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In Reply to: Re: Paying dues posted by Jo An on September 23, 2007 at 18:37:38:
[This post has been re-submitted twice on the request of the author]
Hi Jo Anne,
I'm an FG. You may be right in that we filter others through the lens of who we are. That's why I have trouble with the whole situation. Details are sketchy, but what has come out so far, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that there is: some kind of notoriety attached to your parents' names? And they have been out for some years? And you/they claim they are so changed and different now? And they haven't spoken publicly (for the whole wide world to hear it; "not plastering their names all over the net") about what they now think about their past? And now you and LTO are polling responses for what seems to be a possible apology ("their heartfelt regrets"; "public statement of renunciation and apology") in the works?
Forgive me if I've unwittingly read between the lines, but I've been going over the last 200 posts carefully, trying to figure out who is who and what this is all about. Assuming I am correct about all the above, what I have a problem with might best be described as a cart-before-horse syndrome.
If this were me, and I'm guessing there are others like me too, I wouldn't be having the cheek to come from the end where I'm bugged by my name being on the site, where the need to clear up my name makes me realize maybe I need to apologize. This is bordering on an extracted apology, and would immediately lower the value of my apology (see the articles I posted about What is an Apology) and would be construed as insincere.
Me, if I did something of notoriety, I would have been thinking about the larger social responsibility of what I've done first, rushing out there to set things right when as soon I've detoxed and realized I was wrong. If I was a lowly nobody who never saw much, or had any leadership position or influenced anybody or hurt anybody's children, and was in only for a short while, then, I'd think about only being responsible to my own first, and worry about big causes later.
OK, I realize there might be many situations where they couldn't do that for fear they might get newspaper reporters on their door step and ruin their children's lives forever. But I would have looked into this a long time ago, and initiated something somewhere, whether it's anonymously or with my name on it for the world to see. I realize you and LTO have said that there is more to life than this web site. True. But there has been no mention of what your parents have done to right the wrongs for the larger picture. It's true they are resonsible to their own first, but that doesn't mean the larger picture should be forgotten altogether until they were inconvenienced by Google.
It seems an apology might not even have been the original concern, just how to get their names off. Are they only learning now, after the coordinator spelled it out, that "open repentance and renunciation concerning harmful Family teachings and practice" (LTO's words, not the Coordinator's) might be in order? And even then are they reluctant to go public? (www.exfamily.org/chatbbs/genx/posts/29883.htm; www.exfamily.org/chatbbs/genx/posts/29880.htm)
If they were responsible for really big things, and have had all this time out and have changed so much, they should have been looking into setting those big things right a long time ago.
Again, assuming I'm right about about your parents, I'd tend to respect them more if they thought first about their larger social responsibility way before even bothering to think they've paid their dues and deserve to have their names cleared up. Did they hurt anybody? Are there public complaints about them? Are they on the creeps list at movingon? Were they running Victor Camps? Have they done anything about these? If not, I wouldn't cut them much slack for only caring about their own all these years while they were supposedly changed and had realized they were wrong.
Hey, but nobody's as perfect as me. (Just kidding!)
If I was wrong about my assumptions, I sincerely apologize. There are limits to this format of communication.
