I read a fair amount. While I don’t claim that most books I read are particularly for education, I must admit that I like to think of reading as a more intellectual pastime than watching TV or playing video-games. So when I happened across a quote from Arthur Schopenhauer that suggested otherwise, I took notice. The quote is a long one, but I feel it worthwhile to include in its entirety:
When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. It is the same as the pupil, in learning to write, following with his pen the lines that have been pencilled by the teacher. Accordingly, in reading, the work of thinking is, for the greater part, done for us. This is why we are consciously relieved when we turn to reading after being occupied with our own thoughts. But, in reading, our head is, however, really only the arena of some one else’s thoughts. And so it happens that the person who reads a great deal—that is to say, almost the whole day, and recreates himself by spending the intervals in thoughtless diversion, gradually loses the ability to think for himself; just as a man who is always riding at last forgets how to walk. Such, however, is the case with many men of learning: they have read themselves stupid. For to read in every spare moment, and to read constantly, is more paralysing to the mind than constant manual work, which, at any rate, allows one to follow one’s own thoughts. Just as a spring, through the continual pressure of a foreign body, at last loses its elasticity, so does the mind if it has another person’s thoughts continually forced upon it. And just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read if one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost. Indeed, it is the same with mental as with bodily food: scarcely the fifth part of what a man takes is assimilated; the remainder passes off in evaporation, respiration, and the like.
(I would love to properly cite this quote, however I didn’t read it in a book myself and have yet to find proper attribution. By my best guess it seems to come from “Essays and Aphorisms” by Arthur Schopenhauer. An aside, thanks to an article by Benjamin McEvoy for helping me to remember this quote, and also for being an interesting article on top of that.)
Basically, this made me realize that reading for enjoyment alone is really no different from mindlessly watching TV (or anything else mindless for that matter); the equivalent of potato chips for the brain. That said, there’s nothing wrong with reading, watching TV, gaming, etc. for pure enjoyment, I just realized that my subconscious was on a little bit of a high horse, and I would like to consciously choose to read something purely for fun vs. engage with it intellectually.
Another thing it made me realize is that I do want to spend some time reflecting on and thinking about what I read, at least for some books. So I thought I’d start with the last book that I read, “1984” by George Orwell, since it happened to remind me of something I’d previously thought of writing about.
There might be nothing more nefarious and despicable than tricking someone to wholeheartedly desire something that is against their own best interest without them realizing it.
(Spoilers for 80 year-old book) “1984” ends with the successful conversion of the main character, Winston Smith, from a revolutionist thought-criminal to a true lover of Big Brother.
Though much less violent and extreme than what happens in “1984”, one could also consider modern election propaganda a form of brainwashing: election ads frequently employ blatant scare tactics that hold little to no truth, all with the sole purpose of steering your mind in the direction best served by the candidate, and with no regard to the voters own will, ideas, or priorities. (Really these are completely different levels of brainwashing and I’m just making the comparison because reading “1984” made me think about this again.) I first thought about this when wondering why many poor people in rural parts of America vote Republican when they see little (if any) benefit from the tax cuts Republicans endlessly push to line the pockets of their millionaire backers and are often harmed by Republicans rolling back social reforms that could have helped them (see ACA, Medicare/Medicaid). There is, as with all things, much more nuance than just “spooky YouTube ads control voter alignment”, but I do think a disproportionate amount of external influence on modern voters comes from biased sources.
This made me wonder, is there a difference between brainwashing and convincing? Practically, they are very similar; both lead to a (perhaps drastic) change in what someone thinks about one or more subjects. After some thought, I reached the decision that while convincing may play a role in brainwashing, they are not the same. In my mind, the key difference is conscious trickery. Presenting my own definitions here: Brainwashing is the act of forcefully changing someone’s mind through the use of trickery, hiding or withholding critical information, misconstruing facts, lying, and perhaps even physical or psychological violence. Whereas Convincing is the act of changing someone’s mind through the presentation of information and facts so that the subject may form their own opinion from data (that the presenter likely found compelling).
In “1984”, the ruling party, Ingsoc, is able to rule over the populace for a multitude of reasons, but the ones that stick out to me as most likely to happen soon (or already show signs of happening) are the erasure/rewriting of history, and the thoughtless following of a party/person rather than concrete ideas. Both of these are brainwashing tools that are used in the book and are just as effective in real life.
In the United States, we are far from the literal rewriting of official history that is seen in “1984”, but long has “history [been] written by the victors”. Children’s history books must be selective in what they teach for the history class to ever end, but it is no surprise that most things that would make the US look bad that can be omitted, are. And more often I find that I fear the rewriting of current events (“alternative facts”) by powerful political and media figures like Donald Trump and Alex Jones. It is all very reminiscent of the old adage that “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it”.
I certainly hope I don’t have to tell you that being a mindless follower is not a good idea (wake up, sheeple!). Yet it can be an easy trap to fall into.
The human brain is trained to take shortcuts by making assumptions because active thought about everything is a lot of work (citation needed). I’m guessing for that
reason, voting the
In case you haven’t picked up on it yet, let me just say that reading “1984” during this year’s mid-term election cycle was particularly depressing and worrying.
As a final note, I’ve also been wondering about what to do with someone who is brainwashed (remember they are only brainwashed from your perspective, and they are completely sane from their own). What is the morality of trying to un-brainwash them, since they now actively desire what hurts them? Do you have to effectively brainwash someone again in order to un-brainwash them? Through a carefully constructed argument, one may be able to convince a brainwashed person of a different belief, but often this is hindered by the brainwashed refusing to entertain any idea different from their currently held belief. I imagine cult rehab specialists have done a lot of research on this.