Subjective Realities
On Feb 23, 2001 the following two pictures were anonymously posted with no comment to the newsgroup alt.binaries.scientology:
Anti-cult (Sten) wrote (Feb 23, 2001):
'Oh lock at this mafia gang. It's incredible....'
Fredric L. Rice wrote (Feb 24, 2001):
'What's with the little toy sailor suits? Is it a homosexual
fantasy?'
So I wrote (Feb 24, 2001):
You know, some psychiatrists weren't so
bad. Take Hermann Rorschach for
example.
Where are you Herman? Why did you leave us?
Your skills are needed today.
; )
Freddie T
-----------------------
And then, in response to this follow up from Rice:
'Well, I don't think it takes a medical doctor to know and
understand the pathology behind these rather ridiculous individuals.'
Ahhh.
The reason I referred to Dr. Rorschach was because he developed a
test in which he showed people some inkblots. Depending on their
personalities they saw different things.
I was humorously suggesting that the impressions of the photographs
gleaned by you and Sten reveal more about your own (self-reinforcing)
prejudices than about the actual photographs.
Chris Leithiser (Feb 25, 2001): 'So there is no real
meaning in the Sea Org's adoption of naval style uniforms?'
No, that's not it.
The point is that the ideas evoked in my mind by the two photographs
were not those that came to the minds of Sten and Frederic Rice.
Chris: '... are these toy sailors trying to convey some _message_ with
their pretend campaign ribbons?'
I guess you don't believe in much of Scientology Chris, so the trappings
of the organization appear 'toy' and 'pretend' to you.
But I think Scientology is a highly useful philosophy; I admire the staff for doing a difficult and necessary job in getting it delivered.
Those trappings don't seem fake to me.
Chris: 'It would seem obvious that someone donning a uniform is trying to
say _something_ to the public.'
Sure.
I can think of a number of words. Its just that coming up with '1932
Nazi Germany', 'homosexual fantasy' and 'mafia gang' [the original terms used] would have been
something of a strain.
Let me return to my original point. With my Rorschach joke I was
humorously suggesting that the impressions gleaned by Frederic Rice and
Sten revealed more about their own (self-reinforcing) prejudices than
about the actual photographs.
Either that or they are working on a project to associate Scientology
with negative images by repeating the same phrases over and over.
Or both.
Here is an old thread in which I went over some of my
thinking on this.
It started like this: ---
From: "Rev Fredric L. Rice"
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000
Subject: Re: Bob's moment of defeat
Freddie>> Good old Bob (my favorite straight man right
now) comes through
again with some great material.
Frederic Rice> Are you insane enough to want to murder him? Is your hatred of Bob
and his effort to stop your cult from killing others enough to make you
want to kill him?
A guy called Bart then very sensibly pointed out that Rice was being
ludicrous in the following message:
From: "Bart" <bigbart@my-deja.com>
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000
Subject: Re: Bob's moment of defeat
Freddie>>> Good old Bob (my favorite straightman right now) comes
through again with some great material.
Fredric Rice>> Are you insane enough to want to murder him? Is your
hatred of Bob and his effort to stop your cult from killing others
enough to make you want to kill him?
Bart: Just passing thru again...the 49ers are losing so
why watch... can
someone enlighten me as to how this Fred guy got to <murder> from this
message? Is there something I'm missing? I've read a bunch of Bob
Minton stuff, as well as his own postings, and he does seem a bit, er,
over the top...like the kid whose big allowance keeps him in friends.
Has made a lot of claims and accusations with nothing to validate. Big
hat no cattle.
............
Thanks Bart for posting this.
My own response to
Rice (for the same
message) was:
Fredric Rice of course is another very brave man.
He's been working as
an undercover agent for a long time now, doing his level best (which can
be very good indeed) to discredit the critics.
He uses their own traits - failing to grasp what is really happening
and a tendency to meanness - but then he stretches them beyond all
credulity.
Good job Fred! Keep it up.
Note to OSA: a commendation for F. Rice for his post here please.
................
But of course that was just a joke (really it was!) and so I've been
musing over what's really going on with him.
Here's my best guess right now:
I think he's been fighting against his own confused idea of what
Scientology is for some years. I also suspect that a lot of his sense of
self-worth comes from his belief that he is doing a really good thing by
fighting such terrible people. The more ruthless and misguided he can
believe them, the better he can feel about the (sometimes unpleasant)
actions he's taken during his fight.
The worse he can paint the Church in his mind, the more he gets
agreement from other critics' stories, the better he feels about
himself.
A corollary is that if he comes across any idea which might indicate
that he's ~not~ doing a good thing by fighting decent people who just
want to be left to get on with their lives, he probably feels some
cognitive dissonance and the need to reassert strongly just how wicked
we all are.
That's why to most of the people reading this (I assume), Frederic Rice
appears to be a few sandwiches short of a picnic. I have long thought
that the critical rhetoric, being mainly - not completely - malicious
nonsense probably affects them negatively far worse than it affects
us.
My advice to Frederic?
Strangely, it isn't to give up the fight straight away. (!)
You know, because I'm right, he's wrong, etc, etc, yawn, yawn, yawn.
But Frederic, it might be a good idea to build up some solid
accomplishments in another area of your life. At your job if that's
possible; or in some useful charity work such as visiting old people and
helping with their shopping or gardening. There are lots of
possibilities depending on what you like doing.
Doing this would give you another source of pride quite in addition to
your activism. I don't think it could do you any harm.
Then as you keep evaluating the situation, if one day, you do decide
that the C of S and Scientologists aren't so bad after all - well it
wouldn't be such a devastating idea.
OK.
So that's my best effort to puzzle out F. Rice.
Freddie
