My observation about cults, from personal experience leading them, is that they are a totally normal mode of human operation. People are always looking for strong leaders with vision, passion and charisma who can organize them for a larger purpose. What distinguishes a cult from a non-cult is that they are outside the norms of the mainstream society (as established by the dominant cults—i.e. “the culture”). “Cult”, “brainwashing”, “deprogramming”, etc. are terms of propaganda used by the dominant culture to combat competing memeplexes.
I think of cults as testbeds for new civilizations and new ways of life. In times of change, when the old ways are failing and the civilization is falling, cults may be well-positioned to expand and become the new normal. I suppose this is the memetic equivalent of marginal species who exploit mass extinctions to become genetically dominant—cults provide memetic diversity. This is apparently what was going on in the declining years of Rome, and I see indications that something similar is happening today.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how one could go about becoming an online Mohammed or Genghis Khan – a great leader who sends forth an army of trolls to conquer web sites for the Religion and the Empire. I don’t think it has been tried, but think it may be possible.
He wasn’t kidding about the personal experience.
I say this because I find it quite easy to go to a web site and to begin to control the debate, stir up dissent, refute ideologies, recruit people, or otherwise manipulate the site as I see fit.
Heh… goodluck with that here on LW.
Depending on the level of moderation, this may have to be done subtly, but there is always a way to counter whatever propaganda is being spread at a given site and to inject some of your own counter-propaganda. If one is clever and persistent, one should in this way be able to alter, destroy or co-opt any site according to one’s agenda.
I take the crackpottery of his site as evidence to not take much of what he says seriously.
J.K. Rowling could probably manipulate Lesswrong as she sees fit by buying the site, shadowbanning all commenters, and putting up new comments using their names (but preventing the real users from seeing these) were they slowly become convinced witchcraft real.
“Cult”, “brainwashing”, “deprogramming”, etc. are terms of propaganda used by the dominant culture to combat competing memeplexes.
There is something like manipulation. To make this a discussion about anticipated experience, here is an experiment proposal:
Kidnap a few new members from different religious organizations. (It’s just an imaginary experiment.) Keep them for one week isolated from their religious groups: no personal contact, no phone, no books. If they start to do some rituals they were told to do, for example repeat a mantra or sing a song, prevent them from doing so. Otherwise, don’t do them any harm, and keep them in a nice environment. -- When the week is over, just let them go. Observe how many of them return to the original group. Compare with a control group of randomly selected people you didn’t kidnap; how many of them remained in the group after the week. Are there statistically significant differences for different religious groups?
My prediction is that there would be observable differences for different religious groups. I believe there is some pressure involved in the process of recruitment in some religious (or not just religious) groups; some algorithm which increases the chances of membership when done properly, and fails when interrupted. Perhaps “brainwashing” is too strong word, but it a kind of manipulation. It consists of pushing the person towards more expressions of commitment, without giving them time to reflect whether they really want it (whether it is okay with their other values).
People like to resist coercion. Reactions to being kidnapped in order to be forced to abandon the cult could be different than reactions to being kidnapped and held for a week by a mad psychologist with a mysterious agenda. Though for the agenda to be mysterious, the idea of preventing them from engaging in rituals would have to be abandoned.
My observation about cults, from personal experience leading them, is that they are a totally normal mode of human operation. People are always looking for strong leaders with vision, passion and charisma who can organize them for a larger purpose. What distinguishes a cult from a non-cult is that they are outside the norms of the mainstream society (as established by the dominant cults—i.e. “the culture”). “Cult”, “brainwashing”, “deprogramming”, etc. are terms of propaganda used by the dominant culture to combat competing memeplexes.
I think of cults as testbeds for new civilizations and new ways of life. In times of change, when the old ways are failing and the civilization is falling, cults may be well-positioned to expand and become the new normal. I suppose this is the memetic equivalent of marginal species who exploit mass extinctions to become genetically dominant—cults provide memetic diversity. This is apparently what was going on in the declining years of Rome, and I see indications that something similar is happening today.
* raises eyebrow *
From BrotherNihil’s website:
He wasn’t kidding about the personal experience.
Heh… goodluck with that here on LW.
I take the crackpottery of his site as evidence to not take much of what he says seriously.
J.K. Rowling could probably manipulate Lesswrong as she sees fit by buying the site, shadowbanning all commenters, and putting up new comments using their names (but preventing the real users from seeing these) were they slowly become convinced witchcraft real.
There is something like manipulation. To make this a discussion about anticipated experience, here is an experiment proposal:
Kidnap a few new members from different religious organizations. (It’s just an imaginary experiment.) Keep them for one week isolated from their religious groups: no personal contact, no phone, no books. If they start to do some rituals they were told to do, for example repeat a mantra or sing a song, prevent them from doing so. Otherwise, don’t do them any harm, and keep them in a nice environment. -- When the week is over, just let them go. Observe how many of them return to the original group. Compare with a control group of randomly selected people you didn’t kidnap; how many of them remained in the group after the week. Are there statistically significant differences for different religious groups?
My prediction is that there would be observable differences for different religious groups. I believe there is some pressure involved in the process of recruitment in some religious (or not just religious) groups; some algorithm which increases the chances of membership when done properly, and fails when interrupted. Perhaps “brainwashing” is too strong word, but it a kind of manipulation. It consists of pushing the person towards more expressions of commitment, without giving them time to reflect whether they really want it (whether it is okay with their other values).
This is pretty similar to what the deprogrammers did. They didn’t have too high success rates.
People like to resist coercion. Reactions to being kidnapped in order to be forced to abandon the cult could be different than reactions to being kidnapped and held for a week by a mad psychologist with a mysterious agenda. Though for the agenda to be mysterious, the idea of preventing them from engaging in rituals would have to be abandoned.