• kredditacc@lemmygrad.ml
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    2 months ago

    Regarding cults, why are the US, South Korea, and Japan so full of cults? And does Europe have a cult problem?

    • knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml
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      2 months ago

      Europe does not in general have a cult problem, but US based cults are slowly expanding into Europe to grow and take advantage of people’s general sense of a decreasing quality of life.

      • REEEEvolution@lemmygrad.ml
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        2 months ago

        Europe dealt with its cults by sending them to its colonies, hoping that the elements and natives would deal with them.

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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          2 months ago

          That’s mostly anglos. Other colonial and not colonial countries in Europe usually used good old fashioned religious wars to get rid of their heretics.

    • rainpizza@lemmygrad.ml
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      2 months ago

      Cults solve three issues for the bourgeoisie in the USA, SK, and Japan:

      • It perfectly internalize the revolutionary energy and/or channels it away into the cults organization.
      • It gives a sense of community in places that have been devastated by hyper individualistic ideologies.
      • It can deliver powerful anti communist propaganda and capitalist apologia disguised by the “word of god”. (This is what I have seen in Latin american evangelicals that receive preachers from the USA). In other words, the “Prosperity theology”

      That’s why cults prey on the needy and the helpless within the working class. It is an effective way to disorganize the working class with messages such as: “pray to god so you can have prosperity” or “Poverty is a curse of god and it means that you are lacking x y or z characteristics to be a perfect follower of the cult”

      • kredditacc@lemmygrad.ml
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        2 months ago

        It can deliver powerful anti communist propaganda and capitalist apologia disguised by the “word of god”.

        This is very true. I have never seen any cult that isn’t anti-communist, be it Falun Gong, Unification Church, or others.

    • ghost_of_faso2@lemmygrad.ml
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      2 months ago

      South Korea

      In this case it was so the military dictatorship could still rule while a facade of democracy was given to south koreans.

      It would be fair to call SK a dictatorship right up till 2016…and then afterwards still a dictatorship, just a known one.