"It is a fallacy that intellectual awareness of what is happening can always prevent a man from being indoctrinated. Once he becomes exhausted and suggestible, or the brain enters the "paradoxical" or "ultra-paradoxical" phases, insight can be disturbed; even the knowledge of what to expect may be of little help in warding off breakdown. And afterwards, he will rationalise the newly-implanted beliefs and offer his friends sincere and absurd explanations as to why his attitude has changed so suddenly." - William Sargent
Prior to the release of Cannaan Brumley's "Ears, Open. Eyeballs, Click.", the two big documentaries which attempted to examine life in military boot camps were Frederick Wiseman's "Basic Training" and Gwynne Dyer's "Anybody's Son Will Do". Cannaan's film covers much of the same material, but is far less critical, the director (who filmed the doc single-handedly, without a crew) omitting narration and plot structure in favour for an unobtrusive fly-on-the-wall style.
But though Cannann simply presents huge chunks of boot camp footage, dispassionately and seemingly without judgement, for those interested in cult mechanics there are a lot of interesting thought reform (ie "brainwashing") techniques on display. So we observe the strategic use of isolation, physical and verbal abuse, rituals, chants, sermons, repetition, mental, aural and physical rhythms, prayers, sensory overload, protein diets (which makes members more malleable) etc, all designed to stop the subject thinking independently, break down individual will, assist in the formation of hive minds and instill a state of blind acceptance.
Much of these techniques were accidentally stumbled upon during the Christian Revival of the 1700s, and were later perfected by the military during the Korean and Vietnam wars. They are typically divided into three distinct stages, the subject's conversion becoming more and more complete as he move from one stage to the next.
The first stage is what Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov called the "Equivalent phase", which primarily involves "alertness reduction". Here, the controller causes the subject's nervous system to malfunction, making it difficult to distinguish between fantasy and reality. This can be accomplished in several ways: inadequate sleep, long hours, intense physical activity, being bombarded with intense and unique experiences etc.
The second stage is called the "Paradoxical phase", which involves "programmed confusion". Here, the subject is mentally assaulted, hit with a deluge of new information, often in the form of lectures, discussion groups, intense encounters or one-to-one processing, which usually amounts to the controller bombarding the individual with questions. During this phase of decognition, reality and illusion often merge and perverted logic is likely to be accepted.
The third stage is called the "ultra paradoxical phase", in which "thought stopping" techniques (eg, the thumping of marching and chanting, both of which generate a form of self hypnosis) are employed such that conditioned responses and behaviour patterns turn from positive to negative or from negative to positive (a common hatred, enemy, or devil is then typically introduced).
The point is, this documentary draws attention, like Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket", to the parallels between religious indoctrination and military indoctrination, and shows that the Marines are akin to a technocratic cult. Observe, for example, how the marines are ordered to pray to their guns and worship a kind of militaristic God, are made into "ministers of death praying for war", their ultimate goal being to be "baptised" and "born again hard" so that they can do "God's will". And while religions focus on "cleaning the soul" and "removing sins", the military focuses on cleaning and purification in a different sense, the cleaning of equipment, bathrooms, toilets etc becoming the ritualistic precursor to both the cleaning out of the recruit's mind and then the baptismal-like sweep and clearing of enemy territory, eradicating all "dirty" insurgents/terrorists/enemies/Nazis.
But soldiers are not just cult members, but themselves deities deemed deserving of worship and devotion. They are the military clergy, dying so that nations may be "free" or "saved", praised by God and country for spilling blood on the altar of liberty. Ironic then that boot camp, and much of the military itself, is inherently misogynistic. Ignoring the fact that levels of rape, domestic violence, divorce and extreme abuse are 3 times higher in the military than the national average, one has to face the fact that the very indoctrination process requires the defilement of everything (falsely) deemed feminine.
And like most cults or religious movements, the military preys on those who are young and vulnerable in some way, often due to the loss of a loved one, poverty, or anxieties about the future. While many religious cults send out missionaries to 3rd world countries and war torn areas where many susceptible people exist, the military visits schools, low income areas and spends millions on recruitment drives and slick advertisements, all designed to seduce the emotionally vulnerable. Like big businesses, the intent of the cult is not really to help its members, but to use its drones for profit.
Of course most religious people won't admit that they've been "brainwashed" into joining their group. God made them join, they say. They claim to now be better, more moral people. Similarly, most Marines will tell you that they joined wilfully. The Corps forged them into a better, more efficient and responsible person. This may be true. The question, though, is whether there's something exploitative and dishonest about this relationship.
8/10 – Worth one viewing.
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