Great stuff, AK-J, but believe you me, you missed out on nothing by not being an elder in the WT system. I had the misfortune to be one for ten years, and it was the single feature that eventually led to my being disillusioned. As long as I was among the faceless R&F, I actually enjoyed being one of the "gang". But becoming an elder opened my eyes in ways no other action would have.
The role of the elder within the WT Imperium is a curious one. Despite the posturing about like attenuated peacocks that many elders effect, and despite the sprouting of suitably obtuse phrases, evidently done to impress the impressionable, the role of the WT elder is no more than that of being theological eunuchs.Incapable of even the most basic of individual enterprise, unschooled in the rigours of biblical ideology and debate, and totally ignorant of the disciplines required for competence in such research, their only function is that of being castrated mouthpieces echoing, with varying degrees of fanaticism, the interminable stream of directives emanating from WT HQ. No thinking is required, because these directives are not designed for thinking out or meditating on, they are simply to be obeyed. The WT does not give its coteries enough information to think, it simply gives them enough to be obeyed.
In this respect, the WTS resembles not so much a religion, as it does an instrument of power. A power that is exercised from a centralized point of Absolute Authority, and delegated, through articulated links of command, to willing acolytes all along the power structure. The trick in being a successful elder is not intelligence, for this is a potential threat to the Centralized Authority, since they have none,but the trick in in giving credence to the Unspoken Rule. This Centralized Authority is to be regarded as both, Unquestioned and Unquestionable. They are elitist, secretive, and self perpetuating, which means that no one within the orbit of this power structure has any influence on who or how this Centralized Authority is constructed.
To parse a couplet born of equally dictatorial systems, "When the GB tells you to jump, you don't ask "why" you ask "how high" "
One of the stratagems employed by this Centralized Authority to ensure their survival at the top, is assessing the subservience of the potential elder. In this respect, you obviously did not understand the abject inferiority of your position. You did not abase yourself, kiss the ring, or tug the forelock. Most dangerous of all, you were literate enough to use your mind.
But the brutal truth is that it is better to be free and theologically virile on the outside, than to be a eunuch in the house of patent evil.
Cheers
