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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (107997)	9/4/2005 12:29:09 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Thank you for understanding one of the main points of the discussion about brainwashing of soldiers, which is that it is probably a necessary training technique, and not a value judgment or an indictment of people who have been through basic training. I think the problem is using a value-laden term like brainwashing. Every organization, even every family, tries to manage behaviors to fit what the institution or family needs. For just one example, every kindergarten class, for example, tries to train children to learn to sit quietly, not to tear books, to walk in lines, to be quiet in the halls, etc. And students who can't adapt are given punishments, or as they like to call them, consequences. Is that brainwashing? Not in my book. Is teaching your child to eliminate in the toilet rather than on the kitchen floor brainwashing? It's certainly maniulating. Some of the techniques used may well be the same techniques as brainwashing. But I hope we can both agree that it isn't brainwashing. if you want to say that the military tries to enforce a code of order and discipline, no objection there. Of course they do. My uncle was interned by the Japanese during WW II and was, indeed, brainwashed. American POWs during the Vietnam War, including several I know well, were subjected to real brainwashing. My son is in the military, and I can tell you perfectly plainly and without any hesitation that he has been trained, but he has not been brainwashed. For you to use the value laden terms you do is offensive to those of us who know, either personally or by close relationship with those who have in fact been subjected to real brainwashing.