I have a fairly compact handle that I like which is ‘does the group encourage you to replace your internal compass with theirs or to sharpen your own?’
caveat for not being able to tell the difference due to more subtle considerations in some cases, but this screens off most of the harm.
At first I wanted to say that cults consider everything originating outside the group to be wrong (your original ideas, but also ideas you simply learned elsewhere), but then I remembered there are a few exceptions: popular things that feel vaguely pro-group. For example, many financial cults recommend their members to read Kiyosaki, not because he is connected to them in any way, but because he provides motivation without any specific advice, so he can be interpreted by the group as recommending you whatever the group tries to sell you. Similarly: Who moved my cheese?
But yes, a healthy group doesn’t treat knowledge coming from outside as a threat.
I have a fairly compact handle that I like which is ‘does the group encourage you to replace your internal compass with theirs or to sharpen your own?’
caveat for not being able to tell the difference due to more subtle considerations in some cases, but this screens off most of the harm.
At first I wanted to say that cults consider everything originating outside the group to be wrong (your original ideas, but also ideas you simply learned elsewhere), but then I remembered there are a few exceptions: popular things that feel vaguely pro-group. For example, many financial cults recommend their members to read Kiyosaki, not because he is connected to them in any way, but because he provides motivation without any specific advice, so he can be interpreted by the group as recommending you whatever the group tries to sell you. Similarly: Who moved my cheese?
But yes, a healthy group doesn’t treat knowledge coming from outside as a threat.