Collective guilt, collective punishment

We were each apart of something that most of us as ex-members now, are no longer proud of. The group could not have become what it did, if we did not each of us, enable the machinery of the beast. We lent it power, feeding it with the very essence of our souls, our huge personal sacrifices. We gave to it because at some point we believed in it, believed it was the way.

So now as ex-members, we know better. For many, it took leaving to fully understand how wrong we were.

Isn't it a mistake to retroactively script our past according to our current sensibilities?

In the cult, we thought wrong was right and right was wrong. What we know now, we didn't know then. So can we, or should we really hold ourselves accountable for what we did back then, based on what we thought was right back then, holding it up in the condemning light of what we know now?

I know of ex-members who have done this, and become paralysed with depression, in utter guilt and remorse over their past. Ironically, one of them who is in this wasted state, had been one of the most productive behind-the-scenes activists working daily to expose The Family, right up until his own name was brought into focus. No one I know of has tried to place any blame on him, but he is plagued by his own conscience, his own self-induced torture of guilt.

We each have skeletons in our closet. In the eyes of the law each of us did illegal acitivities, to a bigger or lesser extent, and pleading ignorance is not usually an acceptable defense.

Some of us have cleaner consciences than others, but we should all be punished for our stupidity for having joined a cult, and creating children who suffered in it. But is it the answer to constantly live in guilt and remorse? Do we owe it to anyone to live in a state of eternal self-flagellation?

Accepting we were wrong is a part of moving on. But shouldn't we draw the line between living in the past with what we did, and moving on into the future to claim the healing we deserve?

Personally, I could "move on" all I want, but everything I do will still stem from on a past I cannot escape. So I choose to move on, with the kind of "moving on" that comes with a conscience and learning from your mistakes. To me, my best revenge on The Family's evil claim on my life, and for my own past stupidity, is to succeed, to live a good life.

This brings me to my next question: If we all have skeletons in our closets, and WE ALL DO, anyone from anywhere can put our name up online, exposing us as a former member. This can cause havoc in our post-cult lives. At what point should an ex-member be allowed privacy and the opportunity to move on?

Can or should our names be expunged from public records if we have moved on? How do we define "moved on" so that ex-members will collectively be satisfied?

In South Africa, when the apartheid regime collapsed, to avoid endless recriminations and violence due to the tangled web of abuse, immoral acts and crime perpetrated by all sides, the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission (TRC) was set up. The idea was that amnesty could be granted to those who committed abuses during the apartheid era, as long as the crimes were politically motivated, proportionate, and there was full disclosure by the person seeking amnesty.

Do we have the equivalent of the TRC with ex-Family?

Is full disclosure of our past sufficient? Are these boards the place to do it?

Can ex-members, particularly SGs ever find it in themselves to understand that we now know we were wrong, that we are forever sorry; will they allow us to move on?