Thought Reform, Then and Now (Part 2)

posted on 11/29/2018 by the Salt City Sinner

(You can find part one here)

Why does Robert Lifton’s Thought Reform matter? It was written in 1959, based on interviews conducted between 1954 and 1959, and first released in 1961. Is it still relevant?

It is, for better and/or worse. “Better” because what Lifton documented – and what the Chinese Communist Party developed through experimentation with Stalin-era Soviet tactics – is a form of applied political psychology that to an extent works, and can be used for good or ill (like any other tool). Now, as Lifton himself has been very careful to point out, there are enormous caveats to what thought reform can achieve and on whom it is effective (for example, thought reform is a mixed bag at converting religious believers).

Caveats or no caveats, its effectiveness means that some forms of thought reform-adjacent manipulation are more widely used in 2018 than you might think.

Thought Reform Is Still Going On In Chinese Prison Camps

For one thing, the practices that Lifton described in 1961 are still going on today. Uighurs are a Muslim minority in China, and one that the government appears to fear and loathe. The variety of “offenses” for which Uighurs are imprisoned is worth noting (Uighurs are jailed for “abstaining from cigarettes,” for example, or speaking their native languages in work groups or school).

Human rights groups estimate that one million Uighurs may currently be in these concentration camps, undergoing psychological manipulation much like that used by the Chinese state in the 1950s.

As depressing as that is, it’s not just totalitarian regimes abroad that are using the techniques developed there. Oh no, my friend.

Alcoholics Anonymous

I do not care for AA.

If you happen to be an AA devotee, please read this next sentence carefully: you DID NOT get sober “thanks to AA.” That has been scientifically debunked (over and over). Much like the courage granted the Cowardly Lion by the Wizard of Oz, the sobriety was actually inside of you all along (no, seriously)!

I think AA is a destructive organization, and has many characteristics of a new religious movement (NRM – the preferred term for what used to be called “religious cults”), although not all the characteristics that would define it as such. Usually, when someone doesn’t care for AA, they hedge their disapproval. “It works for some people,” they say, or “I had an uncle who got sober with AA – it’s the only thing that could have worked for him. It saved his life.” I will not hedge. I plan on expanding on this subject quite a pit in a forthcoming post, so save any objections until then.

For the purposes of this discussion, let’s call Alcoholics Anonymous – or any other 12-step program – a (largely?) benign form of thought reform. It hits every single box in Lifton’s criteria. (This is hardly an original thought on my part, although people usually just jump straight to “cult” and skip the interesting bits.) Importantly, it is often practiced upon captive audiences – those either required by a court to attend or “taking advantage” of the program while incarcerated.

Direct Sales Conferences and “Transformational Training”

First off, there’s a fantastic new podcast out called “the Dream” that takes listeners on a terrifying journey into the rotting innards of the American dream as it relates to multi-level marketing (which is currently trying to rebrand itself – again – as “direct sales”).  I highly recommend it.

If you are unfamiliar with what those are, will you please trade lives with me? No? Okay – they are Amway, Doterra, Herbalife, all that crap that your old friend from high school is constantly shilling on Facebook. Direct sales are a scam (a pyramid scheme, to be specific) and a great way to take on tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt and ruin your life. Sound good? Great, you’re ready to head to a conference!

Now, I won’t go into all the ways that direct sales “training” is awful – or, more accurately, I will in a later, longer post. I just wanted to touch briefly on these conferences’ style. It’s confessional, it’s borderline – in some cases overtly – religious in tone. Often referred to as “transformational training,” and tagged as “large group awareness training” by psychologists, It’s meant to break you down and help you unlock the sales potential within you.

It’s thought reform.

Incidentally, the most egregious “sales training” I’ve ever heard of was hatched by one of the fathers of multi-level marketing, a sadistic and authoritarian hypercapitalist named William Penn Warren. At the zenith of his malignant reign, he created Leadership Dynamics. Wikipedia has a pretty good summary:

Michael Langone wrote in Business and Society Review that Leadership Dynamics was one of the first "transformational trainings.” The extreme form of human potential movement training led to a series of lawsuits for the company. This extreme training involved subjecting course participants to abusive practices such as beating, food and sleep deprivation, being placed inside of coffins, and degrading sexual acts.

So; like it or not, thought reform is all around you. Lifton notes this in his book. He spends a chapter examining what does and does not comport with his definition of thought reform in seemingly anodyne places such as education, incarceration, and psychotherapy. And that’s where my main critique of Lifton’s book comes in.

I don’t think he looked quite deeply enough into American life and (even more specifically) American economic relations. I think he could have, for example, written an entire follow-up book about the use of thought reform in marketing – which in turn has had a major, major impact on American democracy, which is almost entirely an exercise in mass marketing at this point. Also, alarmingly, some aspects of American politics, especially on the right, are beginning to very closely match some parts of thought reform – the thought-terminating cliché, milieu control, it’s all getting very inward-looking and in-group obsessed.

Thus, the Sinner’s $.25 Psychic Self-Defense and Literature Review! When you feel the filthy fingers of one or another unsubtle brute fumbling at the fertile folds of your mind, remember; don’t react the way they want you to. Refuse the thought-terminating cliché. Question the sacred science. Don’t let them control your milieu (at least, to the extent that you have that option).

Even benign thought reform leaves a mark.