User:Abd/Landmark Education/Abd/Criticism of Landmark/Cult

See the Wikipedia article.

Cult has popular and specialized uses. From Merriam-Webster:


 * a small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous
 * a situation in which people admire and care about something or someone very much or too much
 * a small group of very devoted supporters or fans.

Focusing on the first definition, it depends on certain subjective judgements. What is a "religion"? How big is "small"? And how many is "many"? If there are a hundred critics who believe the "beliefs" "extreme or dangerous," is that many? If there are a million who consider otherwise? And what is a "belief"?

As applied to Landmark, what if people "believe" that Landmark "believes" something, but Landmark does not actually believe it? Landmark is a social structure, not a mind, and thus doesn't have "beliefs." It might have formal doctrine or credo, as many religious organizations have, but it doesn't.

Rather, what the definition must refer to is "common belief" among those involved in the structure. How is this known and determined?

In cults, as we will see below, there are "beliefs" that are "indoctrinated" in members. Those could readily be identified, and in a real cult, the members would agree, "Yes, this is what we believe."

What I've seen alleged as "Landmark beliefs" have not been what Landmark participants or leaders would accept as the common belief. They are outsider judgements, inferences, often created with no direct experience of the actual training, or at most a single Forum experience. (See Karin Badt and other "accounts.") We examine exceptions in ../Experienced criticism/.

Sociological classifications of religious movements has this:


 * By sociological typology, cults are, like sects, new religious groups. But, unlike sects, they can form without breaking off from another religious group, though this is by no means always the case. The characteristic that most distinguishes cults from sects is that they are not advocating a return to pure religion but rather the embracement of something new or something that has been completely lost or forgotten (e.g., lost scriptures or new prophecy). Cults are also much more likely to be led by charismatic leaders than are other religious groups and the charismatic leaders tend to be the individuals who bring forth the new or lost component that is the focal element of the cult.[6]

[...]


 *  there is a push in the social scientific study of religion to begin referring to cults as New Religious Movements (NRMs). This is the result of the often pejorative and derogatory meanings attached to the word "cult" in popular language.


 * Commentary. When Landmark has been called a "cult," as occurs (see the subpage, /Wikiquote/), the usage has not been the older religious definition, nor is it as generally defined. In many quotes, "cult" is a perjorative and derogatory term, inherently expressing a negative judgement, Landmark Education, as a corporation, has taken legal action against those who have called it a "cult," and has mostly won retraction, see Landmark Education litigation. (The few cases where Landmark did not prevail may have involved legal technicalities rather than any support of the "cult" claim.) If "cult" were a defined term, with established meaning, Landmark would either be a cult or not, but the fluidity of the popular meaning turns the term into one that is readily derogatory.

What is a cult?
That is, what are the characteristics of cults, in the popular view?


 * Any group with teachings or practices that I don't like
 * We will set this aside, though, in fact, in many usages on the Wikiquote page, the word is being used this way.

From the Wikipedia article on Cult:


 * Secular cult opponents like those belonging to the anti-cult movement tend to define a "cult" as a group that tends to manipulate, exploit, and control its members. Specific factors in cult behavior are said to include manipulative and authoritarian mind control over members, communal and totalistic organization, aggressive proselytizing, systematic programs of indoctrination, and perpetuation in middle-class communities.[21][22][23][24] The media was quick to follow suit,[25] and social scientists sympathetic to the anti-cult movement, who were usually psychologists, developed more sophisticated models of brainwashing.[23]


 * While some psychologists were receptive to these theories, sociologists were for the most part skeptical of their ability to explain conversion to NRMs.[26] In the late 1980s, psychologists and sociologists started to abandon theories like brainwashing and mind-control. While scholars may believe that various less dramatic coercive psychological mechanisms could influence group members, they came to see conversion to new religious movements principally as an act of a rational choice.[27][28]

From this, we may derive some suggested characteristics of cults:


 * Manipulates members
 * Exploits members
 * Controls members
 * Exerts authoritarian mind control
 * Is "totalistically" organized.
 * Aggressively proselytizes
 * Has a systematic program of indoctrination
 * Propagates in middle-class communities

Most of these characteristics could be seen in the U.S. government, but we don't call that a "cult." In some of the usages, that a group is a small minority is a strong characteristic. We are, in this seminar, interested in 'cult' as a perjorative term. Some of the words used in the characteristics above are themselves perjorative, carry a bias. I.e., any group uses its members for group activity. "Exploit" implies a usage that is contrary to the members' interests. The cult doesn't just proselytize, it aggressively proselytizes. That implies communication that is not cooperative, that is outside of consent, that pushes beyond resistance and attempts to overcome resistance.

"Manipulates" implies that the group directly affects the members' lives. So is chiropractic a cult? It literally manipulates the customers, makes changes in their bodies.

Any educational organization with a recommended curriculum has a "systematic program of education." Is that "indoctrination"? Indoctrination implies dogma. To bring this back to Landmark, Landmark sells (and gives away) a tool set. Landmark does not tell people what to make with that tool set, other than demonstrating examples in sessions. The Landmark ontology rejects dogma as controlling, without making dogma wrong. It allows people to see dogma as dogma, as a belief system constructed by humans. This distinguishes between religion as originally revealed or created, and religion as a human institution formed in response to that initial event. Landmark denies neither the source of religion, nor the institutions and dogma that we created in response. That is how Landmark is, in actual practice, entirely compatible with the religions of participants, whatever it might be. There could be an exception. There are sects that believe that they are the only saved sect, and that everyone and everything else is wrong, and worse than wrong, evil. If someone in one of those sects becomes a Landmark participant, Landmark is not doing to directly challenge their beliefs, but they will. How, indeed, could they continue to participate in a group that explicitly unites the human community, that trains people to recognize themselves in others and others in themselves, while believing that everyone else is completely misguided and doomed? They will drop one or the other position.

The most common characteristic of Landmark that leads to a "cult" identification is the enthusiasm of participants. Participants are encouraged to invite others to introductions, and to stand for them doing the training. Indeed, this is part of the training. It's a "measure" of the effectiveness of the training, because in order to pass it on, one must have it. Much of the reputation of Landmark for "aggressive sales" comes from lack of skill in communicating with others. It's a common statement in Leader conversations on this that "If Landmark wanted effective sales, it wouldn't hire you. You are lousy at it." And most of participants are, initially. They are not trained salespeople. And, being untrained, they make all the newbie mistakes, and making those mistakes, recognizing them, and then supplying what is missing, is essential in the training.

Living a full life requires being able to inspire others ("you will be skilled in enrollment conversations") and to make requests that lead to clear choices that are satisfying, both to the requestor and requestee ("you will be skilled in registration conversations.")

Part of the genius of Landmark is that it turned this training necessity into the method by which Landmark as an organization survives. With few exceptions, Landmark does not advertise. Its "marketing budget" is almost entirely devoted to staff supervision and training in the invitation process, to providing phone access for volunteers, who are mostly inviting people they know or meet, and to provision of space and coordination.

In the Introduction Leader Program, only about a quarter of the participants are "candidated' as an Introduction Leader, based on "measures." But Abd knows many, many Landmark participants who did the ILP, who were not candidated, and who enthusiastically recommend that program because the skills transmitted are powerfully and unmistakeably life-enhancing. It was their testimony that led Abd to do that program.

Apostates?
In ../Experienced criticism/, we examine criticism of Landmark by those with experienced with advanced training. In a cult, these might be considered apostates and they would be shunned. Some cults maintain data on "suppressive persons" (eg. Scientology). Landmark has no such information, or if it does, it is not available at a level that would allow usage to exclude persons from Landmark graduate functions. Many Landmark events are open to any graduate who may appear as a graduate guest. Graduates appear, are given a handwritten name tag on request, and are considered graduates if they say so. Nobody need confirm them. Landmark does not issue identification or membership cards, and what people say is trusted. There is no mechanism at all for confirming this claim, and no record is kept of graduate guests. This is far from the tight organization considered characteristic of cults.

(If someone registers for a graduate course, or to review a course, the registration document claims attendance at the Landmark Forum or the prior work (i.e., est or the prior Forum). That information becomes part of the corporate database, so at that level, it would be possible to exclude an individual, when the information is later entered, perhaps days later. At that point, Landmark would be throwing away money. Why? There are a huge number of people involved, and forty years of history, so it's not impossible it has happened. There is no incident alleged, so far.)

I was, once, excluded from a Special Evening. I had violated the expectations of the assisting program, and had failed to competently and expertly assure the Registration Manager, who was stressed from taking over the Center Manager duties that night, that there wasn't going to be a problem. I was pulled from the team for the Special Evening, over something that I considered trivial at the time, and instructed to do my phone work for that time. I was upset. I took off my Assisting Badge and went to the welcome tables and filled out a Graduate Guest badge, and walked into the Special Evening. The Registration Manager saw me and made a hand motion, "Out!" I pointed to my badge. She repeated the motion.

I had not resigned from the Introduction Leader Program, so she was still my supervisor. I left, now doubly upset. I processed this over the next few days and with my coach, I fully accepted responsibility for my failure ("But, dammit! I was right.") I cleaned it up with the Registration Manager, and continued with the program. I could blame my not making measures on the events of that evening, I needed the duck-soup registrations from sitting at the tables in the back to be in range for making my measures for candidation. Almost everything in the program is Impossible from the outset, but without that evening, it became Ridiculously Impossible. I did have some assisting commitments left at the end, incomplete. I've been far more than making up for that by being a coach in the Self-Expression and Leadership Program. The whole sequence taught me a great deal about how I had failed in the past, many times. It's not that I was wrong, and if I had stayed stuck in the right/wrong conversation, I'd have continued with my "act."

And I could have turned this into an accusation against Landmark. They didn't allow me to make a harmless joke with a graduate guest. They can't take a joke! And I was then excluded from an event that I should have had the right to attend! Unfair! The joke was reported by a seminar leader who overheard it, who didn't resolve her complaint with me, but took it to the Registration Manager, violating procedure that requires an attempt to resolve problems directly, so They Were Wrong! Unfair! Unfair!

And the joke was about "Landmark Sales."

The graduate had picked up a non-graduate guest badge and had placed his name on it, instead of picking up a blue-edged graduate badge. I said to him, as I filled out a blue badge for him, "If you wear that guest badge, they will be on you like ants on honey!"

This was about an occasional error in handling non-graduate guests at events, I've seen it happen. We are trained to not surround them. The training is to empower guests, not to bully them or overwhelm them. It happens that assistants and graduates will gather around some conversation, and that backfires. People will feel "pressured." If one looks at the criticism of Landmark that is out there on the internet, it often is about unskillful "invitation." My first coach explained it like this: we are all in training, and we start out unskillful. It's just the way it is.

The graduate said, as he walked away, "That's what I don't like about this place."

The conversation over "sales" and "pressure" is widespread in Landmark, and participants may have strong feelings about it. It's all part of the training, and nobody is "ejected" because they don't like the "sales." It's something we discuss. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 18:12, 2 November 2013 (UTC)