hestitation with the term "brainwashing"
Would you use the word "brainwashed" to describe the time in your life that you believed?
Or just "duped" or "tricked" or "uncritical"? I'm having trouble figuring out what it was that kept me believing in a church that did things that even at the time I described as "not right," "weird" or "confusing." I recognized problems with the church (polygamy, denial of priesthood to blacks and women) but didn't let them touch my testimony. Does that require some degree of brainwashing?
I noticed a style of preemptive teaching in the church and seminary. I got lectures and presentations on how Joseph could not have written the Book of Mormon long before I ever had heard anything that suggested Joseph may have written it. I heard stuff about how other churches are wrong--but never heard any of those teachings. Is that brainwashing? Or something else?
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Perhaps part of my hesitation in using the word "brainwashed" is reluctance to apply such a negative word to myself. If I call what the church does brainwashing, then I was brainwashed. I don't want to have been brainwashed. It calls to mind compounds and hours of "correct thinking" being pounded into me every day, and not letting me go outside or think any other thoughts.
Perhaps I prefer indoctrination. This is a weaker term than brainwashing, but stronger than simple socialization and acculturation, which is what every parent and society does for their children.
5 comments:
I think of it as enculturation (the definitions of "acculturate" and "enculturate" are a little different, but I think they're often used interchangeably???). I don't think it's a great thing, but I do think it's probably easier to break free of than brainwashing would be...(trailing off, because like I know anything)
I guess indoctrination works, although that's more associated with propaganda. Sure, The Church has some serious propaganda out there, but I think most of the people who taught me really believed it and weren't consciously trying to feed me propaganda. I'm not even really sure that matters, though - actually, maybe it's worse. Hmmm...
I think the foundations of brainwashing are there and that they lay a good foundation with lessons about how Joe couldn't have written the BOM etc etc. What the church then does is give you the tools to build your own reality on top of that foundation. It's hard to call it brainwashing when you do it to yourself, but it is very close. That was one of the hardest things to accept for me. The fact that I build my own reality with the tools the church provided.
Good post, here. I'm also hesitant to call myself brainwashed....yet....am I??
I think some terms have loaded connontations. Terms like brainwashed and cult are just such terms.
Some members (i.e. my mother) can look at Koresh and say "cult". She then compares mormonism and says everything is completely different. And there are differences between current modern LDS practice and what happened at Waco. So because Waco was so different from what she knows - the LDS church is not a cult. I know many mormons who start hearing some of these terms and immediately will stop listening to anything you say.
Yet - reading the definition of a cult - LDS Inc. could be. But the Catholic church could also be a cult.
When I think of brainwashing, I think of the Manchurian Candidate. I didn't have anything done where my memory was erased. I was indoctrinated. I am not sure I am even aware of how deep some of the indoctrination goes. Primary songs are particularily guilty of some of these hidden messages.
The closest I came to being brainwashed was as a missionary. If you look at lists of brainwashing techniques, you only see a few of them in average daily Mormon life. But you see a lot of them in full-time missionary life.
Think of it: nearly-identical clothing and nametag that mark you as one of the group, only allowed to read a very narrow selection of the most faith-promoting material, no job or school or other structure in your life outside of the mission, not allowed to talk to trusted friends or family back home to get perspective, someone from the mission calls you every night to check up on you, great shame heaped on you and your family if you choose to leave,...I could go on.
Missionaries often say things about how life at home seems like a dream they can barely remember. Some experience drastic changes of personality (and not necessarily toward Christlike love). 18 months or two years isn't enough to wash someone's brain completely clean, and most missionaries come up with coping techniques that involve some level of disregard for mission rules. But some are more susceptible to the techniques than others, and have a very hard time recovering.
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