Who shapes what you believe? And how much of what you think is truly your own?
The Mind Game is Phillip Day’s investigation into perhaps the most valuable territory on Earth: the human mind.
We like to imagine that our opinions, fears, ambitions and beliefs are independently formed. But throughout history, governments, institutions, advertisers, political movements, entertainment industries and supposed experts have understood a fundamental truth: change the way people think and you can change the way they behave.
In The Mind Game, Phillip ventures into the machinery of influence. He examines propaganda and the manufacture of public opinion; the psychology surrounding war and social upheaval; the enormous cultural power of Hollywood and the music industry; and the techniques by which ideas can move from the fringes of society to become accepted orthodoxy.
A substantial part of the book turns its attention to psychiatry and mental health, questioning how human distress and behaviour have increasingly been classified, labelled and medicalised, and examining the consequences when definitions of “normality” are placed in the hands of institutions and professional authorities.
From politics and education to entertainment, social engineering and the modern mental-health industry, The Mind Game asks uncomfortable questions about the forces competing to shape our perception of reality.
This is not simply a book about what to think.
It is about understanding how we are persuaded to think in the first place.
Provocative, wide-ranging and unapologetically questioning, The Mind Game invites the reader to examine the evidence, challenge assumptions and navigate the modern information battlefield with one indispensable objective:
Think for yourself.
