Hi Friend,
: My detailing is for purposes of helping those in need of it. If they wish to reject that detailing based upon their own interpretation of words, personal experience or the experience of others then that is their prerogative, but it does not change what is written in Society publications, my own knowledge of what Society policy is or my own experience with it, which experience is close and significant.
All well and good, but pretty much the same thing can be said about what's written in the Bible -- it doesn't change based on anyone's interpretation. The point you make simply proves my contention: the Society's written directives on child abuse are designed to be fuzzy enough that only the Society can properly interpret them, which they ensure by having elders call the Service department. This shows that the written policy is inadequate to describe the full range of Society policy, since a good deal of that policy is not written down, except in some internal Bethel memos and in the overall culture of the Service, Legal and Writing departments. Given that, of course elders are unable to properly handle many cases of child abuse.
: It is interesting to read your take on various details in our back and forth. Apparently at your whim you decide whether to accept a written statement as valid (or not) to suit your conclusions. In some cases you use the Society’s writing as evidence of your claims. In other instances you reject Society writings that are contrary to your claims by wholesale dismissal. In effect you are saying, "When the Society agrees with me then its words are valid but when they disagree with me then their words are invalid." I would not describe that as objective, and such actions can have a bad effect on your initiatives.
That is one way of describing my take on the situation. Another way is to realize the reality: I understand very well how to interpret the Society's written words, I understand that they often write in a deliberately fuzzy or even deliberately misleading way, and I understand that the sum of all publicly available statements on child abuse are inconsistent because they are incomplete in the sense that they don't fully describe Society policy. So in only one case, listed below, I rejected the WTS writer's claim. This was not simply on my whim but because his statement is demonstrably wrong, and you demonstrated that by failing to show why his statement was correct. In fact, all you did was repeat your mere claim that sexual abuse equals rape. Any competent police officer you talk to will set you straight right quick.
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So it is with the policies regarding child molestation. The erring in the direction you describe proves the Society's intent -- which is to keep molestation cases quiet so as to avoid adverse publicity for the Witnesses.
The only other reasonable intent would be deliberately to protect molesters, do you not agree?
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: The Society errs toward self-preservation by not encouraging that victims report their allegations to authorities. This does not mean that they prefer that they not be reported but that victim are left to do that on their own rather than having the moral support of local elders behind them. As policy the Society has made the choice to leaving the prerogative of reporting up to the victim (or parents) but they have failed to explicitly instruct elders to encourage victims to report these crimes to proper authorities.
It may well be so that the Society today on paper and even in practice via calls to the Service department is neutral on the issue of reporting. However -- and you consistently fail to deal with this aspect -- because the Society has in the past actively discouraged reporting, and has taken no action whatsoever to actively encourage reporting, the net effect is that the JW community tends to lean towards not reporting. That is what Focus and I and other critics have been saying, and is what you seem to not understand or to deliberately ignore.
The situation is akin to several current topics of discussion. For umpteen years the Society actively discouraged attending college, producing an actively anti-college mentality in the JW community. In 1992 there was a subtle change in policy that told JWs not to adversely judge their fellows who went to college. Did this change in policy change the overall anti-college mentality? Not at all -- many young JWs today suffer from its effects. Since the 1930s the Society actively discouraged the wearing of facial hair except for mustaches by black men. Today it's theoretically possible for an elder to get away with wearing a beard, because the Society has made a few quiet noises that doing so is not against Jehovah's laws. But in practice, how many JWs, including ones in very responsible positions, will actively refuse to appoint any man with a beard to a position of responsibility? How many men who begin growing a beard find themselves the object of quiet derision in the JW community? You know the answer.
And how about the blood issue? Suppose the Society tomorrow were to make taking a transfusion a 'conscience matter', but didn't actively reverse the decades of misinformation it has spewed? How far would that go toward changing the attitude of the JW community about blood? You know the answer.
So it is with the child abuse policies. For many years the conservatives in JW leadership actively caused the JW community to avoid reporting child abuse and created a solid mindset of protecting "Jehovah's name" at all costs. When the moderates won out in the mid-1990s on how properly to handle child abuse -- over the strong objections and behind-the-scenes machinations of the conservatives -- the compromise solution was to put on paper that it's now ok to report abuse, but the conservatives knew full well that it would take many years for the old attitudes they had created to fade away. And that is exactly why today we find some fine-sounding words on paper that don't necessarily match with the way child abuse cases are actually handled.
: I do not think this policy is any more protective of pedophiles than a religious organization that has decided that it will not become involved in the process at all, which many have.
Sure it is. At least, the real policy, which I have taken pains to describe, is. It is more protective because of the long-standing mindset of protection, which the Society has quietly left in place. Parents who were never exposed to such powerful disincentives will naturally turn to secular authorities, and pedophiles will be handled in the usual way. It is the powerful disincentives orchestrated by religious organizations that protect pedophiles.
: Can you imagine what goes through a pedophiles mind upon hearing of the internal judicial process at work among Jehovah’s Witnesses? Can you imagine a pedophile wanting to expose himself to an organization that pursues reports of immoral behavior? The ultimate test of whether pedophiles are drawn to JWs boils down to that question, that is, whether they want to be associated with an organization that pursues reports of immoral behavior.
That's an interesting question alright, but it would be pure speculation to answer it. What is clear to many is that close-knit religious communities tend to be much more protective of pedophiles -- whether by design or not -- than looser ones or than the secular community. There are several organizations and websites that deal with this very problem.
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: But we apparently disagree on whether those policies err toward protecting perpetrators. While I think the Society’s policies may sometimes have the effect of protecting perpetrators it is hard to tell if that protection is to the point of erring toward that protection.
If there is ever any "effect of protecting perpetrators" at all, whether by design or by neglect, then there is simply nothing to argue: the policy by definition errs towards protecting perpetrators.
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: That is simply poppy-cock! It sounds good for your case to be able to say such a thing but reality is that the same could be said for any judicial system in the civilized world!
You've contradicted yourself in these two sentences. If you agree that it is true "that the same could be said for any judicial system in the civilized world", then you agree with my point and my point is not poppy-cock. Unless of course you think that our agreed-upon point is poppy-cock.
: The fact of the matter is that any judicial system that holds the accused innocent until proven guilty does then protect pedophiles by your applied logic! That is precisely the point of my last response to you having to do with standards of evidence! I see you missed the point.
You're comparing apples and oranges here. The notion of holding the accused innocent until proven guilty obviously applies only up to the point where the accused is convicted. I'm talking about an entire system of handling child abuse cases, which includes the pre-judicial and post-judicial phases. My claim is that the entire JW system -- not just the pre-judicial phase -- tends to protect pedophiles.
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Again, the intent of those who actually put the words of the policies on paper are largely irrelevant. If the effect of their words and their actual implementation of their words by their instructions to the lower-level 'managers' who actually carry them out is to sometimes protect the bad guys, then the real policy has the effect of tending to protect the bad guys.
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: No, the intent of those who put the policies on paper is exactly the point because those are the ones you accuse and are after. Am I wrong about who you accuse?
No, you're right. Let me make it more specific: I am accusing certain Governing Body members and their immediate subordinates of having created and implemented a policy and community spirit that has protected child abusers for decades. I am accusing the entire JW leadership today (you can provide your own definition of "leadership") of failing as a body to properly protect innocent children. That and a nickel will get me to Chicago, I know, but that's my opinion.
You missed my point about their attitude being irrelevant. If these guys ever end up in court, the court may well consider their intent, but I'm only discussing the effect of their actions. Their intent has no bearing on the effect, because the effect is a result of far more general forces than the most recent intent of JW leaders. The effect is, as I've said, the result of decades of poor policy and training of the JW community by all leaders, many of whom are now dead.
: If lower level ‘managers’ are doing something other then following policy then they are doing just that, failing to follow policy. In such instances then the ‘higher-ups’ are culpable only if they know of it and condone it. If that can be sufficiently evidenced then you have what you need. Otherwise you have not demonstrated culpability of those ‘higher-ups’ and thus you have not established any effect of tending to protect the bad guys as the real policy.
Agreed.
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Conversely, if the policy tended to err on the side of the victims, then there would tend to be a few cases where errors are made to the disadvantage of alleged perpetrators.
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: One reason for laws tending to protect perpetrators is this simple fact: We cannot change the fact that a person or persons were victimized but we do have a good measure of choice about how likely we are to victimize an additional person or persons by erring in standards of evidence and burden of proof.
That's right, and justice systems need to strike the right balance, keeping in mind that mistakes in either direction are inevitable. In the case of child abuse, the effects on society are so devastating and so far reaching that many states are coming to the conclusion that I alluded to. Keep in mind that the average molester creates about 100 victims in his lifetime, victims who often live completely messed up lives and go on to create many more victims. Victims not only of passed-on child abuse, but of the fact that messed up family life creates messed up children, which gets into every facet of society.
It just dawned on me that the Society, by protecting abusers, actually contributes to the very conditions it claims are signs of the time of the end. How ironic.
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In the experience of everyone who has so far seen fit to comment publicly, which tendency dominates? Does not this observation of how Watchtower policy works in actual practice prove my contention?
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: Yes, in the case of people who have seen fit to come forward to Society critics, most certainly that is the case. Why should the rest come forward to Society critics when they are not critical? Duh! I know of more cases off the top of my head where victims were pleased with how their situations were dealt with than critical ones I have read online in the last month. So, should I apply your reasoning and decide that the tendency is otherwise? Thank goodness I have more objective reasons for my criticisms on this subject.
The Catholic Church tried to use that same reasoning in its defense. The courts rejected it. The Watchtower Society printed a number of articles implicitly rejecting it.
It doesn't matter how many cases were handled ethically. If the policy is such that even one case is handled unethically but within the policy, then the leadership has culpability.
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Many have concluded that, because of the secret and insidious nature of child molestation, and the mind games that molesters play with children, the "some evidence" should be a bit less stringent than for cases of crime against adults. The Society doesn't seem to understand this.
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: If the Society made it policy that elders should encourage that victims report such allegations to authorities then this situation would be moot.
That's right. And the fact that they don't is positive proof that they don't want the situation to be moot.
: If you are talking strictly about what weight of evidence the Society insists upon for internal findings then, when it comes to witnesses, what less would you accept beyond two witnesses of similar yet separate events? (More on the latter point to follow)
I have no problem with using two witnesses to separate events. The Society does.
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However, many cases prove that elders have actively discouraged reporting. Have they done that simply of their own initiative? Usually, not at all. What they've done is to take everything they've learned at the Society's hand and integrate it to come to an overall mindset of discouraging reporting so as to avoid "bringing reproach on Jehovah's name". Given that Watchtower leaders are well aware that these attitudes are common among elders, the fact that they haven't corrected such attitudes strongly suggests that they're happy with the situation. This, despite having made some noises that it's ok to report. Inaction is a very good indicator of intent.
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: Yes, in many cases elders have discouraged reporting. That is precisely one of the reasons why elders were told to call the Society immediately upon hearing accusations of child molestation, so that they could be told explicitly not to discourage this type of reporting.
I don't buy that. Why would the Society keep such instruction so secret that it is only spoken of in phone conversations between elders and the Service or Legal departments? If they really wanted elders not to discourage reporting -- and more important, wanted victims to really feel free to report -- they would put such instructions in bright red letters in clear BOE letters and in magazines such as The Watchtower. But again, the fact that the Society doesn't do these things proves their intent -- to let the old keep-it-quiet mentality live on.
: If my assertion here is correct it is easy enough for you to verify, and if I am correct then your conclusions above are lacking in merit.
I know that your assertion is true. Nevertheless, as I've shown, my conclusions are valid.
: You apparently trust this other elder you are working with more than me, which is fine and I have no problem with that. According to him he has judicial experience in dealing with the Society on matters of reported child molestation. Ask him if the Society did not tell him point blank not to discourage reporting. Ask him. If he is as experienced as he claims and if he tells you the truth then I have no question about what his answer will be.
You're misrepresenting what I said. I know very well that in recent years the Society usually tells elders not to discourage reporting. That's very different from telling them to encourage reporting.
As for this "other elder", my opinions on this were formed long before I knew of him. I've been discussing this topic on the Net for at least eight years, as best as I can remember. Not much has changed in those years, except for the quite unexpected policy change announced in the January 1, 1997 Watchtower.
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We're not just talking about what the Service department does, but about what the Society's entire "judicial arm" does. This "arm" includes all elders, since they are explicitly appointed by the Society to be its local representatives in matters of 'congregational justice'.
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: It is true that the Society’s entire judicial arm includes all elders, but I am not addressing all elders but rather the central controlling organization that your criticisms are leveled at.
I know that, and that's what I'm trying to get you to understand: you're focusing too narrowly. The world can only judge the intent of a central controlling body -- especially one that has as tight control as "God's anointed representative," the "faithful and discreet slave", does over its community of followers -- on the external, observable results. These results come about from the combined actions of the central power, the frontline managers and the rank and file. Only in a loosely controlled organization can you make a distinction, because only in a loose organization do frontline managers and the rank and file have decision-making power. In the Witness community, because its leaders have taken upon themselves responsibility to control every facet of JW life, when things go wrong it is the leaders' responsibility. What you're doing, Friend, is espousing that same old chestnut that so many of us former JWs got so tired of -- the hypocritical double standard of Watchtower leaders wanting all the glory and adulation, but none of the blame.
: As I expressed above in this post, if you want to criticize the ‘higher-ups’ for actions of the lower ‘managers’ then you have to sufficiently evidence a connection making those ‘higher-ups’ culpable.
The connection is as I just explained. Do you disagree with what I said?
: There is some evidence of this nature but curiously you have not picked up on it. I will explain the nature of this evidence later if you do not eventually see it, but I am hoping that you will put your objective ‘thinking-cap’ on to realize it for yourself because that is the means that will best suit your needs.
Well, I think I'm going to need a little help here.
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Since it is demonstrable that elders, and even the Service department, often act inconsistently from case to case and in different parts of the world, it follows that there a number of sets of rules that these people are following, or at least think they're following. To contradict this would be to claim that the elders who act inconsistently are deliberately ignoring Society policy. While this certainly happens, it is clear to anyone who knows Jehovah's Witnesses that most elders would be horrified to be accused of doing that.
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: That claim is not altogether a valid one because not only is each case unique but around the world there are so many different local circumstances and some of those circumstances practically insist upon different actions in terms of involvement of secular authorities.
I'm not talking about that. Reasonable people understand that a worldwide organization must have different policies and standards in places as diverse as the U.S. and India. I'm talking about inconsistencies left over after applying a reasonable filter to account for necessary differences due to local needs.
: As for Society policy on the strictly internal judiciary, one fundamental piece of advice that the Society constantly reminds elders of is that each case should be judged on its own merits and that no two cases are identical. Sometimes those variances may seem small but sometimes small distinctions make the difference between one choice versus another. That too affects your claim above.
My intent, although not fully explained (these posts are ridiculously long as it is), was to get beyond these obvious things.
: It is better to examine any hard evidence that exists about Society policy and then build a case of culpability upon that, if that can be done sufficiently, and I think it can be.
Please elaborate.
: From what I can tell, so far what you have done is decided what you think the Society has done (or does) and then looked for evidence in support. Evidence that runs contrary to your conclusion you simply dismiss! What you need to do is let the evidence speak to you and then assign blame accordingly. In the end an objective assignment of blame must accommodate all the evidence.
I completely disagree with your claim. My opinions on this issue have formed over some years. They're a result not of my magically or blindly coming up with a desired result but of years of examining written material, getting others' experiences and opinions, and directly dealing with various Society representatives. Your experience is obviously rather different, but we run in rather different circles, no? I don't reject any evidence at all. I reject certain conclusions about the significance of certain evidence, but only after examining it in light of all other evidence at my disposal.
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(1) No statements appear in public Watchtower literature directing that elders can convict someone of molestation on the testimony of two witnesses to two separate molestation events.
I take it you agree with this statement.
This fact immediately raises an important question: If the Society feels, as you claim, that it is permissible to convict someone of child molestation based on such testimony, then why is this fact hidden from the rank and file of Jehovah's Witnesses? Would it not be good for the protection of children if the parents (non-elders, of course) were clearly informed of this? And isn't it clear that if such parents were so informed, they would be significantly more likely to compare notes with other parents to see if the molester of their child also molested other children? So why do you suppose this information is kept eyes-only for elders?
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: I do not know of any obvious place where the Society talks about this detail in its public publications.
Good!
: What of it?
I've explained in a number of places in various posts on this board and others. No need to repeat myself. See, for example, the above bracketed paragraph starting with "This fact immediately raises ..."
: Constantly the Society writes about having two witnesses to establish guilt.
Right. And always with the implied notion that the witnesses must be witnesses to the same event. In the few cases that I'm vaguely aware of where the public literature discusses two witnesses to separate events, it is always as an exception to the usual "two witnesses to the same event" rule. I seem to recall that there was a question raised many years ago about whether two witnesses to a person smoking on two different occasions would be sufficient to convict him of smoking. If it were as self-evident as you claim that two such witnesses were sufficient, then there would be no need for a discussion in the literature, would there.
: What would make a publisher think that because two persons witnessed the same crime on two separate occasions that that is not enough?
Most of what the publisher reads in Watchtower literature.
This is almost self-evident, Friend, so I don't know why it's such a sticking point for you. Let's try some examples.
If your claim were correct, then there would be no need for two elders to talk to someone together to establish that he had implicitly disassociated himself by his actions. Two JWs of any rank could testify that on separate occasions they heard the person repudiate his membership. But the Society doesn't accept that sort of testimony -- there must be two witnesses to the same act of repudiation. That's why, when trying to 'get' someone on apostasy charges, two elders will get on the phone (one usually keeping silent), so as to establish every matter 'at the mouth of two witnesses'.
The Flock book explicitly states that the testimony of two witnesses to the same event definitely establishes guilt. But it also states that two witnesses to separate events may establish guilt -- elders are free to determine if such testimony is believable and accept or reject it. Therefore the Society itself makes a distinction between these two cases. If it were self-evident that two witnesses to separate events had the same weight as two witnesses to the same event, then there would be no distinction and certainly no need to discuss the distinction.
Suppose some JW shoplifted 25 years ago and this was witnessed by a fellow JW. The observer duly reported the crime to elders but the accused denied it and nothing was done. A week ago a different JW witnessed the same person shoplifting and has reported it to elders. Today the elders call the two together for a meeting to determine if there is enough evidence to convict the shoplifter of stealing. The accused denies the accusation. What will the elders now do?
Suppose some JW woman committed adultery 25 years ago and the man with whom she did it confessed back then, but the woman denied it to the elders. Nothing could be done and the matter was dropped. A week ago a different JW witnessed the woman entering a motel along with a man not her husband and the next morning leaving the motel with the same man. He dutifully reports this to elders, who convene an investigative commitee and question the woman. She denies everything. What will the elders now do?
You know the answers for the latter two situations, and you know that what the elders will do is quite different, because the situation of adultery is treated specially by the Society. Adultery is one of the exceptions to the rule of "two witnesses to the same event".
: Man, you really are straining at gnats on this one, Alan! Do you think for one second that a ‘cheated on’ JW wife would hesitate to take the word of two persons to her local elder body simply because they saw her husband doing another woman on separate occasions? If those witnesses were solid, do you really believe she would accept anything other than acceptance of the testimony from those elders?
You're right, but again this is the exceptional situation. The Society has rules coming out the wazoo on adultery, many of them not even written in BOE letters. They're part of the corpus of internal rules that Service goes by. They've even got the above situation down to a gnat's eyebrow, I hear, where if the accused stayed longer than six hours they're convicted, but less than six hours and there's insufficient evidence to convict. Now just where in the Bible is that rule found?
: Do you really believe what you are saying here, that because this detail is not outlined that JWs somehow reject the notion, somehow think this is unacceptable or that it never dawns on them that this is the case?
Of course. The above examples prove my case. Of course, you might try to show why my examples don't show what I think, but that's for the next post.
: I got news for you. When a JW feels they have the goods on you for whatever reason, they come knocking on the elders’ doors! For that matter, JWs are taught not to even wait to have two witnesses! If they have a single witness or are the witness themselves then they are taught to tell elders!
That's right, but that has nothing to do with our subject. When elders are confronted with such a tattle-tale situation, they have to go by the rules.
: Since that is true then your concerns about the subject detail are meaningless!
Since your example is irrelevant, your claim is meaningless.
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No statements appear in private, elders-only Watchtower literature directing that they are required to convict someone of molestation on the testimony of two witnesses to two separate molestation events.
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: What? They are not required to "convict" on anything other than acceptable evidence! What is acceptable evidence? Acceptable evidence includes "two or three witnesses to the same kind of wrongdoing but each one is witness to a separate incident." That is what the Flock book states.
I've dealt with this above, but it bears repeating: The Flock book requires elders to convict on the testimony of two witnesses to the same sin event. The Flock book makes it optional to convict on the testimony of two witnesses to two separate sin events. There exists a body of precedent, held mainly in the consciousness of Service department personnel but also in the collective experience of elders, as to just what situations make the option into a requirement. This is not generally written down anywhere.
: What you intimate is that in each listed case of acceptable evidence there is somehow a distinction between those listed items that require conviction versus those that do not require conviction. If we apply that reasoning then not even one of the evidences so listed "requires to convict ." What the listing does is tell elders which types of evidence they can use for establishing guilt, but in each case they must weigh the actual testimony. This even includes confession! Sometimes the accused does confess but what they confess to is less than a disfellowshipping offense. Upon hearing such confessions witnesses have been known to say, "Yes, that is exactly what I saw too!" At that point, if that is the whole case, then it is thrown out for lack of evidence of anything worthy of shunning! The case of two eye witnesses to the same event or different events is no different. In each case the testimony is weighed. If the testimony is solid and it definitely is of a disfellowshipping sin then the individual is found guilty of the charge whether the two witnesses were of the same or separate events.
You're being fuzzy here.
(1) There is no question about the truth of following statement: The Society's rules require elders to convict when two solid witnesses testify against an accused person regarding the same incident, i.e., "two solid witnesses" equals "no option".
(2) There is no question about the truth of following statement: The Society's rules leave it optional for elders to convict when two solid witnesses testify against an accused person regarding different incidents, i.e., "two solid witnesses" equals "optional".
If you disagree with these statements, then do the following: Explain in detail the examples I gave above. In particular, show why a shoplifter of 25 years ago would be required to be convicted if a fresh accuser made an accusation of shoplifting. Show an example of written WTS material that definitely contradicts statement (2) above.
: Your whole line of reasoning on this question of two witnesses of separate event is circular. In the end your reasoning boils down to, "‘Acceptable evidence’ does not mean what it says because it is different from my own conclusion."
You're wrong. See above.
: I see no need to pursue this detail any further. Believe whatever you want. I am only trying to help and will not insist that you see it my way, which is what I think someone else you know is insisting upon. I hope it does not hurt their cause!
Conversely, if your reasoning reflects that of Watchtower leaders, they're in for some big surprises. I agree that this discussion is getting tiresome, but there's nothing new under the sun. :-)
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Let me give you an example and you tell me how the Society's Service and/or Legal departments would direct elders to handle it. There was a case in Woodland, Washington about five years ago where a JW man was arrested for and confessed to molesting 35 boys over a 20 year period in congregations in his area. I assume that the molester was convicted and imprisoned but I lost track of the case. Now just suppose that the man, instead of confessing, was convicted in court on the testimony of, say, five of his victims. Would local elders be required to convict this man in a JW judicial proceeding? Or would they have the option of saying, "Well, we don't have the required two or three witnesses so there's nothing we can do"?
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: Given the details you have provided and assuming the case warranted congregation involvement, if the testimony of two of those five victims was solid and of the same sin
I assume you mean "type of sin" because my example is obviously about the usual sort of child abuse where the only witnesses are the victim and the perpetrator.
: then the Society’s policy would be that elders accept is as the scriptural "two witnesses" needed to establish guilt.
Good. We've got that established.
: Only if the testimony was less than solid would elders have the task of deciding if it is enough, but that is also the case with eye witness testimony of the same event, which is what I have been trying to get across to you. You can call the Society today and they will tell you the same thing!
Yeah, I know that, but the thing is that the written rules leave substantially more leeway for what is said to be "solid" when the witnesses are to two separate incidents.
But your statement brings up an interesting corollary: where is it written in Society literature that any two witnesses might not be solid enough to convict?
: Frankly, in your example, the testimony of the five would not be necessary because the individual apparently confessed to a shunnable crime!
In the actual case, yes, but my supposition was if he didn't -- then what?
: If the details you provided are solid, the case is real and there are no other circumstances to consider in terms of whether congregation action was needed, then, if the Society has stood behind any local decision that evidence is lacking then you have the case you are looking for.
Good.
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This [1995 Watchtower] article is, in my view, an example of how the Society manages to poison the well without being able to be held accountable. Back in 1995 when the article first came out, I and a number of critics were aghast at what it said. We argued vehemently with certain JW-defenders, including a particular elder, that it allowed for virtually all memories of abuse to be classed as "repressed memories" and dismissed. When the January 1, 1997 WT article came out instructing that "known molesters" could never serve in positions of congregational responsibility, many of us saw this as a reversal of the position not-quite-stated in the November 1, 1995 WT. How do you suppose we all came to these conclusions? Do you think we just made them up? Or were they the product of knowing how to read between the lines and figure out exactly what the Society really means?
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: The reason those elders knew what that article was speaking of was because back in 1993 they had received a letter telling them to make a distinction of "individuals who only recently started to have memories of abuse that happened at a young age." (BOE letter of 2/3/93)
Are you suggesting that elders who already knew this stuff would get a different impression of what the article really meant than would a rank and file JW who knew nothing about the 2/3/93 BOE letter? If so, then this is a fine example of the Society misleading the rank and file.
: What you are trying to do here is make a written statement mean something other than what it says.
No I'm not. A lot of people came to the same conclusion. When I read the article for the first time I got quite angry about its contents. I knew perfectly well what it said. When I compared notes with others, they had come to the same conclusion. And believe me, a lot of people were very angry about it. So if elders had additional information that made them understand the article different from the way a number of intelligent non-elders did, isn't that pretty good proof of the Society's intent to deceive non-elders?
: That subject 95’ Watchtower was explicit regarding the language you want to use that it was of the controversial type of recalled memory as opposed to the typical memories that we all have!
Right. I said that clearly.
: Again you are applying circular logic. You are saying, "This must mean what I want it to mean because that is what supports my contention!"
That's your conclusion, not supported by my actual words.
: I know very well that the Society has used innuendo to move the JW community into a given direction. But that is not the case on the subject of that 95’ Watchtower.
Why would you think they'd make this WT an exception?
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The fact is that the 1995 WT article contains statements that can be used to dismiss virtually any charges of remembered child molestation. Just how long should a memory be forgotten to be classified as repressed? 30 years? 20? 5? 1? Six months? Six weeks? The article doesn't say, and so it gives free rein to elders to figure it out for themselves.
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: That is absurd!
I agree that it's absurd that the Society would be so double-tongued, but there you have it.
: Either the person has always had these memories or they have not.
Not so. There are plenty of things I've completely forgotten for 30-40 years, but have remembered when someone reminded me. They were in my head all along, but not consciously. How is this different from someone, such as a 35 year old woman, who forgot about some event such as being abused, and someone or some event reminds her of it, and then related memories come back? Real repressed memories don't "go away" -- they're always there, just like other real memories, waiting to be brought back to consciousness.
: The article in question speaks skeptically only of instances of persons who had not thought of having been molested
Let's be a little clearer: the person had not thought lately about having been molested. Obviously they would have thought about it at the time of occurrence.
: and then unexpectedly started having flashbacks of being molested as a child.
All memories you've forgotten about come back unexpectedly. If you expected them, they wouldn't have been forgotten.
: This is very different from an adult who says, "Oh, yeah, I had forgotten that incident but now that I think of it this is what happened."
What's different about it? A forgotten memory is a forgotten memory. They only come back unexpectedly, and due to any number of triggers.
: There is nothing at all unexpected to the person about that type of recall because once they remember it they realize they were always cognizant of it!
If they were always cognizant of it, then it wasn't forgotten. There's nothing to come back; it's there all along.
: If an adult only recently and unexpectedly recalls an incident from childhood then just how sound that recollection is has even been challenged in the same courts of the land that you want child molestation cases reported to. Will you argue your same case to them? This situation is quite different from adults who know they were abused when a child because they were always cognizant of it, meaning that their judgment is not based upon unexpected flashbacks.
Now you're getting to some meat. The definition of "repressed memory" depends not whether a person has forgotten things, which we all do, but on just how deeply the memories, if real, were buried, just how clear they are when finally remembered, and just how much effort was required, by the person or a helper, to bring the memories back. There's no question that a number of stupid therapists have managed to plant false memories in some patients. My divorce lawyer specialized in defending people against spurious charges resulting from such unscrupulous therapists and he told me about some of his cases. But that doesn't discount the many people who have had real repressed memories come back.
The Society's sin here is that it simply lumped all "repressed memories" into one big discountable category and gave absolutely no clear instructions on how elders ought to distinguish what you call a 'direct' memory from a 'direct' memory that might have been forgotten for 30 years from a real 'repressed memory' from a false 'repressed memory'. The complaint of critics from 1995 forward has been that because of the complete lack of instruction, elders are free to use the material to discount all accounts of abuse more than a few months old. If you disagree with this complaint, then to be credible you'll have to provide the Society's clear, working definitions of "repressed memory" and discuss how elders are supposed to distinguish among the four types of memories I mentioned here.
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Suppose a girl was molested from infancy to age ten. Suppose she never forgot the molestation, but simply put it aside. At age 25 she decides to report the molestation to elders. What will the elders do? Will they pull out the 1995 WT article and say, "Oh, those are just repressed memories! We can do nothing."
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: If those elders act as you suggest then they are not acting in harmony with the 95’ article. If they call the Society as instructed they will be given the same explanation that I provided above (not that it should be needed) if it is a concern that they express. Again, the article is explicit that it speaks only of unexpected memories, which means they are not direct ones as in your example.
How would elders distinguish between a 'direct' memory and a repressed one? If they told the woman they thought she was having a repressed memory come back, how could she prove different?
I bring all this up partly because not long ago I met up with a childhood acquaintance who just a few years ago had what we would all agree are repressed memories come back. She said that she was not conscious of any abuse until then, but now various things trigger a flashback. Were the memories real? Apparently some were, because she said that when she met her father for the first time in many years, he again attempted a bit of abuse, which triggered more memories and hidden emotions to come forth. How are elders instructed to handle such cases? To forget them!
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(6) No statements appear in public Watchtower literature telling JWs in a positive way that reporting sexual abuse to secular authorities is desirable.
: That is not true. The March 8th Awake of 1993 does make the recommendation that victims of rape (rape is sexual abuse!)
Come on, Friend. We've been over this before. You're making this sort of logical error:
Good citizens are required to report murder to the police.
Murder is a crime.
Changing lanes without signaling is a crime.
Therefore good citizens must be required to report bad signalers to the police.
What's wrong with that logic is the same as what's wrong with your logic.
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: The logical error here is yours, Alan.
Not at all. Answer this: according to the above example, if the law requires a good citizen to report murder to the police, does that same law require a citizen to report improper lane changing to the police? No? Then your logic is faulty.
: You said "No statements appear in public Watchtower literature telling JWs in a positive way that reporting sexual abuse to secular authorities is desirable." Unless you can successfully argue that rape is not sexual abuse then your response is in error.
You've misrepresented my arguments. Why do I need to explain this again? You simply deleted my arguments and failed to argue against them. But I'll summarize:
Child abuse is a big category of misbehavior.
Child sexual abuse is a subset of child abuse (emotional and physical abuse exist).
Rape of a child is a subset of child sexual abuse.
There are forms of child sexual abuse that are not rape (a man's improper touching of the genitals of a child is defined as sexual abuse everywhere, but not necessarily as rape).
A subset of a larger set is not equal to the larger set.
Therefore rape is not identically equal to sexual abuse.
Rape is a form of sexual abuse, but sexual abuse is not a form of rape. Therefore, discussions of rape cannot be equated with discussions of sexual abuse unless the speakers make explicitly clear that they are including[i/] other forms of sexual abuse in a broader concept of rape.
: Otherwise your error is again a critical one because you are picking and choosing your evidence in the Society’s publications. If you want to be critical of the Society’s expressed views then you must base your criticisms on the Society’s expressed views rather than your interpretations of those expressed views and certainty rather than your interpretations of select expressions from the Society.
I've done so in spades. Your mistake here is in claiming that the 1993 Awake! includes a lot more than any normal reader will get out of it. The fact that you dismissed all of my arguments virtually without comment proves that you know you have no argument. If you did, you'd present it rather than a bunch of dog-ate-my-homework rationalizations.
: The Society says: Report rape.
: The Society says: Sexual molestation of a child is rape
: Conclusion: Sexual molestation of a child should be reported.
Your 2nd statement is oversimplified and ignores the arguments I made showing that not only is the Society's one statement in all of its literature on the subject wrong, but that hardly any elders will know of your claimed connection between rape and sexual molestation. This latter is easy to prove yet again:
Suppose a mother comes to the elders and says, "Little Susie here says that Grandpa has been putting his hand down her pants when we're not looking. She doesn't like it." Will the typical elder immediately look up information in the 1993 Awake! and tell the mother to go report Susie's rape to the police? Of course not. If the elder calls the Service department for advice, will he be told to follow the advice in that 1993 Awake!? I don't think so, and I don't think you do either. Q.E.D.
: If you want to be critical of what the Society says then be critical of what it actually says rather than your take on what it says. If you do the latter then you have applied circular reasoning.
What the Society actually says can be quite different from what it writes on paper. On various Net forums this has been beaten to death and no one besides a completely braindead JW defender thinks otherwise. Of course, by "what the Society actually says" I mean what most JWs would understand the words to mean, including the subtle messages that JWs normally get by reading between the lines. And you've already admitted knowing how the Society often operates with innuendo, so to become a fully aware Jehovah's Witness, one has to become very good at reading between the lines. Hence we have a connection back to the Chinese government and social system.
: As for the 93’ Awake article, it most definitely did address child rape as well as the rape of adults. I see that you conveniently left off highlighting those references from the article. You know, the ones that address minors or the ones where parents are encouraged to talk to their children about the issue.
I don't see any such. Please point them out. If you find them, point out how someone is supposed to figure out how an article that is obviously 99% oriented towards the rape of an adult woman can easily be found by the average elder to be applicable to Grandpa feeling around in the panties of little Susie.
: As for the lack of explicitly referencing the 93’ Awake article, that is part of my gripe and it has to do with training, which has to do with culpability on the part of the Society.
We certainly agree on this, but don't you see? If the Society itself doesn't reference the article as being applicable to our discussion, then how is anyone else supposed to figure it out? You're asking that elders be better interpreters of the Society's 'intent' than the Society itself is! And I seriously doubt that until this recent flap reared up, anyone -- including you -- would have thought to claim that this one lone reference in the 1993 Awake! had any bearing on parents reporting every form of sexual abuse to authorities.
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: Significantly, regarding the crime of sexual child molestation, your favored 1995 Watchtower article states, "A person who actually abuses a child sexually is a rapist and should be viewed as such." (Page 27)
The writer, as I have demonstrated, is wrong and is obviously merely expressing his opinion. Whether sexual abuse is classified as rape depends on the state or country in which the abuse was committed, and the Society has certainly never given a clear exposition.
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: This is an instance of your poor reasoning on our subject matter. Whether the writer was right or wrong in your judgment or according to some locale’s statutes is irrelevant to the material. The question is, what is the Society’s view because that is what you are wanting to criticize! By dismissing the comment as wrong you are doing nothing short of saying, "What he says cannot be correct or else it would conflict with my conclusions!" Such reasoning runs a very tight circle. As stated the comment represents the Society’s view on the moral question of, "Is sexual molestation of a child rape?" The answer given is, "Yes."
Actually what you've put together here is a masterful after-the-fact justification of a notion that virtually no one, including the Society's Service department people, would have thought of a few months ago. Certainly hardly any elders would have been clever enough to figure all this out on their own. And they would have gotten no help from BOE letters or the [i]Flock
book -- which are supposed to clearly define stuff like this -- or from any other Society publications. What your 'explanation' smells like is something a clever but less than honest lawyer would cobble together as a last-ditch defense of a client he knows is guilty but has been paid to defend.
: Besides the above, your secular definitions of what constitutes rape only refer to locale’s that favor your view. As even you can imagine, other less developed areas of the world have a far more conservative estimation of what constitutes rape.
I don't know what you're talking about. I only know what is done in most Western countries. In many other countries there aren't even laws about this stuff. Parents will actually sell their daughters into prostitution. In those countries the Society has an ethical responsibility to be much better than local law or custom dictates.
AlanF
Edited by - AlanF on 11 March 2001 15:48:25
