The SECRET mask of CULT leaders? "Weaponized Humility" an old Rhetoric tactic | Dave Snowden
Channel: Visceral Gravitas
Date: 2023-06-16

excerpted from The Stoa Meta-Mugglism w/ Dave Snowden https://youtu.be/m3-6-JA_MBs

transcript:
when I grew up we used to have preaching competitions but if you couldn't preach extempore from the Bible for two hours without notes without thinking of it in advance you would never win 
and we used to score people like they score ice skaters right this is a Welsh Tradition 
now the secret of doing that is you give Bible quotes you give a bit of science you give a practical story 

you just throw lots of things in place in multiple sequences that nobody can disagree with you 
and then oh my God they fall down in worship 
that's the mechanism 
so the secret is to use humility as a weapon 
use humility as a weapon 

because if you're controversial people can disagree with you 
you string together platitudes and truism so that nobody can disagree with you which means they become a follower 
and that is really dangerous 

and what they're doing is basically massive word and concept dropping and reinforcement to each other oh I think that too well that's brilliant to have you seen this and 
it is that preaching competition 
it's dropped lots of things in to impress people that don't actually weave it into a coherent pathway which can be criticized 
and when somebody weaves things into a coherent pathway it can attract criticism and generally it won't be perceived as humble 
because it's going to say things some people don't want to hear 

we need an educational system which actually forces people to confront different things 
to confront different things 
every week from the age of 11 to 18 I had to argue for something for seven minutes without notice even if I disagreed with it 
yeah in front of a class 
confront different things 
and that made me hypercritical 
it was a process which made me critical that made me see things 
and that's the sort of intervention we need 
it's micro interventions which get people to see things from different perspectives 
it's not admonitions from the latest Guru to be an enlightened one 

micro interventions which get people to see things from different perspectives 
confront different things 
see things from different perspectives