This has been gnawing on me for some time. I feel a need to address my thoughts on this controversial figure in 20th Century Mormonism who is posthumously enjoying a bit of revival with his books and philosophies promoted by TV Personality Glenn Beck. As a blogger, I have the opportunity to address this however I choose. And I choose not to give a detailed historical, political or religious argument. There is some of that out there in the cyber-marketplace of ideas. Feel free to "google" (or "bing" or "yahoo" or whatever) to see what is there - and there's nothing wrong with going to his own books and documents as I have done to a limited extent. Here, I merely want to give my own thoughts and feelings acknowledging as many of my prejudices and shortcomings as I can even as there may be many I haven't yet recognized.
I am a child of the Cold War. My first exposure to Skousen was in my grandparents' living room where I noticed on their library shelves of a few, mostly church books, a large, red volume by Skousen entitled
The Naked Communist. I was intrigued. I first wondered how a book with two evil things in the title could be in my grandparents' house. "Naked" perhaps being more tempting than "Communist," I took the opportunity when no one was looking and sneaked a peak. Well, there wasn't a lot of naked stuff in there, at least not from a boy's perspective of fleshy things. However, I was a serious child given to reading and even with some interest in history. So there I was reading along a lot of excitable language about how bad Communists were and how they were infiltrating our government, society and our very thoughts. Of course I already knew some of that because, well, I was a child of the Cold War.
