To quote Amulek, “I am a man of no small reputation—among all those who know me” (punctuation modified). As I am relatively unknown, I now offer my full name, for you to speak good or evil of as you see fit: Christian Young Cardall.
How did I keep Aaron’s true identity hidden for so long? As Joseph is quoted in the Truman Madsen tapes, “I can keep a secret.” Alas, it is a boast that rarely can be sustained. You may think no man knows your history, but the fact is that men come to know your history after all. Fittingly, in this case, Aaron was unmasked by the AKA plugin, briefly turned on for public view, at the Banner itself—the one place I was not careful. Rusty, give the man a T-shirt. (The AKA tool is not a perfect tool, as noted, but in this instance it is accurate. As the only unknown I was going to post last, but now I see no reason for delay.)
Of course, the irony of Aaron being the only one not unmasked until the last moment is that Aaron was the most unmasked of all. Judging from the responses he was getting in comments, he was unbelievable to virtually everyone, at least eventually. Maybe this means I have less to apologize for to the readers—maybe not, I invite your judgments if you wish to render them—but it also means I have more to apologize for to my co-bloggers. As previously mentioned, this project was conceived as an attempt to develop interesting characters with interesting stories, and not be (at least primarily) about parody or satire. (As Rosalynde testified based on her participation in early planning discussions, I also bear a second witness that it was never about being intentionally mean-spirited. The unlooked-for quandary of eliciting “heartfelt confessions and sympathy from the readers”—as one reader judged our intentions—was regrettably not on our collective radar screen, and certainly not part of our intent.) But in spite of our stated goals, my weakness and utter inexperience as a narrative writer left open to me only the low and easy road of satire, to the detriment of the goal of a realistic dramatic blog. In fact, however, the parody may not always have been obvious, and I may not be adequately owning up to the feelings of those who were not vociferous doubters. (A couple of heated exchanges early on pricked my conscience, for example. I’m relieved to have read in a comment that at least one of Aaron’s early interlocutors feels okay about his intense encounter with Aaron.) Hence I may well deserve as many or more lashings (and thrashings) as anyone here. Please feel free to administer them. I hope to learn from this, and an important part of that would be hearing from you how my responsibility for Aaron affected you personally. I wish no one any harm, and would aspire to be, or become, friendly with all.
While on one level my desperate resort to parody made Aaron simply over-the-top and fun, there were a couple of “serious” things I tried—and perhaps failed miserably, even inappropriately—to explore in writing Aaron.
One thing, eventually detected and publicized by Rusty (or perhaps leaked, I’ll have to ask Steve and Rusty about their big conversation), was some caricatured shades of Joseph Smith, the original rough stone who sought only the learning and wisdom of heaven. This had at least one serious purpose—a purpose, I might add, not necessarily partaking of what Rosalynde recently called the anti-prophetic tradition, lest anyone defenestrate me prematurely for even contemplating such a caricature. I won’t take your time here to list in detail traits, actions, or sayings in posts and comments that pointed to this.
Aaron was truly a strange thing in the land, and not surprisingly the reaction to him was not exactly an open-armed welcome. (He certainly did not elicit heartfelt sympathy.) He struck people as completely ridiculous (or “rediculous,” as one reader called him while chiding Aaron’s penchant for misspelling), and it seemed to me that with few exceptions he was dismissed without people making an effort to engage him in a serious way. This is completely proper and understandable. With limited time we necessarily make quick decisions about what merits our attention and effort, and detailed arguments with Aaron were opportunities understandably passed over. Believe it or not, however, I think a dispassionate review would show that I tried to construct real arguments from scripture and unmistakably Mormon (if sometimes outdated or not universally accepted) beliefs—arguments that, given some traditional Mormon premises, would actually require a little work to refute—sort of like how Nate has said there’s actually some thinking going on amongst Islamic fundamentalist legal theorists. Maybe I’m wrong, but having had no choice but to spend more time than anyone on this planet reading Aaron, I think his arguments were stronger than he was given credit for.
Aaron was an irrepressible budding neoprophet. A wild voice in the wilderness, he offended us modern educated readers, comfortable in the sensibilities of our contemporary prophetic conventions, modest and tame, with cultivated public respectability. Is it possible that Joseph seemed similarly strange to his respectable contemporaries? That he got about as fair a hearing in his generation as Aaron did among us? That Joseph’s amazing stories seem so much more comfortable to us in no small part because of his historical distance, and perhaps our lifelong acquaintance with another kind of caricature? I was interested in stimulating thought about how difficult it would have been to give Joseph a fair hearing in his day—something, by the way, that could be explored in a unique way because of the facade.
Related to my dubiously bold claims about the putative hidden strength of Aaron’s arguments, a second idea I was interested in exploring was the surprising extent that our beliefs, assumptions, and sensibilities are underdetermined by our written canon and record. As I said, I made something of an effort to derive Aaron’s discomforting views from scripture and other genuinely Mormon sources. Is it possible that some of the discomfort with and reluctance to engage Aaron was a sense, perhaps subconscious, that arguing with Aaron could lead surprisingly quickly to the uncomfortable position of seeming to argue against scripture and traditional Mormon notions? (I remember one commenter finally coming out and saying that The Miracle of Forgiveness is full of errors and false doctrine—something I don’t think most would end up liking to say!) Is it even possible that Aaron’s position is not just an alternative derivation, but perhaps even more faithful to the written record than our contemporary sensibilities? If so, whence the changes, what really drives them, what fills in the blanks—continuing revelation, external cultural influences, … —and what are the implications?
This ‘underdeterminedness’ helps me recognize—and maybe even appreciate, I’m not sure yet—the importance the presiding authorities attach to some things some Saints come to the Bloggernacle to discuss and escape and complain about and transcend. The ‘unwritten order of things,’ the active and intrusive shepherding, all our many idiosyncratic standards and conventions on things that, to outsiders, ought to fall under the purview of individual discretion, the overwhelming correlation of lessons and learning and literature and love, in short, of life: perhaps all this really is necessary to maintain the strong cohesion and, yes, uniformity, that we’ve come to expect from our Zion. (Nota bene: The Bloggernacle thrives outside this correlated greenhouse, whose controlled environment is carefully prepared to foster the growth of plants of tender faith. By definition, therefore, the Bloggernacle consists of alternate voices. Caveat lector.) A written canon is not enough, not nearly enough, not by a long shot. Aaron can take you a long way on a strange ride on the strength of the written canon alone.
In this moment of justly expected candor, reciprocating the openness of our commenters, I will open up about some things and own up to some things. So often, creative energy is born of pain. If this applies in my case, it may be the ongoing pain of being a rather epistemologically challenged Mormon who chooses to maintain an impeccable attendance record. Perhaps as one way to deal with this I at times approached the task of constructing my straw man with a bit more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary. (The recurring Truman Madsen tapes were a nod to the pedestrian means by which one such as Aaron could potentially garner exotic knowledge.) I will also acknowledge something I share with Aaron: a tendency to see in black and white, something I may learn something about from you all. Oh, and I too own a deluxe leather-bound limited edition of Mormon Doctrine. And I too think breast implants are generally a bad idea, preferring in the end things as they really are.
How do those lyrics go by Deep Blue Something… ‘So what now? You say that things are over, and I hate when things are over, there’s so much left undone.’ In his brief life, Aaron may have managed to achieve iconic status (see also here), but many interesting doctrinal sequelae were left undeveloped (several of these would have been inspired by insightful comments on his early posts that he did not get the chance to, in his words, “dignify with a post.”) The narrative of his life was also left unfinished: We didn’t get to see Aaron go beyond the written canon, on to revelations of his own… The HUGE MISTAKE from his past and its sudden new impact on his life… Why he comes to retroactively see his abecedarian choice of a pseudonym as unwittingly inspired… And what was it of such apocalyptic importance he saw in Elder Nelson’s talk, that left him so dumbfounded he couldn’t blog for two months? Not to mention all the Truman Madsen tape references he had up his sleeve… I won’t say any more about his fate in this post. My co-bloggers and I may not have the heart—and few readers seem to have the stomach—to continue these stories further. Part of me wishes it were still possible, now that we’re all in on the fun. Who knows: if Aaron really is irrepressible, perhaps his voice may reappear from time to time after all, bereft of co-bloggers and readers, stripped from blogrolls and a spot on the Archipelago—truly, a lone voice in the wilderness.
