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Greenwashing Cults. How cult apologists poison wells
Introduction
It is quite natural that in an argument or debate everyone tries to convince others that
their position is the most just and reasonable. What seems less obvious is that
confrontation is not about the use of rational means. If it were, it would not be difficult to
convince people. A political party would convince everyone by logic and a product would
be unrivalled as soon as its superiority over the competition was rationally proven. Lakoff
(2004) writes:
The myths began with the Enlightenment, and the first one goes like this:The
truth will set us free. If we just tell people the facts, since people are basically
rational beings, they’ll all reach the right conclusions. But we know from
cognitive science that people do not think like that. People think in frames. […]
To be accepted, the truth must fit people’s frames. If the facts do not fit a
frame, the frame stays and the facts bounce off. (Lakoff, 2004)
1
Framing theory (Bateson, 1972; Goffman, 1974) suggests that how something is
presented to the audience (called “the frame”) influences the choices people make about
how to process that information. The consequence of this view is twofold. On the one
hand, it follows that communication that is unable to activate the right frames is
ineffective. On the other hand, it follows that the use of words and metaphors capable of
activating the desired frames makes it possible to convey messages that facilitate the
evaluations, decisions and actions that are consistent with the desires of the persuader.
The maipolatory capacity of this leaps to the eye. As Lakoff writes,
In politics, frames influence decisions and the institutions that implement them.
A change in frames means a change in both. Reframing actually means social
change (Lakoff, 2004)
2
.
Indeed, marketing makes extensive use of the findings of behavioural economics
studies (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979) to take advantage of consumer misperceptions.
1
Lakoff, G. (2004). Don’t think of an elefant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate : the Essential Guide for
Progressives. Chelsea Green Publishing Company. New York. p. 15
2
ibidem
In view of the findings from neuropsychology (Damasio, 1994), behavioural economics
(Kahneman, 2011), and cognitive linguistics (Lakoff and Johnsen, 1980; Lakoff, 2004), the
view held by some scholars of New Religious Movements (NRM) that mental manipulation
does not exist hardly seems tenable. This article, however, is not about manipulation or
mind control in the NRM, but rather about showing how the very authors Jargonily known
as cult apologists use framing skillfully and manipulatively. A cult apologist is someone
who prejudicially defends the teachings and/or actions of one or more movements
considered to be abusive or totalitarian. The hypothesis is that they do this to influence
the public and present a favourable image of the high-demand groups and a negative
image of the so called anti-cult movement. I will put forward elements for this thesis.
Cults and framing
Lakoff argues that every time we use or hear a word, a frame is activated in our brain.
This frame sets words and provides a context to give them meaning. According to Lakoff,
the mind is structured and functions metaphorically. Those who frequently listen to a
certain language will increasingly think in terms of the frames and metaphors associated
with that language. Calling those who are against abortion "pro-life" is therefore
extremely effective, because this gives the impression that those who are in favour of
regulation in this regard are, on the contrary, "pro-death", which would only be true if,
like Herod in the Bible, these people went looking for babies to kill. So when the
proponents of the “natural family” claim that it is "under attack' and that liberals want to
'dominate' and "exterminate" their people, they are using war metaphors that activate a
self-defence frame. This places them in the same notch as some "high-control"
movements that deplore the vicious attacks of the open society (the same one whose
liberal principles their leaders paradoxically invoke to ensure the continuity of their closed
societies). In both cases, the speaker presents himself as a virtuous victim under attack.
Both rhetorics present the image of encirclement and produce the same 'salvation
narrative'. This is an ancestral narrative structure with recurring roles such as hero, victim,
villain and helper. The activation of this script, which is anchored in the cognitive circuits
of the brain, is particularly effective.
The work of inducing a benevolent attitude towards controversial groups and a
negative attitude towards the so-called 'anti-cult movement' seems to be a perfect
example of reframing. A shrewd choice of terms and a sharp comparison of good and
evil make for extremely effective passages such as the following, in which the author
criticises the annual report of MIVILUDES, a French government agency, on sectarian
activity:
The report states that now “MIVILUDES receives few testimonies about
Scientology,” but Scientologists “manage businesses,” and the authors of
the reports even noticed that during the COVID-19 pandemic Scientology
volunteers “decontaminated continuously and deeply apartments, buses,
and even air conditioning systems.” Normally, one would conclude from this
that Scientologists are good citizens well integrated in the society. Not the
MIVILUDES, which sees in these activities something sinister, and implicitly
calls for discrimination against business operated by Scientologists.
(Introvigne, 2021)
3
The frames that are evoked here in relation to Scientology are those associated with
civic sense ("good citizens") and the fight against the pandemic through disinfection, i.e.
purification ("decontaminate"), two frames that are in turn associated with high morality.
The frame recalled about MIVILUDES is that of "discrimination" and dishonesty.
Indeed, effective framing makes systematic use of negation: a negative context is used
to evoke an opposite quality or attitude. Here are some examples:
(1) Corruption framing: Denouncing the crime, degeneration and its dangers evokes the
need for reform and rehabilitation. Accusing someone of corruption draws the conclusion
that the speaker is sane and not corrupt, that the speaker's proposals are aimed at
eliminating the evils caused by the other party.
(2) Freedom framing. Denouncing attacks on freedom of choice implies the need to
intervene in defence of the freedoms under threat. Accusing someone of being hostile to
freedom means that the speaker is an example of liberalism and tolerance.
Cult apologists generally defend their views by claiming to champion religious
freedom and religious tolerance. Discrimination evokes a bad frame, whereas tolerance
evokes a good one.
some examples:
3
Introvigne, M. (2021). The New MIVILUDES Report: Bad Methodology, Unreliable Results. Bitter Winter, September
8 2021. Retrieved January 11 2023
Fifthly, as has already been intimated, NRMs have characteristically given
rise to suspicion, fear and, not infrequently, discrimination and/or
persecution. (Barker, 2010)
4
This study examines the comparative levels of discrimination against cults
and other religious minorities in 37 European and Western democracies
using the Religion and State-Minorities (RASM) dataset and data on four
religions many governments consider cults—the Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Scientology, the Unification Church, and the Mormons—collected
specifically for this study.(Peretz and Fox, 2021)
5
Discrimination of unpopular minorities is, however, as old as humanity.
Teaching new generations of citizens—and of reporters—that
discrimination is wrong, including discrimination of religious organization
their opponents label as “cults,” is a lengthy educational process, but one
that is needed to preserve both religious liberty and a civilized interaction
between majorities and minorities in our democratic societies (Introvigne,
2022)
6
This choice of vocabulary evokes frames of absolutism and intolerance, which, as
mentioned above, leads to the idea that the speaker embodies the opposite qualities of
tolerance, democracy and genuine ecumenism. This creates a narrative in which scholars
of manipulation and activists who oppose abuses in totalitarian groups are portrayed as
intolerant people, opposed by the heroic figures of apologists under the banners of
freedom waving in the wind. The reader would be surprised to learn instead about the
ideological background of some of these authors (Corvaglia, 2022).
4
Barker, E. (2010) The cult as a social problem. In: Hjem, Titus, (ed.) Religion and social problems. Routledge
Advances in Sociology . Routledge, New York, USA, pp. 198-212. ISBN 9780415800563
5
Eti Peretz & Jonathan Fox (2021) Religious Discrimination against Groups Perceived as Cults in Europe and the
West, Politics, Religion & Ideology, 22:3-4, 415-435, DOI: 10.1080/21567689.2021.1969921
6
Introvigne, M. (2022) The Anti-Cult Movement. 7. The Crisis and Revival of the Anti-Cult Movement, Bitter Winter,
November 2 2022. Retrieved January 11 2023
Cult apologists and the argumentative fallacies
Having described the malicious use of terms, it is important to engage with the
arguments that the cult apologists put forward with such vocabulary.
Their first thesis is that scholars who study persuasion processes in 'high-demand'
groups are not credible because they claim that 'brainwashing' is behind members' radical
decisions. A false, but above all dangerous idea, they tell us. 'Brainwashing', we are
informed, would be a concept created by CIA in the context of the communist panic of
the 1950s to explain the Reds' success in converting American prisoners of war to their
cause (Introvigne, 2022). However, it would be a myth that has been discredited by
scholarship. Just as all psalms end in glory, all historical reconstructions of the concept of
brainwashing end with a citation of the old movie The Manchurian Candidate starring
Frank Sinatra. The film tells of a Korean War veteran who has been reprogrammed into
an alien-controlled automaton in response to a certain stimulus to kill the candidate
President of the United States. A cinematic and grotesque version of manipulation, its
continuous repurposing serves to highlight the absurdity of the idea and thus protect
gurus, demagogues and congregations leaders from being accused of practising it.
This is a great example of what is called a 'straw man argument'. It is a trick used by
those who want to win an argument without discussing its content. It works by attributing
an argument to the other side that they never made. The thesis, of course, must not only
be false, but also patently absurd, grotesque or ridiculous and therefore easy to refute. In
the case of the apologists, the strawman is 'brainwashing'. No one has ever argued this
thesis. What scholars refer to when they speak of mind manipulation has nothing remotely
to do with the Manchurian Candidate hypothesis.
The grotesque term of popular usage certainly activates a frame of unreliability and
bizarreness, but the this is just the basis for another reframing - a “meta-reframing”, as
we might call it - that has it all.
Introvigne (1993)
7
, with his division into a secular anti-cult movement and a religious
counter-cult movement, has found the most ingenious way to propose the concept that
anti-cultists believe in a magical phenomenon. Namely, he combines the division 'secular-
religious' with a division into 'rationalist' and 'post-rationalist' movements. Rationalists,
according to the author, are those who believe that 'cults' recruit their followers through
7
Introvigne, M. (1993) The Secular Anti-Cult and the Religious Counter-Cult Movement: Strange Bedfellows or Future
Enemies? Academia website Retrieved December 12 2022
(https://www.academia.edu/30311768/The_Secular_Anti_Cult_and_the_Religious_Counter_Cult_Movement_Strange_Be
dfellows_or_Future_Enemies)
deception. Deception is not supernatural, ergo it is rational. So there will be both
rationalist anti-cult and rationalist counter-cult movements.
Introvigne writes:
Anti-cultists will emphasize the secular features of the fraud (e.g. 'bogus'
miracles) and the counter-cultists its religious elements (e.g. 'manipulating'
the scriptures), but the fraud remains prominent.
Instead, movements that imagine superhuman or supernatural intervention to explain cult
success are called post-rationalist. Post-rationalist counter-cult movements theorise the
intervention of Satan. The devil is the supernatural explanation favoured by the religious.
Referring to the secular critics he calls anti-cults, the author writes:
For their secular counterparts of the anti-cult movements, cultists, have the
more-than-human power of 'brainwashing their victims; but, as it has been
noted, 'brainwashing' in some anti-cult theories appears as something
magical, the modem version of the evil eye (Introvigne, 1993)
An extraordinary coup de théâtre! First we are presented with a dichotomy that is
simplistic but loaded with meaning. This is then articulated in a further division that
produces four boxes: two for the rationalists and two for the post-rationalists, as if there
were two floors of a building. One floor is rationalist and the other is post-rationalist. On
each floor, one flat is occupied by religious people and one by secularists. Introvigne
describes the tenants of the first floor, the rationalists, as very similar because they use
explanations of the same kind; They are in the same frame (rationality), but he claims to
perform the same operation with the tenants of the second floor, the supposed post-
rationalists, who do not resemble each other in any way. Only a very low critical alertness
can let this analogy pass. A very low alertness and an effective frame, that of absurdity
(“evil eye”, “post-rationalism” and so on). Let us look outside the frame. Satan's
intervention is indeed a supernatural idea, mind manipulation a scientific theory. It is true
that neither hypothesis is universally accepted, but the first is not because it is not
falsifiable according to Popper's definition, while the second is up for debate precisely
because it is falsifiable; therefore it is a scientific hypothesis. However, a well-designed
frame can create an illusion of similarity.
Most importantly, the normal logical processes are reversed in the description
presented here. Instead of arriving at the conclusion that manipulation theory is irrational
through a series of successive logical steps, the discourse only spins the argument by
setting this irrationality as a premise! Thus, a tautology is realised that cannot prove
anything. Here, too, good framing can lead to mental short-cuts that can confuse the
consequential logic.
In fact, anyone who wanted to give a lecture on logical fallacies and was therefore
looking for examples for the audience could find an inexhaustible source in the
statements of the 'cult apologists'. The vicious sophistry that is demonstrably most
heeded by the defenders of the 'separatist' groups is known as 'poisoning the well'. Once
again, they try to do this by refraiming. The expression “poison the well” is used to
describe an argument in which what the opponent says is delegitimised in advance by
imputing suspicion to their credibility or good faith. In this way, anything they says can
be ignored, considered false or irrelevant by the public. The constant defamation of
activists, scholars and associations that show concern for totalitarian groups is certainly
not aimed at discussing their arguments, but at casting doubt on their credibility. In fact,
activists who oppose the work of cults, if it does not come to outright personal dossiering
(and it does)
8
, are nevertheless labelled as unscientific (because of the myth of
brainwashing), illiberal (because they are hostile to 'freedom of religious practise') or even
accomplices of despotism
9
. Whatever the 'anti-cult movement' says is therefore
unfounded.
So the first to take advantage of the systematic errors of the mind and carry out a
manipulation are precisely these authors. In fact, it takes only a minimum of cognitive
8
A good example (in Italian): Il Controverso Mondo degli Antisette (2019). Il caso dello psicologo Luigi Corvaglia: gli
«anti-sette» sono attendibili o manipolano l’informazione? Il controverso mondo degli antisette. Retrieved December
31 2022 (http://antisette.blogspot.com/2019/01/antisette-luigi-corvaglia-psicologo-cesap-fecris.html)
9
A good example: European Federation of Freedom of Belief (2022). How the anti-cult movement has participated to
fuel Russian anti-Ukraine rhetoric. FOB website. Retrieved December 31 2022 (https://freedomofbelief.net/articles/how-
the-anti-cult-movement-has-participated-to-fuel-russian-anti-ukraine-rhetoric)
effort to escape the traps of argumentative fallacies and understand that the New
Religious Movements, the expression we might ironically consider the 'woke' term for
cults, obviously have no reason to be defended in the name of the vaunted liberal
principles, because in the liberal-democratic framework, freedom of religion is intangible.
Those who need to be defended are abusive and totalitarian cults, i.e. groups where abuse
and harassment occur. This defence becomes necessary for abusive cults precisely
because they operate in a liberal democratic system that condemns abuse and
harassment. Anything else is poisoning the well.
Conclusions
The term Greewashing coined in the 1990s came from the combination of two words:
green - the colour associated with the environment and the environmental movement -
and whitewashing, which is used to refer to actions that serve to "cover up" or "conceal".
It indicates the communication strategy of certain companies, organisations or political
institutions aimed at constructing a deceptively positive self-image in terms of
environmental impact, in order to divert public attention from the negative environmental
effects of their activities or products.
Greenwashing, then, is what might be called 'environmental façade marketing', whose
efforts - primarily through communication measures - are aimed at changing a company's
reputation without actually affecting its environmental sustainability. In a broader sense,
the term is also used for other actions of 'façade marketing' that do not relate to
environmental issues, but to other aspects aimed to a benevolent reconstruction of an
organisation's reputation.
Such communicative measures involve the use of terms and metaphors capable of
activating positive conceptual frames, as explained above in this article the aim of which
is to show how this 'façade marketing' is also implemented by the handful of scholars and
activists commonly referred to as 'cult apologists'. The thesis developed here is that these
authors engage in façade marketing by using certain well-known rhetorical devices and
manifest logical fallacies to construct a deceptively positive image of cults and a negative
image of the so called "anti-cult movement".
This awareness leads to two warnings. The first is that deconstructing the claims of
advocates of abusive cults is a recommended exercise in order not to run the risk of falling
prey to mental sleight of hand such as those described above. The second warning is that
those who are labelled intolerant or anti-science by these authors would do well not to
remain on the same level by denying these things. This would mean accepting the logical
premises and unconsciously adhering to the opponent's frame, reinforcing it.
An additional note
An easy objection from apologists could be that also the word 'cult' activates a
negative frame and therefore its use by activists and "cultic studies" scholars would be
no less manipulative. That would be the reason for the neutral term they use in its
place, namely 'new religious movements'. In other words, in this case, the choice of
definition would entail the value freedom necessary for scientific research. Smoke and
mirrors. Framed mirrors. Let us begin by noting that no one has claimed to use the
term 'cult' as a technical word, nor that it can be extended to any minority group. In
the academic literature, many different definitions are used, from “high-demand” or
“high-control” groups (Boyle-Laisure, 2021) to totalist groups (Lifton,1961), while
the term 'cult' is never extended to every alternative organisation, but is used
conventionally in the context of authors who first defined its restrictive meaning
10
. This
clear demarcation is completely lacking in the case of the 'politically correct' expression
'New Religious Movements', which seems vague (it is not defined what is meant by
'new'), misleading ('religious' conveys the idea of a spirituality as a criterion for defining
a high-demand groups, which is not true) and so all-encompassing that it cannot
distinguish the different realities that fall under it. The suspicion is that it is precisely
the latter characteristic that is sought.
Yet sometimes NRM scholars seem to be able to demarcate certain concepts very
well. For example, they use to call the ex-members of these groups 'apostate'.
Moreover, they do not want to make this word a conentional term, but claim that it is
a technical term and even value-free. Introvigne (1999) says that:
Although many such ex-members resent being called "apostates" the term is
technical, not derogatory, and has been used for some decades, as documented
in a recent excellent volume edited by David Bromley (1998).
10
One of the more commonly quoted definitions of cult was articulated at an ICSA/UCLA Wingspread Conference on
Cultism in 1985:
Cult (totalist type): A group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person,
idea, or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g., isolation from
former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful
group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total
dependency on the group and fear of leaving it…), designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders, to the
actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community. (West & Langone, 1986, pp. 119–120)
In other words, the term sounds disparaging, but it is not, because they use it. Strangely,
however, the author goes on like this:
Although perhaps terms other than "apostates" may be used in the future, some
sort of term is necessary in order to distinguish between "apostates" and other ex-
members who do not turn against their former group.
It follows that the 'technical' term strangely fits only former members who are dissatisfied
with their previous experience in a group. Former members who do not complain do not
deserve such a technical and non-pejorative label, applicable only to the dissatisfied. If
the term were only a synonym for ex-member, as the author claims, it would be value-
free and applied to all. However, if it only applies to disgruntled and resentful ex-
members, it is difficult to suggest that it is a value-free and technical label. What is certain
is that the word 'apostate' activates frames of resentment and unreliability that a priori
undermine the claims of former members (the resentful ones, the others are reliable). In
practice, we are again talking about poisoning the wells.
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