“If desired a man can be completely changed. . . and after such a change has been accomplished, he will be suitable for any purpose.”
Bertolt Brecht
In the totalitarian states of the 20th century, a psychological war was waged on the minds of an unsuspecting public. The main weapon in this war was “thought reform” – a type of mass-brainwashing that created a population of docile and obedient men and women. With much of the modern world moving in the direction of authoritarian and totalitarian rule, it is possible that thought reform is once again being wielded by the ruling classes. In this video, we explore the phenomenon of thought reform, show how it leads to totalitarian rule, and explore how we can protect ourselves from mass-brainwashing and keep our minds free.
“Thought reform is an ever-available method of purification in the service of dictatorship and authoritarian rule.”
Robert Jay Lifton, Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry
The term thought reform is a direct translation of a word used in Maoist China to refer to a series of techniques to purify the minds of political opponents and make them more receptive to re-education. During Mao Zedong’s rule, these techniques transformed ordinary citizens into pawns of the Communist regime. Robert Lifton devoted his career to studying the thought reform used in Maoist China, and as he wrote in his book Losing Reality:
“…despite the vicissitudes of brainwashing, the process that gave rise to the name is very much a reality: the official Chinese Communist program of sixiang gaizao (variously translated as “ideological remolding,” “ideological reform,” or as we shall refer to it here, “thought reform”) has in fact emerged as one of the most powerful efforts at human manipulation ever undertaken… To be sure, such a program is by no means completely new: imposed dogmas, inquisitions, and mass conversion movements have existed in every country and during every historical epoch. But the Chinese Communists brought to theirs a more organized, comprehensive, and deliberate—a more total—character, as well as a unique blend of energetic and ingenious psychological techniques.”
Robert Jay Lifton, Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry
Lifton characterized thought reform as “a pandemic assault on mind and reality,” and he described it as “a systematic and widespread program that penetrates deeply into people’s psyches.” The political groups who use thought reform Lifton referred to as “totalist organizations”, to reflect their desire for absolute control.
“…the mental predators [who make use of thought reform] are concerned not only with individual minds but with the ownership of reality itself.”
Robert Jay Lifton, Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry
The first step in the deployment of thought reform is to create the climate of fear in which this psychological weapon is most effective. It is inconsequential whether this climate of fear is artificially manufactured and the result of what H.L. Mencken called an “endless series of imaginary hobgoblins”, whether it is generated by a small threat that is magnified out of proportion, or whether it is the result of a real threat to society. What is important is that citizens are conditioned into a chronic state of fear. Or as the psychologist Alexandra Stein writes in Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems:
…the deliberate inculcation of fear is, in fact, an essential ingredient of the totalistic control of followers.”
Alexandra Stein, Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems:
To create a collective climate of chronic fear, the totalist organization must always keep some crisis or threat in the forefront of people’s minds. Wars, pandemics, climate catastrophes, domestic extremism, terrorism, extraterrestrials, cyber-attacks, economic collapse, or food shortages – the threats which can be used to create and maintain a state of fear are endless.
In the modern day, the most effective way to deliberately inculcate fear is via a “propaganda blitz”. In a propaganda blitz, all arms of the mainstream media present the public with evidence, real or fabricated, of a horrifying act of national or international significance, or of a crisis which could inflict serious societal harm. If the media’s portrayal of the event or crisis is dramatic and persuasive enough, it can trigger a self-perpetuating collective hysteria. The initial reports motivate people to take to social media to post their fear-based and knee-jerk reactions, further feeding the frenzy and intensifying the climate of fear. A recent example of this phenomenon was seen during the initial days of the covid crisis – the mainstream media hyped up the danger of the virus and the social media reaction fanned the flames of fear. David Cromwell and David Edwards, co-editors of the Media Lens website which investigates media bias in the UK, described the nature of propaganda blitzes in their book Propaganda Blitz: How the Corporate Media Distort Reality:
“Propaganda blitzes are fast-moving attacks intended to inflict maximum [fear] in minimum time…The basic theme: This changes everything!..[Propaganda blitzes] are: 1. based on allegations of dramatic new evidence 2. communicated with high emotional intensity and moral outrage 3. apparently supported by an informed corporate media/academic/expert consensus 4. reinforced by damning condemnation of anyone daring even to question the apparent consensus…Propagandists are well aware that media attention will rapidly move on from claims of dramatic new evidence, so the durability of the claims is not a key concern.”
David Cromwell and David Edwards, Propaganda Blitz: How the Corporate Media Distort Reality
After manufacturing a climate of fear, the next step in the thought reform process is to hijack the natural human response to fear. To understand what this entails, we can turn to the insights of the psychologist John Bowlby, a pioneer in the field of attachment theory.
