Resistance to Brainwashing
The goal of understanding the method and function of menticide is generally to galvanize one's followers against the attempts of others to win them over. In this sense, the totalitarian is just as interested as the democratic leader: each assumes that his way of life is desirable and that any many who disagrees must be mentally compromised. And more, that it is right and just for him to use the same tactics as his enemy in gaining loyalty.
In a truly democratic society, it is respected that individuals have the right to make their own choices - even if they choose to disagree or choose to refuse to cooperate with the desires others have. The individual's defense against brainwashing is his own integrity and self-interest.
But when there is competition between two totalitarian leaders, each of whom wishes to win the loyalty (or more aptly, the obedience) of followers, it is simply a competition: people will gravitate to the one that seems to offer them the better deal. In winning their loyalty, it is about their perception and expectations rather than the reality of what they will gain from the relationship. In maintaining their loyalty, it is about their perception that what they expected to gain has been delivered. And being as it is a competition, the individual may be loyal to whichever of two prospective masters will do them the least harm (rather than offer them the greatest benefit).
In general, maintaining loyalty is easier than breaking it. A current leader counts on his track record - people are sufficiently pleased with what they have received in the past and expect the same to continue in the future. And they are likely to tolerate any drawbacks and inconveniences so long as the results they are presently getting are good enough. The new leader must cause them to be dissatisfied with the treatment they are receiving, must promise them a better deal, and must convince him that he will deliver on that promise. Many people would prefer to keep a familiar mediocrity than take the risk of switching in hope of faring better.
It's also suggested that malcontents are the easiest to convert, but this must be taken with a grain of salt. A person who expresses their discontent is showing faith in his leader - he may not be entirely happy with the deal he is getting, but believes that his leader cares about him and will make changes to improve the deal. So he is not looking to turn coat, merely renegotiate his current contract with a leader in whom he has faith. It is the silent and despondent malcontents that are of the greatest concern: they do not express their discontent because they do not believe their leader cares about their welfare or would be willing to make changes to accommodate them.
The author has also discovered, through his investigations of turncoats and prisoners, that individuals who have the greatest ability to resist are generally those who feel that they have not been abandoned. They can endure torture and hardship because they have hope of eventually being rescued and rewarded for their loyalty. The socially established individual is also harder to convert: the price of turning traitor is not merely leaving his former leader, but leaving behind his family, friends, and colleagues to whom he has a strong emotional bond.
A couple of common misperceptions: Physical fitness is not a factor. His experience has shown that athletes and well-conditioned soldiers are no better at resisting than weaker individuals. Intellectualism is also not a factor, and in fact can be a liability because an intellectual can find a crafty way to rationalize his choice to turn. Neither is strong loyalty to his existing government a factor: a person who is fiercely loyal to one government will be fiercely loyal to another.
The sole means of resistance are individualism and integrity - the belief that a person has a right to act in their own self-interest and to choose their alliance. While it might seem that a person who values free choice would be more likely to freely choose to shift his loyalty to a new master, it is the fact that he has freely chosen his old master that keeps him loyal, and causes him to view his interrogators as threats to his personal integrity.
The Myth of Courage
Concepts such as courage, valor, bravery, and heroism are praised - but they are not the same as loyalty. Courage is a quality that enables a person to take action under adverse circumstances. That is, they have already committed to taking an action and are dealing with fears that arise in the course of acting. Loyalty, on the other hand, has to do with accepting the beliefs that lead them to plan to take an action - a loyal person's courage may fail, but he still remains loyal.
There is also the notion that courage is consistent - that a man who is "brave" will stand firm in the face of danger. But this is not always true: a person who had been brave in the past may find his courage fails in a similar situation, and one who had been cowardly in the past may find the strength to overcome his fear. It is generally observed that constant exposure inures a person to danger - they either recognize something that seems frightening is not a real threat or have confidence in their ability to avoid suffering harm. But at the same time, there are those veteran soldiers who fled their twentieth battle after standing firm in the first nineteen. No one can really tell how he will behave in times of danger.
Neither is there consistency in what causes men to lose their fortitude. Fear is subjective, and largely imaginary: what one person sees as a danger might be seen as insignificant (or even attractive) by someone else. There are certain common fears (darkness, fire, sudden noises, etc.) but none is universal. There is also the fact that an emotional reaction takes place before a rational analysis - a person recoils in fear because they saw a snake, but a few seconds later discovers it was merely a twig. This is often seen in those traumatized in battle - the veteran who flattens himself on the sidewalk when a car backfires believes the sound to be gunfire.
We also fear what we expect will happen, not what actually occurs. The person fears a strange dog because he expects the dog will bite, whereas another who is familiar with the dog realizes it will not. But on the first encounter, one has nothing but anxiety, lacking specific experience.
He speaks briefly of the hero-worship and narcissism of American culture. Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with being normal, everyday people but instead wish to be heroic, larger than life, and admired for their grandeur. A child is not encouraged to plan to become a stalwart private who serves as an anonymous pawn among the ranks, but a courageous captain whose feats of courage and derring-do are the stuff of adventure novels and action movies. There has always been an admiration of bravery and theatrical displays of courage, but the mass media of the current age make this more widespread and give the perception that it is common in everyday life - that a person ought to be a hero daily, and be ashamed of himself if he is not.
Back to the subject ... the author speaks of the "heroism" of a soldier who maintains his loyalty under duress inflicted upon him by the enemy. As with everyday heroism, we have gone from recognizing the unusual strength of a soldier who can do so to expecting that this level of resistance is to be expected of any soldier under any level of duress. And this is encouraged, as it is believed that morale is improved.
But instead, the prisoner who breaks feels deeply ashamed, and his break is more devastating and complete than had he not held himself to an unnatural standard. In essence, it increases the reward of the torturer: a victim who capitulates completely is much easier to break than one whose collapse is more gradual.
The author suggests that resistance to conversion is better if the victim is more reasonable in his approach - to expect that he will break, and accept that capitulating under torture is not disloyalty. Just as the courts not hold an individual to the terms of a contract signed under duress, nor should the public hold an individual responsible for his behavior under duress - his expectation to be forgiven and accepted back into his current society gives him the confidence to resist, and to give up less if his fortitude should fail.
Morale-Boosting Ideas
Certain ideas have the power to positively influence morale, enabling people to persevere rather than collapse under adverse conditions and dangerous circumstances. There are many morale-boosting ideas in every religious faith and political ideology that has persevered for any length of time - because both faith and ideology inherently require people to sacrifice, and must offer them something positive in return in order for the ideas to be at all appealing.
There is a common conception that morale comes from within - that it is up to a person to foster and maintain their own positive attitude. Some can, but this notion is generally espoused by would-be leaders who have no intent or competence in building morale among their followers, and wish to shirk this duty. He draws a parallel to physical health: a person can maintain their health through their individual practices (hygiene, diet, exercise, and the like), but these practices are insufficient: they will not cure a broken bone or excise a tumor. For those things, the assistance of a physician is necessary.
A person who survives adverse circumstances by their own effort feels no allegiance to those who caused those circumstances. Instead, they adopt an adversarial relationship with them. An individual who has survived being abandoned in the wilderness does not thank the wilderness for helping him to survive, nor does an individual who is interned in a concentration camp believe that the political regime has helped them in any way unless his captors took action to help him undergo a transformation leading to his release - back to the medical metaphor, the doctor must help the patient to recover from his illness and return to normal life in order to earn the patient's gratitude. Otherwise, he is simply a tormentor.
The author lists three influences that enable people to bear up under adverse conditions:
1 Faith. This can be religious faith, faith in humanity, or faith in his own ability to persevere
2 Hope. The individual must see the conditions as temporary, and have hope of achieving a more desirable state in future
3 Understanding. There must be an understanding, even if it is vague, of the motivations of reasons he is being tormented
Brainwashing techniques capitalize very effectively on these proclivities: an individual is placed under adverse conditions, is told a reason, is shown a path out of those conditions, and is aided and assisted by his "captors." This enables him to mentally survive the ordeal and to form an attachment to his new friends once they have helped him to persevere. Anti-brainwashing training must be very thorough in preparing the person to recognize the contrived nature so that the victim realizes the ways in which he is being tricked by his captors. Full knowledge of brainwashing methods gives an individual greater ability to recognize and resist.
A case-study is mentioned of El Campesino, a Spanish revolutionary who was subjected to communist brainwashing. He understood the tactics and knew exactly what to expect, how to play along to let his captors think that they had succeeded in winning him over, and ultimately to be released and rejoin his companions in the resistance. It's emphasized that the best defense against brainwashing is to deceive the deceivers into thinking their deception has worked. Where a victim resists, the efforts to break him down will only be intensified to the point where he breaks or is destroyed, mentally or physically.
Another factor that can help a victim persevere is contact with "trusted others" to keep him mindful of his loyalties - whether these others offer assistance in escaping his tormenters, or are simply there to welcome him back to his old life once his ordeal has ended. For example, Radio Free Europe was a means of reassuring those who were in occupied territory of their prospects of liberation by Allied forces. This was said to have a "tremendous morale-boosting function" for occupied countries in WWII.
There is a bit of a succotash of advice for the victim of brainwashing: to understand his captors' tactics, to realize that the accusations and promises are false, and that they will be welcomed back by old friends regardless of what happens. They should understand that they will eventually break under duress, and instead of withholding any information, instead confess "too much" - mixing valid information with lies, and giving the enemy a great deal of information to sort through and analyze to determine what is true or valuable.
There is some evidence that the effects of brainwashing are only temporary - much in the same way that a person can lose themselves and behave in an atypical manner in a riotous crowd, then return to their normal behavior afterward, somewhat embarrassed about behaving abominably for a time. Some individuals are able to return to their former personalities without mental scars, but others may have a long-lasting sense of depression and shame for having succumbed. The experience of being reprogrammed is traumatic, and this is by design - it can do serious damage to some individuals, requiring years of therapy to bring them to the catharsis necessary to forgive themselves. To believe that brainwashing can completely erase an individual's personality and permanently substitute a new one is "naive."
The New Courage
The idea of courage has long been a concern of philosophy and psychology - but before the modern age, it was considered a very short-term emotional state. Bravery was something that happened on the battlefield, motivating a soldier to charge at the enemy rather than running away. But in the modern era, there is a new corm of courage that is more long-term, which requires a person to bear up not for the brief duration of a battle, but under long-term adverse conditions.
It is not that the stamina necessary to sustain a long-term effort and resist the urge to quit was unknown, but it was generally considered to be perseverance in pursuit of a goal in which the only obstacle was the time it took to achieve it and to sustain interest in spite of obstacles and setbacks that occurred along the way. It was never imagined that it would be necessary for a man to sustain himself against a long and constant siege against his mind and his integrity. If anything, the ancient morality maintained the necessity of learning to become a faithful servant of a superior foe once a soldier had been defeated in battle, to accept his loss as divine will.
Integrity is the new courage - the ability to recognize one's own worth an individual and persevere against those who would reduce him to the role of the servant. Self-sacrifice is the new cowardice, particularly in subordinating one's own interests to that of others while gaining nothing in return. The "new hero" of the modern world is not recognized because of his physical power, but because of his wisdom and mental stamina.