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The Sneaky Language Tricks Cults Use to Influence You | Amanda Montell | TED
The Sneaky Language Tricks Cults Use to Influence You | Amanda Montell | TED
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Sous-titres (127)
0:03
Greetings followers.
0:06
And settle in.
0:08
Because I'm about to share with you a true story
0:12
about one of the most zealous cults in the world.
0:17
The story takes place on the group's holiest day.
0:20
Acolytes arrived at dawn,
0:22
some having crossed oceans
0:24
and sacrificed life savings in order to get there.
0:27
They came bearing hand-beaded offerings
0:29
inscribed with sacred numbers: 22, 13, 89.
0:35
But this, my friends,
0:36
is not the story of an apocalyptic sect on a faraway compound.
0:40
No, this was a Taylor Swift concert.
0:43
(Laughter)
0:45
I said it.
0:46
The talismans are friendship bracelets,
0:48
the biblical books are known as eras,
0:50
and the charismatic leader is a billionaire pop priestess
0:53
who, let's be honest, could probably rule the free world
0:55
if she really wanted to.
0:58
Now, don't get me wrong.
0:59
I'm a deep-dyed "Red" album girlie.
1:01
I'm not here to call out Swifties as cult followers.
1:04
No, I wouldn't dare.
1:07
But I'm an author and a cultural commentator
1:10
with a background in linguistics.
1:12
And I’m here to share how we’re all susceptible to cult-ish thinking,
1:17
for better and for worse.
1:19
And our everyday vocabularies are evidence of our devotion.
1:23
I'm here to share what to pay attention to,
1:26
what to listen for,
1:27
so that, as we move through these inevitably culty times,
1:30
we can stay both enchanted and empowered.
1:35
Now, my fascination with cults is personal.
1:37
That's because of my dad.
1:39
As a teenager, he was forced to join Synanon,
1:42
a '70s California compound with matching overalls
1:45
and a traumatizing truth-telling ritual called The Game.
1:49
But my dad escaped,
1:51
became a neuroscientist,
1:52
and brought up a nosy kid
1:54
who became obsessed with understanding
1:56
how to identify cultish influence in everyday life.
2:01
As I got older, I couldn't help but notice
2:04
that the same language tactics that my dad described in Synanon
2:08
could be found kind of everywhere.
2:10
Like, in my high school theater program
2:13
and in the wellness industry
2:15
and on my social media feed.
2:18
That's how I came to study the cultish spectrum,
2:20
degrees of influence,
2:22
none of which start out with LSD and robes,
2:25
but instead, sneakily, with words.
2:29
I want to point out three cultish language tactics
2:32
to listen for in everyday life.
2:33
The first is called the thought-terminating cliche.
2:36
Coined in 1961 by the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton,
2:39
thought-terminating cliches are zingy stack expressions
2:42
that are easy to memorize, easy to repeat
2:45
and aimed at shutting down independent thinking and questioning.
2:48
So let's say you're a member of a group,
2:50
and there's a rule that you want to push back against.
2:53
You might get hit with a phrase like, "trust the process,"
2:56
or "it's all in God's plan" to shut you down.
3:00
In Synanon, the phrase "act as if"
3:02
effectively meant pretend that you believe until you do.
3:06
Today, in conspiracy theory-type groups,
3:09
the phrase “do your research” basically means “stop asking me about mine.”
3:13
(Laughter)
3:14
Next, I want to talk about "us" versus "them" labels.
3:17
In Synanon, defectors were called "splitees."
3:21
Today, you’ve got your “sheeple,” your “NPCs,” your “industry plants.”
3:25
When a label makes all of those people seem unilaterally evil and us superior,
3:31
that's a red flag.
3:32
And thirdly, I want to mention loaded language.
3:35
Corporate synergistic visionaries.
3:37
Wellness 5D consciousness.
3:39
At first, emotionally charged buzzwords like this feel like enlightenment.
3:43
Then one day you wake up
3:45
and you realize you've completely surrendered your ability to talk and think
3:48
for yourself.
3:50
This language works because it plugs straight into our cognitive biases.
3:55
These deeply ingrained decision-making shortcuts
3:58
that developed in earlier human brains
4:00
to help us process information from the world around us
4:02
enough to survive it.
4:03
But today, mental magic tricks like confirmation bias, the sunk cost fallacy,
4:09
and the halo effect
4:10
cause us to believe only the information we already agree with,
4:13
double down on sketchy choices
4:15
and worship mortal human beings we've never even met
4:18
as all-knowing deities.
4:20
This clash between our once useful cognitive biases
4:24
and the information age
4:25
is this phenomenon that I've been calling
4:27
magical overthinking.
4:30
And it's a problem
4:31
because studies show that social media
4:33
has damaged our mental health and our attention spans,
4:36
all the while making cultish leaders mega accessible.
4:39
Who needs compounds when you have comment sections?
4:44
Now, I don't say this to freak anyone out.
4:47
I'm just here to point out the difference between awe and indoctrination.
4:52
And I want to leave us with a few tips to help us do that.
4:55
First of all,
4:56
when you find yourself in a space, even a digital one,
4:59
where you feel really emotionally activated
5:01
and you're using a lot of buzzwords
5:03
that make you feel like you're part of a tribe,
5:05
but you can't really define
5:06
exactly what you're saying in plain English, or why,
5:09
that's a sign to take a step back and consult other sources.
5:12
Next, pay attention to exit costs.
5:15
Healthy groups might make leaving feel awkward,
5:18
but never apocalyptic or earth-shattering.
5:21
And finally, we can use cult language for good.
5:24
Rousing chants, rhyming mantras,
5:26
they can be used to make true information catchy, too.
5:31
I'm not here to take away anyone's friendship bracelets.
5:34
We need community more now than ever.
5:37
So I think living in this cultiest era of all time,
5:42
the goal is not so much to be cult-proof,
5:45
it's to be cult-literate.
5:49
You follow?
5:50
(Laughter)
5:51
Thank you.
5:53
(Applause)
