Author | Robert Jay Lifton, M.D. |
---|---|
Translator | Richard Jaffe (Chinese) |
Cover artist | Shelley Gruendler |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Subject | Psychology Brainwashing Mind control |
Genre | Non-fiction |
Publisher | Norton, New York (1961, first edition) University of North Carolina Press (reprint) |
Publication date | 1961, 1989 (UNC Press reprint) |
Media type | Paperback |
Pages | 524 (1989 reprint) |
ISBN | 0-8078-4253-2 |
OCLC | 19388265 |
153.8/53/0951 19 | |
LC Class | BF633 .L5 1989 |
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China is a non-fiction book by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton on the psychology of mind control.
Lifton's research for the book began in 1953 with a series of interviews with American servicemen who had been held captive during the Korean War. In addition to interviews with 25 Americans, Lifton also interviewed 15 Chinese who had fled their homeland after having been subjected to indoctrination in Chinese universities. From these interviews, which in some cases occurred regularly for over a year, Lifton identified the tactics used by Chinese communists to cause drastic shifts in one's opinions and personality and "brainwash" American soldiers into making demonstrably false assertions.
The book was first published in 1961 by Norton in New York. [1] The 1989 reprint edition was published by University of North Carolina Press. [2] Lifton is a Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.
In the book, Lifton outlines the "Eight Criteria for Thought Reform":
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism popularized the term "thought-terminating cliché". This refers to a cliché that is a commonly used phrase, or folk wisdom, sometimes used to quell cognitive dissonance. Though the clichéd phrase in and of itself may be valid in certain contexts, its application as a means of dismissing dissent or justifying fallacious logic is what makes it thought-terminating.
Examples include “Everything happens for a reason”, “Why? Because I said so” (Bare assertion fallacy), “I’m the parent, that’s why” (Appeal to authority), “To each his own”, “It's a matter of opinion!”, “You only live once” (YOLO), and “We will have to agree to disagree”.
The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.
In George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four , the fictional constructed language Newspeak is designed to eliminate the ability to express unorthodox thoughts. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World society uses thought-terminating clichés in a more conventional manner, most notably regarding the drug soma as well as modified versions of real-life platitudes, such as "A doctor a day keeps the jim-jams away".
In her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem , Hannah Arendt described Adolf Eichmann as a pseudo-intellectual who used clichés and platitudes to justify his actions and the role he played in the Jewish genocide of World War II. For her, these phrases are symptomatic of an absence of thought. She wrote "When confronted with situations for which such routine procedures did not exist, he [Eichmann] was helpless, and his cliché-ridden language produced on the stand, as it had evidently done in his official life, a kind of macabre comedy. Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention that all events and facts make by their existence." [6]
Brainwashing is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwashing is said to reduce its subject's ability to think critically or independently, to allow the introduction of new, unwanted thoughts and ideas into their minds, as well as to change their attitudes, values, and beliefs.
Margaret Thaler Singer was an American clinical psychologist and researcher with her colleague Lyman Wynne on family communication. She was a prominent figure in the study of undue influence in social and religious contexts, and a proponent of the brainwashing theory of new religious movements.
Hannah Arendt was a German-born American historian and political philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.
A cliché is an element of an artistic work, saying, or idea that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being weird or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning, referring to an expression imposed by conventionalized linguistic usage.
A thought-terminating cliché is a form of loaded language, often passing as folk wisdom, intended to end an argument and quell cognitive dissonance. Its function is to stop an argument from proceeding further, ending the debate with a cliché rather than a point. Some such clichés are not inherently terminating; they only become so when used to intentionally dismiss dissent or justify fallacious logic.
Thought reform can refer to:
Robert Jay Lifton is an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of wars and political violence, and for his theory of thought reform. He was an early proponent of the techniques of psychohistory.
Steven Alan Hassan (pronounced ; born 1954 is an American author, educator and mental health counselor specializing in destructive cults. He has been described by media as "one of the world's foremost experts on mind control, cults and similar destructive organizations," though social scientists are divided on his work. He is a former member of the Unification Church, founded Ex-Moon Inc. in 1979, and in 1999 founded the Freedom of Mind Resource Center. He has written on the subject of mind control and how to help people who have been harmed by the experience. He created the BITE Model evaluation of controlling social groups to quantify cult-like behavior.
Indoctrination is the process of inculcating a person with ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or professional methodologies.
In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), by George Orwell, the Thought Police are the secret police of the superstate of Oceania, who discover and punish thoughtcrime, personal and political thoughts unapproved by Ingsoc's regime. The Thinkpol use criminal psychology and omnipresent surveillance via informers, telescreens, cameras, and microphones, to monitor the citizens of Oceania and arrest all those who have committed thoughtcrime in challenge to the status quo authority of the Party and the regime of Big Brother.
David Cesarani was a British historian who specialised in Jewish history, especially the Holocaust. He also wrote several biographies, including Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind (1998).
The People's Volunteer Army (PVA) was the armed expeditionary forces deployed by the People's Republic of China during the Korean War. Although all units in the PVA were actually transferred from the People's Liberation Army under the orders of Chairman Mao Zedong, the PVA was separately constituted in order to prevent an official war with the United States. The PVA entered Korea on 19 October 1950, and completely withdrew by October 1958. The nominal commander and political commissar of the PVA was Peng Dehuai before the ceasefire agreement in 1953, although both Chen Geng and Deng Hua served as the acting commander and commissar after April 1952 due to Peng's illness. The initial units in the PVA included 38th, 39th, 40th, 42nd, 50th, 66th Corps; totalling 250,000 men. About 3 million Chinese civilian and military personnel had served in Korea throughout the war.
The anti-cult movement consists of various governmental and non-governmental organizations and individuals that seek to raise awareness of cults, uncover coercive practices used to attract and retain members, and help those who have become involved with harmful cult practices.
Milieu control is a term popularized by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton to describe tactics that control environment and human communication through the use of social pressure and group language; such tactics may include dogma, protocols, innuendo, slang, and pronunciation, which enables group members to identify other members, or to promote cognitive changes in individuals. Lifton originally used "milieu control" to describe brainwashing and mind control, but the term has since been applied to other contexts.
A platitude is a trite, meaningless, or prosaic statement, often used as a thought-terminating cliché, aimed at quelling social, emotional, or cognitive unease. The statement may be true, but its meaning has been lost due to its excessive use.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a 1963 book by political thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers of the Holocaust, for The New Yorker. A revised and enlarged edition was published in 1964.
Combatting Cult Mind Control is a nonfiction work by Steven Hassan described as a "Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults." The author discusses theories of mind control and cults based on the research of Margaret Singer and Robert Lifton as well as the cognitive dissonance theory of Leon Festinger. Park Street Press, a New Age and alternative beliefs publisher, first published the book in 1988. In 2015, Hassan's own Freedom of Mind Press issued a revised 30th anniversary edition, Combating Cult Mind Control, featuring Hassan's new analysis of how coercive groups use social media to gain undue influence and updates on organizations that he alleges practice mind control. The book, according to the author's website, has been re-published in seven different languages.
Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control is a 2004 popular science book explaining mind control, which is also known as brainwashing, thought reform and coercive persuasion, by neuroscientist and physiologist Kathleen Taylor. It explains the neurological basis for reasoning and cognition in the brain, and proposes that the self is changeable, and describes the physiology of neurological pathways. It reviews case studies including Patty Hearst, the Manson Family, and the mass murder/suicide of members of Peoples Temple at Jonestown, and compares the techniques of influence used by cults to those of totalitarian and communist societies. It lays out a model FACET – Freedom, Agency, Complexity, Ends-not-means, and Thinking – which she believes can be used to negate the influence of brainwashing techniques.
Thought reform in China, also known as ideological remolding or ideological reform, was a campaign of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to reform the thinking of Chinese citizens into accepting Marxism–Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought (Maoism) from 1951 to 1952. Techniques employed included indoctrination, "struggle sessions", propaganda, criticism and self-criticism, and a variety of other techniques.
Hannah Arendt is a 2012 biographical drama film directed by Margarethe von Trotta and starring Barbara Sukowa. An international co-production from Germany, Luxembourg and France, the film centers on the life of German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt. The film, distributed by Zeitgeist Films in the United States, opened theatrically on 29 May 2013.