In addition to being a counselor, I’m also an amateur historian. There are times when these two areas overlap.
One area where they overlap is when I research Nazi propaganda techniques. Back when I started in the field of psychology, learning about brainwashing was required reading.
I went from basic brainwashing to the advanced stuff in terms of understanding propaganda techniques. Instruction included awareness of brainwashing and how it’s done.
One of the techniques used by the propagandists in Germany consisted of changing language in a way that desensitized people. If you ever wondered how could someone do horrid things to others, the answer lies in them being desensitized to those things first.
By using technical words or terms for highly emotional and moral issues, the propagandists took the sting out of unsavory behaviors. This also made immoral actions seem routine and ordinary.
Instead of killing and murdering, they used terms associated with problem solving and making mechanical repairs.
I recalled this Nazi propaganda trickery while reading some research on infidelity. The researchers looked into dating apps, like Tinder. They found that people used them in finding “extradyadic partners.”
Although the term, “extradyadic partner” is technically correct, for the most part it’s a manufactured term. By using technical terms, it takes the moral component out of infidelity.
I suppose that ‘finding an extradyadic partner’ sounds better than looking for a hook-up or finding a lay. Even the cheater introduces their lover as their girlfriend or ‘friend’. I have yet to meet a cheater who introduces the object of their adulterous affection as “My extradyadic partner”.
The researchers took out the term ‘cheating’ along with adultery, infidelity and disloyalty. Additionally by calling it ‘extradyadic partner’, they remove such labels as homewrecker, cheater, lover, playmate, hook up and co-conspirator.
Extradyadic partner makes it sound scientific and moral free. It turns infidelity into a series of dyadic relationships. It’s as if you’re talking about atomic bonding rather than human relationships.
When such word games are used, I wonder “Are they hiding what they found or is it about taking the moral sting out of infidelity?”
Cheaters are great at their word games. Studies like this fit perfectly into the twisted thinking in cheater’s brains.
When you confront your spouse about their extradyadic partner, it doesn’t have the same impact as confronting them about the homewrecker they are cheating with. The switching of terms takes the moral and emotional sting out of cheating and ‘normalizes’ the behavior.
What you call the affair is important. It frames your affair recovery from beginning to end. In the video “Getting Past the Affair Crisis” I deal with how important this is.
If you are facing an affair, you need clear thinking. You need clear, unambiguous terms for what happened and who the players are. Using propaganda terms confuses you and your communication.
Best Regards,
Jeff
2 Responses
Since Genesis man has been led to normalize sin…what steals kills and destroyed and eventually brings about destruction of the mind and the soul
Normalizing immoral choices and actions has been going on from the beginning by just this tactic which thebwcrioutees define as “lieing” and the product of the root cause or provocatiure “the devil”( whom many have designated to myth status …due again to the incremental workings of cultural and educational impact .
The Bible defines its own terms by way of usage and context …but few have been made aware of that in seminaries and churches that have left off providing the instruction in righteousness in trade for social gospels ….and just plain reading the scriptures personally day by day.
John Taylor Gatto gives insight to our present educational systems roots in the Prussian scientific labs of days gone by where the political elites ordered their scientists to develop a system where by they could develop a population easily led…..our government took this system and has subltly brought it to bare upon generations which explains a lot about what we see daily in our news.
In johns book “The Underground History of American Education” many questions are answered in regard to how surrender of ones children into the care of others and to the cirriculams created by the intentions of ambitious men and women has wrought this delemma of our culture presently
Lack of knowledge of Biblical truth and understanding of why it’s imperative has pretty much been traded for the secular humanist dogma which also has flourished as moral stability has been shaken and pretty much trampled under the feet of those who have something to gain….or they think so
John has invested time to record from his many years in public school teaching and his own research to make known what is often totally off the radar of parents who haven’t any idea of the depth of deceit they relinquish their children to be filled up and trained with.
The overall clueless state of incredualty experienced as headlines declare the state of minds of our future citizens seemingly surrendered to so many immoral ideas is also evidence of the need for parents to consider just what the input of the daily life of their child contains and is lacking .
All of what is true has its roots in the revelation God Breathed Word of God preserved for us to read and study with the aid of the Holy Spirit whose words they are ….any truth that any resource may find effective has been already made known in Gods Word
The devil certainly has made use of the truth of what is given for us to know …God tells us to study and rightly divide His Word ….which would product right doctrine and right decisions if believed and trusted in
This “renewed mind” key has been taken and perverted by the enemy of our souls who is presently “the god of this age “and also called “the prince of the power of the air”…”that old serpent” , the devil whose deceit has now gone so far as to have convened many …even church goers …that he is a myth….and the truth is mocked and the warnings ignored.
Wondering about the various odd behaviors id recent seeming clean cut kids turning to violence is not that much of a mystery when we read in the Bible that we must “cast down imaginations and every high thing that holds itself up against the knowledge of God and also to take captive EVERY thought to the obedience to Jesus Christ ”
This is not just an exhortation but an imperative as you have noted the powerful contents of what a person thinks and this obeys as taking thoughts to be “justifications” for whatever he thinks of …influences his actions
The deceitful doctrines of the world system as it has many avenues of what is mixed with truth ..over time normalizes what the Bible has defined in terms of deadly and destructive to the person themselves as well as anyone else their personal urges effect
The media queries “how could such a nice person do such a thing”….the truth of the way the mind of man needs to. E submitted to the God who would save them based upon each one hearing and believing the gospel of the finished work of the cross of Kesus Christ would go a lone way to save not only their eternal soul but to inform and transform by the Word of God rightly divided to provide doctrine ,reproof and correction which is instruction in righteousness that a man of God would be perfect ( completely ) throughly furnished unto ALL good works
You can’t think what you don’t know and whatever a person has taken in from any external source will become their justification to do whatever they think and then decIde to act upon
God tells us in His Word to make the greatest influence of our thoughts what He has provided fo is to think….and the doctrines we find of the Word of truth are protective of our thoughts and our actions which are thus protective of all who we may influence …according to their own acceptance and trust in Gods Word
Thus it’s important also for people of faith to be anchored in study of the Word themselves and turned to the savior of their souls to learn what He will work in them according to this dispensation instructions revealed to Paul found in His epistles
Study of the other sections of scripture provide appreciation for what is Grace as we are no longer required anything for salvation ….since no flesh could do anything to rate it….but we do need a Saviour and after understanding that we need to read the instructions for the Body of Christ found in the mystery portions of the epistles which now are revealed because ,Jesus taught it to Paul..
Awesome
To avoid the acceptance of the normalization of sin the light of the truth is inperative!
I appreciate the expose your have presented here Jeff!!
Keeping on!
Wow….between my eyesight and the tiny keyboard the spelling and typos are many….so sorry …I don’t want to be an annoyance but I do feel what I have learned from my study of such things as the educational areas which produce such deformed ideologies was worth a try to type out
Sorry I also could not return to examine and proof what I wrote because it seems I cannot make my screen go back to the top unless I submit it!
Sigh…..again