Pulling Back The Curtain part 4 Ethos and Obedience

[Gib]

Pulling Back The Curtain part 4 Ethos and Obedience

Ron Hubbard studied rhetoric in college. In classic rhetoric several methods of influence are described. Ethos is attempts to persuade by claiming to be an authority. Whether the claim is true or exaggerated or completely false. Ethos is a method of persuasion, not the morality of doing it with or without honesty.

I'm tracking with you MB, (hey Panda, my friend, we now have a cabal of two, LOL)

I find it quite interesting that nobody recognizes Hubbard learned Rhetoric thru his Dean Wilbur.

While the good folks over at Tony O blog, somebody posts Hubbards grades and notes he failed the sciences, BUT doesn't anybody note Hubbard learned English I & II, RHETORIC. (and of course there is Hubbard's letter to his Dean Wilbur)

Oh, it's deep in the messages, and you can find it. LOL

Here's the Tony O blog:

http://tonyortega.org/2015/09/21/un...ing-clear-tonight-on-sky-atlantic/#more-25641


http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/2557/8117/original.jpg

 

[mockingbird]

Gib, thanks for the report card. I already wrote a thread on Hubbard studying rhetoric called "Gib's great find rhetoric ".

That is part of why I am coordinating information on rhetoric and social psychology regarding influence . They compliment each other .

The report card is good for a future thread !

Something perhaps some people don't know is how certain people live their lives.

Margaret Singer, Rick Ross, Robert Jay Lifton, Steven Hassan, Jon Atack,Noam Chomsky all have one thing in common.

They have all read hundreds of books to learn the information they needed.

Noam Chomsky was interviewed at his office and had stacks and stacks of books.

He has written over a hundred books.


For many people that is how they live their lives. Read, digest, consider, cross reference and write.

I may do this until the day I die, or stop if I choose.


Not to be too vain, but I have had I don't know how many people tell me my posts helped them. People from ESMB and Facebook and the Underground Bunker and my blog.

Should I decide the posts that would help them are overthinking ?

For the "this doesn't help me" person I say okay,you don't have to read my stuff, for the "this isn't written the right way" person I say you go ahead and do it better. Knock yourself out.


I am going to keep right on writing and being encouraged by the people who say this helps them to be free from Hubbard .

But to me any objections aren't worth stopping that for.

 

[Gib]

HelluvaHoax once mentioned simple clarity during a conversation about the cult. Over-thinking is circular mental masturbation. Who really wants to do that for years post-cult picking apart the same cultist bullshit ad nauseum?

Keep it simple moving on enjoying your life on your own terms again.

It's been going on for a long time, yah know.

http://drmarcdbaldwin.com/2012/03/rhetoric-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly/

http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2013/01/19/socrates-attack-on-rhetoric-in-the-gorgias/

http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/Chapter 2 GREEKS/Sophists.htm

I never learned this stuff in college. I actually surveyed my neighborhood and asked if they knew of rhetoric, or ethos, pathos or logos. None thruthfully said they did. So I explained in laymans terms what each meant and gave simple examples of persuasion. They all thought I was a college professor, LOL.

Do a survey yourself and ask peeps if they know what the 3 means of persuasion are? Don't take my word for it.

 

[Panda Termint]

I'm tracking with you MB, (hey Panda, my friend, we now have a cabal of two, LOL)

I find it quite interesting that nobody recognizes Hubbard learned Rhetoric thru his Dean Wilbur.
...

Yay! You have a Cabal!!!

I think we probably do recognise it as a fact. I just don't consider it to be as important a fact about Hubbard as you (and some others) obviously do, especially considering Hubbard's track record as a student.

Rhetoric abounds throughout Hubbard's writings and speechifying. How could it not?

It also abounds almost everywhere you find people writing and speechifying, even here on ESMB.

 

[I told you I was trouble]

I don't see how studying and writing about actual research into how our minds work is overthinking. It is trying to learn. If I was taking books on cars to see how they worked it wouldn't be overthinking.

But with real research on the mind instead of Hubbard's lies some call it overthinking ?

That is strange. And not how I plan to live my life.

I am going to keep reading and writing, so anyone who wants to is welcome to read my stuff.

Anyone who chooses to "study the mind" using other peoples research and opinions is OK with me. I'm not going to join you, but that's irrelevant ... what you seem to be doing though is using reams of this info to try and prove to yourself (and us) that hubbard was not only a mad man but a clever con artist as well, something that is already crystal clear to almost everyone here ... and doing that won't teach you too much about the mind.

By constantly harping on at great length about "exactly how he conned us all" you are actually making hubbard appear to be more sophisticated and competent than he ever was, presumably to make yourself feel better about being sucked in so easily.

I do realise you only left the cult fairly recently and you were in for a very long time ... but I still believe that if you really want to work out what happened to you and how ... looking at why you were trapped when so many others were not will be far more beneficial in the long run, it may not make you feel too good about yourself initially ... but (unless you are still thinking like a scientologist) finding a transient "right item" isn't the goal is it?

I wish you well, I do know it can be difficult.

 

[Churchill]

Churchill the word rhetoric includes all methods of persuasion . I am free to write on any of them. I try to be understood, but different people understand different ideas. You are free to write proper or better posts, I won't stop you.

Some people like different ideas. I write on hypnosis because Hubbard studied it and used it extensively . I write on social psychology because it is more scientific than hypnosis. Regarding black magic it is largely bullshit but has persuasive elements . There is nothing magical about it. It is a step beneath hypnosis.

Mockingbird,
of course you are free to write. My original point, which I can barely remember, is that saying that Hubs employed rhetoric is like saying he ate 3 meals a day. Going into a long, drawn out exegesis on the subject for me,
misses the forest for the trees. Do you see what I'm getting at?
You're free to tell me to fuck off; honestly I won't mind. Just do it in one sentence, is all I ask!

 

[Panda Termint]

... Just do it in one sentence, is all I ask!

with that!

 

[mockingbird]

Churchill, I haven't told anyone on ESMB to fuck off. It's not my style. I tell people to fuck off in person. Here I just tell people to take responsibility for choosing to read my threads if they don't like them. There is an odd habit a few people have of reading everything I write and saying they don't like it. Well then why are you reading it ? That's on you.

 

[Churchill]

Churchill, I haven't told anyone on ESMB to fuck off. It's not my style. I tell people to fuck off in person. Here I just tell people to take responsibility for choosing to read my threads if they don't like them. There is an odd habit a few people have of reading everything I write and saying they don't like it. Well then why are you reading it ? That's on you.

Excellent points; succinctly made.

 

[I told you I was trouble]

Churchill, I haven't told anyone on ESMB to fuck off. It's not my style. I tell people to fuck off in person. Here I just tell people to take responsibility for choosing to read my threads if they don't like them. There is an odd habit a few people have of reading everything I write and saying they don't like it. Well then why are you reading it ? That's on you.

Overall ESMB is a wonderful, lighthearted, uplifting place and I've seen people discuss, explain, rant and argue, many (including the mods) have requested that you change your long, drawn out, hard to read format ... politely at first.

Your siggy line says much, you appear to want compliance (lol) or at the very least rapturous applause and agreement, but this is ESMB not an "org" and you are unlikely to get either.

I want new readers (lurkers) to join us, not run for the hills.

I'd happily tell you to fuck off but the mods wouldn't approve (that was a joke ... sorta).

 

[Lone Star]

....and you can analyze the situation...to me it's all just mental masturbation.....

--Sammy Hagar (Not Plato)



(Proud member of MB's ignore list. Me, not Sammy, that is)

 

[Churchill]

....and you can analyze the situation...to me it's all just mental masturbation.....

--Sammy Hagar (Not Plato)



(Proud member of MB's ignore list. Me, not Sammy, that is)

I have a feeling I may soon be joining you and ITYIWT in Mockingbird Purgatory!

 

[Lone Star]

I have a feeling I may soon be joining you and ITYIWT in Mockingbird Purgatory!

Lol....yeah he doesn't tolerate disagreement or even critique much. Which is ironic if you think about it. Given his extraordinary efforts in dissecting Hubbard.

The ol' become what you oppose syndrome.

But perhaps he will handle you rather than disconnect. Lol...

 

[Churchill]

Lol....yeah he doesn't tolerate disagreement or even critique much. Which is ironic if you think about it. Given his extraordinary efforts in dissecting Hubbard.

The ol' become what you oppose syndrome.

But perhaps he will handle you rather than disconnect. Lol...

In that case, would you mind terribly if I named you as my SP?

 

[Lone Star]

In that case, would you mind terribly if I named you as my SP?

Not at all

 

[Gib]

Yay! You have a Cabal!!!

I think we probably do recognise it as a fact. I just don't consider it to be as important a fact about Hubbard as you (and some others) obviously do, especially considering Hubbard's track record as a student.

Rhetoric abounds throughout Hubbard's writings and speechifying. How could it not?

It also abounds almost everywhere you find people writing and speechifying, even here on ESMB.

Like I said before, I never knew about Rhetoric until I read that Dean Wilbur letter and then decided to get my dimwits around it. You see in my education I was a English, writing, philosophy, history flunkie. I got good grades in math and the sciences. So when I first got involved and read Hubbard was a nuclear engineer, why that was the authority (ethos) appeal to me to at least get me to read more of Hubbard. I never had a ruin finding as a first step. I read dianetics and decided to give it a try. And after a few hundred hours why I was sold on reading more of hubbard, and so I did, and did, and did, and got hooked. Now I see the Rhetoric, before I didn't.

I understand some of you veterans know about it, I'm only out for 3 years. Maybe some the lurkers don't know about the Rhetoric, new news for them. I would bet dollars to donuts the peeps raised in scientology do not know about it so I believe it bears repeating, afterall repetition was used to keep us in and involved, why not use the same to help one get out.

I don't mean to push anybodies buttons here, nor do I think MB does either. I guess I tend to speak to a crowd, LOL at myself.

 

[Gib]

....and you can analyze the situation..

.to me it's all just mental masturbation.....

--Sammy Hagar (Not Plato)



(Proud member of MB's ignore list. Me, not Sammy, that is)

you just described dianetics & scientology

 

[Gib]

Pulling Back The Curtain part 4 Ethos and Obedience

Ron Hubbard studied rhetoric in college. In classic rhetoric several methods of influence are described. Ethos is attempts to persuade by claiming to be an authority. Whether the claim is true or exaggerated or completely false. Ethos is a method of persuasion, not the morality of doing it with or without honesty.

It is accompanied by pathos, attempts to persuade with emotional appeals or to have emotions drive thought and behavior in the ways you desire. Often this means to have emotions replace judgment and reduce critical thinking to persuade without encountering counterarguing. Or to form associations with simple ideas and symbols or phrases and to have the emotions associated with these ideas replace examination of situations and information.

And additionally rhetoric has logos, attempts to appeal to logic and appear rational , logical or scientific. It can be genuine logic or false or just an effort to persuade with no regard for truth. Appealing to the mind's admiration for logic is the heart of logos.

Hubbard used all three methods and tried to link all three in virtually all of his works. In the language from hypnotism he loved ethos is called altitude. Hubbard acknowledged it as prestige , which is what Gustave Le Bon called it in his 1895 book, The Crowd.

Hey MB,

I'll give you some of the realizations, the streams of thoughts that flew thru my mind, once I got my wits around the 3 means of persuasion. (Afterall, I'm not auditing one and can feed the cognitions------>>)

First thing was, of course, hubbard set hisself up as authority, ethos, or having character, as you state. Which is why he lied about his past. If people knew he flunked physics, had 3 wives, was broke, etc., nobody would listen to him (isn't it also interesting he never said he studied Rhetoric). Also, back in the 1950 the means to confirm his background or resume (ethos) was very limited and hard to do. And his ultimate ethos was calling hisself the commodore (that one was always strange to me just 3 years ago when I still fully in, but now I know why).

But, what I also realized is that hubbard did a nice trick by giving us members ethos and it also helped to keep us in the hamster wheel. Here are some bullets or things hubbard wrote to us members, I'm going by memory so can't quote:

1. what do I think of auditors, they are the top 1% of the 1% of the planet with enough guts to do something about it

2. A sea org member is the elite of the elite

3. A class 8 ST. Hill graduate couldn't but help to boom an org.

4. and then you have all the classed auditors above cl 8, they all had ethos in my eyes. The C/S knew all. You know what I mean.

5. shoot, the whole bridge is not lateral but up. So each level one completes ones gets more status among us members, ethos, baby, ethos. I looked up to a "clear", and looked up further to somebody who had done the OT levels or even some of them.

6. gawd, if one reads the green volumes and the policies for each department or position in a org staff member, hubbard gives ethos everywhere, it pumps one up thinking they can boom the org from each individual post, even the [STRIKE]janitor[/STRIKE] estates manager.

7. and of course our friend Tom Cruise is the ulitmate ethos pumped up pimp, in his video of "only a scientologists can help a car victim or whatever the fuk he said.

Regarding Sea Org staff, oh yah, hubbard gives them ethics (ethos) presence, wearing a blue uniform with a cap. When I was on staff and a SO mission was to come visit us, why everybody hopped to and got real busy. Oh yah, they had ethos in my mind but I didn't know it.

Hey Lonestar, yah it's mental masturbation, dianetics & scientology and you can thank Dean Wilbur for that:

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthre...sicientology&p=1007257&viewfull=1#post1007257

This other paragraph is also interesting:

Hubbard to Dean Wilbur:

But I doubt in the extreme that I ever would have carried on had it not been for your very sane treatise on the world at large which you labeled “rhetoric” and which was nothing at all but culture, as alone and isolated upon a regimented horizon as a steamer’s plume of smoke against the horizon.

so evidently Dean Wilbur said the world was Rhetoric. Maybe that statement which Hubbard remembered along with his reading of

http://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Th.../dp/0071373586

and making a PR Policy Letter of it,

and Hubbard said it's a PR World. (it's a Rhetoric world)

 

[Panda Termint]

Just a quick question; what type of Rhetoric is it when someone supports their argument using Plato and Aristotle as authority figures... Ethos, isn't it?

Like I said, you can find Rhetoric almost anywhere people are writing and speechifyin'.

 

[Lone Star]

Just a quick question; what type of Rhetoric is it when someone supports their argument using Plato and Aristotle as authority figures... Ethos, isn't it?

Like I said, you can find Rhetoric almost anywhere people are writing and speechifyin'.

Well we just don't take the evils of Rhetoric seriously do we? Oh we just revel in our glibness all day long. Yes....yes. How wonderful for you.

Needless to say.......noted!