Saying that someone is in a cult (though I note that most people have been pretty careful not to use quite that terminology) isn’t an accusation. Not at the person in question, anyway.
“You are in a cult” is absolutely an accusation directed at the person. I can understand moral reasons why someone might wish for a world in which people assigned blame differently, and technical reasons why this feature of the discourse makes purely descriptive discussions unhelpfully fraught, but none of that changes the empirical fact that “You are in a cult” functions as an accusation in practice, especially when delivered in a public forum. I expect you’ll agree if you recall specific conversations-besides-this-one where you’ve heard someone claim that another participant is in a cult.
Maybe you’re right. So, same question as for ooverthinkk: suppose you think some organization that people you know belong to is a cult, or has some of the same bad features as cults. What should you do?
(It seems to me that ooverthinkk feels that at least some of what is being said in this thread about Leverage is morally wrong, and I hope there’s some underlying principle that’s less overreaching than “never say that anything is cult-like” and less special-pleading than “never say bad things about Leverage”—but I don’t yet understand what that underlying principle is.)
No comment on your larger point but
“You are in a cult” is absolutely an accusation directed at the person. I can understand moral reasons why someone might wish for a world in which people assigned blame differently, and technical reasons why this feature of the discourse makes purely descriptive discussions unhelpfully fraught, but none of that changes the empirical fact that “You are in a cult” functions as an accusation in practice, especially when delivered in a public forum. I expect you’ll agree if you recall specific conversations-besides-this-one where you’ve heard someone claim that another participant is in a cult.
Maybe you’re right. So, same question as for ooverthinkk: suppose you think some organization that people you know belong to is a cult, or has some of the same bad features as cults. What should you do?
(It seems to me that ooverthinkk feels that at least some of what is being said in this thread about Leverage is morally wrong, and I hope there’s some underlying principle that’s less overreaching than “never say that anything is cult-like” and less special-pleading than “never say bad things about Leverage”—but I don’t yet understand what that underlying principle is.)
(edit: moved to the correct reply area)