The basic essentials of brainwashing

It’s something we all think about in negative terms, something we all insist will never happen to us, something we may think involves a long process, yet I see it happening more and more these days. People just seem to be brainwashed in so many ways and the ease at which it is done is actually something to be really scared about.

So I decided to do my own little analysis about this problem and I bring you what I term, “The Basic Essentials of Brainwashing”.

1.   Have the desire to sell something, whether it’s an object, a lifestyle even an idea, it doesn’t matter what it is at this point, the focus is to sell this to as many people as possible.

2.   Give the thing you want to sell an image. This would involve a considerable amount of manipulation, but that’s not a problem, because that can easily be achieved in the next step.

3.   This step involves one of the biggest tools of manipulation. It’s called ADVERTISING. So this is where you portray your product, idea, lifestyle etc to others in a way that they would actually begin to like it, long for it and eventually do anything to get it. This is where you turn your otherwise ordinary thing into a brand.

4.   This step is linked closely to the one above, here, you’d need your brand (product, lifestyle, idea etc) to be associated with someone who is rich, famous or good looking. Either one of these criteria can be used, it doesn’t really matter as long as the person or people associated with your brand has the ability to make it seem like the world cannot revolve without it.

5.   Okay, so once you have decided what you want to sell, you’ve given your thing and image, advertised it, in association with a particular type of person/s then it’s time to start the actual full scale brainwashing. Now this is where you already have people hooked and in this step, you start sending out your messages. Any message you’d like to send out will be accepted at this point. It doesn’t even matter if your messages are negative, harmful or even plain down nonsense. Why? Because your brand has the status of an “in thing”, everybody is talking about it, and naturally everybody wants to have it, or live it, or think it.

6.   So all that’s left is to continue the brainwashing process, over and over, until eventually the initial steps are not even necessary any more. At this point, you can introduce new things to sell and it won’t even be questioned at all.

This sounds a bit crazy doesn’t it?

Yet, I see the effects of this very process, so blatant and it’s just getting worse and worse. This is why people can so easily see a particular thing or lifestyle on a popular TV show and suddenly wish to become like the people they see, long to own the things that these people have and even wish to have the type of relationships that these people have. And they don’t stop to consider, not once, that in fact they have been brainwashed into believing that what they see is wonderful, even though it opposes their values, and their beliefs like the cold opposes the heat.

And then, people’s standard becomes what they have been manipulated into believing is perfect and when they get what’s real instead of the imagined fantasy, they are not happy and they become miserable, depressed, despondent and so on.

The worst part however is that when anyone decides to point out that in fact this is systematic brainwashing, they get shut down so quickly they are probably left wondering how that happened. And the people who are able to see through the brainwashing of course are the ones who are boring, old-fashioned, clueless and who knows what else.

So here’s my challenge to you:

 Take a look at your life, a proper look, one of those deep, life-changing, analytical kind of looks, and ask yourself, how much of the things in your life is actually who you are?

How many of your ideas and opinions are your own?

How many of your desires are free from the brainwashing that’s so rampant in our societies?

Be honest with yourself and where you have to, admit that you have been brainwashed! Admittance is the first step to change after all.

And after reading what I’ve written here, I urge you-

Don’t just blindly accept what I’m saying- please, think about this for yourself and come up with your own opinion, because like I said, it’s so very easy to be brainwashed in today’s world!  

And one more thing, please don’t be afraid to be the only one who thinks differently, society achieves nothing if all the people think the same.

May Allah Almighty save us all Inshaa-Allah!

Image from here