My siblings and I were raised not only being dubs but also having manners. And to be honest, I can't think of any people that I came in contact w/at the KH that didn't display manners. I don't particularly believe that lack of manners is a dub characteristic, more of characteristic of an individual household.
An Appalling Lack Of Manners & Social Graces
by Why Georgia 30 Replies latest jw friends
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metatron
The organization attracts a lot of people who are socially marginal. Add to that the sort of unmerited superiority that Witnesses
revel in and problems with a lack of manners emerge.
In addition, the habit of enforced shunning injures Witnesses generally. As long as you can conceive of some defect
in another Witness, you're free to 'mark' them or otherwise think of them as someone you don't need to associate with.
This is partly why so many Witnesses hate each other in local congregations - and why Theocratic School Overseers
must often be careful which sisters they assign to give a talk because if they hate each other, they won't show up.
metatron
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Room 215
.... and add to that the JW worldview that regards 99.99 percent of humanity as fodder for the Great Scythe, and you pretty well complete the picture.
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franklin J
manners are a "cultural and economic sign post" ; they are a learned behaviour.
Good manners and social graces are associated with the upper social classes, well educated and an economically successful strata of society; one that Jehovahs Witnesses do not aspire to.
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LittleToe
In all fairness, I can't say I noticed it being a problem, in this part of the world.
wb Cheeses
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Billygoat
I think it's just a people problem. I meet people all the time who are rude and don't know how to behave. At church, at the store, at work, in traffic. I think it boils down to our society changing into a "take care of myself first" mentality. It's sad really.
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blondie
Bad manners seems to be equal opportunity, regardless of social or economic status, or religious group. I noticed on TV there was a show where people who wanted to succeed in business signed up to learn good manners. It is amazing what bad table manners people have.
Blondie
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kgfreeperson
I absolutely agree that mannerliness is unusual enough that when one runs across what used to be called a well-mannered person who isn't over sixty, you notice!
One reason, I think, is that our social lives are so different because our work lives are so all-consuming. Children are in day care, where there are rules, but children assume those rules only apply to that particular context and they don't tend to be taken visiting the way we used to be--where parents, especially mothers, explained what behavior was expected from them. So kids who are well-behaved in one context, often assume that there are no rules outside that context.
I also think that people who feel they are already doing more than they can do do not have the energy to be thoughtful toward other people (and children copy how their parents behave). In fact, if you are polite to someone's face (at the door), and then say nasty things about them as you're walking away, the children who observe that will often just skip the polite at the door part because they know what's genuine and tend to want to get right to the "troof." So it wouldn't at all surprise me if Jehovah's Witnesses who got sucked in after the crackdowns since the late seventies/early eighties would have no manners. No place to learn them. -
orangefatcat
I am so grateful that I was taught manners. Not so much from my parents but from my beloved grandma. She was truly a lady of Grace. She taught me social graces and manners as well as manners at home and at the table, and when meeting people or when going to church. People of all walks of life. In fact my grandma was the one who helped me to have a love of Jesus and God. She was more of a true Christian then most Jehovahs' witnesses. She was loved and respected by all. Among her friends they called her Reverent Mother.
I have seen some terrible manners in my own family. I have one sister who doesn't even have any manners what so ever. Every thing they expect should be passed to them on a silver platter. It causes me to just die inside when she and her family would come to visit us or visit my grandma or aunts. She is obese and I have no problem with obesity as I am as well. But don't give obesity a bad name. And I don't expect people, friends or my children to work like slaves and serve them hand and foot and never be told that they were appreciated or grateful. They would actually belch at a dinner table with commpany they would also pass gas and make jest of it. They literally all were gorgers at the dinner table. I tried never to go out in public with them. They are a disgrace. I also have seen many ungrateful witnesses. (Yes the toilet bit too). Especially ones that I have helped. Me, I would help anyone, because that is what I am like. But when you give something to someone to use for a while and they never give it back or you see them throwing out in the garbage, well that is a little maddening. One witnesses borrowed my grease gun and has kept it for 20 years and the last time I spoke to him, he said I hope your not holding your breathe for that grease gun. He says he feels it belongs to him since he was to rude to return it to me. And it was an expensive grease gun. Or you go to a person home for dinner and there are piles of laundry (dirty mixed with clean) and dirty dishes in the kitchen from days past by and the floors where dirty I just couldn't handle a person or families that live like that. Soap and water is almost free. There is no need for lazyiness. And living in filth well that turns my stomach upside down. They expect you to bring drinks or salads which I didn't mind but how about a little thank you afterwards. There are a lot who lack social graces. I can't tolerate this form of ignorance I call it arrogance instead. In our land we are fairly cultured to some extent, but wow some people can really floor you with their "NO MANNER POLICY".
Just huffing and puffing as usual.
with love and kindness
Orangefatcat
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steve2
There is a possibility that the lack of manners in JWs observed by some is really not seen as bad manners by the JWs themselves. In more open societies, people can talk relatively freely about these matters without becoming defensive or searching for underlying motives. But. among the JWs, I don't think there is the same level of freedom to be open to feedback from others.
I agree with those who say that lack of manners is part of being a normal human and that it is amenable to improvement through feedback. Some relevant factors that inhibit improvement include a belief that one is right and others are wrong, the use of double standards, a sense that outsiders do not have valid points of view and interpreting potentially helpful feedback as "faultfinding".