I am not a joiner. I have had to fight this at certain times in my life, like when needing extracurriculars in high school, and when moving to a new town. But boy, after reading this, I think it's a good thing. Religion, cults, and even cultish language is such a huge turn-off for me, I go running in the opposite direction. Doesn't mean I'm better than people who are more susceptible, just that I process those messages differently. I've only even attended one gym class regularly as an adult. I really, really don't like to join group things.
But this book presents cults in a different way than the others. It specifically speaks to the language they use. And in doing that, Ms. Gideon very much expands what she means by cult (and of course some of them are only cult-adjacent or even explicitly are solely cultish in the devotion of their followers and not remotely a religion, hence the book's title.) From MLMs to AA to Amazon, which has a list of Amazon-specific lingo that new hires are expected to learn and use (not just industry jargon or acronyms), cultish organizations are all around us. Pop stars and makeup lines are often describes as having cult-like fans and movie phenomenons with rabid followers are described as cult-films and the like. Some of what makes a cult a cult is the religion, the beliefs, the devoted following of the leader without question, but as Ms. Gideon makes clear, a lot of it is also in the language. If you've wondered what makes someone follow Jim Jones and his ilk, or even what makes Pelaton followers so fanatical that they won't shut up for love or money, this book helps make a lot of it more clear. Also, we need to stop saying someone "drank the Kool-Aid." It's disrespectful to all the people who died at Jonestown and as this book makes very clear, words are important and words can hurt. I need to clear up some of my own vocabulary here.
I borrowed this digital audiobook from Libby via my local library.
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