lock2k
Banned
Guys, I don't know if this thread belongs in the political section. If it doesn't, please move it to off topic.
I know some cults are political in nature and the story I'm going to describe deals with one of them. But a cult can be of any kind (religious, political, a kind of community, etc).
Here's the deal, I had this friend. I met him in 1995. We were best friends for almost 20 years. About 4 years ago, he started radicalizing his opinions and voicing them on the internet (we were estranged due to work, I moved to another city, things like that) and I just thought it was a phase. We have radically different opinions about politics and stuff like that. I am more right leaning, but I'm not one to voice opinions on social networks. All I do is post my daughter and my dog and their shenanigans... I just like to have a good time, I don't like to argue, I'm a person that avoids combat at any cost (be it verbal or physical) even if my opinions are strong, I prefer to maintain a good friendship and bond over things we have in common.
I am white, my former friend is black. None of it mattered for all of our lives. We always treated each other with respect. My family considered him like family. This year, he joined a black movement group that I won't say the name here (a small group in Brazil) with a very charistmatic leader. They have truly radical speeches and they only allow black members. Even though I don't voice my opinions, one day, I found out he deleted me and my wife from his social network. I was one of his best friends and now he pretends I don't even exist.
I confronted him by sending a message and he copied and pasted a whole discourse about how blacks should unite, and I only said "ok, I understand, you want to find your place, you want to be a militant. But do you have to delete your old friends from your life?" and he said "I did it because I didn't want to hurt or offend you" and I replied "I don't believe in getting offended. This is bullshit" and then I only finished with "Way to go. Threw away a 23 year friendship because of a stupid ideology. My doors will remain open. Bye".
I felt bad for him. We don't really have much in common nowadays, it's true. But it sickens me to see how a weak individual can fall prey to a charistmatic leader and base his whole life on a group, on this leader, and throw away his old friends (mind you, he kept the old friends that like his posts about this kind of shit) and he says blatantly racist things all the time disguised as a way to "fight" and people applaud him. I would go to jail if I reversed some of the things he says with white instead of black in the texts.
Anyway. This group he joined is a cult, a political cult. Cults fascinate me and disgust me at the same time. I also know other individuals who threw away their music cds because they weren't christian. One of them burned his old CD's because they were "worldly" and "worldly" stuff is wrong.
I'm not sad, I don't really miss this friendship, but I'm astounded by what happened. And I want to know if any of you have experiences with close people joining cults or if any of you were part of a cult once and were able to get out. Please enlighten me.
I know some cults are political in nature and the story I'm going to describe deals with one of them. But a cult can be of any kind (religious, political, a kind of community, etc).
Here's the deal, I had this friend. I met him in 1995. We were best friends for almost 20 years. About 4 years ago, he started radicalizing his opinions and voicing them on the internet (we were estranged due to work, I moved to another city, things like that) and I just thought it was a phase. We have radically different opinions about politics and stuff like that. I am more right leaning, but I'm not one to voice opinions on social networks. All I do is post my daughter and my dog and their shenanigans... I just like to have a good time, I don't like to argue, I'm a person that avoids combat at any cost (be it verbal or physical) even if my opinions are strong, I prefer to maintain a good friendship and bond over things we have in common.
I am white, my former friend is black. None of it mattered for all of our lives. We always treated each other with respect. My family considered him like family. This year, he joined a black movement group that I won't say the name here (a small group in Brazil) with a very charistmatic leader. They have truly radical speeches and they only allow black members. Even though I don't voice my opinions, one day, I found out he deleted me and my wife from his social network. I was one of his best friends and now he pretends I don't even exist.
I confronted him by sending a message and he copied and pasted a whole discourse about how blacks should unite, and I only said "ok, I understand, you want to find your place, you want to be a militant. But do you have to delete your old friends from your life?" and he said "I did it because I didn't want to hurt or offend you" and I replied "I don't believe in getting offended. This is bullshit" and then I only finished with "Way to go. Threw away a 23 year friendship because of a stupid ideology. My doors will remain open. Bye".
I felt bad for him. We don't really have much in common nowadays, it's true. But it sickens me to see how a weak individual can fall prey to a charistmatic leader and base his whole life on a group, on this leader, and throw away his old friends (mind you, he kept the old friends that like his posts about this kind of shit) and he says blatantly racist things all the time disguised as a way to "fight" and people applaud him. I would go to jail if I reversed some of the things he says with white instead of black in the texts.
Anyway. This group he joined is a cult, a political cult. Cults fascinate me and disgust me at the same time. I also know other individuals who threw away their music cds because they weren't christian. One of them burned his old CD's because they were "worldly" and "worldly" stuff is wrong.
I'm not sad, I don't really miss this friendship, but I'm astounded by what happened. And I want to know if any of you have experiences with close people joining cults or if any of you were part of a cult once and were able to get out. Please enlighten me.
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