You must understand racism and admit that you cannot understand racism. You must admit to your complicity in racism and pledge to do better knowing that it is impossible to do better. You must be an ally but accept that you will always do your allyship wrong. The Cult Dynamic of Wokeness.
Before I got involved in studying Critical Social Justice like I do now, I mostly studied the psychology of religion. I took particular interest in the more authoritarian and cultish elements that can spring up within otherwise more reasonable faith traditions. Cult indoctrinations, in particular, tend to follow very predictable stages. First, there is initiation; then there is indoctrination; and then there is reprogramming. These three phases are distinct and must be understood on their own terms.
I. Cult Initiation
One thing I learned through all that study is that most fundamentalist religious (in the colloquial, not technical sense) and cult conversions, especially in adults, occur by using doctrine to resolve some core emotional vulnerability. That is, cult doctrine, and I include extreme fundamentalist interpretations of religious doctrines as cultish, exists to resolve a particularly powerful emotional vulnerability in an unhealthy way (this adds another layer of defense for responsible faith, which does so in a healthy way to the degree that it does the same things).
The question is where that emotional vulnerability comes from because with cults it is always exploited. Sometimes, the underlying emotional vulnerability is there for personal reasons, or as a result of life events. People turn to various doctrines to explain and contextualize the major events in their lives or to understand who they are. Again, this can be healthy or unhealthy. Vulnerability is also often deliberately inflamed or manufactured for the purpose of doing a cult initiation, however, especially in unhealthy cases. Would-be indoctrinators ask manipulative questions and try to catch people on the spot in a feeling of discomfort that is usually rooted in their morality and sense of being a good or adequate person.
With religions in general obviously, many of these vulnerabilities are evoked by asking about one’s fears of death. These leave much room for manipulations by more cultish sects. With religious cults, as I’m using the term, however, they can also center directly on making their mark feel morally deficient or unacceptable. “Did you know you’re a sinner?” is an example, when a lot of emotional pressure is added about how bad that makes you as a person or in the sight of God. “Did you know you’re complicit in racist systems?” is another obvious example.
Once this vulnerability has been successfully manufactured in the mark (or identified and inflamed, if already present), cult doctrine is given as a potential resolution to the emotional distress. “Christ died for your sins, so you can be forgiven” is a Christian example, and “Be an antiracist. Help us dismantle the system and build a better world” is an “antiracist” example. One will note that this can occur in a healthy context or an unhealthy one, and that these can sometimes be difficult to distinguish from one another. The cult application will always be unhealthy in the end, and it can be known by the further manipulations it uses. It must be understood that this is merely the initiation either to a religious or moral conversion or to a cult, in which case the word “initiation” resonates more strongly.
Once the doctrine is initially accepted by the cult’s mark, the next step is to make the mark feel (morally) welcome and good. The goal is to give them resolution to the vulnerable and dissonant emotional state that was utilized previously. The mark will be made to feel like they’re now doing the right thing where they were doing the wrong thing before. This can still be done in healthy ways, and almost all genuine interventions proceed in this manner. Cults don’t diverge from religions and other moral systems at the outset, or they’d never get any marks to convert. For examples of the relevant kind of language, however, consider: “You can be one of the saved and be forgiven for your sin” and “You’re on the right side of history.”
Once the person feels morally welcome and the feeling of vulnerability gets its first hit of calming resolution through the doctrine, the cult indoctrinator will start to increase the depth of the doctrine, usually a little at a time. With a cult, this will involve beginning to teach the “quieter” parts of the cult worldview that would scare off potential new recruits. And this is where we can find the first clear sign that we’re dealing with a cult rather than something healthier, though there is still much overlap and some ambiguity. They will deepen the doctrine while informing their mark that they’ll be surrounded by temptation, especially from broader society. This gets us to the surest first sign that a cult initiation is taking place, though. It is when this warning starts being applied to friends and family who will be described as failing to understand the depth and value of the cult’s doctrine and, in fact, the mark themselves.
Another clear sign that one is dealing with a cult indoctrination rather than something healthier is making the mark live up to contradictory demands. You must understand racism and admit that you cannot understand racism. You must admit to your complicity in racism and pledge to do better knowing that it is impossible to do better. You must be an ally but accept that you will always do your allyship wrong. Impossible demands would scare off a potential cult initiate at the beginning, but once a sufficient level of commitment to the cause has taken place, the effect is the opposite. Rather than making the mark reject the cult, these impossible and paradoxical demands dramatically deepen commitment to the cult. They do this by re-invoking and massively inflaming the feeling of vulnerability at the core, making the mark burn with a desire to “do better” to resolve the emotional dissonance and white-hot feeling of inadequacy (as judged against the cult’s impossible standards). Outsiders see through this emotionally abusive tactic immediately. Cult initiates see it as a kind of ritual hazing and demand to prove the faith, very much like an abused child or spouse always trying to do better to live up to the unmet demands of their abuser.
The concept of “white fragility” in the antiracist Woke cult is exactly this sort of emotional shakedown. White fragility separates white people and their “adjacencies” into exactly two types: racists (who admit it) and racists (who are too emotionally fragile to admit it). It is obvious which side the cult doctrine favors. In fact, the cult doctrine in this case is that every white (and white adjacent) person is a racist by default, and there are only those with the moral and emotional fortitude to face that (which is good, according to doctrine) and those who lack the necessary moral fiber. Every reaction to a person accused of racism or white fragility itself is proof of this moral failure and a need to “do better” unless it is a full-on assent to the cult doctrine, including a promise to consume more of it, change yourself accordingly, do the work it demands, and to “do better” anyway. White fragility as a concept is explicitly a cult indoctrination technique into the “antiracist” cult.
Speaking more generally, this is all a process that evolves over time, and when dealing with a cult, it is a largely willful move to bring the mark further into the cult while separating them from other social, emotional, and personal ties. Depending on the degree of vulnerability generated at the outset, this process can go quite quickly, taking only weeks, though months is more common. The process is summarized as such: lead the mark to take a step further in, coach them into rationalizing why that step was good, and then repeat with a further step. Every step in means more investment in the cult and a harder path back out. Meanwhile, separating the mark from trust in outside influences becomes increasingly necessary. Those might cause the mark to doubt their new faith position while it is still shaky, which would prevent their submission to the cult ideology. At this early phase in cult indoctrination, where initiation is effectively complete but indoctrination hasn’t fully begun, the mark hasn’t devoted enough of themselves to the cause to be fully committed yet.
II. Cult Indoctrination
Thus, the next step in cult indoctrination is to get people more fully committed. This is actually rather easy, as we tend to commit to new groups fairly quickly under certain well-known conditions. Usual cult-deepening methods include public pronouncements of faith before the in-group community, which bonds the mark to them socially and emotionally. This will often involve rituals such as group prayers, singing, or outright initiation rituals, which dramatically deepen commitment to a group very quickly. There will also be requests to make costly personal sacrifices to be considered a full part of the new group.
This can also include requests for money, cutting ties with relations, making pledges, doing “the work,” and more (including, in many cults of personality, allowing the cult leader to have sex with the marks of the desired sexes). Making sacrifices and working on behalf of a group, including a cult, creates deep ties of commitment to the group, its mission, and its community, and it evokes the “sunk-cost fallacy” mechanism, which prevents people from leaving. This fallacy is a reasoning error that basically says, “I’ve invested so much already that it must be worth it, so I’ll keep going.” It keeps people committed to failing projects, failing relationships, and, as it happens, cults long after they should have abandoned them.
So we hit a particular and important point here. When people like the “critical whiteness educator” Robin DiAngelo tell us things like that “antiracism is a lifelong commitment to an ongoing process of self-reflection, self-critique, and social activism,” she is providing a mid-level cult indoctrination path. The demand is to change yourself for life in alignment with the cult’s doctrine, including how you think, how you see yourself, and how you operate in the world, and make that change a permanent part of who you are. Notice that it also demands you do the work on behalf of the cult and its objectives, which ties you more tightly to it.
This process progresses over time, usually months, demanding more costly sacrifices, costly signals, and doing work for the cult and its doctrinal mission. Costly sacrifices and signals are particularly powerful displays of commitment, and when the mark rationalizes these objectively bad decisions and the cognitive dissonance that doing them causes, they nearly always rationalize themselves much further into the cult. These demands must be made fairly slowly and carefully, and they are meant to increase emotional investment and commitment. One thing the Woke cult is doing wrong is suddenly demanding too much too fast, partly because it can and partly because it’s trying to do so universally rather than in personal one-on-one settings. This push is breaking the spell for many people who would otherwise have been going along and being seduced further into the cult. This may result in its downfall.
At this point, cult indoctrination can begin in earnest, and the mark will be urged to consume more doctrine, possibly in immersive quantities. It will be expected to be consumed uncritically, looking only for areas of agreement and assent, which will be reaffirmed in the mark by other members of the cult and its leadership. With the Woke cult, the immense and widespread push to get people reading “antiracist” and other Woke literature in mass quantities right now is consistent with this step. (These include the following currently bestselling books, among many others: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, How to Be Anti-racist by Ibram X. Kendi, and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.) When the mark is sufficiently committed to begin uncritically consuming massive quantities of the cult’s doctrine, they are well into the indoctrination phase.
Simultaneously, to prevent critical interpretations of the cult doctrine and to ensure full affective immersion in the cult community, marks will be urged to cut more ties with outside voices of reason and dissenting opinions. Broader society itself will be construed as bad, evil, complicit, depraved, and any number of other terrible things that the cult’s doctrine is adamantly against (systemically racist, anybody?). The mark will thus be encouraged to segregate from broader society as much as possible, even possibly becoming hostile to its potential intrusions. This will eventually include encouraging cutting ties with family and friends outside of the cult, which is fairly easy to achieve because the indoctrinated cult convert is almost insufferable to be around by that point anyway. Before long, the cultist will convince the mark that every voice that disagrees w/ the cult is somehow “demonic” and out to pull the mark away from the cult. This is relatively hard during the cult initiation phase, during which the increasing sunk cost of participation is mostly what keep marks in, but it becomes very easy once the mark is taught to “see it” (meaning the way outsiders try to get them away from the cult for “bad” reasons, as the cult defines them), at which point they lose all trust in outsiders.
Once the cultists start to turn on outsiders as though they are bad influences only trying to pull people out of the cult, it is extremely difficult to get them to change course. They’re more or less indoctrinated by that point completely and very stuck. Then the project changes completely. With indoctrination complete, the cult reprogramming phase begins in earnest. (Note: Of course, these phases have much overlap and are fuzzy, but the descriptions and progression largely hold.)
III. Cult Reprogramming
Once the mark is properly indoctrinated, the objective becomes to reprogram the mark to get them to think differently. The goal is no longer to indoctrinate on what is “rightthink” and “wrongthink.” It is to make the mark’s thinking be completely in line with the view of the world described by the cult doctrine This will let the mark see the “truth” of the doctrine for themselves everywhere in the world. That’s being “Woke.”
In the case of Woke cult programming, there is an older and more formal name for that view of the world, which is having a “critical consciousness.” Having a critical consciousness occurs when one is able to see the “problematics” in everything, where “problematics” are any deviation or potential for deviation from the cult doctrine anywhere in any aspect of society. This includes in speech, writing, institutions, thoughts, people, systems, knowledge, history, one’s past, and society itself.
I know this part gets a little heady, but it’s important. Critical consciousness is, formally, the cult mentality of Karl Marx’s conflict theory. Conflict theory, in briefest explanation, is the idea that society is broken into different groups or classes (for Marx, they were economic classes, and for the Woke, they are social group-identity classes) that are oppressive on one side, oppressed on the other, and in conflict over this. That is, conflict theory is the belief that different social groups in society are always in conflict with one another for power and dominance, and that rather than working together in complex, dynamical ways that can be mutually beneficial, they are at war. A critical consciousness means realizing this and that you are somehow personally complicit in creating the material conditions for that war and need to “do better,” either by renouncing your dominance (if dominant) or by agitating for a full-on revolution (if oppressed).
Critical consciousness is therefore a very cartoonish, us-versus-them reading of the world. This mentality, of course, tweaks various psychological and social impulses in people as described in social identity theory, for example, and dramatically increases what’s called “parochial altrusim.” This means strongly favoring the in-group (here, the cult) and forgiving it for every excess and abuse while becoming overtly hostile to the out-group (here, everyone else in society and society itself) and reading everything it does in the worst light possible. This is obviously core to the present sociological dynamic! It also dramatically increases cult commitment, adding an overtly warlike tenor to the us-against-them mentality, which in critical cults like Wokeness is us-against-the-world.
IV. The Cult Mentality
It’s very important to stress just how difficult it is to break someone free from a cult mindset once they have adopted the relevant cult consciousness. Once reprogrammed, they will think the way the cult doctrine views the world. They will have put on the cult-colored glasses of whatever cult they have joined, and they will see everything in the world through that lens. Everything will be construable as supportive of the cult’s doctrinal claims about the world, including where the cult doctrine gets things right and also where it identifies the evils in the world that would challenge its existence. People who have been reprogrammed into a cult mentality will perceive all attempts to free them from the cult as malicious attempts to drag them away from their community and, crucially, back to the Bad Emotional Place that they have come to strongly associate with that awful feeling of vulnerability that was used to initiate them into the cult in the first place. The doctrine is the opium that dulls their emotional pain, one might say with, given the context of the present discussion, a bit of tongue in one’s cheek.
In this sense, anyone trying to talk sense to a fully reprogrammed cult member or trying to pull them out of the cult will be, in a very real sense, interpreted as trying to do harm to them. This is because the cult doctrine is the proffered resolution to the pain and emotional dissonance that lives at the point of deep emotional vulnerability that led them to be indoctrinated and reprogrammed in the first place. And you must appreciate just how much that vulnerability has been inflamed by the cult initiation, indoctrination, and reprogramming process by the point that the mark has become a full-fledged cultist. They have been forced to fixate on that vulnerability under profoundly psychological abusive conditions in juxtaposition to the cult’s doctrine while making costly sacrifices to the cult and cutting most ties to the outside world. Removing them from the cult is therefore going to be perceived as an attempt to take them back to that awful vulnerability while at the same time taking them off their opium and ripping them away from the only community they have, while forcing them to face up to the embarrassment of having been indoctrinated and having sunk so many costs into something so toxic. This will not go easily. In fact, it will be met with remarkable hostility in most cases.
More than that, attempts to remove someone from a cult will also be framed in terms of “not understanding” the cult. This is actually a means of resolving the cognitive dissonance around the cult’s doctrine, and it deepens and solidifies commitment in almost every case. The problem isn’t that the doctrine is bad; it’s that you, outsider, don’t understand why it’s good. You don’t get it, and if you learned to see it the way the cultist sees it (here: with a critical consciousness), you’d understand and agree and wouldn’t threaten them with this pain. This is, of course, tautologically obvious and utterly boring: “if you saw things the way I saw them, you’d agree with them.” The cultist cannot see this, though, because the result of reprogramming is to have only the cult’s lens available for viewing everything in the world. The whole point of cult programming is to make it so one’s inner pain and pathology can only be understood in terms of the cult doctrine. The doctrine is the resolution to the vulnerability and has been very deeply established as such.
More or less all of the Critical Social Justice literature on how we know and understand the world (epistemology) and education over the last decade, including White Fragility, makes this case explicitly. Scholar after scholar makes the case that disagreement with Critical Social Justice (Woke) doctrine is only possible by having failed to engage with it properly. DiAngelo makes this case; Barbara Applebaum insists that the only legitimate disagreement with Woke doctrine is to clarify one’s understanding; Alison Bailey says all disagreement is an attempt to preserve one’s privilege. Scholars of religious fundamentalism call this way of thinking “intratextuality,” for those interested, and they consider it a defining hallmark of religious fundamentalism. In the cult’s sense, it is only being able to interpret everything, including disagreement with the cult’s doctrine, from the perspective of the cult’s doctrine. Of course, one can immediately appreciate how this makes the same demand on the cultist that indoctrinated and reprogrammed them in the first place: keep reading it and read it right; you’ll know you read it right when you agree with it entirely; if you fail, you didn’t understand because you’re not good enough in some way (smart enough, moral enough, humble enough, willing enough to do the work, etc.) and you need to “do better.”
V. Cult Deprogramming
The only ways I know of to effect a deprogramming of this are these three: (1) striking right to the heart of the point of vulnerability in a completely different and more healthy way; (2) the introduction of a severe shock (death of a family member) that creates too much dissonance against the cult doctrines to bear; and (3) finding an emotionally intolerable contradiction inside the cult doctrine.
None of this is easy. In fact, it’s all usually very difficult, as highly evolved cult doctrines have fixed these incongruities sufficiently to prevent the cultist from seeing them (that is, every objection and contradiction has a kind of “resolution” in the cult doctrine). Though best, (1) almost never works except in therapy. Usually, (2) has to induce (3), or it won’t happen.
I don’t have much to say about cult deprogramming because it is hard and usually so deeply personal and individual that general prescriptions don’t apply. One thing that can be said in general is that cult deprogramming almost always proceeds from an initial doubt that spirals out of control, getting the cultist to start questioning everything they were taught in the cult in something of an avalanche of angry skepticism. The deprogramming ex-cultist (apostate) will then usually become very angry at the cult and vent that anger at it for an extended period of time that I sometimes call “throwing rocks at the cathedral.” These will be the cult’s most vicious and ruthless critics.
Still, regarding the third case, Wokeness in specific has a few gaping holes in it in which this kind of observation sometimes occurs. One that sometimes works within Wokeness is that the abysmal treatment of women and homosexuals under fundamentalist Islam is both intolerable and absolutely defended at the same time under different, incompatible aspects of the Theory. Feminism is completely opposed to these abuses, of course, at a profound moral level, but postcolonial and critical race Theory approaches utterly prevent criticizing the moral standards of a predominantly non-white and non-Western culture. Usually, the accusations of racism and colonialism win out and prevent any criticism over the systemic and institutional abuses of women because, generally speaking, racism and colonialism are seen in Wokeness as more harmful. Nevertheless, the contradiction is there, and it sometimes crosses their eyes and gets them to start asking questions. Drawing this out for people only works on a small fraction.
This also can work by exposing ways the cult’s doctrine harms its charges in general. For example, Woke cult doctrine speaks over and for minority voices and often arranges failing systems that hurt them most. We have recently been introduced to the idea that being “racially black” and being “politically Black” are very different things, and have seen struggle sessions initiated against racially black people who are not correctly politically Black. Though people haven’t generally known this about the Woke cult, this limiting and inherently political take on identity is a central pillar of Woke cult doctrine. We have also seen devastation in communities that mostly served black and other minority races and also disabled people in the Social Justice Riots of 2020.
Still, case three can be very hard to induce. It often follows from the shock of a tragedy as described in the second case. Obviously, these events cannot be manufactured or discussed into being, though they do happen. I won’t say much about them, but I have seen them happen a few times with genuine religious cultists whose parents or children died in a sudden accident, which is very upsetting. Their thoughts rapidly shifted to “God is supposed to be everywhere, but he wasn’t there that day,” and the whole architecture unraveled quite rapidly while they grieved.
I’ll say even less about the first case, because although this sometimes happens in interpersonal interventions, it usually happens in the context of professional therapy settings and is well beyond my scope to comment upon. (It is worth mentioning, however, that the Woke cult is not this responsible. They explicitly use techniques and concepts stolen from clinical therapeutic settings in uncontrolled mass settings like classrooms, workshops, and mass broadcast, and they let amateurs, not adequately trained professionals, do them. This is consistent with the cult programming endeavor, though, because it allows an attempted evocation of the right kind of vulnerability in many people at once, and the ones who show outward signs of it can then be followed up with individually and properly indoctrinated. This happens on college campuses as a matter of officially encouraged procedure now, including in classrooms.)
VI. Leaving a Cult
If someone begins to deprogram from a cult, it is very important that they are welcomed and not shamed for their past participation in it, no matter how bad it was or how cruel they were under its programming. If you understand that they got there in the first place because of an incredibly inflamed point of vulnerability and were then psychologically abused into accepting the cult doctrine above all else, it makes sense why they would have been so hostile. In a practical sense, however, at the point where they first start to break free, they will still have very low trust for outsiders due to their reprogramming and will still see the world largely as they were programmed to see it. Hostility back at them can push them back into the cult or into a different cult that promises to manage that vulnerability for them (and thus, we have former Wokesters that go alt-right).
In general, we want to help people leave the cult and avoid radicalizing in another direction as they go. It does none of us any good to turn rabid antiracists into open white supremacists. There is a very broad, very sane middle way here that holds all the moral high ground and the keys to a properly better future in society. It’s our job to invite people to see it that way. We shouldn’t scare them off from it.
To summarize, then, Wokeness is a cult. It might even be, in its broadest functions, a proper religion at this point with a describable and fanatic cult element within it and protected by the relative reasonability of the broader faith. Antiracism, in particular, under its auspices is explicitly framed religiously and with clear patterns of cult initiation written all over it. This is what we’re up against.
Postscript: In 2018, the “whiteness educator” Robin DiAngelo published a bestselling book called White Fragility. This book is intended to teach white people about their own racism. You can learn more about how manipulative white fragility, as a concept (and book) is here, by reading this slightly modified real chapter from the book. It just turns the manipulation up a little to make it more visible.
175 comments
Who in their right mind would wanna get brainwashed or indoctrinated by the Coloured-haired Alphabet Freak Cult at all, especially since most of us Sane peoples out there know that these Freaks & Pedophiles are gonna be the ones with NO such education at all, which means they ain’t gonna manage at all in the REAL world- where might I add that you will need your education if your wanting to get a good job & survive. Unfortunetly No One out there are gonna hire Smart-Assed little Shits that spew their Verbal Diarrhea on *Diversity-Equity & Inclusion* Nobody wants to hear that Shit
Theres an old set of dynasties in europe trying to privatise it with a trading bloc scam & theres americans with less mature, but nevertheless serious designs on Africa with a corn laws blag. They’ve collaborated on the misanthropy that gets ordinary people busy hating each other.
‘White Fragilty’ like all other racially based hate sociology engineered by the nwo, is just a neuro linguistic triggering phrase which was implemented to symbolise way that hating the colour of white people skin will be tolerated.
You can teach a dog sit when you’ve said run. You can teach a dog to attack when you’ve said lay down. In this case the nwo used a partial approach. Nevertheless the term means go out and hate white people.
The case of the west london murder concerning a disabled man in a motorised disability aid could well have been sociological legitimised by the divide & rule process symbolised by WF.
In unconscious terms the drives could be using emotions linked to self loathing. There is little doubt that anti white activists are in denial of personal inadequacy of some form. The social engineers know this, and have designed a way that these emotions can be subverted toad racial hate towards white people.
No woke anti white activist is anywhere close to pinpointing what is going on. They’d need to be where the worlds richest people are planning the next big appropriation of peoples birthrights. But instead they are in europe & the usa waging racial war against ordinary white people, who have absolutely nothing to do with it, just as the conditioned learning intended. All ‘Woke’ & Anti white movements were designed and funded by the nwo, only later to have separate figureheads selected to front them & ‘said’ to have founded these hate factories.
You may have to learn the hard way that this is only the latest of hundreds of years worth of stirring hate among the human race Rayya. Your role is not much different to what was perpetrated in berlin to first spark off germans against jews.
The thing that’s remarkable about the wokeness cult is that it is a cult without a leader. When you start with the assumption that no one can question the objections of any marginalized person without being accused of “gaslighting”, then anyone with a blog and an insect up their posterior can create a new taboo just by being offended about something. It’s like a cult in which anyone can be the leader for fifteen minutes if they speak up.
I think it is important to recognize that we are in the middle of a revolution in courtesy, in which the voices of marginalized people are being heard (and should be heard) for the first time. But we cannot see the ultimate goal of this revolution to be a book of laws that will prevent anyone from ever triggering anyone else. What we need is not more rules, but an increase in empathy and respect that will make the rules unnecessary. More on this here. https://teedrockwell.medium.com/the-woke-revolution-in-moral-habits-5a9694abc46f
The leaders are long dead. The Frankfurt School, Antonio Gramsci, Karl Marx.
Our universities were infected with this cancer long ago. Once the universities were converted, it started creeping into the public schools, since the teachers were infected at the universities.
Unlike other cults, you didn’t have to join. Your parents sent you off to school for a day-long struggle session, day after day, year after year. Even if you didn’t buy it, you learned how to say the right words to get the grades you wanted. You learned to bend the knee to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Funny thing is, many Conservatives saw what was happening at the colleges, but thought when the kids graduated and started working, they’re get slapped by reality and wake up and give up Leftist ideology. They were wrong.
What an interesting read! You nailed the definition of a cult and how it relates to the “woke” movement. The thing you failed to mention is that this same theory applies to all political movements. You must have overlooked that while you were wallowing in self-pity.
You failed to mention that the “woke” ones have a cult based on reality while you and your racist cult members continue to revel in your “folie à millions” despite my kind effort to free you from your sickness…
I am not even a Democrat, but I saw the madness Bandy Lee describes best infect my closest friends, a
““Shared psychosis”—which is also called “folie à millions” [“madness for millions”] when occurring at the national level or “induced delusions”—refers to the infectiousness of severe symptoms that goes beyond ordinary group psychology. When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person’s symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions, paranoia and propensity for violence—even in previously healthy individuals. The treatment is removal of exposure.”
It is time my friend to open your eyes and see beyond the boundaries of your world that was only ever great for you and your predecessors. I feel so sorry for you that people are trying to convince you that American whites are the scourge of the continent and that the sins of the father are visited upon the son. Such a theory seems ridiculous each day I look into the mirror at my rape-colored skin. I smile though at my reflection thinking of my children and know that in time, not much more time. This will all be settled by genetic diversity.
I would say your comment proves the article.
If you think woke culture is based in reality.
WOW you have really drunk the Kool-Aid
Ok racist
Ok idiot
The “cult” erroneously assumes that only white people are racists!
I’m a clinical psychologist and author; my last two books have been on the topics of shame and narcissism. I wonder whether the particular “vulnerability” you describe might involve underlying shame that pre-dates and is exploited by the cult. What the cult offers is a sort of narcissistic defense that involves splitting and projection: you are relieved of your shame and offered a new idealized identity among the enlightened Woke while all your shame is projected outward onto those “bad” oppressive and privileged people who are complicit. The typically abusive responses of those who attempt to defend Wokism suggest to me that they feel criticism as a personal assault on their idealized identity which threatens the return of disowned shame, which means that the idealized self must be vigorously defended. You will have noticed that their retorts usually attempt to shame and humiliate the critic, reinforcing the projection/disowning of personal shame and the location of it in the Other. I may try to write something about this. It is both scary and fascinating. Thanks, James.
Hey I’d love to read your thought’s on it, I grew up in a narcissistic family (3 generations) that was outwardly admirable but had a lot of cult like behavior patterns internally. The family identity was outwardly impressive, all the right left wing opinions, volunteer work, political influence in a way I viewed at the time as engineered to look virtuous only in looks (before I knew what virtue signaling was) Even contemplating to complain about psychological warfare was absurd, even today now after 3 suicided scapegoats thinking to bring them to justice is still pretty much absurd.
I was the scapegoat and since I saw an older scapegoat driven to what I thought at the time was insanity I became intensely observant and weary of people substituting truth for comforting lies, substituting arguments and logic for word salad and subversive shame. And weary of who finds comfort in covering up abusers with empathic excuses.
At the time I did not have the language or mental models required to understand what happened to me and my siblings, it was simply too complicated and as a kid growing up it is a bitter pill to swallow to see clearly just what kind of mother you have in the dark of night, seeing things clearly was not just a matter of honesty, but a danger to me because if I became to very observant I had a sense who the next scapegoat would be, and more importantly it was a danger to my very sense of self, who are you if you think your mother is the type of person that can methodically drive her sister to suicide in cohorts with her own mother ?
And why?
Own that truth and you make yourself a monster.
Many years later it’s so odd watching woke saints employ the same weaponized empathy methodically, but this time it’s so much more out in the open for anyone to see and yet nobody revolts against it.
The encircling word salad situationally designed to wrap detractors like a custom blanket guilt, shame and self doubt rather than try to help each other understand the world and thrive together.
The entitled arguments, everything is a lecture and yet nothing actually makes sense when you disassemble the rhetoric, there is no coherent thought model or respect for people behind it in the way it’s structured, despite it’s protractors claims to be revolutionary thinkers, great humanitarians.
The thin thought models by themselves requiring constant rationalizations to look even remotely viable, like a cheap jacket designed to be pawned off, not to be worn. And that’s exactly how it’s used like one rationalization after another to shame, cower and swindle victims into submitting dazed and confused into submission and payment. Dazed, fogged and manipulated into enlightenment ?
The compulsive blame-shifting, and external motivations, nobody woke ever did anything it was someone else that started it, if only “blablabla” then…… yeah right I grew up on that, seen it intimately destruct myself, my siblings and gullible satellites and somehow some way it’s never the predator that’s at fault, the word for it is alloplastic defense and it’s beyond toxic.
Other words that automatically pop up when I watch a disciple of wokeness go at it are words like word salad, narcissistic supply, cluster B grooming, Flying monkeys, codependence, trauma bonding, projective identification, introjection, invalidation, emotional blackmail, brain fog, scapegoating, triangulation, false self, dualistic thinking, narcissistic injury, narcissistic rage, splitting, Dog-whistling, gaslighting, Alloplastic defense, dichotomous thinking, hoovering, grey rock, mirroring, cold reading, blame-shifting, cognitive dissonance and the ever present “duping delight”
When I talk with a woke disciple it brings me back to a world of methodically projected shame, fear and carpets of lies, and that odd electric glint in my self-righteous mothers eye as she took another bite of the soul of her sister, or me, and a tiny haunted sideways smile when she thought nobody were looking. I saw it, and I still do. And afterwards the “good gentle people” the sycophantic codependents come scurrying along for their fill, ameliorating and smoothing things out as if what they saw was in any way normal and acceptable and not a monster in action. But for the good empaths it was no monster it was their cook and their dinner was the wound in your maimed soul. They pretend the wound ain’t there, because they need it, and they need it to continue for them to feel alive just as the monster needs it’s fill. People lose their mind in it, or go numb and dead inside and the codependents, the gentle “bystanders” need it that way for as long as possible for they have lost themselves too and need victims to help just as the predator needs prey. Only problem is someone some way needs to be the scapegoat.
That’s how I feel when I talk with the woke disciples, they wont see it I was raised to survive a more competent monster, a monster that didn’t have to be so careful for she had ample narcissistic supply in her control and a bulletproof alibi in her virtue signaling. But I recognize her hunger, her control disguised as dogmatism you either submit or you’re somehow defect, evil and your right to exist is invalidated.
Or so say’s the monster.
And the monsters helpers, chanting it, their sick song of projected shame you all deserve it, justify yourselves! explain! spit it out, why you have a right to exist!
And you can mimic it, placate and pretend and maybe you wont be dinner this time but watching the monster I grew up with handle pretenders in it’s care I really doubt how long the gentle woke disciples survives inside their echo chambers, outside public scrutiny and outside sane and humane judgement because everyone in there knows what they need, they know it intimately because someone once ate it right out of them and now they need it from others, from someone less damaged to prod and poke and pry them open and vulnerable, pry them apart and exposed and munch on what’s hidden in there, eat and eat and fill the void with shame to have another disciple, the monster I know likes that, look closely and you can see it in it’s eyes.
WOW all I can think immediately is WOW, what an incredible story, I would love to see you on TED talks, I want to tell you how deeply sorry I am that you and those you loved experienced that.
But believe this your pain hopefully will save someone or hopefully many.
Please keep telling your story
When I was reading your story it brought back a old Star Trek episode where the Klingons ended up on the Enterprise, the Klingons and the federation crew, hated each other went to war on the ship killing each other but then miraculously rising from the dead
The premise of the story was there was this alien entity that fed off the hatred and anger from both the Klingons and the federation and he just sat back and fed on the emotion while they killed each other.
When you told me about the monster and your mom and feeding on the pain she caused it triggered that memory.
Much of American society, in fact this is occurring in all democracies in the UK Canada and Australia, also are completely oblivious to the evil the absolute malevolence that has infiltrated society.
I am a Christian so I believe quite well in the scripture
Paul in Ephesians said our battle is not with flesh and blood but with powers and principalities with dark forces in the world and spiritual wickedness in high places
I believe the only thing that explains the incredible evil that I feel blanketing the world, to me it’s almost palpable.
It is because there is dark forces influencing controlling and possessing men’s minds
I think it’s very difficult for people to grasp, as you mentioned in your post, how horrible these people are, it’s hard to wrap your head around that kind of evil
I do know that they are incredibly malicious and vicious, they are tenacious in their pursuit, they believe they operate from a moral high ground that they and only they can usher in a perceived Utopia
That you are too stupid and naive to realize that you’re oppressed and a slave to the system , so they will beat you into submission they will subjugate you with fear,
You must become a slave to them in order to be free from your oppression.
They’re subjective reality and insanity is always shifting the goal posts, their perceived Utopia will never happen, and it is always somebody else’s fault that it has not arrived.
If only that person was no longer with us or that policy was different then we would have Utopia.
There is four major tenets that the progressive left use in all their arguments
Number one it is never your fault for anything that goes wrong
Number two always blame others for that which you are doing
Number three always be the victim it is always somebody else’s fault never yours for your situation or for what is going on in the world
And number four when all else fails scream hysterically and start calling the opposition a liar a bigot a racist or a phobic of some kind
All of this is not hyperbole or exaggeration as your post indicates these people I believe are absolutely narcissistic psychopaths
They have created millions of narcissistic whiny entitled neurotic psychopathic babies.
And I also believe there’s no hope for them, they are completely lost. Using another Star Trek analogy they’re like the Borg they’ve been assimilated and their intention is to assimilate everybody into their sick ideology.
I am not a clinical psychologist but what I’ve observed, is that the progressive left that are entrenched in critical race Theory have actually wrapped up this entire ideology into their identity.
I’m a Christian, and have strong views on Christianity, if somebody came up to me and told me that my views were wrong and I had to give up Jesus, that would be unthinkable to me.
My Christian beliefs are intertwined with who I am, I believe we are spiritual beings in a temporal body when our flesh dies our spirit moves on into eternity.
Nothing will shake my belief, I think as man has strayed from his God conscience and taken on humanism, supplanting a God consciousness with his consciousness, removing God’s objective truth and reality with man’s subjective truth and subjective reality
That’s why you hear many times today this is my truth or my reality, by doing this they were able to create an infinite number of genders and pronouns, everything is subjective to the beholder, and by the same standards he can slip into the most hedonistic lifestyle.
Nothing will be denied man’s desire for gratification, nothing will be out of bounds, no depravity or deviancy will be forbidden
As they are seeking answers with no objective morality but only subjective reality, that the weak minded and lost have adopted this critical race Theory and infused it into their identity.
Dr Lindsay’s absolutely right, in my opinion, that they will never see this ideology as being in error or wrong in any way.
And the true fanatics the actual zealots for the ideology have brainwashed and indoctrinated the acolytes.
I’ve seen video after video someone on the right will try and engage in conversation, they will not engage.
In their worldview to talk to you gives you a platform and they are not willing to do that.
Antonio Gramsci , a marxist in the early 20th century as Dr Lindsay points out could be considered one of the founding fathers of cultural Marxism. One of the earlier Neo marxists if you will.
He stated in order to overcome a culture you must infiltrate from within five basic pillars of the culture
God/religion, family, education, media and law.
You must develop a counter hegemony, in these institutions to introduce Marxism.
He also States that this new religion and he called his ideology a religion, was to supplant Western Christianity with his religion.
Herbert Marcuse, Michelle Foucault, further tweaked critical theory, a new discourse by Dr Lindsay involving repressive tolerance is by Herbert Marcuse, which gives a very good explanation of the playbook being used today by the progressive left
Robin D’Angelo and ibram Kendi, take the work even further with their books that he talks about today
In my opinion , Dr Lindsay’s never said this, but I believe they’re all narcissistic psychopaths.
And they have turned a couple of generations into neurotic narcissistic fragile entitled whiny babies.
It’s almost when that imbecile Biden took office, sleeper cells all over the country have been activated and we are seeing it front and center, in our face, all of the insanity that used to be hidden , that was infiltrating our society stealthily, now on full display.
The massive push to indoctrinate and brainwash our children with CRT is unbelievable and very evil and parents are seeing it because it has come out of the shadows
Critical theory came out the Frankfort Institute at the turn of the 20th century, a Marxist think tank.
it morphed a little in the 1960s and infiltrated our universities where much of academia became radicals and critical theorists.
Many of these students graduated and infiltrated every major institution in America
What was once a academic pursuit was now being turned into actionable policies, especially when Obama took office, yes we can, change, transform America. Except the American public had no idea what he really meant.
Obama and Clinton were Saul Alinsky acolytes. Saul wrote rules for radicals, if you want to know his mindset, read that book, he was a mentor to his students Obama and Clinton among others.
This is a roundabout way of saying that this globalist agenda has been around for over 100 years and we are seeing the fruits of their efforts plainly today.
Democracy has to go because democracy and a totalitarian government will not coexist.
The globalist agenda really began with Cecil Rhodes, the founder of the De beers diamond company, the Rhodes scholarship, a country was named after him called Rhodesia, what we call Zambia and Zimbabwe today, he was also a member of the Fabian society
Think about this, if you have an unlimited amount of money like the Rothschilds and other men at the time and you got together in a retreat ,what would you talk about, I guarantee you it wouldn’t be the weather or how your children and wife are doing.
Cecil Rhodes wrote there was a twinkling in my mind a will of the wisp thought, of bringing the entire world under British domination, to bring America back under British rule.
A small cadre of incredibly wealthy man have this goal, they financed the Russian Revolution, they financed both sides of every war since World war I. They have amassed trillions in trillions in profit and Power
The Rothschilds Rockefellers are part of the international banking consortium that is the Federal reserve, founded in 1913 illegally giving control over the printing and distribution of money in the United States, they control all money creating it out of thin air, lending it to Banks ultimately to you which you pay back in securities backed commodities
Be like me giving you $100 written on a piece of paper which you pay back in gold with interest
Anyway I could go on and on about all that, it’s not important. Well it is in the respect to recognize there is an agenda that has been and is still being pursued tenaciously.
Right now capitalism democracy and freedom are on the chopping block so they can usher in a world government controlled by a central body… THEM
All of the stuff we’re seeing that is happening in the United States by these activists, what the globalist elite would call useful idiots, are
just being used,
To overthrow the existing system.
“Nothing will shake my belief” is an extremely dangerous sentiment to have. It says you’re not open to any evidence or arguments which contradict your beliefs, that you are completely unwilling to change your mind, even if you should be proven wrong. I hope you understand why this isn’t a good mentality to have.
Also, while much of our reality IS objective (so long as you don’t slip into Solipsism and decide that everything is just a dream in your mind), there are plenty of aspects which are SUBJECTIVE as well, namely social constructs. For instance, morality is not nearly as objective as you might think. Have you heard of the Euthyphro dilemma? It demonstrates why gods cannot be the source of morality. In Christian terms, it goes like this: “Are God’s commands good because God commanded them, or does he give these commands because they are good?” If it’s the former, then good and evil are only defined by the whims of God, making them arbitrary; if the latter, then the morality of God’s commands are rooted in something external to God, making him a glorified (HA!) middleman.
Some clever (so they believe) apologists might say that God is basing his commands on his own nature, but that begs the question as to the origin of said nature. Did God himself decide it? Then the problem has only been pushed back a step, and morality is still arbitrary. Did something else determine God’s nature? Then the external origin of God’s nature is the true source of morality.
The smartest apologists would say that God’s nature has no beginning, just like God himself. It was never created and existed eternally, because God has existed eternally. Well, there is still the question of its origin. WHY is God’s nature what it is? If there IS a reason(s), then that reason(s) is the true source of morality, and not God. But if there IS NO reason, then God basing his morality on his own nature is once again completely arbitrary and meaningless.
Your argument is spurious at best. You say if God is eternal it’s still begs the question of what’s its origin.
You are a fight night being and could never understand nor will I understand the infinite
There is no origin there just is something we will never understand
I will never be convinced the society is a social construct that is pure unadulterated insanity.
As far as objective morality I say it’s wrong to slaughter a baby to crush its skull and rip it limb from limb.
I think it’s wrong to take a kitten and drown it.
The sun rises in the East and sets in the West.
Water is wet the Sun is hot
Leave it to men to sit there and ponder with their pseudo intellects and finite thinking thinking their little gods to create a pseudo reality based on subjective truths.
As they run around like children like 2-year-olds screaming this is my truth I believe this you must too I am man that can become a woman call me this they and it.
And if you don’t call me by my insane pronoun you’re a bigot or a racist or a phobic.
Reality has no business being in my world truth and facts are irrelevant
And I will sit here and hold my breath and kick my feet until you worship me.
Removing God from the consciousness of men has spelled its Doom and everyone will stand before God on the day of judgment and be held accountable for their actions thoughts and deeds.
And no amount of poo-pooing it and not believing it will not make it go away.
Because the truth will always come no matter how much you want to believe it’s a construct.
I suggest very strongly you read scripture and get right with God if you don’t good luck on the day of judgment that’s all on you.
Oh and just because you don’t believe it’s true does not make it not true.
Something you will become painfully aware of unfortunately as so many will.
Scripture tells us that men will not seek after sound doctrine for they so love the darkness they will seek teachers that tickle their ears.
Those not grounded in faith and scripture will be swayed by every doctrine and demon
The Bible lays out a great detail exactly what’s going on today it is frighteningly accurate.
This is the time to choose to follow God and live in Paradise in a kingdom that embodies every good thing.
Or follow Satan and live in absolute misery chaos divisiveness hatred anger poverty suspicion and death
And then when you die you get to continue living under the same circumstances under the same satanic rule of pure unadulterated hell
My suggestion is worry about yourselves you should not have to worry about anyone else going to hell as they probably don’t believe in to begin with. You are wasting your time and if you believe in the Bible it tells you don’t judge but you do it anyway even when you believe in the Bible right? The best thing you can do is accept that there are many gods in history and not everybody can be right in the end. Be kind be respectful you do not have to act evil because you cannot control others.
I would not want to exist if that existence was subject to the whims of any god
Those who believe in gods do so because they are frightened
they are sycophants looking to worship a super hero
they will be hoodwinked by compliments and a sense of pride
praise will be used as a reward for obedient behavior (positive reinforcement) sanctions will be used for critical thinking (negative reinforcement)
My subjective reality is what makes me unique i am an individual
there i no clone of me that i am aware of
the only thing that makes my existence valid is my unique experience thoughts and conclusions
religious people give up their individuality to become mind slaves following orders
The state of following the whims of gods is an expendable state
nothing unique will come of it
one religious type is the same as another all are expendable
some people in life have learned to do well by sucking up to others religious types are these type of personalities
like a child forever competing with rival siblings over parental attention notice me notice me!
i do not fear any god or any devil this is because worshiping something is the only scary part of the equation to me
what must it be like to not be able to think for yourself and dismiss those who think they can issue orders
what must it be like to be an obedient submitting sycophant
absolutely terrifying it would be like having a frontal lobotomy
taking away the essence of what a person is their uniqueness and replacing it with a zombie religious drone
You have some interesting ideas but are equally indoctrinated with christianity which means your theories are projections of your own indoctrination.
I have often believed this, once somebody is indoctrinated into a group, their entire identity is wrapped up in that group an attack on the group is an attack on the individual both rigorously defended.
I believe our k through 12 government educational /indoctrination schools are turning millions into whining narcissistic entitled babies
Once they enter University, government indoctrination institutions, the indoctrination and brainwashing continues until they graduate into actual narcissistic psychopaths that wallow in infantilism
A racist’s attempts to discredit anti-racism. The conflation of anti=racism with cultism. Nice try. You’re bad. I hope people see through this.
This is rank ad hominem, and reads like a bot.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Found a cult member whom denies himself the truth. It’s ok buddy. Karma will bite you on earth or in the afterlife. Hopefully sooner so you can be saved. I am sorry you believe the lies of corporate media. They do not have your best Interests at heart. They do not know what truth is. They censor all forms of truth, facts and evidence. What do you watch, CNN, NBCN, NBC, FOX, LIBERAL LIYING NETWORKS. All of you are lying racist scumbags. How is saying “you can never understand racsim.” Not racist? Your overuse of the word is so humiliating I’ll make stage plays mocking you old democrats whom don’t accept others opinion. None of you are good. Your disuading people from the truth. Because once the truth is shown no one will give a damn about fake issues you and your party pulled up out of their “imagination”. Instead of fake racism, how about you cultists start bettering society rather than demonizing it. You need to shut up, get a job and get a life you liberal little piece of shit. Accept that choice is two ideas, three, four, five ideas, accept tradition, stop being an asshole to everyone. Restore your relationship with your father. Stop calling all men evil! Your probably a man yourself, so you are therefore retroactively calling yourself evil. Also any women is now also evil because a part of women comes from man. So your whole cancel culture cancels you out in the process. Equal results is not equality. Equality is a color blind society your a racist, sexist, socialist, communists whom wants to over throw democracy. Democracy is the last hope America has. Rome didn’t fall in a day. It started with the people in charge claiming similar to what we do now, then the violence in the street comes, misunderstands and so on and so forth? Do you want America. How can you claim a person is bad? They’re just stating a opinion with facts, evil doers! Your making the lies seem truth, and the truth seem lies. Be aware of the robbers like Brownlee! Beaware!
Michael – ugh. Your comments always have such blatant hatred and paranoia. I sincerely hope you find some peace in this world.
Logical argument from James. However, some here present religious like ideological driven responses, with the typical heresy insults of ‘-ists’ and ‘-ophobes’ directed against a ‘non believer’ of the holy trinity of diversity, inclusion and equity of the Critical Social Justice faith. You still think you are not defending a cult like religion? Sounds like the middle ages ‘burn the witch’ and ‘burn the enemies of Christ’ to me. Religious zealotry. From Europe, many of us see wokeism as an American derived, cult like religion. Eastern Europe such as Poland and Hungary sees it as neo Communism. France considers it the American disease. It is. America is a source of bad ideas and amazingly poorly educated people, lacking knowledge of the outside World and history. On this trajectory, America is a failed state.
The thing is, White Supremacy is incredibly cultish and violent. I also do agree that “wokeness” is also cultish. It depends on the group and the healthiness/unhealthiness. I have to believe that antiracist work is not always cultish and is workimg against the cult of White Supremacy. But like anything with humans, it depends on the people and whether or not there is a sociopathic leader in the room who is getting some personal benefit from the group. I almost think any group can become a cult. White Supremacy is a cult. “Wokeness” does lend itself to cultish groups, but not all antiracists are cultists. And the idea of waking up to internalized racism is not cultish. That is waking up from the cult. Many cult members or people in one-on-one cults (abusive relationships) find themselves back in another abusive relationship after leaving one. Whether or not someone ends up in an unhealthy antiracist group might have something to do with that. Any group can become a cult. Any group. Just because many yoga groups are cults, doesn’t mean that yoga is bad. Anti racist ideas and practices are not a bad thing. They are needed in the world. But I would warn anyone about getting involved in groups where you end up identifying with the group… where it takes over your identity. In the end, it’s up to each person to not get sucked into group think. It’s actually not easy to avoid, and it is everywhere there are humans.
You make an assertion that I question, to wit: “Anti racist ideas and practices are not a bad thing. They are needed in the world.”
I don’t see a need for such. So far, no evidence has been presented that the ideas and practices mentioned are beneficial to heterosexual white men (a category to which I belong).
I think it depends on how you define things like “White Supremacy.” When most people hear “white supremacy” they envision Klansmen burning crosses and lynching people, or skinhead Aryan Brotherhood types in prison gangs. That, I would say is cultish. But the woke anti-racists call being on time, working hard, studying, belief in objective truth like 2+2=4 “White Supremacy.”
To the woke, any difference in outcome between individuals of different races is the result of systemic racism. It doesn’t matter if one person studied for the test while the other played video games. If they got different scores, it was systemic racism – the test was rigged to favor one over the other.
The Left typically changes the meaning of words to control the narrative. Being anti-racist instead of not racist. Equity, (equality of outcome) used instead of equality, (equal treatment under the law). It’s a trick they use to get people to go along with them. How could you oppose being anti-racist? Are you pro-racist? How could you be against equity? Don’t you want everyone to be equal?
It sounds to me like James Lindsay is bitter at academia and I think suffers from a lack of sources to back up his arguments, especially those from his opponents in what he calls the critical social justice movement.
If Lindsay really wants to make arguments based on fact, then he should show how the gender studies and critical social justice folks are wrong by citing their written works.
Lindsay’s writing has the tone of a screed based on what he has heard or been told, without any of an academics usually careful analysis of the point they are tearing apart.
Have you read the well sourced book, cynical theories? And most, if not all, of James writing is well researched, sourced , rational and open to falsification. The same IS NOT the case from critical justice authors, or almost any critical theorist.
Pal, you sound like a liberal. Do you use logic, reasoning, evidence, statistics and facts when you evaluate something. Or do you judge things based on a emotional response you stupid pathetic wimp. Don’t tell lies when we can expose the truth. Judging people by their race isn’t what we want. You people are judging people by their race, stab people with American flags if they vote for Trump even when no one on the other side does such things, hold no accountability for your own actions, lying and burning the constitution, and burning the flags and telling people that if they don’t like a movie they are sexist racist pigs. Also that March on the capital so called “Republicans” did was probably menstruated through liberal tactics. Prior to this their is no evidence of Republicans attacking state buildings. You woke mob probably thought “Hey let’s dress up as Republicans and cause a scan for.” If don’t give us other options that sir is a cult like mentality. Having a choice means having more than 4 5 or ten options not one. One choice means: comply or die. Maybe you should get some therapy. The facts don’t give 2 shits about your emotions.
Michael – you can leave the name calling and insults out of it.
Ok…your “science” and gender studies interview how many people out of America? 100/millions of people in the world. It sounds like when you do these studies you get the information you want, that reflects your needs not what is true to the general audience. You want truth? How about get 50,000 interviews and conducts in a area you aren’t familiar with. Scientists lost all credibility when the government started handing them money to make up fake studies to support BLM, LGBT, and communities that are less than 1% of a country if even. These movements are small. Your insignificant. The power of truth will always prevail. Unless someone like me cares an awful lot it’s not going to get better it’s not. You people are the same one’s whom support the death of children whom didn’t get to choose to live. How would you feel if I bashed a knife into your head? How would you feel? Well that’s what doctors do when they abort babies. You have babies that are literally suffering due to your “me, myself, and I!” You are also probably responsible for firing someone because they “offended you”. Let me ask you something, how does my political opinion effect your work ethic? Answer is: It doesn’t! Ha Ha Ha Ha! You make it a big problem, whine and complain when you don’t get your way. Were you given two golden spoons in your mouth and ass?
A question to both sides of the argument: Wouldn’t segregation solve the problem? And I mean hard segregation: two nations with a big, long, fat wall between them.
All woke people in the one nation without any prejudice and privilege whatsoever: paradise on earth. And in the other nation all the deplorables, with which the woke people wouldn’t want anything to do with anyway?
Isn’t this finally something we all could agree on?
How about it?
Sounds like a really good idea, I guarantee the woke side would be cannibalizing each other within a month, I don’t mean physically eating each other but they would be destroying one another absolutely
Good article.
I had a chuckle as i was reading this because of the fact that, as i was reading this it sounded familiar. Then i remembered…
I went to a catholic high school, in my final year’s religious education class we had half the year dedicated to the (basic) study of (other christen) sects, cults and other religions (Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shinto etc).
While the cults we were studying were more centered on things like jonestown, the Manson family, doomsday cults, the basic themes that was said were all the same, the same ones that you mention.
I would add that a difference between a good ideology and a bad one is weather or not is if the target/mark is able to say “eff off” to the one that is trying to induct them. An example of this would be Jehovah’s witnesses, tell the to eff off enough times and they get the point. They might judge you privately but they would never try to cancel you publicly for not even buying into the basic tenants.
On a personal note when I was at school i thought Catholicism was a bit cultish, but I left school back in 2004. but i have never had the catholic church try to rope me back in, or been persona non grata/declared a heretic etc.
And compared to the B.S that the woke crowd is trying to push.
A dude born to a virgin,
that can walk on water,
turn water into wine,
feed five thousand people with a few loafs of bread and fish,
fasted for forty days and nights while the devil was tempting him the whole time,
got crucified and resurrected three days later sounds positively believable.
Heck compared to aforementioned woke B.S I am willing to believe that Jesus knocked up Mary Magdalene (the whole holy grail story) at this point.
Hope anybody reading this is having a good day.
Better day because of your post. Had the exact same feeling about my church where I grew up; those people would welcome me back and love if I attended again, but at the core they see faith as a personal relationship with God, which can never be foisted on someone. That’s always how I felt at least. For all the crap we rightfully give religion, I realize as I get older that religious community can be really healthy for people/families, and when individuals choose to get in and choose to remain with no coercion, it says a lot for what the preacher is selling, even if the stories are just utterly impossible in our 2020 scientific minds.
“Once this vulnerability has been successfully manufactured in the mark (or identified and inflamed, if already present), cult doctrine is given as a potential resolution to the emotional distress. “Christ died for your sins, so you can be forgiven” is a Christian example”
While this is a well-written piece, I would question your underlying premise that statements such as “did you know you are a sinner?” and “Christ died for your sins so you can be forgiven” are statements of a cult. Sure, there have been many cults down through the ages which were the result of defective Christian teachings (Arianism or Marcionism being among the first and subsequently declared to be heresies), but the fundamental ideas that human nature is fallen, people are sinners, and that Christ died and rose again so that we might be forgiven of that sin and restored to communion with God are not the ideas of cults, but fundamental to Christian thought going back to Christ himself and his apostles and disciples, not to mention Sts. Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Jerome, Augustine et al. It’s also somewhat callous to refer to those who have not heard the Gospel as “marks,” as if the preaching of the Gospel were akin to luring suckers to a 3-card monte table. If you removed the religious element from this article and just focus on the sham that is the “cult of wokeness” you would have excellent arguments without needlessly throwing religion and religious believers under the bus.
Thank you
Thomas
I think this website is just what I’ve been looking for. For my first comment here, I just wanna make a few brief statements.
1. I have the same issue with “white fragility” and “white tears” as I do with “triggered”, “snowflake”, and “crybaby”. I don’t like the concept of ruthlessly mocking people for being emotionally sensitive.
2. After going through an admittedly self-pitying stage of “I can’t stand the idea of thinking there are some black people who might hate me for no one reason than me being white”, I realized that there might be more than a few black people who reject Critical Race Theory simply for the reason that they don’t wanna be continually reminded that there are still people who hate them for them being black.
3. I’m grateful for a website that deconstructs various Social Justice tactics in a professional way, rather than just simply mocking “SJWs” – the latter of which is unhelpful to those questioning Social Justice.
That’s it, for now! <3
Thank you James! Well constructed and unfortunately veracious.
Thank you so much for this!
I consider “Climate Change” a Cult for many of the same reasons articulated re: “Wokeness”
I think you mean ‘believe” rather than ‘consider.’
I agree with this article- I recently stumbled across ‘The Great Unlearn’ which is an Instagram page which states that it exists to educate white people about their privilege etc. The owner Rachel Cargle is an incredibly educated and intelligent person and a great rhetorician- much better than DeAngelo- but that in my opinion makes her worse.
All white people who question her- even when they’re cult members just asking for clarity on cult doctrine- are immediately screenshotted and a photo of their comment which Cargle annotates and dissects meticulously is uploaded for the other followers as what can only be described as Orwellian 2 minutes hate. This has previously included minors although she eventually took down that screenshot and reuploaded it with their names censored after even her own cult members were distressed by it.
Cargle has become so extreme that she even has advocated burning white books and reminds her white followers that they are all VIOLENTLY racist again making her more absurd and extreme than DeAngelo.
The irony is that to her DeAngelo is too ‘palatable’ and open to white people and white supremacy and, ironically, DeAngelo therefore is a white supremacist cashing in on black suffering which again shows the dynamic in the cult. A white person who isn’t a member is evil but a white person who is a member is evil because they’re cashing in on POC. It’s truly worrying how so many are in this cult.
I noticed the pattern of “Cult Language” (or shared terminology used by putting a special, typycally stressed meaning) in the text Helen Wilson “Dear White Women: Do Not Commit Suicide because You’re Racists”. (The title already takes mind away for a person outside the cult.)
That pattern is using capitalized letters for black/color and lowercase for white. At least that is a strong intention, the text contains “black”” in lowercase, but I think these are “mistakes”.
Example of such language:
A Black man was struggling to express an emotional point about police violence. My co-facilitator, a Black woman, gently added that this is a difficult experience for all Black people and that society doesn’t care as much about Black life as it does about white life. As she was explaining the power of internalized racism, a white woman interrupted with…
I appreciate you trying to teach the public about cults and thought control but why focus on this of all things? My sister was in the Moonies which created a lot of stress and suffering in my family… So this is a subject dear to my heart. I wish that kids learned about this kind of thought control in high school and the reality of cults especially dangerous ones. But why not focus on the cults of conspiracy theories or the cult of Trump? I find a lot of that mind set quite dangerous… People telling others that wearing masks to keep the rate of spreading Covid down isn’t safe… it’s misleading and dangerous these days.
I don’t think exploring ones preconceived ideas or prejudices of other people i.e. racism as a bad thing, do you? It absolutely has it’s place in our world, done so with compassion and balance with the goal of healing history and current experience and trauma.
I’m very sorry about your sister, I’ve watched many cult documentaries, and they can really be very destructive. One of the diabolical strategies they employ is to change the meanings of words to make it difficult to resist the sentiment of the words. It’s all part of control (best described in the BITE model, by a former moonie Steven Hassan https://www.openmindsfoundation.org/the-bite-model-of-influence/) partially to create an isolation effect (us vs them thinking) but also to facilitate acceptance of extreme ideas under the guise of reasonable and appealing ones. In this case, SOCIAL JUSTICE does not have its classically liberal meaning… it’s a very specific ideology designed to take control of power. The name has been deliberately chosen by the group to facilitate easy agreement by most people: social justice?! I mean, who can argue with that? The world is an unfair place, and most people would agree that justice and fairness independent of race or gender is the noblest of goals for harmony and peace.
So why mention cults? Because cults influence people very sneakily, and many elements of Social Justice (note the upper case) are very sneaky. Social Justice is not social justice. They have redefined racism, equity and have a different goal than you do. They have a huge body of literature that creates this separate world’s most people aren’t even aware of. If you wonder whether this sounds like a conspiracy theory, just look at a list of criteria for recognizing possible destructive cults:
-punishments for questioning Doctrine
-dogmatism
-uses and creates fear
-encourages denunciations of friends and family (telling on them to protect yourself)
-creates division instead of unity
-has an “end justifies the means” mentality. (and it’s not the ends that you think it is)
Anyway, this article is only part of the great work these people have done to help understand the secrecy behind the sneakiness. Watch some of the videos. If it really is a good thing, they’ll have good arguments defending it. Make up your own mind. Thanks for being open minded and critical.
Yeah my sister believes that the gay cult culture is good, and I complained to her that as a film maker I want freedom. When you people say “x thing is sexist?” Do you have logic evidence and facts to prove this statement. Ok saying the N**** Word under any circumstances, yes I mean this for Black African American’s is wrong. You people put it in your Rap music. Before you say “but it’s their culture!” Than why can’t I make a Film like 1984 Ghostbusters which a much is less racist film than you want to believe, these same assholes claim that movie is sexist racist and the 2016 film is better. These people do what servers them, yet fail to put their money where their mouth is. They then blame men whom specifically told them “this movie isn’t for you!” Movies are for everyone. Not boys are girls. Girls like guy things, and maybe some guys like some Disney Princess movies, or are animae weebs, and back and forth, it is also ok for guys to be guys, and girls to be girls. Don’t tell us what we can and can’t do. These people are just “pay attention to me, bwack! Pay attention to me.” The best thing we can do to these people is say eff the hell off. These woke cultists need to die. Be hanged and strung up for their evil ways. Hollywood has supported this gay cult, and It’s sickening, they had talented well written movies up to the 90s and these dumbasses say
“hey! Lets fuck over everyone and give in to 10% of the world whom won’t watch our movies? Then bully the normal society into seeing our culture because we will harass their C.E.O’s and get them fired because they are sexist.” Gay people make up less than 5% of the media if even that. The media is evil anyways. They don’t care about truth, justice and the American way. You care about, suppression, oppression, and the devil’s way. You don’t care about the general public, your a socialist monster. Caring about the general public is better
Somebody else made the comment I wish I could upvote.
I wish I could upvote you
The focus is on wokeness because it is so widespread and is a grab for totalitarian power. If you look up “Marc Sidwell – the long march” on YouTube you can get more of an idea of what’s going on.
Martin Luther King said I have a dream that one day men would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, I believe up until a few years ago we had almost accomplished that America was virtually color blind.
I know this to be true because I’m a white man married to a Chinese woman who has a white daughter from a previous marriage married to a black man I have two beautiful granddaughters half black.
When we get together as a family race is never talked about races never talked about at work in fact race was not even thought about in any part of our lives as it was never talked about with friends it was a non-issue.
The progressive left have created a massive divisive problem to further their objective of destroying democracy and freedom.
To usher in there perceived idea of a Utopia that will never materialize.
When you confront them that their world view of a Utopia has been tried and failed many times they just double down, in their psychotic delusion say that wasn’t the right communism we have the right stuff.
Unbelievable hubris
I absolutely believe that Hegel Marxs Engles, Gramsci, were all narcissistic psychopaths, and the fanatics that are the Neo marxists of today are equally narcissistic psychopaths.
The progressive left worldview is to view everything through critical race Theory, they want our children to view everything through the lens of the color of their skin or their genitalia.
The progressive left that occupy positions of power as school board members and administrators believe absolutely that they have the moral high ground and know better than parents how to raise their children and know what’s good for them.
I have little doubt in my mind that if they could they would remove children from their parents place them in institutions, feed, clothe and indoctrinate
There is no doubt in my mind these people are fanatics they have a religious zealotry and they’re indoctrination and brainwashing is a shell around their intellect nothing will penetrate, they will never compromise because to do so would acknowledge you might have a point
This they will never do, because you cannot compromise with an existing system that is the oppressor that represents the status quo
The insanity of the progressive left is if you are part of the system working raising a family, friends,going to church you are part of the problem you are oppressed and don’t even know it.
In fact if you’re happy means you’re covering over your oppression and misery
That only the progressive left can save you and to do this they must make you miserable, the middle class was a horror show to these Progressive left, because they’re happy this cannot be they must destroy your happiness,
Once your miserable, living in poverty, misery, ignorance, chaos then you will be willing to overthrow the existing system in favor of their perceived Utopia which will always lead to a totalitarian dystopian nightmare.
This is what we are fighting
I am not interested in entertaining a worldview whose only function is to create divisiveness hatred and anger through identity politics, separating everybody into groups and then get them hating each other.
This is a pure evil ideology straight out of Hell.
I have listened to James Lindsey’s New Discourse videos everyday for about a month.
I get up every morning and run/Walk for an hour and 15 minutes, I use this time to listen to Dr Lindsey.
I was an electrical engineer worked on many facilities I was instrumental on the Disneyland expansion in 2000 I built oil refineries I’ve had hundreds of men work for me.
I had no idea all this was going on, I just worked raised a family but ever since I retired and started seeing the destruction that’s being wielded on society my eyes have been opened.
I went through the school system, I count myself lucky not to have been indoctrinated into this insanity and I’m appalled at the incredible intensity at the progressive left are in pursuing indoctrinating and brainwashing our youth.
It strikes me they learned the lesson from Hitler with his Hitler Youth and Mao Zedong’s with his cultural revolution
Capture the youth you capture the nation
James Lindsay: You need to write a book on this. It would be essential reading for living, thinking, and acting in the world today. Thanks so much for writing this!
Hi, I’m wondering, does this also mean that white people were part of a cult that programmed them to believe they were superior and could take over others lands and have black people as slaves and treat them as less than etc etc? Or the cult that men are superior to women and can treat them however they wish? Aren’t they cult like movements too? How do we/people know that they’ve left those cult/s and not still part of it?
I’m not asking to go against what you’re saying, I’m genuinely curious.
I do believe in the premise of the BLM movement but something about it has felt off, guilting and shaming people to change, using violence, white people now attacking other white people with each believing they’re morally superior, saying white feelings don’t matter when white people can’t help having feelings etc. What exactly is all this trying to achieve? I also know that projecting all your pain and anger onto others and trying to get them to change so you can feel better just doesn’t work, even if your premise is valid. Everyone ultimately needs to address what is going on inside themselves first and foremost.
Anyway, would love to hear your thoughts regarding my initial questions.
Thank you
Try looking up the BITE method of destructive cult evaluation, the expert is Steven Hassan. I would argue that any entity totally intolerant of criticism, that ‘excommunicates’ heretics (the liberals interested in social justice but not ‘Social Justice’) and has methods that result in isolation and hatred in the group rather than love and unity, is showing some worrysome signs of paving the road to hell however noble their aspirations superficially appear to be. If this type of racist tribalism you’re calling the status quo were a destructive cult, critical theory would have been forcibly removed from debate. It’s that very open and tolerant methodology that allows for potentially destructive memes to emerge in the first place. Noone denies that tribalism and racism are problems, but really things are on track and have been every decade. The critical method of deconstructionism is not seeking the future you think you want. It’s just using those words to get there.
A quick way to find out that most people who are so apt to redefine terminology to which it suits their agenda (resentful opportunists) are simply charlatans seeking personal gain through manipulation is to thrust a personal cost to their status. How would one feel if their employer or a client were to redefine payment or contract terms that would suddenly find themselves operating under a 0 income partnership? Perhaps a GoodFellas type arrangement where if you were to do business with one, the terms are simply I get my work and you don’t get paid because I have decided that our agreement no longer means what I think it means. For the police abolitionists, how do you plan on enforcing the contract dispute? (in the event you have a problem for doing work for nothing which I would assume you would)
These arguments are simply utilizing sympathy as a tool for manipulation rather than outright force. Appealing to people’s sense of good will as a guise to enforce their brand of authority.
Hi Dr. Lindsay,
Thank you for this is a very important article, one which I hope will be spread far and wide. I’ve noticed many others beginning to pick up on the idea of wokeness as a religion (and when they do I direct them to this excellent article).
Have you considered seeking cross publication in other outlets, like Quillette for example? With a bit of editing I’m sure you would find many receptive publishers. To that end (and I hope you won’t consider this presumptuous), I have had a go at editing this article (I have cut about 800 words from the original).
https://pastebin.com/0nJzVwwJ
This is a very interesting article. I think there’s some truth to it, though I would be cautious on a number of different points:
1) Critical theory treats you differently depending on your entry point. I was “indoctrinated” into critical gender theory at an all women’s college, and there was no exploitation of vulnerabilities involved. The goal was always empowerment. This is probably the best entry point, though, even if it can get toxic also, because (a) feminism makes you very aware of social manipulation in general, and (b) it is hard not to notice that when interests collide, you are always the first to get tossed under the bus.
2) I think the comparison to a cult is overblown precisely for one of the points mentioned in the article: it’s massive exposure rather than being one-on-one. You will read it, you will run into it, and you might be shouted down if you say something that diverges from what is accepted doctrine, but I have never seen a sort of concentrated effort to rewrite someone, at least in the university setting. I’m a left-winger who is against identity politics, but as far as I can tell, the real toxic behavior seems to be mostly a social media phenomenon where the echo chamber can really take over. I wouldn’t dare to be controversial on Facebook or Twitter, but in less massive settings, I have a fair amount of leeway to be critical.
3) I have similar concerns to Rayya, though from a somewhat different perspective. For better or for worse, the language of critical race theory is to a significant degree the language of racial justice activism, and it is very common for criticism of the underlying theory to be weaponized by far right groups in order to de-legitimize concerns over social justice altogether. Similar tactics have been employed on both sides–“you are a racist if you disagree with my pet theory” by critical theorists, but also “you are playing the victim by criticizing anything” by those on the right, so while I don’t believe that the purpose of this article is to preserve white privilege, I do think that Rayya is correct point out that turning the word “woke” into an insult can be used to discredit any struggle for social justice. My question would be whether there is a responsibility to prevent criticism like this from being weaponized by bad actors, and how precisely that problem might be approached.
“Rayya is correct point out that turning the word “woke” into an insult can be used to discredit any struggle for social justice. . . . My question would be whether there is a responsibility to prevent criticism like this from being weaponized by bad actors”
Setting aside the matter of using words pejoratively (I avoid the term SJW because I don’t think it’s helpful to insult people), I think this raises a crucial question: Does morality have a higher claim than truth?
In other words, if one sincerely thinks that something is true, should one nevertheless remain silent because speaking could have negative social consequences?
For sake of argument, accept that James sincerely thinks that wokeness is a cult. Accept also, for sake of argument, that you are correct that woke culture furthers social justice. (You have the truth; he thinks he does and may or may not be correct.) Does he have a responsibility to remain silent about his conviction for fear that it may be misused?
I think that the critical social justice response would be Yes. Justice is higher than truth. Anyone who behave otherwise is complicit. If there is no real objectivity, if epistemological regimes are established in pursuit of sectional interests, then the pursuit of truth is never neutral or disinterested, nor are the “facts” that it uncovers. Thomas Kuhn and Juergen Habermas argue that science is ultimately founded on communicative agreement, (not evidence). Francis Bacon is credited with developing the scientific method – which he intended to be used for English imperialism, colonization, even enslavement. Too often, seemingly content-free practices (e.g. free speech, science, deliberation and debate) have been used to oppress marginalized groups. What matters most is the content of justice, not bloodless practices.
I understand and can substantiate this point of view. Science is indeed communicatively based. Truth is ultimately unknowable. Seemingly neutral practices (e.g. those of journalism) can be biased, sometimes inescapably so. Yet I stand resolutely against insistence that truth, though imperfect, should step aside for justice. Science is not perfectly objective – but politics and ethics certainly aren’t. It would be miraculous if critical social justice, or indeed any social movement, had the final word on what is right and what is wrong. The line between truth and error may be fuzzy, but the line between truth and dishonesty is not.
Individuals have a responsibility to decide for themselves how they use what they believe to be true, but they do not owe it to anyone else, nor to any agenda, no matter how good or noble it may be. One of the things I find toxic in critical social justice is this demand. This often manifests as accusations that an idea is harmful. If so, it is oppressive to express it – even if it is true or supported by evidence.
For example, I understand that black Americans have statistically lower IQs. This is unmentionable because many people think that people with lower intelligence are less worthy human beings (I think this says a lot about them), and worry about racists. In fact, lower IQs are not innate. They reflect stress due to historical racism – especially poverty and exposure to lead in inner-city neighbourhoods (a legacy of policies like redlining). The moment truth because a means to a political end, uncovering and addressing such injustices becomes impossible. It also sustains private suspicions of racial inferiority among educated liberals (who, shockingly and shamefully, statistically are more likely to believe that the relative lack of economic success among black people is due to genetics – see Policy Tensor, “Notes on the Myth of Working Class Racism (2)”).
Censoring or denying the truth (e.g. that sex is biological) may sometimes be well-intentioned, but denying us any stable shared reality, it leaves us in mutually incomprehending worlds. I think this is virtually guaranteed to lead us away from the respect and dignity of human beings, and towards the very oppression it (ostensibly) seeks to avoid. I think this practice in woke culture is toxic.
How many people must die in order for “justice” to prevail? At what cost is the quest for “equity” resolved? If authoritarianism and violence are required to achieve ultimate “justice” then is that path valid because it creates a more “moral” society?
It is easy to make things equitable if you simply put a gun to everyones head and tell them what to do and how to do it with penalty of death because humans possess the instinct of self preservation. Is that the road we are going to take to ultimately achieve equity? How about genocide of a particular people which would therefore achieve a certain balance to appease an equitable solution, especially given the authoritarians who have a monopoly on violence can simply arrange and dictate as they choose?
These are all viable strategies if a given group simply has the reigns of power and are able to convince the people in authority that this would be justifiable under the umbrella of “morality” or in the fight against racism. What would be the issue with this approach if there were no risk of penalties given the goal is to eliminate racism?
Hi Geof,
I think you misread my comment somewhat, which is understandable, since I identified as a leftist, and the left does have an unhealthy fascination for censorship. I abandoned critical theory some time ago, though–I’m an economic leftist with a taste for neo-scholasticism, so a political/cultural orphan several times over. I don’t necessarily distinguish between what is true and what is good at all, and definitely don’t think we should choose between the two thing. If you do that, you will likely lose both.
James appears to believe both that critical theory is false and that it causes harm to those who become enmeshed in it–there is both a truth claim and a moral claim woven into that. (I happen to agree with him, but that’s neither here nor there.) Similarly, you seem to believe both that it is true that sex is biological, and that rejecting this leads away from respect and dignity. Again, that isn’t just a truth claim–there is a pretty serious moral dimension to that statement also, so I am skeptical of the idea truth in some sense trumps ethical concerns. As far as I’m concerned, you both actually have a responsibility to say what you believe to be true specifically because of the moral issues involved, not in spite of them.
I wasn’t trying to suggest that James should not be writing articles like this, since like I said, I found it interesting… and a little bit uncomfortable in retrospect, since I’ve realized that significant parts of the analysis do apply to the most radical of my friends. At the same time, given some of what has been said here, I’m happy to assume that both you and James do care about social justice in the broader, non-CST sense, so I think the possibility of being weaponized by those who are genuinely opposed to social justice is a valid concern, and one that ought to be approached. That’s not an invitation to censorship–it’s more an invitation to discussion. (It’s also a bit of a personal puzzle, since I’ve been accused by radical friends of outright aiding and abetting the enemy before for offering criticism–unjustly, I think, but the danger does exist, and I haven’t quite figured out how to navigate it. I don’t think silence is the answer, though.)
My motto in this “fight” used to be “I’m against (capitalized) Social Justice because I’m for (lowercase) social justice.” Yes.
Those are excellent points, but the answer does have practical implications. Anytime a group preferring a moral objective has made efforts to subdue truth seeking, it has become oppressive, totalitarian and dystopian. Anti-intellectualism is a major part of every revolution that has resulted in a murderous regime. Choosing between moral ideals and truth-seeking need not be at odds, and because moralality is pluralistic and requires revision, truth seeking methods, via conversation and freedom to say what you want, are paramount. There must always be a way to communicate without threat of reprisal. And if the ‘moral’ team is playing a game of power, and destroys the foundations that allow discourse in the first place, people like us may not even have the opportunity to discuss this. This is not theoretical, it’s practical.
I invite you to the experiment of smashing your head into a wall and then talking about “truth is ultimately unknowable” again here.
Hypatia: I wanted to thank you for a thoughtful, helpful response. I would probably be labeled a “right-winger” by many, but I agree with you. Your points about the entry points, the mass versus one-on-one exposure, and your being silenced on social media are all spot on!
I think perhaps we shouldn’t underestimate the political advantage the Democratic party stands to gain now and for many many years to come… from galvanizing the base around any issue so much that they actually protest by the thousands and riot by the hundreds in nearly every major city (not even saying they shouldn’t, just noting that it’s an unprecedented scale for that reaction; more widespread even than marches for civil rights or previous race riots in the US). Furthermore, the media, Center and Left, sees the basic goodness of the pursuit of egalitarianism, true, but it’s also eager to see an openly anti mainstream media Right wing president out of office and generally see Democrats in power, so they too see it as advantageous to their interests. Let’s face it, all political media of any stripe is killing it in 2020 because a crisis is good for clicks and views, and we have at least 3! That is what may be allowing this particular cult-like movement to be so much more in the open.
I do have to say I’ve voted Democrat my whole life primarily because of social and environmental issues but there IS a disgusting, incongruent, unsustainable narrative running specifically through wokeness or SJW action or Critical Theory… It felt like a cult to me before reading this article. All of my classic Democrat friends are saying it in one way or the other, just not publicly out of fear and confusion and doubt (like, they don’t want to Be racists, and they’ve had privileges that they recognize… but have you SEEN the “Aspects… of White Culture” poster from the African American Museum?! This and 100 other gaslighting reasons make us think…. “The Woke Emperor has no pants on”, only they’re all the emperor)
Rayya is a racist posing as an anti-racist…similar to fascists calling themselves antifa. And Steve Hassan is a compromised sellout hoping to juice up his book sales and website visits without offering anything substantive on the topic here.
I wish I could upvote comments here.
You can. That is, you are able to state your agreement. WTF else do you want or need in this respect?
Rayya did her credibility no good when she blatantly strawmanned Lindsay’s argument in a way that no intellectually responsible person ever would. I think that more than anything elicited the “she’s a cultist” reaction, since strawmanning is so famously central and integral to the Woke-cult MO.
Dr. Fahey,
Congrats on a wonderfully thought out and well written analysis on the cult of Woke.
Lie many, I am reminded of Scientology, which for some people is a powerful cult-type system of thought.
In the case of the Woke cult, I found myself wondering, what is the source of vulnerability that attracts white kids in the first place? Why are they so lacking in self-confidence and/or real life experience that they are so easily persuaded by notions that are transparently so fake?
And the second question that I would like to have seen addressed: exactly what glaring contradiction(s) in the “systematic racism” cult work best as de-programming tools?
Thank you,
Rob
“In the case of the Woke cult, I found myself wondering, what is the source of vulnerability that attracts white kids in the first place?”
I’m one of who initially sucked on, until I was “ex-communicated” a few years back. Anyway, I think many of them were initially attracted to another social justice movement – such as feminism, fat acceptance, LGBTQ, neurodiversity, or disability rights – and then, at some point (particularly on Tumblr), all these other movements got subsumed in Critical Social Justice… with Critical Race Theory forming the overall base model.
Quick note on disability: Those who suffer from depression, anxiety, or any self-esteem related disorder can be hurt very much by Critical Social Justice.
Mr. Lindsay, one point that hasn’t been addressed is whether or not a cult necessarily requires a figure head to lead it. For example, in the cult of Woke is there a leader, or group of leaders, who are masterminding (for lack of a better word) all of this, or can cults thrive on a group conscious, where all are involved in the indoctrination like a hivemind without a specific directing hand? Obviously, there are people in positions of authority in this cult, but is there something or someone at the top? Or is it an organism that thrives on a shared sense of comfort and perceived righteousness?
very good point, but to argue I would say yes. in the southern U.S. (not only limited/restricted to) the religious generally do act in the similar fashion as cults in this sense, even given there are leaders such as preachers, ministers, etc.. Even in Christianity, I would say, even if there is leadership, for example whether it is a Pope or historical writings — let’s say the gospels, those authors being the so called leaders, or even the Word itself, — you can witness the behaviors and associations related to cult mentality and cult behavior. One might could go further and admit public schooling (highschools in particular imho) also bear the resemblances too. But in response to your comment high schools/schools tend to have that leadership aspect you point out. 1 final thing I wish to say before I disappear is this: A while back I heard someone (credible) say the difference between religion and a cult is generally cults have less than 100 members and religion has more than 100 members, and basically they are the same thing. I do hope that someone does find out and uncover who did actually say that. Farewell ~ and than for all the fish! 🤙
I think there is a hierarchy here but not of people so much as of ideas. The ideas-factory – the Academy – is where the intellectual “leadership” is, setting the tone for the rest of the cult. (Also, we should properly sneer at “cancel culture” by referring to it as a cancel cult.)
Sokal 2.0 should tell anyone with a clue just how intellectually bankrupt the “leadership” is.
I’m also a lot less inclined to analyze this in terms of personal vulnerabilities. The academic theorists of this garbage should and do know better; by the very nature of their profession. I think intellectual dishonesty (including a refusal to have a fair dialogue with the non-cultists) must be considered as a key explanatory factor. And the Academy also bears some measure of culpability for enabling this garbage.
Woke-ism is notorious for a pathological commitment to an MO of strawmanning, redefining/wordjacking, and canceling, usually all in combination. (See what happens when someone’s innocuous statement is interpreted in the most “racist” light possible; there are countless examples to draw from.) These are counter enough to canons of basic common sense and decency that at some point the personal-vulnerability excuse runs dry. I’d say the same about any other cult(ists). There are such things as basic adult intellectual responsibilities that preclude indulging in this kind of garbage; there is such a thing as epistemic criminality.
It has priests who oversee the cult’s rituals and procedures. A reading of the chapter on the scapegoat in The Golden Bough can be useful.
OK. I’ll wade in. Gayya. I think you are mistaken that James set this up as a double bind power play. He laid out a hypothesis that woke awareness is like a cult and then proceeded to go point by point describing similarities to known cult methods. If you want to dispute this I think you must do a point by point rebuttal by describing how it is not. I don’t think you can sidestep the argument he lays out by an ad hominid, that he is guilty of a power play.
For me, the hypothesis rings true or at least partially true based on some cult-like organizations I’ve had brushes with, TM, EST for example. Might have been better to describe it as cult-like rather than suggesting an exact equivalence.
i seriously agree. seriously. i do not think that Miss Gayya does a good job rebuttaling.
This is a really great and insightful article, I rather like the “woke cult” term you used, the internet for the large part has been referring to them as SJW’s (Social Justice Warriors) but I think a better more fitting label for them would be one like that instead- which emphasizes and highlights their cult-like nature and beliefs. So calling them SJC’s (Social Justice Cultists) or “woke cultists” rather than SJW’s. As some of these people on the “woke” left have taken the SJW label and applied it proudly to themselves, believing it makes their cause more “just” so call them for what they are and see if they take the same approach, anyone who would proudly label themselves a cultist would be seen as lacking some serious self-awareness. Calling them cultists instead of warriors robs them of the ability to appropriate the moniker for their woke cause without raising some flags for all non-cultists and moderates.
Referring to them as cultists will force them to go on the defensive having to explain how their actions and beliefs are not part of a cult and any misinformation and misdirection on their part in regards to that can easily be countered with the very guidelines and tenets of their movement including those written by Ozlem Sensoy and Robin DiAngelo that your previous article showed- https://newdiscourses.com/2020/02/naming-enemy-critical-social-justice/
Eventually they will have to come to terms, one way or another that the very foundation of their ideology – their founding principles are unmistakably cult-like in nature which will probably concern all but the most die-hard fanatics of the Critical Social Justice movement.
Also another important distinction between SJW and SJC is that calling them Social Justice Warriors as many call the members of the Critical Social Justice movement and the radical left in general now – reinforces an us vs. them mentality that only benefits the cult, while calling them Social Justice Cultists I think would lead to a greater understanding among those who look on at their actions and words and behavior in bewilderment or anger, that they are mere members of a cult, and we should be more sympathetic to them especially after they break free from indoctrination, this is also crucial I think to prevent them from turning from alt-left to alt-right, if they are still susceptible to cult mentality or from returning back to the cult of wokeness if they are shamed and ostracized for having been indoctrinated in the first place, placing the blame less on them and more onto the poisonous and toxic anti-liberal ideology they were indoctrinated in
To be honest when the “SJW” moniker first came around some 7 odd years ago, the movement was not nearly so openly cult like in nature, it was more in response to their attempts to police fiction and academia in line with their moral ideology, but that is quickly changing especially with their behavior and narrative during these past two weeks so the parallels are becoming much easier to see for the common folk than ever before.
Right now among the general public I think there’s a sense that Scientology is the only real big cult around, but the actions and behavior of the woke cult during the recent protests/demonstrations/quasi-religious gatherings- the embarrassing displays of white-guilt and self-flagellation and proselytization widespread on TV and internet for all to see are now in the minds of the American public, and some are no doubt making those connections and realizing they are looking at a full blown cult movement.
Also who knows, maybe calling them out as cultists (especially if the terms catch on and become as popular as SJW is now) will force many of them to confront the accusations and defend themselves and their beliefs, maybe some will look up how cults work in an attempt to counter their opponents and inadvertently come to realize their own indoctrination in a moment of clarity or at least sow the seeds of doubt and uncertainty that blossom into self realization, and deprogramming. It’s probably more productive than just calling them SJW’s as many still do now.
Very refreshing website and commentary. You don’t simply state that “wokeness” is “like a cult” and leave it at that like most do; you start off assuming it’s a cult and take it from there. The learning of your professional practice which informs the views on this site remind me of those on another site which is still up but closed in 2012. You state that one becomes susceptible to a cult as a way of dealing with a deep inner pain. Much of what the clinical psychiatrist who wrote that blog wrote about was how an individual deals with life’s worse problems – from the mature adult response to flat out denial of reality. You don’t, in this post, go into what this inner pain is that makes people susceptible to the wokeness cult. Perhaps you deal with that in other posts. I will have to read them all.
An excellent analysis. Had a brush with Scientology years ago. That bit on recruitment is exactly what the Scientologists do: prey on people’s vulnerabilities. Saw if first hand. I got away but some of my relatives didn’t and one has spent her life in the web. I saw all the things you discussed about indoctrination and isolation (they even took her children away from her for a time), critical consciousness, happen with her.
Thank you for writing this article. It rings true as many of us recognize the cultishness of woke ideology instinctively but may lack the framework to describe it accurately. I hadn’t encountered such a coherent mapping of the doctrine’s character in that sense until now, and I believe this will be useful to others.
To sort through conversations on this topic, I keep handy the definitions of common forms of illogical arguments, a.k.a. “logical fallacies”. I see these nonsensical attempts at persuasion applied regularly online, including in this comment section. In one of the negative comments on this article, the comment author, Steven Hassan, uses a fallacious appeal to authority to undermine the article’s claims. Mr. Hassan, who admits he has been susceptible to cult indoctrination before and is defending the ideology we’re discussing now, never addresses a specific claim in the article. Instead, he asserts his status as a “professional” and asks a question about the author of the article. Mr. Hassan wants to talk about the author; he does not want to talk about the arguments. By changing the subject to the author and attacking him, Mr. Hassan attempts to discredit this article by association, without ever having to deal with the article’s reasoning. Mr. Hassan fails to be persuasive because the author could have fewer credentials regarding cults than Mr. Hassan (or no formal credentials) and still be correct. Similarly, the author could have equal or greater credentials than Mr. Hassan and be incorrect. On their own, neither Mr. Hassan’s credentials nor the author’s credentials prove or disprove the truth of the claims in this article. There are many other maneuvers like this employed to attack sound arguments without genuinely addressing them. Fortunately, these circumventions are well-defined and recognizable. List of Fallacies
very keen and poignant observation. thank you vm for pointing this out and sharing! 👌
You are absolutely 100% correct Art, this is a common tactic by the progressive left, never address the issues always attack the person.
I have said there are four distinct tactics used almost invariably in every argument by the progressive left
1. Never ever take responsibility for anything that has gone wrong
2. Accuse the opposition for that which you are doing
3. You are always the victim, it is always somebody else’s fault you are where you are.
4. If all else fails, scream hysterically and accuse the opposition of being a racist, a bigot, a liar or a phobic of some kind.
Dr. Lindsay – It’s my belief that this is neither accidental nor misunderstood by the political movements themselves. They are implementing techniques perfected by Chinese & North Korean interrogators who were able to turn American POWs into traitors during the Korean War.
So Ms. Gul what if we do we feel that latter? Do we deserve to be shot, to be socially ostracized?
I’ll take your bait here. What if I want to defend me and mine. What’s wrong with privilege? Is it some new original sin?
Let’s also play along with your implication that to oppose your malevolent ideas, your a Nazi…or something.
Okay fine. I’m bad, I admit to being a died in the wool unrepentant racist. What does that make me?
Nothing you have said here refutes Mr. Lindsay’s article. Though your passionate proselytism for your faith is duly noted.
Like any proselytizing religion-opposition is evil. And one either opposes the truth out of malice or ignorance. So…I guess most white people are guilty of sin in the ignorant sense then? As most people do not wish to be identified with the villains of century past.
To be entirely frank, people like you need to be lined up and shot. Your a cancer on the body politic and a threat to civilization itself.
I would gladly burn you and your compatriots myself. Or turn you over to those who would.
I would rather be a Nazi or a KKK member, or seen as one than ever bend the knee to your worthless wretched disgusting religion.
Does that make me a fragile white person? Sure, I guess. Like a Christian would say or really any religion-sinners sin. So whatevs.
I’ll probably be banned from this site for this comment. As it’s owners are naively try to argue good faith with those who don’t have any. The only integrity you deserve is the integrity of a bullet going through your skull.
And if you haven’t realized yet, yes I am a reactionary.
Aww sweetie, don’t be so hard on yourself. I’m sure your mother loves you.
“the only integrity you deserve is the integrity of a bullet going through your skull”
you want to shoot me in the head. you want to kill me. you want to silence me forever.
I rest my case that James is contributing to the far right violence online and elsewhere. Did he let this comment past moderation?
Hi Rayya, on the one hand, I think you present a fair counter-challenge to people who sometimes over-generalise about ‘woke’ politics. And I’m in strong sympathy with your question as to why ‘virtue signalling’ gets such a bad press. All humans signal virtue, it’s just that some of us make a bit of a mess of it, and some people put a bit too much effort into the signalling and not enough into
doing good in the world.
Since probably just about everyone reading this would prefer to live in a reasonably harmonious and fair society, what we seem to need is constructive conversations leading to better appreciation of common ground. And to get there we need to be considerate and realistic, and not trade gratuitous insults. Above all, what all serious social movements need is clear goals and a willingness to engage in grown-up debate, and that’s why I see such merit in James’s work.
This being so, I have to say that since the day the Grievance Studies team (James, Helen, & Peter) outed themselves, I’ve been 100% clear in my mind that they are presenting some of the most helpful challenges to the prevailing political culture of the humanities and social sciences that I’ve seen in my 40 years in the business.
As you may know, we’ve seen some abhorrent expressions of inter-ethnic disparagement in our own University of Edinburgh recently, that was ironically in the name of ‘anti-racism’ and fighting ‘oppression’. Having been associated with the University since the 1960s, and having learned most my own cosmopolitan values from this University, I was horrified that the first instances of race-baitery I ever saw on our campus came from people posing as ‘anti-racists’ and who claimed to be furthering the cause of ‘BAME’ students and staff . Recently, they held a ‘Resisting Whiteness’ event which initially tried to ban ‘white’ people, and then reluctantly accepted their attendance provided that they kept clear of ‘safe spaces’ and didn’t expect to be offered a microphone if they asked questions. This looked like just the kind of activity that one of the Grievance Studies papers had so effectively parodied.
I have never seen anything close to justifying your tweet accusing James of being an affiliate of the ‘far right’. More specifically, there is nothing in the text you are responding to which comes anywhere close to justifying your inference that James doesn’t want black people to enjoy the same rights as white people. Seriously, what made you say that? At the very least I think you owe it to James and the readers of this site to find some specific text that led you towards that belief. And if you’re less sure about that belief on more careful reflection, then perhaps you could say something about why it can be so tempting to label people as ‘racists’ without due cause. I trust you agree that anti-racist movements can’t progress without taking critical friends seriously.
You are attempting a classic double-bind here (cf Bateson). Your argument firstly creates a false equivalence between a political liberation movement and a religious cult. This is then done in such a way as to make it impossible for anyone to disagree with you without being accused of being a cultist – a claim which, as I have pointed out, was based on a false equivalence, It’s a clever power move but it’s fundamentally flawed because the two are quite clearly not equivalent. You have written this solely to discredit people who fight for social justice, cloaking it in pseudo-academic language in the hope that this way of writing will convince your readers that your argument is ‘reasonable’. Your readers are looking for ways to avoid examining their own complicity with white privilege so they are lapping it up. You are trying to turn ‘woke’ into an insult and all you are doing is creating a very easy way to identify anyone who does this as a racist. This is exactly the same kind of power move as people like you did with ‘social justice warrior’ and the co-opting of the term ‘virtue signalling’. Perhaps you do genuinely think that there is something fundamentally wrong with standing up for human rights, sharing ideas of how to do that, actively opposing the structures and consequences of racism and challenging the assumed superiority of white, privileged people. Fair enough, but at least be honest about it instead of couching it in these feeble arguments which only fool people who lack the critical skills necessary to see through it, or choose not to because they are seeking ways to justify retaining their racist views and the privileges of a society which is set up to favour people with white European heritage.
Your post would make a lot more sense if it read: “I hate the idea that black people might one day have the exact same rights as white people in America and that they could have the same opportunities to succeed as us. We have to fight this because if we don’t we’ll lose our privileges and the standing to which we feel entitled. Here’s a handy way of neutralising the arguments which are convincing people to do things which could damage our power. Call them a ‘cult’ because then we can use anything they say and discredit it by calling it ‘cult’ behaviour. Use a snappy word (‘woke’) which they invented, as an insult (it worked really well to get `Megham Markle to leave the UK – imagine! A black woman in the UK Royal Family!! Almost as bad as a black man in the White House!!!). Go forth my accolytes and spread the Word (I mean ‘woke’, not the Bible, obviously).”
See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?
A thread in response.
Reproduced here, lightly edited:
Thank you for trying to point out my readers’ “white complicity” and “white privilege” and such. Let’s dig into this and see if it makes sense. See if you’re promoting the cult ideology and if it’s possible to talk about it in other ways.
It’s possible to talk about these things in not cultish ways, but this ain’t it. How? Simple:
1) Give clear, narrow, actionable definitions for the concepts that actually mean something and don’t automatically apply to everyone (of particular races).
This is almost impossible for white privilege and white complicity because of how they’re defined as vague, pervasive systems that people cannot escape, but not for white fragility, of all things. One could define a white fragility that actually covers reactions to a perceived loss of status that real white supremacists face, or their inability to think in terms of other races’ perspectives, but it would apply to a few thousand people now, not everyone. I’ve made this argument myself many times in the past: “white fragility” could have been a modestly useful concept, but it’s a cult-indoctrination and humiliation technique instead.
In fact, it could be part of a broader meaningful constellation of ideas that would genuinely have added to the literature. A more general “ideological fragility” could easily be defined in terms of times when people lose the ability to discuss rationally and non-emotionally when challenged outside of an ideology they have wholly committed to and can’t see outside of. That would even be a responsibly Critical way of talking about the issue, if we might give credit to the original architects of Critical Theory who outlined it 80 years ago. But this would, of course, reveal “Woke Fragility” to be a FAR bigger problem than “white fragility.” White fragility would only really apply to those few white people (now, more in the past) who can’t stand white social status diminishing or (real) white supremacy being considered illegitimate (which can be done for consistent universally liberal reasons, not based just on power dynamics: no race should be supremacist and no race should be considered inferior).
That’s some ideas.
2) Offer a pathway out of the induced vulnerability that isn’t a force-feeding of more doctrine and, especially, more of the same manipulative claims.
White fragility, defined correctly in a narrow sense as above, could be overcome by a therapist when real (rare). Ideological fragility could be overcome by broadening horizons. This is, in fact, the entire purpose of a broad liberal education, which this cult has completely perverted. In both cases, metrics for success are crucial, or this is cultist bullshit.
Broadening horizons, to be clear, doesn’t mean endlessly focusing on the exaggerated horrors of another group’s (NOT individual’s) oppression and one’s own vaguer than vague “complicity” in it. Treat people as people. It actually means learning to think in terms of different perspectives, not the one cult-approved perspective (oppression narratives that match the Theory) with different races colored into it.
Measurements for success should be realistic too. Do you know how they overcome severe phobias through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and exposure therapy? Incremental successes are documentable and clear. People know if they’re making progress, and they know when they’re effectively cured. If the measurements for judging success are always punctuated with an impossible standard, like how white people always have privilege, can’t avoid complicity, are always fragile, it’s probably a cult. This one looks like the worst of puritanical Calvinism and Scientology mated and went racial.
As for broadening horizons, a good sign you’re dealing with a cult is telling victims only to read cult materials and not outside materials. I put excerpts from the Critical Social Justice literature on every page of my site and constantly tell people to go read it for themselves. That’s the opposite of what you imply with this comment, and it’s the opposite of what the Woke cult recommends or allows. We’re supposed to “decolonize” the curriculum and our bookshelves now, apparently, and make sure we’re not reading problematic things. That’s cult behavior.
This comment tries to characterize New Discourses as right-wing (WRONG), misleading (WRONG), suppressive (WRONG), wearing a sneaky nice mask (WRONG), and dangerously manipulative to potential cult recruits (WRONG). Why? Well, we can’t guess, but a clear possibility is that the commenter wants people not to engage with the material here. Contrast that with my repeated urging that people DO engage the Critical Social Justice literature as well as other ideas. This comment is presenting recognizable cult behavior that, in particular, can be distinguished from other kinds of behavior that wouldn’t be cultist (in direct opposition to the claim in the comment).
As noted in the piece, a cult goal is to remove the mark from outside information and the people who give it on the basis of cult doctrine pressed into emotional manipulation. Thank you for demonstrating that so effectively. I advocate John Stuart Mill’s approach: “he who knows only his own side of the argument knows little of that,” so you must know the other side and learn it from “true believers.”
Cultists can’t see that they’re inside a cult, but more importantly, they can’t see outside of it. That’s another tell. I can tell you about Critical Social Justice like I’m one of them and also conservative, libertarian, Christian, and other perspectives and am universal liberal.
Not to assume too hastily anything of anybody, but my estimation is that the cultist who left this comment has been hoisted on her own petard, then, I guess.
And this is the double bind in action. He’s accused me of being a ‘cultist’ as I predicted. That’s how it works, folks. You either agree or you’re a cultist. Thanks for entirely proving my point.
I mean, you very clearly are a cultist, and the fact that you can’t even address his points shows me that you don’t want to engage with these ideas that discomfort you. He didn’t even write a hateful screed; he literally said that he thinks there is *some* merit to white fragility! And here you are, literally implying that he has a problem with equal rights for black people, a base line liberal position. Just because you’re upset that he doesn’t make special exceptions for black people doesn’t mean he’s racist. It actually means he is ANTI-racist. Unless, of course, you creatively redefine terms like “racism,” which you woke people do. Your movement is one of societal control, not political liberation. Rather, it liberates some, and savagely curtails others, based off arbitrary standards.
Why didn’t you address his point about falsifiability? Or about the Critical Racist’s refusal to countenance information from “old dead white men” or other sources that don’t directly promote Critical Theory and Wokeness?
To call me a cultist is the exact same mistake as you are accusing me of – making assumptions about the writer based solely on seeing a snapshot. On exploring James’ work further (I had never read anything other than this blog) I can see he is trying for objectivity and I was definitely clouded by my own bias, having been an anti-racism campaigner for most of the 50 years of adult life. I have been seriously alarmed at the way that far right commenters on social media and in news comments as well as in the mainstream media, have been using ‘woke’ to silence anti-racists and black people. Where are they getting this from, I wondered. Whether or not James and co are deliberately writing this stuff to fuel racists with ammunition against anyone calling for more equality is a moot point. They clearly are. I’ve already been harassed and called a racist by some of his followers. I am the only person in the world with my name. I choose not to be anonymous, but it makes me incredibly vulnerable. Does James take any responsibility for his contribution to that? If he is genuinely concerned about equality, does he not worry that his work is being used to justify attacks like on Meghan Markle who was effectively hounded out of the UK and subjected to a horrific level of attack on social media. Black politicians like Dawn Butler and Diane Abbott in the UK are subject of racist attacks on a near constant basis. These attacks use arguments like the one in this article. I still contend it’s a false equivalence and he is using a double-bind which makes it impossible to disagree without being called a cultist – as you can see from your own compulsion to use it. It’s really hard to resist,
Ms. Ghul–
I applaud your self-awareness and charity. I thought this comment was interesting and unlike many others in the thread, so I wanted to respond on a few points.
“…commenters on social media and in news comments as well as in the mainstream media, have been using ‘woke’ to silence anti-racists and black people.”
How do you think using the term woke “silences” people? Maybe it’s a trite pejorative, or a sarcastic encapsulation of a manifestly corrupt ideology, either way being called woke hasn’t prevented you from speaking, has it?
“Whether or not James and co are deliberately writing this stuff to fuel racists with ammunition against anyone calling for more equality is a moot point.”
Either the arguments are good, in which case it doesn’t actually matter what the intent is of the person making them, or they’re bad, in which case you should be able to counter them with reasoned argument. This is not a justification for (self-)censoring dialogue on important issues.
“I’ve already been harassed and called a racist by some of his followers.”
Using your own name is admirable. However, it doesn’t exempt you from criticism, even of the harsh variety.
No, you’re given the same opportunity to respond as anyone else. If all you can come up with is, “See? See?? He said I’m a cultist! Therefore obviously right!” then you’re not arguing your point effectively.
You really can’t see it, can you? You’re displaying exactly the cultish behavior he lays out, and somehow think you’re discrediting him. You really are “woke,” aren’t you?
Cult – Indoctrinated – Drinking the Coolaid – The Label doesn’t matter.
You (we) are living in an environment where we’re constantly being bombarded with accusations of racism. And we’re told that the ONLY way to redemption (that any non-white race) will become equal in society is by dismantling the white race.
The ‘cause’ you’re fighting for has nothing to do with racism or social justice. It is solely to de-stabilize the western society.
If you’re sincerely concerned about oppression and social justice, you will ask for solutions that elevate every aspect of society, not tear it down!
If you think that this current path of attack towards racism will lead to ‘equal rights for all’, you are mis-led!
Destructive tactics ONLY lead to equal misery. Nothing else. Yes – it is equal – is equal misery really what you intend to accomplish?
Woke theory philosophers cant stand up to debate with white people…so they use a woke tool to accuse them of racism and silence their speech..But the same wokies are behooved to debate a well thought Asian or Indian thinker who will cancel their white racists theory. Critical thinking always trumps woke nonsense. The world wide is full brilliant minded men and women who love wisdom and embrace it as a universal value for all people..
But, you are a cultist. Sorry
Cult indoctrination is real, so every attempt to describe it cannot be automatically discounted as a double bind (as you did in your first comment). As James pointed out, it’s the particular quality of the response that marks a cultist’s defense mechanisms. He described how your response fit that pattern. This is not a double bind, it’s plain observation.
It’s fruitless James, let him bask in his wokeness. You’re going against your own observation about the near impossibility of breaking the grip of woke conditioning upon the mind.
I’m a woman. And you are equally conditioned to see me as a cultist. That’s what a double-bind does. He is contributing to the weaponisation of ‘woke’ as a tool of the far right to discredit campaigners for equality (who have existed for centuries, brought about the end of slavery and the the emacipation of women – were they all ‘woke’?) and black people. Whether or not that’s imtentional, that is what is happening. The double-bind is a classic tool of propaganda. Hitler also used the arguments of academics to justify his atrocities. Academic theories of ‘race’ and racial hierarchies were used to justify slavery and colonisation. These are presented as objective theories, just like James does, but without any sense of responsibility. Maybe he is completely unaware of the hundreds of commenters and bots who scream ‘woke’ at anyone saying anything anti-racist, but I doubt it.
It always seems that the biggest a-holes are always hypocrites that try to use a psychology of this or that in service of an unjust social reality they want to create or uphold.
We aren’t talking about abolitionists and suffrage we are talking about critical theory you mindless caricature.
Being 50 years into the cult and likely wasting thousands of dollars on trash Critical Theory courses, its no surprise how defensive you are about being called a cultist
everyone I don’t like is adolf hitler
lol.. someone threw the “Hitler also argued like that” at me before while I was “debating” woke cultists, I’m guessing it’s a woke packaged and/or published talking point.
Ha! You mentioned Hitler 1st. You lose.https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law#:~:text=Godwin's%20Law%20(also%20known%20as,Nazi%20reference%2C%20increases.%22.
I am a mental health professional, author of four books, including Combating Cult Mind Control and The Cult of Trump. I got interested in this topic after my deprogramming from the Moon cult in 1976.
I invite you and your followers to my web site to review my Influence Continuum and BITE model of mind control. Your article shows a superficial understanding of Lewin’s ( previous to Hitler, Levine) model of Unfreezing, Changing and Refreezing, and shoeing your lack of scholarship have no attributions to where you derive your knowledge about cults and deprogramming. I have video interviews of Robert Jay Lifton, and others like Stanford’s Philip Zimbardo. My 44 year career is based on full time field work and research on this topic. You can review my CV. What are your credentials please regarding cults?
I’m an amateur. I don’t try to hide it. People like you who failed in your duty to identify cults like this and stop them are the reason people like me have to pick up the flag and do the best we can.
If you’re such an expert in cults, why do you seem to be supporting this one?
Because it’s not a cult. Duh
Two questions: What is your website address? I’ll check it out when I get a chance.
Also, does your Cult of Trump theory assume all Trump supporters are cultists, or does it recognize that rational (non-cult) Trump support is also possible?
Steven, let’s get real. You appear to be a partisan actor. I mean, you did write “The Cult of Trump” afterall. One could easily have written about the “Cult of Obama” but of course, you chose not write about that. While you made your ethos case, you have utterly omitted the logos. Instead of saying, “You’re wrong. I’m an expert.” , try engaging with the ideas. We’re waiting….
If I understood the premise of this article correctly, it seems that a belief system that survives and thrives against opposition isn’t the same as cult. The idea here is that cults have specific characteristic elements quite distinct from believing something strongly.
If I may so summarize, the defining characteristic of a cult is that it’s a social system which uses abusive methods to reinforce adherence.
Now, I’m not aware of any abusive tactics toward or from general Trump adherents. As far as I’m aware, it’s a rather pleasant crowd.
Hi Steven. In your book “The Cult of Trump” you mention how poor parenting is often a big factor, and that child punishment is often used by cults to control children and families to follow blindly.
Seeing how modern parents outsource parenting to the almost exclusively liberal schools and universities in the US, can you explain if you do or do not support emotionally abusive psychological conditioning (lifelong white guilt) to children? Are you pro-cult only if it aligns with your political affiliation? Or are you against all cult-like practices? Are you for or against censoring ‘problematic’ books in school to favor a cult-like curriculum that doesn’t offer multiple perspectives? Very interested to know if your credentials match your actions.
Steven, as a poster named Art commented earlier, you are “arguing from authority”, which is a fallacy as old as the hills. If you’re so very well qualified – and I mean this sincerely – then I look forward to your concise and well-reasoned argument as to why the author of this piece shows a “superficial understanding” of cults.
He knows better than to engage with reasonably intelligent and thoughtful rebuttal. He’s probably busy trying to get this article removed from the internet, instead. Woke Academics are hugely thin skinned and vindictive.
Steve effectively says “you shut up now, I’m the expert.” Hmmm…. I wonder if that has any relation to a cult tactic?😂
“I have video interviews of Robert Jay Lifton, and others like Stanford’s Philip Zimbardo.”
Outstanding! Did you ask Philip Zimbardo why the Stanford prison experiment was a fraud?
Reference
I don’t think you are actually Steven Hassan, I think you are an impostor because I doubt that a real academic would pompously declare their superior credentials without very focused actual refutations. Instead, you have only listed links to Steven Hassans website.
You are definitely “shoeing your lack of scholarship.”
You might however, make some effort to try to prove that my accusations are mistaken.
I honestly thought this was a Parody – you said exactly what he said you would !
Because it’s a double-bind – why can’t you see that – he’s conditioned your mind by using it so any dissent MUST be viewed as cultist. It’s how propaganda works. You’re either with me or against X. Like Trump saying something like, you either support me or you’re against law and order.
James’ whole argument is ‘you either see ‘woke’ as a cult or you are a cultist’. All the other fancy stuff around it is irrelevant. Once you read that, you HAVE to accept all the other rubbish or be labelled a cultist. If you have an investment in being seen as clever or accepted by James you absolutely cannot disagree.
but hey, I’m the cult member…
Rayya, you claim he’s using the same techniques and if so, then you must be agreeing that you are also in a cult. These tactics are used to indoctrinate you into the woke cult and as you say used here. Solely based on your comments you appear full in on the woke cult doctrine according to this post. Is it possible you are seeing through this lens and that it’s not accurate. Good luck on deprogramming from whatever cult you subscribe to. I don’t fully buy into either side. You clearly are all in for the woke crowd. It’s actively ripping our country apart from its seams and we will all be worse off because of it.
“Conditioned your mind” from a single article? Damn. You know theres more written than the title accusing you of being a cultist. Maybe you just refuse to read it?
That’s right – you’re the cult member. Been there with a number of people.
They aren’t so bad, but the way of thinking cannot be questioned. James only questions it. Here he makes a case that it has many of the earmarks of a cult – you’re racist and admit it (woke) or you’re racist and don’t admit it (heathen).
You keep complaining about double-binds, but that is the signature technique of White Fragility.
Well darn, Raya, you were doing pretty well in your first para. Then you launched into the second, in which you said that the writer should just be honest about hating black people and fearing that their achievement of the privilege he enjoys will deny him that privilege (classic! A zero-sum game! Always a crowd pleaser). Precisely what he was talking about, in other words.
Address how “wokeness” is NOT a cult. It demands that people higher up the privilege-ladder acknowledge and apologize for the “privilege” they enjoy – that’s original sin; they are utterly unable to atone for that privilege (name a person, any person, who has “privilege” who has been “forgiven” for it, whatever their confessions and penances, and allowed to join the ranks of the unashamed woke) – that’s a way in which it different from what Christianity, which does allow for redemption, but in which it’s similar to cults, which never let you feel you’re on solid ground because your being off-balance is a necessary control mechanism; in order to belong, they must denounce others who share their “privilege” (see, e.g., the videos of teenagers declaring their hated for their parents and families in the basis of their lack of wokeness); they are assured (and it’s proven to them) at all turns that to deviate from the tenets of wokeness will result in shunning (see, e.g., Drew Brees’s statement that “all lives matter” and its aftermath – though I imagine that you, reading this comment, will declare it heresy because it disagrees with your received doctrine, just as a fundamentalist Christian will quote Genesis to “refute” a statement about evolution – as laid out in the piece).
One more way in which wokeness is cultish: I recognize your right to believe what you want to believe, though I think you’re wrong, and I’m willing to do battle in the realm of electoral politics to try to see my world view prevail. You, I’m willing to bet, believe I am – take your pick – stupid, evil, unworthy of the franchise, and believe that the political battlefield is too risky, since humanity’s salvation rests on your world view’s domination. So you’re okay with disenfranchising whoever doesn’t agree with you in order to bring about your desired goal.
Your response is hilarious. And wrong. I don’t think you’re stupid, evil or unworthy of franchise. I’m an equality campaigner and much as I might dislike or disagree with your views, I will fight for your right to vote and your free speech (as long as it’s not inciting people to violence against any group, which isn’t free speech, it’s hate speech). That’s the whole point of being an equality campaigner! But we are the people who are getting attacked constantly and shut up by accusations of ‘woke’. If we are silenced, who will fight for your rights? That’s not to say there aren’t stupid, evil people but they are sadly on every side. The Left has a tendency to be dogmatic, while the Right soft-soap you while doing their dirty deeds out of sight – my mother grew up in Nazi Germany and only found out about the extent of the holocaust when she watched TV in the UK years later. It seems unbelievable but all those rallies and propaganda films weren;t seen by the majority of ordinary Germans, She was a teenager, so it’s possible her parents were more aware. My grandfather was an aeroplane engineer before the war but was sacked because he refused to join the Nazi Party and made toys instead until he was sent off to a concentration camp like many non-Jewish Germans who were dissenters. Fascists come from the Left and the Right. My best friend in the world is a Conservative, typically portrayed as right wing, but she does more charitable and good work and is completely unprejudiced than many left wing people I know. I live in Scotland where we actually have a National governement which, because it is run by a party unified around the goal of independence, is extremely broad and has brought people from the left, right and centre together, and is therefore much more robust and healthy than the Westminster shit show.
So no, I’m not refuting James because I’m a cultist. I’m pointing out his use of the double-bind which is a propaganda tool. Yes, I had a bit of fun with the writing and yes, I probably should have looked into his work a bit deeper, but at least I can reflect on that and accept criticism. Doesn’t look like that’s happening much from James or his followers who seem to be a bit like religious disciplines, frankly, rushing to show off their cleverness and how well they’ve learnt his lessons.
Rayya,
In reading your comments in this thread. I think this one is the most generous to those who hold opposing views which goes to show the challenge of assessing a persons beliefs based on a brief online posting.
Thanks to you I’ve discovered a what a double bind argument is.
As a civil libertarian I hold similar views on free speech with the exception I take it to its farthest extremes. So far as to say making exceptions to free speech can often be exploited in unequal ways “yelling fire in a crowded theater” comes from a bad supreme court case.
I guess I would like your view on cancel culture generally? It’s one thing to name and shame explicit racists which is happening, but what of those namely on the left who are being cancelled for not doing enough? I understand you live in Scotland, but in the US at this time cancel culture seems to have jumped from academia into the real world. Mob justice has turned its eyes from simply attacking bigots to attacking liberal commentators who do not participate themselves, or their participation is insufficient. Prominent examples being NYT firing James Bennett, and the National poetry foundation members resigning for being insufficiently woke.
Out of respect for friends of mine I am reading “how to be an anti racist” and I’m finding that while I think it is an interesting way of viewing the world and is a view that can be included in political discourse. Its definitive statements of black and white facts on whether or not something is “racist” when paired with cancel culture becomes a cudgel to silence opposition.
I’m planning on sharing this article with my friends who are highly motivated by the book not necessarily to dissuade them, but to challenge their beliefs. In fact why I am reading the book myself to challenge my own beliefs.
Anyways side note kudos for using your real name not many people on the internet do now.
If the group your defending isn’t a cult. Then why haven’t you, them or their supporters resorted to presenting facts? Instead, there is constantly this mental gymnastics being played. I have yet to find hard evidence that supports white fragility, BLM, systemic rasicm, etc… On the contrary there is plenty of data that would denounce the legitimacy of these. The way I see your argument, is exactly what most people do when they just don’t agree with something which is to fight against. Fine. I don’t know you and I don’t know what you truly stand for and I have no issue with listening.. I can only make my best interpretations based on your posts. I don’t entirely agree with this author, because I don’t understand the cult manufacturing process and I don’t think there’s an implication that I have to believe him (or else), but I know some of the statistics behind what he’s written about. I do understand that much of the statistics work against the “woke” narrative – something they do not like to talk about, which seems culty to me. Or at least naive. Which is why I think there may be some weight here, but if you can provide some data otherwise: I’m open to it.
“as long as it’s not inciting people to violence against any group”
Funny, considering critical theory nonsense incites everyone who isn’t white against white people and white people against themselves.
You are arrogant…you do not currently, and I’d wager never served, in order to put your stake in the claim that you fight for my rights… to what dismantle history?
I fought for my rights, and yours…and I knew good men, that fought that fight FOR you!
You reinforce his point while not honoring your own. Answer the damn argument, prove him wrong, or get off of the thread. You are clearly not “silenced”, as evidenced by your bombarding this forum, and thread with false, ideology.
Raya, with people like you “fighting for my rights,” who needs enemies?
Guy with the “critical skills” commits classic straw man as last 1/3rd of argument.
I have critical skills because I practice them. I was listening for your point until you broke into a classic false dichotomy.
Rayya – you said everything my mind was thinking. Thank you.
Thank you.
Just what I wanted to say
After I read Dr. Lindsay’s piece I was thinking the only thing missing is the specimen to provide the empirical example; and here you are. Congratulations and thank you for nailing down just how accurate Dr. Lindsay’s assertions are.
I didn’t *personally* perceive that he was creating a double bind in this instance. That would entail him saying that you either agree that wokeness is a cult, or else you disagree and by disagreeing you prove him right. Either way, he is proven right.
I genuinely don’t see him making that argument. I see him likening wokeness to a cult and thus examining wokeness through that lens, using those dynamics. In doing so, he uncovers some of the more toxic themes within the current movement. That’s all I saw.
I don’t totally agree that wokeness IS a cult, btw. His words here have helped me to understand why some people feel that way, but I still don’t totally buy it. And I never felt like he implied that my disagreement proves that I am a cultist.
I’ve read the entire thread, so I understand your overall background–still, I’m genuinely curious if you could break down how you see a double bind? It could be something I’m overlooking.
👍👍👌
Yeah. Excellent point, HollyRT.
Given its prevalence in her responses, I don’t think she is aware of the fallacy of assertion.
Nice. Mostly the ad hominem fallacy, with a side of straw-man thrown in for good measure. Thank you for exemplifying how those with the woke-cult-glasses think and argue.
The problem is that we are supposed to acknowledge a divide between races. I live my life looking at the person’s character and not their skin color, and now I am told that I need to recognize the skin. I have to be told that a person is black, hispanic, etc, because I don’t see that first. So when I am labeled as white privileged, I get offended. I don’t see or dwell on the color of one’s skin, or sexual orientation, I look at the person. I may not like someone because of their behavior or life choices, not because of something they have no control of.
Thank you for this response.
Gordon Melton, religions scholar, once said this:
“A cult is a religion I don’t happen to like.”
And, extrapolating from his comment,
“A cultist is a religionist I don’t happen to like.”
The above long scree by the original writer is nothing more than a construct to do away with whiteness / white supremacy via denial. So those of us involved with refusing to go along with that program are, like so many others, neatly dispensed with via the terms “cult” and “cultist.”
To quote Vonnegut, “So it goes.”
“So those of us involved with refusing to go along with that program are, like so many others, neatly dispensed with via the terms “cult” and “cultist.” ”
So those of us involved with refusing to go along with your program are neatly dispensed with via the terms “racist” and “white”.
Let’s make something clear. Outside of very small insular communities and classrooms, the belief that modern society is intrinsically a white supremacy is novel. The majority of people do not believe this. What is being attempted currently is to change the beliefs of the majority. Your position is not the default view being assailed from the outside, it is the outsider perspective fighting for legitimacy. Yours is the acting party, and it is those who resist your beliefs who are not going along with YOU.
As the acting party seeking to change the status quo, YOU are on the offensive. You can claim attempts to criticize or dismantle your radical beliefs are violence, but it is simply self defense. You are making novel claims – the burden of proof is on you to support them – and it will take more than neologisms, accusations, and mob violence. Novel claims require novel proof. Without proof, the only mechanism for changing society left at your disposal will be force. I believe there is a term for a political movement that uses force to impose its will while censoring speech that disagrees with its edicts, but it escapes me at the moment.
If you wish for your movement to end up on the right side of history, you’d better hope you can come up with more compelling evidence than problematic statues, street names, or flags. And it wouldn’t hurt to describe that evidence in language that hasn’t been redefined or outright made up, if you expect to convince people who didn’t have privileged access to the various college course that ruined your vocabularies.
“double-bind” aka a Kafka Trap.
“Your readers are looking for ways to avoid examining their own complicity with white privilege”
“You are trying to turn ‘woke’ into an insult and all you are doing is creating a very easy way to identify anyone who does this as a racist.”
“false equivalence”
“Your post would make a lot more sense if it read: […]”
There is a satisfying irony in your accusations. You speak in the the irrefutable terms of liberation and equality, but couched in your language is the same tired premise that a certain group of people is intrinsically privileged, or worse prejudiced – not by virtue of their actions, but by virtue of their ethnicity. It is by the deployment of this premise that you create a double-bind of your own; all people who reject your accusations do so to avoid admitting their ethnic guilt, a kind of original sin.
This flawed premise, along with the rest of the gobbledyguk that comes out of critical race theory and critical identity theory studies creates a very unstable house of cards. While you seem to feel stable in your beliefs and how you apply them, from the outside the way in which they prop each other up is clear. There is no objective foundation to your assumptions, and demonizing your intellectual opponents as “racists” for the crime of daring to disagree with you simply reveals the flaws in your belief system.
Nobody has to “turn” woke, social justice warrior, etc into insults. Anyone who self-identifies with those labels who then lashes out at society to accuse people of racism and strategically withholding advantage based on race sufficiently blemishes themselves, and it cannot be simply ameliorated by claiming to have new definitions for these terms. No one but the weak of will or weak of mind are being fooled by this.
The fact that you have discounted any doctrine heterodox to the solipsistic tenants of your unscientific hogwash does not render disciplines outside of it “psuedo-academic” – indeed, it the subjective framework of the various critical theories, which routinely discard objective reality in favor of perception and experience, that are academic in name only. The fact that your ideology is based entirely on analyzing every phenomenon through the lens of systemic power reveals the true goals of the ideology: to gain systemic power.
You beclown yourself.
*facepalm* i don’t know who this comment is directed towards, but it sounds overly pretentious. golly.
Oh do pay attention “vegan cupcake!
Don’t be so lazy.
You need to take the trouble to read the article and the threads properly.
FYI, the comment is directed towards Ms. Rayya Ghuul.
I would never call her or any of their ilk ‘woke, ‘ or a SJW.
I consider grievance mongerer to be a more apt label and in the case of MS. Ghuul, is enabling some very bad actors to weaponize their grievances.
Here’s her website
https://rayyaghul.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/lgba-response/
As you can see she’s not happy with feminists and other women who are being labelled transphobes or TERFS.
These unfortunate women are with good reason, alarmed about these autogynephiliac M to F males women and are loudly denounced as TERFs for declining the ‘ahem’ ‘amorous”advances of these unpleasant individuals.
Besides denouncing women who prefer not to be penetrated by these cross-dressing louts, there are other dubious M to F men who claim the right to compete in women’s sporting events while insisting that having powerful muscles and a denser bone structure , higher levels of testosterone etc. confers absolutely no advantage in competitive sport, are accusing the women who they easily beat as whiners who just need to try harder.
I despise bullies and cheats and I hope the change in rules that allow them to compete will be reversed ASAP.
Ms. Ghuul is also highly critical of Allison Bailey of the LGB Alliance and as a result has made a me a very stern enemy.
Sir or ma’am,
Where did you learn rhetoric, oration, or your simple but masterful arguments. I mean zero dis-respect, as I pride myself a bit of a word-smith, but this piece itself was chock full of terms, and words (I admit) that demanded I “up my game”. Well done!
As for the substance, I believe you summed it up (much like the originator of the piece) so powerfully, that it demands a thoughtful examination. Again, well done!
It was cool that a cultist posted here as a “show and tell”, so to speak.
Here is how I read this article, so as to show how one reader (me) is taking information from the article.
What the article address is not racism. What the article address is the approaches in tackling the issues with racism. And the approaches that it criticise is claimed by many activists that called themselves the woke culture. By challenging the approaches, it does not say that the fight against racism is not necessary. It does highlight the problems of how it is done by certain group of people and bring about lots of questions if it is constructive.
From reading your respond, I will assume that the issues with racism is very important to you. I would say that it is very important to many of us here who is reading this article. Speaking for myself, because the issues with racism is something that I hold dearly to, I am also concern not just with the issues, but with how it is being approach, so that the issues can be address in a constructive manner.
This is often something that I remind myself of – never lose humanity within when fighting humanity beyond.
So I do not think the article discredit people who are fighting for justice. It brings about a certain perspective that has a notion of black or white way of thinking and all-or-nothing way of thinking. It highlights, not all, but a particular group of people who are taking this path to the cause.
What I think is difficult for many, who are fighting for the cause to see that this particular group is mixed around among all who is fighting for the cause, but may have approaches in a different way. As no matter what approaches one is taking, as long as it is an in-group, one will defend it, even the approaches done more harm than good.
👍👍👌 well said
The critical social justice movement is white supremacist. It is white privilege in disguise. Any defence of it is white fragility. You have duped yourself and only you can unripe yourself. Cut the strings mate, give yrself a break.
…undupe…
I’ve never seen anyone prove his chosen opponent’s point for him better. You’ve got to be using deep sarcasm right? You HAVE to be speaking satirically to have used that many charged cult initiation and indoctrination sentences in a row. I was actually laughing; this was funnier than a soccer own-goal compilation video. May you always have free speech.
Hear ye, hear ye. Thank you, too, Rayya Ghul.
`You didn’t address his points.
“Your post would make a lot more sense if it read: “I hate the idea that black people might one day have the exact same rights as white people in America and that they could have the same opportunities to succeed as us. We have to fight this because if we don’t we’ll lose our privileges and the standing to which we feel entitled. Here’s a handy way of neutralising the arguments which are convincing people to do things which could damage our power.”
You misrepresent what he is trying to do so thoroughly that you have actually stated the opposite of his purpose and his beliefs. Pretty bad stuff.
Man have you drunk the Kool-Aid you’re about as indoctrinated in brainwashed and individual as I’ve seen good luck with that your worldview and your attitude is pure insanity what’s it like to live in a delusion like you live frightening is all I can say
Rayya,
1. You claim that the author calls Woke-ism a Cult to discredit people who fight for social justice. I disagree, but if you believe that, and if you are against such tactics, then maybe you can explain how it is different from automatically calling out “white fragility” on any white person who disagrees with you (and calling out “white adjacent” or “uncle tom” when it’s an Asian or Black person who disagrees).
2. In your long post you did not answer Neil’s question: which specific text led you to believe that James doesn’t want black people to enjoy the same rights as white people?
The link in the Postscript is broken. Can it be fixed?
It seems to be working now. The archive site must have had a glitch.
I’m amazed at how similar the cult of Wokeness is so similar to the church of Scientology:
“antiracist” = “clear”
“admitting your racism and privilege” = “auditing”
“canceled” = “disconnect”
“problematic”/”racist”/”privileged” = “suppressive person”
“racism”/”white privilege” = “reactive mind”
harassment for offending the woke, including firings, groveling public apologies, cancelation, death threats, vandalism, etc. = “fair game”
Karl Marx’s works are the Dianetics while current writers and academics like Coates or DiAngelo or the NYT’s Roxane Gay are Sea Org leaders and recruiters. And like Scientology, it has a lot of celebrity members.
Unlike Scientology though, Wokeness has the full backing of the Democratic Party and the media.
Thank you very very much for writing this and I look forward to reading more. And thank you for helping us understand why the world and all we’ve come to know and believe is being turned on it’s head. If nothing else I think you’ve helped lower my blood pressure and for that I thank you
“…for the Woke, they are social group-identity classes) that are oppressive on one side, oppressed on the other, and in conflict over this.”
Credit where credit it due: this is Antonio Gramschi.
As an atheist, I can confirm that the religion or cult of woke has replaced religion for many atheists or agnostics. I’m glad I found a sense of community and belonging elsewhere.
Where did you find a community? Fellow non religious who had all other communities ripped apart by this insanity.
It is no doubt a cult. Their so-called principles are taught in groups with lots of peer pressure for thought compliance. The instructors are often employed by “charities” that do presentations to those in government including public school teachers. So not only do the nonprofits not pay income taxes, they are ultimately paid for their presentations by the taxpayer.
Dear Mr. Lindsay,
I am a black man whose life has been ripped apart by cultism, and I’m having a difficult time getting anyone to listen to what I’ve learned. Would you take a shot? it’s so rare anyone even addresses the topic, I thought I’d ask. My views are not that different from what’s found in Kurt Anderson’s book “Fantasyland” but, I think, a bit more comprehensive/holistic.
I hope you respond,
Thank you.
Good luck James! I hope Mr Lindsay contacts you. I think many of are struggling right now. Best of luck in finding answers and hopefully a solution
Sure, let’s hear it.
I’ve learned it’s an almost entirely futile attempt to get people to listen that only leads to frustration. Like the article says, their worldview has built in rationalizations for objections that arise to challenge it.
As a black man tho, you may be able to get others to listen to at least some basic points, whereas this would be entirely fruitless for a white man such as myself to attempt. However, even this shouldn’t be expected to produce much. Forget trying to explain a different worldview to them. That’s too big of an emotional script flip for them to undertake. And it requires cognitive flexibility, on top of the emotional attachment. Most people don’t have this cognitive flexibility or ability to detach their emotional commitments in order to rationally consider arguments.
What may work tho, is if you simply drop your *personal experience* that contradicts the woke narrative. So rather than try to explain their meta delusion to them, and replace it with what you’ve learned, simply say your experience as a black man has not convinced you of the veracity of woke claims about our society or oppression, etc etc. I’d keep it concise and non argumentative tho.
*by “drop” I mean state your personal experience. Sorry for the confusion in the last paragraph.
Thank you for this important dialogue. How does one (white woman) begin these conversations with others without being immediately labeled? I want to be a part of building common ground and agreement among our country, moving away from identity politics essentially. And yet, this could also be seen as me using my white privilege to exploit and oppress others.
You will be immediately labeled. The key is that the label doesn’t mean anything, so you shouldn’t take it personally. Imagine a Scientologist told you that you’re unclean (or, not clear). Do you care? No, of course not.
If you read White Fragility, DiAngelo takes pains to explain how she is not using words like “racist” and “white supremacist” in normal ways and reassures the reader they shouldn’t really even be upset about what she’s accusing them of (and that if they are, it’s white fragility). The idea of “white fragility” is directly psychologically abusive and manipulative because it cannot be denied, only accepted. All denials are just more white fragility.
Thus, you take the label, and then you do what I just did: explain why it doesn’t mean anything and why you shouldn’t be shamed by it. Then you turn it around and ask them if they know that’s the meaning implied and how it changes things. If they don’t, ask them why they’re making arguments about words they don’t even understand properly. If they do, ask them to stop manipulating you and to sell their faith somewhere else because you’re not interested in it or their way of seeing the world.
Turn it around on them.
Annie, I think I’m going to avoid the whole thing altogether by employing a shocks FB awe approach. I’m just going to practice saying “I’m sorry, I’ve already committed to a different cult.” And walk away leaving them to chew on that.
Epic response.
You have my attention, Dr. Lindsay.