Share examples communally at your next LW meeting.
For two minutes (total) at the beginning of the next meeting, let people tell what they did.
At first this reminded me of one of the more obnoxious LDS commitment techniques: encouraging everyone to “bear [sic] their testimony”. In short, whenever there is a gathering of Mormons, they’re periodically (in the context of a monthly meeting) pressured to ALL make some public commitment to belief in the church or value of the community. This pressure is explicitly applied as part of the teaching given to teens. I always declined, because I wanted my testimony to be real, not a perjury.
However, two minutes total sounds different than the hour-plus sessions filled with pregnant silence and expectant looks. As long as people don’t feel like nearly everyone has performed the ritual, and they, awkwardly, haven’t, fine.
You seem to be arguing that using a community gathering to motivate people is inherently bad because in the past it has been used by wicked people for wicked deeds. This is a very dangerous stance to take as it can potentially prohibit any technique that has even been used for evil deeds. Some of the early scientology meetings were held on boats—does that mean we should never ever allow ourselves to hold a LW meetup in a boat?
I’m saying that if the expectation is close enough toward “everybody affirms the effectiveness of the technique they were told to practice last week” as opposed to “a few people who are most excited can share what worked/didn’t about it”, you’ll distort people’s thinking.
At first this reminded me of one of the more obnoxious LDS commitment techniques: encouraging everyone to “bear [sic] their testimony”. In short, whenever there is a gathering of Mormons, they’re periodically (in the context of a monthly meeting) pressured to ALL make some public commitment to belief in the church or value of the community. This pressure is explicitly applied as part of the teaching given to teens. I always declined, because I wanted my testimony to be real, not a perjury.
However, two minutes total sounds different than the hour-plus sessions filled with pregnant silence and expectant looks. As long as people don’t feel like nearly everyone has performed the ritual, and they, awkwardly, haven’t, fine.
You seem to be arguing that using a community gathering to motivate people is inherently bad because in the past it has been used by wicked people for wicked deeds. This is a very dangerous stance to take as it can potentially prohibit any technique that has even been used for evil deeds. Some of the early scientology meetings were held on boats—does that mean we should never ever allow ourselves to hold a LW meetup in a boat?
Maybe it seems that way, but I’m not.
I’m saying that if the expectation is close enough toward “everybody affirms the effectiveness of the technique they were told to practice last week” as opposed to “a few people who are most excited can share what worked/didn’t about it”, you’ll distort people’s thinking.