In Which I Draw a Comparison Between Copyright Law Enforcement and The Governance of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Supreme Court of the United States

This just occurred to me this morning as I was listening to General Conference on my way to work, where I've been teaching my graphic design class about copyright law. I don't know if the comparison I'm about to make is a good one or not, but I thought it was at least interesting.

The US Constitution declares the purpose of copyright protection to be "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts." Over the years, the courts have wisely determined that they are not the correct authority to judge what constitutes a "useful art," and so have extended copyright protection to basically everything (though what "everything" includes has changed as art and its forms have evolved).

This provides protection to a lot of things that are probably not very useful, which of course has its consequences. For one, it enables the oversaturation of our culture with frivolous or even harmful products — a condition with which we are currently faced. But it also helps prevent societal trends and individual biases from undermining long-term progress simply because the value of a work is not appreciated by its contemporaries.

There are undoubtedly many reasons why a genuinely useful work may fail to make its potential impact, but the law is determined that lack of copyright protection should not be among them. By protecting all scientific and artistic works, this policy seeks to maximize the possibility that a person can live off the proceeds of their work, which incentivizes continuing research and creation. In other words, progress. It's through this slow, messy progress that we hope to move forward as a people to become the best, most advanced, most enlightened society that we can.

Now I come to the comparison.

What if God takes a similar approach to the governance of the church? He must know that, with imperfect humans as stewards, a flawed implementation of His will is inevitable. But He also requires the heart and a willing mind, and these sacrifices convert us into people who will constantly be seeking to do better, to come closer, to make progress towards perfection.

That prophets and apostles make mistakes, are influenced by the times they live in, and fall short of the ideals they teach cannot be reasonably doubted. Some pronouncements will be incorrect, some policies harmful. Some will be correct, but not fully understood or appreciated until later. By endorsing the prophets nonetheless, by requiring his saints to sustain them, perhaps God is taking the long view. Perhaps the message is not that every word prophets and apostles speak is unquestionable truth, but that by following the long arc of revelation, including sustaining the prophets even when we think they got it wrong, we will eventually come as right as we possibly can.