Sacred Cows + Siege Mentality = Sheeple

Sheeple. An actual mathematical formula for them.

I’m not kidding. I think Carl Sagan wrote about it once: Ask Neil Degrasse Tyson.

It describes a fundamental property of all human groups: not just Scientists and Scientologists.

As social animals, human beings set up rules, both tacit and expressed, to coordinate their efforts in pursuit of everything from hunting buffalo to photographing Pluto to deconstructing teletubbies.

I’ve always believed that this was the human race’s greatest gift, as well as its greatest curse when pursuing and possessing something close to the truth.

I’ll give you an example: Tony Ortega.

Because of his efforts at his blog where he exposes the deception and abuse in Scientology every day, plus many other very valuable things he has created, both he and his opinions on Scientology have become a bit like sacred cows. And because he has endured, like many of us, actual OSA sieges on his underground bunker, a bit of a siege mentality has grown up around protecting the sacredness of everything he has ever written, said, or done.

In that way, he has almost become the new L Ron Hubbard in some peoples’ minds.

My writing this right now is quite likely stirring thoughts of “OSA Stooge” in some Bunkerites. And I’ll wager that Alanzo is right now being struck from the invite list of the next secret Facebook group being planned only for the “Key Players” in Scientology criticism.

It breaks my heart to consider it, but after having been so long in Scientology, consider it I must.

So I’m going to criticize Tony Ortega – right here, right now – on my blog.

Elements of his “Tayler Tweed: Death of a Young Scientologist” article – I believe – were disgusting, and cruel.

A woman’s daughter had just committed suicide, and Tony Ortega called the mother who had just buried her to get her to make a statement on his blog about it. I think he could have been much more compassionate to a fellow human being, scientologist or not, who had just lost her own daughter to suicide.

That’s right: I disagree strongly with some of his reporting here and believe those parts that I disagree with were Disgusting and Cruel.

There. That’s what I think about it.

I just criticized Tony Ortega. Maybe some of the members of his Underground Bunker will take it personally like Scientologists do when you criticize L Ron Hubbard.

Does it make me a hateful OSA Stooge?

I believe that social courage is that element which we all must develop and maintain in ourselves after Scientology.

If you have not pissed off your group today by saying something that is highly subversive and politically incorrect, yet which you believe is true, and important, and morally right to say something about, then I encourage you to give it a try.

There will probably be some social damage that comes from it.

But what the hell: It’s better than losing your own unique and bushy hairdo to the shearing shed.

And anyway, that’s why they call it social courage.

The ironic thing, for me, was that it was an act of social courage to get myself involved in Scientology in the first place. It took a lot of social courage to get out of it, too, and even more to turn around and criticize it. And now I’m finding that, to retain any sense of integrity and self-respect that I have, I must continue to exercise it to people who I thought would understand, but obviously, and repeatedly, do not.

Maybe my experiences in Scientology have forever ruined me as any kind of member of the human race.

Oh well.

Alanzo