Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Sweeney, YouTube and Scientology
While I was away - not in Mevagissey, I just went there, but somewhere much more tasteful, discreet and less 'Cornish' as befits my exalted station in life as Blogmeister of Thought Experiments - John Sweeney famously lost it in the course of a conversation with a scientologist and thus entered the Valhalla of YouTube immortals. Sweeney, I assume, is kicking himself because, if he had said nothing and simply let Tommy Davis deliver his sinister rant, this would have done more to discredit his church than any amount of investigative journalism. It's always better to show than tell. Now Kevin Marsh, editor of the BBC College of Journalism (an institution of which I was previously unwaware), emits a curious article about the incident. The first curiosity is his remark that the Sweeney video was disseminated 'faster than Staph A on a lukewarm Petri dish.' (Note, to Mr Marsh's students: ignore your teacher's use of similes to show off general knowledge, especially when it isn't general.) The second curiosity is his argument which is, basically, that the incident was a lesson to journalists about the pervasiveness and speed of new media. This seems to suggest that the YouTube video was the story rather than the conduct of the scientologists. The truth is that Sweeney's report showed that these people behave as if they have an awful lot to hide. That is the story.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I'm afraid I didn't see the Panorama programme (the Peter Oborne piece on Channel 4 about Gordon Brown being too compelling to switch over from), but the Sweeney incident raises two questions for me. 1) Did he really 'lose it'? 2) Was there any serious discussion about what a 'cult' is/might be?
ReplyDeleteAllegedly. Scientologists, if I have to think of them. Then its as much a business than a religion, ditto to many 'new' sects which erupted from the sixties. A sort of pay for friends arrangement. But Sweeney should have laughed, rather than give credence by getting angry at him.
ReplyDeleteI did watch the programme, and frankly Sweeney had the patience of a saint with that jerk. I'd have throttled him long before.
ReplyDeleteWell, the article seemed okay to me. Sweeney blew his ''authority'' at the same time as his top. Probably ten years ago, we wouldn't have seen that side of the story - makes you think, doesn't it? Authority, my arse!
ReplyDeleteIs scientology any worse than Islam or Roman Catholicism? I attended a scientology seminar once when I was a lot younger. They're bonkers, but mostly harmless. The world is full of nutters who are mostly harmless. It's their right and free choice. Who cares?
Scientology is blatantly a very sinister and highly manipulative organisation, and L Ron Hubbard himself a very shady character. For one thing, he was a member of the occult secret society, the Ordo Templi Orientis, headed by Aleister Crowley, the self-styled Beast of Revelations, 666, anti-Christ, who Hubbard described as Crowley as being involved in " a level of religious worship which is very interesting". Hubbard's thought mirrors Crowley's considerably and just as a little echo of past discussion here, one example:
ReplyDeleteCrowley said "Evil is only an appearance...like good"
where Hubbard said that "goodness and badness...are considerations, and no other basis than opinion".
Scientology has shown itself to be very far from harmless, Ian, and the harmfulness of other things we could mention being irrelevant to the nature of scientology.
ReplyDeletewell, you give us a few examples and we'll judge them, andrew.
ReplyDeleteFor starters see the Disconnect policy of Scientology, Ian, where one's leader(s) will seuddenly issue a Disconnect order to a member where that member may be forbidden ever to have contact again with someone described as a Suppressive Character, this most typically being members of their family again. The means by which this can be implemented can be very unsavoury, with the Suppressed Person(SP) described as Fair Fame, and legitimately open to intimidation by Scientology members.
ReplyDeleteSorry about the execrable use of the poor English language there.
ReplyDeleteThere is no hard and fast rule for distinguishing a religion from a cult, but most of us know there is a difference. A good indicator is whether the "church" asserts such authority over its members' lives and minds that it trumps all family allegiance and authority, even to the point of encouraging or ordering a break. Perhaps too many priests and bishops in the Catholic Church played that one too close to the line during its ultramontane period, which may explain why so many lapsed Catholics harbour life-long preoccupations and "issues" with the Church and their upbringings. Most atheists/secularists from mainstream Protestant and Jewish backgrounds seem to have just dribbled away unscarred, almost in a fit of absence of mind.
ReplyDeletePlenty of examples of Disconnection here , exhibiting the specific dictatorial characteristics of a cult, as Peter mentions.
ReplyDeleteJust a final quick comment before i'm away for abit was this illustrative gem from holy man, L Ron Hubbard, regarding how to respond to criticism of Scientology:
ReplyDeleteNever discuss Scientology with the critic. Just discuss his or her crimes, known and unknown. And act completely confident that those crimes exist. Because they do.
— L. Ron Hubbard, HCOB of 5 November 1967, CRITICS OF SCIENTOLOGY
Ian, Lisa McPherson would disagree with you that they are "mostly harmless." Lisa was a young woman who died while in the care of Scientologists at the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida while undergoing what they call the Introspection Rundown.
ReplyDeleteThe church of scientology's beliefs are mostly harmless, and quite laughable. However their practices can be quite destructive financially, emotionally, and even physically.
Sometimes I think we live in sadly unserious times. But seeing a clip like that prompts a thought that most 20th century lunatics (Hitler, Stalin, Mao) and similarly dogmatic fools (Dawkins, Hubbard) would have been rendered similarly, hilariously foolish by YouTube. That thought makes me grateful for our stupid, sceptical times. Detecting faux-sincerity should be the next goal - Blair, Cameron and Brown's fake plastic smile spring to mind. Welcome back, Bryan!
ReplyDeleteGrateful for your reference to one of my blogs ... but to add to your list of lessons.
ReplyDeleteLesson three: if you're going to make a reference to a blog or article make sure you've read and understood it.