I don't find cult too strong a word at all in this context.

The idea that we are all, somehow, part of a cult of consumption and greed, while true, is confounding and demoralizing. How do we get out of a cult of which we were, until recently, unaware? Boy, we must be dumb. Given this, how can we be trusted to do better? Etc.

Far more effective to identify those who created the cult, to show how it benefits their interests to the detriment of our own, to subvert the hold that The Myth of the Cult has over our perceptions and to show how that has led to the current organization of our economies and societies.

That's all.  

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."