PUTTING THE CULT BACK INTO COMMUNITY

Jackie Mcmillan

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PUTTING THE CULT BACK INTO COMMUNITY

In: Returning (to) Communities

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Jackie Mcmillan

Jackie Mcmillan
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 241–253

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004325623_015

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Abstract

Due to our contemporary commitment to the humanist notion of the subject, when we say community what we mean is characterized by Alphonso Lingis’ notion of the rational community in The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common. This notion overlaps with the idea of a social contract, summed up by Linnell Secomb as the model of community where “we understand ourselves to be rational, coherent, autonomous subjects who freely come together to pursue common interests including pursuing legal and civil recognition, [and] constructing a common culture.” I wish to examine the validity of this notion of community by looking at the difference between cults and communities.

Raphael Aron, author of Cults: Too Good to be True clearly believes in our ability to make independent, rational, coherent and informed choices to join communities. According to Aron, cults are types of communities which “are destructive because of the level of control they wield over their following. Whereas most social systems and families involve various degrees of control and subservience to authority, cults cross a critical line, creating an unnatural community which ultimately involves the loss of members’ freedom and independence.” This essay shows that while we expect cults to be selftransparent, unambiguous and knowable, we do not necessarily presume the same when we discuss society more generally. The implications of blurring of the line between “bad” communities and “good” communities for the humanist idea of community are farreaching, and point to the need for a new understanding of community, cults, and the relation between them.

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Returning (to) Communities

Theory, Culture and Political Practice of the Communal

Series: Critical Studies, Volume: 28 and Critical Studies, Volume: 28

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004325623

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Jan 2006

Subjects
- Social Sciences
  - Cultural Studies

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PUTTING THE CULT BACK INTO COMMUNITY

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Returning (to) Communities

Theory, Culture and Political Practice of the Communal

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