It’s not surprising that when a Soviet manual entitled, Brainwashing: A Synthesis of the Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics, surfaced in 1955, the outcomes and goals of their brainwashing techniques were eerily similar to those at the NTL. In the manual, the Soviets described psychopolitics as the “art and science of asserting and maintaining dominion over the thoughts and loyalties of individuals, officers, bureaus, and masses, and the effecting of the conquest of enemy nations through ‘mental healing.’ ”
These mind-control experiments established the foundation for much of the inhuman brainwashing techniques used by the Soviet Union and China in the mid-twentieth century. Utilized by both Lenin and Stalin for political ends in the USSR, these methods helped spread communist rule over almost half the world.
But, here is where Sensitivity Training and Brainwashing truly intersect. The Soviet manual stated that the tenets of “rugged individualism, personal determinism, self-will, imagination, and personal creativeness” that are present in the masses are not sympathetic to the good of the Greater State. Sounds to me like those traits are the one’s that built the United States from the beginning. Don’t they to you? And wasn’t the basic idea of the U.S. Constitution to protect citizens from the excesses of The State, and not to be controlled by the State?
The manual goes on to say that, “By perverting the institutions of a nation and bringing about a general degradation to the degree that privation and depression come about, only minor shocks will be necessary to produce, on the populace as a whole, an obedient reaction.” Yikes… once again.
I can’t pretend to know very much about the possible benefits of Sensitivity Training — I’m sure they exist. But, isn’t it interesting, for example, that personal responsibility (one of the main targets of an effective brainwashing campaign) seems to be a vanishing characteristic amongst the American populace?
One thing that I DO know: More and more people are increasingly skeptical about Sensitivity Training and are raising serious questions about how and why it is being implemented. And I also know that it’s origins and it’s kindred relationship to brainwashing make me very, very, very nervous – as they should you. Isn’t ideology fun?
Next week, Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll! Yeah Baby!!!!
Image: Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959); author: Edward D. Wood, Jr.; public domain
