That Rameumptum
Alma, Chapter 31
Holy Smee, are the Zoramites the ones who invented virtue signaling?
So, the Zoramites are WAY out there, right?
I mean, the whole standing on their tower thing… the way they spread their arms and shout to the heavens… and like where did they even get their sense of superiority from. At least the Pharisees of Jesus’ time have something they did to think of themselves so spiritually superior to everyone else. What on earth is the basis for the Zoramites prayer?
I can see why people listened to King Noah, to the corrupt judges in Ammonihah, to Korihor, etc. All of them appeal to what King Benjamin would call “the natural man.”
But it takes a little bit of work to see how the Zoramites became who they are. But when you look, it’s actually fairly insightful and quite a warning to us. Because nobody wants to be like the Zoramites.
1. It begins with wealth
This is one of the most important things for us to remember—wealth does not mean moral superiority. It’s a distortion of the promise the Lord made to Nephi: “Inasmuch as you keep my commandments, ye shall prosper in the land.” Notice the cause-and-effect relationship here: keeping the Lord’s commandments brings prosperity. Keeping the commandments comes first.
Additionally, it’s clear that the promise wasn’t meant to be a guarantee of non-stop material wealth. King Benjamin is clear that righteous people regularly struggle, and they need help.
No, the promise made with Nephi is clearly about the community, the civilization as a whole. A civilization that strives to live the gospel honestly will prosper. A civilization that abandons the commandments and the gospel will fall into degeneracy. That’s what it’s about, and it’s clearly shown over and over in the Book of Mormon.
So the Lord’s promise to Nephi is that if he, his people, and his descendants strive to keep the commandments, their community will prosper.
The Zoramites distort this promise in three ways: First, they don’t start with righteousness. They start with wealth. Wealth causes you to be superior. The cause-and-effect is reversed. Second, they apply it on a small, personal scale. If an individual is rich, then he must be superior. Third, they replace righteousness with superiority.
So this is the danger. If we believe success or wealth means we are superior, we are in Zoramite territory. It also lends itself to abandoning the gospel, because the goal is to seek wealth. Wealth is the independent variable in this way of thinking—you can’t control whether you are superior or not. That’s dependent on whether you are wealthy. So you seek wealth and success—by any means necessary.
2. No Faith, just Virtue Signaling
And then we get to the Zoramites and their prayer.
A genuinely virtuous person works hard, and willingly makes significant sacrifices, in the quest to following the Savior and keeping his commandments. This will include both personal virtue—honesty, chastity, etc.—as well outward, public virtue—as service to those in need. Alma, Amulek, Ammon, and all of these men are strong examples of virtuous people. They made great sacrifices, they both sought for personal faith and served others to an astonishing level. And the result was always gratitude and humility. They knew the source of their power and success was really the Lord.
Virtue Signaling, however, is something completely different.
It’s a public display to show off how superior we are to others. It requires neither sacrifice nor repentance. It serves nobody. It is calculated to make yourself feel like you are a good person—all without actually doing any good at all.
That the Zoramites are doing this is very clear in this chapter. The Zoramites stand on their elaborate tower, proclaim themselves better than everyone else (especially the poor whom were coerced into building it for them), and then go home and do nothing but selfishly indulge themselves on their wealth. All until another week passes, and it’s time to make the proclamation of superiority all over again.
I suppose I should have always paid attention more to what is happening here. After all, my personal failings have always leaned toward a desire to feel superior. Unlike the Zoramites, I don’t even need wealth to do feel that way.
This chapter is a warning to where this kind of thinking will actually take you.
***
It’s been a long time since I posted regularly. I hope to get back to it. I still want to write my full thoughts about the Book of Mormon, so you’ll see me go back to where I left off. Example: Tomorrow, you’ll read my thoughts on Jacob, chapter 7.
I’m also going to throw in some other posts—things I think about. Will they be interesting to anyone but me? Who knows. But one of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is novels, and so I’m working on some posts on my top 10 most impactful “novels.” I say novels, because they’re not all really novels. And it’s not even 10 of them, either:
Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander (yes, the whole series)
Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien
Ender’s Game & Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card
The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula K. LeGuin
Stormlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson (again, the whole series… even though it’s incomplete)
Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2, followed by Henry V, by William Shakespeare
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner
Into That Darkness, by Gitta Sereny
I plan to start with number 11, which is easily one of the most troubling books ever written.