How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique
atroche.org
atroche.org
The brainwashing scare from the Korean War is central to at least one classic movie, The Manchurian Candidate (1962). It was unavailable for 25 years, which rumor had it was because of its similarity to the JFK assassination (it's not that similar, really). If you like old thrillers and haven't seen it, see it—it's just great!
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/14/movies/film-a-co-productio... <-- Contains Spoilers
What we see over time is that various people are considered cool kids or not, and the cool kids all like one thing or another, but Hollywood in the 50s and 60s wasn't some kind of propaganda machine, although folks today make it out to be. It was just that's what all the cool kids were doing back then.
There was some really edgy stuff made in the 50s and 60s.
To me, this looks more like some kind of group therapy since the POWs were not forced and the example statement they were asked to make ("The United States is not perfect.") is obviously a fact because nothing is perfect.
What I find interesting is to compare this to what is happening today in Guantanamo.
I mean they are trying to get information and cooperation, why always default to torture?
But if you could shake their beliefs... Show them the error of their ways. And they actually might help you stop the other terrorists.
But all that needs that you actually see the captives as human beings.
Maybe we do not share the same definition of what a "militant" is, in Saudi Arabia?
Articles on the Saudi deprogramming effort:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/06/get-out-... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/magazine/09jihadis-t.html?...
And a more recent (PDF) review about why deprogramming mostly doesn't work:
http://sites.duke.edu/ihss/files/2011/12/Morris_Research_Bri...
Although Saudi Arabia's may be more effective. The reason is basically that terrorists aren't actually programmed using religious discussion, terrorists are programmed using monkeybrain ties to other terrorists. ObGwern:
http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror
A clever person might therefore attempt to use stronger monkeybrain ties to deprogram terrorists. Like the PLO did:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/12/all-you-...
I used both words together because it depends on how brainwashing is achieved if it qualifies as torture or not. (that's why I wrote "brainwashing OR torture")
They probably used the foot-in-the-door technique on themselves.
> compared to the POWs in North Korea, their beliefs had changed massively since they’d left home
The title does color the outcome by calling it brainwashing, but that word is not used in the actual article.
So go for a year or two like this in a horrific combat zone in an utterly foreign Asian country. Then get captured and spend a few years writing essays about Communism in a Chinese-run POW camp (if you're lucky).
It is both reasonable and compassionate that, when they get out, that individual should not be held to account for whatever documents they may have signed or political statements they may have made during that time.
Whether 'brainwashing' was complete fiction or not, it was a concept which let broken men put the past behind them and have a welcome return to their home country.
Also did the communists do a bad job in china? That is at most controversial... not "brain washed".
The communists of the 50s were busy starving their own people in great leaps forwards, in the 60s they innovated on that with a cultural revolution; Mao finally dies; China didn't start to stabalize until Deng brought back capitalism.
As far as I know Deng did advocate a more open and free policy when it came to the markets, not in very concrete terms but certainly in veiled terms like "pragmatism" and "we must do whatever works" [1]. I'm not saying Deng made China a Randian libertarian's wet-dream but it seems he did push for free markets a little bit.
[1] http://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/leaders_thinkers_zedong_xia...
Imitating the free-enterprise model of Hong Kong and Taiwan, decades after those territories had far outpaced China in prosperity. And one of the great advantages China has enjoyed in economic development, as compared to several other territories, is the large number of people who can communicate in local languages (various forms of Chinese) but who grew up without communist influences on their primary and secondary education. "Compatriots" from Taiwan and Hong Kong, and also "overseas Chinese" from many places in southeast Asia played a crucial role in boosting China's economic growth through direct investment after the beginnings of system reform in 1978. (Basis of knowledge: I began studying Chinese during the Cultural Revolution, and have met quite a few people from outside China who have invested over there, after investment began to be permitted.)
In a purely definitional sense, China is at best a hybrid economy now, and was a primarily communist economy long after its economy started booming.
Even to the extent that China's economy is ostensibly privately owned, the government still exercises tremendous control. For example while the banks are joint stock companies, and thus reflect substantial private ownership of equity, the Chinese government still owns the majority of the shares in many of them giving them tremendous power over those banks.
I don't think China can be fairly called a "capitalist" economy. It's a managed economy where the managers have allowed the free market to allocate resources at the lower levels, while the central government directs broader, longer-term economic objectives.
You can mostly thank DXP for all the cheap chinese junk that Walmart started selling in the 90s.
China had the unfortunate luck of being left in ruins when it becoming "Communist". Deng rebooted the whole thing, it remains to be seen whether they will continue communism into the future. To call it "capitalism" is a bit rich (no pun), given all major industries are owned by the government (the people).
The 50s they also brought health care to vast majority of the population. The 60s they increased literacy across the country by simplifying the language, and standardising education.
Should we both just keep cherry picking information to paint our own narrative, or admit this isn't a black and white subject?
It isn't capitalism vs communism. Capitalism is a form of economy, communism is form of government. The mix of those, I believe china call it: "Socialism with chinese characteristics".
The fact primary industry and exports are state owned is a big tick for: Communism. That's true, regardless what you see living there.
(People making money and doing business is not anti-communism, it is where the money goes that makes it "communist").
Isn't the famous Deng quote: It doesn't matter what color the cat is, as long as it catches the mouse.
The communist party doesn't really follow any tenants of Marxism at all. Most are only concerned with propping up their families and embezzling enough money to send their kids to a nice school abroad that doesn't suck.
You've just described "people in power" world wide. It isn't unique to communism, or china.
A huge amount of their economy is state owned[0]
That alone is a tenant of marxism. I'm not particularly interested in "true scotsman" style argument regarding is China 'really communist', as you can easily make the case that the U.S isn't technically a democracy, but it doesn't get us anywhere. It's just an argument of semantics.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_State-owned_enterprises...
China is basically an aristocracy at this point, more so than other countries with corruption. Communist ideology plays little role in politics beyond little red book pissing contests that the left and moderates occasionally get into.
Compare West and East Germany. Compare North and South Korea. Compare Mainland China and Taiwan. And once you've done those comparisons ask yourself about what kind of job the communists have done. Many millions dead. Many more millions in poverty. That's the job they've done.
Where do you think that the economic development of Taiwan would be if it wasn't backed by the US? And where do you think they will be in 20 years, with China constantly rising in power and influence.
I don't think it's controversial to say that they'll probably be part of China, considering that there is even political support for that in Taiwan.
US: ~$50000 Taiwan: ~$39000 EU: ~$35000 China: ~$9000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP...
China's goal posts are not in the same spot as the US's.
Child mortality http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&c...
North Korea Invades South Korea on June 25th 1950. The UN, for probably the first,last, and only time, takes military action (at American behest and because the Russian's were boycotting the UN) led by a US General and primarily American troops. This force and the South Korean Army repel the North Koreans and drive into North Korea (which was suppose to hold open elections but didn't as part of unification), the Chinese enter the way as the UN forces approached (but did not cross) the Chinese boarder.
EDIT: This is not to say that the UN forces crossing the 38th Parallel was the best idea or that they were not happy to occupy North Korea or that they didn't have ambitions to do so from the outset , but aggressor is really a misleading term when they did not fire the first shot.
"Communism" was the "terrorism" of my parents' generation...
The Allies destroyed whatever government Korea had. Without someone to step in to keep the roads maintained, the local cops on their beat, and the courts running, the country would have otherwise collapsed. So of course you step in and try to set up elections so the people in the country can vote in a new constitution and a new government, and then you leave. Unless you're Stalin, in which case you pick some crazy guy, install him as a dictator, and call the country a "Democratic People's Republic" to make it look legitimate. You'd think no one would fall for that, but you did.
I just want to see Korea reunited.
Conclusion: Divided States
North korea didn't believe the UN/US (i.e. Non-koreans) should be deciding the fate of their country. (I am in no way defending the current North Korean regime).
I completely understand a sovereign nation attacking a 'puppet state' in order to unify it.
(to respond to the grand parent as well) If the Russians were 'boycotting' the UN, then it wasn't the UN, it was just "The Allies".
But that makes the POWs change of attitude less brainwashy and more 'informed' in my opinion.
Say what you will about the US, but I think the results of a Stalinist / Maoist mashup speaks for itself. It is and was pretty obvious who the agressor was in Korea -- the Soviet tanks rolled into North Korea weeks before the Japanese surrender specifically to grab Korean territory. The Northern attack on the south was very clearly a land grab.
Soviet Russia was a founding member of the UN.
An excellent understanding of the UN is in Churchill's "THE SECOND WORLD WAR" books.
Some countries were split into occupation zones between the Western allies and the Soviets. Germany was one. There were four occupation zones: British, American, French, and Soviet. The intention was for a new German government to be formed that would govern all four zones, but negotiations broke down and the Soviet occupied zone formed one government (German Democratic Republic, known as East Germany) and the Western occupied zones formed another (Federal Republic of Germany). This state of affairs continued until the fall of communism, when the East Germans more or less decided to join the Federal Republic giving us today's Germany.
Korea was a similar case. There was no Korean government--it was a Japanese possession since 1910--so, with the intent of punishing Japan and giving the Korean people self-determination, it was temporarily occupied by the Allies until they could set up a democratic government. It was partitioned between the Soviets and the Americans, who, as in Germany, formed opposing governments. And then the North invaded the South--and that's where the war began.
Actually, baseball has existed in Japan since the 1870s. It was in no way a post-WW2 phenomenon.
> Korea was a similar case...
I don't see how dividing up a country among the victors makes any sense, either in the case of Germany or that of Korea. What exactly did they expect to occur after a couple decades had passed?
In Germany's particular case, many of the allies were comfortable with the notion of dividing Germany anyway, since at least that way the Germans wouldn't start trying to conquer the rest of Europe again. But it wasn't the agreed plan, nor was it feasible to salvage the whole country as a democracy, either, nor did it seem wise to let Stalin have the whole country.
Did you consider spending 10 seconds on wikipedia? No. But you still felt it necessary, even after recognising your ignorance, to vomit forth your opinion.
...all that is wrong with the world...
Controversial? Good lord, Mao's Great Leap Forward killed between 23 and 42 million people in just a few years.
Could you say the same for Deng Xiaoping (also a communist)?
Post-Mao, well... Hua was a disaster and Deng was never a good communist. Mao himself accused Deng of being a capitalist and banished him to the countryside in the 60s. Once he finally gained power and brought back mild capitalism (really, market socialism), it still took 20 years for China to really get going.
Sane points: Education, Health, both improved under communist rule.
It's also questionable to define the economic system of Deng's China as "communist" in the same way as Soviet Russia and, say, Cuba.
Starvation was common before communism (this is second hand "communist propaganda" from my father, probably originally from a similar source to the information the Korean POW's were given), but it wasn't concentrated into a few years like in the great leap forward.
The Korean War - 1950 - 1953.
Until the Great Leap, Mao had done a fantastic job. Life expectancies shot up by about 15 years, as he dismantled feudalism, and established a relatively functional and stable state. Then he undid all the good he'd done, in the 1958, sending life expectancies back to ~35. Then things improved again, when Deng and co managed to contain Mao a little better (though they sometimes had ... issues).
tl;dr - Mao had done a fantastic job, up to 1958, which was well after the Korean War ended.
> They also collaborated. “When an escape did occur,” wrote one of the investigators, “the Chinese usually recovered the man easily by offering a bag of rice to anyone offering to turn him in.” This was extremely rare in German and Japanese prison camps.
It seems they achieved something more than just moulding the PoWs' political views: they broke their esprit de corps.
Still, I dislike words like "brainwash" and "mind control". It significantly understates the complicated dynamic between the washer and the washed. It would be interesting to learn how the Chinese were affected by their contacted with the Americans.
Cialdini, R. B. (2009). Influence: science and practice (5th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education.
Can you elaborate on what steps you might take to guard against unknown techniques?
(sorry for my english and somewhat vague thoughts, i hope something gets through)
I'll paste in here part of the history of the term from Chinese Wikipedia, which has some interesting differences from the parallel article in English Wikipedia:
中华人民共和国[编辑] 中華人民共和國執政黨中國共產黨成立以來，早期通過文藝、宣傳提出的「沒有共產黨就沒有新中國」、「穩定壓倒一切」等口號，被一些人認為是“洗腦”行為。中國共產黨操控媒體、民間沒有輿論自由，又透過教育，局部呈現現代歷史等方式進行“正面意識形態宣傳”也被認為屬於洗腦行為。有評論指，中华人民共和国文革時期大規模和連續的共產主義宣傳教育運動，明顯是洗腦行為；當時中共將視為反對者的人民劃定為「階級敵人」、將這些人強行施以「勞動改造」（勞改）、「思想改造」，強權和暴力使整個社會幾乎所有人都失去了獨立思考的自由意志。 [12]
中华人民共和国官方電視媒體中國中央電視台，被指責所播放的部分內容存在「洗腦」，有中國年輕學者指央視透過辮子戲灌輸皇權專制，打造奴才人格，是毒化了中國走向自由民主的氛圍，存在洗腦意義，而央視的《新聞聯播》選擇性「報喜不報憂」，像是「宣傳聯播」。 [13][14]但中國共產黨及其支持者並不認同這些批評。
英文「brainwash」意指「洗腦」，由中文「洗腦」一詞翻譯而來；沿於上世紀1950年代的韓戰，美國士兵被中国人民解放军俘虜之後，日夜接受中国共产党的思想改造，獲救之後回到美國，竟然幫中国共產黨講好話，於是美國記者Edward Hunter就用brainwash一詞來描述此事。[15][16]
People [edit] The People's Republic of China since the founding of the ruling Communist Party of China, early through art, propaganda's "no new China without the Communist Party," "stability overrides everything" and other slogans, considered by some to be "brainwashed" behavior. Chinese Communist Party controls the media, civil society without freedom of opinion, but also through education, partial rendering methods such as modern history "positive ideological propaganda" has also been considered to be brainwashed behavior. Some have commented that the PRC during the Cultural Revolution massive and continuous education communist propaganda campaign, obviously brainwashing behavior; when opponents of the CPC will be treated as people designated as "class enemies," these people forcibly impose "Labour transformation "(labor camps)," thought reform ", power and violence, so that the whole community lost almost everyone free will to think independently. [12]
People's Republic of China Central Television, the official television media, is accused of playing the part of the existence of "brainwashing" refers to a Chinese young scholars CCTV braids play through indoctrination autocracy, to create personality I was poisoned the atmosphere of freedom and democracy to China, there brainwashing significance, and CCTV "News Network" selective "glossy", such as "propaganda network." [13] [14] However, the Chinese Communist Party and its supporters do not agree with these criticisms.
English "brainwash" means "brainwashed" by the Chinese "brainwashing" translated from the word; in the late 1950s along the Korean War, American soldiers were captured after the People's Liberation Army, day and night to accept the idea of transformation of the Chinese Communist Party, were rescued after back to the U.S., even speak good words to help the Chinese Communist Party, then the U.S. correspondent Edward Hunter to use the term to describe the matter brainwash.
Aside from that, Google Translate can be downright odd sometimes. Like what it did to Lorem Ipsum:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2010/10/google-tra...
http://www.zagg.com/community/blog/lorem-ipsum-text-translat...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_reform_in_the_People%27...
Chinese translated to English: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...
He probably didn't post a translation because he knows most of us can either use Google translate or can read Chinese. That doesn't bother me and it shouldn't bother you.
I posted the translation because I think some people (including myself) need help reading Chinese and because I don't see value in bitching about someone copying and pasting Chinese. It's not homework. It's just Chinese.
That was my attempt at trolling, btw.
Seriously though, Chinese is NOT the most read language on this website, and that is what matters.
Patriotism being one example of this type of propaganda -- the idea that some of us are better than others because we were born on one side of a line in the dirt.
And often each system of beliefs has epistemic protection against debunking... for example, religious believers may view debunkers as agents of evil/Satan, while conspiracy theorists may view debunkers as agents working on behalf of the conspirators. In both cases, one has a "rational" reason to be skeptical of (or even outright disregard) any arguments that attempt to undermine one's axiomatic system.
The more a person seeks the opiatic, emotional feeling of fake knowing, the more receptive he is to religion, political brainwashing, conspiracy theories, prejudices, social authority structures, etc.
Besides, just as you hold your "must be provable" views dear, similarly the religious parent holds his or her religious views dear.
Adults just slow down the writting but we always try to fit in the social group that we are living. And that includes political opinions, faith, etc...
It is one of those "one person's X is another person's Y" comparisons: indoctrination/brain-washing, religion/cult, freedom-fighter/terrorist, cute cat / insane evil sharp edged ball of allergens, ...
A more passive form of indoctrination would be repeated explanation (with or without query/prompt) so explanation can become indoctrination depending on context, but I'll stand by my choice of words above.
"Where do rainbows come from" can be answered with the explanation "As a way to show God's promise to Noah never to flood the Earth again" or with the explanation "because sunlight refracts through water into all the different colors we can see" or with the explanation "invisible unicorns fly through the sky sometimes and leave rainbows where they've gone".
Many people would call one or more of these indoctrinations, despite the complete lack of "should" in any of the responses. Egocentrism does not a benignity make.
And if I had to choose between that kind of Chinese brainwashing and Guantanamo/CIA black sites, I'll pick the Chinese option.
And when you're comparing the US of 1950 to the Communist China of 1950, frankly, if the pro-US viewpoint is naive, the pro-Mao viewpoint is utterly deluded.
You still run into the kind of people who try to draw moral equivalence between the Japanese internment and Dachau to this day. I'm not saying this to deflect criticism, because I hold the US to a much higher standard than the rest of the world and the way to do that is to be critical. But coming to the conclusion that the US used chemical weapons in Korea (we didn't) or that Mao was a positive force for China in the 1950's (he wasn't) just because America falls short is a very long way on the opposite side of reasonable.
Let's try this on for size:
Is Fox News racist, elitist, sexist, and homophobic? My guess is that you just answered yes to at least 3 of those, however if I asked you for specific proof, you'd have a hard time making your argument in short order. Why is that? Perhaps because you didn't make up your mind for yourself. Someone else made it up for you.
Sure you can go Google and find whatever evidence you want to support those 4 viewpoints, but I'm 100% positive you didn't have evidence for all of the things you thought when I first asked the question.
Consider the conservative view that we need to secure our border because illegal immigrants take jobs away from Americans.
Jobs aren't taken, they are given. Those jobs are not specifically given to illegals. You could have one, too. If they can live off of those jobs and send money home to their folks, it should be enough to live on. Maybe not enough to send your kids to college, but that isn't a guaranteed right.
Higher taxes and loopholes lead to U.S. companies hiring offshore workers, but that isn't the same for immigrants. We need more of them, like we had in the 1800-1900s, to boost our economy. I have never known a lazy, undedicated person to sneak over the border and work summers to send money home to their families. Those families should instead be in the U.S. and not in Mexico, etc. Then not only would the U.S. have a great labor force, but they would be spending that money on food and goods in the U.S.
Free movement of money in the EU and all that...
Turn off all news for a year or two. Then watch for a few minutes. With fresh eyes, the news looks like a clown show - all emotion and advocacy.
If that's brainwashing, then what do you call this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4 101,912,811 views.
All wars are full of lies, Roosevelt lied to the American people, "for their own good" of course, as the American public did not want to enter a world war.
The Lusitania was full of weapons as divers discover in 2008, the first American sub to be sinked attacked the Germans first before war(that was never said to American public) and Robert Stinnett investigated about Pearl Harbor and how they already knew about it, the reason there were not air carriers there and the radar "confusion". The soldiers in Hawaii were just pawns to sacrifice in order to win the match.
The same happened in Irak, US government wanted to get this oil, and they just needed a pretext. 20 people from Saudi Arabia(US tyrannical ally) crashing planes against US buildings somewhat became a pretext to invade Irak and Afganistan, countries that are 2000 miles apart from Saudi Arabia, killing millions in the process and thousands of Americans.
Now, Obama is doing the same with Siria. They want to invade a country and they just need to convince the public opinion to support it.
The problem with lies is that when you are outside the system that generates them, they are very easy to discover. People feel betrayed and never trust "big brother", that lies to you for your own benefit, any more.