Life as a Jehovah's Witness viewed as a performance

by slimboyfat 13 Replies latest jw friends

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  slimboyfat

  I am reading The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman at the moment. It sheds much light on the experience of 'performing' the role of being a Jehovah's Witnesses: how a Witness will strictly adhere to Watchtower standards when we are 'frontstage' with an audience either of peers or outsiders, and how they may relax those standards when they are 'backstage', not in a setting where their fidelity to the identity of 'Jehovah's Witness' is being scrutinized.

  An interesting point it makes is that we can present our roles either with 'sincerity' if we believe in the performance as much as we would have the audience, or with 'cynicism' if we perform our role without believing in it, but expecting that the audience will. But rather than being a neat spectrum from sincerity, through ambiguous sincerity, all the way to cynicism, Goffman argues that a performer will tend to one extreme or the other: either believing utterly in the role he is presenting, or presenting it totally without conviction for the benefit of the audience only.

  Thinking on my own experience of being a Jehovah's Witnesses who developed doubts, and from observing others, I find this to be true. When I believed it was the truth I presented myself as a Witness with utter conviction in the role I was performing. As soon as I started to doubt in the belief system, all the actions of being a Witness lost their inner meaning for me: answering up, presenting magazines at the doors, conversation with other believers. I was suddenly aware of the enormous expectation to perform and signal according to standard Jehovah's Witness practice in order not to alarm those around me, and in order to appear coherent even if mentally I was confused and unsure. The accumulation of doubts was a gradual process; however the movement from performing the role of being a Jehovah's Witness shifted from a presentation based on conviction to one of inner cynicism very quickly, even while many doubts remained unresolved.

  So if it is true that Jehovah's Witnesses who on an individual basis are each performing the outward signs of being a Jehovah's Witness can be divided into those who are 'presenting' with inner conviction and those who are 'performing' purely for the benefit of the audience, with little scope for anything between those two, then it makes observing the behaviour of other Witnesses all the more interesting, trying to figure out which camp the performance of each fellow believer comes under.
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  WTWizard

  That is what the Washtowel Slaveholdery creates--they create the public expectation that the witlesses are perfect, able to withstand any amount of abuse and still happy to help everyone without any reward whatsoever. I think the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger creates this image every time they go to court, fight a child custody battle, or have their Grand Boasting Sessions where the media might walk in off the street.
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  civicsi00

  So if it is true that Jehovah's Witnesses who on an individual basis are each performing the outward signs of being a Jehovah's Witness can be divided into those who are 'presenting' with inner conviction and those who are 'performing' purely for the benefit of the audience, with little scope for anything between those two, then it makes observing the behaviour of other Witnesses all the more interesting, trying to figure out which camp the performance of each fellow believer comes under.

  Ever since I've been out, I've been observing JW's just to see what side of the coin they really fall on. It gets even more interesting when you start to ask them questions about themselves or the bOrg and you get to see how they disagree with certain things yet they still fall in line with the rest of the soldiers. I've learned a lot from asking others how they came to be slaves to the WT, and it's pretty sad. Some follow along not knowing for sure what they're getting into (until it's too late and they're baptized), others like the idea of a Paradise earth that is "soon" coming. Some don't see the false prophecies for nothing. Another accepts that she will die simply because she's been D/F and feels that the WT is directed by God, therefore if you're not in, you're SOL.
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  truthseeker

  Slim, you make some good points. That's the trouble with belief - once it goes, the JW labors become more intense and harder to keep up with. You're not working for the system anymore, you're working against it and against your convictions.

  During my last few years as an active dub, I could not bring myself to believe in their teachings - I stopped commenting and giving talks became a chore, something to get out of the way. You can only keep this up for so long - in the end I just stopped caring enough about what people thought of me - when I stopped performing, my audience became just one - me - I couldn't fool these people anymore, they had already made up their minds I was spiritually weak.
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  Satanus

  Very interesting and good points. It's a long walk from being a performer on a stage, 24/7 in the universal contest between yhwh and satan, to finding and just being our true selves.

  S.
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  OUTLAW

  Good Thread SBF........................Actors with very little audience,except themselves..

  ...OUTLAW
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  Homerovah the Almighty

  Pretentiously righteous at the Kingdom Hall , quite wordily and apathetic outside of it in their personal character

  the only differance I found between them was some were capable of leaving the white sheet longer over themselves than others.
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  lurk3r

  civics100 - "Some follow along not knowing for sure what they're getting into (until it's too late and they're baptized), others like the idea of a Paradise earth that is "soon" coming."

  May I ask you why exactly you make mention of it's "too late and they're baptized"? What exactly is too late about it?
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  BurnTheShips

  That's the trouble with belief - once it goes, the JW labors become more intense and harder to keep up with.

  My last year active in the JWs was like a living hell.

  BTS
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  Leolaia

  Dude, you're reading Goffman! That's so cool, I'm impressed. We covered him in a bunch of classes in college, particularly discourse theory and language and gender. You should see his work on the portrayal of women in magazine ads. He brings a good anthropological perspective to the kind of everyday stances we take that we never think much about.

  The accumulation of doubts was a gradual process; however the movement from performing the role of being a Jehovah's Witness shifted from a presentation based on conviction to one of inner cynicism very quickly, even while many doubts remained unresolved.

  Good observation. I always felt I was an honest person and there came to be a point when conflict arose between having doubts and "playing the part" of a loyal witness. I hadn't felt that way before, and so I began to curtail my involvement in different spheres. First went the field service, becaue I didn't want teach things that I no longer believed or felt sure about. Then went commenting at meetings, although there I could choose which things to answer that I agreed with. Finally, as I came to feel more sure of things (such as seeing the dishonesty in some of the publications), I stopped going to meetings because I couldn't just sit there hearing things that I knew weren't true and not say anything. I went from feeling convinced (even to the point of being an "apologist" at school) to "cynical" (a good word) in about six months, if I recall correctly. I learned very fast, maybe in about a month, so much that I didn't know before. But I really develop a conviction, a full conviction that the Society wasn't God's organization until about a year later, and it was during that time when my activity diminished.