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The only difference is, there isn't necessarily some charismatic celebrity directing how the language develops, but rather some stodgy institution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators
When you think about it, though, language is often used to create barriers between the general public and some exclusive organization; e.g. you have to learn Latin to understand Roman Catholic canon law.
Cults love to have some barrier to entry to the inner circle, so that you have to make a huge investment in order to get into it. That keeps the casual and the insincere out, and makes those who commit themselves feel like they'd be losing a lot if they quit.
Cults are highly relevant to our lives because everything that was ever successful was some kind of cult. America is having its downfall now because it's ceasing to be any kind of exclusive cult anymore. Even though people say this country is about an idea and that it's a nation of immigrants, in reality the barriers were kept pretty high by the difficulty in making the voyage to America back in the old days, and learning English, and all that. Plus you had to be white.
The people who originally built this country were largely cultists, viz., Puritans, who like the Mormons had to flee persecution and start from scratch, settling a new land.
One of the functions of a cult is to reassure the individual, "Yes, yotu fit in; you have social support as long as you follow this way of thinking. Let's stick together and circle the wagons against these evil outsiders who want to destroy everything we hold dear." People who don't have that end up being pretty defenseless because they're so isolated, and can easily find themselves lacking a strong sense of direction.
When you think about it, though, language is often used to create barriers between the general public and some exclusive organization; e.g. you have to learn Latin to understand Roman Catholic canon law.
Cults love to have some barrier to entry to the inner circle, so that you have to make a huge investment in order to get into it. That keeps the casual and the insincere out, and makes those who commit themselves feel like they'd be losing a lot if they quit.
Cults are highly relevant to our lives because everything that was ever successful was some kind of cult. America is having its downfall now because it's ceasing to be any kind of exclusive cult anymore. Even though people say this country is about an idea and that it's a nation of immigrants, in reality the barriers were kept pretty high by the difficulty in making the voyage to America back in the old days, and learning English, and all that. Plus you had to be white.
The people who originally built this country were largely cultists, viz., Puritans, who like the Mormons had to flee persecution and start from scratch, settling a new land.
One of the functions of a cult is to reassure the individual, "Yes, yotu fit in; you have social support as long as you follow this way of thinking. Let's stick together and circle the wagons against these evil outsiders who want to destroy everything we hold dear." People who don't have that end up being pretty defenseless because they're so isolated, and can easily find themselves lacking a strong sense of direction.
