Brainwashing, Cults, Comics & Communists

Massimo Introvigne has a very interesting paper entitled Fighting the three Cs: Cults, Comics, and Communists The Critic of Popular Culture as Origin of Contemporary Anti-Cultism--www.cesnur.org

 The paper is here http://www.wwrn.org/article.php?idd=14719&sec=44&con=52

 A flavour of the paper can be gained from this paragraph;

 The Frankfurt theory, as re-elaborated in the United States, argued that vulnerable members of the society, including children in general and members of the working classes with limited education, are at first implicitly prepared and later subtly indoctrinated into totalitarian and authoritarian worldviews through the triple agency of authoritarian, cultic religion (that Fromm finally distinguished from the type of religion he called humanistic), popular culture, and black-and-white political slogans. To some extent in this criticism medium and message coincided: authoritarian (later called cultic) religion, the simple ideology of popular culture, and Communism (or Fascism) were both the medium and the aim of totalitarian influence. It is also the case that, in traveling from continental Europe to the U.S., the Frankfurt theory of totalitarian influence was somewhat reduced in scope. Not all religion was believed to predispose to totalitarianism, only the cultic variety. Not all political black-and-white slogans were evidence of totalitarianism, only Communist (and Nazi, but the latter were no longer an actual danger). Not all popular culture was bad: the powerful American movie industry was largely left alone. The U.S. version of the Frankfurt theory became the theoretical support for a struggle against what one may call the three Cs: cults, Communism, and comics.

 The site as a whole - http://www.wwrn.org/mission.html - says this about itself:

 WorldWide Religious News

Mission Statement

 WorldWide Religious News is a non-profit service to provide the international academic and legal community (as well as various government agencies) with up to date religious news from around the world. WWRN was initiated with the goal of promoting religious freedom and tolerance.

Its objectives are:

 To instill values of religious tolerance and understanding on an international basis. WWRN holds the principle of religious freedom and tolerance to be one of the most important essential human rights as stated in article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

 "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and the freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."

To provide accurate up-to-date information for professionals and academics interested in religious freedom issues and legislation being enacted around the world affecting religion.

To provide a source of information for academics and professionals interested in trends relating to new religious movements, their growth and presence around the world and interaction with society at large.

As an information resource, WWRN also provides information on "anti-cult" and "counter-cult" trends, their interaction with government and media in attempts to suppress religious movements

To provide links to other Web sources supplying information on religion, government reports on religion and human rights, academic profiles on religious groups, etc.

************************************************************

SunWALK is a framework to help you articulate your model of (holistic) education & evaluate others.

What then is the real difference between the 'holistically minded teacher/practitioner'

and the 'non holistically-minded teacher/practitioner'?

 
After thinking about this for the last 14 years my best answer to date is that;

the holistically minded practitioner is trying to do each particular thing, theoretical

and practical, with consciousness of connections with, and between,

all pertinent contexts - environmental context, social justice context etc. -

right up to and including

some sense of the eternally mysterious Whole.