For those of you who didn’t listen to the CBC show The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti this morning (http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2011/04/19/lesson-plan-the-story-of-the-third-wave/)her third half hour was an examination of an “experiment” that was conducted in 1968 by Ron Jones a teacher in a Palo Alta California high school. Mr. Jones was a highly inventive teacher of history. He had high standards and an exceptional following of students. He taught by having the students learn, first hand, about historical or economic events. The lesson he was teaching was on fascism.
On Monday in question he told the students that a new order had been established called “The Third Wave” (loosely after The Third Reich). This new order was to establish a strict regimen by which students were to benefit the community. They were to sit in rigid lines, straight in chairs, answer only when asked, and call the teacher and themselves by last names. Each was given a card to fill out that asked for personal information. Three of these cards were randomly marked with a red X and these members of the order were to spy on the others. They had a secret salute that was modeled on the Nazi Heil Hitler. They were told that they would soon be called upon do so something extraordinary and that they had been chosen as special.
By the second day of what was to be a week long experiment things began to go wrong. More than three of the specified “spies” started to be engaged in wholesale tale bearing about their compatriots. Leaders had “bodyguards”. Others from outside the class were recruited. Some were recruited from other schools. The code of conduct was strictly observed. In effect, Mr. Jones had created a monster.
The experiment resulted in a school assembly that was called so that a TV message from the Wave’s leader could be transmitted to the students. What was broadcast on the TV were excerpts of hysterical speeches by Hitler and Mussolini. The “experiment” was exposed as an object lesson on how easy it is for regular kids to assume a superior role and impose their “order” on others. There is a documentary being prepared called “The Lesson” and many students claim that the experiment left them marked for life—most of them positively.
In a recent post I discussed recent trends in negative political advertising. While the “experiment” was extreme (Mr. Jones lost his job and did not teach again for several years) the results are not so farfetched. There is not one of us who has felt superior stirrings as it relates to another, thought inferior, group. Minority groups feel this intensely. A Jew's radar as regards anti-Semitism is finely tuned. Speak to a person of colour or a visible minority. They have that sensitivity too.
The point that Mr. Jones made is that very ordinary people can be easily conditioned to oppress any minority group. Canadians did not think twice about interring Japanese and German Canadians during the Second World War. The oppressors were very ordinary people who did not think to ask where another’s loyalties lay. That is how so many "ordinary" Germans did such unspeakable things to others. Because there is a latent fascist in all of us. Just below the surface.
Bernie.
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