Saomebody mentioned in a recent thread here I think that the more they read here the more they feel angry at the WT. Personally, as an ex-elder (only resigned a few months ago) I feel that it is more like suddenly being on the outside looking in at a whole group of people playing parts. The zealous pioneers answering all the time. The uber-elder getting up on the platform and getting into character as the encouraging wise older man, even though he is younger than me. I would be interested to know if others feel that we assume roles as we enter the KH.
Effect of reading here.
by New day 21 Replies latest jw friends
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Oubliette
Most people assume roles all the time, and it is not necessarily a conscious thing.
Read about Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment and you'll learn about one of the most powerful scientific studies done on the subject of individuals assuming the role they are assigned.
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JW GoneBad
"I feel that it is more like suddenly being on the outside looking in at a whole group of people playing parts"
I agree and the words that come to mind are...impersonators, hypocrites and stooges.
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JamesThomas
New day, your post is a good observation; and I feel that Oubliette is correct by taking it further.
The mind is continually weaving an identity out of beliefs, concepts, fears, desires, and memories of phenomenal happenings. That's why it is very hard for most people to leave a belief-system – such as the Jehovah's Witnesses – because it has been woven into our identity, and to leave it, is in a way, to die.
Seeing this, the question then becomes: what mental generated fabric is making up my “identity” right now? Am I nothing but concepts, beliefs and ideas? Who/what am I, really? What observes the mind???
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Xanthippe
Perhaps it feels like playing roles because they are not actually accomplishing anything. They are not manufacturing anything, creating anything, providing a public service or helping anyone. -
rmt1
One of the most fraudulent roles to fill is that males are intrinsically a spiritual head. Males are not necessarily spiritual, nor necessarily interested in the religion's forms, nor necessarily ambitious in the religion's hierarchy. Implicit in this role is that any Thatcher is a Jezebel. I.e., competent female leadership is a concept that falls under thought crime, and cannot, or is not permitted to be represented, in expressible language. And yet, the women are the large army (on this cotton picking plantation) and they must be galvanized and calibrated by some intermediate, token, symbolic female authority. And so you get the ridiculous and contemptible picture of a pimple pencil neck in shirt and tie being walked through his paces by portly wizened ancient semi-divine elderettes who know that one must use the correct tool in the correct way, but are forbidden to address a congregation in a formal audience setting. -
Magnum
Yes, I see it that way, sort of. However, most of the ones I know truly believe, so can it be said that they are "playing" parts? I don't know. I think they are doing what they think they are supposed to or what will make them look good to others. But, wow, are they totally blind and gullible.
I'm thinking of one of those young uber-elders you mentioned. Even though I think he's a 100% believer, I do think he's playing a part. He comes across to me as being phony - not in his belief, but just the way acts. It's just too sickeningly sweet and goodie-goodie. It's not normal or natural. So, I guess it could be said that they are playing parts even if they are believers.
The more I get away from JWdom, the more I read here, the more I research, the more I think back over the last 30 or 40 years, the more I observe what JWdom is evolving into, the more it seems wrong to me.
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rebel8
One of the main reasons I left is because I was being forced into a role that was not natural or healthy for me. Here I am my natural self, 25 years post-borg.
Behaviors and beliefs take time to change, and that's if you're actively trying to change them. Here you see people in different phases of healing and change.
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New day
I suppose what made me think of all of this is that my wife played the role of pioneer for many years against her natural shyness and this has caused her huge problems as her natural personality was suppressed. Now she is almost a recluse as the pressure made her crack. -
DesirousOfChange
Somebody mentioned in a recent thread here I think that the more they read here the more they feel angry at the WT. Personally, as an ex-elder (only resigned a few months ago) I feel that it is more like suddenly being on the outside looking in at a whole group of people playing parts.
Yours is a 2-part question.
1) Yes, the more I read here, the more angry I became, but I don't think that the guilt can be placed on this site nor on the fact of reading info here. That's like being angry at a person who informs you that your mate is cheating on you.
I'm angry that I was: (a) so gullible as to have really sincerely believed all this horsesh!t and kept chasing the unattainable "carrot"; (2) and, that someone high up in the Ivory Towers of WT it dangling that "carrot" that (I believe) they know is unattainable -- that the promises of Paradise and living through Armageddon and living forever are all false promises. Yet, I think they keep telling the lies (dangling the carrot) because it sustains the "monster" Organization that they (and those ahead of them) have created. If they let the "monster" die, they lose everything too, because they are parasites living off of the monster.
2) Yes also to finding yourself on the "outside". Even if you are not literally on the outside due to being DA or DF or even by your own "fading", you are still on the outside because YOU know TTATT. You see that the emperor is naked, while everyone else around you is still playing their part admiring the emperor's new (lite) clothes. You see his flabby naked butt, while at the same time they are admiring his new velvet britches. It's one WTF moment after another as you are "outside" looking "in". It's the "red pill" vs "blue pill" thing. You can't go back (inside) even if you want to do so.
Doc
