An interesting paper was presented at the recent CESNUR conference in Salt Lake City on anti-Scientology group Anonymous, and their activities on 4chan. It’s not the most polished paper I’ve ever read and it provides a glossary that explains a number of terms not referenced in the paper, but it’s definitely worth reading. I particularly liked his unfavourable evaluation of the knowledge of Scientology most critics possessed, although he doesn’t really back it up with anything.
apud John Bowen Brown ‘The Scientology Critic Group Anonymous: A Research Paper‘ (paper presented at the CESNUR Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah, June 11-13, 2009)
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Hi,
If you are really interested in the subject, I don’t think this paper is a very good place to start. I like your critisism of the paper, which is a kind but astute way of putting it. I myself am Anonymous, and my view of the article is a bit different. Although the basic facts of the article are not incorrect, it omits a number of relevant facts in order to concuct an article is pretty laughable overall. At least it would be if the bar would be at, say, journalistic quality. For academic quality, I am not sure what the rating would be
.
As you are propably aware, Scientology is a convoluted subject, and giving a well-balanced overview takes a bit more than a few paragraphs. The same goes for Anonymous. For example: I myself, belong to one, but not to the other…that is not something that comes across in John’s article, does it?
It is a shame that you seem to think that Anonomous critics know little of Scientology. I don´t think that is true. In fact, I am convinced that there are several hundred members who could be considered to be at a bachelor level at the field of study of NRM’s after studying Scientology for a year-and-a-half. In fact, I am confident they have more to add to the field of study than the CESNUR-crowd.
But that’s just my opinion,
Regards,
Anonymous
I probably should have made myself clearer: I was referring more to wider opinion on the internet and, as I said, Brown doesn’t back up this criticism of Anonymous with any data to speak of. I’m sure that there are many well-informed critics on Anonymous (without having spent any time there myself).
I’ve just never seen this sort of research done before, so I was pretty excited to see academics hanging out on 4chan and writing about it.
I wonder what else Brown’s done on Scientology/Anonymous…
I would also encourage Anonymous critics who consider they have unbiased information/opinions to engage with academia. The quality of Brown’s paper shows that the bar is far from unreachable for many of you, so why not attend these conferences and/or submit papers to journals for publication?