We Played Along With Our Own Oppression

by cofty 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cofty

  In Communist East Germany (GDR) writers were provided with a 'helper' - often a Stasi agent - who would 'assist' the work through to publication.

  Poet and novelist Gunter Kunert described how this led to a sort of self-censorship. It reminded me very much of the way JWs can be trained to accept outrageous restrictions while imagining they are making free choices.

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  "As authors we were always trying to be ahead of the censor, to second-guess his instinct as to what was 'in' and what was 'off'. That means we put ourselves in the position of censor. After a couple of decades of doing this, we got so used to this second opinion lurking in our own heads that we considered it our own. We believed we were writing in freedom, and under our own influence, but we weren't. That was the most odious aspect of the system - it allowed us to believe we were free and we wanted to believe it too. So we played along with our own oppression."

  Quoted in Revolution 1989 - The Fall of the Soviet Empire. Victor Sebestyen 2009
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  Hortensia

  "we got so used to this second opinion lurking in our own heads that we considered it our own."

  True!

  I gew up a JW, I was used to being watched by god, the angels, jesus, the devil, the demons, the world AND the congregation. I had to have an explanation for everything, justify every move to all these watchers. That conversation in my head, justifying everything I did, went on for a long time after I left the wtbts. I was so used to being watched and judged, I just carried on doing it to myself when I left.
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  Oubliette

  Cofty, intriguing quote. Excellent application to how JWs (as do any enabler in a codependent relationship) play along with the abuser.
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  Julia Orwell

  True. We were victims yes, but we enabled these abusers too.
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  Qcmbr

  Stealing as my fb status.
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  Phizzy

  " ......it allowed us to believe we were free and we wanted to believe it too. So we played along with our own oppression."

  So true of us as JW's. So sad that we could have been so deluded, yet there was always the constant Cognitive Dissonance wasn't there ?

  The WT likes to plant several illusory ideas in the heads of its followers, that they know their Bible, that they are Educated, that they freely make choices.

  As to the latter, we were not of course free to choose our beliefs or even our own thoughts.

  This was based on the silliest circular reasoning, "we do not need our own thoughts, because the WT (GB) tell us what is true, how do we know it is true ? because they tell us it is."

  I curse myself for not going "over the wall" to freedom many years before I finally did,
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  gorgia2

  Thanks for posting this Cofty.

  gorgia
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  KateWild

  Getting people to control their own idea's to censor themselves is the ultimate way to control them. My loved ones are always telling me to hush up. they think Jehovah wants us to censor ourselves. We must honour God's arrangenment and always speak good of elders, CO's and the GB.

  It's amazing how many succumbe to this strategy, whether it be politics or religion. Very intelligent individuals, can be manipulated by this form of control, because it is so incidious.

  Well promoted cofty, I would rather read that than Dawkins. Do I really have to read Ch 3?

  Kate xx
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  LucidChimp

  Ouch.

  That's close to the bone.

  It's easier to blame the WT than myself - but since we Tangoed...
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  cofty

  I think this explains in part why JWs are so traumatised when they wake up to TTATT. So many things fall like a house of cards because so much of it depended on our compliance.

  As soon as you switch off the internal censor everything changes very suddenly.