Benjamin Zablocki (January 19, 1941 – April 6, 2020) was an American professor of

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

where he taught

sociology of religion Sociology of religion is the study of the beliefs, practices and organizational forms of religion using the tools and methods of the discipline of sociology. This objective investigation may include the use both of quantitative methods (surveys, ...

and

social psychology Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the ...

. He published widely on the subject of charismatic religious movements,

cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. Thi ...

s, and

brainwashing Brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwashin ...

Early life and education

Born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, Zablocki received his B.A. in

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1962 and his Ph.D. in social relations from the

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

in 1967, where he studied with James S. Coleman.

Career

Zablocki was the Sociology department chair at

. He published widely on the sociology of religion. Zablocki was a supporter of what he called 'the brainwashing hypothesis'. Other scholars, Zablocki noted, commonly mistake

for both a recruiting and a retaining process, when it is merely the latter. This misunderstanding enables critics of brainwashing to set up a straw-man, and thereby unfairly criticize the phenomenon of

. For evidence of the existence of brainwashing, Zablocki refers to the sheer number of testimonies from ex-members and even ex-leaders of cults. Zablocki further alleges that brainwashing has been unfairly "

blacklisted Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, ...

" from the academic journals of sociology of religion. Such blacklisters, Zablocki asserts, receive lavish funding from alleged cults and engage in "corrupt" practices.

Selected works

Books

* ''The Joyful Community: An Account of the Bruderhof: A Communal Movement Now in Its Third Generation''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1971, reissued 1980) * ''Alienation and Charisma: A Study of Contemporary American Communes.'' New York: The Free Press. (1980) * '' Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field'', Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2001. w/ Thomas Robbins (Eds.)

Articles

*''The Blacklisting of a Concept: The Strange History of the Brainwashing Conjecture in the Sociology of Religion''. Nova Religion, Oct. 1997 *''Methodological Fallacies in Anthony's Critique of Exit Cost Analysis'', ca. 2002, *''The Birth and Death of New Religious Movements'' ca. 2005 *''Ethics and The Modern Guru'' ca.2016 Interview on brainwashing

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zablocki, Benjamin American sociologists Researchers of new religious movements and cults 1941 births Living people Rutgers University faculty Columbia College (New York) alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Mind control theorists