Criticism
In a research paper presented at the 2000 Society for the Scientific Study of Religion conference, Anson Shupe, professor of Sociology at Indiana/Purdue University, and Susan E. Darnell, manager of a credit union, state Hassan had participated two involuntary deprogrammings in 1976 and 1977. One involving Arthur Roselle who claims that Hassan kidnapped, hit, and forcibly detained him. Hassan acknowledges that he "was involved with the Roselle deprogramming attempt in 1976. But...was never involved in violence of any kind."
Hassan states that he spent one year assisting with deprogrammings before turning to less controversial methods (see exit counseling). Hassan has spoken out against involuntary deprogramming since 1980, stating, "I did not and do not like the deprogramming method and stopped doing them in 1977!” However, in Combatting Cult Mind Control, he stated that "the non-coercive approach will not work in every case, it has proved to be the option most families prefer. Forcible intervention can be kept as a last resort if all other attempts fail." Concerned that ministers in Japan encouraged to perform forcible deprogramming because of first book," Hassan wrote a letter to Reverend Seishi Kojima stating, "I oppose aggressive, illegal methods."
Read more about this topic: Steven Hassan
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Parents sometimes feel that if they don’t criticize their child, their child will never learn. Criticism doesn’t make people want to change; it makes them defensive.”
—Laurence Steinberg (20th century)
“Homoeopathy is insignificant as an art of healing, but of great value as criticism on the hygeia or medical practice of the time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)