Is America a Cult?
Is America a Cult?
America has been home to a great many cults, large and small, more so than other countries. It seems prone to them—receptive, welcoming. It is generally a religious country and cults are religious in nature (though not necessarily supernatural-theist). Currently, we have the cult of Trump; before that we had the cult of Reagan. The Democrats have JFK and his family. Then there is the cult of the “Founding Fathers” (I put it in quotes because the ritual use of “Fathers” is a dead giveaway—these are quasi-mythical figures in the American imagination). We also have sundry movie stars (“Hollywood royalty”)—glittering symbols of otherworldly transcendence (smiling, waving). Pop stars too—Bob Dylan is surely a cult to many of his fans (I won’t mention lesser figures). Cults are everywhere, if you care to look. Is it because there is no monarchy in America, so that people look for monarch substitutes? The monarchy in Great Britain is surely a cult, sucking up most of the cult oxygen. Strong passions, hero worship, hysteria, loyalty tests, intolerance, anti-intellectualism—these are all marks of the cultish. Silencing skeptics is the general modus operandi: expulsions, suppressions, even violence. Lockstep thinking and imperviousness to facts are the dominant symptoms. The cult is controlling, paranoid, conformist, brainwashed, myopic, closed-minded, wacky, and weird. Insiders don’t see this, but to outsiders it is only too apparent. Talking gibberish is the sure sign of it.
You may be nodding in assent to my description of the culture of American cults, but I want to make a more controversial point, namely that America itself is a cult. The typical American sees his country as a shining city on a hill, a kind of utopia, exceptional, blessed, superior. It has its mythic history and moments of high glory. Patriotism runs high. Blemishes are overlooked or downplayed. This is why the teaching of history is so contentious—it threatens to undermine the sunny cult of America. How is slavery consistent with the American cult? It isn’t, so it must be denied or minimized. There is also a tendency to want to return to a supposed glorious past, because the present clearly doesn’t live up to the self-image manufactured by the cult. There are traitors to the cult and they must be eliminated so that we can return to the golden days. The dominant religion of America is America. It is one great church. That’s why its version of Christianity is so Americanized. The American continent is home to a giant cult (as well as a few annoying dissenters)—the cult of itself. Scientology does well here because it reflects the ambient mood; it is one offshoot of the American cult. Am I not stating the obvious?
Is American philosophy (the profession) a cult? Members would strongly deny any such imputation, but I am not so sure. After all, it exists within a larger cult, and is full of Americans. Are these people too prone to the cultish? Have there been cult-like collectives surrounding particular philosophers? The idea is not outlandish: wasn’t there once a Quine cult, then a Rawls cult, and now a David Lewis cult? Each proposed all-encompassing intellectual utopias ruled by a single dominant idea: the existential quantifier, the original position, the possible world. These are the keys to the magic kingdom, available to any true believer. Thus, we get the card-carrying Quinean, the Rawlsian, the Lewisian. (Davidson and Kripke also enjoyed a cult-like status, though not as pronounced as the three individuals mentioned.) But in addition to this we find a tendency towards ideological conformity, punishment of dissenters, expulsions, shrill condemnation, willful ignorance, fact denial. American philosophers simply recapitulate the vices of the cult-loving society in which they live. They may not constitute a full-blown cult, but they approximate to that status. Feminism, in particular, has taken on a cult-like character in American academia, including in philosophy. No doubt about it, America loves its cults.[1]
[1] I once proposed, in a spirit of fun, a cult of the hand, thinking that the parody would be obvious. Lo and behold, some twits believed it was serious! Cults are so pervasive that people are apt to see them where they don’t exist.
Certainly “Cults are so pervasive that people are apt to see them where they don’t exist.”!
Cults, like crowds (in Canetti’s sense), are everywhere and since times immemorial. US population is no exception. In philosophy there were Chomsky, Pierce, William James, Rorty and many others as untypical as them. Even though Chomsky and Rorty have their share of cult followers.
Some cults are worse than others. We can’t avoid considerations of truth. We would never say there was a cult of believing the truth. In the case of Chomsky, I have long been on his side, but we have had some strong disagreements.
Two reactions: fi you’re correct, it’s a failure of the Enlightenment, not just of rational thought but of individualism, the idea that people could think and live for themselves, not quite in the sense of Fromm; second, Toqueville observed Americans are joiners; people used to go bowling, or join rotary clubs, PTAs etc. Joining a real group is not the same as joining a cult. My points deepen and complicate your take. Churches can be seen as cults, but also as genuine communities
Clubs are not the same as cults.
I’d add America’s utopianism and the obsession with family values to consideration as to America as the land of the cult.