6 ms·

Radical organizations are indeed often very much alike. I've been part of a cult during 15 years, and I do recognize patterns in all other radical organizations

Radical organizations are indeed often very much alike. I've been part of a cult during 15 years, and I do recognize patterns in all other radical organizations and movements. One of the most striking is having a common enemy, often a fictitious one on closer inspection.

jl6 3y ago
Do you mean to say you were in a cult for 15 years and found a way out? Can you share which cult, and how you escaped?
- sgregnt 3y ago
  [flagged]
- janwillemb 3y ago
  Yes, I have been part of one from age 17 to in my 30s. I don't want to appear in search results by mentioning the name literally, but it is a Scandinavian-based religious cult. I found a way out very slowly by connecting to other people with different ideas. It started with coaching from a psychologist and, funny enough, volunteering in a homeless community. Homeless people don't really care about me or what I think, which was very liberating. My wife grew up in the cult, and her father was one of the leaders. This made it difficult for her, but she shared my doubts and we were lucky we could do this process of leaving together. Other couples divorced on these things. We lost nearly all contact with her family, but we were again lucky to being able to build a new network around us. Leaving the cult had so much impact on our lives, we could never foresee it. Which was good, because we may never have done it is we knew beforehand. It has been 10-11 years now and the dust is finally settling. I am convinced that this was the right step for us, but I can never bear the responsibility of recommending others to go this same painful path. Sorry, there is way more to this story than this paragraph. If I can help someone by sharing more, we could communicate in some other way. Also, I'm not native English, so don't read nuances where they're not intended :)
_thisdot 3y ago
Don’t most groups have a common enemy as a bonding factor?
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  My hiking group, revue theatre and place of employment have no enemies at all. This is a weird way to think.
  - xwdv 3y ago
    Your hiking groups enemies are the people who litter the trails. Your revue theatre’s enemies are the people against the arts. Your place of employments enemy is lazy and rogue employees, or even competing employers. There are enemies all around if you are willing to find them.
    - jpmoral 3y ago
      Maybe but they aren't necessarily a bonding factor.
    - Ensorceled 3y ago
      This is very unhealthy if you really think like this. Our hiking facebook is full of pictures of the outdoors, we rarely talk about littering at all. We find the litterers annoying, they are not enemies. I don't even know who is "against the arts" maybe against more arts funding? ... do you often create imaginary enemies? Anyway, "people against the arts" has never even come up. We fire lazy employees and our CEO regularly meets with our competitors. None of these people are "enemies". The point is, groups don't regularly go around trying to find enemies. Cults do.
      - rcarr 3y ago
        Whether you consider someone your enemy or not doesn’t really matter if they turn out to actually be your enemy. If those people turn round and stab you in the back one day and leave you dead then their ideology has effectively won and yours has lost. This was how a lot of imperial empires operated, first befriending and then betraying. I would say that hiking groups definitely have enemies. Land owners are hostile to the idea of ramblers rights and in the UK they are trying to dismantle them - look at the back and forth over the right to wild camp on Dartmoor in the UK. You might not hate these people or spend any time even discussing them, but that doesn’t change the fact that they exist and they dislike you, or at least the activity that you do, on land they perceive to be theirs. Same with the arts, you only have to look at the amount of HN comments clapping their hands with glee at all the AI tech that is putting actors, writers and artists out of work. There is a sizeable portion of society who see the arts as “not proper work” and have an intense envy and hatred that people can make a living doing it. No matter what you do, you literally can’t get everyone to like you. As the famous joke goes, look what they did to Jesus, the guy who loved everyone, they killed him. You might not go around trying to actively find or create enemies, but that doesn’t change the fact that they probably exist.
the-mitr 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
- cubefox 3y ago
  The academic criticism of the horseshoe theory cited in the article seems highly biased. It neglects to mention that the overwhelming majority of social scientists are on the left or far-left, so it is not surprising that they want to resist the conclusion that the far-left is similar to the far-right.
  - appplication 3y ago
    Perhaps because in modern discourse, far right typically means literal authoritarian, while far left views are universal healthcare, education, social protections, environmental justice, etc. The terms are loaded. If they were equal on the horseshoe so to speak, the far left would be talking about communism, which they are not. In that sense, yes communism and authoritarianism are two sides of the same coin. Our current political definitions “far left” and “far right” are not.
    - cubefox 3y ago
      I don't think that's the case. For example, the current German "far-right" party wants to stop low-skilled immigration, which is very far from the authoritarianism of a communist dictatorship. Moreover, healthcare and education are considered left topics, not far-left. Far-left are rather things like UBI, or woke topics like allowing MtF transsexuals in woman bathrooms or introducing race quotas in various professions.
      - spondylosaurus 3y ago
        Trans rights have very much entered the mainstream and are not a "far-left" topic, lol. Although from the way you talk about trans people I can see why you'd like to believe that you aren't the one with a rapidly shrinking fringe opinion.
eduction 3y ago
Your cult had radical beliefs but so did abolitionists in the early 1800s. The political meaning of the world radical traces back to a British movement of, as Wikipedia puts it, “the late 18th century to support parliamentary reform, with additional aims including lower taxes and the abolition of sinecures.” Parliamentary reform, lower taxes, and the abolition of sinecures were once the literal definition of radical. The idea of this piece to tar and feather mass movements as inherently bad happily and absurdly glides past the reality that basically everything he says about bad mass movements also applies to good mass movements. The fundamental problem with these movements is that in the moment it is hard to tell the useful from the destructive. Neither this discussion nor the original piece seem to offer much useful information on sorting the two cases. People instead seem to embrace these ideas to justify their feelings about “bad” social movements (including those with ambiguous qualities that they personally dislike).
- somedude895 3y ago
  There are a couple of clear traits to bad mass movements: > the faithful strive to escape suspicion by adhering zealously to prescribed behavior and opinion And also the demonising of individuals or groups, rewriting of history and not having any clear goals or demands, or them being utopian as in unattainable.
  - foldr 3y ago
    > or them being utopian as in unattainable. Universal suffrage seemed utopian and unattainable for a long time – until it happened. It's actually rather difficult to predict which political goals are or aren't obtainable without the benefit of hindsight.
    - Nevermark 3y ago
      I think that was clearly obtainable in principle, or at least asymptotically attainable. An unattainable utopia might include anacapitalists who want to replace any kind of government or governance with an expansion of capitalism, and don't see inherent problems with that.

jl6 3y ago

Do you mean to say you were in a cult for 15 years and found a way out? Can you share which cult, and how you escaped?

sgregnt 3y ago
[flagged]
janwillemb 3y ago
Yes, I have been part of one from age 17 to in my 30s. I don't want to appear in search results by mentioning the name literally, but it is a Scandinavian-based religious cult. I found a way out very slowly by connecting to other people with different ideas. It started with coaching from a psychologist and, funny enough, volunteering in a homeless community. Homeless people don't really care about me or what I think, which was very liberating. My wife grew up in the cult, and her father was one of the leaders. This made it difficult for her, but she shared my doubts and we were lucky we could do this process of leaving together. Other couples divorced on these things. We lost nearly all contact with her family, but we were again lucky to being able to build a new network around us. Leaving the cult had so much impact on our lives, we could never foresee it. Which was good, because we may never have done it is we knew beforehand. It has been 10-11 years now and the dust is finally settling. I am convinced that this was the right step for us, but I can never bear the responsibility of recommending others to go this same painful path. Sorry, there is way more to this story than this paragraph. If I can help someone by sharing more, we could communicate in some other way. Also, I'm not native English, so don't read nuances where they're not intended :)

_thisdot 3y ago

Don’t most groups have a common enemy as a bonding factor?

Ensorceled 3y ago
My hiking group, revue theatre and place of employment have no enemies at all. This is a weird way to think.
- xwdv 3y ago
  Your hiking groups enemies are the people who litter the trails. Your revue theatre’s enemies are the people against the arts. Your place of employments enemy is lazy and rogue employees, or even competing employers. There are enemies all around if you are willing to find them.
  - jpmoral 3y ago
    Maybe but they aren't necessarily a bonding factor.
  - Ensorceled 3y ago
    This is very unhealthy if you really think like this. Our hiking facebook is full of pictures of the outdoors, we rarely talk about littering at all. We find the litterers annoying, they are not enemies. I don't even know who is "against the arts" maybe against more arts funding? ... do you often create imaginary enemies? Anyway, "people against the arts" has never even come up. We fire lazy employees and our CEO regularly meets with our competitors. None of these people are "enemies". The point is, groups don't regularly go around trying to find enemies. Cults do.
    - rcarr 3y ago
      Whether you consider someone your enemy or not doesn’t really matter if they turn out to actually be your enemy. If those people turn round and stab you in the back one day and leave you dead then their ideology has effectively won and yours has lost. This was how a lot of imperial empires operated, first befriending and then betraying. I would say that hiking groups definitely have enemies. Land owners are hostile to the idea of ramblers rights and in the UK they are trying to dismantle them - look at the back and forth over the right to wild camp on Dartmoor in the UK. You might not hate these people or spend any time even discussing them, but that doesn’t change the fact that they exist and they dislike you, or at least the activity that you do, on land they perceive to be theirs. Same with the arts, you only have to look at the amount of HN comments clapping their hands with glee at all the AI tech that is putting actors, writers and artists out of work. There is a sizeable portion of society who see the arts as “not proper work” and have an intense envy and hatred that people can make a living doing it. No matter what you do, you literally can’t get everyone to like you. As the famous joke goes, look what they did to Jesus, the guy who loved everyone, they killed him. You might not go around trying to actively find or create enemies, but that doesn’t change the fact that they probably exist.

the-mitr 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

cubefox 3y ago
The academic criticism of the horseshoe theory cited in the article seems highly biased. It neglects to mention that the overwhelming majority of social scientists are on the left or far-left, so it is not surprising that they want to resist the conclusion that the far-left is similar to the far-right.
- appplication 3y ago
  Perhaps because in modern discourse, far right typically means literal authoritarian, while far left views are universal healthcare, education, social protections, environmental justice, etc. The terms are loaded. If they were equal on the horseshoe so to speak, the far left would be talking about communism, which they are not. In that sense, yes communism and authoritarianism are two sides of the same coin. Our current political definitions “far left” and “far right” are not.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    I don't think that's the case. For example, the current German "far-right" party wants to stop low-skilled immigration, which is very far from the authoritarianism of a communist dictatorship. Moreover, healthcare and education are considered left topics, not far-left. Far-left are rather things like UBI, or woke topics like allowing MtF transsexuals in woman bathrooms or introducing race quotas in various professions.
    - spondylosaurus 3y ago
      Trans rights have very much entered the mainstream and are not a "far-left" topic, lol. Although from the way you talk about trans people I can see why you'd like to believe that you aren't the one with a rapidly shrinking fringe opinion.

eduction 3y ago

Your cult had radical beliefs but so did abolitionists in the early 1800s. The political meaning of the world radical traces back to a British movement of, as Wikipedia puts it, “the late 18th century to support parliamentary reform, with additional aims including lower taxes and the abolition of sinecures.” Parliamentary reform, lower taxes, and the abolition of sinecures were once the literal definition of radical. The idea of this piece to tar and feather mass movements as inherently bad happily and absurdly glides past the reality that basically everything he says about bad mass movements also applies to good mass movements. The fundamental problem with these movements is that in the moment it is hard to tell the useful from the destructive. Neither this discussion nor the original piece seem to offer much useful information on sorting the two cases. People instead seem to embrace these ideas to justify their feelings about “bad” social movements (including those with ambiguous qualities that they personally dislike).

somedude895 3y ago
There are a couple of clear traits to bad mass movements: > the faithful strive to escape suspicion by adhering zealously to prescribed behavior and opinion And also the demonising of individuals or groups, rewriting of history and not having any clear goals or demands, or them being utopian as in unattainable.
- foldr 3y ago
  > or them being utopian as in unattainable. Universal suffrage seemed utopian and unattainable for a long time – until it happened. It's actually rather difficult to predict which political goals are or aren't obtainable without the benefit of hindsight.
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    I think that was clearly obtainable in principle, or at least asymptotically attainable. An unattainable utopia might include anacapitalists who want to replace any kind of government or governance with an expansion of capitalism, and don't see inherent problems with that.