We are sorry to inform you that you are in a cult
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labskausleben.bearblog.dev
But, I grew up in an actual cult. The comments here to the effect of “everything’s a cult” and “startups are cults” and “HN is a cult” - oh gosh. Nothing could be further from the truth. HN is not a cult, folks.
I’m glad people can make those jokes though, because I immediately know they didn’t experience what I did. They have never experienced the ongoing heartbreak of losing your entire world when you leave - your family, your friends, your job, your social life, your religion, your everything. People who get out don’t tend to make light of it.
In any case: know that there are actual cults in operation, and they do tremendous harm. The “everything’s a cult” stuff allows them to operate more freely these days.
https://medium.com/@zelphontheshelf/10-signs-youre-probably-...
1. The leader is the ultimate authority
2. The group suppresses skepticism
3. The group delegitimizes former members
4. The group is paranoid about the outside world
5. The group relies on shame cycles
6. The leader is above the law
7. The group uses “thought reform” methods
8. The group is elitist
9. There is no financial transparency
10. The group performs secret rites
Also, not all cults are religious. Some are tied to economic activity (MLMs are very culty, for example), and dysfunctional families often take on a cult-like atmosphere, with a charismatic and controlling parent backed by enablers as they abuse a scapegoat and dominate the family.
Now we're well into the map vs territory. In the attempt to define a cult (something which we intuit) we end up fixated on the boundary between what is a cult and what is not a cult, and try to create a taxonomic rule-based classification.
The mistake is then to assume that that rule-based classification defines what a cult is (rather than attempts to describe what is a cult) and you end up saying that something (like MLMs) are a "cult" even though they are not! I mean, you can make an analogy to a cult, or show cult-like properties, but absent a religious motivation (where "religious" itself is a similarly nebulous concept) it's not a cult.
If your rule-based model defines something which is not a cult (subjectively) as a cult (objectively), then your definitions are bad, period, and you should stop using them. Instead, embrace fuzziness and subjectivity and look for the interesting properties of "cult", and learn what it teaches us about language and society.
NXIVM was absolutely a cult, despite a focus on self-improvement/ philosophy rather than religion. They had a supreme leader, they cut off the members from the outside, there was a clean ingroup/outgroup and they freaking branded their members. Sure, in most ways it was "just" an MLM but it was also absolutely a cult and it absolutely ruined people's lives in an identical way.
Scientology was a cult even before the point it took on the trappings of religion for tax purposes. It was originally NOT a religion - it was just more pseudo-scientific MLM nonsense. It was still a cult.
Sex cults are also definitely cults, even though the focus is on sex and the leader in general rather than religion.
Sure, it did bad things. If a member were a Christian, did it force them to denounce God or renounce their hope of salvation, or to otherwise accept heretical beliefs? I am not Christian; these are not things important to me, but they are part of the operational definition of a classical cult, which NXIVM is not, in that sense.
Why use the label cult? As a rhetorical device, that's fine, but don't present it to me as an absolute. Even the wikipedia article on NXIVM, for example, calls it a "personality cult", a term specifically invented to refer to a cult-like organization organized around a persona rather than a religious precept.
Language is free -- what I think subjectively is a cult and what you do are different, and usage will evolve as time goes on, and that's fine. I'm in general in favor of holding to a narrower definition because otherwise the semantic mismatch in discussing cults can get very broad, to the point where we're just talking about two different things and the connection from cult -> occult -> hidden knowledge has been completely lost. EDIT: And not stated here, but my main thrust, is that expanding the meaning because of poorly scoped definitions is the worst possible way to go about it because it's motivated by pseudo-logic rather than by organic usage.
Could you possibly link to this singular, authoritative (and non-contested) "operational definition of a classical cult"?
> Why use the label cult? As a rhetorical device, that's fine, but don't present it to me as an absolute.
Only your absolute definition is allowed? Is there a governing body for such things?
> Language is free -- what I think subjectively is a cult and what you do are different, and usage will evolve as time goes on, and that's fine.
This is a bit inconsistent with the rest of your comment - what constitutes a cult is now subjective?
> I'm in general in favor of holding to a narrower definition because otherwise the semantic mismatch in discussing cults can get very broad, to the point where we're just talking about two different things and the connection from cult -> occult -> hidden knowledge has been completely lost.
Is it possible that this could be happening right here in this thread?
> EDIT: And not stated here, but my main thrust, is that expanding the meaning because of poorly scoped definitions is the worst possible way to go about it because it's motivated by pseudo-logic rather than by organic usage.
Now we're back to "the (singular) meaning"?
Sir: do you recall where you acquired your facts? Did those who provided them to you include any supporting proofs?
I do not have an absolute definition! That's my whole point! Nor do I deny yours, but only point out that the label, by itself, adds no value to the discussion, unless there's a common framework. Surely you can acknowledge that a significant number of people would require a religious belief; that's what makes the accusation against NIXVM particularly outre, because they are cult-like without a religious element, and saying they are a cult is a way to associate them with something generally found distateful.
> This is a bit inconsistent with the rest of your comment - what constitutes a cult is now subjective?
YES! A MILLION TIMES YES! On the border of the taxonomy, things get very wishy-washy -- but finding someone who says that Heaven's Gate or Jonestown are not cults would be enormously difficult. The usage of "cult" only works because we have a shared cultural experience with the notion of cult. and invoking that when referring to things like NXIVM is a rhetorical device, nothing more.
I don't get to "decide" the meaning of "cult" and neither do you! It's a word in a living language in the milieu of a society with a shared cultural heritage that carries history and connotation stretching back to before we were born. It is ultimately uninteresting to debate whether NIVMX is a cult or not because it does not make more acceptable or condemnatory their practices.
If you could make a strong statement; "they exhibited the following cult-like attributes, and in consequence, like every organization with those attributes, they also exhibited these behaviors" then you're on to something; you're doing observational sociology. But here all you're really saying is "they are super double bad", which is, okay, fine, but you can just call them fascists or communists or something else that people hate and it has the same impact.
"Cult" carries a ton of baggage. You say "hey, that MLM you want to join satisfies 4/10 properties of a cult -- it's a cult!" and the baggage is "Jonestown was a cult and they all died. Heaven's gate was a cult and they all died. Branch Davidian was a cult and they all died." It's a rhetorical sleight of hand, nothing more, and it will not convince anyone or create an interesting discussion; it'll just come down to some argument about whether Catholicism is a cult.
In order to actually get anything useful, you have to show how the cult-like properties either inevitably lead to the negative consequences (which is nigh impossible; some of these definitions apply to little league teams) or talk about the specific negative or questionable behaviors of the organization itself.
The list of signs of a cult above is a useful rubric for determining if an organizational is harmful. And as others have noted the technical term “high-demand organization” has grown specifically to leave behind the religious implications of “cult”, though language moves slow and many will still use that term day to day.
Are there any organizations you’ve been involved in that have been called a cult?
I do not agree about the list. That list is there to win semantic arguments about whether something is a cult or not. Nothing to do with harm; you can argue that some of the criteria, like "shame cycles" are harmful in and of themselves, but most are harmless attributes. Apply it to a kid's soccer team to see this.
I have never been involved in a cult. But sure, calling things a cult is cheap. I'm Jewish, I have been a Ron Paul supporter, card-carrying ACLU member. All of those things have been called cults.
Definitions when applied prescriptively have to be looked at from an operational perspective -- _why_ does it matter that this instance belongs to that category?
Its was probably written by an adult.
Feel free to disagree and engage in the discussion rather than using reductive cheap shots.
If we're talking about extremely insular, high-commitment groups that tend to punish people who leave, we might as well leave behind a word that is just as often used by monotheists to refer to heretics. "Cult" and "occult" are from "hidden" anyway, as in you'd better hide if you're a heretic.
- sharp distinction between in-group and out-group (covers 3, 4, 8)
- high degree of social control (covers 5, 6, 7, 10)
- truth is a social construct (covers 1, 2, 7, probably 9 as well)
I think that if you try to compress the information too much, it becomes too abstract and meaningless. Your local library also distinguishes between members and non-members, but it doesn't imply that they slander the former members, or are paranoid about people who buy their own books. Social control can be achieved by different ways; for some reason it seems important that cults use shame as a specific psychological tool. Many cults would strongly object against the words that "truth is a social construct", despite the fact that they use it exactly that way.
There is a social mechanism that seems unusually successful at hacking human brains. It has probably been reinvented many times independently by various abusive people, but some people also copy some behaviors from their previous groups. Lists like this are attempts to describe the mechanism. The individual points are not independent things, but parts of a complex whole, reinforcing each other. For example, it is easier for the group to shame you, after they have convinced you that all your achievements outside the group are worthless. And it is easier to convince you that everything outside the group is worthless, if they falsely exaggerate the value of the group, and then apply black-and-white thinking (our group is miraculous, the world outside is not, therefore the world outside is worthless). Black-and-white thinking comes easier if they convince you that the teachings are super important, so it is important to get them absolutely right. Etc.
LDS is accused of being a cult. But they’re generally nice neighbors. Is it still a cult if it gets big enough? Islam would’ve once been a cult as well as Christianity.
At the very least it seems any religion is a cult. We can argue then about whether something is religious or not.
To draw an analogy, if a street gang gets big enough and controls enough territory, is it a government?
The obvious follow up question is that if these phenomena only differ in size of membership, what makes one "legitimate" and the other not? Is there such a thing as a legitimate government and a legitimate religion, or are they all just another level of street gangs and cults?
For governments anyway we have an answer. Sure at some level the organization of hard force in the form of police is subject to the same practical considerations and constraints as the organization of hard force in the form of a gang, and will thus take a superficially similar form, but a gang does not give you a day in court nor does it set up a system of fair and impartial trials nor does it let you vote on its rules. A gang is fundamentally self serving. It exists for the enrichment of itself at the expense of those outside of it. A democracy, in contrast, directly contradicts the premise "the leader is above the law." So there is such a thing as a "legitimate government".
Existence and uniqueness of "legitimate religion" is left as an exercise for the reader.
(btw Trumpism is absolutely a cult. Just look at it, they had to invent the word "Trumpism" to describe the phenomena because it did not fit any other defined political philosophy and the only constant non-contradictory belief it has is loyalty to Trump himself. Seriously, try defining Trumpism in some way other than "agreeing with what Trump says no matter what." Its impossible. That's a cult.)
For example, you could have a case like China which up until recently had rulers that stepped down every 5 years. I'd call that a textbook example of the rulers themselves being subject to the rules, and indeed regular peaceful transfers of power is something rarely ever seen outside of Democracies. In spite of having some amount of rule of law, China doesn't quite match the way I've defined legitimacy, because the laws of China themselves are ultimately derived from "because the party said so". So the legitimacy of the laws rest on the legitimacy of the communist party. Where does that legitimacy come from? The short answer is "Chinese standard of living better keep trending upwards forever."
Now, let's take Catholicism, probably the major faith most often accused of cult-like behaviour. It certainly has some of the most political structure and (pardon the pun) orthodoxy of the major religions. But Catholicism is also extremely open. There are no fees to join. There are no mandatory payments. There are no doctrinal secrets. They're entirely open about everything they believe, up front. You don't get whacked with some dark secret ten years in. They also don't really attempt to control most, let alone all, domains of of members' lives. They go about careers, etc. as they see fit. They're also tolerant of internal criticism and dissent; you've got some Cardinals in favour of gay marriage, and some of the loudest voices about the systematic sex abuse problem (one of the biggest reasons one might call them a cult) are coming from adherent Catholics, who aren't automatically excommunicated or given other traditionally cult-like handling for their dissent.
Such difference seems very significant to me. And I'm an atheist and decidedly anti-religious, for what it's worth.
Thank you for your honesty. As a Catholic it's interesting to hear the perspective of an atheist on this topic.
Christianity rejects at a philosophical level any sort of dependence on 'secret information'. The teachings of the Catholic Church should stand up to scrutiny and there is nothing to hide.
Really?
"The Catholic position on contraception was formally explained and expressed by Pope Paul VI's Humanae vitae in 1968. Artificial contraception is considered intrinsically evil, but methods of natural family planning may be used, as they do not usurp the natural way of conception."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_birth_contr...
The world's beliefs are many and varied. There are plenty of religious groups that provide a foundation for a healthy life instead of insisting they are the only means to achieving it.
You'll be hardpressed to apply this list of grievances to the average Buddhist community, for instance. Sikhs, Jains, Baha'i, Quakers -- many more come to mind.
#2 and #3 are pretty extreme. If you have social contact with a Covenant-Breaker you are likely to lose your voting rights.
#4 is of course somewhat true because most Baha'is know someone who has been imprisoned or killed (in Iran) for being Baha'i, or at least know someone who knows someone. You'd have to be pretty irrational not to be somewhat paranoid under those circumstances.
I'm not sure what is meant by #5, but shame of course has a prominent place in the Baha'i faith, as in any religion.
Going through the list, though, I think that to a significant extent it's just a rough definition of "religion" or "culture", plus elements of leadership. Is Thomas Jefferson "above the law"? Is Muhammad? Of course they are, you can't prosecute them. Is the US Government? Yes, it has "sovereign immunity". You'd be hard-pressed to find any culture that didn't consider itself superior to the outgroup, yet vulnerable to attacks from it, or that didn't enforce some degree of ideological conformity, or that didn't shame deviations from its norms.
What I like about this article is that the author suffers from the very phenomenon they are describing, demonstrating how ubiquitous and hard to detect in oneself it is.
Almost 10 years out, my spouse and I still make inside jokes for the insider speech and content. However, the exit process is one that seems exclusively designed to prevent dignity from being maintained.
Ed:
> They have never experienced the ongoing heartbreak of losing your entire world when you leave - your family, your friends, your job, your social life, your religion, your everything.
On the flip side, many years down the way, I love that I got to start over and define my own life rather than be forced to live the terms handed to me. It was damn hard, letting go. I would never assert otherwise. The path since has been an adventure, without question.
I’m glad you and your wife were able to get out, too. :)
Of course, context is everything and language is fluid, but think pieces that inadvertently soften words can also downgrade important intentions as a side-effect.
This has ever been the case.
As one example, you can look at the cyclic nature of words used to describe someone who, according to current terms, has an "intellectual disability":
Idiot
Moron
Imbecile
Retarded
These words and others have, at various times, been used in a specific clinical context. As those words seeped out of the clinical setting into the general public's awareness they started being used in more generic, looser, non clinical settings, often as insults. When that happened-- often when the associated stigma gained so much weight that it was difficult to use as a unloaded clinical term-- new terms started to be used. "Retarded" is the most recent to reach its EOL. Phonemic complexity seems to make this process a little more difficult: Intellectual Disability may be too much of a mouthful to easily become a quick insult.
The evolution & etymology of these terms is actually a bit more complex than this, but it gives a rough sketch of the phenomenon. It's just the natural cycle of language use.
Though of course it can lead to misuderstandings and severe conflicts when someone who suffers gravely from one such condition and now in addition they have to add more qualifiers and verbosity to try to express their needs.
Is it the same thing that prevents people from leaving their house, because they get stuck at the door checking whether they really locked it? No, of course, but it's also not a thing with absolutely no commonality. I sometimes get stuck deciding how to re-organize things, try it this way, or maybe next month I try it that way ... then eventually but relatively quickly I get upset about it and then accept this imperfection of the world, and that's it. Is it OCD? No, and I don't use the term, but it's more OCD-like than what probably ~80-90% of the population does. And yes, of course it used to be that the clinical term was used for only the ~1% extreme end of the spectrum. (But then useful terms spread and now their use is more common and broader, and yes, it absolutely makes it less precise, dilutes their original meaning, etc. But "so ist das Leben", that's language for ya.)
And, in general, words' gravity is very context dependent. Cursing is almost like a requirement in some situations in the military, while it's absolutely forbidden in others. Or misusing religious words in a very religious setting, etc.
The danger of the "everything is a ..." mindset is it allows utopian and virtue ideology to lead and control people.
I'm glad you escaped, and thanks for sharing.
And lately it's been getting really bad having to re-tell the reasons for the PTSD diagnosis to doctors who go "oh, well, a lot of people _say _they have PTSD"
(Not to mention: a lot of people get really touchy with the idea that religion can be “traumatic” at all.)
1000x. I think religion gets traumatic when it is all about dressing up guilt and shame for behavior control. That is when it gets traumatic.
Parents using shame to get specific behaviors from their kids (or prevent certain behaviors) are turning a very powerful tool against their kids, and it hurts everyone.
I'm no-contact with _both_ my parents, over this issue, and they're not even able to perceive that they used shame, constantly, against all three of their children, and continue to do so.
There is one comment on the board calling out the article's negatively towards magical thinking as bigotry. To folks that are recovering from religious trauma, it's straight up lived experience.
Truthfully? I find it very difficult to see religion as anything other than traumatic, because what I went through was so bad and different than what most people think of when they think of “religion.” I don’t know if I have any real objectivity in the matter.
I do feel that there is something interesting in that line of thought, however. Perhaps it has to do with the intensely personal nature of religious conviction, and the existential subject matter it deals with?
All and all, communities in general can create trauma. Its odd to me that many religions tend to be especially good at it.
On the other hand, some religions I respect greatly for their desire to improve the lives of their adherents. Reform Judaism and their commitment to tzedakah and tikkun olam, Sikhism, liberal Christianity, and so forth.
Religion is a mechanism to transfer culture (though not exclusively so). When it cuts out its feedback mechanisms in its governance structure, it inevitably becomes toxic.
Yesterday was Sunday. I have a kid, meaning I have little time and I'm frequently tired. I was driving around town and I saw throngs of people out to attend Sunday mass. And it got me thinking. These people spend multiple hours every Sunday going to worship something they have no evidence exists. The only reason most of them do so is because their parents told them this thing exists. And their parents only do so because they were told my their parents, etc. And this practice has continued on for thousands of years, all because people regard a particular ancient book as true, despite being able to articulate why. And there I was, tired and longing for just a few hours of solace.
I wouldn't call myself an atheist. But blindly following a ceremony your entire life, indoctrinating your kids, etc. definitely feels cult-like to me. Maybe not the worst cult ever, though.
People go to church once a week to try to align themselves with the most good they can. They take a hard look at their failing ask forgiveness and try to do better next week.
Contrast that with people than never try to do that, never have a time to reflect on deeper things, have no community that tried to help each other to do good.
All culture sit on a religious traditions, by throwing it away we don’t know what we loose, we are like the doctor of the 1800 that removed organs they didn’t know what they did.
As our culture go further and further away from christianity it is slowly disintegrating. We can no longer trust people and institutions, families don’t last, socials connections are eroding. I don’t think it can go on much longer until it crumble.
Now is there a ’God’ up there, I don’t know. But that’s not were the value of those things lie.
But yes, there is also a tendency to try to explain everything and reject what doesn’t fit in the explanation ex: homosexuality.
> See it as a kind of philosophy embedded in a story (mythology)
This is tricky. You are sort of making an acknowledgement of the power of Christianity to shape culture without requiring a firm belief in its supernatural truth claims. I just don't think you can recover the one without the other. The fruits of a Christian culture were grown over many generations by people who knew that God is real and present in their lives. I for one find it quite difficult to sacrifice for a mere symbol or just a good long term cultural outcome.
> Now is there a ’God’ up there, I don’t know?
Why are you skeptical? As an atheist (or in between atheist) who can present such a clear eyed and charitable view of Christian communities, where do your current doubts stem from?
I discovered to my surprise the logic, usefulness and truth in our stories through Jordan Peterson biblical lectures. But now through the explanation of Jonathan Pageau and some reading of the bible it seem I can go a bit further.
I am trying to communicate what I now understand to other fellow atheist that there is value in our foundational stories, I see that it’s the foundation of our culture and that as christianity fade our culture is crumbling.
I don’t know exactly what I believe at this point, I am trying to move forward, use the bible as a guide, it’s hard to communicate my way of seeing to atheist or religious people. Saying that those are story is a reduction of the truth. I don’t have better words to communicate exactly how I think.
I can see the same pattern with scientific thinking, we have a model (plants use sun human eat things) and we confuse our mental model for reality until we discover that our pattern is reductive (we use UV to make vitamin D and infrared to keep inflammation under control (recent discovery))
So I think those who believe completely are also immunized against a kind of scientific totalitarianism, the idea that we know completely, it’s very seductive as it save us to expend mental energy.
I am also seeing more way to understand the bible, the catholic way: simplified, don’t read the bible, we will do it for you, protestant: communities with each their own flavor but against a central authority and now orthodox who seem to see it more as a patterns, as path to emulate, to become god ourself or at least try, than actual physical truth, truth on another level.
What do you think, what is your perspective?
I understand the view you are articulating with the phrase 'reduction of truth'. I can't be 100% sure from such a short description but I think that view aligns closely to my own.
More and more I find my perspective tracking with these guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAcZaBhEuE0
As you wrestle with the deeper questions about God and Christianity, you mine as well wrestle with the most well educated proponents of that view. The Dominican Friars who put those videos together certainly check that box.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
If you really want them to make up their own mind, give them the tools to evaluate ideas, don’t stack the deck because you’re afraid they’ll come to a different conclusion than you. Of course you won’t do that because you believe in God, so you’re afraid that they won’t believe in God unless indoctrinated as a child. That’s what you meant by “if I let them "make up their own mind", they'll fall for whatever persuasive argument they first encounter.” Right? The alternative to believing in God is not believing. So you’re afraid they won’t believe in God if presented with a compelling argument unless they’ve already been indoctrinated.
Some attend to keep peace in their families. Or because it is a social group with which they have a long history. Or because the emotional support of a pastor helps them. Some attend because it would break their parent’s hearts if they didn’t.
For most religions, one can be crazily all in, or just showing up for the donuts afterward. You can’t tell just by looking.
One might complain about how that is inauthentic or just putting on a show, but even that is too simple.
Human motivation is deeply complex and oversimplifying it doesn’t do justice to our humanity.
“I can’t leave the cult, my family will disown me.”
“I can’t leave the cult, everyone I know and care about is in the cult.”
“I can’t leave the cult. I need the leaders emotional support.”
It
I think the main reason we don’t considered religions a cult has nothing to do with the behavior or the participants or their reasons for attendance. We generally consider cults to be small, which is incongruous with mainstream religion.
And the detail about varying levels of belief.
Emotional support from a caring ear is hardly cult like. “I have friends there” is hardly cult like.
On the social graph side, say I used to be really into some charity work, say, like a homeless shelter. I sat on the board and volunteered there for years and years and met many people who became friends. Our kids grew up together and we went to their birthday parties and all that.
I have since become disenchanted with the way things are run—the new director and I don’t see eye to eye—plus I have found other ways to help out this demographic.
But I would probably still hang out there, or at least go to the big events, simply because I have friends there and people that I genuinely like.
I’m sorry, but that’s not culty.
Your hyperbole works well as a rhetorical strategy, but eliminates all the nuance I was trying to add. Just like as if I had said, “an occasional cookie doesn’t make one fat” and you had replied, “Chowing down on cookies and ice cream actually does make you fat”.
It might be true, but it is not responsive to the argument.
As I write this I’m en route to a family gathering that excites me not at all, but it will make certain members of my family happy. That’s not cult like, it’s making compromises to get along in the world.
I mean this in the most honest and genuine way. What if you are simply incorrect in your perception of why a Catholic would attend mass? I bet if you found a knowledgable Christian and asked him why he attends you would find a very different set of reasons.
> I saw throngs of people out to attend Sunday mass.
Maybe I was one of them. In fact I go every Sunday without exception. But I don't recognize myself or my reasons in your characterization of why people go.
On the contrary in the case of HN it fits most criteria perfectly
1. Elevation of someone to diety status (Graham, <startup founder of the week>)
2. Shunning outsiders (mocking redditors, another cult)
3. Enforced group think through shame rituals ("As a..." response posts, downvoting).
4. Belief that the HN system is superior to all other systems
HN, like nearly ALL modern startups, would qualify as cults. Remove the downvoting enforced groupthink and maybe I'd be inclined to agree with you. Until then, I refuse to. Upvote/downvote culture enforces the exact behavior required to punish and shame people with differing opinions into conforming. It's a sinister assault on human psychology and all sites doing this (HN included) should feel deeply ashamed. For being an alleged "libertarian/liberal" oasis in the middle of a barren internet desert, this place is far more like Jonestown than, for example, the philosophy department of a top 10 university despite seemingly every poster here believing truly they have 9e40 IQ and are one self help book away from unlocking literal gigabrain magic.
Hilarious, really. It goes along with the almost metastatic, terminal, pseudo-intellectualism this site is known for.
I tend enjoy downvotes that have no reason because they validate a touched nerve, but some will give a reason as to why they downvoted and open a dialogue. Thats a gold feature of HN I think.
I don't know if QAnon has the radical separation aspect where you can't be friends with former members if you leave. But QAnon is certainly something bad. Does it have aspects of a cult, to you? Is there such a thing as varying degrees, even if it's not a real cult until it reaches the threshold?
Can QAnon be a cult in a more strict sense of the term? I have a hard time believing in the existence of a cult that exists over the internet where most or all of its members are internet handles; how exactly does one punish "slimeDogAvarest281" for betraying the cult? Or per cainxinth's point, how does on perform "secret rites" over the internet?
I think that gets back to grandparent's point that not everything is a cult and you diminish the term using it so freely. "There's a group that believes things I don't like and think is silly" is not a cult. I don't think you understand the sheer degree of social pressure cults can bring to bear, and I don't think that sort of pressure can be transmitted over a channel the so-called cult member can just shut off and disappear and nobody knows how to follow them. Or, to put it another way, when the exit is as easy as the entrance, it really can't be a cult. I think critical to the cult aspect is that you can't just leave. Did Scott Adams chase you down and tell his followers to harass you? No, of course not. How could he? Neither he nor anyone else even so much as noticed you. That's not a cult by any definition.
The usual way -- ostracization. If your main socialization is via the cult, then leaving means losing your friends. The stupidity of the cult means you have pushed away most other people.
I wasn't in a "cult" because I was once, a long time ago, in an Ultima fan community, but then was "ostracized" because I left. I just left. There were no consequences beyond the fact that I left. The problem with cults is that they don't "ostracize" you by virtue of failing to chase you down if you leave, they are cults because they do chase you down if you leave. Again, I have a hard time believing in "cults" when the "cult" in question literally doesn't even notice you. That's not a cult.
Or said less opaquely, most people have never truly experienced being ostracized in the way that a cult can. Most people have social ties outside of a group, and maintain those, even if their primary social ties are cut (as you’ve alluded to).
(I know we are arguing the same side of this point, I just wanted to emphasize it)
I'm not saying this makes a cult, I'll take your point there. But I am wondering if it's an aspect of a real cult, i.e. if these can be called "cult tactics". And if so, if there's at least value in making the qualified comparison. QAnon is still detrimental, introspection still worthwhile to avoid such things, etc. Nobody will chase me down, but it can still be detrimental (even if not a cult) if I still actually believe in it (which I imagine many cult members do and which also helps keep them in the cult).
And to be clear, Scott Adams wasn't detrimental other than making me feel stupid. QAnon is worse.
Ostracism and doxxing work well. The latter opens up opportunities for SWATing.
> how does on perform "secret rites" over the internet?
In Qanon the "secret rite" is going down the YouTube rabbit hole and writing endless diatribes for other cult members to consume.
No, that lacks the characteristics of all "secret rites". If you're "writing diatribes" and posting them publicly, that's not secret, for one.
I can't exactly write an essay here about what secret rites are and what a key structural component they are, but you can get a good sense about them from reading about hazing, then amping it up to the next degree: https://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/national... (It was actually hard to find something that actually talks about why it occurs and is a stable pattern in human subcultures, rather than just decrying it without explanation. I don't like it and don't agree with it; in hindsight, I accidentally broke the hazing chain in my high school band because I refused to propagate it. It was an accident, though, because I didn't understand the purpose. Now I do, and both know even more effectively how I'd break the chain and how to attain similar goals in an organization in positive and healthy ways deliberately, instead of accidentally.) "Writing endless diatribes" is nothing like hazing and accomplishes none of the same goals.
Again, if you're going "but but but" in order to try to salvage the idea, you're trying to hard, and the reason I'm banging on this is the same reason the original poster posted. If you want to understand cults, you need to not fall into the trap of declaring your high school band, a popular Pokemon internet forum, or a chess enthusiast club to be "cults" too. Cults are a very serious problem that deserve to be understood, not minimized because some people want to use the term to slur some other people online.
That how humans works. We need meaning and a group of people to share it with.
Be it progressivism, maga, HN, Catholic, etc.
If it’s a good one it’s not completely detached from reality and doesn’t shunt outsiders and outsides ideas too much.
To me, this essay clearly speaks about the maladaptive conditioning we receive from our families and society in general during childhood and adolescence which causes us to suppress our feelings and authentic selves and treat the pain of it with medication, distraction, and OCD behaviors instead of healthy emotional release.
But I might just be projecting.
We adapted to the world through our families and society. A human alone 50,000 years ago was a delicious meal, not a rugged individualist.
I would suggest that anything that encourages you to live an atomized life is maladaptive. We can get away with some degree of that now, but only due to thousands of years of various cult-like behaviors that built the world to be more fit for humans.
I think you misread me.
Maybe not all the rugged individualists survived, but quite likely a few wandering souls travelled far away from their original homes, and got to see different places and experience different things.
I've got to admit I have no idea what the difference is between brainwashing and deprogramming.
It could be the dogmas of a society, it could be the rules of a social group... it could even be a technical group.
The difference is how much the program makes you search inside yourself and ALONE for the answers you seek as opposite to reaching for an external authority.
If you feel you are dependent on an external human the most likely event is that they or their group made you dependent on purpose via some sort of manipulation.
Absolutely not, I’m a free trapper who built its own computer from scratch.
Joke apart, who is thinking really that interdependence is inherently bad? Things like symbiosis are generally connoted rather positively, aren’t there?
Now, being dependent on a group which is applying rigid rules which are systematically leading to toxic behaviors for all or part of its members, that is certainly a sound concern.
It seems to me that "independence" is a none issue: no man is an island[1]. It’s all about the way we steer our interdependence, with indefinitely many governance models we can try, but as soon a you put apart solipsism from deemed beliefs, none will honestly pretend that anyone can be absolutely independent.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devotions_upon_Emergent_Occasi...
The human mind is not always a terribly reliable authority, especially your own (where you lack perspective).
If we get caught up in judging what's real or imagined, then we can lose sight of what's available for us to learn from.
I'm not sure there actually is such a thing.
But it's true that the term is thrown about a lot without being explained, and I'm guilty of this as well of course. Being authentic means being able to express your opinions and preferences without feeling shame of fear of abandonment. That's how I would describe it in short.
> In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.
I might be too, but this was my takeaway as well, though I stopped short of the link to medication and distraction. Family and society were enough to consider ;)
IMO, the text may be seen as a piece of advertising for a fictional "de-programming" (like they call it) treatment from a cult. However, it's written for an abstract general kind of cult, described only in terms of what is common about several cults. It's not specific about anything. Just like well done cold reading: it's right, but unspecific.
I believe the idea is that you identify some of the things you're doing in your life as a cult (guided by the general features given in the text) and pay more attention to them. The text, however, is vague enough to classify a lot of things as cults, even though you/I/we may believe these aren't.
This line stood out to me and seems very apt in these days. For ex, how it's now normal to go after people's jobs directly via social media pressure tactics or business's revenue (and subsequently their employees jobs) via Visa/mastercard/paypal/ad buyers/etc, merely for stepping out of line from mainstream opinions... as Wikileaks and many others experienced.
Making society more resilient to cult-like behaviour is always a good thing. Even when these tactics might benefit your pet beliefs, it's rarely worth the trade-offs and usually backfires.
When the system you promote exclusively benefits a particular ideology or exclusive set of organizations that's usually a good indicator it's cultish.
We are not designed or evolved or whatever to prowl alone, because it will always be in our nature to come together and some will exploit this. And so while you stand alone they will bring all their machinations to consume your very being.
Would you really be that strong to stand alone against all those that would look to exploit you.
And there's no particularly clear way to combat this. The internet has only made this worse. Now ever smaller groups can coordinate extremely effectively and instantaneously, while also simultaneously working to create the perception of far greater numbers than actually possessed.
It's brilliantly subversive and makes you think.
Maybe they're talking about the child genital mutilation.
The point is that they're telling the subject of the story (in second person so it's addressed to "you") that you're in a cult and they're going to rehabilitate you - but as you read on, you might notice that the rehabilitation is describing, you guessed it, a cult!
It's not actually making a comment that everybody is actually in institutions that are like cults or anything, that's just part of the (satirical) brainwashing that the cult is using to bring people in.
> They make you depend solely on others within the community for your every need...
Is followed by:
> We have partnerships with organizations that can connect you to schooling, work, housing, and medical care...
Perhaps I missed a meta level of satire with every cult starting out this way, however, but the point seems more about our existing cults.
As a bit of a libertarian, this struck me as anti-Statist (i.e. modern secular states are basically cults)
That might be directly related to the kind of person who joins a libertarian community (as seems to be the case with Mensa), or it might be an artifact of the fact that women hate libertarianism.
I wouldn't expect the Libertarian Party to become fascist but crazier things have happened.
There is an answer, I found it outside of the story.
But this a a good hint.
I incorrectly chose the wrong X from these lines. It does narrow it down. The "buttons" threw me. Still not sure what they represent.
Which is precisely what a cult leader would want their victims to think: "Nobody is free, so stay in the group!"
So it's funny x 2
The only real way out, it seems, is to create another cult with more humane values. Or go it alone, or with a small group of friends.
Bad news, one institution has monopoly rights on that role: Democracy. And if you have a problem with Democracy, you probably have unwittingly become a member of a cult (far right, likely) and indoctrinated into believing conspiracy theories.
Now: back to work, citizen.
You will experience unpleasant feelings here. Feelings your cult has told you are of the devil.
Part of our program involves exposing you to the idea that there are very rarely easy answers in life. People suffer for no reason. You will suffer, and have suffered, for no reason.
But people can also do great things for no reason, or rather unmotivated by some promise of godly exaltation or gift in a theoretical afterlife.But if they think this kind of thinking is directly linked to religion, then it's just ignorance and bigotry. Consider the folloing quote: "Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes the reason is you're stupid and make bad decisions." The people I know who most strongly connect with that quote have all been (right-wing) atheists.
By contrast, consider the following quotes:
'As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him."' (John 9:1-2)
'Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.' (James 1:2-4)
'In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.' (1 Peter 6-7)
'Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.' (Hebrews 12:7-11)
In other words, Christianity says that far from suffering always being a punishment from God for bad behavior, it is sometimes a gift from God to accomplish a greater purpose.
So consider three hypothetical universes:
1. Nearly all your suffering is your fault; the result of God's wrath and/or the natural consequence of your own bad choices.
2. Most suffering is pointless. It has no meaning or benefit or blame; it just happens.
3. Suffering can be valuable. It is allowed by God because it achieves higher purposes; we as individuals , and the universe at large, are both better off because of the suffering.
I agree with the authors, that universe #2 (if true) is better than universe #1. But universe #3 -- the universe actually described by Christianity -- is even better.
Your one concrete accusation is about people "exiting organizations that do not allow you to leave with your dignity intact". But that's 1) not specific to religious organizations 2) not a feature of all religious organizations. Try leaving the Chinese Communist Party, for instance, without leaving China. And while I'm sure that my Christian friends and family would be disappointed if I became an atheist, I don't think their disappointment and opposition would really be that much more than you'd get from your atheist friends and family if you decided to become a Christian.
I know that there certainly are religious organizations where that's not the case -- where they're much more willing to use guilt, or social ostracism, or even harassment to try to punish you for leaving; but that's just wrong. That's never how Jesus operated.
Put it this way. Are people harmed by the current medical system? Yes. Should we completely get rid of all doctors and hospitals and everything? No -- we should strive to root out the bad actors and correct the systems and culture which allow harm to take place.
Are people harmed by bad police departments? Yes. Should we completely get rid of all police departments? Some people say yes, but I disagree. We should strive to root out the bad actors and correct the systems and culture which allow the harm to take place.
Are people harmed by bad governmental policies? Yes. Should we completely get rid of the government? Again, some people say yes, but I disagree. I think we should strive to root out bad actors and correct the systems and culture which allow the harm to take place.
Jesus' bitterest enemies were the religious leaders of his day: and what really made him angry was the harm they caused to ordinary people. (Some quotes at the bottom.) Insofar as the "harm" you have in mind is genuine harm, it's probably something Jesus has already objected to.
Getting back to "ignorant and bigoted": I said that if the think that "I'm suffering so I must have done something bad" has a 1-1 link with religion, they are ignorant and bigoted.
They're ignorant because they're wrong in both directions: Many atheists do think that way, and many religious people do not think that way.
It's not bigoted be ignorant: if you don't know that many religions teach that God allows good people to suffer to accomplish higher goals, then you don't know. But if you judge people without actually taking the time to find out what they actually believe, then you are bigoted.
---
Here are some things Jesus said about some of the religious people of his day. No Christian should read these without taking a good look at their own life to make sure they aren't implicated as well:
"Woe to you, [religious people], you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.
"Woe to you, [religious people], you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
"...Woe to you, [religious people], you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
"Woe to you, [religious people], you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
"Woe to you, [religious people], you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
"...You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?"
> In other words, Christianity says that far from suffering always being a punishment
I fail to see how the first statement is supposed to imply that any suffering is necessarily a punishment for some reason. For example, consider a despot whose stupid decisions only have bad effects on its powerless flock. And even it can bring the collapse of its society in distant future in which the despot no longer exists. This gives a perfectly reasonable description of events without implying that the despot either suffered in any moment of its life.
Also there is a difference between believing in causality and certitude that an absolute rationalism is reachable by humans.
> I agree with the authors, that universe #2 (if true) is better than universe #1. But universe #3 -- the universe actually described by Christianity -- is even better.
Is there any religion out there that propose an univocal description universe among which all its faithful agree on? Divergence in Christianity interpretations was often presented as a justification for war between Christians themselves.
Is there any belief system anywhere such that everyone allegedly on the same side believes exactly the same thing? Does atheism propose a univocal description of the universe which all the "unfaithful" agree on?
Do all physicists agree on everything? Do all economists agree on everything? Do all liberals (or all conservatives) agree 100% on every policy? Does a diversity of belief in any other area of life mean that the whole think is bunk, and that nobody is right about anything?
The world is a complicated place, and the truth is hard to find; moreover, even the best of us distort reality because we find the truth uncomfortable. That doesn't mean that there's no truth, or that some answers aren't better that other other answers. This applies as much to religion as to anything else in the world.
Much like physic, it doesn't prescribe what way is supposedly better to behave. This probably helps much on having broad consensus on very precise statements.
Economics, surely, is closer to a cult. It runs some quantification over the process, but there is always some core doctrine which prescribe what are the relevant metrics. Should biodiversity enter in the equation? Should the feeling of fulfillment of operators be considered? Is animal suffering a concern? Should next human generation be given a sustainable society?
Besides, you know... Hell, lakes of sulfur and eternal damnation.
Many people I know who dislike religion say that if there is a god, they wish he would leave them alone. They want to live in a world where god does not exist.
This is what Hell is. Hell is simply a place where god is not, completely separate from god and his influence.
The reason Christianity describes Hell as a place of suffering is because god is the sole source of good in the universe. So Hell, a place without god, is a place without any good.
On the other hand there's atheists like Terry Pratchett who described himself as “rather angry with God for not existing".
For those interested in knowing the actual Christian teaching on the topic of hell, just be aware that this comment is completely incorrect.
The above comment is reflective of one such interpretation of hell. Not an exclusive interpretation, but still a valid one.
You could argue that some people don't emphasize the worst bits, but trying to backpedal on Hell would certainly mean that you're going to there to my family, and they're not even particularly fundamentalist.
Many Christians would likely take issue with this description because they don't want to be on the wrong side of the dirty word cult.
But I personally don't think it's much of a problem if the person you worship is Jesus of Nazareth.
I have not been pressured to cut off from friends or family, regardless of their belief systems; I am not controlled by guilt; and I genuinely try to engage the best I can with other belief systems. I'm pretty sure I could make a case for atheism at least as strongly as you could.
Everything your parents, your family; your community and your society taught you.
The heuristics that keep you navigating life without having to scrutinize every single choice from first principles.
Thanks for these words. Scrutinizing every single choice from first principles is exactly what i promote and what i find people are deeply resistant to, yet i haven't had this description of what's happening until now.
Decision fatigue will catch up with anyone who lives like that soon enough.
Time is a finite resource. Don’t waste it on perfectionism.
My guess is what's viewed as decision fatigue could be unaddressed emotional issues, such as automated judgment/criticism, fear avoidance, normalized disempowerment narratives (which is related to cultivating a growth-oriented mindset, as opposed to one that says "this is just how i am and it can never be different"). Practicing radical acceptance and ignorance, as well as maintaining a playful attitude toward what I'm doing have been monumental to deeply examining myself. All this helps with perfectionism, which i also stopped practicing. Attempting to be thorough and comprehensive in the application of principles to one's life is not an effort in perfectionism; perfectionism is more about how one approaches doing such a thing. I think another term for what I'm referring to here is "monasticism."
These days, I'm also caring for a 4-year old while trying to examine everything we do from a generational trauma perspective. I no longer believe in ego depletion and consider it to be justification for people getting tired of stuffing/processing emotions that arise in the course of things, and potentially needs they're not aware of going habitually unmet. This brings me to another monumental thing i think has helped me in living a principled and intentional life: learning nonviolent communication and developing an awareness of feelings and universal human needs. To my knowledge,there are no studies examining the impact of these practices on decision-making.
I can say this: choosing actions/things based on what I think will meet my needs vs deny them is easy in a society where most decisions aren't oriented toward needs. There are learning challenges along the way, since there can often be no options present that effectively meet needs, so acceptance of the situation and creativity to come up with new options are both really important skills to develop.
As an aside, ego depletion and decision fatigue seem to be concepts without a lot of reproducibility behind them, or with much smaller effect sizes than previously reported.
You should read my comments through an objective lens. I try to be as neutral/scientific/objective as possible with my words and I say this from my perspective as scientist/engineer.
The world is far too complex for any human to be able to model it at high fidelity; never mind compute the 1st, 2nd and n-th order consequences of any given choice on a long-enough time scale. It's one of the many reasons why we conceptually distinguish malice from ignorance - we are only human, not omnipotent/omniscient gods.
In practical terms when modeling dynamic systems there's the concept of Lyapunov time [1] - the timescale at which your "predictions" (first principles reasoning) falls apart.
None of this is meant to undermine individual attempts at being better; more thoughtful humans, but it's absolutely meant to discourage all pursuits of human perfection/exceptionalism. Holding oneself to impossibly high standards is equally psychologically harmful. Pragmatism before idealism.
On a cloudless night, go to the last rest stop before Furnace Creek. There you will find...
Just a fun joke on the societal norms around you.
It was everything.
> You were born to parents who started your indoctrination from day one.
Separation from one's own parents is a cult mind control tactic.
> Like it or not though, the cult has left noticeable marks on you. In fact, that's how we identified you.
Guilt is another mind control technique.
> Unlike your cult, we encourage you to feel these feelings to their fullest if at all possible.
This is another tactic called disinhibition.
> If these feelings ever get too much to handle, simply press the red button on the device on your wrist, and you will be relieved of these feelings for a two hour time period.
Drug abuse.
> Want food? Press the green button on your wrist device, and the meal of your choosing will be prepared for you.
Change of diet is a mind control tactic as well.
> You are also welcome to feed, pet, and generally take care of the various cats and dogs that wander the premises. They are specially trained as companion animals and are here to make you feel better and, hopefully, lift your mood.
Love bombing is typically done with humans but OK.
I'm fairly certain that's the point. Makes you think if rescuing someone from a cult isn't just switching them to a different cult that happens to be widely accepted. Once you have that thought, then it leads to thinking about what defines a cult and why deprogramming is not the same as indoctrination.
I thought so, too, and was waiting for a punchline that never came.
The blogging platform for this one is interesting, if you follow the rabbit hole a bit you'll find e.g. https://herman.bearblog.dev/building-software-to-last-foreve...
I don't see that many posts, but it appears to have some interesting traffic on it at present. Worth holding on to perhaps?
I don't personally like articles that start off with "accusing" the reader of something - like this or the You will never "fix it later" one - but it's easy to click "hide" or to just ignore if I'm not interested.
I do have a point, though: Saying everything is a cult is bad for the same reason saying every relationship is abusive is bad. It gives cover to the real abusers. After all, if every situation is equally terrible, there's no real reason to leave the ones which are, in point of fact, terrible. "Everywhere else is just as bad" is a powerful tool for abusers to use on their victims.
Your response to all the other comments is very on point though. Cults are real, and I think this story repeatedly interacts with some very scary aspects of real cults - aspects not found in an Agile coach or middle manager, in my uninformed opinion.
Even if it is nodding at morally-questionable deprogramming outfits, one, that's kind of an odd reference to be making decades after the fact, and, two, there's nothing in the text to support that beyond the literal use of the word "de-programming" precisely once. However, there's no other obvious interpretation which would give this a point.
1. It doesn't say everything is a cult. It says 'You're In A Cult'
It's kind of a Voight-Kampff induction
You can read it as if it was written for you and perceive how it makes you feel.
2. It's an introduction. Figure out how to implement the red and green button in your life, and you can do the rest.
I try to live my life being open to challenging and being challenged by anything. But there are some things — needing money, clothes, electricity — which are hard to escape. I’ll try and have another go though, I promise.
There are many things we probably belief that we want to belief rather than are true. That does not have to be a problem. Problems usually arise when we make future statements that entail a salvation aspect. “Do this and everything will be better” , “follow me because I know better.” The more exclusionary the tone of this salvation message, the more cultish it will score.
Some good resources : https://www.igotout.org/resources
A recent book to imagine what it’s on the inside is the book Cult Trip : inside the world of coercion and control.
Most aren’t extreme - there’s also just the toxic, narcissistic leader people are eager to please, that attracts sycophants and exerts a high level of ostracism on folks that don’t conform. You can find yourself backing into these situations almost unconsciously. There’s an entire field of studying malignant narcissists and high control groups. And we all have a little narcissism / eagerness to belong we need to look out for.
Many mundane workplace settings, community groups, political movements, sports teams can easily become “culty”
Neat.
There are variations on this article that I think could be useful to give some perspective on certain patterns of thought. The strange-loop aspect demonstrates how we can operate on a belief that originates from a circular reference, and as a consequence, the logic of our ideas and reasoning may not be consistent with the external world. If our conclusions justify indulging in an immoderate vice (e.g. the seven deadlies or another obvious list of things we know we are capable of choosing better options than) it's probably worth examining more closely.
It reminds me of spam saying "your computer has been infected with a virus, download this tool (definitely not the real virus) to cleanse your computer".
When grown up, most are afraid of the real world, protecting their dreamy world with ferocity, afraid to peek out.
It takes courage to face it.
Where do I sign up for your totally-not-a-cult thing ?
(Edit: To be clear I'm not a member of a political party so I can't try that one.)
Although even for my country I could only honestly give a point for the title. (No idea if it's the king or the prime minister who counts as the leader here, but it's an impressive title. There's plenty of laws, but they don't restrict much on the relational front. Well, there's restrictions on marrying children, and criminal jobs are illegal, so that might be another point.)
If this causes you to be banished and ostracised, then it's probably a cult.
JK Rowling would be an example of this.
If someone was a hard core advocate for equality and justice where black and Hispanic people were concerned but held an irrational bigoted views about Jewish people their fellow advocates would count their bigotry more significant than their tolerance.
You are naturally free to have your own positions on the topics raised but there is absolutely nothing logically inconsistent with the position that what they regard as bigotry being cause for concern and reaction even if as you say she and they agree on 19 other topics.
I'm confident I'm thinking clearly though.
Culture = Cult.
How deep.
For those interested, read Bruno Latour, it’s a lot finer. It’s about how you compose with the various traits of your culture to make sense of the world. People build their own Frankenstein-like culture. A lot of scientists are also religious. We choose what we want to believe in, and how we do it is what is interesting.
It's therefore kind of one sided to say that a cult isolates a member from the outside world, although they do actually do that. It also gives a potential path away from dangerous cults to be formed - it's about allowing groups to exist within ones life and allowing people to move around - a kind of tolerance for the other or the margins.
Outside of cults, 2 examples: A good example of the group solidification mechanism is in the parallel with US politics where people in either sides think it's the other side that polarises politics. "I'm not an extremist you are". There's also an example of Reddit about subreddits and communities. Reddit organisation labelled subreddits "communities" where before the labelling the people who visited subreddits didn't think of themselves as a community. "communities" were created to isolate certain problematic subreddits who indeed had a unique group identity. Quarantine was introduced at the same time to perform the isolation. Subreddits turned into communities by becoming identified as such from within and outside but also the communities own self-culture, moderation rules became stronger because they were labelled as such.
I can recommend Spying in Guru Land for a book about cults. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2487851.Spying_in_Guru_L...
I’ve come to the conclusion that the word “cult” isn’t very useful as a descriptor, at least in terms of the thing it’s describing. Rather, it’s far more useful as a descriptor of the person using the word to describe something. As the post indicates, we all belong to a cult of some kind, or engage in some level of cultish behavior. If I label something a cult, it doesn’t tell you much about that thing itself, or ways in which it is more of a cult than anything else, but it does signify my disapproval of that thing, which probably, at a base level is due to reasons unrelated to the cult-like behavior of that group.
In short, the labeling of something as a cult doesn’t actually do anything to describe that thing. Rather it’s a Rorschach test for the person doing the labeling.
Cult in the sense used in this article is in the modern sense of a group of people heavily controlled by a charismatic leader via a belief system.
Some academic "cults" certainly fit the definition of modern colloquial "cults", but not all. Some are just religious/cultural clusters.
1. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3511972#:~:text=...a%20cult%20i...
From a narcissistic single person in the family, to an evangelist, a religion, a state. They all follow the same patterns.
It's pervasive but if you pick your poison carefully you will be in a place that lets you have the maximum freedom (a democratic state, a healthy family dynamic, atheism or a very liberal spirituality). The majority howver willingly or not will pick the power system where they think they are most comfortable (usually the one they grew up with).
An interesting way of thinking, where did you learn it from?
Those seeking more context should check out the home page and some of the other posts. Two items emerge quickly: the blogger left Utah several years ago and is now probably an atheist.
But the writing is great -- haunting and mysterious. Nice find.
One of the time which surprised me: got some feedback of ppl who did work for mozilla.
That said, it can happen with real religion based network of ppl: it is so strong (economy included), my country state had to setup some laws to deal with this.
While reading, I assumed they were talking about western civilization itself.
When you think about it, the entire article can out of the box apply to both.
Very clever.
It’s pseudo science at best, psychobable at worst.
The greatest trick the progressives ever played was convincing the world that Qanon did exist.
The cult is Hacker News.
Step 2) ???
Step 3) Enjoy your good agile.
I also don't see how JIRA can make things bad. I mean bad to use the software maybe, but it is not really enforcing a type of agile onto anyone.