Benjamin Zablocki

Benjamin Zablocki (January 19, 1941 – April 6, 2020) was an American professor of sociology at Rutgers University where he taught sociology of religion and social psychology. He published widely on the subject of charismatic religious movements, cults, and brainwashing.

Benjamin Zablocki
Born(1941-01-19)January 19, 1941
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died(2020-04-06)April 6, 2020 (aged 79)
New Jersey, U.S.
OccupationProfessor of Sociology
Academic background
Alma materColumbia University (BA)
Johns Hopkins University (PhD)
Academic work
Sub-discipline

Early life and education

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Zablocki received his B.A. in mathematics from Columbia University in 1962 and his Ph.D. in social relations from the Johns Hopkins University in 1967, where he studied with James S. Coleman.

Career

Zablocki was the Sociology department chair at Rutgers University. He published widely on the sociology of religion.[1][2][3]

Zablocki was a supporter of what he called 'the brainwashing hypothesis'.[4] Other scholars, Zablocki notes, commonly mistake brainwashing for both a recruiting and a retaining process; it is merely the latter, however.[5] This misunderstanding enables critics of brainwashing to set up a straw-man, and thereby unfairly criticize the phenomenon of brainwashing.[5] For evidence of the existence of brainwashing, Zablocki refers to the sheer number of testimonies from ex-members and even ex-leaders of cults.[6] Zablocki further alleges that brainwashing has been unfairly "blacklisted" from the academic journals of sociology of religion. Such blacklisters, Zablocki asserts, receive lavish funding from alleged cults and engage in "corrupt" practices.[4]

Selected works

Books
  • The Joyful Community: An Account of the Bruderhof: A Communal Movement Now in Its Third Generation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1971, reissued 1980) ISBN 0-226-97749-8
  • Alienation and Charisma: A Study of Contemporary American Communes. New York: The Free Press. (1980) ISBN 0-02-935780-2
  • Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2001. w/ Thomas Robbins (Eds.) ISBN 0-8020-8188-6

Articles
  • The Blacklisting of a Concept: The Strange History of the Brainwashing Conjecture in the Sociology of Religion. Nova Religion, Oct. 1997
  • Methodological Fallacies in Anthony's Critique of Exit Cost Analysis, ca. 2002,
  • The Birth and Death of New Religious Movements ca. 2005
  • Ethics and The Modern Guru ca.2016 Interview on brainwashing

References
  1. Lucas, Phillip Charles; Robbins, Thomas, eds. (2009). New Religious Movements in the Twenty-first Century: Legal, Political, and Social Challenges in Global Perspective. New York, New York: Routledge. p. 313. ISBN 978-0-415-96577-4.
  2. Oakes, Len, ed. (1997). Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities. Syracuse New York: Syracuse University Press. pp. 158–159. ISBN 978-0-8156-2700-5.
  3. Antes, Peter; Geertz, Armin W.; Warne, Randi Ruth, eds. (2004). New Approaches to the Study of Religion Vol 1: Regional, Critical, and Historical. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. p. 428. ISBN 978-3-11-017698-8.
  4. Zablocki, Benjamin. (October 1997). "The Blacklisting of a Concept: The Strange History of the Brainwashing Conjecture in the Sociology of Religion". Nova Religio. 1 (1): 96–121. doi:10.1525/nr.1997.1.1.96.
  5. Zablocki, Benjamin (2001). Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field. U of Toronto Press. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-8020-8188-9.
  6. Zablocki, Benjamin (2001). Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field. U of Toronto Press. pp. 194–201. ISBN 978-0-8020-8188-9.
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