First and foremost, understand that I'm using the word cult in the objective sense, as defined by Douglas Atkin in
The Culting of Brands: When Customers Become True Believers:
"a group or movement exhibiting a great devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing. Its ideology is distinctive and it has a well-defined and committed community. It enjoys exclusive devotion (that is, not shared with another group), and its members often become voluntary advocates."
There are numerous negative connotations to 'cult' but I am ignoring those few exceptions, as cults are predominantly populated by intelligent, unique individuals who are sane and normal.
Atkin clarifies the myths by saying:
"a cult is normally a group that embraces new or fundamentally different ideas. Its ideology departs significantly from the prevailing beliefs of the surrounding culture. It is therefore progressive."
He continues with defining a sect:
"A sect tends to be retrogressive. It has separated from the establishment because of its desire to return to the fundamentals of the established religion. It believes the established religion has compromised its ideology. Hence most fundamentalist groups are sects." An example would be Bin Laden's Goal of a 13th Century Caliphate as strategy to
a global Muslim world order.
Sociologists of religion refer to cults as New Religious Movements (NRMs) and the
University of Virgina's department of Religious Movements makes it clear that
"every religion was new" at some point, as human cultures are
"constantly being renewed and invigorated" with every religion in a constant dynamic state of change.
Now the book and the purpose of this diary is to explore the definition of a cult brand in a legitimate business. It provides a method to quantify the variables of such a brand and how to employ the culting of your own brand (or NRM) to build brand loyalty in your customers (or followers).
I have taken this concept and applied it to several businesses I am involved in. These include subscription services, customer support models, collaborative engineering labs, film distribution and marketing, and IPTV multicasting networks.
Being involved in interactive media, film, as well as political theory and globalization, the book has provided a kind of social engineering guide to exploiting each market in order to convey the genuine ideas, services, and features I want to.
Ultimately I am using it to develop a sophisticated algorithm to attain Top of the Mind Awareness (TOMA) with various subsets per the different industries.
Examples of cult brands include Apple Computer, Harley Davidson, JetBlue, Mary Kay, and Saturn, with Steve Jobs as a Jesus Christ-like figure for Apple.
Douglas Atkins draws an interesting parallel between Jan Hus of Bohemia burned by the stake by the righteous Catholic Church and Napster, extinguished by the RIAA's wealth, influence over the courts, and lack of respect for our rights. Huss's successor, Martin Luther, followed a strategy employed by Kazaa and iTunes to spark the Reformation. Both Huss and Luther were fed up with the abuses of the Church who were selling indulgences (i.e. "tickets to Heaven") to finance a war in Huss's case and build St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in Luther's case. Luther managed tension better than Huss. He was radical in his ideas, but not so different from the norm as not to be able to garner support (which he did from German princes).
Like the Mormons fled persecution from New York, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, eventually ending up in the low-tension state of Utah, Kazaa fled the pending injunction in the Netherlands, was sold to a company in Australia that subsequently incorporated itself in Vanuatu, a South Pacific island tax-haven with no copyright law. This was analogous to a
"damper version of Utah", a haven from attack.
As far as political parties, both the Democrats and Republicans easily define a cult but more in the traditional sense perceived by the public and promoted by the media. That is, a more dangerous form of a cult which their members have irrational beliefs and are often incapable of seeing objectively. Their power and influence is convoluted in a mish-mash of ideas ingrained in both sides that in reality serve as a smokescreen for the true fundamental agenda that is retrogressive, as it is actively repressing the values of freedom and liberty that we cherish.
These myopic partisans are unknowingly promoting this agenda further in an ultimate irony engaged by the organizations that originated this ideology of totalitarian democracy.
Thus the fundamental ideology shared by both parties is somewhat like that of a sect, a reverse and retreat from the progressive concepts of American liberty and freedom. These rare concepts in our mostly totalitarian world are provided to us by the structure of a Republic for our form of government that guarantees the Sovereignty of each Individual as a Citizen of one of the 50 states.
The so-called 'progression' of both the Democrats and Republicans actually is constantly towards a bigger more collective form of government (and inter-government) that grants us our natural rights as civil rights (i.e. privileges) to a citizen of the U.S. Government enabled by the 14th Amendment, as opposed to a Citizen of a Sovereign state.
This 14th Amendment citizen has statutory rights granted by the Congress and is a limited form of citizenship, in direct violation of the Constitution (hence the required Amendment). As you can see a capital "C" on
Citizen over a lowercase "s" on
state implies the rights of the Citizen originate with the individual and not the state. Rather than the 14th Amendment lowercase "c"
citizen that is subject to the United States as a federal entity. Capitalization of words is important in legal definitions. These facts are referenced in
Black's Law Dictionary.
The word 'individual' and 'person' are typically synonymous with a citizen of the United States, as the legal term for person excludes the Sovereign. A true Sovereign Citizen is thus a nonresident alien in regards to the United State Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and exempt from the
jurisdiction of the Federal Government, which is explicitly limited by the Constitution to the 10 square miles of Washington D.C., federal enclaves in the states and its territories (e.g. Guam, Puero Rico, the Virgin Islands).
In my analogy extrapolating from Atkin's, it is like the 14th Amendment is the Digital Rights Managed (DRM) version of our Sovereignty where the Federal Government grants us a temporary and restrictive license to exercise our privileges as second class citizens. Those who like their music and movies free from restrictions should likewise know that the original God-given natural rights of the Citizen of the state trump that of the citizen of the United States. We as Citizens, like music, yearn to be free.
In 1885 Ex Parte. Frank Knowles (5 Cal. 300 ) stated
"in examining the form of our government it might be correctly said that there is no such thing as a citizen of the United States." That is until the 14th Amendment created the second class citizen. This is a true example of irony, where one thought every man and woman was being granted the Sovereignty of natural Citizens when in reality their rights were actually limited severely.
Hopefully the Kossacks know they are in truth Citizens of their state with the inalienable rights bestowed upon them by their creator and not by the Federal Government.
It is this kind of unique understanding amongst the unique individuals of Daily Kos that can build extreme brand loyalty while at the same time educating the public about our true rights as Sovereign Citizens of the individual 50 states.