The Third Wave

[grumbler]

With one or two exceptions, I viewed my teachers as irrelevant pissants when I was in high school.

How symmetrical.

[Razgovory]

Ditto.  I can think of one teacher in my high school who was liked & trusted enough by a few students to possibly pull this off.  He was the type that could sell just about any idea, but again only to certain students.  And if he were able to handpick his class, he could've pulled it off.  Otherwise, any one of his classes would have had dissenters.

Maybe it's a WV thing

I think that you have to keep in mind that (1) this was in 1967, when students were still expected to follow rules and authority figures still automatically received respect; (2) the changes were made incrementally; and (3) the teacher had a mechanism for dealing with "dissenters" that the dissenters didn't mind.  So, dissenters weren't a big issue, since they were "exiled" to the library.

And also remember that these are sophomores.  Not many sophomores have the self-confidence to go up against a teacher.

It was also probably fun.

[derspiess]

I think that you have to keep in mind that (1) this was in 1967, when students were still expected to follow rules and authority figures still automatically received respect;

I guess I'll have to concede this point, since I have no clue what the student-teacher dynamic was like in 1967. 

I wonder if we'll reach a point where some teacher tries to replicate this (I'm sure there are on-going attempts to do so) and it initially works, but backfires horribly.  Maybe I'm a bit too pessimistic, but I would think that as time passes teenage kids will become less sensitive to Holocaust images, the stigma of Hitler/Nazis, etc.

[Razgovory]

With one or two exceptions, I viewed my teachers as irrelevant pissants when I was in high school.

I had both good and bad teachers.  Some of the really good ones really did impact the way I think about things.  Strangely one of the good teachers reminds me of Grumbler.

[grumbler]

I wonder if we'll reach a point where some teacher tries to replicate this (I'm sure there are on-going attempts to do so) and it initially works, but backfires horribly.  Maybe I'm a bit too pessimistic, but I would think that as time passes teenage kids will become less sensitive to Holocaust images, the stigma of Hitler/Nazis, etc.

I certainly don't think you need to invoke the Nazis to make this point.  How many Rwandan Hutus went along with that genocide?  How many Cubans or Venezuelans rat out their neighbors?  How many in Congress voted for the current US tax laws?  The issue is the ease with which groups can be made to do things that the individuals would not do for moral reasons if asked to do it by themselves.  In other words, how "all of us collectively are more evil than any of us individually."

[derspiess]

I certainly don't think you need to invoke the Nazis to make this point. 

Except that my point is precisely about the Holocaust & whether future generations of Americans will learn the same lessons from it that we have.

How many Rwandan Hutus went along with that genocide?

A lot, I guess.  But frankly I have lower expectations for uneducated/unenlightened third worlders than I do for Westerners.

How many Cubans or Venezuelans rat out their neighbors?

See above.  Okay, that was too harsh.  But my expectations are still lower for both-- though I used to have more faith in Venezuelans.

How many in Congress voted for the current US tax laws?

 

The issue is the ease with which groups can be made to do things that the individuals would not do for moral reasons if asked to do it by themselves.  In other words, how "all of us collectively are more evil than any of us individually."

I don't disagree with that, but I think we're looking at different issues.

[dps]

I think that you have to keep in mind that (1) this was in 1967, when students were still expected to follow rules and authority figures still automatically received respect;

I guess I'll have to concede this point, since I have no clue what the student-teacher dynamic was like in 1967. 

I was in school at the time (well, almost--started 1st grade in 1968), and yeah, I think grumbler is right.  When I started grade school, teacher were obeyed, even if you didn't much like or respect them individually.  But by the time I was in high school, that was no longer true.  Now you might think that was just the difference between grade schoolers and high schoolers, but it wasn't.  My brother is 7 years younger than me, and the attitude towards teachers that his classmates had in 3rd grade was basically the same as my classmates had in 10th grade, and quite different from the way we had looked at them when we were in 3rd grade.

[grumbler]

Except that my point is precisely about the Holocaust & whether future generations of Americans will learn the same lessons from it that we have.

My guess is that most historical episodes seem less relevant as they get more distant.  We certainly didn't learn the same lessons from it as our parents, and our kids will learn different lessons than we.

I don't disagree with that, but I think we're looking at different issues.

We may well be, but I think I am looking at the issues that Jones was looking at with his experiment, and you are not.