tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3405601734476762533.post453446421604922664..comments2023-03-31T01:39:39.757-06:00Comments on blog648: Brainwashed!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3405601734476762533.post-3271418948514976602008-06-01T18:46:00.000-06:002008-06-01T18:46:00.000-06:00Hi Jack,I followed your link from Grits because th...Hi Jack,<BR/><BR/>I followed your link from Grits because the "brainwash" theme is one that I found fascinating as well.<BR/><BR/>I came at it not from the perspective of propoganda, but as a legitimate psychiatric diagnosis. I wondered how such a thing could be dianosed. (Turns out it's considered quackery.) There is no "brainwashing" code they can give you on your medical chart, for example. <BR/><BR/>The term brainwashing has a very intresting history and is very much linked with its usefulness as propoganda in the 1960s.<BR/><BR/>This link seems to be a decent one giving the history of the use of this term:<BR/><BR/>http://www.cesnur.org/testi/melton.htm<BR/><BR/><BR/>This weekend I spent too much time reading "Wife #19". This is a 600 page book written by the 19th century equivalent of a Carolyn Jessop--one of Brigham Young's wives after she left him. Rather than reading the book as a source of historical accuracy I was specifically looking for rhetoric about "brainwashing"...except of course they didn't have the concept of brainwashing in that century so they would have to use different terms and different explanations for behavior. I also wanted to see how the antipolygamy talking points differed at that point in time as well. I won't spoil your fun by summarizing it all for you, but there is plenty there...the effects on the children is almost not mentioned at all, even though the author claims that many children were murdered, rather she focuses on the depravity that she says it inflicts on the women. For example, a good woman with good intentions becomes a plural wife and becomes morally ruined because of the instition. Today folks say you have to be "brainwashed" to even enter it. The 19th wife says that women would leave their marriages if they had a way out, today we say that they have been brainwashed into staying in the lifestyle, etc.<BR/><BR/>You can read the entire book online here:<BR/><BR/>http://books.google.com/books?id=0ngFAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Polygamy&as_brr=1<BR/><BR/><BR/>MHAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com