Cultish Bossbabe

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism (2021) Amanda Montell [R by Bigpurplehatguy] whom we've met "Wordslut" before. Like, most recently, other Blobs about words, their use and derivation, Cultish gets deep in the weeds of etymology. For Montell, 'cults' cover a wide spectrum towards extremes of malignant narcissism, Jonestown, Guyana and Reichsparteitag Nürnburg. Der Triumph des Kults is partly achieved by repeating a subset of the lexicon together. If you say something often enough it becomes, if not truth, at least the default. Thus, many objectively successful people believe in [their own] Meritocracy [prev Michael "Harvard Philosophy" Sandel]. In the pubs and clubs adjacent to Silicon Valley, it is a very easy flip to conclude that those at Grade 5 and below have failed through lack of merit and deserve their fate among the drones of late-stage capitalism.I used to be quite smug about never being a member of anything "I was never a boy-scout". Then I signed up to MetaFilter . . .…