an you relay some of the battles , who won and how did the loser cope ?
To many to mention. Let's see...
In the congregation where I grew up there was a fight between the three elders of the congregation, one of them being my father. Actually there were several arguments and political fights against those three morons. Looking back, I think they looked like the three stooges trying to lead a congregation, but back then it wasn't fun hearing them assassinating each other's characters and trying to make each other look bad in front of everybody. None of them went to school after sixth grade.
The first fight I remember was over the 1975 thing. My father calling them insane for believing that the end was coming in October 1975. The other became a pioneer that month and trained himself on how to survive with eating just leaves.
The other fight was over the virginity of the daughter of one of them. Once the guy brought to the KH a certificate from a doctor stating that his daughter was still a virgin.
The other was over who was really being a true JW. The other elders started showing up in my father's house unannounced in attempts at catching him or any member of our family doing something wrong.
Then the fights changed to become about coolness and having things and looking good. The entrance to the KH became a runway where people would make their fashion statement as they made their flashy entrance for everybody to admire and see how stunning they are. Same thing and attitude over having cars and things. Social events became very divisive and displays of power.
Then as we grew up the fights were about us, the children in school doing, saying or being the right thing. Then about who was interested in who. They were just looking for anything anywhere to continue their stupid fights, even at the expense of causing harm to their own families.
As a young adult, in a different congregation, it was a very passive aggressive fighting. The congregation was severely divided by social class. The territory covered both areas with very poor people and very well-to-do people. There were a couple of racist idiots, but at the meetings you'd see them acting as if they all were BFFs (is that term still cool?). It was very hypocritical, and honestly I wasn't prepared for that type of culture.
One elder there went as far as not talking to me but talking to my brother. Apparently my brother was worthy of his acknowledgement, but not me. To this day I don't know why. Their get-togethers and planning meetings were displays of power from the "educated" elders over the rest of "them" in the congregation.
I can go on with stories, but what I posted provides some ideas.
