Propaganda does not work in a vacuum. It must have a foundation upon which to build. So it uses and reinforces the myths and stories of your own culture against you, to control your actions.
I've obscured my handle here on Substack, because I want to include a personal experience from my deep past (early 1980s) which I never talk about, but I think it adds something to the conversation about propaganda.
This comment and my question pertain to the podcast featuring Kruptos on 2Bit podcast with Jason Mironchuk.
On the 2Bit podcast you brought up the topic of brainwashing. Brainwashing I understand. Propaganda, not so much.
I think many people are learning about propaganda these days, but you take it to the next level. I did not have an inkling of how vast a reach propaganda has, until I began to read and listen to you.
People use the term brainwashing interchangeably with the phenomenon of being propagandized, though you did not. You contrast orthopraxis with orthodoxy in your description of being propagandized. Right there I can tell that propaganda is a different thing or at least a thing of a different magnitude from brainwashing. Brainwashing is total. Normal thinking disappears.
I was brainwashed. This was a flagrant, obvious thing. No one would confuse my experience with a case of something limited to indoctrination.
My first experience with religion was intense. Although technically, I already had a religion. I was born into Catholicism. As a cultural catholic, I had some vague broad strokes, but basically no doctrine.
I was a nomadic teenager in the United States (throw away / runaway). You could say that I was homeless and you would be correct, but I don't think "homeless" conjures up an accurate picture. I was not a creature of the street, but of the road. I lived, as a female minor, by 3 rules for survival that I had devised at age 14. My rules served me well and I came out of those years rather unscathed, considering.
That is, except for getting brainwashed.
I was not prepared for my encounter with The Christ Family. My lack of basic religious doctrine left me unaware that Christ will return one day.
The Christ Family was a nomadic religious cult without any means of material support. We would accept coins and food provided by the people we met. We walked the streets and highways barefoot and wearing white robes. It was a false religion, with the belief that Jesus Christ had already returned to Earth.
Brainwashing allowed me to reach states of dissociation that prevented me from experiencing the physical pain that was part of initiation, at least for limited periods of time. There were deeper levels of psychological dissociation (dissociative identity disorder) that remained with me after I had left the cult, long after I had stopped believing in it, until those mechanisms started to break down on their own about a decade later.
This is an awful lot to say in a comment. It is maybe inappropriate. You can tell me if that is the case.
My question is this- is brainwashing and propaganda a difference in degree or a difference in kind?
Thank you for sharing. That is quite the journey and I am glad you were able to get yourself free. As for the practical questions, there is a lot of overlap between propaganda and brainwashing. The main difference I can see between the two is that with propaganda you begin with something that is already within the person and manipulate it for economic, social and political reasons. Brainwashing, on the other hand, seeks to break down what is within a person first so that they can then be remade and programed. This is why Joost Meerloo's classic on the subject is called, "The Rape of the Mind." Propaganda is biased towards action and brainwashing to how a person thinks. That said, over time, the propagandized person and the brainwashed person, if they are able to free themselves often have to be re-built in similar ways, taught how to think for themselves again -- this teaching process also has resemblances to propaganda/brainwashing -- as they become "lost" without the constant programming. Both are a form of violence against the person. Both are damaging.
Your words have a potent impact on me.
I've obscured my handle here on Substack, because I want to include a personal experience from my deep past (early 1980s) which I never talk about, but I think it adds something to the conversation about propaganda.
This comment and my question pertain to the podcast featuring Kruptos on 2Bit podcast with Jason Mironchuk.
On the 2Bit podcast you brought up the topic of brainwashing. Brainwashing I understand. Propaganda, not so much.
I think many people are learning about propaganda these days, but you take it to the next level. I did not have an inkling of how vast a reach propaganda has, until I began to read and listen to you.
People use the term brainwashing interchangeably with the phenomenon of being propagandized, though you did not. You contrast orthopraxis with orthodoxy in your description of being propagandized. Right there I can tell that propaganda is a different thing or at least a thing of a different magnitude from brainwashing. Brainwashing is total. Normal thinking disappears.
I was brainwashed. This was a flagrant, obvious thing. No one would confuse my experience with a case of something limited to indoctrination.
My first experience with religion was intense. Although technically, I already had a religion. I was born into Catholicism. As a cultural catholic, I had some vague broad strokes, but basically no doctrine.
I was a nomadic teenager in the United States (throw away / runaway). You could say that I was homeless and you would be correct, but I don't think "homeless" conjures up an accurate picture. I was not a creature of the street, but of the road. I lived, as a female minor, by 3 rules for survival that I had devised at age 14. My rules served me well and I came out of those years rather unscathed, considering.
That is, except for getting brainwashed.
I was not prepared for my encounter with The Christ Family. My lack of basic religious doctrine left me unaware that Christ will return one day.
The Christ Family was a nomadic religious cult without any means of material support. We would accept coins and food provided by the people we met. We walked the streets and highways barefoot and wearing white robes. It was a false religion, with the belief that Jesus Christ had already returned to Earth.
Brainwashing allowed me to reach states of dissociation that prevented me from experiencing the physical pain that was part of initiation, at least for limited periods of time. There were deeper levels of psychological dissociation (dissociative identity disorder) that remained with me after I had left the cult, long after I had stopped believing in it, until those mechanisms started to break down on their own about a decade later.
This is an awful lot to say in a comment. It is maybe inappropriate. You can tell me if that is the case.
My question is this- is brainwashing and propaganda a difference in degree or a difference in kind?
Thank you for sharing. That is quite the journey and I am glad you were able to get yourself free. As for the practical questions, there is a lot of overlap between propaganda and brainwashing. The main difference I can see between the two is that with propaganda you begin with something that is already within the person and manipulate it for economic, social and political reasons. Brainwashing, on the other hand, seeks to break down what is within a person first so that they can then be remade and programed. This is why Joost Meerloo's classic on the subject is called, "The Rape of the Mind." Propaganda is biased towards action and brainwashing to how a person thinks. That said, over time, the propagandized person and the brainwashed person, if they are able to free themselves often have to be re-built in similar ways, taught how to think for themselves again -- this teaching process also has resemblances to propaganda/brainwashing -- as they become "lost" without the constant programming. Both are a form of violence against the person. Both are damaging.
Thank you so much for your insightful reply!
You’re welcome. Thank you again for your story and question.