"Mao would have been nothing without tens of millions of biddable, favour-seeking, grudge-bearing followers."
Great post! Your last sentence captures what I observed when I was working with members of totalitarian cults during the Eighties. The anti-cult movement insisted that the (mostly young) members were hapless "victims" who were mor…
"Mao would have been nothing without tens of millions of biddable, favour-seeking, grudge-bearing followers."
Great post! Your last sentence captures what I observed when I was working with members of totalitarian cults during the Eighties. The anti-cult movement insisted that the (mostly young) members were hapless "victims" who were more or less abducted by the cult leaders. What was so apparent to me, however, was the extent to which the cult members pushed the leader to take on the messianic identity they projected onto him. Ultimately, some of the leaders were destroyed as individuals by the grandiose projections of the "followers."
"Mao would have been nothing without tens of millions of biddable, favour-seeking, grudge-bearing followers."
Great post! Your last sentence captures what I observed when I was working with members of totalitarian cults during the Eighties. The anti-cult movement insisted that the (mostly young) members were hapless "victims" who were more or less abducted by the cult leaders. What was so apparent to me, however, was the extent to which the cult members pushed the leader to take on the messianic identity they projected onto him. Ultimately, some of the leaders were destroyed as individuals by the grandiose projections of the "followers."
Thank you!....and I hope you will consider a free sub to Slouching Towards Bethlehem.