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In Reply to: Re: Guilt, guilt guilt posted by to each his own (guilt) on September 11, 2003 at 18:13:18:
I agree with much of what you say. My comments were to a degree sweeping and stereotyping, partly because in a short comment I could not delve into the many shades of grey. I did acknowledge that many FGAs were trapped in the group to varying degrees. An American single FGA mother in TF in India with three small kids and no rellies on the outside is virtually trapped. No question.
But I do feel that comparitively few FGAs were trapped, victimised and oppressed to the degree that almost all SGAs were.
I don't see this issue as crisp, black and white, clearly delineated. We are humans and thus our relationships, both personal and social, are messy, fuzzy. Nevertheless, I feel that this hypothesis or whatever, of many ex-member SGAs viewing ex-member FGAs as oppressors and the enemy to varying degree is valid.
And if the SGAs embrace it as their reality, then it becomes a sort of reality, right? And we need to respect it.
I know a number of ex member SGAs who do not view me with disdain, or as their enemy. But they also know that I to a degree grasp and acknowledge my complicity in their suffering.
It's a broad topic with lots of areas that I have not explored. But I am pretty commited to the central premise. There are many excpetions of course, many varying degrees of complicity, guilt, and responsibility.
But I feel that at the least, most if not all adults who joined the group as an adult and remained for several years, particularly after 1978 or so, when the Davidito book came out, should accept a degree of responsibility for the harm that children in the group suffered. Not guilt, but responsibility. Even if we never harmed a child in any way personally, we paid tithes that supported the leadership that put that stuff out, which created the climate in which the children were oppressed.
From 1978 on, all sorts of pubs were coming out about sex with kids. We had the Mene series, Techi series, Heaven's Girl, ad infinitum. We paid for those with our tithes. So each of us has to take a degree of responsibility. How much depends on lots of things.
I am big on forgiveness, and I think the hardest part is to learn to forgive ourselves.
This is an issue I have views on, but I do not wish anyone any ill will. It is so depressing.
As for Sam, I acknowledge the good he has done, especially in the early days when, as you said, most of us were still mindless cultists. However, Sam has done a great deal of harm too, especially in recent years. And in my view, he needs to acknowledge that, change and move on.
Ed did it, and I admire him greatly for it. Of course, some people think he didn't have anything to apologise for, :), and maybe some people feel that about Sam. But Ed obviously did, and he had enough character to do it.
Sam will make his choices now, and he will live with the consequences. I hope he does do the right thing.
Anyway, I ramble.
