Photo by Wil C. Fry, 2021
★★★★ (of 5)
- Full Title: Cultish: The Language Of Fanaticism
- Author: Amanda Montell
- Year: 2021 (mine was library hardcover)
- Pages: 284*
- Genre: Linguistics, Fringe Religion, Sociology
- Publisher: Harper Collins (News Corp)
- ISBN 978-0-06-299315-1 (hardcover)
- Author’s Wikipedia page
(* 284 pages does not include Acknowledgments, Notes, and About The Author)
Summary
Co-host of the podcast Sounds Like A Cult and author of Wordslut: A Feminist Guide To Taking Back The English Language, Amanda Montell not only studied linguistics (NYU) but is the daughter of a former cult member (her father was part of Synanon). So she brings credibility and personal experience to the table in this book, Cultish, which gives a name (“cultish”) to the type of language used by cult-type organizations. (The title itself might be a meta-reference to the language tricks that cults employ, since it takes an adjective form of the word cult and uses it as a noun — Scientology, for example, is well-known for using parts of speech as other parts of speech.)
After a few opening anecdotes, Montell dives in, acknowledging regularly that the topic is by nature nebulous and without certain boundaries. Very early she deals with the vague word “cult” itself, which can mean widely differing things to different people, and sets the stage for the rest of the book, which won’t only deal with traditional out-and-out cults like Peoples Temple (of Jonestown fame) or Heaven’s Gate (the comet/UFO thing in 1997), but also other groups — even non-religious ones — that use language in the same way that cults often do, and for the same reasons. Because of this broad scope, one reviewer quipped:
“I think most people who read Cultish will feel convinced they have, at some point in their lives, been in a cult.”—Jennifer Wilson
It seems very few organizations are safe from Montell’s probing, which jumps from fringe religions to multi-level marketing scams (but I repeat myself), from fitness craze gurus to social media influencers. Because all of them — even mainline religions, corporate America, political parties, and sports teams — use language in these ways (some with better intentions than others). There is the language used for potential recruits — something Montell calls “love-bombing”, which is easy to understand, all positive all the time, and makes the group sound perfect. There is the language used for people already in the door: more cerebral, a bit vague, meant to pique curiosity and drive further engagement. Then there is the language for the committed, which is often incomprehensible to outsiders. It’s meant to create an us-versus-them barrier, help separate a person from their life outside the group, and erect mental and emotional obstacles to ever leaving.
Praise
The book was well-researched and well-written. It was surprisingly easy to read, given the complex nature of the subject and the wide variety of concepts and subjects Montell introduced. Perhaps it helped that most of us are at least passingly familiar with most of the groups mentioned — or at least I had heard of almost all of them.
I like that the author early explained the term thought-terminating cliche and used it often. This linguistic trick is incredibly common yet too often goes unrecognized by the hearer. Of course I heard them all the time growing up in a pentecostal church (“God works in mysterious ways”, “let go and let God”, “everything happens for a reason”, etc.), the point being: don’t think about it too hard (because reason is the enemy of faith). All of us should have a class in recognizing these, because they pop up constantly in religious pitches, sales, and scams — not to mention conspiracy theories (which also get brief treatment in the book).
Parts of the book reminded me (favorably) of SGU (Skeptic’s Guide To The Universe), though that dealt more with logic, reasoning, and fallacies, while Cultish focuses on the language used by cult-like groups. They’re definitely both branches of the same skeptical tree.
And, perhaps just as important as all the rest, Montell spends some time explaining how almost anyone can fall for these tricks of language (just as SGU reminded the reader that all of us have cognitive biases and flaws in our reasoning), so examining how cult-ish groups work isn’t about judging those who get sucked in, but rather understanding how it happens. This works both to immunize ourselves against possible traps but also to create empathy for those who did get sucked in.
Points Off For...
I had very few complaints about the book, other than the opening felt slow and dry to me. But it got moving soon enough and it got better as it went along.
Conclusion
In a world where close friends or family members regularly get sucked in by MLM schemes (I have been off Facebook so long that I’d almost forgotten how many people I unfriended when they started hawking weight-loss gimicks), conspiracy theories, fringe religions, or even a political party that sometimes resembles a death cult, books like this are crucial and necessary. Even if you believe yourself immunized against cultish language (I believe it of myself), I think this is worth reading, just in case.
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