Vulnerabilities in Cult Victims (and Articles)

Kayla Tucker's article “Vulnerability: The Bait for Cult Leaders" focused primarily on how cults manage to ensnare members by preying on their vulnerability. However, her article had quite a few vulnerabilities of its own. To summarize, Tucker explored the idea of vulnerability, and how cults and their leaders used these identities to draw in victims and convince them to stay with the cult. She employed appeals to mainly ethos and pathos, but ran into some trouble by overusing pathos. My first qualm is the fallacy she frequents: Ad Hominem. Multiple times throughout the article, Tucker would describe the cults, their leaders, and methods with an obviously negative bias, additionally stirring up more fear towards said topics. This combination of Ad Hominem and borderline Fear Mongering, in my opinion, decreased the credibility of the article. There were other instances of discredibility, mostly stemming from ill word choice or ignorance on a topic.

Aside from the negatives, however, Tucker drew her information from a nice spread of psychologists and sociologists, who both have authority on the subject and lend their title to the appeal to ethos. Her personal interest in the subject is visible in her work, and the writing itself isn’t too bad. It’s only unfortunate that her mistakes seem to overshadow her research and investment in the article.