Review of Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

*Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism* by Amanda Montell (2021). Published by Harper Wave.

I’ve known that Cultish existed for a hot minute because of the cover. I’ve seen this cover on social media multiple times, and I feel like so many people in my life have mentioned it to the point where I’m just painfully aware of its existence.

This semester I have an unpaid internship at the Smithsonian so what I’ve been doing is I listen to audiobooks while I work from home. Someone in one of my grad classes taught me (he’s blind in one eye and can only read books through audio or text to speech) that he managed to work his way up to 4x speed on an audiobook and it sounds normal to him.

So I ran an experiment my first semester of grad school and ended up working my way to 2x speed and thinking it sounds normal.

Now, something I’ve been interested in for a hot minute as a baby academic researcher is how people use language to get their point across, especially if they’re in the minority. This has typically skewered towards women and how they’re presented and seen in the world, especially in Asia, but religion has always fascinated me because of it either does or doesn’t evade the moniker of a cult.

As Montell discusses in the book, people aren’t too happy when you label things as cults, and only some of the most extreme examples end up getting this label.

Anyways, I’ve rambled enough already. Let’s get into the review.

A deep dive into language and how it forms a basis around cults.

Montell uses a looser definition of what one would deem as a cult; some people tend to associate this phrase with something that means something really bad, but what it typically tends to refer to is a group of people with a hive mind.

She discusses the negative connotations that come with this word in the book itself, because by this definition, most organized religions can fall under the dogma of what it means to technically be in a cult.

This isn’t a book purely about the inner workings of cults, though, as Montell is mainly focused on language and diction used by these kinds of organizations. Her background I believe is in linguistics, which explains why she ends up taking this approach throughout the book.

Do I think she does it well? It’s an okay approach to all of this. I think she ends up getting lost in the details, and while she has a valid argument, a lot of people are either going to love or hate this book.

Montell very specifically then brings up the point of brainwashing and how it’s depicted as a sort of coercion in the media, when, in fact, it’s a lot more subtle than that. There’s quite a bit of filler in this book, but Montell’s argument here is that when we think of cults in modern day United States, we point at the Koolaid of Jonestown, or how the Scientologists end up recruiting people in very shady ways in their day to day operations.

But, in fact, SoulCycle, Instagram, and other organizations, like start-ups, are utilizing the same language as cults.

She has entire sections dedicated to fitness companies like SoulCycle, arguing that by creating a system where your customers worship the instructors and follow them devotedly, it mimics the inner workings of what one might think of as a cult. I found the Instagram example, or social media as a whole, to be fascinating as someone who does marketing for a living.

The reason why people join a cult is for a sense of belonging, because they feel like something is missing inside of themselves, and they want to be surrounded by similarly minded people.

So I thought that the usage of followers was eerie when she points it out, as it seems to be amassing a group of people around a singular person—like how cults recruit people.

Overall Thoughts

As I mentioned before, this is a book you’re either going to love or hate. I was decidedly neutral, but I didn’t think that I would read it again to be honest, or go back into a physical copy to highlight things.

A lot of what’s written in the book will force you to think if you haven’t thought about these subjects already, but if you have, then it’s going to be a lot of repetitive information that might not be useful for someone like you.

I suggest if you’re interested, go ahead and try the book out, but if you’re not, you might find it to be a waste of time.

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