In May, I worked as a volunteer in the Ya'an disaster area. The volunteer organization I belong to is a typical dictatorial organization. Everything is decided by the team leader, from daily work tasks to time allocation, from when to eat to when to go to bed, from what to eat to what to drink. I can understand the necessity of this form in extraordinary times, but the interesting thing is that after a few days, the leader left the camp in a hurry, and there was no time to appoint a deputy leader, and we suddenly fell into anarchy.
Before going to bed at night, a few insightful people put it forward: life in the next few days still needs to be planned, and the institutional arrangements that everyone is not satisfied with can also be adjusted now, so I hope to vote in a democratic way. At that time, only four of the dozen or so volunteers (including me) made it clear that they would like to decide our new life with a democratic minority vote with a majority. This is not good. They would rather accept the full leadership of another person, in other words, accept a dictatorship. I think there are many differences between my experience and The Wave, but at least the following points are consistent: First, obedience is nature and habit, and democracy often brings confusion and panic, so education and cultivating this quality are key.
Second, our attitude toward a thing is often impassioned when we see it in someone else's story and indifferent when we encounter it in our own life. To say that "The Tide" is a political fable about dictatorship and fascist revival is misled by the teaching task of the male protagonist, Mr. Wengel, and it is an exaggeration because we will find that most of the pages are in the explanation. It is not the terror, chill, and despotism within the "this" group, but how the "this" group grows from small to large, from loose to cohesive, from obscurity to attention, from fragmentation to unity. Rather than anti-authoritarian political fables like "Us," "Brave New World," and "1984," it's a case of social psychology that is both true and absurd. Going back to the original formation of a group, we will find that this is an instinct rooted in the deepest human subconscious; whether it is dividing a group of people into blue-eyed and green-eyed groups, or randomly grouping a group of children and naming them "The Eagles" vs. “Diamonds,” or just letting you choose: Van Gogh or Picasso?
According to this label, we will automatically classify people who were close to us as "outsiders" and people who have the same characteristics as ourselves (note that this quality can be arbitrarily formulated without any inevitability). Seen as "one's own", once there is this distinction, the group is born. The formation of groups is inevitably accompanied by the birth of prejudice, exclusion, and discrimination. Do human beings form groups because of prejudice and discrimination, or are they more prejudiced and discriminated against because of groups? It's like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. From a scientific point of view, ingroup bias, conformity, and submission to authority are the trinity of psychology, none of which can stand alone. The more people face threats and anxiety, the more they will develop a strong in-group prejudice. That is, they will think the groups of the genus are strong and noble, and others are weak and mean.
From another perspective, if the individual is weaker and less confident, the easier it is to believe and identify with the group he belongs to, the easier it is to be prejudiced against other groups, conform to the crowd, and obey authority. Here's a simple and quick Q&A: Question: How can there be peace? The answer - is to create enemies. Like Big Brother in 1984, Hitler before World War II, the Ottoman Sultan at the turn of the previous century, and Adrian in Watchmen. Friendship blossoms from the fertile soil of hostility only in a single night if there is a more terrifying enemy than me and my enemy, strong enough to destroy both of us, against which we can only stand together. And sometimes, the enemy doesn't have to be that strong. In this film, the mention of "the guys downstairs who voted for anarchism" is enough to trigger the cohesion and pride of our group. We still remember the discriminatory words against Turkish immigrants and East Germans among the classmates in the first class of the film, but in the remaining 5 days, this discrimination disappeared—to be precise, it did not disappear, but the energy transformed into existence.
The form has changed from flowing in a small circle within the class to a "wave" of members who are unanimous to the outside world, just like the originally free-flowing electrons will begin to flow in one direction under the action of a strong voltage. With logos, flags, slogans, gestures, and uniforms, with these visual and intuitive symbols, we will be reminded more and more that I am a member of this group and they are not, and everything that follows is like high school physics. Just like the knowledge of, with the first vibration, it will drive other strings to resonate, and this force in the same direction will form a resultant force, and even produce an unimaginable force of destruction. Therefore, we should be soberly aware that in power structures (such as the classroom in this film), the energy of xenophobia and dictatorship is not created by some evil dictator; it has always existed—exists in everyone's deep mind. There are innate differences in human ability, and the difference in ability will naturally lead to the difference in power. Therefore, we can say that where there is inequality of power, there are seeds of dictatorship. It only depends on whether the climate and environment give it to it. chance of germination.
So in "The Tide", when Wenger asked everyone who was going to be the head of state in the first lesson, everyone laughed and said, "Of course, it's you, teacher," because although this group is loose, there is no doubt that such a group already exists. So, in fact, from the beginning of the story, the status of the dictatorial leader has long been established. And the one with power (either the power to reward or the power to punish) can force the majority to participate in his rule-making game, come into play, and punish the disobedient, with either isolation and exclusion (as happened with Carol), or exile and expulsion (as happened with Wengel), go out if you don’t cooperate). The freedom that students enjoy at first is because, on the one hand, the authorities (teachers) temporarily tolerate everyone, and on the other hand, the higher and stronger authorities (such as the German legislative and law enforcement agencies) regulate the students. What free powers are there, and teachers must not interfere. Here we need to pay attention to the influence of cultural background on "democratic life".
In Germany, students sit upright in class, stand up when they speak, call the teacher Mr. so-and-so and wear uniforms, which are already acts of infringing on democratic rights and personal freedom, but in East Asian countries with Confucian culture, these are all things that should be taken for granted, not worth it. The fuss is part of collective life. From this point of view, dictatorship is just a by-product of group cohesion because groups are like atomic structures, and due to the strong gravitational force in the void, all electrons must revolve around this or that nucleus. Therefore, dictatorship does not need to be deliberately arranged; it is everywhere, just like gravity. At the final conference, Wengel raised the ultimate question: Are you for us or against us? It's like Hamlet asking to be or not to be. There is only one answer, but no matter what you choose, you will sell at least half of your soul to the truth. Because human desires are so rich and fickle, we can only support or oppose a certain thing, a certain behavior, and human life is only the carrier of behavior. As Xingmei in "Cloud Atlas" said in the book of Revelation, from every evil and every good deed we do, we conceive our future. Tim pointed a gun at Wengel and yelled, "We made some mistakes, but we can change them." But he was wrong, and that can't be changed, because it's our human nature, like the god of the watchmen. The average superhero Dr. Manhattan said: "I can control all objects, but the only thing I can't change is human nature." The reason why the dictatorship is contagious, hereditary, and even easily accepted, is because it has already been encoded in our genes.
Existentialist says: Our main human tendency is to avoid responsibility—to trust our choices and be willing to pay for them at all costs, which is an innate skill of very few people. The vast majority of people are willing to hand over the power of choice to others, thus exempting themselves from their responsibilities and their powers. When such a chain of responsibility is handed over to the last remaining person, he becomes the public. The master, Mona, is the most thoughtful and disobedient child in this class. She is a representative of someone with a high IQ who supports freedom and democracy. Every time Wengel makes a request, she will refute it loudly. But obviously, she was firm and confident, but she could not find an ally. Her resistance was always alone, and none of the other classmates supported her until she finally chose to quit the group. The methods proposed by other students to enhance group cohesion, such as logos, uniforms, and gestures, were always responded to and received enthusiastic responses from everyone. Although Ibsen said the great truth on the last day of "Enemy of the People": "The loneliest man is the most powerful man," it is clear that most of the time, reliance on a group and submission to authority is indeed the majority. Wisdom is man's first choice; and in the struggle for freedom, wisdom, will, and courage are indispensable.
Therefore, most people choose a certain way of life and values based on their conscious love and identification, but their subconscious sense of security makes them obey. Psychology has shown that our reason is often a lawyer's thinking - conclude and then look for evidence for that conclusion. The conclusion of seemingly rational thinking is often just a high-sounding mask for intuition and instinct. I don't think it's right to "instill" a belief in everyone. It's probably a horrible mistake, but belief is desired by life, just as superman is desired by the masses. The essence of the name Tide is: that it's not an experiment, it's not an organization, it's not a social phenomenon, it's not even a destructive force. It is the sea of our life, the amniotic fluid of the human spirit, the birthplace of our consciousness, the birthplace of our thoughts, and the inevitable immersion in this sea for life. "The wave is my life!" I think Tim said this with the same heart as those who cried because the Cultural Revolution ended, the Nazis fell, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the Emperor declared himself mortal.
Just because you feel the loss of freedom, you can't forget the safety, support, and protection you get from the group, especially for those who feel humbled and unhappy, but don't forget that if you belong to a group, it's yours All life, that means you have no life at all. John Mill said in On Liberty: Consistency is the enemy of the best lifestyle. "Following the traditional order may lead a man to a satisfying path of life and keep him out of harm's way, but a man who does things out of custom makes no choice, he exercises no abilities of his own, except the great apes He does not need any other ability.” Freedom and democracy necessarily entail a certain degree of disorder, slackness, and inattentiveness, but this is a necessary part of civilization, and our leaps, creations, and inspirations are born In this moment of freedom, this moment of letting one's interests and desires go completely, this moment of utter abandonment of "the cares of Dasein" as depicted in existentialism, this moment of "willful action", it is 100% 100% efficiency and 100% order belong only to machines, and machines are just slaves.
"Then what is his real value as a human being?" Mill asked. "It is important what a person does, but it is equally important what kind of person does it!" The pendulum of civilization is always between freedom and order swings back and forth, just as the pendulum of our desires always swings back and forth between anxiety and emptiness. And the ladder of civilization spirals upwards into the never-ending future
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