Culture just bends toward whoever shows up. This should empower and motivate us as much as terrify us.

As Amanda Montell describes in her book Cultish, “Though the stakes and consequences of respective affiliations differ considerably, the methods used to assert power—to create community and solidarity, to establish an ‘us’ and a ‘them,’ to align collective values, to justify questionable behavior, to instill ideology and inspire fear—are uncannily,

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