‘They wear pride like a jewelled necklace and clothe themselves with cruelty.’ (Psalm 73”6)
When the news of the death of Kim Jong-il broke out recently, the last thing I expect to see is pictures of hysterical mourning of the North Koreans. Is their grief real or staged? May be the answer is ‘brainwashed’.
The word "brainwashing" was first coined during the Korean War, to explain the alarming footage of captured US soldiers supporting communism and denouncing the west after went through "thought-reform" in Chinese prison camps. It works well in a highly controlled environment where intense social pressures make adopting new beliefs easy.
Some techniques used in any brainwashing are isolation, control, repetition and emotions. They work because our brains are not static and keep updating with new information which affecting our minds, in turn influence our behaviours.
When you move a person to a totally new environment, you can filter the incoming data that go into the brain’s inputs and weaken the old ones. With that, you can control the behaviours, hence change the minds. The North Koreans have been isolated for decades. The 'controlled' environment attempts to get rid of inputs that might trigger old beliefs.
Brainwashing also involves surrounds the person with believers, restrict conversations on approved topics, and control what they see and hear. Repetition on that person helps to reinforce new beliefs and ensure the mind is saturated with them. Marching, rote learning, lectures and criticism sessions lasted for hours, days and years are often included in the brainwashing process.
Are all these outpouring of emotions by the North Koreans fake? May be not. Someone once said, "If you rule a destitute country with a personality cult, you must present the people with something to hate. It's brainwashing.'' By controlling all information within his country and virtually no contact with the outside world, Kim controls the worldview of his people. So people actually can be made to believe things what clearly aren’t good for them.
When the news of the death of Kim Jong-il broke out recently, the last thing I expect to see is pictures of hysterical mourning of the North Koreans. Is their grief real or staged? May be the answer is ‘brainwashed’.
The word "brainwashing" was first coined during the Korean War, to explain the alarming footage of captured US soldiers supporting communism and denouncing the west after went through "thought-reform" in Chinese prison camps. It works well in a highly controlled environment where intense social pressures make adopting new beliefs easy.
Some techniques used in any brainwashing are isolation, control, repetition and emotions. They work because our brains are not static and keep updating with new information which affecting our minds, in turn influence our behaviours.
When you move a person to a totally new environment, you can filter the incoming data that go into the brain’s inputs and weaken the old ones. With that, you can control the behaviours, hence change the minds. The North Koreans have been isolated for decades. The 'controlled' environment attempts to get rid of inputs that might trigger old beliefs.
Brainwashing also involves surrounds the person with believers, restrict conversations on approved topics, and control what they see and hear. Repetition on that person helps to reinforce new beliefs and ensure the mind is saturated with them. Marching, rote learning, lectures and criticism sessions lasted for hours, days and years are often included in the brainwashing process.
Are all these outpouring of emotions by the North Koreans fake? May be not. Someone once said, "If you rule a destitute country with a personality cult, you must present the people with something to hate. It's brainwashing.'' By controlling all information within his country and virtually no contact with the outside world, Kim controls the worldview of his people. So people actually can be made to believe things what clearly aren’t good for them.
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