Since I started reading about Scientology, I’ve been exposed to a lot of literature about “cults”. A lot of it is anti-cult and is often quite fanatical. Some of it is even-handed and actually does a good job of looking at all sides of the equation. But very little of it.
Now, let me preface this by saying that I don’t really believing controlling people ought to have anything to do with “true” spirituality. So I’m not trying to argue that cults are good or that it’s okay when people have their lives, will or finances sucked from them forcibly. That’s going to be pretty much never okay.
I forget who said it, maybe RA Wilson, that the only difference between a cult, sect and religion is the size. Of course, anti-cultists tend to see many more distinctions besides that, such as:
- The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
- The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
- The group is preoccupied with making money.
- Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
- Mind-numbing techniques are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
- The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel
- The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members
- The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
- The group’s leader is not accountable to any authorities
- The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group
- The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
When you get down to it, it’s hard to think of any organized religion which doesn’t at least get tripped up over a few of these items. And not just religions either, but all kinds of other non-spiritual cultural groups. You could list a million examples. But we don’t hear anybody screaming about how corporations or sports teams are cults (although maybe we should).
What lists like these seem to really do is articulate the dangers of religion, or even of social organization in general. Since they are actually so widespread among many types of groups, to use these criteria to define a “cult” seems kind of misleading. It suggests that some types of groups fall prey to these behaviors, and that some do not. “We’re not a cult; we’re an established religion.” It also draws a box around spirituality, saying that behaviors we associate with spirituality are fundamentally different from non-spiritual behaviors (ie, it’s okay for a corporation to be preoccupied with making money, but not a religious group). If you’re a spiritual person, shouldn’t that come out in all activities, not just the spiritual ones? Why have a separate set of requirements? Likewise, if you’re a non-spiritual person and you think that stuff doesn’t matter, then shouldn’t you evaluate all behavior according to the same set of criteria?
The other problem I see with anti-cult literature is the brainwashing question. As much as I love the subject from a conspiracy standpoint, does it really hold up religiously? The source I quoted above described cultic mind-numbing techniques as “meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines”. Certainly we’ve seen that many such rituals are designed to re-pattern the thinking and behaviors of an individual, but does that mean it’s brainwashing? What if you enter into it willingly? What if you’re actually intending to bypass your rational mind in favor of your underlying True Will?
The main thing I’m trying to illustrate here is that the common definition breaks under scrutiny, because it relies on other assumptions which are either unproveable themselves or totally subjective. This line of thought was triggered by a Christian website attacking J. Gordon Melton who they call a “cult apologist“. I find Melton’s arguments though to be a bit more compelling than their own:
In labelling the alternative religions as ‘cults’, anti-cultists assumed that in some measure the alternative religions were essentially all alike, an assumption that has proved completely false. The only characteristic they share is a negative evaluation; they each present an alternative to traditional Christianity. The assumption of similarity has been used to attack the ‘cults’, by attributing to all of them the faults and excesses of any one of them.
They also chastise him for using the more politically correct term “New Religious Movement” (NRM) in place of the much more emotionally-loaded “cult”. The only useful thing they do offer, in my opinion, is a theological rather than sociological definition of cult. Unfortunately, it seems to revolve around adherence to Christian doctrine above and beyond anything else. This obviously breaks down as we move into studying non-Christian groups. Who’s right here? Cult or NRM? Is NRM just a panty-waist euphemism that cuts out an important meaning-distinction? Is there still a value to using the word cult to describe weirdo religious groups? If so, then how do we sort out who’s legitimate and who’s “just a cult”? And how do we do it in such a way that can actually hold up to scrutiny?
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12 Comments
You should check out http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html — it’s a framework for analyzing whether a group is a cult or not, based on a lot of different factors. It has been around for a long time, and it works.
both lists remind me of working for ibm, a large law firm or to a certain extent, working for the police or the military.
I don’t see how this Bonewitz scale is fundamentally any different from the list I used below. The points may be worded differently, but the arguments above still stand, I think.
Yeah I am not sure how I feel about this topic. On one hand, the descriptions above didn’t take into account any considerations of the well-being of the individuals involved in apparents cults. By their account, the 11 guides Tim lists above can be seen in both Apple and Nike, let alone other brands. It’s what they’re particularly well known for.
Basically, it’s what we run into any time we encounter a group sharing an identity. Any new group, no matter how ‘benign,’ is going to be treated with suspicion. older, ‘established’ groups are not any less strange or potentially dangerous, yet newer groups are far more likely to be critically examined, and you’ll see more biased language. The Catholic Church espouses strange beliefs, has secret rituals, is supported through huge amounts of cash donations from members. They often offer exorcisms in lieu of mental health care, their p;riests undergo all sorts of ritualized preparation for priesthood. They see visions. Their Chief priest lives in a gigantic compound with his own radio station, and he’s infallible, even when telling starving Africans that condoms are a sin. YET, nobody ever speaks of Mel Gibson’s “handlers” (I know, I know), we don’t have the press make disparaging comments about Robert Novak giving money in church collections so the Pope can live in splendor. It’s really about ‘known’ vs. ‘unknown.’
the pope is actually the king of his own country. how many carry dual citizenship and don`t know it?
the term cult allows older religions to denigrate emerging religions. the term is used then in a derogatory fashion. that usage has slipped into the vernacular. cult is the root word of cultivate; to grow. my baptist friend says they are all cults, the baptist church excluded. when he is in baptist mode he is indistinguishable from an idiot in his assessment of life in general.
any resematicising of the word throws out the history of the battle between the old and the new idiologies and i don`t think that`s a good thing.
what about culture?
ive been using the word occulture recently… seems to describe what we are dealing with..
“You have to respect what other people believe in! Religious tolerance is an important part of our culture!
But what if what the other people believe is crazy?
What if said people are in a cult, and in their cult Yogi Berra is their god, and it’s incredibly disrespectful to walk by their house of worship with a baseball hat on.
Well, those people are silly. Why, they’re in a cult.
Well, I’ve got news for all you Catholics; you’re in a cult too.
It’s just a cult with millions of people in it.
When you see the pope in his big goofy hat on, doesn’t that look remarkably similar to what some crazy cult leader would wear?
That’s because he IS a crazy cult leader.
Of course I’m not in a cult!!!! Catholicism is a religion! It’s real!!
That’s what people in cults think, too. You think people in cults know they’re in a cult?
Believe me, you can’t get people to chop their balls off and drink the kool aid unless they think you’re selling the real shit. And if that cult is successful, and it goes on for a long time, and after it’s passed down from generation to generation, it becomes an accepted religion.” - Joe Rogan
I believe there is an important distinction (or ten) between what are called cults and other organizations and I don’t think the Nike or IBM examples really hold water. I can wear Nikes or not; buy PCs or not; I can work at either place and decide to quit and, here’s the key, neither will exercise intense psychological coercion and intimidation tactics upon me to keep me from going; nor will Nike or IBM as organizations encourage those who still work for them to physically attack me, blackmail me or slander my character. Sure, if they did do this kind of stuff, then I’d say “yes, Nike and IBM” behave like cults or in a cult-like fashion. I guess what trips us up is the “is.” I think it would help clear up the debate if we referred to groups (religious, political or otherwise) based upon how they function–do they function in a coercive and totalistic way? to what extent and how often and in what circumstances? and to whom? I would argue that the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages in Europe functioned as a cult (Inquisitions, witch hunts, instigation of wars, the will to eliminate all other competition, all being practiced regularly, upon a wide range of people in most places as a matter of policy.), but that the Catholic Church of today in, say, New York City does not function as a cult, in general (certain groups within the church, however–Opus Dei, say, may function that way).
And the local baptist church in a small, very insular community where it holds great influence and exhibits these behaviors should also be said to be functioning as a “cult.” If the behavior changed, then the description would no longer apply. The thing is, in many new religious and political movements, there is a tendency to function as a cult because it may seem necessary in order to ensure its survival and particularly if, like say the Mormons of the 1840’s there is perceived (rightly in that example) to be a hell of a lot of animosity against it from the populace at large. Once the group becomes secure and public animosity against it lessens , the incentive for functioning as a cult diminishes and so it may cease to behave as such. (Scientology has not yet ceased functioning in this way, but it may at some point as the existence of the freezoners might indicate.)
But I would say also functioning upon the belief that the fate of the universe depends on everyone becoming part of one group is a strong meme that can lead any organization, regardless of size, stability and social standing to behave like a cult. Groups that don’t posess this meme tend not to be succeptible on the whole (think the Jews–though the Lubbavitchers seem to function as a cult toward other Jews at times–or various tribal groups like the Hmong from China) because they just want to “live and let live.”
Thoughts?
Why won’t they? Don’t corporations do this all the time with lawsuits? What about governments - they are both socially accepted (one of the criteria you offer against something being a cult) and are allowed to be coercive and totalitarian.
Actually, I agree with you about governments. The question is, how do they function? Many governments DO function as cults; and I don’t say that social acceptance necessarily leads to something NOT behaving in a cult-like fashion, but that it is one of *several* factors which can tend to lead an organization to NOT function in that negative way. It ain’t an absolute. And though I probably didn’t state it outright, implicit in my argument here is the fact that a widely accepted institution CAN function as a cult, in the pejorative sense that we’re discussing. And in many cases people may cite, such institutions have and do. The overall criteria to me appears to be whether the group/organization is coercive and totalizing in its activity and basic assumptions. If so, the other “symptoms” cited in the anti-cult literature of what a cult “is” will tend to hold. But I don’t believe that something “is” a cult, but that groups do “function” as such for periods of time depending on a slew of factors.
In sum, Dan Smith may BEHAVE like an asshole during a certain period of his life, under certain circumstances and towards certain people but that doesn’t mean he “IS” an asshole. The degree and period of time during which he FUNCTIONS as one may give us a way to measure how we perceive, talk about and interact with him or choose to avoid him altogether, but this does not speak to an unvarying and essential defining *characteristic* of Dan Smith.
And in terms of IBM and Nike, sure they CAN physically attack me, blackmail me or slander me, the question is, DO they? If not, do they do it to other people? In what situations, with what criteria and so on.
There is no is! We judge a function of a process in flux.