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Posted by Coordinator on September 04, 2011 at 06:34:51
In Reply to: Re: "Halt! Who goes there?" posted by Farmer on September 02, 2011 at 20:46:17:
It's probably best to use "those born into the cult," although calling them TBITCs wouldn't take on, I suspect. It would sound like we are othering (marginalizing) them--similar to "those of whom we do not speak" or something. I don't know. I am not trying to speak on their behalf, but rather relay what I have learned, often the hard way, from interacting with them. And since we seem to have some of them show up here now and then, we ought to be aware of these issues.
The SG/SGA term was coined and used by the cult to compile statistics on membership, and I agree that it does imply their being an extension of the original members, or an appendage of sorts, and that it is in line with the cult's policy of expanding their member population through child birth. It purveys all Berg's connotations of (in)breeding the new super generation of perfect cult adherents, the hope of the future. So I can perfectly understand that they need to be distinctly emancipated from such concepts, which is their right. Along with that snipping of ties, they really don't appreciate the "familiarity" with which they can be treated at times by FGs (a.k.a. the people responsible for facilitating Berg in the first place). On the other hand, it's not like they are perfect strangers too, and when they communicate, they use a lot of shared references. It's a difficult situation, to say the least.
Then we have new developments of people joining in the 90s, for example, who are the same age as those born into the cult in the 70s. They may technically be on either side of the FG-SG divide, but have so much more in common than the traditional FG and SG, and thus the FG-SG distinction becomes irrelevant. We have had people in our staff who fit this description: technically FGs, but much closer to SGs in perspective.
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