1. Control of the Environment
You can call this many different things, but basically what we are talking
about is the control of rewards and punishment: especially things like
food, sex, etc.
2. Control of Attachment
Again, this goes by many names but refers to controlling who you
associate with and especially who you develop strong ties with and how
social influence can manipulate you
3. Control of Information
This usually takes the form of propaganda, but it can be things like
withholding mysterious information in order to stimulate interest or
having a rigid hierarchy of grades which you must traverse before you
become an initiate
4. Control of thoughts/language
This is the most power and perhaps misunderstood of the four principles.
It has to do with coining new terms ("meme" or "the four principles") and
is also the path of many advertisers.
Without writing a book, I want to show really quick how these work and
then refer you to many sources that give better examples of how to use
these four principles. I'll use Nazi Germany as an example.
1. Environment: Jews couldn't own a business, only Nazi reaped the reward
of exploiting Jews, and dissenters were severely punished or killed
2. Attachment: Germans couldn't have friendships with Jews, it was a
crime to have sex with a Jew, you couldn't trust anybody because the
secret police were everwhere
3. Information: The standard propaganda, hiding the holocaust, keeping
everybody in the dark about who was winning the war.
4. Language/Thought: If every word you have for "Jew" has a negative
connotation and every word you have for "German" has a positive
connotation think of the results. Or if I speak in terms of nationalism
and Hitler as synonomous then what effect does that have. What if I
liken Hitler to your father, Germany to your mother: would you die to
protect them?
Finally, these principles are widely known if you know where to look.
Try reading 1984 by George Orwell as a textbook on brainwashing. Or
better yet (or worse) read John Locke's On the Wealth of Nations. What
does he mean by "Power, Property, and Prestige." How about B.F.
Skinner's Walden Two--Does he use all four principles? The list goes on,
but just two more quick names to look up: Try Aldouse Huxley's Brave New
World Re-visited or look up Lifton's classic work on brainwashing.
Aaron Bolin
abolin@niu.edu