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A review by alexandrabree
Do As I Say by Sarah Steel
3.0
From Sarah Steel erotic kink author, victim of a ponzi con artists and the host of "Let's Talk About Sects," which I have never listened to as of right now but I have downloaded a couple of episodes to listen to over the coming weekend.
Steel does an excellent starting job. She starts in the right place. Nothing too mind-blowing if you devour cult literature as I do, but easy reading and to the point.
Then we hit chapter 4, and while I was thinking how refreshing it was to listen to a moderate (and non-american) writer, we suddenly run face first into left-wing nonsense and (please God make it stop) American politics. The racist sexist statements against "straight white men" completely undermining the suffering of so many men who have, in fact, been caught up in and had their lives destroyed by cults. Dr Steven Hassan, for one whom she references! I find it so frustrating and sickening at this point that someone can throw out generalizations as such without a second thought. Particularly as studying cults should make you more open to examining and questioning.
There is still a lot of good writing and very good points that are dished out. The inserts from suvivors are a genius touch. So I totally would recommend this book BUT
I have currently gotten up to chapter 10, and somewhere around chapter 8, she started bashing on her family and airing personal grievances that they have differing opinions from her as they are disinformed and misinformed Steel has been ranting about Donald Trump and Qanon... not that these things are not valid topics in themselves, but they are also not a cult, and if you do belive that there are cult elements fine, virtually every group does have cult elements that you can point out. But thinking that you're going to go on the internet and not find niches of things you disagree with, or in fact, things that may be harmful...? The internet hosts the dark web, it hosts every possible platform for every possible person, there are trillions of links on the internet. GIVE IT A REST.
I am eyerolling my way through the statements about crumbling democracy, her dislike of the monarchy, patriarchy, her fawning admiration of peer reviewed papers (as someone who has peer reviewed and been peer reviewed and seen Dr. James Lindsay's work. Let me tell you, peer review is better than not but it can also be nonsense as excessive politics much like in this book, has invaded everything)
So here I am hoping we come to a strong conclusion
POST SCRIPT :
I want to add that I think Steel is very well intentioned even if she is daft. She has quite a few ideas about involving the government in cults and creating social services (she compared it to workers' compensation) for a safety net. Steel goes on to say that cults (or high demand groups) are largely a white western phenom. I hate to tell you that they are most definitely not, although most non-western countries without freedom of religion and speech and freedom more generally would (she is correct) not tolerate such nonsense. The End made me cringe at how niave she is and how foolish her ideas are, but it's still a pretty good book.
Steel does an excellent starting job. She starts in the right place. Nothing too mind-blowing if you devour cult literature as I do, but easy reading and to the point.
Then we hit chapter 4, and while I was thinking how refreshing it was to listen to a moderate (and non-american) writer, we suddenly run face first into left-wing nonsense and (please God make it stop) American politics. The racist sexist statements against "straight white men" completely undermining the suffering of so many men who have, in fact, been caught up in and had their lives destroyed by cults. Dr Steven Hassan, for one whom she references! I find it so frustrating and sickening at this point that someone can throw out generalizations as such without a second thought. Particularly as studying cults should make you more open to examining and questioning.
There is still a lot of good writing and very good points that are dished out. The inserts from suvivors are a genius touch. So I totally would recommend this book BUT
I have currently gotten up to chapter 10, and somewhere around chapter 8, she started bashing on her family and airing personal grievances that they have differing opinions from her as they are disinformed and misinformed Steel has been ranting about Donald Trump and Qanon... not that these things are not valid topics in themselves, but they are also not a cult, and if you do belive that there are cult elements fine, virtually every group does have cult elements that you can point out. But thinking that you're going to go on the internet and not find niches of things you disagree with, or in fact, things that may be harmful...? The internet hosts the dark web, it hosts every possible platform for every possible person, there are trillions of links on the internet. GIVE IT A REST.
I am eyerolling my way through the statements about crumbling democracy, her dislike of the monarchy, patriarchy, her fawning admiration of peer reviewed papers (as someone who has peer reviewed and been peer reviewed and seen Dr. James Lindsay's work. Let me tell you, peer review is better than not but it can also be nonsense as excessive politics much like in this book, has invaded everything)
So here I am hoping we come to a strong conclusion
POST SCRIPT :
I want to add that I think Steel is very well intentioned even if she is daft. She has quite a few ideas about involving the government in cults and creating social services (she compared it to workers' compensation) for a safety net. Steel goes on to say that cults (or high demand groups) are largely a white western phenom. I hate to tell you that they are most definitely not, although most non-western countries without freedom of religion and speech and freedom more generally would (she is correct) not tolerate such nonsense. The End made me cringe at how niave she is and how foolish her ideas are, but it's still a pretty good book.