What very few critics of Scientology (or any other betterment activity) realize is that they are undermining another’s purpose.
When a person enters Scientology or any of the thousands of self-betterment activities in the world, that person has an underlying purpose for some kind of improvement. It can be anything from handling a problem to improving a situation. This purpose can be so strong as to blind him from any negative effects of the path or method he now trusts.
And then a critic enters.
Whenever you criticizes another’s beliefs, you attack this underlying purpose of improvement. You corrode his trust in something good. The method may be mad according to you, but his underlying purpose of improvement is almost always good. You may not realize this, but this is usually why the believer reacts so violently to your criticism – often with stupid justifications or “logic”.
The solution should always be to present a better method for the person to realize his underlying purpose. But alas, this is so much harder and requires so much more responsibility on your part. It is far easier to slash away with harsh criticism than to help the other find a better way.
Geir Isene - uncut 
A wise man once suggested inviting the person to explain what is right with his involvement or his approach, his behavior, whatever. It he or she is into something really goofy, only that approach will grant them enough space to inspect, and maybe as-is, their involvement. HCOB You Can Be Right.
If Scientology worked to get someone out of Scientology, then nothing we are seeing with Scientology would be happening right now.
The last thing a deceived and brainwashed Scientologist needs is more Scientology.
Alanzo
Not so Alanzo. Geir and others got out with doubt formulas.
There ARE keys to freedom out of Scientology within Scientology itself. With LRHs conflicting statements over the years between free thought and complete obedience, someone may pick out of that data of confusion a “stable datum” that is actually one of the things LRH said that embody thinking for oneself.
EXAMPLE: “What’s true for you is true for you.” Or the Creed of Scientology.
If someone REALLY gets those for oneself and starts holding Scientology to unflinching criteria, they can find cause to leave 1970s Scientology.
I think Scientology gets a lot of people out of Scientology. As do many religions empower people to leave them based on key tenets regarding integrity.
Christianity has this one which was dang helpful to me:
“When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and that thing follows not nor cometh to pass that is a thing that the Lord has not spoken, but the prophet speaketh presumptuously. THOU SHALT NOT FEAR HIM.”
Deut 18:22
The city of Tyre was never destroyed as predicted. Therefore, the Bible by its own definition IS NOT TO BE FEARED.
The real problem critics and believers alike have is cognitive dissonance. As you so eloquently blogged about.
Katageek –
Well, Geir and the others are the authorities on how they got out.
And whether they actually “got out” is an ongoing question, actually.
But I don’t think they “got out” with a doubt formula. I think they got out as they processed information that they were formally not allowed to see, or were not allowing themselves to see.
Just as it is a process for a person to get into Scientology, it is a process for a person to get out of Scientology, too.
That process is fueled by providing the information necessary to make informed decisions about their involvement. It is very often an adversarial process where the person bumps up against so much dissonance from data which conflicts with their present beliefs coming at them. They challenge that data and it gets confirmed, over and over and over, until they finally understand Scientology in a different way than they understood it before.
This is how someone gets out of Scientology. It isn’t done with just a doubt formula. In Geir’s case, the doubt formula may have been the point where he allowed himself to process new conflicting information that he was looking away from before. But I new Gier after his doubt formula. He was still calling himself a Scientologist at that time.
3 or 4 years after his doubt formula, he doesn’t call himself that any more.
As he says which is so true, “I am a work in progress.”
As we all are.
Alanzo
Geek, I like this one also, from St.Luke:
10:3 Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves.
10:4 Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way.
10:5 And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house.
10:6 And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it: if not, it shall turn to you again.
Geir: “What very few critics of Scientology (or any other betterment activity) realize is that they are undermining another’s purpose.”
What makes you think so?
I find it just as likely that they do in fact realize what they are doing, and that’s why they are doing it.
Regardless of the intention – thy still are undermining a purpose – the person’s purpose for joining Scientology.
I agree with that, I think you are right on about that.
I just question that they don’t realize what they are doing.
Indeed, I admit that -as a churchie- when I was told that I was brainwashed, blind, stupid, ridiculous and all that stuff, didn’t help me shred any light, rather the opposite. And I might had left the Church earlier on, if I was more free also from the anti-SCN side.
But Spyros, I have seen you ask for data from me, and when I provide it, you refuse to go look at it because it is on a site that you can’t confront.
So, to me, you are not willing to expose yourself to data that runs against your beliefs. And I did get what you told me – that as long as you are just auditing with a friend out of some book, what is the danger there?
And I agree that there is much less danger there.
I have a friend who joined the Catholic Church 10 years ago. And he loves to go sit in the pew on Sunday and soak up the spiritual feelings that he gets while he is there. It gives him good feelings and a sense “re-charged batteries” once per week.
So when I started to talk to him about a book that Valkov told me about, which goes into the early history of Christianity and how the Catholic Church came into being – he did not want to hear anything about it. He simply does not need to know any of that for him to keep his good feelings going.
So I understand that. I understand that religion is, for most people, these good feelings they get from it.
Unfortunately, Hubbard understood that, too. And he built in hooks with good-feeling bait on them in order to snare people and take them for everything of value that they had. So the subject of Scientology is actually different from the Catholic Church. If the subject of Scientology can have all the hooks taken out of it, then great.
But in order to have that happen, you have to go read stuff that might go against your present belief system.
That is the problem for most Scientologists.
Alanzo
Now, this is false logic.
There is a group like KKK. For some they seem to do good but the critique enters…?
Now, it is easy to see what kind of group is KKK. Now it is easy to see that it is not good to hurt other people. But when there is a group which does this with sinister 1.1 methods like Scientology does, not just the Church, you have the right to be critical. (As a course supervisor have the right to be critical.) And in some cases if it is not a destructive criticism it is all right. That is an other thing that usually one does not get far with the criticism but it can help in certain cases. It can enlighten in certain cases.
Afterall to the hell with all the blogs describing the wrongdoings of Scientology?
There are actually better methods than Scientology here and there but if it is appealing for some because of the PR and marketing and ego building capabilities you can’t do too good for those persons.
And yes, there are some very good side of Scientology (mostly stolen stuff from wog, psychs and Buddha) but those are heavily copyrighted, not to use in any other way. Sorry if it sounds critical. I should say this is actually really great job to say on one side to freely use the technology and on the other side to make it a licensable franchise with all the anchors and control mechanism.
All the legal stuff is on their side. They can get away with anything and forced labour is just an example. Just because you sign a paper. A Scientologist has no any individual, independent rights, except what is granted to him by the group. A wog is designed to have no rights in the future after the expansion. Now, you take away even criticism:D
It does not matter that I disagree with you – not that much as I put it here – there will certainly enough guys who will agree with you whatever you say:)
You are not countering my point, you are enhancing it. One is of course free to criticize anything, but realize that the person you are trying to reach may not be open to the criticism unless you Also give him a better solution to the problem or situation he is trying to solve. You Need to find the person’s Reason for joining e.g. Scientology (or the KKK) – and the reason is almost never as obvious as it seems at first glance – and you must understand that reason and then provide a better solution. This to make the criticism truly effective.
Sounds logical. Agreed. Although in most cases it may be impossible to find the person’s Reason. Maybe that is not clear for him either.
And maybe you can’t find a better solution but can show him that Scientology is a dangerous direction.
But then you have to convince him to discard his underlying purpose. And if that is to help his troubling mother, then you’re in for some really hard work.
True. That is why it can be so hard to be a responsible critic.
Spyros, that did not help me either. Critique put in an intelligent way can help. I missed that and my life got a really bad twist with Scientology.
Geir
Where does this “underlying purpose of improvement” originate from? Has it got to do with
the creation of the very first illusions and considerations (and dichotomies)?
I think it is much simpler than that – it can be; I want to be able to act on stage, help my struggling brother, become free from depression. Anything.
Geir
I can easily relate what you say and me says, though.
Nice follow-up on the previous post.
A Scientologist is set up to counter criticism of Scientology almost from the first day he takes a service.
The Scientology mindset itself has a place already carved out for the critic, and for the criticisms, and a huge amount of work is invested in training Scientologists to “handle” critics as soon as they open their mouths.
So yes. It is an extremely messy thing. Everything the Scientologist finds sacred – everything in which he has invested his whole sacred sense into – feels like it is being attacked.
Scientologists are trained never to defend, never to consider anything about what is being said to them so they can come back with something sensible, but always to attack back. And they are to attack very personally, and as viciously as they can. There are whole organizations like OSA set up by LRH to deal with critics in very nasty ways.
As we all know.
What you say sounds nice Gier, but it does not work with Scientology or with Scientologists in the real world.
You must be willing to be an “SP” in order to be a critic. You can not be “reasonable” and “suggest a better way”. That is all just seen by Scios as being “1.1”. Any time you are nice, any time you allow for anyone to be “right”, you are simply attacked for being covertly hostile, or low toned, or PTS, or an SP or all the other sick and abusive tactics that Scientololgists are trained to fight “the enemy” with.
There are two main purposes to Scientology criticism:
1. To expose information that Scientology hides so that new people and existing Scientologists who become involved are given the information they need to make informed decisions about their own involvement.
2. To inoculate the society by exposing the deceptions that Scientology uses to recruit new people.
Because of the nature of Scientology and Hubbard’s teachings, you can not achieve these 2 objectives without a lot of fighting. If you are a nice guy all the time, and just let Scientologists rip you to pieces – and they will very definitely and very intentionally attempt to rip you to pieces – you won’t survive long enough to get your message across to anyone.
So like I said – your idea sounds nice in theory Geir – but in the real world, it’s just a mess. It’s just a long drawn out mess that eventually turns less and less messy, and more and more free for more and more people.
Alanzo
In the real world, I am handling Scientologists just like I say in the OP. And it is working out just great. You ought to try it.
I have before. But how many adhom, insulting, name-calling posts should I take from someone like Valkov, for the latest instance, without hitting back?
Valkov and his tactics are extremely typical for Scientologists all over. They are designed to wear out a critic and beat him up and get him to quit, aren’t they?
So if you do not allow yourself to defend yourself in any way you see fit, you simply will not survive.
Back on the Scientology Forum, you also were talking about this. And yet you were letting all kinds of ad hom, name calling and insults shoot back and forth. And since I was the “downstat”, I knew that any complaint I had was just going to fall on deaf ears.
Which it did, for the most part.
If a person calls it exactly as they see it – in my case – that Scientology is a toxic spiritual deception – and then presents the argument and the information necessary to prove that, there is no way that you are not going to need to defend yourself against Scientologists. They are trained to attack that as viciously as they can.
So you have the alternative – to use the “ARC Triangle” – to find a point of reality and bring the person up, etc etc.
THAT IS 1.1.
There is no way a person can survive the attacks fro Scientologists for long enough being that 1.1.
So again, it’s just a mess. And you have to allow yourself to get messy. As you know now from dealing with Marildi these past few weeks (or longer).
The good thing is, for every Valkov and for every Maridli, there are about ten people who are not posting, but watching. And those people who are watching get to see the information being exchanged, see the links being posted, and hear what life is like outside the cult.
And with those people, you can successfully achieve the 2 purposes I outlined above.
Marildi and Valkov serve a very good purpose, whether they know it or not.
Alanzo
You, my friend, are brilliant and I could not agree with you more.
I am very, very grateful that Anonymous and other critics jarred me out of my trance. If I may be so bold, I must say that all Scientologists, to a greater or lesser degree, are in a trance state. Reasoning with trance states is a very slippery activity and often just forces the “critic” to be disingenuous. I would rather just be myself.
It took a lot to get me to see the lies and the crimes and for years, on the Internet, critics actually did try to get me to “see” in a nice way and I refused, parroting back the “what are your crimes?” tech, knowing for sure that would crush the SP into oblivion. Good grief! How wack is that? What kind of inner world exists to be certain that that communication was going to work? What kind of trance state does Jenna Elfman, for example, have to be in to ask critics “do you rape babies?”
That is insanity. Insanity is hard to reason with. First you have to jolt the person out of the trance. Then one can reason by small bits as the trance is wearing off. It can take YEARS. Each little jolt, no matter how little it seems to be taking effect, creates the miniscule fissures that eventually become huge cracks.
Without the constant inculcation of the shock and awe events and group pressure, the vast majority of people become “unhypnotized” and wake up, eventually letting go of the subject altogether.
Sindy
Sindy!!
Welcome to Geir’s blog!
It’s probably the best place on the Internet to discuss Scientology.
He’s Norwegian, ya know.
Alanzo
Thank you.
Now, having said what I have, I do need to speak to the specifics of Geir’s opening paragraphs.
I think that we may be talking about different scenarios. In my posting I was speaking of trying ti get a Scientologist to become aware of the abuses that they are unwittingly contributing to.
I, again, have to say that if the Scientologist were not so inculcated to filter communication through various trained responses, he or she would see that the critic is actually validating the individual’s purpose by taking their time to get that person to see that the organization that they are involved in is not aligned with their very good natures.
The term “critic” is a bit divisive and inflammatory (or at least can be) in that it paints a broad stroke of derision. The “critic” is negative, downtone, hateful. What would the discussion be like if that same person were called a “Whisteblower?”
“I, again, have to say that if the Scientologist were not so inculcated to filter communication through various trained responses, he or she would see that the critic is actually validating the individual’s purpose by taking their time to get that person to see that the organization that they are involved in is not aligned with their very good natures.”
((BIG BLOG HUG))
Oh my, a heavyweight writer has entered the ring. . .
Like! 🙂
Allen,
When I was in, I was completely ignorant of the policy of, as you say, “always to attack back, and to attack very personally and as viciously as they can”. I knew something about how the organization would attack its critics such as suing them, but I myself was never trained to attack, personally or otherwise, critics. When my parents were critical of Scientology in the beginning, I was trained to listen to them and use understanding, and lightly explain what I was doing, and not to “make them wrong” etc.
In my helping others handle friends and relatives who were critical of Scientology, I always tried to get the person to do the same thing: use good communication and understanding. If I would have seen someone attack personally and viciously their friends and relatives who were critical of Scientology, there was no way I would have let them continue to do that. And I personally didn’t know of anyone else who would have allowed that to happen either. And I was in for 25 years, always dealing directly with the public and staff that whole time.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t even mean that it doesn’t happen often, and it doesn’t meant that the church isn’t the cult that you and I know it is, but it does mean that your general statement that “Scientologists” are trained to do that is not true, and in my observation, in the majority of instances they are not. I’m not talking about OSA right now, you are correct as far as they are concerned, but I am talking about individuals on services and on staff.
Maybe those are the kind of people that Geir is helping in the way he states here.
If my parents, in the beginning, would have been more interested in my personal reasons for getting into Scientology and really taken a look of why I thought it could help me, and done more than just read criticisms of it and freak out about it and criticize it to me, I think there’s a very good chance that I could have been more willing to look at the full truth about this organization. It wouldn’t have been easy but with a lot of good understanding and persistence, it could have been done.
Dave
Also, to add to what I said here about what my parents could have done for me, there chances would have been even better if they would have been capable of helping me find another solution to what I was trying to solve at the time.
Allen,
After further consideration however I think we are talking about two different things. I think you are talking about how Scientologists deal with critics of Scientology and I am talking about how they are taught to deal with friends and relatives of Scientologists who read the criticisms, without really knowing much about it themselves, and getting concerned for the Scientologist’s well-being.
I am very aware of the inculcation Scientologists get about what to think of critics of Scn that you speak of. I do, however, think that your chances of getting through to a Scientologist on this matter are increased by doing what Geir says. At least that is how I would do it, and it was how it would have worked on me.
Dave
Yay Dave!
Very good to see you here!
Yes, from your viewpoint as a course supervisor, you used the Broad Public Issues found in the PTS handlings tech. And you either handled or disconnected from your parents. The handle step would include Good TRs, no entheta, grant beingness, find the exact item they are protesting, work out a “handling” that addresses their item and try to get them to stop criticizing Scientology, or you for being in it, or else you will have to disconnect from your parents.
Did you ever have to disconnect from your parents?
Alanzo
Dave –
I put that last line in there with a smile, by the way.
I *need* my zingers at the end of my posts. If they are not satisfying for anyone else, at least they are satisfying for me.
This is how you survive for years as a criminal critic, by the way.
It’s the little things….
Alanzo
Sorry, Dave. The post about my “zingers” goes below my second, long post to you.
Alanzo
Dave wrote:
I am very aware of the inculcation Scientologists get about what to think of critics of Scn that you speak of. I do, however, think that your chances of getting through to a Scientologist on this matter are increased by doing what Geir says. At least that is how I would do it, and it was how it would have worked on me.
“Ethos” is a term from Greek rhetoric that means “character in relation to others in a group or audience.” Ethos is who you are in relation to where your audience puts you. For instance, using Al Gore, a past democratic VP of the US, to present climate change data was a huge mistake in terms of ethos. From then on, Republicans could politicize factual data and scientific measurements as “left wing” propaganda. This rhetorical mistake in ethos set action on climate change back 10 years, in my opinion.
He was the wrong guy to put out their to deliver that message.
The reason I’m bringing up ethos is because who you are in relation to a group means almost everything in persuasive speech. And Geir’s OP is talking about how to be the most persuasive with Scientologists.
In the old days, when LRH, and then Marty, Mike and Dave, where handling “external threats”, a “critic” was anyone who tried to accomplish purposes 1 and 2 which I mentioned above.
The ethos of a critic, in the Scientologists mind set up by LRH, painted the critic as low-toned. He was an SP who obviously wanted to destroy “any betterment activity”. He was a criminal and LRH said in Critics of Scientology HCOB that the critic’s crimes WERE THERE. You did not need to listen to him, you simply needed to find his crimes and threaten him with the exposure of them and act confidently that they existed. The critic was a criminal and was to be treated as a criminal – per standard LRH policy.
So what was the ethos of a critic with regard to the audience of Scientologists?
Criminal, right?
Today, some people have tried to avoid this ethos, and done it pretty successfully. You have people like Karen DLC, a Class 12 auditor who says she is still a Scientologist and who loves the tech but hates what the church has become. That is a common ethos today. And the old Critics of Scientology standard technology is having a harder time dealing with that, although the Church and some Indy KSWers are still trying to make Scientologists “see through” Karen and Geir and the others and make them out to be criminal critics in any way they can – just like LRH said they were.
But regular Scientologists are not necessarily buying that these “lovers of Scientology” are really “critics” .
These people are saying that they love Scientology, that they always had gains in it, and that it is this extremely valuable thing which needs to be saved from the SP David Miscavige. And this needs to be done FOR RON, because Ron was mankind’s greatest friend.
So this is the approach to take so as to not step on the beliefs of a Scientologist and cause all the internal uproar within them so as to get them thinking again?
I personally have this to say about that.
1. You are not going to be able to not cause an internal uproar in someone who wakes up to understand that everything they held sacred was actually coming from a deceptive cult. This internal uproar is not avoidable.
2. What if you don’t think it’s the truth that Scientology needs to be saved from DM for Ron and that Ron was mankind’s greatest friend? What if you know this is just another deception and you would feel like a total piece of shit acting like you did believe this in order to not step on the beliefs of a Scientologist?
Avoiding stepping on the beliefs of Scientologists is what Geir was talking about in his OP. He says that you don’t have to do that. I don’t think that’s possible in the end. “Losing Your Religion” is a real term in American vernacular for having your whole inner world destroyed.
If you believe that you can be a loyal Scientologist, like you and I were, and confront the full truth of Scientology and L Ron Hubbard and NOT have your whole inner world destroyed, I’d like to see how that works. Please show me.
Really.
I’m not being antago here. I’m really asking.
And anyway, SOMEBODY has to “spot source” during all this, right? SOMEBODY has to point out the correct source of the brainwashing in Scientology. Otherwise you get statements like “The Church is putting out OT 8s with delusionary cause because the Church is “squirrel”. If you really want to be causative and have all the gains that LRH said you would have from the OT levels, you need to do OT 8 with the Indies.”
Somebody needs to tell the truth, right?
I’ll be that guy. You be the “Scientologist” who is attempting to not step on the beliefs that the Scientologist has who has been deceived about Scientology and L Ron Hubbard and the abilities of a “Clear” and the powers of an “OT”. And I’ll be holding up the rear. I’ll be the guy who is saying that Scientology is a toxic spiritual deception that causes too much harm to too many people and the best thing for a person is to be fully OUT and GONE from it and moving down the road toward a life completely free of it.
You and Geir and Karen DLC be the “Scientologist” who doesn’t step on anyone’s beliefs in Scientology or L Ron Hubbard.
I’ll be the criminal who tells the truth.
Alanzo
Al, you really ought to learn to audit people for their own benefit, without a thought for yourself. Your current crusade seems to be all about you.
Valkov, my good man.
How are you today?
Doing well I hope. Did you get any of the snow up there in Michigan that we got down here in Illinois? It’s like a winter wonderland down here. Very beautiful.
Alanzo
WE got about 5 inches of a heavy wet ugly snow. Very hard to clear, even with a snowthrower. Water all underneath it, too,as the temp has been hovering just above freezing. Deep lakes and puddles and slush everywhere at curbside.
Then of course the City’s snowplow comes along and blocks the mouth of the driveway with a wall of wet heavy snow pack which has to be shoveled by hand as no snowthrower can even come close to dealing with it.
I’m hoping for 50 degrees and some real rain soon, to wash most of it away! 🙂
You are describing my reality here in Illinois to a “T”.
I myself had to go out and shovel that exact type of snow, which I am sure the Eskimos have a unique word for. Maybe the Norwegians do, too. I even had the snow plow boulder residue you described at the street.
I wonder what the Norwegian word for “snow plow boulder residue” is.
Do the Russians have a word for this?
Alanzo
Pretty much every cult recovery expert states that directly attacking a cult member’s religion is WASTED TIME.
The best thing one can do is point out the scriptures and doctrines that got people to join in the first place. To re-introduce them to their button of meaning. Then hand them the keys to freedom from their own scriptures.
I tried to friend a guy at a Kiosk two years ago. I told him how much I envied the idea that a Scientologist can confront ANYTHING. “Man that is great, you can read any newspaper you want, watch any show you want. You can listen even to entheta if you have your confront up. You should go check out that Rathbun guy’s blog cuz YOU SIR can confront.”
Then I thanked him for being there to help me. I told him I didn’t agree with many ideas, but I KNEW that the only reason he was there was to help me and our world.
WHY I’M A CRITIC
I wish, first of all, someone would have helped me avoid losing decades of my life. I think Alanzo also feel the same way. I also participate to HELP MYSELF see how I personally am controlled and manipulated.
I try to align with a person’s purpose of improvement. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I just STFU.
My say is that I believe every person has the right to believe in whatever they want to as long as they is not hurting others.
However I stand by Alanzo’s two main purposes to Scientology criticism:
1. To expose information that Scientology hides so that new people and existing Scientologists who become involved are given the information they need to make informed decisions about their own involvement.
2. To inoculate the society by exposing the deceptions that Scientology uses to recruit new people.
I agree with Sindy also ” Then one can reason by small bits as the trance is wearing off. It can take YEARS.”
What would the discussion be like if that same person were called a “Whisteblower?”
There are scientologists most likely trained to do their best to destroy ex’s, indies and freezoners through blogs, IMO. We are their enemy according to policy. Also they are sure to keep records and stats. Being alert is optimum.
That’s my thought for now.
I loved what everyone has said, good discussion. Thanks.
PS:
Hope I didn’t come across to strong about the policy to destroy. Since I myself did some devious things for the insidious department of SCN,
I became colored but educated in my view of how far they can go in the many subtle ways they use people to vex others. I just needed to say it.
AMAZING!!!!! Do you want to come up with a “new mind-construct” as a tool for the “future”?
Could be done ! Like it ! ROTFWL
WOW! Great quote by Bucky Fuller!
My dad was an engineer, and when I was 6, he took me to the outskirts of town where an rich, eccentric farmer was building a geodesic dome to store farm stuff, and even to live in for a while. That was when he gave me his lecture on Buckminster Fuller.
I love this quote and can see the truth in it.
But, 46 years later, I don’t see very many geodesic domes around.
Am I just not seeing them?
Alanzo
Another problem of critics. Some have lost their kids. I feel for Ida’s son when he wakes up.
At least he will know someone loved him. ALL. THE. WAY.
“Her heart light sweeps the beech at night. Her prince a chance to see…”
Geir: “The solution should always be to present a better method for the person to realize his underlying purpose. But alas, this is so much harder and requires so much more responsibility on your part. It is far easier to slash away with harsh criticism than to help the other find a better way.”
What if you don’t know a better “method” for the person, but you certainly know that the actual “method” is destroying this person or, at least, putting him or her at risk? Should you refrain from doing something about it?
I know it’s a tough one. I, myself, don’t know exactly how to proceed in a situation like this. But I feel the critic has not an obligation to provide a solution. Sometimes you don’t know what’s right, but you do know what’s wrong, and just by pointing it out you’re already making a great contribution.
Instead of refraining from criticism, one should make a real effort to present a better way. And from my experience, the critic, when pressed for it, will in fact be able to cough up a better way. So, the criticism without solutions are intellectual laziness (and often cruel).
Maybe it would be appropriate to make a distinction here between good and bad criticism. I guess you’re talking about the second one: the harsh, destructive, ill-intentioned criticism; the one that is done just to piss off or to bring down. For in this case I totally agree. Most of the time, a person doing this kind of criticism is easily confronted by challenging him or her to give a solution or to point out something good and positive about the very thing he or she is criticizing. But if the criticism is objective and sincere, one can sometimes outline a solution by just telling the problem.
The distinction is good. However, I believe one should and could do more in offering a solution than by simply pointing out the problem – only because that is more productive. And we do strive to help and create value for other people, or?
What do you mean by ‘creating value’ for other people? How do you do the creating part? Can you give an example?
Yes, one can and shall do more, especially when one cares about people (people in general or specific individuals). And, yes, to provide a solution is always better than just depicting the problem. My only point is that a critic is not doing anything wrong when she or he expresses an unfavourable, but sincere opinion about something, and, in fact, that it can be beneficial, even if he or she fails to provide a solution.
I can agree to your point, but I prefer not to 🙂 – for the sole reason that I prefer to encourage critics to take more responsibility for their position.
Fair enough.
Yes. And what happens when a critic takes full responsibility for that position?
Yes, what happens?
HaHa, it was me who asked you the question in the first place. If I wasn’t interested in your answer, I wouldn’t have asked it. So what is your answer to:
What happens when a critic takes full responsibility for that position?
LOL, TR3 the hell out of him Marianne! He will finally crumble and give up and answer!
Chris
You may have forgotten for a second that Geir is a Game Changer who is familiar with the roles of the players on both sides. Notice, I said ‘familiar with’ and not ‘knows’. As while boosting the performace of the players, he does not ‘know’ the outcome of the game. So, he can enjoy it and take some popcorn as he sometimes says. I must say that this question and answer has its own subtleties. From the viewpoints of the players and also from the viewpoint of the performance booster.
Geir? What is the game changer’s answer to the above question?
hypetexta: What very few critics of Scientology (or any other betterment activity) realize is that they are undermining another’s purpose.
Chris: When I tell my friend Lenny not to do street drugs anymore, am I undermining his purpose? Yes, I am. Should I stop telling him? Maybe, but I don’t. Oh but you wrote “betterment activity.” Well, that’s how a drug addict views taking drugs, or does he? Is compulsive self-betterment activity actually bettering the individual? And anyway, if Lenny can go out and score meth within a few minutes in a city park patrolled by cops, I think another person looking to do Scientology will be able to accomplish even if I do undermine their purpose, and if not, then they never were in the triage group that deserves Scientology. Problems solved.
I didn’t say that, Chris. I guess this reply is to Geir. But I believe I see your point here: sometimes undermining a person’s purpose is the right thing to do, even if you can’t accomplish anything.
Yes.