In chapter 4 of his 2014 book, Cults Inside Out, Rick Alan Ross, a much-quoted cult expert, gathers plenty of prominent professional definitions of a cult. In these numerous definition attempts the most spectacular thing is how various experts tried to keep certain authoritarian control groups out of their definition. One tried to exempt older churches by adding to his definition that a cult must have a living leader of worship. So scientology must also not be a cult, being under the second generation of leadership. The motivation is easy to understand. Just as we recognize porn on the I-know-it-when-I-see-it basis, we want to include in our definition everything we deem a cult – a pejorative term – but exclude things that are sacred or dear to us. In a way, that is what all definitions do. But our intentions are always colored by our ignorance and our personal biases. Namely that we don’t know enough about certain groups, and sometimes we know too much because we are in them and don’t want our authoritarian control group to be called a pejorative name. Many recovering cult members cry out that “nobody joins a cult“. Indeed, it is a recurring sentence in many cult documentaries, not just about NXIVM, but scientology, and the People’s Temple of Jim Jones. What they mean is that when they joined the group, they didn’t deem it a cult. A cult is a pejorative term. If someone asks you “Do you want to join my cult”, you say no. And that is why no one sells their cult as a cult. They invite you into their religion (and that is deemed respectable for some reason), their self-help group, their political movement, their MLM business, their yoga movement, or their intentional living community. That’s how they want to think about it. The same happens to cult experts, trying to keep “traditional churches” or “old religions” out of their definitions. Also, political organizations, militant groups, MLM-schemes, abusive relationships, etc. – anything they are not specialized in. The mechanism of control may be the same, but we really, really don’t want them to be a bad thing. So we neuter and over-specify our definitions until our darlings are safely out of it. In the end, Ross drops definitions that are based on the nature of the belief a cult practices. He focuses on behavior instead and adds the adjective ‘destructive’ cults to clarify where he sees the problem: when the destructive practices of the cult are intrinsic to its operation because they stem from its dogma or its canon, and when membership in the group harms the individuals. Someone can exert extreme influence over another person or group of people, but when that is not too destructive, when it is not too much against the victim’s interests, or when it is not illegal, we don’t talk about a cult – yet all the tools are there.
via mwbp