In Reply to: Re: His Dark Materials posted by Historian on November 05, 2007 at 13:12:52:
You are right, whether brought in via FFing or at any stage in the cult, people are shown the sugar coating without realizing there's a bitter pill underneath.
Regarding sex, what generation since the roaring twenties was not about SEX, DRUGS (and/or alcohol) and MUSIC (Charleston, Rock-n-Roll, Folk Music, Heavy Metal,Alternative, Punk, Indie, Reggae, Hip Hop, whatever is current)
Youth are self-centered by nature in Western Society. The sixties had a sense of altruism- free concerts, sharing food, shelter, sex (amongst adults) and that is when cults entered, appearing as the supposed altruistic best causes the world had to offer.
American Society was very divided between generations, more than ever before though that divide is natural, too. In this case, anti-war protests meant that police helicopters were flying over parks and youth were being broken up or run off from gathering in parks to play frisbee and hang out and the government at the time didn't like this mecca of public playground when there was so much anti-war sentiment going on.
That rebellion wasn't bad. It was as natural as any generations rebellion against the perceived wrongs of their society.
The fifties is when marijuana crossed over from the ghettos to the mainstream and movies were made to scare people off from this horrible drug.
The sixties saw the cross over on a broader scale of first marijuana mostly, no longer the feared drug, to experimentation with a plethora of drugs, some getting addicted and the "love" and "peace" generation became the wasted generation, or people grew up and moved on with life.
Is it any different today? Late sixties: enter pot, LSD, for heavyweights: Heroin, meth,mushrooms and other hallucinogenics and combos of all the above and add SEX.
Seventies: the above.
Eighties: Cocaine,crack cocaine becomes the main drug, all the others are still around. Add some PCP and ECSTACY and a lot more sex!
Nineties: All the above and more of it. More heroin, too.
2000's? Ice, Meth, Cocaine, Hallucinogens,
Every one of those generations: SEX, WHATEVER MUSIC was popular in the day.
What is DIFFERENT about TF is that BERG was a PEDOPHILE but we didn't know it! Pedophiles have been hated by every generation including the sixties and seventies youth.
Who knew what Berg would do? Many got out. Some did not.
My point? No generation of youth is operating with a full deck when it comes to having good judgement and ability to spot the red flags that you learn through lifes mistakes, some very serious mistakes, that what the bottle says the contents are and what they are supposed to do does not mean you are getting what it says!
BERG, not the "hippies" of the sixties, was the pedophile. Some followed in his footsteps but not all. People that weren't sold out to each new doctrine, or who resisted were pushed to the outskirts of Family life, later there seems to have been very intense "re-training".
DB, a control freak, screwed with every person that went thru the family door either directly in person (probably the worst) or indirectly via leadership pushing doctrine.
There were some great times when leadership weren't around to push the latest doctrines and then the lit revolution. That was hell on earth imo. Too long here now. But interesting thread. Thanks to all.