We need to talk about brainwashing.

"One of the great challenges at the moment is overcoming the brainwashing promoted by churches and mass media, as well as certain politicians." 

It's difficult to warn people about what's happening and get them to stop and think, because the clearest symptom of brainwashing is the suppression of reflective thought. 

It is the function of thought that is destroyed in what is called brainwashing. 

The language of someone who has been brainwashed becomes mechanical and repetitive. The person stops thinking, but believes they still think and control their words, feelings, and actions, when, unfortunately, they have become a puppet repeating ideas, hatreds, and the words of others who act as ventriloquists, that is, shepherds of flocks, guides of herds. The "ventriloquism" of social media serves the interests of power, and the more minds are emptied, the more successful the current advertising campaign will be, involving market-driven churches and politics. 

It's incredibly difficult to explain in simple language how so-called brainwashing works. And it's even harder to explain that the discrediting of the term is part of the process. 

It's difficult to say "you're being deceived" and be taken seriously when people are desperate for easy answers, deeply terrified, and immersed in stupor. It's difficult to explain that the "messiahs" arrive at this moment to seize power, but they need everyone's cooperation as a tool for manipulation. 

To many people of all educational levels, talking about brainwashing seems like a joke. How can we explain that brainwashing has become so commonplace that no one is able to ask how and why they lost their capacity to question, to discern? 

Brainwashing is a technical term used in research involving physical and mental torture. But how can we explain that the discursive production of Bolsonaro and his ilk, ever since he publicly praised the torturer Ustra on April 17, 2016, aims to plunge people into a deep panic, so strong that it cannot be mentioned, and that the control of emotions like fear is part of brainwashing, without which there is no mass manipulation? 

How can we explain that certain social conditions favor this emptying of thought? That the lack of education, the destruction of culture, the domination by faith, the uninterrupted presence of television, and a total surrender to digital life lead people to cancel their subjectivity, that is, to fall into the brainwashing machine of current economic and political churches, be they temples or media outlets? 

We need to talk about brainwashing. Everyone needs to understand how their brain has been rewired by daily programmed mental shocks designed to weaken their judgment and accelerate their aggression. Understanding this would be incredibly helpful and could even truly save someone's soul.