Eariler today I posted a blog entry titled “Fringe cults”, about the debate following “The Devil Is In The Details” on the blog “Sailing to Byzantium.”

In response to my initial reply to “unitedcats,” I got replies not only from “unitedcats” himself but also from another person:

katyjane wrote::
April 18th, 2007 at 5:28 pm

dianavera… are you not guilty, in that last line, or doing the same thing you decried of unitedcats? Why would non-mainstream folks be “even more varied” than mainstream folks?

You get some pretty different ideas, regardless of where you’re looking.

I replied:

Diane Vera wrote::
April 20th, 2007 at 10:56 am

katyjane wrote:

“dianavera… are you not guilty, in that last line, or doing the same thing you decried of unitedcats? Why would non-mainstream folks be ‘even more varied’ than mainstream folks?”

Obviously there are more ways to differ from the norm than there are ways to be normal. That’s simple math.

Of course it’s true that even amongst “normal” folks there is quite a bit of variety.

I would add now that what I was doing was not at all the same thing that I (perhaps incorrectly) perceived that “unitedcats” was doing. I was not making a generalization about all people outside of some norm of my own.

As it turns out, I may have misperceived what “unitedcats” meant by “fringe cults.” (See my previous post,“Fringe cults”.)

Admittedly my reply to “katyjane” was rather abrupt, since I was arguing what seemed to me to be an extremely obvious point. But apparently it wasn’t.

katyjane wrote::
April 20th, 2007 at 11:14 am

Diane wrote:
“Obviously there are more ways to differ from the norm than there are ways to be normal. That’s simple math.

Of course it’s true that even amongst “normal” folks there is quite a bit of variety.”

It’s not simple math. If you asked me what ‘normal’ was, and then asked someone else, you’d have different answers. The math would be fuzzy at best.

Kullervo wrote::
April 20th, 2007 at 11:29 am

Indeed. There are as many ways to be “normal” as there are normal people. No two people are exactly the same. Not only is “normal” completely subjective, but it’s a continuum.

So I tried again:

Diane Vera wrote::
April 20th, 2007 at 11:40 am

Katyjane, what does the word “normal” mean to you?

To me, “normal” means “fitting into some norm.”

For example, here in the U.S.A., the majority of people are Christian; hence it’s “normal” to be Christian. Obviously there are many different non-Christian religions, and many of them differ from each other as much as or more than they differ from Christianity. For example, Judaism and Islam are staunchly monotheistic, whereas the Pagan Reconstructionist religions are staunchly polytheistic. Christianity it basically monotheistic, except that the “Trinity” idea looks borderline polythiestic and “idolatrous” to Jews and Muslims.

In the case of religion, one could expand one’s idea of “normal” to refer not just to Christians but also to several other “great” religions. But this still leaves thousands of other religions that differ from the so-called “great” religions — and from each other — in one way or another.

In retrospect, I see that I overgeneralized a bit about Christianity in the above. There do exist non-Trinitarian Christians, although the vast majority of Christians do believe in the Trinity, which has been considered by most to be the “normal” (i.e. “orthodox”) Christian belief for nearly all of Christianity’s history. But I also overgeneralized a bit about Jews. It can be argued (as some mainstream Jews have argued) that Jewish Kabbalists’ belief in the ten Sephiroth is as borderline-polytheistic as the Trinity. There is plenty of variation in belief among Jews, as there also is among Muslims, not to mention all the world’s many other religions, as well as among Christians Anyhow:

Diane Vera wrote::
April 20th, 2007 at 11:45 am

Kullervo:

“Indeed. There are as many ways to be “normal” as there are normal people. No two people are exactly the same. Not only is ‘normal’ completely subjective, but it’s a continuum.”

True. Still, no matter how you define “normal,” there will be more ways to differ from your norm than there are ways to fit within it.

Diane Vera wrote::
April 20th, 2007 at 12:03 pm

As for the “simple math” I referred to earlier:

Suppose you define “normal” as “having both trait A and trait B” (regardless of what traits A and B might actually be). There are three ways to differ from this norm:

• having trait A but not B
• having trait B but not A
• having neither trait A nor trait B

Likewise, suppose you define “normal” as “having traits A, B, and C” (again, regardless of what A, B, and C actually are). There are at least seven ways to differ from this norm:

• having trait A and B but not C
• having trait B and C but not A
• having trait A and C but not B
• having trait A but neither B nor C
• having trait B but neither A nor C
• having trait C but neither A nor B
• having none of traits A, B, or B

More generally, the number of ways to differ from your norm varies exponentially with the number of traits considered. if your definition of “normal” encompasses N traits, then the number of ways to differ from that norm is at least 2 to the N-1 power.

Not only that, but, for any given trait A, there is usually more than one way to be not-A, as in my religion example (where A = Christianity and not-A = the many non-Christian religions).

In that last paragraph I should have acknowledged that there is often more than one way to be A, as well as more than one way to be not-A. However, as in the religion example, the number of possible ways to be not-A would in most cases be vastly greater than the number of possible ways to be A, if A is any standard of “normality.”

Before I finished writing that last reply, the following also appeared:

Kullervo wrote::
April 20th, 2007 at 11:48 am

“Still, no matter how you define “normal,” there will be more ways to differ from your norm than there are ways to fit within it.”

You say that like it’s a truism, but I challenge your assertion.

To which I replied:

Diane Vera wrote::
April 20th, 2007 at 12:04 pm

Kullervo wrote: “You say that like it’s a truism, but I challenge your assertion.”

I challenge you to give me a counter-example.

At that point Kullervo decided to cut off the discussion:

Kullervo wrote::
April 20th, 2007 at 12:20 pm

Your simple math makes unfounded assumptions that “normalcy” is expressed in terms of simple traits with an on-off swtich. Like I said, most things that peope would come up with as “normal” are really points on a broad continuum.

For example, it is a misleading oversimplification to try to say that “Normal” means the trait “Christian.” There are as many different kinds of Christians as there are peoplwho call themselves Christian, with differences in approaches, attitudes, theological views, soteriology, etc. I don’t have to give you a counter-example, anyway. You’re the one making broad assertions.

Here’s what it boils down to: you’re mostly just arguing to argue, and I don’t want that here on my blog, so knock it off. Thanks.

No, I was NOT arguing just to argue.

I was offended by what I saw, perhaps incorrectly, as an egregious insult (by “unitedcats”) against all people of all nonmainstream religions.

I then pursued this discussion out of sheer startlement, then befuddlement, and finally sheer curiosity. I wondered — and still wonder — how any reasonably well-educated person could seriously believe that, whatever one’s own personal idea of a “norm” might happen to be, it isn’t just a tiny slice of the vast array of other possibilities? Of course, I do know that this kind of myopia is perfectly natural. It is all too easy for people to oversimplify “the other”; to see the world outside one’s own little box as a more-or-less undifferentiated blur, compared to the greater variety that one can more easily see within one’s own little box. However, in my experience, most educated people, other than dogmatic ideologues, are aware of this fallacy and can can easily recognize it when it is pointed out to them. “Kullervo” and “katyjane” both seem like reasonably well-educated people, and they do not seem like dogmatic ideologues, e.g. they don’t come across as the sort of Christians who believe that the differences amongst non-Christians are insignificant, compared to the differences amongst Christians, because all non-Christians are just going to hell anyway. On the contrary, “Kullervo,” the owner of the blog, actually seemed quite open-minded about LaVeyan Satanism. So, what on Earth was going on here?

Anyhow, to reply to Kullervo’s last reply to me:

Yes, I oversimplified by talking in discrete binary terms rather than continuous terms. However, similar principles do apply to continuous random variables as well. For example, on a bell curve, the portion of the X-axis that falls within one standard deviation of the mean is just a tiny slice of the entire infinitely long X-axis. Likewise the portion of the X-axis that falls within N standard deviations of the mean, no matter how large N is. And, again, all the more so is this true for a multi-dimensional distribution.

Yes, there is a wide variety of Christian beliefs. But do you deny that the range of variation of beliefs within the totality of all non-Christian religions is even greater than the range of variation of beliefs among Christians? How could it possibly not be?

Also, among Christians, there is a very specific set of beliefs which are held by the majority of Christians and which are considered by most Christian theologians to be “normal,” i.e. “orthodox,” whereas other Christian beliefs are deemed “hereticsl.” Obviously the range of variation of possible “heretical” Christian beliefs is far greater than the range of possible “orthodox” Christian beliefs — even though there is quite a bit of variation allowed within “orthodoxy” too, on matters considered “nonessential.”

To give yet another example from math (this one is only an example): The numbers that most people work with, most of the time, are rational numbers. So, in a sense, rational numbers can be considered “normal” numbers. But irrational numbers vastly outnumber rational numbers.

Anyhow, earlier today I posted on Kullervo’s blog an apology for the abrupt tone of some of my comments, and for not complimenting him earlier on his original post.

Shortly after writing my first two posts here on this new blog of mine a few days ago, I looked at WordPress’s listing for the Satanism tag, to see if my post on Satanic panic in Russia? had appeared there yet. It hadn’t, but my eye was caught by a blog entry titled “The Devil Is In The Details” on a blog called “Sailing to Byzantium.” The post was about Anton LaVey. I agreed with most of the what the author had to say. I was glad to see his open-mindedness about LaVeyan Satanism, but I also agree with most of his stated reservations about it, as well as with most of what he said he liked about it.

Then I looked down at the comments and came across the following:

unitedcats wrote::
March 4th, 2007 at 12:59 am

I would have to agree, all fringe cults are pretty much the same. Satanism, UFO cultists, whatever…just lost souls who want to be special somehow and don’t have much identity of their own. Mostly harmless, I mean things like the Solar Temple, Jim Jones, Aun Shimrikyo make the news…but there must be million’s of people in fringe cults around the world so the dangerous ones are the exception, not the rule. And mostly dangerous to their own members even when they do go nuts. Often confused too, like the dyslexic Satanist who sold his soul to Santa. ;) JMO —Doug

Startled by this person’s claim that “all fringe cults” (apparently including all the many different kinds of Satanism???) are “all … pretty much the same,” and that their adnerents are all “just lost souls who want to be special somehow and don’t have much identity of their own,” I quickly dashed off the following reply:

dianevera wrote::
April 18th, 2007 at 12:39 pm

unitedcats, you sure do generalize about people in “all fringe cults,” claiming that they are all “just lost souls who want to be special somehow and don’t have much identity of their own.” People in nonmainstream religions have a variety of different motives, just as people in mainstream religions do. You have fallen into the common human tendency to oversimplify and to be socially dualistic, to see everyone outside one’s own little box as being fundamentally all alike. But that’s an error — they aren’t all alike. Nonmainstream folks are even more varied than mainstream folks.

As we will see later, I may have misunderstood what “unitedcats” meant by “fringe cults.” I got the impression that, by “all fringe cults,” he was referring to all nonmainstream religions. He may have meant to refer just to the more authoritarian, “brainwashing,” and controlling ones, rather than to nonmainstream religions in general. Or does he perhaps believe that all nonmainstream religions are “cults” in the authoritarian/”brainwashing”/controlling sense? If so, that belief is wrong. Or does he perhaps believe that all forms of Satanism are “cults” in the authoritarian/”brainwashing”/controlling sense? If so, that belief is wrong too. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to ask these questions in my reply.

A few days after I posted my reply, I came back and saw a bunch of replies to me from a few different people, including the following from “unitedcats”:

unitedcats wrote::
April 18th, 2007 at 10:50 pm

I could have stated my point better, I wasn’t saying they are all the same, I was saying they do all share some common traits.

To which I replied:

Diane Vera wrote::
April 20th, 2007 at 11:01 am

unitedcats wrote:

“I wasn’t saying they are all the same, I was saying they do all share some common traits.”

Well, I totally disagree with you about the alleged common traits too. You say they are all “lost souls who want to be special somehow and don’t have much identity of their own.” Some folks are nonmainstream for precisely the opposite reason — they have too strong a sense of their own identity to be able to stomach certain conventional expectations.

Really it’s not a good idea go generalize about the motives of people in a wide variety of nonmainstream religions.

Diane Vera wrote::
April 20th, 2007 at 11:03 am

Oops! I meant to say, “Really it’s not a good idea TO generalize ….”

“Unitedcats” owns a blog called “Doug’s Darkworld,” which contains mostly pretty sensible commentary on a variety of topics, mostly political. He seems to be on the whole well-informed, but he seems unaware of some of the most significant religious trends. For example, in a post titled Conservapedia to liberal bias to why the USA will get national health care soon, he wrote: “Now as a codicil, when talking about conservatives and Conservapedia, I am talking about a very small group of people (Dear God, I hope it’s a small group of people) who take the Bible literally and pretty much reject everything that came after Newton.” Alas, folks who take the Bible literally are not a very small group of people. They are a very big group of people, and growing like wildfire worldwide. Someplace else on his blog, if I recall correctly, Doug mentioned that he is living in Berkeley. Most likely, Biblical literalists are indeed a very small portion of the population of Berkeley. But, alas, Berkeley is not the world, nor is Berkeley even typical of the bulk of the U.S.A. See the following:

• Various poll results about creationist vs. evolutionist beliefs in the U.S.A., on the Religious Tolerance site
• A BBC article about a creationist school in the U.K., of all places
• My page of links to many articles on the explosive worldwide growth of the more fanatical and fundy forms of Christianity

Anyhow, back on “Sailing to Byzantium,” Doug responded to me as follows:

unitedcats wrote:
April 20th, 2007 at 1:01 pm

People with a strong sense of their identity…don’t join cults. Being in a cult is about as antithetical to having one’s own identity as it gets. Cults in fact go to great lengths to discourage their members from having their own identity through a vast array of brain washing and control techniques. And studying people and making observations is not the same as making generalizations.

To Doug:

First off, I think we may be having a misunderstanding over the term “fringe cult.” If you’re talking about “cults” as in “authoritarian cults,” then I agree that they are incompatible with having a strong sense of one’s own identity. However:

(1) In my opinion, this is true of many relatively mainstream authoritarian religious groups too, including many fundy churches, not just “fringe cults.” If your objection is to religious groups that are authoritarian, “brainwashing,” and controlling, why single out the “fringe” ones rather than complain about “cults” in general? (Perhaps, living in Berkeley, you think of even relatively mainstream fundy churches as “fringe”?)

(2) I was under the impression (perhaps mistaken) that by “fringe cult” you were referring to all nonmainstream religions, not just the authoritarian, “brainwashing,” controlling kind. After all, you seemed to be classifying all of Satanism as a “fringe cult.” It is certainly not true that Satanism, as a whole, is a “cult” in the authoritarian/”brainwashing”/controlling sense. There are groups within the Satanist scene that can be considered cultish in that sense, but the Satanist scene as a whole is quite varied. Most forms of Satanism encourage thinking for oneself. (Of course Satanism has its share of hypocrites just like any other religious category.)

So, in my initial reply to you, I was reacting to what came across to me as an extremely insulting overgeneralization about all people in all nonmainstream religions, whether authoritarian or non-authoritarian. I’m sorry if I misunderstood you.

If by “fringe cult” you meant to refer only to cults in the authoritarian sense, I still think that your statement about the motives of all adherents of all such groups is an overgeneralization, though not as egregious an overgeneralization as it would be if you were referring to all adherents of all nonmainstream religions, as I thought you were.

It should be noted that many “fringe cults” lose a lot of members, so their “brainwashing” isn’t terribly effective in many cases. The members who leave must not be totally lacking in a sense of personal identity.

As for “studying people and making observations” vs. “making generalizations,” any declarative sentence containing the word “all” is a universal generalization, by definition, no matter what it’s based on. Many generalizations are based on observations. Generalizations aren’t necessarily bad if they are well-tested. The “laws” of physics are generalizations — which have, in many cases turned out to be limited in scope, but still very good approximations within their scope. However, we run into trouble when we generalize about people outside of our own personal experience. Scientific methodology in the social sciences is extremely tricky. Informal knowledge about people is even trickier.