Is positive brainwashing necessary to defend against detrimental societal brainwashing

Brainwashing is a tool utilised consciously and unconsciously by a wide range of sources from social media and news broadcasts on the more mundane end of the spectrum all the way up to abusive relationships, prisoner of war interrogations, and radicalising unstable youths into extremism. Due to the malleability and inherent lack of resistance and structure within a youthful member of society’s psyche who might not have the level of knowledge, critical thinking skills, healthy skepticism or role model necessary in order to defend himself from the permeating wave patterns of the brainwashing which can offer coherence and structure although maladaptive. Is it necessary for a “healthy brainwashing” which can include uplifting values such as hard work culture, religion as well as other uplifting value systems and beliefs, using the same brainwashing techniques, making the subjects feel guilty for dismantling these belief structures in order to connect to their true authentic values? Do we need the battle of fighting to dismantle the “positive” embedded structures such as religion and work culture in order to prove we are no longer vulnerable to the detrimental forms of societal brainwashing? Do we need this fight in order to become responsible members of society, or should we be encouraged to formulate our own value system from the ground up?

Brainwashing is a process where the result of it is the individual loses access to their own values and their brain wave patterns have been significantly compromised, in which the subjects tend to do things completely out of character and against their will without realising. Mass brainwashing events have occurred time and time again throughout history leading to mass psychoses time and time again. Psychologically, brainwashing also referred to as thought reform falls into the sphere of “social influence”. This type of influence happens every minute of every day and it is how people can change other people’s attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. Brainwashing occurs in a few simple steps starting with the breakdown of the self of the subject, followed by an attack on the identity of the subject, the imposition that the subject is bad, the subject is then encouraged to agree with the idea that they are bad to alleviate the guilt. After this, the subject is largely at the will of the person performing the brainwashing as their identity is in crisis and they are offered the possibility of salvation through a new series of beliefs where the subject gets to alleviate their guilt. They then get to rebuild their self in a false way with the new belief system, with an alleged path to harmony

Within society there are many “mind viruses” floating around looking to infect people through interpersonal transmission. It follows a similar series of steps as outlined above in order to achieve goals, as opposed to trusting the individual to come to that conclusion through their self, motivation, empathy and will rather these views are imposed on people throughout society through the process of brainwashing and can be rather detrimental for one’s health, development and wellbeing as opposed to some of the more “positive” brainwashing structures within society. Some of the main positive ones include grind culture, organised religion, nationalism (not in Germany in the 30’s to specify) and traditional gender roles. In these cases, structure is provided to the individual on how to live when they may lack guidance, this offers structure for the individual with imposed beliefs and ways to live one’s life. For example within some religious communities homosexuality is not accepted and frowned upon. The individual is then left with the “good brainwashing” structure within their mind which provides many beneficial values but fundamentally rejecting the sexual orientation of the individual and imposing that they either repress or pray for their sins to come back to the religious group and conform to their values in order to be accepted. For the structure and personality of some people, they would live much more meaningful and fulfilling lives outside of traditional gender roles, and so for them this “brainwashing” becomes something negative. Would they be better off completely without the religious structure or would it be more beneficial for them to have that fight in order to emerge with their own well thought out individual values

Without any religious structure, the person may be much more susceptible to others who are self serving and may manipulate the person against their own best interests. They have little structure within so they are much more open to the influence of others who could be detrimental for their wellbeing and cause them to go down a dark path in life. They may be brainwashed by less beneficial structures such as wokeism, nihilism or conspiracy culture which have the potential to send the individual down detrimental pathways causing themselves harm and colonising their psyche’s in a similar way to religion, but without the beneficial structures which keep the individual on the straight and narrow

With the religious structure and the rejection of the values of the individual, there are a few paths one might proceed down in terms of rejecting the imposing values one does not agree with. Commonly associated with this is the rebel archytype where one rebels against the institution of religion, where they define themselves in direct contradiction to religion and engage in most behaviours directly against the religious beliefs imposed of them of which some were highly beneficial, this gives them a high level of individualism but their values are defined in direct contradiction to religion and a rebel identity does not provide much real identity nor structure. As the saying goes don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Another person may rebel in a more healthy way by finding a group more supportive of their value systems and identify with that, which provides a different structure which is more supportive and accepting of their non traditional gender roles and values, but at the same time this over accepting nature can stifle the will of the individual, requiring them to stand up to this new more accepting group eventually as they are likely to clash at some point if they retain their values strongly. This new structure offers a better way to reject some of the values which the individual may not agree with as opposed to a rebel identity which provides little real structure and opportunity for authentic values to emerge. The third way which an individual may reject the imposing beliefs of the religion which they may not agree with is through defining their own authentic values more strongly, keeping the positive aspects religion has offered while rejecting just the values they do not agree with and may even continue to identify with that religion but not following traditional gender roles, they may seek out different churches which are more accepting of their values. This final way of rejecting certain aspects of religion is the best for personal growth and while the most difficult, should be accommodated and encouraged by organised religion as a pathway towards self development, keeping the individual in line with most of the beneficial values of the community

While the positive brainwashing can stifle an individual in certain cases causing them to rebel, without adequate mentorship or trusted adults it is necessary for the positive development of the individual. It serves an essential function to prevent individuals from slipping into negative brainwashing floating around society, while religion and other positive “brainwashing” structures may seem rigid to some, it is essential for them to remain within society to provide structure for individuals, but should aim to become more accomodating to individuals who are on the path of relentless individuation through their own authentic value systems which may be in contradiction to the some of the values and beliefs of organised religion or other positive "brainwashing" structural systems.