Holy Cows Ser. 7

A Critique of Criticism

In Hans Christian Andersen's famous fairy tale "The Emperor's New Clothes" there is a little boy in the crowd. He sees the emperor showing off what His Majesty thinks are the finest of clothes - and in fact he is wearing nothing but his underwear. As the story goes - two fraudulent tailors managed to dupe the emperor and 'dress him up' in nothing. They managed to make him believe, that he wore the finest and most precious clothes - and they got paid for it.

The little boy saw it for what it was and said: "He has nothing on!"

The crowd, that up to this point, had not dared believe their own eyes and had said nothing, caught on to it. Soon the whole crowd was chanting "He has nothing on! He has nothing on!"

The little boy simply said what he saw. The innocent child opened the eyes of the crowd. The emperor, I am sure, was furious; he did not like that criticism at all!

What we want to take a look at here is "Criticism" and "Critic". In Scientology™ these are very loaded terms and have almost become synonyms for bad and wicked acts performed by persons with foul motivations. 

Since Holy Cows is dedicated to a critique of Scientology™, we want to clear up what we are doing and not doing - both to our readers and to ourselves. 

The Dictionary Says

The English dictionary gives these definitions: 

Critic:  
1) One who forms and expresses judgments of the merit and faults of anything. 
2) Someone who passes unfavorable judgment.

Criticism:  
1) The act of making judgments or criticizing. 
2) A passing of unfavorable judgment.

It comes from Greek kriticos: able to discern, separate, choose. The word is related to script and describe, to cut and incise.

We obviously have a whole range of activities that falls under 'Criticism'. The common denominator, you may say, is the activity to separate out, to cut.

Scientologese

In Scientologese (Scientology™ slang or popular use) 'critical' has gotten a sinister ring to it. A 'Public Critic of Scientology™' (according to the Justice Codes) is a suppressive person, some kind of psychopath or insane character, who is out to get his fellow Man - not just Scientology™. 
A person who in private is merely occasionally critical of somebody has base motives too. He wants to cut that somebody down to size, because he has done harmful acts against him and it gives him some relief to think he only did it to a scum bag.

This is of course easy to catch on to and rally behind. But it easily gets out of hand and can develop into a shouting match. Let's say Mr. Crite is critical of Mr. Just. Mr. Just feels justified in calling him 'critical', now meaning to Just that Mr. Crite has done overts against him and has withholds from him. Just responds accordingly in a harsh and military fashion. Crite gets even more resistive and 'critical'. He blows up and tells Just off.
 Just sees even more signs of overts in Crite and consequently gets even tougher with him. We have a shouting match, a vendetta or an overt-motivator sequence in progress. These two guys are running around each other like two hostile dogs ready to start a fight. Apparently we are not even close, technically speaking, of having a workable understanding of the situation that would help resolve it - nor the right way to go about things. What we see is just a classical 'I am right and you are wrong' confrontation and suspicions being acted upon as hard facts.

I have heard this kind of scientologese being used by people in high places. An Int. executive, for example, declared with deep conviction, that anyone responding negatively to the organization's phone soliciting (call in), was clearly 'critical' and thus burdened with overts and withholds against the organization. Thus it was clearly the call-in'ers duty to 'cut through the crap' and get the person summoned for auditing in short order. That the call was inconvenient or unsolicited was not considered by her as the reason or a contributing factor. Apparently the executive viewed it in the light of the call-in'er had some kind of military authority and anything but 'Yes, Sir' was non compliance and a critical attitude against the call-in'er. Being 'critical' was in her mind the same as non-compliance would be to an army officer.

What Does Ron Say?

So let us for a moment ask, are there any technical data around somewhere, that are being misapplied here? What does Ron say about it in technical bulletins?

There are some technical data behind this, that seems to be applied backwards. It's from Level Two.

Academy Level Two teaches you about overts and withholds and how to raise responsibility and rise above the overt-motivator sequence. By studying the level and by being audited on the subject, you can manage to rise above all this and become a more responsible and ethical person. Your first reaction may be, "That sounds almost unbelievable. In the examples above you described just about the opposite!"

OK, so I need to explain.

It's a well known fact to auditors (CS series 1, etc.), PC critical = Pc has withholds of some kind. This is just a fact of auditing. The remedy in session is to find and pull the withholds. That works. It's an important part of keeping pc in session, keep him talking and winning. As an auditor you don't necessarily expect to find much out of the ordinary. It can be anything from the auditor accidentally cut the pc short, so the pc inadvertently withheld what he had to say, to trivialities of not being fully sessionable or having done something the auditor maybe would dislike - up to real overts, that would carry some kind of repercussion with them. There is just no way of telling. So the rule is simple: Pc critical, look for the withhold. Pc not critical any more, you got the right withhold. It is important to clean up withholds in auditing as it can prevent case gains and even make him worse off if not done properly - as only a well trained auditor can. (It's hard to do properly outside auditing).

This action of pulling withholds has been known to turn off wild reactive criticism magically, too -  and to the pc's full satisfaction I may add. So it is a valid technical datum and works great in the hands of a skilled auditor.

Outside of Auditing

For our purpose, which is concerned with living rather than session, we need to find a definition, that separates valid criticism (expressing judgments of the merit and faults of something) from reactive criticism. Otherwise we will get ourselves mixed up in all kinds of odd situations. We won't be able to have a conversation with people outside our group. We won't be able to learn from analytical criticism or take others' opinions very well. In short, we will find ourselves becoming soldiers in a thought police army and boxed in in an artificial way and unable to enjoy the multitude of life.

Tone, Truth and Intent

We find this definition from HCOB Jan 10, 1960 "Justifications" the most accurate in describing reactive criticism:

"Random, carping 1.1(covert hostile) criticism, not borne out in fact, is only an effort to reduce the size of the target of the overt so that one can live (he hopes) with the overt. Of course to criticize unjustly and lower repute is itself an overt act and so this mechanism is not in fact workable."

In other words in this definition we have a statement of the tone of the person and the truthfulness and Intent of his criticism. These points are extremely important, if you want to make a sound judgment of what you hear and be able to share the planet with your fellow Man.

OK, so the little innocent boy from "The Emperor's New Clothes" may be off the hook. He looked at the situation and in all simplicity he cheerfully stated what he saw: Emperor in underwear. That the emperor didn't like it, made it no less true.

Criticism and Sanity

Since analytical critique and criticism are important tools in learning, in improving things and evaluate them - and in keeping ones own sanity intact, we will take a close look at it. Scientology™ has a number of definitions of 'Sanity' and 'Intelligence' that have a lot to do with 'judgments of the merit and faults of anything'. Look at these definitions from the technical dictionary:

Sanity is: 1. the ability to recognize differences, similarities and identities. 
4. a balance of creation and destruction is sanity. The individual is sane wherever he will create and destroy. 
6. the ability to tell differences. The better one can tell differences, no matter how minute, and know the width of those differences, the more rational he is.

Intelligence is 1. the ability to recognize differences, similarities and identities.
                                                                     

As you can see analytical criticism certainly has it's place in Scientology™ tech. It was let in by the back door. Both the first definition of sanity and of intelligence (the two are identical), are exactly what analytical criticism is all about. Also you need to have free hands to 'destroy' bad data and replace them with good ones (sanity def.4).

So we get these two definitions:

Reactive Criticism: "Random, carping 1.1 (covert hostile)  criticism, not borne out in fact, is only an effort to reduce the size of the target of the overt so that one can live (he hopes) with the overt. Of course to criticize unjustly and lower repute is itself an overt act and so this mechanism is not in fact workable."

Analytical Criticism: The close inspection and desiccation of an area in order to form a personal, independent opinion about it. This includes invalidating ideas and actions that seem illogical and emphasizing good points. The analytical criticism is a review and a reevaluation of the facts of the situation. It's the doingness of:  Nothing is true for you unless you have observed it.

Rabid Criticism - Does it Work?

When you log on to certain news groups on the Internet, such as alt.religion.Scientology™, you wonder what's going on. It seems to be a shouting contest of who can trash the subject of Scientology™ the most. No one on the organization's side is safe. All, from Hubbard to the newest student of the subject, get trashed - together with all the teachings and practices.

I'll not here go into who is right and who is wrong. It's an ongoing discussion and a never ending argument I don't want to get in the middle of.

But I will pose this question: does rabid criticism work? As I see it, it works on a force level. You can steam roll somebody's opinions and arguments and make him shut up and go away.  But it does not work on a thought or theta level. Since we mainly are talking ideas here, that does not give us much hope.

Often rabid criticism serves the critic this way: He discerns and separates himself out from the subject. (He individuates as we learn on Level Two). He demonstrates his choice. Discern, separate and choose are the core meanings of the root word, the Greek 'Kriticos' - as you may remember. But even though the critic clearly expresses that, he tends to never get done with it. 

Even though he may be able to shout out his criticism louder than his opponents it gives him little relief. It seems to go on and on in his mind. It feeds on itself and on his fellow critics. It feeds off the organization's counter attacks and counter criticism, which is just as rabid and sometimes worse - as it targets and harasses and sues critics.

This is truly the Overt-Motivator sequence at work - full blast. We have a very reactive shouting contest among the ARS members themselves. They compete on who can shout the loudest.  And we have a shouting war between the CoS and their ARS critics. As the saying goes "The first casualty in war is the truth", and as you see the bullets and insults fly, you say to yourself, how true that saying is.

Since the truth so often is seen sacrificed in this war, it is a very reactive war where nobody can win. Christianity has a better approach and that is forgiveness. When you have insults against insults and lies against lies nothing will ever change. It may be better just to forgive and forget.

A Better Approach

There are much better approaches to get free of the subject if that is what you want (or maybe sort the good parts from the bad ones). It works as well or better than forgiveness. If you are a rabid critic, you may not like it. Because it's contained in the Axioms and other basic issues of Scientology™. The basics of Scientology™ contains a lot of truth that completely gets lost on both sides of this fight. The insider CoS defenders have long forgotten it. It seems lost in the very language of scientologese, that they now speak. The critics have declared they don't want anything to do with the subject and that's where they get off.

The technical facts are however, that you can as-is unwanted conditions. You have to view the unwanted condition you are subject to in full or in part and it will simply vanish or deintensify.

The current state of affairs are well covered in:

AXIOM 18: THE STATIC (the individual), IN PRACTICING NOT-IS-NESS, BRINGS ABOUT THE PERSISTENCE OF UNWANTED EXISTENCES, AND SO BRINGS ABOUT UNREALITY, WHICH INCLUDES FORGETFULNESS, UNCONSCIOUSNESS, AND OTHER UNDESIRABLE STATES.

You see the individuals on both sides practicing 'not-is-ness' - here  meaning lies, wild exaggerations, black PR and defamation ad infinitum. This just brings about persistence of these unwanted conditions resulting in  unreality, forgetfulness, unconsciousness etc., etc. as a result.

So if a shouting match, a fist fight or a court case don't work, when we talk about ideas, what does? The next axiom tells the story:

AXIOM 19. BRINGING THE STATIC TO VIEW AS-IS OF ANY CONDITION DEVALUATES THAT CONDITION.

In other words, if you apply analytical criticism, you start to view what is actually there. It may not sound impressive enough to shout out or put in print to impress your fellow combatants, but you are actually on the right track. 

When you start to recognize differences, similarities and identities, intelligence and sanity will return to your mind. When you can balance creation and destruction you will feel even better. 

You are well under way. You may occasionally get pulled back into the good old fight described above, and in Axiom 18, where not-is rule. But try to stay focused as an observer on the sidelines for a little while and things will settle down and look up.

'I Am the Enemy'

When we come to Axiom 20 we are talking about the top of the class:

AXIOM 20. BRINGING THE STATIC (individual) TO CREATE A PERFECT DUPLICATE CAUSES THE VANISHMENT OF ANY EXISTENCE OR PART THEREOF.

This may seem a high order, but it works.

What does it mean  by 'a perfect duplicate'?

I'll give an example, the critics may not like it, but it illustrates my point. Let's say you want to improve your marriage. One important thing in such a relationship is to come clean. To come clean you can write up your overts and withholds you have committed against your spouse. 

Your first reaction may be the classical one of feeling contrite and propitiative about all the bad things you have done. That's the way the minister, your parents etc. think you ought to feel and react.  

But try this - just for yourself and on paper: Write it down exactly as it happened and make a point of including the original feeling and maybe even the satisfaction you got out of 'teaching your spouse a lesson', or getting away with something or goof off somewhere without him/her. Duplicate it in your mind as you experienced it when it happened. If you were the enemy of your spouse in some situation, you should recognize the situation for what it was and write: 'I am the enemy'. You see, that is the perfect duplication of the situation as it existed. It will cause a vanishment of that condition - in full or at least in part.

The Bad Reputation of Critics

The traditional academic view of criticism is, that analytical (constructive) criticism is good. That you learn from it, you get smarter from it. Trying to criticize things yourself analytically is a good exercise for the mind. You can't sort out what's valid and what is not without using this ability. When you evaluate relative importances in order to sort out an area, that's the part of your wits you apply.

The Level Two data about overts, withholds and criticism are valid too. But you have to realize that there is a line somewhere, where you go from analytical criticism to reactive criticism, and reactive criticism is what Level Two talks about. It takes auditor training to handle this  with skill. 

Blurring and forgetting about this line has grossly been misused for propaganda purposes. Slowly, slowly this borderline kept being moved upwards. With that a custom crept in, that anyone with a divergent opinion ought to be security checked. It has gradually changed and poisoned the atmosphere of CoS. From being a group of free thinkers it has become a group under surveillance of 'thought police' and subject to military standards. Any criticism is viewed as an offense of non-compliance subject to disciplinary action. Police states are not known for their free thinkers or inspiring ideas.

Some people and organizations just can't take criticism of any kind very well; criticism has always been a delicate subject to exercise.  It takes skill and diplomacy to do it right and become a good analytical critic. 

One way is to apply the data in the bulletin "You Can Be Right", where you learn simply to ask the person in question what is right about his way of going about things. He does not feel threatened by this approach - you don't get into a 'right-wrong' stand off. This can have a lot of advantages. This is the Socratic method of making headway through clever questioning - something that is formalized in many processes in auditing. 

The funny part is however, that when you flatly refuse any criticism of whatever kind, you have isolated yourself completely. Since we all have our own pair of eyes, we all have our own unique vantage points or points of view. We all have our special concerns and interests too. This leads to clashes disagreements, to judgments etc. In short criticism is always there somewhere in the mix among self-determined peers and friends and in all other relationships.  

Criticism and the Tone Scale

What we are describing above is the cat and mouse game of being the criticizing party and the criticized one. It is played out up and down  the tone scale. Relevant technical data can be found in Hubbard's Science of Survival. Here are some short quotes from "Column K: Speech Talks/Listens."

"At 2.0 (antagonism) we reach a level of antagonistic conversation. The individual is apt to nag or to make derogatory comments to invalidate other people."

Here you have the open critic. At 2.0 it's heated discussion - not always rational. This is not constructive criticism, but it can still be valid or contain valid points, that shouldn't be ignored. In life it's best simply to listen and understand it and deal with it. Inadvertent withholds and misunderstoods are easy to clean up. In session (which is different from living - I may point out) the auditor should definitely fish for withholds and would most likely find something. But in session you never discuss things - you simply help pc sort it out from his own point of view alone. This is maybe the major difference between live conversation and the auditing communication cycle. In live conversation you can state arguments and objections. You never do that in auditing. In auditing you want the PC to sort it all out from his causative viewpoint alone.

"At the 1.5 tone level (anger), we have a shutting off of other persons’ conversation, a complete refusal to listen, and efforts to destroy incoming conversation." 

This describes well the counter attack, that we see coming from various CoS authorities. A refusal to listen to any criticism and an attempt to overtly and covertly destroy the the criticism and/or the critic.

 " At 1.1 (covert hostility), we have lying, to avoid real communication... Here is the person who tells you he has stood up for you, when actually he has practically destroyed your reputation."

In session the auditor should certainly fish for withholds if he sees and hears anything like that.

On the offensive side, you wonder if all this ordering of security checking in excess is a covert attempt to avoid real communication and simply trump through compliance -  partly by gathering material potentially useful to destroy the critics' reputation with. 

Security checking is 'sold' to pc's, by saying technology can't work, when ethics is out etc. The situation is, however, that criticism is only looked upon as a symptom of overts and is ignored as far as content or validity is concerned. Also security checking is done against a moral code. Repeated security checking can be used to gradually introduce a 'false' moral code if those in charge want that. In a subtle way you let the pc know, what you want and don't want - and he better adjust or subject himself to more sec checks.  As far as getting the ethics in, there are less invalidative and less expensive methods of doing of that. Man is after all basically good.

The muzzled communication cycle of auditing (where the auditor wants the pc to sort it all out from his own viewpoint exclusively) does not always work in life and in dealing with critics. 

It seems somehow, that CoS officials are frozen in this kind of attitude and in despair (but with a perfectly straight face) they press the alarm button under the desk, when they run into criticism. Some gorillas will be notified and sooner or later deal with it. To express criticism or a different point of view in CoS is dangerous and will cost you in ethics and security checking.

"The highest level of the scale contains the faculty of communicating completely and withholding nothing; also the ability to communicate with complete rational selectivity, also the ability to be conversationally creative and constructive."

Maybe, just maybe - it would be possible for officials simply to listen and deal with it rationally. If a real ethics situation was present it wouldn't go undetected. By ignoring criticism, and instead dealing with it covertly, it doesn't go away; it builds up and finally explodes. By viewing it as an infallible indicator of underlying overts, you miss all kinds of 'withholds of nothing' and destroy any social communication cycle.

Tech and Propaganda

The way the Level Two technology has been misapplied and twisted for 'self-protection' and propaganda purposes is stunning. The tolerance for other opinions was suddenly way down. The most flagrant example is the way critics of Scientology™ are depicted in the "Ethics Codes - Offenses and Penalties". Suddenly it's not about technical facts anymore, but about rallying the troops against 'the enemy'. It's not about critics in general either. It's about people with some kind of disagreement or diverging point of view on a philosophy. This is very unfortunate, because you are introducing fanaticism based on the lies in the mix. The refusal to answer questions and criticism is against the very of tradition of philosophy and against the very Creed of CoS.

The way you see 'criticism' used in propaganda is, that it is made equal to bad deeds. Criticism is taken as the military takes non-compliance. It's an offense that is subject to discipline or punishment. The punishment is usually administered in ethics or by security checking the 'suspect'. The security checker is being removed from his basic role and training as an auditor, who usually does his work to restore the pc's basic goodness and self determinism, to that of a thought police officer, that wants to expose the subject and render him into a 'well adjusted' group member, that will cause no trouble and have no 'ideas of his own'.

There are other ways to deal with enemies and critics than using technical data for name calling and defamation - without the misuse of the valid technique of security checking to merely expose, disarm and 'adjust' the pc. It's out of character to do that. It has become a war, where only CoS can ask the questions; where 'we are right and you are wrong'.

One of the best methods in life and living is still simply understand it, acknowledge it and forgive or be forgiven. Critics only thrive and grow in the teeth of opposition. They love it. They get more determined. They get stimulated. We live in a two pole universe. Negative feeds off positive and vice versa. Opposition creates counter opposition. 

The critics of Scientology™ have multiplied way outside their own ranks of Scientologists and ex-Scientologists by people that joined up for the good and just fight. With the easy access to join the debate via the Internet - and the CoS' apparent attempts to suppress free speech on the Net -  it has developed into a disaster for the CoS, but they have called it upon themselves.

If CoS simply had tried to understand, acknowledge and forgive or be forgiven by the original handful of hard core critics, they would long since have forgotten all about it all and gone on with their lives. It wouldn't be a snow ball turning into an avalanche. With the hard core CoS resistance these critics have been met with and its refusal to listen and understand what they had to say, they have become more and more upset. CoS on the other hand has become more and more insistent upon its own rightness and clings desperately on to its own propaganda.

So criticism and criticism are different things. The litmus test is tone, truth and intent. The most important abilities are to be willing to observe and be able to freely communicate about it. For the criticized part a frozen military attitude won't do. We don't need the totalitarian, oppressive redefinition of terms nor the covert or overt means applied to try to make critics stop talking. We don't need the CoS' blindness to their own basic truths and their very Creed. 

To try to make it a crime or an illness (only curable with security checking) to speak one's mind or point out weaknesses does not belong on 'The Road to Total Freedom'. It belongs to some backward country whose military regime  got overrun by rabid critics and rebellions. Let the tech be the tech.  We need that. We don't need the militant attitude, that seems ready to defend anything Hubbard has ever said - without even looking. We don't need the false or manipulative use of security checking. We don't need the propaganda or the scientologese ideas about the tech either.

I will however gladly let Hubbard have the last word with this quote:

Personal Integrity

"WHAT IS TRUE FOR YOU is what you have observed yourself
And when you lose that you have lost everything.
What is personal integrity?
Personal integrity is knowing what you know -
What you know is what you know -
And to have the courage to know and say what you have observed.
And that is integrity

And there is no other integrity.

Of course we can talk about honor, truth, all these things,
These esoteric terms.
But I think they'd all be covered very well

If what we really observed was what we observed,
That we took care to observe what we were observing,
That we always observed to observe.
And not necessarily maintaining a skeptical attitude,
A critical attitude, or an open mind.

But certainly maintaining sufficient personal integrity
And sufficient personal belief and confidence in self
And courage that we can observe what we observe
And say what we have observed.

Nothing in Dianetics™ and Scientology™ is true for you
Unless you have observed it
And it is true according to your observation.

That is all."

LRH                                

Let it be so.

That's what the little boy did in "The Emperor's New Clothes",
and that's the best advice anyone can give or get in these matters.
      

Sincerely,               
Holy Cow!              

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The little boy saw it for what it was and said: 
"He has nothing on!"

The innocent child opened the eyes of the crowd.

Critic:  
1) One who forms and expresses judgments of the merit and faults of anything. 
2) Someone who passes unfavorable judgment.

Criticism:  
1) The act of making judgments or criticizing. 
2) A passing of unfavorable judgment.

 the activity to separate out, to cut.

Scientologese means Scn slang or popular use - how members talk among themselves

A 'Public Critic of Scientology™' is (according to the Justice Codes) a suppressive person, some kind of psychopath or insane character

This is of course easy to catch on to and rally behind. But it easily gets out of hand 

These two guys are running around each other like two hostile dogs ready to start a fight.

 we are not even close, technically speaking, of having a workable understanding of the situation

anyone responding negatively to the organization's phone soliciting (call in), was clearly 'critical'

 Being 'critical' was in her mind the same as non-compliance would be to an army officer.

There are some technical data behind this, that seems to be applied backwards. It's from Level Two.

It's a well known fact to auditors - PC critical = Pc has withholds of some kind

 It can be anything from...

 the rule is simple: Pc critical, look for the withhold. Pc not critical any more, you got the right withhold.

This action of pulling withholds has been known to turn off wild reactive criticism magically

 find a definition, that separates valid criticism (expressing judgments of the merit and faults of something) from reactive criticism.

Otherwise we won't be able to have a conversation with people outside our group.

"Random, carping 1.1 criticism, not borne out in fact, is only an effort to reduce the size of the target of the overt so that one can live (he hopes) with the overt. Of course to criticize unjustly and lower repute is itself an overt act and so this mechanism is not in fact workable."

we have a statement of the tone of the person and the truthfulness and Intent of his criticism.

 analytical critique and criticism are important tools in learning, in improving things and evaluate them - and in keeping ones own sanity intact

analytical criticism certainly has it's place in Scientology™ tech. It was let in by the back door. Both the first definition of sanity and of intelligence (the two are identical), are exactly what analytical criticism is all about.

Reactive Criticism

Analytical Criticism

I will pose this question: does rabid criticism work?

rabid criticism serves the critic this way: He discerns and separates himself out from the subject - he individuates.

It seems to go on and on in his mind. It feeds on itself and on his fellow critics. It feeds off the organization's counter attacks and counter criticism, which is just as rabid

This is truly the Overt-Motivator sequence at work - full blast.

  "The first casualty in war is the truth"

There are much better approaches to get free of the subject if that is what you want

The basics of Scientology™ contains a lot of truth that completely gets lost on both sides of this fight.

you can as-is unwanted conditions

You see the individuals on both sides practicing 'not-is-ness' - here  meaning lies, wild exaggerations, black PR and defamation ad infinitum.

 if you apply analytical criticism, you start to view what is actually there... you are actually on the right track.

When you start to recognize differences, similarities and identities, intelligence and sanity will return to your mind. When you can balance creation and destruction you will feel even better. 

What does it mean  by 'a perfect duplicate'?

Write it down exactly as it happened and make a point of including the original feeling and maybe even the satisfaction you got out of 'teaching your spouse a lesson'

The perfect duplication of the situation as it existed will cause a vanishment of that condition - in full or in part.

The traditional academic view of criticism is, that constructive criticism is good.

The Level Two data about overts, withholds and criticism are valid too.

reactive criticism is what Level Two talks about. It takes auditor training to handle this  with skill.

With that a custom crept in, that anyone with a divergent opinion ought to be security checked. It has gradually changed and poisoned the atmosphere of the CoS.

Some people and organizations just can't take criticism of any kind very well; criticism is a delicate subject

 when you flatly refuse any criticism of whatever kind, you have isolated yourself completely.

 criticism is always there somewhere in the mix among peers and friends and in all other relationships.

above is the cat and mouse game of being the criticizing party and the criticized one.

Here you have the open critic. At 2.0 it's heated discussion - not always rational.

In life it's best simply to listen and understand it and deal with it. Inadvertent withholds and misunderstoods are easy to clean up

Tone 1.5 (anger) describes... a  refusal to listen to any criticism and an attempt to overtly and covertly destroy it.

you wonder if all this ordering security checking  is a covert attempt to avoid real communication 

Repeated security checking can be used to gradually introduce a 'false' moral code and 'adjust' the pc.

The muzzled communication cycle of auditing  does not always work in life and in dealing with critics.

It seems somehow, that CoS officials are frozen in this attitude and in despair press the alarm button

Just maybe - it would be possible for officials simply to listen and deal with it rationally.

The way the Level Two technology has been misapplied and twisted for 'self-protection' and propaganda purposes is stunning.

The refusal to answer questions and criticism is against the very of tradition of philosophy and against the very Creed 

The security checker is being removed from his basic role and training as an auditor to that of a thought police officer

It has become a war, where only CoS can ask the questions; where 'we are right and you are wrong'.

One of the best methods in life and living is still simply understand it, acknowledge it and forgive or be forgiven.

The critics of Scientology™ have multiplied way outside their own ranks 

With the hard core resistance these critics have been met with they have become more and more upset.

The litmus test is tone, truth and intent. The most important abilities are to be willing to observe and be able to freely communicate about it.

We don't need the covert and overt means to try to make critics stop talking.

 Let the tech be the tech.  We need that. We don't need the militant attitude

"WHAT IS TRUE FOR YOU is what you have observed yourself
And when you lose that you have lost everything.

 maintaining sufficient...

courage that we can observe what we observe
And say what we have observed.

Nothing in Dianetics™ and Scientology™ is true for you
Unless you have observed it
And it is true according to your observation.

that's the best advice anyone can give or get in these matters.