brainwashing:

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by chimpkin, Dec 30, 2011.

  1. ULTRA Realistically Surreal Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,555
    Hi Chimpkin. I've not read all that, some of it looks very much like spurious nonsense to me. The brainwashing techniques that you are interested as the OP is the deliberate breaking and reconditioning of a mind a la KGB. This is really hardcore psychiatry - psychiatry as a weapon against the person or the state.
    " You are number 6".
    "I am not a number, I am a free man....",
    >silence<
    "Haaaahahhhahhhaha!"
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

    Messages:
    4,634
    i wish i was free. maybe one day . I can only hope . I just wonder what you all have in store for me in the Future . I am not all that happy about the things you all make me do to this point . Who cares anyway .
    We are all brain washed just by interaction with any and every bit of information . To see the brain washing first hand by the sign of the times is a freaky thing. Reading it is weird. I don't know if I like it . Being able to read the signs of life and all that is . It makes it look like humans are one mean animal

    So the thing is most people are controlling and use brain wash to sub-due all who they deem subordinate to them selves . Who is every one they see as beneath there own status . It makes them feel they have the right and even obligation to brain wash you into excepting your lower status in life .

    You all look like lizards to Me . The way you all use your lips like weapon .

    I am Back ! Did you all miss Me ? Kisses
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,416
    Yep. *Licks eyeball*
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Psyche Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    135
  8. ULTRA Realistically Surreal Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,555
    One question is: What does the act of brainwashing a subject give you that other methods such as blackmail, violence, threats of death or worse do not. Hypnosis and brainwashing although being different both come from the same root as far as I can see and have an action deep within the core of the mind. I am always amazed how hard people find it to deprogram brainwashed subjects, and this is not always successful. With the original persona destroyed all that is left is the programming. And why do subjects often resist being deprogrammed even though they've been told they've been damaged and need fixing. It would appear to subvert all logic, all instinct and learned responses too.
    I was wondering too how long it would take to brainwash somebody (typically), and are there specifc boundary layers that have to be destroyed and reconstructed.
     
  9. Psyche Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    135
    The most profitable thing in the world to own is human beings. But this is only true if you can brainwash them into loving their servitude. The horrible things perpetrated in the name of faith and patriotism are a window into the minds of people convinced they are morally obligated to obey masters. Consider that once a person loses his identity in the collective or in the great leader he has lost all ability to act as an autonomous unit. You can then direct his energies to serve whatever ends satisfy your desires. Another advantage is that having experienced brainwashing, victims will now project all of the negative associations of that original trauma onto anyone or anything that attempts to deprogram them. Enslaved by being told that their strongest instincts were evil they have tremendous psychological capital invested in never turning off the internalized voice of "Big Brother", making it virtually impossible for those instincts that tell them who they really are to resurface. Those instincts are still there, but they have been repressed/mutilated and therefor mutated into the constituent energies that make up the false self persona.
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2011
  10. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,416
    That's an excellent analysis.

    I'm trying to find the article (ARGH!) that said that in order for brainwashing to keep working, the environment has to support the "reformed" persona...

    From http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing32.htm

    Having been subjected to thought reform in cults has been noted to cause the following spectrum of effects:
    http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing21.htm

    One can view the successfully washed brain as an adaptive phenomena to an abusive situation. It lowers cognitive dissonance and/or coercive tactics and results in positive attention from the rest of the organization.
     
  11. Psyche Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    135
    I thought this was dramatized very well in the comedy I Heart Huckabees. Jude Law's character is a celebrity at the office. He is very charming, handsome, always moving up through the organization and is an expert at getting people to like him in order to get what he wants, and because of his superior people skills he doesn't have to fear anyone. Yet he is not being true to himself. He is just playing a character. Wearing a mask. He's been doing it so long that he doesn't even remember who he is any more. And breaking his illusions about himself is extremely traumatic, even humiliating.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZCpXngFXoU
     
  12. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,105
    ASBO's were initially a bit more than that. For instance having someone walking into a shop smoking a cigarette, drinking alcohol and throwing abuse at the staff about their ethnicity is obviously not the same as just having the right to use a shop wearing a hood.

    The problem was it was aimed at dealing with pre and post adolescent behaviour, which in turn meant that the "children" that were getting them were actually collecting them like other people into sports would attempt to collect trophies.

    I remember hearing a conversation between pubescent reprobates trying to out do each other with how many they had received and how they had received them. When such a system is treated like a reward scheme, it only proves how much of a failure it truly was.
     
  13. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,105
    On the subject of brain washing, obviously it's seen as quite a joke to most because after all those that claim it are usually misfiring, drawing conclusions or trying to entangle everything within some grand scheme.

    It's easy to associate such rants as due to paranoid delusions or schizophrenia, in fact the truth start of all brain washing actually occurred with mental health professionals and doctors. After all if a patient isn't receptive of the "Normal" world and seems to be detracted, how do you think the initial concepts of "How to fix the broken" was initially considered.

    You only have to look at the various experiments on this subject conducted in the 1930's, notably in Germany, in fact it makes you wonder if Hitler himself was "rebuilt" through such techniques considering the make up of his supporters being mostly Psychiatric professionals (It would at least explain the Aryan 'faux pas' through Eugenics).

    It's always assumed in media that any potential "victim" of mind control will be used as a low level pawn. Perhaps a Manchurian Candidate or patsy, some how the most straight forwards and direct potential always seems to allude the limelight, even though the history of "Puppet Dictators" has many chapters.

    In essence while the world might contain infinite pawn's, the true directive for any mastermind manipulator is bringing a king into check. (Notice not Checkmate, the removal of play from the whole schema of things undermines any form of 'power play'. Namely checkmating a king generates a void that only chaos can fill and then the ensuing power struggle of new players not "conditioned".)

    In years of old, Kings would have taste testers to make sure their food was not poisoned, some people that fall foul of "Mind Control" are actually the kings men "Volunteered" to taste test (Volunteered means not given the choice over the potential actions you can take).

    Incidentally the "King" in this instance is a metaphor for any person that places themselves high up the food chain and attempts to portray themselves as "In-expendable". There are hundreds, thousands, if not millions of people capable of filling their shoes and perhaps even occasionally capable of doing a better job in their position.

    There is a potential bright future for such equipment however if the secrecy and "cloak and dagger" mentality is lifted.

    Imagine a world where a political party takes "Transparency" to an all new level. The equipment used for clandestine brain washing is in turn used to capture, record and report all actions by the party members, with the reasoning to make sure that being a representative of people means having the people they represent know exactly the troubles and tribulations dealt with on a day to day basis.

    No background communications or hidden meetings between leaders of particular countries but straight forwards direct communication which is reported publicly when and where it happens. If a Leader thinks another leaders tie is to bright, or that his wife should join one of the weight watchers camps, it too would have to be completely public if they utter it while in power. It's the absolute nature of "Damocles Sword". (Unconnected but a quote none the less important would be... "Live by the sword, Die by the sword".)

    Having absolute publicity means there are no secrets to keep, with nothing to hide it undermines the old cold war mentality of super-secret spy rings and espionage. It would lessen corruption of state, since those that might blackmail would be seen publicly attempting to do so.


    If only it could be taken seriously, the world could have significant changes:
    ------------------------------------------------------------
     
  14. Gustav Banned Banned

    Messages:
    12,575
    oh my
    shades of assange
     
  15. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    Do you know anyone who, upon simply being told
    "You are damaged and you need fixing"
    would simply agree, and go along with the proposed procedure of fixing?


    This seems to assume that people were not programmed before they were brainwashed; that prior to brainwashing, they were good, genuine, normal people.

    I suspect that people who are "brainwashed" in fact realize, at least intuitively, that the entire process of socialization is an act of brainwashing to begin with.


    In philosophical terms, this is about issues of theory of truth, knowledge acquisition, decision making, basic categories etc.

    Generally, people like to believe they know what truth is and how it can be obtained; but a closer inspection reveals otherwise.
    Traditionally, philosophy has readily acknowledged these problems, in fact, it made them its core.
    But culture in general, shuns them, and not rarely pathologizes them (for example, wondering about the meaning of life and contemplating suicide is considered pathological).

    But most people do not possess the educational, intellectual and practical capacities to deal with these problems philosophically, so they are bound to modes of conceptualization that are far less precise than philosophy can offer (so they are left addressing issues on the level of cultural or emotional terms), and as such, suffer from this lack of precision.
     
  16. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    I'm not so sure about your analysis of this.

    If you look at the questions they are asking him and the topics they talk about, they would qualify for psychological manipulation.
    It's essentially character assassination. It is also a fairly common way to approach human interactions nowadays.

    It is easy to bring a person into discomfort by questioning them about their personality traits and by making implicit or explicit (pseudo)psychological diagnoses about them, as any attempt that the person makes to explain or justify themselves, leads to further negative diagnoses. Eventually, such a questioner can always prove to be right, and the questioned person looks sick and can even begin to seriously doubt themselves.


    I don't think that Law's character was "wearing a mask," in fact, I don't think anyone ever "wears a mask."
    Rather, I see it as simply that he did what he thought would help lead him to his goals. If one lives and works among wannabe psychologists, one may have to do some pretty crazy things to attain one's work goals.
     
  17. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

    Messages:
    4,634
    mine or yours ?

    I am reading the hidden language better all the time . What people want ? They want to be the center of attention individually. Power of attraction is working strong on this as I complement the stranger at the store the response is this gathering of more people looking for validation . This creates a type of vacuum.

    Meaning one person gains joy from the attention and others will flock to see if they can be part of the joy . They want to be part of the feel good .

    In there response you can hear there hidden desires and then capitalize on those desires by feeding there ego . Hench more joy and more people come to get the joy. As long as you stay in the subordinate roll and make them the center of attention every thing is grand , but once you start to promote your self to higher level there lizard self comes out to put you back in the subordinate roll . Accused of to much pride . This happened 3 times while I was banned ( real life situations ) They got to be kidding . I was stripped of pride as a baby . So in this case they are reading me wrong or they want to keep me in a subordinate roll . It was there pride projecting on to me .

    So now one person thinks I changed . Wrong . I am the same Me as always . Slowly stepping forward at a steady rate . There perception of Me is what changed . I projected a different side of the story of my life and they see it as Me changing . Stuff they could of been aware of , but there own image of what I am suppose to be clouded there perception .

    We see such small slices of each others lives and then what ? Try and stuff em in our boxes ? Make them conform to the boxes we have made for em ?
     
  18. elte Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,345
    Me-Ki-Gal, your insights tend toward high accuracy and profundity. I appreciate how you are trying to get along with the community on the forums.
     
  19. Psyche Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    135
    The narrative I gathered from this particular scene was that Law's character was living in denial of the guilt he feels over having been his parent's favorite and groomed for success in the business world while his brother, who was never cut out for that sort of thing, was left neglected and wound up fat and sad and obsessed with geckos. Throughout the film "Brad Stand" is shown to be consciously manipulative, and to have a very superficial understanding of relationships. He only ever says to people the things he thinks they want to hear, and is disconnected from what he actually thinks and feels himself. Though I never got the sense that his "real" self is altogether a completely different person, he just needs to approach life from a more honest place. In the story the "wannabe psychologists" are Existential Detectives. They are a fictional device that allows the process of deconstructing an identity to be dramatized in an entertaining way on screen. They are highly exaggerated characters and should not be taken in any literal sense. I definitely agree that to induce someone into an emotional breakdown while they are at work is both unconscionable and highly manipulative.
     
  20. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

    Messages:
    4,634
     
  21. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,256
    :wave: Good to see you.
     
  22. steampunk Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    278
    Susan Loftus has some interesting papers on therapists who've planted memories in the minds of there patients making them believe they had been molested. I find it amazing some minds are so malible.

    Today, I think the biggest brainwashing that has the most significant influence on our economy, social philosophy and individual lives is our housing contracts, especially rent. Collectively 40 percent (could be more since I last checked) of Americans pay for apartments and homes but the landlord gets all the credit for what only thousands can make possible. Its like slavery in early America, many just see it as normal to have the white man take 100 percent credit for the sweat of the black slave. They too got a temporary place to stay, but got cheated out of the real amount of work they did.

    If renters all stood before us today and we asked them, do you want every dollar you put into this represented as your share of ownership? They'd say yes. Its possible for them to have this in the democracy that would bow down to such a majority, but the fact they dont show respect and demand accurate representation of their investment, proves they are brainwashed. Just like African Americans who finally refused and resisted the theft of there efforts.
     
  23. Psyche Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    135
    I think the type of manipulation of each others' consciousness on a casual basis you speak of here is only possible if the invisible pathways of our minds have already been tuned as such towards a manner of defenselessness. A type of understanding of reality that is not declarative but implicit, stored in the body and often mistaken for instinct, as it is automatic and to a large extent unconscious (re: Ash and Milgram). Ideally, serious damage to the integrity of the minds ability to perceive reality for itself is only done through forced associations to more powerful people or institutions. Think of homes, schools, jails, and the military. Note that a lot of people experience their work as a sort of day jail too. These are places where we are most vulnerable, and must be scrutinized the closest in order for a true understanding the nature of the psychological landscape of human society, to provide context for why we read about the things in the paper that we do, and not to take on faith that things are more or less rational or as they should or only can be.
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2012

Share This Page