Summary: Concerns about apparent or actual cultishness are serious but ought to be worked through in a more rational way than is typical of popular discourse about cults. EA pattern-matches to being a small, niche community on the fringe of mainstream society, which is also a common characteristic and tell of a cult. Yet there is widespread cognitive dissonance in society at large about how social structures involving tens of millions of people also have harmful, cult-like aspects to them as well. It’s perhaps the majority of people in even more diverse societies that marry and raise families within their own religion, culture or ethnic group.
That many of us in EA are strongly inclined to spend our lives with those who share our own way of life doesn’t distinguish as problematic from the rest of society. One could argue that almost all cultures are cult-like and EA should aspire to be(come) a super-rational community free of the social problems plaguing all others. That would seem to me to be molehill mountaineering that can be disregarded as vain attempts to impel EA to be(come) quixotically perfect.
Regarding ‘culty-ness,’ I feel like too many subcultures or countercultures play into the hands of the paranoid accusations of a generic and faceless public. Several years ago, when I was both aware of evidence-based definitions of cults and was in extreme disagreement with mainstream societies, I thought accusations of being a cult levelled at movements that weren’t unambiguously cults ought to be disregarded. I no longer feel this way, as I now recognize that a degree of cultishness in an organization or community can exist on a spectrum. Ergo, some public accusations of appearing to or actually being a cult ought to be taken very seriously.
EA is a small, niche community on the fringes of society. Putting that way may seem to stigmatize EA as pattern-matching to those fringe movements that pose a serious threat to society at large. That’s not what I meant. I just pointed out that this is a crucial function between society at large and subcultures which may begin alienating themselves to the point of falling down the rabbit hole of becoming a cult.
Yet it seems there are mass groups in all mainstream societies that if they were a small, fringe group would be labelled cults, but only are not because they’ve been normalized over several decades. Such groups can constitute tens or even hundreds of millions of people. I believe such groups are often whole religions, or social structures similar to religions, which as they transform into mainstream institutions are sanitized in a way that makes them less harmful per individual than small, niche cults like the Church of Scientology.
Nonetheless, they often cause significant harm. So, much of humanity has severe cognitive dissonance about what is and isn’t a cult, and why all kinds of mainstream institutions shouldn’t be considered just as harmful as cults. This should cause us to take concerns of being culty with a grain of salt when it comes from a source that is selective in its opposition to cult-like groups. What I’ve never understood is, if some in EA are concerned that EA may seem like or take on actual cult-like tendencies, why none of us try assessing this for ourselves. As a movement that aspires to be scientific, we in EA ought to be able to assess to what extent our community is like a cult by reviewing the scientific research and literature on the subject of cults.
With all this in mind, we can put in context the concern some features in EA might make it appear like a cult to the rest of the world. While optics matter, they aren’t everything. Of all the things EA has been accused of being a cult for, that those in EA tend to form relationships with one another isn’t a frequent one. It’s perhaps the majority of people in diverse societies that tend to date, marry or start families with those from their own ethnic, religious and cultural background. Most people don’t call them cults. That’s because there’s a common understanding that individuals are drawn to spend their lives with those who share a common way of life. Outsiders to most ways of life understand that, even if they don’t totally understand a respective way of life itself.
One lingering concern for some in EA might be that we ought to aspire to be far better in how we conceive of and do good things than the rest of the world. That might include being less cult-like than even entire cultures which themselves aren’t technically cults. There are freethinking, cosmopolitan atheists who would call all religions and most cultures cults. Such accusations may cite that intermarriage between members of one culture because they are the same culture only occurs to irrationally preserve and perpetuate that culture, and its traditions and institutions.
I don’t totally disagree with such freethinkers myself but I wouldn’t take that criticism to heart to the point of discouraging relationships among those in EA. Relationships within the EA community are imperfect in their own ways, as is the case with all kinds of relationships inspired by a particular way of life. Yet I’ve seen dozens if not hundreds in EA personally flourish and enhance the good they’re doing by being in relationships with other community members. Taking every naysayer to heart won’t free us of problems. After all, we in EA are only human (and, I’ll postulate, will be imperfect even in light of potentially becoming post-human super-beings in the future).
Summary: Concerns about apparent or actual cultishness are serious but ought to be worked through in a more rational way than is typical of popular discourse about cults. EA pattern-matches to being a small, niche community on the fringe of mainstream society, which is also a common characteristic and tell of a cult. Yet there is widespread cognitive dissonance in society at large about how social structures involving tens of millions of people also have harmful, cult-like aspects to them as well. It’s perhaps the majority of people in even more diverse societies that marry and raise families within their own religion, culture or ethnic group.
That many of us in EA are strongly inclined to spend our lives with those who share our own way of life doesn’t distinguish as problematic from the rest of society. One could argue that almost all cultures are cult-like and EA should aspire to be(come) a super-rational community free of the social problems plaguing all others. That would seem to me to be molehill mountaineering that can be disregarded as vain attempts to impel EA to be(come) quixotically perfect.
Regarding ‘culty-ness,’ I feel like too many subcultures or countercultures play into the hands of the paranoid accusations of a generic and faceless public. Several years ago, when I was both aware of evidence-based definitions of cults and was in extreme disagreement with mainstream societies, I thought accusations of being a cult levelled at movements that weren’t unambiguously cults ought to be disregarded. I no longer feel this way, as I now recognize that a degree of cultishness in an organization or community can exist on a spectrum. Ergo, some public accusations of appearing to or actually being a cult ought to be taken very seriously.
EA is a small, niche community on the fringes of society. Putting that way may seem to stigmatize EA as pattern-matching to those fringe movements that pose a serious threat to society at large. That’s not what I meant. I just pointed out that this is a crucial function between society at large and subcultures which may begin alienating themselves to the point of falling down the rabbit hole of becoming a cult.
Yet it seems there are mass groups in all mainstream societies that if they were a small, fringe group would be labelled cults, but only are not because they’ve been normalized over several decades. Such groups can constitute tens or even hundreds of millions of people. I believe such groups are often whole religions, or social structures similar to religions, which as they transform into mainstream institutions are sanitized in a way that makes them less harmful per individual than small, niche cults like the Church of Scientology.
Nonetheless, they often cause significant harm. So, much of humanity has severe cognitive dissonance about what is and isn’t a cult, and why all kinds of mainstream institutions shouldn’t be considered just as harmful as cults. This should cause us to take concerns of being culty with a grain of salt when it comes from a source that is selective in its opposition to cult-like groups. What I’ve never understood is, if some in EA are concerned that EA may seem like or take on actual cult-like tendencies, why none of us try assessing this for ourselves. As a movement that aspires to be scientific, we in EA ought to be able to assess to what extent our community is like a cult by reviewing the scientific research and literature on the subject of cults.
With all this in mind, we can put in context the concern some features in EA might make it appear like a cult to the rest of the world. While optics matter, they aren’t everything. Of all the things EA has been accused of being a cult for, that those in EA tend to form relationships with one another isn’t a frequent one. It’s perhaps the majority of people in diverse societies that tend to date, marry or start families with those from their own ethnic, religious and cultural background. Most people don’t call them cults. That’s because there’s a common understanding that individuals are drawn to spend their lives with those who share a common way of life. Outsiders to most ways of life understand that, even if they don’t totally understand a respective way of life itself.
One lingering concern for some in EA might be that we ought to aspire to be far better in how we conceive of and do good things than the rest of the world. That might include being less cult-like than even entire cultures which themselves aren’t technically cults. There are freethinking, cosmopolitan atheists who would call all religions and most cultures cults. Such accusations may cite that intermarriage between members of one culture because they are the same culture only occurs to irrationally preserve and perpetuate that culture, and its traditions and institutions.
I don’t totally disagree with such freethinkers myself but I wouldn’t take that criticism to heart to the point of discouraging relationships among those in EA. Relationships within the EA community are imperfect in their own ways, as is the case with all kinds of relationships inspired by a particular way of life. Yet I’ve seen dozens if not hundreds in EA personally flourish and enhance the good they’re doing by being in relationships with other community members. Taking every naysayer to heart won’t free us of problems. After all, we in EA are only human (and, I’ll postulate, will be imperfect even in light of potentially becoming post-human super-beings in the future).