Borrowed Benevolence: Arturism and the Rhetoric of Care in Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love

This article begins from a small but deliberate detail in Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love: the cult led by Arturo Binewski is called “Arturism,” a name built by swapping out the very element that makes “altruism” mean concern for others and replacing it with the founder’s own identity. Most existing scholarship approaches the cult through the lens of bodily spectacle or disability theory, passing over this naming choice as decorative rather than load-bearing. Taking the name seriously, this essay proposes it as a compressed version of the novel’s central claim – that systems built on exploitation persist by borrowing, rather than abandoning, the language of generosity. This analysis uses Kenneth Burke’s work on persuasive rhetoric as a framework to follow the borrowed vocabulary through the cult’s preaching, recruitment, and internal policies. In Miss Lick’s campaign of elective surgery, the same logic resurfaces, proving that genuine belief is no obstacle to the pattern repeating. Taking these into account, the article argues that Geek Love locates power not simply in bodily coercion or charismatic authority, but in the capacity of benevolent language to redescribe harm as a gift.