4. Totalitarian fundamentals of the SC
The structural characteristics of totalitarian groupings which were presented in section 3 will be applied to SC in the following [section]. In doing so it is stated in what degree and in which inherent dimensions SC must be understood as a totalitarian ideology and organization The central point is hermeticism in understanding of self, the sole claim to representation, the decadence-theoretical grasp of crisis and the concept of people. It will also be shown that all these criteria play a meaningful role in SC. The Fuehrer-concept, the SC-originated vocabulary and the militant characteristics - also important criteria in totalitarian organizations - will be treated each in its own section (see chapters 6-8).
SC represents a determined, elite absolutism, which relates to to nothing else, and [it represents itself as the] sole claim to this representation:
"The person is caught in a giant and complex labyrinth. To get out, he must follow the precisely marked way of Scientology. Scientology will lead him out of the labyrinth, but only if he follows the exact markings in the tunnels. ...It has been shown that the efforts of people to find other ways have lead to naught. It is just as clear of a fact that the way, which is named Scientology, will actually lead one out of the labyrinth... Scientology is a new thing - it is a way out. There was none previously. No sales gimmick in the world can turn a bad way into a right way. And up to now an awful number of bad ways have been sold. Their end product is more slavery, more ignorance, more poverty. Scientology is the only functioning system that the person has."
"We are the only people and the only religion on earth who have the technology and the ambition to attempt a clarification of situations which would have been seen, in the hands of others, as being fully out of control, namely the atom bomb and the ruin and confusion of society" (Hubbard, 1983, p. 695).
Hubbard postulates here, as he does in many other writings, a recognition and commerce monopoly for SC, for which nobody else is in the position to properly administer the understanding of life and the practice of life:
"Beginning at the highest step of a state's capitol down to the lowest wage earner with the sole exception of a few Scientologists in the USA, in Great Britain, Europe, Australia, Africa, Asia, Latin America, South Africa, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand or the rest of the world - there is no precise understanding of life itself; that is why the driving force of life itself has taken on the automatic character of a machine" (Hubbard, 1983, p. 698).
With that other theories, religions and world outlooks are excluded from a serious dialogue, because SC alone fancies itself as possessing the truth. Totalitarian systems are based chiefly on a thought system which has been designated as science, a system which is regarded to be the only valid world view. As Marxism-Leninism rubber-stamped and legitimized the communist system, and the popular-national ideology [stamped and legimitized] National Socialism as the only valid "scientific" philosophy, as the writing of Ayatollah Khomeini are the sole-standing authority of the Iranian totalitarian religious-state, this is also how SC uses an absolute "scientific" world philosophy. The apocalyptic, at times grotesquely charming sole claim to representation of SC is based on Dianetics as an allegedly lone valid science which Hubbard "discovered." "Dianetics" (What is Scientology?, 1993, p.4), "established L. Ron Hubbard's first breakthrough, and this original discovery put further research in motion and led to the precise isolation of the source of life." Dianetics is said to be "a science which works, and which can be successfully applied by people with a minimum of training. This goal has never before been achieved, nobody even got close" (Hubbard, 1984, p. 484). Dianetics is said to encompass "a therapeutical technology, with which all non-organic mental disturbances and all organic psychosomatic illnesses can be treated with the certainty of complete recovery in any given case" (ibid. p. 19).
Even if one does not take the contents of Dianetics into consideration, each of the scientifically rationalized, scornfully disdainful, certain declarations of salvation and superlatives point to an exclusivity and absoluteness which indicates a one-faceted, totalitarian characteristic. Scientific assertions such as SC saying that it has laid the foundations for biophysics, indeed biophysics is said to be generally practicable with the "discoveries" of SC (Hubbard, 1981, p.74), are to be taken seriously only in the sense that one must understand the thought system of SC as a totalitarian ideology. According to SC's own self-understanding, theory and practice taken together is the only escape form the danger of life - before SC there was no way, all others lead to poverty - "Scientology is the only functioning system that a person has" (Hubbard, 1986, p. 117).
The hermeticism of the SC ideology differentiates itself from the superlative and bold exaggerations in the words of the advertisement or campaign rhetoric of the parties in that they do not claim an item, a product, a service or a topic for themselves, rather they declare themselves for the entirety of life to be solely competent under strict exclusion of other significant offers. That categorically excludes other, competing lines of thought and proposals and implicitly shuts all non-Scientologists out of the community of rational people. All world philosophies outside of the SC are held to be untrue and untimely:
"Sham ideologies and mental sciences are not good enough for this day and age of atomic fission and jet power. These two things alone, if not directed with full consciousness, could lead to the destruction of humanity in modern times." (Hubbard, 1983, p.698).
The socio-political background of the SC ideology is a diagnosis of crisis, which - typical for extremist and totalitarian positions - culminates in pictures of decadence and ruin:
"Let's look at how this grasp of right and wrong fits into our current society. This is a dying society. Ethics has disappeared to such a degree and is so little understood, that this culture is approaching its ruin dangerously fast. A person will not live and this society will not survive if the technology of ethics is not accepted and used. If we take a look at Viet Nam, inflation, the oil crisis, corruption of government, war, crime, mental illness, drugs, sexual promiscuity, etc., we see a culture that is engaged in disappearing. This is a direct result of people refusing to use ethics on their dynamics."
"Aberration" is SC's own concept for that which otherwise would be called decadence, ruin or also misformation; in reference to people, "Dianetics" defines aberration as "disturbed behavior" (Hubbard, 1984, p. 58). Hubbard's deductions about this paint a mechanical-organ picture of society; his remarks about uncivilized tribes are not free from racist undertones. According to Hubbard, aberration travels as an infectious disease through society; he talks of the possibility of "infection". One could "determine with certainty that primal tribes are very much more aberrated than civilized peoples" (Hubbard, 1984, p. 175).
An important sign of a totalitarian organization is a simple picture of humanity, divided into good and evil, which radically overestimates one's own group and devalues other's. Such a picture of humanity contradicts the ideal of equality of a democratic constitution and lays the foundation for a justification of the use of force (see chapter 6). In SC one finds a picture of humanity that presumes, in a grotesque, condescending, and scornful manner, a dangerous separation between good and evil.
"Clears", by that is meant Scientologists, are rational people who are free from "aberration", the rest count as "aberrated", "one can study aberration-free rationality only in a clear" (Hubbard, 1984, p. 30). A "clear", a person that "as a result of dianetic therapy has neither active nor potential psychosomatic illnesses or aberrations" (Hubbard, 1984, p.215), compares "to today's average person something like an average person of today compares to an institutional case. The difference is great, and it would be difficult to exaggerate it" (Hubbard, 1984, p. 216).
One such picture of humanity practically disqualifies the prospect of communication on equal terms between Scientologists and others. Even more: a non-Scientologist must, if one literally follows the theory of SC, be held to be an opponent or even an enemy, and must be handled correspondingly.
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