It would be fool-hardy of me to pretend that all of my insights into the Vienna mission's operations were 100% accurate, but I'm pretty sure I have a generally correct understanding. One of the areas I could err in is over- or under-generalization of my experiences and observations to the mission as a whole. For example, it could be that my experience was more (or less) unique than I give it credit. Or it could be that my observations were too limited and my interpretations are therefore likewise limited. For example, maybe secretaries were socialized more (or less) uniquely than I think. If it becomes apparent that my experiences were even more unique than I have been thinking all these years, then the question arises as to "why?" (as well as "in what way?"). If any of these cases is so, then the ramifications of these errors might also need to be considered.
But at this point in history (years after the fact), how might we ever know if I'm wrong (and in what way I'm wrong)? If I am at all right then the mission might well even to this day want to, at the very least, respond with some image control measures. I can't speak at all for what kinds of measures they might use today; I can only speculate as to ones I think they could realistically have used if I'd written this shortly after my departure.
I'll use as my springboard the book Don't You Believe It! Poking Holes in Faulty Logic, by A. J. Hoover. Of course, this assumes their response will involve faulty logic. But just in case they might, maybe this guide will help cut to the chase. Also, I hope my own use of any of these types of faulty logic has been at the most negligible, and if such is found in any of my words it will have been only by oversight and not intentional. I have, likewise, tried to mention as I go along the limitations of my insights, so as to be as transparent as possible (without yet identifying my name and the organizations and individuals by name).
For more description on these logical errors, here are a couple of resources: http://www.tektonics.org/guest/fallacies.html; http://www.fallacyfiles.org/index.html (index is on left; click on letter for list of fallacies beginning with that letter); http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/Logical%20Fallacies.htm. That should be enough to get you started.
1. (Chapter 4): Genetic fallacy
> They might say that I was just a secretary when I was with the mission and so I couldn't have possibly noticed and understood the things I'm saying.
[My response: I'm trying to be careful here to identify the things I was aware of at the time and those that I only later came to understand as I do. Also, they evidently disregarded my past experiences and education, because I did in fact have background to understand a lot.]
2. (Chapter 5): Faulty dilemma
> They might accuse me of providing an undue limited number of options regarding any of my statements.
[My response: I have tried to include as many possible options as I can and to leave the door open for other possibilities that I might have missed. Also, many of my assertions have not been either-or propositions by more-or-less ones (meaning anywhere along a continuum).]
3. (Chapter 6): Argument of the beard
> They might say that it's ridiculous of me, for example, to say their modus operandum was unbiblical, because they did such and such that might indicate otherwise. In this case, I think, the issue would be: What constitutes being biblical and/or being unbiblical? At what point does one reach either biblical or unbiblical status?
[My response: Point taken. My assertion is, however, that the security issue was so overriding in the modus operandum sphere, that it permeated everything else, and that this was unbiblical, is enough to push them over the line to the unbiblical sphere.]
4. (Chapter 7): Begging the question
> They might disagree with me because they all (e.g., mission leadership, board members, etc.) agree together that I'm wrong.
[My response: That proves nothing. You are biased co-actors with virtually the same value sense, so of course you'd agree among yourselves.]
5. (Chapter 9): Misuse of analogy
> They might claim that a certain analogy I've used to describe the mission or various aspects of it, is errant.
[My response: Okay, I'm open to alternate analogies, what is yours? Then let me determine whether it fits my experience with the mission, and if it doesn't let me ask why my experience didn't fit our analogy.]
6. (Chapter 11): Argument to the man (ad hominem)
> They might balk at anyone taking credence in my assertions, saying that I'm crazy (and therefore unreliable) or I don't know what I'm talking about (and therefore unreliable), or some other discrediting of me as a person.
[My response: I'm not asking anyone to accept (or like) me as a person. Rather, I'm asking them to consider my words and see if there is any truth in them. I could also answer some of their put downs about myself, however.]
7. (Chapter 12): Poisoning the well
> They might revert to plain old fashioned name calling, although undoubtedly cushioned in genteel garb, with the effect of intimidating and/or biasing others who might otherwise be sympathetic to my words and/or see some validity in them.
[My response: Whether or not what you say about me is true, it doesn't make my words any more or less true. You still have to address my words. I'm trying to be upfront about what I see as my errors and flaws.]
8. (Chapter 13): Appeal to pity
> They might act shocked and/or hurt that I could think or say such things about them when they are trying to do so much good.
[My response: I'm not denying that the work itself (the biblical instruction to raise up and equip Warsaw Pact nation church leaders) is noble or otherwise lacking in virtue; my assertion is that the modus operandi and the mindset that undergirds these means of operation are errant (i.e., the means, not the ends, are wrong). Also, it wouldn't be the first time in history or in church history that things have gone wrong, even in high places.]
9. (Chapter 15): Appeal to the people
> They might say that everyone in the mission disagrees with me, or that they didn't do anything that is not commonly done in mission, or that they have x number of supporters, etc. all of whom the mission is doing a great job.
[My response: I'm not concerned with what all these people think; I'm concerned about whether your modus operandum is biblical or not. People can be wrong, people can be affected by groupthink, and people's views can be affected (for good or bad) by the information and views fed them.]
10. (Chapter 16): Appeal to ignorance
> They might try to discredit me by saying I had only a very limited understanding of how the mission operated.
[My response: That's true, which is why I am trying to focus on only my experience of working with the mission and what I observed. I have also tried to point out limitations regarding issues that might have been only specific to certain parties (e.g., me, secretaries, etc.), and indicate where I had more uncertainty and where I was running more on speculation. Perhaps, think of it like a super-big expression of "I feel ..... when you do ....." I have gone somewhat beyond that phrase, but only to try to make sense of why I felt, witnesses or experienced whatever I was feeling, witnessing or experiencing. If they want to discredit me, they'll have to take my assertions pretty much as a whole, at least in as much as there is consistency in my words here.]
11. (Chapter 17): Special pleading
> They might respond in a way to deny anything potentially derogatory about them while confirming all the positive statements.
[My response: The mission is no more sinless than is any individual Christian, despite our blameless stand before God. As such, it is incomprehensible that the mission could be as perfect as they (might) claim.]
12. (Chapter 18): The fallacy of extension (straw man)
> They might make me out to be (now) a left-winger with ideas not unlike the communism, and a bra-burning feminist to boot. (If this one were used, I expect it would be used in a way more subtle than I've stated it here though.)
[My response: I think that these issues are not irrelevant to the discussion, so I would answer these kinds of "straw man" assertions directly, although if they used one that I didn't think was relevant I'd point that irrelevancy out and move on in the discussion from there. As to the communist and feminist "straw man" assertions, the former isn't nor ever was true of me and I've explained that elsewhere on this blog. Regarding the feminist epithet, I most definitely was not a feminist at all during my time in Vienna (although I did resent being put in a restrictive box because of my gender). At that time I held strongly to the role of men and women in the church and, I think, in the family as well. But I didn't think that that should define my whole existence, or so much of it as it seemed to include in Vienna. Currently I believe that men and women should have more equality, although I allow for a lot of latitude for how that might be lived out, including traditional roles. I think I'd be a poor candidate of a wife to, say, "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin eater" who, as the nursery rhyme goes, put his uncontrollable wife in a pumpkin shell where we was able to manage her better. (That's a liberal paraphrase).
So, while my political views are now more left-wing (think Green Party), I was virtually a-political during my Vienna years, when I made these observations. When I collected the articles that I'm now using in this blog, I had my first real first-person interaction with liberal ideas, because my friend there had moved in that direction. She participated in a book study at a Catholic Worker house, for example. But my thinking along hadn't developed enough to affect the selection of topics and articles to study.
Even if this logic (the logic I suggest the mission might use) has any credence at all, it is not enough to detract from the content of what I'm saying.
13. (Chapter 19): Fallacy of causation
> The mission might question any of my assertions of how or why things came to pass as I'm describing.
[My response: If I have done anything, it is to clarify my thought processes. I have not infrequently expressed uncertainty or suggested that there could be other theories or explanations about any specific event or phenomena. If they have alternate explanations for how or why different things happened, I'm willing to hear them out, but since they are an interested party, I will keep their bias in mind and compare their explanations against what I do know about them and what my experience was with them.]
14. (Chapter 20): Hypothesis contrary to fact
> The mission might say I misunderstood them and if I'd done x then y would have happened, for example. (There are undoubtedly other ways they could use this fallacy.)
[My response: I think on this one it would depend on the specifics of the assertion as to how I'd respond to it, at least on one level. If I were to consider their assertion I'd have to compare it to my own experience with and knowledge of the mission. Also, I would want to make sure they would be talking from a late 1980s perspective and not making claims based on how the mission operates now. Because the mission is at a power and numeric advantage, I would have to be careful that other fallacies along these lines (e.g., argument to the people or appeal to force) weren't used to support these kinds of statements.]
15. (Chapter 21): Cliche thinking
> If they were to use this I suspect it would be in a sort of friendly goading manner, to present themselves as good humored/natured, and/or to rally support by others to their position. In either case it would be to sort of disarm me and/or encourage others to think something along the lines of my making a mountain out of a molehill.
[My response: They trained me so well how to recognize various tactics by Communist officials that even a probably spy I (inadvertently) helped host during the Seattle Goodwill Games (1990) asked me if my dad paid me! My thought at the time was, "Gee, I guess the Vienna mission really did train me well." I'm saying this to tell you you need to cut the b.s. and get to the point. (One tactic border guards in Communist countries could use to disarm you was to play buddy-buddy and be very friendly and helpful.)]
16. (Chapter 22): Fallacies of composition and division
> They might accuse me of wrongly overly applying my impressions to other individuals or groups in the mission; or they might say I was wrong in the way I separated out various components or the mission; or... something similar.
[My response: I've tried to be careful in this regard, in trying to identify experiences that might have been unique to me, experiences that I think were common among secretaries, and experiences that were common in the mission as a whole, for example. I've also tried to be honest as to where I wasn't very certain about an assertion of this nature, or when my thoughts were more speculative in nature. However, I'm sure there have been things even so that I've erred on. But one thing I would address in this regard is that the last 2 or 3 months of my time in Vienna I felt an increase of ambiguity as to what was going on in the mission, so I think it's possible there was some disinformation or misinformation going on, and I wouldn't put it pass them, unless they've changed considerably, to do that again, so I'd be very slow to accept just any assertion of this type.]
I don't mean this to be exhaustive, because that would probably be impossible anyway. But it should at least be suggestive.
Also, I should add that this all is assuming that the mission would even bother to respond to any of the allegations I'm making here. I imagine they would respond in the manner the feel best suits their interests, and that may mean non-response.
***
Since we finished the last article, we're moving on to a new one this time. This next one is actually a book chapter:
Swann, Jr., William B. (1983). Self-verification: bringing social reality into harmony with the self. In Suls, J., & Greenwald, A.G., Eds., Psychological Perspectives on the Self, v. 2. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, p. 33-66.
***
This section of the text discusses a study wherein players of a game were at one point asked about what position they'd like to play next and also given feedback about their personality that would seem to either affirm or deny the person's apparent suitability for a position.
"If the feedback confirmed their self-conceptions, they did not do much of anything - they more or less passively accepted the confederate's appraisal. In contrast, if the feedback disconfirmed their self-conceptions, they reacted quite vehemently, resisting the feedback and bending over backwards to demonstrate that they were not the persons the confederate made them out to be." (p. 40)
I think my reaction to being confined to a secretarial role that went beyond just the job itself to define my whole identity (and primary social group) in the organization was like this, but there enough other things going on that I'm not sure it's the most important aspect of my initial reaction to the mission (once I arrived in Vienna). Since I never have liked being pigeon-holed or put in a box, that was bound to disagree with me, possibly even if it was a position more in tune with how I saw myself. But with everything else going on, I don't think I would describe my reaction as "vehement", largely because I was trying to figure things out.
***
In this section, the author is discussing strategies a person might use to get their self-identity confirmed by another. He gives an example of someone who thinks of herself as athletic and her boyfriend won't acknowledge that, so she "refocuses" and satisfies herself that at least he will acknowledge that she's a good musician. But, as the author says, this doesn't always work....
"For instance, if the woman's athletic prowess is a central feature of her self-concept, it will be especially difficult for her to cope with her boyfriend's refusal to recognize her athletic ability. As a result she may utilize one of three self-verification strategies that are still available to her. She may simply ignore her boyfriend's appraisal. She may attend to his evaluation but fail to encode and/or retrieve it. Or she may nullify his appraisal by systematically distorting the feedback she receives from him. Each of these three strategies is discussed in the next section." (p. 41)
I think I probably ignored the mission's attempt to paint me into a secretarial corner. I understood that that was my job there and I accepted that, but I didn't let them affect my self-identity nor my acting in accordance to my own self-identity. Of course, a control-freak organization might go into a tizzy with a reaction like this. It wouldn't matter that I meant no harm or that I had no evil intentions; all that would matter is that I was something other than they expected and they couldn't get a hold of slippery me to got properly socialized.
***
"People attend to information more if they are highly motivated to digest it." (p. 42)
I think it's safe to say that I was very highly motivated to attend to and digest any and all information that might provide a clue as to what was going on there. This might argue for the possibility that I might have remembered things if I thought they might be important.
***
"When people receive feedback there are a number of questions they might ask themselves: Is the feedback valid? Is the source of feedback reliable and trustworthy? What implications does the feedback have in light of what I know about myself?" (p. 44)
Regarding the feedback that I was a secretary - period - I thought it was invalid because they didn't know me, although I had thought they knew me better than that. I didn't think it was terribly reliable and trustworthy because of all the other stuff going on that seemed manipulative. I don't think I was so concerned about the implications of being pegged a secretary; rather, I think I was more concerned about the implications of all the other stuff going on that I hadn't been prepared for.
***
"It should also be noted that although their cognitive processes may make it difficult for people to identify and correct self-conceptions, they do not ordinarily make it impossible to do so. In fact, it is critical that these strategies do not work too well. If they do, large discrepancies may develop between the person's conceptions of self and the appraisals of others. In such instances the person may be labeled maladjusted or, in extreme cases, mentally ill." (p. 45)
In my case it was the mission in Vienna that was providing feedback regarding my identity. And they had known me how long? I think I had enough different confirmation from other sources that didn't peg me as a secretary - period, that I could rely on those affirmations of my self-identity to help bolster me against the counter-identity given me by the mission. But the problem was that the mission was a total institution and I was thousands of miles from anyone who might disagree with the mission's assessment of me. So, for all practical purposes, they had a monopoly on defining my identity, and if I didn't like it... well that was a big chunk of my problem, although not all of it, for sure. But it was my different self-identity that sent me going off to a German-language church, taking a German conversation course at a Volkshochschule (adult folk school), making friendly overtures to my landlady and another neighbor, etc. And that, of course, was way to independent of me, especially that early on.
So, since they virtually had the monopoly on my identity, they had the power, if they wanted to use it, to make me look crazy. I'm not saying that they did that, just that hypothetically they could have. But I don't think that's exactly how things went. Nevertheless, I think there are some helpful threads here in this text.
***
I'm going to end here for now. I've actually spent a lot of time today on this blog working on the logical fallacies, etc. I went to church and chatted with a neighbor today too, but I'm pretty tired now. I just don't have the energy to do much, and then I get tired. Writing and working at the computer isn't too tiring though. My rheumatologist said on Monday that if this fatigue doesn't improve in the next month I should probably see my primary care doctor to rule out possible causes. I'm half afraid I have chronic fatigue syndrome now too.
