COMBATING BIGOTRY & HATE | APRIL 19, 2017

You Should Know Better

There is a great injustice being perpetuated by social media. This injustice creates a “fertile” soil for unfair discrimination, lies, and potential destruction for individuals and organizations. It is the communicating and forwarding of unsubstantiated “facts,” innuendos and negative comments about some individual or organization that color the way we think of him or it.

“A Third Party is one who by false reports creates trouble between two people a person and a group, or a group and another group.” L. Ron Hubbard

If you have ever been the recipient of this kind of covert false accusation you know how unfair and upsetting this can be. When I was in college I was taking a psychology class and was assigned to work with another student on a special project. One week into the project my college professor called me into his office and told me my “partner” didn’t want to work with me because she felt I was not contributing and she had to do all the work — a total fabrication. I remember how incensed I was by what she said. She had never communicated her alleged “upset” to me before going to the professor. She created a problem for me by unjustly lowering the professor’s opinion of me based on her comments, and I became upset with the professor for arbitrarily ending our project based on her accusations without getting my side of the story.

The professor assigned me to work with another student whose partner was also “not pleased with his contributions”—another fabrication. It turned out that my “partner” and the other person’s partner wanted to work together as they were starting to date.

I am happy to say I got an “A” on the project and the course. I am not sure what my former “partner” and her boyfriend received, but I doubt it was an “A.”

L. Ron Hubbard wrote about this concept known as the Third Party. He stated: “A Third Party is ONE WHO BY FALSE REPORTS CREATES TROUBLE BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE, A PERSON AND A GROUP OR A GROUP AND ANOTHER GROUP.” He further stated, “It is very easy to see that two in conflict are fighting. They are very visible. What is harder to see or suspect is that a Third Party existed and actively promoted the quarrel.”

Scientology has been the target of Third Party activities by certain individuals and media outlets for a long time. Many years ago, I sought to isolate the sources of some of the false reports, unsubstantiated facts, innuendos and negative comments about Scientology. One of the interesting things I discovered was how easily a Third Party’s words can spread across the globe. For example, there was a totally bogus and misleading article full of unsubstantiated “facts” written in the U.S. in the 1970s about Scientology. A newspaper in Australia took what was in this article and printed it in their paper. At a later date there was another discriminatory article written about Scientology, citing the false Australian piece as evidence of the “truth” of their lies. WOW!

How many times have you received negative information about an individual or organization, and then a few days later had it “retracted” by the stater, who now confesses it was incorrect?

In this age of rampant rumors and speculation forwarded via social media and other channels of communication, we must be aware of where we don’t know we don’t know. We must not leap to conclusions on the basis of the fabrications of a probable Third Party, whether intentional or unintentional. Strive to find out the truth for yourself.

How many times have you received negative information about an individual or organization, and then a few days later had it “retracted” by the stater, who now confesses it was incorrect?

Don’t allow yourself to be the Third Party that spreads false, unsubstantiated information because you don’t know any better.

You should know better.

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AUTHOR

Bernard Percy

Author, educator, international lecturer, proud dad of three adult daughters, husband (for 45 years), and a Scientologist (since 1968). He has had eight books published on education and family relationships; he was a New York City elementary school teacher for 12 years and he has a master's degree in childhood education from Columbia University.

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