reading and brainwashing

[cacian]

can reading ever brain wash individuals?
literature is a powerful weapon and I believer that a lots of people, not all, are brainwashed everyday from reading unsuitable and badly written materials.
a newspapers that does not spell full correct words because it wants to attract readers of a certain age or occupations, people that speak slang for example, only accentuates ignorance and reinforces illeteracy.

[Alexander III]

If I were to be honest. Byron and Keats and Shelley and Rimbaud and Fitzgerald have brainwashed me to a far greater extent than any crappy newspaper or tv show could ever dream of. If anything the better, the more beautiful the art is, the more seductive it becomes. It is Satan, God's brightest, only that manages to seduce away from God, in Milton. To truly brainwash, to seduce away into something, a great genius is required.

[Shalot]

I thought of the newspapers that are published here where I live. I never noticed this or gave it much thought really until I started paying attention to the articles written about the agency I work for. As I read the papers, I thought that either I work for a really terrible agency that is run by a bunch of clowns who don't care whether they are harming the general public, or the news industry is desperate for web traffic, and until recently, I wasn't really sure which of my guesses was more on target. Then the paper ran a couple of articles about my workplace that I knew without a doubt were factually incorrect, and they made no effort to correct or apologize for it. Either, the paper employs inept journalists who don't understand the subject matter that they're writing about, or, they went ahead and reported outright lies. So, I am now wondering whether this publication has an actual agenda with the agency as its target or if they are just desperate for web traffic and advertising revenue, and sensational stories get hits.

[papayahed]

I thought of the newspapers that are published here where I live. I never noticed this or gave it much thought really until I started paying attention to the articles written about the agency I work for. As I read the papers, I thought that either I work for a really terrible agency that is run by a bunch of clowns who don't care whether they are harming the general public, or the news industry is desperate for web traffic, and until recently, I wasn't really sure which of my guesses was more on target. Then the paper ran a couple of articles about my workplace that I knew without a doubt were factually incorrect, and they made no effort to correct or apologize for it. Either, the paper employs inept journalists who don't understand the subject matter that they're writing about, or, they went ahead and reported outright lies. So, I am now wondering whether this publication has an actual agenda with the agency as its target or if they are just desperate for web traffic and advertising revenue, and sensational stories get hits.

I hear ya. There was a news story about an incident that occurred where I work. They told this crazy story about what we did. I think part of it was just laziness to find the truth, part of it was that the made up part was titillating and part of it was that we weren't prepared for the media attention and didn't respond as well as we could have.

[cacian]

If I were to be honest. Byron and Keats and Shelley and Rimbaud and Fitzgerald have brainwashed me to a far greater extent than any crappy newspaper or tv show could ever dream of. If anything the better, the more beautiful the art is, the more seductive it becomes. It is Satan, God's brightest, only that manages to seduce away from God, in Milton. To truly brainwash, to seduce away into something, a great genius is required.

surely corruption of the mind comes with a pricen like everything in life there is a silver lining to every shade/cloud.
the worser the corruption the worser the person hence life in general.
People are affected on a daily basis by people they know,meet and the more corrupt the mind is the more disastreous the consquences of each and one is.
brainwashing transcends any kind of seduction or beauty when it affects other lesser understanding of what you mean about beauty.

[Aylinn]

If reading is brainwashing, then, as I think I have a good taste in literature, I can take pride in being brainwashed by the best.

[Whifflingpin]

I'd have thought that a reading diet should be like a food diet - a mixture of things that are, in moderation and in combination, good. Such a diet, in reading, would be the best thing to prevent brainwashing. Just as in eating, leaving out important ingredients, or taking any to excess, leads to harm. Brainwashing is a defiency disease of the mind.

Reading, in general, is a great antidote to brainwashing. Reading is not easily restricted, as, for example, television is restricted, to a narrow choice dictated by a small commercial clique. In reading, it is possible to restrict oneself to a narrow diet of poisons, but there is no need to do so any more than there is in eating.

[dark desire]

Somebody on this forum has a quote by some author in his signature message that says -

Beware of the man with only one book.

For brainwashing only one kind of books are required. If there is variety in reading habits then that is not brainwashing. I am not sure about the meaning of the word brainwashing though.

Brainwash i.e. washing of the brain may sound like brain being cleaned or cleansed. But it actually means falling into the grip of a particular idea or a particular perspective about things and then seeing everything through that. It happened to me in the early twenties. Some sentimental self-help stuff made me compelled to see things in certain way. I was in total grip, not very different from that way a fundamentalist would get brainwashed. Then I have met certain fans of Ayn Rand with similar mental tendencies.

One of my friends got obsessed with ideas of Karl Marx in his early twenties. There was a large group of students at my college who regularly attended the Iskon Hare Krishna program and when I talked to them I found out that they have a rigid way of seeing things. One of the many peculiarities about them was that they believed that sex is only for procreation.

Then there is the movie The Mist by Frank Darabont (The director of Shawshank Redemption) that shows Christian dogmatic brainwashing beautifully. Certain scenes make the blood boil to unusual levels - very realistic depiction of a Stephan King science fiction book.

Literature serves to undo the myths that clutter our minds. At least it should, apart from the pleasure part. If you are reading only certain kinds of literature or you are exposed to only certain kinds of information, then you are already partly brainwashed.