When it comes to stuff like racism, sexism, homophobia, etc, I’ve found it’s usually way better to think to yourself ‘I don’t want to be’ than ‘I’m not’.
I.e. if someone goes ‘that thing you just did is ableist’, instead of going ‘I’m not ableist, I don’t hate disabled people!’ it’s usually a lot better to go ‘I don’t want to be ableist, I should rethink what I’m doing/saying/etc in light of that fact’. Because that shifts your thinking so rather than jumping straight into denial and attempts to defend your character, you’re instead more inclined to look at how your actions could be misrepresenting your intentions. Or whether you’ve overlooked something, been callous, or acted in ignorance.
no, i mean this social experiment started by a history teacher in calofornia in 1967
im Intrigued
it’s creepy not so much like paranormal but as in it’s a scary look at human nature. hang on a sec ill explain it
alright so. in 1967, a new history teacher at Cubberly High School in Northern California named Ron Jones was teaching his class about the Holocaust and Hitler’s rise to power. At some point during the lesson, many of his students began to ask why the rest of Germany had stood by and done nothing, and how afterwards they could have said they didn’t know. Many said that they would never allow something like that to happen, but most simply couldn’t understand how the population had allowed it back then. This made Ron curious: what was the answer? Why had so many Germans joined and tolerated the Nazis as their neighbors were dragged away? He realized there was no way of knowing, not without being there, and certainly no way of teaching it – unless, maybe, they could experience something similar.
The next day, Ron came in and began to command his class differently than usual. He had stricter rules, making students stand when asking or answering questions and having them fix their posture. He said it was a lesson on discipline and the phrase “strength through discipline” was written on the board.
The students, shockingly responded positively to the stricter rules; it was as if they had just been waiting for this and wanted more. They worked as a team and answered questions correctly, even sitting quietly until Ron dismissed them at the end of class.
In the next two days, the phrases “strength through community” and “action” appeared on the board. Ron announced to the class that their new rules and ideas were now the cornerstones of the group called the Wave. Their mottos were the three phrases on the board, and he introduced them to a salute (made by curling one’s right hand into the shape of a wave and tapping one’s left shoulder with it). The kids practiced both the motto and the salute that day.
Everything was going well in this experiment: Ron was increasingly seen as an incredibly important leader, the kids were being more well behaved, they were ahead in their studies, all good things, so Ron decided to continue the Wave. In class, he gave the students Wave membership cards, some of which had red x’s on the back. The x’s indicated that those people were to monitor the other members of the Wave and report directly to Ron if someone broke a rule.
Additionally that day, Ron gave the instruction to recruit members to the Wave; all were invited and all were equal in the Wave.
And recruit they did.
Later that week, there were over 200 members of the Wave. The pep rally became an official Wave rally where dozens of new members were sworn in. As the group grew, most everyone joined. However, if someone did not join, they were likely to find themselves very alone and possibly being threatened or hurt by Wave members.
By the 5th day, Ron knew things had spiraled out of control. He had grown into a mythical leader, and the students carried out his orders without hesitation, even if these orders never existed in the first place and were grown from within the Wave. He decided to tell the students that there would be a televised announcement of the Wave’s candidate announcement for the presidential election, and that all members should attend the rally later that day.
When they arrived, the hundreds of students were greeted with a blank screen and Ron. He told them the true nature of the Wave; how it had been born as an experiment that had grown exponentially until he had to end it. The students were shocked, and some even cried. They had all believed in the Wave wholeheartedly after just 5 short days.
The Wave is terrifying because it is real. Not so long ago, a history teacher fresh out from college was able to turn a school into a military state in just 5 days. We as humans are so easily led into fascist dictatorships and we so rarely question what goes on around us. The Wave is a testament to that, and a scary one.
There’s a really great German film of the same name (“Die Welle” – The Wave) based on this experiment – rather than stopping after 5 days however, the teacher lets it continue and things get much, MUCH worse. It’s a terrifying movie, but fascinating too.
So I just read this article about how people end up fucking up whatever task they’re doing when they feel like they’re being watched. Scientists have discovered that the sense of being observed actually SHUTS OFF a part of the brain, the inferior parietal cortex.
Given the fact that women are constantly watched in our society, and we are constantly REMINDED that we are being watched by people making fun of fat, “ugly”, or gender-nonconforming women, it makes me wonder how many women have messed up important tasks or projects or just day-to-day activities because A PART OF OUR BRAIN is permanently being deactivated?
Like talk about a fucking handicap.
Women are constantly held under the microscope- whether we are attractive or unattractive, the gaze of patriarchy never ends.
Just last week I was walking my dog and bent over to literally pick up poop. Suddenly I heard whistling and looked up cause I knew I was the only person around. Sure enough, about 300 feet away, some construction worker was perched on top of a building, grinning at me and calling out stuff I luckily couldn’t hear because he was so goddamn far away.
I wonder what it does to women to have this constant source of stress hanging over us, each and every day, knowing we are being scrutinized and examined no matter what we’re doing. I wonder how many more accomplishments, life-changing discoveries, inventions, etc would have been achieved by women if we didn’t have this constant brain-handicap imposed on us by men.
This feeling of being watched extends even when we’re alone and affects our abilities- here’s a study where women took a math test while in a bathing suit and performed significantly worse than women fully dressed, even though all the women were alone when taking the test. The men in bathing suits and the men fully-dressed had no significant difference in performance. It is a major fucking handicap.
no but seriously I still get chills thinking about turning off my headlamp in the cave and The Hand That I Did Not Actually See, and it’s been twelve years since it happened
it’s such an unreal experience
like
you turn off your light in a cave and wave your hand in front of your face
and
you can see this shadowy thing moving in the black space where your hand is
it looks like the same shadowy thing you would see in your room at night if you waved your hand in front of your face, it’s there and vaguely hand-shaped, and your brain recognizes it as your hand because your brain is aware of where your hand is and what it is doing
But You Are Not Seeing Anything
Inside a cave, there is No Light. No matter how far your pupils spread, there is no light for them to draw in, no light to put an image on your retina.
But your brain just Fucking Assumes that because it knows where your hand is and what it is doing, clearly it can see it.
So it creates a shadowy thing for your eyes to be seeing.
Brain is like “there’s a hand there”
Eyes are like “yup sure thing brain I can totally see it”
Brain is like “nice”
but there is no hand, you cannot see the hand, you are seeing a literal actual hallucination in the cave because your brain thinks it knows best
Caves are awesome, but also terrifying. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
we once went spelunking, and a our guide said that once he was in a cave with a stream, so he could hear running water, and his brain was like ‘oh, running water? that means there must be Ducks out there’. and he saw like…low light shadows of ducks. that his brain just Put There.
Plato’s allegory never accounted for what would happen when people who’d spent their entire life outside the cave suddenly traveled into it
i'll apple your turnover 