Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 July 2006 13:45:13
I read an obituary.
It was of a Catholic priest in Northern Ireland. I'd never heard of him before but there was an interesting quote from him about brainwashing. I can't recall it exactly, but it was along the lines of "People accuse us of being in the business of brainwashing children. Well, we are."
Many of my acquaintances would just tut at that and go "Catholics! What do you expect?" but my instinct was instead to identify with him and thus feel slightly repelled at the implicit accusation that I was in the business of brainwashing children. Now, when I am accused of something, although I might hide it, I always take the accusations seriously and chew them over. (This may seem like a good humble thing to do, but given the effect it has on my mental [im]balance, I wouldn't recommend it at all). So I pondered whether or not I was in the business of brainwashing. It's a very emotive term, isn't it? Washing is generally perceived to be a good thing but this is one of those phrases where such a word has become corrupted by context. Cleansing is similarly a good thing until you attach the adjective "ethnic" to it.
And, as usual, my conclusion was that I am guilty as charged. I am in the business of brainwashing. And so are you. Yes, I am using all the techniques I can think of to make my children believe the Christian message. Many people would call that brainwashing. And everybody does it. Because everybody has certain views on the world (e.g. that Jesus came to save us, or that religion is the opiate of the people, or that opium is now the religion of the people, etc) and pretty much everybody would want their children to take on the same views. Yes we spout rubbish about how we want children to arrive at their own conclusions, but all we actually mean by that is that we want children to arrive at the same conclusion as us but to think that they have thought through all the alternatives. In other words we want them to have the same convictions as us but to have them deeply held, not just inherited.
The problem is that if you mention brainwashing in a religious context then people automatically think of cults and have certain expectations. But brainwashing is not restricted to what is traditionally called religion. A perfect example is that well-known media-studies-professor-masquerading-as-a-scientist Richard Dawkins. I don't know if he has children or not, but supposing he does, do you think he is going to encourage them to consider going to church? Or is he going to use all the techniques he can think of to persuade them that religion is a useless distraction? So if I encourage my kids to believe in God and Dawkins encourages his to dismiss religion completely, who is in the business of brainwashing and who isn't?