Are you in a Religious Cult? Take the test
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Yes. Selected by, and sole connection to the mythical group "board".
> Does your leader have impressive, made-up names or titles?
Yes. "Chief Executive Officer".
> As far as your group is concerned, would they say that there is no legitimate reason to leave them?
Yes... if ever trying to leave, you are technically bribed with something that you cannot use in stores or pay rent. They call it "equity".
> Is your group suspicious about the outside world?
Yes. Always this talk about how the outside world is "the competition". Sometimes "the users.
> Does your group believe that they are the ‘right’ religion/church/group/ones, or only ones, who have ‘right’ teaching/doctrine?
Yes. "The competition" is wrong.
> Are there any of the above such rules/laws in your group?
Yes. Rules are in "the handbook".
...
/S
Dont question the mandatory dress code
Really? Cults are extreme, and socially undesirable, entities. Companies are less extreme, and arguably socially beneficial, entities. However, both entities are use essentially the same psychological tools of manipulation.
I don't think this comment should be seen as facetious so much as an insight on how company structures control employees.
Another example of corporate cultism are HR people exercising techniques[1] similar to cults and other dysfunctional relationships.
That’s a huge stretch or assumption.
Hardcore racist groups certainly do though.
This isn't what I've observed. I'm sure there are such groups that don't though.
This is also a way to determine whether a group of people that has been labelled a cult isn't actually one: Look at how the group defines itself with regards to those outside. How does the group see itself in the world.
We see today many groups labelled as cults which in reality are not so. The label has become a kind of strategy for attack based on an intolerant difference ("they are different") rather than an accurate descriptive label ("they isolate themselves from us"). Tolerance in a society is tolerance towards difference.
It's all about him, and he is the only path to breakthrough technology. The Muskovites seem significantly cult-like in this way.
oh, zarzavat, of course, you are obviously correct:
it’s the people who sell “F#%K your feelings” t-shirts at rallies and wave nazi flags at “legitimate political discourse” who really care about others.
Trump: truly an empathetic person, deeply caring about others.
Assholes never like being told they are assholes. It’s unsurprising that they believe everyone else is just as mean as they are.
That is not what wokeism means.
Wokeism is about
- making boys and men feel shameful for being boys and men
- making white people feel shameful for being white
- and other such things.
What you talk about is not something that any reasonable HNer would call wokeism.
This is lited almost straight from the article isn't it?
"If you disagree with our group you are dumb."
> while the worlds powerful institutions are built upon white male supremacy.
See what I wrote above about trying to make people ashamed to be born white or male.
Also I'm not representing any "group". I'm just speaking for myself. Seems like you see this as some kind of team sports?
You did say that white males where the root of the problem.
I am a white male.
White male supremacy is an ideology, not an identity. Anyone can be white male supremacist, regardless of gender or race. Also, you can definitely be a white male who's not a white male supremacist.
So where do these have their meetups?
Where can I find contemporary writings that explain the superiority of white males?
In the US the most obvious mainstream example is republicans upholding white male supremacist laws. Of course they avoid direct language and use dog whistles instead, because saying out loud that you're a white male supremacist isn't a good look anymore. Of course the democrats do it too, but their dog whistles are more subtle and not as obvious.
> You did say that white males where the root of the problem.
Are you now moving the goalpost?
Almost no HNer has anything approaching a reasonable, good-faith or even well-informed opinion on "wokeism" to begin with.
Maybe it has just taken a meaning unrelated to the original meaning, just like "evangelical".
But I am afraid that just like evangelical, woke has been tainted beyond repair.
They’ve only been running things since the outset of our country, and literally using the force of law and violence to guarantee their social dominance for generations.
If we point that out, and how injustice in the past impacts the present, white dudes will feel bad, and that’s intolerable.
Edit: I am a white dude. And I don’t feel shame, I feel responsibility. Ask a German how they feel about Hitler.
Now imagine you are living in Russia. Over centuries you were a poor peasant, always at the mercy of someone. In the end you believe all your woes will end if you join others in yet another attempt to make things right, you kill the tzar, and soon you realized you just exchanged one tyrant for another. This is going on more or less until today. Nothing here has anything to do with race. It's similar in many other countries. But Americans have the tendency to perceive everything through their own context and project it onto the whole world. It makes no sense.
The specifics differ, but the general themes are the same.
> And I don’t feel shame, I feel responsibility.
This is spot on. There is nothing to feel ashamed or guilty.
If anything, people can feel GOOD about creating a world where people are judged for their actions rather than attributes they have no control over.
- inventing pronouns and demand people use them
- modern cancel culture
- probably a few more
Pronouns: White people used to call black people terrible things too. Things change.
Cancel culture is a moral panic like the satanic panic and strangers with candy kidnapping. https://kottke.org/22/02/cancel-culture-is-a-moral-panic
Got more fictions to peddle? GOP introduced bills to make it legal to run over protestors in your car, illegal to teach about slavery, and consider the violent insurrection of Jan 6th “legitimate political discourse”.
Seems quite apparent to me over the last couple years that it is indeed controversial. Perhaps there wouldn't have been protests, riots, etc. if it weren't.
That some folks consider it to be speaks more about them than anything else.
Here's some feedback on how that woke initiative is going: https://joemiller.us/2021/12/chicago-mayor-who-pushed-80m-de...
None of these things are even remotely true, therefore wokeism (by your definition) can be dismissed as nonsense.
It is used to play the strategic ambiguity game.
Where what one means when they say it is never the same as what it means when they are asked to explain what they mean.
And if instead of just a throwaway two-word dig it would be a longer comment with big words and superficially logical-sounding lazy argumentation that has been debunked countless times, it would likely be upvoted.
Cults operate differently - it's not what they believe, it's how they behave in the world. Not saying wokeism is a cult at all, but that religious cults often have Good Well Intentions. Precepts don't make a cult.
(A healthy religion encourages love and tolerance to those in the outgroup e.g "love your enemy")
But it's good that "people different than you" is mentioned when it comes to cults, but it's the other way around. The group is often labelled as different before it's labelled as a cult.
One way to quickly determine if something is a cult or not is if they have isolated themselves from the world, or if it's just those outside people saying "they are different from us".
Conspiracy theories are quite common in cults as it's one way for people to define an us/them idea which isolates the in group. In wokeism the theory could be that the outgroup is a conspiracy of crypto-fascist white supremacists. In trumpism the theory could be that the outgroup is a conspiracy of cultural marxist disruptors.
Confederate history month still exists in a bunch of states.
Have you seen the nazi flags at trump rallies? Jan 6th?
Often conspiracy theories as a whole are simplified explanations of reality. There may well be based on actual evidence. They are perversely comforting to hold. To know you are in a chosen group who really knows whats going on, that there is a clearly defined enemy that can be hated... That is psychologically comforting compared to not knowing whats going on in life. It's why every political group will define their enemy. It is more scary to not know why the world is what it is. Imagine a world of today where no one is responsible for the state of it! Conspiracy theories in cults increase in-group cohesion and decrease tolerance to those different from the group as those outside the group are often part of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy theories are mostly a pattern such as "we see these clear signs and occurrences in the world, therefore people in power are in a secret conspiracy to take over the world to bring in a hell on earth".
Conspiracy theories are encompassing explanations of reality too. They can explain missing facts, they can explain alternative explanations, they provide a narrative to unknowns, contradictory facts and evidence can be used to show how the conspiracy is working. It's very hard to see whether one is within the spell of a cult or a conspiracy theory when one is in the middle of one.
The best way to crack a cult member is to get them to see their in group / out group behaviour from the outside. So, "Why are you are jerk to people different than you?" is actually a really good question!
The increasing use of that idea to deny the obvious is troubling and not something that that should be celebrated.
If you need to stick with "who's doing something; I want to be like them" rather than "what're the facts and beliefs involved", then surely Bill Maher regularly calling out woke mobs has to count for something.
(I admit I might be lucky here.)
There isn’t much daylight between an ironic nazi and a real one.
What about Wokeism?
People usually think "we are not cultish because this is not a religion".
Such denial is the most cultish aspect around coporate workship and nationalism.
The thing that really got me angry about the Brethren is the sheer hypocrisy. For all the talk of morality and being right with God, they are not above having $millions stashed away in bank accounts for the benefit of their leaders, evade taxes everywhere, and carry on regardless of the psychological suffering they cause, even up to the point of suicide.
Look out for them influencing your politicians too. Here in the UK, they'll provide large numbers of volunteers to do the door-to-door canvassing for (normally Conservative) candidates who'll advocate for their shady practices.
Edit: for clarity, I should say that the Open Brethren are a separate arm and are a far more bona fide Christian denomination.
What leader? What group? How do I answer "Not applicable" or anything other than confirming that I'm in a cult already. Isn't this just begging the question?
All the questions are like this. How am I supposed to know if I'm in a cult if all the questions presuppose that I'm already in one?
A lot of benign organizations would score some points, from firefighters (wearing an uniform) to a bunch of friends playing D&D, to taking beginner painting class (the teacher is not there to be questioned on their painting sytle).
- Does your leader have impressive, made-up names or titles?
- Is your group suspicious about the outside world?
- If you were to leave your religious group, would remaining members, even family members separate themselves from you whereby there would be any emotional detachment?
- If you were to leave your religious group, would remaining members separate themselves from you and cease to have normal family life as in any of the above examples?
Why, yes; yes, we are. Whiff of nihilism in the air, and all.
Ultimate authorities, no critical thinking, only believe approved sources, those who don't believe the authority are "deceived, backslidden, demonic, bitter, evil", the end of the world is near if you don't do as we say, they are always right even when they are wrong, family separation...