The Marxification of Education: Paulo Freire's Critical Marxism and the Theft of Education

by James Lindsay

Conscientization as Thought Reform There’s another way to understand conscientization that is positively chilling and stubbornly difficult to discount once the connection is made. Conscientização is the process of thought reform, which is the translation psychologist Robert Jay Lifton gave to the Mandarin Chinese term for “brainwashing” in Maoist re-education prisons in Communist China . (Cult/political grooming would be another acceptable term.) Consider the following passages from Lifton’s 1961 book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China. [Quoting a released prisoner, Dr. Charles Vincent] “In the cell, you work in order to recognize your crimes. … They make you understand your crimes are very heavy. You did harm to the Chinese people. You are really a spy, and all the punishment you received was your own fault. … In the cell, twelve hours a day, you talk and talk—you have to take part—you must discuss yourself, criticize, inspect yourself, denounce your thought. Little by little you start to admit something, and look to yourself only using the ‘people’s judgment.’” (p. 27) For eight days and nights, Vincent experienced this program of alternating struggle and interrogation, and was permitted no sleep at all. Moreover, he was constantly told by his cellmates that he was completely responsible for his own plight. (“You want the chains! You want to be shot! … Otherwise, you would be more ‘sincere’ and the chains would not be necess...