Coexist Part 5: Wrap-up

This is part five of the Coexist series. It wraps up the series started in Part 1. It also provides a framework for assessing these groups and their actions.

The opening graphic shows the results of the mass Heaven’s Gate suicide. Their leader said the Hale-Bopp comet was an alien spacecraft and their suicides would take them to it. 39 people followed their leader’s instructions to death. I think Heaven’s Gate is a cult. I say “is” because they still have a website.

So what does Heaven’s Gate matter to a discussion of the Coexist movement? Like Heaven’s Gate, I suspect many of the “Me Too” groups in the Coexist movement are cults or at least share some of their traits. Psychology Today has an article that discusses 12 signs of a cult. Most cults either fizzle out or end badly for the members. This is true of virtually any utopian movement. The movements’ leaders dazzle and attract members and then control them. Eventually, the leaders alienate members and the cult falls apart.

We saw that with Black Lives Matter (BLM). It started strong, then fizzled for a bit, then gained new life over some black deaths and then fizzled again, especially after the financial deals of several leaders were revealed. We do not hear too much from them anymore.

But my concern for the “Me Too” groups is they endorse radical Islam and other groups that are antithetical to their existence. How can a gay or a woman who understands Sharia Law support Hamas?

I think the answer lies in how cults recruit and indoctrinate. Explainitdaily.com stays:

From a sociological and psychological perspective, the recruitment and retention strategies employed by cults can be viewed through the lens of influence and control. Cults often use subtle techniques derived from social psychology, such as the foot-in-the-door technique, where a small commitment is gradually followed by larger and larger commitments.

Furthermore, cults utilize the principles of cognitive dissonance and commitment consistency to retain their members. Cognitive dissonance refers to the discomfort a person feels when their beliefs or behaviors conflict. To reduce this discomfort, individuals are likely to change their beliefs to align with their actions. <emphasis mine>

Now granted this not a scientific and peer reviewed reference. In fact, it is most like AI. But that does not mean it is not correct. So, let’s look at a peer-reviewed journal. M. Rousseleta,b,⁎, O. Duretetec, J.B. Hardouinb, M. Grall-Bronneca,b in Cult membership: What factors contribute to joining or leaving? Wrote:

Cult membership and addictive disorders share some characteristics: persistence despite damage, initial psychological relief, occupation of an exclusive place in the thoughts of members, high psychiatric comorbidity prevalence, high accessibility, leading to social precariousness and the importance of familial support when leaving.

Setting aside the academic writing, the two references are compatible. The first just says it in layman’s terms. New cult members are recruited and groomed.

So, if the coexist related groups are cults, who recruits and grooms them?

The sad, and perhaps unpopular, answer is the education system and teachers and professors. Granted, not all of them engage in this activity, but many of the problems in the US today can be traced back to our poorly performing education system. I looked at the education institution as a cult in Part 9 of the reconstructing history series,

As I explored in Teachers’ Unions and Critical Theories, the unions and many teachers are squarely behind the coexist movement and are another form of exploiter. I suspect that most of the teachers that support the various social change agendas are well-meaning “Me Too”s that the unions co-opt and indoctrinate to further recruiting and grooming of students. I further suspect that most teachers would rebel at the idea they are recruiting and grooming. But when you look at what is happening throughout America, they are. We see something similar with the education institution trying to recreate history in my series on it (Parts 1, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10).

In my blog, Education Reform, I charted an initial set of reform ideas. Education needs a complete top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top reform. Changes at the margin will not solve the problem. Well thought-out reform is the moonshot project for today.