How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

I'm from Utah. I moved to Seattle, then San Francisco. When I had a kid, I moved back to Utah.

One thing I noticed is that Utah is almost all middle class. Some have more money, some have less, but most of them are middle class.

It's relatively easy to go from poor to rich if you're really middle class. I mean that if your parents are well educated but a high school teacher and a stay-at-home-mom in a middle class neighborhood, you're​ poor but you can become a medical doctor almost as easily as a rich kid.

It's not so easy to become a doctor if you're raised by your high school drop out grandma because your mom's working and your dad's missing and the adults around you are unemployed, going to prison, or working at fast food restaurants. If you can lift up people in situations like that, I'd be much more impressed.

I think the Mormon welfare system is very impressive (and I do recommend that progressives take a look at it) and Utah government is vastly better than California's. But I think the lack of a real lower and upper class would make mobility look artificially better.

I used to be a Mormon, my family converted when I was young. At no point did I believe their teachings. Like many cults being required to believe something obviously wrong keeps the normies out and clearly defines who is in the 'in group' and who is in the 'out group'. Just by saying you believe it signals to others that you are willing to lie in order to belong.

I really enjoyed my time in the church. There is huge pressure to conform in one area but this means your free to be yourself in others. I was a nerd and constantly tormented for it outside the church. (The US is much nicer to nerds than those in my country where it considered a civil duty by other children to beat it out of you). Inside the church I was treated like a normal person. Similarly, Dijkstra had to leave Europe to escape a 'religious' academia and found refuge in 'backwards' religious Texas.

There is a natural human tendency, an emergent behavior, to self organize into 'religious' groups. I see the same behavioral patterns in environmentalism, veganism, feminism etc. By keeping 'religion' to religion there is less of for it in others areas.

I left the Church quite young because I didn't need it anymore and thought the church was stupid. I still liked the people in it.

Obviously if I was gay I would have a different story.

> If you can lift up people in situations like that, I'd be much more impressed.

> But I think the lack of a real lower and upper class would make mobility look artificially better.

I'm a bit confused. Aren't these contradictory? By not having poverty haven't they achieved the raising people out of poverty bit already?

> But I think the lack of a real lower and upper class would make mobility look artificially better.

I'm not sure that's artificial. Everyone being middle class would mean everyone has the resources available that make it practical to improve.

I wonder how much the missionary movement helps counteract the homogeneity. A benefit of diversity is an exposure to different ways of thinking, knocking on strangers doors will give you plenty of that.