Brainwashing by Kathleen Taylor (book review)
I pulled this book, ‘Brainwashing’ by Kathleen Taylor, quite a while back and finally got it into my reading schedule. As it comes through Oxford University Press, it has the traditional look, the text ends page 268, then a pile of notes, further reading and a big index. Ironically, this kind of format itself is a form of brainwashing because unless you understand the format, you might well turn away from the book had you spotted it in a bookshop.
Taylor points out that the term ‘brainwashing’ wasn’t used until 1950 when CIA operative Edward Hunter identified the conditioning from released American POWs from the Maoists. The Chinese called it xi-mao or hsi-nao. Really, it goes way, way back where people were persuaded to change their minds, like protestant priests being tortured to become Catholics again going back or attempted to by some serious torture techniques. Taylor gives a few examples here, even adding George Orwell’s ‘1984’ into the mix, so there is a genre connection.
Even from the opening chapter, it becomes obvious that brainwashing is a conditioning of the mind to things often diametrically opposite to normal beliefs.
I’m going to pick out things from this book to draw your attention in the hope you read this book for yourself as some of it does strike particular chords. As a Type One diabetic and my rapid change of diet when it happened has made me somewhat immune to food advertising, mostly because it would raise my blood sugar too high and I kind of like living. Taylor shows how advertising manipulates choice even if its not always the exact product. There’s also how cold callers on the phone can get under your skin by asking after your health just to get you talking. Whether this is just manipulating certain things about being sociable, I’ll let you decide. Personally, I tend to rely with something that will not be in any script they’ve been shown. When it comes to education, we are all mailable to teaching techniques or we wouldn’t learn anything at all. Objectively, mailability is both our greatest strength and weakness.
The way people can be conditioned without realising that it is a form of brainwashing is rather startling, especially as Taylor points out how criminal intent can be controlled by food content. You don’t really want to go there with the additives in fast food. I suspect it was probably safe when you only had one such meal a week but continually?
The middle section of the book concerns itself with how the brain works and how conditioning works. From a Type One diabetic perspective, when I used to be offered food or a cup of tea when out, regularly refused which causes confusion with convention. From my perspective, they are potentially trying to kill me even if they don’t realise it and not because I don’t drink tea or coffee. Being free from convention makes it easy to become an observer. From a historical point of view, it is seen that offering food or drink that you are not out to kill anyone. Well unless you were Claudius’ grandmother, Livia.
When you consider the various sects that still exist but tending to stay below media interest these days, they tend to capture their ‘followers’ out of the curious and are already half-way there to conditioning them to their beliefs. Taylor does explain in the third section by keeping their ‘followers’ away from their previous interests, family and friends how much easier it is to ‘persuade’ them.
I do wonder if the term ‘brainwashing’ is appropriate. Maybe ‘brain conditioning’ makes more sense. As with hypnosis, it works best with those people who are susceptible and giving them things to do because they like or think they want it rather than work against their nature. I mean, if you’re told something is going to torture you, then you’re also likely to agree with your torturers than think the opposite. Taylor cites several fictional examples and yet omits Len Deighton’s ‘The IPCRESS File’, both the 1962 novel and 1965 film which is probably a better example than her choice of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ in brain conditioning and breaking its effect.
The final chapter looks at how to avoid being brainwashed. Think about that when you feel compiled to buy something you saw in a televised or social media (other sites are available) websites. It is the repetitions that drums it into you. Which is, essentially, conditioning. I have to confess after reading this its not always the manufacturers doing this but the advertising companies knowing which strings to pull that are really to blame. It explains a lot about blanket advertising and key positions to get maximum audiences. When you consider the links of TV stations knowing which times are worth more money, then they need to know as well. From Taylor’s descriptions, I tend to come over as particularly strong-willed, which shouldn’t be a surprise to you people reading out there but largely because I have a habit of questioning everything or at least the motivation behind it. This doesn’t mean I can’t be susceptible, he says looking at the various multi-part encyclopaedias I use to collect, but I do control my tastes.
The thing about this book is it came out in 2003 and a lot has happened since then. It would be interesting to hear Taylor’s opinions on how much conditioning/brainwashing is done in social media when you consider its addiction rate, especially to teenagers.
This is a book well worth adding to your reading list this year because it shows how vulnerable you can be, especially in today’s society. If there is a criticism, it’s the size of the text. 8point if I’m not mistaken and when Taylor quotes, goes even smaller, so read in a good light. There’s always going to be some conditioning by society but this book should show you how much to let it.
GF Willmetts
April 2026
(pub: Oxford University Press, 2004. 324 page lightly illustrated and indexed mall enlarged paperback. Price: varies. ISBN: 978-0-19-820478-6)
