The Family as Cult
I've just finished reading Mario Puzo's The Godfather, about the violence-infested world of the Cosa Nostra in the late 1940s. Vito Corleone is the benevolent despot, a reasonable, responsible and prudent man, a quiet man who never threatens but unleashes waves of terror against those who stand in the way of The Corleone Family. The 1972 movie starring Marlon Brando and directed by Francis Ford Coppola was in my view of the the greatest moves I've seen. But it left some gaps that the book helped fill in, such as the motivation of Michael to return from Sicily after he shot the police capitain. (Someone who was about to be executed anyway took the blame.)
As I read the book, the incipient thought arose about the parallel between cults and amoral familialism. Wikipedia begins its examination of the cults, defining is as "a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding population considers to be outside the mainstream" having both positive ("the cult of beauty") and negative ("the Jim Jones cult") connotations. In relationship to a family and as a pathology, there are many families that are cult-like, in their rituals and traditions, their adoration of strong leaders (usually parents or grandparents), their political extremism, their subordination of individual thought to collective action, their narrowness of beliefs, and their emotional reinforcement of aberrant behaviors and ideas. Michael's sister Connie is portrayed in the movie as hysterical in her confrontation with with Michael's execution of her husband Carlo Rizzi. But, in the book, Connie apologizes to Michael a few days later, claiming she was mistaken and glad to be rid the abusive Carlo-- a good example of the power of the cult of amoral familialism.
Unlike most other cults, family cults come into existence as a function of marriage and birth. Thus, it is much more difficult for someone to leave such groups. And, like the Corleone Family, the nexus of evil grows out of extended family ties rather than the nuclear family, making it even more difficult to leave.
As I read the book, the incipient thought arose about the parallel between cults and amoral familialism. Wikipedia begins its examination of the cults, defining is as "a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding population considers to be outside the mainstream" having both positive ("the cult of beauty") and negative ("the Jim Jones cult") connotations. In relationship to a family and as a pathology, there are many families that are cult-like, in their rituals and traditions, their adoration of strong leaders (usually parents or grandparents), their political extremism, their subordination of individual thought to collective action, their narrowness of beliefs, and their emotional reinforcement of aberrant behaviors and ideas. Michael's sister Connie is portrayed in the movie as hysterical in her confrontation with with Michael's execution of her husband Carlo Rizzi. But, in the book, Connie apologizes to Michael a few days later, claiming she was mistaken and glad to be rid the abusive Carlo-- a good example of the power of the cult of amoral familialism.
Unlike most other cults, family cults come into existence as a function of marriage and birth. Thus, it is much more difficult for someone to leave such groups. And, like the Corleone Family, the nexus of evil grows out of extended family ties rather than the nuclear family, making it even more difficult to leave.
Labels: religion and family
posted by My Mall and News at
5:04 PM
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