This might sound like a question inspired by current events, but I’ve actually been thinking of this for a while and can give pointers to a few times I had asked this or talked about it.
The people who the masses look up to seem to have a strange way of dishing out their opinions/approval/disapproval of the groups of the world. Some groups can get away with being considered good no matter how negative their actions are while other groups are stuck with a high disapproval rating no matter how much good they might do, and a discussion on whether “culture” or a “cult” is involved almost always comes up.
An example of this is the relationship between Islam and Scientology, in fact this is the most infamous one I can link to having spoken about. People on a certain side of the thinktank spectrum (the same side Lemmy seems to lean towards at times) are quick to criticize Scientology even though they consider “classic Islamic philosophy”, for a lack of a better way to put it without generalizing, as not inspiring a call for critique to see how one may change it. And I’ve always wondered, why? One at times leads people to trying to exterminate innocent groups, the other one is just “Space Gnosticism” that has a few toxic aspects but hasn’t actually eliminated anyone. Of course, I’m not defending either one, but certainly I’d rather live in a stressful environment than one that actively targets me.
This question has been asked a few times, sometimes without me but sometimes when I’m around to be involved, and they always say (and it’s in my dumb voice that I quote them) “well Scientology is a cult, of course we can criticize them” and then a bit about how whatever other thing is being talked about is a part of culture. This doesn’t sit well with my way of thinking. I was taught to judge people by the content of their character, in other words their virtues, so in my mind, a good X is better than a bad Y, in this case a good cult should be better than a good culture, right? Right?
In fact, as what many might call a mild misanthrope, I’d flip it around and point out how, over the course of human history, alongside seemingly objectively questionable quirks people just brush off (like Japan for a while has been genociding dolphins for their meat value just above extinction “because it’s culture” or how there are people in China who still think dinosaur bones are a form of medicine waiting to be ground up), no group/culture has kept their innocence intact, every country having had genocides or unnecessary wars or something of the like, things they ALLOW to happen by design. Then they turn around and tell so-called “cults”, even the ones that have their priorities on straight compared to cultures, that they are pariahs and shouldn’t count on thriving, even though their status is one that doesn’t necessitate gaining any kind of guilt. I was a pariah growing up, almost everyone else revolved around a select few people that seemed in-tune to the culture, and they would say anyone who revolved around people outside the group (me for example) was “following a cult”, and this hurt at the time, but now seeing all the wars going on right now, I might consider this a compliment.
My question, even though it by definition might make affirming answerers question whether they are pariahs or a part of the cultural arena, is why does nobody agree? Why are cultures “always precious” while cults are “always suspicious”?
Cults exercise very direct and personal control from the deified leadership to the followers. It tends to mean abuse between central leadership and the followers. Cult practices have similarities to religions and draw from religious and spiritual claims (and can become religions), but are distinguished by certain patterns of how they control members:
Isolate from those around you, especially family and friends that don’t agree with what you’re doing.
Recruit others to the cult.
Demonstrate value to the cult through humiliation and serving the petty needs of the leader. The petty needs will be described as being much more important than they really are.
Harsh punishment and violence for stepping out of line.
A culture of blaming followers for their sins, including things for which they are not in any way responsible or at fault.
A hierarchy of power that is mostly about who gets to mete out abuse.
A specialized set of terminology for common things so that they become an in-reference that offers will not understand.
Isolation of “troublemakers” or people that fight back. Keeping them separate from one another.
The small size of the cult makes these things have a qualitatively different impact when it comes to social control. It’s not about some established mysticism or conservatism that you carry out some action or feel some guilt, it’s a distinct practice where every person around you forces conformity based on the whims of a very personal power structure and just a couple people who get to decide everything, and you usually live with them.
Anyways, the main issue with Westerners criticizing Islam or Muslims is that the discourse is absolutely saturated with racism and Western chauvinism that is just a more veiled version of what white supremacists say. It’s not particularly informed and, as part of the dominant hegemonic mindset of the oppressor class and oppressor nations, it gladly ignores that the most extreme, voluminous, and unnecessary violence is carried out by the power structures they implicitly or explicitly support, secular or not.
Some Western criticisms of Islam tend to present themselves as academic or at least thoughtful and informed examinations of theology and cultural practices. Sometimes they even take a critical look at other religions and cultural practices. But they very often lead to lazy and bigoted policy and advocacy positions because it’s less about understanding in order to improve the world and more about identifying an enemy and it turns out that the global movers and shakers would absolutely love to use those “principled” stances to justify the domination and destruction of entire countries and peoples with your consent.
You’ll notice that Sam Harris has become a full-blown islamophobe and neocon. He is not improving the world through knowledge or action, but justifying oppression by the global hegemonic powers that want to pillage for profit by playing on stereotypical racist fears. He’s also gone down the self-help grifter path. He’s really just laundering reactionary views through a distinct language of “skepticism”, views that would fit right in at a “race science” consortium in 1912 and a bloodthirsty US State Department meeting on how to justify the genocide of brown people in the Middle East.
I’m not someone who has mastered the information/misinformation part, but I do know it’s not lying to say that, if I was over in that part of the world where Islam thrives, I would be killed or put into a lower class for things such as gender and maybe even my national background if it was years ago (so a defense criticism argument could be made), and I also know it’s not lying to say those people are trying to come to where I live and “change” us. It’s definitely not their race/ethnicity I’m critical of.
My first reaction when some people identify as “a cultural Muslim” (as peaceful as they are; I’m not trying to imply they should all be put in one basket) is therefore to think “aww shit, there’s a whole piece of the fabric of the world (i.e. a culture) out there that has their vigilance set against my existence”. Then I think of cults (which I visualize as outside the fabric, that playing into the definition embedded in my question) and how (comparatively) accepting they might be, and I think “wait, why exactly is the classification supposed to mean anything again?”