Human beings — especially Americans these days — don’t seem to understand how susceptible we are to group think. A cult mindset can be very contagious if it is left unchecked. Cults grow where people feel a sense of isolation, when they don’t ask hard questions, and when they are weak on discernment. Below is a short movie called “The Wave.” It’s based on actual events at a high school during the 1960’s. It started with a teacher-supervised class experiment in group think, but it took on an ominous life of its own.
If you want to delve into the background, click here to look over the website www.thewavehome.com which was put together by the original participants. Here is an excerpt from the website:
In spring 1967, in Palo Alto, California, history teacher Ron Jones conducted an experiment with his class of 15-year-olds to sample the experience of the attraction and rise of the Nazis in Germany before World War II. In a matter of days the experiment began to get out of control, as those attracted to the movement became aggressive zealots and the rigid rules invited confusion and chaos. This story has attracted considerable attention over the years through films, books, plays and musicals, and verges on urban legend. It serves as a teaching tool, to facilitate discussion of those uncomfortable topics of history, human nature, psychology, group behavior, intolerance and hate.
As an aside, I don't want anyone to get too put off when they discover that Norman Lear produced this 1981 TV movie. That's fascinating, of course, because Lear is about as far left/statist as one can get in Hollywood. And yet "The Wave" is an important story with urgent lessons for all of us. There seems to be a pattern among those who claimed to fight for independent thought in earlier eras, but who push political correctness so hard today. One can only wonder if the hijacking of stories and images warning against totalitarianism serve only to promote their power agendas of today.
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