OF COURSE you might think the Watchtower Society is going to be around for a long time and harming peoples lives by their doctrines on blood use, toleration of pedophiles in their midst, and their big stick of shunning. Have you ever considered the possibility though that some behavioral studies of chickens and chimps can give us clues about what is happening now and what is in store for the Borg a few years down the road?
I dont have a long intricate and far-fetched plot to share with you here, only some general but perhaps useable guidelines that you can use for understanding the politics that is happening in the Society.
What Chickens Tell Us About Watchtower Politics
Just after the First World War, a Norwegian naturalist, Schjelderup-Ebbe, discovered that chickens displayed some behavior that helps us understand human organizations. When the hens were fed, they approached the feeding trough with an unusual pattern. Instead of all the hungry hens running up and grabbing whatever they could, only one hen would step up to the container of grain and dine. The others would simply watch. Then after this hen stepped aside, another hen would step forward to take her turn. The process would continue this way until all the hens had a turn.
Schjelderup-Ebbe noticed something surprising in the several days he observed the hens feeding, and that was that the order in which the chickens took their turns eating was not arbitrary. Every day, the same bird went first; the same went second, and so forth down the line. When the naturalist threw a strange chicken into the yard, he made another discovery. There was anarchy in the chicken pen. The normally peaceful birds quarreled like crazy as the stranger was trying to find a place in the new society. The established birds were not going to tolerate this newcomer to move them into a subservient position without a fight.
While the feathers were flying, this naturalist kept careful watch to see every vicious peck and who was pecking whom. When he totaled up the numbers of pecks, another interesting phenomena occurred. Some birds received hardly any jabs at all. No one dared touch them. Others had tremendous attacks. They were easy targets and nearly everyone wanted to get in a lick. Who were the unlucky birds? They were the birds always last in line. Who were the invulnerable birds that hardly got any pecks? They were the birds first in line. So, it wasnt just the strange bird getting pecked.
What this guy discovered is a social hierarchy in the world of chickens that he called a pecking order that distinguished between upper and lower classes. Before long, other researchers discovered pecking orders in many species, including humans.
The big question to ask now is: Does the Watchtower Society have a pecking order?
If you were around in historical Watchtower times, you no doubt will recall how the average Witness was proud that everyone was equal in the organization; that there was no class differences, no clergy-laity classes, and how different Gods chosen people were from the rest of the world. As we all know, somewhere along the line this nave reasoning went out the window and the Watchtower Corporation developed one hell of a pecking order.
How would you define the pecking order in the Society? Here is my improvised listing of the classes in the organization. Starting with the top chickens and working down the ranks:
- Governing Body in USA
- Branch Overseers
- Brooklyn Legal Department
- Various Department Heads at Brooklyn
- District Overseers
- Circuit Overseers
- Presiding Overseers
- Congregation Elders
- Missionaries
- Bethelites
- Special Pioneers
- Regular Pioneers
- Ministerial Servants
- Members of 144,000 in local congregation
- Male adult Publishers
- Female adult Publishers
- Children in good standing
- Inactive Witnesses
- Bible Studies
- Disfellowshipped Witnesses
- Apostates
While the order of the list is perhaps up for debate, we all know that the pecking order thrives in the Society. Recent history has shown us also what happens when a strange bird gets thrown into the chicken coop.
Ive been reading with great interest the Silent Lambs saga and the reaction of the Watchtower Society to this new threat. True to form, the Society was far more interested in keeping the status quo in place than making any real changes to suppress child abuse or to stop sheltering pedophiles in their midst. The (now former) JW advocates for reasonable change in the organization were pecked repeatedly and demoted to the bottom of the pecking order as apostates. No tolerance could be shown for Bill Bowen, or any other supporter of Silent Lambs, speaking out and rocking the boat. To suggest that these brave individuals were right in forcing change upon the organization would be granting them a higher position in the pecking order.
Not only did we see the top chickens attack this challenge to the pecking order but also there were signs of pecking all down the ranks. Witnesses who watched either Dateline or Panorama were no doubt criticized. New instructions were given to elders about disfellowshipping. The victims of sexual abuse were pecked (even on this board by JW advocates) and anyone in the organization who questioned the validity of Silent Lambs accusations was pecked. The whole Watchtower chicken coop was stirred up.
How Do You Change Pecking Orders?
As we seen with chickens, humans seem to be motivated by a primordial rule when it comes to pecking orders: friends flock to the bird on top, they shun and abuse the bird on the bottom. History though shows us that things sometimes change wildly. The position of the top of the pecking order is not permanent. Interestingly something strange happens though to groups of people at the top of a pecking order. They fall into complacency, assuming that their position is God given, and that their fortune in life will last forever. Dont we all know the Governing Body and the Watchtower power elite feel that way exactly? History shows repeatedly that pecking orders are a temporary thing and that the victors are often the barbarians!
In the pecking order of nations the barbarians have toppled one world power after another in history. For example Egypt, with its Pharaohs, pyramids, and its 600-mile long kingdom was wiped out by Hyksos, who chopped up the Egyptian army like chicken liver. The Hyksos were cultural nobodys but they were excellent horsemen, loved violence, and they were into inventing military hardware. Some of the other world powers toppled by barbarians of its day were Rome, Persia, Babylon, China, France but I will spare you the long history lessons here.
The common denominator in all these examples is the aggressiveness shown by the barbarians towards the established powers was a key element in changing the pecking order and overthrowing the power elite but it is also helped by a perceptual shutdown on the part of those on top of the pecking order.
Do Chimpanzees show us how the Governing Body will react to future outside threats?
Ethologist Frans de Waal discovered some interesting social behaviors of Chimpanzee tribe leaders. The dominant male of the chimps has waged a long, hard campaign to get to be on the top of the pecking order. Hes learned how to make loud frightening noises and displays, has developed his physical strength, and has become a master of the art of intimidating other chimps. Further, he has become quite a politician and developed friends and favor among the tribe and making alliances with other males.
De Waal though showed that when a chimp leader gets old and weak, instead of fighting off potential rivals by showing off their strength and agility, they use a strange tactic of pretending the challenger is not there. Even though the challenging younger chimp jumps up and down and makes all kinds of noises and threatening behavior, the king chimp will just ignore him and eat a banana. For a while this ploy works only because of the alliances the old chimp has made with his friends. If the younger chimp though has built up his own coalition and gained the favor of the population, the challengers public humiliation of the elder may prove decisive and he will be forced to yield his position.
The Perceptual Shutdown and Future of the Watchtower Society
The Governing body threatened by lawsuits from sexual abuse in the organization, battered by the knowledge that there is no solution to the 1914 problem, menaced by the decline of hours and contributions coming in from publishers, the growing expenses of keeping their organization on top and being attacked aggressively by apostates, are trying to fight back. Yet, despite their efforts, somewhere in the back of their minds they know they dont have any answers. They are just waiting and hoping for Jehovah to do something. They perhaps sense they are being beaten up by outside forces. They feel picked on.
Just as elder chimps resort to perceptual shutdown when dealing with the uncontrollable, the thoughts of the Governing Body are becoming more clouded, and they are having a harder time generating any new solutions to their problems. We see more of the same old drizzle in the Watchtowers publications. There is no longer any new excitement. These elder chimps view apostates as barbarians, beneath their contempt. They view apostates as powerless, angry individuals who will never unite into a force strong enough to challenge them. The head chickens are confident that their allies will carry them through any tough challenges.
In Lewis Carrolls Through the Looking Glass, the Red Queen says that to stay in place you have to run very, very hard, and to get anywhere, you have to run even harder. The vigor and endurance of the Governing Body has slipped away. They are no longer capable of running, and very soon wont even be up to a brisk walk.
Will the coming challenges to the Watchtower chicken elite come from someone in the ranks who presents evidence that things are going to hell and that reform is needed or will it come from barbarian apostates knocking on the doors? Denis Diderot once said, A thousand men who fear not for their lives are more to be dreaded than ten thousand who fear for their fortunes. Are there a 1000 apostates out there who will one day fearlessly take on the Watchtower Society? Time will tell. I just hope the answer comes sooner than later.
Skipper