The Decentralized, Secular, and Social Cults
I think one of the big things that prevents people from realizing a controlling social environment is unhealthy is because since it is not religious they do not ever think to attribute certain controlling red flags... unless they are already hyper aware of these traits from the start and know to avoid them. It's something I caught onto very quickly when I saw these pocket Good Think Groups and Moralistic Social Champions start to rise around 2013, and something I noticed that those without a controlling religious background, never caught onto. So I'm going to try to tie together these things because I think recognizing the similarities can both help people get out of one they may be in, avoid one where they see it, or heal from the damage caused by one.
http://web.archive.org/web/20161103231012/https://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_q0.html
First of all, this is a very handy questionnaire that is useful for examining if a group you've been a part of, could be a cult, and this applies to things that are more than just Religious Cults and I think could be used to help people identify and get out of Social Cults.
One of the biggest differences between the Social Cult and the Religious Cult, is that you don't always have a singular guru figure. Sometimes there might be multiple group figure heads, often cults of personality working together, or a sort of decentralized collective that cooperatively decides on group 'law'. That and you can have some influential members in the group that aren't explicitly leaders but can have the same sway when push comes to shove. Because they don't have a clear singular figurehead that's the first thing that may falsely put a person at ease.
A lot of social cults in this day also have decentralized dogma. It's a strange amalgamation of conservative ideologies, religious doomsaying, and moral upstanding. A copy that gets repeated over and over that itself, has no true singular source material, a stand alone complex of dogma. This is also what makes it difficult to see a social cult for what it is, you get pulled into a false sense of security, again, that because it doesn't have concrete religious text it's 'safe' and not the same. If anything this sort of malleable set of rules and ideology makes it even more dangerous, as this means the rules can change for you at any time, if any one influential person can sound convincing enough at the time.
Once you get past the things that are a little different from religious cults, you'll notice everything else is almost uncanny.
The inability to question ideologies without punishment, to interact with anyone deemed 'outside' the enlightened group save for 'proselytizing' or converting, to hold influential members accountable for their wrong-doing even if it was in direct opposition to these ideologies, to admit any group infallibility at all, or leave without backlash. All these things are hallmarks of dangerous, controlling cults, and because of their similarities to religious cults, maybe the help people need, lies in the resources used by those that get out of religious cults.
I've linked the Theramin Trees video once before but now I'd like to turn attention to the whole body of video essays.
https://www.youtube.com/c/TheraminTrees/videos
Most of them deal in either religious abuse or narcissistic abuse, but ultimately there are all themes of confronting and decoupling forms of outside control on an individual. (Also, it would not be surprising if some of the influencers in your social cults had narcissistic and other abusive traits, in which case many of the videos on abusers may be helpful in reconciling the abuse you may have had at the hands of these people when in those Social Cults.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx4GvzjRMx8
Such as this video on Tribalism, which highlights the problems and practices of Othering, a common trait in Social Cults.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opx8iDvR_nU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL4l9qOn_xM
If you were in a Social Cult with influential social figures that seemed to be deemed as group leaders or appoint themselves as capable of seeing the Bad Stuff that others could not, these videos on debunking prophets may be helpful in untangling that behavior and it's effect on you.
I'm not going to list all the videos, you can see for yourself what applies to you and your insight. But if you replace all the mentions of religion with social groups or ideologies, it goes to show how dangerous social cults can be. And that approaching the damage done by them as you would damage done by a religious group, may be the best way to confront it.
http://web.archive.org/web/20161103231012/https://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_q0.html
First of all, this is a very handy questionnaire that is useful for examining if a group you've been a part of, could be a cult, and this applies to things that are more than just Religious Cults and I think could be used to help people identify and get out of Social Cults.
One of the biggest differences between the Social Cult and the Religious Cult, is that you don't always have a singular guru figure. Sometimes there might be multiple group figure heads, often cults of personality working together, or a sort of decentralized collective that cooperatively decides on group 'law'. That and you can have some influential members in the group that aren't explicitly leaders but can have the same sway when push comes to shove. Because they don't have a clear singular figurehead that's the first thing that may falsely put a person at ease.
A lot of social cults in this day also have decentralized dogma. It's a strange amalgamation of conservative ideologies, religious doomsaying, and moral upstanding. A copy that gets repeated over and over that itself, has no true singular source material, a stand alone complex of dogma. This is also what makes it difficult to see a social cult for what it is, you get pulled into a false sense of security, again, that because it doesn't have concrete religious text it's 'safe' and not the same. If anything this sort of malleable set of rules and ideology makes it even more dangerous, as this means the rules can change for you at any time, if any one influential person can sound convincing enough at the time.
Once you get past the things that are a little different from religious cults, you'll notice everything else is almost uncanny.
The inability to question ideologies without punishment, to interact with anyone deemed 'outside' the enlightened group save for 'proselytizing' or converting, to hold influential members accountable for their wrong-doing even if it was in direct opposition to these ideologies, to admit any group infallibility at all, or leave without backlash. All these things are hallmarks of dangerous, controlling cults, and because of their similarities to religious cults, maybe the help people need, lies in the resources used by those that get out of religious cults.
I've linked the Theramin Trees video once before but now I'd like to turn attention to the whole body of video essays.
https://www.youtube.com/c/TheraminTrees/videos
Most of them deal in either religious abuse or narcissistic abuse, but ultimately there are all themes of confronting and decoupling forms of outside control on an individual. (Also, it would not be surprising if some of the influencers in your social cults had narcissistic and other abusive traits, in which case many of the videos on abusers may be helpful in reconciling the abuse you may have had at the hands of these people when in those Social Cults.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx4GvzjRMx8
Such as this video on Tribalism, which highlights the problems and practices of Othering, a common trait in Social Cults.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opx8iDvR_nU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL4l9qOn_xM
If you were in a Social Cult with influential social figures that seemed to be deemed as group leaders or appoint themselves as capable of seeing the Bad Stuff that others could not, these videos on debunking prophets may be helpful in untangling that behavior and it's effect on you.
I'm not going to list all the videos, you can see for yourself what applies to you and your insight. But if you replace all the mentions of religion with social groups or ideologies, it goes to show how dangerous social cults can be. And that approaching the damage done by them as you would damage done by a religious group, may be the best way to confront it.