To Will:
I just read this thread from page 1 to 21. From OP to post 630. Watched the full Jason Beghe interview and the Larry Anderson clips. I am not the world's fastest reader so it took me about 6 hours of last night and today, interviews included. It's really fascinating.
Something to think about, Will. Despite education from others or ourselves, most of us think within a framework that was made possible by enculturation and "indoctrination" of some kind, no matter how genuine or honest or even intentional it was. That is just what people experience when joining a society as a child, and similar to what they go through when "switching" (whether by force or not) cultures that are drastically different or joining a "cult." That is in part how we learn what to expect from others and thrive in a world where survival is dependent on people. It is important in my mind that we recognize that all this talk of "you should be able to believe what you want as long as it doesn't affect anyone else" and "human rights," while laudable goals in my opinion, are ideas bred and understood in certain climates like Western Culture, that are understood differently or not applied in other areas. This is ONE REASON, for example, that it is difficult to talk about "human rights" with China. While communism and isolationism and dictatorialism, etc... affect their politics and thinking to a large degree, so does their history, enculturation, language, and view of the world and people's experience in it. Their "reality" (and literally here I mean how they understand, used as an action verb)is, however subtly, different in a very real way than yours or mine. That their culture survived and remained powerful is proof that this different understanding of reality was legitimate enough for them to thrive into present times, even if we see it as backwards or misguided. To a certain extent, though through different origins, Scientology is similar. To the degree that the "religion" (which I do myself believe to be more of a scheme) and worldview it provides allows or enhances the lives of its followers, without, in the view of the follower, losing coherence or effectiveness in that regard, it is relatively legitimate. Even the requirement of profuse spending of money toward some greater good the organization is after, whether faith-based or not. Here we can note that people become disaffected with lots of different worldviews, religious, cultural, economic, etc..., the consequences of which range from losing friends, to losing economic mobility, to expatriation.
The problem in my eyes is that Scientology makes use of so much of western society's worldviews (certain histories, scientific references, the language, church structure, cultural ideas like science-fiction, etc...) that when it chooses to differentiate from those, it quickly falls victim to correction from the greater texts it derives from (say the Hawaiian volcano crap) and to contradiction from its own terms (such that Homo Novi are enlightened and advanced beings but that everything that befalls them is laughably the result of the "powerful" negative energy of unwitting and inferior regular people. That is a sociological phenomenon that directly mirrors the concept of tribal "witchcraft" where unrest is eased by the identification and ritualistic "handling," by any number of methods, of the person causing the magical distress, whether that person knows it or not.)
So to me it isn't that Scientology is so wacky it must go, and it isn't that I can't abide by other people creating a culture and raising kids in a culture that adheres to ideas I think are ridiculous, and it isn't that they go after those who speak out against them, as nearly every government and religion does or has done. It is that their entire belief system is structured and derived from bits and pieces of Americana, the fuller stories and ideas of each of which (Geology, History, Hubbard's life) completely disprove the ultimate collage that is Scientology. It is not a religion that emerged from a culture of people dealing with early existence, solving problems, building, seeking answers, attempting to explain the unexplainable, and eventually adapating to the changes of modern discoveries. It is a contrived modern invention that took the end result of many of those cultural and religious efforts (America and Western ideas,) added space aliens and tribal thinking, and has almost immediately found itself irrelevant and consumed with silencing its inadequacies and failings.
Ideas of tolerance, as well, are heavily debated. In a land where you can believe whatever you want without breaking uniform basic laws, who decides which laws come before beliefs? What drugs for ceremony are allowed to tribal peoples in America or Australia, the rights of which to use are not extended to citizens of those countries who were not part of those tribes? If my entire experience of being tells me that someone who isn't in my culture setting foot on my land means justifiable killing, and I live in most western countries, I obviously have to choose between following my identity and the feelings that are so strong in me because they are tied to my understanding of being, and risking goes to jail or being executed for my intolerance of others. That is the key to a lot of these posts saying "How can this happen in a civilized country? They should be shot and done away with" and the like. We have to recognize that when we promote tolerance, and persecute intolerance, we are being intolerant of intolerance. And that paradox is necessary for a place like America to be. "You can be whoever you want to be, unless it involves another's right (that we now give them) to do the same." So there are many flavors of life here, but the extent to which they can differ from respecting the liberal principle of "universal humanity and right" that theoretically can be found in ANY culture, is controlled. I just think we need to remember that when we consider Scientology as non-scientologists, that we are also considering it as American, western liberal, third gen Croatian, ex-catholic, white, southern, male, (and this is just ME) seeing it through all of those lenses, and considering it with the ideas of what RIGHT is that I've been brought up with. And, for the record, I DO see it as a cult that is harmful to people. But there are other non-scientologist cultures (which I see as more legitimate,) for yet another example, in which people would rank their understandings of "personal freedom" or "human rights" WAY below "adherence to God's law," "togetherness of family," or "religious homogeneity" on a list of importance.
So, I guess I just think it's important that we use our worldviews to expose Scientology for what it fails to be that it SAYS it is, rather than for how it is different to US.
I hope you're doing extremely well, and I'm very glad you're much happier with your life now. If any of that interested you, writers you should check out are Patchen Markell, and Stanley Fish.
Nick