Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Psychology
Episode: Rebecca Lemov, "The Instability of Truth: Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper-Persuasion" (Norton, 2025)
Description: Because brainwashing affects both the world and our observation of the world, we often donât recognize it while itâs happeningâunless we know where to look. As Rebecca Lemov writes in The Instability of Truth, âBrainwashing erases itself.â What we call brainwashing is more common than we think; it is not so much what happens to other people as what can happen to anyone.
The Instability of Truth exposes the myriad ways our minds can be controlled against our will, from the brainwashing techniques used against American POWs in North Korea to the âsoftâ brainwashing of social media...