The Effects Of Thought Control

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Lee Johnson

SOC 3223

Dr. Dennis Kennedy

Brainwashing has been a popular subject that has been explored in both science fiction and the real world. People have generally been fascinated with the ability to affect someone else’s mind: making them think what one wants them to think, and making them act as one wants them to act. Popular films like the Manchurian Candidate explored the potentially frightening effects of brainwashing and how they can be applied to create "sleeper agents" able to be activated at any time to perform assassinations. Other movies like the Bourne Trilogy explore how soldiers can be broken down and socially re-programmed to take on entirely different identities in order to become human weapons. In the realm of reality, brainwashing has been used against prisoners of war to change their attitudes towards their captors, re-education camps under communist regimes, and in religious cults to attract and retain impressionable people to fulfill the wishes of some fringe spiritual group. The power of social influence upon another’s mind to effect sociological and psychological change has been both a fascinating and terrifying subject that seeks to understand exactly how far one’s mind can go before it stops being one’s own, and becomes the tool of someone else.

The term "brainwashing" was first coined during the Korean War where tensions between the free West and the communist East were dangerously high. [1] The Cold War was fueled by the growing nuclear rivalry between the United States and Russia, but also among other communist nations such as China, North Korea, and later North Vietnam. [2] The Cold War was not as much a war between armies as it was a war between two competing ideologies: capitalism and individual liberty versus communism and collective action. In order to win this war, the communists resorted to forms of thought control that was conducive to fostering loyalty to their respective ideologies. [3] The most well-known forms of thought control came out of the communist regimes that used such techniques against their foreign prisoners of war and even against their own people. [4] Shortly after the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the ideals of communism spread quickly south throughout East Asia that ultimately culminated in the American intervention on behalf of South Korea against the communist advance. [5] The Korean War was unique in that it was the first conflict where American prisoners of war were defecting to the enemy side in droves after their time of being imprisoned. [6] This struck many Americans as odd, seeing as the conditions these soldiers were being subjected to were so horrific, and it seemed impossible that any sort of sympathy for the enemy could be formed while living under such circumstances. If anything, one might hypothesize that only hatred and hostility would have been more appropriate responses to such brutal environments. It was found among many of the North Korean and Chinese prison camps during the war that the American prisoners there were subjected to such techniques that included sleep deprivation, isolation from their fellow Americans, and partial starvation in order to find a breaking point in the soldiers’ psychological health. [7] When the communists thought the prisoner had been sufficiently "broken," they would begin to offer the American prisoners gifts in exchange for their loyalty. [8] The communists followed a pattern of violently breaking individuals down to the point where they were so desperate for any form of comfort that even defecting to the enemy seemed like the only way. [9] The communists that ran the prison camps were successfully able to coerce loyalty out of their prisoners of war by this same process, and even managed to foster such affection from some prisoners of war that some American soldiers renounced the United States citizenship in favor of Chinese citizenship. [10] Many of these same techniques were employed among the Vietnam’s People’s Army and the Viet Cong where American soldiers were subjected to violent interrogation techniques and outright torture in order to extract information considered critical by the communists. [11] During the Cold War, the communists used brainwashing and thought control techniques to great effect against their enemies, but in order to ensure the survival and spread of communism they also had to employ such techniques upon their own populations or newly conquered populations.

The communist regimes of the Soviet Union and its sister regimes in East Asia were the first to develop a gulag system where the reoccurring brainwashing principle was "correction through labor." [12] Each communist regime differed slightly in its execution of their respective gulag systems, but they all shared in common their function as both prison camps and reeducation centers. The Soviets and communist Chinese, for example, used their gulags as a prison camp in functionality where political trouble-makers were sent to be "reeducated" against any counter-revolutionary ideals. [13] These prisoners were subjected to dangerous working conditions, unsanitary facilities, and malnutrition while also being bombarded with communist ideology and propaganda. [14] After the United States pulled out of Vietnam, the new communist government began the process of constructing reeducation camps for those that had lived under American protection in South Vietnam. [15] Former South Vietnamese military officers, former rebel forces, and skilled workers were arrested and sent to these camps. [16] These reeducation centers were government mandated and seen by the communist government as an imperative step to ensuring a final victory over the South Vietnam population. [17] In these camps, each prisoner was subjected to several classes that emphasized the nobility of communism, the inevitable victory of communism, and the new future the participants could be expected to have under communist rule. [18] Every participant had to write a confession of past crimes against the new regime—even if they had not participated in the war or committed any crimes—and swear an oath to the new communist government. [19] Next, the reeducation camps followed a similar pattern as the North Korean and Chinese camps mentioned earlier: they were all forced into hard labor, their sleep and eating schedules were severely altered, and they were socially isolated from their friends and family outside of the camp. [20] Impossibly strict rules were enforced that prevented prisoners from possessing reading material from the former free government, for missing work, or for attempting to escape. [21] Minor crimes were handled severely with violent beatings or torture, and those who attempted to escape were executed and their peers were encouraged to turn-in other escapees. [22] These techniques ensured that the communists in charge of these camps maintained incredible control over their prisoners, and lasted well into the 20th century until the Cold War came to a close.

The examples from the various communist regimes of the world follow a very similar framework to induce effective control over their targets. Robert Jay Lifton identified a ten step process developed from reports coming from North Korean and Chinese prisoner of war camps: 1) Assault on Identity, 2) Guilt, 3) Self-Betrayal, 4) Breaking Point, 5) Leniency, 6) Compulsion to Confess, 7) Channeling of Guilt, 8) Releasing of Guilt, 9) Progress and Harmony, and 10) Final Confession and Rebirth. [23] All of these steps are used specifically to break down and target and build them back up to fit the new identity the target’s agent wishes them to fulfill. [24] Steps one through three are all designed to make a target feel doubt for his formerly held beliefs and eventually reach a point where the assault on his identity is so severe that he begins to question what his identity actually is. [25] At step five, the agent offers the prisoner a way to redeem himself; if the target accepts, a small gift may follow in order to foster the initial feeling of dependency the target has towards the agent. [26] In the case of a starving and dehydrated prisoner of war, such a gift could be as small as a crust of bread, but in the target’s severely debilitated state a seemingly small kindness imposes a huge impact upon the target’s mind. This is the point where the agent gains all the psychological power, and is able to shape his target however he pleases. [27] To continue with the prisoner of war example, the agent will proceed to step six and seven where the target confesses to his crimes committed against the agent in the hopes that it will bring the target more leniency, and begins to seek restitution for the target’s past crimes. [28] Step eight begins the genesis of the target’s new identity as it is being molded by the agent under the newly imposed belief system, and step nine is the process where the target begins to accept and feel an affinity towards the new belief system. [29] Finally, step ten completes the entire process by accepting his new identity under the new belief system. [30] 

Brainwashing is not just a military or political related phenomenon; in fact, it is quite common within religious cults all over the world. Many of whom still implement the ten step process outlined by Robert Jay Lifton, though they are on the surface seemingly more subdued than the overt violence of the communist practices Lifton observed in North Korea. In the 1960’s in the United States, cult activity spiked during the Counter-Culture movement that came on the heels of the Vietnam War. [31] Many Americans who were the most heavily involved in the Counter-Culture movement began opening themselves to a plethora of new ideas about religion as well as politics that ran counter to their perceived repression under traditional societal and political norms. [32] As a result, several cults began to spring up that promised young impressionable individuals some solace from a very angry and dangerous time in American history through a new form of thought control through the guise of a religious or philosophical group. A cult can be defined as any group strongly devoted to a person or ideal that employs psychologically harmful techniques to attract, control, and even coerce its members to advance the ambitions of the cult’s leaders. [33] Cults are not necessarily religious, and may also build themselves around a certain philosophy, political position, or even pass themselves off as a sort of self-help group. [34] However, cults are significantly different from what one may think of as "New Age" religion or some fringe political bent. The factor that delineates the line between simply a group holding unorthodox beliefs and a true cult is the presence of manipulative techniques to advance the group leader’s self-interest—namely, it is the presence of thought control or psychological coercion that makes this determination. [35] The question then becomes: why would anyone, knowing the destructive nature of cults, want to join one? The answer is not always simple, but perhaps the most accurate answer is that those who join cults were deceived into a cult. Those who join cults are not always the disturbed people one may see in movies or read about in fiction. Many of them are, in fact, what most would call "normal" people who have been systematically seduced into conforming to the cult’s ambitions. [36] 

Cults rely heavily upon effective persuasion techniques. [37] Unlike the communist thought reform programs where physical violence was employed in virtually all cases, cults generally follow a more enticing route where the cult recruit is gradually reeled into a frighteningly isolated state dependent upon the will of the cult. [38] The first stage of cult recruitment begins with a cultists or cult leader beginning by fawning over the potential recruit with love and compassion. [39] This technique is used to entice the recruit to let his guard down and become more open with the cultist about his personal problems and make the recruit more susceptible to persuasion tactics. [40] Other cult members can also be used to validate the cult’s beliefs by expressing all the positive change conversion to the cult has brought them, and perhaps even providing the recruit with personal testimonies of such good—true or not. [41] At this point, the recruit will be more willing to view the cult members in a positive light and will be in a position to decide whether or not to join the cult. [42] Upon receiving membership, the recruit is introduced to the many rules of the cult and subtly discouraged from expressing ideas or feelings that run contrary to the cult’s laws. [43] Such feelings can be suppressed by other cult members by guilt-tripping the recruit out of dissention by playing up the good of the group, or by labeling dissention as a misunderstanding of the cult’s religious or philosophical beliefs. [44] Just like in the prison camp example, cults are subtlety beginning the first step of Lifton’s brainwashing process of assaulting the recruit’s identity, though in a much more indirect and seemingly benevolent way. [45] The next stage of cult membership begins the recruit’s systematic isolation from his former friends and family outside of the cult. [46] In order to firmly establish the preeminence of the cult in the recruit’s life, the cult leader may order the recruit to leave his family to live and work with other cult members. [47] This provides the cult leader with a twofold positive system: he is able to advance the ambitions of the cult through the recruit’s work, and a simultaneously cut the recruit off from his former life. [48] The cult will then begin schooling the recruit in the ideology of the cult, and are sure to emphasize that interaction with outsiders is strictly prohibited, but also necessary for the recruit’s development. [49] It is also not unheard of for cult members to label outsiders as spiritual and philosophical ignorant, and claim that interaction with them will cause adverse effects to the recruit’s development. [50] In addition to receiving social punishment for going against the cult’s teachings, the recruit will receive social rewards for complying with those same teachings. The cult could reward the recruit with praise, or even promote the recruit to a higher position within the cult’s membership if he is particularly eager to devote himself to the cult’s agenda. [51] With time, the recruit’s former identity will pass away and be replaced by a new identity shaped by the cult’s teachings, and unconsciously controlled by the cult leader. [52] The recruit will then pass through the remainder of Lifton’s ten steps and reform themselves into an individual fully conformed to the will of the cult.

Perhaps the most famous example of the sinister practices and destructiveness of cults is the Peoples Temple cult led by the infamous Jim Jones. [53] Influenced by faith-healings and radical communist ideology, Jim Jones built a cult that was initially founded on seemingly benevolent principles as acceptance of racial minorities, helping the downtrodden, and aiding the jobless, the Peoples Temple was warped into the frightening sect that culminated in the deaths of over nine hundred men, women, and children from mass suicide by cyanide laced Kool-Aid. [54] Jim Jones followed Lifton’s ten step process in order to lure impressionable individuals into his disturbing ideology, and successfully brainwash his followers to the point where they whole-heartedly believed mass suicide would be their only way to personal salvation, and will forever be among the most prominent and infamous examples of the destructiveness of brainwashing in the world. [55] Cults, perhaps more so than other modes of thought control, are among the most frightening phenomena in the world’s social dynamic.

From the infamous gulags and prison camps of every totalitarian communist regime to the cults and fringe mega-churches of suburban America, brainwashing remains an actively employed practice in the seedier places of the world. Through brainwashing, one can gradually gain control of the behavior of another, and bend it towards one’s own ends given sufficient time and effective methodology. Psychological and even physical violence can be used to push a person to the breaking point, and turn them into a blank slate able to be shaped in any way one wishes. Unlike the great good that can be accomplished through other forms of honest psychological training where a child can be conditioned to develop a conscience of right and wrong or a soldier can be conditioned save his dying comrade amidst the horrors of battle, brainwashing robs an individual of all his identity in order to refashion him into a shell of his former self, and leaves him as the slave to the whims of a sociopathic master. Brainwashing is the favored tool of tyrants of all forms, both political and sociological, and will forever be subject of research on just how easily one person can gain control of another.