Cults like us Why doomsday thinking drives America

Journalist Borden (I Totally Meant to Do That) argues that since its genesis, the U.S. has had a unique propensity for doomsday cults. She surveys this American predilection from its earliest manifestations in Christopher Columbus, who had fantasies of conquering Jerusalem after he crossed the Atlantic, and the similarly millenarian-minded Puritans to the modern-day "large group awareness training seminars" used by groups like NXIVM and multilevel marketing companies like Amway to instill a Puritan-esque work ethic in their members. Borden hypothesizes that Americans are susceptible to doomsday-ism because they are "WEIRD"--"western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic"--and are thus psychologically different from the rest of the world, where people are less individualistic and thus conformist. In America, this nonconformism breeds anxiety, which, combined with the loneliness inherent in a hyper-individualistic culture, draws people toward apocalyptic strains of thought that offer both the direction and connection they seek. It is unclear from this explanation what Borden makes of the proliferation of cults in a country like Japan, which has ample conformism but also a loneliness epidemic. Omissions like this, along with Borden's rallying cry that "our birthright is not only to be driven by doomsday dreams but to be the apotheosis of WEIRD society"--a task ambiguously framed as realizable through "the bridging of divides"--make this unconvincing. There's a lot of rich research here, but it doesn't quite gel. (Mar.)

Falling for it. Consider,Vanity Fair contributor Borden asks, the ideology surrounding the Puritans: A brave people crosses the ocean to gain religious freedom, is saved by friendly Indigenous people whose generosity gives us an annual feast, and bequeaths to us the right to believe what we will. Yet, Borden writes, underlying it all was "their foundational doomsday thought," the certainty that the Apocalypse is just around the corner. "Puritan doomsday beliefs didn't go away," Borden notes, "they became American culture," yielding the lone hero and other tropes: Cities are full of evil and harm, and rural places are full of good people, "women are either lustful temptresses or weak pacifists," and so on. Add to that the idea that the next war is the war to end all wars, which makes fighting them a good thing, and the idea that people are either rich or poor because God wants it that way, and voilà: You've got the American cult. It's not so far a walk to get to QAnon from there, but Borden finds plenty of other cults to skewer along the way, including Mankind United founder Arthur Bell, who made L. Ron Hubbard seem normal, and even more widespread conspiracy theories, which, Borden holds, have three commonalities: The bad guys are "unfathomably powerful and typically world leaders, they're brainiacs who prey on the less intelligent, and there's something we can and must do to stop them." Thus the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Borden writes engagingly and, though her topic is serious, often with tongue in cheek, as when she concludes that, as far as cults go, we could do worse than "taking acid, hugging children, and talking to rocks." A fresh, provocative view of cults and those who love them. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.