Indoctrination: what is it?

"The sad truth about humanity ... is that people believe what they're told. Maybe not the first time, but by the hundredth time, the craziest of ideas just becomes a given."

— Neal Shusterman, UnWholly

At first glance, indoctrination implies the transmission of doctrines, beliefs, theories etc. to a chosen group of people or to the masses. Most of the times, when we talk of doctrines, we're talking about religions' teachings. The word indoctrination is not limited to religious doctrines. In fact indoctrination bombards us from a very young age till our death. It teaches us to accept a set of beliefs without questioning them.

It's an attempt at imposing beliefs, theories, advices, instructions, propaganda and numerous other forms of imposition of instructions on our minds by parents, teachers, churches, and governments to name a few. Most of the time we're not aware of being mentally bombarded by people who want "what's best for us". Kids start very young to protest and rebel against it.

By the time they enter school, they have been trained to accept -or resign themselves to- that invasion of their soul, but they have no choice but to submit to the school system and its coercive modus operandi. At the same time, in lots of cases, they have also been dragged to church by parents' persuasion and coaxing. Depending on the church, the kids will dislike this manipulation at various degrees, without having the choice to refuse to go. The use of seduction under the form of promises of going to heaven and other fairy tales succeed to convince many of them to resign themselves to that despicable drudgery.

Indoctrination is brainwashing imposed on people under the pretext that it's for the glory of God and their own good. Every means are good to reach the goal of the indoctrinator which is never for the benefit of its victims. In the case of certain religions, it procures power, adulation, prestige and money, lots of money in certain cases to the hierarchy of those churches.

If we look at the school system, it's not as easy to see the presence of indoctrination. School teaches to write, read and count first and then a variety of subjects supposedly giving knowledge to our kids. No indoctrination there ... or could there be? Both the parents and the teachers tell the kids that they must go to school if they want to succeed in life and be happy. If they drop school, they're told that they will never get a job. In other words, they'll be bums and druggies at the expense of society and bla, bla, bla.

School also teaches a lot of things other than knowledge. One of the worse things it teaches them is to obey. There's nothing wrong, at first glance, in being taught to obey. They have no choice but to obey while in school. To obey every teacher and member of the staff, whatever they want, even if one thinks they're wrong, even if they know they're wrong.

Of course it's an advantage when we have to obey the laws in society. What would happen if people didn't stop at red lights? Everybody can easily agree with that last example. We know not to steal and there's a law in place to punish those who do. Those are all easy to understand examples. Let's complicate the problem a bit and look at the obedience the government expects from us, its citizens.

Is it always wise to obey the government blindly? If you believe the government is wrong in a particular circumstance, should you obey its demands? Or should you follow your inner voice and refuse to obey. Of course there will be consequences if you refuse to submit to a law you consider against the best interest of the people. There will be penalties, fines or even jail. If you value your integrity more than the risk of penalties, you will have to decide what's more important to you. Blind obedience is a form of subjugation learned at home, at school, at church and in society with its different institutions.

Another thing school teaches, is that you cannot trust adults. Adults lie when it suits them. The promise of success and happiness after a grade 12 education is a lie. Lots of students know it's a lie. And we should worry about those who don't.

The teachers pretend they care about all the students and that they teach and discipline them because they love them. Another lie! Some love students, but for the majority, it's a job, only an underpaid job. What they call discipline, in a lot of cases is bullying. Most teachers bully students! Surprised? The school system functions by the use of a magic tool: coercion.

Coercion comes under the form of threats, mental abuse and punishment. That's the only way most teachers know how to keep their classes under control. They believe that without coercion, it would be total chaos. They're wrong! School can work without any coercion and produce much better results.

William Glasser, an American psychiatrist, has developed a school system that does just that: it uses no coercion. He calls it Quality School. There are some in the U.S. and in many European countries and even in Canada. There are not very many yet, since it only started around 15 years ago and it takes several years to convert a coercion driven school into a non coercive school.

The biggest obstacle to the conversion is not the students. It's the teachers, in general, who do not want to let go of their sacred whip: the coercion. They're scared to lose control of their classes. You can read about it in his book: The Quality School, Managing Students without Coercion. Among other things students learn in school, we find deception, cheating, bullying, and prostitution of self.

Origins of indoctrination

I have no idea when it started. My guess is that it started when we were still more monkey than human. The first doctrines to appear on earth must have been about fear and how to protect ourselves from the elements and the gods' wrath. The thunder was probably seen as the gods being unhappy about us and groaning loudly, warning us to behave or else ... The leaders seeing the potential of these beliefs of their people started using that doctrine on their primitive fellowmen. They were feeling empowered by those manoeuvres. It gave them some prestige and respect. Manipulation had just been discovered. Brainwashing was born. Its limitless power had just been recognized and harnessed by society's leaders.

Later, it got adopted by parents, by the school systems, the governments, justice systems and many others including you and me, brothers.

When we say that somebody is good at convincing others, what are we really saying? Could we be using the wrong word? Shouldn't we be saying that he is good at manipulating others? Am I in the process of trying to convince you of some of my beliefs? Am I attempting to manipulate you?

Modus operandi

There is a part of the m.o. that is clear and evident to all. You sit in a church for 45 minutes. One person in the front talks and nobody else is allowed to talk. Also, there are no Qs and As after the sermon ... or monologue. The content, most of the time, tries to sway you in one direction chosen by the speaker. Every time, the same concepts get repeated and hammered in your head. You're being brainwashed, manipulated without being aware of the alienation taking place slowly but surely in your psyche; and that, with your consent, at some level. You're selling yourself short. You're distancing your apparent self from your true self.

This time you're sitting in class and the teacher is constantly reminding you, by his attitude, that he is the boss, that he knows everything and that, metaphorically, he has power of life or death over you. He can send you to the principal, throw you out of his class, have you suspended from school, flunk you, and the list continues. He expects total obedience to any and every whim of his, and, in lots of countries, he can resort to corporal punishments with the approval of the parents.

In the confines of the class, for all practical purposes, he is God! Our kids are at the total mercy of a person, the teacher, who may or may not be benevolent. Who may or may not like teaching and students. Who may or may not be honest, fair, mentally healthy and apt at helping kids connect with themselves and others. And, consequently, to love themselves, others and the whole creation around them. If he doesn't help them find themselves, discover who they really are, he can't help them find anything else of value, knowledge of any kind included. If we don't know self, we know nothing. Knowledge is only relevant if it connects you with yourself. Anything else is but instructions.

There is a very strong snobbery about knowledge, especially scientific knowledge. Knowledge has been made into a god by the people who have some or believe they have some. A priori, I do not necessarily consider knowledgeable a university teacher. Such a person has channelled 90% of his brain towards 1% of the knowledge available to him. He is mentally handicapped by his own choice. When such a person thinks about himself, he values himself first as an expert in a certain domain and second as a human being. He has funnelled his knowledge into a very narrow field. A small part of his brain works a lot while the majority of his brain is idle and rusting away. That theory applies to most university teachers and professionals. They have prisms for glasses and see life through a distorted vision caused by their specialization

All these knowledgeable people hearing me would laugh and tell you it's ludicrous and untrue. They would be mostly right. It is not the truth. It's only a concept I hold as the truth according to my point of view, from my perspective, my angle, my bias, and, ultimately, who I am. In that sense, it's only MY truth and maybe a small part of THE truth.

Different Contents

The content of indoctrination is as varied as the number of manipulators at work. They all have a doctrine, a story, a sales pitch, a seductive proposition, a favor they need, especially your money or ... your body etc. For them, it's as imperative to convince you as it is for the drug addict to get his next fix.

Its aims

The aim or avowed goal of the indoctrinator is always to help you feel more secure, to enjoy more comfort, to be happier, to have more money, to become a better person, to go to heaven etc. The real goal of the indoctrinator is a different story. He's seeking power, control, adulation, fame, prestige, MONEY and a myriad of other personal benefits.

When somebody extorts money from somebody else, I'm not sure that the gain of money is what pleases him most. I believe that it's probably the process of fooling you that tickles him more than the money itself. Because money, he might have a lot of and not really needing more. To a con, the conning itself makes him feel superior to you and maybe to everybody else. He feels powerful and smarter than everybody else and that is, for him, a fix comparable or superior to crack cocaine. That's possibly his way of compensating for his low self esteem and the hatred of who he is.

True nature of indoctrination

The true nature of indoctrination is manipulation of your psyche in order to replace an important part of its content with a specific content chosen carefully to coax you into accepting as truth, fairy tales, lies, deception. It's an insidious machination that provokes confusion and alienation. It's systematic brainwashing which will interfere with your mental and spiritual development. You're not yourself anymore; you're a twisted version of your authentic self.

End results of indoctrination:

The first and the most important end result of indoctrination is a strong impediment to self discovery and self actualization and in definitive, self love. It's also a strong impediment to civilization as we call it. I will, if you don't mind, substitute the word civilization with humanization. We can have civilization without humanization, but not the other way around.

This alienation at a global level provokes isolation and a division of individuals, of people and of countries. It also provokes a certain disconnecting between individuals, ending up in a social discomfort and a certain uneasiness. In a word, it becomes a social dis-ease. We often hear in French: "Le monde est malade!" or in plain English: "the world is sick!

What can we do?

Before anything else, we must gradually realize the widespread presence of indoctrination in society We cant solve a problem that we don't first acknowledge having. The next step is to identify where the problem has its roots. Everything we see in society starts in the family. We must educate ourselves to try and stop brainwashing our kids at home.

If the school would replace most of the insipid curriculum with education of our children in subjects pertinent to their life, like how to establish and maintain healthy relationships with self and others, using the two magic ingredients: love and respect, it would be a giant step towards real education. How to deal with the opposite sex, how not to get pregnant, for girls, how to succeed in marriage, why not to use coercion when raising kids etc. Those are a sample of practical and very important subjects.

In order to make possible the teaching of these subjects, you have to educate the parents -those who are still salvageable- until a majority accepts that you teach these taboo subjects to their kids. This alone would take at least 5 to 7 years, if they collaborate. That's in populations that don't have an extreme culture. What do I call an extreme culture? For me, for example, a culture where we still find arranged marriage or practice FGM or Feminine Genital Mutilation is an extreme culture.

Marriage is a very important relationship most of us embrace in early life. Let's say you take a man wanting to get married and give him the option to choose among ten beautiful and well educated women. By well educated, I mean raised the right way. If we agree that he has also been raised in the right way, not indoctrinated nor alienated -if it exists- he will still have to get to know them personally before he chooses which one suits his personality and his taste better. In a word, which one is most compatible with him.

The fact that all ten women are perfect doesn't mean that they're all perfect for him. Nobody can or should choose for him. The consequences of a mismatched marriage are very severe for the spouses, but often irreparable and destructive for the children who are victims of it.

After we've lowered the indoctrination level at home, we must try to do the same at school. It would be nice if we could do it in that order, but I think the family and the school indoctrination intermingle with each other. They must be tackled simultaneously. Knowing how long it takes to implement a Quality School, we have to count at least a few years for a basic "des-indoctrination". When we talk about teaching proper sex education in school, we must count even longer. Ideally, it should be mostly done at home by the parents.

Indoctrination at church is even more difficult to deal with because of the amount of brainwashing involved for the last millennia. Fear is a strong weapon used for the control of people and most religions use fear to keep their flock in line. Fear of God is pretty well as scary a weapon as it gets. However, these changes will usually not happen in one generation. The coming generation will_possibly make a big step forward compared with previous generations. It's only speculation on my part. It's too early to say, but there are some signs of disconnect with the old ways ...

Finally, let's help kids develop a built-in bullshit detector at the entrance of their mind. They shouldn't believe anything coming from outside of themselves, unless and until they decide that it's helpful for them to believe it.

Tools or agents of indoctrination:

"Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure."

George Carlin

Religions

The first agent that comes to mind is religion. Most people are born in a family practicing a certain religion. It's less true now than when I was young, but in some countries, close to 100% of children gets born from parents who will force their religious beliefs on their kids. It's an integral part of their culture and they believe it's for the good of their children. They are ready to disown their kid if he refuses to practice the parent's religion. Those are extremes, of course, but it shows how strong cultural brainwashing can be. In the less extreme cases, parents just brainwashed their kids' minds, bribe them, threaten them and, in a word, coerce them into behaving the way they want them to.

Religious indoctrination is the most pervasive of all since it deals with the spiritual journey of the individual. And it starts marking the child before he's born through the mother's beliefs and behaviour. And it will influence his life in a very profound manner, even if when he becomes an adult, he drops that religion. It's very diffi cult to erase the scars of such a devastating alienation. I abandoned the catholic religion in 1962-63 and I still experience its after