A Word for an Unsustainable, Destructive Culture
Cult • noun • (kullt)
Definition: An unsustainable community or culture that often requires thoughtless devotion to a leader
Origin: English
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In the United States, we use the word “cult” to describe countless groups. If a group appears to be extremely dedicated to a cause or person and its members are very passionate, then Americans will often describe this group as a cult. When Americans use “cult” it is normally an expression of emotion to describe a group that makes one feel uneasy with the specter of danger and potentially death lurking around the corner. We think of people drinking cyanide-laced cocktails, or perhaps people with a rabid devotion to a political party or figure such as MAGA or Trump.
The passionate devotion of cult members often includes a thoughtlessness that can breed chaos because the cult leader often thinks for the group. This is how people can lose family members to cults because their individual thoughts seem to have gone away or become increasingly corrupted. They now believe the collective absurdities of the group and there appears to be no way to change their mind. How can you connect with a friend or family member in a cult, if they have chosen to no longer think for themselves?
I think about cults in the context of understanding a society’s culture because “cult” clearly derives from the word “culture.” People do not join cults because they aspire to go insane. They join them at least initially because they want to become a better person and they do not believe that their societal norm can help them become the person they would like to become. Additionally, they stay in the cult because the cult has become their new family and community, and they are afraid to live without this community.
Cult members are essentially pursuing meaning, purpose, and community; yet consistently these endeavors end in tragedy. The intent is completely different from the outcome, so there must be a flaw in the philosophy and methodology being used to create and sustain cults.
People who are pursuing something good end up creating something bad, and American ethnocide helps explain this troubling dilemma.
Cults & the Destruction of Culture
An ethnocidal society exists to destroy culture. The ethnocider wants to destroy the culture of the ethnocidee, and this act of cultural destruction destroys the entire society’s culture. The ethnocider thrives off of creating divisions and these divisions prevent the creation of a shared culture in the society. This division creates the ethnocidee, and now the ethnocider can destroy the ethnocidee’s culture, but the ethnocider has also created for themselves a hollow façade of “culture” that exists to destroy and prevent culture. The ethnocider’s shared “culture” can only exist within the ethnocider’s community and is parasitically sustained via the destruction of the ethnocidee’s culture. If the ethnocidee prevents their culture from being destroyed and they transcend the divisions of ethnocide, then the “culture” of the ethnocider will disappear.
At SCL we define culture as the sustainable practices that a community creates in order to survive in a specific place in perpetuity. Our newsletter on the Dutch word polderen can help explain sustainable culture. Ethnocide in all of its forms is clearly unsustainable due to its reliance on division, exploitation, and a disregard for place.
Within an ethnocidal society such as the United States, people will yearn for culture because human beings rely on creating community and culture to sustain themselves, but Americans tragically find the absence of culture all around them. Sustainable communities have been replaced with class, political divisions and the pursuit of wealth. If you make enough money in America, then you can afford to purchase the requisite community by attending private schools, joining membership clubs, and living in exclusive communities.
Money has replaced culture and community. This reality can be debilitating and unsurprisingly, many Americans will instead pursue many avenues for creating culture and community that are not predicated by wealth, and this includes joining cults.
However, the pursuit of culture within ethnocide often becomes incredibly problematic because people are attempting to join or create something that they know that they need, yet may have never experienced. How can you find or create sustainable culture when you only know the destruction of culture?
Their concept of culture may simply be the cultivation of something that is the opposite of an ethnocidal practice that they know is problematic. Their pursuit of culture consists of finding something that is anti-bad, but not pro-good. If you do not have a clarity regarding being proactively good, it is far more likely that one’s anti-bad cult will not be bad in some ways, but very bad in many others.
The distinction between good and bad has become blurred and this is why good intent can result in bad outcomes. This is how the attempt at creating culture becomes a cursed four letter word: cult.
Savior Complex Instead of Having a Teacher
Years ago a friend of mine introduced me to a meditation practice that she learned from an Indian mystic named Sadhguru. I was curious about her meditation, so I tried it and enjoyed it. I then signed up for a mediation training taught by Sadhguru, and I liked it even more. Not too long after that I ended up visiting Sadhguru’s retreat in Tennessee with my friend, and I enjoyed that too.
While in Tennessee at Sadhguru’s campus, I encountered a lot of people who were very devoted to his practices. They had the passion that might unnerve some people, but I thought everyone was really nice and I wasn’t bothered by much of it. At some point during one of our conversations, my friend told me that sometimes people think that they’re a cult, but she clearly thought otherwise. Nobody was trapped at the Tennessee location. The community up there allowed people to come and go as they pleased, they didn’t attempt to restrict people’s thoughts or behaviors, and the majority of the time Sadhguru wasn’t even there. He spent most of his time in India.
I remember this brief conversation because I never perceived her mediation practice as being an extension of a cult, but now I could see how other people might. Frankly, this friend never pressured me to learn about her practice, and I have only learned about it through my genuine curiosity.
Since the meditations and yoga are not an extension of a Christian practice, they can seem weird to other people and the passion that people express could be considered strange, yet as I thought more and more about what distinguishes a cult from a culture, it became clear to me that the distinction largely derives from the leader of the community.
When the leader is considered to be a savior, then there is less of an emphasis on their followers being able to think critically. The thoughts of the leader’s followers have become secondary because the leader exists to save them. Knowledge and wisdom solely resides with the leader, and they exist to save their followers from themselves. Therefore, if the leader tells their followers to harm themselves or to harm others, the expectation is for the followers to thoughtlessly and blindly follow commands.
Critical thinking has no place in this relationship and this savior complex creates the thoughtlessness that is common amongst cults. Additionally, the creation of a community reliant on a leader for their collective thoughts is clearly unsustainable because once that leader makes a significant mistake or dies, the community will struggle to survive as they frantically look for another savior.
Christianity has cultivated a savior complex throughout the westernized world because Jesus allegedly died and existed so that he could save people from their sins, and I wonder if this belief in a savior contributes to the creation of unhealthy cults.
If the thoughtlessness of a savior complex creates unhealthy cults then a community built around a thoughtful teacher would be far more stable and healthy.
As I thought more about my friend’s affiliation with Sadhguru, it became more apparent that it was a relationship that was more akin to that of a student and a teacher. Sadhguru had wisdom and practices that he was open to teaching others, and then seeing how far or if it could grow.
As I explored more spiritual and religious practices without a westernized foundation, it became very clear that these communities fostered teachers more than saviors, and this is a subtle, yet profound distinction.
By teaching someone how to think, you risk the chance that they might misinterpret your message, so the onus and responsibility for the teacher is incredibly high. You are not teaching people with the hopes that they will follow you. You are teaching them so that their life gets better regardless of whether they do or do not follow you. The efficacy of the teachings can make a community or culture despite that not being the goal.
Teachers create culture because they have philosophies and practices that proactively do good in the world, while saviors make unsustainable cults because at best they know how to be thoughtlessly anti-bad and not thoughtfully pro-good.
My book THE CRIME WITHOUT A NAME was released on October 12, 2021 and NPR has picked it as one of the top books of the year!
You can order the book—including the audiobook—and watch recordings of my book tour discussions at Eaton and the New York Public Library at thecrimewithoutaname.com.
