The similarities to other forms of indoctrination- hostages, kidnap victims, POWs and pollitical prisoners, fraternity hazing, gang initiations, prostitutes- seem compelling.[ul][]Step One, stress to the breaking point: pain, lack of sleep, endless demands, exhaustion, verbal abuse, the fear of physical abuse.[]Step Two, ego destruction: humiliation and degradation, being forced to address your most basic needs (hunger, thirst, elimination, fatigue) in the most shameful fashion possilbe. All the while being told “you are worthless scum, nothing you feel or think matters, you are not worthy to lick the boots of your betters, you can’t do anything right”.[]Step Three, engender dependency: pleasing your abuser is the only hope of relief from the torment. The initiate develops a whipped-dog love/hate of their abuser.[]Step Four, indoctrination: the abuser presents a new value system. Everything you were was wrong and evil, but now you are offered a chance of “redemption”, if you unreservedly adopt the beliefs you’re expected to. The initiate learns the lessons being taught. Successfully completing the new tasks brings praise, any backsliding returns you to steps One and Two.Step Five, graduation: The initiate internalizes the indoctrination, and rationalizes away the abuse as the “tough love” and “discipline” they deserved. You have formed a new value system based on pride in having adopted the new way of life. You become fiercely loyal to the abuser, even to the point of helping break new initiates. You love Big Brother.[/ul]I admit this is the most denigratory possible interpretation of Basic Training, but I’d like to hear some serious discussion about this. I’ve pretty much spent my life presuming that discipline is a synonym for “punishment”. If I’m wrong, I’d like to know where.
Oh. Okay, then.
If this comparison is in fact apt, what implications does that have? I mean, would it surprise you to learn that the military might want to mold its members into a de-individualized cohesive whole?
Only to the extent it takes to brainwash soldiers into blindly following orders in battle. You can’t have everyone thinking for themselves, it would be chaos and endanger all involved.
Of course basic is brainwashing. It is intended to take people from different backgrounds and make them march in step,so to speak. It also weeds out those who can’t conform. After basic the military spends the rest of your enlistment teaching you how to think criticaly and to lead. Two months learning to follow and two pluse years learning to lead,not a bad deal.
[QUOTE=Lumpy]
[ul][li]Step One, stress to the breaking point: pain, lack of sleep, endless demands, exhaustion, verbal abuse, the fear of physical abuse.[]Step Two, ego destruction: humiliation and degradation, being forced to address your most basic needs (hunger, thirst, elimination, fatigue) in the most shameful fashion possilbe. All the while being told “you are worthless scum, nothing you feel or think matters, you are not worthy to lick the boots of your betters, you can’t do anything right”.[]Step Three, engender dependency: pleasing your abuser is the only hope of relief from the torment. The initiate develops a whipped-dog love/hate of their abuser.[]Step Four, indoctrination: the abuser presents a new value system. Everything you were was wrong and evil, but now you are offered a chance of “redemption”, if you unreservedly adopt the beliefs you’re expected to. The initiate learns the lessons being taught. Successfully completing the new tasks brings praise, any backsliding returns you to steps One and Two.[]Step Five, graduation: The initiate internalizes the indoctrination, and rationalizes away the abuse as the “tough love” and “discipline” they deserved. You have formed a new value system based on pride in having adopted the new way of life. You become fiercely loyal to the abuser, even to the point of helping break new initiates. You love Big Brother.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Ummmm . . . no, that’s not basic training. That’s high school.
There is a big difference between actual brainwashing and what goes on in BCT. True, basic training is stressful and sometimes even humiliating, but not to brainwash you. It’s stressful and humiliating, because a military man doesn’t just have to learn how to do a job. S/he has to learn how to do a job under stressful–often extremely stressful–conditions such as combat or extreme fatigue. You’re not really broken as much as you’re trained to perform as part of a team. And nobody in my basic training platoon developed a whipped dog mentality. Quite the opposite in fact.
Think about it. What the hell good is a soldier who behaves like a whipped dog? What good can a soldier do if he’s too brainwashed to do anything without being told? The army’s about courage and initiative as well as teamwork, not about humiliation. And nobody really “loves” Big Brother, let me tell you. It’s more like we love the guy who can do the best impression of Big Brother after lights out, and we especially loved it when Big Brother caught him at it and made him do half a million pushups while we laid there and tried not to laugh. Good times 
I’ll end by saying that it just might be possible to brainwash a human being in eight weeks, but whatever the methods necessary, you can bet that the drills would get 20 to life in Leavenworth for using them. There’s where you’ll find your “ego destruction, humiliation, and degradation.”
Er - as I understand it, physical abuse is no longer permitted in American military training. The worst thing you have to fear is that you’ll be ordered to perform some unpleasant tasks (push-ups, kitchen duty, and so forth). If you simply can’t hack it, you’ll be kicked out - but no one is going to beat you. Or, rather, if someone does beat you, they’ll end up in military prison. That can’t be fun.
This is pretty much how my mom describes medical school.
They do not train leaders. They train followers and killers. The key is obey orders and kill when told. Advertising it as leadership…good salesmanship.
If it was brainwashing, it didn’t take with me. It was hard --at least for the first couple of weeks – but it wasn’t THAT hard. Nobody was despondent, and they eased up a lot in the last few weeks.
There was some indoctrinantion, but most of us were able to recognize it for what it was and were still able to think critically about it. It really wasn’t that bad. I mean, it wasn’t fun. I wouldn’t want to do it again, but I got through it emotionally and intellectually intact and so did most everyone else, as far as I could tell.
Hell, my dad was tougher on me and yelled at me more than any of the CC’s at Orlando ever did.
You have no idea what you are talking about. I went to several leadership schools wile in the Army. Not to mention being mentored by Sargents in leadership skills. If the military didn’t grow leaders it would soon run out. Teaching someone to lead is a lot harder than teaching them to follow.
Same experience here as **Diogenes, Linty Fresh ** and Glazer… yes, there’s elements of the conditioning that to the lay outsider looks like “brainwashing” but at that, it’s really, really *lame * brainwashing. For the vast majority who go through, it fades away. Like Dio said, anyone half smart can see what is it they’re doing and play along to save yourself and the group trouble.
Which is not to say there aren’t militaries where indeed the idea is to completely break the recruit, it’s specially used with conscript armies – e.g. Russian. But someone with the “whipped dog” personality is kind of useless to a volunteer professional military.
Oh dear i do hope that i dont kill anyone next time i go down the shops,I’ll just have to try very,very,hard to restrain myself no matter how difficult it is.
Damn !lost my concentration there while typing this post and murdered my next door neighbours.
Ah well better luck next time.
There, there… I’m sure they were communists.
Don’t you mean terrorists?
Commies are so 1960’s
It really all boils down to the words you choose. They’re all loaded ten ways to Sunday. Abuser, shameful, humiliating, etc.
Sir Rhosis
I apologize for my fucked up formatting above–not used to answering these questions in this format.
Sir Rhosis
I learned - from a very good history professor of mine - to hate the word “brainwash.” It’s a totally loaded term and implies that the human brain can be wiped clean and replaced with something new. This is not true - you learn new behaviors, you can be taught (under duress) to accept them, and you can convince yourself that they’re right - but your entire brain cannot be whitewashed and then completely taken over by new ideas.
If “brainwashing” were possible, and basic training a form of it, then all military veterans must be re-programmed drones. All this time I thought my grandpa was a great guy - I guess he’s actually just a soulless shell who thoughtlessly obeys his government. My friends who’ve served in the military - when I go out to a bar with them, they’re just pretending to have a good time; they’re actually figuring out the most effective way to silently kill everyone in the room.
Well before my time in BCT (1979), “kitchen duty” was not permitted as a punishment.
Seriously, the brainwashing idea is bullshit.
Basic training was fun. I liked my drill sergeants; sure, they yelled a lot but I could tell it was a front. They mostly quoted “Full Metal Jacket” lines and made you do pushups when you did something stupid like put your hands in your pockets or say “sir” to an NCO.
Most of the time, though, they were just teachers. They taught us the Army way – how to walk in cadence, how to do PT, how to follow the rules and what those rules are, how to shoot, move and communicate. There was a whole lot of emphasis on staying motivated. They had to fit a lot of learning in a short amount of time, in accordance with strict regulations. Sure, it was stressful and there was basically no free time; but most soldiers knew and expected that coming in. The only thing that would have made it better for me was if I had been in better physical shape before I showed up. Otherwise there was no humiliation, no degradation, and nothing shameful about it.
And yeah, KP was just a roster. When your name came up, you did KP; it wasn’t a punishment. No peeling potatoes, either. Mostly serving food, washing dishes and cleaning the dining room. Regular food service type stuff.