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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Really Brainwashed?
Message-ID: <1683@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Sep-85 23:43:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1683
Posted: Wed Sep 25 23:43:31 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Sep-85 05:54:32 EDT
References: <1596@pyuxd.UUCP> <1359@utcsri.UUCP> <1730@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 71

In article <1730@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:

>>>I wonder if people who talk about the "psychological process by which the
>>>Moonies massage people's minds into suitable form" think that this is a
>>>technique unique to "cults" and other such groups (political, religious,
>>>etc.) rather than something that goes on in our everyday lives.  Is
>>>"deprogramming" nothing more than "reprogramming"?  I'm not denying for one
>>>split second the manipulativeness, shrewdness, or deceptiveness of such
>>>groups.  I'm just mentioning that a lot of the values promulgated by
>>>society are perpetuated in much the same way.  The Moonies and such just
>>>have to cram THEIR re-programming into one weekend instead of a lifetime.
>>>[ROSEN]

Rich has recently asserted this in several discussions.  A lot of things
about this kind of a position bother me.  The first is this notion of
society; on the level of social pressure, it's clearly wrong to talk about
society as if were something monolithic.  A real kid has a lot of
contradictory pressures coming at him, from his parents, his peers (both
friends and enemies), the TV, teachers, and a host of others.  Different
kids will feel different pressures, and respond to them differently.  Quite
often the response is negative.  There are also obvious qualitative
differences between the different pressures.  BUt the section of this
article which really interests me is the following:

>> We probably would have a great deal of trouble functioning in a day-to-day
>> manner if we did not understand the basic culture, morals, and mores of our
>> society.  The important difference between our "normal" society and the
>> ones of the cults is that ours offers space for self-determinism.  The
>> cults attempt to force an individual to submit his will to their
>> (the cult's) desires.  Freed sums this up by saying:  "Among cult members
>> personal philosophy changes from 'I think, therefore I am' to 'I obey,
>> therefore I >> am'".  Of course the issue of self-determinism is already
>> being hotly debated in other articles.... [RAY ALLEN]

This passage strikes me quite curiously, because it is so different from my
own experience.  I often get the impression that people generally fall into
one of two categories with respect to their responses to social situations.
On the one hand, we have those whose responses are essentially automatic.
THey don't have to think about what they do.  Note well that this doesn't
translate into obediance, since some people seem to automatically respond
negatively!  THis class of people is certainly postulated by Rich and Freed.
One the other hand, however, my personal experience leads me to surmise the
existence of a second class which does NOT acquire automatic reactions.  We
(and I say "we" because I think I fall into this category) are forced to
deduce a new response for each interaction.  Now this would appear to be a
source of great freedom, and, sometimes it is.  But most interactions really
do not require this, and in fact, are hindered by the inability to react.
My experience leads me to the conclusion that a lack of automatic responses
is a great nuisance, because the world is not going to wait around all the
time while you decide what to do.   So it seems to me that there needs to be
a balance between thinking and reacting.

>The question may be, does our society offer us the most freedom that is
>viable in a society, or does it at times unnecessarily restrict for no
>better reason than that the society runs better where conformity and
>"order" are the rules of the day?

Well, I think both, plus a third motivation.  How much freedom you think a
person needs depends upon your situation, and his.  The judge thinks that a
convict needs a lot less freedom than the convict does, after all!  Again
realizing that society is not monolithic, it seems that the various freedoms
tend to clash with each other.  There are also lots of ordinary situations
where some freedom on trivial matters is sacrificed to the God of
convenience and Expeditiousness.  A third force, however, and that of
principal concern, is that some people, perhaps a great number, enjoy
exercising power over others, and often especially so if the power is
abused.  In this thing we choose to call society, these forces are so
ravelled together that all three come to bear in almost any situation.


Charley Wingate


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