What the
Data Shows
Selected findings from systematic application of the Young-Reed framework across 370 American organizations.
The correlation between authority-axis political position and composite cultiness score across 370 American organizations is r = 0.703.
This is not a small effect. It means that knowing where an organization sits on the authoritarian-to-libertarian axis explains roughly half the variance in its cult-adjacency score. The relationship is not perfect — there are high-control organizations across the political spectrum, and healthy organizations across it as well. But the pattern is strong, consistent, and not explained by coincidence.
The question the dataset raises — and that How We Got Here attempts to answer — is why this relationship exists and how it was built.
How 370 active organizations distribute across the six composite tiers:
Concerning is the largest single tier, accounting for nearly 30% of assessed organizations. The majority of American institutional life sits in the Concerning-to-High-Control range.
Formation-in-resistance produces measurably different profiles
Organizations formed explicitly in resistance to white supremacist power structures exhibit systematically lower cult-adjacency scores than organizations formed in service of dominant culture — even when both have comparable levels of institutional commitment and solidarity. High solidarity does not require cult-adjacent dynamics. The dataset documents this distinction across civil rights organizations, labor unions, and community institutions.
The secrecy gradient drives variance in federal employers
Among federal agencies and defense-adjacent organizations, the strongest predictor of composite score is classification architecture — the degree to which secrecy is structurally embedded in the institution's operating culture. The relationship between mission intensity and institutional harm cover-up capacity is a documented analytical finding, not an assumption.
C9 (Exit Costs) is the strongest composite predictor
Of the ten criteria, exit cost intensity shows the strongest correlation with overall composite score. Organizations that engineer high exit costs — whether through spiritual absolutism, deferred compensation traps, classified knowledge burdens, or social network dependency — tend to score high across the other criteria as well. Exit cost architecture appears to be both a symptom and an enabler of other high-control dynamics.
C6 (Private Vernacular) is the most universal criterion
More organizations check C6 than any other criterion. Specialized vocabulary that marks membership, encodes insider epistemology, and functions as a thought-stopping mechanism appears across organizational types that otherwise look nothing alike — from high-control religious movements to corporate tech cultures to political formations.
Defunct organizations average substantially higher scores
Organizations that no longer exist score substantially higher on average than stable, active organizations. This may reflect survivor bias — organizations with the most extreme dynamics were more likely to collapse, be shut down, or destroy themselves. It may also reflect that the historical record is more complete for defunct organizations than for active ones whose members and leadership can still suppress documentation.
Selected pairings illustrating the framework's analytical range. Both organizations in each pair were assessed by identical criteria.
MAGA (84%) vs. Antifa (32%)
Framework registers asymmetry accurately — both assessed by identical criteria
Black Church (29%) vs. SBC (43%)
Formation-in-resistance produces measurably different profiles than formation-in-service-of-dominant-culture
NAACP (19%) vs. Heritage Foundation (58%)
Civil rights formation vs. political mobilization formation
Labor unions (21–45%) vs. Corporate employers (56–70%)
High solidarity does not require cult-adjacent dynamics
Girl Scouts (6%) vs. Boy Scouts of America (62%)
Same category, different institutional architecture
Democratic Party (6%) vs. Republican Party / MAGA
Instrument divergence confirmed by evidence — not political preference
US Navy SEALs (96%) vs. US Army (61%)
Intensity varies substantially within the same branch of government
Scientology (100%) vs. Presbyterian Church USA (11%)
Same religious category, opposite institutional architectures
High composite scores are descriptive, not normative. A score documents what an organization's institutional architecture looks like — it does not determine whether membership is beneficial, whether the organization's goals are worthy, or whether individuals should leave. Military special operations units score in the Cult tier on both instruments. That documents their formation architecture. It says nothing about whether military service is valuable or whether individual soldiers should reconsider their commitment.
The framework is a diagnostic tool. What you do with the diagnosis is a separate question.