Does the problem lie not in our stars, nor in ourselves - solus ipse, but in what we would do when we surrender individuality to the will of the group?
As Martin Luther King Jr wrote in his famous ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’, “Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture, but groups are more immoral than individuals.”
From Russell Miller’s ‘Bare Faced Messiah – the true story of L. Ron Hubbard’
Quote:[When a scientologist ‘sinned’ against the Church, he was subject to retribution commensurate to the ‘sin’]. The least serious was 'emergency' followed by 'liability', in which hapless state the miscreant forfeited pay, was confined to 'org premises' [The Sea Org – Hubbard’s personal ‘Navy’] and had to wear the infamous dirty grey rag on one arm. In a condition of 'treason', all uniforms and insignia were removed and the rag was replaced by a black mark on the left cheek. In 'doubt', the offender was fined, barred from the org and could not be communicated with. Lastly came the dreaded 'enemy' - 'May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.'
The last category, the ‘enemy’, was also extended to non-scientologists who in any way hindered the church in its ‘mission’.
Russell Miller (an ex-scientologist) goes on to explain that members within the church were as a group capable of cruelties, which, as individuals they’d be incapable of.
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Extremism and group think (Read 442 times)
