Maybe you have seen the thorough expose on Soka University of America in OCWeekly: "The Aliso Viejo college was founded by a Buddhist sect that preaches peace-so why are so many former professors alleging the opposite?"
Please check it out. It does for SUA/SGI what the recent New Yorker piece did for Scientology.
Some of my former friends say that if Soka is a cult, it's a victimless one. In this article, you get a clear look at how the group has messed with people's careers, harassed and intimidated them -- and warped the ethics of its members. Quotes from the article after the jump.
Official policy of being two-faced:
She makes reference to an e-mail sent in 2002 by Alfred Balitzer, then-dean of Soka University, to a colleague, "SUA will always have two faces and two kinds of faculty," he wrote, "and that is why we as SUA top administrators have to carefully care for the Gakkai members as they are being swamped by non-Gakkai faculty."
Intolerance of dissent:
A culture of paranoia rules the campus, dissidents claim, with jobs always teetering on the line based on whether professors are Soka Gakkai or not."We started asking if this is a religious institution or the institution we were promised," says Green, now a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. "It's sort of ironic that they are a group for peace, but essentially, they declare war on anyone who raises a question."
Ubiquitous mentor-disciple claptrap:
Students, they say, would always talk about their "life mentor," referring to Ikeda. They'd spend their days reading his speeches and chanting the Lotus Sutra in the lounge areas. The campus museum featured an exhibit titled "Gandhi, King, and Ikeda." Administrators started calling the university a "hybrid" institution.
Covering up serious abuses to maintain a "positive" attitude:
One professor who asked to remain anonymous alleges that in the school's first year of operation, students told him of a sexual assault that had happened on campus. The victim went to administrators, who urged her not to say anything. "The excuses they gave were medieval," the professor states. "They said they were going to protect her reputation. It was horrifying to me."
A culture of intimidation:
One anonymous professor wrote in an e-mail that many faculty members are afraid to come forward with their stories because SGI is "extraordinarily vigilant and nasty regarding any perceived threats to their reputation. They have armies of lawyers and PR people, and they use them. One fellow ex-faculty member was actually tracked down in Mexico by a Soka Gakkai member and asked if he had been accurately quoted in an article; he said yes."
The article is a thorough survey of all the creepiness that is Soka U., including info on the Southwell suit and more. Highly recommended reading! Here's the link.
"The cult frenzy is very crazy, very Orwellian," she says. "I wish they would be as attractive on the inside as they are on the outside."
5 comments
Thanks for posting. I saw it last night and didn't have time to put up a link.What's really revealing is the number and nature/tone of the comments posted to the online version of the article. It's a perfect demonstration of SGI tactics when confronting the perceived enemy:1. Insult the author/writer/journalist. Attack her intelligence and professionalism. Call her a liar.2. Insult those who criticize SGI/SUA as liars, losers, etc.3. Declare that racism is the source of "bias" against SGI.4. Declare that SGI/SUA is the best thing that ever happened to you, and you are deliriously happy and changing the world through sheer force of intelligence and joy gained from associating with SGI/SUA. Regard anyone who questions this as an enemy.Typical gakkai strategy.
Hey, mroakie. Thanks for pointing out the comments. It took me a minute to figure out how to show all of them (there's a little button at the bottom).Last I checked, there were 143 responses -- quite a crapstorm of comments. Most of them were from proclaimed SUA students and parents. Most of them fit the mold you described. I was a little shocked by how illiterate some of the comments were -- especially since the writers were mostly boasting about what a great education they were getting at SUA, and saying what a crap writer Michelle Woo is. LOL.This comment struck me as particularly brainwashy:
Anyone who has experience with SGI will recognize this rhetoric. Somehow, pigpiling on critics of Soka "creates value." Slamming the OCWeekly online is "dialogue." In the perpetually embattled world of soka, criticism is met with defiant pride.Backward is forward, and blindness is clear vision of Soka Harmony. Gah. Barf.What troubles me most, though, is that I still conflate Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Buddhism. I have done so much work to purge all the crazy Sokaness from my Buddhist practice. But when I see the Sokabots at work, I just want to ditch it all, throwing the baby Nichiren out with the Soka bath water.I know, I shouldn't let it push my buttons. I shouldn't care about Soka. But I do. I think they've done a horrible disservice to Nichiren Buddhism, and I feel that this point is not made strongly or often enough.I agree that the article does a wonderful job of summarizing what I know to be true of SUA. I visited the campus at the time of its opening. Yes, it is beautiful. SGI spared no expense. At the time, it was explained to me that the campus would have a state-of-the-art surveillance system so the campus could be monitored at all times. This was presented as beneficial feature, but I remember feeling chilled. I have long since parted ways with SGI.The comments in response the article were alarming. Having been away from SGI, I have largely forgotten the intense fervor, vocabulary and tone of Gakkai-speak. Brooke, I understand what you mean about flashbacks to the bad old days. Reading all the blather about "value creation" and the greatness of Soka brought it all back with shameful clarity.I feel so stupid for having been a member of SGI, and for believing in the beneficence of its activities. I am like a broken record with this, but I wish all soka students and SGI members would review Cult Tactics 101, summarized well at How Cults Work.By the way, the commenters who deny the grandiose intentions of SGI (campus built to last for thousands of years, a luxurious guest house waiting for Ikeda, etc.) need only read SGI publications from the late 1990s where all of this information was printed by the organization itself.The saddest comments are the ones that say effectually, "Maybe SGI or SUA were culty and creepy in the past, but we've changed!"If only I had a nickel for every time I've heard someone say that the Soka skunk has changed its stripe.
Wow. There are 349 comment on that article as I type. I just added my two cents, in reply to someone who accused a SUA critic of confirmation bias:
The last comment quoted is especially helpful, if any SGI people will read it. It tells us that no matter how wise or profound or cute you say you are, people who actually listen to you and watch you can compare your actions and words, and your self-report of them, and tell if there's a match or not.This ability of persons to independently observe seems to escape the Eastern cultural mind-set.