How Cult Leaders Use Provocatively Loaded Language to Control Their Followers
How Cult Leaders Use Provocatively Loaded Language to Control Their Followers
Dr. Erica Brozovsky explained how cult leaders use provocatively loaded language with followers to create adversary us vs. them mentalities.
I’m hoping it’s obvious why this is related to politics . . .
Dr. Erica Brozovsky, PhD of the PBS series Otherwords explained how cult leaders use provocatively loaded language with their followers to create an adversarial relationship with the “other side” of their way of thinking – an “us versus them” mentality. It also keeps them invested, obedient, and ready to defend their way of thinking to anyone who questions them
Loaded language is a general term for words or phrases that have deep emotional associations for the listener, like genocide, patriot, toxic, or vermin. …Through repetition, these leaders ingrained an intense emotional association in their follower’s psyche …They shut down argument and critical thinking, which is why they’re so handy to authoritarians who don’t like to be questioned.
Link to the mentioned video. I can't recommend this enough. It's really well done.
They've been doing that for six thousand years
It's how religion propagates as well.
Depends on what you mean by religion.
Buddhist monks and nuns shave their heads and don the robes as a ceremonial act of letting go of identity views such as 'us and them' and even self and other.
This and not holding onto dogmatic views in general is a big part of the practice and the teachings.
Not saying all Buddhists are perfect by any means. I've hung out in enough Buddhist online spaces to come across a lot of dogmatism and people using Buddhism itself as an identity view. Myself included when I wasn't as far along my own path.
But the intention of the practice is to point these things out and help people to let them go. Not to cling to them.
So you're saying it's "us vs. them"?
It's extremely obvious with words like "terrorism" and "anarchy". In the 1910s to describe her actions in court, a radical feminist stated her actions were not anarchy, but terrorism. Imagine defending yourself by invoking terrorism now.
“We know who we are by who we are not.“
Sounds an awful lot like the political positions I hear all the goddamn time in the US.
I mostly see it on the right but I definitely don’t like it when I see anyone, regardless of their politics, cheer because someone else lost in a way that doesn’t even impact them