Drakkith said:
I would say this is partially true. Being in the Air Force I went through basic training and to my knowledge its main purpose is to weed out those who simply cannot handle stress and those who cannot take orders and function in a military environment. Keep in mind that we are required to disobey orders that violate the UCMJ, which are the legal laws of the military, local/state/national laws, and any rules of engagements or laws of armed conflict in combat zones. This requires that someone NOT be trained to be a zombie killing machine.
The main point I was getting at is that in an environment like the ones soldiers and people like police face, they need to be trained in such an environment based on their job.
The question of whether this is brainwashing or not is going to end up in a nasty debate (which ironically I think is good). The thing is that if you have a gun in your hand and you are ordered to kill someone, the military wants to know that you will pull the trigger when the time comes and not that you will have "second thoughts" about doing so.
This issue was prevalent especially in the first World War when they found that a lot of soldiers did not want to fire at the enemy even if they were firing back.
To "get around this", the idea of brainwashing became a standard way of training people to kill as best as they could program to on command since it is so un-natural for a person to kill another person.
It's just the nature of being a soldier and it "is what it is".
One might also want to ask the question why so many soldiers commit suicide and why they need psychotic drugs and mood stabilizers to do their job as well.
My own personal reading on many different topics leads me to believe that this kind of school would in fact be beneficial to many people, but not all. Some people don't work well in that kind of environment, however I believe it is only a small minority that really can't handle it. (That doesn't mean that most would LIKE it.)
I do agree but one important thing to keep in mind is that when people are rock-bottom, if they acknowledge this (i.e. the admit it genuinely) then people can change around and use their past as a reference to become a better person both for themselves and with other people.
To me I think it's better if people go down-hill earlier and recover later to become better people later on.
Having too much success and having too many external indicators of success from other people too early on can really screw up an individual: especially if they define their own image of themselves based on the external stimuli of other peoples praise if not managed correctly.
I would prefer for young kids to do all their screwing up early on in a controlled environment and to just "let it all out" so that they can mature a lot quicker than they are young not only because they were told to do so.
I watched a documentary yesterday of a filmed drug dealer in New York city. He made an interesting story that said he was this "hard *** rebel that did everything his own way" until he was in prison and got thrown in the hole repeatedly for being a rebel and it was only after those incidents that he changed and became more disciplined.
He had to go through his own way, but everyone will at some point have their own way.
I'm not saying no discipline like some artist beatnik, but what I am saying is that letting kids screw up and face what they have done as part of a reaction of their own action as opposed to just a preventative method to stop any such misbehaviour is going to be preferred.
I don't think this takes away your ability to think for yourself. It's more like manners in my opinion.
Usually in many societies and cultures, if you don't show manners you are excluded in some way as opposed to just punished in some other fashion and exclusion based on the way that is done normally by adults is a good lesson to use for kids.
This idea of detention where you have to write lots of stuff or do some crappy chore is stupid: the exclusion is something that is the real lesson.
The class clowns thrive on the fact that they get attention. Exclusion is a way of taking this attention away from them and to say that "you can do whatever the hell you want, just not here in this class: go somewhere else where you are welcome just don't come here".
This isn't even the environment in the working military, so your argument is invalid. People in leadership positions are trained to take their subordinates suggestions into account, as you never know when someone may have a good idea. Being a leader doesn't mean you have to know everything about everything. That's simply not possible. You have to rely on your subordinates at least as much as they rely on you. They are extensions of yourself, and to ignore them only hurts yourself and the mission.
What I said was a bit stupid, but the point I tried to make was that in a military situation, you need to just act without doing too much thinking which is why you do so many drills and so forth that it becomes second nature and why to a large extent they engage in brainwashing.
I'm sure that the leadership realize this, and this realization allows them to let the soldiers be brainwashed and to have the utmost discipline when it comes to making them trained killers.
What? His post has nothing to do with a style of EDUCATION, but simply one of discipline and manners. I expect that the delivery of material to the students was practically identical to other schools.
Unfortunately to a large extent, this is still the model of high school: it is indicative of the type of schooling we had introduced at the start of the boom of the industrial revolution.
You should contrast the differences in society and technology and take a look at how things are still being taught in high school: it's largely the same.
There's a problem with this. People, especially young people, are notoriously difficult to convince that something they are doing will lead them the wrong way. You are telling them that they are wrong, and they don't like that. It is exceedingly difficult for the average person to seriously consider that they are wrong.
It's not about telling them they are wrong: that is not what I meant.
What I mean is this: you ask the kid what they want to do. They say "I want to be pimpin the block and be a gang-banger". You say "OK great, do you know what a gangbanger does, how they live, how often they end up prison, what the chance is of getting killed before 30?"
You then take them into a prison and find one of the older gang-bangers that's been through it all and isn't afraid to tell this young kid what it's all about. The older guy has enough experience to know what the real deal is, and is old enough to realize that maybe, just maybe they can do something by telling the kid how screwed up life is.
The kid talks to someone who has done it: someone that the kid respects.
The kid can choose to ignore the old guy if he wants, and that's his choice.
But you showed this kid the probable outcome: the reality that stared him straight in the face and not some movie, music video or something else: they were there, they were speaking to the guy, and they now have an experience that they can't deny.
More importantly you aren't lecturing someone: you are letting someone who's been in the game tell the kid what really goes on.
If kids were faced with these realities, lots of them would change very quickly.
Instead, the only realistic solution I've ever seen is to get people motivated somehow. However, HOW to get them motivated is the hard part. This is also a problem in the military. Getting your subordinates motivated to accomplish a task quickly and efficiently is usually very difficult. It all depends on the quality of the people you have, the circumstances you are under, the work environment, and a thousand other reasons.
Motivation is not really a difficult thing.
You have two main types: forced motivation and real honest to god genuine motivation.
Forced motivation is basically a relative choice: you choose one thing because you don't want to do another. You may not like both, but the idea of doing the other thing is just not worth it.
It might be for various reasons: you need food on the table and a place above your head, or you need the next billion so that you go up a notch in the billionaire list with your name on there for everyone to read next to a picture of a massive yacht.
The above is basically choosing something because the alternatives are worse than the one you have. You have an alternative which you don't really like, but you do it anyway.
The genuine motivation is where you do something because you really want to. It doesn't mean that everything you do is what you like to do, but basically you believe in the end result and the means really justify what you do to get there.
This is a lot more powerful than the first and this knowledge is known.
Creating a dream that people latch on to is what the best leaders do, even if the dream is a lie and even if its moral usefulness is neglible or negative.
When you get people to do the 2nd, they become entirely different people. When you have the first, they will do whatever they have to at the very minimum until the clock rings and they punch their pay-check to go home.
There is a stark difference between the two, but one big thing about the second category is that a lot of people with the 2nd motivation do things on principle and this feeling of principle, contribution, and change for the better really does have an impact on a person.
People like to belong no matter what they tell you: even the psychopaths to some degree want the false love and praise.
A lot of the people who join gangs come from environments where they have been trampled on their whole life: the gang to them is a family or a bond. For the first time they have power through the point of a gun, and for the first time they have their fellow gang-bangers to share their money, their gun-downs, and their booze and bitches with.
This idea of a common cause is basically a formula for corporate CEO's, dictators, and even the Ghandi's, Buddha's and Christs of the world. It's purpose and final ends are whatever you make of them, but the idea is the same.
