The World as a "Juxtaposition of Cults"

The World as a “Juxtaposition of Cults”

An article by the CICNS (December 2008)

1 The context

2 Anti-cult terminology in various sectors of society

The context

The profusion of information and disinformation assails the citizen, and seems to have the consequence of pushing many debates to the extremes. Since it is difficult to make oneself heard, to say nothing of making oneself understood, the tendency seems to be towards the radicalisation of discourse. It is not considered opinions that are exchanged but stereotyped thoughts that clash.

In such a context, it is no longer merely a matter of answering one’s contradictor on the substance, but of discrediting him beforehand. In France, a fashionable method for achieving this objective is to use the anti-cult terminology, whose power to do harm no longer needs demonstrating. It will, for example, have escaped no one that the cult of the moment is Ségolène Royal’s. Henri Emmanuelli did not resist the temptation to use this pejorative label (Marianne). Ségolène Royal, for her part, reacts to the financial crisis by denouncing the “cult of the market fundamentalists” (Libération). The CEO of Skyrock, tried in a case of corruption of a minor, narrowly escaped the noun, the prosecutor having found him attenuating circumstances (it is not for us to comment on the court decision on the merits, but to note the vocabulary used by the magistrate): “Essential elements were lacking to make Halcyon a mini-cult” (Nouvel Obs). For the deputy Christian Vanneste, cleared on cassation after remarks judged homophobic, “the homosexual associations display sectarian behaviour” (Top chrétien). The latter reply: “We are determined not to let ourselves be insulted and despised by the sectarians, the fundamentalists of every kind and the nostalgics of a moral Order.” (Têtu).

At this rate, France will soon be nothing but a collection of cults, from the mini to the maxi. A blogger on Agoravox confides: “I see the world through a juxtaposition of cults”. The producer of the serial “Plus belle la vie” on France 3, which enjoys great success, specifies: “Soon we are going to talk about Facebook and the cults” (La Nouvelle République); the journalist adds: “Subjects that touch us because they are part of our daily life, of that of our children, our parents, or our great-aunts”. Are the cults really part of the daily life of the French? Is it not rather an unreasoned fear, copiously amplified by the media?

There is no doubt that the success of this language, and of the muffled psychosis associated with it, is attributable to the action of the public authorities, notably that of the MILS and the MIVILUDES. A sad success, but one that could be the origin of a salutary turnaround. It is probable that the generalised use of these degrading terms will end up bringing out their absurdity and their undemocratic character. One day, the MIVILUDES will indeed be forced to bring this globalising discourse on the dérive sectaire into line with its action, by leaving its favourite terrain (the spiritual minorities, the alternative therapies) and going to poke its nose, for example, into TF1 (as Sébastien Fath suggested), into Peugeot and Renault (the number of on-site suicides would justify, by the mission’s doctrine, evoking dérives sectaires) or into the prisons (suicides, dehumanisation). With all these actors of society falling within the MIVILUDES’s remit, it will then be easier to denounce the amalgams of every kind, founded on pseudo-scientific theories, used by the interministerial Mission. A return to a true approach of knowledge will then be possible on the so-called “cultic” phenomenon. In the meantime, it behoves us to denounce all the abuses of a deleterious rhetoric.

Anti-cult terminology in various sectors of society (other examples, updated May 2009)

return to the top

Politics

Le Nouvel Observateur: On the subject of institutional reform, Nicolas Sarkozy specifies: “I want to free the practice of power from the spirit of clan, of cult and of ‘partisanship’”

Le Point: this article transcribes an interview with Nicolas Sarkozy commenting on the broadcasting reform: “I will not look on the public service as a little cult belonging to a few micro-organisations”

Toogezer: The deputy François Grosdidier, a UMP deputy, comments on the attitude of his colleagues in the GMO debate, under pressure from seed companies of the Monsanto type: “my colleagues all repeated the same sentences, as if conditioned by a cult, it was impressive!”

Agoravox: The author of the article entitles his article “Bayrou, guru of a cult?” and writes: “At least twice, Jean Arthuis, senator for the Mayenne, accused the Mouvement Démocrate of being a cult and François Bayrou of being a guru”.

AFP, 16 January 2009: The Socialist deputy Arnaud Montebourg denounces “the sectarianism of the power”, “the sectarianism of the cult that has seized France”

Valeurs actuelles: François d’Orcival comments on political news: “Censorship and obstruction in the Assembly (Martine Aubry, François Bayrou), strikes in the public service, marches on the boulevards, all unions together, gangrened by the cult movements”.

Blog de la Droite Libre: Gérard Gelé comments: “After the collapse of the so-called ‘socialist’ countries, new ideologues seek to seduce followers. As in all cults, these followers must be disconnected from the hard realities of the world of productive work, from the rules of a competitive economy, from profits”.

Novopress: following the Irish “no” to the draft European constitution, Carl Lang, FN deputy in the European Parliament, mentions a text: “imposed by the gurus of the Europeanist cult”.

Front National: On the subject of a teachers’ strike, Marine Le Pen comments: “Today, to improve the level of teaching, the cult of the school temple brings out its banners and organises processions”.

Nordéclair, the MoDem senator Jean-Marie Vanlerenberghe specifies, on the subject of the Front National: “It is not a cult, even if I totally condemn its ideas”.

Agence Bretagne Presse: “In the course of a debate held today in the Senate on regional languages, the senator for the Essonne described the DIWAN school as a ‘cult’ without further explanation”.

Le Salonbeige: Jean Cochet gives his opinion on the links between the media and Trotskyist groups: “During this Pentecost weekend, television will have ensured the promotion of Trotskyism in all its aspects. Whether that of the Lutte ouvrière cult (…) whose anticapitalist sermons from its ageing high priestess, Arlette Laguiller, were heard at length for the occasion. Or better still (…) the LCR cult, whose young guru Olivier Besancenot’s appearance - under the influence of the white-haired great guru Alain Krivine - on the television programme ‘Vivement dimanche’ was considered a sort of national event”.

Le Figaro: Rodolphe Geisler reproduces the words of a witness to the unrest in Guadeloupe commenting on the action of the trade unionist Elie Domota (LKP): “People consider Domota the Chosen One, they venerate him. It’s like a cult”.

Culture droit no. 18 of November 2008: Jean-Michel Roulet, former president of the MIVILUDES, comments on the mission’s action: “We must remain vigilant. Towards dérives sectaires but also towards ourselves. We must not transform ourselves into a cult by setting ourselves up as directors of conscience.”

Le Monde, Parti Socialiste blog: A blogger comments on a text by Jean-Michel Normand on Martine Aubry: “Martine Aubry’s inspiration would come not so much from Jaurès as from Jim Jones, the American reverend who suicided his entire cult in 1978”.

Altermonde: Michel Onfray, analysing the positioning of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste in the French political landscape, specifies: “I am attentive to the ideal, to morality, to purity too. But that must not lead to ceasing to care about the concrete and real misery of the suffering people, who have had enough of the quarrels of sects (…)”

Bakchich: Dominique Paillé, spokesman of the UMP, expresses his opinion on the political party created by François Bayrou: “his MoDem is not a political party but a sort of cult”.

Libération: The deputy Jean-Pierre Brard speaks of the UMP: “I fight the UMP as a political party, I would nevertheless not assert that it is a cult, even if Nicolas Sarkozy takes himself for the guru, and if, alas, many members of the UMP, including the most senior, behave like followers, that is to say people devoid of critical spirit”.

Politis: Claude-Marie Vadrot considers that the 2008 MIVILUDES report “perfectly defines the dérives sectaires of the thaumaturge who has been at large in the Élysée for two years”.

Bac2009: “Gaullism is to religion what political parties are to the cults: the expression of an undeniable success.” - Marc Sagot, anti-constitutional teacher

Oulala: a contributor to the site comments: “The People has once again missed its exit, or more exactly its entrance on stage. It has once again handed itself over to its gurus of the political cults, who permanently practise brainwashing, prebends and advantages for the faithful slaves, in the exclusive service of the guru-in-chief. Was there not recently a report concerning the cults… Which gurus are charged with thinking for their followers, who must apply, like gospels, the single-track thought of the führer (…), when there is thought”.

Economy, Finance, Business

Le Monde: Ségolène Royal is quoted “castigating those ‘givers of lessons who took themselves for the masters of the world’, she [Ségolène Royal] condemned this ‘financial crisis indissolubly linked to the capitalist system itself’, the ‘cult of the market fundamentalists’”.

Le Nouvel Observateur: Commenting on the financial crisis, Odile Benyahia-Kouider specifies: “Bernard Madoff was able to play on his credibility with investors. That shows to what point the financial markets are totally irrational and function almost like religious cults”.

Marianne, Raphaël Anglade titles his article: “Worse than the Krishnas: the cult of the free-traders”. And he continues: ”(…) look at them bleating their mantras, the free-traders”.

Challenges: The food company Mars is described in these terms: “Its culture is so steeped in the family’s values that it sometimes verges on the cult”.

Actionco: this article analyses trends in customer relations; one of the trends is described as the dogmatic route: “the brand must become once more a ‘cult’, a ‘clan’, a ‘religion’, and federate its customers around a strong universe, strong values”.

Le Vif (Belgium): Faced with the crisis, some people decide to do their shopping in the bins. One participant comments: “At the beginning, people were afraid, they took us for drug addicts or for a cult”.

Direction Informatique: Steve Jobs, the boss of Apple, is described as: “the charismatic spiritual leader of a worldwide cult”.

RueFrontenac: OTTAWA - “The authorities of the Mont-Tremblant International Airport (AIMT) and the Bloc québécois accuse the Conservative government of unjustly depriving the Laurentides of several million dollars in economic spin-offs. ‘We are living an incoherence, the president of the AIMT, Serge Larivière, says in an interview with RueFrontenac.com. The Customs Agency is like a cult; nobody knows what goes on, nobody tells us anything, and we have to live with it’”

Agoravox: Bernard Dugué comments on the excesses of capitalism: “Sciences Po, let us speak of it precisely. Not long ago, the students of that venerable institution, whose elders went through May 68, became the dogs of the system, well trained, barking at those who contest their legitimacy (…) That is what the skull-stuffing spelled out for them, that is the myth they integrated with a brainwashing worthy of the cults”.

Le reporter: Patrice Zehr analyses the crisis and its repercussions on human rights. “The experts foresee a ‘generalised every-man-for-himself’ in the countries struck by the crisis. This apocalyptic perspective seems excessive and close to an end-of-the-world cult”.

“Recognised” religious and philosophical movements (usually not assimilated to cults)

Nouvelle République: the archbishop of Bourges, Mgr Maillard, comments on the intervention of fundamentalist Catholics in a diocese: “For me, we are not far from a cult”.

La Dépêche: Mgr Williamson, the fundamentalist Catholic bishop who made negationist remarks, is compared to the “cultic gurus”.

Causeur: On the subject of Simone Weil’s centenary, the author specifies: “Fortunately there are souls like Simone Weil’s, otherwise the Church would be nothing but a cult, that is to say a falsely transcendent enterprise”.

Le Monde: The theologian Hans Küng, following the reintegration into the Catholic Church of four fundamentalist bishops, comments: “The Church risks becoming a sect”.

NationPresse: In reply to Mgr Maillard, who regretted the intervention of fundamentalist Catholics in a diocese, Olivier de Granvil, president of France jeunesse Civitas, sends him an open letter: ”(…) As for the question of the cults, I wish to inform Your Excellency that this very day there was held at the European Parliament in Brussels a day devoted to ‘The secularism of the European Union’, with speakers including representatives of the Grand Orient de France, the Grand Orient de Belgique, the Grande Loge Féminine de France, the Grande Loge Féminine de Belgique, as well as… the spokesman of the Bishops of Belgium. Certainly, Your Excellency, there is doubtless sometimes, within the Church itself, a curious attraction towards the cult. But it is certainly not located where Your Excellency thought to glimpse it”.

Culture

Nice Maville: actors transform themselves into living statues on the Place Masséna in Nice to mark the start of “Mars aux musées”: “But what are they doing?”, a retired woman wonders. “They must belong to a cult”, her husband replies, pulling her by the arm.

Le Point: Frédéric Ferney speaks of the theatre world: “theatre teachers are sometimes tempted to become gurus. Before them the actor is a toy, a puppet, a seminarian, fragile and naked as a child. François Florent is vaccinated against this total pretension; he distrusts that magisterium which transforms the troupe into a cult and the director into a demiurge”.

Le Figaro: Jean-Louis Validire compares the Lucerne music festival to “a rallying point of a pacific and rational cult, the admirers of Claudio Abbado”.

Libération: Fabrice Paineau comments on a fashion show: “the zip-pulls in the form of a circle, a square and a triangle form a strange geometric composition, not so far removed from the symbols of secret societies, between freemasonry and Templar. The Jil Sander cult and its aficionados are doing well”.

Eparsa: For Arnaud Sagnard, “the hip have become the avant-garde of a sectarian, consumerist, conformist and cynical world whose values are spreading everywhere”.

Hitmusmag: Christophe Bourseiller comments on the Paris scene: “The Anglo-Saxons are very open, very tongue-in-cheek, whereas the Paris scene is a cult of society poseurs”.

La Dépêche: Patrick Sébastien comments on his success: “If I wanted to set up a cult, I could! But an artist must be free and communicate that freedom. I am the interpreter of the people.”

Le Figaro: Arielle Dombasle speaks of her artistic choices: “I have never belonged to a cult, nor wanted to belong to the intello tribe, she confesses. I went from Robbe-Grillet to Miami Vice with total freedom in my choices.”

Sport

L’Humanité: A racing cyclist, Jérôme Pineau, comments on his career: “It’s true that the other teams, even the French ones, look at us a bit as if we were a cult. Sometimes you’d think we frighten them a little”.

[Sport 365](http://www.sport365.fr/basket-hand-volley/hand/infos/article_238760_-Un-gros-challenge-Ã -relever-.shtml): Olivier Girault, captain of the French handball team, comments on the team’s climate: “I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a cult, but it is, verging on it, a real club”.

Civil society

Le Courrier (Switzerland): Philippe Bach gives his opinion on the nuclear industry: “by dint of procrastination, we will have to take to the streets again because some crank of the nucleocrat cult will have resurrected the project of a nuclear power station at Verbois”.

RTL Info (Belgium): This article speaks of an out-of-the-ordinary policeman, Pierre-Bernard Velge, the friend of the crooks, who has just committed suicide. Some of his words are transcribed: “It’s true that I went from the stage of armed robber to something positive and salvific. On leaving prison, I made a choice. It was to recover children who had disappeared following parental abductions or into cults”. Further on: “If it pleases the grumblers to say I am the boss of a cult, I couldn’t care less!”

Eparsa: A reflection (?) on fast food: “MyBurger stands at the opposite pole from the pro-burger ‘cult’, and in total opposition to the closed, jittery, negative and sectarian spirit of the intelligentsia of dietetic organic food and dieting”.

Cyberpresse (Canada): A comment on a motor show (the journalist denounces an unacceptable ecological indecency): “The car is placed on a pedestal and the members of the cult venerate it without thinking”.

Le Figaro: This article mentions a book by Claude Allègre (“Ma vérité sur la planète”) which savages “the green cult” of the ecologists.

Aves: Christophe Coret, an ecologist, specifies: “As soon as an ecologist takes up the theme of global warming, he is taxed as a catastrophist, a bird of ill omen or the guru of a maleficent cult. AVES France is not a cult”.

Le Tigre: This article cites Eric Hazan in Le Figaro speaking of Julien Coupat, taken into custody in a case of sabotage at the SNCF: “far from being the outcast sectarian guru described here and there, Julien is someone cheerful, charming, who doesn’t hesitate to have a drink like everyone else”

Nonfiction: Fanny Verrax and Christophe Inard comment on a book by Jean-Louis Butré on wind power in France: Attacking the wind-farm promoter as much as the official representative of the ADEME present at that meeting, he [Jean-Louis Butré] says of his speech that it “strangely recalled those of the cults, which use the same procedures to convert the fragile minds that listen to them”.” (…) The reference to a cult is moreover frankly assumed, with supporting arguments, when the author reveals the role played by anthroposophy in the construction of wind farms, via a “Academy of the wind” aiming to sensitise children to the advantages of wind energy.”

La Nouvelle République: Jean-Paul Gatineau, president of the Rotary Club Romorantin Sologne Sud, specifies: “But careful, we are not a cult.”

Le Post: Isabelle, a model for the photographer Liviero Toscani, for an advertisement against anorexia, confides: “I was like the prisoner of a cult of which I was my own guru”.

Echo62: Jacques Sion has launched his laughter club in Lambersart, near Lille. This retired craftsman joined the disciples of Doctor Kataria in 2003… “It is not a cult”, J. Sion often repeats.

Le Monde: Germany - The Berlin transport authority (BVG) refused to grant authorisation to a campaign by atheist militants who wanted to display on the city’s buses, in the framework of a three-month advertising campaign, the slogan: “God (in all likelihood) does not exist”. The companies all put forward the same argument: “ideological advertising” has no place on public transport networks. “Otherwise, tomorrow, we would risk seeing organisations such as Scientology present themselves at our door in their turn”, justifies Klaus Wazlak, the BVG’s spokesman. The reference makes the initiators of the Buskampagne leap up. “That amounts to putting us on the same level as a cult, fumes Philipp Möller, mathematics teacher and spokesman of the project.

7sur7: Belgium - a wedding is organised in Belgium to “support the maintenance of solidarity between Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels”. One of the organisers declares: “It is not a matter of imitating the Moon cult”.

Le Tigre: This article cites Eric Hazan in Le Figaro speaking of Julien Coupat, taken into custody in a case of sabotage at the SNCF: “far from being the outcast sectarian guru described here and there, Julien is someone cheerful, charming, who doesn’t hesitate to have a drink like everyone else”