"World According to Jim" Based on Cult Brainwashing?

Download Audio

I know you guys don't watch this nonsense, but there's an interesting post about this on Cult News from Rick Ross.

The philosophy “Artie” concocted and later taught his disciple Belushi is a facile, self-serving mix of Robert Bly (Iron John), with a dash of John Gray (Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus) presented through a mass marathon training weekend format much like EST, which Sterling himself was once involved in.

Apparently the former “Estie” realized the profitability of such seminars and essentially copied the format to create his own spin-off of another guru’s teachings named Werner Erhard, formerly known as Jack Rosenberg, who just like Sterling had changed his name too.

Much like his mentor Belushi’s book is largely derivative and it appears the sitcom star may have done the Sterling Weekend himself. He offers warmed over “Sterlingisms” such as “men don’t apologize for being who they are,” with such original thought as “Beer does not judge you” reports the Chicago Sun-Times.
...

Sterling teaches what are affectionately called his “$50.00 tips” such as the following:

Men don’t have any emotional needs (that can’t be gotten from a dog)

Men should never discuss feelings with women

Men should never do anything with women that they do with men (in a competitive sense) like play golf, tennis, etc. because women take it personally.

There is no room for competition in a relationship

Women are 100% responsible for the relationship

Women are attracted only to power and resources or the potential to get these things.

Women marry for power and resources, not love.

Men marry for love.

OK--men don't have emotional needs, but they marry for their emotional needs. There's no contradiction that I can see.

I don't have a problem with men trying to work on their self-esteem. But relinquishing responsibility for any value is obviously a smart thing to do. And if you want to be screwed up, and I can't blame you, why not believe that you have no emotional needs? Hell, why not believe that if you feel anything, you're a dirty, dirty woman. And who in their right mind would want to be a smelly one of those? Icky, icky. My first thought when I read this article was "that's so gay." Why?

One of the most bizarre features of the ”Sterling Weekend” is its finale. At the conclusion of the seminar the participating men strip naked for a male bonding ritual that is routinely videotaped by Justin Sterling’s devoted “volunteers.”

Is there a video of Jim Belushi dancing naked sitting up on Justin Sterling’s shelf?

Well, it's not gay, as in a normal, healthy, out-of-the closet gay man. It's gay as in married guy who stalks around in parks after dark for male action, discovers good way to hide gay behavior in a hyper-masculinized cult, not unlike the Nazis. In this way, Sterling is as masculine as the Village People.

Nobody's fooled but Jim Belushi.