This month I am featuring Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell. Just thinking about reading a book called Cultish might feel a little edgy to some of you, especially if you feel like some people may consider a group that you belong to to be a little cultish (to steal the author’s term).
Because some of my audience is Mormon and active Mormons tend to be hypersensitive to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints being referred to as a cult, I will put your fears at ease. The mainstream LDS church is in no way negatively referred to in the book or implied to be a cult in any way. Offshoots of the LDS church are only mentioned briefly in passing once or twice and are not at all a focus of the book. So feel free to read this book without feeling judged.
What’s fascinating about the book is how the author explains that language is really what makes something cultish–by creating and using terms that make a clear distinction between an in-group and an out-group, and how once you’ve deciphered the code and you can use the in-group lingo, you feel like you belong. Whether you feel like you can leave a group without consequences or not is one of the key red flags to look out for as to whether or not your personal cultish groups are problematic or not.
The author picks on lots of groups that are cultish. She describes groups that are relatively benign like CrossFit or Soul Cycle, and groups that you might want to approach with some caution like multi-level-marketing schemes and certain Instagram gurus. She is a little harder on organizations like Scientology or legit cults like Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple.
It’s really fascinating. I think you should read it. Once you’ve read it, it’s really interesting to ponder the language the groups you belong to use and what purpose it serves.