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Cultish cover art

Cultish

By: Amanda Montell
Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
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Summary

The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power.

What makes “cults” so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we’re looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join - and more importantly, stay in - extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell’s argument is that, on some level, it already has....

Our culture tends to provide pretty flimsy answers to questions of cult influence, mostly having to do with vague talk of “brainwashing”. But the true answer has nothing to do with freaky mind-control wizardry or Kool-Aid. In Cultish, Montell argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. In both positive ways and shadowy ones, cultish language is something we hear - and are influenced by - every single day.  

Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities “cultish”, revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven’s Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of “cultish” everywhere.

©2021 Amanda Montell (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

What listeners say about Cultish

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Grain of salt needed!

This book started of great! Learning the unique perspective the author has on cults by emphasising the power of language. However this book took a turn for the worst after the authors criticism on CrossFits “cultishness”. Even though I totally agree with her claim, it was so poorly substantiated I cringed listening to it. The quality of research on that chapter stood so in contrast with the rest of the book I highly doubt she meant to leave it in. Maybe it had something to do with a publishing timeframe. So take the chapter with a grain of salt and read the rest of the book too! Enjoy

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very interesting

it was very interesting from a linguistic point of view, but I also learned about some popculture happenings I wasnt aware of before

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Didn’t learn anything new

I have a really strong interest in cults and didn’t feel like I was learning anything new. I only learned one or two new things. The rest was just a summary of many different cults.

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Interesting topic, but over long and gets repetitive

The book is at its strongest where it draws parallels between cultish methodology and capitalism. But it has an enormous blindspot with regards to the author’s unquestioning acceptance of fashionable progressive ideology that at its worst can seem as cultish as any of the more sinister organisations she profiles. Which is ironic.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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great narration and look at linguistic structure

really enjoyed this book and it's taken on how language cultivates cult mindset and ideology. I enjoyed the comparison between deemed as true cults and those that are deemed cultish. highly recommend and will be finding any other books by this author

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Who is the target...?

I'm not sure who is this book for... If you don't care about cults, you wouldn't care about this book. If you are interested in cults, religions, etc., it's just a good summary of what you already know, but not much more.
It's not my only issue with the book...
First of all, more than once, the author say that there is no such thing like "brainwashing", even though that the whole book is exactly about one of the most important tool of brainwashing. Author is correct only if by "brainwashing" she means the James Bond, CIA, KGB, movie kind of brainwashing, but the big part of real life brainwashing is the thing she writes a book about...
The other thing is, at the beginning author summarise the content of the book. I thought: "Well, it's a shame that she wouldn't mencion a "woke" language". But later on I found out why... She used woke-newspeak language on her own, what placed her bias very specifically.
Overall... nice fluent listen. If you are new in the subject, you will learn a lot, but if you have a basics... well... not only you won't learn anything new, but also will notice "The language of Fanaticism" in author's speech...
If you are into the subject, this book will be a waste of your time.
Cheers.

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  • 16-01-23

In-depth analysis of everyday cult language

It’s a great book that gives a deeper dive than her ‘sounds like a cult’ podcast focussing on more popular interpretations of what can be considered a cult or where cultish language can be used.

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    3 out of 5 stars

Cults everywhere

First half is good insight into what we call recognised Cults second half just seemed to be an advert for indoor cycling

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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decent

At times I think the feminist/anit-racist aspects felt forced. In the beginning of the book there are a lot of references to later chapters, 'this will be discussed in ch. 6' is mentioned a lot. this makes the listening experience less cohesive in my opinion

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A Whole New Level

I really wanted to like this book however some of the things covered by the author just felt down right judgemental. Anything slightly away from "normal" was treated with derision and a snider tone from the narrator. I listened to the entire book as I was intrigued to see where the author would go next. Oddly although picking on odd things like cross fit and Joe Dispenza a man who has helped thousands she conveniently left out religion! I'm not saying the whole book was awful but a lot of it just made me cringe as it was extremely biased towards what she wants you to think.....almost cultish!

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