Editing Cargo cult (section)

=== Discourse on cargo cults ===
According to Ton Otto, the most forceful criticism of the term ''cargo cult'' comes from Nancy McDowell, who argues that cargo cults don't really exist as a distinct phenomenon, but rather reflect a general bias in some observers to view change as sudden and complete rather than gradual and evolutionary. Otto disagrees, arguing that McDowell overly focused on just one aspect of the term (the perception of change), and that the term remains a valuable analytical and comparative tool because it encapsulates a range of features that, when combined, allow for useful comparisons of [[social movement]]s that frequently shared similar characteristics, even if not all features were present in every case.<ref name="Otto-2009"/>{{rp|86-7}}

Otto also summarizes Lamont Lindstrom's analysis and examination of "cargoism", the discourse of Western scholarship about cargo cults. Lindstrom's analysis is concerned with Western fascination with the phenomenon in both academic and popular writing. In his opinion, the term ''cargo cult'' is deeply problematic because of its pejorative connotation of backwardness, since it imputes a goal ([[cargo]]) obtained through the wrong means ([[cult]]); the actual goal is not so much obtaining material goods as creating and renewing social relationships under threat. [[Martha Kaplan]] thus argues in favor of erasing the term altogether, though Otto argues the term remains useful.<ref name="Otto-2009"/>{{rp|87-9}} The term ''cargo cult'' is increasingly avoided in the field of [[anthropology]] for failing to represent the complexity of Melanesian beliefs.<ref name="jarvis">{{Cite web|last=Jarvis|first=Brooke|date=2019|title=Who Is John Frum?|url=https://www.topic.com/who-is-john-frum|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190418154125/https://www.topic.com/who-is-john-frum |archive-date=2019-04-18 |access-date=|website=Topic}}</ref>

In the late 1990s, religious scholar [[Andreas Grünschloß]] applied the term "cargoism" to adherents of [[UFO religions]] regarding their [[Millenarianism|millenarian beliefs]] about the arrival of [[Extraterrestrial intelligence|intelligent aliens]] on technologically advanced [[spacecraft]]s on planet Earth, in comparison to the [[Melanesians|Melanesian islanders]]'s faith in the return of [[John Frum]] carrying the cargo with him on the islands.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Grünschloß |first=Andreas |author-link=Andreas Grünschloß |date=December 1998 |title=«When we enter into my Father's spacecraft». Cargoistic hopes and millenarian cosmologies in new religious UFO movements |url=https://archiv.ub.uni-marburg.de/ep/0004/article/view/3771/3587 |journal=[[Marburg Journal of Religion]] |publisher=[[University of Marburg]] |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=1–24 |doi=10.17192/mjr.1998.3.3771 |issn=1612-2941 |access-date=6 October 2024}}</ref>