The Instability of Truth: Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper-Persuasion

From Communist reeducation camps to manipulative media algorithms, mind control is a real and often remarkably effective tool, contends historian Lemov (World as Laboratory) in this trenchant study. She traces the start of modern brainwashing to North Korean and Chinese prison camps during the Korean War, where American POWs endured brutal treatment followed by “struggle” sessions where they were forced to listen to lectures on Maoist theory and criticize American capitalism. Those who parroted the dogma got better treatment, and sometimes ended up believing it enough to defect. This one-two punch of physical trauma and disorientation followed by indoctrination formed a template, Lemov contends, for mind-control techniques in everything from U.S. military survival courses to the recruitment programs of religious cults. From there, Lemov charts a sea change to a subtler, 21st-century style of digital thought control in social media algorithms that instill positive or negative emotions in users by tweaking their feeds. Perhaps most intriguingly, Lemov’s deeply researched exploration reveals how the persuasive power wielded by charismatic figures can answer, in a warped way, a person’s yearning for self-reinvention and meaning (members of the Manson Family radiated “self-confidence and dynamism,” Lemov writes; “They felt they belonged somewhere, and this should never be underestimated as the dangerous heart of what brainwashing is”). The result is a provocative and illuminating look at how powerful ideas can overwhelm one’s better instincts. Photos. (Mar.)