Jumping v Being Pushed

My recent reading contained one assertion that hit me quite hard: that people's psychology is generally such that control over their environment has more effect on their happiness than the circumstances themselves. More specifically, the author said that he had himself proved that it is possible to gain great satisfaction from leaving a well-paid job for a lesser one ... provided that you resign rather than being pushed out.

Obviously that has relevance to my current circumstances, as although all is quiet on the work side of my life, I'd be ignoring history if I thought my job was secure indefinitely. But it made me wonder more whether those who took a very deliberate step in leaving the brethren have fared better in the time since than those who were thrown out or otherwise left without it being completely their decision.

All things being equal, I can see that we tend to seek confirmation that we have made correct choices once we've made them (I remember being taught that customers tend to become repeat customers if you call them and reiterate what a great purchase they made in the days after they take delivery - they're more persuadable when they are already expending their own mental energy justifying their decision). That means that someone who has taken a drastic step, freely, will be focused on their gains, keen to grasp any evidence that emerges that says they were right to do what they did. By contrast, a person who feels disposed-of may find it so hard to see past what they have lost without having decided to do so that the same scraps of good news pass them by entirely.

Reasoning from what appears to be common sense rather than evidence proves nothing, of course, but it would be interesting to know if there is any grain of realism in that summary.

Meanwhile I take the lesson to heart myself.

Confirmation

I have a weakness for popular factual books, the kind presented as having a "big idea" or strong theme in any semi-scientific area of knowledge. This week's reading is "The Black Swan" - I've been intrigued for a while, and it has become topical again.

And I find it is one of the quite rare books that has me nodding at regular intervals and, if I was the kind of person who wrote in books, I would be underlining points quite often too. Like I saw people doing to Brethren ministry in the past. (Tangentially, the kind of brethren who leave their weekly ministry visible to visitors tend to be the kind who underline and take notes, although I wouldn't cynically want to say the two habits are connected.) Although this book is somewhat overstated in its tone, it chimes with my own outlook on life and makes me wonder why other people haven't said the same things so clearly and vocally.

The central message is that prediction is a human weakness that leads to trouble, because few things that matter are predictable and those that are predictable are swamped by other unforeseen circumstances anyway. That feels right to me. I'm forever hedging my bets because what seems obvious to others looks rather fragile to me, and yet wondering why I'm out of step.

However, there is a big irony here, and it's the main reason I mention the point at all. One of the central points the author makes about the limits of knowledge, and consequently of prediction, is about confirmation bias: the human tendency to fasten on information that fits with what one already knows or thinks while ignoring contrary facts. Here is a book that tells me I'm right to be conscious of the weakness of knowledge. So what's the use of that?

Absorbing Rules

Having spent a very large proportion of my life in the thick of a community whose main defining point is that no other communities are allowed, I have found it slightly strange to dabble in others. The most obvious ones being online.

Facebook, while handy, still feels just a little bit creepy to me, I suppose because its sole purpose is as a means of interaction between friends, and friends always feel as if they deserve more personal attention than messages on a cyberspace noticeboard. So for the moment I tend to stay semi-detached from that community. I also dabble from time to time in a photography website with lively forum pages, which is always a sign of a set of people who feel themselves to be a community, but always feel something of an outsider there as anyone who doesn't contribute on an almost hourly basis is ignored as a part-timer. I have observed that any successful forum seems to have a hard core of utterly dedicated people who feel a certain sense of ownership, and a self-developed set of more or less arcane rules and etiquettes.

Such rules seem to be necessary as a dividing line between the insiders and others, but they do vary from case to case whether the effect is to include or exclude. The photographic site I mentioned has a presumably unintentional bias towards exclusion, as do many others where the topics are subject to strong opinions. The sense I get is that you need to pay your dues in some way in order to be accepted.

But what started me thinking about this was Flickr, which is altogether different. It is designed to feel like a community, but a welcoming one, and I feel at ease with it because it's about something definite, unlike Facebook. But I have gradually become aware of subtleties that weren't immediately obvious, ways in which a joiner gradually slips into the ways of the network.

I have been posting pictures for a while now, and it gets to be mildly addictive as some get attention and others don't. And so I find I am more likely to post things similar to those that were liked before, and that begins modifying, slightly, my actions when I create in the first place. And a certain sort of caption seems to work, and so I spend a few moments more in each case thinking of that kind. And I try out groups to see where like-minded people are.

And what really struck me was that if a loose and optional community at a distance can have powerful behavioural effects that slip in almost unnoticed, it's not surprising that the all-encompassing brethren network shapes the participators' thoughts and actions to the extent it does, such that even those of us who have made a conscious decision to leave them behind find we still get tangled in the after-effects. I have always maintained that the "rules" and "control" spoken of as endemic to the brethren are rather overstated. But then when each person spends their life unconsciously adjusting to what the others think of them, maximising attention and wishing for affection and respect, control in the strict sense becomes almost superfluous.

Gathering Ahead

I have let myself in for what amounts to a party at my place, and it feels to me like one of the biggest and bravest steps I've taken. Is that because I'm just basically shy, or is it that I'm affected by the brethren mentality?

For quite a while I have wished I could get some friends together, and also that people who know me could see where I live while I live there. I have always put it off, though, because such things seem to need an excuse of some kind. Yet any kind of excuse is probably something to do with me personally, and I hate to be the focus of attention. This kind of feels like putting myself on the line, and is also a worry because having asked people to come along to my place, I have a hard time believing I can make it worth the effort for them!

As with so many things, it would be nice to know if the reticence is down to my upbringing or not. I do admire people who are equally comfortable being noticed or ignored, managing events or fitting in. It always feels like an awkward shift for me, even when I know it's required and do my best. I suspect the brethren attitude that says the self is to be suppressed in favour of the community is a hard one to dispel entirely. Going against it feels both exposing and unsafe.

Still, the die is cast, and it will be fun making arrangements, I think. I hope!

Undermining the leaders

I had thought I had left all this stuff behind, but I have had a reminder of a key part of brethrenism. Pause for swooping strings and a drum roll ... it's the Aberdeen issue!

Apparently some people think that ferreting out undeniable facts about this historical affair is the best hope of bringing the EB edifice crashing down. They may be right, and logic would say they are, but something doesn't feel too promising to me. It has taken a bit of thought to see why.

After all, it is true that the morality of the brethren's leaders is all-important. From the early days of brethrenism, when the key doctrine that led to their existence was that clergy were an offence to God, a key has come to be that the perfectibility of Mankind is proved at all times by the perfection of one man on Earth - who of course must be in the only perfect position. And that person comes to be leader by mysterious means that can only be traced back to God's ways. So, for brethren, all morality can be tested against an easily-seen marker, and the compulsory progress towards God's plan for them is measured the same way. After all, the reasoning goes, God couldn't be satisfied with less than perfection, and wouldn't be so unreasonable as to ask for the impossible, so the result must be there to see for the enlightened.

So it seems equally reasonable to suppose that if that perfection could be proved to be illusory or, better, totally fake, the foundations of the brethren's thought would so weakened as to be unable to support what has grown up on them.

There's no doubt that, on the face of it, James Taylor Jr is an easy target for such an effort. I recall listening to a set of recordings of meetings late on in his life with increasing discomfort and distaste. He rambled and slurred, and spouted such self-centred content-free verbiage that I was embarrassed on his behalf, and thought it would be a good thing for everybody if such recordings were kept under lock and key to preserve his good memory. That's without considering the many people who claim to have firm proof of activities up to and including adultery, culminating in scandal at Aberdeen in 1970.

Yet there is a big problem, and that is that the whole affair has moved beyond facts and history for the brethren and become a matter of ideology.

All brethren are brought up from birth with the assumption that their leaders are and have been pure. For example, even as I was cringing at what I heard on those ancient recordings, I could see looks of admiration all around me as though everybody else was hearing something entirely different. If you start with the assumption that a man is God's example to us all, then anything and everything can be twisted to fit that narrative. My companions were spellbound by the genius of the man in skilfully leading the ignorant astray so that only God's elect could see his true worth. I think everybody has had enough practice in mental contortions that there isn't a fact that they couldn't make fit somehow.

But more to the point, all brethren consider the whole affair to be among the top dividing lines between the sheep and the goats. That's the brilliant thing about it from their point of view. If somebody provides "facts" that reflect badly on JTjr, that's all you need to know - they're on the wrong side and you mustn't listen. So those facts won't get very far because they're greeted with instant deafness.

What's more, I have many times heard ex-brethren disparaged just because they can't move on from the issue: the feeling is "is that all they've got to harp on about?" So that combination - indifference, closed minds and sense of superiority - makes the job harder than it first appears. Some may think it's merely a tricky lock to pick, and worth a lot of effort if it provides a way in, but I suspect it's more like trying to pick a concrete wall.

Still, I'll watch with interest in case I'm proved wrong.

Criticism

The brethren believe they're better than everyone else.

Well, actually that isn't quite accurate. Nobody believes in their
kitchen table: it's there, it's obvious, and nobody needs to believe
in it. They take it for granted. The same applies with brethren
superiority. It's the starting point for all interaction of any
kind.

I read an article recently on why the Danes seem to be the happiest
people on Earth, and one reason put forward was much the same - that
they consider Danishness to be a superior state of being. That makes
for a certain amount of xenophobia and difficulty in the country in
some ways, but apparently the common society values more than make
up for it as a place to live.

The brethren are kind of similar, except that the attitude is
boosted exponentially by the conviction that the superiority is
God-given. It can also lead to a kind of schizophrenia in the ones
who are aware of deficiencies (which is many), because they
simultaneously believe that they are in the best community in
existence and can see things which are bad in one way or another.
Everybody has their own way of dealing with that, whether they go to
enormous lengths never to have to consider it, go all-out for
denial, or rationalise it in whatever way they can.

It does help to remember that when dealing with them. The key thing
is that criticism, implied or straight, is going to clash with their
root assumptions and nobody likes that.

Depending on the circumstances, it may be OK to criticise specifics.
Only the most blinkered of brethren refuse to admit to any
imperfections. What few can deal with is any suggestion that the
totality might be in any way at fault. That clashes with such deeply
held beliefs that the only possible conclusion is that the
suggestion must be wrong even without examination of what has been
said. If it is then insisted upon, the insistence reflects back on
the person doing it, who must be anywhere between misled and evil.

Complicating matters is that such criticism is held to be exactly
the same as criticising God Himself in their eyes. No matter that
anybody else would regard that as a separate step, and an arguable
one. They won't see the difference.

That explains the extreme reactions to what brethren perceive as
attack - it isn't rational or part of a master-plan, just the
outrage of people who've had the very foundations of their worldview
questioned and can't handle it. It also explains the strained
relations between family-members within the brethren and outside,
because the very act of leaving the brethren is about as strong a
criticism as anybody could make.

When people discover my background, one of the first things they
wonder is why I don't have more contact with my family. I have never
managed to explain to anyone's satisfaction that it isn't really to
do with rules, but a matter of hurt. By leaving, I have said to them
that something they consider to be a part of their essence, and
something they most value, is worth nothing to me. Blood ties are
strong, but lesser things than that can pull families apart.

I can see the varying degrees of contact with my family in that
light. Relations are best with those who feel a more pragmatic
connection with the brethren, and therefore accept my situation as
simply different from theirs in that it works for them and didn't
for me. Relations are also OK, interestingly, with those who never
question the whole brethren-thing, as they remain mystified by my
actions rather than upset. For the remainder, who have to work all
the time at resolving their worries and beliefs, every contact with
me rubs away at a rawness in them, and they would sooner not have to
deal with it.

Folk in the Woods

It's been a busy weekend again, and I've been able to confirm that my parents are more or less OK now. A good side-effect of the incident is that I have slightly better points of contact with my family than before.

Anyway, when I'd spoken at length to one of them on Saturday afternoon, we treated ourselves to an odd and intimate evening of music out in the woods.

Not far from my place is a Youth Hostel in a forest of sorts surrounded by National Trust property. It's very old indeed, with no vehicular access, reached by a twenty minute walk down a bridleway from the nearest carpark. It has no services to speak of, so electricity is from solar panels backed up by a generator, and all water except drinking water comes from rain harvesting. The ceilings are low and full of beams, it's cramped, and staying there means sleeping in a dormitory in triple-decker bunk beds.

Periodically they have folk music nights there, and people seem to come from surprising distances to join in. One man (with the beard you might expect of a folk-music fan) had been coming for over forty years. When we arrived there weren't many people around, and I didn't think there would be to judge by the venue - which was a room about the size of a suburban master bedroom, perhaps, or a small living room, only to three-quarters scale in the height dimension. And of that, a large chunk was taken up by an enormous fireplace. But we made tea in the cheerfully communal way of hostels and got chatting to some pleasant people.

But as the evening wore on the room filled with people to a density of about one per square foot ... well, not quite, but close. All ages, too, from a slightly crippled older woman with a nun-style headscarf to a couple of toddlers. And a good many guitar cases.

And we all had a really good time. Not everybody was equally talented, but it didn't much matter. Some people performed while everybody listened quietly, such as the solo warblers of unaccompanied serious folk, but the general pattern was for someone to sing the verses of a well-known song and everyone to join in with the choruses. And sometimes one person played the guitar, sometimes several. "Folk" had a pretty broad definition, too, stretched to encompass basically anything that could be performed without electric backing - including Radiohead and Eighties electronic pop.

We left at about half past ten, and the evening was really just getting going. That's the great thing about a hostel in the woods. They could play and sing into the small hours without disturbing anybody at all, and then stumble up the narrow stairs to sleep.

All this might seem a bit strange to someone used to the brethren life, but actually it was one of the things I've done which felt most comfortingly familiar in many ways. A crowded room, acoustic music, and a hippyish vibe in which it was taken for granted that everyone present was a friend. Not exactly a brethren-style Saturday evening, but oddly not far off in feel.

Then today was the zoo in glorious weather. But that is best left for another time.