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Comment by peepee1982 | Hacker News Reader

peepee1982

A lot of people here seem to be offended by this essay because of the literal definition of the term "cult" and start looking for potential cults they may be part of. I think they are mistaken.

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.

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>maladaptive conditioning we receive from our families and society in general

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.

See it the other way around: how many maladaptive behaviours have you absorbed since childhood?

Cultures vary. Also individuals vary. That’s true now, and it was very likely true 50000 years ago.

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.

Choosing to isolate yourself from others or strive to be overly individualistic would be an example of maladaptation in my view. If you grew up in a emotionally nurturing familiy of origin you probably will have no intention to do so.

I think you misread me.

While reading it, I couldn't help but think: but what if this is the cult?

I've got to admit I have no idea what the difference is between brainwashing and deprogramming.

Both things are programs that run in your head.

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.

But is relying on your own answers really better than relying on an external authority? Only if it's always the same authority. But always thinking you know better than everybody else doesn't really sound any healthier.

This is a misreading. Relying on your own judgment does not mean that you need to be an island who thinks that they know better than anyone else. What it means is that your judgment is founded on your own critical thinking, which still allows you to recognize when you lack some experience and perspective and defer to the wisdom of others when necessary.

I know of a guy through a social worker friend who, if he goes off his medication (which he does with some frequency), becomes convinced that there are vampires who are out to get him.

The human mind is not always a terribly reliable authority, especially your own (where you lack perspective).

Effective approaches to this I've heard of involve learning to treat the hallucinations with respect, learning to communicate effectively with them, and learning from them. This is reflected both in how some tribal cultures approach hallucinations & modern approaches to schizophrenia and the like. Avoiding these things by medicating them away seems like a form of suppression that preserves the underlying thought/behavior processes (like avoiding one's fears of monsters or death) that are feeding into the hallucinations. Effective solutions usually don't pathologize or avoid experiences.

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.

>If you feel you are dependent on an external human

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...

I was speaking of emotional and decisional independence. Look at enmeshed family dynamics for an example of a terribly unhealthy symbiosis.

If you are not even allowed to question the orthodoxy, you are inside something with cultish features.

It could be the dogmas of a society, it could be the rules of a social group... it could even be a technical group.

"authentic selves"

I'm not sure there actually is such a thing.

There is such a thing. If you've ever been inauthentic for some time and then authentic, you know there's a massive difference in how you feel about yourself.

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.

That's where my mind went as well - in fact, it reminded me of Guy Debord:

> 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.

> But I might just be projecting.

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 ;)

Just to be clear, I'm not against medication or distraction when appropriate. And I agree with you :-)

I think the piece is supposed to prompt questions like "what isn't a cult?"

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