Timeline for How can I make my fantasy cult believable?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 28, 2022 at 18:10 | comment | added | Nepene Nep | When people talk about brainwashing they tend to mean some sort of more effective than normal social influencing power that religions use to say, as part of op suggests, get people to be pro torture or mass suicide or whatever. If by brainwashing you just mean normal social interaction things you wouldn't expect it to have the effect op wants- they want a cult that is fine with torture, and won't talk about it to outsiders, but that's not something you expect from routine social influence. The article noted that in real life cases there was more beyond influence like threats of violence. | |
| Nov 28, 2022 at 15:06 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | "Brainwashing" is a colloquial term for the very things the author accepts as fact in that same article. The author seems to partially realise this (and mentions people "abandoning the term" and proposes "terms that can replace brainwashing") and she seems to partially argue against some fictional idea of irreversible brainwashing where victims lack any sort of autonomy. And her conclusion relies on the latter, which is fictional, and it doesn't make much sense in the context of the former, i.e. the actual usage of the term. The whole thing is just a confused mess. | |
| Nov 28, 2022 at 14:49 | comment | added | Nepene Nep | The APA, at least, doesn't see enough evidence to adopt a formal position on whether braindwashing is real. There are some who believe in it, and some who see it as pseudoscience nonsense. The entire field of psychology definitely does not revolve around it. They have generally rejected any formal admission that it's real. | |
| Nov 28, 2022 at 14:38 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | The article is pseudo-scientific garbage that contradicts itself, misrepresents science (which denies pretty much the entire field of psychology in the process), and builds its own entire narrative around cited facts that don't support the conclusions it's arguing for. | |
| Nov 28, 2022 at 13:55 | comment | added | Nepene Nep | The article says people can be influenced into taking bad roles, but that the effect is fairly limited, and most of the more serious examples of what we see as brainwashed involved coercion from religious leaders, or people acting badly under the pressure of violent governments that like to dehumanize them as brainwashed, both sorts of external pressure that are little to do with any sort of mental control. | |
| Nov 28, 2022 at 13:34 | comment | added | NotThatGuy | I like how that article of yours basically says brainwashing isn't real, here's how people get brainwashed. It seems like little more than a semantic argument and the way it's written promotes the harmful idea that anyone in a cult is fully aware of and actively consenting to what's happening (which is also simply false, as argued by the very same article). | |
| Nov 27, 2022 at 13:31 | history | answered | Nepene Nep | CC BY-SA 4.0 |