Margolioth770 Loc: South Africa

During the “Cold War,” individuals living under Soviet rule would have to be on constant guard against “thought police.”
Children were indoctrinated in school to inform authorities, even on their parents if they spoke critically or even questioningly against the State, even within the privacy of their home.
An entire society was forbidden to follow a bible-based morality.
In political tyranny, rulers manipulate educational systems, the entertainment industry and media outlets to “dumb down” the masses.
Rulers have always found it easier to impose their agenda on a population never trained in the art of critical thinking.
On a collective level, this is not that different from the narcissist who always wants to surround himself with those who “admire” him.
When powerful dictators re-enact their grandiosity on the world stage, the pathology of their narcissism is evidenced by their inability to realize that a free-thinking society views such behavior with disdain.
A common methodology of winning over groups to the sway of simplistic ideologies is through combining seduction with intimidation.
The concept of the “Stockholm syndrome” began on August 23, 1973, when Jan Olsson began a bank robbery that would forever transform the spectrum of how the world would view the outcome of hostage situations.
It started with the storming of a local Kredit Bank in downtown Stockholm, Sweden, and the shooting of the police officers who had gone in after Olsson.
With this action, a six-day ordeal and hostage situation known as the Norrmalmstorg Robbery began.
Three women and one man were confined to a small room, fighting to survive. Four hostages were taken into the bank’s vault. Dynamite was strapped to them, and they were rigged to traps that would kill the hostages regardless of any rescue attempts.
Yet when these captives were released, they had more sympathy for their captors than the police who had rescued them – and went so far as to publicly decry their own rescue. Two of the hostages became friends with the captors, establishing a fund to help pay for their defense fees accrued through the trial. They continue to support their captors against the police even today.
The psychologist Nils Bejerot named the captives’ attachment towards their abusers the “Stockholm Syndrome” (“The Six-Day War in Stockholm,” Published in the New Scientist, 61, 1974).
While the phenomenon of “emotional bonding” between hostages and their captors had been familiar in psychological circles, the use of the term “Stockholm syndrome” became popularized following the publicity of two more high profile hostage cases: Patricia Hearst and Elizabeth Smart.
Both cases involve the kidnapping of a woman to pursue of ideals of their captors.
In the case of Elizabeth Smart, it is believed that at the young age of fourteen, her instincts for survival resulted in the development of a strong bond between her and her captor, Brian Mitchell.
Three days after her kidnapping, Smart had heard her uncle searching and calling for her, not far from her hidden location, but did not call out for help.
There are many theories about why certain hostages remain obedient and even show resistance to being rescued.
Unlike Hearst, Smart did not speak out against her captor for many years after returning to regular life.
In many cases of Stockholm syndrome, families react with disbelief when hostages remain silent about their relationships with their captors, and defensive about their choices to avoid seeking rescue.
It is now believed that an integral dynamic in the Stockholm syndrome is the unique bond of loyalty established between the hostage and his or her captor (”Love Thine Enemy; Hostages and the Classic Stockholm syndrome,” Graham Dee and colleagues, NY University Press, 1994).
Experts postulate that a unique attachment is established between the victim and captor evolving from the exclusive dependence by the former on the latter.
In exchange for the restricted life granted by the captor, these victims are willing to adopt a false reality in which no harm can come to them. In this apparent act of self-deception, victims of Stockholm syndrome believe that their irrational empathy for their captors and their ideologies will protect them.
The psychological dynamics dominating subservient bonding patterns have been previously conducted among abused children and women, victims of incest, and cult members.
On a more global scale, this pattern of compliance and obedience has been exhibited by large segments of population living under tyranny.
It occurred under Communist dictatorships such as the Soviet Union and Cuba, and is still found in modern dictatorships such as North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran.
In this fashion (through a combination of pervasive threat, isolation, and government-mediated propaganda), a political tyranny has been asserted over the collective consciousness of large populations. Like in the classic form of Stockholm syndrome, groups of “hostages” are inducted into the mythical ideologies of their masters.
When entire communities lose their power of critical thinking, there is nothing to protect them from the exploitations of their ‘anointed’ leaders. Adherents are rewarded by a shared devotion to lofty, quasi-mystical attributions of meaning devised by the idealized leader’s social and political goals.
Within this religious or political model, unquestioning dogma can explain all facets of life. While lacking some of the other attributes of Stockholm syndrome, the replacement of autonomous, critical thinking by the “science” of a “sacred” ideology may, in fact, constitute a newer and softer form of political tyranny (“Psychological Induction into the large-group,” Marc Galanter, Am J Psychiatry,1980).