To adapt the old comic-book joke, there are those with many talents as they knew them in bible days, and there are those with abilities.
I believe there are many very able people among the brethren. Those who look down on the entire group are confusing intelligence with education. The wider world has many examples of successful autodidacts, and even more examples of natural ability. So unless the brethren are operating Darwinian selection in a downward direction, a group of however-many-thousand should have a reasonable proportion of people who can hold their own in various fields of endeavour.
What I'm getting at is that I'm not particularly unusual. I can write. That doesn't mean anything at all about my upbringing or the society in which I live. I'm mildly insulted that anyone should think that only a person who's already left the fellowship would be able to string words together.
There is an odd thing I've noticed while thinking about this. The people who are most successful at living the brethren life fall into two groups: the lower-to-middle intelligence bracket, which I'll widen to include those who may be more intelligent but lack self-confidence, and the very intelligent. Those who are most dissatisfied are the merely intelligent.
Before going any further, I should make clear that I'm not talking about classical intelligence so much as the modern broad definition, which as I understand it can signify any ability to grasp and manipulate concepts, from the physical arena, to interpersonal empathy, to the highly abstract.
If I were being cynical, I could say that it would take a very highly developed intelligence to grasp the unyielding principles that underlie the shifting brethren doctrines, but that's not quite what I mean. What I'm tentatively observing is that some people seem to be able to move beyond the troubling inconsistencies, and treat the whole thing as an interesting exercise in creative living, and that those same people manage to get into positions where they can live very comfortably within the rules. It is certainly possible to live well among the brethren. Those who are intelligent enough to see the inconsistencies but don't have what it takes to do anything about it are the unhappy ones. I count myself among them.
Interestingly, it is beginning to seem as though the tide is turning a bit, and the brethren are starting to value classical intelligence too. The best pupils in the brethren's schools are being strongly encouraged to stay on for further education in practical academic subjects like law and accountancy, with businesses guaranteeing them jobs at higher pay after the delay. It's too early to take that as a good sign yet, but it makes a pleasant change. It will be interesting to see how the challenge of blending academic thought with unquestioning acceptance is met.
2 comments:
Survivor, you said:
"The best pupils in the brethren's schools are being strongly encouraged to stay on for further education in practical academic subjects like law and accountancy, with businesses guaranteeing them jobs at higher pay after the delay. It's too early to take that as a good sign yet..."
If Brethren schools are allowing only the high-achieving students to move forward academically, then the benefit is not for the student, but essentially, for the system.
(That is my opinion, for whatever it is worth to you personally...)
However, if they allow all students to find their individual 'potentials', then this truly is a fantastic move forward.
One of the over-riding themes in your blogs, is your ability (and need) to question.
One of the critical aspects of any form of "learning" is this ability to question.
Questions as simple as, "Do I understand what is being said?" - still serve as a learning experience.
Education (in Australia) is currently moving through concepts of "meta-cognition" - learning how to learn.
Learning how to question the context a learner learns within (as you have done with your own autodidact explanation) is truly meta-cognitive...
What concerns me however, is that this contradicts something I read in your posts elsewhere...
The media and the existence of evil within it, and I think you asserted that this only affirms the Brethren's belief that they truly have the 'right direction' if the evil influences are fighting so hard against it...
I think that this is illustrative of a flawed hypothesis being supported by flawed data (obvious validity issues), for the sake of maintaining the system.
Hmm. There is still much I could say on this topic, but it is not my place, and not my forum.
However, I will say that it is entirely logical that there many highly intelligent people within the Brethren, as you say, but I question the higher cognitive levels you suggest. Buying into a construct (the principles that underlie the Brethren doctrines), and then being able to move beyond it (as you have suggested some people are doing), takes a lot of "mental gymnastics". Unless they already know that the system is flawed, and maintain it for that very reason (they are the system keepers), then there is a price to pay (emotionally or intellectually) in keeping up such obvious conscious deceptions.
This is not intelligence.
It is a defense mechanism (in true Freudian style) to ensure that the conscious does not allow awareness of what it is so vehemently trying to suppress.
OK, an admission. I wasn't even convincing myself when I wrote this.
Still, I maintain that it takes a special kind of ability to do the "absorb and rise above" trick, but maybe it's more akin to zen than intelligence.
I fully agree on the value of meta-cognition, as by my recollection that's what school did best for me (if it was school and not a happy accident). I don't think it's what EBs are after, though.
What's more, OF COURSE the brightest children are being further educated for the system's benefit not their own. Why, they barely get to choose what they do! What I find interesting is whether it's possible for it to be as narrow a benefit as the brethren wish, or whether some children may learn to think in spite of all the restrictions. Some, in my opinion, is better than none, and if it's only the brightest and only by accident, that's still a good thing.
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