5. Friend-Enemy Thinking and Militarism in the SC
"One can forcefully do away with a genuine suppressive person in order to ensure that production increases, so long as one does not try to force this upon the product of the suppressive person or his environment. The suppressive person as an individual can be forcefully done away with because he is a factor which opposes production and tries, through falsehood and lies, to prevent production. By the removal of the suppressive person you have to make sure that your own product and its means of production are still in working order and that nothing other than the suppressive is quashed."
"Last and most important - because we are not all standing on the stage, and all our names do not appear in neon letters - always push power in the direction of one whose power you depend on, whether it is in the form of more money for the person in power or a greater relief or a flaming defense of the person in power against a critic. It can also consist of doing away with his enemies under the cover of darkness or the entire enemy camp going up in a giant blaze as a birthday surprise" (Hubbard, 1986, p. 70, emphasis is mine). [translator's note: no emphasis is visible due to reformatting.]
The possibility of the removal of enemies under cover of darkness and the burning of the "entire enemy camp" is part of rather infrequent, direct allusions to - in the eyes of Hubbard - justly used force against the opponents of SC. Nevertheless the potential for violence is a significant factor which is firmly anchored in the ideological system of the SC. If one follows up on the writings of the SC and compares them to the reports of former Scientologists, then one comes upon that which could be called the discussion of force in the SC. It is based upon the separation of the world into good and evil, in which, as Hubbard Scientologists call it, a "group of freed beings" who "achieve freedom and rationality" is on the one side and on the other is the aberrated group, the "mob," which can only be destructive. The justification of the process against the opponent, his "isolation," and his punishment follow an absurd anthropological principle which was developed by Hubbard in the "Introduction to Scientology Ethics" in the chapter under the "Anti-social Personality." Several, more lengthy, passages from this work are cited for the progress of our argument (all quotations are from Hubbard, 1986):
"There are certain characteristics and mentalities which move about 20% of a race to strongly oppose any undertaking or group which wants to improve. Such people have recognizable antisocial tendencies. If the legal or political structures of a country develop in such a way that they favor the advancement of such personalities in positions of trust, then all civilized organizations of the land will be suppressed, and a barbarian dominion of crime and commercial violence will follow. Anti-social personalities perpetuate criminality and criminal dealings. The condition of those of the establishment permits itself to be repressed by dealing with such personalities." "We see from this that it is important for governments, for police forces and for those in the area of mental health - only to name a few - to be able to recognize and isolate this type of personality for the protection of the individual from the destructive consequences that arise if one lets such a person have a free hand to harm others... (p. 3) Such a person spreads bad reports, critical or hostile remarks, devaluations and general suppression. Once such a person was designated as a "gossip", "Calamity Jane", or a "bearer of bad tidings"... (p.5)
"The antisocial personality exclusively supports destructive groups and rages against any group that is constructive or wants to improve, and attacks them...(p. 7)
"Social as well as economic recovery can take place if society recognizes this type of personality as a sick being and isolates him as they now put people with smallpox under quarantine."
"There is a high probability that things will not get any better as long as 20% of the population is permitted to control and to harm the lives and the businesses of the remaining 80%.
"Since majority rule is the political custom of the present time, the mental health of the majority should be able to be expressed in our daily lives without the destructive interference of the socially disturbed" (p. 9f).
Twenty percent of a "race", which is to say the population, are declared to be wholesale enemies of the community - in the customary speech of the National Socialists that was "Volksschadlinge" ["people vermin"] -, they should be seen as "sick", who should be isolated and removed. This is the extolling of a significant control technique of totalitarian dictators which is not compatible with democratic fundamentals. The difference between "social" and "antisocial personality" follows a simple black-and-white view of society which has been forged by the common thoughts of Hubbard and the SC, in which only good and evil, right and wrong exist, in which all the gray tones are pressed into the pre-cut patterns. Also the "Potential trouble source" (PTS), a variant of the "antisocial personality", belongs to the opponents of SC. PTS includes any member who stays in contact with persons who are critically indisposed towards SC (e.g., parents, brothers and sisters, friends, relatives).
A practical model for the "antisocial personality", which is utilized by the SC itself, is found in the concept of the "suppressive person":
"A suppressive person or group is one which actively strives to suppress or harm, through expression or treatment, Scientology or a Scientologist by use of suppressive actions. Suppressive actions are actions that are meant to hinder or destroy a Scientologist or to hinder a Scientologist in his studies or his spiritual counseling or to direct his ruin or negatively influence his welfare... Suppressive actions are clear and unequivocally those covert or overt actions which are knowingly calculated to diminish, limit, or destroy a Scientology church or to prevent the individual improvement of a Scientologist" (Hubbard, 1986, p.96f.).
Among the sanctionable attacks against SC are, et.al.: statutory measures (legislation and ordnance, investigations), public expression, conducting a civil process against SC, the "announcement of departure from Scientology" (Hubbard, 1986, p. 100) and even the non-completion of a course by, for example, leaving the organization. In other places whole professions are counted as "suppressive persons": social scientists, psychologists and psychiatrists are "preponderantly SPs themselves", who "posses no other technology than the cudgel" (Hubbard, 193, p. 377). These problematic groups also include, according to Hubbard, "politicians, police, newspaper reporters and undertakers" (Hubbard, 1983, p. 190). In accordance with the "Fair Game Policy", anyone who is declared by the SC to be a "suppressive person" is "fair game"; they have no rights in the scientological sense and are subject to attack by the SC.
The inside group meaning of the figures of the "antisocial personality" and the "suppressive person" lie in the origin and maintenance of the group identity and in the exclusion of any criticism - both fundamental principles of totalitarian organizations. The black-and-white model of good and evil, right and wrong separates the world into apples and oranges, lets one countenance one's own veneration, and cuts off all aversion and defense of outsiders. The concept of the "suppressive personality" permits the transference of deficiencies in one's own organization and the refusal of responsibility by one's own functionaries and makes any criticism against the SC impossible. It can be caught in the screen of the "antisocial personality" and be channeled and directed and measures can be demanded against the alleged enemy. The exclusion of any criticism stands in thoroughly consistent harmony with the claim of exclusivity and infallibility.
This totalitarian, militant structure of the SC nearly consistently encompasses an internal jurisdiction and an internal and external secret service. According to corresponding reports from critics and former members the "Department for Special Affairs" (DSA) conducted reviews and sanctions of staff who were suspected of untrustworthiness. Externally disagreeable critics - according to their reports - are spied upon using covert means and are put under other pressure.
The self-formed "justice system of Scientology" is based on the acceptance of the ineffectiveness of the rights provided by society. It has to do with, inside of the SC organization "the protection of the respectable and productive", "protecting the rights of any Scientologist who is in good standing with the Church" (What is Scientology, p. 245). The "justice system of Scientology" formulates rules and procedures inside the SC in order to prevent "mistakes, misdemeanors, crimes, and high crimes" against the staff (ibid). It serves to discipline disagreeable staff. Four committees are responsible for this: the "ethics court", the "investigation committee", the "chaplain's court", and the "committee of evidence" (ibid. p. 146). The purpose of such procedures are said to be the discovery of truth. Whoever is found to be responsible in such procedures is obligated "to repay all established damages; that means that they perform, in the name of the person to whom injustice has been done, a sort of community service and other actions of this type" (ibid.). In practice that means - according to reports from former members - unpaid overtime under vexatious conditions. Each judicial action is to be completed within one week and without attorneys (What is Scientology. p. 245).
On a side note, it is pointed out that the justice system of the SC is scornful of the democratic thoughts of modern constitutional law and brings to mind the tradition of the self-evaluation of the communist cadre parties. The characteristics of this kind of internal SC justice are more than doubtful from the viewpoints of democratic theory. It is even claimed that its basic values are in unison with the legal system of society. As to the question of for whose protection has it been established, it is shown that this offer of equality has a negating character: "There is a right to protect respectable people,... in order to protect respectable and productive people" (What is Scientology, p. 245, emphasis mine [no emphasis noted: translator]). A constitutional state is not protected, but rather a group (the respectable and productive people) is protected from those who are not able to be a part of the group and who apparently have no kind of "rights" available them.
In her classic study of totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt did not only write about a "disregard of the dictator for positive rights" (Arendt, 1955, p. 728), but also about an emphasized characteristic structure of totalitarian administration of justice, to which the SC concept of rights widely corresponds: "In each case it operates on a law of exclusion from "harmfulness" or superfluousness in favor of the frictionless course of a movement out of which humanity is finally supposed to arise like the Phoenix from the ashes" (Arendt, 1955, p. 730).
NOT an official translation:
Direct
questions to cisar.org