Amanda Montel

That, you know, maybe not be quite accurate.

Sure.

Is that causing me to separate from my real life family or like change my values or completely surrender my identity to this group or this affiliation as a fan or even, you know, change my political opinions according to what the fandom thinks, etc.

?

Not yet, and hopefully not.

But these are some of the things to look for as we, you know, examine this cultish spectrum, if you will.

Well, I don't.

think it really has to do with the policies or the ideas themselves, because what drives people to these groups and to one another is that sense of unity and community and ritual and belonging and identity, like all of these factors that make the human experience on earth bearable.

And if betraying an idea means betraying a community, you're probably not going to do it even if you have some profound cognitive dissonance surrounding what you've committed to.

And I've seen otherwise really smart, lovely people commit to some pretty dangerous ideas because of... Sense of belonging.

Yeah, this like deep-seated human drive toward community.

And I think that the stakes and the temperature feel higher now because we do live in these extremely polarized times when a lot of nuance gets flattened online and a lot of rhetoric becomes more cultish online and, you know, social media algorithms encourage more extreme rhetoric, even if the person posting it barely believes it.

So we're living in cultier and cultier times, I think.

I mean, at this point, I think it's easier for me to talk about what not to say.

I can advise against telling them that they're in a cult.

because that tends to make people pretty defensive or to say like, oh no, you're in a cult, you know, vegans versus the barbecue fanatics.

And, you know, it's like, you're in a cult.

No, you're in a cult.

Like that can go so many ways.

So I would avoid saying that as tempting as it might be.