Anger and hate: the power of Brianwashing

[sebbysteiny]

Brainwashing and the processes which create hate and anger have come up in a few threads. I think now is the time to nip it in the butt and tackle this issue once for all.

The main questions.

What is Brainwashing?
How does it work?
How easy is it to prevent oneself from being brainwashed?
What else can create hatred?
Any other issues related to the creation of hatred or anger that can express itself through violent means.

[pgrmdave]

It doesn't take much to make people do terrible things...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

[sebbysteiny]

Interesting post Racoon.

I think what you are talking about is not Brainwashing but interrogation techniques and perhaps some kind of 'hypnotic' mind control. 'Hypnotic' is in quotes because it does not appear to have any connection to the field of hypnosis.

I would like to stear away from making any accusations against any particular governments which may only serve to split the right and left, but the points about using drugs and torture to control the mind are still good.

Also your link, pgrmdave, is amazing. It states that authority can easily trick people into doing actions. Quality point.

However can it convince the mind? If an authority figure says murder is good, would the 'teacher' actually change their mind to believe that statement?

Brainwashing is where people's beliefs and mind are altered to willingly and deliberately do evil actions whilst thinking they are doing a good thing.



I will refer to http://hypography.com/forums/social-...war-iii-6.html where the posts which I am responding to were writen.

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

Force and Pursaude are similar once again. What I am saying is that brainwashing does not work on some one who is capable of resisting.

My father taught me something, when some one says they "can't", short of physical limitation, what they really mean, often, is that the won't. which in turn taught me a simple fact, or fact as I see it. One is in control of their actions, always. There maybe some exceptions to this rule, but they are the exception not the rule.

Anger can not be targeted. It's a tertiary emotion. Frustration is a secondary emotion, and thus can be targeted. "I am frustrated with the world" is a valid sentence. "I am angery at blacks" is valid also, I suppose, though like the sentence above it fails to describe properly what there is to do about that. Blanket statments, if I remember. "I feel frustrated with the world because I feel that it does not accept the peace and harmony that can arise from co-operateration." That would be a completely valid I feel statement. It describes what is wrong and gives an idea as to what needs to be delt with to resolve the issue.

Now I have carefully been examining the language that you and I are using to describe our arguements, and I think that our difference is this:
Your argument comes from the stance that people are not responsible for what they do if others convince them of doing it. Correct me if I am wrong.
My arguement come from the stance that people, who have equal power and therefore equal responsiblity, are responsible for their actions no matter what.

Further we seem to have a fundamental disagreement regarding the nature of brainwashing, or otherwise social conditioning. It is my opinion, based on study into the field, that one can not condition someone to do anything that they would not already do. Social conditioning is really simply just an A-Ok on an action that a person would already take, if it was ok with their peers.

You believe brainwashing does not work on a person 'capable' of resisting. I agree, but to be so capable, you must be very aware of the brainwashing tactics and how they work. Unless you are so armed, you are vulnerable and it is just a matter of finding the right way into your mind. All it takes is one argument planted subconciously that, if accepted, can twist your mind to evil deeds.

Evil arguments like 'Israel has a conscript army and therefore it has no civilians, only potential soldiers even if they are three years old' for example, or 'become a martyr and your entire family and friends will be guaranteed in the after life, you will get 72 virgins and walk with the profits' could be another.

Your third paragraph is interesting, but I doubt frustration is sufficient to get people to commit acts of murder against a different people. I think only hate is sufficient.

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

Now I have carefully been examining the language that you and I are using to describe our arguements, and I think that our difference is this:
Your argument comes from the stance that people are not responsible for what they do if others convince them of doing it. Correct me if I am wrong.
My arguement come from the stance that people, who have equal power and therefore equal responsiblity, are responsible for their actions no matter what.

Your are almost correct. I am not saying people are not 'responsible' for their actions, but sometimes they can commit actions because they have allowed their minds to get poisoned by hate by allowing a brainwasher to prey on their vulnerabilities through negligence more than anything else. For example, I think people who enter into a suicide pact for a cult are responsible for their actions even if they were originally normal people who were just a little bit naive.
However we differ in that I am saying most people are vulnerable to brainwashing, and your saying most people have enough control so they are not vulnerable.

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

Further we seem to have a fundamental disagreement regarding the nature of brainwashing, or otherwise social conditioning. It is my opinion, based on study into the field, that one can not condition someone to do anything that they would not already do. Social conditioning is really simply just an A-Ok on an action that a person would already take, if it was ok with their peers.

The most important part of this post

Definately our most important and interesting disagreement. I have also studied the field and learn't a lot about communication and other things including hypnosis.

It is certainly true that with hypnosis, one cannot get somebody to do something they would not already do even if one puts the person in a very deep trance with a top hypnotist. However, one can use hypnotic suggestions (the technical term) to install values by stealth that would not be accepted by the conscious mind. One way of doing this is to distort the language so that your main points are hidden in the language rather than your logical argument. The logical argument thus acts as a distraction for the conscious mind while the language does the damage on the subconscous. See URL="http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/language/index.asp"]http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/language/index.asp[/url] for an example of spreading hate straight from the horses mouth. Another way would be to follow the demonisation formula I set out in "Islamic Terror: the solution" in response to NKT's argument of demonisation. There are many other ways. Essentially they all work by distracting the conscious mind and installing values by stealth (or hypnotic suggestion). Cross words (distraction, doing a cross word): Nazi paper, 6 down, 4 letters, first letter J 'a people that are never to be trusted'; Palestinian papers, 5 accross, 5 letters, first letter H, 'a famous Palestinian port' (ie the ISRAELI port town of Haifa). Joke of the day (distraction, this is a joke, but the subconscious does not know the difference): 'what do you call a black man in a BMW? A theif'. These are all examples of techniques that brainwash into hatred especially if one is not aware of them and they are very effective.

There is one other major influence on Brainwashing that I am aware of: the power of the group.

In my spare time I like to chat up women. I have spent a lot of time doing this, and I believe I have learnt much from it. One of the most important lessons is this. When I approach a group with mixed girls and mixed guys, one or two people are innevitably the leaders. If I can get them taking to me and enjoying the conversation, all the others will follow. Suddenly, I am a very interesting person, a great socialite and very sexy for women. However, if I piss off or annoy the leaders, the women turn off and ignore me thinking me to be an annoying geek with no social prowess. What is particularly striking is you can see the girls (and some guys) visably looking at the leaders waiting for instruction on how to respond to me. Do they have a brain? Absolutely yes. However their version of reality is not as important to them as that of the leader. And so the beliefs of one or two people will sway the beliefs of the entire group. The same goes for hate. If one or even both of the leaders swallow arguments of hate, the entire group will be corrupted by it.

It is for this reason Al Quaeda cells work in very close socially isolated groups. Also, take a person, even someone who would usually be a leader, and simply make him or her socialise with a group corrupted by hate, that person could find himself a 'carrier' of a poisoned mind. It is also for this reason that where a critical mass of people in high places become 'carriers' of hate, an entire country could find itself in a frenzy of hate and under these conditions, and only these conditions, genocides are a real possibility and terrorism against the demonised party will thrive.

I have one excellent psycollogical experiment explaining this group psycology, but I will reveal it as a trump card only when I am being attacked from all sides.

[HappytheStripper]

But where does the brainwashing part fit in .. ?? .. In answer to the questions asked in the orginal Post .. What is Brainwashing?

Brainwashing is an attempt to remove .. memories and/or thoughts from the mind .. as described to me by a 15 year old ..

While everyones' thoughts on this topic will vary .. the basis of thought will remain the same .. based on the original questions asked ..

Thoughts Cancelled in Relation to BrainWashing ..

Since thought is the power of the mind .. it is important to redirect the power of a negative thought .. An affirmation is a good way of redirected the focus of power .. Sometimes the affirmation could cause a resurgence of a negative thought .. and this is true when first working on ordering thoughts .. or as You might define as BrainWashing ..

The way I bypassed becoming trapped in a cyclic spiral .. is through opposites ..

A lot of negative thoughts are based on our perception of past events .. therefore .. past events are used to counter the negative .. which also helps in reprogramming the thought or BrainWashing .. processes .. Simply put .. any negative thought requires a positive thought to refocus the power .. or to defuse the negativity ..

Since most negative thoughts are event driven .. we can use positive events .. remember a positive event from the past .. ??

If it relates to the negative it is better .. but if no positive event comes to mind that relates then use any positive event ..

Doing so helps condition and maintain the work. The add benefit is the positive stimulation from the recalled event. It is very hard to be
feeling negative when we are already feeling positive ..

Any other thoughts can be consciously .. cancelled .. or .. better still ..
transmuted to a positive thought .. through the process of what You may define as BrainWashing ..

Now for Anger and Hate .. this is simple .. Anger is an emotion .. the first accesible emotion for alot of people .. an emotion is the vehicle by which one uses to express their feelings and in this particular instance the feeling is one of hate .. this feeling being created simply by either one or a collection of thoughts ..

In my mind this is a rather negative thought pattern .. and can easily be rendered by using opposites to counter-act it ..

The importance of this simply cannot be overstated .. We experience
our thoughts .. and thoughts are things .. and the things that shape
the future .. so choose them carefully .. and only allow thoughts that are ..
consistent with your wishes ..

I will write more later on .. in the meantime this is all I have .. in regards to .. any other issues related to the creation of hatred or anger that can express itself through violent means .. I will write about after ..

Thanks .. Ashley

[KickAssClown]

Alright first things to do is define.

What is the difference of Brainwashing, Hypnosis, trance and altered State (by drugs for instance). What are the methods of each technique and how can they create a lasting psychological effect. Can they be instituted on a group, state, national, or world level, if so then how?

What is it that we mean when we write these words. What is the context?

The Milgram experiment is talked about, and is actually a highly influential experiment in the formulation of DeMause's Psychogenic Theory of History.

It forms the basis of what DeMause calls the Social Alter. A trance state of mind that forms the group self. I identify, infact that I speaking here on the forms am using my social alter in an educational way.

Originally Posted by Lloyd DeMause

SOCIAL ALTERS AND THE SOCIAL TRANCE
Although few people are diagnosed with dissociative disorders, most people nevertheless have organized, dissociated persecutory personalities whose function it is to punish themselves or substitutes for themselves as "object lessons"-in order to remind them that growth, pleasure and success are dangerous and might precipitate trauma or rejection. Child psychologists have recently suggested that perhaps "all children have dissociative-like states" and that abuse and neglect leads to the "establishment of centers of experience external to the core self during transient hypnotic-like states" that act as early alters. As they grow up, these dissociated parts of their psyche are organized into persecutory social scenarios that are shared with others, which could be thought of as social alters. McVeigh switched into and out of his angry, militarist self, his social alter, each time he reexperienced further evidence for abandonment by mother figures. It is a process we all share to some extent with McVeigh. Rather than living our lives wholly in our private selves, we choose to live partly in our social alters, where ghosts of our past are disguised as social roles in the present. Social alters of individuals collude to produce the social trance and have five characteristics:

(1) they are separate neural networks that are repositories for feelings, images and scenarios connected with traumatic abuse and neglect, including the defensive fantasies that go with them;

(2) they are organized into dynamic structures containing an alternate set of goals, values and defenses from those of the main self, in order to help prevent the traumas from overwhelming one's life and to to defend against the reexperiencing of the humiliations and persecutions of childhood;

(3) they have the central task of organizing and carrying out both the idealizing and the persecutory fantasies in society that are the result of these traumas, the idealizing mainly toward male leaders (father-saviors), and the persecutory mainly toward women (persecuting mothers) and children (guilty self);

(4) they are co-conscious of the central personality, yet

(5) they are split off by a seamless wall of denial, depersonalization, discontinuity of affect and disownership of responsibility that is maintained by collusion with others pretending the alters are normal; and

(6) they are shared and restaged in historical group-fantasies that are elaborated into political, religious and social institutions.

Social alters contain memories of severe traumas and rejections and have their own repertoire of defensive behaviors. Experiments have shown that adults who were traumatized as children are more susceptible to hypnosis, to group suggestions, to hysterical religious behavior and to paranormal experiences. Dissociative disorders are what Winnicott called "the psychosis hidden behind the neurosis." More organized and dissociated than just "false selves," social alters differ from alters of multiple personalities in that they replace the usual denial by amnesia with denial by dissociation of emotional connections, maintained through group collusion. Thus, even though one may be more or less conscious of the activities of one's social alter-knowing that the self that shoots a child who is an "enemy" is the same person that values one's own child-still, the emotional connections between the two selves are missing. Thus people can imagine they go to war or conduct a genocide because of the chance appearance of an enemy, never because of anything emotional happening in their own heads.

Source: Emotional Life of Nations, Chapter Five: The Psychogenic Theory of History

Citations:

147. Theresa K. Albini and Terri E. Pease, "Normal and Pathological Dissociations of Early Childhood." Dissociation 2(1989): 144.

148. J. O. Beahrs, "Co-Consciousness: A Common Denominator in Hypnosis, Multiple Personality, and Normalcy." American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis 26(1983): 100.

149. John F. Schumaker, The Corruption of Reality: A Unified Theory of Religion, Hypnosis, and Psychopathology. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995, pp. 82-83, 163.

150. D. W. Winnicott, "The Use of an Object and Relating Through Identifications. International Journal of Psycho-analysis 48(f1967): 87.

151. D. W. Winnicott, The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. New York: International Universities Press, 1965.

sometimes they can commit actions because they have allowed their minds to get poisoned by hate by allowing a brainwasher to prey on their vulnerabilities through negligence more than anything else.

The bolded writting is my point. This leads back to my point regarding the nature of oppression. This would be the first path, That of Acquiescence. None-the-less, it is they who controls it ultimately. There are many places in human Gnosis that say "Know thy self". Religion, Politics, Philosophy, Science. Just about anywhere you look it is established that ignorance is a poor substitute for knowledge. This is to say that ignoring ones responsibilities does not make one any less responsible for one's actions. In some form of Psychology (don't remember where I learned this, if some one knows what I am talking about please do tell.), this rejection of one's power and responsibility forms the basis of a major negative thinking mode called Blaming. In which the reaction of the individual is in majority projective. It's also known as scapegoating.

We have done it constantly through out history. Why did the german people act the way they did in World War II? The responses are many but the loudest one that comes across to me, is "Oh it's that evil man, Hitler. He convinced the german people to be evil murdering heartless Nazis."

In reality, this is scapegoating on many playing fields. First is skirting the responsibility of the citizens and the german elite who served under and allowed (no dictator works without peons) Hitler to lead them. Second is skirting the responsibilities of the world as whole to keep itself (that is the human component at the very least) in check. By placing the blame on Hitler, we take the blame that is due to us, take the responsibility that is due to us, and projecting it on to Hitler and the Nazi Regime.

In rejecting our own responsibility, we reject our own power. In rejecting our own power we open ourselves to ignorance of our failings and therefore to the manipulation of others.

I am going to take a momentary respite. I look forward to replies.

[KickAssClown]

Originally Posted by Me

The Milgram experiment is talked about, and is actually a highly influential experiment in the formulation of DeMause's Psychogenic Theory of History.

Sorry I stated this and then did not address. Slipped my mind.

Originally Posted by Lloyd DeMause

OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY IN A SOCIAL TRANCE
It is only when one realizes that we all carry around with us persecutory social alters that become manifest in groups that such unexplained experiments as those described in Stanley Milgram's classic study Obedience to Authority become understandable. In this experiment, people were asked to be "teachers" and, whenever their "learners" made mistakes, to give them massive electric shocks. The "learners," who were only acting the part, were trained to give out pained cries even though the "electric shocks" were non-existent. Of the 40 "teachers," 65 percent delivered the maximum amount of shock even as they watched the "learners" scream out in pain and plead to be released, despite their having been told they didn't have to step up the shock level. The "teachers" often trembled, groaned and were extremely upset at having to inflict the painful shocks, but continued to do so nonetheless. That the "teachers" believed the shocks were real is confirmed by another version of the experiment in which real shocks were inflicted upon a little puppy, who howled in protest; the obedience statistics were similar.

Social scientists have been puzzled by Milgram's experiments, wondering why people were so easily talked into inflicting pain so gratuitously. The real explanation is that, by joining a group-the "university experiment"-they switched into their social alters and merged with their own sadistic internalized persecutor, which was quite willing to take responsibility for ordering pain inflicted upon others. Their "struggle with themselves" over whether to obey was really a struggle between their social alters and their main selves.

Although many subsequent experiments varied the conditions for obedience, what Milgram did not do is try the experiment without the social trance. If he had not framed it as a group experience, if he had simply on his own authority walked up to each individual, alone, and, without alluding to a university or any other group, asked him or her to come to his home and give massive amounts of electric shock to punish someone, he would not have been obeyed, because they would not have switched into their social alters. The crucial element of the experiments was the existence of the group-as-terrifying-parent, the all-powerful university. Not surprisingly, when the experiment was repeated using children-who go into trance and switch into traumatized content more easily than adults-they were even more obedient in inflicting the maximum shock.[latex]^{165}{/latex] Subjects were even obedient when they themselves were the victims: 54 percent turned a dial upon command to the maximum limit when they had been told it was inflicting damage upon their ears that could lead to their own deafness, and 74 percent ate food they thought could harm them, thus confirming that they were truly in a dissociated state, not just "obeying" authority or trying to hurt others, and that it was actually an alternate self doing the hurting of the main self. The only time they refused to obey was when experimenters pretended to act out a group rebellion, since the social trance was broken.

Milgram could also have tested whether it was simple obedience that was really being tested by asking his subjects to reach into their pockets and pay some money to the learners. They would have refused to do so, because they weren't "obeying" any old command, they were using the experimental situation to hurt scapegoats. It is the social trance itself and not "obedience to authority" that is effective in producing destructive obedience. Milgram's subjects, like all of us who participate in wars and social violence, lost their capacity for empathy with victims only when in a social trance. Those who continue to replicate Milgram's experiments and who are still puzzled as to why "the most banal and superficial of rationales...is enough to produce destructive behavior in human beings"[latex]^{168}[/[latex] simply underestimate the amount of trauma most people have experienced and the effectiveness of the social trance in allowing them to restage these hurts.

At one point Milgram approached the insight that he was dealing with an alternate personality when he discusses what he terms the "agentic state," which is his term for the trance that his subjects were in. "Moved into the agentic state," Milgram wrote, "the person becomes something different from his former self, with new properties not easily traced to his usual personality." Unfortunately, neither Milgram nor any of the others who have performed obedience experiments looked into the childhoods of their subjects to see if those who easily obeyed hurtful commands differed from the minority who refused to do so.

The Emotional Life of Nations, Chapter Five: The Psychogenic Theory of History

Citations:
162. Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.

163. Ibid., 152.

164. Arthur G. Miller, The Obedience Experiments: A Case Study of Controversy in Social Science. New York: Praeger Scientific, 1986.

165. Ibid., p. 76.

166. Ibid., p. 78-79, 148.

167. Ibid., p. 60.

168. Irving I. Janus, Victims of Groupthink. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982, p. 70. 169 Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority. New York: Harper & Row, 1974, p. 143.

170. Milgram himself only tried some crude personality tests; see A. C. Elms and Stanley Milgram, "Personality Characteristics Associated With Obedience and Defiance Toward Authoritative Command." Journal of Experimental Research in Personality 1(1966): 282-89.

[sebbysteiny]

Originally Posted by me

sometimes they can commit actions because they have allowed their minds to get poisoned by hate by allowing a brainwasher to prey on their vulnerabilities through negligence more than anything else.

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

The bolded writting is my point.

It appears that we both agree: brainwashing can work on everybody who has not taken the trouble to educate themselves about it.

Your point about people blaming Hitler rather than the German people or even ourselves (the other nations in the West) is gold. My point is that an entire population including our own is potentially open to such Brainwashing. However your point is that even so, they must take responsibility for their actions and they were not as powerless as one might think.

And we agree. There were a number of people in Germany who refused to give up their mind to the Nazi hate machine many of whome have a tree planted in their name in Yad Vashem. Lets not forget the herroism of Oscar Schindler: a man who 10s of thousands of people are alive today thanks to.

Originally Posted by Lloyd DeMause

Thus, even though one may be more or less conscious of the activities of one's social alter-knowing that the self that shoots a child who is an "enemy" is the same person that values one's own child-still, the emotional connections between the two selves are missing.

I think this was the main point of his argument. I might suggest that the social alter and demonisation are very similar things. The question is what creates them in the first place. I think DeMause thinks this is caused by traumatic events at childhood. However I saw no mention of Brainwashing and thus there seems to be a fundamental chunk missing from his chapter. I also saw nothing that could help our situation. If traumatic childhoods can cause violence and hate, other than try and establish human rights in the countries in the hope of minimising domestic violence, there is little that can be done.

I am beginning to think it is quite possible that DeMause has hit upon one of two quite separate causes for anger, hate and violence. The other is Brainwashing and one does not need a traumatic childhood to succumb to it. The latter seems to be able to explain why some populations are more prone to violence and hate than others. I'm may be wrong, but I think DeMause's theory does not (unless one talks about countries with a domestic violence problem).

Can't wait to read the rest of your post.

[sebbysteiny]

Lloyd DeMause's theory of a 'social trance' explains well the group psycology that I was talking about.

So the useful information is that if people become part of a group, their reality will be distorted by that of the 'authority figure' be it the influential person or the CIO or even just a teacher. The psycological mechanism as KickAssClown pointed out is the 'social trance'.

So you have to construct a group in which the man in which the authority figure spreads the hate. It is thus crucial to prevent any 'rebellions'. This shouldn't be too difficult. Small group activities should be sufficient in which the brainwashing teacher is naturally the authority figure.

However, group psycology brainwashing is not the only form of brainwashing. But I think I now know enough to be so bold as to unify it with all the other factors I was talking about.

Originally Posted by Me

There are many other ways. Essentially they all work by distracting the conscious mind and installing values by stealth (or hypnotic suggestion). Cross words (distraction, doing a cross word): Nazi paper, 6 down, 4 letters, first letter J 'a people that are never to be trusted'; Palestinian papers, 5 accross, 5 letters, first letter H, 'a famous Palestinian port' (ie the ISRAELI port town of Haifa). Joke of the day (distraction, this is a joke, but the subconscious does not know the difference): 'what do you call a black man in a BMW? A theif'. These are all examples of techniques that brainwash into hatred especially if one is not aware of them and they are very effective.

Group Psycology is no different. The conscious mind is occupied by the group interactions which leaves the subconscious wide open in a 'social trance' in which even direct arguments are fed directly into the subconscious. Wow. Fcuk me. Weak people must therefore be more vulnerable to this type of brainwashing because they need more of the conscious brain power for social interactions than strong confident people leaving the vulnerable subconscious poorly defended.

That is the most scary conclusion I have ever reached. What am I going to do? Lock myself into a room and avoid all social contact? I can't see a defence!!!

I don't think straight forward demonisation fits into this pattern though at first glance. I will think more about this and get back.

[KickAssClown]

There's more to this than just that.

Remember I stated that negative thinking proves to be a big role here, even on the global scale.

If a nation can blame, then a nation can project.

According to DeMause, the social alter comes out to help facilitate a social group. That we (as group) concent to a leader who will fullfill our group fantasy. this is also talked about in the very same chapter of that book as well as in Foundations of Psychohistory, the more Textbook version.

He talks about both Germany in World War II and about Islam in modern days with regards to the phenomena of Group fantasy and Social Alters.

As I understand it, Hitler did not come to power because he was powerful, but rather because he elegantly voiced the suppressed desires of the nation as a majority. Voiced silent solutions that weren't proper... but it was their great leader saying it therefore it must be right, right?

People want to believe certain things, and most people *I* have ever met are dishonest, inwhole or inpart with themselves and with others. Dishonesty starts from within and spreads out, as a fractal. I know I am not as honest as I would like to be, but I fear the reprisal of the society. Fear what they (that means all of you) would think if they knew who I am and what I've done. Hence discourse within. One can only reach nirvana if one joins the seperate parts of themselves into the one.

Originally Posted by Lloyd DeMause

THE CAUSES OF WORLD WAR II AND THE HOLOCAUST
Historians and political scientists have proposed any number of causes for WWII and the Holocaust. Unfortunately, detailed research has disproved every one of them. Goldhagen's claim that ordinary Germans had long held "exterminationist" antisemitic views has been disproved by careful historical studies that showed Germany was "a safe haven in late-nineteenth-century Europe [where] when German Jews looked toward France, they saw the startling antisemitism unleashed by the Dreyfus Affair and when they looked eastward, they saw pogroms and thousands of Jews fleeing toward Germany's safer political climate." The reason "why so many Jews failed to leave Germany [was] they really couldn't believe that this Germany, which they loved [and] felt gratitude toward" would ever harm them. In fact, earlier antisemitic movements in Germany were tiny, and "most historians believe that the Nazis had no deep roots in German history and that antisemitism in Germany was not essentially different from that of some other nations..." Careful studies of Nazi party members have even found that most were not antisemitic when they joined; "most people were drawn to antisemitism because they were drawn to Nazism, not the other way around." Kershaw's recent careful studies conclude "that antisemitism was not a major factor in attracting support for Hitler..." As we shall shortly detail, what made Germans antisemitic was the anxieties of the manic period after the Great Depression had ended, later in the 1930s after Hitler gained power, and were not due some mysterious German gene for eliminationist politics.

All the other explanations for WWII and the Holocaust have been similarly disproved by recent historical research. Klaus Fischer's "no Hitler, no Holocaust," along with all the other studies blaming German violence on "obedience" to Hitler's "hypnotic eyes" have been thrown out by the dozens of studies of the spontaneous, gratuitous violence engaged in by average Germans even when they could have easily opted out. "Only following orders" is simply a no longer considered a serious motivation for the war and genocide. What is, however, most widely accepted is that Germans were "under stress," voted Nazi and then turned to violence because of the Great Depression.

Numerous detailed studies of Nazi membership all disprove this "economic stress" argument. The "model Nazi party member" joined before the Depression, "his economic status was secure, for not once did he have to change his occupation, job, or residence, nor was he ever unemployed." "The only group affected [by the Depression] were the workers...Yet paradoxically the workers remained steadfast in support of the [democratic] status quo while the middle class, only marginally hurt by the economic constriction, turned to revolution." Most workers did not vote for the Nazis and of those who did, who "believed in Hitler the magician," most soon felt disappointed. Hitler, in fact, admitted "economics was not very important to him [and] very few Germans had any information about what his economic program actually was." Germans who became violent Nazis came primarily from authoritarian middle-class backgrounds, not from poverty; indeed, "those who grew up in poverty showed the least prejudice" in Merkl's study of Nazi stormtroopers. The "stress" that triggered the war and genocide may have been related to economics, but it in fact came from renewed prosperity in the late 1930s, not to the economic collapse of 1929.

There is one psychological study based upon a developmental event in the early lives of Germans that is given some credulity by historians: the "Nazi Youth Cohort" thesis of Peter Loewenberg. This study claims that "the rapid political ascendance of the Nazi party (NSDAP) in the period from 1928 to 1933 was marked by a particularly strong support from youth" who were deprived of food during the 1917-1919 Allied embargo. Citing low German birth weights and excess infant mortality during the period, Loewenberg feels this "single traumatic event" accounts for "the influx of German youth to the ranks of National Socialism, the political decline of the Weimar Republic, and the Nazi seizure of power." The problem with this thesis is the figures don't add up. While Loewenberg cites the census of 1933 as showing 31 percent of Germans were "youthful," these figures in fact were for those 18 to 30 years of age. Children born in 1917-18 were actually only 11-12 years of age in 1929 when the Nazis received their most uncoerced votes. Even those up to 5 years of age during the embargo years would still be from 12-17 in 1929, too young to join the Nazi party. And in fact most German youth didn't join the Hitler Youth, which managed to attract only one percent of the young people belonging to religious and political youth organizations in 1932. Therefore, the WWI famine, however severe, cannot be a main cause of the Nazi takeover, since the average age of membership of the Nazi party was in fact over 31 years.

Source: Emotional State of Nations, Chapter Six: War as Righteous Rape and Purification

Citations:
254. P. M. H. Bell, The Origins of the Second World War in Europe. Second Ed. New York: Longman, 1997.

255. Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.256. Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 13.

257. Ron Rosenbau, Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil. New York: Random House, 1998, p. 335.

258. John Weiss, Ideology of Death: Why the Holocaust Happened in Germany. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1991, p. vii.

259. Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Attalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: Harper Collins, 1998, p. 199.

260. Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck, The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998, p. 240.

261. Klaus P. Fischer, The History of an Obsession: German Judeophobia and the Holocaust. New York: Continuum, 1998, p. 5.

262. George M. Kren and Leon Rappoport, The Holocaust and the Crisis of Human Behavior. Rev. Ed. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1980, p. 40.

263. Theodore Abel, Why Hitler Came Into Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938, p. 6.

264. William Sheridan Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1922-1945. New York: F. Watts, 1984, pp. 24, 69.

265. Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria 1933-1945. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983, p. 47.

266. Paul Bookbinder, Weimar Germany: The Republic of the Reasonable. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996, p. 219.

267. Peter H. Merkl, The Making of a Stormtrooper. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980, p. 228.

268. "The Psychohistorical Origins of the Nazi Youth Cohort." In Peter Loewenberg, Decoding the Past: The Psychohistorical Approach. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1996, pp. 240-283.

269. Ibid., p. 249.

270. Ibid., p. 251.

271. Bernt Engelmann, In Hitler’s Germany: Everyday Life in the Third Reich. New York: Schocken Books, 1986, p. 44.

272. Ibid., p. 253.

273. Hans Mommsen, The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1989,, p. 351.

I will ask again that the difference between Group psychology, Hyponosis, Brainwashing, and other methods/types of conditioning be made clear.

[sebbysteiny]

Remember I stated that negative thinking proves to be a big role here, even on the global scale.

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

If a nation can blame, then a nation can project.

According to DeMause, the social alter comes out to help facilitate a social group. That we (as group) concent to a leader who will fullfill our group fantasy. this is also talked about in the very same chapter of that book as well as in Foundations of Psychohistory, the more Textbook version

I read your most recent post on DeMause. DeMause in my view correctly addresses all the factors that have been claimed as being responsible for the holocaust but have proven, on research, to be either wrong or baseless.

However, there was one fundamental factor which I believe was crucial and goes beyond group psycology and 'social trances': Brainwashing. DeMause suggests the 'social trances' comes from traumatic experiences as a boy. I say it comes from Brainwashing as a boy or as a man (or woman for those girls amongst us ).

What does DeMause say about Brainwashing ie propaganda of hate?

Originally Posted by KickAssClown

will ask again that the difference between Group psychology, Hyponosis, Brainwashing, and other methods/types of conditioning be made clear.

Each is quite clearly relevant in this debate.

Brainwashing is the act of installing beliefs into another person. These beliefs need not make logical sense for Brainwashing to work. It goes into the dark side of humanity and there is no moral or logical limit to the extent that a normal unguarded person can be brainwashed. It can be used to brainwash for good, but more scarily it can equaly be used to brainwash for evil.

Group Psycology is simply how people behave in a group. In the above threads I think you and I have concluded that group psycology is a very powerful TOOL for any brainwasher to use and they must certainly be aware of it. It works, in my opinion, by distracting the conscious mind in social interaction leaving the subconcious very vulnerable even to direct arguments.

Hypnosis is the act of putting you into a trance and communicating and manipulating the subconscious. The most common tool to do this is a hypnotic suggestion: an indirect command that is designed to go under the conscious radar. Used correctly, it can be a useful form of treatment and confidence building. Once in a trance, ones beliefs still dominate ones actions. Thus you cannot get anybody but a murderer to murder when in a trance. However you can install new arguments that would be rejected almost immediately if the conscious mind were to detect them. For example, as you start to learn more about hyponotic suggestions, you might find yourself being less convinced by irrational anti American hate and find yourself becoming more sympathetic to America. The last sentence was a hypnotic suggestion to be more pro-American.

However our hypnotic trance has a good reason for existing. It allows us to perform instinctual duties like driving a car whilst thinking about whether the present you bought your guests is good enough.

Demonisation is the act of installing the feeling of hatred towards a party and is another form of brainwashing. It works in a three stage process: 1) make you fall in love with a party ('the loved party'); 2) add a second party ('the demonised party') which causes immense suffering to the loved party; 3) suggest a solution (eg terrorism, genocide). Demonisation works by distracting the conscious mind with a fairly non debatable argument (eg every people have a right to effective and proportionate self defence), and then using emotionally charged statements to connect the loved party to the perportrator, the demonised party to the victim and the 'self defence' to the crime against humanity. These emotionally charged statements thus are fed directly into the subconscious (as the conscious mind is distracted) and act as a hypnotic suggestion. A great example of demonisation is NKT's post in the thread 'Islamic terror: the solution'

And with my last paragraph I have unified demonisation with all other brainwashing techniques.