Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2005, Page 94
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Here again, Anthony confuses measurement with theorizing. Rokeach‘s dogmatism scale
and Adorno‘s authoritarianism scales are attempts to operationalize and measure concepts.
They may be very useful, but they are not theories and they make no claim to be theories.
Ironically, by citing these particular authors, Anthony undermines some of his other
criticisms of my work. These scales that he admires come simply from responses to
questionnaire items. If Anthony recognizes the value of using questionnaires to measure
these invisible, internal, individual states, why not apply the same reasoning to
questionnaires that measure exit costs or uncritical obedience?
Proposition 88. (Page 283) The totalitarian influence interpretation of this tradition of
research more parsimoniously handles the range of research presently available on new
religions.... It seems obvious to me that a theory that hopes to explain conversion to new
religions, as well as their psychological impact on individuals and the evolution of such
movements in either positive or pathological directions, must take individual differences into
account.
X disputational relevant X correct
Anthony is correct that individual differences should be taken into account. The comment is
irrelevant, however, because nothing in my theory is incompatible with doing so. What
Anthony calls the ―totalitarian influence interpretation‖ is not in competition with
brainwashing theory. A scholar using both might well do better at explaining any given NRM
than a scholar using only one or the other. In personal conversations with Anthony, I have
gotten the impression that he thinks that brainwashing must be used as the absolute and
complete explanation of what makes a particular NRM tick. This is a legitimate criticism of
some of the partisan literature of the anticult movement. But such claims of a single cause
that explains everything are not found in scientific writings.
Brainwashing Ideology As Totalism: Apostate Tales
Proposition 89. (Page 286f) NRM scholars view these findings as an indication that the
brainwashing view of their experiences results from socialization into the anticult movement
and is adopted as an exculpatory mechanism for reentering mainstream institutions without
being blamed for have rejected them in the first place. Brainwashing authors adopt various
explanations for defending the scientific accuracy of the brainwashing claims of
ex-members, e.g. some members of the same group were brainwashed and some were not,
or ex-members associated with the anticult movement have learned to understand their
past memberships correctly whereas those not associated with it remain in denial about why
there were members in the first place.
disputational relevant correct
This proposition is pure opinion. It is both incorrect and irrelevant. Anthony is simply stating
his own opinion as to why others come to the opinions that they hold.
Proposition 90. (Page 287f) My idea is that the anticult movement itself, and the
brainwashing ideology which rationalizes it, have many of the characteristics that the
totalitarian influence tradition describes as characteristic of totalistic organizations and
ideologies.... If I am correct about brainwashing ideology being a form of totalitarian
influence, it would presumably serve the function of ministering to a polarized self-sense
and curing identity confusion by enabling converts to it to shift responsibility for undesirable
aspects of their personalities and former behavior onto a scapegoated contrast category.
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Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2005, Page 95
Here Anthony seems to be arguing, ironically enough, that ex-members get brainwashed
into feeling brainwashed. But again, right or wrong, this commentary is pure opinion and
does not deal with the theory itself.
End Notes
Proposition 91. (Footnote 15, page 294). Lifton ...could not accurately be claiming, as
Zablocki interprets him as claiming, that his ‗doubling‘ concept is equivalent to the
brainwashing notion of a false or shadow self.... The conception of a false or shadow self
proposed by Zablocki ...involves the notion of a new but inauthentic self.... Doubling, as
Lifton defines it ...could not reasonably be interpreted as implying the involuntary,
compulsive, or addictive attachment to a false self that Zablocki imputes to it.
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I think that Anthony‘s reading of Lifton is wrong. But whether it is wrong or right is
irrelevant to the question at hand. The concepts discussed in this proposition do not appear
in the theory but only in conjectural explanations of how the brainwashing mechanism
might affect the self.
Proposition 92. (Footnote 16, page 296). In defining brainwashing as a process that is
accomplished primarily by means of disorientation, Zablocki appears to be giving the
disorientation term a more metaphorical and less precise meaning than its scientific
meaning in psychiatry ...In this less precise form, ...it is unfalsifiable.
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This proposition is wrong in two ways. First, I never argue that brainwashing is
accomplished primarily by disorientation. I do argue that disorientation (in the precise way
the term is used in clinical psychiatry) figures transiently in the process as a by-product of
the intense stress that the subject is under while brainwashing is going on. Second, I do not
use the term in a metaphorical sense. Confusion about position in space and time is the
standard definition in psychiatry and also the one that I use.
Proposition 93. (Footnote 17, page 297). Zablocki ...claims that Orne‘s 1972 article
reports research demonstrating that people ‗can be hypnotized to do things against their
will.‘
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The exact quote from my ―Exit Cost‖ paper in Nova Religio is the following: ―Orne has done
some interesting experimental work on the extent to which subjects can be hypnotized to
do things against their will.‖ Anthony is merely being careless here. First of all, the
statement clearly does not state or imply a claim that Orne found that people ‗can be
hypnotized to do things against their will.‘ Secondly, this whole discussion of hypnotism
appears in a section of my article in which I discuss alternative theories to the brainwashing
theory. Anthony‘s failure to place his quotation in the proper context is yet another example
of his excessive reliance on mindless keyword searches as a substitute for actually reading
the articles he attempts to criticize.
Proposition 94. (Footnote 18, page 297f). Zablocki acknowledges that research has
demonstrated that ...disorientation and defective cognition are not characteristics of
allegedly brainwashed members of so called cults, but he attempts to get around this by
claiming that these qualities are only essential characteristics of cult converts during the
process of brainwashing, rather than after they have been successfully brainwashed. ...In
his earlier book, however, he appears to be saying that such cognitive defects are
continuing characteristics of cult members.
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