[This is the first article in a 4-part series. Read: Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4]
As children of the Seventies, we can’t help feeling a sense of déjà vu and noticing certain similarities to that decade when we observe the current cultural moment. Beyond the inflation, environmental alarmism, and soaring interest rates, we’re also seeing the reemergence of familiar social contagions, such as the popularization of mind-altering drug use; promises of unrestrained, boundary-breaking sexual pleasure disconnected from consequences; and widespread cult-like brainwashing among young people.
Perhaps there is something in human nature that makes us susceptible to the repetition of certain types of contagions every few decades? A startling difference, however, is that some of the recruitment to these rigid ideological movements now seems to be taking place in schools, which children are required to attend by law and where they comprise a captive audience, deserving of protection.
Here are some characteristics of cults [see a fuller list here, and you can find many other similar lists online] that are evident in the current climate:
Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
Mind-numbing techniques (such as chanting, denunciation sessions) are used to suppress doubts.
Leaders dictate how members should think, act, and feel.
The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself.
The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group.
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.
The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.*
Today, we see some obvious similarities to 70s-style cult practices, but there are differences, too. As Mark Twain observed, “History doesn’t repeat itself: but it often rhymes.”
*A unique feature of current cultish incarnations seems to be the absence of a charismatic living cult leader, but the distinct twist here seems to be that the charismatic “leader” can be each member’s own professed and exalted “identity,” which the group then celebrates and reinforces. In fact, publicly declaring this identity is a key part of demonstrating allegiance to the group mindset. This identity then becomes an automatic source of infallible authority–a badge of honor–and anyone who does not accept or respect this new authority automatically and without question is cut off.
More concerning signs include dishonoring the family unit; opposing critical thinking; and crossing Biblical boundaries of behavior. Another list emphasizes brainwashing; the use of thought reform methods; the breaking down of a person’s sense of identity and ability to think rationally; and claims of easy, all-encompassing explanations and solutions to all of life’s problems.
According to Steven Hassan, former cult member and author of multiple books on how to escape from controlling and destructive mental influence, one of the characteristics of cultish groups is their use of deception, which also happens to be a well-known, accepted Marxist tactic of infiltration. He points out that, while cults are typically conceived of as religious, they can also be political (such as the former Soviet Union) or therapeutic, such as when a counselor uses influence to foster dependency rather than functioning independence in a client.
Other warning signs of cult activity include intoxicating love bombing; the demonization and distortion of past history and family ties coupled with the provision of an apparently all-accepting alternative family (while concealing incredible demands for obedience); promises of hedonistic pleasure (reminiscent of the Pleasure Island warning scenes in Pinocchio); and the creation of an In group and an Out group coupled with smearing of the out group and painting them black, rhetorically.
Whatever you want to call this cultural movement and its varied manifestations that seem to be prevalent in schools and colleges, it appears to be a very demanding belief system that requires strong adherence; demands for the performance of certain actions/genuflections; and special forms of address to indicate membership. Those who do not display appropriate acquiescence (literally meaning be quiet) risk expulsion and shunning.
Even adults are feeling the pressure to conform and bend the knee, as it were, to regnant ideology, but this cannot compare to the pressure experienced by a vulnerable, impressionable young person with a deep, natural, and appropriate desire to find a sense of acceptance and belonging, particularly as they enter young adulthood and leave the protective nest of the home.
Shell-shocked parents are left grasping for answers, having trusted K-12 institutions to support--not undermine–their family unit and belief systems rather than replacing them with different or even oppositional ones. In too many cases, schools and activist individuals within them have breached that trust along with their implied or explicit in loco parentis responsibilities.
Let’s focus on what can be done now.
First off, stay calm: this is nothing that hasn’t been seen before and there are effective, proven strategies for dealing with it. As Ecclesiastes tells us, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; There is nothing new under the sun.”
We can turn to lessons gleaned and wisdom gained from previous encounters with similar problems in earlier eras for a solid mooring as we grope for answers to guide us forward in these challenging times and difficult circumstances.
Endnote: While there are clearly echoes of 70s-style cultural trends reemergent right now–including androgynous gender bending–a curious difference today is that instead of the optimistic smiley-face “love” and unification messaging of that era, today’s prominent cultural messaging is pessimistic and seems to fixate and dwell on unhappiness, the presumption of hate, and to seek to foster division, instead. :(
Recommended resources:
Freedom of Mind Resource Center
Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves
Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults and Beliefs
Ending the Game, a “coercion resiliency” curriculum
The Language of Fanaticism: Cultish
Beyond Cult Deprogramming: The New Goal is to Empower Reality Testing
Desist, Detrans & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult
A Mother’s Intuition About Gentle Deprogramming
More to Come
This is the first article in a four part series. Part 2 is on Destructive Influence Warning Signs; Part 3 is on Overcoming the Dangerous Allure of Victimhood Cults; and Part 4 is on Targeted Interventions and Hope.
Bonnie Snyder, D.Ed. is trained as a school counselor and CEO of Terra Firma Teaching Alliance. She is the author of Undoctrinate: How Politicized Classrooms Harm Kids and Ruin Our Schools–And What We Can Do About It.
Christine Sefein, MA, LMFT is a training psychotherapist and Professor of Clinical Psychology specializing in grief, trauma and substance use disorders. She authored the chapter “Miseducation of Psychotherapists” in the book, Cynical Therapies: Perspectives on the Anti-therapeutic Nature of Critical Social Justice.
Neither of us is trained in deprogramming, but we are experienced counselors directing you to appropriate, helpful literature on this important topic.
 | A guest post by
|
Where are you *not* seeing this? Parents will want to know.
Um, not quite. I was a high school student in the 1970s and have been teaching high schoolers since 1983. There is NO "unrestrained, boundary-breaking sexual pleasure disconnected from consequences; and widespread cult-like brainwashing among young people" today. Where do you teach that you are seeing this?