The failure of Study Tech and its apologists.

[The Anabaptist Jacques]

One of the debilitating effects of Study Tech is that it often decreases one’s capacity to use language in a fluid way.

This is because Study Tech puts such emphasis on the dictionary as the authoritarian reference for the use and meaning of words.

Study Tech assigns each word a territory and a boundary. Thus users of Study Tech often miss the purpose of language.

They can’t see the forest (language) because of the trees (words). This happens IN Scientology.

Users of Study Tech develop the tendency to emphasize the fixed meaning of words rather than the understanding of ideas.

In other words, they become literal in their use of words, which limits their capacity to understand.

Study Tech negates the use and existence of such figures of rhetoric as metonymy and synecdoche.

A metonymy is a figure of rhetoric in which the name of one object is put for some other object, the two being so closely related that the mention of one naturally suggests the other.

Examples of this are: “I read Shakespeare”; “Man shall live by the sweat of his brow”; “France would not consent.”; “Bayonets speak“; “This happens in Scientology”; “What does the Freezone believe?”

Scientologists whose fluidity of language is reduced by the use of Study Tech often dismiss a metonymy as “a generality.”

They have lost their taste and imagination in the use of language, relying only on the meaning of words instead.

This happens also with the use a synecdoche.

A synecdoche is a figure of rhetoric in which the name of a part is used to represent the whole, or the name of the whole is used to represent a part, or a definite number used to represent an indefinite.

Examples: “All hands were working”; “Ten thousand exes rejoiced.”; “The world condemns him.” Scientologists and exes often dismiss this expression of an idea too as simply “a generality.”

Both figures of speech are founded on the contiguity of two objects of thought.

This won’t be understood if the person emphasizes words and not language.

Study Tech adherents also have difficulty understanding or comprehending litotes.

Litotes are the reverse of hyperbole.

It consists in giving emphasis to an idea by using terms that convey less than the truth.

For example “Show thyself a man.” This means that the person speaking to is urged to put forth the noblest qualities of manhood.

Also, some litotes are denials of the contrary instead of a direct of a direct statement.

For example: “I do not think him a great man.” By emphasizing words and not language this will get missed in Study Tech.

Scientologists and exes who adhere to Study Tech often do not make these connections, as they emphasize words and not thoughts.

The adherents to study tech miss the ideas because they do not understand the use of language.

Now there are some who say they mixed Study Tech with other common sense tools.

But this is a flaw in their precsion of language.

Because if Study Tech is not applied exactly it is not Study Tech.

Study Tech is not just looking up words; it is a unified association of actions designed to compel a particular interpretation of a written statement.

But by ignoring language it misses its target.

When people say they use common sense this implies they could not have attained understanding through the use of Study Tech, thus Study Tech has failed.

The following is from the standard high school textbook used in high schools in the United States in the 1890s.

I will add comments in brackets to show how this differs from Study Tech.

From: Elements of Composition and Rhetoric by Virginia Waddy

1. Always note a new word, with a view to ascertaining its precise meaning and use. [Note how “precise meaning and use” differs from “full conceptual understanding.” The result is that one is a precise understanding and the Study Tech leaves the student with imprecise word associations.]

2. Make constant use of a dictionary. It is the practice of many great scholars never to allow a word to pass without an examination, if there is the least doubt about its origin, pronunciation, meaning, or spelling. [Some may say that this is the same as L. Ron Hubbard’s Study Tech. But the difference lies in the step one. One seeks out precision and the other seeks out association.]

3. Study Etymology It is useful to trace out the origin, composition, and primary meaning of words…

4. Seek good society. There is a great advantage to be derived from a frequent association with intelligent and cultivated persons. One who has that advantage will acquire a good vocabulary without great effort.

5. Read the best books carefully. Observe the selection and combination of words as illustrated by the best authors, if you would be profited by formal rhetorical rules. You must not, however, imitate your author in a slavish spirit.

6. The words of any composition should be pure, appropriate, precise, and simple.
[End of Waddy's book]

Failure to see the distinction and the result of these distinctions would be one of the consequences of using Study Tech.

When people tell me that Study Tech works if you are not slavish to it means that they themselves do not use Study Tech as a system.

They see flaws and they make adjustments.

But it is those adjustments that give the results, because it is apparent that Study Tech, per Hubbard, reduces the student’s capacity to understand language.

The Anabaptist Jacques

[themadhair]

InB4 a watered down unrecognisable version of study tech is defended....

[degraded being]

.
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I just wrote this response to a post on another thread............


Yes, that's how education in the "wog world" is these days. Those are some of the objectives.

I just want to say something about "learning in a social environment" too, which completely permeates education in the wog world. I think it comes from Vygotsky's theories and has been around a long time now.
Students and teachers do things interactively and get students to "discover" the meanings in what they study...to a great extent. It is a social co-operative way of learning.

In the scientology cult it is the opposite. It is a very cultish method of isolating the student. Of course there are other people present, but they do not "discover" the meaning or "construct" the meaning by discussion and interaction together. The supervisor has minimal contact. The students only "twin" to mechanically ensure that hubbard's ideas are installed. I used to think individual checksheets were a good idea, and perhaps they are for certain things, but not for many learning situations. More for learning routine (probably physical) tasks such as "How to clean the tractor"

From theories on social-interactive-co-operative learning, the very cultish, indoctrinative nature of study tech can be seen, by contrast.

[R6Basic]

The other failure was I couldn't get it to work outside of Scn. study materials.

I know I was good at study tech. Got 100% on final exam then about a year latter redid the last test and got a 90% or so and had to restudy a few issues.

I was even a basic course sup. But I couldn't use this great tech to learn anything I wanted, except for Scn. courses that is.

I also find it interesting that the world has gotten on very well in the last 6,000 years without study tech, I don't think we need it now.

[programmer_guy]

The SCN study tech is flawed.
However this doesn't mean that the use of dictionaries should not be practiced.

Also, in software engineering, we have to define the words that decribe what we are doing, and requirements, ALL of the time.

[ChuckNorrisCutsMyLawn]

I'm personally grateful for Ron gracing us with Study Tech.

Now we finally have a use for all of the millions of dictionaries that were just laying around going unused prior to Ron's great invention.

Until Ron, no one ever thought of using a dictionary to look up the definition of an unfamiliar word.

If it wasn't for Scientology, We'd still have no idea why Merriam-Webster's printing presses kept pumping out more dictionaries, and why people kept buying them.

Thanks Ron, for finally giving us a use for all those books.

[HelluvaHoax!]

...


The idea that Scientologists know the "tech" of how to study or even are able to "clear" words is very easily disprovable.

A Scientologist CANNOT clear many words. It is impossible for them to do so without blowing Scientology. If you doubt this, try to get a Scientologist to use their "study tech" to clear the word cult. Or the word clear itself.

There is a natural law regarding this phenomenon:


HUBBARD LAW OF 10: Even if a Scientologist had 10 dictionaries, 10 word clearers and 10 pounds of clay, they could not possibly understand it. Because of the 10 points of KSW.


Have a Scientologist clear the word SP and then ask them if lifelong Sea Org members like Jefferson Hawkins or Mark Headley were SPs because they left the Sea Org and told the truth? Have them "clear" the definitions found in their two (2) respective books which memorialize how they were terrorized, imprisoned and beaten. A Scientologist cannot clear the word SP. They can only parrot what they are told to say an SP is and then parrot who they are told is an SP.

That actually makes Scientologists amongst the worst or "glibbest" students on the face of the earth.

[PirateAndBum]

...

The adherents to study tech miss the ideas because they do not understand the use of language.

Now there are some who say they mixed Study Tech with other common sense tools.

But this is a flaw in their precsion of language.

Because if Study Tech is not applied exactly it is not Study Tech.

Study Tech is not just looking up words; it is a unified association of actions designed to compel a particular interpretation of a written statement.

But by ignoring language it misses its target.

When people say they use common sense this implies they could not have attained understanding through the use of Study Tech, thus Study Tech has failed.

The following is from the standard high school textbook used in high schools in the United States in the 1890s.

I will add comments in brackets to show how this differs from Study Tech.

From: Elements of Composition and Rhetoric by Virginia Waddy

1. Always note a new word, with a view to ascertaining its precise meaning and use. [Note how “precise meaning and use” differs from “full conceptual understanding.” The result is that one is a precise understanding and the Study Tech leaves the student with imprecise word associations.]

2. Make constant use of a dictionary. It is the practice of many great scholars never to allow a word to pass without an examination, if there is the least doubt about its origin, pronunciation, meaning, or spelling. [Some may say that this is the same as L. Ron Hubbard’s Study Tech. But the difference lies in the step one. One seeks out precision and the other seeks out association.]

3. Study Etymology It is useful to trace out the origin, composition, and primary meaning of words…

...

Failure to see the distinction and the result of these distinctions would be one of the consequences of using Study Tech.

When people tell me that Study Tech works if you are not slavish to it means that they themselves do not use Study Tech as a system.

They see flaws and they make adjustments.

But it is those adjustments that give the results, because it is apparent that Study Tech, per Hubbard, reduces the student’s capacity to understand language.

The Anabaptist Jacques

Study Tech is not just looking up words; it is a unified association of actions designed to compel a particular interpretation of a written statement.

Sorry, but I don't agree with your premise about study tech. I think you are restricting it into something that it is not. Study tech is NOT a course in language or how to read. But there is more to "study tech" than just the 3 barriers to study.

If you don't know what a word means certainly you are not going to begin to comprehend some higher echelon of linguistic understanding to which you aspire.

I will agree that knowing the meaning of words alone is not enough to grok such examples of rhetorical speech. But study-tech does include understanding grammar and the purpose is to understand what you are reading and therefore would include understanding rhetorical forms if you ran into them - not to force you into some literal word by word interpretation. It tells you to use appropriate reference materials to assist you in your study. Every course room I studied in had far more than dictionaries available. There were grammars, encyclopedias (multiple sets), text books on a variety of subjects, books on slang and idioms, etc.

The problem is that people are not well educated in general. Learning the study tech is certainly not going to do anything about a person's ignorance of rhetorical expression.

I had no clue what those terms you introduced meant, never heard of them, but that does not mean that I could not understand your explanation of them and the examples that you provided I already could understand without knowing what the term is for such. "Show thyself a man" is likely to give a less literate reader a problem. Study tech is not a substitute for a course in rhetoric (or whatever course it would be that you would learn about such language constructs - see I'm an engineering type and went light on English.) But applying study tech to such a statement, one should grok that he isn't groking it just by understanding the words. Any reader unfamiliar with such uses would run afoul in a similar way. This is where one would have to look for help in reference material or seek someone's assistance.

I don't know where you get this "association of words" as far as defining words vs precise understanding (your comments re 1 & 2 in brackets). My understanding of "clearing a word" was that you were to gain a precise understanding of each definition, specifically first finding the precise definition as it applies to what you are reading. What is wrong with gaining a full conceptual understanding of a word? How can one have a full conceptual understanding of a particular meaning without precisely understanding the meaning?

I don't think there is anything wrong with study-tech as far as it goes. There is something wrong with thinking you know everything you need to know about the use of language by reason of knowing study tech. This of course is a problem found everywhere in scientology: failed understanding, bad application, absolutes that aren't, illusions of completeness.

[Lavalyte]

The SCN study tech is flawed.
However this doesn't mean that the use of dictionaries should not be practiced.

Also, in software engineering, we have to define the words that decribe what we are doing, and requirements, ALL of the time.

Yes, it's a curator's egg. That which is good is not original, and that which is original is not good.

[ChuckNorrisCutsMyLawn]

Hubbard's Study Tech works so well that you can't find a single Scientologist who can explain what Scientology is.