Leadership in a collective is BALONEY

by Terry 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Terry
    Terry

    Law under Moses freed nobody from anything except..freedom from a sense of guilt.

    That sense of guilt was put into them deliberately.

    Otherwise, they wouldn't bring animals to the priests. Guilt and atonement was a get rich quick scheme by Priests.

    Under Hitler, the rule of law could kill people for being born into an ethnic group. Blame the ethnic groups and despised underclasses and you escape blame as leader.

    Under Stalin, people could be killed for anything at all at anytime by rule of law according to the whims of the party elite. Stalin surrounded himself with quivering sychophants eager to do his bidding so as to preserve their own advantages.

    Anarchy is, of course, no rule of law. No rule of anything but the mob. Yet, leaders arise among anarchists themselves!

    History has many examples of people getting together to secure an advantage.

    That advantage is OUR group is more important than any individual.

    The "other" groups are invariably labeled bad, greedy, exploitative, etc.

    EXAMPLES:

    Communism is a collective (as are forms of socialism, fascism and theocracy.)

    A collective compels it members to SERVE the needs of others either through patriotism, welfare, the master race, the brotherhood, etc. Many different techniques and propaganda messageS abound.

    The collective mentality is such that individuals can only achieve status by self-sacrifice in the name of the "the cause".

    Christians and Muslim alike admire and promote the person who dies in the name of......."fill in the blank". The hero is the Martyr.

    It just takes some time for people to get used to the idea of being collectively and not individually responsible for their lives.

    Once the individual succumbs their identity becomes the Group itself.

    Regardless of how Noble the Cause, people in leadership position are seduced by Power.

    The collective becomes servant to the whims of the Leader. The pronouncements of the Leader
    transform into an untouchable ideal--beyond criticism. Tests of Loyalty become more important than test of efficiency on the part of Leaders in improving the lot of the members.

    Put a laborer in the CEO chair and he'll start doing the same things he railed against as the downtrodden. It's only human nature. You can't change it and you can't beat it.
    In Europe there have been many cases of big professional corporations and trade unions colluding at the expense of local workers, i.e. breaking a local strike because the trade unions as big institutions have their personal interests which do not coincide with those of the workers.

    In America Unions take compulsory dues and use them for political purposes (often at odds
    with the wishes of those paying the dues. Teachers who do not perform well are protected
    from being replaced by better teachers. Worker entitlements are forced on a State economy
    whic has no means of paying for them in hard economic times leading the State into bankruptcy. (California)

    The recurrent flaw in such collectives (collective bargaining) is that it promotes an illusion
    that the member's interests are actually represented.

    The reality is that sooner or later it is LEADERSHIP interest being represented and the rest is propaganda for public consumption.


    The problem with communism is not that it promotes the idea of a collective. The problem is that it uses propaganda to convince people that there is a genuine collective in society that it is protecting and serving.

    Reality is that an Elite ruling class replace the ones kicked out in the first place!

    The basic tenets of socialism *begin* with the workers union committing itself to rising up against the system that does not represent the workers interest. It matters not whether the system is communism, capitalism or fascism. Ironically, the members of these Unions have no means
    of "rising up" against Union leadership when it goes against their personal interests!

    We are all familiar with one example of the Religious collective:

    Charles Taze Russell began as one humble and eager observer of End Times signs who had the
    financial means to serve the needs of others in bringing an important warning about Christ's return.
    By the time he died his books had been sold to 20 million readers around the world. How had the
    needs of those "little ones" been served?

    1.They learned that Pastor Russell was a heavenly selected elite who was the very "mouthpiece of God."
    2.They learned Christ had returned invisibly in 1874 and Armageddon would come in 1914. Both wrong!

    Under the leadership of Joseph Franklin Rutherford the "little ones" were served by:

    1.Reassuring them Pastor Russell was running things from heaven
    2.Millions now living would never die because they'd all go to heaven in 1925
    3.They had to earn their salvation by peddling books and magazines.
    4.The independant congregations needed to turn over control to the Central Authority of the Governing Body of Watchtower leadership.

    Throughout history whenever men band together to protect themselves and serve their fellow man the trend drifts inevitably toward greater and greater self-sacrifice and glorification of the Leader or the leader's ideas WHICH ARE OFTEN DISGUISED as noble, pure, truth, divine
    who promises to protect and serve them.

    When will we ever learn??

    How many children die because their parents unflinchingly serve the leadership of their collective?

    How much misery in this world comes from Leaders and their true believers?

  • prologos
    prologos

    wow! ------thats why Jesus warned (as reported) against leaders , benefactors rising up among HIS followers.

    so, did he by extension warn against forming a collective? Christians in permanent dispersion?

  • Terry
    Terry

    The biggest danger to any group is its own leaders tendency to acquire power and make it all about THEM.

  • Terry
    Terry

    I wonder if I chose the wrong Title for this thread?

  • Apognophos
    Apognophos

    I've been wondering recently whether there's a pattern here:

    Moses -> Aaron -> Levites/Pharisees

    Jesus -> Paul -> Catholic/Orthodox Church

    Joseph Smith -> Brigham Young -> LDS Church

    Russell -> Rutherford -> Governing Body

    Some of you might be able to dispute or correct some of the above lines. But it seems to me that in each case you have a visionary who claims to hear the voice of God and who wins over people with novel ideas and charisma. They may or may not write much down, but in any case they don't start much of any kind of organization.

    Then you have someone who comes along after him, who knew him (Paul claimed to have seen Christ, remember), who develops on the founder's ideas, sometimes to the point that they aren't so recognizable anymore, but most of the founders' followers go along with it because the second guy is fairly charismatic and they transfer some of their sentimental feelings of loyalty towards the dear founder to his successor.

    Then suddenly, almost overnight, you have an organization where there's an ecclesiastical body that makes the rules and stands above the rank and file. Suddenly things are practically bureaucratic, and many detailed new rules may spring up that had little to do with the broad ideals espoused by the founder; the followers may not always like the new rules, but they don't even consider impeaching the leaders because by now their loyalty has been transferred to the organization, of which the leaders are only the current mouthpieces (I'm just saying the same thing here that Terry did above, in different words).

    I wonder if there are any theories describing this trend in religions (or perhaps it's true of all organizations)?

  • designs
    designs

    I felt miserable everytime I saw Mitt Romney on TV.....he offended my inner Alpha

    We are just pack animals in many respects, Alpha types emerge to lead a pack. What genetics/environment produce the Alpha traits.

  • Apognophos
    Apognophos

    I felt miserable everytime I saw Mitt Romney on TV.....he offended my inner Alpha

    Because he was a putative Alpha who was mentally cowed by a false religious organization/special interests? Hmm, it's food for thought. Someone who is a leader of men in one area of life yet who also follows men in another. Perhaps it's inevitable. "No man is an island", after all.

    It's the opinion of some here that the Governing Body is somewhat sincere and is actually misled by their own religion. In other words, the race to the top is a contest between Kool-Aid* drinkers.

    *Flavor Aid, for historical purists.

  • Terry
    Terry

    There are a lot of good people being siphoned off by religions and their time is being misdirected.

    That's easy to say, of course. Not so easy to prove. Mainly because you don't really know what else they would be doing

    with their time.

    I've known a few really wealthy people in my time and every one of them was extremely concerned about using their money to help others.

    The charitable side is not something we saw much of inside the local Kingdom Hall.

  • kurtbethel
    kurtbethel

    There is a good reason that changing leadership is called a revolution.

    The Earth revolved about the Sun. Starting from January, it makes a revolution and the following January it is in the same place with it being a year later.

  • Terry
    Terry

    I think it is December 21st when we could start the journey of the earth around the sun since that is when we are farthest away.

    Or, we could start on June 21st when the earth is closest.

    Either way, our calendar is has been a series of historic compromises and patchwork from the start of time.

    If it were more accurate we wouldn't need to add Leap Years.

    All of which has little to do with my Topic subject.

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