Mob Mentality, The Wave, And Personal Responsibility
Dennis Gansel's 2008 film The Wave is a dramatization of actual events that took place at Cubberley High School in Polo Alto, California, in the spring of 1967 (Johnston). The film explores the question of how the events surrounding the Holocaust, the mass extermination of 10 million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and the mentally and physically infirm, was allowed to take place by the German people during the Second World War. The center of the inquiry is a high school history class where the teacher establishes a culture based on discipline, community and action. He calls the movement "the wave" and sets in motion a series of events highly reminiscent of Nazi Germany during the 1930s and early 1940s. While the film offers a reason for the Holocaust, an explanation of how this tragedy was allowed to happen, it is my belief this is not an excuse.
Mob mentality or herd mentality refers to the influence of an individual's peers to adopt certain behaviors they would not normally adapt because of prevailing conditions or beliefs. A 1995 article in the Harvard Law Review examines aspects of mob mentality defenses in light of the Reginald Denny verdict ("Feasiblity and Admissibility of Mob Mentality Defenses"). Denny was a truck driver who was pulled from his vehicle and savagely beaten by four black men during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The incident...
Personal responsibility is a hallmark of maturity. In college, we cease to blame other people such as our parents for our problems. We also have to learn how to manage our time wisely, and be disciplined. Our parents are no longer there to tell us when to study or what time to get up for soccer practice. The benefits of personal responsibility include the fact that we become more capable
Personal Responsibility Introduction-What is Personal Responsibility? Personal responsibility, by definition, is all about how an individual takes up accountability for his/her actions and accepts the burdens and consequences that come along with them and agrees the fact that his/her actions leave an impact on everyone around him/her. Personal responsibility does not only help an individual learn to be perceptive of his/her responsibilities and but also focuses on his/her ability to deal with
Personal Responsibility Being a student is very difficult in the best of times but even more so today with all the external pressures associated with education including economics and sociological pressures. There are stresses all around students in college, everywhere they look. Students feel pressure to do well, to learn the material, to impress the teacher, to please their parents, to take care of themselves financially and sociologically. For many students,
As a member of the college community, my plan for personal responsibility is to always comply with formal rules and codes of conduct and be sensitive to the rights and welfare of others and to act in ways that respect those rights even when it might be more convenient for me not to. Conclusion Personal responsibility means recognizing obligations and meeting all of the burdens of those obligations. Circumstances calling for
Another way of looking at it is that whenever there is not enough time to do everything one plans in college, the first casualty is academic responsibility. Typically, the first year of college is also the first experience that incoming students have ever been completely self-responsible (Lucier, 2008). Very often, with no parents or authority figures to answer to, college freshmen develop irresponsible habits. Magical thinking takes over and the
The revelation that I needed to take more responsibility for my actions did not come all at once, but in fits and starts. I remember distinctly one day when I was tired from having begun my homework far too late the night before. I lay my head down on my desk and after a few moments was conscious of the teacher looking down at me. Much to my surprise, he
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