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It’s Always the Other Side That’s Been Brainwashed

t wasn’t so long ago that respectable psychologists didn’t really talk about “brainwashing.” The term had the slightly kitschy flavor of other Cold War embarrassments—C.I.A. spy cats and Reds-under-the-bed paranoia. But Google’s indispensable Ngram Viewer, which analyzes how frequently phrases appear in printed texts, confirms that the past two decades have seen an uptick in the word’s usage. What’s bringing brainwashing back? One potential answer is the rise of technologies suspected of having mind-controlling powers, chief among them social media. Another is the entrenched political polarization of our time. When the cousin you kicked a soccer ball around with as a child starts spouting unhinged…

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 I’ve been brainwashed!

One of the first questions I’m always asked is, “What are you working on?” In this society we are considered failures if we aren’t constantly working. This is part of the brainwashing. We don’t need to just work hard all the time, we’re expected to lift up the economy by buying things that we don’t necessarily need and making others richer.

 The True Story of Brainwashing and How It Shaped America

Fears of Communism during the Cold War spurred psychological research, pop culture hits, and unethical experiments in the CIA

 You get brainwashed whenever you go to sleep (and that’s a good thing)

We’ve all heard of brainwashing, but usually in regard to someone joining a cult or falling prey to a conspiracy theory. As it turns out, our brains frequently indulge in a much more literal form of sudsing. Our brains are constantly floating in vats of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which serves to cushion these monumentally important organs as we go about our daily lives. Scientists have hypothesized for some time now that CSF also has a role in clearing out toxins.

Articles of Interest

Brainwash Yourself: The Conscious Choice to Reprogram Your Mind

What you feed your brain matters. Here are six tips to take control of your thoughts and create a more positive outlook. When we hear the word brainwashing, we usually imagine something negative that some evil hypnotist does to us. Well, I'm here to tell you that you can brainwash YOURSELF in a positive way.

The Future of Brainwashing in Neuroscience and Social Media

Twenty-first century brainwashing researchers will also exploit the capa­bilities of a very different area—social media. Recall how governments seized upon pharmaceutical developments in obstetrics and used those drugs to facilitate interrogations. How could countries not study social media as a tool for brainwashing in the twenty-first century? If that sounds too far-fetched, recall that brainwashing is facilitated by limited communication with outsiders and when people are subjected to surreptitious destructive coercion. How well does that describe the capabilities of social media when it is deployed for disinformation, fake news, stoking fundamentalism and extremism? To answer that question, one needs to recall social media’s roots in social psychology, advertising, social modeling, and social intoxicants.

The history and science behind why we're all vulnerable to brainwashing

We tend to associate “brainwashing” with cults and hostages, but author and science historian Rebecca Lemov says it can happen to anyone. Her new book “The Instability of Truth" explores the history and science of brainwashing and what it can teach us with misinformation on the rise.

'Brainwashed' Examines the Value of Brain Scans

In the new book Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience, co-authors Sally Satel and Scott Lilienfeld examine the science behind some recent brain imaging research. Satel joins host Ira Flatow and other guests for a look at what brain scans can — "and cannot — "tell us about human behavior and how the mind works.

Brainwashed: A New History of Thought Control by Daniel Pick review

This brilliant exploration of psychological manipulation takes in both Mao’s China and the American dream.

Brainwashing by Social Media: A Threat to Freedom, a Risk for Dictatorship

Do human freedom and free will exist? Again: might they exist in a physically-determined world? These are questions highly debated amongst philosophers in the past centuries who until now could not resolve these problems than continue to foster distant and often opposite positions.

Emma Thompson is right, women have been ‘brainwashed’ to hate their bodies

Back in 2017, a survey conducted by this very magazine, found that 97% of women say they have at least one negative thought about their body image every single day. Every. Single. Day. Over the average lifetime, that's a minimum of 27,375 thoughts.

Have You Been Brainwashed?

As many people are now realizing, what we’ve taken for granted as truth in nearly every aspect of society for years is being revealed as nothing more than a multi-layered web of deception. Just look at the people around you going about their daily walk: see their heads slightly bowed, glassy eyes riveted to their phones as their thumbs swipe through scrolls of news, sharing articles with their friends about new discoveries, government, health, education, media, art, science—you name it.

How People Get Brainwashed Without Realizing It

Brainwashing doesn’t always look dramatic; it often employs subtle tactics to bypass critical thinking and reshape beliefs and identities. Indeed, various models have been proposed over the years to describe it.

How To Unbrainwash Yourself (Combatting Cult Mind Control)

"Brainwashing" has the appearance of The Wizard of Oz - a performance put on due to the unethical coercion of the man behind the curtain. Someone forcing a pattern of thought and behavior on another person. But it's way more sinister than that.

How We Became Brainwashed By Social Media

Social media is neither social nor is it a good source of news.

How Your Brain Cleans Itself—Mystery Solved?

Talk about brainwashing—a newfound plumbing system, identified in mice, likely helps the brain empty its waste, a new study says. Because mouse biology is similar to ours, the same findings should apply to people too, experts say. Thanks to a blood-brain barrier—a natural wall that protects the brain tissue—the organ never touches blood, thus protecting it from microbes, viruses, and other pathogens.

Is Google Maps brainwashing us? It might be if the theory of ‘extended cognition’ is correct

As Google strategist-turned-philosopher James Williams notes, technologies’ low-level engagement goals include “maximizing the amount of time you spend with their product, keeping you clicking or tapping or scrolling as much as possible, or showing you as many pages or ads as they can.” The more time spent on our phones, the more of our attention they demand, and the more integrated they are in our cognitive processes.

It’s true! American schools do brainwash children. Just not in the way I thought …

Parents, beware! If you send your impressionable young child to school in the US they are at risk of contracting a nasty case of the woke-mind virus. There’s a good chance a teacher will turn your kid trans and, in the middle of maths, whip out surgical equipment to perform gender-affirming surgery. We know this because – despite any evidence to back it up – our esteemed leader, Donald Trump, has said as much.

Remembering Brainwashing

The concept of brainwashing was the brainchild of Edward Hunter, a newspaperman born in 1902, who had covered the rise of fascism in Europe before joining the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency, during World War II. The Korean War had just begun in 1950 when The Miami News published his article, “ ‘Brain-Washing’ Tactics Force Chinese Into Ranks of Communist Party.”

The brainwashing myth

Finally, if brainwashing really existed, more people would join and stay in these groups. But studies have shown that members of new religions generally leave the group within a few years of joining. Even advocates of brainwashing theories are abandoning the term in the face of such criticism, using more scientific-sounding expressions such as “thought reform” and “coercive persuasion” in its stead.

The brainwashing myth

Finally, if brainwashing really existed, more people would join and stay in these groups. But studies have shown that members of new religions generally leave the group within a few years of joining. Even advocates of brainwashing theories are abandoning the term in the face of such criticism, using more scientific-sounding expressions such as “thought reform” and “coercive persuasion” in its stead.

Your brain ‘washes’ itself at night. Sleep aids may get in the way

Your brain’s natural rinse cycle flows while you sleep. A new study suggests certain medications interfere with that important nightly ritual.

“Brainwashed” and Other Dehumanizing Words

We all know what brainwashing is. Right? It’s one of those dismissive terms that “everybody” knows about. They couldn’t tell you what it involves or exactly how it’s supposedly done, but they know it’s there because good old Mr. “Everybody” says so.

Resources

Brainwashed

Brainwashed opened its doors on April 16, 1996, to host the websites for Meat Beat Manifesto and Greater Than One . It was built using discographies of Christopher Miller and wrapped in content and news and images from the artist as well as links to record companies and other resources fans might be interested in. The point of these websites was to provide a true central place for information on the web for a few musical artists, whereas a record label's website disregarded activity outside the record label and fan websites on places like Geocities had little in terms of information about the artists and their history.

Brainwashed Undone

My name is Susie Lauri, and I’m a Certified Trauma, Resilience and Grief Coach. I stand for those of you who have been abused, betrayed, emotionally neglected, and outcast for speaking the truth—for those who don’t have a sense of belonging and feel like something is missing inside. And also for those who feel disconnected from themselves, not knowing their own limits with others.