Not at all. No doubt there are true believers who want to make the world a better place, but others also want to do that, but in a different way. That might make them a target for mobs and cancellation, but not for accusations of not wanting positive social change.
It always astonishes me the degree to which “don’t be an asshole” is considered a radical position.
oh, zarzavat, of course, you are obviously correct:
it’s the people who sell “F#%K your feelings” t-shirts at rallies and wave nazi flags at “legitimate political discourse” who really care about others.
Trump: truly an empathetic person, deeply caring about others.
Assholes never like being told they are assholes. It’s unsurprising that they believe everyone else is just as mean as they are.
If you think this type of "wokeism" exists in this society in any powerful form, you are delusional. You're upset at a few people making hot takes on the internet, while the worlds powerful institutions are built upon white male supremacy.
I didn't say you were dumb or that you should be ashamed. I'm just saying such "wokeism" doesn't exist. Interesting how you see this as a personal attack.
Also I'm not representing any "group". I'm just speaking for myself. Seems like you see this as some kind of team sports?
Where did I say white males were the problem? I said the system is built upon white male supremacy, but I didn't blame anyone for it. The system is the problem, not people of any specific identity.
White male supremacy is an ideology, not an identity. Anyone can be white male supremacist, regardless of gender or race. Also, you can definitely be a white male who's not a white male supremacist.
In the US the most obvious mainstream example is republicans upholding white male supremacist laws. Of course they avoid direct language and use dog whistles instead, because saying out loud that you're a white male supremacist isn't a good look anymore. Of course the democrats do it too, but their dog whistles are more subtle and not as obvious.
Ah, yes, at all costs, we mustn’t make white dudes feel uncomfortable. That would be a disaster!
They’ve only been running things since the outset of our country, and literally using the force of law and violence to guarantee their social dominance for generations.
If we point that out, and how injustice in the past impacts the present, white dudes will feel bad, and that’s intolerable.
Edit: I am a white dude. And I don’t feel shame, I feel responsibility. Ask a German how they feel about Hitler.
This is a complex matter and it's hard to describe adequately in a single comment. In short, the USA has a very specific racial situation: black people had been slaves, and until quite recently (some HN readers may even remember that) there was racial segregation. The consequences of that are omnipresent today: black people are, on average, in a worse social situation than white people. One would hope that with time the situation would get better, but it's not happening at the speed one would hope. Also, for some reason people don't like to mix that much. Black-white marriages are not a norm - and it doesn't look like this is going to change soon. To add insult to injury, the children from mixed couples have another set of challenges: often they are made felt they don't belong to either community. The issue of race does mean a lot in individual and social contexts.
Now imagine you are living in Russia. Over centuries you were a poor peasant, always at the mercy of someone. In the end you believe all your woes will end if you join others in yet another attempt to make things right, you kill the tzar, and soon you realized you just exchanged one tyrant for another. This is going on more or less until today. Nothing here has anything to do with race. It's similar in many other countries. But Americans have the tendency to perceive everything through their own context and project it onto the whole world. It makes no sense.
Got more fictions to peddle? GOP introduced bills to make it legal to run over protestors in your car, illegal to teach about slavery, and consider the violent insurrection of Jan 6th “legitimate political discourse”.
> Defund the police: budget allocation. Spend more money on social services so police aren’t the only tool in the govt toolkit. Not controversial.
Seems quite apparent to me over the last couple years that it is indeed controversial. Perhaps there wouldn't have been protests, riots, etc. if it weren't.
Maybe people should stop using inflammatory and ambiguous words and actually bring up those points then. Taking shortcuts is not working and is just causing flamewars.
And if instead of just a throwaway two-word dig it would be a longer comment with big words and superficially logical-sounding lazy argumentation that has been debunked countless times, it would likely be upvoted.
Ironically almost every religious cult has “don’t be a jerk to people different than you” as one of it's highest precepts.
Cults operate differently - it's not what they believe, it's how they behave in the world. Not saying wokeism is a cult at all, but that religious cults often have Good Well Intentions. Precepts don't make a cult.
(A healthy religion encourages love and tolerance to those in the outgroup e.g "love your enemy")
But it's good that "people different than you" is mentioned when it comes to cults, but it's the other way around. The group is often labelled as different before it's labelled as a cult.
One way to quickly determine if something is a cult or not is if they have isolated themselves from the world, or if it's just those outside people saying "they are different from us".
Conspiracy theories are quite common in cults as it's one way for people to define an us/them idea which isolates the in group. In wokeism the theory could be that the outgroup is a conspiracy of crypto-fascist white supremacists. In trumpism the theory could be that the outgroup is a conspiracy of cultural marxist disruptors.
Almost every group has a theory about the people who are different than them. Sometimes the theory is based on some truths, but it's a theory, and a theory cannot represent the whole truth.
Often conspiracy theories as a whole are simplified explanations of reality. There may well be based on actual evidence. They are perversely comforting to hold. To know you are in a chosen group who really knows whats going on, that there is a clearly defined enemy that can be hated... That is psychologically comforting compared to not knowing whats going on in life. It's why every political group will define their enemy. It is more scary to not know why the world is what it is. Imagine a world of today where no one is responsible for the state of it! Conspiracy theories in cults increase in-group cohesion and decrease tolerance to those different from the group as those outside the group are often part of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy theories are mostly a pattern such as "we see these clear signs and occurrences in the world, therefore people in power are in a secret conspiracy to take over the world to bring in a hell on earth".
Conspiracy theories are encompassing explanations of reality too. They can explain missing facts, they can explain alternative explanations, they provide a narrative to unknowns, contradictory facts and evidence can be used to show how the conspiracy is working. It's very hard to see whether one is within the spell of a cult or a conspiracy theory when one is in the middle of one.
The best way to crack a cult member is to get them to see their in group / out group behaviour from the outside. So, "Why are you are jerk to people different than you?" is actually a really good question!
Every person I know who considers themselves “woke” is pretty regularly jerkish to everyone who they consider to be not woke…so I am not convinced your definition is entirely accurate.
At some point I think it's worth considering whether all the massive wealth of evidence that wokeism isn't that has to take effect. I don't think you can forever rely on the idea that "Those people are jerks and I'm not."
If you need to stick with "who's doing something; I want to be like them" rather than "what're the facts and beliefs involved", then surely Bill Maher regularly calling out woke mobs has to count for something.
3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and to a certain degree 9 reminds me more about certain about some anti religious groups (or even just twitter mobs) than any of the religious groups I know.
Really? Cults are extreme, and socially undesirable, entities. Companies are less extreme, and arguably socially beneficial, entities. However, both entities are use essentially the same psychological tools of manipulation.
I don't think this comment should be seen as facetious so much as an insight on how company structures control employees.
Whenever I see (ex) Google employees' comments (easy to spot, work there is usually mentioned in the very first sentence) with phrases like "Googlers", I do have a strong cult vibe.
Another example of corporate cultism are HR people exercising techniques[1] similar to cults and other dysfunctional relationships.
I think there's a difference between moderates and older styled progressives who find the woke to be regressive and conservatives that hate anything seemingly left wing.
Not nearly enough cult activity in the modern era. Waiting for something chill, ideally psychedelic, not too weird, good parties. Initiations are must.
Sign me up. I just want to live in the forest, eat mushrooms, and occasionally dance naked around a fire under the light of the full moon. Is that to much to ask for?
Many questions are subjective. This kind of invalidate the whole test.. :>
- Does your leader have impressive, made-up names or titles?
- Is your group suspicious about the outside world?
- If you were to leave your religious group, would remaining members, even family members separate themselves from you whereby there would be any emotional detachment?
- If you were to leave your religious group, would remaining members separate themselves from you and cease to have normal family life as in any of the above examples?
I'll be shot down for this, but Musk and his followers seem to fit the bill here. A supreme leader with otherwordly powers, who can't be criticized (as when people cheered him on after the Unsworth trial), who can cause harm to people with impunity because he can do no wrong, and so on.
It's all about him, and he is the only path to breakthrough technology. The Muskovites seem significantly cult-like in this way.
Cults are generally classified by those outside the organisation. (_points_ "That is a cult!"). But this very classification helps to reinforce any us/them ingroup/outgroup behaviours which we see actual cults doing ("Don't trust those outside, only trust the ingroup"). Real cults isolate and the isolation increases with attack from outside. A cultish group that is not attacked may not actually radicalise.
This is also a way to determine whether a group of people that has been labelled a cult isn't actually one: Look at how the group defines itself with regards to those outside. How does the group see itself in the world.
We see today many groups labelled as cults which in reality are not so. The label has become a kind of strategy for attack based on an intolerant difference ("they are different") rather than an accurate descriptive label ("they isolate themselves from us"). Tolerance in a society is tolerance towards difference.
They may not radicalize into a Waco Siege situation, but they will likely continue to rob numerous naive members of their money, livelihood, and their children’s opportunities.
The second half of the questions looks accurate, especially around emotional manipulation, but the first half is dubious.
A lot of benign organizations would score some points, from firefighters (wearing an uniform) to a bunch of friends playing D&D, to taking beginner painting class (the teacher is not there to be questioned on their painting sytle).
I believe that Steven Hassan's BITE model is the gold-standard diagnostic here. The guy is an ex-moonie and has authored books that have helped people escape cults. Survivor communities like /r/exjw on Reddit speak highly of his stuff: https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/
I read all of this and it reminds me of the response to COVID.
Ultimate authorities, no critical thinking, only believe approved sources, those who don't believe the authority are "deceived, backslidden, demonic, bitter, evil", the end of the world is near if you don't do as we say, they are always right even when they are wrong, family separation...
I genuinely don't understand this quiz. The very first question starts out by saying that cults have leaders, and then asking "Is your leader the ultimate authority of your group?"
What leader? What group? How do I answer "Not applicable" or anything other than confirming that I'm in a cult already. Isn't this just begging the question?
All the questions are like this. How am I supposed to know if I'm in a cult if all the questions presuppose that I'm already in one?
I have just been reading "Days of Rain" by Rebecca Stott, about her upbringing, and that of her father, in the Exclusive Brethren. This author covers all the same points and, yes, he has a book about his experience in, and leaving, the Brethren. For her, and I assume for him, in was tragically painful.
The thing that really got me angry about the Brethren is the sheer hypocrisy. For all the talk of morality and being right with God, they are not above having $millions stashed away in bank accounts for the benefit of their leaders, evade taxes everywhere, and carry on regardless of the psychological suffering they cause, even up to the point of suicide.
Look out for them influencing your politicians too. Here in the UK, they'll provide large numbers of volunteers to do the door-to-door canvassing for (normally Conservative)
candidates who'll advocate for their shady practices.
Edit: for clarity, I should say that the Open Brethren are a separate arm and are a far more bona fide Christian denomination.
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[ 24.4 ms ] story [ 2886 ms ] threadoh, zarzavat, of course, you are obviously correct:
it’s the people who sell “F#%K your feelings” t-shirts at rallies and wave nazi flags at “legitimate political discourse” who really care about others.
Trump: truly an empathetic person, deeply caring about others.
Assholes never like being told they are assholes. It’s unsurprising that they believe everyone else is just as mean as they are.
That is not what wokeism means.
Wokeism is about
- making boys and men feel shameful for being boys and men
- making white people feel shameful for being white
- and other such things.
What you talk about is not something that any reasonable HNer would call wokeism.
This is lited almost straight from the article isn't it?
"If you disagree with our group you are dumb."
> while the worlds powerful institutions are built upon white male supremacy.
See what I wrote above about trying to make people ashamed to be born white or male.
Also I'm not representing any "group". I'm just speaking for myself. Seems like you see this as some kind of team sports?
You did say that white males where the root of the problem.
I am a white male.
White male supremacy is an ideology, not an identity. Anyone can be white male supremacist, regardless of gender or race. Also, you can definitely be a white male who's not a white male supremacist.
So where do these have their meetups?
Where can I find contemporary writings that explain the superiority of white males?
In the US the most obvious mainstream example is republicans upholding white male supremacist laws. Of course they avoid direct language and use dog whistles instead, because saying out loud that you're a white male supremacist isn't a good look anymore. Of course the democrats do it too, but their dog whistles are more subtle and not as obvious.
> You did say that white males where the root of the problem.
Are you now moving the goalpost?
Almost no HNer has anything approaching a reasonable, good-faith or even well-informed opinion on "wokeism" to begin with.
Maybe it has just taken a meaning unrelated to the original meaning, just like "evangelical".
But I am afraid that just like evangelical, woke has been tainted beyond repair.
They’ve only been running things since the outset of our country, and literally using the force of law and violence to guarantee their social dominance for generations.
If we point that out, and how injustice in the past impacts the present, white dudes will feel bad, and that’s intolerable.
Edit: I am a white dude. And I don’t feel shame, I feel responsibility. Ask a German how they feel about Hitler.
Now imagine you are living in Russia. Over centuries you were a poor peasant, always at the mercy of someone. In the end you believe all your woes will end if you join others in yet another attempt to make things right, you kill the tzar, and soon you realized you just exchanged one tyrant for another. This is going on more or less until today. Nothing here has anything to do with race. It's similar in many other countries. But Americans have the tendency to perceive everything through their own context and project it onto the whole world. It makes no sense.
The specifics differ, but the general themes are the same.
> And I don’t feel shame, I feel responsibility.
This is spot on. There is nothing to feel ashamed or guilty.
If anything, people can feel GOOD about creating a world where people are judged for their actions rather than attributes they have no control over.
- inventing pronouns and demand people use them
- modern cancel culture
- probably a few more
Pronouns: White people used to call black people terrible things too. Things change.
Cancel culture is a moral panic like the satanic panic and strangers with candy kidnapping. https://kottke.org/22/02/cancel-culture-is-a-moral-panic
Got more fictions to peddle? GOP introduced bills to make it legal to run over protestors in your car, illegal to teach about slavery, and consider the violent insurrection of Jan 6th “legitimate political discourse”.
Seems quite apparent to me over the last couple years that it is indeed controversial. Perhaps there wouldn't have been protests, riots, etc. if it weren't.
That some folks consider it to be speaks more about them than anything else.
Here's some feedback on how that woke initiative is going: https://joemiller.us/2021/12/chicago-mayor-who-pushed-80m-de...
None of these things are even remotely true, therefore wokeism (by your definition) can be dismissed as nonsense.
It is used to play the strategic ambiguity game.
Where what one means when they say it is never the same as what it means when they are asked to explain what they mean.
And if instead of just a throwaway two-word dig it would be a longer comment with big words and superficially logical-sounding lazy argumentation that has been debunked countless times, it would likely be upvoted.
Cults operate differently - it's not what they believe, it's how they behave in the world. Not saying wokeism is a cult at all, but that religious cults often have Good Well Intentions. Precepts don't make a cult.
(A healthy religion encourages love and tolerance to those in the outgroup e.g "love your enemy")
But it's good that "people different than you" is mentioned when it comes to cults, but it's the other way around. The group is often labelled as different before it's labelled as a cult.
One way to quickly determine if something is a cult or not is if they have isolated themselves from the world, or if it's just those outside people saying "they are different from us".
Conspiracy theories are quite common in cults as it's one way for people to define an us/them idea which isolates the in group. In wokeism the theory could be that the outgroup is a conspiracy of crypto-fascist white supremacists. In trumpism the theory could be that the outgroup is a conspiracy of cultural marxist disruptors.
Confederate history month still exists in a bunch of states.
Have you seen the nazi flags at trump rallies? Jan 6th?
Often conspiracy theories as a whole are simplified explanations of reality. There may well be based on actual evidence. They are perversely comforting to hold. To know you are in a chosen group who really knows whats going on, that there is a clearly defined enemy that can be hated... That is psychologically comforting compared to not knowing whats going on in life. It's why every political group will define their enemy. It is more scary to not know why the world is what it is. Imagine a world of today where no one is responsible for the state of it! Conspiracy theories in cults increase in-group cohesion and decrease tolerance to those different from the group as those outside the group are often part of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy theories are mostly a pattern such as "we see these clear signs and occurrences in the world, therefore people in power are in a secret conspiracy to take over the world to bring in a hell on earth".
Conspiracy theories are encompassing explanations of reality too. They can explain missing facts, they can explain alternative explanations, they provide a narrative to unknowns, contradictory facts and evidence can be used to show how the conspiracy is working. It's very hard to see whether one is within the spell of a cult or a conspiracy theory when one is in the middle of one.
The best way to crack a cult member is to get them to see their in group / out group behaviour from the outside. So, "Why are you are jerk to people different than you?" is actually a really good question!
The increasing use of that idea to deny the obvious is troubling and not something that that should be celebrated.
If you need to stick with "who's doing something; I want to be like them" rather than "what're the facts and beliefs involved", then surely Bill Maher regularly calling out woke mobs has to count for something.
(I admit I might be lucky here.)
https://www.themarysue.com/warhammer-40k-fandom-fascism/
There isn’t much daylight between an ironic nazi and a real one.
What about Wokeism?
People usually think "we are not cultish because this is not a religion".
Such denial is the most cultish aspect around coporate workship and nationalism.
Yes. Selected by, and sole connection to the mythical group "board".
> Does your leader have impressive, made-up names or titles?
Yes. "Chief Executive Officer".
> As far as your group is concerned, would they say that there is no legitimate reason to leave them?
Yes... if ever trying to leave, you are technically bribed with something that you cannot use in stores or pay rent. They call it "equity".
> Is your group suspicious about the outside world?
Yes. Always this talk about how the outside world is "the competition". Sometimes "the users.
> Does your group believe that they are the ‘right’ religion/church/group/ones, or only ones, who have ‘right’ teaching/doctrine?
Yes. "The competition" is wrong.
> Are there any of the above such rules/laws in your group?
Yes. Rules are in "the handbook".
...
/S
Dont question the mandatory dress code
Really? Cults are extreme, and socially undesirable, entities. Companies are less extreme, and arguably socially beneficial, entities. However, both entities are use essentially the same psychological tools of manipulation.
I don't think this comment should be seen as facetious so much as an insight on how company structures control employees.
Another example of corporate cultism are HR people exercising techniques[1] similar to cults and other dysfunctional relationships.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing
That’s a huge stretch or assumption.
Hardcore racist groups certainly do though.
This isn't what I've observed. I'm sure there are such groups that don't though.
- Does your leader have impressive, made-up names or titles?
- Is your group suspicious about the outside world?
- If you were to leave your religious group, would remaining members, even family members separate themselves from you whereby there would be any emotional detachment?
- If you were to leave your religious group, would remaining members separate themselves from you and cease to have normal family life as in any of the above examples?
It's all about him, and he is the only path to breakthrough technology. The Muskovites seem significantly cult-like in this way.
This is also a way to determine whether a group of people that has been labelled a cult isn't actually one: Look at how the group defines itself with regards to those outside. How does the group see itself in the world.
We see today many groups labelled as cults which in reality are not so. The label has become a kind of strategy for attack based on an intolerant difference ("they are different") rather than an accurate descriptive label ("they isolate themselves from us"). Tolerance in a society is tolerance towards difference.
A lot of benign organizations would score some points, from firefighters (wearing an uniform) to a bunch of friends playing D&D, to taking beginner painting class (the teacher is not there to be questioned on their painting sytle).
Ultimate authorities, no critical thinking, only believe approved sources, those who don't believe the authority are "deceived, backslidden, demonic, bitter, evil", the end of the world is near if you don't do as we say, they are always right even when they are wrong, family separation...
What leader? What group? How do I answer "Not applicable" or anything other than confirming that I'm in a cult already. Isn't this just begging the question?
All the questions are like this. How am I supposed to know if I'm in a cult if all the questions presuppose that I'm already in one?
The thing that really got me angry about the Brethren is the sheer hypocrisy. For all the talk of morality and being right with God, they are not above having $millions stashed away in bank accounts for the benefit of their leaders, evade taxes everywhere, and carry on regardless of the psychological suffering they cause, even up to the point of suicide.
Look out for them influencing your politicians too. Here in the UK, they'll provide large numbers of volunteers to do the door-to-door canvassing for (normally Conservative) candidates who'll advocate for their shady practices.
Edit: for clarity, I should say that the Open Brethren are a separate arm and are a far more bona fide Christian denomination.
Why, yes; yes, we are. Whiff of nihilism in the air, and all.