I have often wondered, and sometimes discussed, what is most helpful to brethren who wish to leave their cosy society and brave the outside world, and what can be done for those who have done so.
The big problems, as they seem to me in retrospect, are three.
• fear of the unknown
• leaving people behind and being cut off
• worry about hostility or not fitting in anywhere
There are of course many other difficulties, many practical obstacles, and everything is different in every case. For many people, financial worries will be a mountain in their minds. I don't want to minimise anything by restricting my attention to the above points. It just seems to me that the biggest hurdles are mental ones, and that most other things can be managed with a positive will.
Leaving a closed community is a scary step. With years of preparation, and a reasonable idea of what was involved, I nearly never made the leap myself. If I hadn't had friendly unpressured support during those years, I doubt I would have made it. I can think of many brethren who I think know they would do better to leave, and I doubt most of them will manage, or even seriously consider it, because it's just too much. Making the exit, I have often thought, is very close to suicide as an act of desperation, and the tendency for most people is to grimly carry on as they are, because they've survived so far and things haven't become unbearable yet.
Personally, I think it's unfortunate that the most visible presence of ex-brethren on the internet is a strident one. I am sure there is a need for campaigning, and keeping the brethren's various abuses in the public eye is a valuable activity. But remembering my own feelings as a waverer, I shudder at the effect it must have on people like I was then.
What such semi-brethren need, in my opinion, is mainly reassurance. They don't need beating over the head with the evils of their current position - if they were happy with it, they wouldn't be considering leaving, and ranting about it makes them feel very uncomfortable about the levels of hate on the outside. They won't, normally, have worked through their own feelings enough to feel very strongly against the brethren, and if they get the impression that they're alone in their moderate unhappiness while everyone else hates them, they are in danger of concluding that there is nowhere they will fit in on the outside.
They need to know what it's really like on the outside. The good, the bad, the better-than-expected, the unforeseen problems. That turns a hopeful dream into something they can imagine succeeding in. They need to see that there are people like them around, and that they won't be a weird misfit, and that people are often good and kind - that's important, as the brethren put a lot of emphasis on the uniqueness of their own help structure.
Mostly, I guess, a waverer will be sick of being told what to do and think, yet still uncertain of their own capacity to think and act for themselves. That means that anyone wishing to help has a delicate balancing act to perform, ready with support as needed, without letting advice appear like instructions, and without seeming like a replacement for what the person is trying to get away from.
What all this means in practice, I'm not quite sure. I have a suspicion that as computers are being demystified by their appearance in brethren's workplaces, there may be a continual increase in the number of brethren checking out the web. Maybe there is room for more help that way.
More thoughts, maybe, as anything else occurs to me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
It would seem, dear survivor, to be yourself that is best suited to create a kinder, gentler web site that would actually help EB to escape.
In this context, I enjoyed the following quote from Samuel Adams:
If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
As always, balanced and thought provoking words. Intelligent words that would be helpful to so many, as well as waverers.
So incredibly right on the nail as always, Survivor. When many ex-brethren on peebs.net planned to visit the Leicester 3-day meetings and campaign outside the gates etc, I shuddered too, but when I expressed my concerns, I was shot down by some. I think that when you have left the brethren a long ime ago, you lose memory of what it was like as a semi-EB (as you put it (I like it)). You become so settled and happy in your new life, that it seems so obvious that every EB should want to and should easily be able to come and join you on the outside. Like you, I very nearly didn't make the break either. How glad I am that I did, but I spent more than a decade wanting to and not feeling able to.
I hear a lot of echoes in this blog.
“The tendency for most people [i.e. disaffected Brethren] is to grimly carry on as they are, because they've survived so far and things haven't become unbearable yet.” In the 1960s brethren said very similar things.
Your paragraph beginning with, “What such semi-brethren need, in my opinion, is mainly reassurance. They don't need beating over the head with the evils of their current position - . . .” is like an echo of something I wrote to George about a year ago:
“A lot of contributors to Peebs.net seem to think the way to help such people [waverers] is to challenge them to justify their position or their beliefs. I think nothing could be further from the truth.
They don’t need or want religious challenges: they have already had a bellyful.
They don’t need people to point out the inconsistencies: they are glaringly obvious to anyone.
They don’t need people to point out that their sect has acquired pariah status: they are already embarrassed by it.
They will studiously avoid people who want to discuss their religion.
They just need some genuine, unconditional friendship.
They will sort out their religious inconsistencies in their own time.”
As for your comments on the possibility of delivering genuine help for waverers through the internet, I thought Trevor Hill’s web site (now defunct) struck a good balance between support and criticism. I still have his files, if you ever need copies to send to waverers.
Post a Comment