On Monday when I went to psychology class 6th period we were learning about cults and cult mentality. And when she pulled up a list of words that students in her previous class associated with cults STAC was among them. I was infuriated at this and demanded her to delete it off her board. She was perplexed, my friend who was next to me laughed and told me to stop, since he is one of the ignorant people who think STAC is a cult. We learned about the six foundations that make a cult and none of them match. I saw her after school and we had a 20 minute discussion on why STAC is not a cult and went over the six foundations one by one.
Physical Isolation: We're not in a compound or secluded forest, we are right in school in a room that is frequently used, and teachers who are going to their cars. And during our assignments we are running around everywhere. IN CLEAR FREAKIN' VIEW.
Deindividuation: Oh come on, are you kidding me? We aspire to be individuals, we don't wear the exact same clothes or share the exact same views, we are all different. There are no two STACies who are alike, even siblings.
Group Leader: No offense Luke but you are not exactly a prophetic messiah/immortal here to cleanse us of our sins. You are here to teach us and you are doing a great job at that. We don't praise you each time we see you, we may respect you but that's because you are our teacher.
Recruitment: Maybe we have that, but not like cults. We don't take in the weak-willed, we take in the "screw the rules we have talent" kids who will make a good contribution to STAC through the audition process. So once again we are not cult-like.
Core believers: 29 hand picked kids out of exactly 1,496 students. Not exactly a church congregation. I believe that is enough said.
Promised Land: Do I even need to explain this one. Do we believe that the apocalypse will come and we will be the only ones who will be saved or that we will go to paradise? No, being in the arts requires sacrifice like the alumni told us at Feast.
Let's count that up... Ummmm 0 out of 6 foundations. Let's see where that gets us... OH YAH WE'RE NOT A CULT! Be seeing you
You should send the teacher this....
ReplyDeleteNo, this was our conversation. She told me all the foundations and this was the facts I gave her. She then apologized and realized we were not a cult and so we got a teacher from the social studies department on our side.
ReplyDelete