More context
I’m bad! I didn’t write for a whole week. Where do people find time to blog? Do people just blog about, ‘Well, I just found this site, or found out about this. The end.’ Or do they have to comment on what they’re writing about. I don’t feel like I have time to go read blogs. I’m caught in a dilemma’s horns. On that note - more about our contexts determining our actions.
From an academic: http://cdps.umcs.maine.edu/Papers/1998/IJHCS-Context/:
“Indeed, the term “appropriate” in relation to behavior is meaningless without recourse to some context. There is no such thing as context-free appropriate behavior. “
From: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Top/ecomments/4742/: Years ago, I was living near to where part of the film, “Women In Love” was being shot. I went to the location to see a friend who was an extra. I arrived there at a break in filming about lunchtime. My friend pointed out the soldiers, who were also extras.
She said that they had been chosen to be officers or “other ranks” merely upon the basis of what size uniform they had available.
The officers were standing around in a loose circle, clutching small glasses of beer and making polite conversation. The “other ranks” were lying on the grass, drinking directly from bottles and playing poker.
Posted by Gary M on Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 12:28 PM
I remember reading about the filming of the original Planet of the Apes. The actors dressed up as non-human apes segregated themselves at mealtimes: the chimps all sat together, the gorilllas all sat together, and the orangutans all sat together, but they didn’t mix much. It seems like your uniform is part of your context, just as your job title is. It seems we’re very suseptible to changing our self-definition and our definitions of those around us very quickly and easily.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave
“The Third Wave was an experimental demonstration of nazism movement undertaken by history teacher Ron Jones with sophomore high school students attending his Contemporary History class as part of a study of Nazi Germany. The experiment took place at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California, during first week of April 1967. Jones, unable to explain to his students why the German citizens allowed the Nazi Party to exterminate millions of Jews and other so-called “undesirables”, decided to show them instead. Jones started a movement called “The Third Wave” and convinced his students that the movement is to eliminate democracy. The fact that democracy emphasizes individuality was considered as a drawback of democracy, and Jones emphasized this main point of the movement in its motto: “Strength through discipline, strength through community, strength through action, strength through pride”.
On Thursday, the fourth day of the experiment, Jones decided to terminate the movement because it was slipping out of his control. The students became increasingly involved in the project and their discipline and loyalty to the project were astounding. He announced to the participants that this movement is only a part of a nationwide movement and that on the next day a presidential candidate of the movement would publicly announce existence of the movement. Jones ordered students to attend a noon rally on Friday to witness the announcement.
Instead of televised address of their leader, the students were presented with an empty channel. After few minutes of waiting, Jones announced that they have been a part of an experiment in fascism and that they all willingly created a sense of superiority that German citizens had in the period of Nazi Germany. He then played them a film about Nazi regime. That was the end of the experiment.”
Even Jones - a consultant on Gansel’s film - was caught off-guard. “It was not a planned classroom activity; it came about as an improvisation,” says the teacher, now 68 and living in Haight-Ashbury where he plays in a punk band.
From:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/09/05/bfwave105.xml: “I think the Wave met their need for answers in a fearful situation. And I became intrigued by it myself. I discovered I liked the order and the control.
Does he now feel it was a mistake? “Definitely. You should never place kids in that danger.” Jones regularly rejects requests from teachers to replicate the project.”
I wonder why people exhibit Stockholm syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome) - “a psychological response sometimes seen in an abducted hostage, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the danger (or at least risk) in which they have been placed.”
