this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
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we really are in a scary place where people are completely bamboozled by markov chains
Cargo cult society
sorry to single you out here, friend, but i think it's worth pushing back on the notion that "cargo cults" were anything but anti-colonial responses to the disruptions wrought to peoples' relationships to their labor and modes of production. in some sense that's also what's happening now, but you seem to be buying into the notion that cargo cults were based primarily on superstition and gullibility, when they were in many ways a rational social response to their own subjugation and displacement.
It's unfortunate that "cargo cult" is such a useful and familiar way to explain fetishism (a word that also comes from colonialist nonsense!)
But I've had success still using it as a sort of one-two punch first explaining fetishism and second explaining how the phenomena is almost always colonialist projection.
Could you elaborate further on this? I want to learn more about the actual mechanism of how and why cargo cults operated.
yeah, i'll try to make an effort post soon. i'm not an expert, but it's something i've been trying to correct my own understanding of, which is that "cargo cults" were generally revitalization movements promising to restore social relationships that were being destroyed through the process of colonialism. i think many westerners, myself included, have a notion that "cargo cults" originated from air drops during world war 2, and that simply isn't true. such movements go back to the late 19th century and organized around charismatic indigenous leaders promising an alternative to the european colonialism being imposed upon them.
I love not being stupid
Mixed bag tbh