Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

Cultish is hard to review, because it's about so many things. And yet I am about to write an incredibly long review.

Cultish is about America, abuse, social media, critical thinking, and how earnest your involvement has to be in a group, no matter how high the stakes are in theory.

Montell looks at the various American ideals and policies (or lack thereof) that prime our culture for embracing cultish beliefs. Ours is a nation founded on the right to form and join new, experimental belief systems. Ours is a consumerist culture. Ours is an individualistic, laissez-faire culture. All of these factors prime America for, just, so many cults.

Safety nets are exchanged for convictions that life is what you make of it and everyone is personally responsible, if not for where they were born, for where they end up. Because Americans lack interdependent understandings of self, and because America lacks many of the publicly funded supports built into other nations, many of us feel on our own unless we seek out communities and structure.

We need to imbue our lives with meaning in some way. We like to feel part of things bigger than ourselves. Things that will last after we're gone. Things that will change lives for the better, and not just our own. Cults sell these ideas. Cults sell meaning. Cults sell hope.

Montell also looks at how cults target the lonely, the isolated, and the displaced. How the internet and social media create these echo chamber pockets, and apply pressure to pretend things are going better than they are. How coercion and abuse are the same, whether in individual relationships or carried out by massive organizations. How being part of one cult can make it easier to be swept up in others. The usefulness of the term “cult” at all. And how, ultimately, people are more discerning than we give them credit for, even from a young age.

But still, what do we do about the fact that otherwise “smart” people get roped into LuLaRoe? What do we tell ourselves to soothe our worries about falling for the same thing? How do we get through to friends and family who are being taken advantage of and lied to?

And what about the people who join cults, knowing they are cults and not caring? At what point does something go from innocuous if strange, to violent and deadly? How do we stop people and groups from tumbling to that point?

I kind of like that Montell leaves us with big questions to ponder. I think more nonfiction should be open-ended; a starting point rather than a closed specific argument. Cultish gives you a lot to think about. It is very timely, somehow fun, and the cover is glorious. If you are someone who exclaims “I love cults!” only to realize you might want to phrase that differently, if you are someone who has received an Instagram DM or Facebook group invite from an acquaintance for weird essential oil ventures, or if you just want to think through belief systems in a tumultuous digital age, read Cultish. The audiobook is great, if you prefer to listen.