Ozy Brennan’s Identifying healthy high-demand groups summarises takeaways from Abuses in the Religious Life and the Path to Healing, a book about spiritual abuse written by Dysmas de Lassus, the prior general (person in charge) of the Order of Carthusians. I’ve spent most of my life in high-demand groups of all kinds so this was interesting to read.
A high-demand group having a lot of people with good virtues isn’t a sign it’s healthy; toxic groups can have even more of these virtues:
There is no general pattern where people in healthy high-demand communities are, compared to people in toxic high-demand communities, more hardworking, generous, loving, self-controlled, courageous, honest, tolerant, clever, helpful, cheerful, or even compassionate (to outsiders).
Toxic high-demand communities often create a culture of competition to be the most ethical. … So a toxic high-demand community can have more virtuous members and a greater positive impact on the world than a good high-demand community.
At the same time, toxic high-demand communities generally pervert genuine virtues… For Catholics, humility becomes self-hatred; the desire to give of yourself to others becomes complete self-denial; forgiveness becomes forgetting the crimes of unrepentant abusers. For rationalists and effective altruists, consequentialism becomes tolerance of wrongdoing because of some far-off future benefit; agency and taking ideas seriously become hearing a bad argument and doing arbitrary bad stuff because of it… The members of a toxic Catholic community may well come off as humble, self-sacrificing, and forgiving; the members of a toxic effective altruist community, consequentialist, agentic, and dedicated to self-improvement.
Actual signs of a high-demand group being healthy:
A healthy high-demand community is patient with its members. It doesn’t expect perfection immediately. It doesn’t hold people to unreasonable standards. It accepts that mistakes and failures are part of the human condition. …
One of the most important green flags in a high-demand community is the personality of the high-status people. High-status people should readily admit that they make mistakes, believe wrong things, and have personality flaws. … High-status people should be aware of the suffering of those around them, particularly suffering that’s related to the beliefs and commandments of the high-demand group. If possible, high-status people should do something to alleviate the suffering of group members; if not possible, they should provide comfort and understanding. Most of all, high-status people should be genuinely kind. Not righteous, not self-sacrificing, not heroic, not good. Kind. …
Any high-demand community is going to make a lot of rules about how you live your life—it’s inherent to the enterprise—but a healthy high-demand community limits its rules to those matters which are really important… As much as is practicable, a good high-demand community allows you to make your own judgments about how to put rules into practice in your own life. …
In particular, the community and the high-status people should encourage you to take independent initiative… High-status people should praise you for coming up with your own ideas and projects. They should provide help, especially help that isn’t too costly for them (such as making introductions or publicly announcing your project at a meeting).
The simplest criterion de Lassus lays out is the most powerful: are you happy?
Young me used to be confused when people asked “are you happy?” in relation to the high-demand groups I was in. How was personal happiness at all relevant to the collective mission, from which purpose derives? Later on I would meet plenty of excited members of high-demand groups, which was quite the update; there were in fact people in the “ideal” quadrant:
No one can promise you a life without suffering. Being part of a high-demand group may well make you suffer more. … But ultimately, most of the time, if you’re part of a healthy high-demand group, you should feel a sense of peace and joy. You should reflect on your life, or at least those parts influenced by the high-demand group, and think you know, I’m glad I’m doing this. When it comes right down to it, I like the way my life is going.
Toxic groups are aware that people prefer to stay in groups that make them happy, so they Goodhart it. Often, a group will teach that not being happy is a sin, or that crying yourself to sleep is real joy, a deep and pure kind of joy that the uninitiated would mistake for misery. But, even if the group is gaslighting you, you can still tell how you feel. Take a few hours by yourself or with a trusted friend and reflect: how do I feel about my life? Is my life okay? Do I feel simple pleasures, such as appreciation of a sunrise or companionship with friends or satisfaction at a job well done? If I look back on the past year or two, do I feel a sense of contentment about how it went?
If you are persistently unhappy, the high-demand group may be toxic or it might be all right. But it is clearly wrong for you.
Ozy Brennan’s Identifying healthy high-demand groups summarises takeaways from Abuses in the Religious Life and the Path to Healing, a book about spiritual abuse written by Dysmas de Lassus, the prior general (person in charge) of the Order of Carthusians. I’ve spent most of my life in high-demand groups of all kinds so this was interesting to read.
A high-demand group having a lot of people with good virtues isn’t a sign it’s healthy; toxic groups can have even more of these virtues:
Actual signs of a high-demand group being healthy:
Young me used to be confused when people asked “are you happy?” in relation to the high-demand groups I was in. How was personal happiness at all relevant to the collective mission, from which purpose derives? Later on I would meet plenty of excited members of high-demand groups, which was quite the update; there were in fact people in the “ideal” quadrant:
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