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exFamily.org > chatboards > genX > archives > post #23792

Re: Wilful Blindness [reposted]

Posted by Perry on November 04, 2005 at 13:32:23

In Reply to: Re: Wilful Blindness [reposted] posted by CB on November 04, 2005 at 12:52:48:

That's why I said this is something I grapple with. The concept of wilful blindness is one thing, but then there is the whole other matter of totalitarian indoctrination, thought-reform, mind-control, brain washing, whatever you want to call it.

My purpose in bringing up this idea is not to condemn anyone, I've done that enough to myself, but to suggest that the issue of abuse in TF is real and to say now that "I didn't see it or hear about it therefore it didn't happen" just doesn't cut it with me. Doing something about any wrongdoing we saw, heard, or suspected while in TF, or even recognizing it was wrong, is another thing, as most of us were immobilized by fear or distorted thinking that wrong is right.

I could pick any number of examples to illustrate what I'm trying to say: adult/child sex in the Davidito book, Mene's situation, Victor Camps etc. Adults in TF during those times were well aware through the letters and other publications that these things were going on. And if they say they didn't know, in a court of law one side might argue that they ought to have known and could have known. Of course, the other side would counter with the issue of indoctrination.

I guess what irked me and prompted me to raise this idea first with James and now with JoJo is that in what seems to me like an effort to escape any sense of responsibility they both make the similar simplistic argument that they never saw or heard of such abuse and therefore in their eyes it never happened. If I and others were morally blind to certain wrongdoing then, regardless of where it occurred in TF, there is no excuse now.

I'm raising this issue here because it's something I struggle with and I didn't want it to disappear down the page on Journeys without some feedback on it.