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Having posted a number of articles over the past two months regarding the oppressive and suppressive digressions of our current Church of Scientology leadership - it behooves me to take another perspective now and to provide a different slant to the subject - one that takes a future look at Scientology leadership.
While we can acknowledge that Mr. Miscavige has derailed over the years, and is unfortunately taking Scientology with him, it is just a matter of time before he steps down or is forced from that position of power.
The real question is twofold:
1) How did he get in power and stay there?
2) How do we avoid this in the future so that Scientology is not repeatedly left in the hands of oppressive management?
In his defense, I must say this - if we left a President in office running America for 25 years straight - it would eventually wear on him - and if he was initially steeled to corruption, compromise and other lesser impulses that can assault leaders - then he certainly would became prone to them as the years went on. It is said that power begets corruption - and certainly in this case with Mr Miscavige - that is true.
So how do we deal with it? We can and will of course continue to campaign to have him divested of his power because he has demonstrably abused it. But that won't solve the whole problem - because it could happen again. Maybe we put the Church back on the rails again, get it sailing right along, and then some other top dog decides it is time to play dictator and moves into the role and away we go again. We can say that we would never let that happen again - but WE won't necessarily be around in the future when it happens - and WE do want Scientology here when we come back for round two, three etc.
It seems unlikely to me, having worked under LRH's watch, that he wouldn't have predicted this problem already and laid out a solution. Maybe he did - and maybe Mr Miscavige has conveniently made sure that those notes never saw the light of day. However, that is theoretical at this point.
The situation we are up against is that we have a leadership that should not be in power. In any political system the options are twofold - re-election by the general population to put a new leader in place, which is democracy or a republic at work, or in the face of tyranny and dictatorships - revolution.
The founding men of America, the men who fathered the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights for the new America, recognized this factor as an inherent problem with monarchy's or dictatorial regimes which were prevalent in Europe at the time. Kings and Queens remained in power until they died, and then someone else took over - but it had nothing to do with the will or wants of the people. To solve this they limited a Presidential term to four years and then the matter went back to the American people to decide if that party and President would stay in office or not. This effectively handled oppressive regimes, dictators and goofballs (like George W Bush) from continuing to run the country.
No such system exists in Scientology. If a bad leader gets into power, and no one goes up against him, then apparently we're all supposed to live with him despite the fact that he is destroying OUR religion. Given no options it drives us to rebel, declare independence and to become "dissidents". But we're really not dissidents - unless one considers Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and the other men who decided that the era of oppression was over in America and they established a new order. Their "dissidence" lead to our freedoms and actually helped to quell oppression across the world, demonstrating that a truly republican form of government could operate in lieu of a bunch of whacked out power hungry aristocrats jaunting around treating everyone else as underlings.
With that said, possibly it is time for Scientology to morph or advance with the times. Possibly we should consider demanding the right to elect our leader. If Scientology is going to be the sharp stick or the tool to help make a better world, then certainly we have the right to elect our leader. If we are not happy with him or her, we should have a right to vote them in or out of office, much the same as most western cultures now do.
Scientology should not exist under the mentality of Papal-rule or a fascist system where we have no right to elect our leadership. Leadership in Scientology, at its top level, should not be a "given". It should be demonstrated, earned and vested as a right to serve - not as a dictatorial monopoly.
Failing that, there is NO system that can ever be implemented that will safeguard Scientology against future dictators who could act to destroy it. David Miscavige is but one man, one generation of leaders. He is not a permanent fixture. We must have a way of challenging our leaders and electing better ones if we consider they are failing in their duties. That system is a republican system (not democratic by the way - there is a HUGE difference), and gives the power to the people to ensure that their government does not become oppressive. We need that right in Scientology too. To assume otherwise is to agree to being slaves and victims - because that is precisely what will happen. People will be victimized and their rights will be abused within the very religion that is supposed to do the exact opposite.
I wish it were different. I wish we could say that Scientology would never fall prey to such things, but the fact of the matter is that it has, and very seriously so. While we campaign for change, while we open people's eyes to the truth of the bigger picture, we must also start looking into the future and setting matters straight for the long haul. We need Scientology, AS Scientology, here for the future generations without Mr Miscavige's spin on it, or any other dictatorial spin for that matter. If this could happen on OUR watch, in our lives, it can and WILL happen again in the future - unless we start the wheels in motion to bring about reform.
We need to be responsible for making sure that the show goes on for generations to come - and that means taking responsibility for setting up the system so that every future generation of Scientologists is empowered with the right and the ability to ensure that the Church doesn't fall prey to the same issues we are fighting today. Written by Outside the Box
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Controlling the future
"Scientology has been taken over by a self-appointed dictator, David Miscavige, who has turned the Creed of the Church of Scientology, the Code of a Scientologist, and the Credo of a True Group Member on their heads and instituted the virtual practice of Reverse (Black) Dianetics..." Learn More...
Comments
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/aspects/demrep.html
Thanks for this post!
For once I have to disagree with you buddy.
Democracy or a Republican form of Government is not the answer, because you are trying to solve a "problem" that really needs no solution. The fact is that Miscavige's assumption of power has nothing to do with any org board or policy that the Ol'man ever wrote!
The post of Founder or Commodore was a post that was never supposed to be succeeded to.
See HCOPL LRH Relationship to Orgs.
Also the democracy you seek is already covered under those policies in Volume VII under Advisory Councils.
Yes I know most Scientologists are unaware of these policies but they better become aware of these policies pretty quick because if they do not become aware of them we will end up in the fire instead of just the Frying Pan!
Your answer to the "problem of succession" is simple and is contained in HCOPLs. Promoting some public system of government just ain't gonna cut it in my book nor in the OECs either!
Sure with a system of representation we may be slightly better off, some say worse, because the highest purpose of democracy is to achieve mediocracy. A republic less so but more open to elitism.
They are only for those who want to be led and can not take responsibility for their own actions. For those who choose to follow orders as covered in the HCOB Robotism, which is how we ended up where we are right now!
If more people had chosen to query every insane order that came out of that little tyrants mouth or just refused to comply per HCOPLs 'Orders Query of' and 'Orders Illegal and Cross' instead of saying "yessir" we would have been a lot better off.
For instance if somebody had said when Miscavige proposed a bunch of squirrelly drills he packaged as the "Golden Age of Tech" and said that it violated HCOPL 'Drills Allowed' and therefore you are asking me to carry out an illegal order and by the way who are you to order me to do this anyway?
Yes I know we all failed in ways large or small to do exactly that. We tolerated alterations of policy and tech, but now it is time to stop that and not make the same error again whether we have one tyrant or a thousand "elected" tyrants saying that we do just that!
All you have to do is read KSW to see how much faith Ron had in democracy and neither do I.
Let's not exchange one squirrel group for another one.
" (...)we could see, for instance, that an administrator favored secrecy in his
dealings, that he practiced cruelty on individuals of a group but masked the cruelty
under “necessity,” that he altered or suppressed every plan submitted to him—one
could spot him on the tone scale at about 1.1. One could see immediately that the
organization would be inclined toward death and that it would fail. Actually, the very
measures he may so convincingly postulate to answer up to “emergencies” will bring
failure and disaster.
The effect upon a group of any individual of that group depends upon the
altitude the individual holds with the group. A person holding a command post with a
group may have as much or more weight on the group than the combined members of
the group unless a system is devised which gives more stature to the individual
members themselves.
A group, then, alert to bring about the highest level of survival for the group, to
conquer for it the maximum amount of MEST, should be alert to the position on the
tone scale of the leaders of that group. The group itself can deduce the position of a
leader on the tone scale by the way he handles ARC." DIAGNOSIS AND REPAIR OF GROUPS (red vol 1, page 126)
I agree with RJ, the solution is contained in the OEC, and I agree with OTB, we all have to stay alert!
Isn't this precisely the problem our republic currently faces? As evidenced by the 'tea party' vote them all out in 2010 crowd. Not to mention the other government systems the world over, treating their citizens in precisely the same manner despite the name of the construct: Fascism, Socialism, Republic, Democracy, Parliamentary form, etc, etc ad nausea-um.
from the Personal Achievement Series.
I don't have the exact quote to hand but will look for it. In the mean time, if you have the lecture, check it out, he talks specifically about what is happening right now, where public and staff have no power of choice and what happens, and how it should be.
Face it, the KR PL did squat to police abuses from seniors. Something else is needed.
The United States, the world's oldest democracy, has hobbled along for over 200 years with elected leadership and representation.
Scientology leadership FAILED starting only a few short years after LRH left. It has failed despite all the policies and governing committees such as Watch Dog Committee, and all the well-intentioned staff.
There is almost universal agreement that DM has to go, but no powerful enough way enshrined in policy to dislodge him or any future leader turned despot.
Now the very subject of Scientology is in danger.
DM happened. Let us not loose the painful lesson of this, and fail to confront that our system failed.
Once DM is gone, a system to elect our church leaders should be put in place. After a decade or so in power, leaders of countries begin to feel like they own the place, and this certainly happened with DM.
Step 6 of 3D Danger: "Recommend any firm policy that will hereafter detect and/or prevent the condition from recurring."
Step 6 of 1D Danger says it even stronger: "Formulate and adopt firm policy that will hereafter detect and prevent the same situation form continuing to occur." (Italics mine)
Any hierarchical power scheme is open to abuse, including "democracy" which Hubbard rightfully disdained. The org board is a flow of organization, not a flow of power. The trouble is that org staff brought their own wog ideas of organization, management and government into the church. Like the idea that your senior is your "boss", and is better than you or has more power than you.
A very astute observation Anon, one I'd seen many times while I was on staff.
I called it the "The Charge of the Light Brigade" syndrome or the Nuremberg syndrome as in "I vas onlY vollowinG vorders". Yeah that worked out well for them.
You could always get into a "Radar O'Rielly, Colonel Blake" syndrome where you know your senior is a complete moron but fearing something worse you prop him or her up any way which is the situation I found myself in a lot.
However, the most usual is the one you mention well he or she is the "boss".
I think the main problem here Anon, is that now many staff are urged to apply other tech like "Message to Garcia". The no questions asked just do it that Elbert another Hubbard promoted in his little tract a century ago. You know similarities that are actually different made to seem the same. Along with wrong source. Well it is "Hubbard".
Yeah whatever :-)
Actually scratch that, I just realized the answer to it is "We come back".
LRH states:
"And so it is in all of life one could say that with people in general, where you find a great deal of upset and unrest, tumult and confusion, we have simply omitted this thing called the power of choice."
...
"But let us say that Jinx suddenly walked up and said "I am now the representative of this entire district and you're going to do what I say" Naooow! That's a dangerous thing for a man to do."
...
"Well, now, that's about as far south as you go on power of choice - politics, ballots so on- unless the public itself is able to express its choice originally. If you really wanted people satisfied with the government, and the government is doing just terribly-I mean everything is crashing on all sides, and everybody's satisfied with the government-then you would find present this thing: that everybody has been permitted to choose on his own free discretion who the candidates were that eventually stepped up to the ballot box, and not only that, but choose the committees that chose the candidates. And if everybody chose everything on their own determinism and decision and they got around to arresting Jinx who, at this moment, is no better than he ever was, you see-everybody would say, "Well, we elected him. Here he is."
But we also feel we could talk to him. And we get the lower order at work too. Communication becomes possible. He's there because we said he'd be there, and we believe that."
...
"One of the reasons why is Jinx steps up, says, "I am now the Grand High Generalissimo of the area and anybody that disagrees with me is herein before stated (as per proclamation eighty-six, nailed on the wall there) going to be shot with one bullet."
The public says, "Nyahrarara! Let's see how we can get around to exercising a little power of choice around here. Let's have some revolutionary parties. Let's have some undergrounds. Let's have some counterrevolution. Let's do something. Because obviously we can't communicate with this fellow because we never at any one moment had any choice in his being there."
LRH goes on to state how Jinx would need to appoint enough captains of the guard to keep the peace, hiring secret police, pretty much what's occurring now. I can't stress it enough, that this lecture should be listened to in its entirety. It covers so much more than the above and a handling.
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