Hey… this is just. A small shout-out to those of you who have successfully left cults and/or are in the process of doing so. What you’ve done is very brave, and you are not wrong or evil or selfish for wanting to escape from that, even if the obstacles between you and freedom are psychological rather than physical, even if you feel foolish for thinking of it as a “cult”.
Furthermore: it is not strange rituals and clothing that defines a cult. It’s far less about religious beliefs than it is controlling group dynamics. It may be more useful to think of a cult as a type of emotionally abusive relationship in which members are groomed and manipulated by a leader and each other… the “theme” might be a god, an individual, or even something as innocuous as fandom. There may be cults within larger religions – even individual churches can construct group dynamics typical of a traditional cult.
Having gotten into paganism in the late 80′s and early 90′s I came across the Advanced Bonewits’ Cult Danger Evaluation Frame. Over the years I have found it useful not just religiously but also socially to avoid some pretty toxic groups. Not only religious groups (bible studies and recovery groups mostly), but I have seen high ratings in secular things like Multi-Level Marketing schemes, primitive skills groups, and even a
Pirate Reenactment club.
i guess if skype is going to offer me rpg-style dialogue tree options it’s only right that they include one that gets the player character punched in the face
Yeah, I got one of Tumblr’s you-may-have-unwittingly-interacted-with-propaganda-blogs emails too. And like everyone else, I kind of shrugged because really, what am I supposed to do about that now? I have search disabled on my blog, and my tags are a mess; there’s no way I could go through and actually find any of the propaganda I may have inadvertently boosted over the seven years I’ve been on this site.
But out of curiosity I looked over Tumblr’s list of IRA-linked blogs. And one username stood out to me. I recognised it because for several months last year it had been showing up constantly in my notifications after I reblogged one of their posts with a response.
When I first saw the post by black-to-the-bones, I wanted to know more about these women. I dug up the original Tweet, ran a reverse Google image search and… well, as you can see from my reblog, there turned out to be quite a lot of information about them on the internet, which I spent the next hour or two collating into my post.
Now, don’t get me wrong here: I am one hundred percent aware that history regularly erases the contributions of women, and especially women of colour. But as you can see from my reply, in this particular case the history of these three women absolutely is not “hidden from us”. The person attempting to hide these women’s history was black-to-the-bones themself.
The original post – which we now know was posted by a state-sponsored propaganda blog – took a legitimate issue, but misrepresented facts to stir up emotion about that issue. The issue was perfectly tailored to resonate with Tumblr’s culture of social justice, and it worked. The vast majority of reblogs of the original post do not include any correction or further information.
Again, don’t get me wrong: anger is important. It’s a necessary part of social justice. But we have clear evidence that bad-faith actors are intentionally fomenting false anger to keep us reacting emotionally rather than thinking rationally. And they are smart about it. They will mix in their attempts to divide and enrage us with innocuous cute videos to gain followers, and legitimate posts about issues. So that when they do post actual misinformation, it slips under our radar.
When propaganda blogs do something like try to smear a Jewish woman as a white supremacist, it’s obvious who their target is, and what their goal is. But I wanted to highlight the black-to-the-bones post above because it’s a subtler, more insidious kind of propaganda. It’s part of a continuum of tactics designed to keep up a constant background noise of outrage.
Because while anger is important, constant anger makes it harder for us to empathise with each other. It makes it harder for us to be constructive, rather than destructive. And ultimately, it just exhausts us and leaves us too apathetic to care.
So getting back to my original question: What are we supposed to do about that now?
Fact. Check. Everything.
Your racist grandparents aren’t the only ones being targeted by fake news. We are being targeted with posts that are specifically designed to appeal to Tumblr’s social justice culture. So if you see a post about an issue that makes you angry, stop before you reblog. Check the source. Google the details. Make sure your anger about legitimate issues isn’t being exploited by malicious actors.
Propaganda like this relies on us reacting to outrage before we stop to think. Be smarter than that. Don’t let yourself be manipulated.
This is an excellent post, and I just want to add:
The thing that makes that post reek, in retrospect, of IRA propaganda, isn’t just anger–it’s false futility. That’s where the distortion occurs. It doesn’t say neglected, it doesn’t say ignored, it says hidden–unknowable. Pointless to try and dig up. The Man has already won, might as well stay home on election day rather than contribute to the system. That’s what they’re trying to push. And that’s what crou took pains to debunk. The system might need a lot of good smacks around the face, but it does respond, and the material’s there.
The zombie outbreak started 2 years ago now you find yourself cornered by a decaying zombie when you do the unthinkable and bite it first when it falls to the floor and grows its skin back and sits up and asks what is going on
This may be the best subversive idea for zombie apocalypse stories i think I’ve ever seen.
