What Did I Get Out Being With MOVE

(I haven't posted in a while, but somebody recently asked me what I got out of being in MOVE and I really thought about it for a while and thought I would share my response on here in the hopes that it may help somebody out there)

That is really a good question and one that deserves a thorough answer. I am glad you asked it because it really caused me to sit down and think about it.

What I came up with was that what I got out of MOVE was different at varying points of my involvement.

When I first became involved in MOVE I think it gave me a kind of purpose in life. I believe that it allowed me to make sense of a world that did not make sense. Although I would come to find out that this MOVE-inspired conception of the world was horribly skewed, it did give me a kind of relief to think that I understood the way that the world worked.

Later on, as my time in MOVE progressed, I came to the belief, again mistaken, that MOVE was my family. One cannot underestimate the power that this belief brings with it. The kind of hold that this can have on people. It is this sense of identity that can allow for people to think that committing murder and other atrocities is ok. The reality of course was that my MOVE "family" was only my "family" as long as I adhered to their belief system, their ideology, their dictates. The moment it became clear that I would no longer live under their tenets, my "family" turned into my nightmare and my biggest enemies.

Ultimately though what I got out of MOVE was the idea that it was ok to give up on thinking or living my own life. What I mean by that is instead of walking through life and learning I committed to MOVE which was the same as committing intellectual suicide. There was no need anymore for existential questions or critical thinking because that was all done for me. The problems I had in marriage and in life did not need to be worked out...MOVE would figure them out for me. I did not need to push myself to get a good job or a good education. Those things were looked down upon in MOVE. Basically, the group makes it ok to be a loser.

I don't mean a loser in the sense of someone who tries and is beat down by circumstances and who owns what happens in their life. I mean loser in the sense of always looking for someone or something to blame. For MOVE, that someone or something was and is "the system". It is the complete abdication of responsibility for the things that happened in my life. That is how the MOVE members can be in jail for 30+ years and still cannot take one iota of responsibility for the situation that they are in. They blame the cops, the lawyers, the "system", anything at all to deflect the responsibility from themselves.