The Brainwashing That is Spreading in Norway

Below is an English translation of the original article in Norwegian from steigan.no.

Brainwashing is when reason is nullified. It is when a person’s ability to make independent judgments is gradually weakened, overridden, and replaced by ready-made slogans, fixed enemy images, and political reflexes. The brainwashed person does not necessarily believe that he is lying. The danger is precisely that he may be convinced that he is telling the truth, because the propaganda has been repeated so long that it is experienced as his own thought.

This is what makes the developments in Norway so serious. Our politicians are becoming carriers of a brainwashing they themselves do not see. They repeat the war message as if it were wisdom. They repeat the threat images as if they were sober analysis. They repeat that more weapons mean more security, as if history has not already shown us how wrong events can go when society lets fear rule.

This is no longer just about political disagreement. It is about the manipulation of an entire people. We are manipulated through words, images, headlines, news broadcasts, expert panels and political speeches. We are told that the world is so dangerous that we need to accept ever more armaments. We are told that peace thinking is naivety. We are told that diplomacy is weakness. We are told that obedience to alliances and great powers is the same as responsible Norwegian politics.

This is how the boundaries in our consciousness are being moved. Little by little. Day by day.

When politicians lose the ability to think for themselves, the people lose some of their protection. Those who should use reason on behalf of the country instead become transmitters of propaganda. They bring the logic of war into the Storting, into the government, into the parties, into the press and into people’s everyday lives. When the message is repeated often enough, it begins to feel normal. When the fear is repeated often enough, it begins to resemble reality. When rearmament is repeated often enough as the only solution, many stop asking what the alternative could have been.

This is how brainwashing works. Not primarily through coercion, but through repetition. Not through one big lie, but through a thousand small shifts in reason. First the language is changed. Then the emotions are changed. Finally, the judgment of the entire society is changed.

In Norway, we are now seeing how this brainwashing is spreading from the politicians to the population. It comes through a press that too often repeats the language of power instead of exposing it. It comes through commentators who treat the logic of war as realism. It comes through experts who always end up with the same conclusion: more weapons, more preparedness, more military escalation, more loyalty to Washington and NATO.

Thus a dangerous circle is created. American power logic influences Norwegian decision-makers. Norwegian politicians repeat it as if it were Norwegian reason. The press spreads the message further. The population becomes more fearful. Then the politicians point to the fear in the population and use it as proof that their own policies are necessary. This is how power produces its own confirmation.

We are manipulated into believing that this development is natural.

But it is not natural. It is politically created. It is driven by propaganda, fear and interests that benefit from Norway moving further away from peace thinking and deeper into war preparedness. The arms industry does not lose from this development. The great powers do not lose from this development. The losers are ordinary people, the elderly, the sick, the poor, children, young people and veterans who once again have to see human security pushed aside because the war machine must always be fed first.

As a veteran, I know this from the past. In my experience from international veteran work, I have seen how brainwashing for war can really take hold. It does not let go just because the guns fall silent. It stays in the language, memories, bodies and institutions. I have also worked for veterans in various conflict areas, and I have been a trustee for veterans from many nations and have seen just this.

Once a society is taught to think in terms of war, peace becomes more difficult to imagine. That is why the development in Norway is so dangerous. We risk having a generation that grows up with the language of war as normal politics. Children and young people learn that the world primarily consists of enemies. They learn that security is created with weapons before it is created with trust, diplomacy, international law and social justice. They learn that the future needs to be built around images of threats, not around hope.

“The future of our children is also at risk when an entire society is manipulated into believing that war thinking is reason. The future of our children is at risk when politicians no longer distinguish between analysis and propaganda. The future of our children is at risk when peace is treated as a weakness, while the needs of the arms industry are allowed to be disguised as national security.”

This is the warning: If this brainwashing continues, Norway may change its character. We may have a society where welfare is weakened because military spending always comes first. We may have a society where young people grow up in permanent fear. We may have a society where critical voices are suspected of being disloyal. We may have a society where democracy becomes narrower, harsher and more controlled, precisely because the power can always point to a new threat.

Then we are no longer faced with just political mistakes. Then we are faced with a moral collapse.

Norway needs to wake up before the brainwashing takes hold even more deeply. Norwegian politicians need to remember that reason applies, even when propaganda shouts loudly. The press needs to stop being an amplifier for the war message and start being the watchdog of democracy again. The people need to refuse to be manipulated into a reality where peace is suspicious and armaments are sacred.

A free people should protect their own judgment. It needs to require more than slogans. It should require truth, reason, and courage. Because once the brainwashing for war takes hold, it is not just politics that changes. Then the people change. Then our children change. Then the future changes.

And a future built on manipulated fear is not a safe future. It is a path into darkness, disguised as responsibility.

Author: Dan Viggo Bergtun

yogaesoteric
June 23, 2026