You are welcome, Millie, and thank you for engaging with me in this life long obsession of mine - image making.
I think my obsession stems back as long as I remember. As a little girl, the images in books 'talked' to me long before the letters lined up and made sounds. I have always been intensely interested in 'the image' and have made image construction and deconstruction my life's vocation.
Of course, the text became powerful, and I have spent my share of time in obsessing about textual deconstruction. Like many here, I recognized that the WTS' manipulation of text was apparent and deliberate. After all, that is what the JWs are - a 'textual community', held together by text issued from the WTS. The text holds power - and the Word was God.
But it is within the image that the language of power is manifested - it is the image seen in the past that we can bring most readily to mind. I can easily bring up the image of Adam in the garden from the Paradise book, or the heel crushing a serpent head, the field of skulls and the 4 horsemen, etc, etc. I remember each and every illustration in that book. But I cannot recall a full page of text from the Paradise book.
And that is why I think that image deconstruction is such a critical part of deprogramming the WTS mind control. Once we gain control of the image, we can gain control of our brains again.
This particular image we are discussing, and obsessed with, is fascinating - it has been through several processes to emerge in its present form, it was once a photograph, a tiny millisecond in time. And the alteration of the coloring has extended the time it portrays...we have past, present and future in this image.
The layers of deconstruction in this image are many and complex.
I already did think they were slightly manipulative and I thought some of it was bumblefous behavior and like a stopped clock -that still happens to be right twice a day, I thought they were just happening to get it right (the manipulation).
I have given some thought to that, Millie. I have studied WT images for hours and hours, and tried to place them into an objective context - which is hard to do at times when the emotional attachment has a good grip.
As a child, I used to think that the WT images well so well done. But, now I see the clumsiness in the execution of some of them. And I would not be surprised if that clumsiness is deliberate. It masks the deliberate manipulation that the propaganda image has been subjected to. It gives it an 'honesty appeal'. when, in reality, the image is anything but honest. If the images were too slick, people wouldn't trust them.
