How the Slinky Helped to Destroy Indigenous Cultures

Cracked has an article titled “5 Inventions You Won’t Believe Came From War”. In this case, “five” is like the Bible: Not to be taken literally. The “five” inventions are:

Tampons

Twinkies

Slinky

Silly Putty

Frisbee

Tabasco Sauce

Nylon Stockings

They tell us that Richard James was a naval engineer. In 1943, he was trying to develop some springs to cushion delicate electronic equipment from being battered around when the ship gets tossed on the waves or hit by enemy fire.

One of his failed attempts was a weak little spring. Cracked picks up the story:

Knowing that there was nothing kids loved more than coiled metal…

Actually, that’s incorrect. They like broken glass more.

…James figured he just might have invented the world’s greatest toy ever. Within two years, James found the perfect metal for his toy idea and scored a $500 loan to build his first batch, which he sold in 90 minutes. A few years later, probably still haunted by his failure to actually keep the battleship equipment safe, James gave it all up and ran away to join a cult. Go figure.

Well, that sounds intriguing! Giving up a million-dollar idea and running off to join a cult! I clicked on both links in the article to find out more.

KXNET tells us very little:

Betty James took over management of the company in 1959 after her husband left her to follow a religious cult in Bolivia.

The Guardian says only a little more:

This is an even bigger achievement than it at first appears, because Richard James (1914-74)… walked out of his own unexpectedly successful toy manufacturing company. In 1960 he also left his wife, Betty, and six children, to join a fundamentalist religious cult in Bolivia. (The cult benefited from much of the company’s money earned from the Slinky.)

So the troublesome bit here is that some bunch of wacko loons received a big wad of cash from the wacko loon who invented the Slinky. The consensus seems to be that the wacko loons benefitting from this largesse are some sort of fundie cult. But which fundie cult?

I checked Wikipedia’s Richard James article. The story becomes a little less salacious, but no less troubling:

Around 1960, Richard wanted his wife to go with him to Bolivia with Wycliffe Bible Translators. When she refused, he told her he did not care what she did with the company. Betty James took over as CEO of James Industries and rescued the company from the debts left by her husband’s generosity to his religion.

So who is Wycliffe Bible Translators?

Wycliffe Bible Translators is an interdenominational organization mandated to making a translation of the Bible in every living language in the world, especially for cultures with little existing Christian influence.… There are currently branches in over 50 countries.

…

Wycliffe bases its philosophy on Townsend’s Protestantism which regards the intercultural and multilinguistic spread of Christianity as a divine command. Protestantism, including this organization, adheres to the principle of sola scriptura and regards Biblical texts as the authoritative and infallible word of God.

So Wycliffe is part of the whole Christian imperialism movement to convert the entire world. It’s fundie manifest destiny.

The one thing it isn’t, is a cult. There are many definitions of cults. Most religions easily fall into the broader definitions. However, The Cracked article was clearly using the narrower, more derogatory definition (also known as “dangerous cults”) to lump Wycliffe in with Heaven’s Gate and the Branch Davidians.

We don’t need to do that. Wycliffe Bible Translators are dangerous enough on their own. I would argue that they are even more dangerous than a run-of-the-mill Moonie-style cult. Dangerous cults usually don’t get too big. Wycliffe Bible Translators is in 50 countries actively converting people all over the globe to their special brand of lunacy. Wycliffe Bible Translators are just one of many Christian missionary groups that are actively destroying the culture of the local people and replacing it with their own defective culture.

And prior to 1960, the Slinky contributed to this spread of destruction.