Religion is a Mental Illness

Queer Theory is the Doctrine of a Sex-Based Cult

by James Lindsay

newdiscourses.substack.com

• Queer Theory is the doctrine of a religious cult;
• That religious cult is based on sex;
• That sex-based religious cult primarily targets children; and
• Almost none of it has anything to do with gay identity.

Unlike gay identity, which, though deliberately proclaimed in an act of affirmation, is nonetheless rooted in the positive fact of homosexual object-choice, queer identity need not be grounded in any positive truth or in any stable reality. As the very word implies, “queer” does not name some natural kind or refer to some determinate object; it acquires its meaning from its oppositional relation to the norm. Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers. It is an identity without an essence.

“Queer,” then, demarcates not a positivity but a positionality vis-à-vis the normative—a positionality that is not restricted to lesbians and gay men but is in fact available to anyone who is or who feels marginalized because of her or his sexual practices.

Finally, it is often assumed that the primary pedagogical goal of queer education should be to increase empathy towards LGBT people. While this premise has some merit – and underlies many sincere projects in educational and cultural work, including DQSH – the notion of empathy has also been critiqued by feminist scholars of colour and others for the ways in which empathy can enable an affective appropriation of an individual’s unique experiences and reinforce hierarchies of power. … Whether through literature or virtual reality, these tropes tend to reflect an overstated ability to understand difference, as well as empathy’s potential to preclude meaningful relationships of solidarity. It is undeniable that DQSH participates in many of these tropes of empathy, from the marketing language the programme uses to its selection of books. Much of this is strategically done in order to justify its educational value. However, we suggest that drag supports scholars’ critiques of empathy, rather than reifying the concept…This approach can support students in finding the unique or queer aspects of themselves – rather than attempting to understand what it’s like to be LGBT.

Queer worldmaking, including political organizing, has long been a project driven by desire. It is, in part, enacted through art forms like fashion, theatre, and drag. We believe that DQSH offers an invitation towards deeper public engagement with queer cultural production, particularly for young children and their families. It may be that DQSH is “family friendly,” in the sense that it is accessible and inviting to families with children, but it is less a sanitizing force than it is a preparatory introduction to alternate modes of kinship. Here, DQSH is “family friendly” in the sense of “family” as an old-school queer code to identify and connect with other queers on the street.

Repeating what is already learned can be comforting and therefore desirable; students’ learning things that question their knowledge and identities can be emotionally upsetting. For example, suppose students think society is meritocratic but learn that it is racist, or think that they themselves are not contributing to homophobia but learn that in fact they are. In such situations, students learn that the ways they think and act are not only limited but also oppressive. Learning about oppression and about the ways they often unknowingly comply with oppression can lead students to feel paralyzed with anger, sadness, anxiety, and guilt; it can lead to a form of emotional crisis. (p. 74) Once in a crisis, a student can go in many directions, some that may lead to anti-oppressive change, others that may lead to more entrenched resistance. Therefore, educators have a responsibility not only to draw students into a possible crisis, but also to structure experiences that can help them work through their crises productively. (pp. 74–75)

For all the criticism teachers receive for ‘indoctrinating’ students, turning them into liberal-minded cry-babies, not much has been said in defense. At the very least, a shy denial is made. It is time for educators to own this criticism and admit that is exactly what we do. (“Not everyone gets a seat at the table!” p. 33)

Don't you want devoted followers who leave their families for you, give their money to you, give their bodies to you, give up their lives for you, consider you god, and will kill for you?

Don't you want to become a cult leader?

Since the death of God there's been a vacancy open. You could fill that void. Here's how.

Structure your cult like an onion, with the most benign and helpful features on the outside, and the most controlling, kooky and evil parts of the secret inner core.

With the most benign and helpful features on the outside.

And the most controlling, kooky and evil parts of the secret inner core.

Use deception. Don't tell them who you really are. Lie. Leave out important information or distort information.

Promise to fulfill their dreams.

Offer them something free and get them to feel obliged to give you something in return,

You can tell them time is running out and that they must make their decision now or it will be too late.

Don't give them time to think. Diminish doubting commiseration by separating your new recruits from each other. Surround them with happy true believers so when in doubt they will tend to do what everyone around them is doing and believe that is normal.

Surround them with happy true believers so when in doubt they will tend to do what everyone around them is doing and believe that is normal.

Surround them with happy true believers so when in doubt they will tend to do what everyone around them is doing and believe that is normal.

Start with a prolonged period of love-bombing. Surround them with unconditional love and attention.

Your cult family should act friendly and interested. Gradually over time you'll begin to shape the recruit's behavior by granting or withholding this love and attention. After they've bonded, slowly start making your demands upon them. Control their behavior.

Control their thoughts.

Control their thoughts.

Control their thoughts.

Control their thoughts.

Control their emotions.

Induce guilt and fear.

Control information. Keep them from knowing all the workings of the cult. Block out any information which is critical of the group.

Claim authority. It can come from a divine source, bogus scientific research or special knowledge.

Make up stories about yourself to boost your importance.

But don't be stupid about it.

Start slowly. A good con man takes a little bit of truth and a lot of lies and pulls the wool over the eyes of the ignorant.

Induce trance states and self-hypnosis by practicing thought-stopping rituals and repetitive acts like dancing, spinning, singing and chanting.

Revert them back to childhood dependence and mindless obedience.

Revert them back to childhood dependence and mindless obedience.

Revert them back to childhood dependence and mindless obedience.

In these trance states, they are more receptive and suggestible encourage separation from their family.

Encourage dependency and conformity and discourage autonomy and individuality.

Have confessionals where people demonize their early lives and only praise their life in the group. Rewrite the past as terrible.

Tighten your group's bond by establishing scapegoats and enemies. Demonize outsiders as less than human, biased, corrupt or conspiring against the group. Develop an "us versus them" mentality. Tell them their critical thoughts are evidence that they have committed crimes against the group. Start investigating them and make up crimes.

Make them feel guilty.

Make it easier for them to die for you by calling their bodies "containers" that are shed before they evolve into higher life forms.

It's that simple. Now don't you want to become a cult leader? Don't you want devoted followers who'll leave their families for you, give their money to you, give their bodies to you, give up their lives for you, and will kill for you?

My “Lived Experience” with the Cult of “Social Justice” — Queer Majority

If “lived experience” is paramount, then it has to cut both ways.

Queer Majority

As most of us understand it, social justice is a good thing. Definitions vary, but the common thread is a belief that society should actively work to expand access to social goods for all people, regardless of race, sex, or other immutable characteristics. Like all decent people, I support that noble goal. So it worries me that a vocal minority of extremists with dangerous ideas and toxic tactics have abused the concept in recent years, throwing it into disrepute. A cadre of activists today push a radical ideology in the name of “social justice,” one with none of its liberal principles. Because its proponents intentionally manipulate language to evade criticism, I will use the terms Liberal Social Justice (LSJ) and Critical Social Justice (CSJ) to distinguish between the original version and the new one.

Growing up in a Cult

My elementary and high school education took place at a private religious school, Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) to be exact. The SDA Church is a fundamentalist, Protestant Christian denomination that began in the United States in the mid-19th century — an era during which many separatist cult-like movements sprang forth out of American Christianity, the most famous being Mormonism. The SDA Church was born out of the Millerite movement whose early believers predicted, based upon an esoteric reading of the Bible, that the world would end on October 22nd, 1844. When that day passed, offshoots of the movement formed based upon one or another justification for the miscalculation. To this day, SDA Church doctrine states that we are living in “The End Times.” I was instructed by teachers who had no qualms informing students that Armageddon would probably come “during our lifetime.” Despite that certainty, some of those elders have since passed away without the pleasure of experiencing the end of the world.

Apart from being a bit kooky, that kind of eccentricity seems harmless enough. But beliefs invariably influence other beliefs. I was taught Young-Earth creationism — in Science class no less — and that anyone who tried to persuade us otherwise, even with credible evidence, was a tool of Satan sent to damn our souls. My early schooling was about two years ahead of public school in some subjects — but 200+ years behind in science.

Some of the indoctrination inevitably took root. I was a skeptical but otherwise upstanding SDA kid. I had no objections when my friends casually stated that they would never marry outside the Church. We were discouraged from even associating with non-Adventist kids. I remember taking an odd pride in that, like outsiders were beneath me. This went on well into my teens. Then something changed.

Escaping the Cult

My sexuality was pivotal to my relationship with the SDA church. I was aware from early adolescence that I was attracted to both boys and girls. At first, I thought little of it, but over time it began to cause cognitive dissonance. The Bible, as we were taught it, stated explicitly that homosexuality (and by extension bisexuality) is a sin. Did this mean I was supposed to resist temptation and just marry a nice SDA girl when I grew up? Perhaps. We were also supposed to follow other strict rules, such as not engaging in “secular activities” on Saturday. The truly devout would never eat pork or shellfish. Many were even vegetarian. In that context, everything seemed equally arbitrary — as illustrated by the common answer adults gave to pesky questions: “Because God says so.” By sixteen, I had outgrown it. I’d had enough of the hypocrisy and the dismissal of my skepticism. So, I tested out of high school early and started college.

Most of my SDA friends went to private Adventist universities where their indoctrination continued unabated, but I dove headlong into the belly of the beast: public community college, then a public state university. I flourished in that new environment. Whereas my skepticism and curiosity had been frowned upon by religious instructors, outside it was welcomed — even encouraged. For the first time, I felt free to fully explore the world of ideas, unconstrained by dogma. I quickly realized I’d been led astray not only in science, but in history, and even the arts, where only the most Christian-friendly material was covered. My intellectual experience had been filtered through the lens of a single subculture. It was a pedagogy built upon circular reasoning with the goal of reinforcing faith in SDA doctrine.

To compensate, I spent the next ten years immersing myself in a broad education — changing majors four times. In contrast to my prior schooling, these public institutions were founded on Enlightenment values — where critical thinking, logic, and evidence ruled — not blind faith. It’s not that tradition was disrespected; I was exposed to philosophical and religious traditions from all over the world. It was a breath of fresh air — life-giving. I appreciated my newfound intellectual freedom all the more because I knew firsthand what it was like to be arbitrarily constrained. My experience had fine-tuned my dogma-radar, and when secular education institutions began falling to a different but equally stultifying set of dogmas, red flags went off.

Warning Signs

It was in an advanced literature course in the late 2000s that I was first exposed to a school of thought called Critical Theory, which we used as an approach to literary criticism. I remember the professor saying, “The author’s intent doesn’t matter,” which meant that it was considered acceptable to attribute meanings to a work even if the author had explicitly stated that they never intended such. That rubbed me the wrong way. It begged the question “By what standard can we judge which interpretations are correct, or is it just anything goes?”

As the semester wore on, however, I gained a new insight: that language is an imperfect tool for communication, because “signifiers” (such as words) can only be defined by other signifiers. There is no way to directly access the “signifieds,” which are different for each speaker and listener because they are informed by our different experiences. In other words, it is never possible to ascertain exactly what the speaker means, only an interpretation of it, because we all have different associations with each word or phrase. That collectively adds up to substantially different readings of a given work.

I was mesmerized. It made sense. Applied to art, it resulted in more dynamic and interesting criticism. Besides, this was just one perspective out of many I studied at a school that had earned my trust by exposing me to a variety of differing perspectives. Little did I know, Critical Theory would escape its confines and expand well beyond literary criticism.

Queer Liberation

Southern Oregon University, the last school I attended, has repeatedly been recognized as one of the most LGBT-friendly colleges in the US. Still, I remember anxiously walking into the campus’s Queer Resource Center (QRC). Anybody who saw me might assume I was gay. What if people looked at me funny? I wasn’t ashamed of my bisexuality, but the fear of being judged by my new peers brought back latent insecurities from my childhood. The girl at the help desk was kind — and cute! After some flirtatious pleasantries, I asked her, “How do I meet other LGBT people around here? I’d really like to find a circle of bi folks.” She invited me to a dance put on by the QRC. I went, and I had a great time. Everybody was friendly and supportive. Nobody had anything to hide. It was another world, a freer one, compared to the insular and judgmental atmosphere of my youth.

After school, I got engaged and moved to Los Angeles with my fiancé, now my wife, so she could pursue her master’s at the USC School of Cinematic Arts in — notably — Critical Studies. We got involved with a wonderful social club for bi people called amBi. I’d finally found that bi circle! It was healing to be surrounded by tolerant, open-minded people — yet another liberating chapter in my life. Before long, we made a name for ourselves as event organizers, and then as volunteers at Pride parades and festivals. In time, I was invited to work for a nonprofit called The American Institute of Bisexuality. I readily accepted.

The organization, also called The Bi Foundation, shares the liberal Enlightenment values that helped me escape the indoctrination of my youth. But as it turns out, they are something of an outlier. The vast majority of LGBT orgs now take a different, illiberal, counter-Enlightenment approach. I would soon discover that the world of contemporary queer activism could not be more different from the liberal arts education I received in the 2000s or from the carefree bi social club I had since come to love. Instead, it was much more like the repressive environment in which I had grown up back in the 90s. It came to remind me of a fundamentalist cult, with a lot of the same qualities.

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

The first bi-related conference I attended was BECAUSE (Bisexual Empowerment Conference: A Uniting, Supportive Experience), in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. It began as a way for bi activists to network with one another. Upon checking in, I was asked to put on a name tag with my pronouns. I didn’t think much of it. I was asked to fill out a survey with questions about my personal history, including my preferred label to describe my “bi+ and gender identities.” That felt a little strange. Regardless, the conference was a positive networking experience with engaging speakers. There were early warning signs, though. The discussion groups were rife with virtue signaling. It reminded me of the religious one-upmanship of my SDA days, and the pride in perceived victimhood.

In 2016 I attended an LGBT event in DC hosted by the Obama administration as an invited bi activist. I didn’t know what to expect. I was hoping for something productive. What I witnessed was anything but. There was virtually no discussion of policy ideas that might make a real material difference in the lives of bi people. It was nothing but grandstanding. Panelists were competing in the Oppression Olympics, obnoxiously vying to portray themselves as both the most virtuous and beleaguered. Every speech began with a recitation of the speaker’s intersecting oppressed identities. The more intersectionality points, the more street cred. Poor chaps who had the misfortune of being born white, male, and/or heterosexual (and who weren’t trans) were admonished to “Check their privilege,” which meant that their opinions were worthless. The quality of one’s ideas didn’t matter, not that anything concrete was being discussed anyway. Instead, the political strategy amounted to nothing but endless shouting about how American society was irredeemably awful and needed to be torn down. It felt like the White House invited us so we would feel listened to, even though it served no other practical purpose. Of course Obama was not in attendance — I’m sure he had more important things to do — but I wondered what he would make of the weird, illiberal theater I’d witnessed. I thought back on his speech, delivered after attacks on his association with the radical Reverend Jeremiah Wright:

“… We’ve heard my former pastor ... use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; … they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America...”

No, President Obama would not have approved. He is a liberal, like me, who shares Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of inclusion as a pathway to integration and treating people the same, regardless of any immutable trait. I got into LGBT activism in service of that dream. Isn’t the whole point to bring about a future where everybody is treated as an individual, rather than stereotyped on the basis of superficial qualities? Shouldn’t we be working to break down barriers, instead of fomenting perpetual divisions for tribal warfare? Why were these activists, among the most privileged people in society, so full of disdain for the Enlightenment values that rest at the foundation of all that is good about this country and for the liberal values that made LGBT rights possible? Didn’t they understand that replacing one form of bigotry with another was not real progress? I reassured myself that this was probably just an eccentric group. It was just one day, after all. Surely most LGBT activists shared my liberal values. They had to, right?

I returned to DC to attend training sessions with a leading expert on social media strategy. A friend and colleague, who happened to be a cis white male, committed the cardinal sin: stating an opinion contrary to the Critical “Social Justice” (CSJ) dogma. When asked explicitly to give feedback, he expressed sympathy and understanding for the ideas presented, but dared convey concern that some of the more extreme language being used might alienate allies. He was brutally pilloried by several fellow students in the class, who claimed that his words had triggered them and amounted to “actual violence”, and demanded that he rescind his statement or be expelled. I was flabbergasted, and my friend was fighting back tears, which only elicited more yelling and taunting. We’d made real sacrifices to be there. It felt wrong.

Over the following years, we attended many more progressive conferences, including Netroots Nation (attended every year by Democratic lawmakers). They all had the same toxic culture — and it got worse by the year, especially after Trump took office. Eventually, almost every discussion group, presentation, or speech seemed narrowly focused on this emerging, illiberal ideology. With it, came more obnoxious behavior. Attendees who spoke up in defense of traditional liberal values were protested, shouted down, and disinvited. I witnessed outright racism against white people, sexism against men, and cisheterophobia — all coming from the movement that was supposed to be standing for equality and human rights. Even SSSS (the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality) eventually succumbed to the dogma. They were pressured into releasing embarrassing statements denying biological sex, reinforcing the irrational worldview of CSJ and undermining their scientific mission. There had to be an explanation. I needed to understand the motivations behind this trend.

The Cult of “Social Justice”

I looked to my better half for support. With her MA in Critical Studies, which was somehow related to this convoluted landscape, I knew my wife Talia could help me decode this riddle. She explained that Critical Theory, the obscure academic philosophy I encountered in a literature course, had expanded to become the dominant political principle and epistemology of modern progressive politics.

Madness! How did a single perspective of limited practical application come to capture half of Western political thought — and so quickly?! It wasn’t just the US Democratic Party — it had spread to the global left. I needed to research it further. I compiled a reading list of figures influential in cultural-left thought, including Hegel, Marx, The Frankfurt School, various postmodernists, and their contemporary successors. The common thread was a mode of thought much less grounded in rationality than the analytical, pro-Enlightenment thinkers I preferred. It was like going back to religious school all over again!

Religion, like social justice, is hard to define. Superficially plausible descriptions such as “A belief in god(s)” fall short, because not all religions have such beliefs. Scholars tend to prefer broader, less parochial definitions like “A particular system of faith and worship” or “A pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.” Contemporary thinkers have argued in all seriousness that some apparently secular ideologies can be regarded as religions. In “Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World”, theologian Tara Isabella Burton argues that the “social justice” phenomenon has all the key components of a religion: it provides believers with an all-encompassing worldview, meaning and purpose, clearly defined communal boundaries, and powerful self-actualizing rituals. Linguist John McWhorter’s “Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America” maintains that a blind faith in systemic oppression (despite evidence of unprecedented progress) is a kind of fallen creation myth. Cisgender, heterosexual, white, and/or male people are “born in sin” and can never purge themselves of it — they can only endlessly atone by saying the right words and performing the right self-flagellations. Biologist Richard Dawkins, a notorious critic of religion, has come under fire for making similar invidious comparisons in his attempts to defend his own scientific field from related gender essentialism and science denial. Political Theory Professor Joshua Mitchell has argued that the boundaries between politics and religion are breaking down, and that CSJ has strong structural parallels with Christianity. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, in his book “Woke Inc.”, wrote that CSJ beliefs arguably “Meet the legal definition of a religion” and thus employers would be well-advised not to force these views upon their employees. Among others, CSJ shares with religions the qualities of blind faith, circular epistemology, self-referential exegeses, cynical apologetics, sacred testimony, indoctrination, authoritarianism, holier-than-thou attitudes, hostility to science and rationality, and the persecution and excommunication of heretics.

In Christian school, “faith” was the convenient get-out-of-jail-free-card for authorities who had no real answer to valid questions. Every dogma is reducible to an article of faith, which means that it requires no evidence to back it up. If there was evidence, then there’d be no need for faith. What matters is that we prove our loyalty to God and the Church by choosing to believe despite the dearth of evidence. The less evidence, the more faith is required, and the more noble and virtuous it is to believe. This creates a self-reinforcing, perpetual motion machine of irrationality. It would be harmless enough if people were content to keep those beliefs to themselves, but a great many religious people see it as their calling to force those beliefs onto others through indoctrination and even legislation. The Cult of CSJ is no exception. If someone asks heretic but otherwise perfectly reasonable questions calling for evidence-based answers, they are told that logic and science are tools of the oppressor. It is a symptom of our privilege (sin) that we have these doubts. In other words, we are supposed to take the central tenets of CSJ on faith.

Of course, that doesn’t mean proponents never attempt to offer logical reasons or evidence for their ideas. They often do, but it comes in the form of pseudo-evidence that is reducible to faith. In Adventist school, appeals to science and reason were selectively made only when the apparent facts aligned with the dogma. Any argument or evidence that did not was conveniently ignored or explained away as the devil trying to deceive us. But that isn’t how rationality and science work; you don’t get to pick and choose when their standards apply. Without consistent and universally applied principles, appeals to logic and science are insincere. Does this argument or data point seem superficially compatible with my cherished belief? If yes, then it is true. If no, then it is false. It’s just confirmation bias. Years of working in CSJ-dominated spaces have made it quite clear that this kind of dishonesty is baked into the ideology.

The same circular standard applies to sacred texts: At Christian school, it was the Bible, among other SDA writings. In CSJ circles, it’s the approved canon of scholarship. Religious schools teach a process called exegesis, whereby the sacred text is interpreted. You start with the assumption that the text is the infallible word of God (or one of his prophets), and you proceed from there. If something about the text seems inaccurate or incoherent, you must be misreading the text. After all, you’re a fallible human being — so who are you to judge God’s word? Any apparent failings of the text are thus explained away as user (reader) error. This is exactly how believers in CSJ defend their own core canon. If critics point to logical errors, claims contrary to evidence, or self-contradictions, CSJ defenders are quick to accuse you of “misunderstanding” the material. There’s nothing wrong with Theory — only you’re too dense to comprehend its wisdom. It’s the same tactic.

In religious traditions, apologetics is a discipline where practitioners known as apologists devote their lives to making excuses for the irrationality and immorality of their chosen faith. Is your church engaging in the systematic cover-up of child rape? No problem — put out a ten-thousand-word essay explaining why Catholic tradition is blameless nevertheless. CSJ apologists include academics with pro-CSJ dissertations that lay out the philosophical basis for the practice, and journalists or public intellectuals who apply them in defense of the faith. The underlying principle is blind devotion to the dogma. It’s easy to excuse bad behavior done in its name (or deny that it happens at all), because CSJ is The Truth. If you’ve felt gaslit by people telling you that your concerns are totally misplaced, that cancel culture isn’t real (or it’s a good thing), or that rioting, looting, and arson in the name of CSJ is justified, you’ve been in the company of a religious apologist.

Another form of “proof” used by the religious is sacred testimony. In my Christian school, much fanfare accompanied the testimonies of the “born again.” The testifier would recount negative life experiences such as drug addiction, criminality, or sexual deviance, and how coming to faith in the salvation of Jesus Christ our Lord saved them from a miserable, meaningless existence. Of course stories such as my own, where escaping the church was the liberating experience, were not allowed to be discussed. CSJ’s “lived experience” is the same thing as sacred testimony. We are told we must respect the lived experiences of oppressed groups, and that only oppressed bodies are qualified to discuss issues related to their oppression — which as it turns out, conveniently encompasses all issues. If the “lived experience” in question is compatible with CSJ dogma, it must be believed, and any skepticism is pure bigotry. But if the lived experience does not reinforce CSJ dogma, into the trash they go (even if the speaker is a member of the oppressed group). My experience as a bi person, triggered by the cult-like behavior that brings back childhood traumas doesn’t count for anything at all — because it makes CSJ look bad. Similarly, the lived experiences of black critics of CSJ, like John McWhorter, are also rejected. There are no real principles here.

Just as with religion, people are not born believing dogmatic ideologies. They are indoctrinated into these beliefs. In my childhood, that was accomplished by a curated revisionist history and science curriculum. The CSJ cult uses taxpayer-funded public schools. Every subject must be reworked to ensure students are only permitted to see the issue through a CSJ lens. Ideologues always prefer indoctrination to genuine education that teaches students how to think instead of what to think, because critical thinking, rationality, skepticism, debate, and free speech are the tools that dismantle nonsense. By contrast, dogmatic belief systems shut down criticism by punishing the critics and silencing free speech. Liberalism, with its preference for open and universal inquiry, is seen as dangerous because it steers people away from the virtuous path. According to “social justice” pedagogy, not only are there ‘stupid questions,' there are evil ones. The very act of questioning CSJ is “literal violence” that must be shut down — by punishing the student (or teacher) who does so.

This ideology is consuming every academic subject. It began in the humanities, but it is now infecting even the hard sciences and mathematics. Universal, objective standards for success in these fields are derided as oppressive. Science and mathematics are now “One way of knowing,” no better than any other, and perhaps even inferior — since they are the preferred tools of Western culture. Those who disagree with its tenets are pressured, intimidated, silenced, or exiled as heretics. Professors like former Portland State University professor Peter Boghossian and even administrators like former Harvard President Lawrence Summers are run out of academia; employees like former Google engineer James Damore and even executives like former Roivant CEO Vivek Ramaswamy are forced out of corporations, and in the nonprofit world I’ve seen the same play out over and over again — especially in progressive spaces like LGBT activism.

Give Me that Old-Time Religion

Religion satisfies a deep need for many people, and it is not my place to take it away from anyone. But religion has boundaries. The world’s first liberal democracy was founded by Enlightenment thinkers who understood that the best way to respect religious freedom was to separate church from state. The establishment clause of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution was devised to serve that purpose, as eloquently explained by Thomas Jefferson in his Letter to the Danbury Baptists:

“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”

That wall must apply to all religions, theistic or otherwise. Believers of Critical Social Justice have every right to hold their beliefs. But the freedom of religion also means freedom from religion. Just as they must be free to believe as they wish, we must be free from having their beliefs forced down our throats. Taxpayer-funded schools should not teach the tenets of CSJ, and their ideas should not be applied to the pedagogy or curriculum of public schools. Corporations and nonprofits should have no more right to discriminate against employees based on CSJ beliefs than upon traditional (religious) ones. A liberal society should tolerate differences of opinion and allow ideas to compete fairly in the marketplace of ideas. CSJ cannot be granted special status, because that road leads to totalitarianism. The debate over CSJ isn’t likely to be settled any time soon, but we should be able to come to a consensus about its place in the public sphere. We need only choose between the liberty afforded by secularism or the tyranny imposed by theocracy. I know which I prefer. As a bi man who was liberated from religiously-induced self-loathing by exposure to a more secular environment, I can attest that liberalism and Enlightenment ideals are the path forward for our movement. Tethering ourselves to illiberal ideologies like CSJ is not.

“Social Justice” is Not Just

At the outset, I explained that I distinguish between two conceptions of Social Justice: the liberal one (LSJ) and a newly ascendant illiberal one (CSJ). Liberal Social Justice is the vision that has given us the progress we’ve made on civil rights; it is one based on the liberal principle of equal treatment for all individuals regardless of their membership in any identity group. It’s what was championed by the original feminists, LGBT activists, and anti-racist leaders. By contrast, Critical Social Justice, in the name of Neo-Marxist “equity” (equal outcomes), advocates for intentional systemic discrimination against historically “oppressive” groups. This is because you cannot have that kind of “equity” without violating the liberal principle of equality. The most informed and honest of its adherents will admit this if pressed.

A collectivist conception of “justice” breeds tribal warfare and tyranny. CSJ proponents are correct that there is a history of oppression against marginalized groups. But that oppression wasn’t in the name of liberalism; it was in the name of different illiberal ideologies: pre-liberal feudalism, mercantilist slavery, theocratic homophobia, and fascism. For a group that claims to value nuanced critiques of issues, CSJ proponents seem to miss a key fact about the West: we are not and never have been perfectly liberal. Progress has happened gradually, always slowed and sometimes reversed by various illiberal alternatives that have animated segments of our society all along. And, yes, the early liberal and Enlightenment thinkers were not perfect exemplars of their ideals. Nobody ever is. But this is to be expected. Utopia isn’t possible, which is why we channel inevitable human conflicts in productive directions through institutions like capitalism and democracy. Beware the cult that sells you a utopia, because any dictatorial action can be justified by such a false vision.

It wasn’t Critical Social Justice that liberated me as a bi person. It was Liberal Social Justice. For any individual to be liberated, they need a conception of justice that values individual liberty. CSJ proponents aren’t going to liberate anyone. They are merely justifying a new kind of prejudice by appealing to an old one. This is why they must deny that we’ve made progress on civil rights in the West. If they were to admit it, they’d lose their excuse for that power grab. Liberals should not be taken in by this con. CSJ isn’t the new frontier of civil rights. It’s just one of liberalism’s old enemies resurfacing and rebranded with a trendy 21st-century pseudo-woke veneer — one of many illiberal ideologies vying for the power to tear society down and seize control for itself. Given liberalism’s proven track record of progress on civil rights, we’d be unwise to ally, even temporarily, with a movement that opposes those ideals. We need an awakening, but a liberal one — which celebrates real progress and views collective action as voluntary arrangements between individuals. We need a new Enlightenment, not just another deluded cult. It’s time liberals wake up to the fact that Critical Social Justice is an oxymoron, a mockery, and a Trojan horse. CSJ might just as well stand for “The Cult of ‘Social Justice.’”

A New Age of Enlightenment: Cult dynamics in the modern era

For our 'Majestic' issue, Ella O'Keeffe explores the pillars of ethical and unethical cult dynamics and wellness sociology in the modern era.

www.russh.com|Gabriela Hidalgo

In March 2016 I sat in a hall filled with over 100 people in Rishikesh, India. A white cotton scarf slung around my shoulders, a string of prayer beads hanging from my neck. We were there to witness a satsang – a panel for spiritual discourse, or ‘gathering together for the truth’ as it formally translates from Sanskrit – hosted by a famous guru and spiritual leader. I had agreed to attend a day prior, baring little knowledge of what a satsang was, or what the guru – who had invited me – was necessarily known for. To suggest I was underprepared for what transpired the following day only touches the sides.

In this hall, the guru sat atop a throne-like chair on stage in front of hundreds of devoted followers who sobbed at the sight of him. A microphone was passed around; an opportunity for attendees to ask questions about enlightenment, purpose, and personal blockages. Some who got the opportunity to enquire fell to their knees, begging to just sit at his feet, kiss his hands, relish his energy. Assertions of the guru being the ‘real deal’ were thrown around fervently, and I, somehow sitting in a deep feeling of safety, couldn’t help but nod in agreement. I attended two more satsangs in the following week.

I travelled to Hyderabad for the day to hear him speak, let my Birkenstocks get stolen as I fell asleep on the floor in peace. I travelled to Lucknow with the group I was working with, visited the late guru Papaji’s ashram and sat in the dark listening to tapes of his past spiritual discourse sessions. We visited his house, sat in his living room, swatted mosquitos away as those who knew him reminisced on his presence. At one point, one of his devotees took me by the hand to the late guru’s bedroom. Silently directing me inside, he shut the door as he left me alone. I fell to my knees and wept, convinced that my physical reaction to what was happening was a spiritual apparition, and not the exhaustion of travelling through India for the past 10 days.

On reflection, I have been surrounded by cult-like dynamics all my life. Raised by parents who are ex-sannyasin’s and ex-Osho devotees – in Byron Bay – the wellness epicentre of Australia, almost indoctrinated into ashrams throughout India. Tightly bound social organisations have been constant, cultic mechanisms imbued in each ideation.

I thought about this trip for months after returning from India, desperate to tell anyone who’d listen about the teachings I’d been privy to. Wanting to go back every time I experienced any measure of pain, desperate for people to understand that the key to life is giving up your ego and embracing enlightenment through complete detachment of self.

It’s easy to imagine cults as mythology-fuelled organisations that tend to manifest as a group who forms an intense and bonding commitment to a charismatic leader or ideology; making use of several debilitating techniques of social control. Secret societies, exclusive and isolated social organisations. Most famously, The Manson Family, the Charles Manson-led cult responsible for the Manson Family murders, setting the stage for satanic panic across America; NXIVM, the sex-trafficking cult most famous for branding its followers; Osho’s Rashneeshpuram, the focus of Netflix’s Wild Wild Country docuseries; Children of God, the ‘free love’ organisation rife with child sexual abuse; The People’s Temple, most famous for the events in Guyana in 1978, where 909 people died in a mass suicide at its remote settlement named “Jonestown.” All painting a shuddering picture of extreme cases of destructive cults.

“When you get into a group where they say ‘your mind is the enemy, give up your ego, the leader is God, Jesus incarnate, don’t be attached to your body.’ It’s just so unhealthy,” says Dr. Steven Hassan, a mental health professional and expert in undue influence tactics used by authoritarian leaders and destructive cults. He is also the author of four books including Combating Cult Mind Control and The Cult of Trump, and an ex-Moonie cult member.

He defines the key characteristics of destructive cults as we know them as the control of people’s behaviour, their information, their thoughts and their emotions to make them dependent and obedient. “The issue is that you don’t have free will, in the sense that there are very strong pressures socially and psychologically, to conform, obey, be in fear. It’s an external locus of control for your life,” Hassan explains.

This kind of behaviour can be traced back in secret societies and cults throughout history. As Norman Mackenzie’s 1960 book Secret Societies describes, “The rituals of many societies may seem anachronistic and bizarre; their beliefs may appear foolish, and their practices eccentric or even barbarous. But no one should underestimate the hold they have had on the minds of those who have felt the need to join them.”

“When we look at a secret group under pressure, we see that its members may choose to die rather than to break the bonds that have united them.”

It’s pretty safe to guess that most people reading this believe themselves to be unsusceptible to cult-like behaviours or indoctrination techniques. How hard could it be, after all? Simply don’t join a cult. But I’d also argue that you’d be hard pressed to find any current or ex-cult member who set out to intentionally join a group. Dr. Hassan credits adherent acquisition to mind control. Not the mystic, Scooby-Doo-style variety, but the kind that is integral to the formation of destructive cults.

He bases this theory off the BITE model – an acronym Hassan pioneered to describe the specific methods cults use to recruit and maintain control over people. ‘BITE’ stands for Behaviour, Information, Thought and Emotional control. He has also developed an Influence Continuum chart, highlighting the scale of influence from individuals, leaders, and groups, ranging from constructive and healthy behaviour to destructive and unhealthy. According to Hassan, both can be cults, however not all are destructive. “Ethical to unethical, healthy, to unhealthy. It’s not a binary, it’s a continuum,” he says.

To think of cults as singularly synonymous with extreme destructive, abusive and controlling dynamics, is to overlook the many ways they have pervaded society for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

We must cast the net wider, investigating the grey area between the signals of ethical and unethical cult dynamics. In a crowded room, is it possible to identify the types of people most vulnerable to such persuasion? Without giving too much away, the answer is likely no. As desperate as we are to believe the opposite, almost anyone is at risk.

“In urbanised or highly industrialised societies,” Mackenzie writes, “secret associations of the fraternal, quasi-masonic type seem to be playing a stabilising role, helping to fill the void that has been created by the sheer size, complexity, and fragmentation of urban living.”

When reframed in the context of a digital world wound tightly around an obsession for wellness, the idea of destructive cultic mechanisms becomes even less linear. Author, journalist, co-host of the Conspirituality podcast and ex-cult member, Matthew Remski, can attest to this. After spending six of his formative years in two different cultic organisations (and 10 years post-exit recovering from the damage), Remski has been writing about cultic dynamics in yoga and Buddhist spaces since.

The product on offer is self-improvement, and the catalyst to get us there is the ‘enlightened’ guru or leader. When we look at some of the most notable cults in modern history, spirituality is an undeniable denominator in the promise that is offered. According to Remski, the intention is never as it would appear. “The first thing to be very clear about is that the cult doesn’t exist to provide content, the cult exists to manipulate members,” he says. “So people get quite confused about whether cultic organisations necessarily have a religious angle to them, or whether charismatic leaders have to take on the effect of religious figures or priests.”

While spirituality and cults can often be bound together by premise, the destruction often lies in the deception helmed by a malignant narcissist leader, not necessarily by the belief system itself.

“When you really get the basic axiom that the content of the cult is part of its deceptive technique, and therefore, it doesn’t really matter what the nuts and bolts are – in fact, the nuts and bolts of what they believe is part of the deception – and if you spend too much time talking about or analysing what the actual beliefs are, you’re kind of endorsing the organisation as being a religious organisation, or a political organisation.” Remski says.

When observing cultic dynamics that are rooted in self-improvement from a wellness practice lens (think yoga and meditation), the line of authoritarian control becomes even less demarcated.

“I think that it’s the spiritual cults that are most famous because they seem to be the most unlikely,” says Remski. “And at the same time, the difference between what is promised and what actually happens is so egregious, that it presents a particularly pernicious level of betrayal.” Therein lies the danger of the carrot offered to the follower. “You will understand reality on one hand, or you will become enlightened. But then the shadow of that promise is a deep threat. Which is, ‘If you don’t go along with this ideology, and if you don’t submit yourself to this kind of control, you will be imperilled, perhaps forever or for lifetimes’.”

The last decade’s rise and rise of wellness culture has come served not only with gut cleansing tonics and calls for mindfulness, but also heaped doses of scepticism, with some likening it to one of the largest covert ideations of cultic mechanisms in the modern world.

The carrot on offer, for example, is the same one blended in the ginger, orange and turmeric juice Gwyneth Paltrow wants you to drink each morning to ‘kick start’ your metabolism – a promise of the aspirational self-bottled into product form, with a label declaring ‘You need this for people to see you as whole. As reformed. As clean.’

What we are coming to witness is the normalisation of cultic dynamics in a more efficient way, proliferated by access to a digital world. One example is the influencer, who has been presented with a unique opportunity to channel all of the charisma and control tactics of the guru with very little accountability. The influencer who is constantly telling you to detox your body (a function that our livers quite often have under control if you’re not totally abusing it) is the same one directly profiting off of the activated charcoal and dry body brush they have a discount code linked to in their bio. “There’s a direct lineage of charismatic personalities and marketing the aspirational self, in ways that are more and more socially acceptable. That’s basically the wellness industry. That’s certainly also more lucrative, right?” Remski says.

Right, of course. We’re not being forced to purchase something that will supposedly increase our value as human beings, but to not understand the scope of the way these tactics can infiltrate our behaviour and, ultimately, our sense of worth as individuals, is to ignore the evidence that has been building a case against the deceptiveness of social media for years.

It was here in these spaces that my own relationship to wellness became directly linked to forms of self-harm. On cleanses since the age of 15, going vegan, cutting out oil, cutting out fats, going raw, restricting my fruit intake, restricting my calorie intake, restricting my freedom, leading me further down my relentless pursuit of cleanliness that always seemed to be at the end of the next celery juice fast. This time, I should add, was when I was my weakest and most miserable self. It was also the time that I sat for hours in satsang, on the precipice of worshipping gurus.

For many, an affliction to the wellness industry is a posthumous reaction to experiencing more destructive cultic behaviour. A convergence of capitalist wellness sociology is born on the tails of intense cultic dynamics, offering a sense of normalcy and reduced harm without so much changing the balance of power.

Today, the digital experience has not only proliferated the concept of wellness as a cultic mechanism, but much darker forces, too. “I think that especially in the digital age, especially in the age of Qanon… in the age of online network marketing, in the age of multi-level marketing, we have to start looking at cultic dynamics as being features of tightly bound social organisations that benefit very few,” Remski says. The vision of the cult as we traditionally know it has transcended both location and leader, and manifests in ways that are undeniably more nuanced than our traditional understanding.

Dr. Hassan’s BITE model can be applied in exactly the same way through the lens of groups that exist on the internet. Characteristics such as behavioural control can manifest not only through people being told exactly what to do, but also through actions. In the case of the Qanon phenomenon – a set of internet-born conspiracy theories that allege that the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles, among other disproven rhetoric – these actions, for example, include staying up all night waiting for Q drops (an inadvertent form of sleep deprivation). Or, being shown algorithmic content wherein artificial intelligence has figured out the users’ emotional hotspots and targets them with content that will fuel the conspiracy. “The AI for the social media is doing the work of the charismatic leader, who used to have to escalate his or her own content in order to radicalise. They don’t have to do that anymore,” Remski says.

In tandem to this, Dr. Hassan notes that the pandemic has been another amplifier, exacerbating feelings of vulnerability. “Everyone has anxiety,” Dr. Hassan says, “everyone was socially isolated. So, it was just that much easier to spread all kinds of influence projects to get people involved.” As a result, the acceleration of Qanon has made it one of the most well-known digital cult dynamics of the modern era. Its most notable method of magnification is through recruitment tactics that preyed on the uncertainty of the past year.

This highlights another vital part of the conversation: In order to unpack the role cultic dynamics play in our society, it’s important to acknowledge the types of people vulnerable to becoming victims, as well as the type of leader. Someone who, as Dr. Hassan points out, could be anyone at the ‘right place and right time’.

“There’s always deception used,” Dr. Hassan explains. “In my case, my girlfriend dumped me. I was a college student … Three women pretending to be students approached me out in the cafeteria and it led to me going to a dinner and a lecture, and then being invited to go away for a weekend. And then I got into a cult for two and a half years.”

As far as the anticipation of cult indoctrination, it’s seldom likely that the idea sits high on many peoples’ list of worries. Rather, it lingers like an afterthought, once the bitter taste of another’s story has cleared from their throats; a passed judgement about how someone could end up in such an unthinkable scenario. No-one considers themselves easy bait, and our tendency to generalise incorrectly is an unfortunate constant in the overarching conversation. To imagine that the only people vulnerable to cultic dynamics are those who are stupid, weak, uneducated, mentally or emotionally distressed (and so on), is to close oneself off to the potential warning signs of recruitment.

“We’re human beings. We like to learn and grow, we like to have friends and do meaningful things. And in the right sequence, an authoritarian cult recruiter can influence many people that get involved, Dr. Hassan warns. “And then once you’re involved,” it becomes increasingly difficult to exit.”

In most cases, it comes down to both community and bonds. When those bonds are informed by trauma, and the leader of the group can oscillate between terror and love bombing, disorganised attachment is likely to form. Remski attributes this theory to the work of Alexandra Stein, a writer and educator specialising in the social psychology of ideological extremism and dangerous social relationships. “Forget about the ideology, forget about what the person is promising you, forget about the robes and the funny hats and the weird rituals,” he says. “Forget about all of that. At the heart of the basic relationships, if there is a confusion between an authority figure who terrifies and then seems to offer a false safe haven or protection, that’s the magic. That’s what’s going to bond people together in this extremely destructive dynamic.”

Norman Mackenzie articulated the dynamic in Secret Societies, attributing an involvement in cults to the underpinnings of the modern identity crisis. One that, when the net truly is cast wider, can be recognised as a murmur within us all. A murmur that ultimately becomes louder with our desire to find community, form connections, do work that feels meaningful, live out our purpose, and find ways to combat the innate loneliness that is intrinsic to our existence in a contemporary world.

“It is important to realise that these groups may reflect as many different aspects of human thought and action as are found in society at large – and that each, in its own way, represents an attempt to solve the common human problem of identity.”

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

If there's one thing I'm NOT afraid of, it's being 'cancelled'.

If being cancelled means me living in integrity as a human being who thinks for themselves, CANCEL ME TODAY!

I repeat; I am not afraid.

What I'm truly afraid of is existing in a world that forces me to submit to an ideology without question, otherwise I'm to be shamed (or pressured to shame myself) and cast out of the community.

A world that tells me that because I inhabit a black body; I will forever be oppressed and at the mercy of some omnipresent monster called 'whiteness'.

That because of the colour of my skin; I am a victim of an inherently racist system by default - and me rejecting the narrative of oppression means that I am in fact, in denial.

How empowering!

*You know, as someone that comes from Zimbabwe, a country where the general population is truly oppressed, it perplexes me that oppression is now being worn as an identity piece in most parts of the West, especially by those who claim to be 'progressive'*

What I'm truly afraid of is existing in a world that forces me to consider the colour of my skin and my gender (and that of others) at every fucking turn, instead of living by Martin Luther King's teachings and prioritising the content of mine and other people's character.

I dread the prospect of a world where context, nuance, critical thinking, meritocracy, mathematics, science, and rationality are considered tools of 'white supremacy', and the rule is that you're not allowed to question or argue this senseless statement - especially if you're white.

A world that is conditioning you and I to believe that we will always be trapped in some weird hierarchy because of our race, our genitals, our physical abilities, our neurodiversity, our sexuality, and our politics.

And that if we do not agree on every single thing, it's a sign that we are interacting with an enemy - or at the very least, someone to be wildly suspicious and judgmental of...instead of another complex human being worthy of being seen and heard.

I wish this world I’m speaking of was just a figment of my imagination, but we are already inside it. Our suitcases have been unpacked here for quite some time.

This absolutist, authoritarian world is being fiercely crafted under the guise of 'social justice', and I want no parts in this. I AM OUT.

As someone that, politically speaking, leans left on most things (although I'm neither left or right) - the current state of affairs and this push for obedience at all costs is NOT what I signed up for.

I never signed up to be hit over the head with disempowering narratives that tell me that I need to refer to myself as a 'person of colour' (how is this different being called a ‘coloured’ person?), a minority, a marginalised person, and BAME (UK version of BIPOC).

I cannot stand any of these terms.

Please, if we ever need to address my racial identity, which we really don't need to do as often as you might think...BLACK works just fine, it's not a dirty word.

And remember; it's okay if the language I mentioned before is affirming for you, we are allowed to disagree - but for ME, it does nothing but give me false reminders of my supposed oppression...which rubs me the wrong way entirely because I AM NOT OPPRESSED.

I think it's key that we begin to accept that black people don't all share a singular experience, nor do we share the same brain.

Shocking, I know.

'We are not a monolith' has become a common statement within communities that identify as marginalised, and while I wholeheartedly agree, we're definitely not a monolith...

I've noticed that despite this being a popular mantra - when someone 'steps out of line' or dares to think differently...it's a different story. You will often have the pleasure of being told that you are in denial and have some kind of internalised disorder;

'internalised racism', 'internalised anti-blackness', 'internalised misogyny', 'internalised sexism', 'internalised homophobia', 'internalised transphobia', 'internalised white supremacy'...

Meaning NOTHING can be questioned.

Fun. Culty. Vibes.

Honestly, I want better for us because it's all getting a bit much in these social justice/woke spaces, and it scares me to know that it's become controversial to address any concerns or express a differing viewpoint.

It's becoming dangerous to address reality. You either agree and comply, or you shut up.

I'm so happy that these are conversations that are now happening with many black people in my life, including my family who spend very little time online, are willing to have healthy debates, and couldn't give a crap about identity politics. These are the people who have really helped me free myself from the dogmatic thinking.

It's necessary for me to mention that I'm having these conversations with black people because some individuals think that it's only white people who are pushing back against wokeism, and it's far from the truth.

What is worrying though is how many more of us feel afraid to talk to our own friends, our partners, our spouses, our colleagues, our family - of fear of being branded as 'wrong-thinkers'. How are we supposed to understand each other if we're living in constant fear of saying the 'wrong' thing?

It's even harder if you're white because there's usually someone just waiting to call you racist. And according to the woke manual, if you're white you're supposed to just accept that label. If you do question it or defend yourself, it's taken as confirmation that you ARE in fact a white supremacist.

If you DARE express any fears or signs of being rightfully upset, you'll be accused of 'centering your white feelings', and of exuding 'white guilt' or 'white fragility'. With all disrespect, I don't understand the purpose of these cultish, degrading, racist terms.

How are they helping us move forward? Is this true social justice? How is this helping the black community? How is this shaping a world where you and I aren't judged by the colour of our skin? Are we really trying to eradicate racism with racism?

The LITERAL definition of racism is "prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group". And yet some people have suddenly decided that white people cannot experience racism, nor are they permitted to dispute this insane claim.

This then leads to most white people choosing to not say anything at all (which creates resentment because that's the nature of suppression & self-censorship), and some choose to comply and pretend they are on board with anything and everything (whilst also secretly resenting that they can't truly express their thoughts, ideas, feelings, etc).

To me all of this confirms that when it comes to 'wokeness', critical social justice, and the beast that is cancel culture, you will never win. You will NEVER get it right. If you choose to stand back, 'educate yourself’ privately and quietly; you'll be accused of being violent via your silence...

And if you speak out, ask questions, or express valid confusion from the dehumanising generalisations and character assassinations; you'll be denounced for centering your 'white feelings'.

This sounds like psychological warfare to me.

I can't be the only one that also finds this language eerie.

This is cult behaviour!

And for saying the above I'm sure someone out there will lovingly label me a 'white apologist'...

This is where we're at people.

And like I said at the beginning, when it comes to this - I am unafraid.

This is my open letter detailing some of the things that have led me to this point, because if there's anything that this past year has taught me; it's that my wellbeing and that of those around me (including the collective), is infinitely more important than any temporary discomfort that might come from me doing what I know to be right.

I also want to let you know that I'm not writing this to convince you of anything, your agreement is welcome but it's not a requirement. I'm not writing this from a place of animosity or anger.

I'm not writing this on behalf of any individual, group, movement, organisation, or community. I am not an activist, a social commentator, a feminist, an academic, or any other label apart from the ones I claim publicly.

I am writing this to free myself.

I am writing this for myself.

And for you if you need it.

Just like you; I am entitled to my own opinions, I have every right to question things that don't feel aligned with my values, morals, ethics, and beliefs. I have every right to push back if I recognise that I'm being forced to comply with ideologies and practices that don't make sense to me (which is how I've felt this past year).

I don't want to live my life in a fearful and paranoid state. I don't want to spend my life thinking that everything that doesn't go my way is because of my skin colour, I don't want to spend the rest of my life unable to have insightful conversations with those that think differently to me...I really don't.

I'm tired of hearing that because I'm black I should feel victimised. That because I'm black I should agree with everything that black people do and say (surely NOONE should have this expected of them).

None of these narrow definitions of human existence or blackness help me. None of it helps my community. It's keeping us small. It's keeping us stuck, afraid, and defensive. I reject the idea that I am a victim. I reject the idea that I am oppressed.

I reject the idea that white people only exist to oppress and should be reminding me of their privilege every 2 seconds, while simultaneously telling me that they are above me.

How is this helpful!? If anything, it's deeply offensive and condescending.

There's no question about it; being black is a beautiful part of who I am, but it's not all I am - not even close. My identity (race, gender, sexuality, body parts) will never be more important than my humanity, my spirit, and my wholeness. EVER.

Because of this, I fervently reject the idea that all white people are racist and must be shamed into confessing their sins and admitting complicity in all of their ancestors indiscretions...simply because of the colour of their skin. I reject this bullshit idea that every white person walking this planet is 'inherently racist'.

Do we even know what we're saying? or are we just regurgitating/parroting things, and now it's gotten out of control.

I honestly struggle to see how shaming others (or shaming yourself) for having white skin is an essential part of fuelling true social change. Surely this is regressive? It also sounds a little like the very thing we've spent years moving away from...

The truth of the matter is that my own ancestors have participated in some FUCKERY and I would not want to live the rest of my life being punished for their actions. A lot of what I'm seeing in the woke/critical social justice spaces is not about creating a better world, it seems to be about punishment and revenge.

And it's doing nothing but trampling on the work true Activists are doing and have been doing for centuries!

I do have to take a moment to acknowledge those who are doing fantastic work and making a long-lasting impact in their communities, instead of perpetuating fear and manipulating people's emotions by convincing them they will always be victims.

I'm done with the insidious brainwashing of wokeness.

I'm committed to understanding human behaviour (this is also at the core of what I do professionally), I'm committed to compassion and kindness without excusing that which must be acknowledged.

I'm well aware of the systems we live under. I know what's happening in the world. I've lived it. I acknowledge reality, but I refuse to be a slave to a disempowering narrative that rarely focuses on actual solutions.

I never want to forget that you can still be compassionate with those you don't agree with. And this way of thinking is what I CHOOSE because it makes my time on planet earth better, you don't have to take it on if it doesn't work for you.

I want to live a life that isn't centred around identity politics and all that comes with it, so much more in my life takes priority.

I want to remain open to new ideas, perspectives, and thoughts - so that I can grow, course correct where necessary, and make a genuine impact on a local and global level.

I want to give people the benefit of the doubt and continue using discernment instead of making sweeping harmful (often lazy) assumptions based on the colour of people's skin or their gender.

I refuse to take on the black or white thinking because I've seen and experienced the grave harm that does.

As I move into this next season of my life, I'm more interested in the grey area - where we all exist.

The nail in the coffin for me was all the events that took place last Summer.

Last Summer in the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, I noticed a shadowy part of me emerging and although I didn't judge it, I wasn't comfortable with what was coming up.

All the critical social justice dogma I'd been consciously and unconsciously imbibing over the past 2 years began taking a HUGE toll on my mental health, and I hadn't even realised that I wasn't functioning as a full human being - until it reached it's peak.

The unpleasant internal experience I had is what led me where I am now, which is why I'm a firm believer that welcoming discomfort in is one of the most loving things you can do for yourself.

On social media at that time I was DEEP is various social justice echo chambers that shared more than enough infographics, stories, feed posts, IG LIVES, to make my fight or flight response go nuts. I was in constant fight mode, and wasn't aware.

I was being indoctrinated; this means "to teach a person or a group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically".

I found myself subconsciously looking for things that would piss me off, which is a symptom of wokeness that seems to show up in many people - hundreds of you have shared your own experiences with me in the past month alone and the similarities in our stories are alarming.

Before reacting to things, I did ZERO in-depth research of my own. It's almost as if facts were an unwelcome guest. Anything that didn't align with the beliefs I held about race, sex, gender, politics, etc - I rejected (this was all unconscious). I didn't question the sources I was getting information from, it was all taken as objective truth.

It was ALL reactionary, I was alon autopilot.

I didn't realise I had many people on pedestals that they shouldn't have been on in the first place (no fault of their own, I put them there), I was operating purely based on emotions and feelings that gave my nervous system the signal that I was under threat.

And that's the energy I acted and spoke from.

I rashly unfollowed some people on my social media who I'd decided should have 'spoken up' in support of Black Lives Matter (an organisation I have now done my own extensive research on, but that's a whole other story) - simply because (based on my egos time frame) they weren't responding as and when they 'should' have.

I'm sure I re-shared something about 'white silence' being 'violence' (an oversimplified and unfair statement I no longer agree with, and you can watch the lengthy live I did with Rukiat where I go into some of this).

I also publicly shamed an unsuspecting man who had messaged me to question me about my conduct (I immediately assumed he was white...he was mixed race). And even though his approach was not a welcome one, he wasn't unkind to me - which is why I'm not proud of the unkind way in which I reacted...not responded, reacted.

What frightened me was the applause I got from over 4,000 people when I called out this man in an Instagram post - I didn't say anything wild, but I did deconstruct his direct message publicly with the intention to embarrass him, not to resolve anything - to embarrass.

I was honestly shocked by how many people used the environment I had created to exercise pack mentality, and to casually shame and scold a stranger - of which I take responsibility for as the person that created that environment.

I now know that publicly shaming someone is a common tactic used in most woke spaces and echo chambers on social media, and it's so normalised. This is the kind of thing that quickly leads to bullying, doxing, stalking, and harassment...and sometimes ends in suicide.

After seeing the responses applauding me, I removed the post and started asking myself some questions; who am I doing this for? why did my interaction with this man need to be publicised? what is really the root of the anger I feel? is this a performance on my behalf?

what research have I done to support the ideology I'm leading with? are there any alternative sources that can give me more information or provide clarity on the situation I'm reacting to? do I really believe this or am I regurgitating something I read/heard/saw somewhere?

I'm of the thinking that there is such a thing as justified anger, and I believe that all emotions and modes of expressions have their place - but I know myself well enough to know that the way I handled that particular situation was not necessary.

This incident led me start evaluating my own behaviour and doing more research around the cancel culture phenomenon. And it's just one recent example of how some of this stuff has showed up in my life over the past 2 years.

SO, why am I calling 'WOKENESS' a cult?

Well, first lets start by defining what the term woke even means. It's a term that been around for a very long time but has (in my eyes) lost all of it's credibility and meaning in recent years.

Woke: a term embedded in US Black History and social justice which originally meant being aware, well-informed, and up to date with what was happening within the community.

"Stay woke became a watch word in parts of the black community for those who considered themselves self-aware, questioning the dominant paradigm, and striving for something better" - and these are the sentiments I will always stand for, however...

This is NOT how it's playing out these days, and you can read this interesting article to get a timeline of how it's evolved over the years, and I'll continue sharing with you the specific pockets of 'wokeness' and social justice that I have divorced myself from.

I can no longer be an active participant in any culture or movement that encourages groupthink, outrage on demand, fear and violence, revamped segregation, fabricating history, cancellations masked as accountability, self-centredness...

normalisation of racism towards white people, the disempowerment of black people masked as social justice, the constant redefining of existing language, ignoring self-responsibility, constant pathologizing, oppressed vs oppressor mentality, and the pressure to conform and comply...

It's exhausting.

And honestly, I have better things to do with my time.

Not to mention, it's killing us.

I also find it very telling that people who are married to these woke spaces will immediately assume that those that are requesting for more compassion, understanding, room for discussion, removal of censorship - only want these things so they can have free reign to be bigots, sexist, 'fascists', racists, homophobes, etc.

As a free-thinking black woman who most definitely wants more compassion, understanding, healthy discussion, empathy, removal of censorship, more tolerance and acceptance when it matters most...I can guarantee you that my final goal isn't so I can be a racist sexist fascist alt-righter extremist.

LOL.

And if you can understand this, what makes someone who happens to be white any less sincere if they want the exact same thing as me?

Which many people do!

I hope you can sort of see just how oversimplified and flawed this madness is.

I often laugh about the ridiculous nature of it all, but what's concerning is that it's spreading like wildfire, it's causing lasting harm, and it's distracting us from the very real work that needs to be done to tackle injustice and unite us as human beings.

I will stick to my guns by saying that the turn we're taking because of critical social justice and this current strain of branded monetised wokeness - is not going to take us to the promised land (SPOILER: there is no utopia, I'm sorry to break it to you).

As someone who will never stop advocating for human rights (fairness, equality, access to resources, respect, independence - for ALL, not just for people who share my skin tone and gender), I have come to realise that I do not need to be part of any groups or wear any labels to make a positive contribution to this planet of ours.

This is also why I do not identify as a feminist.

Just like everything else I've spoken about so far; the current wave of commodified feminism is so far removed from my core values; honesty, respect, interconnection, equality, individuality etc.

There's a lot of self-righteousness, virtue signalling, self-centeredness, and a lack of empathy in most of what I see being presented today as feminism - and again; it seems to be about revenge, superiority, and personal branding.

It's also not uncommon to be made to feel unintelligent, wrong, and inferior in a lot of these supposedly 'safe spaces' - simply because you don't identify with the label or agree with all the view points of the group.

IT'S TIRING, and I wish more people knew that you can still believe in and advocate for equality and fairness without wearing a label like a badge of honour. My mission isn't to be superior to anyone, nor do I want to see the demise of any gender.

I believe that we should all have equal rights and opportunities, and I'm also realistic about the differences we have as human beings - I celebrate those differences. In a world obsessed with labels and titles, I would rather let my values and actions speak for themselves.

These are the times when I am incredibly grateful for the upbringing I've had, both in Zimbabwe and here in the UK. I'm grateful that I was raised to think for myself, and that's what I'll continue to do.

I was raised to not judge people based on the colour of their skin, gender, class etc - no matter what. And that's what I'll continue to do.

YES, I could choose to carry animosity in my heart based on the pain my ancestors experienced and the injustice still taking place in many different parts of the world - but what does that do for me, my mental state, my community, and those I interact with in the present day?

I'd rather acknowledge reality, and focus on solutions.

I wasn't really raised to ask many questions, but in adulthood asking powerful questions (even when they are simple) is something that has become a non-negotiable - and that's what I will continue to do.

I will continue to trust myself and question things. I will do my own research before responding purely based on emotion. I will keep myself open to having challenging conversations if I have the capacity to do so, and if I don't have the capacity to engage, I will still not shut anyone down - unless absolutely necessary.

My biggest realisation has been that most of these people that pose as Social Justice Warriors, Activists, Agents of Change etc - don't actually want to improve and repair society. They don't want a better world. For some the goal is to make things worse.

A lot of the people I know in these spaces have brands, careers, and management teams from this. Their livelihood depends on them playing this role, which often means that they will continue to find everything wrong with society instead of making consistent efforts to unite and truly empower.

There's a sinister side many people aren't comfortable speaking about because of the potential backlash, and it's unfair to those of us who end up being sucked into these echo chambers and movements through the promise of community and betterment.

Most of us just want to help. We want to see change! In our personal lives, and in the world we exist in. This leaves us vulnerable to questionable 'leaders', influencers, and organisations who set themselves up so that you cannot question their practices or agenda.

The similarities of wokeness/critical social justice to fundamentalist religion (something I'm VERY familiar with) is why I choose to call it a cult, the framework and tactics are eerily similar...

It usually goes a little like this; find/attract a vulnerable person, make them feel like they belong so they can trust you, tell them exactly what they want to hear, and once they become loyal - it is easier to sell them outlandish concepts and to make them 'repent' for 'sins' they have supposedly committed...

the person then regresses and begins to rely on their 'leader' or the ideology to shape their thoughts and their world view. They are introduced to an enemy and are encouraged to cut themselves off from the outside world and anyone else who doesn't agree with or follow the ideology (us vs them mentality).

Once cut off from everyone, the individual is more dependent on the leader or the group, and then it becomes increasingly difficult to leave. Just like an abusive relationship! This is exactly what I'm seeing in the woke/feminist/critical social justice spaces.

Despite it all, the individual is often unaware of what's really happening and will continue to believe that they are acting on their own accord. The prison walls remain invisible. But it's possible to break out!

It's why I've decided to speak out. And if you don't agree with what I'm sharing, and this has not been your experience - that's okay. I will always respect your right to own your experiences and perspectives. I ask that you do the same for me.

We live different lives, we have different views. It's normal.

What ISN'T normal, is forcing people to comply and bow down to an ideology, simply because YOU think it's the right one.

If you resonate with what I've shared in this letter, please know that you are not alone.

You are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to grow. You are allowed to walk away. You are allowed to put your foot down. There is no one way to ‘do the work’.

You don't have to pray to a single political idea, movement, or group - nor do you have to agree with EVERYTHING presented to you as the absolute truth.

You are not morally inferior or superior to anyone else.

And remember that we still have to co-exist on this planet, so expecting everyone you encounter to agree with every belief or view that you hold - is fucking wild, LOL.

If you have read this far, I appreciate your time and your attention. Any typos you see, represent the sheer passion flowing through me.

I'll stop here because I could go on, there is always more to say. I feel like this letter is just the foundation of the conversations I REALLY want to have so I will likely explore some of the specificities in podcast form and through my newsletter.

I'm considering producing and hosting a limited podcast series that specifically talks about these themes. Don't worry, my existing podcast Beyond the Self won't be going anywhere! In the meantime; you can find me on Instagram if we're not already connected.

Although my work as a Mindset Coach, Speaker, and Consultant has nothing to do with social justice, cancel culture, wokeness etc - this is something I'll continue to speak about because it directly speaks to 2 of my biggest areas of focus, which in this case are collective self-sabotage and psychological manipulation.

I encourage you to break out of any echo chambers (especially on social media) and explore yourself BEYOND your race, your pronouns, your genitals, your sexuality, your physical capabilities, your politics - those things have their place but there is so much more to you.

And in fact, when you do go beyond those neatly prescribed boxes, you become more secure within your identity. I urge you to unsubscribe to anyone and anything that is stripping you of your humanity, your agency, and is proving to be detrimental to your mental wellbeing.

You deserve better, let's never stop speaking up!

Love always, Africa

Deprogramming From AA—When a Fellowship Resembles a Cult

By: April Wilson Smith

filtermag.org

Katherine met Bernstein through Monica Richardson, the founder of an international Facebook group called “Deprogramming From AA or Any 12 Step Group.” It has over 1,000 members, all of whom are at some point in the process of leaving a 12-step group.

[..]

Some report having been coerced into going off their psychiatric medications, against their doctors’ advice. Others became frustrated with the lack of scientific evidence behind AA’s program. Others still are angry that any inquiry into other options is not only discouraged, but sometimes actively punished—by exclusion from social events, public humiliation at meetings, and constant reminders of the AA saying that to leave the program can only result in “jails, institutions and death.”  

All found that AA’s promises did not come true: They may have stopped drinking or using drugs—often defined by 12-step groups and the treatment industry to include prescription psychiatric medications such as benzodiazepines or MAT drugs like buprenorphine—but they did not become “happy, joyous and free.”

Many feel that they replaced their addiction to a substance with an addiction to the program.

However, many members of “Deprogramming” report feeling afraid about leaving 12-step circles.

They fear not being able to stay “sober”—a fear instilled by 12-step teaching that as an “alcoholic” or “addict,” you can’t take so much as one sip of alcohol without complete reversion to dangerous patterns (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary).

Fear of social isolation is another important common factor. Twelve-step groups typically encourage members to build their lives around the program, to attend meetings every day for the first 90 days and many more ever after.

Many sponsors require their sponsees to call a certain number of people in the program every day, no matter what. Phone numbers are given out at meetings. Katherine’s sponsor made it mandatory that she call seven AA women daily.

“Service,” is also pushed, with new members strongly encouraged to commit to at least weekly duties—ranging from making coffee to chairing meetings, going to detox facilities to speak at patients’ mandatory AA meetings, and serving on committees.

If a member complains that daily meeting attendance and other demands are interfering with work or family life, the AA mantra, “Anything you put before your recovery, you will lose,” is typically repeated. So members often reduce their other social connections, actively encouraged to change the “people, places and things” in their lives. Many who leave the program therefore fear that they will no longer have friends once they do.

Another issue that departing 12-step members report as concerning is suddenly dealing with all the issues that drove them to substance use in the first place, but weren’t adequately addressed in the program. People with a history of trauma, in particular, can find that the onslaught of pain and memories—repressed while they were told in AA that “alcoholism,” was the root of all their problems—can be almost unbearable.

“I would venture to say three-quarters, if not more, of the people in AA are suffering from depression or anxiety or survivors of trauma, and were using alcohol to self-medicate,” said Rachel Bernstein. “So then you have people who are derailed from a more direct and relevant path to dealing with their particular issues, and instead they are told that alcohol is the only source of their problem.”

[..]

I asked Bernstein about the extent to which AA and the rest resemble the bona fide cults in which many of her patients have been involved. Part of her answer depicted an environment in which unregulated autonomy—from group to group and from sponsor to sponsor—sees abuses go unchecked.

“People who came to see me got involved in 12-step programs wanting to turn their lives around, but then had a sponsor who became a controller, an abuser and a boundary violator, and there was nobody to talk to about it,” she said. “There are no safeguards within these groups. There’s no governing body to go to and say, ‘My sponsor followed me home and went into my apartment.’”

[..]

“The other issue,” she added, “is that unlike a lot of the other anonymous groups, within AA, you have to call yourself an ‘alcoholic.’ That is cult behavior: Cults will give you an identity. Then you build not only your life but your self-esteem around that identity.”

Regarding the nature of “sharing” in meetings, Bernstein said, “Within 12-step groups, there are people who can defend against the social pressures, and others who can’t. They don’t want anyone to be unhappy with them so they’ll say what they need to say, they’ll make commitments, they’ll ‘admit’ things about themselves even if they aren’t true.”

“They’ll do that in a room full of people who are not mental health professionals and do not know how to hold onto that information in a safe way or help you heal,” she continued. “Other times people will feel the need to share information because they have someone else they know in the organization who brought them in, so they don’t want to disappoint that person.”  

[..]

Bernstein advises:

1. Learn about methods of control and manipulative tactics. Bring a checklist to your next meeting and check off the techniques as you see them. You’ll be able to see for yourself if this group is treating you respectfully and being open about its intentions, or if it’s using manipulation to not only keep you there but make you feel like you have no choice but to stay. Here is a checklist of tactics to look out for:

* You are taught that the teachings and techniques are perfect. So if they are not working as intended, it’s because you are not following them the right way, or trying hard enough.

* The organization defines you, tells you what you are, who you are, and how to see yourself.

* Questioning or doubting the teachings is wrong and seen as an issue/problem of yours instead of your fundamental right.

* The organization is a closed system, and any issues you have with it have to stay in-house; there is no outside and/or objective governing body to bring your concerns to.

* Dependency is built into the system by making you feel that you cannot trust yourself on your own, and left to your own devices you would always make the wrong decision and your life would spiral downward.

* You never graduate. You are never done. Your participation and adherence to the teachings are expected to be lifelong.

* You are made to feel these are the only people you can trust in your life, and those outside the group are not able to support and ensure the path you should be on.  

* The influence technique of “scarcity” is used by conveying the message that this group is the only group in the world that can give you what you need.

* It has its own social norms and lingo that are different from those in the outside community, so you feel more understood by those in the group and more a part of the world of the group, and this can separate you from those in the outside community.

* The group has one system it provides. No other systems or philosophies are integrated. So, whatever the system is designed to address is the only thing that’s addressed, and other potentially primary issues are ignored. Part of the “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” idea, this can cause people to be misdiagnosed and to be derailed from getting help they may need with their true underlying issues.  

2. Address the things that 12-step groups have taught you about yourself, such as that you are powerless or can’t control your life. Write them down, show them to somebody not involved in the group and ask, “Is this how you see me?” Some people in 12-step groups feel that they are reduced to the kind of person who can not trust themself. So if you can find people in your life who see the good in you and see your strengths and can remind you of them, you start to rebuild your sense of self and then you won’t tolerate the messages about how, left to your own devices, your life would be awful.

3. Talk to people who were involved in 12-step groups, then left and are doing okay.  The more you see that there are people who are okay without AA, the more you see that you don’t need to go to keep yourself alive.  

Richardson advises:

* Change your language. Stop calling yourself an “alcoholic” or “addict.”

* Read the SMART Recovery booklet.

* Learn about moderation and harm reduction.

* Read as many books on alternatives to AA as you can.

* Try out meetings such as SMART Recovery, LifeRing, Moderation Management or others.

* Take a mindfulness meditation or yoga class.

* Try new activities and hobbies. Go back to school or join a new community. Get busy living!  

The Cult Dynamics of Wokeness

Or, how to find oppression everywhere, even when it doesn't exist.

newdiscourses.com

Wokeness Dogma

You must understand racism and admit that you cannot understand racism. You must admit to your complicity in racism and pledge to do better knowing that it is impossible to do better. You must be an ally but accept that you will always do your allyship wrong. Racism must be continually identified, analyzed and challenged. No-one is ever done.

I. Cult Initiation

Cult doctrine exploits an emotional vulnerability. This vulnerability is often deliberately inflamed or manufactured for cult initiation, to make one feel morally deficient or unacceptable.

“Did you know you’re complicit in racist systems?”

II. Cult Indoctrination

Emotional and social bonds are deepened to the doctrine through community rituals, such as political activism and uncritical reading of more doctrine. This ritualistic process influences how the victim will think and operate in the world, and fosters them cutting ties with family and friends. 

“Antiracism is a lifelong commitment to an ongoing process of self-reflection, self-critique, and social activism.” - Robin DiAngelo

III. Cult Reprogramming

An overtly warlike tenor of us-against-them mentality becomes intrinsically embedded into the victim’s reading of the world. The “truth” of doctrine is now personally revealed to the victim in every aspect of society (speech, writing, institutions, thoughts, people, systems, knowledge and history).

This is being “Woke”.

“Be in a perpetual state of learning and be woke enough to know you are never woke enough.” - Laura Roy

IV. The Cult Mentality

The victim’s inner pain and pathology can only be understood in terms of the cult doctrine. And the doctrine is the resolution to their vulnerability.

Alison Bailey says all disagreement with Woke doctrine is an “attempt to preserve one’s privilege”.

“Cult indoctrinations tend to follow very predictable stages. First, there is initiation; then there is indoctrination; and then there is reprogramming. * Wokeness is a cult. It might even be, in its broadest functions, a proper religion with a describable and fanatic cult element. Antiracism, in particular, under its auspices is explicitly framed religiously and with clear patterns of cult initiation all over it.”