"Brainwashing" does not exist

by logansrun 55 Replies latest jw friends

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  logansrun

  The term "brainwashing" is sometimes thrown around this forum and I thought I'd briefly comment on it.

  The idea that a group or person can actually make you think, act and feel in a certain way is highly dubious. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I highly doubt that any ex-JWs have ever experienced "brainwashing." Why? Because, although the JWs and other groups can use coercive measures to pressure you into thinking/acting/feeling a certain way, in the final analysis they cannot force you to do anything. We choose to give in. We are active participants in structuring the JW philosophy into our minds.

  In reality, the idea that someon could be "brainwashed" springs from some very outdated psychological notions, notably Freudianism and Behaviorism. While there is some truth to both these schools, there also is much error and incompleteness with their views. BF Skinner and John B Watson were both behaviorists who felt that humans are essentiallly like rats and can be made to do anything, given proper reinforcement (punishmment/reward). Humans, according to behaviorism, are nothing more than stimulus-response machines no different from a lower animal. Pavlovs dogs revisited. (Isn't it interesting that the idea of "brainwashing" became popular around the same time -- the 40's and 50's -- that behaviorism was all the rage?)

  This view is no longer accepted by the vast majority of psychologists. In the 60's and 70's a "cognitive revolution" swept through scientific psychological circles. Men like Noam Chomsky, Jean Piaget, Albert Bandura, Albert Ellis, Aaron T. Beck and the like all showed that humans are NOT totally at the mercy of outside forces the way the behaviorists argued. Instead, we are active participants with the outside world. Further research showed that there is a gap between stimulus and response -- and this gap is where we can make decisions. Whether we like it or not, ultimately we are responsible for what we do and how we think and feel. Thus, I believe "brainwashing" -- unless there is some form of psychoactive drug or phyical force involved -- to be utter bunk.

  This does not mean that enviornment unimportant or that outside forces do not greatly contribute to how we make decisions. You would have to be a fool to think that they don't. But "brainwashing" connotes that the person is totally and completely at the will of his/her "brainwashers" -- and this view is simply unscientific and wrong.

  Bradley
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  Euphemism

  I've got to go back to work so I don't have time to give a detailed response to this. Ultimately, I think it's an issue of degree. Complete brainwashing a la Manchurian Candidate (I'm talking about the original, where it was done psychologically, not with a computer chip) is a fiction. But humans are creatures of our environment, and the more control you have over that environment, the more you can circumscribe people's behavior.
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  logansrun

  Furthermore....

  To believe in "brainwashing" is to reduce humans to unthinking machines who are not able to draw their own conclusions or make connections between what they are being "fed" by the pressuring group and the rest of their experiences. No one lives totally inside a cult, at least not the JWs. As evidence of this think of all the Witness youth who are raised in it, sometimes by very dogmatic JW parents, and yet recognize that it's not the "truth." Why didn't the "brainwashing" work in their cases?

  And, why was I and everyone here able to break free from our previous Witness way of thinking if we truly "couldn't help" the way we think?

  B.
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  AlmostAtheist

  from American Heritage dictionary

  brain·wash·ing
  n.

  1. Intensive, forcible indoctrination, usually political or religious, aimed at destroying a person's basic convictions and attitudes and replacing them with an alternative set of fixed beliefs.
  2. The application of a concentrated means of persuasion, such as an advertising campaign or repeated suggestion, in order to develop a specific belief or motivation.

  I don't know, Bradley, it sounds like your definition is too narrow. If brainwashing really meant what you say, then the word just wouldn't have any meaning at all. I think the idea here is that brainwashing creates the environment (you allow has an impact on the individual) that is most conducive to encouraging a person to adopt a set of ideas that they would not otherwise adopt.

  Gina and I went to a high-pressure sales session once. The guy set us up, bringing in a few different people at different times, insulting us, challenging us. My guess is these tactics must work or he wouldn't continue making his living doing it. Essentially he was trying to erase my filters against his sales-pitch/lies and replace them with acceptance of the idea.

  JW's do the same thing, but they don't apply pressure, they apply love. "Nobody will ever love you like we do, now here's what you have to believe to make us keep loving you. You want to be loved, don't you?"

  Is that brain washing? I don't see how you could deny that JW's fully qualify under both of those definitions.
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  Elsewhere

  I was watching a program last night about flying. One of the people made a very interesting observation: Pilots who are under stress can develop a psychological "tunnel vision", more precisely, in their ability to reason. Once they reach a conclusion they will stick with it regardless of any information provided that is to the contrary.

  An example was given of five pilots off the coast of Florida during WWII. They were lost and running low on fuel with no land in sight. The commanding officer in that group was absolutely convinced that he was West of Florida (over the Gulf of Mexico) and therefore needed to fly east to reach land. The control tower had information that indicated that the aircraft were East of Florida and needed to go west and instructed the pilots to change course accordingly.

  The commanding pilot refused and continued flying east until they all ran out of fuel and crashed in the Atlantic Ocean.

  I wonder if "true believers" of any given religion experience the same "tunnel vision" in their reasoning.
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  codeblue

  Elsewhere, great analogy

  A JW that was told he was "off course" in his worship, will most likely tell the person that his course was the "right course" and IF anybody is off course it would have to be the "non JW".

  CodeBlue
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  Realist

  bradley,

  i have to strongly disagree with some of your statements.

  I never was a JW and cannot comment on whether it is appropriate to accuse them of brainwashing.

  However humans are nothing more than machines. Highly complex with the ability to weigh and overlook the near future outcome of our decisions...but nevertheless nothing more than that.

  Our decisions are caused by the genetic programming as well as the environmental stimuli we received throughout our lifetime.

  Of course any individual can be said to be responsible for a certain action...but the same would then apply to animals.
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  Country_Woman

  would you cal it "indoctrination" then ?
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  iiz2cool

  2. The application of a concentrated means of persuasion, such as an advertising campaign or repeated suggestion, in order to develop a specific belief or motivation.

  This sounds familiar. "Repetition for emphasis" comes to mind.

  When I was a JW I would have vehemently denied being brainwashed. Now I can see the persuasion techniques, but if it can be called brainwashing, then I submitted to it voluntarily. No one dragged me to the kingdom hall against my will.

  Walter
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  Valis

  http://www.cnn.com/US/9803/25/heavens.gate/