Free Thinker wrote:Had that advice come from another person in a kinder tone, I'd agree, but from you, it's very cold.
Apologies for that. As it happens, I speak only from experience.
a different guest wrote:anti-ses - time and again you have been asked to explain your background and agenda - you've continually igorned these requests. However your posts DO speak for themselves, and time and time again they read in supprt of the SES, not against as your "monikor" would imply.
Bagel wrote:Who is paying for this inquiry and to what end?
...and doing service just for the school rather than in places where service is truely needed
truly needed.... such as to their own family members, children etc!..the community? etc.
I know members were told not to take/keep family photos or attach great importance to anything which distracted from the SES philosophy. How can anyone obey such rubbish !? - but thousands did.
What persuades (a diminishing number) of people to sell out 100% of their free time and energy to a cult like the SES ?
Concerned Parent - I'll attempt to address your point about pro-SES forum members briefly and succinctly. Having grown up in the School of Practical Philosophy in the US, having parents who attended for years before I was born, going to their youth groups, attending their adult classes, and finally leaving as an adult, the main issue I would have with pro-SES members here on this board would be their attitude regarding what has happened to other members here. I would direct you to NYC's posting regarding how her tutor responded when she brought up the issues addressed here.
http://www.whyaretheydead.net/phpBB2/vi ... .php?t=275
Once you read it, you will see how this attitude about unpleasant issues and a way of treating "lower" members of the school with condescention is pervasive among the various schools. That isn't to say that everyone there is like this, but many are, no matter how nice they seem on the surface. I know her tutor and he's a nice, funny, guy. However, if this is the attitude of people not even closely related to those responsible or part of the group responsible for the abuse that occured in St. James, imagine what the attitude of some members of the UK schools is!
I don't wish anyone to be driven from this board unless it is someone stirring contension among the members here in order to take away our energy from more important matters. However, I would not welcome those whose attitude resembles NYC's tutor. I appreciate your honest, sensitive, yet questioning post, which contained many fair questions.
I think it's pretty fair to say that most senior members who were involved in St. James just hope this inquiry dies down and nothing comes of it because they will be in a lot of trouble if it goes through properly. Obviously some have changed or left the school and some are trying to make it better now. But the fact that many of the people who were intimately involved in the abuse are still members of the SES or teaching at St. James makes it clear that the school isn't trying all that it can. Were this a public school, at least in the states, a lot would have been done a long time ago. But my experience (and I've had a LOT of it) with both the US and UK schools is that they like to sweep these sorts of things under the rug and much of the philosophy taught involves ignoring negative thoughts, remembering that the world is an illusion, dealing with upper-class interests and doing service just for the school rather than in places where service is truely needed, I could go on and on. But it all ends up, for many people, with a twisted sense of emotions and reaction to unpleasant situations.
but your attitude of "let go ....... move on......get a life.................. " is NOT what we need here. Most of us HAVE moved on, let go, or gotten a life. However, the acts of moving on, letting go, and getting a life, for most of us, have involved dealing with the repercussions of our years in the SES - whether it be emotional issues, physical abuse, or even lighter matters.
I'll post more later but I'll leave saying that what enabled me to move on was figuring out how the SES had affected me in so many ways, and how to change that so that I could be a person with a normal emotional life
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