Cultish
The language of Fanaticism
Written by Amanda Montell
Originally published in 2021
~300 pages
Rate 3/5
What are we willing to do in order to find a place in this world?
In Cultish, Amanda writes about her personal experiences with cults. From her run in with Scientology to her interviews with ex-cult members (from different cults), she covers an array of cult-related material. She claims that we, as a society, have normalized the word cult to the point where it doesn't have a distinct meaning anymore. Hence her new world cultish, when something has cult-like characteristics, but it might not be recognized as a cult.
Towards the beginning of Cultish, Amanda explains how it's easier to label certain cultish behavior rather than what is a cult and what is not. Later she goes on to say that most people might be able to notice a religious cult when they see one, but there are other groups that display cultish characteristic that go unnoticed, the groups she mentions are MLMs and gym-goers.
I enjoyed the introduction of Cultish and Amanda's insights on religious cults. However, I felt the sections about the MLMs and the gym-goers had a lot of fluff. More often than not, when people think about cults they usually picture a more religious looking group so discussing cult-like characteristics outside of that norm was insightful, but it wasn't delivered with the same flare and I just wasn't as enthralled by those sections of the book.
Amanda did as she promised, she explained the linguistics of cultish language by exploring cult characteristics in various settings. I gave the book a three star because I felt some of the sections were filled with fluff and it would have been better to just shorten it.
Interesting insightful quotes
"language doesn’t work to manipulate people into believing things they don’t want to believe; instead, it gives them license to believe ideas they’re already open to."
"In the end, some problematic leaders are really just followers of the larger system. But a truly, destructively cultish leader is one who wishes to overthrow the system and replace it with something that grants them ultimate power."
"The more outsiders invoke these labels, the more firmly insiders dig in their heels."
"levels of religiosity tend to be lowest in countries with the highest standards of living (strong education levels, long life expectancies), but the US is exceptional in that it’s both highly developed and full of believers—even with all our “Nones” and “Remixed.” This inconsistency can be explained in part because while citizens of other advanced nations, like Japan and Sweden, enjoy a bevy of top-down resources, including universal healthcare and all sorts of social safety nets, the US is more of a free-for-all."
