Cultish

The Language of Fanaticism

De: Amanda Montell

Narrado por: Ann Marie Gideon

“One of those life-changing reads that makes you see—or, in this case, hear—the whole world differently.” —Megan Angelo, author of Followers

“At times chilling, often funny, and always perceptive and cogent, Cultish is a bracing reminder that the scariest thing about cults is that you don't realize you're in one till it's too late.”—Refinery29.com

The New York Times-bestselling author of The Age of Magical Overthinking and Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how “cultish” groups, from Jonestown and Scientologists to SoulCycle and social media gurus, use language as the ultimate form of power.

What makes “cults” so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we’re looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join—and more importantly, stay in—extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell’s argument is that, on some level, it already has . . .

Our culture tends to provide pretty flimsy answers to questions of cult influence, mostly having to do with vague talk of “brainwashing.” But the true answer has nothing to do with freaky mind-control wizardry or Kool-Aid. In Cultish, Montell argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. In both positive ways and shadowy ones, cultish language is something we hear—and are influenced by—every single day.

Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities “cultish,” revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven’s Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of “cultish” everywhere.

Exactly what you wanted

This book lives up to the expectations. It will surely repeat some cult knowledge you already have with plenty of new anecdotes and insights you’ll learn from.
The performance can be robotic at items but is overall very well done.

A must read to understand our reality!

📚Honest Thoughts 💭📚🎧

LANGUAGE SHAPES OUR REALITY…🗣🧠

This is the second time I’ve walked the path of the language of fanaticism with Amanda Montell. I am so glad I re read Cultish! 🙌🏼

It is a very tough book to read and the first time you approach it, you’re likely to try to quit as a it will most likely give you mixed feelings and will make you feel uncomfortable.
Please, do not stop. You will learn so much from Montell’s research and interviews held along the process of writing this book.

Some chapters approach cults we are aware of yet others will show you and teach you how to run as fast as you can from a cultlike company.

Maybe you’re already in one and you do not even know. Do not be afraid to leave.
There is always a way.

@amandamontell is a must read!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

#cultish #amandamontell #mustread #bookstamonday

Insightful use of the concept of cults

Worth the read to see how you form your own opinion of fads, cults, and hobbies.

Good until it got political

This book started off strong, but noticed it kept disparaging Trump. I ignored it but then it went into a full woke seminar on the tail end.

Amanda Montell tells you want to believe.

The book is generally a good read/listen, however the author has strong biases towards anything Capitalist, Christian, Protestant, Patriarchy , or White culture/ethnicities.

She blames many of the covered cults in having their origins in "American Protestantism". Boutique gyms like Crossfit, Peloton, Soul Cycle, and Orange Theory are bad because they have cult like followings per the author, and there was one specific Christian denomination (Pentecostals/Charismatics), among hundreds of denominations, who put a heavy emphasis on daily exercise a long time ago, therefore the Christian faith in general is bad because it inspired exercise cults. A bit contradictory because elsewhere she mentions the gym cult people of today generally are not religious and use gyms in place of church for a sense of belonging.

Pyramid schemes and Multi level marketing have their roots in, once again ...American protestantism! Apparently the founder of the makeup company Mary Kaye is a self professed Christian, so let's blame all the protestants.

Crossfit founder Greg Glassman is an overt racist (per author), because he made a public comment criticizing the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which claimed "Racism is a public health issue”. She provided no context to Glassman's comment and in typical popular media fashion only gave a small view of what happened, the partial controlled view she wanted you to believe. She provided only 2 examples of why Crossfit/Gassman is racist, one being the previously mentioned comment, the other being that Crossfit names many of their workouts after military members and law enforcement officers who died in combat/the line of duty. So I guess honoring those who protect us is racist. Interestingly, if anyone bothered to look at the long list of Hero workouts Crossfit has (Hero WODs), you can see many of them were named after minorities (Black, Asian. Latino) as early as 2007, when the author was still of high school age. Lazy reporting or intentional withholding of information, you be the judge.

The author takes special care when discussing minorities, using terms like BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), and Latinx, but when she refers to white people she's uses terms like "White dude", "Old white guy", "white washed". Why so much white hate?

This book is good, but it could have been great if the author left her young adult Marxist brainwashed ideologies out of it.