I want the world to go away

[discouroborose]

i don’t follow sports so question, have any female professional athletes actually complained about competing against trans women? especially boxers/MMA fighters/etc, since they’re the ones who get brought up the most, have any of them been like “this isn’t fair, why are you letting men hit me?” 

is that like…a thing that has happened, or is it just transphobes white-knighting them the same way people who aren’t veterans complain that kneeling during the national anthem is offensive to veterans. 

i know this post is phrased in a snarky way but it is actually a legitimate question, i want to know if this is a thing that happens. 

[yourfaveisaflawedhumanbeing]

Ronda Rousey: 'I don't think it's fair' transgender fighter Fallon Fox faces women

Woman lifter beaten by transgender speaks up

I don’t follow sports either, these are just a couple of incidences that I remember reading about. But ultimately, I don’t think it really matters what a couple of people with no scientific training think about it. What matters is what the science says. Unfortunately, both sides are motivated by their political opinions, so I don’t know how easy it is to find the truth underneath all of the ideology.

[languageramblings]

(more) random french phrases and expressions i’ve picked up from marathoning french tv shows all night

continuation of this post

tu veux parier ? = wanna bet? 

moi, c'est [nom] = i’m [name]

tout aussi bien = just as well / just as good

se mettre en colère = to get angry

qu'est-ce qui t'arrive ? = what’s the matter ?

faire l'affaire = to do the trick / to fit the purpose

bien joué = well played

en quoi puis-je vous être utile ? = how may i help you? / what can i do for you?

c'est à moi = it’s mine 

trou perdu = middle of nowhere

je regrette = i am sorry / i regret

en vrai = for real

mes gamins = my kids

on se débrouillera = we’ll manage / we’ll take care of things

[tamhonksss]

This website is so bad for your mental health.

I think I might have mentioned this several times before but I’ll talk about it again. Someone who has a supposedly normal worldview can easily be turned into a paranoid mess who over analyzes the hell out of anything just so they have a sense of being “aware” about social issues. If you don’t nitpick at everything and cry sexism, racism, ableism, or any -ism possible, then you’re not “aware” or ~**~*~educated~***~**~* enough. Anyone who isn’t like that is ostracized until they can make themselves aware under Tumblr’s standards. 

The frequent posts about how women should fear men, how all white people must have a vendetta against “poc”, or how anyone ‘oppressed’ should just be skeptical about anyone ‘privileged’ makes it worse. The more you see these posts, the more you start to believe them. It ultimately fucks with your self esteem and makes you miserable. 

It’s funny because people on here like to talk about being empowered. I don’t see empowerment anywhere; it quite the opposite actually. There’s nothing empowering about constant paranoia and isolating yourself from people who think differently. 

[teopinions]

Tumblr is a cult.  It operates much the same way any cult does, and the damage it does is also comparable.  Ever notice how almost every cult or reactionary movement lures people in with an appeal to some sense of unique hyper-awareness?  “Look at you, surrounded by a sea of ignorant sheeple, but you, you alone are special.  You alone understand.“  Human psychology is designed to lap that shit up, and so everyone from cults to paranoid 9/11 truthers do it because it works.  Tumblr does it too; we just call it “woke” instead of “redpilled.”

From there, that usually gets reinforced through Skinner box-like conditioning the deeper into the movement you get.  Scientology is so hugely successful because they just straight up attached MMO statistics to what level Clear you are, thus cornering the market on religiously suggestible people who love watching stat bars go up.

The problem in Tumblr’s case is that there is direct harm and serious mental damage being inflicted as your ~awareness~ goes up.  Tumblr tells groups they are oppressed, that they can never get into STEM fields or earn an equal paycheck, that they can’t even check their mail or take their garbage out to the curb without their keys between their knuckles and 911 on speed dial just in case.  Tumblr, by doing its best impression of Mother Gothel from Tangled, does more to keep women in the kitchen than The Patriarchy ever could.

I know people whose lives have been ruined by this site.  Most of them now struggle with various combinations of white guilt, male guilt, etc. and a newfound inability to go a single day without worrying about how ~problematic~ everything they see, hear, and experience is.  I can’t remember the last time any of them were happy.  This is what happens when you level up in any cult, but especially this one.

Please, whoever may be reading this, please think for yourself, Google any outrageous claims you hear to make sure they’re actually true and you have the whole story before you react, and make careful, informed decisions about the issues.  There’s nothing wrong with seeing some moral outrage post on Tumblr, looking it up, looking into it, and deciding that yeah, you agree, that is pretty fucked up.  There’s also nothing wrong with seeing some moral outrage post on Tumblr, looking it up, looking into it, and deciding that no, this post is wrong.  Take things case by case and follow your conscience.  And if taking a stand on something gets you any heat?  If Tumblr anons reject you for what you believe?  Good.  That means you dodged the bullet that would have happened had you actually fallen deeper in with that crowd, as explained above.  It means you’re free.

[yourfaveisaflawedhumanbeing]

I fell out with a group of SJW friends because I shared an article on Facebook that fact-checked a BLM meme. The conclusions of the article still supported BLM, but it noted that the meme made some exaggerated claims. So these SJW friends (all white people) jumped down my throat, saying that it wasn't our place as white people to fact-check claims like that. And I just think... How are you supposed to prioritize which social issues to campaign on, if you have no sense of proportion? If you don't know which societal problems have the biggest impact? It's so unhealthy to be catastrophising over every social ill - in this example, white people needlessly obsess with their guilt and become paralyzed by it, and black people are terrified to go outside, on a scale that's out of proportion to reality. Honestly, my mental health is much better now that I'm not a part of that community. I'm not questioning whether I should kill myself because the world is better off without white people, and I'm not convinced that my life is doomed to misery because I'm oppressed by the patriarchy.

[yourfaveisaflawedhumanbeing]

OpenMind is a free, data-driven platform that prepares users emotionally, psychologically, and practically for engagement across differences. The platform serves as a catalyst for the ongoing face-to-face dialogues that are essential for healing our nation’s divisions and depolarizing college campuses. OpenMind provides universities and other communities with a shared language to help individuals work through differences in a constructive manner.

I’ve been following the work of Heterodox Academy for a little while, and was disappointed when the Viewpoint Diversity Experience disappeared from their website. Turns out that they’ve just moved it to a different website (and app), under the name “OpenMind”.

It’s no secret by now that universities are full of students trying to shut down free speech, and OpenMind tries to address that issue by fostering tolerance for different political opinions. But I think most of those students are beyond saving (at least at this point in their lives, anyway). I actually think OpenMind is valuable because the rest of us suffer from exactly the same intolerance towards differing viewpoints, and the same lack of intellectual curiosity and open-mindedness (I include myself in that statement). I think we can all use projects like this, and I’m excited to make my way through the reading list

[myragewillendworlds]

One of my gripes with vegans is that they’ve already decided veganism is the only solution, and they will twist around their argument constantly so they can continue to assert that.

Many claim veganism is about ending the killing of animals for the benefit of humans. So you show them how animals still die in the process of growing their own diet as well, making their argument rather useless and hypocritical, and how it can never be fully prevented that animals will die.

Actually, they’ll say, it’s about eliminating the unnecessary suffering of animals, to lessen the harm we cause. So you argue that we could still consume meat without those animals experiencing any pain.

That’s not enough, they’ll say, because veganism is actually about the rights of animals. Animals deserve to live freely, free from the exploitation of humans. So you show them how humans and domesticated animals share a more symbiotic rather than an exploitative relationship, and how they wouldn’t be able to live independently of humans.

That doesn’t matter, they’ll say, because really veganism is about the environment. The keeping of animals is bad for the environment and always will be. So if there can be ways we can lessen or even eliminate that problem as well without giving up a diet involving animal products, what will veganism be about next?

Ultimately, I find that people’s true reason for veganism tends to boil down to a very subjective “animals are cute and eating them is evil.” Which is why they’re so disinterested in finding solutions that could still allow for the consumption of animal products, because they take personal issue with that idea in and of itself.

[yourfaveisaflawedhumanbeing]

I think you’re right that vegans will hop from one line of argument to the next, but I don’t think it’s necessarily down to the “animals are cute” thing (although that might be part of it). I think it’s more about the psychology of belonging to an identity group.

I see this in myself, both when I became an SJW and later when I became a vegan. Both initially started out for good reasons, and I would have been horrified if I’d known about the extremists in those groups. But gradually, because my identity was tied up with the ideology of the groups, I became more and more extreme in my beliefs, and less and less rational in my arguments. (I think Alicen Grey writes about it very eloquently in two of her blog posts, “ Today’s my veganniversary, and I’m eating an egg right now.” and “ Why do so many cults promote vegetarianism?”)

That said, I don’t believe that there are more ethical alternatives to veganism right now - not until lab-grown meat comes along, at least. There are almost seven and a half billion people in the world, and we all want to eat meat every single day with every single meal. There’s no possible way to meet that demand that doesn’t require factory farming and production line style slaughterhouses. And sure, I think that any act of reducing animal consumption is better than nothing - whether it’s only eliminating the worst types of meat or just generally reducing one’s intake - but veganism has a bigger impact than any other solution that I’m aware of.

There are some non-dogmatic vegans out there, it’s just hard to find them in the sea of cultic vegans. Peter Singer, for example (I remember when I was in the height of my vegan SJW craziness, and the “anti-speciesist women” group I was part of absolutely hated him - he must be doing something right, then!). There’s also Unnatural Vegan (who, again, has been attacked by dogmatic vegans for, among other things, criticising intersectionality). I think The Animalist also does a great job of promoting a non-dogmatic veganism.

I realise I’ve written a mini-essay here, and dumped loads of links on you that you might not be interested in. It’s just that I hate the fact that the loud-mouthed, illogical vegans have dominated the conversation so much that nobody is even aware that there are logical vegans, and I want to try to balance that perception.

[myragewillendworlds]

You’re kind of using veganism and vegetarianism interchangeably here, though there is quite a difference. Veganism isn’t just about not eating meat after all, it’s about not using any animal products whatsoever. It’s the necessity for that extremity I’m questioning. The logic they provide for it is all over the place, when ultimately the reasons behind it aren’t purely logical. The identity angle may have a lot to do with that as well.

The main flaw in veganism isn’t even whether or not it is the most ethical solution. It’s that it denies the reality as it is. It tells humans who naturally desire and need animal products that they’ll just have to turn off their instincts and change in a way that’s not natural for them. It’s not going to happen. Veganism or vegetarianism may or may not be an ideal solution in theory, but if it’s not a realistically achievable one, it’s not a solution at all. Then it’s just a fantasy. That’s the issue with most vegans. It’s either this solution, or nothing at all. They aren’t willing to accept that the majority of people simply crave meat (and fish, eggs, dairy, etc.) and find a solution that incorporates that reality. It may not be a perfect solution, but it’d be a working one.

They also tend to all-or-nothing thinking where it’s never good enough unless you’re 100% vegan. Again, unrealistic. They tell people that they’re evil for their omnivorous choices, and wonder why people can’t just see how evil they’re being? But most average people don’t consider themselves to be “evil,” nor like being called so. They care about others and help out when someone asks, they give to charity sometimes, they don’t litter, they recycle their garbage. So when a vegan comes along and shouts that they’re “evil” and they’re “ruining the planet,” that message completely misses its target. It fails to understand how people work.

Instead, they’ll just shout from the sideline and act high-and-mighty that at least they aren’t the ones ruining the planet, it’s everyone else, which is why veganism looks to be more about feeling morally superior, and less about genuinely wanting to better the environment.

[yourfaveisaflawedhumanbeing]

I think what you’ve said here is interesting, because it goes far beyond veganism and into a broader philosophical argument. I think you’re probably right that we’ll never live in a world where animal farming (or even animal abuse) is eradicated. Maybe we’ll also never live in a world without poverty, environmental destruction, etc. So the question becomes “how much should we care about these things, if they’ll always exist and we’re ultimately powerless to stop them?” I don’t have the answer to that. 

What are the other, more realistic solutions to factory farming? The only one I can think of, that doesn’t suffer from the same problem that you’ve identified with veganism, is growing meat from cell cultures. 

Some of your other criticisms sound more like criticisms of the vegan community rather than veganism itself, which I agree with.

[horseman-bojack]

[transsexual-activist-deactivate]

Some of you need to realize that sometimes someone being anti-feminist really does mean they are sexist, both towards women and men. Don’t assume someone dislikes feminism for the same reason as you.

I remember watching this documentary or something on tv forever ago where some woman said she didn’t like the “things” feminism was doing to her country because she saw a man carrying a baby in one of those things where your kid is strapped to your chest or something

Like, bitch, I am sorry a man enjoying fatherhood and bonding with his baby child offended your socially conservative sensibilities

[myragewillendworlds]

This is why people should not treat anti-X things as a community. Your only common interest is being against something; the reasons why may differ wildly. People may be anti-feminist for hating what the movement turned into and desiring genuine equality, or just because they’re raging misogynists.

This is why anti-SJW and anti-feminism so quickly turn into hateful shit groups. The genuinely hateful types see these groups and think “finally, an outlet for all my hate.”

Also why I don’t automatically agree with everyone who’s against Islam. I am against organized religion in general and want to see them abandon this ideology. Others are just plain racists or hate religions that aren’t their own.

[myragewillendworlds]

One of my gripes with vegans is that they’ve already decided veganism is the only solution, and they will twist around their argument constantly so they can continue to assert that.

Many claim veganism is about ending the killing of animals for the benefit of humans. So you show them how animals still die in the process of growing their own diet as well, making their argument rather useless and hypocritical, and how it can never be fully prevented that animals will die.

Actually, they’ll say, it’s about eliminating the unnecessary suffering of animals, to lessen the harm we cause. So you argue that we could still consume meat without those animals experiencing any pain.

That’s not enough, they’ll say, because veganism is actually about the rights of animals. Animals deserve to live freely, free from the exploitation of humans. So you show them how humans and domesticated animals share a more symbiotic rather than an exploitative relationship, and how they wouldn’t be able to live independently of humans.

That doesn’t matter, they’ll say, because really veganism is about the environment. The keeping of animals is bad for the environment and always will be. So if there can be ways we can lessen or even eliminate that problem as well without giving up a diet involving animal products, what will veganism be about next?

Ultimately, I find that people’s true reason for veganism tends to boil down to a very subjective “animals are cute and eating them is evil.” Which is why they’re so disinterested in finding solutions that could still allow for the consumption of animal products, because they take personal issue with that idea in and of itself.

[yourfaveisaflawedhumanbeing]

I think you’re right that vegans will hop from one line of argument to the next, but I don’t think it’s necessarily down to the “animals are cute” thing (although that might be part of it). I think it’s more about the psychology of belonging to an identity group.

I see this in myself, both when I became an SJW and later when I became a vegan. Both initially started out for good reasons, and I would have been horrified if I’d known about the extremists in those groups. But gradually, because my identity was tied up with the ideology of the groups, I became more and more extreme in my beliefs, and less and less rational in my arguments. (I think Alicen Grey writes about it very eloquently in two of her blog posts, “ Today’s my veganniversary, and I’m eating an egg right now.” and “ Why do so many cults promote vegetarianism?”)

That said, I don’t believe that there are more ethical alternatives to veganism right now - not until lab-grown meat comes along, at least. There are almost seven and a half billion people in the world, and we all want to eat meat every single day with every single meal. There’s no possible way to meet that demand that doesn’t require factory farming and production line style slaughterhouses. And sure, I think that any act of reducing animal consumption is better than nothing - whether it’s only eliminating the worst types of meat or just generally reducing one’s intake - but veganism has a bigger impact than any other solution that I’m aware of.

There are some non-dogmatic vegans out there, it’s just hard to find them in the sea of cultic vegans. Peter Singer, for example (I remember when I was in the height of my vegan SJW craziness, and the “anti-speciesist women” group I was part of absolutely hated him - he must be doing something right, then!). There’s also Unnatural Vegan (who, again, has been attacked by dogmatic vegans for, among other things, criticising intersectionality). I think The Animalist also does a great job of promoting a non-dogmatic veganism.

I realise I’ve written a mini-essay here, and dumped loads of links on you that you might not be interested in. It’s just that I hate the fact that the loud-mouthed, illogical vegans have dominated the conversation so much that nobody is even aware that there are logical vegans, and I want to try to balance that perception.

[reasonandempathy]

“You can’t be racist to white people!”

You’re right.  But.

That is only one of the sociological definitions of [x]ism (let’s stick with race).  You’re pretty much explicitly describing ideological racism.

You’ll note that even this definition has a qualifier.  But in reality it’s only one of a variety of definitions of racism in sociology.  As you might expect, even within the generalized field of “sociology” people disagree with that definition.

The sociological definitions are stipulative definitions, ones that only hold true in some contexts and is false in others.  When you’re discussing society as a whole, institutions of power, and history you’re probably right.

But outside of that context, like when you’re dealing with individuals, the general definition of racism applies.

Notice that this isn’t referring to power structures, societies, or anything of the sort.  This is referring to the individual, which is within the realm of Psychology, not sociology.  The sociological definition doesn’t apply.

Since we’re not using universal definitions, let’s go with the Psychological definition of racism.  For the uninitiated, Sociology is the “child” of psychology, the same that physics is the “child” of math.  Sociology can talk about topics and discover things that psychology doesn’t focus on or deal with, but it cannot directly contradict it.  Sociology is a manifestation of Psychology, not an equal to.

If you want to make the statement that “white people don’t experience institutional barriers due to their race in the USA” then you’re right.  If you want to make the case that “black people cannot hold a belief or prejudice against white people based on their race” then you are demonstrably wrong.  It is entirely possible to be racist to white people.

You’re using the wrong words.  And, frankly, the way I see this phrase bantered about leads me with little more than the sense that people saying this, and things like it, are doing nothing other than assuaging their own guilt and denying the fact that they are horrible, vile, and racist/sexist/etc. people.

[yourfaveisaflawedhumanbeing]

I think the reason SJWs use a sociological definition of racism even when talking about interpersonal interactions is because they think that white people hold institutional power over everybody else at all times, regardless of context. So even in friendly conversation between friends, where there's absolutely no way the white person can fire their friend from their job, or lower their wage, or send them to prison... Somehow SJWs think the white person DOES hold that power. It's a paranoid way of viewing the world.

[discouroborose]

im just gonna be honest here…we’re seeing more and more posts criticize the toxicity of tumblr social justice but we’re not really seeing things get better overall and a lot of the times people who make or reblog those posts are perpetuating the same toxicity that’s being criticized

and i think a big part of why is that people are treating this toxicity as an individual issue within SJ, like it’s a problem with certain people instead of a problem with deep-set problems within SJ ideology itself. 

Like people assume it’s just individuals misusing innocent concepts and twisting them in order to justify their cruelty, and that happens sometimes, but just as often (if not more often) it’s people justifying their cruelty with inherently cruel ideology. it’s not always an exception or an anomaly; a lot of the time it’s the logical endpoint of whatever concept is being used as a justification.  

SJ is right about a lot of things but it’s ultimately a very flawed ideology, and a lot of these core SJ concepts are harmful even in the most well-intentioned hands, because those concepts inherently allow for justified cruelty or toxicity. and nothing is going to get better until people realize that and acknowledge it and deal with the root problem (either by changing the movement or starting a new one) instead of treating it like it’s just a few thousand bad apples. 

[nowaylele]

My newest project Whorer Core featuring Buttress, Clara Bizna$$ from Hand Job Academy, Razakel, Cool Swim, Ruben Slikk, Drrty Pharms prod Pretty Maxim, Viktor Longo, sadfem, Novacaine Noah

[ahdictionary]

How Old is Old?

You may occasionally hear someone say they don’t like Shakespeare because the “Old English” of his plays is too difficult. But Shakespeare’s English is not much more than 400 years old, nowhere near as old as the language as a whole; in fact, the variety of English he used is what linguists call Early Modern English. To find genuine Old English, you have to go back much further and dig much deeper into the history of the language. Let us take a brief tour, accompanied by the sixth-century Roman writer Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, author of De Consolatione Philosophiae (“The Consolation of Philosophy”). Though not widely read today, this treatise, an imagined dialogue between Boethius himself and the personification of philosophy, has enjoyed a remarkably long life and has been translated into English repeatedly over the past fifteen centuries. Here’s a sample of his original Latin:

Heu, quam praecipiti mersa profundo /  mens hebet et propria luce relicta  / tendit in externas ire tenebras!

And here’s a rough translation:

Ah, how the mind is cast headlong into the depths, where having lost its own light, it is drawn to the darkness of others!

Back in Shakespeare’s day, none other than Queen Elizabeth I translated Boethius into Early Modern English:

O, in how hedlong depththe drowned mind is dimme! and Losing Light, her owne, to others darkenis drawne.

Elizabeth’s translation uses some unfamiliar spellings and some odd syntax, but it’s still fairly comprehensible. Let us go back one stage further, to the English of the late 1300s. Here is Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of the Canterbury Tales, translating the same passage:

A Llas how the thowt of man, dreynt in ouerthrowynge depnesse, dulleth and forletith his propre cleernesse, myntynge to goon into foreyne dyrknesses.

Here the spellings are still weirder, some of the words use obsolete inflectional endings (-eth, -ith), and the vocabulary includes more words (forleitith, myntynge) that the average reader will have great trouble understanding. But even this is not Old English; it is merely Middle English. To get to the real Old English, which nobody but a scholar can be expected to understand, we have to go back still further. Here is Boethius in a translation from somewhere around AD 900, traditionally attributed to King Alfred the Great:

Eala on hu ȝrundleasum seaðe þæt Mod þrinȝþ, þonne hit bestyrmaþ þisse ƿorulde unȝeþƿærnessa, ȝif hit ðonne forȝet his aȝen leoht and þrinȝþ on þa fremdan þistro.*

By comparison, the language of Shakespeare looks downright … modern, doesn’t it?

Thank you for visiting the American Heritage Dictionary at ahdictionary.com!

*This passage, as you will have noticed, includes several characters that are no longer part of the English alphabet. Their names are thorn (þ), edh (ð), wynn (ƿ), yogh (ȝ), and ash (æ). Stay tuned for a follow-up post explaining them in more detail!

[captainfunkpunkandroll]

Storme

[bananapeppers]

photographed by Avery Willard

[allheartcards]

Stormé DeLarverie (December 24, 1920 – May 24, 2014) was a butch lesbian whose purported scuffle with police, many eyewitnesses recount, was the defining moment that incited the Stonewall riots, spurring the crowd to action.  

[leahberman]

Poseidon vs. Apollo

Indian Beach, Oregon

instagram

[brutalgeneration]

07.04.10 (by willteeyang)

[sheepyhollows]

[freemindsuk]

The article below is from reFocus:

 Vol. 14, No. 3 September-November 2013 edition of the reFOCUS Forum: An Internet Newsletter for Recovery

reFOCUS is a network of referral and support for former members of closed, high demand groups, relationships or cults.

reFOCUS is dedicated to the recovery of former members…please visit our web site at http://www.refocus.org

Emotional Control

Emotional control allows cults to manipulate and narrow the range of a recruit’s feelings. The objective of cults is to make recruits think that any doubts about the group is their fault, and never that of the leader(s) or the group. Any negativism toward the group is often misdirected back to the recruit – causing the recruit to internalize their doubts.

  This section contains the following:

Guilt Association

Fear Induction

Extremism

Phobia Indoctrination

Guilt Association

Cults exude severe amounts of guilt, typically, in association with the following:

Who you are (and why you are not living up to your potential)

Who your family is (those from dysfunctional families are to attribute their dysfunctional past to their not being a member of the group yet, those from well-adjusted families are to feel guilty for having had it so good)

What secrets lie in your past (sexual history, childhood mistakes, any past criminal involvement overly emphasized)

With whom you are affiliated (the company you keep, boyfriend/girlfriend/fiances shunned, family, friends, etc.)

What you think (how you feel, and what you do about your feeling, whether what you think and feel is acceptable to the group)

Social guilt (recruit is made to feel inadequate because of his/her social status)

Historical guilt (recruit is forced to take on the oppression of his/her ancestors and the plight of martyred persons)

  Fear Induction

In order for guilt induction to successfully operate, cults must be able to instill fear in their followers:

Fear of thinking independently (recruits wonder whether they are making right decisions, what the consequences will be if they think independently)

Fear of the “outside” world (recruits have a “we/they” mentality and generally see all in the group as “saved,” yet all outside the group as “lost”)

Fear of enemies (recruits are indoctrinated to be very paranoid of all those on the outside including the government, cult awareness groups, and/or society in general)

Fear of losing salvation (recruits taught that salvation is attained only through group affiliation and nowhere else)

Fear of being shunned (recruits often risk losing family, friends, job, etc. if deciding to leave, many cults “mark” or otherwise collectively shun former members)

Fear of disapproval (recruits learn to live according to the laws of the leaders and that deviating from these laws are detrimental to one’s well-being as well as that of those in the group)

  Extremism

Cults often deal in extremes. Here are a few examples of extremism in cults:

Extremes of emotional highs and lows (rewards and punishments go hand-in-hand)

Ritual and often public confessions of sins (confessions provoked and exaggerated by inductor, i.e. a recruit who confesses having had a few beers is labeled as an alcoholic)

“We/they” mentality in which group sees itself as better than the rest of the world as the only ones capable of accurate doctrinal interpretation (also called “sacred science”)

  Phobia Indoctrination

Phobia indoctrination is the programming of irrational fears of ever leaving the group or even questioning the leadership’s authority. Recruits are manipulated to the extent that they cannot visualize a positive and successful future without being in the group. They are taught that horrific consequences will ensue if they are to leave (i.e., “hell,” “demon possession,” accidents, suicide, and/or insanity, etc.). Often, former cult members are so confused upon leaving that the group’s predictions become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many former cult members have killed themselves because that was exactly what the group said they would do. Those who leave are often shunned and rejected by the group. From the group perspective, there is never a legitimate reason to leave. Those who leave are perceived as “weak,” “undisciplined,” “unspiritual,” “worldly,” “brainwashed by family, friends, counselors,” and/or seduced by the world of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.