All right, so you are basically saying that if my goal is to sell newly-outs on the ideas of expanding their factual knowledge of LRH and Scientology, then I am going about it all wrong. And in that way I am not using good social judgment. I need to get some Zig Ziglar tapes and smooth out my sales skills.
You may be right.
If it is possible to "go into ARC" with politically correct Scientology and tell the factual truth about L Ron Hubbard and Scientology, then I may very well be a complete social retard for how I am going about it.
10 years of being a critic, however, while constantly bumping up against newly outs, and all their same thought-stopping mechanisms (the AMA/APA, Psychs, etc) have taught me that it is not possible to go into ARC with PC Scientology, and to still talk about the facts as I see them.
Further, what I have learned is that if you do that, you are just called "1.1", a "real covert SP", etc etc... More thought-stopping mechanisms to keep them from listening to anything you say.
So while I am unable to predict precisely who is going to shit their pants and have their heads explode - like Marty did - I can predict that the dominant response is going to be thought-stopping phrases and dead agent techniques that will be used to get people to shut out what I say.
As a result, I have learned to very OVERTLY STATE MY CASE and even WILLINGLY and DRAMATICALLY BE THE SP they are going to accuse me of being anyway. To take that to ridiculous extremes and to then become very LOUD and UNKILLABLE ABOUT IT.
Kind of like the porcupine strategy that Ron talked about in one of his taped lectures. He said that it is impossible to shoot a porcupine and kill it, and hunters who try and try just go down tone into apathy after a while and give up.
As an Armadillo, Porcupines are our distant, long lost cousins who we very much admire. That is why I have adopted the Porcupine Strategy of Scientology Internet criticism.
Maybe it's not the smoothest social strategy in the world, but I really do believe that I have a social responsibility to try to help others in the same way that I was helped, as long as the same problems face others that I faced. I feel a social responsibility to let others know what I found out so that they can avoid the pitfalls I fell into by having things hidden from me, and actively lied to about Scientology and L Ron Hubbard.
And so in that sense, I do feel that I am employing some little bit of social judgment. Even good social judgment.
Or, I could just like it rough.
Anyway, many, many people are always helping to make me into a better critic, and I always appreciate their suggestions and take them all under consideration.
We here at Alanzo's Critics Enterprises, LLC hold a meeting every Friday afternoon, empty the huge Suggestion Box out on to the conference table in a big pile, and sift through each suggestion about how I can be a better critic.
We talk them over and make notes on the big whiteboard, draw diagrams and arrows to connect them all together, and work out strategies for their implementation.
Your suggestions will be part of our meeting tomorrow and I'm sure my people will be all over it.
We know that you have a choice in your criticisms of Scientology, and we appreciate your choosing us.
Thank you for your contribution.
You said:
"All right, so you are basically saying that if my goal is to sell newly-outs on the ideas of expanding their factual knowledge of LRH and Scientology, then I am going about it all wrong."
NO!
You missed the one main point I was trying to make, and I think that's my fault because my post was so verbosely overlong. So I will try to focus with laser precision! My main point was supposed to be this:
IF your goal was to post an invite to ESMB on Marty's blog that would not be challenged by him, getting you bitch-slapped along the way, THEN you went about it the wrong way.
But, even in that I was being too critical of you. Explanation is below.
My general points were that depending on your goal, you need to approach your objective in a venue-specific way.
I believe you actually succeeded pretty well, because your post is still up, and the acronym "ESMB" is still posted there for all to read. Further, the little "tempest in a teapot" that ensued is likely to make some people curious as to "what is this site ESMB and why was there some uproar about it? I think I'll check it out"
As scientologists used to say, "all publicity is good publicity", meaning even bad publicity is better than no publicity.
But you didn't accomplish that by "STATING YOUR POSITION!" and letting the chips fall where they may. That would probably have got you a big boot up your ass. No. You accomplished it by trying to go with the flow and the actual topic, and slide it in. It was a good attempt, and I was perhaps too critical of it initially, as your post is still up so it worked well enough.
I should be saying "Good job! Fine-tune that and eventually you'll be able to post a link to ESMB on an org's bulletin board!"
Part of this is to muzzle yourself, if what you want to accomplish is getting invites or links posted on sites that may be essentially hostile to your position. Who cares what your personal position is? Take your ego out of it completely. You want make ESMB known? All right. Then your objective is to issue the invites or get the links posted, that's all. No-one needs to know "your position" if that's your objective. Are you trying to promote yourself, your position, or ESMB? You may have to choose, depending on the venue you are trying to establish yourself in.
You wrote:
"If it is possible to "go into ARC" with politically correct Scientology
and tell the factual truth about L Ron Hubbard and Scientology,...."
That's just it. The kicker is the "and". Sometimes you will have to choose which one you want to accomplish. There will be situations where you can't do both in that same unit of time. You may have to choose going in to enough ARC with them to then be able to leave a sign post or link to a place where they will find the factual information you want them to find. You accomplished that on Marty's blog. I know darn well you can think of good things you can truthfully say about some aspect of scientology, so getting in some ARC isn't that hard. Especially these days, I would guess scientologists are hungry for it. But from then on you have to estimate if they are actually ready to hear, much less talk about, the contrary facts or data.
99% of the time, they're not. You need to remember you are light-years ahead of them, having been out as long as you have. And even if they are out 10 years, many of them won't ever be interested in digging as deep into it as you were/are. They'll just want get on with their lives. All you can do is point them to where they will eventually find the info you want them to find. That's it.