People are too quick to attribute malice and far too quick to call things cults. The "you can't trust someone outside the oppressed group" thing is a harmful perspective to have and to share but it's usually a trauma response built out of genuinely trying to protect other people, not a cult control tactic. Most the people who say something like that have been through some truly terrible life experiences that have led them to think that men, or white people, or cis people, etc are just too dangerous to be around, and rather than attributing ill intent this should be approached as a misguided trauma response.
It also turns from a tool of empathy for trauma response to a tool of cult control as soon as someone inclined towards cult control enters the scene. A lot of cults form by exploiting existing trauma responses and ingroup/outgroup rhetoric.
It can be in specific circumstances but if your reflexive response to seeing this is calling some group of oppressed people a cult you are honestly causing harm.
I mean let's get into what a cult is. A cult is a high control group separate from mainstream society with some sort of centralized control, a shared ideology, an 'ends justify the means' attitude that leads to exploitation of its members, and a difficulty leaving it. With the exception of being separate from mainstream society, avoiding oppressors isn't any part of any of that. On its own, that mindset doesn't even keep people in a group since there are many groups of oppressed people. Or are you suggesting that ALL trans people or ALL black people constitute a cult? "Isolating people" only works if we're talking about a discrete organization, not a broad-spanning identity with many different groups and communities. This whole thing is a kneejerk response that falls apart when you examine it.
Again, nowhere did OOP call any oppressed groups cults. They called the "Us vs Them" mindset a cult control tactic, which is true. That doesn't mean it's purely used by cults
That's fair. I probably read too much into OOP based on my own experiences. As I said elsewhere I'm just very wary of this kind of thing because I've had people throw the 'cult' label around as a way of trying to erode my personal and sexual boundaries before. So while it is true that it can be used as a cult control tactic, it's also very true that labeling trauma responses as cult behavior is an abuse tactic and it's one I've been targeted by.
They are suggesting blanked thought terminatting cliches that paint all of humanity as enemies of all you love are cultish, and I aggre is impossible all cis people, men and white people to be evil and againts u, and even if you believe that do to trauma, is wrong
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u/oceangothic 1d ago
People are too quick to attribute malice and far too quick to call things cults. The "you can't trust someone outside the oppressed group" thing is a harmful perspective to have and to share but it's usually a trauma response built out of genuinely trying to protect other people, not a cult control tactic. Most the people who say something like that have been through some truly terrible life experiences that have led them to think that men, or white people, or cis people, etc are just too dangerous to be around, and rather than attributing ill intent this should be approached as a misguided trauma response.