As editor, Mormon chooses the details with which he communicates the message he wants his audience to have. In this case, his antipathy toward Noah colors how he presents this description of what could otherwise have been considered the golden age of a rising culture, marked by the erection of many richly ornamented buildings and climaxing with Noah’s personal palace. However, in Mormon’s eyes, the entire activity is deplorable, and Noah’s palace is particularly selfish and greedy, a revelation of Noah as vain and imprudent.
Looked at more objectively, a 20 percent tax, on mostly luxury or trade items, would actually provide tax relief to many Americans. Second, most of the buildings financed by these taxes are public buildings, rather than private consumption. Third, Mormon obviously blames Noah for the people’s idolatry “because they were deceived by the vain and flattering words of the king and priests” (Mosiah 11:7). Yet in this description, Mormon downplays the people’s willing participation. They are not oppressed and enslaved by their selfish king; rather they have accepted the same cultural definitions as their king. Those definitions defined their society; the public architecture would proclaim their support of that social model. It is probably not incidental that this model included general prosperity. It is probably impossible to determine if prosperity followed their adoption of a new culture and a new religion, or vice versa, but this new (idolatrous) religion certainly explains Mormon’s unqualified disapproval of Noah and his reign.