Seth Finkelstein wrote:
Look at it this way: Why *does* someone join a cult?
And more
importantly, why do they *stay*, doing free labor? Stark coercion, of
the sort if-you-leave-we'll-hunt-you-down-and-kill-you, is extraordinarily
rare. Much of the process is about manipulating a psychological need.
Transcendent purpose, internal status, external dangers - these are
all deep human triggers.
Interesting notion, and one I hadn't considered.
Measuring Wikipedia against a couple of cult evaluation frameworks, I
don't think Wikipedia scores very highly:
http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html
http://www.csj.org/infoserv_cult101/checklis.htm
So I'm going to take your notions more as an interesting metaphor than a
serious criticism.
William