How To Join a Cult From the Comfort of Your Own Home

All you have to do 

Is pick a leader (or leaders) 

From the comfort of your couch or recliner.

Have a cold drink on hand. 

Maybe Kool-Aid.

Settle in, take a sip. 

Find someone on a screen 

Who shouts a lot.

About fear. 

About anger. 

Watch (or listen) to them

All the time. 

Believe every single thing they tell you. 

Be sure it’s someone 

Who will confirm your worst suspicions

About the world

And all the people in it that you hate,

Who are, you will discover, 

All the people who aren’t like you.

The Other.

Never question your leader.

Never doubt. 

Submerge yourself in a pool of cool

Certainty. 

Trust your leader,

But doubt everyone else in the world.

Doubt them. Distrust them.

They are Other.

Never ask for evidence. 

Let your new-found god create the world for you,

Tell you how things really are.

Once you've firmly planted your butt

In your recliner and in your beliefs

Your mind cemented in the rightness of your cause,

Find other like minds - 

They are only a click away - 

Who will agree with everything you say.

You can live in a beautiful, 

Algorithmic bubble

Where voices bounce back from the outer edge,

Echoing your own certainties back to your waiting ears.

They reassure you that you are right

And everyone outside this bubble 

Is not only wrong, but evil.

That’s important.

Everyone else is part of a cult.

The Others are either sheep

Being led to the slaughter

Or they are the cult leaders: 

Satanic, evil, malicious, 

Sacrificing children beneath 

Pizza parlors and summoning

The powers of darkness 

To enslave the world

And make them wear masks.

They question these truths that 

You hold to be self-evident.

The Others ask for evidence. 

They ask for proof. 

Who needs proof when you have

Truth? With a capital T.

They will try to use logic. 

Shout them down. 

There is no reasoning

With reasonable people.

You’re not part of a cult. 

Everyone else is. 

Wrap yourself in your ideas

So tightly that they constrict blood flow 

To the brain.

You’ll discover that everything - 

Even evidence to the contrary - 

Is proof that you are right. 

You can be sure you are thinking for yourself

Because your leader tells you you are.

Once you are absolutely,

Positively positive, 

Deep in your soul, 

To the souls of your feet, 

That you hold the truth in your hands, 

Drinking the Kool-Aid is a moot point. 

You’ve been drinking it all along, 

Certain that it was wine,

And that this poem doesn’t apply to you.

Motives

I teach a fiction writing class for kids
And we create stories together.
There is usually a villain
Because one of the rudiments
Of story telling is conflict:
Protagonist and Antagonist
Locked in battle somehow.
We invent a villain,
Their eyebrows, their smile,
Their sense of style
(Anything from Snidely Wiplash
To fashion plate to forest ranger),
Their gait and their voice
And their car of choice
The food they eat
And the kind of seat
They sit in.
But it always come down to a question:
"Why are they doing this?"
(This being the robbery, kidnapping, murder,
Sacrifice of small children to a monster,
Or gathering a secret magical object
Into their possession through
Unscrupulous means.)
We used to debate it a lot.
What did our villain want?
On my latest adventure into fiction
I finally decided to come up with a
Quick Reference Guide to Villainous Motives.
But what I thought would stretch on for pages
Was really quite short:

Money/Greed/Selfishness

Power

Revenge

Competition

Prejudice

Misguided idealism/Thinking they’re working for the greater good

Insanity

All of the above.

I was surprised by the brevity of villainy.

Now I wonder about making a

Quick Reference Guide to Goodness.

But I suspect it would not be quick.

I think about what motivates

The good in the world,

And there are so many

Great impulses that lead to great action,

That the list would have no end.