Oops! Well, I'm glad John is still here. I went and read his post from this morning.
John, I hope you might be reading this.
I was in the Seed from the fall of '72 through spring '73. I was 14; I was there involuntarily. My memory is that the vast majority of under-18s were there involuntarily. My high school had many Seedlings; I don't remember even one kid who had gone in voluntarily. So, either one of us is very mistaken, or the voluntary/involuntary percentages changed drastically after my time. (I suspect one of us is mistaken, and I suspect it's you. But I could be wrong, I admit.)
John, you offer a quote about forgiveness, and it's a quote I believe in (though what it means to "understand all" . . . well, that's a concept that would take some exploring!). But I'm confused--are you asking forgiveness? Personally, I would grant it to you in a heartbeat. I'm not even angry with you anyway about what happened in the Seed. Insofar as you were nice to some Seedlings, you were rather kind to me, and I appreciate that. The annoyance I've expressed toward you on this page hasn't been about the past; it's been about your clever, eloquent, high-powered, evasive, and denial-laden postings.
You're obviously a very intelligent man. In my previous post, I mentioned the "wildly glaring logical flaws" in your defenses of the Seed. I should have said instead, more precisely, "glaring evasions."
Like . . . how about Marshall's point that "real self-awareness cannot be the product of coercion or conditioning of any sort, however high the ideals"? What do you say to that? Marshall pointed out that high ideals often justify horrific deeds, such as the Crusades. You didn't respond, yet you're clever enough to point out in your most recent post that equating Straight with the Seed is "analogous to stating that the practice of Salafi or Wahhabi is the same as Sunni or ShiÌa because both cite and use the Koran."
Seems to me that you're reinforcing Marshall's point here, though not acknowledging it as it pertains to the Seed.
And what about this sleep deprivation issue? And the fact that the Seed was a massively coercive culture? And psychological violence and humiliation were the norm? (whether or not they were as bad as what Sister Cecilia meted out . . . sorry about your hand, by the way.)
John, if you expressed any misgivings or regrets about the Seed, I must have missed that post. (I plead guilty to not following all threads religiously, or even checking in often, though I am grateful for this website.) I apologize for my ugly characterization of you earlier today, when I incorrectly assumed you'd gone away, and I wrote that you had "farted stupendously once or twice and then split." Very disrespectful of me, and wrong.
Now I am asking you respectfully, are you ever going to address the core criticisms of the Seed as they've been articulated here by the people who--largely involuntarily--suffered (and I DO mean suffered) through the program?
Just to sum up (and I may be forgetting a few), here are some primary criticisms:
1. The Seed was coercive through and through. There was no "dawning awareness" afforded to Seedlings--rather it was a psychological beating-down process, followed by an artificial replacement of the individual "druggie" persona with the "Seedling" persona.
2. A few of the Seed's COMMON and UNDISPUTED techniques were standard brainwashing techniques, such as systematic sleep deprivation; invasion of dignity by not letting people go to the bathroom, and not letting people use the toilet privately; there being no maximum time limit on any stage of the program, so theoretically people might be held against their will indefinitely (and this was often the explicit threat); and probably other stuff I'm forgetting . . .
3. The fact that the Seed, as a culture, was conducive to "wall to wall therapy" (which was alluded to while I was there, though I never actually experienced or saw it) and various types of physical abuse above and beyond sleep deprivation
4. The Seed "philosophy" was both simplistic and insanely self-aggrandizing. All "druggies" (meaning, anyone who'd ever smoked a joint and had not come to the Seed yet): bad, and bound to wind up dead, crazy, or in jail. All Seedlings: ultra-aware and good. "Superior human beings", "Seed City," etc. (Come to think of it, if there was ever going to be a Seed City . . . guess what? Here you are! It just happens to be a cyber city. Who would have ever imagined . . .?)
I'm also curious where you get your information about the "majority" of kids who "benefitted" from the Seed. How do you know? Did you do follow-up surveys? Did a lot of kids keep in touch? Or is that just an assumption--that most kids benefitted?
I guess I'm inviting you to get real, John. I'm glad you're here. You're definitely the star of the show. I think everybody's waiting to hear what you'll say next.
and here's a quote I hope you'll like, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
"If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility."
