I have been meaning to come here and write something about gossamer threads are few days now. The problem always is trying to find time, trying to carve out time to do the things I really want to do.
The notion of gossamer threads came to me in my last therapy session when I was talking about the fact that the exclusive Brethren do not have a list of rules and regulations, but they have a wide range of things that they do and don't do. In other words, the rules are not written but those who have been raised in the brethren know that rules exist we just don't know what they are exactly because they are not explicit. As I was talking about the fact that brethren have things that they do do and things that they don't do but these are never really known, the metaphor of gossamer threads came into my mind. Now, I had a feeling that some time or other Roger Stott used this phrase but sadly no one can find the reference. However, I came across a reference I had made in a chapter I wrote on the person centred approach in which I quoted Carl Rogers (the founder of the person-centred approach) who used that phrase, I wrote:
" Carl Rogers originally felt no need to devise explicit, precise theories-- in fact he was suspicious of them. Trying to fit a person to the theory often meant that the client's experiences and perceptions were ignored or misunderstood. But to foster the continuing development of the person-centred approach he realised that some theory was necessary. He regarded all theories as provisional and expected his theories to be developed by others in response to new evidence from research and clinical experience. Theory stimulates further creative thought but only if it can be seen for what it is
"a fallible changing attempt to construct a network of gossamer threads which will contain a solid facts". (Rogers, 1959: 191)."
So I think what I was talking about captured this fallibility and the notion of a network and that somewhere in that network there might be solid facts such as, you mustn't eat with nonbelievers, but the network seemed so nebulous that we didn't actually know what any of these invisible rules really were. My therapist said it sounded like I was caught in a web that I couldn't see and couldn't articulate. If you have a set of rules that you can read, that have some solidity in front of you then you can decide, you can choose, And you have the freedom to choose, whether or not to object to them or accept them. But these invisible rules caught up in this network of gossamer threads (that was perhaps less of a network but more of a floating invisible collection of loose threads waving in the breeze), could not be opposed, I could not think about them, I could not choose whether to accept or reject because I did not know what they were.
By not clearly stating them my freedom to choose was taken away. The therapist said that the long-term consequence of this is quite paralysing and is frightening and ominous because you don't know what's there. I'm not sure if I have remembered all that correctly. I think I was always frightened that I would do or say or even feel something that would be against these invisible unknowable rules and that somehow the consequences of inadvertently doing something that the brethren would say they don't do, would be terrible. The consequences of course were also unwritten, unspecified, we didn't know what they would be.
I think more certainty may have crept in with JTJnr and with the wider dissemination of ministry.
One thing I did know was that one consequence would be a long lecture from my mother which she would continue with until I broke down and cried with guilt.
I think, but I don't really know, that I also feared this awful God that we were taught about that somehow some dreadful punishment would be meter out that would affect me in this life and also in the eternal one. It all felt very threatening.
Today I still think I am aware perhaps erroneously that I still live trapped in a network of gossamer threads and that for me the evidence of my own research through life experiences has not modified the theories in my head enough.
So I am still seeking to make sense of my past. It does gradually become clearer but still not clear enough. I suppose it wouldn't matter too much if it just bothered me but it is clear that sometimes I behave in ways that upset other people especially my two daughters and that I find intolerable. Much of the time I feel strong, capable, free to think, free to feel as I wish that every now and then something is said or something happens that shakes my world and I revert back to feeling threatened, frightened, trapped, caught up in some invisible gossamer threads that I cannot get hold of.
I may have overdone the metaphor of gossamer threads but when I am trying to figure something out and I do tend to repeat myself. But this is my blog so I can do is I like.
It would be great to hear if any of this resonates for you. So let me know!
2 comments:
If a web of rules is to be used to deceive and control people, I suspect that they achieve that purpose better if they are not made too explicit.
For a start, making them explicit means that they have to pass though your consciousness and this gives the opportunity for rational scrutiny and possible rejection. They can evade rational scrutiny by being vague or metaphorical or poetic, so that they slip into your senses before you are fully aware that it is happening.
Further, the people who impose these rules want to avoid having their ill effects laid at their door, so they want to maintain a loophole of plausible deniability. “No, what I said has been mininterpreted.”
They also want the freedom to modify the rules or abolish them for some purposes, without being accused of changing their minds, or being wrong or inconsistent, while maintaining the notion that their rules represent eternal unchangeable Truth. If a rule is too explicit, people can see when it has changed.
Hence the practical value of gossamer. Spiders know it well. If you want to trap and control and exploit a victim, don’t use big tarry ropes, because they will see them coming.
Good points Ian - indeed it is the very implicitness of their web of rules that made it, still makes it, so very scary.
I hadn't thought of the gossamer threads metaphor as explaining their freedom to modify the rules - but I like it and think this makes sense. In Animal Farm the rules were explicit and painted on the wall of the barn - they were changed of course but somehow the other animals were convinced that they hadn't been. How much easier it is to convince people that changes have not occurred it the rules are so implicit.
I shall muse on big tarry ropes and gossamer
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