Enjoying the view from Limbo
If every social event, to be enjoyed to the fullest, must be accompanied by alcohol, this means that the real “event” is the drinking itself, while the social gathering is merely the accompaniment or sidelight. That is, if eating with friends, chatting with friends, camping with friends, and commiserating with friends, all have one thing in common — alcohol — then one is...
From Michael D. Langone, “Clinical Update on Cults,” in Psychiatric Times, July 2, 1996: The manipulativeness of cults is similar to the debility-dependency-dread (DDD) syndrome explanation of how the Chinese communists were able to gain a high degree of control over American POWs during the Korean conflict (Farber and colleagues). Contemporary cults, which operate in an open society and do not have the...
Our new gods are of the only sort that remains possible when the longing for eternity, the desperate grasp after meaning, and the lifelong pursuit of truth, have been debunked and expunged from the modern soul. We are left with ephemeral idols, cardboard cutout heroes-for-the-season, blustering attention-seekers without a substantial purpose beyond their own egomaniacal lust for popularity and affection.
I see that the “Trump right” (i.e., the nationalist left) is all up in arms today, half hooting and half aghast, at the latest Marxist abomination from the revolution’s new mascot, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. From Right Scoop: The latest socialist idea from the mouth of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is to put the government in charge of basic banking to use the US Post Office to...
A regular reader who likes to play devil’s advocate sent an e-mail to challenge my continued use of the terms “cult” and “cultist” in describing Donald Trump’s support base. Specifically, he questioned whether I am not simply calling Trumpists a cult out of emotionalism, and whether one might not level the same accusation against anyone with whom one disagrees, i.e., whether a “cult”...
If you needed more evidence that progressivism is engendering a new dark age, you need look no further than the renewed preponderance and popular influence of cults. Indoctrinated nihilists, having rejected all purpose and truth in the universe, are filling the void of meaning in their lives by grasping with equal irrationality at tyrannical Utopias, demigod idols, and doomsday theories. The last of...
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