[MacSpirit] Confessions of an ex-Mac-cult member

by Rodney O. Lain

4/4/00

"No one ever joins a cult. They just postpone the decision to leave."

Steven Hassan, a cult expert

 

"It's just TV, folks."

David Letterman, CBS talk-show host

Sunlight winked through half-closed blinds that swung infinitesimally to the sway of an almost-still breeze. He'd been up all night; he was hungry and sleep deprived, but the end result was more than worth the personal sacrifice. After months of soul searching, he'd reached an agonizing decision. He knew what he had to do. God as his witness, there was no way to avoid this, no other way to do this. And there was no one else to do this. No one else in his profession had the temerity nor the tenacity to follow through with this act of occupational suicide.

After a quick moment of Gethsemane-like prayer and an even longer spate of intro- and retrospection, the man grabbed the stack of handwritten notes he'd pored over all night -- ranging from bits and scraps of paper to full-sized sheets -- and headed down to the town square.

Sunday morning sunshine scattered fingers of light across the German countryside that slowly awakened with yawning signs of life. Over there, a rooster greets the day with glad shout. Over here, the scattered chatter of children is heard.

Oblivious to it all, he strides wearily towards the center of the village known as Wittenberg, his gait taking on increasingly confident strides with each townsperson's greeting that he receives.

It was a chilly October morning in the year 1517 that the 32-year-old man took his scraps of paper, now known as the 95 Theses, and nailed them to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church in accordance with the local custom of posting messages to the church door like a community bulletin board.

He didn't set out to break away from the church nor attack the Pope's authority, but Martin Luther's 95 criticisms against the Catholic Church ignited not only the Protestant Reformation, but also serves as a template for subsequent centuries of individual and group protests against established authority gone awry, be it a church, a government or a corporation.

In the midst of every movement, sooner or later there has always been someone who dared stand up and declare, "hey, aren't we taking ourselves a little too seriously? Don't you think we are taking this thing too far?"

This is where I stand today, vis-á-vis my relationship to Apple and the Macintosh platform. I'm introspecting. Now, before you excommunicate me from the Church of Macintosh, hear me out. Listen to what I have to say.

The joy of sects: Church of Macintosh or cult of (computer) personality?

All I was doing was researching the concept of the church, trying to find some info on a column I was planning in which I would compare a Steve Jobs keynote address to a church sermon. I eventually wrote that column, but while researching a related topic called homiletics (the technique of preaching a sermon), I happened across a link to a web site dedicated to cults and life after cult involvement. The writer, a cult expert, presented a list differentiating cults from healthy religious organizations. I came to two conclusions after reading that article:

1) all churches are cults, technically

2) the Mac community -- some of us, any way -- exhibits characteristics of cult behavior

My argument concerning # 1 is that a cult is defined as an organization that focuses sees and presents itself as the one, true harbinger and personification of Ultimate Truth. "Everyone else is wrong except for us," proclaims the cult member. Yet there are many churches and cults out there, each claiming ownership to mutually exclusive Truth. But we all know that, when it comes to truth, we can all be wrong, but we can't we all be right.

It's the question of the ages: what is the one, true Faith?

My argument concerning # 2 is what we are most concerned about, though. I offer these quick musings as food for thought, as fodder for discussion; these are points that are made about cults, points that I've extrapolated to the Mac cult. Don't take this as my firm belief; read it in the spirit of "what if?" in which it is presented

Mmmmm Kool-Aid

• "The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society." This one characteristic stood out and screamed from the web page* that I was reading. Hasn't the Mac community long been characterized as us-versus-them? Mac versus PC? Bill Gates versus Steve Jobs?

If that isn't polarized, I don't know what is.

• "The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity)."

I joke when I say often write/say that Steve Jobs is the Savior. You all know that I'm only joking when I say that, right? Uh, you do know that I'm joking, right?

Moving right along...

• "The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members."

Subscribe to and read some of the Mac-related mailing lists; sometimes, you'll cringe at the fanaticism. Keep in mind that I am a Mac fanatic myself. I should know one when I see one.Actually, I've come to the decision similar to that made by my friend Dan Knight over at Low End Mac, and prefer to be called a Mac advocate rather than an "evangelist." Religious connotations are too easy to be taken the wrong way.

There are several ways to look at this Mac-community-as-cult theory: One would be to argue that we're all part of the Mac cult, which is far from the truth. The truth is that there are some of us who are Mac fanatical to the point of cult-like behavior, while there are some of us who approach the Mac with the same banality that many PC users approach and view their computers. The rest of us exist on a coninuum between those two extremes. Graphically, it would look like the classic bell-shaped curve.

My point is to use the cult comparison to remind us that we needn't take our affinity to things Macintosh too far. I may be talking to myself more than to I am talking to any of you out there... but I felt it needed to be said.

Conclusion: my ulterior motive

I won't go through the whole list of cult behaviors described in the article I read, because to compare cults to the Mac community will go beyond bordering on the absurd. But indulge me to use it as a kind of hyperbole, to describe the way we can be perceived.

I guess I should hasten to add that I love my Mac, but I am starting to realize that it's just a computer (did I just say that?). And maybe that's all it will be after Steve Jobs & Co. finish mainstreaming Apple and the iMac. Or maybe I'm like the many people who work with Macs for a living and become disillusioned with the concept of Mac elitism.

This is a good thing, by the way. Disillusionment is a key step toward achieving balance in one's life. You learn the hard way that your slavish devotion to a cause can ruin you. If the worst that you've endured is disillusionment, consider yourself having gotten off cheap. There are more expensive ways to learn hard life lessons. Trust me on that one.

My purpose isn't to pee on the collective blanket of Mac users worldwide, for I will still hype the Mac for a long time after this column is forgotten. I just wanted to pause and do a body check on the Mac community.

It's the future of the platform that I envision as I write this. More and more people are joining the Macintosh fold who are not as attached to the Mac phenomenon as the rest of us are and will probably never be.

These are the ones I think of as I write this -- as well as the PC users and users of other non-Mac platforms.

We have a good machine -- arguably the best consumer computer on the market. But is that cause to get fanatical over it? That's the question I ask myself as I stroll the aisles of CompUSA, as I talk with fellow Mac users, as I read your e-mail.

Maybe the year 2000 is the year in which the Mac community seriously considers a more mature approach to advocating the platform. Maybe we are entering the time in which we really and truly Think Different.

Fini.

NOTE: If you want to read the cult article in its entirety, go to http://www.csj.org/infoserv_cult101/checklis.htm

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This column is © 2000 Rodney O. Lain. All rights reserved.

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About Rodney O. Lain

A former journalist and college prof, Rodney lives in Minnesota, where he freelance writes part-time and works for a Minneapolis-based software company. He has a soft spot for H. L. Mencken, Steve Jobs, Prince, Richard Wright and other well-known status-quo breakers.

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February 03, 2012