This is a very different position than what is actually being argued. This is not about what is "susceptible to brainwashing techniques" but "what is brainwashing?"

To define something it helps to know it's range. It helps to know NOT what something is when you want to know what something is.

The range of brainwashing is much larger in the religious context than in the educational context. The bounds of brainwashing in a religious context is..well..actually boundless. Within the context of education, brainwashing is not boundless.

I don't live in a rain forest no matter how much brainwashing goes down, and I will never believe that 1+1 = 3.5. Religion cannot boast this same quality.

Hence the comparison of brainwashing of education to religion is a poor one..

I still think my definition is better. But just working with their definitions from this point on, it's still impossible to brainwash facts into people. Those definitions support the idea of brainwashing beliefs into people.

So you can't brainwash facts, you can only brainwash beliefs. That means that content does matter, though the way they handle it is perhaps more eloquent.

Anyway.
Especially doesn't mean always.

Kids have no control over their own thinking, kids don't postulate that the sun is god, or even consider the possibility of a god. That idea is planted. Either way, be good or go to hell, and all that jazz applies.

Depending on how you define force, the other two definitions can go either way. But these two definitions are fit by filling your kid with religion.

This is really similar to the child abuse thread. For the vast majority of religious teaching (at least in civilized countries), you have to really water down the definition of brainwashing to make it fit. For me, at least, my religious teachings were no different than my school teachings. To call one brainwashing and the other not is to render the word useless.

I doubt your teachers told you that if you didn't believe 1+1=2 you were going to going to burn for all eternity (assuming you went to a church that believes in the existence of a fiery hell).

Not to mention the fact that you could take a blue crayon and a green crayon out of the crayon box and realize you now have two crayons in your hand. Not 1 crayon, not 3, not pi^e*i, not nothing besides two crayons.

Note that my argument is specifically against kids who are taught by their parents, not against religion in schools or institutions. I don't know whether that's brainwashing, propaganda or whatever.

Slight nit: I'm a Jew so no church was involved.

I don't recall ever being told I would burn in a fiery hell if I didn't believe. Both what I learned from my parents and from Hebrew school were essentially the same as regular school except in the subject matter.

This is an odd claim which probably cannot be substantiated in any reasonable way. The language of "that idea is planted" is problematic with respect to learning language, social norms, most (not all) facts about the world... so I'm not really sure what to make of this claim.

By the way, there are a lot of studies of children's conception of the world as a part of their intellectual development, and if I remember right (I can't find the paper that I actually read to verify this), most children often do not properly conceptualize the idea of the earth being round until significantly later in life (for example, they view the sphere of the earth being AROUND them), so in a very real way it can be argued that the idea that the earth is round is "planted" as well.

So your argument seems flawed from many angles.

It's possible that what I'm remembering as a paper was an article, but here's a paper on the topic:

http://calteach.ucsc.edu/aboutus/doc...ntalmodels.pdf

Getting children to say that the earth is round is an idea that is "planted" since we can see from other investigations that they don't actually have a proper conception of what it means for the earth to be round. If left to their own conceptual frameworks, they would not actually say that the earth is round.

I know it's forum 101, but skipping the bulk and focusing on one line is an intellectually weak approach to conversation. Anyway, I'll agree that "The idea was planted" is incorrect. It doesn't change anything outlined in my last post though. If you want a follow up line to explain why that second definition is fit it would be this.

Kids are taught by their parents religion and it changes their behavior and life greatly.

With that corrected for you, to your argument about children not comprehending certain truths, that's not an issue of brainwashing. Once again it has to be a belief to be brainwashing, and the earth being round is a truth, not a belief.

Aron may i ask how you came about your beliefs? Were they taught to you growing up or did you examine all the available evidence critically and decide your religion was undoubtedly correct?

I was coerced into believing the Christian worldview by my parents at a time when I lacked the mental capacity to examine the very beliefs they were pushing upon me. Yes I hold some level of resentment towards them and I consider it borderline unethical, but I still love them and I understand their motivation however flawed I see it. For instance my mother is deeply religious and because of some unfortunate things that have happened in her life, it's a very touchy subject. I've come to understand that. She was genuinely concerned for the long term well being of my soul, and I was interested in building rockets and catching frogs. I still love my parents, and I even participate with their church when they want me to (last Saturday I spent the better part of my day digging holes for pomegranates to help beautify the church..)

Age gives us perspective I suppose, and when I was at odds with my parents (probably from the age of about 12-18), I would have told you that they tried to brainwash me. I now know too much to hold that belief.

I don't think your parents tried to brainwash you. I think they tried to teach you, but due to their misunderstanding, they brainwashed you.

There wasn't that much to what you said. I didn't think that going back and forth would be productive.

Kids are taught all sorts of things by their parents, especially things like social norms and cultural expectations. All of these things change the behavior and life of their kids greatly.

You're stepping into all sorts of philosophical issues by trying to define a belief in a fact as not a belief. That is, you are creating two disjoint categories (beliefs and facts) without acknowledging that the acceptance of fact is itself a belief. It's just a really messy conversation that doesn't really make much sense if you try to do it that way. You've got problems with the matter of "fact" being constructed within a belief system, but you're trying to remove it from the belief system... it's just extremely messy and nearly incomprehensible.

You also *STILL* have the time-dependent issues, like the fact that "spontaneous generation" *WAS* taken to be fact before Louis Pasteur, and so under your definition you would say that the ENTIRE CULTURE was "brainwashed" despite the fact that the basic idea of teaching methods are not all that different between then and now (and neither one remotely resembles the types of things that are associated with "brainwashing").

Both of these issues point to the fact that you're still trying to form a content-specific definition of brainwashing, whereas none of the definitions presented point to a content-specific meaning.

So I maintain that your sense of definition is very problematic, and that it doesn't appear to hold up to any scrutiny in terms of conveying a sense that is consistent with the definitions presented to you.

I grew up going to church, but I would say that only I actively adopted the faith as a college student (after a couple years of not going to church). During the time that I searched around, I did a significant amount of reading about world religions and philosophies. I also started to become acquainted with non-American manifestations of Christianity (sometimes referred to as "World Christianity"), although the consequences of that didn't really sink in until much later.

I also would say that "undoubtedly correct" is an overstatement of my level of belief. I'm confident in my faith, but "undoubtedly correct" conveys a sense that I don't actually have questions about my faith, and my confidence in no way implies a blanket endorsement of all expressions of the Christian faith.

Good answer i would not consider you brainwashed. Mistaken perhaps but not brainwashed.

I'd like to point out that I was using your definitions, and it was applicable to all of them subjectively, and 2 of them objectively. Science now and science in the 1800's are two completely different things. There was no proof that spontaneous generation was true, there was just a... belief that it was true. If you don't take the modern world and all the calculations based on the basic sciences (Flight, rockets, probably whatever you do at your job, etc) taught to be true then we're just not going to be able to agree.

Anyway, as said your definitions specify beliefs. Facts are not beliefs. The world being round is not a belief. Gravity is not a belief. Newtons laws are not beliefs. Evolution is not a belief. They are facts. Religion is a belief. There is a distinction between them. Brainwashing by your definitions is fulfilled by branding your kid with religion.

If we want to skip the semantic argument, explain why you think indoctrinating your kid with religion is not brainwashing them. It might make the argument easier to process.

I grew up with an atheist father and an agnostic mother. The word God was almost never mentioned, and to my father it seemed to be a taboo word. I always had a large distrust of organized religion's, partly due to my parent's ideals, and maybe have attended church five times in my life. I noticed at any early age how discriminating a lot of religious people were and it just didn't feel right

I started searching for an understanding of God when I was around eighteen. I read the Holy Bible, The Quran, Hindu texts, Buddhism texts, and others. I slowly gained an understanding what seemed right to me through taking bits and pieces and putting the puzzle together the best that I could.

I found God and my spirituality through actively searching and using the discernment that I learned along the way. It was a two steps forward, one step backward journey. I feel very blessed I was able to come to my understanding of God on my own terms.

Having a good and loving heart is more important than almost anything else on the spiritual level.

The belief that such-and-such is a fact is a belief. You can't get around it.

FWIW, your question reads like "When did you stop beating your wife?" As with your definition of brainwashing, you've attempted to load the terms with meaning that isn't really there to be had. But to respond to the question anyway...

Teaching a kid things about the world that you believe to be true is not brainwashing.

If you're looking for a deep or complicated explanation, you won't find one. If you understand what brainwashing is, then you'll be in good position to understand what brainwashing is not.

Nice, so your argument is that facts don't exist, they are beliefs. I don't think I can debate reasonably with someone who understand so little (Note, I would have worded this sentence (and this entire post) differently if you were less rude in your dissension of my opinions)

I understand what brainwashing is, I've looked up the definitions, I've read several articles along with the wikipedia page and all that jazz. My understanding of the word is based on all that knowledge. That said, my understanding of the word doesn't completely dismiss what you've come to understand as brainwashing. It's not a black and white word, it has several different opinions on what is and isn't brainwashing. You thinking it's black and white is probably related to your religious choice, in that people of religion often think in black and white instead of grey. Perhaps that makes the world easier to comprehend.


Anyway, it's not just teaching. It's teaching, from a position of power when you're the person that provides the subject with the sustenance that keeps them alive. I've already admitted that I don't know if religious schools is brainwashing, I'm inclined or biased to believe it is, but that's not my argument.

You aren't understanding Aaron's point. He is not denying the existence of facts. Rather he is pointing out that facts and beliefs are not mutually exclusive. For example, it is a fact that the earth is spherical. By claiming that this is a fact I mean that it is true regardless of my own or other beliefs that the earth is spherical. However, I also believe that the earth is spherical. By this I mean that I have a mental state that leads to me say that I believe that the earth is spherical, to act as if the earth is spherical and so on. In other words, I can believe in facts.

Here's one problem with your view. If you make brainwashing dependent on whether what is being taught is a fact (i.e. is true), then you'll never be able to convince religious people that they are brainwashing anyone. After all, they believe that what they are teaching is true (is a fact).

Well, you can brainwash people with facts as well. It is often a lot easier.

Say you want to brainwash somebody with creationism. Then you merely note that there is a lot of internal disagreement amongst biologists regarding evolution, which is true. Success! Now you have brainwashed people into thinking a lot of biologists disagree with evolutionary theory - which is not true.

"Facts" can be just as dangerous as "beliefs".

No, I don't claim that it's a black and white word, I claim that it is method-specific and not content-specific. That is, brainwashing is a matter of how it's done, not what is taught. We have plenty we can debate about whether such-and-such a method is sufficiently coercive to be brainwashing. (I've noted before that some might view mandatory school attendance to be coercive, though I would disagree.)

Nope. But the existence of gray does not negate the existence of black and white. Not everyone is right all of the time, and I'm quite certain that in this case you're wrong to try to make brainwashing content-specific.

Would nuns with rulers count?