Scientology and celebrity
May 13, 2007 Euroids, Faith and Works, Oppression
Scientology has posed an interesting challenge to the West’s concept of freedom of religion. Perhaps we wouldn’t even know about it if it weren’t for its most famous and strange members. That is somewhat troubling but, ultimately, it does get the job done.
Scientology has a legal status in the US that gives it lots of room to maneuver as a protected religion — many say excessively, problematically so. It is strange to have a religion whose “scriptures” are protected vigorously by copyright; most religions seek the maximum distribution of their fundamental texts. But Scientology continues to have bad luck in Europe. In Germany they’re pretty much outlawed:
The German government considers the Scientology organization a commercial enterprise with a history of taking advantage of vulnerable individuals and an extreme dislike of any criticism. The government is also concerned that the organization’s totalitarian structure and methods may pose a risk to Germany’s democratic society. Several kinds of evidence have influenced this view of Scientology, including the organization’s activities in the United States.
It’s an interesting twist by the Germans: They say it’s a cult and can’t be unleashed on their “special case” democracy, even in the name of religious freedom (the very fulcrum of its claim to special treatment) precisely because of its “totalitarian structures and methods.” France too has a long-running battle with the group.
The fact is, you’d have a hard time distinguishing between the accusations against Scientology and those that could have been made against much older religions, which were far more totalitarian, violent and irrational in their heydays than Scientology is today. It could be, and has been, suggested that Scientology isn’t being allowed to do what other religions have done in establishing themselves in their heyday. Some people thank that’s exactly as it should be. Let’s stick to Western history: After all, the world of medieval Europe during the high water mark of the Catholic Church — i.e., the Dark Ages — and arguably that of, say, Utah in the early days of the Mormons, were hardly models of free and open societies. They were theocratic tyrannies. Let’s not even get into the problematic definitional debate about what is a religion and what is a cult. It seems odd to afford the mature versions of these religions grandfather status, yet they are largely defanged; does the fact that they were tyrannical in their times, in places where democracy and religious freedom had not taken hold, mean that everyone who wants to start a new religion is entitled to be now that they have?
Now it’s being reported that the BBC, despite a messy outburst by a “presenter” who claims he was essentially driven up the wall by Scientologists while filming a documentary about them, is going ahead with its broadcast.
The Scientology question is an odd breach in a fairly consistent transatlantic approach to religion which features only occasional meaningful divergences. What seems particularly odd, and troubles a lot of people, is just how wide a swath the U.S. government has given Scientology, to the extent even of taking the up the group’s cause as a religious freedom issue on which the Europeans are said to be acting oppressively. This 2001 article, by a Canadian — quite appropriate; they are like the Europeans of North America, after all — attempts to address the issue, and argues “American officials appear to be poorly informed about the bases for the Europeans’ critical positions, and … have been the recipients of selective information provided by Scientology itself along with Scientology’s supporters.” I don’t know enough to say if that’s true, but I can say that the accomodation between the U.S. government and the group, especially as regards its tax status and the extent of its tax privileges, raises many eyebrows.
Doing research for this post, I found most of the reporting about the Scientologists to be on offbeat, personal websites, ones that I would normally be reluctant to link to without doing more investigation than I, as a part-time blogger, am prepared to do. We wouldn’t hear much about Scientology at all in the mainstream press, besides the rare public high-profile litigation such as the IRS cases, if it weren’t for famous, loopy and aggressively loyal Scientologists such as actors John Travolta and Tom Cruise. We probably should — win, lose or draw, their activities, and the reactions of democratic governments to them, raise issues of importance. Perhaps, then, there is something positive in our culture’s celebrity obsession after all.
May 14th, 2007 at 8:28 am
Dark Ages? What Dark Ages? There was no halt to human progress (scientific or otherwise) during this time you refer to. In fact, scientific advancement was encouraged by the Church. The term “Dark Ages” was invented by anti-religionists (though, it may be more accurate to call them anti-Christianists) in an attempt to rewrite history. The so-called “Dark Ages” is a myth, a fairy tale. There was no curbing of human understanding in any of the sciences during the time period in question.
And if you point to the Church’s totalitarian control over Europe at the time, I simply remind you that totalitarian powers didn’t begin with the Church. And the sciences and humanity’s understanding of the world and his place in it flourished quite nicely during these times as well.
May 14th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Curious, I’d just linked that recent slashdot article on Scientology-stuff over in my livejournal the other day. Is the scientology meme going around? I hope it’s not catching.
May 14th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Kevin,
uhh..see Inquisition, the Spanish and Galilei, Galileo.
Ron,
so what is your position on all of this, then? Clearly there are interesting questions here but do you take a stand on any of them? For example, at what threshold does a cult become a religion? If we accept that there is no such thing as a total freedom, and that freedom of religion needs to have some common sense restrictions (‘my religion allows me to kill whoever i want!!’), on which side of the divide does scientology fall?
May 14th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Kevin, I am sure if one made a reasonable effort to quantify scientific and intellectual progress over history, one would see a slow down within the borders of Europe (esp. Western Europe) between 400 and 1200 AD. Without a doubt, even during a slow-down there will be exceptions, among whom Augustine, Erigina, and Abelard must be included. Further, one could look at measures of economic production and other “quality of life” indicators such as life-expectancy and literacy, and witness a marked slow-down during this time period. Of course, if one would look at Muslim Persia, Egypt, and Spain during much of this period, one would see a different picture. So you are right that “There was no halt to human progress (scientific or otherwise) during this time you refer to”, though it must be specified that most of this progress (especially in experimental sciences and mathematics) happened in the Muslim world, through contributions of al-Khwarizmi, al-Biruni, ibn al-Haytham, al-Razi, ibn Sina, ibn Rushd, ibn Tufayl, etc. Is there any wonder that the greatest Jewish scholar of the Middle Ages, Maimonides, lived in Muslim lands?
May 14th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Why defend the excesses of catholicism?
The Dark Ages were dark not because they were Christian, but because a tiny elite held most of the power and felt empowered, even obligated to inflict their views on others.
Ordinary citizens could not own a bible, especially one written in a their own language. People could be spirited away to be tortured and executed without trial. And what about Pope Leo and his “we have the papacy so now let us enjoy it?” with indulgences?
How is it anti-Christian to deplore such travesties of freedom and justice that show more relation to the crimes of Fascism and Stalinism than anything that’s in the Bible?
Christian (or any other religious group, including Atheists) should not be given carte blanche just because of what they choose to call themselves and should be judged on their merits, not their religion.
Also, I might point out that the Muslim world had it’s own scientific stall later on, so lets not get too eager to praise their inquisitive spirit and openmindedness. And besides, let’s not forget Dhimmitude.
As far as freedom of religion goes, I take the Libertarian argument that consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want as long as they’re not hurting anyone but themselves.
May 14th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
John is on to something. A difference between medieval Catholicism and present-day Scientology is that Catholicism was in a position to be used and abused as a tool of control by those in power, while Scientology is at most only a tool of a small number who seek power. It’s much more difficult to figure out which things were done for Catholicism and which were done under its cover; we have no doubt that those claiming to represent Scientology actually do.
May 14th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Complete coincidence, Hokie. Zach, I do have opinions on this but they are mostly the of the barroom variety — not all that well developed, and that’s why I didn’t post about Scientology in general or the cult vs. religion question. I mean pretty much all the religions are “new” from my perspective. But I think you do have a problem when something that operates like a for-profit corporation or is just a New Age networking operation — which is what the operation looks like from here — says, “Erp, well, no we’re a religion now.”
In this “who are you to say?” society, it worked okay for about 200 years to have general consensus that, for example, paganism was not going to a religion that would have the audacity to insist on its own gravestones in military cemeteries. Now there is nothing like societal consensus, and on the one hand we have to make room in the public pantheon both for old religions (which Judaism achieved in some sad form over the last 50 years) and new “religions” with the inverted commas used advisedly.
I don’t know what to do about this.
May 14th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Ron,
isn’t paganism older or at least on the same order of elderliness compared with judaism? i guess that’s the problem with religion, though, is that it operates under a sort of “know it when i see it” delineation where everyone is using different guidelines.
May 14th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
The Cult Information Centre (of the UK) has a fairly specific definition of what a cult is:
May 14th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Zach, I don’t think today’s paganism is really the “authentic” paganism of old. I did think about this point though. Could be.
The problem with cult/religion distinction, I think, is that while a lot of the criteria on the list are helpful, many are just loaded terms. Having said that I do recognize the difference, I just didn’t necessarily want to get into it here and now. (Not saying no one else can!)
May 15th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
The reasons the Germans give for complaining about Scientology is exactly the reason I hold them in at least minor high regard. Namely their commercialism.
Rarely have I seen an idea marketed as well as Scientology. And being in the direct mail marketing business, I have sensitivities for this kind of endeavor.
But more than that. Scientology is unique, in that it is one of the very few unique religions founded on american soil, along with Joseph Smith’s Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science Church. And of these, Scientology is the most unique. It came totally out of the consciousness of L Ron Hubbard, a less than noteworthy science fiction writer.
I think he came up with all this stuff in an effort to cash in through religion what he couldn’t accomplish in commercial writing.
Moreover, his copyrighting of whatever passes for the holy tenets of Scientology is just short of pure genius, along with the readiness of the current Scientology leadership to cash in even more by suing those of their detractors deemed to have deep pockets.
I also note that they grow stronger every time somebody generates more publicity for them by complaining about their shortcomings.
I may not believe anything. But I sure know winners when I see them.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
February 9th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
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