Reading what Tash wrote earlier reminded me of another experiment which looked at why humans would be so susceptible to follow an authoritarian regime such as the Nazi movement.
It was called the "Third Wave" experiment and was conducted by a history teacher, Ron Jones at a Californian High School in the 60s. Jones, unable to explain to his students how the German populace could claim ignorance of the extermination of Jewish people and follow such a murderous regime, decided to show them instead.
On the first day he started with simple things like proper seating, drilling the students until they were able to move from outside the classroom to their seats and take the proper seating position in less than 30 seconds without making a sound. He then proceeded to strict classroom discipline emerging as an authoritative figure and improving efficiency of the class dramatically.
On the second day he managed to meld his history class into a group with a supreme sense of discipline and community. Jones named the movement "The Third Wave", after the common belief that the third in a series of ocean waves is last and largest. Jones made up a salute similar to the one of the Nazi regime and ordered class members to salute each other even outside the class. They all complied with this command.
The experiment took on a life of its own, with students from all over the school joining in: on the third day the class expanded from initial 30 students to 43 attendees. All of the students showed drastic improvement in their academic skills and tremendous motivation. All of the students were issued a member card and each of them received a special assignment (like designing a Third Wave Banner, stopping non-members from entering the class, etc). Jones instructed the students on how to initiate new members, and by the end of the day the movement had over 200 participants. Jones was surprised that some of the students started reporting to him when other members of the movement failed to abide by the rules.
On the fourth day of the experiment, Jones decided to terminate the movement because it was slipping out of his control. The students became increasingly involved in the project and their discipline and loyalty to the project was astounding.
A great German film was made about this experiment called Die Welle (The Wave). and I highly recommend watching it. You can watch the trailer for it here
The book is also a great read. I have read the German version ("Die Welle") and found it fascinating.
ReplyDeleteVery eye-opening!