No, the
cure for cults is not to simply
sign up for something
morally sweet-smelling. Read that
sentence again, because as silly as it sounds, that's the
accepted cure for the
dangerous and
regressive problem of
cult mentality. We are told, socially, that
cults are ok as long as they're not
antisocial or in too much
conflict with
accepted mores.
First, what is a cult? Most folks don't really know. A cult, as defined by the "
independant research" people (who are about the only people you can trust on this issue), is a
special type of
group focused on strict control and sometimes
brainwashing to achieve whatever its goals might be. You can
spot a cult by these three common
indicators:
1. There is usually a
central leader that everyone
looks up to and tries to be like.
2. The cult will usually
mandate that some or all of your
money go to fund the cult's activities or interests.
3. Cults will almost always put some sort of
stricture on the
sexual behaviour of their members.
Well, those are
pretty obvious.
Charismatic leader, yeah, that gives the people something to
look up to; the
money, well, duh; and of course, if you can control a person's
sexual conduct, you can control the person. Every
POW camp and
organized religion knows
that.
So, do you really want to stay out of
cult mentality now? Or would you prefer just to stay on the
right side of the tracks and hook up with a cult that
the general public is more comfortable with--like
Catholicism, maybe?
Hey, you know what? I don't think that
all cults are evil all the time; I think that some people can be
helped by some cults, some of the time. Then again,
cyanide cured
polio, didn't it?
So, if you really don't want to be in a cult, what do you do? Er...
don't be in one. Most cults will punish you, usually by
social ostracization of some sort, if you leave. Unless you're a prisoner of the
next Koresh, though, you should just be able to
flip them off and walk out. (Which is what I did; I don't "do" cult mentality.) It also helps sometimes to get in a group that is NOT a cult instead. Anything where they don't tell you
how to fuck is a good start--in fact, many of the people whose
addictions to
cult mentalities I've helped cure could
barely handle the idea that their
sexual preferences were now wholly their decision.
In a
group, we all give up a little bit of our
individuality to accomplish a
common goal. Cool. In a
cult, we all give up most of our individuality in order to accomplish
someone else's goal. Fuck that. Hmm...suddenly the
Microsoft company sounds like a
cult, doesn't it? Where
millions of people sit all day and work on
making Bill Gates richer? I'll have to think about that one. *lol*
This looks like a
nodeshell challenge, but it isn't. I'm just like that.