This newsletter uses the STEEP framework to cover social, technological, ecological, economic, and political issues in an effort to provide a holistic view of the forces & patterns shaping our current reality.
This week, I’m going to focus on cults and coups. Mostly because I’ve been in an absolute Internet rabbit hole reading about the NXIVM cult (trigger warning). It’s also important to note big transitions happening in both Bolivia and Chile as the countries bounce back from coups.
Both coups and cults show just how interwoven society, politics, technology, economics, and the environment really are.
Society + Economics + Technology: the soft power of cults
How do you know you’re dealing with a cult?
According to CultResearch.org:
Unquestioning commitment to the leader (dead or alive)
Questioning, dissent, or doubt are punished (or you get so busy in the cult that you don’t have time to question). Loyalty is rewarded.
Leaders are hyper involved in member’s lives and make decisions for members (i.e. managing diets, giving permission to be with a partner, to change jobs, etc.)
The group is treated as special and socializing with people outside of the group is discouraged.
Leader is not held accountable for breaking the law.
Why is there a pattern of ex-advertising men starting cults?
Keith Raniere, a co-founder of the NXIVM cult, (who recently got life in prison) started his career at multi-level marketing companies. These companies pay people to recruit others into the company. NXIVM masqueraded as a “personal development” company offering self-improvement seminars. Raniere’s co-founder, Nancy Salzman was a psychiatric nurse with a background in hypnotism.
Herbert Armstrong is another advertising man who went on to start the Worldwide Church of God after losing his job in the Great Depression. He turned himself into a religious media mogul (three very spooky words when put into a sentence, but I guess we’re in the post-TV-presidency era, and we’re not surprised). Armstrong ran an international radio, TV network, and publishing business to spread his ultra-strict and conservative views and gain more members. More members were helpful because he charged all of his “apostles” a 30% tax on their income so that he could live the high-life in Hollywood. Imagine getting rich from talking about the apocalypse and the danger of progress on TV! Read more via Business Insider.
TLDR; it is not shocking that advertisers know how to convince others to donate their time, money and attention to them in exchange for “secrets” on how to be better and more productive.
Are all cults evil?
According to sociologist Dr. Elizabeth Puttick, some cults were empowering for women. She studies “New Religious Movements” (as she prefers to call them), which were a big part of the 60’s and 70’s counterculture. Dr. Puttick also personally followed Osho in India (known to some as Rajneesh).
Dr. Puttick points out that New Religious Movements (NRMs) were often comprised of people who were looking for a community rooted in ideologies outside of the mainstream; certain NRMs also encouraged women to step into leadership positions (which at the time, was not the social norm).
But on the flip side, New Religious Movements often had a culture of surrendering to a guru, which rely on complete trust to achieve enlightenment. Cue: abuse of power. Cue: comes as no surprise! While guru relationships have likely helped many people, it seems hard to establish healthy boundaries in this type of setup, and this relationship ticks two boxes on our cult checklist:
Unquestioning commitment to the leader (dead or alive)
Leaders are hyper involved in member’s lives and make decisions for members
Which begs the question — can you actually be a leader in an organization where you are completely submitted to somebody else?
If you want to read more from Dr. Puttick, check out her book: Women in New Religions: In Search of Community, Sexuality and Spiritual Power or check out this Vice interview.
Is there a single example of a cult that doesn’t result in exploitation?
There’s a new type of Internet cult emerging and I guess the jury is still out on this one? There are a lot of bored folks on the Internet looking for community right now, and they’ve found it in TikTok cults.
TikTok cults are groups of fans that fawn over a single creator, most notably flooding comment sections of posts defending their leader. Like some of these other cults, members spend time (and sometimes money) to belong to this community. Melissa Ong, a comedian who started a cult called the Step Chickens, directs followers to change their profile picture to her face and troll various posts. She also has a merch shop and brand deals. So I wouldn’t call this exploitation, but there is definitely some opportunistic money-making going on. If you want to read more about TikTok cults, here is a good primer (welcome to my rabbit hole).
Anyway, this cult trend (?) seems like a way for people to blow off steam during a bizarre apocalyptic year and doesn’t really seem like it’s checking too many items on the cult check-list, but other cults have been started to shelter people from apocalypse and as exercises in creativity, so …. stay tuned?
Politics + Economics + Environment: hard power resource grabs
What is a coup?
When the current government is overthrown. Sometimes involves the military, sometimes involves governments from other countries stepping in. Very messy.
Was there a coup in Bolivia?
In 2019, socialist president Evo Morales was ousted by the military and right-wing Catholic leader Jeanine Añez was put in power.
As a bit of background, Evo Morales came into power as head of the MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo) party, supported by unions, farmers, indigenous people, and left-leaning intellectuals. Morales is widely beloved by many in Bolivia because he cut poverty in half and made room for indigenous people in politics. However, he became a controversial figure when he continued to run for a third and fourth terms as president (going against the two term limit he set when he first came into power).
Technically, President Morales was allowed to run for a fourth term legally because Bolivia’s Constitutional Court voted to get rid of term limits, claiming that the people should be allowed to choose (even though voters did not agree). Although Morales ran once again, the election was deemed fraudulent and the military pushed Morales out.
Watch an overview from Al Jazeera.
Did other countries meddle in Bolivia’s politics?
Bolivia is a resource rich nation (must I say more?).
The U.S. has been meddling in Bolivia’s politics for decades. Notably, Morales came into power after the previous Bolivian president sold Bolivia’s natural gas companies to U.S. corporations and was forced to resign.
According to Morales, the U.S. supported right-wing coup leaders and he suspects it was partially because of he decided to sell some of Bolivia’s lithium supply to China rather than to the West. (Lithium = batteries = new oil if we electrify our energy).
The full details via The Intercept.
How did Bolivia essentially reverse the right-wing coup?
Bolivians marched and protested in the streets until a new election was held earlier this year. Bolivians voted for MAS with an overwhelming margin of victory and the favored party will be reinstated.
When was the last coup in Chile?
Chile’s last coup was in 1973, when Augusto Pinochet installed himself as a dictator, taking the government from Salvador Allende.
What were the lasting effects of the coup?
One of the most notable aspects of Pinochet’s reign was his work with the “Chicago Boys,” who studied economics under Milton Friedman. They are credited with making Chile a “neoliberal laboratory” of the world. Pinochet and the Chicago Boys turned to the markets — selling off state enterprises and cutting social spending. Under these policies, 45% of people in Chile fell under the poverty line. (Hear more from Al Jazeera).
Side note: a strange environmental twist to these neoliberal policies. The founder of Espirit and The North Face, Doug Tompkins, actually ended up buying a ton of land in Chile for conservation (which he eventually gifted back to the Chilean government). In the long run, it’s a plus for the environment, but what a weird world when someone from another country can keep you from enjoying the land right next to your house. Can you imagine living in Chile and not being able to go to your closest forest because a foreign national decided to buy it from your government and keep you out?
Anyway, even though Chile became a democracy in 1990 and the constitution has been revised multiple times since then, it has taken a long time to change authoritarian policies that Pinochet instated when he was in power. (More from The Guardian).
Does Chile get a fresh start?
Chileans have been protesting in the streets since 2019.
In October, the Chilean government held a referendum and 80% of people voted to establish a new constitution, to be written by citizens elected to a Constitutional convention.