Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
You're so right. The program is set up by abusive men, and enables hot-tempered personalities. Once when I decided to stop taking the blame, and calmly refused to back down from his aggressions, the elder went ballistic on me, and I was nearly hospitalized. Later I was lectured about forgiving him, and "protecting" the eldership.
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In the back of my mind, I could always tell that there was something not quite right about how LCers interacted with each other with respect to conflicts and conflict resolution. In fact, most of the conflicts that I observed were manifested as angry outbursts instead of being just a simple disagreement. Such outbursts occur because the LCM does not feel that the 'lesser' party should stand their ground, and "agreeing to disagree" is not viewed as an appropriate resolution. One side must "take the cross" which always ends up being the person who is not in an authority role.
I had an interesting situation where the wife of an elder was making a point to say things publicly towards me that were demeaning, all because she didn't like my personality. There wasn't anything I could do about her behavior, being that she was the wife of an elder. And indeed, when people had previously tried to confront her about the same type of behavior, she had become livid. The elders all knew very well that she was a problem, but the felt that people affected by her behavior should just not worry about it.