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According to Thomas Pynchon, it is used for ideological enforcement and it denotes "a set of techniques said to be based on the work of IP Pavlov, who had once trained dogs to salivate on cue"; what Cold War term is it?



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Answer: brainwashing

According to Dictionary.com, the word brainwash denotes: "Intensive, forcible indoctrination, usually political or religious, aimed at destroying a person's basic convictions and attitudes and replacing them with an alternative set of fixed beliefs."

The word was coined as a direct translation of a Mandarin term: xinaoxi nao, to wash the brain. This question derives from an introduction to Orwell's 1984 recently written by Pynchon.

Source: The road to 1984 - Thomas Pynchon

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