Transcriber: 子芸 丁 Reviewer: Emma Gon
Hello, everybody. I’d like you to think for a moment.
What does brainwashing look like to you?
Go ahead, feel free to close your eyes and truly visualize what it might mean.
Focus on the who and the how.
Maybe some of you thought of...
the CIA electrocuting people because you might have heard of that.
Maybe you thought of some cult,
where people are willing to die for a cause.
Maybe you thought of hypnosis.
I hope some of you thought of your cell phones.
I wonder, did any of you think of yourselves?
No takers?
Well, I said that because we’re all subjected to the tools of brainwashing,
even though we don’t realize it,
which fair enough, it’s kind of the point, right?
You see, if you tell a lie enough times,
it becomes a truth in the mind of those who listen.
If you tell it enough times, it becomes an unquestionable truth.
Kind of like planting a seed and watering it bit by bit, day by day.
At a certain point that’ll become a fully grown self-sustaining plant.
I realized that I was being brainwashed
when I took a course called Critical Theory.
I was doing an assignment on the culture industry.
That’s a term coined by a couple of philosophers, Adorno and Horkheimer,
to try and explain how popular culture functions.
Culture industry substituted mass industry
because that made us think
that it was the mass that shaped this industry.
I discovered that culture, what I once thought was something
to be diverse in every way and never the same,
has turned into innumerous reproduction of conformity.
By culture, I mean things that humans have made and use,
anything from clothes to music
to films as well.
Everything you can consider art and it goes beyond it.
Anyway, the culture industry strives to standardize for mass production.
This is required because there are millions
and at times hundreds of millions of people
trying to be satisfied by the same product, the same goal.
Culture is based on uniqueness and imagination and creation,
because it’s created by humans and we’re all inherently different.
The culture industry is based on sameness
and reproductivity and profit.
As a matter of fact, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry.
You can imagine the resources and the effort
that they put into making us think that we all want
the same exact things, the same experiences.
This was an eureka moment for me.
Wow!
Because I realized, I have been brainwashed to conform.
I have been indoctrinated to want what is popular.
Still stings at times to think about it.
For example, I would get ads all the time, right.
For gym memberships and particular diets
or let’s say the newest video game, the newest console.
Becuase I thought that I needed a six pack
to be desirable or worthy of attention in love.
I thought that by playing the newest video games,
just like all the other kids and teenagers, I would be happy.
Little did I know that every time I saw an advertisement of this sort,
I internalized a message - I am not enough.
I need to buy something to be happy. I need to change myself to fit in.
But enough about the problem. Let's talk about solutions.
This might seem crazy, but what if I told you
that you can brainwash yourselves?
So what do I mean by brainwashing yourself?
I mean, from here on out,
the brainwasher and the brainwashee are on the same page.
Hopefully, the betterment of the person in the discussion.
From here on out, every time you retain a new belief
or discredit an old one, it will be an active choice,
instead of a passive subconscious and non-consensual process.
So technically, we’re not talking about brainwashing,
but play along with me here.
A great jump start to brainwashing yourself is by killing ANTs.
No, no, no, not the animals.
Those are precious for our ecosystem. Let’s keep them in the ground.
ANT, Automatic Negative Thoughts.
It gets tricky at times,
because they’re not always the easiest to recognize.
There are bigger ANTs and there are smaller ANTs.
For example, “I did a terrible job.”
You guessed it, that’s a big ANT.
“I could have done better.” That’s a tiny one.
Because it’s not blatantly building you down,
but it focuses your energy on what you didn’t do on the negative
instead of channeling yourself on what you did well
and what can be repeated.
Process of brainwashing yourself is no easy task nor is it a quick one.
I myself am still very much in the process of doing so.
Like I have caught myself and a lot of ANTs in my head
at least 3 or 4 times during this talk.
Because going through this process involves countless hours of meditation
and contemplation on your upbringing.
You’ll have to question things.
You’re having questions since you were a child in the why phase.
Why this? Why that?
But I do believe, that it is a fundamental task
to rewire our minds, to convince ourselves
of more positive things.
As a matter of fact,
let’s get into what you can substitute these ants with.
Positive affirmations.
The power of repeating something in your head
time and time again is not to be underestimated.
Remember how if you tell a lie enough times it becomes a reality?
What if that lie wasn’t a lie at all?
What if it was a positive statement to build yourself up?
For example, imagine yourself telling yourself every day, in every way,
I am getting better and better.
What if you convinced yourself that
I can do anything I put my mind to?
I think that’s a whole lot better than I am not enough.
A mental coach of mine, Jim Quick compares life to an egg.
If an outside force breaks it, life ends.
But if an inside force breaks it, life begins.
I’d like to end on this note. It’s a poem that I wrote.
We’ve been through a brainwash
I wonder, did it start with the Macintosh?
Technology sure played a role in pushing us down that rabbit hole
But it's up to us to choose to scroll or to look through the keyhole
and take control of our lives and go for a stroll
and the archives of our brain and break the chain of one school
we were once taught and change what we once sought
And this was nothing more than some food for thought
Thank you for your time.