Larissa MacFarquhar on Getting Inside Someone’s Head
I thought this would be about the psychology of “getting inside” someone’s head. I think it’s a very interesting phenomenon when someone says something to you and you can’t seem to shake it, and it bothers you for days or weeks. I’m very sensitive to it. I believe it’s a very important window into how the mind works. That’s one reason why it’s interesting. The other is that understanding this phenomenon would be very powerful — to never allow anyone to “get under your skin” would make you a much more powerful and productive person.<p>I have read that the unibomber, before he started bombing, was subjected to an experiment under the mk-ultra program. The experiment was psycological cross-examination. Ted was taken into a room and asked about certain things, things that were probably very important to him — fundamental beliefs that perhaps he didn’t even realize were fundamental to his psychology. Then, with all of that established, he was cross-examined and inconsistencies in those beliefs were brought to his attention or in some way de-stabilized. It was after this that his descent into insanity began which ultimately resulted in the bombings. This concept of “getting inside your head” is much more important than it is given credit for — completely untapped and unexplored as far as I can tell. I really wish I could understand it. But I can’t really find much when I google around for it. Nobody seems to talk or think about this online. Not in the way I do which is viewing it as an exploit in the human mind.