Is the Bat-Family a cult?
Is the Bat-Family a cult?
Christopher Gomez
Luis Hernandez
They're a gang.
Landon Johnson
Batman should let one of his robins kill 1 person each year.
Christopher Reed
It'd probably go somewhere horrible, but Cult of Heroism would be pretty sick. Brainwashed cultists, running out, saving cats from trees, beating up abusive spouses, assaulting, abducting, recruiting and rehabilitation gangbangers, saving the city from the usual fair of evil villains and winning because they're out-fucking-numbered and these fucker are crazy.
It'd be great!
Daniel Murphy
Would this count as a full person, or just a half?
Aaron Jenkins
this
If one of the robins doesn't use their freebee, they get to kill 2 people In one year.
Luke King
Deception lies at the core of mind-manipulating and high-demand ("cultic") groups and programs. Many members and supporters of these groups/movements are not fully aware of the extent to which they have been abused and exploited. This checklist of characteristics helps to define such groups. Comparing the descriptions on this checklist to aspects of the group with which you or a family member or loved one is involved may help determine if this involvement is cause for concern.
The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
The group is preoccupied with making money.
Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
1/2.
Angel Wilson
The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth).
The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).
The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).
The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).
The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.
Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group.
Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
2/2.
Dominic Young
Well. This is unnerving. So does any of this apply to the Batfamily?
Nolan Watson
Some of it, yeah.
Ryan Rivera
It's pretty accurate.
Carter King
Can it be called a cult if it's only ~8 people?
John Lewis
It would explain Barbara being passed around the Robins and how Cassie knows how Bruce takes his coffee.
Ryan Rogers
An alarming amount of it.
Nicholas Green
>If a group that you belong to has many of the following criteria to a significant degree, you have cause for concern:
>The group is led by a one or a few individuals, charismatic, determined, domineering.
>The leader(s) are self-appointed and claim to have a special mission in life. Frequently, that mission is messianic or apocalyptic. Leaders answer to no higher authority, such as an oversight board. They are sole interpreters of doctrine and policy -- which may change frequently and whimsically.
>The group centers its veneration on the leader(s) directly, rather than on God, a higher political power, science, or whatever.
>The group structure is hierarchical and authoritarian. Rarely will you find an open election in a cult.
>The group tends to be totalitarian, with elaborate rules and rituals that occupy large parts of every day. To break a rule or ignore a ritual carries the danger of expulsion from the group.
>The group usually has two or more sets of ethics: one for the leadership, another for the membership; one for outsiders, another for insiders; a relaxed set for recruiting purposes, a much more demanding set for the committed member.
>The group usually presents itself as innovative and exclusive, even elitist.
>The group has two main purposes: recruiting new members and fund-raising. It's unlikely to support or even encourage legitimate charity work, except as a front for recruitment.
Oliver Williams
Reminder Bruce Wayne has a thing for young black haired boys. He made Jason dye his hair black to resemble his first boy Dick.
Christopher Carter
>The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
Check
>The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
Nope. New members usually happen reluctantly. They don't actively recruit.
>The group is preoccupied with making money.
Nope.
>Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
Check
>Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
Maybe
>The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel
Check
>The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).
Check
>The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.
Check
>The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).
Check
>The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).
Check
>The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
Nope
>Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.
Check
>Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group.
Check
>Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
Maybe
Carter Cruz
If not for the second criteria you could be describing a sports club
Brody Richardson
It really check, like, 90% of the boxes. Fuck.
Carson Thomas
Is it a cult if they’re all constantly shitting on the supposed “leader”? It’s more like an abusive relationship. Bruce abused them, they plan to leave, he says sorry, and they all come back because this time it will be different.
Christopher Price
Is Bruce Wayne the Raniere of the DCU?
Blake Williams
That sounds like Stockholm syndrome
Parker Wood
Kara, NOOOOOO!!
Colton Hill
Its a child sex ring
Chase Jenkins
What are you implying?
Daniel Bennett
>Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group.
>Check
When?
Isaac Ross
Is Barbara the sex slave of the cult?
Adrian Foster
>The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
But Batman does that all the time...
Tyler Martin
Go to bed Wertham, you're dead.
Asher Reyes
Where are Tim Drake parents? School friends? His college plans?
Joshua Butler
nah, Bruce only has time for glorious boipussy
Michael Moore
Guys, Chloe has been spending too much time in Gotham...
Xavier Miller
She and Steph are their broodmares.
Caleb Miller
Batman's a child groomer.
Brandon Peterson
I can't recall Bruce ever guilt tripping the other members of the bat family. He usually guilt trips himself.
Grayson Ramirez
>Peer pressure and control
>Dependency on the leadership
>Separation from normal society
>Use of harassment
>Loss of identity
Checks out.
Levi Wilson
>Where are Tim Drake parents?
Murdered by Captain Boomerang Sr. at the behest of Jean Loring.
Landon Anderson
What about his other relatives?