This bothers me for several reasons, and I hope, Ben, you'll understand the reasons why.
There is no debate among anyone with any understanding that Scientology is an extremely dangerous cult. The whole idea behind it is mind control, that and the cynical idea that if you can get people to pony up for privalege of being "clear," you can make millions of dollars, tax free. (Sadly, this is the case.) There isn't any question this whole business has created a bizarre mobocracy devoted to the paranoid ravings of a grade "B" science fiction writer whose best work wouldn't even qualify as sophomoric. In truth, like a lot of religions, Scientology has become the sort of high school popularity contest we saw when we were in high school, only at a much higher level, and with much higher stakes, in this case, with a lot more zeroes with the dollar signs, and a far more subtle degree of cruelty.
I agree that it should be avoided at all costs, that people should be informed of the danger, that we should shout from the rooftops just what people are getting into when they're offered a copy of
Dianetics. Even a cursory examination of some of the material at the
Operation: Clambake website ought to gve someone pause before they get involved with Hubbard's mental miscreants.
I'm all for informing people. Part of the problem is that people aren't interested in being informed.
I'm reminded that John Travolta has been touting Hubbard's nonsense for years, that at one point, when he was introduced to Bill Clinton during the filming of
Primary Colors, Clinton even joked with the actor about his beliefs. Travolta's often spoken highly of his experiences with Auditing, saying it relaxes him. Problem is that even as Scientology's core beliefs are exposed, people ignore what it's about and continue to listen to Travolta's declarations and read
Dianetics.
And, they also go see Travolta's movies. Even people who don't like Scientology will go to see Travolta's work, simply because he's a damn fine actor, even better than Tom Cruise. (Another sign David Miscavige is a dolt: he thinks Cruise is the better thespian.) Travolta may have spend a lot of time on the sidelines, but that wasn't because he was a less than capable performer.
If you're goal is to get people to stop listening to the Scientologists, I doubt this will be the way to get there. The facts about L. Ron Hubbard, including his laughably self-adulatory biography with its declarations of achievement, have been out there practically from the start. That people choose to ignore this reality and take an easy route out, either through the silliness of this cult, or its bastard child, est (and its successor, The Forum), is well documented. It's simply human nature to take the path of least resistance, even when you can see that it's a path that will leave you worse off than when you went in. After all, look at the popularity of homeopathy, with it's promises of health delivered with greater ease, even when science shows repeatedly that it's nothing more than a damned scam.
To my way of thinking, a boycott will not work. Even if you manage to put together a blacklist of actors, directors, producers, extras, etc., and manage to get Hollywierd to go along with not hiring them, the core problem, the teachings and existence of Scientology, will still be there. The Scientology Center will still be open for business, and if anything, the Scientologists will merely go underground.
This is another thing which bothers me about this plan: It smacks of McCarthyism.
Yes, I know that during the McCarthy era there were, indeed, Communists within this country. I am opposed to the teachings of Marx, which I first read in high school. (At the time I was at Frankfurt American High School in Frankfurt, Germany. My dad, who was an Army sergeant, was highly offended that our school library had a copy of
The Communist Manifesto on the shelves, until I told him that reading that book had thoroughly turned me off to Communism.) But perhaps the best way to fight an idea that's dangerous is to show the truth behind it, rather than trying to stifle it. I'm convinced that had McCarthy simply shut his slanderous mouth, had he simply shown what Marx and Engels had proposed, he might have had a longer career, and he might have done far more good for the nation. James Jesus Angleton of the CIA, cowering in his smoke-filled office, was no better, undercutting honest men and women by declaring them to be sympathizers with the Communists simply because they didn't agree with his brutal tactics.
A boycott will give the Scientologists a new lease on life:
"We're being persecuted!" Now, not only do you have the pleasure of seeing a movie with a superb actor, actress, director, producer, etc., but the added cachet that doing so is "forbidden." Suddenly, that person's ideas have more credibility than they otherwise might have had.
This is why information regarding this cult is so vital. So you'll be declared an "SP"? Let's face it, those who are in this cult are already settled into the belief that any negative information regarding Hubbard and his "teachings" is suspect, so you're not going to convince them until they decide to look into it for themselves. (And the higher-ups are going to do everything they can to discourage them from doing so. There's too much money yet to be made.)
You want to get to the people who have not yet signed up, the ones who are considering going in for that first auditing session. You want people to realize this is about being one of the "ins." If you can show just how petty and low this organization is, if you can demonstrate factually its destructive force, if you can reveal the lies behind it, you have a good chance of beginning to choke this entity off. You're not trying to hit them where they are: you hit them where they ain't.
And this is another point: You talking about using the same tactics they use against people like us. Don't do that. It scares the hell out of me that anyone, anywhere, is considering this. I don't care if the idea is Intelligent Design or Psychic Phenomenae. The best weapon we have against bad dogma, weird "science," or anything else like that is an open marketplace of ideas, where this kind of thing is exposed to the truth. Frankly, if teachers in American schools were allowed to spend more time teaching instead of being directed in how to indoctrinate, I'm willing to bet a lot of stupidity would wither and die. There's a lot to be said for the unvarnished factuality of the Scientific Method. (And if you have any question about this, talk to Rolfe, Tragic Monkey, CBish, or anyone else on this board who works with that on a daily basis.)
It worries me when we start preaching Boycott when we ought to be examining Openness. I'm hopeful that, eventually, people will realize just how dangerous Woo can be, and that they'll turn away from it. But we won't do that until they see that Fact and Truth have a far more positive impact in their lives.
