Churchhoney

I don't think Jim Bob has the slightest idea what love is. I think he's attached to his kids. I think he yearns to have them close, to have them be in synch with him, to confess themselves his entirely. I think he wants his kids and wants to be near his kids. So, yeah, warm, yearning feelings toward the kids. But from what I've seen, I'd say it's likely that he is incapable of seeing and appreciating another person's individuality or feelings or of having an unselfish thought or impulse, let alone acting on one. So does he love Josh? In my opinion, no. He loves no one. I've spent my life listening to people paper over the reality of what goes on inside of people like Jim Bob by describing their feelings as "love" when they aren't love at all. All that papering over does is perpetuate a lie and prevent people from understanding what's really going on. I see no benefit in pretending that someone's greed to own others constitutes love of those people in any way. It's like saying that a slave owner was being kind to his slaves because he gave them enough food to stay alive. No. He was looking out for himself by ensuring that his workers could work. When your "love" is entirely a craving to have your own maw filled by other people, it ain't love at all and it's a disservice to everyone to call it so, as far as I'm concerned. So when it comes to what he'll do now regarding Josh -- in my opinion it'll be whatever he judges to be in Jim Bob's best interests at the time. Although he won;'t know that's what he's doing.

It's odd, and sad, for the Duggar kids that in a way they seem to skip young adulthood. They all look and seem so young, through their teen years and into their early 20s. Like preteens and very young teens way beyond those years. And then all of a sudden they start to give off a vibe of being old and slow and worn out. They even start to look old It's as if life truly does pass them by. They seem to miss out entirely on the adventure and bloom and spirit of young adulthood. And all because their parents spare no effort from day one in stifling every sign of independence, individuality, curiosity, sexuality -- everything that naturally characterizes that period.

They don't have to do anything. Cuz Jesus! Have no idea how that works. But it must work. Cuz Jesus.

Well, at last count they were advertising it for lease at a pretty high price... Something like $5500 a month plus I forget what but something else, I think.... So I suppose if nobody bites -- which I suppose is pretty likely -- they could do this. But it did look as if they were trying to get bucks out of it, really. And it's awfully big for what it seems to me you'd need for a stateside missioncation headquarters. And while I've thought that Josh could perhaps get a political job as a flunkie of some sort for a Duggar-loving group or pol, since he does have a tad of experience and connections to a particular brand of fundies, I really can't imagine what kind of political grlup he could actually be an integral and important part of. He doesn['t have the ability, and while people might be okay with having him behind the scenes somewhere, I have a hard time seeing how he could be put at or near the front of any kind of political enterprise. He's a child and an idiot. He coudlnt' actually accomplish anything and therefore would need a smart staff, who wouldn't be willing to work for him. Because they'd have other places they could work where the boss wasn't an arrogant total know-nothing who's lazy as a stone. And people either hate him or, among the fundies, may see him as redeemed but surely know that embracing him would call forth a barrage of accusations of massive hypocrisy, given what their policy agenda is.

I kinda wonder whether this isn't a brand of good news -- that the Duggs are actually known to so few people, as a proportion of the population, that they figure it wouldn't be recognized by enough of the audience (by network-tv standards). .... I'd like to think this anyway. I have to say that literally no one I've ever mentioned the Duggars to IRL -- and that includes both conservative Christians and other folks -- has ever really known who they were. And they haven't even tinkled a tiny bell for most people I've mentioned them to. I'm hoping that would be everybody's experience!

It is the Duggars' absolutely superficial, shallow understanding of Life coupled with their self righteousness that I find so ignorant and nauseating Their entire existence seems based on heads full of platitudes, brimming with judgement instead of empathy. Amazingly, they seem to consider this so absolutely morally superior to all 'unbelievers'. I agree. I do think, though, that they have approximately the mental/emotional; age of 14-15 year olds. And they were raised this way. And the correctness of their views has been endorsed, in their view, by their tv fame and by the many leghumpers who slather them with compliments about their rightness and godliness. That being the case, I do think that there's a chance that someday they'll grow out of some of this, as they mature a bit and life impinges on them. I wouldn't say there's a big chance -- their parents haven't matured, certainly. But I can't condemn the new generation completely at this point, just because they are still so young and sheltered -- and not really through any fault of their own.

I seem to recall Jessa and Ben -- don't really know about the rest of Duggardom -- having the view (natch) that all people are evil sinners and so everybody deserves everything bad that happens to them. .... I remember them posting something once that went sort of like -- "'Why do bad things happen to good people?' 'It only happened once. And He volunteered.'" Dunno whether they'd say this to somebody experiencing a particular bad thing, though. At the time I thought -- and still pretty much think -- that they generally say stuff like this in a vague, generic way, without really imagining situations that would be very concrete, and that if they're faced with a concrete situation of the suffering of somebody alive probably would keep their mouths mostly shut about this kind of thing. ...I'm hoping, anyway. ha

Well, they put more detail onto it on the website. And it's long been a standard psychological personality category, accepted by many psychologists and systems. But for me the key words are "conventional norms." That says to me that you're not willing to find acceptable anything that's outside what the average most commonly held view has been, outside of the long-time traditional decrees. And since I, for example, find acceptable a lot of things that are outside of those -- such as atheism, the fact that someone can have a legitimate desire to be transgender, the finding that there are seagulls and penguins living in homosexual pairings and that it's fine for kids to read about this in school -- then I don't fall into the #3 basket, and I know plenty of other people who don't either.

Actually, it's the Joy-Bin age gap that's about the same as the Bin-Jessa age gap, although Joy's a few months closer in age to Bin than Bin is to Jessa. (per the dates in Wikipedia) Both JInger and Joe are older than Bin, and Joe's the closest Duggar to Bin in age, just a few months older.

Makes sense. We may be ignorant and unlearned, but we got Jesus, sidehats and Starbucks!

Very good question. I guess you might also feel sleepy if you sat around doing nothing and being terminally bored all day? They seem to have no purpose and no really active pursuits, interests, hobbies, fun friends, or, of course, jobs. So maybe it's sort of the way people fall asleep in front of the tv in the evening. Only for Ben and Jessa, the evening is all day long and the tv is life itself. (Pickles and Hairspray is anti-fan.)

Yeah, I agree, although apparently they don't need any reminding to adhere to these principles of action! (And Psychology Today and the "California F Scale" (whatever that is) did the describing, of course, not me.) When you look at that list, it's really striking what a classic example of this widely known personality type the Duggars are. Interesting to me that right up front the list includes the paradox that a lot of people point to in Jim Bob -- that this personality type exhibits both Authoritarian aggression and domination and "Authoritarian submission." And that it ends with the kicker -- the big obsession: sex.

Well .... Your Headship's supposed to be the model for your future choice of men, right? And...uh... Jizm Bob, aka Mr. Two-Digit IQ? And now I'm wondering whether this isn't an FU Internetz verse choice.... Like, yeah, y'all call us ignorant and unlearned, and we are, but Ha Ha Ha! For us it doesn't matter! Because, unlike y'all, we know Jesus and thus shall be leaders of men! ..... I have a hard time seeing Jessa being able to or bothering to think this through. But it would certainly fit as an FU Internetz quote. And it's an awfully strange quote to pick otherwise.

So Jessa's going to boldly confront others with their ignorance and lack of learning, is she? Because she's been with Jesus? Uh-uh. And what an odd verse to have as your fave, anyway. Not an ethical principle, an inspiration, a comfort, a paradox to ponder. Nothing. Just -- The world's full of ignoramuses! Grab 'em, and tell 'em you know Jesus! How Duggar. Full of sound, fury and arrogance and signifyin' nothin'.

True. And there are Jewish ones, too. I sort of wonder whether they may not be a bigger deal for some fundie kids, though, since they're among the kids who have the least activities of any kind!

I've read in various accounts of fundie childhoods of smallish-scale bible contests of various sorts. Made me think that this was a fairly common activity. But I gather from Wikipedia that this big one -- that is probably the one televised? -- is pretty new, started by somebody in 2009.

Well, it's the classic "authoritarian personality," isn't it? Described down below in Psychology Today -- Nobody seems to know how you get one, but the best guess seems to be that while it might be to some degree a trait conditioned in you by your upbringing, it's probably mostly biological -- as in, some people in our species are just like this. ... Probably not surprising in a herd/pack species, really, I think.....If everybody was an individual, the herd/pack wouldn't hold together very well, so there's obviously been survival rewards for groups that produce some of these. For a herd/pack/flock to survive, you need some who can lead but you also desperately need some who'll follow without question, I expect. Here's the Psychology Today. All sounds pretty Duggarish to me. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201502/the-mind-the-authoritarian "Authoritarians have been shown to avoid situations that involve any sort of ambiguity or uncertainty, are reluctant to believe that ‘good people’ possess both good and bad attributes. However they often appear less interested in political affairs, participate less in political and community activities, and tend to prefer strong leaders. There are a number of well-established measures of authoritarianism; the best known (and hence the most widely used) is the California F Scale which attempts to measure prejudice, rigid thinking. There are nine factors and statements reflecting each factor: 1. Conventionalism: rigid adherence to conventional middle-class values. 2. Authoritarian submission: uncritical acceptance of authority. 3. Authoritarian aggression: a tendency to condemn anyone who violates conventional norms. 4. Anti-intraception: rejection of weakness or sentimentality. 5. Superstition and stereotypy: belief in mystical determinants of action and rigid, categorical thinking. 6. Power and toughness: preoccupation with dominance over others. 7. Destructiveness and cynicism: a generalized feeling of hostility and anger. 8. Projectivity: a tendency to project inner emotions and impulses outward. 9. Sex: exaggerated concern for proper sexual conduct."

Totally agree. That's why I said that what you were memorizing made a difference -- and that Gothard's blather certainly doesn't make the cut. And of course that's true both because of its content -- garbage -- and the fact that it's memorized not out of any self motivation but because parents prescribe it. I doubt that anybody but Gothardites want kids to memorize Gothard's Wisdom books.

Yeah, it can lead to a head of jumbled cliches. But you're assuming that it never leads to deeper understanding. And that's not true! Sometimes it is a path to deeper understanding. That's all that I'm saying. That the idea that it never leads to deeper understanding is an unfounded assumption that ignores much of what we know about learning throughout history. So, knowing that, I'm going to continue to hold out a bit of hope about Joe Duggar!

I didn't say that it wasn't a leap! I said that it might happen and that I prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I have reasons! Memorization can be worthwhile for much much more than the multiplication tables. Especially if you memorize as a natural result of reading the thing over and over and over (rather than doing a half-assed deliberate memorizing job that ends with your picking the thing up incorrectly because the teacher and the other first graders are chanting it and you don't give a crap!). And I do think it's perfectly possible that he's reading things over and over (and that that's how he memorized things) because that's something they seem to believe in doing (not that most of them do it) . But, if he does read the stuff over and over, a light may someday dawn -- because when you look at something over and over and over again, a light does sometimes dawn. .... In fact, it's often the only thing that does get a light to dawn, in my experience. When reading science, for example, I've often found that reading over and over and over is often the only tactic that eventually turns the light on. Two other things give me hope for that morning bible reading (if it indeed takes place) and, to my mind, differentiate it from the pledging-allegiance-to-the-republic-of-Richard-Stands thing. First is the fact (or possible fact, since, of course, they lie....) that he is doing it on his own. If he is the only Duggar that regularly does it, then he is doing it on his own, out of some kind of self motivation. And reading and/or memorizing something because you are personally motivated to do so is quite different from memorizing stuff because Jessa's going to make sure you take the test at the SOTDRT. Things you do out of some kind of self motivation are the most likely things to take hold and to affect you, seems to me. Just how it might affect him is anybody's guess, of course. But if he's actually motivated by something to discipline himself to read the Book of Proverbs, say, over and over again, in snippets every morning, for years, then there's something going on in his brain and spirit. Brain-dead robots don't tend to do that unless they're programmed that way. And since the other kids apparently don't do it, then the Duggar programming apparently doesn't require it. The second thing that gives me some hope for an intellectual awakening in there is, in fact, the kid's religious beliefs. On some level, he's taking this stuff seriously. He's been trained that he must take it seriously. That it's a matter of life and death, in fact. And if you take something seriously, then you up your chances of truly being illuminated about it in some way, as far as I've seen. And that includes all kinds of illuminations -- from increasing your belief in the thing to having questions occur to you to feeling doubts. None of which is to say that he may a) not be doing it, b) be doing it because he's hoping for another few hundred bucks from JB for doing it, and/or c) be doing it but may actually be too dumb and robotlike to ever have an actual thought of any kind about it, despite my hopes. Still, I think there's also a live possibility that he's not doomed to the lifelong idiocy that Duggardom always threatens. He reads every morning because he wants to. .... That's one of the most hopeful things I've heard about any Duggar.

And we know that was a useful thing to memorize. lol

They want power. .... .Or at least JB does. Absolute power. I find Michelle harder to figure out. I've seen power-hungry parents up close and personal. They seem to be people whose will to power and control -- which we all have -- is just way way stronger than it is in the rest of us. They're people who have that as an outsized trait, just like all out-of-the-ordinary people have some trait that's much stronger than it is in most of humanity. They seem to have been born that way, although early experiences can allow the trait to grow even stronger. There's a lot of randomness in all of our makeups, and some people are just outliers in this way, I think. I may be describing flat-out narcissists, although I'm not sure that narcissism and power-hunger are exactly the same, although they're clearly related. There is nothing rational about this, which is why we can't comprehend the "why." It's a drive. Like fight or flight or sexual desire or thirst or hunger. That means that they think of everything only in terms of how it gives them -- or threatens to deprive them of -- absolute eternal power and control over all beings in their vicinity. Some people have slightly different slants on it. In my family, a work ethic was a strong enough underlying principle to make them think that we'd be of more use to them as educated people with a strong ability to earn money. It never ever occurred to them that anyone would use these accomplishments as a means of escape, probably because they were so bent in every detail of every day in psychologically gluing us to the nest-prison. And, in fact, they were right about that for the most part. Even educated, salaried people still allow themselves to be manipulated like marionettes. Jim Bob takes a slightly different path -- he sees depriving people of education and money as the key to his keeping control. It's the control he cares about because his eternal comfort -- which depends on having this personal marionette theater -- is the only thing that matters to him and the only thing that he even sees. He couldn't care less what happens to those kids in any other way. They are his. They do what he wants. He doesn't envision them in any other way. And just as my family didn't (and, I might argue, couldn't) think through things enough to predict the possible negative consequences of their approach -- even the negative consequences to themselves -- so does Jim Bob not see the negatives either, even those that threaten his goal. His drive is in no way rational. So it's not a matter of thinking anything through, for him. Furthermore, because it's not rational, neither can most of us understand it. In fact, many people can't even see it, because it's so far out of the normal range of behaviors. That's the condition of most of the leghumpers, I expect.

Yes, but it doesn't necessarily mean no understanding, either. Especially when what's being memorized is worthwhile in itself, in thought and/or language. Memorizing pieces of the KJV is quite different from memorizing the rantings of Bill Gothard, for example. I've found worth in plenty of things that I've memorized in my life, both deliberately and accidentally. Still do. Just because memorization isn't the only or the best form of learning doesn't mean it's harmful or useless. It was the norm in all older cultures -- had to be, since many people couldn't read or write, and that fact didn't stifle all individual or cultural advance. Not by a long shot. Seems to me that we're so damned eager to label every one of these poor unfortunate Duggar kids as a lame-ass asshole that we aren't even willing to admit the possibility that something of worth could actually be going on inside of some of their heads or that anything they do could bear some fruit, now or down the line. There are 19 kids there. It's unlikely that they're all utterly brain dead. They're in a situation that's dauntingly difficult to escape and one in which it's psychologically dangerous to say what you think. Maybe Joe actually does think about stuff he reads and memorizes. He's always been said to be quiet. So if he does think his own thoughts, it's highly unlikely at this point that he'd say them out loud, especially in any way that would let us know about it. There are less illuminating things to do with your morning than read and memorize bible verses. And, even though the Duggar kids don't seem to be the brightest bulbs, much or even most of the way they present results from what's been done to them and doesn't necessarily reflect everything that's within. I think it's going to be many decades before most of them reveal who they truly are, and I'm sure that at least some will surprise us. It's hard to be them. And you can see by the pictures of Joe just how young a 21-year-old young man is, coming from that environment, seems to me.

An excellent point, well suited to inspire yammering!

I guess this is true to some degree. I'm a big believer that slavery isn't good for the slave owner in the long run, either, though!