
How China brainwashed American POWs using a classic sales technique - atroche
http://atroche.org/post/61633164818/how-china-brainwashed-american-pows-using-a-classic
======
gruseom
Cialdini's book is one of the best and most readable pieces of popular science
writing ever. It's fascinating from start to finish, frequently hilarious, and
pretty hard to summarize because there's so much cool stuff in it.

The brainwashing scare from the Korean War is central to at least one classic
movie, _The Manchurian Candidate_ (1962). It was unavailable for 25 years,
which rumor had it was because of its similarity to the JFK assassination
(it's not that similar, really). If you like old thrillers and haven't seen
it, see it—it's just great!

~~~
asveikau
For the record The Manchurian Candidate was a book before it was a movie. I
read the book once long ago but don't remember much about it. In contrast the
imagery of the movie is very hard to forget.

~~~
gruseom
I never read the book but apparently it was a favorite of JFK's and he was
instrumental in getting the movie made. That explains how something so
politically edgy could have come out of Hollywood in 1962—it had the President
vouching for it.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/14/movies/film-a-co-
productio...](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/14/movies/film-a-co-production-
of-sinatra-and-jfk.html?pagewanted=all) <\-- Contains Spoilers

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Just a nit, but there was nothing special about Hollywood in 1962. Hollywood
has always been a "cool kids" club, and JFK was right in the middle of it.

What we see over time is that various people are considered cool kids or not,
and the cool kids all like one thing or another, but Hollywood in the 50s and
60s wasn't some kind of propaganda machine, although folks today make it out
to be. It was just that's what all the cool kids were doing back then.

There was some really edgy stuff made in the 50s and 60s.

------
DominikR
I wouldn't categorize this as brainwashing. Or to be more specific: I wouldn't
categorize the description in the blog post as brainwashing or torture.

To me, this looks more like some kind of group therapy since the POWs were not
forced and the example statement they were asked to make ("The United States
is not perfect.") is obviously a fact because nothing is perfect.

What I find interesting is to compare this to what is happening today in
Guantanamo.

I mean they are trying to get information and cooperation, why always default
to torture?

~~~
xerophtye
What I find interesting is that most terrorists are a product of brainwashing
too. And i mean DELIBERATE brainwashing, not the kind of stuff you learn from
society as you grow up. So why not fight fire with fire and deprogram them?
Heck the violence actually reinforces their brainwashing that the captors are
Evil people.

~~~
LeeHunter
Saudi Arabia has apparently had considerable success deprogramming militants
by engaging them in religious discussions.

~~~
realo
Oh? I thought that militants in that region of the planet were programmed by
religious discussions in the first place.

Maybe we do not share the same definition of what a "militant" is, in Saudi
Arabia?

~~~
twic
Perhaps if you can program militants using religious discussion, then you can
deprogram them using religious discussion. Militants aren't EPROMs, they don't
need UV light.

Articles on the Saudi deprogramming effort:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/06/get-
out-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/06/get-out-of-jihad-
free/305883/?single_page=true)
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/magazine/09jihadis-t.html?...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/magazine/09jihadis-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

And a more recent (PDF) review about why deprogramming mostly doesn't work:

[http://sites.duke.edu/ihss/files/2011/12/Morris_Research_Bri...](http://sites.duke.edu/ihss/files/2011/12/Morris_Research_Brief_Final.pdf)

Although Saudi Arabia's may be more effective. The reason is basically that
terrorists aren't actually programmed using religious discussion, terrorists
are programmed using monkeybrain ties to other terrorists. ObGwern:

[http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror](http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror)

A clever person might therefore attempt to use stronger monkeybrain ties to
deprogram terrorists. Like the PLO did:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/12/all-
you-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/12/all-you-need-is-
love/302351/)

------
firstOrder
If an American POW comes back to the US and says the US was the aggressor in
the Korean War, he does not have an opinion, he has been "brainwashed". What
kind of mental gymnastics do I have to perform to think this way. It's about a
step removed from saying someone who denies Jesus Is Lord has been possessed
by a demon. Or the same thing really.

~~~
nostromo
The key here is the delta, not what opinions are right or wrong.

> compared to the POWs in North Korea, their beliefs had changed massively
> since they’d left home

The title does color the outcome by calling it brainwashing, but that word is
not used in the actual article.

------
Volpe
I thought america WAS the aggressor? (Korea isn't really near the US), and it
was quite apparent the US wanted satellite states near russia/china, to
potentially launch further attacks.

Also did the communists do a bad job in china? That is at most
controversial... not "brain washed".

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Let me give you a tl;dr: the North Koreans started it by rolling over into
South Korea, McAuthur went too close to the Yalu in the counter attack,
Chinese entered the war, Truman fires McAuthur. Stalement ensues, borders
preserved, Kim Jong Un has ex-girlfriend executed.

The communists of the 50s were busy starving their own people in great leaps
forwards, in the 60s they innovated on that with a cultural revolution; Mao
finally dies; China didn't start to stabalize until Deng brought back
capitalism.

~~~
rayiner
I love the rationalization people have to use to explain China's economic
success. If what Deng brought was capitalism, then Obama is an anarcho-
libertarian.

~~~
clicks
What was behind China's economic success then? (not snark, genuinely
interested in hearing your thoughts)

As far as I know Deng did advocate a more open and free policy when it came to
the markets, not in very concrete terms but certainly in veiled terms like
"pragmatism" and "we must do whatever works" [1]. I'm not saying Deng made
China a Randian libertarian's wet-dream but it seems he did push for free
markets a little bit.

[1]
[http://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/leaders_thinkers_zedong_xia...](http://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/leaders_thinkers_zedong_xiaoping.html)

~~~
tokenadult
_What was behind China 's economic success then? (not snark, genuinely
interested in hearing your thoughts)_

Imitating the free-enterprise model of Hong Kong and Taiwan, decades after
those territories had far outpaced China in prosperity. And one of the great
advantages China has enjoyed in economic development, as compared to several
other territories, is the large number of people who can communicate in local
languages (various forms of Chinese) but who grew up without communist
influences on their primary and secondary education. "Compatriots" from Taiwan
and Hong Kong, and also "overseas Chinese" from many places in southeast Asia
played a crucial role in boosting China's economic growth through direct
investment after the beginnings of system reform in 1978. (Basis of knowledge:
I began studying Chinese during the Cultural Revolution, and have met quite a
few people from outside China who have invested over there, after investment
began to be permitted.)

~~~
LiweiZ
Cost friendly labor market and the huge potential domestic consumer market
itself.

------
Pitarou
This part shocked me:

> They also collaborated. “When an escape did occur,” wrote one of the
> investigators, “the Chinese usually recovered the man easily by offering a
> bag of rice to anyone offering to turn him in.” This was extremely rare in
> German and Japanese prison camps.

It seems they achieved something more than just moulding the PoWs' political
views: they broke their _esprit de corps_.

Still, I dislike words like "brainwash" and "mind control". It significantly
understates the complicated dynamic between the washer and the washed. It
would be interesting to learn how the Chinese were affected by their contacted
with the Americans.

------
sp332
This technique was something that came to mind when I heard about Occupy Wall
Street's use of the "mic check".
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_microphone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_microphone)
Getting lots of people to repeat borderline-reasonable things, even if they
don't really quite agree with them, can make them change their position.

------
mrj
Funny, the course I am in right now covers this book. It is well worth the
read.

Cialdini, R. B. (2009). Influence: science and practice (5th ed.). Boston:
Pearson Education.

------
liopleurodon
I wonder if the 'foot in the door' technique was just used on me to get me to
buy the book....

~~~
jimzvz
If the techniques described in the book have been used to make me buy the book
then it is a good purchase.

------
alokm
This foot-in-the-door techniques and many other things have been covered
beautifully in an ongoing course
[https://www.coursera.org/course/socialpsychology](https://www.coursera.org/course/socialpsychology).
It is about to be over. I do recommend going through the videos. There is a
lot to learn.

------
stephenaturner
This still seems to ignore the fact that even if the Chinese used these
techniques differently and didn't explicitly threaten violence, they were
still the captors and the prisoners were still the captives and held in
confinement and the power relationship there had to contribute to the success
of these techniques.

------
mikegagnon
Corollary: sales techniques are often a form of brainwashing. I mean this
seriously.

~~~
samineru
It's mental violence. You're exploiting human nature to impact their free
will. Perhaps part of "being an adult" is shouldering the responsibility of
propping up your own illusory free will, I can't say.

~~~
001sky
So is blind indocrination to "obey" (or be drugged) in grade school?

~~~
mikegagnon
Perhaps [http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-
authoritarians-...](http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-
authoritarians-are-diagnosed-as-mentally-ill/)

------
walid
It is so easy to make people with idealistic views switch those views. The
reason being that such people attach their views to an unattainable standard
clouding their judgement, then when they realize the flaws in their views they
backlash. Add to that an environment that doesn't promote any opinion but
allows such backlash to flourish and you get the perfect brainwashing
technique. Self sustained brainwashing.

------
VanillaBooks
I disagree with the _utility_ of the article's conclusion - "keep the facts in
mind when you are asked to do things". Basically it says - be in control of
what you do. Or, we are always a step or two behind (we only realize later
what happened in a certain situation). So what you do when somebody applies a
technique on you, which you don't know yet, in a situation in which you are
caught, which you don't yet realize it fully (this perhaps comes later, or
never)? I hint that the solution is more about what you do in general when you
don't know things, than what to do to know them beforehand (which i think it's
impossible). How is one grown to deal with the unknown, without resorting to
the "you must also recognize this situation as this or that"

~~~
atroche
Good points.

Can you elaborate on what steps you might take to guard against unknown
techniques?

~~~
VanillaBooks
Of course, that - i wouldn't really know. Perhaps if we attack it from the
other side - what happens when a civilized society shifts its balance point
from "we don't know a lot, we know only a few things" to "we know a lot, what
we don't know isn't important". How is one grown in the first society is with
a bigger openness, the need to be sharp in every situaton vs. the "life
through recipes" which proliferates in the second society.

(sorry for my english and somewhat vague thoughts, i hope something gets
through)

------
igl
This is so much worse than the torture and rape we did on the Chinese! Keep
highlighting this!

------
tokenadult
I see no one has mentioned so far in this thread that the term "brainwashing"
originated in Chinese ( 洗腦 in the original language), and originated as an
internal practice in China after seizure of power in China by the Communist
Party of China.

I'll paste in here part of the history of the term from Chinese Wikipedia,
which has some interesting differences from the parallel article in English
Wikipedia:

中华人民共和国[编辑]
中華人民共和國執政黨中國共產黨成立以來，早期通過文藝、宣傳提出的「沒有共產黨就沒有新中國」、「穩定壓倒一切」等口號，被一些人認為是“洗腦”行為。中國共產黨操控媒體、民間沒有輿論自由，又透過教育，局部呈現現代歷史等方式進行“正面意識形態宣傳”也被認為屬於洗腦行為。有評論指，中华人民共和国文革時期大規模和連續的共產主義宣傳教育運動，明顯是洗腦行為；當時中共將視為反對者的人民劃定為「階級敵人」、將這些人強行施以「勞動改造」（勞改）、「思想改造」，強權和暴力使整個社會幾乎所有人都失去了獨立思考的自由意志。
[12]

中华人民共和国官方電視媒體中國中央電視台，被指責所播放的部分內容存在「洗腦」，有中國年輕學者指央視透過辮子戲灌輸皇權專制，打造奴才人格，是毒化了中國走向自由民主的氛圍，存在洗腦意義，而央視的《新聞聯播》選擇性「報喜不報憂」，像是「宣傳聯播」。
[13][14]但中國共產黨及其支持者並不認同這些批評。

英文「brainwash」意指「洗腦」，由中文「洗腦」一詞翻譯而來；沿於上世紀1950年代的韓戰，美國士兵被中国人民解放军俘虜之後，日夜接受中国共产党的思想改造，獲救之後回到美國，竟然幫中国共產黨講好話，於是美國記者Edward
Hunter就用brainwash一詞來描述此事。[15][16]

~~~
proofofconcept
If you actually want to have a discussion of those differences then you're
going to need to point them out yourself instead of dumping a homework
assignment in everyone's lap since: 1) I don't read Chinese, and I doubt I'm
alone here when it comes to that 2) Google translate is far from perfect, and
unless the differences are clear to someone who merely gets the gist of the
Chinese article they probably won't come across

~~~
pintglass
It's amazing how easily one can translate something these days instead of
complain about having to read Chinese
([http://translate.google.com/](http://translate.google.com/)):

People [edit] The People's Republic of China since the founding of the ruling
Communist Party of China, early through art, propaganda's "no new China
without the Communist Party," "stability overrides everything" and other
slogans, considered by some to be "brainwashed" behavior. Chinese Communist
Party controls the media, civil society without freedom of opinion, but also
through education, partial rendering methods such as modern history "positive
ideological propaganda" has also been considered to be brainwashed behavior.
Some have commented that the PRC during the Cultural Revolution massive and
continuous education communist propaganda campaign, obviously brainwashing
behavior; when opponents of the CPC will be treated as people designated as
"class enemies," these people forcibly impose "Labour transformation "(labor
camps)," thought reform ", power and violence, so that the whole community
lost almost everyone free will to think independently. [12]

People's Republic of China Central Television, the official television media,
is accused of playing the part of the existence of "brainwashing" refers to a
Chinese young scholars CCTV braids play through indoctrination autocracy, to
create personality I was poisoned the atmosphere of freedom and democracy to
China, there brainwashing significance, and CCTV "News Network" selective
"glossy", such as "propaganda network." [13] [14] However, the Chinese
Communist Party and its supporters do not agree with these criticisms.

English "brainwash" means "brainwashed" by the Chinese "brainwashing"
translated from the word; in the late 1950s along the Korean War, American
soldiers were captured after the People's Liberation Army, day and night to
accept the idea of ​​transformation of the Chinese Communist Party, were
rescued after back to the U.S., even speak good words to help the Chinese
Communist Party, then the U.S. correspondent Edward Hunter to use the term to
describe the matter brainwash.

~~~
proofofconcept
All this does for me is raise the question: why, if it's so easy, wasn't the
translation posted to begin with? Keep in mind that the user who dropped that
untranslated brick on us has massive karma so that low-effort post is now
parked at the top of the thread.

~~~
pintglass
Getting a little too meta here but your original comment was only: "If you
actually want to have a discussion of those differences then you're going to
need to point them out yourself instead of dumping a homework assignment in
everyone's lap" but then you changed it to indicate you didn't think a Google
translation was good enough.

He probably didn't post a translation because he knows most of us can either
use Google translate or can read Chinese. That doesn't bother me and it
shouldn't bother you.

I posted the translation because I think some people (including myself) need
help reading Chinese _and_ because I don't see value in bitching about someone
copying and pasting Chinese. It's not homework. It's just Chinese.

~~~
proofofconcept
I don't know what you thought you read but I did not at any point edit the
post you replied to. If that's what you're getting worked up over then you can
calm down now because it was just a mistake and I'm not trying to manipulate
the discussion to make you look bad.

------
wjk
Whats up with the column width of the blog? Am i getting sent to the mobile
site on PC by mistake? A column is 1/5th of my screen, it looks quite silly.

~~~
marme
yes it looks very strange. The entire content div is set to a fixed width of
35em so on a wide screen monitor it will look ridiculous. Even on standard
ratio screen it looks strange as the content div does not even take up half
the width of the screen

------
andyl
Brainwashed? If that is brainwashing, then it seems like there's brainwashing
everywhere you look. For example: \-
[http://www.foxnews.com/](http://www.foxnews.com/) \-
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBbBfrKsVqY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBbBfrKsVqY)

~~~
daenz
It sounds more like de-brainwashing to me. If those soldiers go in with this
perfect idea of America, how we can do no wrong, and how everything we do is
justified, then turning that on its head seems more like...rational thinking.

~~~
comex
If an opinion is being slowly but inexorably pushed on you from all sides by
your captor over a long period of time, as part of an explicitly designed
program of of propagandizing, it's brainwashing, regardless of the opinion's
merit!

~~~
stephengillie
The religious education that my parents gave me through childhood counts as
brainwashing.

~~~
dspillett
Correct, it just gets call "indoctrination" as that sounds nicer and it is
often (though far from always) more subtle as it is more of a "long game"
thing.

It is one of those "one person's X is another person's Y" comparisons:
indoctrination/brain-washing, religion/cult, freedom-fighter/terrorist, cute
cat / insane evil sharp edged ball of allergens, ...

~~~
saraid216
No, the nicer sounding word is "explanation".

~~~
dspillett
I don't agree there. Explanation would be more "I do/think/believe X because"
where indoctrination is more "you should do/think/believe X because".

A more passive form of indoctrination would be repeated explanation (with or
without query/prompt) so explanation can _become_ indoctrination depending on
context, but I'll stand by my choice of words above.

~~~
saraid216
Your examples answer the wrong question.

"Where do rainbows come from" can be answered with the explanation "As a way
to show God's promise to Noah never to flood the Earth again" or with the
explanation "because sunlight refracts through water into all the different
colors we can see" or with the explanation "invisible unicorns fly through the
sky sometimes and leave rainbows where they've gone".

Many people would call one or more of these indoctrinations, despite the
complete lack of "should" in any of the responses. Egocentrism does not a
benignity make.

------
madaxe
Hm, site is censored in the UK for being "violent pornographic and/or
political material" :|

~~~
Celtis
Censored by whom? It works fine for me on Virgin Media

~~~
madaxe
O2. They censor a really odd selection of stuff.

~~~
alan_cx
Sorry, O2 is censoring "political material" in the UK? Are you kidding?

~~~
madaxe
They have been for years, and the list of what I can't browse on 3G only ever
grows.

------
forgottenpaswrd
It is not that hard when soldiers could discover that they had been lied by
their own people and sent to die in order for others(that will never risk a
finger) to profit.

All wars are full of lies, Roosevelt lied to the American people, "for their
own good" of course, as the American public did not want to enter a world war.

The Lusitania was full of weapons as divers discover in 2008, the first
American sub to be sinked attacked the Germans first before war(that was never
said to American public) and Robert Stinnett investigated about Pearl Harbor
and how they already knew about it, the reason there were not air carriers
there and the radar "confusion". The soldiers in Hawaii were just pawns to
sacrifice in order to win the match.

The same happened in Irak, US government wanted to get this oil, and they just
needed a pretext. 20 people from Saudi Arabia(US tyrannical ally) crashing
planes against US buildings somewhat became a pretext to invade Irak and
Afganistan, countries that are 2000 miles apart from Saudi Arabia, killing
millions in the process and thousands of Americans.

Now, Obama is doing the same with Siria. They want to invade a country and
they just need to convince the public opinion to support it.

The problem with lies is that when you are outside the system that generates
them, they are very easy to discover. People feel betrayed and never trust
"big brother", that lies to you for your own benefit, any more.

~~~
philwelch
One of the most effective ways to persuade people is to mix lies with truth to
give the mixture the flavor of truth. For instance, starting with some
comfortable truisms (all wars are full of lies) combined with questionable
implications (Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were inside jobs) supported by misleading
details (the carriers weren't present at Pearl Harbor, but battleships were
universally considered the more valuable strategic asset until the battles of
Coral Sea and Midway; the 9/11 hijackers were mostly Saudi because they were
dissidents against the US-supported Saudi government whose senior leadership
moved to Afghanistan to avoid the Saudi authorities). Consider also the
general theme of such arguments: always to attack and denigrate the United
States' involvement without ever giving consideration to the wider context.
Indeed it's easy for the US to come off as the "bad guy" for entering a war
against the actual Nazis so far as you keep the focus squarely on what the US
did wrong rather than considering a wider context.

