Deceived by the Dialectic Process

Articles and chapters on this topic:

The Dialectical Imagination

Kurt Lewin: “Group Decision and Social Change”

Reinventing the World Part 2: The Mind-Changing Process

Cry, our beloved America: Sliding Down the Communitarian Slope

Assaults on Faith and Family: Mandatory Training in Orwellian Thinking?

Assaults on Faith and Family - Part 3: The Ominous "Success"of Re-Education

Small Groups and the Dialectic Process | Training students to rethink God's Word

Faith-Based Partnerships Ban Truth & Freedom: Selling our souls in the name of service?

From Freedom to Servitude - Part 2: "Service Learning" through Soviet Brainwashing

From Freedom to Servitude, Part 3: Deceit, Delusion and the Destruction of America

Using dissatisfaction as a tool in social transformation | Soviet System of Control

The Crowd: A study of the popular mind | Mind Change and Collective Service

Adorno, Lukaks & other links | Praxis | Soviet System of Control

From Twisting Truth through Group Consensus: "Tension, created by diversity, is essential to the dialectic process. It energizes members and -- when manipulated by well-trained facilitators -- produces synergy. You can't guide people toward synthesis (compromise) unless there are opposing views -- both "thesis and antithesis." That's why the consensus process must include all these elements:

a diverse group

dialoguing to consensus

over a social issue

led by a trained facilitator

toward a pre-planned outcome.

The true dialectic group never reaches a final consensus, for "continual change" is an ongoing process: one step today, another tomorrow. To permanently change the way we think and relate to each other, our leaders must set the stage for conflict and compromise week after week, year after year. Dialectical thinking and group consensus must become as normal as eating. Eventually, people learn to discard their old mental anchors and boundaries -- all the facts and certainties that built firm convictions. They become like boats adrift, always ready to shift with the changing winds and currents.

From Small Groups and the Dialectic Process: Today's facilitated small groups or teams are not like the old Bible studies many of us attended years ago. Back then, we discussed the Bible and its wonderful truths; now people dialogue until they reach an emotional form of unity based on "empathy" for diverse views and values. Dr. Robert Klench describes the process:

"Total Quality Management [TQM] is based upon the Hegelian dialectic, invented by Georg Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel, a transformational Marxist social psychologist. Briefly, the Hegelian dialectic process works like this: a diverse group of people (in the church, this is a mixture of believers (thesis) and unbelievers (antithesis), gather in a facilitated meeting (with a trained facilitator/teacher/group leader/change agent), using group dynamics (peer pressure), to discuss a social issue (or dialogue the Word of God), and reach a pre-determined outcome (consensus, compromise, or synthesis).

"When the Word of God is dialogued (as opposed to being taught didactically) between believers and unbelievers... and consensus is reached – agreement that all are comfortable with – then the message of God's Word has been watered down... and the participants have been conditioned to accept (and even celebrate) their compromise (synthesis). The new synthesis becomes the starting point (thesis) for the next meeting, and the process of continual change (innovation) continues.

"The fear of alienation from the group is the pressure that prevents an individual from standing firm for the truth of the Word of God, and such a one usually remains silent (self-editing). The fear of man (rejection) overrides the fear of God. The end result is a 'paradigm shift' in how one processes factual information."

Background information:

● Georg Hegel (1770 – 1831), an occultist, laid the foundation for Communist brainwashing. Today, his compromising philosophy and transformational process are changing churches as well as politics, education, business and communities.

● Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) adapted Hegel's philosophy to his vision of a Communist/socialist world system. (See From Marx to Lenin, Gramsci & Alinsky)

● Like Marx, Lenin and Stalin saw Hegelian dialectic process as an essential tool for managing the masses. Through their hierarchical system of soviets (groups led by trained facilitators who led the group dialogue toward a prescribed and evolving consensus). Everyone had to trade individual thinking for collective thinking and communal values. The vision of "common good" was simply the carrot that justified total and cruel control. (See When Iron Gates Yield).

● The United Nations (1995) has promoted the dialectic process around the world. Like the mythical Phoenix rising out of its ashes, the UN emerged from the fiery devastation of World War II as a beacon of light to utopian humanists and their hopeful followers. Within two years after Communist leader Alger Hiss presided over its birth, some of its most powerful agencies had been established.
● UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) would be led by Julian Huxley -- brother of Aldous and a Fabian Socialist. He made the dialectic process the heart of UNESCO's global education plan. In his 1947 book, UNESCO: Its purpose and Its Philosophy, he wrote:

"The task before UNESCO... is to help the emergence of a single world culture. ....at the moment, two opposing philosophies of life confront each other from the West and from the East.... You may categorize the two philosophies as two super-nationalisms, or as individualism versus collectivism.... or as capitalism versus communism, or as Christianity versus Marxism. Can these opposites be reconciled, this antithesis be resolved in a higher synthesis? ...through the inexorable dialectic of evolution, it must happen....

"In pursuing this aim, we must eschew [shun] dogma - whether it be theological dogma or Marxist dogma.... East and West will not agree on a basis of the future if they merely hurl at each other the fixed ideas of the past. For that is what dogma's are -- the crystallizations of some dominant system of thought .... If we are to achieve progress, we must learn to uncrystalize our dogmas."

● WHO (The World Health Organization) was led by Canadian psychiatrist Brock Chisholm. He summarized his socialist philosophy at a 1946 US conference on mental health. His message was published by the (now prestigious) magazine Psychiatry, and by his Communist friend, Alger Hiss in the socialist magazine, International Conciliation. Notice the obstacles to "mental health":

"Can we identify the reasons why we fight wars...? Many of them are easy to list -- prejudice, isolationism, the ability to emotionally and uncritically to believe unreasonable things....

"The only psychological force capable of producing these perversions is morality, the concept of right and wrong.... For many generations we have bowed our necks to the yoke of the conviction of sin. We have swallowed all manner of poisonous certainties fed us by our parents, our Sunday and day school teachers....

"Individuals who have emotional disabilities of their own -- guilts, fears, inferiorities -- are certain to project their hates on to others... Whatever the cost, we must learn to live in friendliness and peace with... all the people in the world...."

Those "poisonous certainties" include all the unchanging truths and values that can't be compromised. That's why Biblical Christianity was -- and continues to be -- incompatible with the world's standards for "mental health." Many who refuse to conform to the evolving guidelines for tolerance, inclusiveness, group dialogue and adaptability to the UN plan for "continual change" are facing severe consequences.5 [See "Ban truth, reap tyranny"]

Like Karl Marx, today's globalist leaders seek ways to undermine Biblical truth. They know that the main obstacle to global solidarity, is God's uncompromising Word. They cannot build "a single world culture" without first undermining absolute Truth. After all, that's why Christians were persecuted in the Soviet Union and other Communist countries!

● ASCD (the curriculum arm of the NEA), published a 1970 book with a chapter by Dr. Raymond Houghton, who envisions a world managed through the subtle but manipulative collective "dialogue." His warning should be a wake-up call for all who love truth and factual integrity:

"...absolute behavior control is imminent.... The critical point of behavior control, in effect, is sneaking up on mankind without his self-conscious realization that a crisis is at hand. Man will... never self-consciously know that it has happened."[1]

● UNESCO published a 1995 book titled Our Creative Diversity. It tells us that--

"The challenge to humanity is to adopt new ways of thinking, new ways of acting, new ways of organizing itself in society, in short, new ways of living."[2] (See Reinventing the World)

● Marc Tucker, the master-mind behind today's global school-to-work system.

"[Our objective] will require a change in the prevailing culture -- the attitudes, values, norms and accepted ways of doing things."[3]

In other words, the old Christian ways and values are out! The new, subjective postmodern ways are in. Already trained to follow feelings rather than facts (and peer culture rather than parental counsel) today's youth are marching happily toward an amoral, permissive (at least for the moment) collective society. Many have already internalized the ground rules for the dialectic process:

Seek "common ground" in the midst of today's diversity

Show respect, tolerance and appreciation for all beliefs and values (unless they reflect Biblical truth).

Train everyone to share their feelings, listen empathetically, and identify with opposing views, then blissfully flow with the group consensus.

It works! This process transforms individual thinkers into group thinkers. Since the sense of belonging feels good, the threat of group disapproval inhibits members from voicing "offensive" views.

Webster's dictionary defines the word dialectic as "(Hegelian philosophy) a logical subjective development in thought, from a THESIS through an ANTITHESIS to a SYNTHESIS, or ... a continuous unification of opposites."

In the dialectic process, there must be two or more sides to everything. Nothing is absolute; everything is changing in a preplanned direction. As Ismail Serageldin, former vice president of The World Bank, said at the 1996 UN Conference on Human Settlements in Istanbul (Habitat II), "Let's just make sure that social change and transformation are going in the right direction."

From Legalizing Mind Control: "Would the American people allow government control and collectivism to replace freedom and individualism? You bet! So would the rest of the world. This social transformation is well under way, and the masses simply flow with the change. Planned over a century ago, the framework for managing and monitoring this worldwide revolution was in place by 1945.

From Justifying Mind Control: "Chisholm's friend, Alger Hiss, agreed. In 1948, the infamous Soviet spy published Chisholm's message on mental health in his socialist journal, International Conciliation. Hiss, then president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, added his own Preface which showed the involvement of the Rockefeller Foundation in the mental health movement.

Earlier, another loyal friend had launched a new journal called Psychiatry, which would gain immense prestige by the end of the century. Its owner, US psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan, also published Chisholm's message.

Dr. Sullivan and Dr. Chisholm had been working closely with the British Brigadier-General John Rawlings Rees. Dr. Rees had helped found the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, the birthplace of the infamous Tavistock Institute for Human Relations....

Dr. Rees had envisioned a global NGO (non-governmental organization) that would network with political and civic leaders around the world. His leadership led to the birth of the World Federation for Mental Health in 1948. It would "enjoy consultative relationship with several UN agencies and... national groups" but remain free from government oversight.....

Dr. Chisholm, Margaret Mead (the federation’s second president) and other social scientists from ten countries wrote its founding document, "Mental Health and World Citizenship." Notice their attitude toward traditional values:

"Social institutions such as family and school impose their imprint early.... It is the men and women in whom these patterns of attitude and behaviour have been incorporated who present the immediate resistance to social, economic and political changes. Thus, prejudice, hostility or excessive nationalism may become deeply embedded in the developing personality... often at great human cost....

       "...change will be strongly resisted unless an attitude of acceptance has first been engendered."

Today, more than half a century later, that "attitude of acceptance" has been built. Nations around the world are fast conforming to the pattern set in the 1940s. The global network of "mental health" partners is working to prevent anything that would hinder "positive" collective thinking in the rising global village....

Mass immigration (planned back in the 1940s) and multicultural conflicts have added to the urgency, and the intentional crisis has helped promote pre-planned solutions. Today, strategies for social change such as group thinking, conflict resolution, consensus building and continual compromise are becoming the norm. All are based on the dialectic process used in the former Soviet Union to conform minds to Soviet ideology...

Anything but the Truth: Islam may not match the UN model for a global spirituality, but its spreading influence makes it a useful tool in the hands of change agents....

Remember the Hegelian dialectic (consensus) process. The class discusses a provocative story or experience. The students share their thoughts, feelings and ideas in the group. Everyone must seek "common ground" and empathize with contrary ideas. Factual rebuttals that might offend a group member are forbidden. Throughout the dialogue, a trained facilitator guides the group back on track if it deviates from its course toward the prescribed consensus or group conclusion.

When feel-good Islamic suggestions become part of this mix, they help shift the consensus a little further away from any Christian position. How many 7th graders are strong enough in their faith to disagree with a group conclusion that Allah and God are the same? Who dares to express the uniqueness of Christ, when even Prince Charles, first in line to the British throne, says, "We share as Muslims and Christians a powerful core of spiritual belief - in one divine God"?

This tactic -- used years ago to indoctrinate Soviet children with Communist ideology -- now pressures children from Christian homes to "open their minds" to new religious blends. Islam becomes a stepping stone, not an end. It broadens the options. As part of a classroom program, it subjects a child's personal faith to a psycho-social group process that pressures students to compromise: to trade personal convictions for a pre-planned "common ground."

And that is the key. We live in a world where -- as educators, politicians and business managers like to remind us -- "the only constant is change." The main objective is to disconnect children from their old spiritual anchors so that their minds can flow with today's managed change and group solutions.

Key to social transformation is "praxis" -- a vital part of Soviet brainwashing. It meant that dialectic groups must continually apply new information about Communist theory and socialist values. As today's educators tell us, "learning" must be practical and experiential: no need to memorize unnecessary facts about history or science that might conflict with the new vision. Continual practice makes the new way of thinking as natural as walking. Turning a deaf ear to "enemies" who resist this process becomes as habitual as locking your door.

From UNESCO: Its purpose and Its Philosophy by Julian Huxley, first Director-General of UNESCO:

"The task before UNESCO... is to help the emergence of a single world culture with its own philosophy and background of ideas and with its own broad purpose. This is opportune, since this the first time in history that the scaffolding and the mechanisms for world unification have become available.... And it is necessary, for at the moment, two opposing philosophies of life confront each other from the West and from the East....

"You may categorize the two philosophies as two super-nationalisms, or as individualism versus collectivism; or as the American versus the Russian way of life, or as capitalism versus communism, or as Christianity versus Marxism. Can these opposites be reconciled, this antithesis be resolved in a higher synthesis? I believe not only that this can happen, but that, through the inexorable dialectic of evolution, it must happen....

"In pursuing this aim, we must eschew [shun] dogma - whether it be theological dogma or Marxist dogma.... East and West will not agree on a basis of the future if they merely hurl at each other the fixed ideas of the past. For that is what dogma's are -- the crystallizations of some dominant system of thought of a particular epoch. A dogma may of course crystallize tried and valid experience; but if it be dogma, it does so in a way which is rigid, uncompromising and intolerant.... If we are to achieve progress, we must learn to uncrystalize our dogmas."

From A More Adaptable Bible: "Groups or teams must be trained to disapprove if any member fails to demonstrate respect, appreciation and tolerance for all beliefs and positions that clash with his own. In other words, intolerance must be used to intimidate dissenters into compliance with the ground rules. There is no freedom to share 'divisive' facts or truth. Instead, each person must listen with empathy, seek to identify with diverse feelings, and join the quest for 'common ground.'

"The issues may change from week to week, but with each group meeting, this dialectic process becomes increasingly habitual and 'normal.' If a person has a particular belief (thesis) concerning a current issue, he listens and identifies with an opposite or conflicting notion (antithesis). Led by a trained facilitator, the dialogue moves toward a new synthesis, a blend of the two opposites. Week after week, the former synthesis becomes the new thesis. It, in turn, blends with other new views (antithesis) and a new synthesis is found. This process goes on and on.... Change becomes the norm and opposites such as black and white come closer and closer to a perfect and mutual gray.

"In their mandatory quest for common ground, students learn that there must be two or more sides to everything. All group members must present their personal views, receive group feedback, and seek an evolving consensus. Thesis + antithesis = synthesis (which becomes the new thesis) + new antithesis = new synthesis.... The main objective is learning dialectic reasoning and group thinking, not the content. Whatever the latter brings could be changed tomorrow.

"As a result of migration into every American community, a high school class as well as a team of employee is likely to include members who favor Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, witchcraft and the various versions of 'Christianity.' In this multicultural setting, each person will be challenged to yield his or her certainties and willingly embrace the ever-changing group synthesis."

Example: "It reminds me of the little old lady who prayed, 'Lord, forgive me. I do so many things I used to call sin.'..." Liberal, Evangelical, or Fundamentalist?

From Reinventing the World Part 2: The Mind-Changing Process: ...the Hegelian Dialectic has become the cornerstone not only of the global education system, but of 'Quality' management [TQM] in all kinds of governmental, corporate and private organization around the world. Meanwhile, the training programs, assessment technology and data tracking systems that complement and monitor this psycho-social process are growing increasingly sophisticated and intrusive....

Today’s postmodern America shows the effects of that revolutionary ideology. So it should not surprise us that a fifth-grade teacher in the Seattle area would use intimidation to twist a student's absolute truth into a personal opinion. She had told her class to complete the sentence, "If I could wish for three things, I would wish for..."

A Christian student, Matt Piecora, wrote "infinitely more wishes, to meet God, and for all my friends to be Christians." Since each student's wishes would be posted on a wall for "open house," they had to be just right. Matt's didn't pass. The teacher told him that his last wish could hurt people who didn't share his beliefs. Matt didn't want to hurt anyone, so he agreed to add "if they want to be."

He had to complete another sentence which began, "If I could meet anyone, I would like to meet..." Matt wrote: "God because he is the one who made us!" The teacher told him to add "in my opinion."

When Matt's parents visited the school, they noticed the corrections. "Why did you add this?" his mother asked.

"The teacher didn't want me to hurt other people's feelings."

"But these are just your wishes...."

"I thought so." Matt looked confused. Later, the teacher explained to Matt's parents that she wanted "diversity" in her class and was looking out for her other students. But why couldn't Matt share his views?

"I try to instill God's truths in my son," said Matt's father, "but it seems like the school wants to remove them."

He is right. Both absolute truth and contrary facts clash with the mind-set needed for the global management systems. The planned oneness demands "new thinking, new strategies, new behavior, and new beliefs" that turn God's Word and values upside-down. Facilitated group discussion is key to the transformation, and UNESCO's plan for "lifelong learning" calls for universal participation. Young and old everywhere must be trained to think and work collectively.

Professor Benjamin Bloom, called the "Father of Outcome-based Education," summarized it well:

"The purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of students." "....a large part of what we call 'good teaching' is the teacher's ability to attain affective objectives through challenging the students' fixed beliefs and getting them to discuss issues."

Since Matt's last comment exposed his "fixed beliefs," the teacher challenged it. Absolute truths such as "God made us" can't be modified or synthesized to please the group. Those who take a firm position on truth or facts will resist compromise and offend the group.

This mind-changing (Hegelian dialectic) process required students in Communist nations to "confess" their thoughts and feelings in their respective groups. Trained facilitator-teachers would then guide the group dialogue toward a pre-planned consensus. The original thesis and antithesis -- opposing views such as Christianity versus Marxism -- would be merged or synthesized into ever-evolving higher "truths."

This revolutionary program was officially incorporated into American education in 1985, when President Reagan and Soviet President Gorbachev signed the U.S.-USSR Education Exchange Agreement. It put American technology into the hands of Communist strategists and sanctioned our use of their psycho-social strategies, including the mass media. As Julian Huxley suggested back in 1947,

"the techniques of persuasion and information and true propaganda" must be "deliberately" used "as Lenin envisaged - to 'overcome the resistance of millions' to desirable change."

Today, a more sophisticated version of this brainwashing process drives the social transformation. ...it helps root out individualism and the "intolerant" attitudes that could bring conflict and division. When bonded to the group and trained in the new relational rules, few dare offend the majority by take a contrary stand.

"We have moved into a new era," said Dr. Shirley McCune, keynote speaker at the 1989 Governor's Conference on Education. "What we are facing is total restructuring of society.... We no longer are teaching facts to children." ...

The masses must learn to feel that traditional values are an intolerable threat to peace, and Christians must be willing to trade their God-given absolutes for Huxley's view of evolving truths and collective thinking.

But God says, “do not be conformed to this world.” Therefore, we make it our aim to “obey God rather than men.” Though the world demands consensus, we take our stand on the unchanging, eternal Word of God. [Romans 12:2; Acts 5:29]

From Brave New Schools, Chapter 3: A New Way of Thinking: A set of guidelines on group discussion was given to students at Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, along with a recent version of the infamous and much-used "Nuclear Shelter Assignment." Ponder these guidelines in the light of the assignment which follows..

Group discussion

Group discussion is a way of thinking together. It is a method of pooling your ideas and information with that of others to come to some general conclusions. A leader generally guides the process of the group, but each person must have the responsibility of contributing his share.

The purposes of group discussion

To gain information, facts and ideas.

To solve problems of interest.

To learn to participate in discussion of social or public affairs.

To learn principles of good leadership and social cooperation.

To become open-minded and to respect the ideas of others.

To make each feel he is taking an active part in the democratic way of life by expressing his own ideas.

It sounds good, doesn't it? However, "pooling your ideas" refers to the process of synthesis, which means the group must come to some kind of consensus. ... For example, when a boy saw a friend steal a book, should he be honest and tell the truth, or should he be loyal to his friend and tell a lie? The students reach consensus together.

Thesis: a child's belief in the Great Spirit + Antithesis: another child's belief in God

= Synthesis: new joint belief in many gods

Here is how the process might work: if one person believes in God (thesis 1), another in Buddha (thesis 2), and another in the Great Spirit (thesis 3), they may agree that "there are many gods" or that "every path leads to the same ultimate reality." This new thesis, of course, would not be considered absolute or final truth. It would merely be a higher step in the ongoing evolution toward ever greater understanding and perfection.

How does this process fit the old Judeo/Christian world view?

How does the above conclusion fit the old Judeo/Christian world view?

How do both fit the new paradigm?

As you may expect, Christian children often feel anything but free to "express" their beliefs and ideas in this kind of group. That's part of the plan.

Transforming the World by Subverting the Church: ...to "control the remaining 90 per cent" who act and think on an individual basis, former Communist leaders assigned all their subjects -- workers, managers, prisoners and students -- to local "soviets" (groups or councils) where they had to--

"Share" thoughts and notions. [Now cheered as "authenticity"]

"Confess" contrary attitudes. [Brainwashing and "Education Reform"]

Write "self-criticisms" for group evaluation. [When Iron Gates Yield]

"Celebrate" Communist ideals and heroes

"Commit" themselves to follow the group consensus.

Practice what the group (led by the facilitator) decides. [PRAXIS]

This process was described in our article "Small Groups and the Dialectic Process," which summarizes the strategies taught in Leading Congregational Change (LCC). "This is a book you ought to read before you change anything," wrote Rick Warren in his hearty endorsement on the back cover....

If you want to guard your child's mind, look at this checklist. The complete chart includes a column with corresponding Scriptures.

Know biblical truth--the only source of genuine wisdom (Proverbs 2:6)

Learn the facts needed to defend what they know and believe

Recognize the difference between logic and speculation

Ground personal plans in reality, not fantasy

Trust genuine science based on facts and logic, not pseudo-science or social philosophy

Learn the lessons found in a factual study of history

Base actions in objective thinking, not subjective feelings.

God said, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." (Proverbs 6:22)

See How to Resist the Pull of the Crowd and Charts: Consensus vs. Biblical thinking and Brainwashing & How to Resist It

1. Raymond Houghton, To Nurture Humaneness: Commitment for the '70's (The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development of the NEA, 1970), pages 46-47.

2. Our Creative Diversity, UNESCO, 1995, p.11.

3. Marc Tucker, "How We Plan to Do It," Proposal to the New American School Development Corporation: National Center for Education and the Economy, July 9, 1992.

Relevant articles: Training students to rethink God's Word | Brainwashing in America

The Frankfurt Institute and the Dialectical Imagination | DIAPRAX and the End of the Ages

What is the Hegelian Dialectic? | The Dialectical Imagination | The Crowd

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Charts: Three kinds of group relationships | Brainwashing & How to Resist It

From God's Truth to the "New Spirituality" | The Armor of God

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