Home > Work > Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism
61 " The language was a password, a disguise, a truth serum. It was so powerful. "
― Amanda Montell , Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism
62 " language doesn’t work to manipulate people into believing things they don’t want to believe; instead, it gives them license to believe ideas they’re already open to. Language—both literal and figurative, well-intentioned and ill-intentioned, politically correct and politically incorrect—reshapes a person’s reality only if they are in an ideological place where that reshaping is welcome. "
63 " I like Burton’s way of looking at it, which is less about what religions are and more about what religions do, which is to provide the following four things: meaning, purpose, a sense of community, and ritual. "
64 " Creating special language to influence people's behavior and beliefs is so effective in part simply because speech is the first thing we're willing to change about ourselves... and also the last thing we let go. Unlike shaving your head, relocating to a commune, or even changing your clothes, adopting new terminology is instant and (seemingly) commitment-free. "
65 " MLM recruitment language… plays on the faux-spirational lingo of commodified fourth-wave feminism. "
66 " Any question or wrinkle can be conveniently dismissed with one of their go to thought terminating clichés, like… ‘Do your research,’ which refers to the process of falling down an obsessed, confirmation-biased rabbit hole online, revealing a fantasy world of explanations of things that feel unexplainable. "
67 " Boasting the intonation and passion of a Baptist preacher, the complex theorizings of an Aristotelian philosopher, the folksy wit of a countryside fabler, and the ferocious zeal of a demented tyrant, Jim Jones was a linguistic chameleon who possessed a monster arsenal of shrewd rhetorical strategies, which he wielded to attract and condition followers of all stripes. "
68 " All kinds of research points to the idea that humans are social and spiritual by design "
69 " Pentecostals, who promoted fitness as an overtly religious purification process. To them, idleness and gluttony were offenses punishable by God, while disciplining the flesh through grueling strength training and fasting was a sign of virtue. For them, lazing around the house while eating junk food was not a metaphorical sin, but a literal one. By contrast, some churches nowadays actively condemn modern gym culture as an overcelebration of the self as opposed to God. “CrossFit is not like church; it is more like the hospital, or even the morgue,” critiqued a Virginia-based Episcopal priest "
70 " Meaning-making is a growth industry,” said ter Kuile. Like church, fitness brands became both a social identity and a code by which to lead your life. "
71 " The nimble direct sales industry always finds a way to reinvent itself - the capitalist cockroach that just won't stop reincarnating. "
72 " But it is clear what glossolalia does. “The primary function of glossolalia is group solidarity,” explains de Lacy. “The person’s demonstrating they are part of the group. "
73 " But with a glimmer of willingness, language can do so much to squash independent thinking, obscure truths, encourage confirmation bias, and emotionally charge experiences such that no other way of life seems possible. "
74 " Being in a top management position, if you’re not careful, you go into an echo chamber,” Kets de Vries explained. “People are going to tell you what you want to hear, so you start to get away with your madness. And that madness becomes institutionalized very quickly. "
75 " linguistic concept called the theory of performativity says that language does not simply describe or reflect who we are, it creates who we are. "
76 " In the end, MLMs aren’t in the business of selling start-up ventures to entrepreneurs. 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. "
77 " a bastardized Sanskrit pun—“Om is where the heart is,” “Namaslay,” “My chakras are aligned AF”—and calling themselves a “tribe.” Commodifying the language of Eastern and Indigenous spiritual practices for an elitist white audience while erasing and shutting out their originators might not seem “culty”—it might just seem commonplace, which is exactly the problem. "
78 " Like most manipulative cults, QAnon’s magnetism is largely the promise of special foreknowledge, which is available only to members of its enlightened underground collective. "
79 " psychiatrist Dr. Joseph M. Pierre, this sort of virtual treasure hunt creates a form of conditioning called a variable-ratio schedule, where rewards are dispensed at unpredictable intervals. "
80 " Some of the psychological quirks thought to drive conspiracy theory belief in general, Pierre writes, include a craving for uniqueness, plus the needs for certainty, control, and closure that feel especially urgent during crisis-ridden times. "