by Londo111 25 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Vidiot: I've came to the conclusion that authoritarian personalities - particularly those in leadership positions - don't experience cognitive dissonance the way the rest of us do .
You may find this thread interesting:
It's my review of the book, Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) , written by social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson.
Their book addresses the ubiquitous human traits of self-justification and failure to take responsibility for our mistakes.
Way ahead of you; I read it years ago.
On a related note, Dr. Bob Altemeyer is one the world's leading expert on authoritarian personalities; (http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/).
Authoritarian personalities and cognitive dissonance are two seperate fields of study, but I'd be real interested in what kind of conclusions Altemeyer, Tavris, and Aronson might come to if they compared notes.
Its the treatment of those who want to leave, that causes strong opposition.
There is no way to leave the Jws. with dignity. And the great majority of posters here are people who are offended in some way by their treatment when they want to leave for whatever reason.
You can't go to the elders and say, "I got baptised ?? years ago, and now believe I made a mistake and want to leave. They will not accept that you believe you made a mistake. They want to drive you out, and post an angel with a flaming sword to keep you away, unless you crawl to them wanting to repent.
Sadly, it was also the position in the early Christian congregation. Those leaving or 'sinning' were also treated harshly, its just part of the paranoia of the Chrsitian religion.
But, the result is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Christians say they will be persecuted (because the Bible says so) but they then cause the persecution by the way the treat those who want to leave.
The idea to stoke the paranoia that there is a great apostate conspiracy with agents in the local congregations, perhaps even on their body of elders, was mentioned to me earlier this year. I was taken aback by such a suggestion.
I really don’t see the point of feeding the paranoia either, it seems counterproductive. It would serve to keep people in and clinging even tighter. It would serve to keep them from looking for answers from former members. Yes, the leadership would beat the whip even harder, but the rank and file are in an abusive relationship. People stay with abusive spouses all the time.
It took me six months to be able to work through the fear of “apostates” and even longer to start to truly trust sites like JWFacts. What could have shortened that time? Would I have been helped by thoughts of a shadowy organization running around in my head? Or would I have been better helped by realizing that there is no Apostate boogeyman? The more I realized that most people who are labeled “apostate” are just normal people with normal aims in life, the more I was benefited.
Many of the present Governing Body members are the protégés of Jaracz. It just occurred to me how much the siege mentality of Ted Jaracz was like that of David Koresh. David Koresh created the circumstances that led to the actual siege of he and his followers, and their own tiny apocalypse.
Even when I was still in, I'd always known that non-JWs and XJWs were way too diverse to form some kind of vast, sprawling, organized opposition on the verge of assaulting the WTS...
...it was just too far-fetched to me, even when I was a kid.
I think these conspiracy theories start as a way of shoring up one's commitment in the face of doubt and/or trying to explain to oneself how the WTS could still be at least partially right about something in the face of increasingly strong evidence and logic that it is not.
