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In Reply to: Re: Musings posted by Thought provoking response on January 07, 2005 at 21:30:23:
I don't dispute that The Family recruited deceptively or recruited some people in the earliest days (such as my parents) and then crept up on them with ever-crazier doctrines once they had bought the farm. I *have* read Hassan and Sanger and had the chance in 1992 to thank them personally for the enhanced understanding I gained through their work (please let me grumble here at being addressed in the imperative). To me it's old news that the Family has a pattern of being less than candid about its beliefs and practices and has deceived people right and left, some targets parting with money or goods, others with lives. Sometimes it is a bit of a philosophical puzzlement that in our society there is more protection for a buyer of stock, with the SEC requiring full disclosure, etc., than for "shoppers" of religion making the major decision of giving, say, their life (and sometimes all the kids they might spawn thrown in for good measure). Obviously, it would be impossible to get a judgment of how "good" a religion's beliefs are, but one would think a "religion" would not balk so much at the suggestion it truthfully disclose *what* all those beliefs *are* -- at least in exchange for being the recipient of such economic benefits as the proceeds of "forsaking all" and likewise major commitments!
I also agree with the person who protested that FGs are not a bunch of Masonite freaks who found each other and said "hooray, let's all create that living hell we've been fantasizing about." In fact I think that is a dangerous notion that perpetuates child abuse, since most abusers (even those who set out to be so from the start) do not present themselves as deranged Mansonites -- if nothing else for the pragmatic reasons that it makes it (2) harder to get prey, (2) easier to get caught, and (3) harder to discredit the victims (that knee-jerk abuser reaction to being fingered). [Query, though, what percentage of Manson Family members who ended up as murderous Mansonites were mansonian freaks themselves before meeting Manson and learning to emulate him/pease him! Some of my abusers in The Family look so unlike mansonian-type freaks that they serve as media spokespersons for The Family.]
I readily agree with you, "Thought provoking response", that most Family members "didn't go into a sex cult looking for children to abuse." While I believe there is a significant (especially considered in the context of communal living) contingent that sniffed out Berg's utopia as in line with their utopia and jumped at the chance, and that The Family's leadership was grossly negligent given the mix of backgrounds of "new disciples" it was "saving from lives of drugs and despair" etc. (the ready-made ruffians getting equal access to the children as the ingenues), I think most people (like my parents for example) said "yes" to the recruiting for other motives, even motives that persons with certain value systems could find "laudable" or altruistic. [Please understand you might still find SG's scratching their heads at what seems to some of us the unsoundness of jumping into The Family, however idealistically, with the amount of research ("that look in their eyes!") and consideration involved, and based on the "reasoning" we heard in the average "testimonies"]. But none of this changes the fact that some of them (again, my parents fit this bill IMO) ended up doing barbaric things. Not that I think that for that category it is impossible to atone to the extent one chooses to! (perhaps limited to the extent the wounded are still alive?)
There is a study that has been oft-cited but I think insufficiently heeded when discussing "cults": the Stanford prison experiment. The authors cut the planned 2 weeks short at the 6th day when the college-student subjects took their roles to heart and things got harrowing. I recently read a scholar's article that selected a quote by the experiment's authors that I will cite because I think it applies to many people who joined (or were recruited by) The Family:
[the study] "demonstrated the power of situations to overwhelm pyschologically normal, healthy people and to elicit from them unexpectedly cruel, yet 'situationally appropriate' behavior. In many instances during our study, the participants' behavior (and our own) directly contravened personal value systems and deviated dramatically from past records of conduct. This behavior was elicited by the social context and roles we created, and it had painful, even traumatic consequences for the prisoners against whom it was directed." (Haney and Zimbardo, "The Past and Future of U.S. Prison Policy: Twenty-Five Years after the Stanford Prison Experiment." in American Psychologist)
I would guess there is a large number of "FG's" to whom that happened, and some others who were perverts or sadists upon joining the Family and I have my theories as to which baskets my various tormentors fall, but that is rather academic since mistreatment by the former was not made any better for it! [The anguish can even be argued to be greater when trying to come to terms with the treatment: it is easier to live with being abused by a pervert, because how do I grasp being abused by a former innocent? It is more tempting for the victim to feel shame and confusion. Is a war casualty due to friendly fire less wrenching??????] I *would* speculate though that most of the outspoken FG exers fall in of the the first category (the second having less of a conscience and capability of feeling remorse). It takes real integrity to admit error, especially in the face of a vicious response -- and so publicly. I may writhe in pain from my rage and tell them, yet I will tip my hat to them until I get carpal tunnel.
I guess what I am asking in all these words is: even assuming the validity of everything in your response about recrtuitment vs. joining, what comfort is that supposed to provide the injured?
Unfortunately, unlike the Stanford experiment, childhood in The Family was neither time-limited nor a simulation. The prison guards and the prisoners had been living in that environment for a long time and expected always to (until interrupted by a huge cataclysm followed by a "Millenium," etc.). There were no observers to cut in and stop the insanity. [Add to the mix (with the "pyschologically normal, healthy people") the oft-mentioned fragility or turmoil some brought when they joined in search of a better situation!]
I think that a threshold issue in this whole inquiry, though, is that childhood and status as a minor is recognized by society and law, is accorded certain considerations and protections, and carries consequences that are firmly rooted in the sheer physical reality and biology of the human mammal, which has such pretensions of being civilized. Developing brains and bodies are at a relative disadvantage to stronger bodies and experienced brains. I see even SGs who still seem to attribute so much more to children than I think is realistic -- not that I'm surprised, having been raised in the same culture; one that started frank spanking at 6 months, made me an adult at 12, and in 93 (Summit Jewels) said that if adult-child sex "was desired" it was not abuse!
I will also say again that I have seen seeminlgy sociopathic SGs whose actions make me recoil and on the other hand, FGs whom I admire/like. Still, my childhood experience has more essential features in common with the other SGs' even those with whom I don't care to interact out here. But some of the talk about "we were all equally hurt" does not strike me as particularly informative. What does that mean? I am less interested in keeping a score of pain as in understanding the qualitatively different experiences for what they are. There are key distinctions, IMO, and if we want to aid survivors of any age, I think it's smarter to recognize them so the response can be as tailored as possible so as to be as helpful possible.
All that said, The Family/FCF characterizes exer SGs as "out for blood." TF/FCF does this because they have decided to continue denying us and to withhold acknowledgement, accountability and amends, but if they protest giving us that they seem unreasonable, so they protest the supposed demand for a pound of flesh.
I also hear some exer FGs sound like they're also throwing their hands up and concluding all SGs who express strong emotions want blood, and I don't know what reparations or self-flagellation some people imagine are being demanded from persons whose participation and power was of a different degree. Ironically, I suspect that some of the voices I hear the loudest are those of the gentler people who are the most distressed by contemplating what our reality was back "in"! Do SGs get any credit for some common sense and a few gray cells?
Anywayy, "Thought provoking response," I will also take the liberty of referring in closing to a writer who I think speaks pertinently to the issue. I am reading Primo Levi's "The Drowned and the Saved." It is a stark, brave look at the various roles played by Germans and Jews during the Holocaust, and does not try to canonize everybody one one side or lay the same blame on every person, demand the same from every non-prisoner involved, or paint one side white and the other black (in case you're wondering, I would personally place some the behaviour of some SG's I encountered further along in the shady direction than certain FGs', some of whom felt like fellow prisoners in comparison with the guard roles some SGs took on as they matured).
I think that if one can bear to look for long enough (apparently Levi could not ultimately live with thew eight of things), there are endless shades of gray.
