Lately, I have been coming to view military training as being very similar to cultic training. Even though Dr. Singer, one of the more promient anti-cult researchers does not agree with this view, as seen here:
[www.culteducation.com]
I feel that perhaps several things were overlooked:

- potential military recruits do not have the full picture of what they are joining. Recruiters (at least here in NYC) emphasize things like money, education, not being a loser and travel. The fact of the matter is that people who go through military training are being taught how to kill human beings without question. A tremendous amount of psychological training is required to achieve this result. Much of this training is similar to cultic training (tremendous pressure, screaming, yelling, isolation, complete compliance to authority)

- information access is restricted to pro-government outlets like Fox News and Stars & Stripes, thus the range of thinking is restricted. Critical thinking skills are not taught nor encouraged. This is similar to cults.

- Members of the military are taught not to question authority nor the decisions of the President. "Ours is not to question why; ours is but to do or die." Not questioning authority is a hallmark of a cult.

- Members of the military are being forced to serve longer than their original contracts and some are being forced back into it from retirement. Thus freedom to leave is being severely curtailed, similar to cults.

- military training is specifically geared toward killing people and winning wars. To quote Rumsfeld "The military is not a jobs training program." None of this training is applicable to the civilian world. The skills learned in cults are also not applicable outside the cult.

- the military has large parts of it that are secret and not open for public inspection or review. Secrecy is one of the primary characteristics of cults.

- Interesting article on the resistance to human killing here:
One major modern revelation in the field of military psychology is the observation that this resistance to killing one’s own species is also a key factor in human combat.
[www.killology.com]

- From the San Francisco Chronicle:
"You want to rip (the enemy's) eyeballs out, you want to tear apart his love machine, you want to destroy him, privates. ...You want to send him home in a Glad bag to his mommy!"
[www.sfgate.com]

Thoughts?

I agree. The process of turning young people into solidiers is exactly the same as those used by cults.

Nice topic to start my reading of this forum with. :)

Jinnythesquinny:

Actually there are profound differneces between "cults" and the military and the methods they use for idoctrination.

See [www.culteducation.com]

[b:2dd409f937]How the United States Marine Corps Differs from Cults

By Margaret Singer, Ph.D. [/b:2dd409f937]

The Marine recruit clearly knows what the organization is that he or she is joining.... There are no secret stages such as people come upon in cults. Cult recruits often attend a cult activity, are lured into "staying for a while," and soon find that they have joined the cult for life, or as one group requires, members sign up for a "billion year contract...."

The Marine recruit retains freedom of religion, politics, friends, family association, selection of spouse, and information access to television, radio, reading material, telephone, and mail.

The Marine serves a term of enlistment and departs freely. The Marine can reenlist if he or she desires but is not forced to remain.

Medical and dental care are available, encouraged, and permitted in the Marines. This is not true in the many cults that discourage and sometimes forbid medical care.

Training and education received in the Marines are usable later in life. Cults do not necessarily train a person in anything that has any value in the greater society.

In the USMC, public records are kept and are available. Cult records, if they exist, are confidential, hidden from members, and not shared.

USMC Inspector General procedures protect each Marine. Nothing protects cult members.

A military legal system is provided within the USMC; a Marine can also utilize off-base legal and law enforcement agencies and other representatives if needed. In cults, there is only the closed, internal system of justice, and no appeal, no recourse to outside support.

Families of military personnel talk and deal directly with schools. Children may attend public or private schools. In cults, children, child rearing, and education are often controlled by the whims and idiosyncracies of the cult leader.

The USMC is not a sovereign entity above the laws of the land. Cults consider themselves above the law, with their own brand of morality and justice, accountable to no one, not even their members.

A Marine gets to keep her or his pay, property owned and acquired, presents from relatives, inheritances, and so on. In many cults, members are expected to turn over to the cult all monies and worldly possessions.

Rational behavior is valued in the USMC. Cults stultify members' critical thinking abilities and capacity for rational, independent thinking; normal thought processes are stifled and broken.

In the USMC, suggestions and criticism can be made to leadership and upper echelons through advocated, proper channels. There are no suggestion boxes in cults. The cult is always right, and the members (and outsiders) are always wrong.

Marines cannot be used for medical and psychological experiments without their informed consent. Cults essentially perform psychological experiments on their members through implementing thought-reform processes without members' knowledge or consent.

Reading, education, and knowledge are encouraged and provided through such agencies as Armed Services Radio and Stars and Stripes, and through books, post libraries, and so on. If cults do any education, it is only in their own teachings. Members come to know less and less about the outside world; contact with or information about life outside the cult is sometimes openly frowned upon, if not forbidden.

In the USMC, physical fitness is encouraged for all. Cults rarely encourage fitness or good health, except perhaps for members who serve as security guards or thugs.

Adequate and properly balanced nourishment is provided and advocated in the USMC. Many cults encourage or require unhealthy and bizarre diets. Typically, because of intense work schedules, lack of funds, and other cult demands, members are not able to maintain healthy eating habits.

Authorized review by outsiders, such as the U.S. Congress, is made of the practices of the USMC. Cults are accountable to no one and are rarely investigated, unless some gross criminal activity arouses the attention of the authorities or the public.

In the USMC, the methods of instruction are military training and education, even indoctrination into the traditions of the USMC, but brainwashing, or thought reform, is not used. Cults influence members by means of a coordinated program of psychological and social influence techniques, or brainwashing.

Also see [www.culteducation.com]

Note the distinctions between education, adverstising, propaganda, indoctrination and thought reform, which is used by "cults."

It is important not to blur these distinction when comparing the persuasion methods used by various groups, such as the military as compared to "cults."

Military training can look to the outsider as brutal, and indeed in some ways it is. But what people need to understand is, this training can be the only thing that keeps you alive when the 7.62 rounds start flying towards you.

In a combat situation you don't have time to think, your reactions have to come from, 'muscle memory' and you react without pausing to think. Even then, the first time you're shot at, 'for real', nothing can prepare you for how you feel.

It's crazy to think of the military as a cult. Those guys need to be ready when they get send over to fight. What do you want to do, let every guy decide for hisself what to do?
Anyway they haven't had the dfraft for years, so it's not like there forcing guys to fight or anything like that. Those guys are willing to die so you can be free. They don't need anybody calling them a cult.

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andychee
It's crazy to think of the military as a cult. Those guys need to be ready when they get send over to fight. What do you want to do, let every guy decide for hisself what to do?
Anyway they haven't had the dfraft for years, so it's not like there forcing guys to fight or anything like that. Those guys are willing to die so you can be free. They don't need anybody calling them a cult.

Yep, you're right.

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rrmoderator
Note the distinctions between education, adverstising, propaganda, indoctrination and thought reform, which is used by "cults."

If I may, I must respectfully disagree:

- The military uses a tremendous propoganda campaign in order to entice new recruits. They appeal to primarily an 18-year old male's baser instincts: of wanting to conform, of wanting to belong to a group at any cost, and the idea of submitting your entire life to an organization in order to get ahead. Appealing to these baser instincts is part and parcel of cultic recruiting.

- The concept of boot camp is, in its very essence, indoctrination and thought reform. Recuits are taught not to think of themselves, but as to see themselves as an appendage of a larger group, to completely subordinate themselves to higher authorities. They are stripped of their individuality and are referred throughout the indoctrination period as "maggots". Once again, this is similar in many respects to cults.

- Part of the thought reform process in boot camp is to overcome the natural human instinct of not to kill. One of the training slogans is: "Blood, blood, bright red blood makes the grass grow!"

- The education received in the military is good only for military things, like how to repair howitzers and other military systems.

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zaflon
But what people need to understand is, this training can be the only thing that keeps you alive when the 7.62 rounds start flying towards you.

It should be noted that such training is not based on standard educational principles of like learning mathematics. The training received is firmly rooted in thought reform and control.

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andychee
What do you want to do, let every guy decide for hisself what to do?
Anyway they haven't had the dfraft for years, so it's not like there forcing guys to fight or anything like that.

The natural human instinct is for self-preservation and to make decisions made on good, solid information. No one is forcing them to go into the military, but many of the recruitment tactics that are used by the military are strikingly similar to cults: withholding information, manipulating the truth and promising things that can't be delivered.

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jinnythesquinny
I agree. The process of turning young people into solidiers is exactly the same as those used by cults.

Excellent point - it is a process, not an education. It appears that this process turns them into people who will kill human beings when ordered to do so by their superiors. You also bring up another good point - they always recruit young people, not adults. This is done because their critical thinking skills are not as highly developed so they will not question what they are told as much.