There are, and probably always have been, groups and organizations in the world that are harmful to the members of the group and harmful to others. These groups are centered around a leader, or a class of leaders, and this person or persons exercise enormous control over the group and its members. This control is often sustained by a certain level of charisma or awe. The leader or leaders are either very attractive or persuasive, or are perceived to have so much money, intelligence, spiritual authority, or other characteristic(s) that members of the group are very susceptible to their suggestions and directions.
These groups portray themselves as being dedicated to a set of ideas, be they philosophical, spiritual, religious, political, or ethical. This is typically how people become members of the group: they are attracted to some or all of the group’s ideas and when they investigate, they are drawn in by the leaders’ intoxicating influence or the members’ infectious zeal. But in actuality, ideas and beliefs in these groups are extremely malleable and change as often as the leader or leaders find it necessary, in order to further their goals. The leaders of these groups have no commitment to ideas, they are only interested in creating and enforcing certain behaviors and banning others.
Now any group or organization has a set of beliefs and rules, and a culture incorporating those ideas, and most have some sort of leadership. These features do not make a group harmful or abusive. What makes a group harmful, the thing that sets apart healthy groups from the unhealthy groups described here, is the behaviors they induce. Harmful behaviors often seen in these groups are mandates to shun or hate those who do not belong to the group, isolating the members of the group from all other associations or other sources of information, and the surrender of legal rights, bodily autonomy, or financial resources to the group. There is nothing wrong with a group collecting dues or tithes or the members of the group forming strong relationships with each other. But harmful groups take these things to extremes that lead to mental, emotional, and sometimes physical or sexual harm.
If this sounds like the description of a cult, that’s because it is. However, the word “cult” has no real meaning. It’s like the word “bitch.” Yes, there's a dictionary definition, but that's not what anyone means when they say it. We all feel like we know what the term means, but if we actually tried to define it, we would come up short. That’s because it’s a slur: it’s an emotionally charged way of saying “I don’t like you/your group” in a way that you can’t really refute because it has no real meaning. So to speak meaningfully about these groups, we have to move away from airhorn words like “cult” and use more precise terms. I propose the term “harmful conformity group” (HCG), and will be using that term going forward.
In trying to figure out a replacement term for “cult”, I went through several possibilities, and the first one I landed on was “toxic ideological organization.” But upon further reflection, I realized that ‘ideological’ doesn't fit. As mentioned, the ideology of these groups is a fickle thing that is subservient to the leaders’ whims. These groups’ harm stems from their insistence on specific behaviors, not necessarily their ideas, which is why I eventually landed on “conformity” as the distinguishing feature. I swapped “group” for “organization” because some of these groups are not incorporated in any kind of formal or structured way, and I settled on “harmful” rather than “toxic” because I thought it was a little more clear a term.
This is part 1 in a series. To read part 2, click here. To download the entire essay as a single document, click here.