On Sunday, April 14th, the Boston group held our first Schelling Day celebration. The idea was to open up and share our private selves. It was a rousing success.
That doesn't do it justice. Let me try again.
By all the stars, you guys. This was beautiful.
About fifteen people showed up. Most of us were from the hard core of Boston's rationalist community. Two of us were new to the group. (I'm hopeful this will convince them to start attending our regular meetups.) There was a brief explanation and a few vital clarifying questions before we began the ritual, which went for maybe 90-120 minutes, including a couple of short breaks. All of us spoke at least once.
I don't want to go into specifics about what people said, but it was powerful. I learned about sides of my friends I would never have guessed at. People went into depth about issues I had only seen from the surface. I heard things that will make me change my behavior towards my friends. I saw angst and guilt and hope and pain and wild joy. I saw compassion and uncertainty and courage. People said things they had never said before, things I might not have been brave enough even to think in their position. I had tears in my eyes more than once.
Speaking went remarkably smoothly. I set a timer for five minutes for each speaker, but it never ran out. (Five minutes is a surprisingly long time.) Partway through, Julia suggested we leave a long moment of silence between speakers, which was a very good idea and I wish I'd done a better job of enforcing it.
Afterwards, we had a potluck and mingled in small groups. At first we talked about our revelations, but over time our conversation started drifting towards our usual topics. Next time, in order to keep us on topic, I'll probably try adding more structure to this stage.
The other area I wanted to improve was the ritual with the snacks. We had five categories: Struggles, Confessions, Hopes, Joys, and Other. There weren't many Hopes, and there wasn't much distinction between Struggles and Confessions. I'll change this for next time, possibly to Hardships, Joys, Histories, and Other. There's room for improvement in the specific snacks I picked, too.
This celebration was the most powerful thing I've experienced since the Solstice megameetup. I don't think I want to do this again soon—it was one of the most exhausting things I've ever done, even if I didn't notice until after I'd left—but I know I want to do it again sometime.
To everyone who came: I'm so proud of what you did and who you are. Thank you for your courage and sincerity.
I'm much happier to have the discussion on that level, but I think the primary argument you've put forward is the definition. If the definition isn't important enough to contest, it's not important enough to rest your argument on- and so you need to identify the causal mechanisms by which these behaviors are harmful.
The elements on the list that pertain to these rituals are "Use X to Y": "use chants to suppress doubt" and "use confessions to control by guilt." You notice the chants and confessions and are worried- but it's the Y that make cults harmful. If there's a group activity that includes confessions as a guilt-reducing measure, then that should be evidence against cultishness and harm, but it's not clear that you would see it that way. Notice the "if": I don't think the ritual as practiced is designed to reduce guilt for all participants, though it may do so for some participants.
Saying "I would be worried about sharing private information in a setting like this, and I think others should be worried as well" is a valuable contribution to the discussion, but "This smells like cultishness" is not. (In particular, it seems wise to include a warning that, while the group is composed of friends, three can keep a secret only if two are dead, in order to discourage people from sharing things it would be unwise to share even semi-privately.)
What would earned loyalty look like?
Also there is a huge difference whether the information sharing is voluntary or involuntary.
(Where "involuntary" includes also stuff like: "you have a right to remain silent, but then you will burn in hell for eternity, mwahaha!" or "we are not going to pressure you into telling anything, this is just a friendly talk, am I right? but your unwillingness to cooperate could reflect negatively on your assessment report, so why don't you think about it again and then tell us your decision".)
Without pressure, sharing information in group is just sharing information on a group scale.