How would you know if you were in a cult?

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 I was in Scientology for twenty five years and realized that I was in a cult when I realized that the leadership had lied to me about the results of applying our techniques for decades because they claimed in a story distributed by the leadership to cult members that the cult had been infiltrated by incompetent bumbling criminals at the highest levels for decades and simultaneously that the cult was a route to superhuman levels of awareness and intelligence and these include abilities like remote viewing, telepathy, telekinesis and precognition!

The Posse of Lunatics story was presented by Scientology management in the Freedom magazine (cult propaganda) and portrayed the people who Scientology blamed for bad press as being totally incompetent and bumbling idiots, but acknowledging that they had been stumbling through their careers as idiots, obviously, for decades! How could a group of demigods allow imbeciles who cannot do anything right to ever rise up to their top ranks? Let alone allow them to be messing things up for may years before removing them?

This contradiction made me realize that the claims of demigods being created by Scientology had to be false. If Scientology had actually produced hundreds of such beings in the nineteen fifties to seventies as it claims and they founded the Sea Org with a core of several hundred superhuman beings who had superhuman awareness and intelligence, tremendous abilities including telepathy, remote viewing, telekinesis and precognition then the group would have to be impossible for normal humans to infiltrate or exploit. And nothing could have diminished the power of these beings if they had the miraculous technology for operating groups and understanding life that Scientology claims. After all, we are talking about a collection of superhuman beings who have a method of being far behind human level competence in organizing and running groups! At least, that's what Scientology founder Ronald Hubbard alleged!

The process of realizing that you personally are in a cult often involves a long series of experiences that gradually cause a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance to develop. This was best described by Leon Festinger in his book A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance.

I recommend that you read this book to understand why and how we reach the point at which we are open minded about a subject and then close minded in supporting it then eventually may become open to criticism and even changing our minds on it, even if we were quite certain in our belief in a subject before this point.

Here is a series of excerpts from a blog post on the book and a link to the post:

Festinger went on to say:
The presence or absence of dissonance in some particular content area will have important effects on the degree of information seeking and on the selectivity of such information seeking. (Page 126)
Relative absence of dissonance. If little or no dissonance exists, there would be no motivation ( considering this source of motivation alone ) to seek out new and additional information. (Page 127)
The presence of moderate amounts of dissonance. The existence of appreciable dissonance and the consequent pressure to reduce it will lead to the seeking out of information which will introduce consonances and to the avoidance of information which will increase the already existing dissonance. (Page 128)
The presence of extremely large amounts of dissonance. Under such circumstances a person may actively seek out, and expose himself to, dissonance-increasing information. If he can increase the dissonance to the point where it is greater than the resistance to change of one or another cluster of cognitions, he will then change the cognitive elements involved, thus markedly reducing or perhaps even wholly eliminating the dissonance which now is so great. (Page 129) Quotes A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance

• Scientology And Cognitive Dissonance Theory

I want mention that the articles by top Scientology expert Jon Atack at The Underground Bunker (Tony Ortega's blog on Scientology) in the Scientology Mythbusting series opened my mind up to the possibility that I was fooled. The articles crucially fed me bits and pieces of information on influence so I could see that the essential techniques of repetition, confusion (aka contradiction or paradox), mimicry, vivid imagery and so on are the core of Scientology. I realized that I had spent hundreds of hours having these methods used on me.

The brilliance of Jon Atack in his numerous online articles is that the majority just touch on terms and ideas to get the person who is at the peak of cognitive dissonance to go over the edge and connect the dots to see what an abundance of evidence exists in their own experience that Scientology is not what it is presented as, the hundreds of contradictions in the doctrine and the extreme contrast between the public relations claims of Scientology, especially for outsiders and new members, and the reality of the conditions and actions in Scientology. He has a great group of longer articles on the sources of Scientology materials which Hubbard plagiarized and the hypnotic techniques in Scientology and the occult elements in Scientology. These articles have the extensive evidence regarding these subjects carefully collected by Jon Atack over decades and laid out in the open to expose the plain truth that is usually hidden in Scientology.

If you want to know if you are in a cult I have two lines of thought. First is the quick and dirty answer, then the long and hard one.

The quick answer is look at your own relationship to the group and see if it fits certain criteria and if you have this as well as how the group treats members. You can be a cultic relationship with a group and it is also possible for you to be involved with a group which other people have cultic relationships with while you yourself do not.

The quick thing to look at could be a list including the eight criteria for thought reform by Robert Jay Lifton and the BITE model by Steven Hassan, the six conditions for thought reform by Margaret Singer, and the list of cult characteristics from Cults Inside Out by Rick Alan Ross. These lists give a good view of what cults do and what normal groups do not do.

Here are a list of blog posts that describe each of these lists of criteria.

• 
  Dr. Robert J. Lifton's Criteria For Thought Reform...
• List Of Cult Characteristics From Cults Inside Out...
• Scientology And Margaret Singer's Six Conditions F...
• Scientology Viewed Through The BITE model by Steve...

The longer method involves a serious examination of the group and your own relationship with it. Top cult expert Jon Atack has remarked on how if you have a political party or leader you follow you can do an exercise.

Take a piece of paper, make a line down the middle from the top to the bottom. On one side put all the pros for the person or party and on the other side all the cons. Be sure to examine their history, statements, and policies in detail including votes for bills and so on.

Put every time you have disagreed or disapproved of the decisions or even statements of the person on the cons side.

If you have no cons you are in a cult. Now, I can include a list of caveats to be sure, you have to actually know a lot about the actions and decisions and not just, for example, use Fox news and other right wing media as the other sources of your information or if you just use MSNBC or CNN and similar sources like The New York Times and Washington Post and you support the democrats, especially the corporate democrats, then you may have no access to neutral or critical information regarding your party.

You should be at least concerned if the media you follow never criticize the party and candidates you support. No one is perfect and no one makes perfect decisions all of the time.

If you are in any long term relationship as an adult with an adult and know them extremely well and have known them for years it is extremely unlikely that you can see no flaws whatsoever in them if it is not a cultic relationship.

To understand cultic relationships I have a list of references that have helped me.

• My Road Out of Scientology

In the search for guidance and truth, when and why do people cross the line from reasoned inquirer to unquestioning follower?

 You can get several PhDs in psychology and still not fully explore or understand this issue. A lot of research has been done on the subject.

Stanley Milgram is famous for his obedience to authority experiment. This is one of the most repeated experiments in social psychology and has been done by numerous researchers and recreated in different circumstances by different people in different countries over decades.

The shocking experiment found that if we ask people to progressively administer a series of gradually increasing electric shocks to a stranger, even to a level that could hurt or kill them, we will do so if an authority in a lab coat demands it at about sixty percent compliance. This means sixty percent of us will do this, and not stop or refuse. Before the experiment psychologists assumed that 1% of people would comply and that this 1% is psychotic.

They were certain the experiment was a total waste of time and even psychologists with decades of experience believed this.

Stanley Milgram explored obedience to authority and wrote several books, including Obedience to Authority; An Experimental View.

His ideas are well worth exploring.

The reason I included his work is to pont out that we are not independent critical thinking creatures generally, we tend to believe what our contemporaries believe, our peers and the authorities we follow.

Asch conformity experiments were carried out by Solomon Asch. In these experiments several students were asked to indicate what lines were the same length but the people went in an order. The real experiment involved the actual participant being the person who answered last and the other people being told beforehand to all give the same WRONG answer and to how many people would give the same answer, despite the truth being easily seen.

In the book Sway The Irresistible Pull Of Irrational Behavior authors (and brothers) Ori Brafman ( MBA Stanford Business School) and Rom Brafman (PhD Psychology) described experiments on dissent.

Solomon Asch did one of the most famous experiments in social psychology. In one experiment a subject was told they were being tested for visual acuity. They were placed in a group with several other people. The group was shown three straight lines of greatly varying lengths and a fourth line and asked which of the three lines the new one matched. The lines were intentionally different enough that the answer was meant to be obvious.

But there was a hidden element, as there usually is in a social psychology experiment, every person except one was an actor. The actors were all instructed to give the same answer before the actual subject responded. They all gave the same wrong answer.

Now there were several rounds of being presented lines and answering. And when everyone else gave the same obviously wrong answer 75% of subjects ALSO gave that answer in at least one of the rounds.

Asch found unanimity gave the experiment its full persuasive power. It's hard to be a lone dissenting voice.

He did something I have found people often do with good experiments. He repeated it with a slight variation to test an idea. He had the same set up with one crucial alteration: he had one actor give the right answer while the others gave the same wrong answer.

He found that having even one person give the true and easily observable answer made it so the test subjects felt free and confident enough to also give the correct answer, almost every single time.

The authors wrote, "The really interesting thing, though, is that the dissenting actor didn't even need to give the correct response; all it took to break the sway was for someone to give an answer that was different from the majority." (Page 155 Sway)

To really drive home this point with evidence another clever experiment is described. Psychologist Vernon Allen conducted it.

In this one a subject was asked to do a self-assessment survey alone. After five minutes a researcher knocked on the door and asked the subject to share the room due to a lack of space.

The new subject was of course an actor. The new subject had special extra, extra thick glasses intentionally designed to give the impression of him being nearly blind without them. Super coke bottle glasses.

To step it up a notch the researcher and actor even had a script. The actor said, "Excuse me, but does this test require long-distance vision ?" The researcher confirmed it and the subject responded, "I have very limited eyesight" and "I can only see up-close objects."

They even acted out a scene of the researcher asking the coke bottles wearing actor to read an easily legible sign on the wall. The actor of course acted out straining and finding the sign impossible to make out to drive home the point that he was practically blind over long distances.

The researcher explained that he needed five people for the testing apparatus to work, so it was okay for the nearly blind seeming subject to, "Just sit in anyway, since you won't be able to see the questions, answer any way you want; randomly, maybe. I won't record your answers."

But even with the coke bottle glasses and blind as a bat routine the actor was able to affect conformity significantly. 97% of participants conformed when agreement was unanimous but it dropped to 64% with the coke bottles wearing actor even if he gave an incorrect answer as long as it was different from the majority.

That is astounding. Having three people give an incorrect answer can be countered for 33% of people even with an obviously incorrect answer from an obviously unreliable source !

It's truly worth considering. Imagine yourself being like 97% of us and conforming with the crowd in denying what you see before your eyes, but that one out of three of us actually will see and acknowledge the truth if anyone, no matter how unlikely or wrong or obviously unqualified simply disagrees and breaks the unanimous opinion.

I think dissenting views shouldn't just be accepted or even suggested for important decisions that time permits careful consideration of but frankly should be required !

And looking at Mill's ideas makes me think the dissenting views should be the absolute best prepared and presented versions of those views possible. Put every effort into giving them the opportunity to be actually well thought out and persuasive so they take real effort to refute.

More evidence that dissent is actually useful is described in Sway regarding a fascinating unforseen result of a study. The study was conducted by David Kantor, a Boston-based family therapist who was trying to see how schizophrenia manifested itself in families. He had cameras set up in people's homes then poured through hours of footage of regular family life. He didn't learn much about schizophrenia but found a useful pattern that occurred over and over in family after family.

He discovered four roles people take turns assuming in families. We may assume these roles in other groups as well. It's an interesting hypothesis.

The roles are 1) the initiator, someone that comes up with an idea or starts an activity. 2) the blocker, someone that brings up reasons to not do the idea or fears if they do it or negative potential consequences.

In Sway the authors wrote, "Of course, it's easy to think of blockers as pure curmudgeons. But as we'll soon see, they play a vital role in maintaining balance within a group." (Page 158)

Initiators and blockers inevitably disagree and then 3) supporters come in. They take a side and go with the intention of the initiator or blocker. If the initiator wants to go to the movies and the blocker thinks they should not the supporter will either encourage going or not going, very clear. Last is 4) the observer, they watch and try to not take sides.

The initiators and blockers naturally bump heads. In polite discourse they disagree, in less polite situations they argue or even fight.

Initiators in this hypothesis have lots of ideas and are willing to do things, or at least come up with ideas or decisions for others. Blockers are cautious and less optimistic.

Many groups seek people with ideas, confidence and the qualities initiators hold. Groups also avoid blockers. I have even heard of people that see the key to success is to steer clear of people who are negative or unsuccessful, in some ways describing blockers as too down.

But a blocker has the tendency to give the dissenting view, even if they are wrong everything we have seen up to now should tell us we want and need to hear dissenting views. Too many yes men can inspire false or unjustified confidence.

Some managers to prevent conformity influencing the evaluations of executives and advisors instruct a group of staff to take a written proposal for a project, go home, read it and write a one page response with your impression and opinion. Don't discuss this with each other in forming your opinion.

Come back tomorrow and each of you in turn can read your response. This way we won't influence the statements of each other. Additionally if they are considering going forth another assignment is used. The staff are instructed to separately come up with a hypothetical situation. They are supposed to imagine six months in the future and that the project has failed. They are supposed to write a post mortem, an analysis of what went wrong, how and why.

By each separately brainstorming the potential failure of the project they each play the role of blocker and bring their intelligence, imagination and knowledge to the topic of what could fail. In this way potential weaknesses or obstacles can be considered.

A person with knowledge of aspects of the project that could be difficult might alert others in the meeting who could realize many things. A person could realize the project is illegal, or could realize the problems in one area will make the project unfeasible in how it impacts another area or could foresee an obstacle and practical solution to it from their expertise which if it hadn't been implemented from the beginning would result in certain failure.

The possibilities are many and give the group a better chance of using the knowledge of each other as they interact. The whole group, whether they are aware of it or not has more knowledge of potential factors that could create success and factors that could create failure.

So, the factors of obedience to authority and conformity to group norms both influence our behavior and beliefs.

The A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger also describes how we believe and specifically what influences us to be true believers and unwilling to consider disconfirming evidence regarding our beliefs.

To briefly reference A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger:

Festinger went on to say:
The presence or absence of dissonance in some particular content area will have important effects on the degree of information seeking and on the selectivity of such information seeking. (Page 126)
Relative absence of dissonance. If little or no dissonance exists, there would be no motivation ( considering this source of motivation alone ) to seek out new and additional information. (Page 127)
The presence of moderate amounts of dissonance. The existence of appreciable dissonance and the consequent pressure to reduce it will lead to the seeking out of information which will introduce consonances and to the avoidance of information which will increase the already existing dissonance. (Page 128)
The presence of extremely large amounts of dissonance. Under such circumstances a person may actively seek out, and expose himself to, dissonance-increasing information. If he can increase the dissonance to the point where it is greater than the resistance to change of one or another cluster of cognitions, he will then change the cognitive elements involved, thus markedly reducing or perhaps even wholly eliminating the dissonance which now is so great. (Page 129) All quotes from A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance.

We have a wealth of references on what makes one a true believer including the books The True Believer by Eric Hoffer and Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt.

A great modern take on this that integrates a remarkable amount of new ideas including attachment theory is the ground breaking Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein.

I should mention that The Discipling Dilemma: A Study of the Discipling Movement Among Churches of Christ by Flavil R. Yeakley Jr. has scientific evidence that no other sources have regarding the high control of groups like Scientology. The research in this book shows that the members of high control groups tend to all take on one personality type - the personality of the founder or leader. Most groups have a variety of people who have a variety of personality types and the people are not molded into the same type. You can be a member of many groups and be more or less yourself, but in high control groups you can only be an imitation of the leader! That profoundly affects your decision making!

Which films or series accurately depict the way cults deal with their members?

 This is one of the absolute best questions I've ever seen regarding cults. Many shows get them completely wrong and many people in media including podcasts, even sometimes podcasts on cults get the most basic facts about the subject wrong.

I have to say that the film The Master (2012 Joaquin Phoenix) portrays Scientology in a very, very accurate way. If you want to understand the early days of Scientology when Ronald Hubbard was starting out in the fifties and early sixties, particularly before Saint Hill and the Sea Org, this hits the flavor of Scientology quite well.

The top cult experts in my opinion are people who in some cases have their own podcasts or YouTube channels. Jon Atack (Jon Atack and Friends YouTube channel) is the top expert on Scientology in my opinion. Robert Jay Lifton is probably the top living expert on coercive control.

Others who I consider top cult experts include Steven Hassan (Freedom of Mind blog and YouTube channel), Rick Alan Ross, Alexandra Stein, Rachel Bernstein (Indoctrination Podcast and Rachel Bernstein YouTube channel), Janja Lalich, the late Margaret Singer (ICSA YouTube channel), Daniel Shaw.

The documentaries The Vow and Seduced describe the NXIVM cult quite well. The Path has many elements taken from numerous cults.

The ex Scientologist Chris Shelton has been quite active and has over eight hundred videos and/or podcasts available on YouTube and has interviewed experts on many cults and other topics.

To really understand cults in my opinion it is extremely likely that you would do best to read books. The best books by qualified experts can give you a deeper and often more accurate examination of cults than films and documentaries generally can.

I can recommend the books Freedom of Mind by Steven Hassan and Cults In Our Midst by Margaret Singer as great starts on the subject and useful for anyone who is interested in the subject. The eight criteria for thought reform was a chapter in the book Thought Reform and The Psychology of Totalism and is the best model in my opinion for examining the methods used by high control groups.

To examine Cultic relationships and understand the hold they have over members and how it is developed by the leader I recommend Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein and Traumatic Narcissism by Daniel Shaw.

To understand Scientology the numerous articles and books by Jon Atack are essential. The serious student must include Cults Inside Out by Rick Alan Ross, this has the framework for a complete curriculum on cults and describes the history of research into the topic. I also highly recommend Take Back Your Life by Janja Lalich.

The following blog posts from Mockingbird's Nest blog on Scientology describe or use the books I referenced in this post.

• Dr. Robert J. Lifton's Criteria For Thought Reform...
• Jon Atack - Scientology Expert
• Cults In Our Midst Part 1
• Traumatic Narcissism: part 1 Scientology and Hubba...
• Traumatic Narcissism part 2: The Relationships in ...
• Scientology Viewed Through The BITE model by Steve...
• List Of Cult Characteristics From Cults Inside Out...
• Scientology And Margaret Singer's Six Conditions F...

Are Q conspiracy followers going to break up into anonymous terrorist cells and begin attacking politicians and infrastructure?

 I suppose anything is possible and have no special gift for seeing the future. A lot of factors in my opinion influence human behavior and we have no way of knowing all of them. Perhaps an insider or former member of these groups could have a special insight into the details regarding these groups that could guide them to predict this with high accuracy.

Otherwise the history of cults and conspiracy theories shows that such groups have at times been dangerous and violent but at other times been peaceful and law abiding.

We have a long history of many, many, many authoritarian and totalitarian groups that we can examine to gain a general understanding of what might happen. This knowledge is essential to the topic in my opinion.

There is no shortage of good material on such groups. We have classics like The True Believer by Eric Hoffer and A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger. These books explain much regarding extremists.

I recommend The Cult of Trump by Steven Hassan for anyone who has not extensively studied cults and the current political beliefs of Trump supporters, including the Q Anon conspiracy theory movement. Hassan also has a YouTube channel and many excellent short videos as well as several other excellent books.

His BITE model is a superb analysis of cults and Cultic methods.

Here is an extensive analysis of Scientology as I was in Scientology for twenty-five years and it demonstrates the BITE model.

Scientology Viewed Through The BITE model by Steven Hassan

I want to point out that numerous superb models exist regarding these groups and experts such as Margaret Singer, Rick Alan Ross, Jon Atack, Alexandra Stein, Dan Shaw, Janja Lalich, have great descriptions of the behavior and methods of these groups.

I think the simplest, most concise model that resonated emotionally the strongest for myself in my opinion based on my experience in coming out of the Scientology cult is the eight criteria for thought reform by top cult expert Robert Jay Lifton.

You can note that the “dispensing of existence” step includes activities like dehumanizing the targets of cult leaders, portraying them as acceptable targets for propaganda. This propaganda traditionally depicts people as subhumans, disgusting and not worthy of human rights or even existence. This lays the foundation for the social death of shunning and the real death of genocide or even another total rejection of society in mass suicide.

We would do well to include scholarly descriptions of the steps of genocide with the eight criteria or any cult model to highlight the process in full gruesome detail.

Here are the eight criteria for thought reform (abridged description)

Dr. Robert J. Lifton's Criteria For Thought Reform

Any ideology -- that is, any set of emotionally-charged convictions about men and his relationship to the natural or supernatural world -- may be carried by its adherents in a totalistic direction. But this is most likely to occur with those ideologies which are most sweeping in their content and most ambitious or messianic in their claim, whether a religious or political organization. And where totalism exists, a religion, or a political movement becomes little more than an exclusive cult.
Here you will find a set of criteria, eight psychological themes against which any environment may be judged. In combination, they create an atmosphere which may temporarily energize or exhilarate, but which at the same time pose the gravest of human threats.
(a brief outline)

MILIEU CONTROL

• The most basic feature is the control of human communication within an environment
• If the control is extremely intense, it becomes internalized control -- an attempt to manage an individual's inner communication
• Control over all a person sees, hears, reads, writes (information control) creates conflicts in respect to individual autonomy
• Groups express this in several ways: Group process, isolation from other people, psychological pressure, geographical distance or unavailable transportation, sometimes physical pressure
• Often a sequence of events, such as seminars, lectures, group encounters, which become increasingly intense and increasingly isolated, making it extremely difficult-- both physically and psychologically--for one to leave
• Sets up a sense of antagonism with the outside world; it's "us against them"
• Closely connected to the process of individual change (of personality)

MYSTICAL MANIPULATION (PLANNED SPONTANEITY)

• Extensive personal manipulation
• Seeks to promote specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such a way that it appears to have arisen spontaneously from within the environment, while it actually has been orchestrated
• Totalist leaders claim to be agents chosen by God, history, or some supernatural force, to carry out the mystical imperative
• The "principles" (God-centered or otherwise) can be put forcibly and claimed exclusively, so that the cult and its beliefs become the only true path to salvation (or enlightenment)
• The individual then develops the psychology of the pawn, and participates actively in the manipulation of others
• The leader who becomes the center of the mystical manipulation (or the person in whose name it is done) can be sometimes more real than an abstract god and therefore attractive to cult members
• Legitimizes the deception used to recruit new members and/or raise funds, and the deception used on the "outside world"

THE DEMAND FOR PURITY

• The world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure, the absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely evil (everything outside the group)
• One must continually change or conform to the group "norm"
• Tendencies towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for the group's controlling and manipulative influences
• Once a person has experienced the totalist polarization of good/evil (black/white thinking), he has great difficulty in regaining a more balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human morality
• The radical separation of pure/impure is both within the environment (the group) and the individual
• Ties in with the process of confession -- one must confess when one is not conforming

CONFESSION

• Cultic confession is carried beyond its ordinary religious, legal and therapeutic expressions to the point of becoming a cult in itself
• Sessions in which one confesses to one's sin are accompanied by patterns of criticism and self-criticism, generally transpiring within small groups with an active and dynamic thrust toward personal change
• Is an act of symbolic self-surrender
• Makes it virtually impossible to attain a reasonable balance between worth and humility
• A person confessing to various sins of pre-cultic existence can both believe in those sins and be covering over other ideas and feelings that s/he is either unaware of or reluctant to discuss
• Often a person will confess to lesser sins while holding on to other secrets (often criticisms/questions/doubts about the group/leaders that may cause them not to advance to a leadership position)
• "The more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you"

SACRED SCIENCE

• The totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence
• Questioning or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited
• A reverence is demanded for the ideology/doctrine, the originators of the ideology/doctrine, the present bearers of the ideology/doctrine
• Offers considerable security to young people because it greatly simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying the truth about human behavior and human psychology

LOADING THE LANGUAGE

• The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliche (thought-stoppers)
• Repetitiously centered on all-encompassing jargon
• "The language of non-thought"
• Words are given new meanings -- the outside world does not use the words or phrases in the same way -- it becomes a "group" word or phrase

DOCTRINE OVER PERSON

• Every issue in one's life can be reduced to a single set of principles that have an inner coherence to the point that one can claim the experience of truth and feel it
• The pattern of doctrine over person occurs when there is a conflict between what one feels oneself experiencing and what the doctrine or ideology says one should experience
• If one questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group, one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to even question -- it is always "turned around" on them and the questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than the questions answered directly
• The underlying assumption is that doctrine/ideology is ultimately more valid, true and real than any aspect of actual human character or human experience and one must subject one's experience to that "truth"
• The experience of contradiction can be immediately associated with guilt
• One is made to feel that doubts are reflections of one's own evil
• When doubt arises, conflicts become intense

DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE

• Since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not saved, and do not have the right to exist
• "Being verses nothingness"
• Impediments to legitimate being must be pushed away or destroyed
• One outside the group may always receive their right of existence by joining the group
• Fear manipulation -- if one leaves this group, one leaves God or loses their transformation, for something bad will happen to them
• The group is the "elite", outsiders are "of the world", "evil", "unenlightened", etc.

Excerpted from: Thought Reform And The Psychology of Totalism, Chapter 22, (Chapel Hill, 1989) & The Future of Immortality, Chapter 155 (New York 1987).

From

Dr. Robert J. Lifton's Criteria For Thought Reform...

Dr. Robert J. Lifton's Criteria For Thought Reform

Here is a description of the ten stages of genocide.

THE TEN STAGES OF GENOCIDE

Genocide never just happens. There is always a set of circumstances which occur or which are created to build the climate in which genocide can take place.

Gregory H Stanton, President of Genocide Watch developed the 10 stages of genocide which explains the different stages which lead to genocide. At each of the earlier stages there is an opportunity for members of the community or the International Community to halt the stages and stop genocide before it happens.

Click here to download a PDF copy of the ten stages of genocide poster.

The stages are:

1. Classification - The differences between people are not respected. There’s a division of ‘us’ and ‘them’ which can be carried out using stereotypes, or excluding people who are perceived to be different.
2. Symbolisation - This is a visual manifestation of hatred. Jews in Nazi Europe were forced to wear yellow stars to show that they were ‘different’.
3. Discrimination - The dominant group denies civil rights or even citizenship to identified groups. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship, made it illegal for them to do many jobs or to marry German non-Jews.
4. Dehumanisation - Those perceived as ‘different’ are treated with no form of human rights or personal dignity. During the Genocide in Rwanda, Tutsis were referred to as ‘cockroaches’; the Nazis referred to Jews as ‘vermin’.
5. Organisation - Genocides are always planned. Regimes of hatred often train those who go on to carry out the destruction of a people.
6. Polarisation - Propaganda begins to be spread by hate groups. The Nazis used the newspaper Der Stürmer to spread and incite messages of hate about Jewish people.
7. Preparation - Perpetrators plan the genocide. They often use euphemisms such as the Nazis' phrase 'The Final Solution' to cloak their intentions. They create fear of the victim group, building up armies and weapons.
8. Persecution - Victims are identified because of their ethnicity or religion and death lists are drawn up. People are sometimes segregated into ghettos, deported or starved and property is often expropriated. Genocidal massacres begin.
9. Extermination - The hate group murders their identified victims in a deliberate and systematic campaign of violence. Millions of lives have been destroyed or changed beyond recognition through genocide.
10. Denial - The perpetrators or later generations deny the existence of any crime.

Holocaust Memorial Day Trust | The ten stages of genocide

Are compliance, conformation, obedience, and minority influence types of social influence, or is it informational and normative influence? How do peer pressure, propaganda, and manipulation fit in?

 Are compliance, conformation, obedience, and minority influence types of social influence, or is it informational and normative influence? How do peer pressure, propaganda, and manipulation fit in?

There are multiple schools on the topics of rhetoric and influence.

I am not educated in all of them, or probably most of them, there are far too many for that to be an easy task.

One of the first things I learned when I began studying cults and related topics in earnest in 2014 was that you have to study multiple topics within subjects and multiple subjects to begun to take on the issue of persuasion. People have written on the mind and influence for thousands of years and studied it even longer.

I personally found that works from psychology and neuroscience and rhetoric and related subjects all hold parts of potential answers to consider. I think no one has all the answers or all perfect knowledge but many, many people have information worth serious consideration.

The subject that I think is probably most essential is critical thinking. The work of Richard Paul and his wife Linda Elder is in my opinion impressive and they have multiple books and several YouTube videos available.

In looking at this subject I also found several books by other authors to be useful. How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age by Theodore Schick, and Lewis Vaughn and How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass: A Critical Thinker's Guide to Asking the Right Questions by Christopher DiCarlo are both quite good. They each cover different ideas essential to the topic.

Additionally, we have to include a basic examination of classic rhetoric and Socratic debate. A good understanding of logical fallacies, cognitive biases, and propaganda techniques is also a basic for examining the subject.

I think several books are a good basic start for a curriculum, though certainly not complete. I would probably start with two books to understand the topic; Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow and Influence by Robert Cialdini. Both simple and basic.

Next, I would take on Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion by Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson and A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger. I believe that at least a passing familiarity with other aspects of influence is also required.

The books Words That Work by Frank Luntz and The Political Brain by Drew Westen describe this in fine detail. Our Political Nature by Avi Tuschman also has a tremendous wealth of information on our political dispositions and Moral Politics by George Lakoff adds to this.

You should touch on neuroscience and behavioral science as well. Neuroscience has great books like The Brain by David Eagleman, and Behave by Robert Sapolsky, behavioral economics has Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) by Carol Travis and Elliot Aronson, and Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

I have found other references and authors of relevant material.

Here is a link describing many of these references.

My Road Out of Scientology

I also wrote a series on the cornerstones of critical thinking that touches on many of the most basic references to dip your toes into critical thinking. It's not complete or thorough by any means. It gives the most basic of the basics.

Cornerstones of Critical Thinking 1 - 8 Introduction to Critical Thinking

Cornerstones of Critical Thinking 1 Looking at Both Sides

In leaving Scientology the subject of critical thinking is bound to come up at some point. Lots of ex Scientologists have very strong opinions on it.

Many claim to have never really been fooled by Scientology and to have been sound critical thinkers the entire time they were in Scientology. They often claim that Scientology didn't fool them, despite having given thousands of dollars to Scientology, worked for years for Scientology, disconnected from friends and family for Scientology and committed their lives to Scientology they claim Scientology never fooled then and they are and always have been critical thinkers. Okay.

There's a lot of discussion about critical thinking and the lack of it, the actual inhibition of it and what some would call annihilation of critical and independent thinking in Scientologists that they exhibit after indoctrination in Scientology.

I think the first thing to know about critical thinking is it's not something that is learned by reading a definition or paragraph or even a book. It's definitely not something that anyone has as a natural tendency. It's a subject that needs to be studied to be effectively learned and applied.

I wouldn't expect someone to know math without studying it or psychology or hypnosis or medicine.

Things like evolution and physics and climate change all take a lot of work to have enough understanding to form an educated opinion regarding, even an incorrect one.

And critical thinking is no different.

I think lots of information is required to even begin to dip your toes into critical thinking.

I am going to give some examples, bring up references and make an appeal to support my claim.

First off critical thinking has the simplest definition of thinking about thinking in order to improve thinking. Huh ? It means looking at how thinking is done, how information is treated and looked at in order to do a good or hopefully better job of handling it, to find and use the best habits regarding thinking we can find and see which are poor habits but to reduce those if possible.

I am going to start with a very simple example from life. Years ago on the T.V. show Sixty Minutes a court case was described. A woman coach was the assistant coach at a college for a basketball team.

The head coach retired and the assistant head coach was a candidate to replace him. She had been very successful for many years. A male candidate got the job.

Now the attorney for the woman was smart. He took a dry erase board and at the top wrote the name of each candidate and underneath wrote all the relevant qualifications for each person.

Underneath the woman candidate was perhaps twenty qualifications. She was very successful in several programs, won awards, her teams won tournaments and titles, she had a superb resume. She was probably more than qualified.

Under the name of the man was two years experience as an assistant coach. That's it.

It was a great example of presenting an apples to apples comparison between two things.

The witnesses just couldn't spin it away or use talking points to bury the truth. The female candidate was only not hired because she was a woman. No other reason was plausible.

She won the lawsuit and could have gotten a large settlement but opted to accept the job instead.

But the important point is we should isolate relevant details for comparisons when they are warranted.

The point is made in full far better than I have by John Stuart Mill in his very short and simple book On Liberty.

“There must be discussion to show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument; but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it. Very few facts are able to tell their own story, without comments to bring out their meaning. The whole strength and value, then, of human judgment depending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand. In the case of any person whose judgement is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct.”John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, published in 1859

John Stuart Mill makes a persuasive case for hearing the best arguments for and against ideas before being able to properly form an opinion.

It's somewhat against human nature to look for the evidence against what we believe or the best evidence for arguments against our beliefs. But it's a foundation of good critical thinking.

Cornerstones of Critical Thinking 2 Logical Fallacies and Biases

In looking at critical thinking several minimum criteria for a minimum education on several topics exist. If you don't know a good amount of very specific details about very specific ideas you will be extremely limited in successful critical thinking.

Two of the most basic topics to tackle are logical fallacies and biases. As human beings we have a nature that includes tendencies to think in and be persuaded by logical fallacies and biases that limit our ability to think rationally.

First off logical fallacies include numerous ideas that have been used in debate or presenting ideas that are faulty logic. They are sometimes accepted as valid arguments but upon good logical analysis are faulty.

If for example we look at the fallacy called ad hominem which translates to against the man it is a class of fallacies that includes personal insults. If for example in a debate someone said I think company X is poisoning our local river and we should stop them and a representative for company X responds by saying "that guy is a loser, therefore his claims have no merit, don't listen to him" that is a fallacy. An example of poor reason in creating an argument.

Regardless of any opinions regarding a person being a loser a claim by a person on a company poisoning a river could be true. It could be false too but the status of a person as a loser is irrelevant. When people use irrelevant information to dismiss claims that is a fallacy, if it is a personal insult then it's ad hominem.

For some special circumstances personal character is relevant. One example is individuals claiming that following their ideology produces morally superior individuals who are infallible or obviously superior to others and therefore validates a moral authority over others.

Such individuals with the use of claims of moral superiority invite scrutiny of their claims including alleged exemplary character. If I say I prayed myself into a state of grace in which I no longer ever commit bad acts then things like infidelity and lying on my part are entirely relevant. Relevant to those particular claims. Not to other unrelated claims.

So you really have to sort claims and relevant information supporting and refuting the claims based on what is alleged that is related. A person can have a poor claim and bad logic regarding one claim but a good argument, sound evidence and good reason regarding a different entirely separate claim.

I have previously in my blog post PISSED ! It's Not Your Fault described the following logical fallacies as common to Scientology doctrine and therefore common to the thinking of Scientologists: Personal incredulity , black and white thinking , magical thinking , the Texas sharpshooter fallacy ( aka apophenia ) , Ad Hominem , no true Scotsman ( Scientologist ) , Appeal to authority ( their own or Hubbard ) , begging the question , genetic , burden of proof , ambiguity , bandwagon , anecdotal and of course tu quoque . Additionally fallacies like composition/division, argument to ignorance, false dichotomy, need to be well understood as well.

Several simple websites have good definitions and examples including Thou Shall Not Commit Logical Fallacies. It's a great one with two dozen of the most common fallacies well defined in simple terms. A great thing to do is to look over the list, find a fallacy or a few that you immediately understand well and can think of several examples of, find more examples, refine your ability to spot these few fallacies in others, whether in politics or philosophy or anywhere they have been used or are still used.

After you really can see and refer to a few with extreme competence and confidence add one more at a time to take on. Challenge yourself to see what it means, why it's a poor argument to support a claim. Then find examples for that one. Then add the others until you really have at least a couple dozen under your belt.

The real challenge is finding and calling out fallacies in your own arguments and thinking. That's the harder part. That's why you shouldn't even worry about it until it either pops up on your radar or until you know it cold in others. It's a progression like learning addition and subtraction very well is a prerequisite for learning multiplication and division.

The usual way to do it is really get basic addition and subtraction and the order of numbers down as first nature before taking the next step. That's the way to get to taking on your own fallacies and the fallacies of people you agree with.

A necessary compliment to logical fallacies in critical thinking is biases. If you take on either one without the other you are missing a lot of the picture.

The sister page to Thou Shall Not Commit Logical Fallacies is 24 Cognitive Biases Stuffing Up Your Thinking. It lists brief definitions and examples for very common biases just as Thou Shall Not Commit Logical Fallacies takes on fallacies.

The same tactic can be used in taking on biases with the special challenge that several biases by their nature are prejudices that cause individuals to not perceive them and often particularly perceive them if at all in other people but not themselves. That's important to understand in taking them on. If you understand they limit others but not you then you are displaying the bias being described. How can one come to believe they have a bias they don't perceive ? Look for the scientific evidence and research that asserts the bias exists at all and look for evidence it is hidden from people who hold it and evidence that everyone or people in general tend to hold the bias. This seems like a lot of work but after it's been done for a few relevant biases the time and effort declines tremendously, because the evidence that supports much of these claims is similar or the same, so you don't have to repeat the entire process every time.

Thou Shall Not Commit Logical Fallacies has the following essential fallacies listed and defined: Strawman, slippery slope, special pleading, the gambler's fallacy, black or white, false cause, ad hominem, begging the question, appeal to authority, appeal to nature, composition/division, anecdotal, appeal to emotion, tu quoque, burden of proof, no true Scotsman, the Texas sharpshooter, the fallacy fallacy, personal incredulity, ambiguity, genetic and middle ground.

24 cognitive biases stuffing up your thinking has these biases: anchoring, confirmation bias, backfire effect, declinism, just world hypothesis, sunk cost fallacy, Dunning-Kruger effect, Barnum effect, framing effect, in-group bias, fundamental attribution error, placebo effect, halo effect, bystander effect, availability heuristic, belief bias, groupthink, optimism bias, reactance, curse of knowledge, self-serving bias, negativity bias, and spotlight effect.

This may seem like a lot but over one hundred logical fallacies have been described and an additional one hundred biases have as well.

That's far too much to take on in one shot. Just reading the definitions of all them, even with examples, won't be an effective way to learn.

You have to be humble and realize just really understanding logical fallacies or biases takes patience, repetition, time , effort and revisiting the same material periodically.

You can find long lists of fallacies and biases and I recommend doing it after you are fairly familiar with at least a couple dozen of each and know at least a half dozen of each so well you can comfortably explain them to others and spot examples that are real and make up examples very easily.

Sometimes an obscure fallacy or bias is exactly what you need to understand the flaws in a poor argument or the problems with doing or thinking something a certain way.

Often the clue that fallacies and biases need to be checked for is something that doesn't add up, something that just feels wrong despite being presented as legitimate.

If you want to be a good critical thinker a commitment to learning about logical fallacies and biases is an indispensable essential.

Cornerstones of Critical Thinking 3 Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Framework

Doctor Richard Paul and Doctor Linda Elder are credited with creating the Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Framework. It's an example of one of several available models. It's like any creation of human beings not perfect. Perhaps a far better model will be created by someone someday. It's extremely impressive in my opinion and well worth learning.

It will take time to dig deep into it. It's related to online courses and videos and books. It's a very concise way to get a far more rational and logical approach to thinking.

After looking at it one time it's obvious a lot of thought and effort went into it. I recommend taking whatever part sticks out most to you as correct or sensible or understandable and focus on the terms, ideas and definitions used for that.

Dig into it and see if you can think of how poor thinking lacks these things and how they are used in sound thinking.

The intellectual standards, elements of thought and intellectual traits all have a place in critical thinking.

I feel for people trying to be rational and logical, whether or not they have been in a cult or not, these ideas and this approach can be life changing.

For Scientology cult members in particular critical and independent thinking is often impaired and this framework can hopefully replace the pseudoscience and lies in Scientology with something more honest, more real and more effective.

To really understand the Paul-Elder model of critical thinking you need to invest time. Doctors Richard Paul and Linda Elder together created numerous books and videos on critical thinking. I highly recommend reading at least one of their books on critical thinking and spending at least a few hours watching the YouTube videos and seeing one of of them instructing people how to incorporate their model into education.

Far more information is necessary to understand HOW Richard Paul implemented his system. Seeing him do it in videos is informative in a way that really nothing else is.

Below is an excerpt from the University of Louisville regarding the Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Framework.

Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Framework

Critical thinking is that mode of thinking – about any subject, content, or problem — in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them. (Paul and Elder, 2001). The Paul-Elder framework has three components:

1. The elements of thought (reasoning)
2. The intellectual standards that should be applied to the elements of reasoning
3. The intellectual traits associated with a cultivated critical thinker that result from the consistent and disciplined application of the intellectual standards to the elements of thought

---

According to Paul and Elder (1997), there are two essential dimensions of thinking that students need to master in order to learn how to upgrade their thinking. They need to be able to identify the "parts" of their thinking, and they need to be able to assess their use of these parts of thinking.

ELEMENTS OF THOUGHT (REASONING)

The "parts" or elements of thinking are as follows:

1. All reasoning has a purpose
2. All reasoning is an attempt to figure something out, to settle some question, to solve some problem
3. All reasoning is based on assumptions
4. All reasoning is done from some point of view
5. All reasoning is based on data, information and evidence
6. All reasoning is expressed through, and shaped by, concepts and ideas
7. All reasoning contains inferences or interpretations by which we draw conclusions and give meaning to data
8. All reasoning leads somewhere or has implications and consequences

UNIVERSAL INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS

The intellectual standards that are to these elements are used to determine the quality of reasoning. Good critical thinking requires having a command of these standards. According to Paul and Elder (1997 ,2006), the ultimate goal is for the standards of reasoning to become infused in all thinking so as to become the guide to better and better reasoning. The intellectual standards include:

Clarity

Could you elaborate?

Could you illustrate what you mean?

Could you give me an example?

Accuracy

How could we check on that?

How could we find out if that is true?

How could we verify or test that?

Precision

Could you be more specific?

Could you give me more details?

Could you be more exact?

Relevance

How does that relate to the problem?

How does that bear on the question?

How does that help us with the issue?

Depth

What factors make this difficult?

What are some of the complexities of this question?

What are some of the difficulties we need to deal with?

Breadth

Do we need to look at this from another perspective?

Do we need to consider another point of view?

Do we need to look at this in other ways?

Logic

Does all of this make sense together?

Does your first paragraph fit in with your last one?

Does what you say follow from the evidence?

Significance

Is this the most important problem to consider?

Is this the central idea to focus on?

Which of these facts are most important?

Fairness

Is my thinking justifiable in context?

Am I taking into account the thinking of others?

Is my purpose fair given the situation?

Am I using my concepts in keeping with educated usage, or am I distorting them to get what I want?

INTELLECTUAL TRAITS

Consistent application of the standards of thinking to the elements of thinking result in the development of intellectual traits of:

• Intellectual Humility
• Intellectual Courage
• Intellectual Empathy
• Intellectual Autonomy
• Intellectual Integrity
• Intellectual Perseverance
• Confidence in Reason
• Fair-mindedness

CHARACTERISTICS OF A WELL-CULTIVATED CRITICAL THINKER

Habitual utilization of the intellectual traits produce a well-cultivated critical thinker who is able to:

• Raise vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely
• Gather and assess relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively
• Come to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards;
• Think open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and
• Communicate effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems

Paul, R. and Elder, L. (2010). The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools. Dillon Beach: Foundation for Critical Thinking Press.

Cornerstones of Critical Thinking 4 Being a Pain in the Ass

In referencing Critical Thinking I should point out a book on the topic and strengths and weaknesses in the book and subject. How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass: A Critical Thinker's Guide to Asking the Right Questions by Christopher DiCarlo is an excellent book on the subject that covers a lot of the basics in the subject and the history of some people who have helped advance the subject by their actions.

One principle that is promoted as the first priority regarding critical thinking is consistency. It makes sense that you need to strive for consistency as a fundamental. You need consistent terms to even discuss critical thinking and mean today what you meant yesterday.

The history of Socrates and several other important philosophers is covered. How Socrates challenged people with questions and exposed inconsistencies in beliefs and gaps in knowledge is one of the most important developments in critical thinking.

Socratic debate and how good arguments are constructed is broken down for people as well. Any serious student of critical thinking needs to understand Socratic questions and debate and also logical fallacies and sound arguments and poor ones. These critical thinking basics are indispensable for everyone. Without them you honestly can't debate, spot poor arguments or understand what makes them poor arguments.

You will get caught up in poor logic and not be able to tell good ones from bad ones in your own thinking without this knowledge.

Several other philosophers including skeptics get recognition for their important contributions to critical thinking including separation of claims regarding nature and claims regarding the supernatural. The approach of setting aside things you don't know about is explored as well.

I highly recommend this book, even for people who have some familiarity with critical thinking because it's so strong regarding explaining how to construct arguments and how logical fallacies impede arguments and debate. It also excels in describing the important contributions of several historical figures and the ideas they forwarded that critical thinking still is built on today.

Whether you take my suggestion and read this particular book or not all the basic components of critical thinking which it provides are ones you simply cannot do without for any serious student of critical thinking.

All in all very good for critical thinking. What's it bad at or lacking ? It has the weakness most work by an expert gets when they are dealing with something way outside their expertise.

The weak area it has is dealing with what the author calls faith. The author likely doesn't know about the work regarding influence and awe and fervor. They likely don't know about the work of people like Robert Jay Lifton regarding mass movements or Yuval Laor regarding awe and fervor or Robert Cialdini regarding influence. There's a lot more involved in faith than a knowing and conscious decision to believe something without evidence.

The lesson here is that to understand a subject you need to discover the weak points in the subject, or at least a particular author, and the strong ones and go outside the work to supplement it when needed.

This book is definitely a great start for critical thinking despite one or two weak areas. Just look outside of it regarding those areas.

Cornerstones of Critical Thinking 5 Show The Work

In human beings different tendencies produce different approaches to knowledge. Much of the knowledge we have is based on what people we see as similar to ourselves believe.

I am going to give an example that is easy to understand. I understand that people who seriously study physics have to learn lots of formulas to explain forces like gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear force and how all these forces interact.

The formulas need to be accurate and consistent. They need to work in all situations and circumstances that occur in the physical universe.

If a formula has the sizes and orbits of bodies in a system that have known distances and speeds then the positions should be predictable if the formula is accurate as proof it's genuine.

This is applied with planets in the solar system as one example.

I recall one time a physicist on Facebook discussed how people would support exotic theories on gravity for example and there is no shortage of things like hypergravity or a ten dimensional universe model or eleven dimensional universe and parts of string theory that get championed.

The physicist pointed out something crucial to understand in critical thinking: if you don't understand the physics formulas enough to write them out then you don't actually have an educated opinion on the matter. You may have an opinion and may even be correct, but you don't have a real independent understanding of the subject.

It's similar to having memorized the answer to a math problem but not really understanding why that is the answer. You can't show the work because you can't do the work.

What is this relevant for ? All kinds of things. I realized when I saw this that many beliefs we hold are not from an educated opinion but instead from choosing to believe what we believe people like us should believe.

For example I don't have sufficient education regarding numerous subjects to form an educated opinion on the age of the universe.

I know most people like myself tend to believe that the physical universe is fourteen to twenty billion years old. Great , but I don't really know that is correct, just what people similar to myself tend to believe.

So, what should I do ? I have several options. I can just believe the universe is around fourteen billion years old or a little older, or I could believe it and realize I am taking someone else's word for it or probably best of all I could say I don't know. That's it. I don't actually know how old the universe is.

I know most people like myself use the conventional scientific answer and it may be true, but I don't know enough about several subjects to really understand the arguments for and against the fourteen to twenty billion year old universe with a big bang idea.

I have read a bit about the big bang and some evidence for it. Maybe it has more than enough evidence that it should be believed, I don't know enough to even weigh the best arguments for and against the big bang theory.

So, the advantage of disciplining yourself and others to at least learn the basics of whatever you try to believe in or reject to have a baseline of enough understanding to form, consider, weigh, accept and reject competent arguments for and against the concepts regarding an opinion is that with this you can show the work, because you can do the work.

Getting back to the example with physics you can write the formulas to express the concepts. That way another physics PhD student would be able to examine your concepts and test them. Maybe they would immediately find flaws or problems with your work. Maybe they will realize you have solved all the problems earlier attempts have failed by seeing your work.

My point isn't that you should learn physics and formulas, unless you want to, it's that a good critical thinker knows what they know from serious study and consideration of ideas and what they believe because an authority told them or because people who are similar to them tend to believe.

It's a good habit to have to realize what would probably be the answer on a test but also what we really know and understand.

I am the kind of person that usually would believe in things like the big bang, a fourteen billion years old universe, evolution and lots of other things.

It's best to be honest about how much I understand. Honestly for all these things I don't really know enough to form an educated opinion.

So, instead of just going with the crowd of people like myself or following the authority I respect I can just say I don't know. That's it.

Now this standard of requiring being educated isn't easy to impose on yourself but it's good for several reasons pertaining to critical thinking.

First off it gives you a better discernment of what you know, kind of know and don't really know and it gives you the ability to spot bullshit from other people better. If you are exceptionally careful to sort what you know well from what you have some details regarding but not a great education on and if you make calling it out in yourself first nature it becomes a piece of cake to do it with others. That's a great way to be a better critical thinker because demanding it on purpose from yourself makes it your default method of thinking. You deal with yourself constantly.

Then you can spot it in others, whether you point it out to them or just factor it into your examination of information from them. It's not always appropriate to point it out, so don't just hammer people with it with no judgement on when it's appropriate.

But you can listen to people and realize when they cannot or will not show the work appropriate to support their ideas and have no idea they are not being good critical thinkers.

Maybe they have sound ideas, but you are better off showing yourself the work and demanding it from others . It's an essential of critical thinking.

Many people have realized we tend to pick beliefs that conform to group norms for groups we are in or see ourselves as similar to. Robert Cialdini's book Influence described this as did the book Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow. In Subliminal Mlodinow described how there is good evidence from specific detailed studies on human psychology that shows we tend to be very certain we understand our motives for behavior but are terrible at actually intuitively perceiving these motives.

In plain English we think we know why we do things but good testing has shown we are most often way off regarding getting this right.

This has particular relevance to critical thinking. The aspect of this I am addressing here is that we should focus on what beliefs we hold due to solid evidence, a well developed and educated opinion and an awareness of the best arguments and evidence against the beliefs we hold all together.

We should see what we don't have enough understanding of to form our own educated opinion on and when we rely on experts or media or people similar to ourselves for information.

They may be correct or may not be. The information we get from other people that we accept as true is called inherited knowledge. Know it is inherited. The things we determine through hard work of our own is still going to be wrong sometimes and right sometimes but it's vital to know which is which.

Cornerstones of Critical Thinking 6 Propaganda: 7 Most Important Techniques of Propaganda

Any good critical thinker needs at least a passing knowledge of propaganda techniques. At least learning the most prevalent ones and some history of the subject.

Propaganda: 7 Most Important Technique of Propaganda

by Negi Mohita Sociology

.Some of the important technique of Propaganda are: (i) Name-calling (ii) Glittering Generally (iii) Transfer Device (iv) Testimonial Device (v) Plain-folk Device (vi) Card Tactics (vii) Band-wagon.

Psychological Warfare:

As said Propaganda as a means to influence people is not something new. It is as old as the human group and has been employed at all times and on all cultural levels. It is, however, during the First World War that it was employed as a scientifically planned means of influencing people, as a formidable psychological weapon.

Thereafter, it was constantly perfected, reaching a high point in Nazi Germany. During the Second World War, both the sides again made use of propaganda. There was a “psychological war” or “war of nerves”. Every major belligerent systematically employed political propaganda and control of news as a weapon of warfare and. psychological warfare was recognized and accepted as a military instrument.

Psychological warfare is “the use of propaganda against an enemy through the employment of modern media of mass communications, together with such other operational measures and devices of a military, economic or political nature as may be required to supplement propaganda for the purpose of reaching mass audiences in order to persuade them to accept certain beliefs and ideas.”

It is used to undermine the enemy’s resistance, to dissuade neutrals from joining the other side, or to encourage friends and others. During the Second World War it was everywhere realized that the psychological warfare was at least as important as physical combat.

The value of psychological warfare as a technique of propaganda is as yet unknown. Soreno points out that “this kind of warfare depends on the skill and ability of the warrior to understand the problems of the enemy or target people and their patterns of thought and action, and to affect them with all the means at his disposal. He also feels that psychological warfare helps political leaders to camouflage reality and to dodge responsibility.

Instruments of Propaganda:

Propaganda today has become a science as well as an art; individuals specialize in it as a profession. Though propaganda may also be utilized for educational and public welfare purposes, but this constructive kind of propaganda has hardly been so far properly utilized. It is usually carried on to serve the interests of groups rather than the general public.

Alfred M. Lee and Elizabeth B. Lee classified the propaganda devices into seven major categories:

(i) name-calling (ii) Glittering generalities, (iii) transfer, (iv) testimonial, (v) Plain-folk, (vi) Card-stacking and (vii) Bandwagon. Each of these devices makes an appeal to feelings rather than to reason. They rest upon the premise that emotion or feeling has certain strategic advantages over the appeal to reason. These propaganda devices need not be used singly; they are usually employed in combination.

To these devices Alfred M. Lee later added: Guilty-by-Association and Guilty-by-Heredity and their opposites, Virtue-by-Association and Virtue-by-Heredity. He also analysed the “techniques of basic procedure” used by the propagandist. These include: Selecting the issue: Case making; and simplification.

A brief discussion of the above seven techniques are as follows:

(i) Name-calling:

This technique consists in giving a bad name to a person, a group, an idea or an event. The name so given arouses an emotional attitude of hostility and rejection. The terms “capitalist,” “fascist,” war-monger”, “right-reactionary” create an emotional attitude of hatred toward the person. Thus, J.P. Narayan was called by the Congress leaders a right reactionary and the B.J.P. has been called after the Ayodhya incident a fascist party and a communal organisation.

(ii) Glittering Generally:

Under this technique the propagandist uses some attractive or impressive words or ideas which mislead the people. He may call his party “the protector of Hinduism” or the “saviour of dalits” or use the words like secularism, equality, justice, democracy to influence the public.

(iii) Transfer Device:

In this device, the propagandist presents his cause as an integral part of a larger cause by identifying himself and his cause with the collective representation acceptable to the public at large. Thus, to safeguard “people’s democracy” the communists condemn all non-communists as “counter- revolutionaries.” The Congress invokes the name of Gandhi in order to bolster its position. The opposition parties use the word ‘secularism’ to defeat the Bhartiya Janta Party.

(iv) Testimonial Device:

Under this technique the propagandist advertises a thing with the name of some distinguished person. Thus the name of a film actor Ashok Kumar may be used for selling ‘Paan Parag’.

(v) Plain-folk Device:

This device is used extensively by politicians. The politician professes that he is just like others, with their common virtues and vices. Thus a leader may embrace a child in a slum area or take his lunch sitting with the slum dwellers on a mat to impress upon them that he is one of them.

(vi) Card Tactics:

This device requires skill and ingenuity. The true facts are twisted and coloured by the propagandist to suit his interest and impress his listeners. Thus, a politician may weave a story and present it as a true event.

(vii) Band-wagon:

Under this technique the propagandist advertises that since everybody is doing a thing, therefore, you may as well do it. Thus, the advertisement, “Five crores of people in India are using Alias bicycle so you also should have it today” is a band-wagon technique.

The following are a few guide-lines for a propagandist:

Firstly, repeat your idea persistently and systematically. Even falsehood, when presented incessantly, begins to appear as truth. So never be tired of repeating your side time and again.

Secondly, do not admit, do not even suggest that there is any side to the question but that one you represent. In other words, you must distort the evidence.

Thirdly, cast your cause in the role of the hero, and your opposition in the role of the villain. Resort to generalities, emolionalised symbols and stereotypes. Prove the high-mindedness, nobility and humaneness of your cause, and at the same time, demonstrate the low motives, ignoble deeds and self-seeking activities of the opposition,

Fourthly, produce testimonials on behalf of your cause, supplied by persons whose names carry a great deal of weight, such as the president of the country or a famous actor,

Fifthly, to get the most permanent eventual results your propaganda targets should be children, mix your belief in the educational curriculum. This is what totalitarian states mostly do.

But as said above, all these are methods employed by the propagandist who to serve the interests of their groups try to influence the people. In such propaganda lie as a weapon has a definite value. The Propaganda Ministry of the Third Reich used the lie successfully for several purposes. The Soviets had developed a highly skillful technique of propaganda which was their basic instrument for propagating communism abroad. The effective propaganda of the Reds was an important cause of their success.

To emphasize again, scientifically speaking propaganda is neither bad nor good. According to Katherine Gerould “propaganda is a good word gone wrong.”

The goodness or badness of propaganda depends upon what cause the particular group propounds. An American may regard a cause propounded by the Soviet as wrong.

Anyhow, the fact remains that, in modern times, even a right cause unless defended by propaganda, is virtually certain to be lost or crippled. Therefore, even a democratic state must not make itself defenseless in the field of opinion, it must meet propaganda with propaganda, pitting the correct and justified against the false and negative.

Cornerstones of Critical Thinking 7 Rhetoric and Sublime Writing

In learning critical thinking we need a good understanding of many aspects of influence. We influence ourselves and others by many means, sometimes knowingly influencing others and often unknowingly influencing both ourselves and others.

I have briefly introduced essentials to critical thinking like logical fallacies, arguments, biases, the Paul-Elder critical thinking model, propaganda techniques and so on.

Two more things that are essentials for critical thinking are classic rhetoric and sublime writing. They are areas of looking at persuasion that are important to the history of critical thinking and need to be something you can think with to understand certain aspects of thinking and persuasion.

With many subjects that are partially or fully composed of persuasion it is worthwhile to learn a bit about them to be a well rounded critical thinker. Classic rhetoric and sublime writing are definitely on my list.

Below I quote pathosethoslogos.com for the briefest definitions of ethos, logos and pathos.

ETHOS, PATHOS, AND LOGOS DEFINITION AND EXAMPLES

Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are modes of persuasion used to convince audiences. They are also referred to as the three artistic proofs (Aristotle coined the terms), and are all represented by Greek words.

Ethos or the ethical appeal, means to convince an audience of the author’s credibility or character.

An author would use ethos to show to his audience that he is a credible source and is worth listening to. Ethos is the Greek word for “character.” The word “ethic” is derived from ethos.

Ethos can be developed by choosing language that is appropriate for the audience and topic (also means choosing proper level of vocabulary), making yourself sound fair or unbiased, introducing your expertise or pedigree, and by using correct grammar and syntax.

Pathos or the emotional appeal, means to persuade an audience by appealing to their emotions.

Authors use pathos to invoke sympathy from an audience; to make the audience feel what what the author wants them to feel. A common use of pathos would be to draw pity from an audience. Another use of pathos would be to inspire anger from an audience; perhaps in order to prompt action. Pathos is the Greek word for both “suffering” and “experience.” The words empathy and pathetic are derived from pathos.

Pathos can be developed by using meaningful language, emotional tone, emotion evoking examples, stories of emotional events, and implied meanings.

Logos or the appeal to logic, means to convince an audience by use of logic or reason.

To use logos would be to cite facts and statistics, historical and literal analogies, and citing certain authorities on a subject.Logos is the Greek word for “word,” however the true definition goes beyond that, and can be most closely described as “the word or that by which the inward thought is expressed, Lat. oratio; and, the inward thought itself, Lat. Ratio. (1) The word “logic” is derived from logos.

Logos can be developed by using advanced, theoretical or abstract language, citing facts (very important), using historical and literal analogies, and by constructing logical arguments.

In order to persuade your audience, proper of Ethos, Pathos and Logos is necessary.

Examples of Ethos, Logos and Pathos:

Example of Ethos:

"I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future."

Democratic Presidential Candidate Acceptance Speech by Barack Obama. August 28th, 2008.

Example of Pathos:

"I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed."

I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King Jr. August 28th, 1963.

Example of Logos:

"However, although private final demand, output, and employment have indeed been growing for more than a year, the pace of that growth recently appears somewhat less vigorous than we expected. Notably, since stabilizing in mid-2009, real household spending in the United States has grown in the range of 1 to 2 percent at annual rates, a relatively modest pace. Households' caution is understandable. Importantly, the painfully slow recovery in the labor market has restrained growth in labor income, raised uncertainty about job security and prospects, and damped confidence. Also, although consumer credit shows some signs of thawing, responses to our Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices suggest that lending standards to households generally remain tight."

The Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy by Ben Bernanke. August 27th, 2010.

End quote

A bit about sublime writing or sublime art and persuasion is worth noting in any discussion of rhetoric. It is initially something that doesn't need a lot of study. It really connects the dots between classic rhetoric and many other ideas and subjects, particularly in light of very recent work.

Here is a tiny excerpt on sublime persuasion from Wikipedia:

The earliest text on the sublime was written sometime in the first or third century AD by the Greek writer (pseudo-) Longinus in his work On the Sublime (Περὶ ὕψους, Perì hýpsous). Longinus defines the literary sublime as "excellence in language", the "expression of a great spirit" and the power to provoke "ecstasy" in one's readers. Longinus holds that the goal of a writer should be to produce a form of ecstasy.

He in other words elucidates sublime: "Sublimity refers to a certain type of elevated language that strikes its listener with the mighty and irresistible power of a thunderbolt. A sublime passage can be heard again and again with equal pleasure." End quote

To understand how this coordinates with other subjects we need to be aware of quite a few things that are relevant. A small collection of very precise concepts bring this into focus.

Ecstasy is defined as a trance state. Trance states are part of the foundation of the subject of hypnosis. Trances are worth serious examination in understanding hypnosis as theory and the reality of it which a lot of modern psychology can elaborate on.

I have extensively described hypnosis and trance phenomenon in numerous blog posts at Mockingbird's Nest, particularly as they pertain to Scientology.

Basic Introduction to Hypnosis in Scientology for example covers basic concepts and definitions from hypnosis for someone with very brief examples. Burning Down Hell - How Commands Are Hidden , Varied And Repeated In Scientology To Control You As Hypnotic Implants digs a bit deeper.

It is worth pointing out that the sublime is associated with inspiring awe in people. It involves often story telling that people get caught up in. It involves vivid imagery often in reality through art of movies or a visual medium or through the imagination of the audience of written or spoken communication.

Vivid imagery and stories people get caught up in are long known in hypnosis and by modern neuroscience and psychology. The modern experts like George Lakoff and Steven Pinker describe how we have metaphors or narratives that occur subconsciously, below our conscious awareness their models of how we think and are influenced include that we think in and are influenced by stories.

Additionally the vivid imagery is associated with strong impressions and lasting influence. The classic example is that after the movie Jaws aired people developed vivid imagery of shark attacks therefore millions of people were in terror of sharks and indifferent to car accidents. Sharks kill around ten Americans a year and car accidents kill tens of thousands of people in America per year, but the vivid imagery and cinematic portrayal of sharks influenced people very strongly.

I must touch upon the work of Yuval Laor. Yuval Laor is well known for work regarding awe and fervor and their effects in influencing people.

I have heard him describe his work on several podcasts recently and been thoroughly impressed.

I hope he is able to finish and publish a book on his work and it can compliment everything that I have touched on here and include good modern scientific research and evidence to bring classic rhetoric ideas on sublime persuasion fully to the modern day.

Cornerstones of Critical Thinking 8 We Learn Together

In earlier posts on critical thinking I touched on the crucial ideas John Stuart Mill described in his book On Liberty. As I said it is a very quick read and has a few vital ideas that are well presented. Here I want to elaborate a tiny bit on the most crucial ideas he brought up or inspired.

“There must be discussion to show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument; but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it. Very few facts are able to tell their own story, without comments to bring out their meaning. The whole strength and value, then, of human judgment depending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand. In the case of any person whose judgement is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct.”John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, published in 1859

To elaborate even further I frankly believe even one person, whether you or me or anyone else, has different degrees of understanding they can have for ideas.

An idea can be better understood if it is prepared to be presented than if it is merely thought of in isolation in the mind. Just getting ready to say it or write it or present it in some way helps the holder of the idea to look at it more than they might otherwise.

Actually presenting it takes this a step further. Even just saying something to a mirror or toy or writing it in a private journal for no one else to see helps the holder of the idea to further understand it. Sometimes you write a sentence down then see flaws in it, see weaknesses, see errors that you otherwise never would.

To take it a step further presenting ideas to actual human beings who will comment can help you to form them even more. Someone can point out something that you haven't included in presenting an idea. You might realize you left out saying something you assumed but didn't actually say.

You might realize you didn't think of something relevant regarding your idea. You might think your idea needs to be looked at again or another idea needs to be developed to replace or compliment your idea.

The point is really understanding and developing ideas in human beings has a necessary group interaction component. It doesn't mean groups always reason better than individuals, sometimes an individual is correct and a group, even a big group, is entirely wrong.

There are processes in thinking and understanding that require people interacting with one another. There is just no getting around it.

There is a concept that compliments the idea that understanding ideas requires discussion and criticism and evaluation by groups.

That concept is collective learning.

A website called Avenues Open has the following definition:

DEFINITION

Collective learning refers to the sharing, storing, and accumulation of information over time and across generations.
Information was likely initially passed through gesture, then verbally, then with symbols, and finally through a variety of technology-based media. Collective learning is a distinguishing characteristic of humans, and the principle reason why knowledge and technology are progressing exponentially. End quote

That describes how we as humans gather information over time from multiple individual minds. Some are contemporaries to one another and may contribute together or never interact directly.

Some collective learning occurs over time, lots of time, decades and generations and centuries and millennia.

If we look long and hard at the tiniest details of progress in human knowledge in specific subjects a very humbling realization will naturally occur. We can see that progress is usually extremely gradual in a series of many, many steps.

Often these steps have many failures and accidents involved. Progress takes many failures to achieve a few successes and many successes are attempts to do something else or understand something else that by accident produces something useful in another area.

Sometimes the incremental steps are missed and so the result seems to be a stroke of pure genius.

A simple example is the work of Einstein in relativity and special relativity. It is extremely brilliant.

I commented on this once and was given a list of about eight ideas that were partially or fully formed by contemporaries of Einstein but not combined exactly as he had done.

It made his innovation take on a different meaning. He was able to think with, reason with and combine and take apart very specific ideas in physics which most people wouldn't easily understand, much less work with.

We progress very slowly and incrementally in terms of time required to form ideas, explore ideas and develop real world applications through research and innovation.

Now, today this may seem to be happening quickly but add up all the time all the minds working in a subject and add up all their efforts together and to be even more complete and add the time of the minds that came up with the preceding knowledge that their later knowledge is built upon and you will see thousands and thousands of hours of effort going into development of knowledge, just about any knowledge.

Whether we are thinking of medicine or engineering or economics or physics or any of thousands of other subjects this is true.

Good critical thinking requires the intellectual humility to recognize the limits of the thinking of a single person and that we learn and test ideas together, particularly over time.

These principles help you to understand your thinking and that of other people and how ideas developed and changed over time.

In looking at these weaknesses and tendencies another complimentary idea is important. I have found several experts in various fields who have championed a need that is almost obvious when you understand how we reason as groups, develop ideas and knowledge collectively and over time. That is the need to have an interdisciplinary approach or understanding.

Several people see needs to work with parts of different subjects complimenting each other or clarifying one another or being strong in an area where another subject is weak.

Robert Sapolsky described it regarding several subjects and human behavior in his book Behave. Leonard Mlodinow described it in his book Subliminal regarding human behavior. Critical thinking expert Richard Paul described it in a lecture on critical thinking. He described how a model someone believes in must be something you can examine with other models outside the model itself.

Of course he described how that requires a good understanding of the model being considered and not merely a superficial understanding.

One of the best indicators of when a person has knowledge that doesn't adequately include understanding particular things is when the terms and concepts they are using to describe a particular topic are from fields that don't actually address the topic.

In seeing people who for example are well educated people on other topics who comment on things they never got educated on it can be easy to see if you are educated.

Sometimes scientists comment on Scientology and it is obvious they are not educated on cults, undue influence, aspects of psychology relevant to cults and so on.

Sometimes experts in other subjects, even psychology, comment on racism and reveal they consider racism merely ignorance or something that can be completely explained in a sentence or two.

From a perspective understanding bias, human history and behavior there is far, far more to racism than can be explained in a paragraph or two.

But an expert in a different, even related, field can mistakenly believe they understand something they really are not educated on, not even a little bit.

It takes a lot of humility to understand where you are weak or uneducated and look far and wide for relevant subjects and ideas in those subjects to understand the things you don't know that are relevant and necessary to understand what you want to know. And that is the heart of critical thinking.

Here is a link to a topic based list of posts at Mockingbird's Nest blog.

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