. Lawrence

agency cwic show gary lawrence government responsibility victimhood Sep 14, 2020

"Agency & Consequences'
Gary and I discuss his most recent book, The Magnificent Gift of Agency, To Act and Not Be Acted Upon. Gary extrapolates on what agency is and how it relates to several principles including; consequences, victimhood, responsibility and the Atonement. We also discuss the role of agency in government.

Gary C. Lawrence is a public opinion researcher. he received a B. A. in political science from BYU and a Ph.D from Stanford in the study of attitudes- how they are formed, how they are measured, and how they can be changed. He has also been a member of several Church task forces.

Gary's book, The Magnificent Gift of Agency: To Act and Not Be Acted Upon can be found here- https://bit.ly/2ZDo41h

Raw Transcript

every single

event in history and every human

behavior

ties back to agency

gary lawrence so i am in the middle of

reading your book

the magnificent gift of agency to

act and not be acted upon i found it

fascinating it's a great book it is very

detailed and

i i i i i told you previously i kind of

feel like you're a kindred spirit i

i love a number of the conclusions that

you come up with in this

about agency and really as you expand

out on it it's really

the plan of salvation is the way i look

at that it's it's it's you've kind of

taken agency as the the core principle

here but then

expanded expanded out and and shown how

that basically applies to all of

the plan of salvation and to truth but

before we get into that

i wanted to ask you a few questions

about your expertise

which is being a public opinion

researcher

correct and i kind of

just just give the audience here a

little idea of kind of what you've

you've done in your career

well this started when i was um on my

mission

and i decided i wanted to go into the

foreign service

and so i came back and went into

political science and had my

eye on being a foreign service officer

but then my buddy from the third grade

best friend since the third grade said

you better have a plan b

in case that doesn't work out so i

started taking a look at a lot of

different

colleges and graduate programs and so on

and

and pulled down one that had to do with

communication and the study of attitudes

and the study of human behavior and all

of a sudden just something clicked

so i pursued that and uh was fortunate

enough to

hook up with the company that was doing

all of ronald reagan's research at that

time

before i started my own in 1986 and so i

was able to get in on a lot of stuff

that

uh just was a wonderful wonderful

experience and you got to take a look at

because i s people say well what is your

product what what

kind of work do you do and i say i'm in

public opinion research oh you sell

polls and focus groups and i say those

are only tools

what i sell is influence what kind of

persuasion

strategies do we need to influence

people to

vote for you or increase your market

share if you're in business

and so i found in this whole process the

study of human behavior is so

so fascinating in grad school i had a

roommate

very intelligent very smart who was in

material science

and at one time i asked him how many

variables do you have to control

before you can predict how that piece of

material aluminum oxide or whatever it

might be

will react in a certain way you can

predict the reaction

and he said three time pressure

and temperature and i said that is

fascinating do you realize how many

variables we have to control before we

can predict

human behavior it's an awful lot more

than three

and then um it happened later i wish i'd

had the

the story at the time but one day i was

in the office and

an interviewer came in and said i've got

to tell you what happened

last night gary we were doing uh

interviews throughout the nation for the

ronald reagan campaign

against jimmy carter in 1980 and this

lady

interviewed a lady on the phone and as

they went through the questionnaire

what is your image of ronald reagan very

favorable

what is your image of jimmy carter very

unfavorable

on every single point of the personality

traits

she identified the the positive traits

with reagan and the negative traits with

carter

and on every issue she lined up with

reagan

well at the end of the survey she get

down to the words the end you then ask

the person if the election are held

today would you vote for

ronald reagan or jimmy carter she says

i'll vote for jimmy carter

well i just blew my interviewer away why

in the world would you be voting for

jimmy

didn't say it that way but of course she

went back and asked why

are you voting for jimmy carter

everything else says that you

you should be voting for ronald reagan

says well

i love ronald reagan so much but you

know

every president who's elected in a year

that ends with zero

ends up dying in office and i'd love

ronald reagan too much to see him die in

office

so just when you think you can predict

human behavior

they may fool you that's what's right

yeah so fun

well he came close but uh very very

successful

what have you learned mostly about human

behavior that is so fascinating to you

i mean you say it's unpredictable i mean

that's one thing but is there anything

specific that you would say is

something that you can kind of count on

a little bit yes

most people down deep inside

are good good people

and even though they may do some stupid

things i've done stupid things you've

done stupid things

deep down we are spirits

children of our heavenly father and we

have inherited

some of those traits and the job here on

earth

is to use our agency our free will and

the power to act and the power to do

to improve on those qualities and those

traits

so that we can make step-by-step

progress towards what heavenly father

wants for us which is

exaltation to become as he is so that

potential is there

and i believe a lot of

heavenly father's choices children are

being sent to the earth at this time and

as members of the church

it's our job to try to find them and and

explain things that i know

deep down inside they have already been

taught

so what is what is the what was the

catalyst to writing about agency

why did you want to write about that as

i was going through

life uh and you have different

experiences and everything

everything started to point to agency

and the right and the freedom to act

now as i looked into it even more as i

say in the book

every single event in history

and every human behavior ties back to

agency

whether we honor it or violate it

determines whether we progress or not

and so as i got into it the more and

more i saw the connections

between agency and every single aspect

of humanity

and human life i said i've got to write

a book on this and i started to collect

stories and insights and more insights

came and watching

other polls and everything pulling it

together and so

my book is organized into two three

sections actually the first section is

if we act

and we take this um right of agency

which is the freedom to be

sovereign over ourselves and the

commandment to act on that freedom

and do something we are going to have

well i go into

chapters where we have it improves our

our creativity that the neurons and the

dendrites start functioning better

together we see connections that leads

to creativity that leads to

ability to innovate and to and to

prosperity and

all of the refinements that are there

for us music art

good literature and so on but if we

don't then somebody else is going to act

us and then we start down a whole trail

that leads us to become

subjects and perhaps even simply objects

to the adversary okay that's something

you go over in the book and

you go over the the contrast between

agents

and objects we're going to get to that

in a minute but focusing in on

agency it's itself is there do you have

any kind of a definition that you would

put out there for agency agency

is the right to run your own life

now you say agents see your agent people

will think

well i have a legal agent that's my

lawyer i have a financial agent

that's my accountant i i have an a

talent agent who gives me a gig in a

hollywood movie

so age agents of free agency such as a

free agent in the nfl

but we take a look at it what i really

mean is the freedom of choice

the freedom of will and the freedom to

be your own boss

okay so so

i mean obviously we've got freedom also

that would be something

that we find out in government or in our

community or or something else

but agency here is it

as i've gone through the scriptures and

gone through the gospel

and its principles it is it is core to

everything

i believe you know it it is absolute and

it might even be

even though i it would be i talk a lot

with my podcast about the higher and the

lower laws

and basically the lower law is more of

the aaronic priesthood

right and the higher law is the

melchizedek priesthood the lower law is

you know represented by the commandments

obedience

repentance choice agency

uh the aaronic priesthood and in fact i

i oftentimes say that the aaronic

priesthood

is the priesthood of the individual and

and then you've got the higher law right

the melchizedek priesthood which is the

priesthood of the family and the

priesthood of the community

or zion so to speak

but so often you know one of the the

concerns

that we can have about agency is that

i think there's a natural progression

it's another point that i go over often

it's called the four phases of the

priesthood

number one is agency

right num phase number one of the

priesthood to me is agency and then we

move all the way up to community

and and to zion but so many times

it seems to me like the adversary wants

to move

past number one especially and

and remove that and put us in a position

where you know agency if agencies

removed then obviously then we have a

difficult time progressing

and it's hard for us to to move forward

i'll give you an example and we're going

to get a little bit more into this later

but

you know an example of that would be hey

what about a utopia

of and i'll go from both the left and

the right on the political spectrums you

know a utopia of the soviet union

right leninism and and and uh uh

stalinism right

and and saying hey we can move directly

to this utopia as a collective

but what we've done now is we've skipped

past

the individual and you you can't that

never works

it just can't work and and so you begin

to exclude

the individual right and you become more

only the collective from the right side

you can look at something like nazism

you could say well you're trying to also

exclude the individual and meritocracy

because instead of including everyone

and forcefully

flattening the hierarchy you're going to

just

exclude others right you're just going

to remove

others out of out of the community

and and that way everybody's the same

right that way you have equality

in a different type of force in in in

that way

but you know this is the the book about

a book about agency to me and

i'm gonna finish this and i'm very

impressed with it

is is is i think very crucial in the

times that we're in right now

where it seems like there are so many

attacks on

on our agency absolutely absolutely let

let me come at it from a different angle

which kingdom

of heaven will have the most rules

it won't be the celestial kingdom we

will have learned to rule ourselves

according to

principles but the lower the kingdom the

more rules you have

because they're here on earth there are

many people who want to control you and

how do they control you

by passing laws and rules and

regulations and so much where it gets

absolutely silly

now don't get me wrong every

civilization needs a certain amount of

order we have to have traffic lights we

have to have stop signs we have to have

controls and boundaries

but when you get down to the point where

government is doing some of the craziest

things and rules that they

uh expect us to follow it means that

they're taking agency away from us

and we are being acted upon instead of

being the actors

and as actors you have to produce you

have to do something you have to work

against the friction that's out there

because there's opposition in all things

and i say

there's opposition in all things but

because of that there's exaltation

in all things and that's how we progress

so i tell people just for

just for a moment imagine you are a

senator or a representative in the house

and you have to vote on a particular

policy

now just forget parties for a minute

forget labels for a minute

etc the way i would suggest would be

take a look at that policy proposed

piece of legislation

and tell me does it enhance my agency

or detract from my agency and if it

diminishes

my agency to run my own life

proportionate to having civilized rules

of course

then vote against it if it enhances my

ace

yeah if it hurts my agency vote against

it if it enhances my agency vote for it

and i say the same thing with people

especially as we're coming up

to elections in the terms that they look

at somebody's track record

and are they in favor of centralizing

power

giving more power to other people to act

upon you

or are they trying to enhance and

improve and then

and and free up more of your agency so

you have the power

to do things and obviously you feel the

consequences positive or negative and

that's part of agency but then you're

using agency

why to become like our heavenly father

yeah we're gonna get to power here in

just a second that's that's a that's a

great point

you say about agency you say agency

requires both

justice and mercy what do you mean by

that

first of all you go the the thing is you

have

actions and you have consequences so if

you have an action

here at least to a consequence here

and now with an action and a consequence

you have you have the situation

where you can help somebody before

the action or you can help them after

the consequence

but don't try to intervene be between

the two because that upsets the whole

thing of learning

and and justice is that every action has

a consequence

we will make mistakes and that's why we

have a savior

and the atonement who redeemed us from

those mistakes why

so that we can can progress otherwise

and this is a very very key point agency

must be connected with the atonement

if the atonement didn't exist agency

would be

a prison sentence and that comes from

president boyd k

packer because then when we have actions

and consequences and some of the actions

are wrong

there's no way to correct those

wrongs there's no way to repent unless

we have both agency and atonement so the

two things together

the savior's atonement and our agency

free us up to progress and become like

our heavenly father

so we need the mercy in order to uh

for justice to be fulfilled and mercy to

have it say

and if we don't have justice god ceases

to be

a god and that's almost 42 as well as a

lot of other places and if we don't have

mercy

then we're stuck for eternity

right because there's no way to get past

the consequences at that point

and of course as you say also in the

book you know acting is a risk

right using using your agency is a risk

and what's the risk the risk is or what

type of consequence

are you going to trigger yes and if it's

negative and you

have no way around that

they're in trouble exactly right okay

um power you bring up power and i hadn't

thought about this before

power is something i don't know if you

follow much about

philosophy or the latest philosophies

that are

that are out there right now critical

theory and and post-modernism but

right now that's that's become a very

big thing especially in academia and

really

it's it's entering into all institutions

right now

and and post-modernism focus

is to say first that everything is

relative

right it's it's all relative it's all

everyone truth is basically

your own lived experience and so

everyone's got their own truth and

there's no central truth

but secondly what that result of that is

that thought process

is that all that matters then is power

since there's not a central truth

and and you say in here and i'd never

thought of this before but

you know power is the ability to act

and so it's kind of like it's kind of

like taking your agency

and as you add power in a certain

circumstance

it's like leveraging your agency

it's it's hyper agency

is that is that right exactly exactly

you have

you have a this whole thing of

relativity and absolutes

are there absolute in the world

absolutely and what are they they're

god's principles those are absolute

principles and president nelson talks

about the absolute

truths involved with the heart and the

hearts

breakthroughs that he made in his

profession so there are absolutes but

if somebody wants to act upon you they

have to destroy

your belief in absolute

values absolute truths now here's here's

where this comes together with my

profession

think of your mind as an ocean it's a

mental ocean

at the top of this metal ocean would be

opinions

they change daily whichever way the

wind's blowing whichever way the winds

are

the waves are flowing the underneath

current is attitudes these are

stronger more likely to last

but everything is really driven by the

deepest currents in your middle ocean

and that would be values and values i

define

as the sum total of people's hopes their

needs

their beliefs and their fears

those four elements that's feed into our

values which really drive our behavior

i can do more with fears than i can with

hopes and needs and beliefs

because if we fear something then that

something

is a real value to people and you do not

want to have your real deep down values

diminish or hurt and that's why

satan tries to get us away from the

deeper currents

and say everything is okay at the

attitudinal level yeah it's relative you

don't have to worry about this and it's

nehor and corahor and everything do

whatever else you want

and you will all be saved and we'll all

live in heaven together and so in other

words they're taking the consequences

out of things and they're destroying

values in the process

yeah that's uh i've got a i've got a

little theory on on the

on the uh idea of destroying

consequences and i think i think we find

it in the garden of eden

right and i think that uh there's a lot

of talk in the book of mormon especially

with

with the two deaths right you've got a

spiritual death and the physical death

the immortal death and when satan

says to eve you know lucifer says to eve

you shall not die but be as the gods

um i believe what he's saying is is

is that his judgment it's not just

you're going to die physically

it's that you're going to die

spiritually

right there's going to be a fault

there's going to be a judgment

and a consequence in place but he's

saying there's not

you know and so his his i think that

that is something that is carried out

throughout all of the scriptures and

through our mortality here

is right from the beginning he's saying

don't worry about the consequences you

shall not surely die

it's not going to happen exactly right

yeah

there are four places in the book of

mormon that uh

the whole thing of don't worry about

consequences of brought out and i

mentioned a couple of them

helmet talks about one of them there's

one other one it's all all in the book

that satan has to destroy the idea that

you're going to have

to face the consequences someday and if

you're not don't have to face the

consequences guess what

there's no accountability there's no

judgment day there's no

self-responsibility agency properly

used is personal responsibility

with everything that that entails to

live as christ would have us live and so

god would have us become

and so satan will go after the

consequences if he can destroy

consequences

he can destroy agency if he destroys

agencies and heavenly fathers plan for

happiness collapses

yeah well stated should we be risk

takers

can we do what should we be risk takers

oh yeah absolutely you have to take a

risk and people

people forget that

everything is a risk because there's

opposition in all things

and you don't make any progress unless

you take a risk

in other words this world was created so

things will go wrong

and go wrong they do but that friction

gives us something to push against have

you have you ever

driven on black ice in the winter

unfortunately yes

unfortunately we all have guess what

that tire can spin and spin and spin but

if the friction

constant is zero in other words there's

no purchase or no grab there's no

friction that car doesn't move

we in life it's exactly the same way we

do not move

we do not progress unless there's

friction

and so somebody comes along and says oh

you poor

soul you've got so much friction here

i'm going to take the friction away from

you

guess what that takes the opportunity to

progress

away from you so when we say there's

opposition

in all things i say because of friction

there's exaltation

and the promise of exaltation and all

things because we have to take a risk

now a lot of people think free agency is

freedom freedom to choose freedom to do

or not to do

but i believe that agency is also a

commandment to act

and there's no action in this world that

you can take

that doesn't carry some kind of a risk

to it

and we learn to work with the risks

experience the risk and say

i'm not going to do that again and we

repent and we wince and repeat so to

speak and we keep making

progress but risk taking is necessary

because

agency is built upon our

about the assumption that people will

act and should act and should do and

should accomplish

that that let's let's talk about the war

in heaven for a second

um i i you know there's there's three

places that i i bring my

my audience on the podcast to often

and and that is the the war in heaven

the creation story

and the garden of eden story and i think

that there is so much

richness in all three of those

uh that if we really studied it as

little information as we have on each of

those

if we really studied the principles i

think that there's just such a

a large treasure to glean out of there

and and so if we look at we look at the

the war in heaven how would you say

that i mean it's obvious to a certain

degree but how would you say that agency

played a role in in the war in heaven

well first of all we did have agency in

the

in the pre-mortal pre-mortal existence

obviously because we had to make a

choice

and that says agency you have agency now

it didn't end in a setting that was not

this different than the course here on

the earth we have

agency and there's just seems to be more

of an expansion of the applications of

agency here on earth than there was up

in the pre-mortal existence

but we had agency up there we could

think we were

conversing we had personalities we had

friendships

everything was moving along and now

comes this son of the morning

lucifer who says i have a better plan

and it basically was saying you give me

your agency and i'll make sure there are

no consequences

i'm giving you a free lunch i'm giving

you a ticket back

here to live with heavenly father

forever and of course it was impossible

but he persuaded a third of the

hosts of heaven that he was correct now

figure it out

democracy figure so far there have been

something like 108 billion people

who've lived in mortality on this earth

that means there's something over 50

billion spirits

who decided not to come here now their

50 billion spirits working on seven

billions of us that's a seven to one

ratio beating up on you in your mind

every single day

so yes agency in heaven and now agency

here on the earth

but both are necessary for our progress

we made one

uh we we kept our first estate we're now

in our second estate and agency is

just germane and central and critical to

whether or not we'll make the progress

god wants us to make

so what are your thoughts on why someone

would choose

to not be able to choose they wanted the

free stuff

they wanted they wanted all the goodies

without putting in the effort

i of course we didn't know everything

about

what this earth life would be but i

think we had earth prep

101 classes where we were taught about

certain things maybe even visions of

of of other worlds and other people on

other worlds that god has created

i think he the heavenly father tried to

prepare us as as

as best he could short of actually

having to have the experience but

okay take a look at this way if there's

been billions of earths and billions of

people on those

earth since and people have written down

records is there any event

that has happened on some other earth

that has not happened here is there

anything that's happened here that

hasn't happened there

there's only one thing that's happened

on this earth that hasn't happened in

other earths and that's

the atonement of the savior his

sacrifice on our behalf

everything else i believe every other

experience that we can experience here

has been experienced by somebody else

somewhere else

so now why not get all of the all of the

material that's been written in all

these other worlds and all of the

uh experiences that they've had put it

in some celestial icloud

that we can tap into and we can read it

and therefore we don't have to come down

on earth and actually experience it

well it doesn't work that way to gain

experience you have to experience

experiences and that's not one of my

points in my book okay

um prosperity

here's and again as we're going through

this these are these are

these are things that we all think about

these are things that that

socially all come and bear fruit

and and give us an opportunity to choose

different things

and and it's all i believe i mean if you

study history at all

it's it's always the same things it's

always the same issues

we've talked about power a little bit

here but prosperity is a problem

for some right prosperity

is you know again if we're talking about

i i believe that

i believe you would say that prosperity

is a consequence

of of following certain

eternal laws so to speak or natural laws

whatever they are

and therefore you have prosperity

it brings up meritocracy

and that's

kind of a hot topic right now and you

know as far as

you know a lot of what's going on

politically

is and i'm not trying to be pick sides

here or be political in any way but a

lot of what is happening

is that for example again i'm going back

to critical theory here if i go back to

critical race theory

right underlying the anti-racism and

underlying critical race theory

is the idea that you need to get rid of

capitalism

and and if you don't you know if people

the audience doesn't think that you need

to read who's

who are the movers and and shakers of

those movements

because it's exactly what they believe

right they want to remove that because

they want to

remove meritocracy and

and so let me just bring a couple points

up here about this that i want you to

touch on if you would

meritocracy does cause a problem

right if we if we go through the book of

mormon

over and over again with the pride cycle

right

you have you have you know focused on

the nephites you see them

following the the commandments they're

they're following

order and structure and

they receive the positive consequences

of that they receive prosperity

and it almost not always but almost

always what

follows that and it's specified by

mormon over and over again is that there

are divisions in the classes

right there are economic castes that are

created

and and this this sows discontent

right and conflict over and over again

and so there are a number of people that

believe

hey we need to get rid of meritocracy

because

again we want to flatten the hierarchy

we want an a a a

a a society where equality exists

how does agency play into that

there are two kinds of equality equality

of opportunity

or equality of outcomes heavenly father

will not give you

any blessing that he's not willing to

give me or mr jones or mr smith down the

street

every one of his children will have or

has or will have that equal opportunity

to become his heavenly father but guess

what

we're different run different

willingness to work and willingness to

do or willingness to obey willingness to

follow counsel and as a result

we get different outcomes now

in agency we work with

with what we have and if agency

is honored then

in our mind we start thinking of ideas

we make connections and we see

a ability to improve our way of

living and that's where we get the

creativity and the prosperity

but then somebody comes along and it

says it's no fair

these people have more money than you do

this these people have this and you

don't and so we're going to make it all

equal so everybody has the equal amount

well if you gave everybody in in the

nation

let's say 5 000 a month

to make things equal then

you wouldn't go 30 days before some

other people are saying

but it's not fair why because we would

spend it differently

some would loan it some would invest it

some would squander it

and so there's we are there

you cannot have equal outcomes

without coercion so now you start with

coercion

and the and the people who think that

that's necessary so that everybody has

the same amounts we all have a piece of

the pie they're assuming

that wealth is finite and the pie

is finite and so if you have more than

if you get too big of a slice that means

there's less for me

where in actuality free market

enterprise says no that pie can expand

and if we use our agency there'll be

more and more people producing more and

more things and more and more new ideas

and we will all

prosper and so what happens when people

say

uh we're going to take from from this

guy and give it to this guy here

both of them will hurt the guy who

receives it will say

great somebody's taking care of me the

guy who has to give up some of

the fruits of his labor will say why

should i work so hard

and that's why we get that we natural

outcomes

are will always be unequal because

people will put an unequal

effort equal opportunity is of course

what we want

equal outcome can only happen if there's

coercion

here's the difference socialism says

must

christianity says should

socialism is a big counterfeit of god's

plan that we will all become and have

things all the things that we need each

one of us

and so because of that counterfeit he

tries to say

do whatever you want but somehow we're

going to make sure that everybody has

eagle well he knows darn well he's lying

it's impossible you cannot have equal

outcomes without coercion

and so i say to the people who want to

get away with capitalism

find me a socialistic country where

people have voluntarily joined it

because

deep down inside we know that

with you need to have incentives and

people have to have the right

to the fruits of their labor or you will

not

get production sure yeah

weren't many banana boats going from uh

florida to cuba

so um there's a quote in here that i

thought was really interesting i haven't

seen this before from aristotle that

says the worst form of

inequality is to try to make unequal

things

equal that's right right so i i've seen

that before but

again going back to the war in heaven

that's to me the gist of it

right is that is that you're going to

force dalenh choke says the same thing

right that that the equality of god and

i'm close on this but

the equality of god is the equal

opportunity for all

not the equal outcome for all a satan

cannot

nobody can acc uh can create

equal outcomes without coercion

equal outcomes without force is

impossible yeah and i think that that is

you know what i see that i pair i make

the parallel of that comment

with give me all the glory

right and always give me all the glory

means that i'm a little more equal than

everybody else

absolutely and i'm going to have to be

the tyrant

to actually make this happen and satan

does not

want competition and when he asks for

god's glory according to dnc 29 he was

in this and saying give me thy power

in other words satan doesn't want you to

have any power he wants you to be an

object

and an object is some that means to be

acted upon according to president faust

means somebody else is pulling the

string you become a puppet

and the puppeteer satan controls

everything you do and what you can do

and what you can't do would be a very

restricted

miserable stale boring existence for

those people who followed it

you have on your on the inside flap

of your book you have a little diagram

starting up at the top with agency and

then it splits into two sides

right and one side is to act

and the other is to act upon

now this is a little bit different from

saying

to me because you're you're basically

saying are you

are you creating acts of commission as

compared to acts of omission it seems

whereas you can also say well i'm

choosing good and evil

but that's not necessarily what you're

putting in the diagram here

you're you're putting in to act

or to be acted upon here

and and as you move down

the uh the diagram here you end up at

the bottom here i'm going to couple

cover a couple more of these as well but

at the very bottom you basically have

exaltation is the result on one side and

being an

object is the result on the other what

do you what do you mean by

by making a contrast between that and

well what is the difference between

being

your own agent being an agent and and

being an object

good point and here is what you're

referring to an agent you have

freedom you have power you have the

ability to act

and let's say you decide to act then you

will find opposition

but if you allow somebody else to act

upon you there's also opposition

and then there are consequences in both

sides but then

if you act and you feel the consequence

and you learn

from it this little arrow that comes

back up

says you get to act again that's really

repentance i guess i should have been

decided should have put repentance

because you felt the consequences

you say oh i've learned something so now

i'm going to do it differently you act

again and you start coming down

and you'll see that this person then

follows

through with a lot of positive items

that we get our better mentality we get

creativity we get

the power of the mind and innovation

prosperity

now you take a look at the other side

and let me put it over here

so everybody can see it if you say oh

i've felt consequences i'm a victim

then we go through a whole series of

things where society starts to act upon

you with cultural distortions with

intellectualism now intellectualism

is not being anti-uh intellectual we

believe you know that god

the glory of god is intelligence and we

want to learn as much as we can

but with the intelligence

out there in academia who and i get into

a lot of funny things and with the

academic um gobbledygook that they use

in some words somebody said you know i'd

really dislike people who use

big words they're just trying to sound

perspicacious

well do we get all of that and then it

leads to centralization of power it

leads to

statism and leads to socialism at least

attorney it leads to

tyranny it leads to becoming an object

and that's how i wanted to show

this whole thing of agency to act or

allow other people to pull the strings

is a big big difference in how much

progress we make

so would you equate victimhood with

being an object

uh yes if you um absolutely

you become somebody else's puppet

victimhood means

i feel sorry for myself it's unfair

somebody has

done something wrong and instead of

forgiving

learning and acting and moving on they

say

it's unfair i'm a victim somebody owes

and so you please take care of me and so

the people who

still get back to the uh the third and

left of

heaven they want the goodies without the

effort

well certainly there are people that are

victims though right

i mean they're they're natural victims

circumstance they are they are

the um result of somebody else's poor

choice and so they do

feel consequences but now it's what you

and when somebody does something and the

consequences are negative to you

how do you act you still you may be a

victim in terms of

um physically hit they hit me

i was a pedestrian a crosswalk and that

car hit me i'm a victim

but do you stay a victim in your mind

and that's the difference

you can be technically a victim on the

police blotter

this guy was hit in the in the

pedestrian crosswalk and so he is

a victim but does he consider himself a

victim

where other people have to therefore

compensate him

and take care of him yes we do but not

because

we are in other words we do take care of

the victims

but we can't take care of the victimhood

mentality that says you continue to

help you must continue to help me

forever and i don't have to put in any

effort

and you take a look at people who are in

wheelchairs or who are bound or

they cannot they still work i mean

stephen hawking still works i disagree

with

his perceptions about god and this is uh

his existence but stephen hawking's

crippled as can be

still works he doesn't consider himself

a victim and that's the way we should

have more things

don't consider yourself a victim hood

right so i i guess you know playing the

devil's advocate here i mean a lot of

people say well

you know say for example the people

those that are in the inner city

right and they don't they they have had

circumstance

they have been put into an environment

since that you know born into it

often times where culturally where

where um you know the circumstances the

opportunities aren't there

right so when we talk about equality of

opportunity there's not the equality of

opportunity for them and therefore that

that idea that moves towards socialism

right which would say well we need to

lift them up

is is born out of i believe it is it's

born out of compassion

right i mean there there's compassion

for that what i'm getting at is i think

i think that

in my view meritocracy

is absolutely crucial because because

you have to have agency

but alone i i don't think it saves

anybody

right i don't think that i don't think

it can you know if i were to take a

purely libertarian point of view

you know basically live and let live

it doesn't save anybody including

yourself

and so now there's there's different

ideas on the role of government and

where government comes into this or if

it's church or community or

family or or anything else but it seems

to me

that in those circumstances where people

you know i'll say people that are

victims of

less of an opportunity that there needs

to be

there needs to be uh action

and an agency used from both sides

in other words from the victim side

saying i'm going to reach up

and i'm going to choose you know which

is you know much more of a

you know a conservative type of a uh uh

an argument you know lift yourself up by

your bootstrap so to speak

and then and then and so that so that

you know my meritocracy my actions are

going to give me the right consequences

and then there's they need help

in doing this right because they don't

have the same opportunity

or and that could be in anything it's

not just the inner city right it could

be as you said someone who's disabled it

could be

it could be somebody who um lacks skills

you know or education or whatever it

just seems to me that that that idea of

the

opportunity is is what is crucial

let's take a look at the action needs to

be made on both sides

let's take a look at the you said people

who

want socialism or acting out of

compassion i don't doubt a lot of them

are

trying to do what is right but how much

compassion

how much government and intervention do

you need in order to be compassionate

and help somebody else

what happens is you get people who

see an opportunity for power i will

tell to these victims oh that's too bad

let's help you out we will we were going

to take it away from those rich guys

and we're going to give it to you well

there's a certain kind of a person

who'll say oh great i don't have to work

and and yet you get into a situation

where

people now see socialism

under the pretense of just trying to

help people

as a path to power and you show me a

socialist system

where people are equal it doesn't exist

there was a proletariat

the vanguard of the proletariat in uh in

the kremlin

they lived wonderful lives uh hugo

chavez's daughter still a billionaire

from all the things that went wrong in

venezuela

there's no way in the world that it is

totally compassionate

to try to take it from this person's uh

earnings and give it to somebody else if

the person wants to do it and he wants

to share what he has produced that's

wonderful

and that's a one-to-one situation but

once you get somebody intervening

whether it's

government or another organization or

another person saying

i will make sure that person a helps

person b

then you've lost the whole idea and

compassion doesn't exist it's a path to

power for people who want socialism

and agency suffers

all right one of the things you write

about

in in in the book is you

under responsibility you contrast

humor versus intellectualism

what what do you mean by that well i'm

not saying that intellectuals can't have

a sense of humor

what i'm saying is a sense of humor

comes from a very active

uh brain because the the

you look you got 100 billion little

houses in your brain

they're called neurons and they are all

over with a little antenna connecting to

trillions of miles of dendrites so when

a new piece of information comes into

your head

your brain says hmm i wonder where this

belongs and it sends out feelers to all

parts of the brains to see

if there's a connection what cluster of

neurons do i put this piece of

information

in and in the process you discover

new connections and that's the basis of

invention that's in basis of innovation

and at the same time you'll see some

unexpected connections and so you have a

sense of humor

so a real active intellectual

is going to have a lot of those kinds of

connections that will occur to him and

so you say

you know i love stephen wright with all

of his uh

his comments and i've got a chapter four

in the book that talks about humor

says well if cinderella's slipper fits

so well why did it fall off

if you can't eat during the night why is

there a light in the refrigerator

if at first you don't succeed and then

skydiving is not for you in other words

you see a different kind of a connection

and i think the people with the with the

best minds

and using the minds the best will have a

great sense of humor

but now you get the intellectual who is

trying to be

superior over others who wants to be

able to control other people

and some of those people's have anything

but a good sense of humor they are after

power

over others they are after the the goal

of making you an

object to their idea of a

pot positive society

i think it's interesting that when you

go to uh

2nd nephi 2 and and

and i'm not a philosopher but i've

studied a little bit of philosophy and

and uh i see lehigh as a real

philosopher

you know he's he's got you know as he

goes into you know

opposition in all things and and act or

be acted upon in chapter 2 there

he brings in the the garden of eden

story also

as he's he's talking to his son

eventually to

to all of his sons but uh

as we close up here explain to me again

how how our agency is tied directly to

the atonement ah very good question

agency says you have the right

to run your own life you have the right

to decide

what to do when to do it to what extent

to do it

or you can decide to just sit back and

let life flow on

in other words you have the you have the

right to run your own life and you

decide whether to act or not

act now once you do that

then we get into action and every action

has a consequence it may be immediate

it may be a ripple effect it may be

later it may be deep it may be

a multiple kinds of consequences but

every action has to have a consequence

some of those consequences are not going

to be pretty some of those consequences

will be negative

some of those consequences will indicate

a mistake has been

made and that mistake it makes this

person something less than clean and no

unclean things can

soul can live in heavenly father's

presence so god is a god of justice and

he must

continue to recognize that every action

has a consequence

now the consequence is harmful to others

harmful to self

how do you how do you cleanse that how

do you

make amends for it how do you

make that so that it is not part of the

final judgment

well that's where mercy comes in that's

where somebody has to pay

the it is absolutely impossible for us

as mortals to pay

the adequate price for every mistake we

made

we need a redeemer

a savior someone who will pay that for

so therefore when you you have agency

you must have the atonement it is

impossible

for god's plan of happiness to take

effect

without christ's atonement and the more

i study

it the more i'm just absolutely amazed

and and thankful

and for what

that great being did for us there's not

single consequence that we can feel of

anybody's mistakes

anybody's mistakes against us that he

doesn't also

know and understand and feel deeper he

descended below

all things and he disintegrated all

things because of god's

plan for our agency agency and atonement

have to go together otherwise we are

stuck in prison as president uh packer

said

would you say then i mean we're talking

about equality here

would you say that the atonement

then is the in

in a way is the gift of equal

opportunity for all of us

yes it is yeah and whatever

circumstances we have here on the earth

whatever adjustments have to be made in

our

post-earthly existence as we enter into

the spirit world

things continue on and any any

negative elements that uh due to the

circumstances of our birth will be

irregularly adjusted for and accounted

for

as the full plan of heavenly father's

plan for agency and happiness comes to

our knowledge

it's just it's a wonderful and and and

there is will be equal uh

opportunity to return to live in god's

presence

and it will depend upon us if we are

properly

dutiful to the atonement and

it's and follow the commandments repent

turn change improve and follow the

commandments then

we will have all of the blessings that

god is willing to give to anybody else

you will also have

gary really appreciate is there anything

else you wanted to cover that we haven't

uh touched on

well there are about 68 000 words in

that book

we got quite sure there would be a lot

of other things we could talk about but

just just as a conclusion that just keep

a couple of things in mind

agency must always

be connected to the atonement

unfortunately it is

and agency is not just a freedom it's a

commandment

to act and do and progress

great gary appreciate it gary c lawrence

the book is

the magnificent gift of agency to act

and

not be acted upon i very highly

recommend it

i've been i've been running through it

very quickly here so gary appreciate it

and uh great i appreciate it very much

thank you

you

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