John Duignan, author of
The Complex, has posted a review of Ruthless. The review is long, thorough, insightful and in many places devastating. I will excerpt below only one small portion of particular interest, albeit one that is only at first glance seemingly off-topic.
Seriously, the review is powerful and says many things some others were afraid to say in print.
This is some of the best writing I've ever seen on the topic of Scientology. The discussion of Niccolò Machiavelli, David Miscavige and Scientology is brilliant.
Steemit:
Ruthless a Review and Critique
https://steemit.com/ruthless/@johnanchovie/ruthless-a-review-and-critique
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To study a social culture in its uncontaminated form is the ne plus ultra of the anthropologist. This maxim has bled over into the Sociology field where academics tend to discount the testament of the ex-Scientologist, believing that they cannot give an unbiased account of the culture. This is, in my view, akin to trying to understand psychiatric methodology and practitioners by interviewing the unhinged psychotic.
There was a time in the mid-nineties when the Scientology propaganda office sanctioned the ostensibly ‘free and open access’ study into the Scientology culture by a number of sociology academics. I recall seeing these willing dupes being led by the nose through a finely orchestrated theatrical presentation, not unlike that put on for visiting tourist parties to North Korea. The trouble was, that these academics, so thrilled that they finally had access to the ‘real Scientology’, naïve fools, bought the ploy, hook line and sinker. They left and produced a series of academic articles that might have been written by the Scientology propaganda office. In a sense, that is exactly what did happen.
While Scientology is broadly reviled in the public sphere, it is still given leeway by academics who remain deeply imbued with their relativist orthodoxy. This academic laxity bleeds over into governance sector. The American tax authorities are happy to call it a ‘church’ and wipe their hands of the numerous accounts of gross violations of human rights and accusations of criminal activity. It is treated rather like a distant rogue state, a banana republic that is allowed to stamp on and crush its populace as long as it does not upset the domestic equilibrium.
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It really makes sense now.
