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Savernake
Reading in another thread about the Sterling group, it occurred to me that in the film Magnolia, Tom Cruise plays a character very like Justin Sterling. And I thought, to be a character in a fairly mainstream film, it suggests that this type of person is one that the public is familiar with, at least in concept. And then it occurred to me that I grew up with the concept of LGATs, even though I didn't have a specific term for them. I knew about EST, and "encounter groups" and (does TM count? If so, then I have to amend my previous statement that my parents were never involved in LGATs, because my mother was involved with TM). But since I moved to the UK 15 years ago, I never hear about such groups -- the first time was this friend who's become involved with Landmark. Oh, and I've heard of people being approached by Scientologists in London, but that's more of a cult than a LGAT.
So, are LGATs very common in the US? Would your average person be aware of their existence? If you mentioned Landmark or Justin Sterling or whatever group to the average person on the street, would they have an idea what it was about?
And it also brings up a chicken and egg question for me... I've often felt that Americans tend to be more neurotic than Europeans. I don't mean that to be insulting to my own countrymen, it's just an observation. I felt that I was more neurotic when I lived in the US, and over the years since I moved away I've calmed down a lot. Whenever I go back to the US, it amazes me the things that people obsess over and get worked up about, how everything is analysed to the nth degree but the stress never seems to get resolved. So my chicken and egg question is: Is the tendency to neuroticism that I observe in the US a product of the prevalence of LGATs, or do LGATs thrive in the US because the population has a greater tendency to neurosis and so is ripe to be sucked into an organisation that seems to offer "answers"? Or is it just that Americans have more disposable income to throw away on such things?
Interesting observations, Savernake. And fun to speculate about, from a sociological standpoint. Having lived in both the US and the UK myself, I tend to agree with you about the neuroticism, though the British seemed to smoke and drink an awfully lot more than Americans do, at least here in California. They were also, on the whole, leaps and bounds more intelligent and informed than the people I knew in the US. And funnier. Which is why it surprises me that Landmark, and groups like Landmark, are having any success at all in Britain. I would have thought the British would have seen right through this nonsense. (Funnily enough, L. Ron Hubbard was also able to set up shop there, after he fled the US in disgrace.)
I think, early on, the "manipulators," that is ad-men, PR flacks, salesmen, and policial operatives learned that the very best way to move "product" was to frighten people - scare the sh*t out of them, really. Of course, there was plenty of evidence, considering how religions have used fear tactics for thousands of years and continue, unimpeded, though all the tricks have been revealed and catalogued. Capitalism, Commercialism, and Consumerism have profitted handsomely from the practices and the fear tactics have subsumed into the culture. An interesting take on this, and if you haven't read it, it's a terrific book, was Jessica Mitford's expose, "The American Way of Death," by which she almost single-handedly took down the American funeral industry. What seemed normal, to most of us in the US, appeared an outrageous abuse and exploitation of people at a most vulnerable point, to her, an outsider. She infiltrated the business and was able to find the communications and extract the secrets that those in the industry had zealously protected from public view. It's a shocker, not so much for the tactics, but the audacity those in the industry displayed in their unbounded greed and sense of entitlement. Their success was, no doubt, taken into account by many who saw the potential in manipulating public perception, and I think we've taken the practices to a whole new level, not having the tradition or the history of a more egalitarian, inter-dependent, or socially responsible culture.
But back to LGATs; yes, I think they put a decidedly American spin on the ever-present yearning of people to improve their lives. And, thanks to their courting of celebrities, most people are at least marginally aware of the "self-improvement cults" and their similarities to groups like scientology.
Funny aside; when the trailers of the movie, "Magnolia," were broadcast on late-night television here in California, many people thought they were "infomercials" and that Tom Cruise had struck out on his own; taken what he knew from scientology and started his own cult, similar to the one that I see advertised, "Speed Seduction," or some such nonsense.
Ellen