Loaded Language

[nightsinger]

I find as I read more and more about Scientology that Hubbard, far from being a dunce, was a skilled manipulator. One place this comes up is his use of loaded or manipulative language. I quote here Wieber who said:

[fisherman]

Nightsinger,

This is a good topic and Weiber's analysis is excellent!

IMO: Hubbard's loaded catch-phrases are just echoes of America's dominant literary form, which is ADVERTISNG COPY! Hubbard was simply a 'sloganeer'.

Our culture drowns in slogans; crafted to make us think something PROFOUND is being conveyed. A slogan APPEARS to state a "TRUTH" that really isn't there at all. The reason this works, is that WE bring the CONTEXT to the words.

"Baseball, Apple Pie, and CAR" is not a 'profound' statement.

But when advertisers change that to "Baseball, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet" we bring to those words images of homey picnics, fishing with Grandpa, or whatever makes the phrase personally 'warm and fuzzy'.

Consider the Nike running shoe slogan: "There is no finish line"

Combined with photos of sweaty athletes, Nike's phrase may conjure images of 'perseverance' 'dedication' 'glory' etc. -- but that context is created by the reader. Standing on there own, the words "There is no finish line.' say nothing at all.

Hubbard's "What's True For You, Is True" is a perfect example of the same phenomenon.

The words have a nice meter and balance, but unless the reader injects their own context into the phrase -- the words really don't SAY or MEAN anything. I suspect readers inject personal context into that phrase, so that it is inferred to mean something like:

'What's true for you, is AN INSIGHT INTO UNIVERSAL TRUTH' = I have unique spiritual knowledge.
'What's true for you, is REALLY IMPORTANT' = I am very important
'What's true for you, is SACRED' = I am sacred

The phrase itself, doesn't mean any of these things. Grammatically, the comma can be taken as an "=" equals sign. What it ACTUALLY SAYS is:

"What's true for you = What's true for you"

This isn't saying much. It's significance is equivalent to saying:

"What's GREEN to you = What's GREEN to you
"What's LOVELY to you = What's LOVELY to you
"What's EXCITING to you = What's EXCITING to you

My 'formal logic' is quite rusty, but I recall that Symbolic Logicians use the place-holder term "TRON" to analyse similar contructs. To these professional philosophers:

"What's TRON for you = What's TRON for you"

Therefore, the phrase is formally correct. It means exactly what it says! What's TRON is TRON. And don't let anyone tell ya different!

Hubbard's "What's true for you, is true" is simply loaded advertising language. It is circumlucution and doesn't mean or say ANYTHING.

fisherman

[RedPill]

the what's true for you is what's true for you" line is also a thought stopper and an arguement stopper. For instance, you get sucked into Scientology because you are a young guy, vulerable, alone, a flop with chicks, and you do the comm course and find that simply drilling being there without a via etc. gets you thru the worst of your shyness and non confront, and all of a sudden you can talk to chicks, therefore Scientology REALLY WORKS ... and you are eager to learn more, then you read DMSMH and find out about zillions of attempted abortions and you read History of Man and find out about the clam thing, and none of it makes sense. The next logical thing to do is ask someone who has been in for awhile, someone on staff perhaps, and you challenge them on these points. The next thing is you are hit with the "true for you" horseshit. ALL DISCUSSION IS STOPPED. It is somehow implied that because you haven't been in long enough, you just don't GET it YET. You walk away a bit confused, scratching your head. Perhaps it is because you have misunderstood words. Oh well. You stay, because, after all, it's scientific and IT WORKS! You do want that next EP, right?


Anyways, check out my latest song parodies. After all, if they work for you, they work for you!

Pete

[Wieber]

Orwell has an essay on "newspeak" that you'll find after the completion of the story in 1984. In it he says that contractions and short forms of words are intended to short circuit people's thinking. This form of loaded language runs rampant throughout scientology.

Similarly the aphorism replaces thought with short terse phrases that over time gain authority over those who use them. They are also used authoritatively. Examples of this outside scientology are, "a stitch in time saves nine," "early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise," and "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Whether or not there is any truth in these things is irrelevant. The result of using them is that the thought processes shut down and atrophy.

Inside scientology the aphorism gets a real workout. Scientology is full of these things. Inside scientology they are called "LRH quotes." That's very convenient. Already they have the authority of the cult leader behind them. Despite the prohibition against "verbal tech" these little snippets of L. Ron Hubbard's questionable wisdom get spoken over and over in almost every conversation between any two people who are in scientology. Some examples of these are, "the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics," "speed of particle flow alone determines power," "outflow equals inflow," "outflow is better than inflow," "quantity is better than quality," and they go on and on.

In addition to shutting down the thought process they are used as thought stoppers and as a control mechanism. This works so well that all L. Ron, now Miscavige, and his inner circle really have to do is stand back and leave the thing to run on automatic in a kind of internal feed back loop.

Discussing this brings to mind a number of other aspects of the thought policing that goes on in scientology but they go beyond the subject of this thread so I'll discuss them at another time and place.
_________________
Reading List: http://www.worldcat.org./profiles/Wieber/lists/563909 scientology is just another cult. "I feel we could almost fly to Europe on this." Dr. Steve Wiseman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXxPu40S_3c

[nightsinger]

It's in one way a tautology, as you guys describe it, but in another way it's a denial of all objective truth. According to the cult's scripture, all truth is subjective, i.e. 'true for you.' It lays the foundation for the R in ARC. Reality is what is decided as an individual or group to be true. And since a group is higher on the dynamics than an individual a group's reality is higher, or better than an individual's, i.e. 'the greatest good for the greatest number.' Am I hitting on all eight cylinders so far?
Personally and philosophically, I don't believe that what is true is what is true for me. I believe that what is true, is, and i am either in alignment with it or mis-perceiving it or working to change or accept it. But truth exists, apart from my understanding of it.
_________________
Meet people where they're at, and not where you think they ought to be.
These three things are for always: faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.

[nightsinger]

Good point about advertising. It's important to remember that LRH at one point made his living as a writer. To be a good writer one must also be a good reader, and Hubbard's early education would have acquainted him with a body of literature that would be common to the Western experience, perhaps not all the classics, but close enough to have some familiarity with them.
This post is to briefly look at the use of the word 'technology.' Why does Hubbard call his writings 'technology?' I posit that in the time frame in which he was setting up Dianetic$/$cientology was a time in which people stood in awe of technological progress, more so than today. We had not yet been to the moon, personal computers were many years away, and scientists who broke down the barricades to the mysteries of the material world were treated with a kind of awe and reverence, as society fully moved from a pre-modern to a modern mindset. Everyone was getting cars, televisions, radios were everywhere, and the popularization of all these inventions spanned one or two generations. Yet it still required people with special knowledge to formulate the concepts behind these things and bring them into a practical fruition.

Wiktionary defines technology as:
1. (uncountable) the study of or a collection of techniques.
2. (countable) a particular technological concept
3. the body of tools and other implements produced by a given society.
Technological is defined:
1. Of, relating to, or involving technology, especially modern scientific technology.
2. Caused by replacement of jobs with machines or artificial intelligence technology.

What I want to point out here is the defined association of techniques with tools, modernity and science. Most people would define technology as machinery, right off the cuff, and not as a collection of techniques. As my old Webster's from 1980 puts it technology is:
1. technical language
2. applied science, a technical method of achieving a practical purpose
3. the totality of the means employed to provide objects necessary for human sustenance and comfort
And technical would be:
1. having special and usu. practical knowledge esp. of a mechanical or scientific subject.

We can see then how Hubbard's use of the word 'technology' can cause an audience to feel at awe and instill a sense of respect and authority for him and his concepts. Add to this a Doctorate of Philosophy (fraudulent, but back then who knew?) and you have a set-up for less critical acceptance of his teaching. Strictly speaking his writings are technology in the sense of being language and techniques, but the popular mindset about technology as 'mystery' and specialized, which is still prevalent in some quarters today, joined with the use of the E-meter, an actual machine, and claims of research, is certainly enough to conclude that this was an attempt to bypass the critical thinking skills of people by presenting his concepts as akin to proven machinery, either it works or it doesn't.
_________________
Meet people where they're at, and not where you think they ought to be.
These three things are for always: faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.

[fisherman]

Wieber,

I got a real chuckle from this understated insight!

[Wieber]

I think Ben Franklin did not have a sinister reason or a hidden agenda with his pithy phrases. I think he meant them as entertainment and to help sell his almanacs.

However, whether there is truth in them or not and whether there is malicious intent behind them or not the result tends to be the same and that is a dependence on the aphorism and an associated reduction in the thinking process in the user.

This is probably less likely with Franklin and brings up another aspect to this. With Franklin's aphorisms one can take them or leave them. One can disagree with them and discuss them with others. One may freely alter them for whatever reason one likes. There is no pressure or penalty from any of those choices or actions.

In scientology with L. Ron Hubbard's quotes one must take them. Should one disagree with any of them they will be required to study the source material from which the quote is taken and do "word clearing" until they do agree. One may not discuss them with others as that is looked on as "verbal data" that is likely to result in "misunderstood words" and "hidden standards." That becomes an "ethics" matter. One may not alter them for any reason. There are pentalties and pressure applied to people in scientology with regard to L. Ron Hubbard's quotes and their usage.

By the way, all promotional material issued by scientology must contain material by L. Ron Hubbard. This may be in the form of brief quotes or it may be longer passages and excerpts from his writings and lectures. That's in scientology policy. It's off topic but I think people need to know that.
_________________
Reading List: http://www.worldcat.org./profiles/Wieber/lists/563909 scientology is just another cult. "I feel we could almost fly to Europe on this." Dr. Steve Wiseman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXxPu40S_3c

[fisherman]

Redpill,

[nightsinger]

I didn't explain myself completely fisherman, because it was around 2-3am when i was writing that.
In my experience people have begun to take the 'true for you' concept and use it as a denial of all objectivity. All truth is based on oneself and one's desires and experiences. Thus something can be true for me and not true for you. As in, it may be true for me that i like apples but not true for you. This way of phrasing is then carried over into morality, behavior and as the foundation for our new secular religion of tolerance and post-modernism.

My problem is that I don't know how to succinctly explain why that's not right. The truth is, using the previous example, that some people like apples, and it's not a concept that can be used to letting everybody do whatever they want.
Lest you think I'm setting up a straw man, this is a conversation I'm remembering from my undergraduate days.

As it looks to me, using RedPill and Wieber's observations, the 'true for you' and pithy sayings are used to deflect thought and discourage conversation about concepts difficult to swallow. The problem comes in when the aphorism is used inappropriately and no one has the tools for logical thinking to show why it's inappropriate or inapplicable. You could have a discussion about why 'a stitch in time' or 'bird in the hand' applies to the situation or not, but you can't have that kind of discussion in $cientology. Such discussing is condemned as 'verbal tech.' And it doesn't matter if verbal tech is true for me or not, as you say fisherman!
mm, need more coffee... edit for typos...
_________________
Meet people where they're at, and not where you think they ought to be.
These three things are for always: faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.

[hartley]

[newclear]

Someone properly indoctrinated in Scientology is trained to accept Hubbard's vapid statements as profound utterances. I recall that a Hubbard book of quotations called "Understanding, The Universal Solvent" came out in the early 1990s. I lent a copy to my boss, a Sikh follower and someone I consider to be a wise man. He read through it, returned it to me and said that he honestly tried to understand it but couldn't. It was incomprehensible to him.

At the time, I thought he had a bunch of MUs, but he does have a PhD and understands everything else he reads.
_________________
You're so screwed, so screwed, the Way to Slappiness is the way to flappiness.

[peter]

Soderqvist1: I found L. Ron Hubbard’s point of view regarding Totalitarianism!
This is only a short quote from “L. Ron Hubbard The Freedom Fighter", emphasis in bold type by me!

The Evolution of Totalitarianism By L. Ron Hubbard
Totalitarianism is defined as “of or relating to a political regime based on subordination of the individual to the state and strict control of all aspects of the life and productive capacity of the nation, especially by coercive measures (as censorship and terrorism).” The world has seen it in the raw ruthlessness of many despots of the past and Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia in modern times. As totalitarianism is easily the most detested form of government and the most difficult to cast off, some thought should be given to how a totalitarianism evolves. Basically the political life of a nation is divided into two types of groups.

First there is the GENERAL INTEREST GROUP. This is a broad, open group such as a political party or an association of teachers or a church. What distinguishes them as a GENERAL interest group is the fact that they stand for what they say they stand for and do what they say they do. They have beliefs, they scuffle about, but they are in the open and their influence is direct and visible. Then there is another type of group. It can be called a SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP. It could also be called a “hidden” interest group. It is characterized by having some fixed idea but advertising something else. They are composed of zealots who work to the exclusion of all other interest as well as the exclusion of the well-being of others who are not “aligned” with the fixed idea of that group.

These “special interest groups” are commonly distrusted since they fail to announce their actual intention and sell their fixed idea behind a facade of often clever steps and propaganda. The citizen who suddenly learns that Senator Belch was really a “front” for the oil interests or that Minister Bray was really trying to increase armament company profits is, as a good and unsuspicious citizen, usually dismayed when “all is revealed.”
George Orwell’s 1984 is based exclusively on what would happen if the headshrinkers took over the world.
http://www.lronhubbard.org/eng/fightrae/page028.htm
_________________
A simple explanation with few explanation grounds is to prefer, except when you need to hide your flaws! - Peter Soderqvist

[nightsinger]

[probity]