[safwan]

Originally Posted by Graybeard

Safwan

I think Austin was referring to someone bought up in another culture. Not someone exposed to many different cultures. Both points are valid.

cool bananas ... greg

Thanks a lot, Greg, for the clarification.

I feel Austin was trying to express two contradictory ideas,

One is stating that if we had been brought up in another culture we might be able to note that we were brainwashed.

Originally Posted by austintorn@aol.com

[size="2"]If we believe in ideas that were handed down to us merely (arbritrarily) from geographical, sociological, or familial sources, then we may have been unwittingly indoctrinated, especially if we can note that had we been born elsewhere, or hung with a different crowd, or had been in another family.. SIZE]

The other idea is stating the opposite, that had we been brought up in another culture we might be just as strongly brainwashed.

Originally Posted by austintorn@aol.com

.. had we been born elsewhere, or hung with a different crowd, or had been in another family, we might be just as strongly epsousing some other, but quite different, "cult" belief.

Which to me looks confusing ..

Anyway, my apologies to Austin and others if I had missed Austin's point.

I find everymansmedium's "dissent" experience very illuminating in the context of the question put by Robert " How can you know if you're brainwashed". In my (post # 3) I was talking about collective awareness undergoing a "paradigm shift" as a result of a crisis in a dominant culture or ideology. John's (everymansmedium) experience (# 7, 9, 10 , 13 & 14 ) is both very interesting and useful. It sheds light on creative/ dissident trends /currents which are more relevant to individual awarenss rebelling against a dominant culture.

Therefore, on the individual level, you may not know if you are brainwashed unless you have dissediant tendencies. On the collective level, a paradigm shift comes as a result of a crisis in dominant culture or ideology, when contradictions and cracks start to appear in its fabric/structure that were not apparanat before except to the dissident.

But again I may be here taking "brainwashing" in a more wider cultural sense than is intended by either Robert or Michael.

I wonder : Are the brainwashers aware that they are both brainwashing and being brainwashed??

Best regards, Safwan