A thought I had daydreaming while at the recent convention –
‘Old timers’ in the organization often reminisce about the way the WTS was many years ago. Attending a convention meant (a) getting hot meals, (b) orchestra music before and during sessions, and (c) two, three, or even four dramas.
Huge numbers of Witnesses were required to staff such arrangements, and they invested thousands of hours just to prepare food, music, and drama ‘entertainment’ for these events. The time and effort investment was probably a reason for discontinuing these features of the assemblies, as I think they themselves said a few times.
Orchestra music and hot meals at conventions ended in 1978 in the USA, and the number of dramas were reduced one by one until each convention featured only one in 1991. Food service stopped altogether by 1995 in the USA.
Slowly, these and other characteristics of the organization began to be ‘simplified’ away.
Many JW’s who weren’t quite as zealous in the ‘preaching’ work served the cong in other ways – by cooking and selling food at assemblies, rehearsing and playing music (both at assemblies and at KH’s), acting in dramas, and other assembly-related work. I believe most of these JW’s rightly viewed such activities as part of their ‘worship’ and ‘sacred service’ to God. I imagine many of them volunteered for these activities so they didn’t have to sit and listen to the program for 4+ days, viewing it as a ‘worthy distraction.’
As time passed, though, and simplification sucked the life out of Witness activities, there was nothing else to do but sit and listen to the program. Witnesses who had been used to using their talents, at least to some extent, to serve their religion, now had nothing else to do but sit down, go out in service, listen to the canned music, eat the canned food, watch the canned dramas, and read the paperback novels.
I think much of this ‘simplification’, whether the WTS believed it or not, led to the malaise now glaringly obvious in the org.
Now, I'm not talking about the mass exodus of people from the org, thanks to the internet. I'm talking about the apathy of those still in the congregations.
Every convention is the same as the year before – different title, same schtick. Witnesses don’t even seem to get excited about the releases at the conventions anymore – routine applause, but you can’t really muster up any excitement over a paperback novel which is really just a revision of something they printed 20 or 30 years ago - a paperback novel which any reputable book publishing house would call a 'pamphlet'.
Simplification of the quality of books has been a blow to the pride of many JW’s in their organization. I remember that when the “Greatest Man” book was released in 1991, many boasted at how beautiful the book would look in their libraries, and its giftworthy appearance was a ‘selling point’ in the field. They said something similar about the “Proclaimers" book in 93. The content may have been questionable, but it sure did look nice on the shelf, right next to the 30-year collection of bound volumes inherited from dear old Aunt Louise.
When was the last time you saw a group of JW’s get excited over a new book or talk about the quality of the publication itself? Probably the best thing I can say about the Revelation book gathering dust on my bookshelf is that it withstood being studied three times at the book study. I certainly couldn’t say that about the new paperback Revelation books; half the pages will be falling out by the time they get to Chapter 5.
I guess my question is - Was this part of the internal downfall? I think the internet has brought many out of the WT. But did the 'oversimplification of everything' contribute to the apathy of those still in the org?