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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28422 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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Bryan Caplan complaining on X that Mason U is introducing mandatory Just Society courses; https://twitter.com/bryan_caplan/status/1760048714847064146

It looks Conquest's Second Law is still strong as ever. And I guess Caplan's libertarianism will ask for some intervention against it that will never work.

My sister is going through teaching school right now, and the required ideology-enforcement classes are beyond anything I would have ever expected. She’ll send me examples of test questions that are almost verbatim:

True/False: reverse racism can exist.

And you have to answer false, and explain that white people are oppressive colonizers.

There’s also a lot of making her write short essays on how oppressed she is as a woman, how bad white people are, etc. I’m pretty cynical, but I had no idea it was this bad.

For reference this is in what I would consider one of the most conservative states in the country. I think conservatives right now just have no idea how bad it actually is.

Oh, its much worse than that. The things they are requiring your sister to do are an explicit technique pioneered (but not necessarily invented) by Mao's Communists in the 1950s. The Chinese term is literally translated as 'wash brain,' hence brainwashing. The goal is to have the individual adopt the "peoples' standpoint" and the methods involve group shaming (struggle sessions) and repeated exercises which follow the framework of unity-criticism-unity. In words, text, and discussion, you are required to continuously parrot "the peoples' standpoint" (here, reverse racism can't exist), and then explain how you have suffered or made others to suffer according to that perspective (here, I'm a woman so I'm oppressed, or I'm white so I've oppressed others). Thus, applying the classic dialectical framework to one's own mind.

The western discovery of these techniques is usually credited to Robert Lifton, who was a US navy psychologist on assignment in Hong Kong in the early 50s when the first prisoners of Mao's thought reform prisons were just making their way out of mainland China. Lifton wrote an excellent book on the studies he conducted, titled Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A study of "Brainwashing" in China. Its not perfect, he actually underestimated the lengths to which the CCP were willing to go to achieve their goals as the great leap forward happened almost immediately after he finished writing, but its excellent.

I plan to do some summaries of its content as posts.

Edit: here are the 8 main aspects of thought reform as summarized by wikipedia (i know, i know), take a look at 3-7.

  1. Milieu Control. The group or its leaders controls information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.
  2. Mystical Manipulation. The group manipulates experiences that appear spontaneous to demonstrate divine authority, spiritual advancement, or some exceptional talent or insight that sets the leader and/or group apart from humanity, and that allows a reinterpretation of historical events, scripture, and other experiences. Coincidences and happenstance oddities are interpreted as omens or prophecies.
  3. Demand for Purity. The group constantly exhorts members to view the world as black and white, conform to the group ideology, and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here.
  4. Confession. The group defines sins that members should confess either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; the leaders discuss and exploit members' "sins," "attitudes," and "faults".
  5. Sacred Science. The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or all humanity, is likewise above criticism.
  6. Loading the Language. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking.
  7. Doctrine over person. Members' personal experiences are subordinate to the sacred science; members must deny or reinterpret any contrary experiences to fit the group ideology.
  8. Dispensing of existence. The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious, and must be converted to the group's ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also

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