I think that is untrue. It was harder (but not impossible) to push propaganda to uniformist societies because:
1. they were already brainwashed to some degree. In the sense that someone made them believe things that were objectively either not true or arbitrary ("our rabbit god against their duck god")
2. these societies did have no mass media. Reaching many people of the society was only possible through elaborate structures and later the printing press, hence the influence of the back then most elaborate brainwashing structure there was: the catholic church. And even they had a lot of work to make this count as many people could not read the books they were printing.
The bible is a perfect example for how those societies in fact were very unprepared for being brainwashed. The fact that mass media didn't exist just meant the whole thing was much more time- and labor-intensive than a similar thing would have been today. Although I argue today the challenge would be to get as broad of a movement — because people were more isolated back in the day and therefore more scared to deviate from the perceived norms.
Hence why today's brainwashing movements, cults etc. always strive to isolate their followers from the rest of society.
This is why I meantioned Everett, who got rejected by the natives. It took centuries of organized effort, that often involved a total reorganization of the society, to christianize Europe.
1. they were already brainwashed to some degree. In the sense that someone made them believe things that were objectively either not true or arbitrary ("our rabbit god against their duck god")
2. these societies did have no mass media. Reaching many people of the society was only possible through elaborate structures and later the printing press, hence the influence of the back then most elaborate brainwashing structure there was: the catholic church. And even they had a lot of work to make this count as many people could not read the books they were printing.
The bible is a perfect example for how those societies in fact were very unprepared for being brainwashed. The fact that mass media didn't exist just meant the whole thing was much more time- and labor-intensive than a similar thing would have been today. Although I argue today the challenge would be to get as broad of a movement — because people were more isolated back in the day and therefore more scared to deviate from the perceived norms.
Hence why today's brainwashing movements, cults etc. always strive to isolate their followers from the rest of society.