Thinking a bit about the benefit of negative feelings -- anxiety, grumpiness, pessimism, unhappiness. Cultish (which I'll BLog about below) partially prompted these thoughts. Montell talks about how grumpy people are less likely to join a cult because they're more likely to call bullshit. I think maybe we make decisions based not on the choices at hand but how we're feeling at that moment. This might just go down to my impulsiveness, but the choice of marriage felt impossible to me, back when I was 22 and my boyfriend (now husband, spoiler) wanted to get married. I told him no way, I wasn't ready to think about it. But then we were out one night at a happy hour, and I had a few beers and some garlic fries and, feeling good, figured Eh, why not? So I got married. In Chicago, my husband and I were having brunch and bottomless mimosas. I knew I wanted to move to LA, but I figured we'd give it one more year in Chicago. But we were feeling good that morning, and we both thought Eh, why not? Basically, maybe it's a bad idea to drink any alcohol or allow yourself to relax and feel good if you've got a big decision on deck.
Okay, BLog time. I'm going to post this on Goodreads! We'll see how that goes.
Montell, Amanda – CULTISH
Published: 2021
Read: 3/2022
Cultish analyzed the language and special vocabularies that Cults (like Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate) and cults (Soul Cycle, MLAs, CrossFit) use to create in-group/out-group dynamics, cultivate belonging, and curtail skepticism or critique. Actually, it’s part analyses and part authorial anecdote. Montell’s father grew up in the Synanon cult in Santa Monica. She also talks about her online experience with multi-level marketing schemes and her exposure to cult-y exercise trends ever present in her home city of Los Angeles. (She mentions that she lives in LA a lot.) She talks about how groups can use platitudes – termed “thought-ending clichés” – as a way to shut down critical thought. I have a friend who will often reach for the phrase “It is what it is” as a kind of thought-ending cliché. It soothes his anxiety a little bit, but it also shuts down his problem-solving drive. Anxieties and doubts are unpleasant to feel, but they can help drive us to necessary action – like, for example, leaving a cult. Montell applies the phrase “thought-ending cliché” so often, however, that it itself started to feel like a thought-ending cliché. I enjoyed learning about some of the intricacies of these popular cult-like work out communities. It’s pretty incredible to me the lengths to which people will go to lose weight. Although, of course the book points out how belonging to a community is a huge draw as well. She doesn’t want the reader to be suspicious of all groups, and she acknowledges the benefits of belonging to a community, even maybe communities that can be harmful in some ways. Her distinction between Cult and cult is that cults allow you to step away from ritual time. You get on your Soul Cycle bike for an hour, and you push and scream and cry or whatever it is. You buy that fancy matching exercise get up. But then you go home. You unclip and get back to your life. And if you bonk out of Soul Cycle, nobody’s going to try to ruin your life over it.
This book left me with some good things to think about. I’ll be noticing the language groups use a bit more acutely, I think. Looking out for those obscure acronyms or neologism. For that expectation to talk in a certain way or to refer back to simple mantras. I also was surprised to learn about the kind of people Cults attract. I figured it would be mainly really depressed and vulnerable people, but the book argues that it tends to be optimists, activists, idealists. People with open minds who want more for themselves or for the world, who are willing to take a risk on something. (People like me… yikes!) On the other hand, the writing style was uneven. Montell writes in a internet-y style for most of it and now and then throws in a bookish word to let us know she’s smart. Her anecdotes weren’t very deep or all that interesting – I would have liked to have seen the memoir-ish angle developed better or cut entirely. Overall, it was a book! Worth a read.
Rating: ★★★
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