A Cult Tactic: Removing Guilt By Dehumanising Others

by pale.emperor 43 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Simon

  I'm trying to understand where you're coming from posting something like this. This is a forum specifically for victims of a cult...you know this better than anyone. Are we not going to talk about shunning and the psychological manipulation that the cult uses to get people to shun family members in defiance of what is typically the strongest social bond that we form?

  Yes, and we need to keep some balance and sense of perspective if our criticism of the group is to be seen as fair and valid and if we are to appeal to those leaving to provide help.

  ANY claim that what the WTS does is similar (in any way) to what the Nazis or Japanese of WWII did risks being seen as a claim that the two crimes are the same.

  They are not the same. There is a very vague and tenuous link which is, IMO, pretty contrived and I don't think trying to make this link helps convince people it's true or elicit sympathy - I think the correct response to this is laughter and ridicule because c'mon, it IS utterly ridiculous. We could make the same claim about lots of things - "advertising uses mental manipulation techniques and OMG, Hitler did that too, therefore people selling lipstick are literally Nazis!!!"

  Here's a thought experiment if you still disagree: go tell a holocaust survivor to recount their story and then say that a similar thing happened to you and explain why. If you feel you'd be embarrassed doing that (you should) then you are not looking objectively at the claim.
  
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  Diogenesister

  Amiable atheist Lacking the Anatomical God-antena she'd never be allowed

  :-)) :-)) :-))
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  Diogenesister

  Simon advertising does not aim to de-humanize the other (and if it did it would be had up by the ASA) - and this is essentially the point of the post.

  Edit: Nursing in Hampstead where I trained ( Golders green very close) you can imagine I met quite a few holocaust victims and being also elderly you bet they would listen to a shunned exjw- and see the connection - they are the least dismissive people in the world.
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  OneEyedJoe

  ANY claim that what the WTS does is similar (in any way) to what the Nazis or Japanese of WWII did risks being seen as a claim that the two crimes are the same.

  Here's a thought. Why don't we all act like adults and actually listen to the claims made instead of interpreting them under the assumption that the person we're in conversation with is a bad actor? The fact of the matter is that Nazi Germany was an authoritarian high control group and as such it used all the same tactics that every such group uses. Of course Nazis were more violent. Of course there should be no equivalency made. And there wasn't. This is like someone giving advice to a checkers player that they treat it like a chess match and think 5 moves ahead and you swooping in to make sure everyone knows that chess is a much more complex game and that the strategies used in checkers would never work in chess. Everyone already knows this.

  They are not the same. There is a very vague and tenuous link which is, IMO, pretty contrived and I don't think trying to make this link helps convince people it's true or elicit sympathy - I think the correct response to this is laughter and ridicule because c'mon, it IS utterly ridiculous. We could make the same claim about lots of things - "advertising uses mental manipulation techniques and OMG, Hitler did that too, therefore people selling lipstick are literally Nazis!!!"

  Against whom are you arguing? Absolutely no one said they were the same. It seems that you're alone in your inability to see the similarities in tactics (in spite of absolutely obvious differences in scale and the addition of physical violence) between Nazism and the JW or other religious cults. No one said that JWs are literally Nazis. They do use some of the same basic strategies for control as Nazis did, though, as do all cults.

  Here's a thought experiment if you still disagree: go tell a holocaust survivor to recount their story and then say that a similar thing happened to you and explain why. If you feel you'd be embarrassed doing that (you should) then you are not looking objectively at the claim
  

  I doubt that what Jews experienced during the holocaust was especially similar to what I've gone through in leaving a cult. But that was never the claim made. The claim made was that the Nazis used similar tactics as JWs to get other Nazis to mistreat Jews. Now if I were talking to someone whose father was a Nazi and committed atrocities during the war, I might sympathize and relate how the JW cult uses similar tactics to manipulate my parents into doing things that are against their nature. I think that may well be a useful thing for someone that might be struggling with their personal identity in the light of their father's misdeeds - seeing that your case isn't a one-off and that your family isn't uniquely evil is sometimes a huge help towards moving on.
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  Vidiot

  Personally, I don't think comparing the Org to actual fascists is unfair at all.

  All you have to do is imagine what a WT-run country would look like.
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  Simon

  Simon advertising does not aim to de-humanize the other (and if it did it would be had up by the ASA) - and this is essentially the point of the post.

  The point (which you missed) is that just because some things may have some element of a technique used, it doesn't make them the same. That you don't think advertising is like the Nazis is the point - they are nothing like, even though we could take some aspect (e.g. nazi propaganda) and find some similarities.
  
  
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  Simon

  Here's a thought. Why don't we all act like adults and actually listen to the claims made instead of interpreting them under the assumption that the person we're in conversation with is a bad actor?

  Why are you assuming that is the intent? I'm commenting in the inevitable thing that people take from the OP - that the claim is that the WTS uses the same techniques and is therefore similar to the Nazis and Japanese of WWII

  Against whom are you arguing? Absolutely no one said they were the same. It seems that you're alone in your inability to see the similarities in tactics (in spite of absolutely obvious differences in scale and the addition of physical violence) between Nazism and the JW or other religious cults

  So you are saying there are similarities and the inevitable conclusion is that we are trying to claim they are similar - not identical or exactly the same, but similar.

  Really? The Nazis and the Japanese and all the barbaric acts the OP described. You think the WTS are similar?

  I think that is an extraordinary claim and requires a more convincing argument to support it that simply isn't there.

  I doubt that what Jews experienced during the holocaust was especially similar to what I've gone through in leaving a cult. But that was never the claim made. The claim made was that the Nazis used similar tactics as JWs to get other Nazis to mistreat Jews.

  I think you're splitting hairs. Claiming things are similar when it suits and then backing off and saying "we didn't mean close to the same" when challenged on it.

  As I said, it's easy to find "similar techniques" in all manner of things. It doesn't make those things at all close to each other.

  Read the OP and imagine you are an independent reader - what is your takeaway from it? What do you think is being claimed? I don't think "the WTS is not at all the same as the nazis" is the impression it tries to give.
  
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  days of future passed

  I didn't read it as making the WT equal to the Nazis in all aspects. But in reading your last post Simon, I went and read it again.

  I still see the main point of this discussion, as the techniques that were used by Nazi Germany are used to some degree by the WT. Even I, before this topic was brought up, have often thought of how the WT uses the phrase "mentally diseased apostate" in the same way that Hitler used "dirty Jew" to label and put down people.

  Hitler is an icon of propaganda and arrogance. At least for me.
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  new boy

  Yes it's the old "Us and them" concept that has been going on since the beginning of time.

  It's the scourge of the planet. Once a person believes this concept to be real. They can rationalize any kind of behavior.

  Yet there really is only "us."
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  sparky1

  "There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias for simple solutions to cut the knot rather than unravel it, the viewing of compromise as surrender. Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence, absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power." - ERIC HOFFER