I'm not defending anything, Steven. I'm not telling you what you should or should not do. Please, follow your conscience in all things. I am simply pointing out that the SPGB's maximalist intellectual approach is idealist. The end goal - the only thing that matters to the organisation - is an imagined social order, which members are expected to believe is possible. If you doubt, then you're out. So I would regard it as a cult. Cults vary. Some are vicious, some are harmless. The SPGB is one of the most innocuous ones, I'm sure. I remember attending at least one debate at Clapham High Street in the 1980s and at the time found the atmosphere there perfectly pleasant, if a little unreal. But looking back, the debate was essentially theological.