Misjudging cults

By Adam Borowski

Doomsday cults are a source of numerous rumors and stereotypes. Your mind has probably conjured up a group of fantasists and misfits who are not taken seriously by society. This is fundamentally flawed thinking.

In an era of individuals and groups wielding more power than entire countries, it is vital to understand that doomsday cults have the potential to be more dangerous than international terrorism, with even more secrecy involved, making them nearly impossible to infiltrate and dismantle.

There is no negotiation with cult leaders who want to take their followers to some sort of other dimension which usually is a form of heaven. It is the only way to evacuate the planet controlled by evil forces. As you have probably guessed, the “evacuation'' is a euphemism for suicide. Mass suicide, as a matter of fact.

Bringing about the end times on Earth to usher in a new era is another common theme. Can you reason with a jihadi who has no doubt he is going to paradise in a few seconds? Of course not. It is much easier to negotiate with groups and individuals that have tangible aims and demands. They want to stay alive.

Make no mistake, anyone can be brainwashed by a cult ― it does not matter how educated someone is. In fact, cult leaders are more interested in wealthy, influential individuals who can support a lavish lifestyle of the leader and spread his message.

Why would a cult leader be interested in a random person with virtually non-existent social media clout? Cult members know how to seduce others with carefully crafted compliments.

Let us focus on the word ''cult'' now. As you know, K-pop fans are sometimes seen as cultish. There are people who see K-pop stars as one-dimensional, cookie-cutter cartoon characters, and K-pop as trivial.

This is a profoundly poor judgment, a glaring underestimation often resulting from the misunderstanding of the word ''cult.'' We ought to stop casually throwing around words we barely understand. Be that as it may, it is likely many more people will be converted to K-pop in the future, when they see the error of their perceptual ways.

While it is true there are people who are prone to drinking the ideological Kool-Aid, we ought to refrain from automatically labeling entire groups of people as cultish and one-dimensional just because they do not fit our worldview. It is a slippery slope.

Then, there are countries that use the ''cult'' label to silence dissent, just as psychiatric hospitals were used in the Soviet Union. While doomsday cults pose a threat to the established order, governments clamping down on human rights is the worst possible solution.

Will humanity manage to find the middle ground where human rights are respected and dangerous groups are dismantled?

We are about to find out, as the coronavirus epidemic spreads.

Adam Borowski (adam.borowski1985@gmail.com) is a technical Polish-English translator and an international relations aficionado. He is the author of a novel titled: ''Perfect lives. Perfect selves.''