It’s an interesting piece, and I think it’s intended to be satirical (and done rather well).
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.
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.
Instead of writing an elaborately referenced reply to andrewla, I decided to mention that the current term people are using is "high-demand groups" because to monotheists, part of the "cult" definition is tied up in the deviation from their religion.
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.
Are any of those required or sufficient? Because I see a lot of overlap in those "warning signs". I could probably whittle it down to just three observations about group dynamics:
- 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)
My litmus test is when the leader starts sleeping with everyone, or shows some other selfish motive that makes the “above the law” stuff necessary to avoid cognitive dissonance.
I think the issue with any definition and why people say “everything is a cult”, is because I read this list and it makes me feel like progressivism is a cult based on it. Though I’m sure a progressive would say Trumpism is a cult.
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.
As a fellow cult survivor, I agree with your view.
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 definitely get that - I don’t have anyone close to me right now that escaped (sadly not all of those escapes were permanent), but I’ve been able to joke around with fellow survivors in the past. It felt really freeing to be able to talk openly enough such that we could crack a joke about it. :)
I’m glad you and your wife were able to get out, too. :)
I think this is a really important point. We use lots of terms these days in ever more generic ways: cult, gaslighting, abuse, "I'm a bit OCD" ... each broader use of the language weakens the contexts where the language is more pointed.
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.
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.
I agree with that, yes. Of course - I’m glad that society now speaks about these things openly (rather than pretending mental health issues were not real problems). But it does come with the downside you highlighted.
"Everything is a cult" appears to stem from the idea that "everything is political/a social construct". This of course is false because there exists a reality that establishes what is common to man and that there better and worse ways of living.
The danger of the "everything is a ..." mindset is it allows utopian and virtue ideology to lead and control people.
It's been very hard finding a psychologist in Scandinavia who even understands the concept.
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"
I had a similar experience finding a therapist who could work with “religious trauma”. Part of the reason I finally started calling it a cult (despite the stigma) is that at least in the US that seemed to help people understand that I meant something deeper and darker than the average person.
(Not to mention: a lot of people get really touchy with the idea that religion can be “traumatic” at all.)
I don't think the point is that everything is a cult. Rather, the point is for you to reflect if maybe you are part of something cult-like. And no, I don't think HN is a cult or most startups are a cult.
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.
A was an atheist most of my life but now see it differently.
See it as a kind of philosophy embedded in a story (mythology)
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.
As a sibling poster says, why don't you ask them? I converted to Catholicism after weighing it up against pantheism, atheism, and other forms of Christianity. I think I have very good reasons for believing in God's existence with a very high degree of confidence (not just "look what I experienced" reasons, but philosophical arguments that appear sound to me). And I teach my kids about it because if I let them "make up their own mind", they'll fall for whatever persuasive argument they first encounter. Of course I want them not to believe anything "blindly", and to make sure they test the reasons they're given for things, and to think through the arguments logically, etc.
People attend church for a wide variety of reasons and it’s good not to over simplify them. Plenty of people with widely varying amounts of belief still attend for a wide variety of reasons.
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.
> But blindly following a ceremony your entire life ...
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.
> And no, I don't think HN is a cult or most startups are a cult.
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.
Do you think that any of these things have cult-like tendencies, or is it a completely distinct phenomenon? It seems like people can go down a rabbit hole to varying degrees. I know I have that tendency. I went down the Scott Adams rabbit hole and allowed him to convince me of some silly things, but I had enough self-awareness not to get too sucked in. And it seems like QAnon is a much more extreme version of the same thing. You grew up in a cult, so I'm guessing you didn't have the same transformative experience of a new recruit. I could see the evidence that QAnon people were posting on Twitter for their beliefs, the apparent predictions and signs in what the president was saying or posting on Twitter. And because of my mental health history, I know the feeling of seeing something really convincing like that, and feeling the ground drop out from under you, and your whole world suddenly change (even if I snap out of it later). I can see behind the curtain, I know something about the nature of reality that everyone would think is ridiculous because they just haven't seen it yet. I always imagined that this is how a cult gets a new recruit.
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.
I grew up in a cult that did very little harm to me and my family. I'd actually say I came out the better for having experienced it over the typical white middle class life I landed in afterwards and the childhoods relayed to my by my suburban neighbor friends.
I experienced "the ongoing heartbreak" of losing my family, relatives, friends and social life when I started reading the Bible... So did I also left some kind of cult? The "free liberals" will disconnect from you these days if you are "too conservative"... I thought the liberalism is accepting all different opinions...
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ;)
Maybe this is one of those things like cold reading.
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.
My reading is that the very fact that it's so abstract and general is itself the point. What could the cult be? Politics? Religion? A particular professional mindset or focus? Many could fit. Apart from the reference to "promise of godly exaltation or gift in a theoretical afterlife" (which nod towards religion), you could apply a lot of this to many social groups.
> One of the hallmark tactics of a cult is to isolate you from the rest of the world. They make you depend solely on others within the community for your every need, thus making it extremely difficult to leave.
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.
Yup, the rest could apply to just about anything, but this brief phrase near the end makes it pretty clear that it's about religion. That, and phrases like "the cult has left noticeable marks on you". Somehow all atheists (or at least the militant kind) seem to believe religious people are all deeply scarred and twisted, no matter how "watered-down from its original form" their "cult" may be.
I think people are reading too far into it. It's just a joke...
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.
In my reading I don't think this is the point. The deprogramming doesn't force the individual to adopt any beliefs to access those services. I think the point of the article is for the reader to consider - no matter what they and their opponents believe - that all are in a cult.
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.
I think the idea is to craft a cult sales pitch framed as a support system for cult members that want to leave. The premise of the article is, of course, that we are all in some type of cult.
This is my take also, that society itself is a cult. They promise a theoretical "afterlife" of retirement after the age of 70, but until then we must suffer and work hard, usually to benefit someone else higher up the chain. They make you depend solely on others for your every need (food, housing, healthcare, etc.), making it extremely difficult to leave. But leave to where? There is no outside of this cult, other than the hell of homelessness.
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.
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.
It sounds like the problem thinking they're trying to address here is the idea, "I'm suffering because I've done something bad and am being punished by God."
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.
> 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.
I liked it, but it sounds more like initiation into a cult than deprogramming from one.
> 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.
That seems like the whole point of this - from the perspective of the reader, you can't actually tell whether you've actually just been taken out of a cult for deprogramming or if this is a cult indoctrinating you by convincing you that you used to be in a cult.
> it sounds more like initiation into a cult than deprogramming from one.
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.
Every now and then an article gets to the front page of this website that completely baffles me as to the reason it got there. Could someone explain this one to me?
I looked at the data; the upvoters are ordinary HN users—not bots, unless someone created bots 7 years ago to comment about monorepos and upvote Haskell blogs.
Cults (and cult-deprogramming) rely on socio-psychological hacks. So it's definitely related to hacking, though maybe not in the way most tech folks default to.
I see the reasoning - but I don't think there needs to be a hack involved in submissions to Hacker News. Just an interesting story that might appeal to the sort of people who hang around, apparently this one caught on.
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.
Aside from all the content-free "Everything I Don't Like Is A Cult" chuntering I already see, what is the point of this? I thought it was a dig at how cult-like the "anticult" deprogramming stuff was back during the last big scare in the 1980s, but it isn't that, because the victims of deprogramming sessions weren't free to leave. That was rather their big problem: They kidnapped people and held them in motel rooms and such and they pointedly weren't free to leave until they'd been psychologically broken. So the part where this says "you" (some imaginary person in this second-person fiction thing) are free to leave undercuts that point, leaving this pointless.
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.
I don’t think it has a point in that sense? Perhaps I’m lacking critical reading skills but this seems more like creative writing than social commentary.
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.
Yeah, it's probably just a piece of creative writing, but I've seen the basic conceit done better. The Local 58 web videos, for example, do the "message to you" thing better because they build a world for that message to have come from, and draw you into that world using both text and paratext. This, on the other hand, does no world-building and doesn't even create an implied character for the message to have come from. It's too sterile.
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.
To me it sounded like they were offering people everything they need to get out of a cult, without forcing them to join a different type of cult. Maybe I'm too naive, but to me it sounds like they genuinely are trying to help.
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.
While we always are part of a generalized belief system, some are open ended and some are closed ended. That is to say, if you are willing to postpone your “truth statements” in order to promote your own critical thinking and inquisitive behavior, you are probably open ended. If someone attacks your insert belief statement , and if you do not feel threatened, you are willing to entertain beliefs other than your own, without surrendering your individual capacity for critical thinking and curiosity, that is probably open ended belief.
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.
Readit News
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.
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)
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.
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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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
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.
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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.)
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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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.
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 ;)
Dead Comment
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://cultinformation.org.uk/article_cult-concerns.html
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?
https://github.com/HermanMartinus/bearblog/
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.