Re: Words and memes: criteria for acceptance of new belief or meme

From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 18 2002 - 02:52:21 GMT

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Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 21:52:21 -0500
Subject: Re: Words and memes: criteria for acceptance of new belief or meme
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From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
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    On Sunday, February 17, 2002, at 01:10 , Lawrence DeBivort wrote:

    > What does, IMHO, separate cults and religions from other belief
    > systems, is
    > that they [snip] make it particularly hard for their
    > targets to [snip] leave the [snip] system.

    Yes. You don't hear 'go back where you came from!' inside a cult too
    often.

    On the same hand, try to eat meat in a vegan restaurant. Or vote
    republican in Cambridge, MA.

    There is an opposition to almost any and all heresy, in any cultural
    enclave. And once you're part of one, they want you to stay. The real
    problem with cults is that they don't allow you to _know_ anything else,
    and they draw the walls closer every time you look out the window.

    Try to do science in a homeopathic clinic.

    The problem with having to do as the Romans do while in Rome, is that
    everyone thinks they are in the only Rome.

    The narrow range of a cult's cultural environment is also a mirror of
    the nuclear family.

    - Wade

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