Will What Brought Down the KKK (Embarrassment!) Help Bring Down the WTS?

by Seeker4 12 Replies latest jw friends

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  Seeker4

  Below is a section of an interview with the brilliant writer and rationalist Sam Harris. I read it a couple of days ago, and it has been churning around in my conscious and sub-conscious ever since. This is partly because I'm working on a satiric novel regarding a JW-like religion (think Crisis of Conscience as written by Monty Python and Edward Abbey), and what Harris said here really connected with what I'm trying to do.

  Any thoughts on how well satire, humor and embarrassment might rob the WTS of its power?

  S4

  What is the most likely way that American society, if not the rest of the world, will eventually abandon irrational faith?

  Harris: I think this is a war of ideas that has to be fought on a hundred fronts at once. There’s not one piece that is going to trump all others.

  But I think we should not underestimate the power of embarrassment. The book Freakonomics briefly discusses the way the Ku Klux Klan lost its subscribers, and the example is instructive. A man named Stetson Kennedy, almost single-handedly it seems, eroded the prestige of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s by joining them and then leaking all of their secret passwords and goofy lingo to the people who were writing “The Adventures of Superman” radio show. Week after week, there were episodes of Superman fighting the Klan, and the real Klan’s mumbo jumbo was put out all over the airwaves for people to laugh at. Kids were playing Superman vs. the Klan on their front lawns. The Klan was humiliated by this, and was made to look foolish; and we went from a world in which the Klan was a legitimate organization with tens of millions of members—many of whom were senators, and even one president—to a world in which there are now something like 5,000 Klansmen. It’s basically a defunct organization.

  So public embarrassment is one principle. Once you lift the taboo around criticizing faith and demand that people start talking sense, then the capacity for making religious certitude look stupid will be exploited, and we’ll start laughing at people who believe the things that the Tom DeLays, the Pat Robertsons of the world believe. We’ll laugh at them in a way that will be synonymous with excluding them from our halls of power.
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  blondie

  So Seeker4, what embarrassing WTS secrets do you think there are out there that have not been revealed in print and on the internet?

  Blondie
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  daniel-p

  Very true... it de-legitamizes the organization to have all the BOE letters, talk outlines, programs, etc. on here, because peopel can see it for what it is. The aura of holiness is gone when you can pull the curtain back and see the 12 fruity crackpots pushing buttons and pulling levers.
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  fullofdoubtnow

  I don't think the tower will crumble due to embarassment, S4, but more of it might chip away a few more bricks.
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  daniel-p

  On the other hand, perhaps "embarrassment" won't do a whole lot. There is a crucial difference between an org. like the KKK and JW's. That is that the JW's are a faith, a religion, whereas the KKK are more of a club, or association. When dealing with matters of faith, some people are completey blind - and no matter how much it is embarrassed, people continue to believe. I am reminded of all the stuff surrounding Scientology and how it is so clear to see it as a completely debunked, curropt organization disquised as a legitimate religion. And then there is Mormonism which was recently embarrassed by the recent developments in North American anthropology, directly contradicting the Mormon belief of where the natives came from. And yet Mormonism is one of the fastest growing religions in the world. My conclusion: some people are just really, really stupid.
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  Arthur

  Hey Seeker4,

  I am a big fan of Sam Harris. Have you read his book: "The End of Faith"? It's a great book.

  In a previous post, I wrote that it would be great to make a movie lampooning the WTS. It could be similar to Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11. We could call it Farenheit 607.
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  serendipity

  Even thought much of the JW experience has been posted on the internet, people have to go looking for it. If the elements of the JW life were satirized or spoofed in a novel or movie, without mentioning that it pertains to JWs, it would have more impact.
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  Mysterious

  I know a lot of my friends in high school were shocked by how much "in speech" there was, they expected it to be more mainstream like their churches were. I always used to have to "translate" for people that were hearing my story for the first time who were not raised as JWs themselves.
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  Seeker4

  OK, Blondie, maybe I left out the Superman factor in doing this!? (By the way, did you see my appeal for more data on the growth of JW posts?)

  Yeah, embarrassment and spoof will be only one factor, and Harris makes it clear that there have to be a hundred different angles of approach here - yet these are legitimate and powerful ones, perhaps more so than we give them credit for. I think that perhaps Tom Cruise, a megastar no matter how you slice it, has lost credibility due to his Scientology connection. It certainly makes him seem wacked.

  daniel-p: I think there is a fairly current post that shows that the reputation of Mormonism as one of the fastest growing religions - the same as the JWs - is actually a myth. Check it out. I posted on there today and you can reach it through my recent posts.

  Yeah, Sam Harris is doing amazing stuff. I've been reading (and listening) to him online for the past couple of weeks.

  S4
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  grey matters

  I'm not familiar with Sam Harris, but I read Freakonomics earlier this year and thought it was great. I agree with you about the harm in publicizing supposed "secret information". The organization is built on status. Those "in the know" feel priviledged for having access to "special information" that others don't get to read. The more BoE letters, Pay Attention books, etc. that show up online, the better. It makes that "special information" ordinary, which diminishes the feeling of status and fosters disillusionment. I'm glad that the WTS spends time worrying about the implications of this, as evidenced by the resolution at the district convention. They should know that every time they put their fingers on a keyboard, they run the risk that their words will be broadcast all over the Internet. The only other thing they can do to maintain secrecy is to use the tactic described by BroSun1 on another thread, where they have CO's and DO's pass instructions verbally to elders with instructions not to take notes. But that only works with a limited amount of information, not the volume that they are used to pouring out.