Mao Zedong began China's Cultural Revolution in 1966; the brainwashing tool was the "struggle session."  Struggle sessions (psychological torture) are public denunciations and humiliations in front of crowds targeting citizens who held Chinese traditions for re-education to create unity and consolidate power through thought reform.

Mass denunciation rallies used stagecraft and scripts in public squares, classrooms, and workplaces to extract confessions of imaginary crimes and guilt.  Targeted individuals and groups were interrogated and publicly abused to coerce confessions, including beatings for being selfish, greedy, and unenlightened.  The objective is for the individual to seek psychological relief through confession.  Contrition required repeated admissions followed by sincere actions — e.g., surrender of property.  It was self-cancelation, breaking one's moral compass.  Those who didn't submit or issued an insincere confession were tortured and imprisoned.

Modern-Day Struggle Sessions

DIE (Diversity, Inclusion, Equity) training is nihilism indoctrination and has swept through Western institutions.  It is a modern Maoist struggle session.  Individuals failing to cooperate or acknowledge their bias or white privilege in DIE training lead to ostracization, public humiliation, and possible job loss.  DIE incentivizes the formation of employee hierarchal groups around sex, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, which fosters resentment.  There is no objective evidence that DIE programs reduce racism, bigotry, and prejudice.

ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) is a corporate social credit score to exert control over publicly traded corporations.  ESG helps promote the World Economic Forum's "stakeholder capitalism," handing partial control to outsiders.  The "S" in ESG uses DIE as the critical metric for human capital reporting making DIE employee training compulsory.

DIE proponents claim that it increases collaboration and engagement, increasing innovation, growth, and profitability.  The reality: It increases conflict, harassment, and complaints, resulting in lower productivity and profitability.  DIE creates a potential stigma for talented employees, viewed as tokens, and their promotions are viewed with unwarranted cynicism.

DIE is big business and has ballooned into a $9-billion unregulated industry.  Al Sharpton is green with envy.  Hundreds of DIE consulting firms replicate the same ideology like a virus infection.  Universities have prerequisite DIE training, too.

DIE Training Methodology

DIE training relies on a participatory, hands-on exercise battery that intentionally avoids merit-based performance dialogues.  The activities include a wide range of self-awareness exercises, such as skits, book reports (e.g., White Fragility), privilege walks, group brainstorming, culture pursuit, and diversity bingo.  Click here for an extensive catalogue of DIE exercises.

The insidious life raft survival exercise is one of the most common and divisive lessons.  The trainer strategically divides participants into groups of twelve.  Their ship has sunk, and they must board a raft accommodating only eight.  The group must choose the most deserving passengers, and everyone must agree on the final eight passengers and reach a consensus.  The four who aren't selected are metaphorically in the sea of unemployment.  The goal is to illustrate how perceptions and stereotypes affect one's behavior.  It naturally devolves into resentment among the participants.  It smears or labels some individuals as biased, prejudiced, and benefiting from inherited privilege.  So much for promoting inclusion.

Training can devolve into ritual apologies or proclaiming guilt.  The exercises make many employees feel manipulated and controlled, and they logically react negatively.

DIE training triggers discrimination lawsuit

Stanford University serves as a case study of how DIE training becomes poisonous.  Stanford University's Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS) created a DIE committee that went through weekly seminars and created racial-based affinity groups.  Two Jews were assigned to the "whiteness accountability" group.  The group was stereotyped as complicit in anti-black racism, thus labeling Jews as bigots.  The DIE committee supported an anti-Semitic narrative by connecting the Jews to white supremacy.  Due to harassment and intimidation from the DIE committee, they dropped from the DIE training.  They filed an EEOC complaint and discrimination lawsuit (linked here) against Stanford University, a prime example of intersectionality collusion.

Canceling DIE brainwashing

Most employers make it mandatory to participate in DIE brainwashing training.  You can either lie low or challenge the ideological training.  Remember, being belligerent or hostile, could get you disciplined or fired.

One of the best and low-key methods is using the Socratic Method by asking the facilitator questions that expose distorted facts and contradictions and get participants too engaged in critical thinking.  For example, "Does equity consider employee's merit performances?"  Or "Wouldn't a color-blind workplace remove biases?"  

Suppose the training requires confessions — e.g., of transphobia.  In that case, you can firmly respond that it violates your civil rights regarding self-cancelation and that you will not participate.  Never admit to thoughtcrimes or that you have benefited from the system by default.  Use simple responses to prevent the facilitator from probing your answers.

Recording and discreetly releasing the training through conservative news outlets or high-profile influencers will educate the public and damage the DIE movement.  An example of the effectiveness of this strategy was the public release of the video of Coca-Cola demanding that white workers be "less white."  LinkedIn pulled the "Confronting Racism" video from its LinkedIn education library.

Bob Bishop is a resident of San Antonio and a forensic investigator and retired CPA.

Image via Picryl.