Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 17, 2000, Page 25
the designated out-groups. The fact that members of such groups respond angrily to such
suggestions, and even organize counter-demonstrations, becomes further evidence to the
cultist that he or she is surrounded by enemies. The drawbridge forming a link to reality is
raised. On the other hand, if there is no public reaction, it merely constitutes evidence that
the conspiracy has grown even more devious in covering its tracks.
Accordingly, the belief system is immune to falsification. Whatever happens, whatever could
possibly happen, is taken as evidence of its essential correctness. Many Identity
enthusiasts, for example, argue vehemently that the Oklahoma bombing in 1995 was part
of a plot to discredit the right and was actually the work of the US Government, (Tourish &
Wohlforth, 2000). The Waco siege in 1993 was not a bungled FBI operation, but a ZOG
inspired assault on Christian dissenters. One long time supremacist, Eustace Mullins,
penned the following critique of what occurred:
The Waco Church Holocaust, in which many worshippers, including innocent
children, were burned alive while worshiping in their church (was) an
atrocity which surpasses the worst accusations made against the Nazis in
Germany. (Cited by Stern, 1996, p.64)
In essence, paranoia is the nearest thing we have to a perpetual motion machine. It
requires no further impetus than a starting point, and a modest injection of determination.
The more self-contained its social environment and the fewer inputs it receives from the
outside world, the stronger it is likely to become. As Dyer (1998, p.112) has put it:
The power of conspiracy rests in faith: in the ability to believe in things
unseen, to be sure of something that cannot be proven by our senses or by
documentation. Faith has always been a stronger force in the world than
mere reason, and because of that, debunking conspiracy theories is almost
impossible.
Conspiracy theories can sink such deep roots because members of hate groups tend to see
those in minority categories as interchangeable with all other members of the category.
However brilliant their achievements, the fact of their group membership is the most
important thing about them. In this world, we do not live in communities composed of
individual people. Rather, we are besieged by homogeneous hordes of aliens, devils, rabid
feminists, half-apes, and sodomites, all out to get us.
This perspective is so often contagious precisely because the habit of blanket categorisation
is practised far beyond the confines of Identity inspired communes and rural retreats.
Hence, the social climate for supremacist ideas is frequently nurturing. The Christian
Identity movement simply gives such categorisation a more strident form, and proclaims it
with pride rather than shame. Furthermore, it seeks to turn prejudice from a mood of
incandescent anger into a coherent movement, capable of imposing a separatist agenda on
the wider society.
Uncertainty, Stereotyping, and Cult Recruitment
We live in a period of unprecedented social change. Clearly, many of the changes endured
in the past two decades (e.g., downsizing, delayering, globalization) have been profoundly
painful for millions of people. Identity theology draws much of its strength from a reaction
against this upheaval. Many commentators have extolled the virtues of rapid change and
urged people to embrace it willingly (e.g., Peters, 1992). In general, such counsel is as
successful as that of a surgeon who grimly urges her patients to ―enjoy your operation.‖ It
simply runs counter to how most of us feel. For example, in terms of work, people generally
prefer to do a job the way in which it has been learned, performed, and reinforced in the
past (Moorhead &Griffin, 1989). Change makes our world less familiar, predictable, and
comfortable, and we therefore tend to react instinctively against it. In turn, the desire to

Cultic Studies Journal, Volume 17, 2000, Page 26
increase predictability, and maintain a sense of order, ensures that we attach great
importance to the reduction of uncertainty during our interactions with others (Jones,
1990).
In order to reduce uncertainty, we develop an increased tendency towards hasty
generalizations, the formation of rapid judgments about people, crude social
categorizations, stereotyping, and the ready embrace of simplistic political slogans. Error is
implicit in the process. For example, we may ―brutalize‖ reality when an object, person, or
event is conscripted into a category, despite characteristics it possesses which do not belong
there (Bruner &Potter, 1964). We may also attribute emotions to the ―object‖ which it does
not hold (e.g., a hatred of all whites), but which we imagine are common to the
interchangeable members of the category (Snyder &Uranowitz, 1978). Nevertheless, our
confidence in such misperceptions tends to be high.
Some such stereotyping is inevitable. All of us bring considerable existing knowledge with us
to any new interaction. Such knowledge includes person prototypes (what this person is
typically like), role schemas (what someone playing this role is most likely to do) and typical
event sequences or scripts (what most often happens in this situation). In particular, the
fastest way to reduce uncertainty in an unfamiliar social context is to stereotype the other
people involved by assuming that they belong to a readily identifiable category (Leyens et
al., 1994). We rely less on person prototypes and more on role schemas and typical event
sequences. Stereotypes assume that individuals share more behaviors, personality traits,
and beliefs with other people in their category than they actually do. Stereotyping helps us
to simplify social reality, and so reduces uncertainty.
It is then assumed that members of the designated category share this essence with each
other. In turn, this strengthens the tendency to exaggerate similarities between the
members of the social category concerned, while underplaying their differences. We also
assume that members of the category concerned are more different from people in other
categories than is actually the case. For those who adhere to a belief system such as
Christian Identity, the problem is that their stereotypes seek to explain everything, and are
immune to corrective input from the outside world. Again, the psychological dynamic is
similar to that found in many Marxist-Leninist sects that are gripped by apocalyptic
expectations and certain that the philosophy of dialectical materialism explains all
conceivable phenomena, from the Big Bang to fluctuations in the business cycle.
Stereotyping, as discussed here, underpins the whole process of ethnic generalization and
prejudice formation. In particular, it has obvious implications for our understanding of right
wing extremism, with its evident bias towards racism.
The impact of stereotyping individuals, groups, and events can also be understood in terms
of attribution theory (Hewstone, 1991). This proposes that we constantly attribute both
intention and disposition to the actions of other people. The problem is that we cannot
directly discern what their intentions and dispositions are. To our frustration, what goes on
in people‘s heads remains largely inaccessible. Not to be defeated, we by-pass this difficulty
by taking the route known as creative theorizing. In social situations, this assumes the form
of gossip and rumor. Gossip becomes stories, in which we frequently construct plausible
causal connections between unconnected events in order to lend extra coherence to our
view of the world (Dawes, 2001). Plainly, plausibility is not the same thing as accuracy, and
stories do not have to be accurate to feel plausible. The purpose behind their construction is
the reduction of uncertainty. Rather than admit that we do not know what is happening,
most of us have a tendency to speculate. When we share such speculations with others we
engage in self-persuasion (Pratkanis &Aronson, 1991). In addition, research suggests that
we have a tendency to believe that whatever is repeated is more likely to be true (Cialdini,
2001). Furthermore, if those we talk to acknowledge that what we say might be correct, we