From what I can gather, wouldn’t a rationalist overwhelmingly utilize exit counseling almost exclusively (as in, only extreme, pathological situations would seem to ever merit use of force for deprogramming). Another issue I find is that the article on exit counseling specifically categorizes the belief system from which it is sought to remove a person as “a group perceived to be a cult.” My guess is that for mainstream, widely-held beliefs, transhumanists or even just “militant atheists” would be described as the cult in the scenario. It’s hard to approach the task of convincing a loving grandmother who has attended church for decades, yet fritters away needed retirement income on church-related donations, that some components of her belief system, however emotionally important, are detrimental.
I realize that we have a slider bar that covers a spectrum of departure from what is acceptable by society at large. At the far, fringe end of that slider bar, it may become necessary to do these extreme things. But my interest lies more with people who by and large exhibit perfectly sane views about the world and in most ways they choose their behaviors as if supernatural phenomena had no impact, but that may make some decisions (such as what legislation to support) due to a deeply held emotional belief that, say, abortion is unequivocally wrong, etc.
Or someone who defends creationism in a part of the world where there is a lot of sympathy toward creationism. If these are emotionally held beliefs, then the viewing of radiometric dating evidence or fossil evidence or cosmological evidence will be intercepted by a religious filter long before it gets to the higher cognitive processes of the brain.
I definitely agree that the linked tactics can be helpful in extreme cases where a belief is held so strongly that it borders on mental illness (in the eyes of society, not just a subset of rationalists). And I agree with the other comment that for humanity at large the best path forward is to teach children about rationalism from a young age so that they don’t fear it and don’t grow up believing that morality, ethics, and life-fulfillment are intrinsically attached to faith and belief.
But more fundamentally, is the consensus just that if Bob or Alice believes in wacky-religious-concept-X and they are civil about it but unresponsive to verbal arguments about evidence then we should just abandon Bob and Alice to their beliefs?
What is the best projection of Johnny Appleseed into the rationalist world?
I’ve never, even among fundamentalists of various stripes, heard extreme atheism described as a cult, nor seen atheists subjected to treatment appropriate to cult members. I’ve heard it characterized as a religion, but that always seems to be more an attempt at leveling (i.e. “well, you have unjustified beliefs too”) than a serious try at thinking of atheism in terms of a cultus.
(A lot of the Christian fundamentalist community’s more extreme approaches to homosexuality do have a lot in common with deprogramming methods, incidentally—so this doesn’t just reflect a general distrust of the concept.)
Same goes for broader senses of transhumanism. I have heard singularitarianism described as a cult, but I’m not sure that necessarily indicates anything other than the absurdity heuristic throwing up positive results. The Overton window, or your slider bar, are pretty coarse metaphors; they don’t necessarily imply specific approaches (i.e. cult deprogramming) to worldviews on their fringes.
I’ve never, even among fundamentalists of various stripes, heard extreme atheism described as a cult, nor seen atheists subjected to treatment appropriate to cult members.
I have heard this accusation, though I have not seen any actions from those espousing atheism/transhumanism that could reasonably fall under the category ‘cult’. My only point was that in an environment where the majority holds at least some tenant of major religious belief, a person attempting deprogramming or exit counseling might appear to the majority as the one in need of help.
From what I can gather, wouldn’t a rationalist overwhelmingly utilize exit counseling almost exclusively (as in, only extreme, pathological situations would seem to ever merit use of force for deprogramming).
Only if you accept a definition of deprogramming that includes the implication of coercion[]. IMHO, deprogramming* is—or should be—a general term with no implication of coercion.
Linking deprogramming to coercion seems likely to be a negative marketing move by exit counsellors (who pride themselves on not using coercion).
Aside from the FUD, “deprogramming” seems like a better, more general term than “exit counseling”.
[*] Even then if you want a rescue attempt to succeed, drastic measures may be necessary—cults can put up a fight.
Linking deprogramming to coercion seems likely to be a negative marketing move by exit counsellors (who pride themselves on not using coercion).
This is plausible, but is not how it happened. Historically, “deprogramming” became associated with coercion, so “exit counselling” was set up to do the same thing without coercion.
I appreciate your concerns that “deprogramming” shouldn’t imply coercion, but in normative usage it does.
Some people are trying to screw up this perfectly good word. I suspect that is probably for marketing reasons. Or maybe it was just a misunderstanding. Whatever reasons there are, they are not anything to do with good terminology. The proposed meaning involving coercion necessarily being involved totally sucks. I recommend not promoting such ugly nonsense.
Only if you accept a definition of deprogramming that includes the implication of coercion. IMHO, deprogramming is—or should be—a general term with no implication of coercion.
I totally agree, and to avoid confusion over words, I was merely using the definition of deprogramming from the Wikipedia link you provided, where it says:
Deprogramming refers to actions that attempt to force a person to abandon allegiance to a religious, political, economic, or social group. Methods and practices may involve kidnapping and coercion. Similar actions, when done without force, are called “exit counseling”.
It doesn’t matter to me which words we choose to refer to these concepts with, as long as we make a distinction between types of exit counseling / deprogramming that involve coercion and types that don’t. Making that distinction with the two phrases “deprogramming” and “exit counseling” seems as good as any to me, although “coercive deprogramming” and “noncoercive deprogramming” is more clear to the layman and allows exit counseling to claim itself as a subset of noncoercive deprogramming.
I was merely using the definition of deprogramming from the Wikipedia link you provided, where it says:
Deprogramming refers to actions that attempt to force a person to abandon allegiance to a religious, political, economic, or social group. Methods and practices may involve kidnapping and coercion. Similar actions, when done without force, are called “exit counseling”.
Yes, but this is very bad terminology because it conceals unnecessary technical gumph (coercion) behind a perfectly ordinary-looking word (deprogramming). Of course, it should be:
Another issue I find is that the article on exit counseling specifically categorizes the belief system from which it is sought to remove a person as “a group perceived to be a cult.
True enough. It is still interesting to see high-powered approaches, even if the meme therapy you have planed is more basic.
Similarly, if you plan a diet, you might want to check out how these folks recommend doing it.
To start with, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deprogramming and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_counseling
From what I can gather, wouldn’t a rationalist overwhelmingly utilize exit counseling almost exclusively (as in, only extreme, pathological situations would seem to ever merit use of force for deprogramming). Another issue I find is that the article on exit counseling specifically categorizes the belief system from which it is sought to remove a person as “a group perceived to be a cult.” My guess is that for mainstream, widely-held beliefs, transhumanists or even just “militant atheists” would be described as the cult in the scenario. It’s hard to approach the task of convincing a loving grandmother who has attended church for decades, yet fritters away needed retirement income on church-related donations, that some components of her belief system, however emotionally important, are detrimental.
I realize that we have a slider bar that covers a spectrum of departure from what is acceptable by society at large. At the far, fringe end of that slider bar, it may become necessary to do these extreme things. But my interest lies more with people who by and large exhibit perfectly sane views about the world and in most ways they choose their behaviors as if supernatural phenomena had no impact, but that may make some decisions (such as what legislation to support) due to a deeply held emotional belief that, say, abortion is unequivocally wrong, etc.
Or someone who defends creationism in a part of the world where there is a lot of sympathy toward creationism. If these are emotionally held beliefs, then the viewing of radiometric dating evidence or fossil evidence or cosmological evidence will be intercepted by a religious filter long before it gets to the higher cognitive processes of the brain.
I definitely agree that the linked tactics can be helpful in extreme cases where a belief is held so strongly that it borders on mental illness (in the eyes of society, not just a subset of rationalists). And I agree with the other comment that for humanity at large the best path forward is to teach children about rationalism from a young age so that they don’t fear it and don’t grow up believing that morality, ethics, and life-fulfillment are intrinsically attached to faith and belief.
But more fundamentally, is the consensus just that if Bob or Alice believes in wacky-religious-concept-X and they are civil about it but unresponsive to verbal arguments about evidence then we should just abandon Bob and Alice to their beliefs?
What is the best projection of Johnny Appleseed into the rationalist world?
I’ve never, even among fundamentalists of various stripes, heard extreme atheism described as a cult, nor seen atheists subjected to treatment appropriate to cult members. I’ve heard it characterized as a religion, but that always seems to be more an attempt at leveling (i.e. “well, you have unjustified beliefs too”) than a serious try at thinking of atheism in terms of a cultus.
(A lot of the Christian fundamentalist community’s more extreme approaches to homosexuality do have a lot in common with deprogramming methods, incidentally—so this doesn’t just reflect a general distrust of the concept.)
Same goes for broader senses of transhumanism. I have heard singularitarianism described as a cult, but I’m not sure that necessarily indicates anything other than the absurdity heuristic throwing up positive results. The Overton window, or your slider bar, are pretty coarse metaphors; they don’t necessarily imply specific approaches (i.e. cult deprogramming) to worldviews on their fringes.
I have heard this accusation, though I have not seen any actions from those espousing atheism/transhumanism that could reasonably fall under the category ‘cult’. My only point was that in an environment where the majority holds at least some tenant of major religious belief, a person attempting deprogramming or exit counseling might appear to the majority as the one in need of help.
“Are you guys some sort of cult?” “Yes indeed, but we only accept donations in Bitcoins.”
Only if you accept a definition of deprogramming that includes the implication of coercion[]. IMHO, deprogramming* is—or should be—a general term with no implication of coercion.
Linking deprogramming to coercion seems likely to be a negative marketing move by exit counsellors (who pride themselves on not using coercion).
Aside from the FUD, “deprogramming” seems like a better, more general term than “exit counseling”.
[*] Even then if you want a rescue attempt to succeed, drastic measures may be necessary—cults can put up a fight.
This is plausible, but is not how it happened. Historically, “deprogramming” became associated with coercion, so “exit counselling” was set up to do the same thing without coercion.
I appreciate your concerns that “deprogramming” shouldn’t imply coercion, but in normative usage it does.
Not really. Here are some better definitions:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/deprogramming
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/deprogramming
Some people are trying to screw up this perfectly good word. I suspect that is probably for marketing reasons. Or maybe it was just a misunderstanding. Whatever reasons there are, they are not anything to do with good terminology. The proposed meaning involving coercion necessarily being involved totally sucks. I recommend not promoting such ugly nonsense.
I totally agree, and to avoid confusion over words, I was merely using the definition of deprogramming from the Wikipedia link you provided, where it says:
It doesn’t matter to me which words we choose to refer to these concepts with, as long as we make a distinction between types of exit counseling / deprogramming that involve coercion and types that don’t. Making that distinction with the two phrases “deprogramming” and “exit counseling” seems as good as any to me, although “coercive deprogramming” and “noncoercive deprogramming” is more clear to the layman and allows exit counseling to claim itself as a subset of noncoercive deprogramming.
Yes, but this is very bad terminology because it conceals unnecessary technical gumph (coercion) behind a perfectly ordinary-looking word (deprogramming). Of course, it should be:
(deprogramming (coercive deprogramming) (non-coercive deprogramming / exit counseling))
True enough. It is still interesting to see high-powered approaches, even if the meme therapy you have planed is more basic.
Similarly, if you plan a diet, you might want to check out how these folks recommend doing it.