Exiting The Echo Chamber

I am going address a situation I realized can severely affect people in many situations. The echo chamber effect.

Below is a quote from Wikipedia:

Echo chamber (media)

In media, an echo chamber is a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an "enclosed" system, where different or competing views are censored, disallowed or otherwise underrepresented.

How it worksEdit

Observers of journalism in the mass media describe an echo chamber effect in media discourse. One purveyor of information will make a claim, which many like-minded people then repeat, overhear, and repeat again (often in an exaggerated or otherwise distorted form) until most people assume that some extreme variation of the story is true.

Participants in online communities may find their own opinions constantly echoed back to them, which reinforces their individual belief systems. This can create significant barriers to critical discourse within an online medium. Due to forming friendships and communities with like-minded people, this effect can also occur in real life. The echo chamber effect may also prevent individuals from noticing changes in language and culture involving groups other than their own. Regardless, the echo chamber effect reinforces one's own present world view, making it seem more correct and more universally accepted than it really is. Another emerging term for this echoing and homogenizing effect on the Internet within social communities is cultural tribalism. End Quote

Now, obviously in Scientology the censorship of opposing views and information control creates the ideal environment for the same ideas to be amplified and repeated back, gaining strength through repetition and social proof. For many of us who leave Scientology merely finding some of the many, many individual pieces of contradictory evidence, if and when we do, tremendously alters our longstanding convictions. 

I have found terms like stunning, shocking, and life changing to be severe understatements of the magnitude of effect that a serious in depth examination of the information critical of Scientology can, and for me  did, have for a Scientologist. 

I have entirely rejected the doctrine of Scientology after several hundred hours of examination of critical information. Hubbard had thousands of hours of his doctrine being presented to state his case. With just a few dozen hours of the other side, I knew Scientology is a fraud and Hubbard's house of lies. 

But only hearing his side might never have have ever given me that opportunity. I will hopefully always have a measure of appreciation and gratitude for the work Tony Ortega, Jon Atack, Arnie Lerma and Tory Magoo have done that was truly vital in helping me to find my way out of Scientology. Without their efforts I might never have escaped. 

I recently had a real live in person conversation with someone and an amazing thing happened. I was speaking with a fellow named Willie and he is an unusual guy. He has opinions on issues and examines lots of relevant information. We are to some degree on different sides on some things. But unlike sound bites from the other side or in depth arguments for my side he had well reasoned and in depth information to support his side. 

My politics are what I call twenty miles to the left of Noam Chomsky, and he is a moderate. He is not as far out as Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly. But unlike the online sources I find reinforcing my own views or just presenting the most extreme and easily refuted strawman arguments for the other side, over and over, he actually has relevant information that I otherwise would never get. I told him this should be brought up so actual critical thinking on the issue can happen rather than just reinforcement of existing opinions, demonization of opposing voices and oversimplification of complex ideas. 

The Scientology cult is intended to be an echo chamber for one voice Hubbard's, and now Miscavige's. That is an unfortunate situation, actually criminal and often tragic. If I hadn't overcome my own prejudice to examine Tony Ortega's, Jon Atack's and Arnie Lerma's ideas and listen to Tory Maggoo's claims then I might never have escaped. 

Now if I just talk to people with the same political beliefs and interests I will never discover anything else and can become polarized regarding other beliefs. 

I have spent a tremendous amount of time at ESMB and the Underground Bunker and certainly benefited from that. But I don't want to only be a blogger who tells the same stories to the same few people over and over, and never learns anything else. 

I still plan on reading and writing more regarding Scientology. But at a slower pace with more exploration of other issues and means of acquiring information in my life. 

If someone is happy with just going to ESMB or the Underground Bunker I am not telling them to change at all. I am a different person with different interests. I just want people to know that if they don't hear from me for a while it's not personal. 

We all can exit an echo chamber if we find ourselves trapped in one from time to time.