"True Happiness"

Norman Hovland

After many years as a Watchtower reader is quite interesting no notice the development of the "loaded language" used by the writers in Brooklyn. Like all cliché languages it is an important tool in the manipulation of the Jehovah's Witness mind. This kind of language really abound in the Watchtower literature, and we all know clichés like, "apostate", "worldly", "goats", "evil slave", etc.

Another quite amusing practice is to put the word "true" in front of otherwise perfectly adequate expressions, like "true happiness", "true Christians" and now lately "true remnant". Of course if this inflation continues, we will no doubt see even more hilarious expressions like "real true happiness" and "real true Christians", etc. Of course Jehovah's Witnesses can observe that there is a lot of happy people about, usually far happier than any Jehovah's Witness. So the need for a cliché in this case is great, and then the Watchtower has to invent the expression, "true happiness" to describe that all other happiness than the Brooklyn brand isn't in fact real. That way the Jehovah's Witnesses can breathe easy again, knowing that the perpetual feeling of doom and gloom and constant bad conscience they have for not doing "enough" in the "service" is... yes you guessed right: "true happiness".

Of course there are millions of people who live at least as "Christian" (whatever that means) lives as any Jehovah's Witnesses. This is abundantly clear even to Jehovah's Witnesses, so then of course in order to maintain the feeling of superiority and elitism as "God's" chosen people, the Watchtower has to use the expression "true Christian". It is an embarrassing fact that the number of people who partake in the memorial is increasing, when it according to the current "truth" should be decreasing. In order to continue the illusion that there is a remnant on earth and that it is rapidly dying out, the Watchtower has to start using the expression "true remnant", thus implying that there is a "false remnant". In the absence of the old carrot, the 1914 generation, Brooklyn is desperately searching for a new time related, dead line carrot. The new carrot will be that the "end" will come before this elusive "true remnant" dies out. Thus they will have a new date, without committing themselves to a new set date. Of course no one knows exactly who belongs to the "true remnant" so this can be stretched very far.

So don't have any fear, O faithful ones. Your existence as Watchtower drones can carry on for many years still. The next great crisis is due in 2001, when nothing, (as usual) did happen!