We've looked at the characteristics of fascism in today's Republican party, but their collective and immoral stance on Gonzales made me think of cultism. I found what appears to be a reasonably reliable source of info
here. First, a definition:
Cult (totalist type): A group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g., isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of leaving it, etc.), designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders, to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community. (West & Langone, 1986, pp. 119-120)
Here's the checklist; see what you think:
- The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
- The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
- The group is preoccupied with making money.
- Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
- Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
- The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth).
- The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).
- The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
- The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).
- The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).
- The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
- Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.
- Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group.
- Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
Hmmmm. # 1 is shaky -- unquestioning commitment to Dear Leader has wobbled over Social Security, and we know his lame duckiness is supposed to worsen over time. But in political cults, the commitment can be to an idea instead of a person, and their idea -- get rich and destroy government -- will probably remain unquestioned.
#s 2, 3, and 4 are famously true.
#5 is a yes -- think dittoheads' unceasing repetition of what Rush said, or in more exalted circles, of what the WSJ wrote.
#s 6 and 7, OMG!!!
#s 8 through 10, without question.
#s 11 through 14 -- I don't really think so, even though, like high school cliques, the membership tends to socialize only with their own kind. But maybe these factors just haven't developed yet if they are still in the beginning stages of culthood.
What do you think?