Culture or the lack thereof

by Justin 16 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  outbutnotdown

  Justin,

  I think you make a very valid point as to why the JW's are generally so spiritually unfulfilled. For the first time ever, I think, I disagree somewhat with Narkissos' post.

  Whoever lives in a subculture knows that there is a wider world around and has to use different sets of codes and references. As JWs we didn't speak and behave with "worldly people" as we did with other JWs. Which means that we were conscious of the main culture and able to adapt to it (although awkwardly sometimes): we actually belonged to it too .

  This opinion is only from my personal experience and from examining JW's since I have been out. But I feel that while we (JW's) are somewhat conscious of the "main" culture, our firm belief that our "subculture" is absolutely correct does not even make us fully capable of belonging to the "main" culture. The "main" culture exists only to prove more fully that our "subculture" is correct.

  My point is that, although, in essense we did of course exist within this "main" culture, the complete lack of acknowledgement of any good coming from it, is what has created such unhappy, dysfunctional human beings who are/were JW's.

  By the way, I'm in the line with those dysfunctional ex-JW's.... I figured out the happiness part.... but integrating "normally" with the "main" culture is not quite so easy. teehee

  Brad
• 

  Satanus

  Incense

  If they did buy it, it would continue the tradition, cuz those people living inside the biosphere had some kind of cult going on.

  S
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  Narkissos

  Outbutnotdown,

  To illustrate the difference I was trying to make between subculture and culture:

  (1) Living in a very strict practicing Moslem family in New York (= subculture) and (2) living in a very strict practicing Moslem family in Saudi Arabia (= culture).

  To me there is a huge difference.

  A JW child, even "born into the truth", knows there is a "world" outside and (roughly) how it works: in school, through the media, in the neighborhood, s/he can't escape it. Yes it is caricatured as bad. But it is also attractive, and much more so because the subculture is lamentably poor.

  Living in a subculture you know you can step out of it by opening the door -- although you may be scared of doing it.
• 

  outbutnotdown

  Narkissos,

  Like I said, I only somewhat disagreed with you. Maybe disagree was too strong a word even because I do understand what you are saying here too.

  The only point that I was trying to make besides yours was that, especially in children raised in the "troof", that it is not quite as conscious a thought as we may believe. I know personally I find it amazing that I believed in their crazy philosophy of life, but when I think back on it, it was my reality.

  Yes, a door was there, but it was more of a "very, very, very, very last resort should you ever go NEAR that door" sort of door. That makes their subculture so "sub" that it almost exists without any acknowledgemnt of anything else having any value. Dysfunctional people result from that.

  Brad (of the "Narkissos' posts are much more brilliantly written compared to mine" class.)
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  sweetsevda

  i haven't thought of it thats something new to think about.
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  DanTheMan

  My last year in I found myself singing the songs less and less, it took a while but I finally realized that they were awful, just awful. Almost as bad as xtian rock music.
• 

  lilybird

  All I know is.. my son,, who was just 2 when we "escaped the org" ,(so he doesn't remember any of it), thanks me all the time for not staying a JW, He knows others in high school who are witnesses and they are not allowed to do so many things. When I had kids, i knew I couldn't raise them the way i was raised, I wanted them to experience all of life- good or bad-..and not be judged by other closed minded JW's. I do know of a few JW's who tried to keep their kids interested, One elder took his kids to a rock concert, I guess he felt if they were allowed to experience it with his supervision, they would get over their curiousity of the "lures of the worldly system". Anyways, none of his kids stayed with it. One son had an affair with an elder's wife for years, until he tired of it and wanted out, He was df'd I think she was only publicy-reproved.