I'm with you.
The "Church" has forgotten what their symbol means, as in the ARC triangle and its proper use.
Lets see; they use ENFORCED REALITY and destroy any chance of real COMMUNICATION or AFFINITY and of course REALITY.
All of these people doing this Crap in the "Church" are well below death on the
tone scale, and are VERY lost to any real life.
What are you talking about? "Real" communciation? "Real" affinity? "Real" agreement and reality? "Real "understanding? What planet are you on?
There is no inherent "meaning" or "value" or "correct use" in the "symbol" of ARC. That is something that people who "study" or read about ARC ASSUME, INFER and breathe INTO the notion. It doesn't exist there on its own. You are such a glaring wonderful example of how Scientology does what it does to believers.
It kills me how so many people ASSUME such a thing. That there is some inherent "goodness" or "meaning" in the concept of ARC. There is NOT (other than what YOU read into it). But, it isn't actually there at all. NOT AT ALL.
ARC = Understanding
It can be
ANY understanding. Please duplicate THAT fact. Simply, one mocks up AFFINITY, sends out some communication along the lines of some set of agreements (i.e. reality) to FORM an understanding in the receiver. The content of all of that can include ANYTHING. The concept is entirely value-neutral.
ARC operates everywhere, at all times, as a simple mechanical rule. It has no "goodness" or "badness", like a gun - it is HOW it is used. Yes, it can be interesting to examine various groups and behaviors with an understanding of how this thing known as ARC functions.
When you observe how children are taught strict fundamentalist Islam in Madrasas in Pakistan, you are observing ARC in action. There is much "love", "validation" and "likingness" aimed at young children (students). Affinity is the glue that holds anything together. The communication is relentless, as the kids sit rocking reading the Muslim texts, and the reality is formed by the agreement that is built up by incessant contact with the same type ideas and beliefs. The understanding? Well, it is what it is depending on WHAT is agreed with.
The concept of ARC is entirely amoral. It has NO slant, other than what the starry-eyed newbie Scientologist reads into it.
The notions of ARC resulting in SOME type of understanding can easily be applied to the world of advertising and PR, and whether those who practice in these fields know it in these terms, they USE "ARC" to manipulate and control the behavior of their target audiences. Madison Avenue techniques involve an endless intention and practice to develop communications, while often trumping up "affinity", that involve attitudes, ideas and beliefs that they want you to AGREE with (thus creating a "reality"), so that your UNDERSTANDING results in you handing over your hard earned dollars. Scientology, has also used it in THAT same exact way since Hubbard began the subject.
Take the notion of "hard sell". The reg sits there with his or her pack of relevant LRH issues. The reg smiles at you. The reg jokes with you about your kids. The reg really builds up that AFFINITY. You like and enjoy how it feels! Now that the comm line is GREASED with affinity (artificial or real, it doesn't matter), then the reg pulls out the "content" of Communication. "The fight is long and hard", "you are a big being", "dragons on the Bridge", "making an OT", and on and on and on, feeding you with an endless stream of "data". The purpose of all of that, of course, is simply to get you to
Understand within a certain framework, so as to get whatever it is that they want from you. You come to AGREE with the various ideas, you BUY INTO the set of agreements and go along with the "realities". Understand, any reality is arbitrary. It is a mock up. There is nothing inherently right or wrong, of any value, in ANY mock up. So, you come to "understand" the "hard fight", "the heavy odds against all Scientology", "the evil nature of the world out there", "the wonders of the Scientology Bridge", and when you finally come around to UNDERSTANDING all of that, then BANG, the reg can get you to separate yourself from your hard earned dollars.
Any person who uses ARC on you desires for you to understand reality in a certain slanted manner. There is no other reason. Why? So that he or she can get whatever it is that he or she wants from you (that can be anything; sex, money, drugs, rock and roll, etc). Having ANY concern at all for whatever any other person agrees with is a FLAW of EGO. From a strict Buddhist or Taoist viewpoint, it is an additive. It is entirely artificial. Caring about what other people accept as true? To the degree that you would USE ARC as a gimmick to get them to change their agreements in alignment with your own? How horribly provincial. How so very 21st century! It is just another tool in the arsenal of modern materialistic competetive Man.
I can supply an endless stream of examples, from any aspect of life. Scientology or not. People "subconsciously" know how to use and abuse ARC, whether they were ever trained in it or not.
The purpose and use of ARC, even in Scientology, is to CREATE some sort of "understanding" in another person along some lines that YOU desire. Watching how the Church, since the early 1970s, and previously through reading what Hubbard did and how, has "applied" the concept of ARC made it clear and obvious to me how it was and remains LARGELY a TOOL of MANIPULATION.
Why do people feel a bit slimy around MLM groups, various over-the-top New Age groups, even folks like Tony Robbins. First, because the AFFINITY is so contrived. We all love each other. We all want the best for each other. We all want the "best lifestyle possible" for each other. The AFFINITY greases the machinery. I have experimented with this many times. I just mock up affinity for somebody, and IMMEDIATELY my comm and comments are more readily accepted. Of course, if you pay attention, notice what the other person "agrees with" (their reality), and gear the content of the communication along those lines while gently adding in what you WANT them to AGREE with, well it is a wonderful "tool".
But, don't mistake WHAT this tool actually is.
ALL understandings are arbitrary, relative, and biased in SOME WAY. There is no "correct", "good" or right "understanding". Put a Scientologist, a Muslim fanatic, an electro-shock therapist, a sociologist and a born-again Christian in the same room. The "understanding" of each is VERY different. There is no inherent value or meaning in the term "understanding". There are as many understandings as there are grains of sand on all the beaches of Earth. There is no value in the concept of "understanding". People commonly make THAT mistake.
UNDERSTANDING! Oooohhhh! We all want "understanding". Give me that "top-notch" UNDERSTANDING. Lay it on me! What the fuck does the word even mean? Really? Honestly? In the end it means something VERY different to each person who makes the mistake of thinking about such concepts for more than a few seconds.
There are ONLY, for me, "understandings" that most closely align with accurate observations of the related topic. The only affinity I need to "understand" ANYTHING, is my own willingness to be in the SAME SPACE as SOMETHING (true meaning of the term affinity), so that I can be there and observe what is going on.
Because ARC so much depends on "communication", usually through WORDS, it is largely a semantic artifice.
But make NO mistakes about it. It IS a TOOL used to control and manipulate the UNDERSTANDING of others. When I see any person mocking up oodles of artificial affinity, like the Jehovah's Witness ringing my doorbell, or the pretty gal trying to get me to take a personality test at some Scientology location, I see someone trying to SELL ME SOMETHING. They are "being nice" to grease the lines of communication, so that I might "agree" with whatever it is they want me to agree with, finally, so that I come to the UNDERSTANDING he or she desires of me.
Like so much of Hubbard's "data", it is applied in such a contrived manner. Just as he wrote it. Just as he intended it.
YUCK!
I find the concept of ARC useful, as a tool used to observe how various people and groups develop their own unique "understandings" about life and reality. Always realizing that these "understandings" are horribly slanted, biased, loaded with fixed ideas, and fundamentally arbitrary. When and if you get to an "understanding" that has abandoned and relinquished all bias, fixed ideas, beliefs and opinions, well it is no longer actually an "understanding". Or, at least so far from what exist in the heads of most human beings.
There is NO correct, valid, right "understanding", because any "understanding" exists in the temporary mind, based largely on some incomplete conceptual framework, of a temporary human being, on a temporary planet in a temporary universe.
The only valid way to "understand" anything is to get out and OBSERVE. That BYPASSES any need for communication in words. Also, words are loaded and VERY tricky, and are NOT the things they describe or talk about. Another reason Hubbard never described the useful aspects of General Semantics, is probably because it helps strengthen a person AGAINST the manipulative use of ARC (which Hubbard depended upon).
If you want to explore this thing known as Affinity, just go out, mock it up HARD, and aim it at everybody, equally, with no aspect of how YOU can or will use it to change somebody else's mind in some manner. Just go out and channel the inherent LOVE of the Universe, and aim it abundantly at all creation. But, drop the "bringing about understanding in others" aspect of it all. ARC uses "affinity" as a way to improve manipulation and control.