Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: The Signs Of A Cult

3) Utopianism

Do you know what the word “Utopia” means? It means a perfect society. If you listen to a lot of cults, they preach that they, in one way or another, will bring about a “perfect” society (This is what cults want power for, by the way). I call this “utopianism” or “The belief that one’s or one’s group’s philosophy can bring about a perfect society.”

How will it be perfect? Oh, sometimes it will be about “righting historical wrongs,” or a world without violence or greed, or a world that’s “back to nature,” or “totally free,” or where “everyone’s equal,” or “Heaven on Earth,” or some similar idea. Regardless of what their version is, a cult will have one. For The Beginners, it’s clearly their “new beginning” where (In North America, at the very least) they will have eliminated all the people and groups still alive on the continent and then, when they reemerge from the Holding, start a new civilization based around their philosophy.

How lovely.

Now, let me ask you another question: Have you ever seen or heard of an actual “perfect society”?

If you legitimately answered “yes,” you’re lying. Firstly, if you noticed, there were many different ideas of what a “perfect” society would be. The simple fact that there are so many means that what is perfect to one group of utopianists isn’t for another. Secondly, because people aren’t perfect, any society they make won’t be perfect, either! The whole idea is a fallacy.

A good way to tell if someone is a utopianist (And, by extension, a cultist) is when hearing that their general idea won’t work or has failed before, and they reply with “That wasn’t real (Insert whatever their ideal society is here)!”. It means that they legitimately believe that, in spite of the fact people are obviously not perfect and neither would a society be, that either they, their cult, or their leader(s) will “Get it right this time.”

This sort of ideological cancer would be bad enough. Still, because of this, cultists are so often obsessed with violence and destruction because, in their minds, to achieve their perfect society, they must destroy whatever is around to make way for the utopia they believe they’re working towards. Worse still, because they legitimately believe they’re working towards a “perfect” society, they also legitimately believe that whatever they do to further that goal, up to subjugation, murder, and even genocide, is acceptable.

If you meet someone in a zombie apocalypse preaching how they or their leader will make anything that sounds like a perfect society, get away from them as fast as you can because they are truly dangerous. They think they’ll get to Heaven and wind up dragging everyone to Hell trying to get there.