I started thinking about Stockholm Syndrome again this week after reading some comments on the talk page behind the Wikipedia article on Jehovah's Witnesses (where I spend some time). The discussion was about shunning, and prompted by a user's claim that use that word in relation to JWs' codes of discipline was wrong because it was a pejorative term.
A user, who I think is Czech, joined the conversation with his own take of disfellowshipping:
- The term shunning means that someone is ignored, not spoken to. Disfellowshipped JW are treatet like that. The Witnesses do not greet them. BUT, if there would be any need for help, (nursing, feeding, help out with personal finance, or working as colleagues) than the Witnesses do talk to them, but just about the basic needs or about the job. That does not fall under the term Shunning.
- Disfellowshiping means (At least on what the witnesses self understand) that do not socially gather, and talk with eachother in terms of friendship.
- In all cases where someone gets disfellowshipped, witnesses will not greet them, sit down with them. If a DFS is in need, he/she approaches the elders, who can point out members to help, or family members can help out with some basic personal need (Finances, Health care, or in case of dissasters, building houses again, etc. Black Cab, being an EX-JW can vouch for this. I myself have worked along side with a DSF JW. We didn't lunch together, but we discussed our work on daily bases. That is allowed. But I would not greet him on the streets.
- The reason is this.. The DSF JW has done something which was against the rules of the bible or the society. He therefore gets punished.
- Like a child at school, who had to stand in the corner, faced to the wall. Why? Otherwise the others would get the Idea that it is okay to do something wrong. But when he falls, he would be helped up again. This is the principle which has been practised long before Jehovah's Witnesses existed.
- Shunning is something else. A member of a community, who gets expelled, is neither helped, or spoken to. The community turns their back at this expelled person. The meaning of the word Shunning and Disfellowshipping are quite simular. Never the less, there are differences.
It's sad that people who are so indoctrinated scramble so hard for analogies that defend and justify the harsh and unchristian policies of those who run their religion. "Like a child at school who had to stand in the corner" My God, these are adults we're talking about, not children in a 19th century schooling system that relied on humiliation to extract obedience. "We discussed our work on daily basis. But I would not greet him on the streets. He has done something which was against the rules of the bible or the society. He therefore gets punished."
Indoctrinated Germans living under the Third Reich would have found some way to defend the barbaric conduct of their tyrannical masters, and JWs inevitably find justification for the vice-like grip in which they're held by the JW leadership through policies of disfellowshipping and informing on congregation members.
Monty Python's Piranha Brothers sketch summed it up well:
Interviewer: I've been told Dinsdale Piranha nailed your head to the floor.
Stig: No. Never. He was a smashing bloke. He used to buy his mother flowers and that. He was like a brother to me.
Interviewer: But the police have film of Dinsdale actually nailing your head to the floor.
Stig:(pause) Oh yeah, he did that.
Interviewer: Why?
Stig: Well he had to, didn't he? I mean there was nothing else he could do, be fair. I had transgressed the unwritten law.
Interviewer: What had you done?
Stig: Er... well he didn't tell me that, but he gave me his word that it was the case, and that's good enough for me with old Dinsy. I mean, he didn't *want* to nail my head to the floor. I had to insist. He wanted to let me off. He'd do anything for you, Dinsdale would.
Interviewer: And you don't bear him a grudge?
Stig: A grudge! Old Dinsy. He was a real darling.
Interviewer: I understand he also nailed your wife's head to a coffee table. Isn't that true Mrs O' Tracy?
Mrs O' Tracy: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Stig: Well he did do that, yeah. He was a hard man. Vicious but fair