‘Not Just Washed but Dry-Cleaned’

Korea and the ‘Brainwashing’ Scare of the 1950s

Bibliographic Data

ID20080870
AuthorsSusan L Carruthers (corresponding author)
Year1999
Pages47-66
Publication date1999-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueCold-War Propaganda in The 1950s (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan UK (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/978-1-349-27082-8_4
OpenAlexW2490351426
ISBN9781349270828
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited9

The fear that our thought processes may be infiltrated by external agents, human or extraterrestrial, has permeated postwar popular culture. The 'brainwashing' theme has flourished as Enlightenment confidence in humans as autonomous exercisers of 'Free Will' has waned. In the 1950s, the increasing technologization of society, the rise of mass communications media, and particularly the growth of commercial advertising all helped fuel anxiety that individuals were mere cogs in 'the system':'hidden persuaders' had burrowed under the skin of modern 'mass society'.1 Terms such as 'brainwashing' gave graphic expression to this 'loss of confidence in our capacity as individuals to master our world', as one social scientist wrote in 1959.2 KeywordsFalse ConfessionWestern POWsBlack BookCommunist IdeologyAmerican POWsThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves

Advertising · Art · Business · Enlightenment · Mass media · Mass society · Media studies · Political science · Sociology · Theology · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy

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