Label Me, Illuminate Me

The label-debate rages on, and now that I know I have autism, I have firmly come down on one side: I am in favor of labels.

Labels can be used to dehumanize, to misconstrue, to overgeneralize, and to blind us to a person's humanity and individuality. As Wayne said, "If you label me, you negate me".

Preach it, Wayne.
Then party on.

Actually, it was the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard who originally said this. "Butterflygirl" on Yahoo Answers summarized Kierkegaard thusly:

Once you label someone you cancel out their own individuality and replace it within the boundaries of that label, so their individually has been restricted within that label and therefore, for all those who accept that label for that person they have no longer accepted that person for who they really are but understand them only to the limit of that label.

And I know all too well from my research into mind control that loaded language combined with us vs. them techniques can indeed leverage labels to negate an individual and render her selfless. It can be used to dismiss external points of view. Labels can make a group insider feel benevolent and normal while demonizing outsiders as inhuman and evil.

Many people fairly point out that labels, particularly psychological labels, can divide people. Labels can become truth. We are all individuals, but dumping thousands or millions of people into the same bucket removes some sense of self. Being labeled in school can make kids a target of bullying, not just from other kids but from teachers as well. It can impose expectations in education and in the workplace and among peers. Labeling can trigger tribalism and hostility. When people are unfairly labeled, they end up filling the role others expect of them.

I've met people in person and read blog posts from people who hate all labels. Here's a dude summing up this line of thought:

These are certainly valid drawbacks, but like The Spork of Truth, it has four tines. Hm, no I need something else... Like the Spoon of Truth, it has two edges. The same aspects that make labels problematic also give labels power. And when your label has power, you have power.
I used to feel neutral about labels. Now, with my diagnosis, I've made up my mind. I now celebrate and champion labels. Bring it. More labels for all! Yes, definitely beware of all the pitfalls that come with labeling, and then proceed with label punch in hand, like that one episode of Dexter's Lab.

Dexter and Dee Dee battle one another
for the right to label everything and then
[SPOILERS SPOILERS]

They say, "If you meet one person with Asperger's, you've met just one person with Asperger's." This applies to everyone on the spectrum. We are all very unique individuals and our traits manifest in thousands of different ways – just like the colors in a rainbow. So the label seems perhaps limiting. Yet those of us with autism have more in common with one another than we do with allists (non-autists). Knowing that is useful.

I lived 38 years of my life without a label to accurately describe who I am. As a kid, a psychologist said I was "hyperactive", and in my 20s, I got an ADHD label from a psychiatrist. These labels helped my know myself a little, but were not accurate enough. All my other traits, which I now know were due to Asperger's, were just unique snowflake Luna oddness. Easily distracted, hyperfocused, shy, socially awkward, nerdy, impolite, smart, pedantic, pensive, weird, misunderstood, seemingly self-centered, anxious, difficult, distant... I projected these "personality traits" which, prior to last April, were merely marks of my individuality with no cause. In essence, all of my negative traits were "choices", bad things I did that I didn't understand, that I blamed myself for. Shortcomings with no solution. Without the label, people still perceived me as all those things. But I had no way to talk about it, and no way to understand. I beat myself up for not going out more, not talking at parties, not flirting, not being productive, for being lazy, for being depressed, for being scared, for forgetting birthdays and being inconsiderate and clumsy and absent-minded.

It's not the words that made me view myself this way. The words are just handles attached to concepts. I saw myself this way without words, because I naturally compared myself with others… Other people had it together and I never quite knew why I didn't.

The words didn't make the reality. They only filtered it. And they weren't filtering it very accurately.

The label allowed me to understand why. "Autism" is a label with definitions, entire books and websites and scientific studies devoted to defining what it means. It's a handle I can wrap my fingers around and manipulate. It's connected to a vast network of related thoughts by those who think about and study and share my autism. Now I can google this label and find others talking about it. Anyone affected by autism can share our thoughts and find others like ourselves. Without the label, all this would be impossible.

Moreover, I can tell those around me, "I have Asperger's", and that means something. It's not an excuse, it's a reason. It describes why I'm different. Many times people don't know what it means, or they have misconceptions, and the label itself gives me an opportunity to educate them. Now anyone who wants to understand me better has ahold of that same handle, and I can draw their attention to all the connections attached to the handle.

This is an actual font. Groovy.
Available from Smashing Hub.

That's the power inherent in words, in all words. As a society, we've agreed upon the meaning of these words. Words allow us to think and share our thoughts with one another. In the dystopic novel, 1984, the goal of Big Brother was to eliminate words, reduce the language down to only those necessary for labor. Authorities knew that if no one had words like"Freedom" or "Rebellion", they could never imagine or communicate about those concepts. Orwell called this language Newspeak.

Those who wish to eliminate labels may have good intentions, but their wish expresses a nihilistic cynicism, and the resulting language would stifle thought, discussion, and mutual understanding.

Knowing I have autism helps me understand myself. And it's helped others understand me. Getting personal for a moment, my sister and I have been distant most of our lives. I never quite understood why, and neither did she. A few months ago, when I told her I had Asperger's, and explained to her what that meant to me, it opened whole new doors in our relationship. She revealed that all these years, my behavior confused her and that, among other things, I seemed self-centered. The new label gave us a way to talk about it, and an alternate explanation for my actions. My label gave us a pathway to get closer.

That's the thing. Yes, we are who we are, unique snowflakes. And we act how we act. But without taking on one label, people will give us another. Maybe the label isn't a word. Maybe it's just an image or feeling in their mind. They ascribe reasons and motivations for why we do what we do. People are going to think things about us anyway. Misunderstanding and hate is not the fault of the label. That's an oversimplification. Reality is more complex than that.

Labels give us a starting point to explore those assumptions and identify ways in which individuals differ from the stereotypes -- stereotypes that already exist, even without the labels.

Accurate labeling lets us be more in control of how other see us. That's part of what the coming out movement is. It is owning that label and maybe even proud of it. You think I'm gay? Yes, I'm gay. (Bisexual actually.) It's a label, and it's part of why I'm a unique snowflake, and now you can't rob me of that, because I wield the word for my own ends.

You think I'm weird? Yes, I'm weird. And I'm partly weird because I have Asperger's. Letting everyone know that helps them understand me more, not less. And if they still choose not to understand, well that's their problem. Not the label's problem.

I have embraced labels and now I advocate for them. If you feel mislabeled, then find labels that better describe you, give them a big hug, and offer them to others as replacements. Use them as a starting point for further discussion. Maybe it's hard to find labels for yourself. So invent new ones. The process of thinking about how to describe yourself is an opportunity for greater self-awareness and self-actualization. You are building a language for your own mind to use about itself.

And when you share those labels with others, maybe they'll accept your self-identification, and maybe they won't. But at least you have something to own, a handle to hold on to when the world knocks you around.

Let your labels illuminate you.

Persuade the Bystanders

This post has to do with social justice – you know, topics like privilege, racism, sexism, classism, ablism, and all the other ignorant and/or hatey "isms" worth railing against. I'll get to those in a second.

In the early 90s, while arguing politics on BBS message boards, I realized an important truth that I've carried with me always:

When people argue in public, they will almost never convince one another. But they do influence the lurkers. 

WWIV message boards
My view of the world when I
learned this important life lesson 

Sometimes the persuasion is instant. Now and then a lurker will timidly post and reveal that their minds have been changed. But most keep this fact to themselves. More often, the change is slow. These lurkers continue to follow similar arguments, until eventually, they are swayed by whichever side has collectively made the best case. I myself have drastically changed my mind on deeply held beliefs in this way, both by debating and merely watching debates. I've also seen it happen to other people. But it's rarely instant.

It's hard to know that these neutral and persuadable lurkers exist. They are, by their nature, quiet. Very often, though not always, the more vocal a person is, the less likely they are to be convinced. So we tend to think everyone who doesn't use a megaphone is just like everyone who does. This is not true.

I think about the topic of persuasion alot. I'm a writer. It's my job to persuade. I also love debate, a casual pastime since childhood. Roland makes a wonderful and challenging debate partner to help me better understand what works and what doesn't. On top of all that, I've studied mind control, otherwise known as "coercive persuasion" – the ability of manipulators to convince people against their will.

I've learned about why people believe things, and what factors make people change their minds, and why people sometimes never will, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Cognitive Dissonance is the mechanism we all employ to either accept or reject new ideas. It can be a very powerful barrier to persuading others that our position is correct. Cognitive dissonance is the source of all closed minds. There are ways around it – both ethical and unethical. I am more concerned with ethical persuasion.

I consider myself an activist. Anyone who publicly advocates for social justice, is, in my opinion, an activist. I am a woman and I have what some might call an invisible disability. In all other areas, I am privileged, but I consider myself an ally against racism and other hateful thought systems. I firmly believe that everyone has a different life experience, and it is generally best to never dismiss anyone's position out of hand until I've done my utmost to understand – even if I don't agree.

Social media has opened a new door for activists. It allows the voices of oppressed individuals and classes be heard by all kinds of people who were previously isolated. The internet democratizes the population by giving everyone a printing press and a megaphone. It's a beautiful thing. And every activist, whether they know it or not, is in a position to persuade.

This guy is just like you. Everyone is listening.
Choose well what you will say.

Presumably, our goal is to make society better. To reduce hate. To eliminate ignorance. To eliminate unfairness. To prevent harm and prosecute those who hurt others. To pass laws that create the most equal playing fields for all people. Everyone should have the same opportunities for success, regardless of outward differences that so many in our society tend to get hung up on. I want everyone to be treated with respect, even if they're a different color, or gender, or disabled, or attracted to the same gender, or all the other things I've failed to list here.

In a democracy, the best way to accomplish all of those goals is to be persuasive. Activism, when done right, is persuasive. Anything else is just preaching to the choir – it feels good, but nothing gets done.

Given that, there are certain trends I see among activists that disturb me for two reasons:

1. I don't consider these methods ethical. 
2. These methods are not persuasive.

The Outrage Machine is constantly producing new horrors to raise outrage. Sometimes I believe this machine is persuasive, and other times I don't. Sometimes I think it is counter-persuasive. And that concerns me. Because I'd like to see society improve. I'd like to employ the best tactics.

So when I apply my mind to social justice activism, the question often is, "How could this message be more convincing? How can it reach more people and change minds?" Sometimes, I speak up about tactics. And when I do, my views are controversial, often because they're mistaken for taking up the other side's position, or being an apologetic, or dismissing someone's views, or perhaps not being enough of a cheerleader for our side, nor supportive enough of the cheerleaders we have.

None of those are my goals. I'm not dismissing anyone. I am not being an apologist for the other side. I am not defending horrible behavior. I am merely goal-oriented and thinking about the best ways to achieve the goals that all online social justice activists share – more fairness and equality and tolerance for all.

So here's my controversial statement of the day, and I hope you'll hear me out. Allow me to persuade you before immediately dismissing my argument. Please know I understand the counter-arguments and have given this alot of thought.

I've seen a certain sentiment echoed via Twitter and the blogosphere, usually coming from an underprivileged person directed at a privileged person (i.e. woman or POC or disabled or trans* directed at a man or white person or cis), and it goes something like: "It's not my job to educate you!" It is often delivered in an angry or dismissive or antagonistic tone.

In terms of accomplishing the above goals, it is entirely counterproductive.

Yes, I do understand where this sentiment comes from. Especially when, say, a feminist of color has been asked 50,000 times by hostile racist misogynists to explain why she's so upset, and she's given the answer 49,999 times, and she's being asked to speak for her entire race and sex to flaming assholes who aren't listening anyway. Her anger is entirely justified. As is her weariness in the face of this seemingly Sisyphean task. It is true, in fact, that Google is just a fingertip away, and all ignorance about any topic can be quickly dissolved like salt in water.

The endless questions themselves can be a rhetoric tool used to dismiss, belittle, and aggravate. So why waste even two seconds talking to those jerks?

I get all that, I really do. 

And I understand the double-bind. As a woman, I can choose to be labeled a bitch, or let people walk all over me. I am not allowed a middle ground. Similar thought-terminating cliches are employed to double-bind people of all other oppressed classes. I am not suggesting the answer is passivity and eternal politeness, bowing and scraping. Far from it.

And most especially, I understand that most oppressed people have no interest in activism and just want to live their lives without being bothered. They just want to be accepted as average and normal and don't want to go around thinking about their orientation, disability, or skin color. They just want to live. In this latter case, I think the "It's not my job" answer is most appropriate – it isn't your job.

But as activists and advocates, you actually have taken on the job. Maybe you only want it to be part time, but it's your job. By speaking up, you volunteered. It's a tough job, but worth doing.

No, it's not your job to educate the hostile instigator of controversy or the timeline troll who is just trying to raise everyone's hackles. That guy will never be convinced by anything you have to say. It's true. He is so enmired in his beliefs and has made public declarations of it, so his cognitive dissonance is nearly impenetrable. It is likely that when the world changes completely into a social utopia dreamworld, he will go to his grave willfully ignorant and hating.

Alas, educational and persuasive words are not meant for him. Your efforts are meant for the bystanders, the dozens, or hundreds, or even thousands of quiet lurkers. They're out there, neutral, or ignorant, or perhaps a bit racist or a bit sexist or any other *ist, but they don't feel too strongly about it. Not enough to join the argument. But they're curious, and they're watching each player make a case.

Pretend today the Outrage Machine has identified a new controversy and brought it to the rapt attention of the information-obsessed internet. Someone gets wrongly fired from a job, or groped at a con, or catcalled, or outed, or harassed, or murdered. Some person in power says something stupid, and advocates reply, and anti-advocates reply back and everyone's in an uproar for a few days. This is the chance to convince that silent neutral ignorant majority. They are all near the fence. They think sexism is over, or transwomen are just confused, or bisexuals don't exist, or Muslims are more protected than Christians, or any black kid has it coming because no one gets shot unless they deserve it, or whatever ignorant thing they believe. This is the chance of advocates to convince those bystanders.

I believed many of those things once. And over time, effective arguments finally got to me. Advocates finally educated me. And not usually because I sought the information out on my own. Usually because people kept pointing me in the right direction.

That's the point of publicity. You hold a megaphone, just for a few minutes. You've gotten someone's attention. In this age of the information firehose, that's the hard part. Now how are you going to most effectively use it?

Even the small-time advocate who doesn't have a big platform, who rarely says much of anything, has a huge opportunity to convince these silent types, because their followers are their friends and family. We are much more influential to those who know us and like us personally. Yes, those Facebook debates are frustrating, because no one seems to listen, but the silent readers are paying attention.

This is how the most recent victories in marriage equality were won. A majority of the mainstream public was swayed, not through anger and righteous indignation, but through family members who came out of the closet and stood gentle yet firm on their rights to be gay and to love and commit to who they wanted. Eventually, few loving family members could imagine a world where government would bar their happy union.

Injustices happen every moment of every day. Outrage can spark quite an inflagration of justifiable anger that sadly, too often, turns to hostility, or ostracism, or shaming, or personal attacks, or blatant logical fallacies. And when this happens, you've lost the moral high-ground. You have ceased being persuasive to that silent, neutral, convincible audience. And then it doesn't matter how right you are. Because anyone who might have been listening will turn against your position. The opponent wins an easy victory. Score one for the trolls.

Even more tragic and destructive is when misdirected anger scares away fellow advocates and allies – even those in the same category as you (fellow women, POCs, LGBTs, etc). These are people who are already convinced of your position and want to help. They observe this open hostility and feel judged or lumped in with the haters because of a slight variance in opinion. They may already be marginalized by being themselves in the oppressed class, and now they feel marginalized further by activists who claim to be advocating on their behalf. They may become terrified to say anything, lest it be the wrong thing, lest your irate gaze turn instead on them. Intersectional individuals are even more at risk for this type of dismissal and marginalization.

I myself have been in this position amongst my fellow feminists, sometimes for defending intersectional classes (like advocating trans rights to rad fems), and sometimes because my opinion on tactics differed. (I'm generally against boycotts, for instance.) I'm fine with people disagreeing with me, but I've also been actively shamed for holding these and other stances. Shaming, threatened ostracization, and personal attacks go too far.

This type of hostility makes it frightening for fellow advocates to contribute to the discussion. For instance, it made me hesitant to write this post. Thankfully, I'm the type of person who doesn't like to be silenced in the face of fear. Others are understandably more timid.

We need more diversity among our voices, not less. And more tolerance. Don't we believe that both diversity and tolerance lead to a better world? We need all the allies and advocates we can get, waving the banner, even if some choose to wave it differently than you. Punch upward, at the system, at the oppressors, at the powerful, at the bad guys. Don't punch sideways at the ally standing next to you just because she's easier to hit.

Oppressed people have much to be angry about, and I would never rob them of their anger. Anger is a valuable emotion. It motivates and feeds energy into individuals and groups and causes. I am not advocating for less anger – I am suggesting that those energies be channeled persuasively to produce the most positive outcomes.

(And in the moment of offense, especially when there is no audience, untamed anger very much has its place in defending individuals against in-progress assault or insult. I am not suggesting passivity or politeness when rights need to be asserted to a hostile *ist who insults and then demands to know why it was insulting. Since you likely will never convince him, that's the time to growl and spit, to say it's not your job, and to gently or not-so-gently direct him to Google. Or not. Depends on you and the situation.)

Updated to add: Sally Kohn puts it another way in her TED talk, "Let's Try Emotional Correctness".

And Mattie Brice recently wrote about anger in protesting the video games industry, suggesting we put behind us the demeaning hostility in 2013.

It's true that maintaining the moral high-ground can be exhausting. We can't do it all the time. Sometimes I tweet or blog my opinions. Sometimes I advocate. Sometimes I give the long answer.

And other times, I'm busy, I just direct people to others who have written more eloquently than I. Think about it: If, instead of saying, "Correcting your ignorance is not my responsibility," you suggest a well-known educational website or blog post on the topic, like Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. You not only give that hostile person a chance at graceful, face-saving redemption, but more importantly, it's another opportunity to distribute that content to every single one of your other followers, many whom may have missed that particular blog post, or have never been exposed to content that you think is obvious because you read it a decade ago.

There is much to be said for "brand awareness", a tactic commercial marketers understand well. Every chance you have to retweet the same link to yet another person asking the same questions, your other followers will begin to see that content as legitimate and worth consuming. Maybe they meant to read it last month, and have forgotten. You're making it easy for them to educate themselves and maybe even join the cause.

Other times, the good fight becomes overwhelming. It's exhausting to be outraged all the time. That's when I take a break and let others pick up the banner. Sometimes I do this because I am far too emotional to think clearly. I'd rather sit out the Outrage Machine's churning than say something that loses points for my side. Because I want my team to win. It is possible to communicate "It's not my job" in a way that doesn't detract from the overall argument or your future ability to be persuasive. Like, "I don't have time to answer that right now. Could you please google 'cis privilege' on your own?" Or just remain silent. That gives the hostile troll the last word, but most likely, it will reflect worse on him than you.

It's true that my white, cis, thin, mostly-abled, * privilege gives me the luxury to sit alot of these out, a privilege not everyone may have. I realize that I live relatively free from various kinds of hostility that lets me take these breaks. It's a little easier for me, perhaps, to go on an anger diet, to step away from the keyboard when emotions run too high. In many ways, this might be "easy for me to say". I still think these suggestions are tactically the most effective, and worth employing whenever possible.

In the end, we all have our own journey and our own idea of what's right and wrong. It's your social media platform, so please, do with it what you will. But hopefully, I've been just a bit persuasive here.

Let's go out and change the world.

Mind Control 101: Cogs of Dissonance

Your brain is full of machines. Each machine is made of thousands of cogs spinning in tandem with one another, and all the machines are more or less connected and dependent upon each other. When a cog starts to break down, other parts of the machine pitch in to repair it, replace it, or bypass it. This is because your survival is dependent upon the smooth functioning of each and every cog.

Or so the machines want you to think. Because they control you.

This is your brain on cogs.
Any questions?

This is, of course, an analogy which I'm using to illustrate a complicated idea -- the theory of cognitive dissonance. A cognition (or cog) is any single thought, feeling, idea, concept, perception, behavior, social feedback, memory, attitude, goal, value, or commitment. When you put them together with other cognitions, they build all the belief systems that make up you. Earth is round, tacos are delicious, love feels nice, kittens are fuzzy, corporations are evil, God is great, and Republicans all suck and should go hide in a cave until they come up with some way to not look like a bunch of clowns.

Or whatever it is you believe. I happen to have a moderate opinion on the flavor of tacos, and I've never met God so I'm not sure how neat He is.

Each of these cogs, and the belief systems they build, have varying levels of importance. There are people who would die to save their favorite taco, and other people who don't really care that much about food. How strongly you feel when your precious (or not-so-precious) cog is threatened will inform your reaction to various kinds of incoming cogs that other people throw at you. By the way... you might want to duck.

You see, living in the world means we constantly encounter new cognitions every day. The Flat Earth Society distributes pamphlets, paleovangelists push their anti-taco propaganda, love breaks your heart, kittens are proven to cause cancer, corporations run ads about saving lives, atheists say God is not great, and you've got friends who are Republican. Everyone has a different message to push, and if we really believed everything we heard, we'd change our minds everyday about everything. More frighteningly, we'd never know what brand of breakfast cereal to buy. (I'm a paleovangelist, so I don't buy cereal brands. None of them are true.) Our brains need some sort of mechanism to hold all our cogs together or they'd roll bouncing our of our heads and people would trip on them and fall down.

That mechanism is an emotional reward and punishment system known as Cognitive Consonance and Dissonance. Consonance is a good feeling. When we see a beautiful taco on TV, spinning in a glorious light, with beautiful green lettuce hand-picked for its photogenic properties, sticking out from the crunchy shell at aesthetically pleasing angles, and the announcer shouts, "Recommended by four out of five dentists who chew gum for people who like mouthwatering, savory tacos!", we think "Yes! I knew it! I knew I loved tacos. And now they're healthy, too! Sweet Jesus I was right all along! Baptize me in Fire™ sauce!"


Dissonance occurs when we take in information that is contrary to an existing belief. The more cherished the belief, the more powerful this feeling. It drives us to protect our sacred cogs and the giant, powerful machines they hold together. 9,329* studies last year show that corn is horribly bad for you. It's probably why we are all coming down with diabetes. But if you really love tacos, you don't want to hear this. The more you love tacos, the less you want to hear this. And that feeling is called cognitive dissonance.

* I made this up. But some studies showed this. I'm lazy. Go google it.

Cognitive dissonance isn't just one feeling. It can manifest in a whole range of uncomfortable emotional side effects: Confusion, irritation, annoyance, anger, rage, sadness, denial, defensiveness, nervousness, anxiety, irritable bowel syndrome, easy bruising, weight gain, and painful erections lasting more than four hours. (The last four are extremely rare. I'm sure you'll be fine.) Under those conditions, you will be highly motivated to rid yourself of the offending thought in some way, so you can go back to eating tacos in health-defying glee.

In the end, we don't want to feel crazy, because to feel crazy is to die. To willy-nilly accept new beliefs without some type of discomfort might cause insanity. So would dumping out all our old beliefs without good reason. As would actually believing six impossible things before breakfast. So dissonance and consonance work together to make all the cogs in our mind somehow fit together, even when sometimes they directly conflict with one another. Even when sometimes, in reality, they make us believe impossible things. Like pretty much everything you believe right now.

Just kidding.

But only a little bit.

There are a number of strategies our minds use to handle cognitive dissonance. They all involve lowering dissonance or increasing consonance, or some combination of both. The fact that one cog (I like tacos) might be connected to alot of other cogs (I want to be healthy; I believe in science; I can eat whatever I want; this is America where we have freedom to eat what we want; people who threaten freedom are Communists; I hate Communists; I also like Doritos; Doritos are made out of corn; some tacos are made out of Doritos; Jesus ate tacos at the Last Supper; Jesus can't be wrong; Jesus wasn't a Communist) can promote the importance of that cog and increase the intensity of the dissonance. If you can't resolve the conflict, an entire machine might break. And we can't have that.

Protect the Cogs! 

The process of resolving dissonance happens automatically. Sometimes it only takes a couple of seconds to walk through all the options and emotions they inspire and logical links they create, to come up with a resolution. Sometimes it takes days or longer. Here are the three strategies:

1. Alter Cogs -- We've got the old cogs and this new interloper that threatens to break the machine. So we can change something, either the new cognition, or an old one.

Sometimes the easiest thing is to reject the new idea. "There must be something wrong with that study. With uh... all 9,329 studies. I'm just going to pretend I never heard of it. Crunch crunch yes, nine out of ten dentists agree with me. So good."

Or you can alter one or more of your existing beliefs or behaviors.

• Science doesn't know anything. Crunch crunch.
• Besides, I'm going to die anyway. Might as well crunch crunch.
• And tacos don't even have corn. That's just a myth! Crunch crunch.

As a last resort, depending on how much we like tacos, we may even change that cherished sacred cog: "Okay, fine. Science has persuaded me to be a Communist. I will stop eating tacos and I now believe Taco Bell should be dismantled by the government. Vive la paleo!"

2. Add New Cogs -- By adding new cogs we can create new systems that help the old system work alongside the new one. "Yes, I believe in science and I still want to be healthy and I still love America. Which is why I have become convinced all corn studies are funded by the anti-corn lobby which is secretly controlled by aliens who know that corn actually makes us stronger and more immune to their mind control rays!"

We can also take steps to increase cognitive consonance to drown out any remaining discomfort, say by joining an alien abduction support group where they let us present evidence for this conspiracy as they nod their heads in heart-warming agreement, and every once in awhile, Old Bob shouts, "I knew it!" right before eating the last taco, and every time he does that, it sparks a new round of cognitive dissonance, because you like it when Old Bob agrees with you, but damn it, that was the last taco!

3. Alter Importance -- You may have noticed that importance is important in how important the importance of the dissonance is. To put it more simply, if you can merely lower how important you think one or more cogs is, you will find instant relief. This is the solution you've come to when you shout, "FINE! I never liked tacos anyway! God just leave me alone, stupid scientists!" Maybe you keep eating tacos, but decide your health isn't that big a deal, or that science isn't a big deal. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose, right? So you embrace Communism and tacos and science and freedom and corn, because nothing really matters, and congratulations, you're a nihilist. Dissonance doesn't even exist anymore. Did it ever? If it did, it shouldn't have.

On this same scale, you can increase the importance of cognitions that give you consonance. Suddenly, you're looking at pictures of kittens on the internet, because boy, they sure are fuzzy. Ah, doesn't that feel good? You commit to a new diet plan to eat five tacos a day, to overcome your fear of commitment which is something you've been meaning to do anyway, and you can almost forget about those 9,329 studies. Yay corn! Crunch crunch.

Mind Control?

What does any of this have to do with mind control? Everything! So sit down and stop asking questions and believe everything I say. You trust me, right? Because once I've earned your trust by stoking flames of consonance using your existing belief in kittens and the omniscient power of tacos, I will need to reroute any dissonance you may feel as I slowly install my own cogs. Many of those cogs will be specially designed to elevate the importance of the beliefs I want you to have while giving you the tools you'll need to handle dissonance that will be thrown at you from the outside world. Because when you belong to a cult, you will have lots of opportunities to feel dissonance. You will depend on social approval from the group to feel consonance.

Mind control techniques can be seen as a system of beliefs designed to protect the belief system when the rest of the world, and its facts, regularly disagrees.

Almost every mind control technique has to do with manipulating cogs. Any totalist group must overcome your overwhelming cognitive dissonance which was originally designed by evolution to make you not believe everything people tell you. The cult must make you believe what they have to tell you, so they will use cognitive consonance by telling you things you already agree with, to overcome your dissonance about how weird they are and about how they are secretly communists who will eventually restrict your intake of tacos but not before giving you three free kittens and praising Fire™ sauce. (Plus Bob isn't there to eat the last taco.)

Once you've attended enough meetings and now have committed to pledging life-giving care to ten precious fuzzy lifepuffs, which you've named after famous historical tacos, the totalist group will begin installing new beliefs that you never had before, cogs that will lock you into the group and make it extremely painful to leave. Some cogs are designed to keep you isolated from dissonance-causing information. Some are designed to bounce the bullets of dissonance right off your newly-thickened skull. Some are designed to create dependence, and increase the importance of community and social pressure. Some are designed to suppress any doubts that arise, and prevent you from voicing criticism. Some can even give you phobias to prevent you from leaving. They convince you that the group is keeping you safe, so the idea of accepting new cognitions will literally cause fear to pound in your chest.

Your new cult will promote the importance of tacos until yes, you will die to defend tacos, while simultaneously accepting new restrictions on actually eating them. You quickly learn to hate the government (which funds studies into the health effects of corn), hate science (which actually does studies on corn), and hate all paleovangelists who are clearly sent from the Great Satan of Carb Haters to destroy all the Good People like you that God has chosen to promote kittens and tacos. I mean, who could hate a kitten, except a devil worshipper?

Cornclusion
Cogclusion

Cognitive dissonance is actually good. It's good for your sanity, survival, and for humanity. It's how we learn and how we defend ourselves from snakeoil salesmen. Except when the salesman is selling really good snakeoil and it cures what ails you and you saw it with your own eyes, a lame boy could walk it's a miracle, please take my money!

Yes, dissonance and consonance can be manipulated. But the fact is, it has to be manipulated. Only tricky smart people are able to do it, and even then, only sometimes. By learning about dissonance and manipulation techniques, you are installing new cogs that prevent the installation of harmful cogs. Adopting an attitude of healthy skepticism, and demanding facts, and researching more than one source and opinion will help those nasty Cogs of Evil bounce right off your forehead... tho not without a little pain.

And even then, somewhere out there, is a cult leader who will find a way to take advantage of you. It may have already happened. I hope that thought doesn't make you too uncomfortable.

THIS POST IS PART OF A SERIES
Mind Control 101: Myths of Brainwashing
Mind Control 101: The Basics

Mind Control 101: The Basics

Keep trying, buddy.

We have explored what thought reform is not in Mind Control 101: Myths of Brainwashing. But what is it? What force can shut down people's minds and get them to do things they otherwise would never consent to?

Cult Conversion Walkthrough (Storytime!)

No one is immune from mind control. And contrariwise, mind control doesn't always work. It takes the right combination of factors; specifically trust, common ideals, and receptivity.

Cults are a good place to study mind control because the changes they effect on people's lives are extremely obvious.

Pretend for a moment you are having a difficult time in your life: a recent tragedy or major transition. Maybe you've just gone through divorce, lost a loved one, you've moved to a new town, or have recently been fired. You're feeling alone, scared, depressed, ashamed, or desperate.

One day you encounter someone who is nice to you. Either it's a friend or associate, or even a complete stranger. Maybe it is someone handing out pamphlets, or speaking to a crowd. Who ever it is, he has kind eyes, and you feel a little better when you're around him. He also seems to share your values. Maybe he wants to help the poor, or he talks about the power of love, or God, or protecting animals. Imagine your greatest value, and he also shares that value with a level of passion you admire.

He invites you to a meeting or a party. Once there, you find a room full of people who say nice things to you, lifting your spirits. They are involved in a cause you wholeheartedly endorse. They take care of the sick or collect food for the poor, or educate kids about capitalism, or share the message of God to the world.

Being around these people makes you feel good. You feel as if you belong. You quickly forget your personal problems and begin spending more time with this group, working towards making the world a better place.

They have won your trust.

Now you are fairly receptive to what the leader may tell you. He will use this time to win more of your trust and make you more receptive. If you've had niggling doubts about your new friends or their beliefs, they are easily explained away.

Slowly, you are introduced to new ideas you may not have accepted at first. Over time, more is required of you. More money, more time, more sacrifices. Your behavior is slowly restricted. Maybe you are required to dress a special way, eat or not eat certain foods, show up at a certain number of meetings, be so busy you don't get proper sleep or nutrition.

Now the grip tightens. The leader teaches you doctrines to instill phobias about the outside world. You learn that your group has many enemies to fear. Those enemies are not to be listened to because you will be unable to resist when they try to lead you away from the love of the group. You are given thought-terminating cliches, phrases or words that help you easily dismiss criticism. You are elite, one of the chosen to help save the world from political error, or one of the blessed of God. Your very language is altered, as your words become "loaded". This prevents you from properly thinking about certain concepts, and from properly communicating with people outside the group. You have become dependent upon the group for your emotional well-being, and you are possibly even physically or financially dependent. You are isolated, if not physically, then mentally, because there are many sources of information you are taught to distrust.

When you think about the group and its teachings, you are filled with a sense of euphoria. Thinking about outsiders or criticisms makes you feel anger or confusion. The thought of leaving the group or "switching sides" makes you feel guilty, ashamed, or afraid. If something is not going as promised, you blame yourself, not the group. There are no gray areas left in your world view -- things are either good or evil, left or right, pure or tainted, full of life or death.

You now automatically reject any criticism, no matter how valid it is. You reject any fact that goes contrary to your beliefs, because your beliefs have become more important than reality. Certain words are now triggers that cause you to reject specific ideas before you even have a chance to hear them out.

You feel yourself to be perfectly rational, far more enlightened or intelligent than those with opposing views. Yet instead, your brain has been crippled from the mind viruses you voluntarily made part of you.

What Just Happened?

Here is the process:

Jim Jones seemed like a really nice guy...
till he lead 900 people to voluntarily drink cyanide-laced Koolaid.

1. Win Trust

Sometimes people just seem really trustworthy because they are kind, charismatic, or because everyone else also trusts and loves them.

2. Appeal to ideals, goals, beliefs

You probably feel very passionate about your beliefs, so it's easy to involve you on this level. It's also another way to win trust.

3. Create a state of emotions and receptivity

Once your defenses are down, there are many techniques for turning off your critical mind and putting you in an emotional state. There you are more willing to believe anything. Emotions may include fear, anger, idealistic euphoria, camaraderie, love, or any other strong feeling.

4. Slowly introduce new ideas and restrictions on thoughts and/or behavior

These are ideas or restrictions that dehumanize opponents, instill fears of the enemy, introduce thought-terminating cliches, create loaded words, give you feelings of elitism or of being special, and so on. This is the point at which you become tangled in the lie and become a perpetuator of that lie using the same techniques used against you.

It's How We're Wired

You don't have to be a full member of a suicide cult to be manipulated. Mind control techniques are used every day: in the news, in commercials, in political speeches, on billboards, on the radio, in forwarded emails, and in conversations. Even abusive relationships practice the same manipulative methods.

We are always being asked to trust someone who wants to tell us who to fear, when to shut down our brains, who's side to never respect, which facts are skewed and which are true. We are asked to immediately reject everything we disagree with and accept everything we agree with without question.

There used to be a lot more bowing and scraping.
Those prone to backtalk were usually beheaded.

This process seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Our society now values free-thought, intellectual honesty, and persuasion through facts and reason, but this has not always been so. For most of history, mankind has blindly followed authority. Arguably, civilization might not have survived this far without these traits. Rebellious, contrarian individuals in those cultures didn't survive long. Our minds seem prone to accept deceptive persuasive processes that bypass critical thinking. The tendency towards free thought was literally bred out of us.

It's hard work to employ honest persuasion. We have to risk the discomfort of cognitive dissonance, which seems ever present in the harsh light of honesty. Our very brain chemicals make us unhappy when we critically question cherished beliefs.

Conversely, coercive persuasion is a much more comfortable process, but it always involves deception. Typically such persuaders believe the lies they tell. Followers of these distortions are just repeating the program, including mind control methods, they have been taught.

Who Can I Trust?

Ironically, you are actually more likely to be brainwashed by those you least expect to be capable. These will be people you fully trust, people with similar values and goals as you, someone who is on your side.

You cannot be brainwashed by someone you distrust, unless you are physically held hostage by them. This means if you hate liberals, you can't be brainwashed by liberals. If you hate Republicans, you can't be brainwashed by Republicans. If you're God-fearing, you can never be brainwashed by atheists.

Think about that for a moment. The groups you might suspect most capable of mystically infecting your mind with deceit are actually the most incapable. Those you believe to be benevolent are those most capable of deceiving you, if they so choose.

There are members of every camp, every ideology, every school of thought who have used the powers of deceptive thought reform. Out there, somewhere, is a controlling group or belief system that is likely to appeal to you, that has the power to hook you and reel you in. It's even possible, likely in fact, that it's already happened to you to one degree or another.

When we're born, we are about as helpless and dependent as we ever will be. We start out being programmed by our parents. In most ways, this is a good thing, because this is how we learn basic survival, how to behave in society, and how we gain culture and language. We learn useful values and principles. But we also come to blindly accept many untruths and thought patterns that keep us from critically thinking or asking questions when maybe we should.

I know it's true. I saw it on TV.

We also become susceptible when the world itself becomes terrifying. There are many things to fear: War, terrorism, disease, crime, violence, immorality, anarchy, socialism, racism, tyranny, oppression, and so on. Many will stand on podiums or behind TV screens and amplify those fears, and then promise to ease them if we but trust. This isn't much different from when a cult targets someone who has had a recent loss in their lives.

I have been brainwashed about some things. I still am, to some degree, even though I am aware of these techniques and do everything I can to spot them. But when someone is "on my side", saying things I already tend to agree with, I'm just a little susceptible. And so are you.

Ultimately, you can only trust yourself. That is why questioning and critical thinking are so important. If you can become comfortable with cognitive dissonance and ok with being wrong, your mind becomes agile. If you learn good research techniques, you make yourself the ultimate authority. If you teach yourself rational habits and learn about the difference between good logic and fallacy, you can give yourself a built-in bullshit detector. If you study mind control techniques, you shield yourself with awareness to disarm the lies. Trust yourself and become the guardian of your own mind.

In future Mind Control 101 posts, I will explore each of the known mind control techniques in detail, describing exactly how they work to entrap us. I will also explore cognitive theories that explain why and how our brains cling so desperately to what we already believe, easily rejecting conflicting data.

Hopefully, armed with this knowledge, you can be that much more immune to mind control. Because no one else can do it for you.

THIS POST IS PART OF A SERIES
Mind Control 101: The Myths of Brainwashing
Mind Control 101: The Cogs of Dissonance