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Thought Reform / Does thought reform create arrogance?
« on: December 12, 2011, 02:31:28 PM »
Do you think thought reform programs create arrogance with the peer group/level structure, or do arrogant people simply take better to the program environment? I ask because I have noticed all survivors of the TTI I've ever seen on the internet who defend/justify their programs, regardless of what their STATED attitudes toward them are , inevitably reveal themselves to be confrontational, condescending programmees, who will spout program lingo/thought terminating cliches whenever their beloved program is the least bit threatened by a comment on the internet. In some of the program groups I've belonged to if someone suggested they suffered some long term negative consequences of the program like PTSD, family trouble, etc. they would get immediately pounced on by these people telling them "LOOKS LIKE YOU LEARNED ACCOUNTABILITY!" "WHY DON'T YOU THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU DID TO GET SENT THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!" "YOU'RE PLAYING VICTIM, GET OVER IT!" "WHY DON'T YOU TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF AND MOVE ON!"
The other weird thing I noticed is that a lot of them claim they didn't like the program, that they thought the thought reform aspects were stupid and didn't have an affect on them, and that they invariably claim to have MOVED ON. I don't remember ever being specifically told to MOVE ON after the program and not think about it, although we were told to do that with rape, childhood abuse, etc. What it seems to do is actually convinced the programmee that nobody cares about their suffering, that the "mature" way to deal with bad memories is to not think about them/pretend they didn't affect you. That ends up protecting the program, because if it takes 5-10 years (or longer, or never) for a person to shake those messages off, they get away with all the abuse by convincing kids to "move on" from it.
Essentially this is a chicken or egg question. Were people who felt they were superior to others before the program cling to it because it gave them an outlet to tear other people down, or did the program create these sad souls who then became attached to this way of relating to people and years later are still trying to justify their change to themselves?
The other weird thing I noticed is that a lot of them claim they didn't like the program, that they thought the thought reform aspects were stupid and didn't have an affect on them, and that they invariably claim to have MOVED ON. I don't remember ever being specifically told to MOVE ON after the program and not think about it, although we were told to do that with rape, childhood abuse, etc. What it seems to do is actually convinced the programmee that nobody cares about their suffering, that the "mature" way to deal with bad memories is to not think about them/pretend they didn't affect you. That ends up protecting the program, because if it takes 5-10 years (or longer, or never) for a person to shake those messages off, they get away with all the abuse by convincing kids to "move on" from it.
Essentially this is a chicken or egg question. Were people who felt they were superior to others before the program cling to it because it gave them an outlet to tear other people down, or did the program create these sad souls who then became attached to this way of relating to people and years later are still trying to justify their change to themselves?