Korihor casts a long shadow in the Book of Mormon. His ideas seem to have come from the priests of wicked King Noah, by way of Nehor and the kingmen, but his dark presence continues, influencing the Zoramite heresy and eventually, the rise of the Gadianton robbers. Giddianhi’s insolent bravado has echoes of Korihorish thought, and I see resonances in the history of that wiliest of Nephite quislings, Amalickiah.

I think that’s why he’s included. Imagine, if you will, that someone were given the responsibility of editing and compiling, from a variety of sources, a thousand-year history of England, with around 500 pages to work with. What should he include?  Shakespeare’s a no-brainer, and Henry VIII and the Reformation; does John Wycliffe make the cut? Henry V: in or out?  All right then, would our imaginary editor include a chapter on Ned Ludd?  Very unlikely, unless he thought the cultural audience for whom he was writing was likely to develop dangerously Luddite tendencies. And you were worried about it, and in fact, were writing the book to combat just those ideas. Then, yes, you’d include a good bit about Ludd. But not otherwise.

It’s generally historically dubious to draw direct and specific parallels between the actions of historical figures and actions being contemplated today. But scripture is different. Scripture isn’t intended to be read as history; it’s purposes are didactic and pointed.  We’re supposed to liken it unto ourselves.  The Book of Mormon, as scripture, is a 531-page sermon, in which historical materials are introduced to illustrate certain arguments, involving parallels between one ancient culture and our own culture, complete with heroes we’re meant to emulate, and villains we’d be wise to avoid.  When Mormon describes the arguments of Korihor, it’s because he has prophetic reason to think similar arguments are being made and listened to today.

And so, in Alma 30, in just a few verses, we get a compact, even if rudimentary account of what appears to have been quite a comprehensive philosophical system, complete with metaphysics, axiology, and epistemology.  It’s not uncommon for Mormons to use Korihor as a club to attack humanism, or philosophy, or perhaps some philosopher–Nietzsche’s a popular choice–they disagree with.  Gerald Lund, for example, in a reductio ad absurdem article in the Ensign, compared Korihor to Paul Kurtz and Edwin H. Wilson and their 1973 Humanist Manifesto II, which appeared in Humanist magazine. Korihor=secular humanism. That’s much too broad to be very meaningful, and frankly reads as rather shallow, and so may my reading be; all readings are misreadings, de omnibus dubitandum est. Still, it’s not hard to see, in Korihor, a very specific cult of heroic individualism, one in which “every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime.”  In fact, ‘prospering’ emerges as the defining value of Korihor’s system, excusing conquest, the acquisition of power and influence, and pretty much any kind of sexual or violent conduct.  (See, for example, that chillingly all-inclusive ‘whatsoever:’ whatsoever a man did was no crime.  This isn’t moral relativism; it’s moral anarchy.).  I’ll grant as well, that Korihor, at least as he emerges in an account written by men hostile to his teachings, is just not that interesting a thinker. To find his like, we’d need to look at more popular thinkers; not really at philosophers per se so much as the sorts of people who play them on TV, so to speak.  Which may be why my thoughts turn so immediately to Ayn Rand: someone superficially appealing, able to hornswaggle such “deep thinkers” as Paul Ryan and Rand Paul into thinking her profound.

Because it’s all there. The celebration of individualist achievement. The rejection of religion and spirituality. The notion that everyone prospers according to his genius, and conquers according to his strength, and that no act by a strong man can be immoral. And how strong men are set upon and persecuted by religious do-gooders like Alma.

It’s hard to improve upon the marvelously preposterous nature of Randian dualism.  Instead of dividing the world into ‘body’ and ‘spirit,’ as most dualistic thinking does, Rand divides ‘body’ up into ‘ideal men’ and ‘second-raters.’ Her world consists entirely of strong men, who we should view as exemplars because of their whole-hearted pursuit of their own happiness, and of weak men, ‘nonideal’ men, who only want to drag heroes down.  Strong men advance all of society through their fearless creativity, and tiny, lesser men either bow at their feet, or contrive to destroy them.  Rand called her philosophy ‘objectivism’ (which isn’t a bad description for Korihor’s own metaphysical stance), but what she really celebrated was egoism:

All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good.  All which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil. . . . The moral purpose of a man’s life is the achievement of his own happiness. . . This does not mean that he is indifferent to all men, that human life is of no value to him, and that he has no reason to help others in an emergency.  But it does mean that he does not subordinate his life to the welfare of others . . . that the relief of their suffering is not his primary concern, that any help he gives is an exception, not a rule, an act of generosity, not of moral duty, that it is marginal and incidental (Harry Binswanger 450)

By far the closest literary parallel I can find to Korihor is that iconic architect of great and spacious buildings, Howard Roark, hero of Rand’s The Fountainhead. Well, John Galt, of course, but bear with me. In her preface to the 1968 edition of the novel, Rand made it clear that the “purpose, first cause and prime mover” of the novel was its portrayal of the “ideal man” Roark (vii).  If we didn’t know that going in, we’d certainly get it from the novel itself, a preachy melodrama in which Roark confronts and eventually defeats the second-rate architect Peter Keating and his mentor, the evil altruist–and in Rand’s world-view, ‘evil’ and ‘altruist’ are inevitably linked–Ellsworth Toohey. But there’s a delicious irony in Roark’s profession.  Essentially the main plot of The Fountainhead revolves around the building of a Rameumptom.

The grim comedy of the Rameumptom is found in Alma 31.  Immediately after defeating Korihor, Alma takes his sons with him on a mission to the Zoramites, a Korihorish splinter group who were “perverting the ways of the Lord (Alma 31: 1)” through idol worship. And which idols were they worshipping–what were their golden calves?  Nothing less than themselves.  The cult of heroic individualism takes on a new face and identity.

We all know about the Rameumptom, the “holy stand (Alma 31: 21)” where each Zoramite stood, arms stretched upwards, and thanked God for how terrific Zoramites were: “We thank thee, Oh God, that we are a chosen and a holy people (Alma 31:18).” Compare this description of the Stoddard Temple, Roark’s greatest building in The Fountainhead:

When a man entered this temple, he would feel space molded around him, for him, as if it had waited for his entrance, to be completed.  It was a joyous place, with the joy of exaltation that must be quiet.  It was a place where one would come to feel sinless and strong, to find the spirit of peace never granted save by one’s own glory (334).

I love the idea of a building where men can go to celebrate their own glory.  What’s fantastic about both the Stoddard Temple and the Rameumptom is how sublimely, wondrously, marvelously funny they both are.  (And all the funnier given the self-righteous humorlessness of Rand’s prose).  It reminds us that Hamlet’s stirring “What a piece of work is  man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!” is meant sardonically; those repeated exclamation points give the joke away.  Hamlet would surely appreciate the savage comedy of the Rameumpton; a religion built on a preposterously inflated self-worth.  (We know what their prayers sounded like: what do you suppose is in their hymnal?  Right Said Fred’s “I’m too sexy for my shirt,” perhaps?).  I remember a few years ago, a friend and I happened to be in Anaheim, and had the opportunity to visit The Crystal Cathedral.  It’s a spectacular building, and we enjoyed our visit.  But our favorite moment was a memorial to ‘Christian capitalists,’ where wealthy donors could give money, and get their names on a wall commemorating, well, them. “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of, let’s face it, me.” (The danger, of course, for a Church of Me, is an ill-timed bout of flatulence from just one celebrant, which could literally blow the whole theology away.)

But, of course, the selling point is “freedom.” Freedom from restrictions, freedom from a moral code, freedom to do whatever you choose and to profit by it, freedom from societal, governmental or religious restraint. Alma, as a priest, is accused by Korihor of using his Church position to enrich himself. He is likewise accused of using his governmental position, as chief judge, to enrich himself. Korihor, like Randian libertarians, preaches liberation. Above all, of course, today, it’s freedom from taxation. Taxation is bondage, we’re told. It’s our money, and we want to keep it. Our hard-earned money, as we’re constantly told. Look up, instead of down, rise against arbitrary restrictions!

No wonder it turned out to be kinda popular. But King Benjamin thought otherwise.