Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

In his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, Lifton writes that with these stock sayings, “the most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly selective, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. They become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.”

“So a Protestant valuing of the Bible made it a much more text-based religion.” Ever since, our culture has looked to snack-size proverbs for guidance and gospel, convinced that when it comes to written quotes, what you read is what you get. On the internet, however, a mysterious epigram with no clear source can serve as an on-ramp leading seekers

In this way, it’s not desperation or mental illness that consistently suckers people into exploitative groups—instead, it’s an overabundance of optimism.

“Woke capitalism” does not equal social justice, just as hawking diet pills to your Facebook friends does not make you heavenly blessed.

No “cult leader” takes advantage of our psychological drives quite like The Algorithm, which thrives on sending us down rabbit holes, so we never even come across rhetoric we don’t agree with unless we actively search for it.

In every corner of life, it’s true that the way we interpret someone’s speech corresponds precisely to the amount of power we think they ought to have.

Like most destructive “cults,” they’re in the business of selling the transcendent promise of something that doesn’t actually exist. And their commodity isn’t merchandise, it’s rhetoric.

The cult of multilevel marketing is a direct product of the “cult” that is Western capitalism itself.

Because their actual beliefs take a back seat to the success of their brand, these gurus are willing to fudge them according to whatever the zeitgeist seems to want.

A linguistic concept called the theory of performativity says that language does not simply describe or reflect who we are, it creates who we are.