media outlets ranging from Vice to the Daily Beast to, just today, the New York Times have employed the term “brainwashing,” almost entirely uncritically. The problem with that, which apparently has occurred to none of these outlets whose writers from time to time advertise their reverence for “science,” is that there is no such thing as brainwashing. It is a concept with no scientific basis, generally regarded as pseudoscience. It is mainly a literary device, one popularized by The Manchurian Candidate. “Brainwashing” is right up there with “recovered memories,” “multiple-personality disorder,” homeopathy, chiropractic, reiki, the anti-vaccine movement, and the terror...