Social cults

Most of us are a part of at least one social cult. I’m roughly defining the phrase “social cult” as a group of people with a common set of dogmatic beliefs that can’t help but 1) tell everyone about their cult or 2) criticize everyone that chooses to walk another path in life.

A common social cult that we all know about are Crossfitters. If you’ve ever met a Crossfitter, there is nearly a 100% chance that you are aware of it. That is because they told you. Some take it a step further and believe Crossfit is the only good workout and criticize those who follow other exercise programs.

I’m a card carrying member of one cult right now and have a foot in the door of two others.

My first cult is that of bitcoin. I am of the opinion that bitcoin will change the world but that the crypto/NFT space is generally a lot of nonsense (including some outright scams). There are a lot of smart people that agree with me. Unfortunately, we have a lot of members that can’t resist the urge to tell everyone they meet about bitcoin or criticize anyone and everyone that sees value in other cryptocurrencies.

My second social cult is one that I’m only dabbling in at the moment. It is the carnivore diet cult. These people only eat meat. Many do it for health reasons, but some also see it as an opportunity to flip the birdie to the people that have been promoting processed foods, seed oils, sugar, etc. for the last several decades. Some members are all too eager to share their dietary choices, and many are willing to battle vegans on Twitter in a war of words that leads to nowhere.

My other half-social-cult is that of kayakers. I don’t invest much time in this one, but I completed the world’s longest nonstop paddle race a few weeks ago so am sort of an honorary member. I met a lot of people on the water and feel part of the gang to some degree.

As I paddled, my wife followed along with the race’s Facebook page and saw a question posed by a paddler that got sick: “Was my sickness caused by the river?”

The paddler was immediately shot down by others in the group insisting that they’d been boating in “her” (i.e., the river) for decades and had never had issues so “don’t blame her.” These people are very protective of a river that has no feelings.

Social cults aren’t inherently bad. I think bitcoin and everything it can do is beyond good. I think that the carnivore diet shows a lot of promise and can’t imagine my life without ribeye steak. I like kayaking and plan to do more races in the future.

What becomes problematic with social cults is the groupthink that occurs and the tribalistic tendencies that often emerge. 

Be willing to adopt and appreciate the beliefs of your social cults without the dogma that invariably leads to irritating your family and friends or outright unkindness.