I think indoctrination (at least among adults) is actually surprisingly difficult. The psychologist Hugo Mercier was recently on the 80,000 Hours podcast to discuss why.
And the other thing which has had much more dramatic consequences is the idea of brainwashing: the idea that if you take prisoners of war and you submit them to really harsh treatment — you give them no food, you stop them from sleeping, you’re beating them up — so you make them, as you are describing, extremely tired and very foggy, and then you get them to read Mao for hours and hours on end. Are they going to become communists? Well, we know the answer, because unfortunately, the Koreans and the Chinese have tried during the Korean War, and it just doesn’t work at all. They’ve managed to kill a lot of POWs, and they managed to get I think two of them to go back to China and to claim that they had converted to communism. But in fact, after the fact, it was revealed that these people had just converted because they wanted to stop being beaten and starved to death, and that as soon as they could revert back to go back to the US, they did so.
I’d also echo others’ comments that I think testing a curriculum will be relatively hard. Even education programs with clear measurables (e.g. financial literacy programs, work-skills programs for former convicts, second language programs) often end up unsuccessful. It would be even more difficult to teach “love.” How do you measure how loving someone is and reliably teach it to others?
That specific method of indoctrination doesn’t seem effective. However, we do see cases where indoctrination occurs successfully under certain conditions—such as French prisons reportedly being hubs for Islamist radicalization among inmates, or children in parts of Africa being forcibly recruited into militant groups and later made complicit in horrific acts, sometimes even against their own families. Similarly, vulnerable individuals are sometimes “guided” into becoming human weapons, as seen in cases of suicide bombings.
As for fostering better values, both evaluation and reliably teaching them are indeed significant challenges. But I believe are worth overcoming. Shouldn’t our “end” goal be to cultivate a world where the majority of people grow up as loving, caring, and fulfilled individuals?
Starting this process as early as possible—during formative years—seems more promising than attempting to “convert” those whose worldviews and habits have already been solidified through life experiences. Early interventions might lay a stronger foundation for lasting change.
I think indoctrination (at least among adults) is actually surprisingly difficult. The psychologist Hugo Mercier was recently on the 80,000 Hours podcast to discuss why.
I’d also echo others’ comments that I think testing a curriculum will be relatively hard. Even education programs with clear measurables (e.g. financial literacy programs, work-skills programs for former convicts, second language programs) often end up unsuccessful. It would be even more difficult to teach “love.” How do you measure how loving someone is and reliably teach it to others?
That specific method of indoctrination doesn’t seem effective. However, we do see cases where indoctrination occurs successfully under certain conditions—such as French prisons reportedly being hubs for Islamist radicalization among inmates, or children in parts of Africa being forcibly recruited into militant groups and later made complicit in horrific acts, sometimes even against their own families. Similarly, vulnerable individuals are sometimes “guided” into becoming human weapons, as seen in cases of suicide bombings.
As for fostering better values, both evaluation and reliably teaching them are indeed significant challenges. But I believe are worth overcoming.
Shouldn’t our “end” goal be to cultivate a world where the majority of people grow up as loving, caring, and fulfilled individuals?
Starting this process as early as possible—during formative years—seems more promising than attempting to “convert” those whose worldviews and habits have already been solidified through life experiences. Early interventions might lay a stronger foundation for lasting change.
What do you think?