I’ve heard people on the platform relate how people have replied to the question of brainwashing that they thought their brains need a good washing.
I think that it’s not so much mental laziness as it is a need to cope with an intrinsic sense of insecurity. It’s a sort of placebo effect in that people have a sense of calm and optimism when they believe that they are in the hands of a good doctor, psychiatrist, faith healer, or “religious practitioner” such as an evangelistic ministry or a quasi-religious movement such as the Watchtower. They can thereby allow themselves to come under their “care,” trusting that at least someone is competent enough to sort of “do the driving” for them and lead them to security, stability, prosperity, and perhaps ultimate salvation.
It’s sort of like how I like to put my trust in taking a daily multivitamin like “Centrum” – I trust that it has a sufficiently balanced proportion of essential vitamins and elements which has a reasonable efficacy to my health. I don’t want to bother taking a bunch of separate supplements or herbal remedies; I just trust that whatever is in each of those Centrum tablets is what it should be – I just trust the men in the white lab coats to figure it out for me. . . . But, unlike a bunch of disingenuous knuckleheads like the Governing Body, I know that those men in white lab coats in the pharmaceutical industry know what they’re doing.