
The Wave that changed the world (2017) - carrozo
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2017/03/17/the-wave-that-changed-history
======
lubujackson
My Sociology teacher in high school did a much tamer version of this
experiment when we were reading Lord of the Flies. As we read it chapter by
chapter, he kept asking, "Does anyone believe in the Beast?" One kid finally
said yes and he got all giddy, gave the kid a special seat by the front of the
class and gave him a stuffed animal "beast" to hold.

As we read further and further he kept asking classmates? "Do you believe in
the Beast?" He would give small things to the growing group, leave class 5
minutes early, some candy maybe, little things. But one by one the whole class
joined the group, just as the true meaning of the Beast became apparent. Such
an interesting lesson!

~~~
wallace_f
Personally, I've experienced a mix of extremes in both privilege and
oppression.

While some people are really good, and some really evil, most of humanity has
thos duality. They love you when you're successful, or for your popularity.
But it's amazing how easily they can really turn their backs on you, even for
no good reason.

There is an idea that: 'Nazis were regular people.' By some accounts the most
common method of those millions who were murdered in the Killing Fields was by
pick axe, to save bullets and money. The immediate reaction of that for me was
the callousness, torture. But if you stop to think about it, how personal of a
method is that? This was not just mass genocide, and it was not
industrialized. It was carried out by masses of people with their own hands in
a personalized way.

After my traumatic experiences with psychopathic cheating, abuse as an adult,
now every time I hear or read of psychopathy happening today -- what is
essentially just one group of people abusing, exploiting power over others for
personal gain at the expense of others' liberties -- I think "Oh my God, we
all need to wake up and do something." It feels like every day there is some
new form of tyranny I learn about which is happening today, which is
considered so ordinary that it is allowed to persist. Sometimes they are
obvious evils, such as The Insulin Racket, Abu Ghraib or the Collateral Murder
leaks, for example. But other times I see some of these group tyrannies have
propaganda machine behind them which are not different from other forms of
facism or tyrannical power structures, such as I think is the case with Big
Pharma or Wall Street.

I think there is a crazy duality with humanity where we have abuse, tyranny
always so close, and tolerated. We all know what it is -- that it is evil. We
all hate it, and are ashamed of it. We always criticize it when it is at a
distance, but then nobody is doing anything about it just as past generations
did as well.

~~~
awb
> We all hate it, and are ashamed of it. We always criticize it when it is at
> a distance, but then nobody is doing anything about it just as past
> generations did as well.

Standing up to tyranny requires critical mass. Even in moral opposition to
tyranny it makes sense to wait until the right moment to take action as it
needs to be powerful and coordinated. Someone has to be first taking a stand
though in changing the world.

~~~
triangleman
I would disagree and say that it's usually the individual dissenter who makes
the biggest difference, and the ones who waited for the critical mass waited
forever.

~~~
everdev
For sure the first dissenter makes the biggest difference, but only if they
have a large following who already agrees with them and were just waiting for
a spark. To dissent without a critical mass of support usually doesn't change
much.

------
dang
Here's the teacher's riveting account, from 1972:
[http://libcom.org/history/the-third-wave-1967-account-ron-
jo...](http://libcom.org/history/the-third-wave-1967-account-ron-jones) (via
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2480260](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2480260)
from 2011, but only one comment there).

Here's the article from the school paper at the time, which includes details
missing from the other articles, such as that the senior class staged a coup
and kidnapped the teacher:
[https://imgur.com/t/nazism/hXgrmKX](https://imgur.com/t/nazism/hXgrmKX). The
timeline disagrees with the other articles too.

Can anybody find a previous discussion of this on HN? "Wave" and "third wave"
are such overloaded terms.

~~~
goto11
I suspect the story have been adjusted and embellished afterwards in order to
clearer teach the lesson it was supposed to. The students staging a coup and
kidnapping the teacher sounds like a fun bit of roleplay which perhaps got out
of hand, but doesn't really support the lesson that we all are easy victims of
fascism.

Some other comments suggest the episode was "hushed down" because they never
heard about it. It might also be that it wasn't as big as dramatic an episode
in the first place, as it was later presented.

~~~
dang
I was wondering the same thing. The contemporaneous report seems unlikely to
have made up such dramatic facts. I wonder if the documentary covers the
'coup'.

Milgram had people who refused to push the buttons, of course. And the
Stanford Prison Experiment has been critiqued severely in the last few years,
to the point of accusations of fraud.

------
AceJohnny2
It's really strange to me that this story seems to be so unknown in the US.
It's such an important and powerful lesson.

In contrast, I was educated in a European system, and in history class there
was strong emphasis on the lessons of being subjected to or being on the brink
of a fascist system. There are memorials to the Shoah and the Resistance in
every town.

The US enjoyed the luxury of saying "it didn't happen here", but the education
system at large really seems to have willfully ignored the lessons Europe has
learned.

Hell, the movie about this was _german_!

~~~
dang
The Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram experiments are well known in
the US, and in the same space, so I don't think this generalization works.
(Edit: Also the Asch conformity experiments.)

Edit: after reading the article, maybe there's a more interesting reason why
this episode is less known: no one talked about it publicly for many years
after it happened. "Silence is what happens when you feel shame."

Edit 2 — and then there's this: _" I'm not proud of the Wave, and I don't want
to see it repeated," said Jones, who has turned down inquiries about how to
re-enact the Wave from everyone from cult leader Jim Jones to a British
television company wanting to turn the experiment into a reality show._ Say
what? Jim Jones?

Edit 3: if the 1972 date on [http://libcom.org/history/the-third-
wave-1967-account-ron-jo...](http://libcom.org/history/the-third-
wave-1967-account-ron-jones) is accurate, then the OP is wrong that nobody
talked about it publicly for over a decade.

~~~
rossdavidh
I recall learning about this in high-school, which was in the Midwest in the
early 1980's, so I don't know that it's as unknown in the U.S. as you say.

------
cmroanirgo
Wow. In one short week this all happened and was defused by the teacher:

> _There is no such thing as a national youth movement called the Third Wave.
> You have been used. Manipulated. Shoved by your own desires into the place
> you now find yourself. You are no better or worse than the German Nazis we
> have been studying_

And

> _Silence is what happens when you feel shame_

What I find particularly interesting is that the basic elements of what
happened can be seen in all walks of life, even in tech. Eg. The
'gamification' that many products use, is very much like the 'follow our rules
and you'll be rewarded', and the 'belief' in a central tenant becomes a
central rule of authority. The marketing slogans used to gain groundswell are
the same: an agenda to deepen one's commitment to the cause.

Even HN, with it's karma, @dang as our bodyguard, with YC as the central body.
All down and up votes on this comment will prove the point that the secret
police are here too, gauging my suitability to the cause.

So, a fantastic article that shows we all have natural tendencies to be sheep,
but are all also wanting to be elitist sheep.

~~~
labster
Please don't draw these kinds of false equivalences between normal behavior
and authoritarianism, as it really muddies the waters and makes it easier for
real authoritarians to take advantage. It's really unfair to compare dang to
the secret police, when most of what he does is encourage polite debate. I've
gotten real death threats from real fascists and I assure you HN mod staff are
not fascists. (n.b. being intolerant of the intolerant is required for a
tolerant society.)

Some of us have natural tendencies not to be sheep. I have walked out of rooms
of twenty of my friends because what I thought they were doing was just going
along with immoral cause. I've refused tasks at work because it wasn't
appropriate. There are lots of artistic and revolutionary types, too. All it
takes is standing up and a little guts.

~~~
cmroanirgo
Firstly, I have loads of respect for @dang and the community here. I think a
slight misunderstanding occurred here. I made no claim to facist behaviours
nor tendencies toward such: Just the claim that we all want to belong, that we
all want to be seen, and that we also call others out for behaviour that
doesn't match our view of the rules (such as this feedback).

I too walk away from immoral things... but that doesn't mean I'm not sheep
like in other areas of my life (eg. blindly obeying a red traffic light when
there's no one else on the road)

This is what the teacher was teaching the kids in the article: " _You are no
better or worse than the German Nazis we have been studying_ "

~~~
frosted-flakes
> blindly obeying a red traffic light when there's no one else on the road

It's funny how that is. I don't know _anybody_ who would run a stale red light
in the middle of the night when noone else is around, including me. I'm sure
it happens, but I'm also sure that it's rare. In the West, we've been
conditioned to blindly obey traffic signals.

On the other hand, most of us have stretched the yellow into the red. What's
the difference there? Running a stale red is blatant, but running a fresh red
is justifiable because "it's just a few seconds!".

------
aazaa
> "What was interesting during the Wave was that the very bright kids were
> excluded and martialed out of the classroom by guards early on. That left
> the middle group, who then felt empowered. That's probably what's happening
> today in the United States. People who felt left out suddenly are in
> control, and it feels good.

The topic of resistance to mass totalitarian movements is more relevant now
than ever before. The article, like history, unfortunately paints a very bleak
picture for the prospects.

In the classroom study, as in historical episodes, the deck was stacked
against resisters from the start. They got the same reward for going along as
successfully revolting:

> ... "He [the teacher] told us, 'If you're an active participant, I'll give
> you an A; if you just go along with it, I'll give you a C; if you try a
> revolution, I'll give you an F, but if your revolution succeeds, I'll give
> you an A.'

In other words, resistance requires values that transcend immediate rewards
and punishments. The path of greatest reward/effort lies in going along to get
along, and most people will take it without thinking too much.

Beyond that, successful revolutionaries need a great deal of skill to avoid
detection. The unskilled "bright" students were caught and banished early, and
I don't doubt that those doing the banishing felt very good about that.

Only two students mounted a noteworthy resistance effort:

> Out of all the students, only two actively resisted -- sophomores Alyssa
> Hess and Sherry Tousley. On the final day, Hess stood up in class and urged
> her classmates not to attend the rally. Tousley resisted from the start.
> Tousley was one of Jones' top students who had been banished from class
> early on for questioning the movement's purpose. She anonymously launched an
> anti-Wave resistance group, "The Breakers." In the documentary "Lesson
> Plan," she said her father drove her to Cubberley before school hours so she
> could hang anti-Wave posters up high in the halls so students couldn't tear
> them down. Until the making of the documentary 40 years later, not a single
> person -- except her father -- knew Tousley was the sole person behind the
> resistance group.

Hess's stand at the end of class, although brave, had little effect. Worse, it
couldn't be repeated. This is unfortunately the fate of most resisters because
it takes a lot of skill to mess with the steamroller and survive.

Tousley's effort was much more interesting in that she was able to work on a
recurring basis in a way that avoided detection.

~~~
humanrebar
> The topic of resistance to mass totalitarian movements is more relevant now
> than ever before.

Especially since we seem to have bimodal totalitarian impulses. Two opposing
cultures, both of whom seem content primarily existing to reject the other.

I hope both cultures learn how to live with each other, tolerating dissent,
before ignoring civil norms (i.e. escalating bigotry, violence) starts
becoming attractive.

------
ptbello
This must have been a strong ispiration for the aptly named "The Wave" (2008),
although I couldn't find any reference either side.

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1063669/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1063669/)

~~~
arnarbi
The book is so well known in many countries as it's part of the standard
curriculum (I had to read it when I was 16), so I think the German film makers
felt it needed no particular references to the story. It's right next to
Animal Farm, Brave New World, and 1984.

See also:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_(2008_film)#Differenc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_\(2008_film\)#Differences_from_the_1981_film)

~~~
throwaway40324
Perhaps, Lord of The Flies is somewhere on that shelf, as well. Gosh I should
go back and read all those again!

------
friendlybus
What is the bright side to community, order and the rest of it? Every ww2 and
excessively tribal story ends badly and we need to be reminded of that.

But we always have moments in history when tribalism comes back and we will in
the future. How can we use this to our advantage? Last time it came up we made
some good advances in the understanding of human perception & consciousness.
Can we use this power for good?

~~~
j9461701
The good side of community, order and obedience to authority are the entire
civilized world and all the goodies within it. Hospitals, electricity, cozy
homes that stay cold in the summer and hot in the winter. Without the human
tendency to group up and follow leaders nothing works and little gets done.
Sometimes this habit goes wrong on us, and results in lynch mobs or Nazism.
But overall it's still one of our greatest strengths as a species, and we need
to be aware of its failure modes rather than rejecting the whole idea
outright. Cooperation is one of the animal world's superpowers.

~~~
paxys
Everything you mention can be born out of individualism, not just by blind
conformity and having any fixed social structure.

~~~
honzzz
>>> Everything you mention can be born out of individualism, not just by blind
conformity and having any fixed social structure.

Can it really? I feel like this would require further discussion and is not as
obvious as you seem to think.

------
vertnerd
I'm intrigued by the fact that parents didn't get involved. In the early 70s
my brother's social studies teacher must have heard about this guy because he
did a similar thing in his classroom. As I remember it my mother flipped her
shit and started making calls. She was having none of it.

------
skybrian
The suprising part is that they apparently didn't spend any class time talking
it over after it happened?

------
ngcc_hk
This talked like it is yesterday. It is now. I have the same question to china

and why even out of the totalitarian system and lived in USA those chinese
student still work for and like a country that not allow this and that. No
democracy. No google and all privacy. No individual. And have the-education
camp. And of course forcing the whole HK to revolt.

Why the Chinese can live in china?

------
countryqt30
There's even an exceptionally good German movie about this entire phenomenon
(it was discovered first in Germany): Die Welle (The Wave)

------
musicale
The third wave sounds pretty similar to the way schools (and many other
organizations) often work anyway: strict enforcement of social status and
arbitrary rules, strict codes for speech, dress, and behavior, encouragement
of informers, public shaming and punishment, and an overall emphasis on
groupthink and compliance.

------
jader201
For those interested, “Lesson Plan”, the documentary mentioned in the article,
is streaming on Prime right now.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076KS3CCS](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076KS3CCS)

------
empath75
It’s a great story but it’s almost certainly too good to be true. There were a
whole lot of things along this vein showing how good people can be manipulated
to put innocent people into gas chambers as part of the restoration of Germany
as part of the ‘free world’

The truth is that people aren’t good, and a lot of them would love to put
people in gas chambers and all it takes is the people in power allowing them
to do it. No manipulation required. The Nazis were not evil geniuses that
figured out how to twist the good intentions of people into evil ends. They
were brutal, moronic sociopaths that allowed the natural hateful tendencies of
people to flourish.

It’s a dangerous myth to believe that democracy and freedom is the natural
state of man and that chaos and destruction is the aberration. It’s precisely
the opposite.

Democracy and peace and freedom are states that one has to continuously work
for and make sacrifices to sustain. The us is learning that the hard way right
now.

It doesn’t take a genius to destroy democracy. It just takes one hateful idiot
in charge who allows and encourages hate and violence to flourish.

~~~
mistermann
> The truth is that people aren’t good, and a lot of them would love to put
> people in gas chambers and all it takes is the people in power allowing them
> to do it.

Is this a fact, or a theory?

If it's a fact, are you able to convince a very open minded person like me of
it?

~~~
truth_be_told
Fact.

All you need to do is look at the horrors of various "Ethnic/Communal
Cleansing/Riots" etc. in various countries across the world. Eg. 1) Ethnic
cleansing during breakup of Yugoslavia 2) Communal Riots in some of the
countries of South Asia etc. In many cases it was literally neighbour-vs-
neighbour all because the environment changed to expose and sanction to act on
various fault lines eg. ethnic/linguistic/religious etc.

~~~
mistermann
That does seem fairly reasonable, thanks.

------
throwaway40324
Even though the entirety of the stories are completely different, I couldn't
help but start to picture scenes from The Dead Poet Society while reading the
article.

How does it go? Oh captain, my captain?

Edit: PS: I did watch DPS in school in the US, but just heard of the third
wave here today.

------
known
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire)
is relevant

