What is a Cult? Descriptions from Cult Education Institute

There's a lot of accusations that Americans on both the political right and left are now members of "Cults." What exactly is a cult? After doing a bit of research, I found these helpful descriptions / definitions / traits of Cult Leaders and their followers from the Cult Education Institute. The following material is from the CEI webpage titled "Warning Signs":

Ten warning signs of a potentially unsafe group/leader.

  1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.
  2. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.
  3. No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement.
  4. Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.
  5. There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.
  6. Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.
  7. There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader.
  8. Followers feel they can never be "good enough".
  9. The group/leader is always right.
  10. The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

Ten warning signs regarding people involved in/with a potentially unsafe group/leader.

  1. Extreme obsessiveness regarding the group/leader resulting in the exclusion of almost every practical consideration.
  2. Individual identity, the group, the leader and/or God as distinct and separate categories of existence become increasingly blurred. Instead, in the follower's mind these identities become substantially and increasingly fused--as that person's involvement with the group/leader continues and deepens.
  3. Whenever the group/leader is criticized or questioned it is characterized as "persecution".
  4. Uncharacteristically stilted and seemingly programmed conversation and mannerisms, cloning of the group/leader in personal behavior.
  5. Dependency upon the group/leader for problem solving, solutions, and definitions without meaningful reflective thought. A seeming inability to think independently or analyze situations without group/leader involvement.
  6. Hyperactivity centered on the group/leader agenda, which seems to supercede any personal goals or individual interests.
  7. A dramatic loss of spontaneity and sense of humor.
  8. Increasing isolation from family and old friends unless they demonstrate an interest in the group/leader.
  9. Anything the group/leader does can be justified no matter how harsh or harmful.
  10. Former followers are at best-considered negative or worse evil and under bad influences. They can not be trusted and personal contact is avoided.

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The History of the Green Bean Casserole Using Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup. And what about Jello Pretzel Salad?

Green Bean Casserole is standard fare at my extended family gatherings. I've wondered how it originated, and I now know:

The Campbell’s Soup Company had its own kitchen, in Camden, New Jersey, dedicated to pumping out recipe pamphlets. A home economist named Dorcas Reilly worked at the Campbell’s kitchen, and in 1955 she successfully devised and tested the infamous green bean casserole recipe. . . . Campbell’s now estimates 40% of the Cream of Mushroom soup sold in the US goes into making green bean casserole.

A friend of mine recently offered me a "healthier alternative" to the standard recipe for green bean casserole.

Next investigation based upon a tradition in my family: Jello Pretzel Salad. Here's what I found, from an article titled: "Why strawberry pretzel salad is the queen of all Jell-O salads":

In 2018, surrounded by full plates of lettuce, it is hard for us to image that congealed sugar and flavoring could ever be considered as a salad. However, these dishes continue to be a mainstay of holiday meals, barbecues, showers and potlucks alike. We have the Jell-O corporation to personally thank for decades of congealed and molded fruits and sometimes vegetables.

BON APPÉTIT!

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Social Media is the New Version of Brain-Destroying Lead

In this Interview with Joe Rogan, Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology drew a haunting analogy.  The discussion begins at 1:24.

Throughout the 1900's, lead was increasingly used in paint, gasoline and other products.  It was hailed as a miracle substance.

What are the Health Effects of Lead? Lead can affect almost every organ and system in your body. In children six years old and younger even low levels of lead in the blood of children is poisonous. It can result in behavior and learning problems, lower IQ and hyperactivity, slowed growth and many other problems. Beginning in 1965, it took the heroic efforts by geochemist Clair Cameron Patterson (and see here) to convince the U.S. Government (over systematic misinformation from companies who profited from the sale of products using lead) that lead in the environment was dangerous to humans.

Tristan Harris argues that social media is the new lead.  Instead of brain damage, however, social media causes people to distrust each other, making it impossible for people from the opposing tribes to work with each other or compromise with each other. Social Media is thus causing a massive breakdown of our political system. The following exchange begins at 85:21):

TH: Let's replace lead with problem solving capacity . . .  Imagine that we have a societal IQ or a societal problem-solving capacity the US has a societal IQ, Russia has a societal IQ, Germany has a societal IQ:  How good is a country at solving its problems? Now imagine, what does social media do to our societal IQ?

JR: It distorts our ideas. It gives us a bunch of false narratives. It fills us with misinformation.

TH: It makes it impossible to agree with each other, and in a democracy if you don't agree with each other and you can't even do compromise . . .  People recognize that politics was invented to avoid warfare. So we have compromise and understanding so that we don't physically become violent with each other.  We have compromise and conversation.  If social media makes compromise, conversation and shared understanding and shared truth impossible, it doesn't drop our societal IQ by four points. It drops it to zero, because you can't solve any problem, whether it's human trafficking or poverty or climate issues or racial injustice. Whatever it is that you care about, it depends on us having some shared view about what we agree on.

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You Get the Political Leaders You Deserve on COVID

Ten years ago, who would have ever believed that in the middle of a pandemic that has killed as many Americans as 1,000 commercial airliners crashing and burning within a period of 8 months (each of them carrying 250 passengers), many of us would have preferred political leaders who would falsely tell us that there was not a serious pandemic and we could simply go on with our lives? In the abstract, that proposition would have been absurd, but here we are.

Here is Christopher Christakis, a voice I trust on both the medical issues and on the political landscape regarding COVID (click through to hear the short statement).

If you'd like to hear more from Christakis, listen to Making Sense podcast #222 (with Sam Harris):

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Holiday Gloom re COVID

I agree with Chris Hayes here. Cold weather + holiday parties + travel + Thanksgiving feasts + Christmas gathering would seem to be a perfect storm for COVID, especially with numbers already spiking. We were concerned about the pandemic back in March, when the rate of infections was a tiny fraction of what it is now. This is insanity.

BTW, my elderly mother and her adult children WILL have an hour-long in-person Thanksgiving celebration this year. We will meet outside at my mom's house during the "heat" of the day, spread far apart from each other on lawn chairs, eating our BYO snack and drink for about an hour. Unless it's surprisingly warm, in which case we might linger longer.

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