Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Hyde Schools
Hyde's Mr. Burroughs
Ursus:
Very interesting dialog this morning; very interesting indeed.
Addressing charges, in no particular order... First, I am not the original poster of said link, not that I particularly care, since that lemonparty site has been kicking around fornits a lot longer than I have, but someone has seen fit to deliberately misquote "Ursus" as though I had just posted said link, in order to place a comment about "family photos."
Since "Mike" has been found guilty of misquoting me in the past, deliberate or otherwise, I find this particular misquote, which definitely was deliberate, coupled with Mike's bringing it up here today, along with the comment of family photos again in response to some bear impersonator, quite telling.Here is the original post which contained that link in the aforementioned thread:
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=22821&start=39
Here is the post which contained the deliberate misquote:
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=22821&start=48[/list]Knowing me, and how anal I am about such things, I imagine "Mike" was definitely hoping to get a rise out of me. But... he didn't get one, 'cuz I never revisited that thread. And so... he tries again, here. May the reader contemplate the mind capable of that one.
Anonymous:
--- Quote from: ""Guest"" --- Bill W. is long dead and the Stepcrafters still practice. He's legendary and beyond reproach. Sounds familiar.
--- End quote ---
I don't have the faintest idea who Bill W. and the Stepcrafters are, but no matter. In a cult the cause and the founder are one and the founder is elevated to a divinity. In contrast, at Hyde the cause and the founder are separate and distinct entities and we didn't have to prostrate ourselves before Joe, though that would've been to his liking.
--- Quote from: ""Guest"" ---Larry Dubinsky? Life long commitment for the better?
--- End quote ---
Well, yes. From Larry's perspective, Hyde was a very positive influence on his entire life. But for the rest of us, c'mon, a four-year cult is a contradiction in terms.
Anonymous:
--- Quote from: ""Led Egg"" ---I guess it would depend on your definition of cult. I think it is likely that Hyde will fall apart after Joe. There are the social mechanisms of cult: isolation, dependence, absolute moral authority, in crowd argot , the insider vs outsider ethos. That is enough for me.
No it is not Scientology. No life long commitment financially, but to succeed you need to pledge life long devotion to, what ever the current jargon is, "charater centered" , "purpose driven" life.
--- End quote ---
I have no quarrel with you at all about the mechanisms you mention. But those are present in a wide range of applications. And, the essential ingredients for a cult -- the divinity, the life-long grip -- are absent.
Anonymous:
--- Quote ---Bill W. is long dead and the Stepcrafters still practice.
--- End quote ---
I am related to one of those. I would concede that AA is a cult but it is beneficial. I was involved in AA early in my sobriety. One of the reasons I ditched it was that it reminded me of Hyde. I have been "Clean and Sober" for 24 years, 22 without AA. AA will tell you that I am not really sober because you can be sober with out AA. My AA buddies told me I would drink again because I left. If I am able, I am going to do a shot right before I die so they can have a satisfied mind on the subject.
Bill is worshiped in absentia. He also left a body of work that is some what more substantial then Joe's with a little more rigor. Hyde fell apart without Joe before. Joe is charismatic. None of the others Hydies have that. You really need a huckster to pitch that stuff to the rubes.
Ursus:
Okay, onto to the second topic. You're right, "Mike," this is one of my favorites. Yes, of course I believe that Hyde is a cult. And cults come in many shapes and forms, not just the ones which have already entered our cultural consciousness as being unequivocally and universally accepted as such. Prior to all the bodies, most people never thought of Heaven's Gate folk as cult devotees 'cuz they never even heard of them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Hyde is Heaven's Gate, but most people have never heard of Hyde either and even if they have, they certainly don't know the half of it.
By the way, the criteria of "life-long grip" appears to be unique to your interpretation. I do not see it noted below. Most scholars of brainwashing phenomena, moreover, do describe a lessening of influence once the elements of coercion have been removed.
The following comes from a webpage that I visited recently, hence it was still one of my Tabs; some reformatting put in by me. (The beginning of that page (not quoted here) was used in another post in the 'Maine's Child Molester Protection Legislation' thread.).
==================================
LINK HERE
Lifton brainwashing model
Psychiatrist Robert Lifton described in his 1961 book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China eight coercive methods which, he says, are able to change the minds of individuals without their knowledge and were used with this purpose on prisoners of war in Korea and China. These include:
* milieu control (controlled relations with the outer world)
* mystic manipulation (planned spontaneity - events are orchestrated or attributed to group's power or omniscience )
* confession (confess past and present sins)
* self-sanctification through purity (pushing the individual towards a not-attainable perfection)
* aura of sacred science (beliefs of the group are sacrosanct and perfect)
* loaded language (new meanings to words, encouraging black-white thinking)
* doctrine over person (the group is more important than the individual)
* dispensed existence (insiders are saved, outsiders are doomed)In his 1999 book Destroying the world to save it: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence and the New Global Terrorism, he concluded, though, that thought reform was possible without violence or physical coercion.
Edgar Schein, who investigated similar programs in China concluded in
his book Coercive Persuasion that physical coercion was an important
feature of brainwashing.
Margaret Singer's conditions for mind control
Psychologist Margaret Singer, using the work of Lifton, described in her book Cults in our Midst six conditions, which would, she says, create an atmosphere where thought reform is possible. Singer sees no need for physical coercion or violence.
* controlling a person's time and environment, leaving no time for thought
* creating a sense of powerlessness, fear and dependency
* manipulating rewards and punishments to suppress former social behaviour
* manipulating rewards and punishments to elicit the desired behaviour
* creating a closed system of logic which makes dissenters feel as if something was wrong with them
* keeping recruits unaware about any agenda to control or change themMind control as a combination of control over behavior, information, thought and emotions
According to Hassan, the BITE model dispenses with any required environment control, and its effects can be achieved when the control mechanisms create overall dependency and obedience to some leader or cause.
Social psychology tactics
A contemporary view of mind control sees it as an intensified and persistent use of well researched social psychology principles like compliance, conformity, persuasion, dissonance, reactance, framing or emotional manipulation.
I conceive of mind control as a phenomena encompassing all the ways in which personal, social and institutional forces are exerted to induce compliance, conformity, belief, attitude, and value change in others."Mind control is the process by which individual or collective freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify or distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition and/or behavioral outcomes. It is neither magical nor mystical, but a process that involves a set of basic social psychological principles."[/li][/li][/list][/list]In Influence, Science and Practice, social psychology researcher Robert Cialdini shows how mind control is possible through the covert exploitation of the unconscious rules that underlie and facilitate healthy human social interactions.
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