Mexican authorities detain leader of religious sect that opposes secular education

Associated Press

October 18, 2012

MORELIA, Mexico - Authorities in western Mexico have detained a leader of a religious sect that opposes secular education on charges related to the destruction of public schools in July in the community of Nueva Jerusalen, or "New Jerusalem."

Michoacan state prosecutors say in a statement Thursday that Cardenas Cruz Salgado was detained Wednesday.

Cruz is the main civil leader of the sect's town. Residents believe Nueva Jerusalen will be the only place saved in the coming apocalypse. The sect's estimated 5,000 members believe Our Lady of the Rosary left them instructions on how to live.

The instructions include no non-religious music, no alcohol or tobacco, no television or radio, and no modern dress. In addition, there is the injunction that has landed the town in trouble — no public, secular education.

Ayn Rand on Human Nature

Scientific American

Eric Michael Johnson

October 5, 2012

“Every political philosophy has to begin with a theory of human nature,” wrote Harvard evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin in his book Biology as Ideology. Thomas Hobbes, for example, believed that humans in a “state of nature,” or what today we would call hunter-gatherer societies, lived a life that was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” in which there existed a “warre of all against all.” This led him to conclude, as many apologists for dictatorship have since, that a stable society required a single leader in order to control the rapacious violence that was inherent to human nature. Building off of this, advocates of state communism, such as Vladimir Lenin or Josef Stalin, believed that each of us was born tabula rasa, with a blank slate, and that human nature could be molded in the interests of those in power.

Ever since Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand has been gaining prominence among American conservatives as the leading voice for the political philosophy of laissez-faire capitalism, or the idea that private business should be unconstrained and that government’s only concern should be protecting individual property rights. As I wrote this week in Slate with my piece “Ayn Rand vs. the Pygmies,” the Russian-born author believed that rational selfishness was the ultimate expression of human nature.

“Collectivism,” Rand wrote in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal “is the tribal premise of primordial savages who, unable to conceive of individual rights, believed that the tribe is a supreme, omnipotent ruler, that it owns the lives of its members and may sacrifice them whenever it pleases.” An objective understanding of “man’s nature and man’s relationship to existence” should inoculate society from the disease of altruistic morality and economic redistribution. Therefore, “one must begin by identifying man’s nature, i.e., those essential characteristics which distinguish him from all other living species.”

As Rand further detailed in her book The Virtue of Selfishness, moral values are “genetically dependent” on the way “living entities exist and function.” Because each individual organism is primarily concerned with its own life, she therefore concludes that selfishness is the correct moral value of life. “Its life is the standard of value directing its actions,” Rand wrote, “it acts automatically to further its life and cannot act for its own destruction.” Because of this Rand insists altruism is a pernicious lie that is directly contrary to biological reality. Therefore, the only way to build a good society was to allow human nature, like capitalism, to remain unfettered by the meddling of a false ideology.

“Altruism is incompatible with freedom, with capitalism and with individual rights,” she continued. “One cannot combine the pursuit of happiness with the moral status of a sacrificial animal.” She concludes that this conflict between human nature and the “irrational morality” of altruism is a lethal tension that tears society apart. Her mission was to free humanity from this conflict. Like Marx, she believed that her correct interpretation of how society should be organized would be the ultimate expression of human freedom.

As I demonstrated in my Slate piece, Ayn Rand was wrong about altruism. But how she arrived at this conclusion is revealing both because it shows her thought process and offers a warning to those who would construct their own political philosophy on the back of an assumed human nature. Ironically, given her strong opposition to monarchy and state communism, Rand based her interpretation of human nature on the same premises as these previous systems while adding a crude evolutionary argument in order to connect them.

Rand assumed, as Hobbes did, that without a centralized authority human life would erupt into a chaos of violence. “Warfare–permanent warfare—is the hallmark of tribal existence,” she wrote in The Return of the Primitive. “Tribes subsist on the edge of starvation, at the mercy of natural disasters, less successfully than herds of animals.” This, she reasoned, is why altruism is so pervasive among indigenous societies; prehistoric groups needed the tribe for protection. She argued that altruism is perpetuated as an ideal among the poor in modern societies for the same reason.

“It is only the inferior men that have collective instincts—because they need them,” Rand wrote in a journal entry dated February 22, 1937. This kind of primitive altruism doesn’t exist in “superior men,” Rand continued, because social instincts serve merely as “the weapon and protection of the inferior.” She later expands on this idea by stating, “We may still be in evolution, as a species, and living side by side with some ‘missing links.’”

Rand’s view that social instincts only exist among “inferior men” should not be dismissed as something she unthinkingly jotted down in a private journal. In two of her subsequent books—For the New Intellectual and Philosophy: Who Needs It?, where it even serves as a chapter heading—Rand quips that scientists may find the “missing link” between humans and animals in those people who fail to utilize their rational selfishness to its full potential. How then does Rand explain the persistence of altruistic morality if human nature is ultimately selfish? By invoking the tabula rasaas an integral feature of human nature in which individuals can advance from inferior to superior upwards along the chain of life.

“Man is born tabula rasa,” Rand wrote in her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, “all his knowledge is based on and derived from the evidence of his senses. To reach the distinctively human level of cognition, man must conceptualize his perceptual data” (by which she means using logical deductions). This was her solution to the problem of prosocial behavior and altruism among hunter-gatherer societies.

“For instance, when discussing the social instinct—does it matter whether it had existed in the early savages?” Rand asks in her journal on May 9, 1934. “Supposing men were born social (and even that is a question)—does it mean that they have to remain so? If man started as a social animal—isn’t all progress and civilization directed toward making him an individual? Isn’t that the only possible progress? If men are the highest of animals, isn’t man the next step?” Nearly a decade later, on September 6, 1943, she wrote, “The process here, in effect, is this: man is raw material when he is born; nature tells him: ‘Go ahead, create yourself. You can become the lord of existence—if you wish—by understanding your own nature and by acting upon it. Or you can destroy yourself. The choice is yours.’”

While Rand states in Philosophy: Who Needs It? that “I am not a student of the theory of evolution and, therefore, I am neither its supporter nor its opponent,” she immediately goes on to make claims about how evolution functions. “After aeons of physiological development, the evolutionary process altered its course, and the higher stages of development focused primarily on the consciousness of living species, not their bodies” (italics mine). Rand further expands on her (incorrect) views about evolution in her journal.

“It is precisely by observing nature that we discover that a living organism endowed with an attribute higher and more complex than the attributes possessed by the organisms below him in nature’s scale shares many functions with these lower organisms. But these functions are modified by his higher attribute and adapted to its function—not the other way around” (italics mine). – Journals of Ayn Rand, July 30, 1945.

One would have to go back to the 18th century (and Aristotle before that) to find a similar interpretation of nature. This concept of “the great chain of being,” brilliantly discussed by the historian Arthur Lovejoy, was the belief that a strict hierarchy exists in the natural world and species advance up nature’s scale as they get closer to God. This is an odd philosophy of nature for an avowed atheist, to say the least, and reflects Rand’s profound misunderstanding of the natural world.

To summarize, then, Rand believed in progressive evolutionary change up the ladder of nature from primitive to advanced. At the “higher stages” of this process (meaning humans) evolution changed course so that members of our species were born with a blank slate, though she provides no evidence to support this. Human beings therefore have no innate “social instincts”–elsewhere she refers to it as a “herd-instinct”–that is, except for “primordial savages” and “inferior men” who could be considered missing links in the scale of nature. Never mind that these two groups are still technically human in her view. Selfishness is the ideal moral value because “superior men” are, by definition, higher up the scale of being.

Logic was essential to Ayn Rand’s political philosophy. “A contradiction cannot exist,” she has John Galt state in Atlas Shrugged. “To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.” I couldn’t agree more. However, Rand may have had more personal reasons for her philosophy that can help explain her tortured logic. As she was first developing her political philosophy she mused in her journal about how she arrived at her conclusion that selfishness was a natural moral virtue.

“It may be considered strange, and denying my own supremacy of reason, that I start with a set of ideas, then want to study in order to support them, and not vice versa, i.e., not study and derive my ideas from that. But these ideas, to a great extent, are the result of a subconscious instinct, which is a form of unrealized reason. All instincts are reason, essentially, or reason is instincts made conscious. The “unreasonable” instincts are diseased ones.” – Journals of Ayn Rand, May 15, 1934.

This can indeed be considered strange. Looking deep within yourself and concluding that your feelings are natural instincts that apply for the entire species isn’t exactly what you would call objective. It is, in fact, the exact opposite of how science operates. However, she continues and illuminates her personal motivations for her ideas.

“Some day I’ll find out whether I’m an unusual specimen of humanity in that my instincts and reason are so inseparably one, with the reason ruling the instincts. Am I unusual or merely normal and healthy? Am I trying to impose my own peculiarities as a philosophical system? Am I unusually intelligent or merely unusually honest? I think this last. Unless—honesty is also a form of superior intelligence.”

Through a close reading of her fictional characters, and other entries in her journal, it appears that Rand had an intuitive sense that selfishness was natural because that’s how she saw the world. As John Galt said in his final climactic speech, “Since childhood, you have been hiding the guilty secret that you feel no desire to be moral, no desire to seek self-immolation, that you dread and hate your code, but dare not say it even to yourself, that you’re devoid of those moral ‘instincts’ which others profess to feel.”

In Rand’s notes for an earlier, unpublished story she expresses nearly identical sentiments for the main character. “He [Danny Renahan] is born with,” she writes, “the absolute lack of social instinct or herd feeling.”

“He does not understand, because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning or importance of other people. (One instance when it is blessed not to have an organ of understanding.) Other people do not exist for him and he does not understand why they should. He knows himself—and that is enough. Other people have no right, no hold, no interest or influence on him. And this is not affected or chosen—it’s inborn, absolute, it can’t be changed, he has ‘no organ’ to be otherwise. In this respect, he has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’ (That’s what I meant by thoughts as feelings, as part of your nature.) (It is wisdom to be dumb about certain things.)”

I believe a strong case could be made that Ayn Rand was projecting her own sense of reality into the mind’s of her fictional protagonists. Does this mean that Rand was a sociopath? Diagnosing people in the past with modern understandings of science has many limitations (testing your hypothesis being chief among them). However, I think it’s clear that Ayn Rand did not have a strongly developed sense of empathy but did have a very high opinion of herself. When seen through this perspective, Rand’s philosophy of “Objectivism” and her belief in “the virtue of selfishness” look very different from how she presented it in her work. When someone’s theory of human nature is based on a sample size of 1 it raises doubts about just how objective they really were.

About the Author: Eric Michael Johnson has a Master's degree in Evolutionary Anthropology focusing on great ape behavioral ecology. He is currently a doctoral student in the history of science at University of British Columbia looking at the interplay between evolutionary biology and politics.

California Outlaws "Reparative Therapy"

OCTOBER 3, 2012

Over the weekend, California became the first state with a law banning so-called reparative therapy, a discredited intervention that claims it can turn homosexuals into heterosexuals. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill into law, outlawing the practice of reparative therapies in youth younger than age 18. Brown said he hoped this law would relegate conversion therapy to "the dustbin of quackery," noting that the practice has led to depression and suicide among young people distressed by the realization that they are attracted to people of the same gender. The law takes effect January 1, 2013. 

APA has an official position condemning conversion therapies for being "at odds with the scientific position of APA, which has maintained since 1973 that homosexuality per se is not a mental disorder." It notes as well that "The potential risks of 'reparative therapy' are great and include depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by [a person seeking this therapy]."

Jack Drescher, M.D., president of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry and a past chair of APA’s Committee on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues, is concerned, however, that the law only applies to licensed therapists, and most people doing conversion therapies are unlicensed. In addition, Drescher said that the promised legal challenge claiming the law violates free-speech rights, if upheld, "would provide an opportunity for conversion therapy proponents to trumpet their victory and further market these harmful services."

APA's 1998 and 2000 position statements on reparative therapy are posted at www.psychiatry.org under "Position Statements." For a comprehensive review of mental health issues affecting gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals see The LGBT Casebook, new from American Psychiatric Publishing. (Drescher is a co-editor of the book.)

Swami Prakashanand Saraswati flees US to escape molestation charge

Indian ExpressSeptember 26, 2012

Houston : An 83-year-old wheel-chair bound Indian spiritual guru, a fugitive after being convicted of groping two young girls, may have sneaked clandestinely into India, a US court has been told.US Marshals, still looking for him, suspect that Prakashanand Saraswati, known to his devotees as Swamiji, may have fled America in connivance with his close associates.

Just days after a Hays County jury in Texas convicted him in March 2011 on 20 counts of indecency for molesting two teenagers, the self-styled guru has been missing.

A judge sentenced him in absentia to 14 years in prison on each count and the guru also forfeited USD 1.2 million in bond and promissory notes.

Newly filed court documents reveal that Prakashanand, who moves around in wheelchair apparently crossed over into Mexico two days after his conviction while being at large on bail and may have used a network of devotees to make his way to India.

Eighteen months later, federal officials are still unraveling the mystery of how he got out of the country and who helped him.

Deputy US Marshal Robert Marcum, who is leading the investigation to track the guru down, called his flight with the help of his religious adherents in Texas, Pennsylvania, California and Florida as "the most sophisticated scheme I've seen as far as fugitive investigations go. They were very smart about what they did."

Marcum added it is likely some of the guru's devotees will be charged with harboring a fugitive, aiding and abetting escape or making false statements to a government agent.

The information, as well as detailed accounts of how guru's followers moved him around the country while evading law enforcement, is part of the documents filed recently in court.
One of the girls, who was kissed and groped by the guru, said his escape to India effectively ends the case against him. "I feel the door is closed on it," she said.
"There's nothing more to be done." She added: "I'm sure we'd all sleep better if he were locked up. But he's in his own little prison."

Karen Jonson, who this year published "Sex, Lies, and Two Hindu Gurus," a book about her life at the ashram, said: "While a measure of justice was served by his conviction, it would still be the right thing for Prakashanand to have to endure the result of his crimes against children, to serve his punishment as determined by the courts of this country."
Still, she added, "as long as he is alive, there will always be hope for his capture and return to Texas."

According to US Customs and Border Protection records, the suspicions that fugitive Swami may have used the Mexico route was strengthened by the fact that his Radha Madhav Dham ashram employees frequently crossed the Texas-Mexico border throughout 2011.

When contacted by marshals investigators, most either declined to be interviewed in detail, or "stated that they did not believe guru was guilty of the convicted offenses, and they hoped he would evade capture and never go to prison."

One of the devotees named in the affidavit, Jenifer Deutsch, also called Vrinda Devi, has been a spokeswoman for Radha Madhav Dham.

The MEK Is Bad News, But Delisting Them Was A Good Decision

Huffington Post

October 1, 2012

Members of the Iranian dissident group known as the Mujahedin e-Khalq, or MEK, really don't like me. I don't trust them, either. I've been reporting on the MEK for the Huffington Post since last summer, and members of the group have threatened my house and hacked my email.

Still, I believe the State Department's decision Friday to remove the MEK from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations was a good one.

Like many people who've researched how the MEK actually works, I don't believe that they're freedom fighters in exile as they claim to be. Nor do I believe their values are democratic, as they claim they are.

I believe the MEK is a militant cult of personality, whose leaders, Maryam and Massoud Rajavi, figured out in the 1980's that they could survive by doing mercenary work on behalf of governments that hate Iran. Saddam Hussein was their first patron, and he granted them land in Iraq to build a walled, military compound, Camp Ashraf, where until a few months ago, more than 3,000 members lived.

There, they would wake up every day and worship images of Maryam Rajavi before commencing with the day's Army base-type tasks. The MEK claims to subsist on foreign contributions, but that's only partly true.

In America, their well-paid U.S. advocates, men like former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, wax on about how the MEK renounced violence a decade ago and just needs U.S. backing in order to topple the Iranian regime and seize power. I've watched these guys earn $40,000 for an eight-minute speech.

But the debate over whether or not the MEK is a terrorist group doesn't matter. It never really did. After dozens of conversations and background briefings over the past year, I don't believe Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to delist the MEK how and when she did because the secretary suddenly changed her mind on the question of whether or not they are terrorists.

I think the reason the MEK was delisted on Friday is, more importantly, because Clinton understands that they're a dangerous cult, and that all the other potential outcomes of the 30-year standoff between the MEK and the outside world would have likely been much, much worse.

Near the top of that list was mass suicide, a possibility that kept more than a few U.S. diplomats up at night. After that, it was that the MEK's leaders would deliberately provoke a confrontation with Iraqi security forces, many of whom would be happy to avenge the ethnic cleansing raids MEK soldiers carried out for Hussein back in the day. In France, where Maryam Rajavi lives, officials considered the unwelcome possibility of public self-immolations -- a tactic the MEK has used there before.

Truth is, most of the world doesn't really care what happens to the 3,200 people who used to live at Camp Ashraf.

But Secretary Clinton cares, despite years of daily MEK protests outside her office on C Street, N.W., where I've watched the same dozen or so people, all dressed in identical Maryam Rajavi t-shirts, banging drums and accusing Clinton of violating human rights, breaking international law, and callously leaving them to die at the hands of Iraqi soldiers.

Ironically, while they cursed the secretary from the sidewalk, inside the State Department, Clinton and her aides were quietly working on a plan to save thousands of brainwashed MEK foot soldiers in Camp Ashraf from their own leaders and from the Iraqi military.

The only way to do this is to split the 3,200 into small groups and transfer them out of Iraq a few at a time, as refugees. This being a cult, however, the leaders initially refused to let anyone leave Ashraf unless they all left as a group. But as one former U.S. diplomat said to me, "What the hell kind of country is going to agree to take in 3,000 militant cult members?"

Clinton only had one major bargaining chip. In exchange for leaving Camp Ashraf, the secretary agreed to delist the group from the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, which she officially did on Friday. That afternoon, State Department officials presented us reporters with three reasons they said the decision was merited. None of the official reasons holds up to scrutiny, but the eventual outcome, the delisting, does.

Therein lies the difference between politics and diplomacy. The "reasons" given here didn't win anybody over. They were more of a gesture meant to placate people like me, who have reported what everyone at the State Department already accepts, namely, that the MEK is dangerous and untrustworthy and capable of future violence.

But the question facing Secretary Clinton wasn't whether the MEK could be trusted. Or even if the MEK's members were still dangerous. Privately, U.S. officials don't pretend to know the answer to either one.

The question at the heart of the MEK decision was whether Clinton would be willing to quietly save 3,200 lives. She was.

I may not trust the MEK or their tactics, but the year-long negotiation that culminated on Friday represents a bright point for U.S. diplomacy and humanitarianism. 

Amish guilty of hate crimes in Ohio hair attacks

San Francisco Chronicle
Thomas J. Sheeran

September 20, 2012

CLEVELAND (AP) — The leader of an Amish breakaway group and his followers were convicted Thursday of hate crimes in beard- and hair-cutting attacks against members of their own faith following a dispute over religious differences.


A federal jury found Samuel Mullet Sr. guilty of orchestrating the cuttings of Amish men's beards and women's hair last fall in attacks that terrorized the normally peaceful religious settlements in eastern Ohio. His followers were found guilty of carrying out the attacks.

Mullet and four of his children were among 16 people who prosecutors say planned and carried out the five separate attacks that amounted to hate crimes because they were motivated by religious disputes. Prosecutors say the defendants targeted hair because it carries spiritual significance in their faith.

All the defendants, who were charged with hate crimes, are members of Mullet's settlement that he founded near the West Virginia panhandle.

Mullet wasn't accused of cutting anyone's hair. But prosecutors said he planned and encouraged his sons and the others, mocked the victims in jailhouse phone calls and was given a paper bag stuffed with the hair of one victim.

One bishop told jurors his chest-length beard was chopped to within 1½ inches of his chin when four or five men dragged him out of his farmhouse in a late-night home invasion.

Prosecutors told jurors that Mullet thought he was above the law and free to discipline those who went against him based on his religious beliefs. Before his arrest last November, he defended what he believes is his right to punish people who break church laws.

"You have your laws on the road and the town — if somebody doesn't obey them, you punish them. But I'm not allowed to punish the church people?" Mullet told The Associated Press last October.

The hair-cuttings, he said, were a response to continuous criticism he'd received from other Amish religious leaders about him being too strict, including shunning people in his own group.

The members involved in the hair cuttings face prison terms of 10 years or more. The charges against Mullet and the others included conspiracy, evidence tampering and obstruction of justice.

Defense attorneys acknowledged that the hair-cuttings took place and that crimes were committed but contend that prosecutors were overreaching by calling them hate crimes.

All the victims, prosecutors said, were people who had a dispute with Mullet over his religious practices and his authoritarian rule.

Witnesses testified that Mullet had complete control over the settlement that he founded two decades ago and described how his religious teachings and methods of punishments deviated from Amish traditions.

One woman described how he took part in the sexual "counseling" of married women and others said he encouraged men to sleep in chicken coops as punishment.

Mullet's attorney, Ed Bryan, maintained that the government had not shown that Mullet was at the center of the attacks. The defendants who cut the hair and beards acted on their own and were inspired by one another, not their bishop, Bryan said.

Some of the defense attorneys claimed that the hair-cuttings were motivated by family feuds or that the defendants were trying to help others who were straying from their Amish beliefs.

In one of the attacks, an Amish woman testified that her own sons and a daughter who lived in Mullet's community cut her hair and her husband's beard in a surprise assault.
Associated Press
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Leader-guilty-of-hate-crimes-in-Ohio-Amish-attacks-3879235.php#photo-3482010

Wanted Hindu guru escaped to India, officials say

Eric Dexheimer
Austin Statesman

Two days after a 83-year-old wheel-chair bound Indian spiritual guru, a fugitive after being convicted of groping two young girls, may have sneaked clandestinely into India, a US court has been told.US Marshals, still looking for him, suspect that Prakashanand Saraswati, known to his devotees as Swamiji, may have fled America in connivance with his close associates., newly filed court documents say his followers met in a devotee's home a mile up the road in Driftwood to plan how to spirit him out of the country before his sentencing.

Later that night of March 6, 2011, or early the next morning, at least one of them accompanied the guru, who uses a wheelchair, over the Mexican border to Nuevo Laredo, according to the documents. After secretly moving just south of Tijuana in mid-2011, Prakashanand — who'd shaved his long white beard and cut his shoulder-length hair — then used a fake passport to escape to India in November.

The information, as well as other details of how Prakashanand's followers in Texas and across the country clandestinely moved the spiritual leader while evading law enforcement, is included in court documents filed in Hays County. An affidavit in support of a search warrant signed last week by a Hays County judge seeks access to Yahoo email accounts of a preacher and close associate of the guru's who lives in India.

Although many of the assertions in the document came from law enforcement interviews with devotees, much also was obtained from cellphone records and private emails written between Prakashanand's followers.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert Marcum, who has been leading the effort to track down the 83-year-old guru known to his followers as Shree Swamiji, confirmed details of the agency's efforts to monitor and track Prakashanand during the past year and a half.

The operation planned and carried out by Prakashanand's followers to keep him hidden from police and move him among the three countries involved his spiritual devotees from Pennsylvania, California, Florida, Texas and Mexico, according to the court filing.

Special Event: Sharing Experiences to Assist Others

Throughout the day there will be specific discussion sessions where there will be opportunity given (if you wish) to share parts of your story, to assist others in similar situations such as former members who are more recently out of their groups, and those with loved ones, such as adult children, siblings or parents, in cults and sects. These sessions will be led by the key speakers and Rod Dubrow-Marshall, Kathy House, and Cathy Page. Light finger buffet lunch and refreshments provided Saturday April 21st 2012: 10:00 – 5:30pm Mary Candler: Life story of the impact of cult membership on family relationships Ben Davidson: Life story of growing up in Christian Science with a particular focus on how his mother’s death led to him instigating eventual change in Christian Science nursing homes and schools. Rod Dubrow-Marshall Linda Dubrow-Marshall: Enhancing your wellbeing: a way forward Gillie Jenkinson: Former-members for former-members: a chance to speak out Kathy House Cathy Page Chrsitian Szurko: Supporting families to dialogue with current sect members: restoring relationship with siblings, parents or children in a sect. Former members and those with loved ones, such as adult children, siblings or parents, in cults and sects (open to everyone). Baden Powell House: Conference Centre 65-67 Queen's Gate, London

Indignation Is Not Righteous - CSI

Online Extras
Gary Longsine and Peter Boghossian
September 27, 2012

The Twin Fallacies of Appeal to Righteous Indignation and Appeal to Sanctity.Appeals to righteous indignation or sanctity—which attempt to shield ideas from contemplation, discussion, investigation, or criticism—are common, impede rational discourse, and should be recognized as logical fallacies.

The following article is scheduled for the January/February 2013 Skeptical Inquirer and is being released pre-publication due to its topical nature.Riots erupted on the streets in Afghanistan in late February 2012 in response to an apparently accidental burning of a few copies of the Koran. Placed in an incinerator along with other materials confiscated from Taliban prisoners, the singed Koranic remains were discovered later by Afghan workers. Apologies from United States officials were immediately forthcoming. However, rioting continued and reports indicated that at least twenty-nine Afghans and six American soldiers were killed in the violence (Rubin 2012).

For many Muslims, including an influential council of Muslim scholars (Rubin 2012), the apology was greeted with righteous indignation. The response of the rioters was continued (and perhaps even intensified) rage, as demonstrated by the murder of people who had nothing to do with prior events. A second outbreak of such violence in Libya (where the United States ambassador was murdered) and other Muslim countries occurred in September 2012 after a virulent anti-Islamic independent video appeared on the Internet via YouTube.

The problem of righteous indignation is conspicuous in, but not unique to, the Muslim world—it permeates cultures across religious, ethnic, and national boundaries. The destruction of Andres Serrano’s artwork, “Piss Christ,” by Catholic fundamentalist protesters in Avignon, France, is another well-known example.Profound feelings of insult to a deeply held belief ranks among the most pervasive, powerful, and potentially dangerous failures of human reasoning. This reaction carries with it both practical dangers that threaten harmonious interactions between and among peoples, and also the capacity to insulate not merely a person, but an entire culture, from criticism and self-reflection.
We argue that “Appeal to Righteous Indignation” and the related “Appeal to Sanctity,” warrant recognition as fallacious types of reasoning and should be included in the larger lexicon of fallacies. (See “The Top 20 Logical Fallacies” by Jesse Richardson in the July/August 2012 Skeptical Inquirer for an overview of commonly recognized fallacies.)

Righteous Indignation: A Brief, Incomplete GenealogyRighteous indignation, perhaps rooted in primitive instincts for social enforcement (Haidt 2001), appears to be an emotional response to perceived injustice (Haidt 2003; Dubreuila 2010; DeScioli and Kurzban 2009). The concept of “the sacred” appears to be more modern (Rossano 2006; Kirkpatrick 1999), but the impulse to sanctity may be rooted in emotions like disgust (as opposed to anger) (Rozin et al. 1999).
Science is only beginning to piece together the potential neurological basis for the impulse behind righteous indignation and its role in human behavior. Scientist and author David Brin, for example, has appealed to the scientific community to study righteous indignation more closely. Brin suggests that dogmatic thinking is driven by the emotional impulse to righteous indignation and the underlying brain biochemistry of behavioral addictive reinforcement (Brin 2011)—such as is involved in gambling (Blaszczynski et al. 1986).

In recent years, related phenomena (e.g., the role of punishment in the evolution of cooperation and the emotional basis of moral judgment) have been subjects of inquiry in anthropology (Sosis and Alcorta 2003), economics (Grant 2008), game theory (Dreber et al. 2008), psychology (Hunter 2005), and evolutionary psychology (Kirkpatrick 1999). Righteous indignation may have evolved to trigger participation in group punishment for non-compliance with group norms, and it may have influenced the evolution of cooperation (Boyd and Richerson 1992; Krebs 2008; Jaffe and Zaballa 2010). There is also a line of research literature suggesting some specific emotional foundations for moral behaviors, with indignation linked to anger, for example (Rozin et al. 1999).Logical Fallacies: Righteous Indignation and Sanctity
There exists no nonideological reason why any given idea or belief should be placed beyond contemplation, discussion, investigation, or criticism. Two logical fallacies are routinely employed to shield ideas from such inspection. In accordance with the custom of the taxonomy:
Appeal to righteous indignation (argumentum ad probus indignatio); and
Appeal to sanctity (argumentum ad sanctimonia).
An Appeal to Righteous Indignation is a logical fallacy in which a person claims to be offended, insulted, or hurt by criticism of a proposition they hold, or by the advancement of a proposition with which they disagree. The expected consequence of the demonstration of the verbal or physical behavior associated with righteous indignation is that no further discussion or criticism is allowed.

An Appeal to Sanctity is a logical fallacy in which a person attempts to deflect criticism of an idea by claiming that the idea or argument is holy, sacred, sacrosanct, or otherwise privileged and immune from critique.
A few possible rebuttals might be offered. It could be argued that an Appeal to Righteous Indignation is merely an appeal to emotion, which seeks to ignite an emotional response and dampen susceptibility to further reasoned discourse. It could be argued that Appeal to Sanctity is merely an example of circular reasoning. Appeal to Sanctity may be considered a compound fallacy, comprising an appeal to authority and emotion, at least to the extent that the ideas in question are associated with institutionalized dogma. However, Appeal to Righteous Indignation and Appeal to Sanctity have distinguishing traits.

The salient feature of an Appeal to Sanctity is that it is employed as a shield against the critique of an idea or even a wholesale ideological critique. An Appeal to Sanctity is a claim that one must not critique an idea because the idea in question is sacrosanct, holy, or sacred. In other words, an Appeal to Sanctity, reduced to its simplest form, asserts as a moral virtue the claim that an idea is beyond critique. The circular appeal to special privilege frequently carries an implicit and credible threat of violence, for example, the decades-long aftermath of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie for his book Satanic Verses, the Danish cartoon controversy, the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, Christian millennium terrorist plots in Israel, and the bombing campaign dubbed “saffron terrorism” in 2008 in Malegon, India.

An Appeal to Righteous Indignation similarly attempts to place an idea beyond the reach of critique, but it employs a different mechanism. Rather than suggesting that the idea itself is privileged and thus must be immune from criticism, an Appeal to Righteous Indignation implies that a critique of an idea is equivalent to an attack on a person. Intrinsic to an Appeal to Righteous Indignation is the notion that attacks on an idea are morally equivalent to verbal or physical attacks on people, that an attack on an idea justifies a response at least proportionate to an attack on a person. Credible threats of violence often accompany displays of righteous indignation and are sometimes viewed as justified by members of the community. Consider the odd case of a man who burned a VFW flag in a drunken fit. He was taped to a flagpole for several hours the next day by an indignant VFW member, who then spoke about his actions openly to a local television reporter (Gardinier and Martínez 2009), apparently unconcerned about any possible legal repercussions.Those who engage in these fallacies believe that becoming indignant, or refusing to question a particular belief, are virtues. In other words, one should become indignant, and not becoming indignant indicates a moral flaw in one’s character; one should refuse to question privileged beliefs, and persistence in questioning represents a character defect.
In recent years a growing number of public intellectuals, including Richard Dawkins (Dawkins 1996), Salman Rushdie (Duffy 2004), and Douglas Adams (Adams 1998) have asserted the general fallaciousness of Appeal to Sanctity, but no standard label exists, and no attempt to promote these as a standard part of the taxonomy of fallacies has been advanced.

The HarmRighteous indignation undermines civil discourse and often corrodes efforts aimed at reasonable compromise. When righteous indignation is invoked, conversation stops and violence may begin. For the indignant party, reason may be suspended. Righteous indignation muddles thinking, elevates emotional reactions to primacy in the discourse, and displaces its alternative: impassioned, reasoned, thoughtful analysis.

Righteous Indignation may be a valid emotional experience and response to injustice. As Greta Christina has observed (Christina 2007) anger can be an important tool for motivating social change. However, its use to shield ideas from criticism impedes rather than advances discourse. Appeal to Righteous Indignation is therefore fallacious in the context of rational discourse.The continuing demonstrations of the pervasiveness and disturbing nature of Appeals to Sanctimony and Righteous Indignation as primary or even sole arguments, and in an effort to end, rather than further, discussion in Afghanistan and elsewhere, make a compelling case for the urgency of this project. It may seem somewhat overdue to skeptics, atheists, and freethinkers that these classifications are necessary, but the cultural, social, and political world situation give these classifications an added urgency.
References
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Boyd, R., and P.J. Richerson. 1992. Punishment allows the evolution of cooperation (or anything else) in sizable groups. Ethology and Sociobiology 13: 171–195.

Brin, David. 2011. An open letter to researchers of addiction, brain chemistry, and social psychology. Online at http://www.davidbrin.com/addiction.htm; accessed February 22, 2012.

Christina, Greta. 2007. Atheists and anger (blog post). Greta Christina’s Blog (October 15). Online at http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2007/10/atheists-and-an.html; accessed February 27, 2012.

Dawkins, Richard. Science, delusion, and the appetite for wonder. 1996. Online at http://richarddawkins.net/articles/3-science-delusion-and-the-appetite-for-wonder; accessed February 26, 2012.

DeScioli, P., and R. Kurzban. 2009. Mysteries of morality. Cognition 112: 281–299. Online at http://www.sas.upenn.edu/psych/PLEEP/pdfs/Kurzban%20DeScioli%20mysteries.pdf.

Dreber, Anna, David G. Rand, Drew Fudenberg, et al. 2008. Winners don't punish. Nature Publishing Group 452: 348–351.Dubreuila, Benoît. 2010. Punitive emotions and norm violations. Philosophical Explorations: An International Journal for the Philosophy of Mind and Action 13: 35–50.

Duffy, Jonathan. 2004. The right to be downright offensive. BBC News (December 21). Online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4114497.stm; accessed February 25, 2012.Gardinier, Bob, and Humberto Martínez. 2009. Suspected flag burner pilloried: Alleged offender hunted down, ridiculed after incident at VFW post. Times Union (September 26). Online at http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Suspected-flag-burner-pilloried-555979.php; accessed March 5, 2012.

Grant, Ruth. 2008. Passions and interests revisited: The psychological foundations of economics and politics. Public Choice 137: 451–461.

Haidt, J. 2001. The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review 108: 814–834.
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Hunter, Richard. 2005. Righteous Indignation: Driving Psychology. Bloomington, IN: Author House.

Jaffe, Klaus, and Luis Zaballa. 2010. Co-Operative punishment cements social cohesion. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 13: 4. Online at http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/13/3/4.html; accessed February 23, 2012.Kirkpatrick, L.A. 1999. Toward an evolutionary psychology of religion and personality. Journal of Personality 67: 921–952.
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Rozin, Paul, L. Lowery, S. Imada, et al. 1999. The CAD triad hypothesis: A mapping between three moral emotions (contempt, anger, disgust) and three moral codes (community, autonomy, divinity). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76: 574–586.

Rubin, Alissa J. 2012. Chain of avoidable errors cited in Koran burning. New York Times (March 2). Online at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/world/asia/5-soldiers-are-said-to-face-punishment-in-koran-burning-in-afghanistan.html?_r=1&ref=thereachofwar&pagewanted=all; accessed March 5, 2012.

Sosis, R., and C. Alcorta. 2003. Signaling, solidarity, and the sacred: The evolution of religious behavior. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 12: 264–274. Online at http://www.anth.uconn.edu/faculty/sosis/publications/sosisandalcortaEA.pdf.Gary Longsine and Peter Boghossian

Gary Longsine is an entrepreneur, information systems consultant, patent holding inventor in network security, and freethinker at large. He can be reached via email: gary.w.longsine@gmail.com

Dr. Peter Boghossian is a full-time faculty member in Portland State University's Philosophy Department. His publication record and teaching areas are critical thinking and moral reasoning. He can be reached via email: pgb@pdx.edu

Heavenly Mountain Tract To Be Sold

Kellen Moore

The Watauga Democrat
September 26, 2012

A 225-acre tract and three large buildings that were once part of the Transcendental Meditation center at Heavenly Mountain are now up for auction.

The property, owned by the Maharishi University of Enlightenment, will be sold online Oct. 25.

Once used for women’s educational programs in Transcendental Meditation and Vedic sciences, the buildings have sat vacant for several years.

The Maharishi University purchased the properties in May 2011 from Blue Mountain Holdings, a company associated with David and Earl Kaplan, the original developers of Heavenly Mountain, according to land records.

Thomas McMahon, a broker for Sperry Van Ness that is coordinating the auction, said the university did not explain why it was selling the properties now but is working to create a different campus for its programs in New York.

“After they bought them back, I think they had some change of heart,” McMahon said.

Representatives of the Maharishi University of Enlightenment could not be reached by press time Tuesday.

The property includes two dormitory buildings and a dining hall constructed in 1997, perched on a ridge with long-range views between Boone and Triplett.

The largest building includes 112 suites with living areas and kitchenettes, as well as a conference hall and several smaller meeting rooms, McMahon said. The second building is set up more like a hotel, with 98 rooms.

The third structure is a 13,000-square-foot conference hall with kitchen area on the bottom floor and an open dining area with large windows on the second floor, he said.

According to a property condition report provided by the sellers, the buildings are structurally sound with the exception of the main lecture hall, which they said can be strengthened without demolition.

As to be expected with an unoccupied space, there are some areas of mold and disrepair, as well as cosmetic repairs that would be necessary, the report states.

The buildings and the properties on which they sit combined have an appraised tax value of $8,189,100, according to Watauga County tax records.

Part of the acreage also was originally designated for single-family home sites and townhomes, McMahon said.

Bids on the property will start at $3.9 million, and the university does have an undisclosed reserve amount that must be met, McMahon said.

“This was a property that cost over $30 million dollars to build, so the sellers are putting it out there at a very, very attractive price point,” he said.

McMahon said the land originally was for sale on a traditional marketing plan before Sperry Van Ness offered a special auction plan to the owner. He said he already has received interest from multiple states and countries.

“We’re increasing this exposure to the world, instead of just to North Carolina,” McMahon said.

The “East Campus,” as it was once called, is separate from the 381-acre parcel called Forest Summit that was purchased in October 2011 by the Art of Living Foundation. That site is now the home of the International Center for Peace and Well-Being, which offers short-term and residential meditation, yoga and stress management seminars.

A foundation spokesperson could not be reached by press time Tuesday about whether the foundation might be interested in bidding on the new tract.

More information about the auction and the property is available online.

McMahon said even community members with no interest in the property could benefit economically from the sale of the property and possible future redevelopment.

“I really hope the community looks at this as a new beginning and a new opportunity and they would embrace the new ownership that would be coming,” McMahon said.

http://www.wataugademocrat.com/news/heavenly-mountain-tract-to-be-sold/article_6cf142e9-bee8-5ea6-a606-332645e08758.html

 

 

Murder of ex-MOVE member remains a mystery

Philadelphia Inquirer
Monica Yant Kinney

September 20, 2012

Last of two parts.

All unsolved murders are inherently mysterious, but that of John Gilbride remains extra-curious, since he was shot dead hours before a court-ordered visit with the son his ex-wife, MOVE matriarch Alberta Africa, vowed not to let him see.

Most custody battles never make headlines. MOVE, the West Philadelphia cult famous for two deadly confrontations with police, spent the weeks before John was killed fortifying its headquarters and lambasting him as a bad dad.

John was 34 when he was gunned down inside his Crown Vic in the parking lot of a Maple Shade apartment complex called Ryan's Run. The killer fired an automatic weapon through the window. Bullets ravaged his head and chest.

Sept. 27 marks the 10-year anniversary of John's violent demise. Investigators have never named a suspect or released ballistics information.

In 2003, Burlington County Prosecutor Robert Bernardi told me MOVE members were interviewed but offered no helpful information.

"There is still this problem with the timing of this homicide given what was pending in the custody dispute," Bernardi said back then. "Is that a coincidence, or is there something more to it?"

I tried for months to get another sit-down with Bernardi and sought the reflections of investigators who have pulled thread anonymously for a decade. He declined all requests and just released a bland written statement:

"Somebody out there has knowledge of what transpired the night John Gilbride was slain. I implore that person to come forward and assist us in bringing his killer to justice."

A father's risk

In 1992, John married Alberta, an ex-con 20 years older. In 1996, the 48-year-old gave birth to Zack. In 1998, John fled MOVE and his marriage, aware of the risk.

"I was told," he said in 1999 divorce papers, "my attitude toward my wife was going to cause a situation that would involve my death."

On Aug. 27, 2002, a domestic dispute between John and Alberta at her home led to John's summoning the Cherry Hill police. On Sept. 9, 2002, the exes aired grievances in Camden County Family Court.

"John was not pushin' because he wanted Zack," Alberta testified. "He was pushin' because he knew that MOVE belief would not allow me to give him Zack."

Her ex-husband, Alberta contended, intended to "drive me and Zackary into a situation where we're confronted with cops and court orders and warrants. And he knows because of 1985, May 13 in 1985, he knows what a situation like that could cause."

(For the uninitiated, she was referencing the armed standoff that led officials to bomb MOVE's West Philadelphia base, killing 11 members and destroying 60 homes.)

John, meanwhile, told the Family Court judge that during the August quarrel, a MOVE supporter named Mario Hardy stepped in to defend Alberta and issued a fresh threat:

"Move and I'll kill you."

A week later, on Sept. 17, 2002, MOVE posted a statement citing "dangerous developments" and urged supporters to do anything "in their power to do to avert this government assault."

Ten days later, John was dead.

Leads or conspiracy theories?

Afterward, MOVE questioned whether John was killed by the government - if he was even dead.

A Philadelphia police liaison to MOVE speculated that John, who traveled and frequented casinos, was slain over a gambling debt.

Another curiosity concerned John's secret, and brief, second marriage to Rosario Bienvenida Arias, a 24-year-old casino dealer from the Dominican Republic.

They wed in Maryland on April 25, 2002, but, according to the annulment John initiated May 19, she used him and then fled the country. The marriage had not been nullified by the time John died, so as his widow, Arias - not Zack - collected death benefits.

Mario Hardy long ago declined to comment on John's charge. MOVE sent an e-mail last week calling my interview request a "new assault."

John's father, Jack Gilbride, says investigators told him they ruled out a mob hit and cleared the mystery wife, but Bernardi will neither confirm nor deny that information.

Ten years of silence

In 2009, America's Most Wanted filmed interviews about John's murder. The episode never aired.

In 2010, Burlington County investigators sought the expertise of the Vidocq Society, acclaimed sleuths known for thawing cold cases. John's family was barred from watching the presentation, and the county forbade Vidocq members from sharing their theories with me.

Law enforcement sources elsewhere puzzle over Bernardi's refusal to engage or publicize the investigation. That silence, they say, is a missed opportunity.

This summer, investigators sought to interview a former MOVE supporter who could be a source of information, but the man skipped the scheduled appointment.

Jack Gilbride perked up at the thought of investigators pursuing new leads, but he remains concerned that hesitation or missteps a decade ago allowed a killer to roam free.

"The first 48 hours are the most important," so why, he asks, did it take detectives "seven weeks to talk to Alberta Africa?"

Gilbride thinks back to his son's warnings. "I believe," he concludes, "that this investigation has been extremely and negatively impacted by MOVE's intimidation."

CultNEWS101 "MOVE" Collection.

http://articles.philly.com/2012-09-20/news/33953580_1_john-gilbride-move-supporter-move-matriarch-alberta-africa