This might sound like a question inspired by current events, but I’ve actually been thinking of this for a while and can give pointers to a few times I had asked this or talked about it.
The people who the masses look up to seem to have a strange way of dishing out their opinions/approval/disapproval of the groups of the world. Some groups can get away with being considered good no matter how negative their actions are while other groups are stuck with a high disapproval rating no matter how much good they might do, and a discussion on whether “culture” or a “cult” is involved almost always comes up.
An example of this is the relationship between Islam and Scientology, in fact this is the most infamous one I can link to having spoken about. People on a certain side of the thinktank spectrum (the same side Lemmy seems to lean towards at times) are quick to criticize Scientology even though they consider “classic Islamic philosophy”, for a lack of a better way to put it without generalizing, as not inspiring a call for critique to see how one may change it. And I’ve always wondered, why? One at times leads people to trying to exterminate innocent groups, the other one is just “Space Gnosticism” that has a few toxic aspects but hasn’t actually eliminated anyone. Of course, I’m not defending either one, but certainly I’d rather live in a stressful environment than one that actively targets me.
This question has been asked a few times, sometimes without me but sometimes when I’m around to be involved, and they always say (and it’s in my dumb voice that I quote them) “well Scientology is a cult, of course we can criticize them” and then a bit about how whatever other thing is being talked about is a part of culture. This doesn’t sit well with my way of thinking. I was taught to judge people by the content of their character, in other words their virtues, so in my mind, a good X is better than a bad Y, in this case a good cult should be better than a good culture, right? Right?
In fact, as what many might call a mild misanthrope, I’d flip it around and point out how, over the course of human history, alongside seemingly objectively questionable quirks people just brush off (like Japan for a while has been genociding dolphins for their meat value just above extinction “because it’s culture” or how there are people in China who still think dinosaur bones are a form of medicine waiting to be ground up), no group/culture has kept their innocence intact, every country having had genocides or unnecessary wars or something of the like, things they ALLOW to happen by design. Then they turn around and tell so-called “cults”, even the ones that have their priorities on straight compared to cultures, that they are pariahs and shouldn’t count on thriving, even though their status is one that doesn’t necessitate gaining any kind of guilt. I was a pariah growing up, almost everyone else revolved around a select few people that seemed in-tune to the culture, and they would say anyone who revolved around people outside the group (me for example) was “following a cult”, and this hurt at the time, but now seeing all the wars going on right now, I might consider this a compliment.
My question, even though it by definition might make affirming answerers question whether they are pariahs or a part of the cultural arena, is why does nobody agree? Why are cultures “always precious” while cults are “always suspicious”?
Cults are defined by cult-like activity. Cult-like activity is bad because it abuses people.
If there’s a “cult” that doesn’t actually have cult-like activity, then it’s not really a cult.
Cults tend to be defined by how they control their members. Cultures tend to form around similarities.
Cults exercise very direct and personal control from the deified leadership to the followers. It tends to mean abuse between central leadership and the followers. Cult practices have similarities to religions and draw from religious and spiritual claims (and can become religions), but are distinguished by certain patterns of how they control members:
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Isolate from those around you, especially family and friends that don’t agree with what you’re doing.
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Recruit others to the cult.
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Demonstrate value to the cult through humiliation and serving the petty needs of the leader. The petty needs will be described as being much more important than they really are.
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Harsh punishment and violence for stepping out of line.
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A culture of blaming followers for their sins, including things for which they are not in any way responsible or at fault.
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A hierarchy of power that is mostly about who gets to mete out abuse.
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A specialized set of terminology for common things so that they become an in-reference that offers will not understand.
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Isolation of “troublemakers” or people that fight back. Keeping them separate from one another.
The small size of the cult makes these things have a qualitatively different impact when it comes to social control. It’s not about some established mysticism or conservatism that you carry out some action or feel some guilt, it’s a distinct practice where every person around you forces conformity based on the whims of a very personal power structure and just a couple people who get to decide everything, and you usually live with them.
Anyways, the main issue with Westerners criticizing Islam or Muslims is that the discourse is absolutely saturated with racism and Western chauvinism that is just a more veiled version of what white supremacists say. It’s not particularly informed and, as part of the dominant hegemonic mindset of the oppressor class and oppressor nations, it gladly ignores that the most extreme, voluminous, and unnecessary violence is carried out by the power structures they implicitly or explicitly support, secular or not.
Some Western criticisms of Islam tend to present themselves as academic or at least thoughtful and informed examinations of theology and cultural practices. Sometimes they even take a critical look at other religions and cultural practices. But they very often lead to lazy and bigoted policy and advocacy positions because it’s less about understanding in order to improve the world and more about identifying an enemy and it turns out that the global movers and shakers would absolutely love to use those “principled” stances to justify the domination and destruction of entire countries and peoples with your consent.
You’ll notice that Sam Harris has become a full-blown islamophobe and neocon. He is not improving the world through knowledge or action, but justifying oppression by the global hegemonic powers that want to pillage for profit by playing on stereotypical racist fears. He’s also gone down the self-help grifter path. He’s really just laundering reactionary views through a distinct language of “skepticism”, views that would fit right in at a “race science” consortium in 1912 and a bloodthirsty US State Department meeting on how to justify the genocide of brown people in the Middle East.
I’m not someone who has mastered the information/misinformation part, but I do know it’s not lying to say that, if I was over in that part of the world where Islam thrives, I would be killed or put into a lower class for things such as gender and maybe even my national background if it was years ago (so a defense criticism argument could be made), and I also know it’s not lying to say those people are trying to come to where I live and “change” us. It’s definitely not their race/ethnicity I’m critical of.
My first reaction when some people identify as “a cultural Muslim” (as peaceful as they are; I’m not trying to imply they should all be put in one basket) is therefore to think “aww shit, there’s a whole piece of the fabric of the world (i.e. a culture) out there that has their vigilance set against my existence”. Then I think of cults (which I visualize as outside the fabric, that playing into the definition embedded in my question) and how (comparatively) accepting they might be, and I think “wait, why exactly is the classification supposed to mean anything again?”
What is the relevance of what you think would happen to you in an Islamic country? I’d also point out that Islam is not a monolith and Muslims are not a monolith, despite your implications, so which Islamic countries are you thinking of? Are you sure you didn’t have a particular idea in mind when you conflated “islamic country” with the scenario you are thinking of? What do the people there look like? What do they believe? What would they do to you?
Where is “here”? Why are “they” going to where you are? Almost certainly, uou will find that the point of xenophobia is to distract you from what was done in your name to the people forced to immigrate to your area. To excuse the much greater violence and turn your fears and frustrations against a population that you and your culture stripped of their homes and safety - and then justifies through dehumanization and a focus on Islam as the problem.
You will indeed find some immigrants that are reactionary. Imagine a world in which social developments could occur within countries through legitimate struggles rather than forcing deprivation and murder on people from different cultures and then whinging about how they don’t think how you do.
In short, you’re doing the exact problematic thing that Sam Harris serves a function for. You’re identifying an enemy to fear and degrade and it’s blinding you to the much greater dangers and violences that are directly involved but where blame lies in your country and your culture. Centuries of colonialism premised on ethnic cleansing and extraction, now neocolonialism doing the same. Go look at where Wahhabism and the other forms of Islam you are scared of came from. They are recent inventions arising from occupations, not intrinsic aspects of Islam.
And review the reactionary aspects of your own culture, as you are fearing hypothetical harms by people coming from countries that your country and culture actively participates in destroying. The only question would be whether that country is a very active player in imperialism or a hanger-on.
Hence the way I phrased it when I said “classic Islamic philosophy” and then clarified it wasn’t going to be my intention to generalize. Literally in my wording.
I’m well aware of my own culture’s faults and not using this as a distraction to that, in fact that’s the very point of this, to ask why “cults”, which one could (and they have called them these) call “pseudocultures” or “quasicultures” or “paracultures”, are seen as wrong while “actual” cultures are protected by the view that relativism is supposed to tolerate cultures “just because” they’re cultures. Not that you actually know what my culture is just by reading what I’m saying right now.
I used the umbrella of Islam as an example, partially because of current events, but it’s by no means the only one and I wasn’t trying to imply this; I mentioned more groups down below, in reply to other people. The thought process behind the question is there are “wannabe cultures” that haven’t done anything wrong, yet which get criticized, but here we (“we” as in onlookers of current events) are wondering what kind of cultures would be better in the place of the destructive ones, and so I think “what about these ‘wannabe cultures’ that have done nothing wrong or have done comparatively little wrong”.
To answer the other question, I am an LGBT woman with interracial ancestry with a highly frustrating medical condition and what one might call a spiritual tradition that would come off as iconoclastic in any part of the world, but especially in the nations closest to the middle of Eurasia. To use a metaphor, seeing that an immovable piece of the world, in this case a world culture, would kill me on sight makes me feel as if Earth’s immune system sees me as a bad cell. So naturally I wonder, one, does it really have to be this way, and two, would a “cult” as I mention be more worthy to exist as its very own “culture” than one that decided it wanted people like me gone first, even though there will always be people like me (meaning they too are against something immovable in the world)?
I invite you to answer the questions I asked and consider much greater violences at hand. I didn’t make you cite Sam Harris or conflate Islamic countries or buy into right wing xenophobic fear narratives, but I did respond to them.
Then it’s a good thing I didn’t do any of that, now isn’t it?
For every question you say hasn’t been answered, I can point to (or quote) a part of what I said that does exactly that.
You did all of the things I listed and ignored most of my questions. If you honestly believe otherwise, I invite you to revisit what was said and asked and ask yourself whether you acknowledged it at all, let alone actually addressed what was said.
Though I’m not stupid, I know what defensive behavior and fibbing looks like by someone that is uncomfortable. I’m not going to be polite if you try this again.
Suppose for a moment I sincerely believe I addressed everything (and I do). Saying out of disagreement “review it yourself” would thus be a request I cannot humor, that’s why I invited you to give examples. I also don’t know who this Sam Harris guy is, so I’m not sure why you say I cited him, but I even did a CTRL+F trick to make sure. I still don’t see it.
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