If I had set this up *deliberately* to induce Barry to make a complete idiot of himself, I couldn't have done any better. I knew he'd latch onto this and make himself look like a dope, but he's *far* exceeded my expectations in this regard.
His problem is that he wants desperately to be able to put me down for denying that MMY wasn't celibate, and he can't do that because I obviously haven't denied it. *Nobody* here is denying it, and it's making Barry even crazier than usual; the cognitive dissonance is intolerable. He had been *so* looking forward to Bourque's book coming out so he could dump on the TMers on FFL for claiming it couldn't be true. But none of them have, so he has to *invent* stuff to dump on them about. (Note, by the way, that everybody who actually reads the traffic is aware that he's inventing stuff, but they're all too afraid of him to challenge him on it. Such moral courage!) Gonna put my responses to all three of Barry's posts on this topic in one single post; they all cover pretty much the same absurd ground. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "seventhray1" <steve.sundur@> wrote: > > > > Rick Archer" rick@ wrote: > > > > OK. I think I get what you're saying. You're just saying > > > > that he chose his words carefully so he wouldn't be guilty > > > > of out-and-out lying, while still conveying the impression > > > > that he was celibate. > > > > > >Judy: Yes! Sheesh! > > > > This strikes me as very unlikely, even preposterous. So > > Mahrishi, at least during his period of sexual activity > > was careful not to implicate himself as a "celibate" so > > that he could say he never claimed to be celibate should > > the subject come up, or that he could have some degree > > of plausible denialability.? Wowzer. > > While such a theory is possible, it's also possible > that it was thought up by someone with a history of > doing the same thing. Who else *could* think of it? Steve has a history of doing the same thing? Because he's the one who thunk it up. My theory had nothing whatsoever to do with "plausible deniability." As Steve himself notes, that notion is preposterous on its face. Should MMY have been discovered back then to have been having illicit sex, having lied about it would have been the least of his problems. > > I am giving this a 1% liklihood. But if you want to hang > > your hat on a 1% possibility, be my guest. > > After all, it's not as if the person who has just > written 31 posts on the subject in a single day has > any "investment" in the idea, right? It's all just > in the interest of discovering the "truth," right? :-) Of course, not only didn't I "hang my hat" on Steve's theory, I made no more than half a dozen posts about whether MMY overtly lied. > I'm gonna go with "parsing words." Y'know...like pre- > tending that dissing several people who just "coinci- > dentally" happen to think that a more likely theory > is that Maharishi was just a liar, and systematically > trying to present *them* as liars and without ethics > and thus having no credence has nothing whatsoever > to do with the particular subject she's obsessing on. :-) Except that this never happened. I haven't dissed anybody for saying MMY lied about having sex. Barry made that up out of whole cloth. > For some, "parsing words" is a mechanism to preserve > their illusions. For others, it's a veritable lifestyle. > The part I don't understand about this particular > parsing words theory is how -- if it were true, which > those of us who actually met him and spent time in > rooms listening to him talk know it isn't -- "lying > by omission" or "lying by allowing others to believe > what they want to believe, despite the fact that it > isn't true" presents Maharishi in a better light than > just plain overt lying. Perhaps the inventor of the > Parser Principle Theory can explain this to us. :-) Perhaps Barry can explain to us why he's asking me to explain something I explicitly said wasn't the case, several times, e.g., to Hugo: "My theory is that he was so uncomfortable with what he was doing that he went to considerable pains not to *compound* the misbehavior by flat- out lying about it. (Not that this somehow made him more honorable; it would have been more like knocking wood, almost superstitious.)" > For me, the whole scene reminds me of TM teachers who > came back from TTC trained to respond to the question > "Are you personally enlightened?" by giggling and > looking shy saying "We don't talk about our personal > states of consciousness." Yes, it avoids telling an > overt lie. But yes, it's also just another form of > lie, one designed to lead the questioner to assuming > a particular (and false) answer to his question. > Y'know...a lot like "I have no investment in this > issue," said by someone who is clearly obsessing > on it. Only reason I made as many posts about it as I did is that folks kept misunderstanding what I was talking about. It was never anything more than a speculation on my part having to do with how MMY viewed his own misbehavior. > To me such behavior does not in any way mitigate the > lie; it compounds it. It shows that the person using > this dodge is not only willing to lie by omission or > lie by misdirection to others, but is willing to lie > overtly to themselves. The TM teachers analogy is bogus on its face, since it was something they were told to do, not something they came up with themselves. In my experience, TM teachers who were asked whether they were enlightened were *embarrassed* at having to dodge the question. They'd much rather have been able to say straight out that they weren't enlightened. As to MMY, *of course* misleading rather than overtly lying doesn't mitigate the behavior. If he thought it did (if he actually didn't lie), yes, he would have been lying to himself about that. But the behavior was so bad already, I'm not sure being careful to not lie overtly made it any worse. It's an interesting ethical question, whether not overtly lying would have made it any worse. But given Barry's long- established propensity to lie like a rug about anything and everything without the slightest ethical qualm, he's not exactly in a position to offer an opinion. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote: > > Just for fun, a few "liar statistics" to follow up > on my theory below, based on two 10-second searches. > > On alt.meditation.transcendental, number of hits on > jst...@... using the words "lie" or "lying" or > "liar" -- 2020. > > On Fairfield Life, number of hits on authfriend using > the words "lie" or "lying" or "liar" -- 1513. Which statistics don't tell you anything, given that the occurrence of the terms in quoted posts are included in the tally. > Delving into these posts, OOOOOOPsie. If Barry "delved into" them, what he goes on to say is obviously based on more than two 10-second searches. much if not most of the time > these words have been used to demonize someone who > disagrees with her Only if they've lied. , promoting the idea that if one > has been "caught in a lie" once (even if "caught" only > in her own mind), their credibility is nil and anything > the "liar" says should be regarded as false, or at the > very least regarded with suspicion. One lie is rarely enough to do the trick. It's a *pattern* of documented lies--Barry and Vaj being the prime examples on FFL and before that on alt.m.t--that establishes lack of credibility and the need for suspicion. Anybody who disagrees with that principle needs a reality check. (Or is trying to call it in question because of their own pattern of lying.) > Now this same person is (rather obsessively) trying > to promote the idea that Maharishi never lied overtly > about being celibate. Not "obsessively" (half a dozen posts, and that many only because folks kept missing the point I made in the first one), and not with any investment in the idea, just a speculation (which I repeatedly acknowledged could very well be wrong). --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote: <snip> Barry responds obsessively to his own post: > I can propose a reason *why* someone might want to > "hang their hat" on the idea of Maharishi trying to > not get caught in telling an overt lie. But that "someone" wouldn't be me, because that preposterous idea isn't one I've hung my hat on. > Say...just theoretically, you understand...there was > a person here on Fairfield Life who had made a *career* > of saying, "Aha! I have caught Person X in a lie. That > means that NOTHING Person X EVER says can be relied > upon to be the truth! Once a liar, always a liar." This wouldn't be me either; I've never suggested such a thing. > Judy's whole modus operandi on the Internet, for over > 16 years now, has been to use this "Liar once, liar > always" theory to say that those who disagree with her > have no credibility. It's pretty much her whole ACT. Nope, never said it, don't believe it. One lie doesn't mean everything the person says is a lie. It takes a *pattern* of lies, such as the one Barry has established, before it becomes advisable to be skeptical of anything the person says. Being skeptical doesn't mean automatically rejecting everything the person says as a lie, because even the worst liar may occasionally tell the truth. > So might the person for whom it *is* their whole act > intuitively feel that if the teacher they want to con- > tinue believing on other matters is caught in a lie, > someone might use her *own* "Liar once, liar always" > theory against *him*, and call into question his many > pronouncements about consciousness or enlightenment > or...well...anything else? > > Think about it. But be aware that Barry isn't describing me. Clearly he wants you to think he is (although he's establishing "plausible deniability" for himself by carefully not mentioning my name), but he knows it isn't the case. Might this intuitive fear that her > whole act of screaming "Liar once, liar always" might > be turned against Maharishi have something to do with > her obsessing on the subject of him possibly lying > about being celibate? Since she never screamed this and doesn't believe it, the question is a straw man. Obsessing on it so strongly as > to write 32 posts in 26 hours trying to come up with > a scenario in which she can claim that he *didn't* > lie overtly? Here Barry's lost even his "plausible deniability" and is just blatantly lying. I made only about half a dozen posts on whether MMY lied overtly, and (one more time!) that many only because folks weren't getting what I had in mind in the first one (which was only speculation anyway, not a "claim"). > Can you say, "Desperately trying to find a way to > keep from being hoist on one's own petard?" > > I think you can... Says Barry, hoisting himself WAY UP HIGH on his own petard. Anybody who's ever tangled extensively with Barry knows he lies, because he so often misrepresents what the person he's tangling with has said and done, as above. He *claims* he doesn't care what people think of him, but that's a lie too given the lengths he goes to in his attempts to discredit those (primarily me) who have documented his lies.
