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Brainwashing and You
17 years ago
General
I saw an interesting documentary on brainwashing techniques last month and just felt like making a journal about it :)
Whenever we think of brainwashing we imagine people tied to chairs and being tortured or injected with stuff, hypnosis or even bizarre signals from the tv. However real brainwashing is very different than what we imagine it to be and in fact it is so common that many of us practice or exploit it almost every day.
The main operators in brainwashing a person:
-High stress
-Controlled environment
-An authority figure
-Prevention of focused thought through busywork or other means.
It sure doesn't take much to get those conditions set up and their result is that we enter a "receptive" state and any authority figure no matter how absurd can simply come in and tell us what to believe. So long as those conditions are maintained even the most strong willed individual will be brainwashed.
Now we're all familiar with social institutions that operate with these systems: School, the military, cults, certain religious orders and even the TV. Lets take TV as an example; it's not the most powerful brainwashing device but it does have the advantage of a voluntary audience. Often conspiracy theorists will harp about how they're emitting brainwashing signals, however as you may have guessed that's not really true. If you're glued to the TV you're automatically exposed to a controlled environment as everything you see and hear is very much controlled by the TV. If you watch the news you're likely to notice that it exploits fear and tends to be pretty stressful, always pushing a panic when it can. Of course focused thought when watching TV is difficult too since you're really not thinking and just absorbing information. That all combined puts you into a receptive state and anyone that presents themselves as an authority is quite capable of brainwashing you.
You can probably figure out from that example a lot of other institutions that also use similar methods.
Now here's when we get to how we operate in a world full of receptive people and how instinctive brainwashing can be. Many people will gravitate to those that are in a receptive state and try to come off as an authority to them. This is especially common among "alpha" people and those that aspire to lead. It happens all the time and it's so subtle even those that exploit it fail to notice that it's happening.
There ya go, yet another bizarre journal from Mif_Maf
Whenever we think of brainwashing we imagine people tied to chairs and being tortured or injected with stuff, hypnosis or even bizarre signals from the tv. However real brainwashing is very different than what we imagine it to be and in fact it is so common that many of us practice or exploit it almost every day.
The main operators in brainwashing a person:
-High stress
-Controlled environment
-An authority figure
-Prevention of focused thought through busywork or other means.
It sure doesn't take much to get those conditions set up and their result is that we enter a "receptive" state and any authority figure no matter how absurd can simply come in and tell us what to believe. So long as those conditions are maintained even the most strong willed individual will be brainwashed.
Now we're all familiar with social institutions that operate with these systems: School, the military, cults, certain religious orders and even the TV. Lets take TV as an example; it's not the most powerful brainwashing device but it does have the advantage of a voluntary audience. Often conspiracy theorists will harp about how they're emitting brainwashing signals, however as you may have guessed that's not really true. If you're glued to the TV you're automatically exposed to a controlled environment as everything you see and hear is very much controlled by the TV. If you watch the news you're likely to notice that it exploits fear and tends to be pretty stressful, always pushing a panic when it can. Of course focused thought when watching TV is difficult too since you're really not thinking and just absorbing information. That all combined puts you into a receptive state and anyone that presents themselves as an authority is quite capable of brainwashing you.
You can probably figure out from that example a lot of other institutions that also use similar methods.
Now here's when we get to how we operate in a world full of receptive people and how instinctive brainwashing can be. Many people will gravitate to those that are in a receptive state and try to come off as an authority to them. This is especially common among "alpha" people and those that aspire to lead. It happens all the time and it's so subtle even those that exploit it fail to notice that it's happening.
There ya go, yet another bizarre journal from Mif_Maf
If i were to be specific and say that it was a fireman yelling at the person to jump would that change anything? Do you trust the intentions of the fireman simply because they are an authority figure? What if it turns out to be some crazy individual dressed as a fireman yelling at people to jump out windows?
I would trust the fireman (to an extent) because in a house on fire, they are experts. If it was just about anybody else (say a cop) I'd ignore them. If they were crazy, they wouldn't be in a fully dressed fireman's suit in a house on fire yelling at people to jump.
I know all to well...as an alpha type person myself...
All in all, this is just my guess.
Spending my developing teenage years in the throes of paranoid schizophrenia, I've actually developed a huge resistance to brainwashing, and it gets me in trouble a lot. Everyone else can easily accept this smarmy regulatory thing that the boss says is true through a deluge of passive-aggressive jargon, but I can't help but ask for them to explain it- of course they can't, so it ends up making them look like an idiot, tapping into other base reactions, and man, do I ever get in for it.
It's tough to see things for the way they are, and so easy to get swept under.
I'd add one more criteria to that list: insecurity.
Alot of people are more weak-willed and insecure then we like to think they are, and combined with those four factors, brainwashing is easy.
best example of brainwashing in our time
greatest threat to free thinking in our time (well almost)
It's foolish to think that because we realize it we are somehow exempt from its effects. Heck the concept of society itself is built on a foundation of people believing authority figures.
whimper
Now NLP, there's some hardcore brainwashing :D
-High stress
-Controlled environment
-An authority figure
-Prevention of focused thought through busywork or other means.
Why does this sound like every job I've hated? It probably doesn't help that my response to someone trying to overbear/bully/assume authority over me triggers an anger/combative response in me. If the attempt is subtle and limited, and there's a clear logic to it, such as a cop directing me to a detour or asking for ID because I happen to be in an area that something bad has happened in, I have no problem, but any attempt to use force on me without explaining the situation starts me on the road to a berserk rage at the bully.
Add the fact that i question ANY 'authority' and I'm pretty much in the highly resistant to brainwashing category.
Also explains why I never managed to get anywhere when trying to sell Amway (now known as Quixtar), I couldn't 'accept' the brainwashing that would have gotten me to convince other suckers to join.
Thease days I'm flying around the Jefferson Park area, right by the big transit nexus.
If you ever get to the Midwest Furfest, look for me, I'll be the eagle in the lab coat.
yep, brainwashing is everywhere, we just don't perceive it easily X3
Even I have succumbed to it, though the brainwashing was more of a pain teacher...i.e. "Do what I say, or I will make you push yourself off the ground until your arms fall off."
<shudders> S'why I am getting out this year.
The only prevention is a "sanity check" by comparing everyday to the time before military and find the virus (how they have changed you) and overwrite it with the "back up" (time before you were in the military.
They pulled me out. Proof positive that care and love can erase brainwashing just as effectively as a 12-step program. I'm still messed, but I live my life now to what I want from it. True, I still have 8 months of service left, but they're not getting me to sign that re-enlistment paper.
Makes it a tad easier to handle. >:3