The digital conversation that I currently like the least

So, this week the Utah Mormon modesty conversation broke out of the Wasatch front and made the Yahoo newsfeed when a really silly boy at BYU slipped a "love note" to a young woman wearing a floral dress, long sleeved sweater, leggings and boots at the library. He apparently felt she was a threat to the moral fiber of the university in her immodest apparel. The young woman was so mortified that she took a picture of the note and her outfit and posted it to Twitter, which people then reposted on any number of social media sites until it made it to professional curated sites (slow news day, seriously?). I could, like many of the comment boards on said sites, argue about the length of her skirt, the appropriateness of leggings, the real danger of making women responsible for the sexual impulses of men, or the plain old peculiarity of BYU--and I'm not talking about the good kind of peculiarity--but I won't.

What bothers me about this whole conversation is its dangerously narrow perspective. The way we have reduced the concept of modesty to how much of a woman's body is covered by fabric is short-sighted and dangerous considering how we must learn to navigate an increasingly immodest digital culture.

To me, modesty has to do with the ways and the intent with which we draw attention to ourselves. Could Andy Warhol have predicted the 21st century digital culture where truly anyone can be famous for 15 seconds at least? Within a circle of Facebook friends or Twitter followers, you can feel famous every time you post anything from a witty but somewhat mean comment about the president to the tiresome details of your dental hygiene. We live for outside approval, be it a like or comment on Facebook or a troll war in the local online paper. Like publicity, any attention is good attention these days.

Don't misunderstand me. You can actually dress immodestly. I don't doubt that. But there is little difference between a girl with cleavage or a too-short skirt and a boy with one of those t-shirts that's emblazoned with a slogan meant to offend anyone who has the misfortune of reading it. If you think that the best way to draw attention to yourself is to display your flesh or your misanthropy, something's wrong in the modesty department.

But dress is certainly not the only road to immodesty. Likewise, if you think the best approach to calming lustful thoughts about the cute girl in the library is to pass her a note telling her she's responsible for those lustful thoughts, something's wrong in the modesty department. I imagine that young man justified his behavior with thoughts of what a good deed he was doing. Obviously, she should be grateful that someone had the superior moral courage and enlightened conscience to point her back to the straight and narrow, right? Uh-huh. Right.

Still, perhaps if you think the best way to relieve the indignation of receiving such an ill-conceived note is to solicit the approval of your Twits and shame the anonymous writer in a public forum, well, maybe something needs to be adjusted in the modesty department there, too.

I'm currently in a long-term gospel study on this. So far, I haven't found much that made it clearer to me, but I found a verse in the New Testament that resonates. In 1 Peter chapter 3, there is an admonition to wives. In verses 3 and 4 it reads

3 Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;

4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

There are many reasons I'm not super fond of this chapter, including that, like many of the epistles, it seems to give men a pass on certain things. But for both men and women, I think verse 4 teaches us about the kinds of attention we should seek. Our greatest adornment is a quiet and meek spirit, the quality of our character. A modest life is one of moderation, one of integrity, one that needs no one's approval or attention other than God.

Is attention bad? No, of course not. When I sincerely seek the quality of life that God intends for me, I have found that He guides me to true friends, and I feel less and less tempted to strain for other kinds of attention. I guess I just hope that as my sweet little nieces and nephews develop into their own adult lives, they are not caught up in the clamor of immoderate behavior--that they are confident enough in their divine origins and eternal potential to refrain from needlessly entering the fray.

By the way, once again, the irony of this post doesn't escape me. Here I am, advocating that we moderate our behavior while drawing attention to my own philosophy (which, I freely admit, could be completely off-base). I'm not perfect yet. Forgive me. What I hope this post might effect is a broader discussion of what it means to be modest and why we should continue to care. So, to all three of you who read this blog, what do you think? What does it mean to live modestly, and how would you change the conversation about it if you could?