How Did Hitler Do It?
by Joe Pulcinella
We all know (sorta) the story of Hitler and how he slaughtered Jews and was a threat to all of Europe. But I've often wondered how he could have gotten to that point without being discovered for the animal that he was and stopped dead in his tracks. I mean, after all, did he run for Chancellor on a platform of death camps and perpetual war? This article has the answer. It's about a teacher named Ron Jones and a little experiment he performed back in the 1970's.
The first phase was to provide a common unifying dictum, which was "discipline." By identifying "discipline" as a path to a goal, such as an athlete winning an event, a musician writing a song, or an architect designing a building; he instilled a willingness to participate in class exercises demonstrating that goal. Most of these exercises involved actions like "sitting up straight," "eyes forward," and "hands flat of the table." Though these activities required a discipline of sorts, their real goal was "conformity." As a teenager, I can recall the attraction of such group exercises; and I can certainly understand the effect. Though it disturbed Ron with how quickly his students adopted his "code of behavior," his students wondered why such principles had not been taught before.
Soon, it got to this.
At this point, the role of teacher and leader were becoming difficult for Ron to distinguish. Many students had taken membership in "The Third Wave" to dangerous levels. One student had taken the role of being Ron's personal bodyguard. His students increasingly viewed Ron as the leader of an organization more so than as a teacher and he found himself more and more in the role of a "dictator." This was not just a role his students now expected of him, but one he found himself becoming. Though uncomfortable where the direction of his experiment was leading, Ron realized that to let the experiment run its own course or to halt it outright were no longer viable solutions.
Friggin' incredible stuff. I always ask myself and others when we'll know when fascism has come to American. I think the answer is, "We won't know."