First of all we have to focus on the fact that already several times in our history evil persons tried to manipulate the popu
Adolf Hitler, Ku-Klux-Klan or other villains
in history
First of all we have to focus on the fact that already several times in our history evil persons tried to manipulate the population just to intersperse their own will and to benefit from it.
To begin with right wing ideologies I want to sum up the contents of a book I read: The Wave, written by Morton Rhue, is based on a true incident that occurred in a high school history class in California. The Wave is about Ben Ross, a young history teacher, who has been at Gordon High for two years. He has a good reputation at school and his students view him as contagious. Mr. Ross is very engaged in teaching, interested and involved in his topics.
To begin with the story: The history class saw a film about the Nazi Regime which had affected a large part of the class. The students can’t imagine that nobody tried to stop a minority like the Nazis. Moreover that the Nazis slaughtered people and the Germans behaved as if they didn’t know. This film prompts Mr. Ross to found a movement, called the Wave. The whole history class is involved in this experiment which reflects discipline and strength.
Furthermore a group-feeling and an entire equality is born and only the opponents take the role as outsiders. One of the enemies of the Wave is Laurie Saunders. She soon realizes that the entire school is affected and that it’s getting out of control. Even Mr. Ross can’t cope with the situation anymore. Laurie tries to convince her friends that there is something to worry, but they scoff at her warnings and even her boyfriend, David, has turned his back on her.
Laurie sees the last chance in alerting her firend Amy. But for the first time in her life Laurie gets to know that Amy is keen on being equal and that she was sick and tired of competing with Laurie all the time. Nevertheless Amy thinks Laurie is just against the Wave because she isn’t the only focus of attention anymore. Now it’s possible for Amy to step out of Laurie’s shadow. Also former outsiders get a chance to be integrated in the class, for instance Robert Billings, who gets more self-confidence. Laurie is really concerned and worried, as a consequence she wants to publish an article in the school paper.
Not only that Laurie recognized the importance of the situation, but also some parents are concerned. Especially after a terrible incident with a Jewish guy, every opponent is forced at the his initial doubts. Finally Mr. Ross can be convinced to turn the experiment down and the students get to know, in a rather harsh way, how easy it is to get involved in such movements and how fast one can lose independence and individuality.
That was the summary of a tremendously cruel story, but unfortunately that isn’t the only case in which people were forced to behave like a stunned common flock of sheep and moreover where they showed a behavior of obedience and unquestioned allegiance. Casting our eyes back on history there is to mention, that there was one person during Second World War, named Adolf Hitler, who decided if people were meant to live and to be respected or if they had to hide or, even worse, to die.
In other words he didn’t treat certain minorities like human beings. Besides he gave the orders to slaughter opponents, traitors as well as Jews or other foreigners. That is to say it was like pastime for this mentally ill politician. Nevertheless the only remaining question is: “Why couldn’t he be stopped?” Evidently the majority favoured him because of the improvement of the economic situation. In other words, he benefited from recession and coped with unemployment. He was strong-willed and his strength of purpose helped him to preside and encourage the population.
Unfortunately they realized the danger too late and the time to seek refuge was over. As a result it was easier to obey than to doubt and create hassles. As time wore on everything went out of control and finally there were only two solutions: to give individuality up and to obey or to be an enemy and this often meant to die.
Although this horrifying time is over, we could mention a lot more racist-movements or right-wing ideologies, such as the Ku-Klux-Klan in the southern parts of the USA. Just to report about the motives the White members of this movement had, or still have, to shed the blood of Black people, we have to look back again. When Abraham Lincoln decided to set the slaves free, especially the South lost a lot of important workers and the white population tried to force the Blacks to work with violence.
The more rights the Blacks got the more cruel the Klan became. The methods of torture were even too cruel to mention them by name. But what’s more, these stories are not only part of the past because the Klan is still active today. In addition the Ku-Klux-Klan can’t be stopped easily because it’a a scrupelous organisation which involves people from almost every society-class, it is comparable with the Mafia. The Klan benefits from its highly regarded members, like politicians or policemen and consequently they haven’t any problems to keep the dirty business internal and of course they are capable of hushing up incidents concerning the torture of Blacks. As mentioned above even the police are sometimes involved in the business of the Ku-Klux-Klan.
Summing up these examples of cruel and horrifying stories still only one question remains: “Why can people be so manipulating and cruel, why are they willing to obey and to torture?”
In the so called “Milgram experiment” a professor of a university tested how long and under what circumstances people are obedient. The results were negatively overwhelming and stirred up my emotions. Students were asked to torture others with electrical shocks. Of course this was just an experiment and the “victims” just pretended to get hurt. But the reaction of the ignorant students, in the role as villains, was horrifying. They didn’t hesitate to torture innocent persons.
To cut a long story short it remains to say that the human beings might be the most cruel beings on earth, because neither animals nor other creatures kill, although it wouldn’t be “necessary” for surviving. Last but not least I would like to draw your attention on the fact that human beings obviously were not created to kill each other because of the colour of their skin, their religion or their political beliefs!
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