Liz’ post about the all-out war declared on Scientology by “Anonymous” highlights the weird position of those of us who oppose Scientology’s attack on mental illness. Is the enemy of our enemy our friend?
“Anonymous” has vowed to “expel [Scientology] from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form.” In their “declaration” (Video here and text here) they describe themselves as “Legion, for we are many…” a reference to the utterance of the demon to Jesus in Mark 5:10 just before Jesus cast the demon out.
Many of us, myself included, would like to see Scientology debunked, muzzled and neutered when it comes to their destructive and iconoclastic ideas about mental illness, its origins, and its treatment. I really don’t care if people who become Scientologists spend tons of money working their way up the ladder, but when they take mentally ill people, stigmatize them, and elevate Tom Cruise to the title of prophet for the purpose of using his celebrity as a baseball bat to browbeat others into abandoning treatment for their conditions, they cross the line into my territory.
So you’d think that my first instinct was to cheer, right? Wrong. I have some serious difficulties with the methods this group is using to ‘take down’ Scientology. Hacking websites (and missing more than once), staging anonymous protests (thank you Zoomar, for providing the photo of yesterday’s Seattle protest), and claiming chaos as their mantra does nothing to encourage me to consider them an ally. From their own description:
An anonymous collective, left to its own devices, quickly builds its own society out of rage and hate. Anonymous is not so much unlike other web communities, we have in-jokes, culture, extended debates, etc, just like everyone else. The difference, and the reason we visit other communities is that we have a need to be harassed by “nannying” moderators. Here, there isn’t anyone to do that – yet long and productive edit wars spring up at about the rate you’d never tolerate elsewhere, on topics you’d never believe. We have no leader, no pretentious douchebag or group thereof to set in stone what Anonymous is and is not about. We don’t dare to lead.
Our society holds a million spiteful things. Come and see.
And in one of the most monumental contradictions ever, they say this:
We don’t bury our feelings or hide behind passive-aggressive platitudes; if we don’t like you we say it to your face. This is the Internet, grow some fucking skin.
Let me see if I have this right. There’s nothing passive-aggressive about blasting organizations hacking websites, and harassing people under the guise of “anonymous”? They answer that question this way:
In a world were [sic] martial law, individual repression and persecution, and violations to rights granted by the constitution are legally trampled by the government, the only way to truly protest without being chastised is to remain anonymous.
Or rephrased, we wish to misbehave for a higher purpose. Okaaaay. As to their war on Scientology, they say this:
‘Anons’ claim that the church of Scientology is an organization that seeks totalitarian control over people. They claim that Tom Cruise’s actions against Psychiatrists prove that they don’t want to make things better, that they have their own agenda. Anonymous say that Scientology’s repeated attacks on several internet pages since 1995 demonstrate that they want to control information for their own purposes in order to subdue masses to take their money.
The goal is admirable; the method, not so much. Reading their manifestos and statements leaves me feeling like I’ve read the back pages of an angry teenager’s diary.
Ironically, if Anonymous had a name, a purpose and a manifesto borne out of intellectual honesty, they’d likely persuade me to participate, or at least support them via blog posts or other means, but as it stands now, the enemy of my enemy just can’t be my friend.
Technorati Tags: Anonymous, cult, war, Tom Cruise, Scientology, society, religion
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