Xiong Peiyun: The world is only five days away from dictatorship

Braden 2021-12-16 08:01:05

Xiong Peiyun: The world is only five days away from dictatorship-Commenting on the

world of "The Tide" today, most countries have achieved political democratization, and countries that have not yet achieved democratization are also trying to get out of the "post-totalitarian" potholes. Many people may think that when history turns a dark page, the bloody and ignorant era of the past will be gone forever. However, can you really sit back and relax?

How far is the world from dictatorship? The 35-year-old German director Dennis Gansel gave an amazing answer through his outstanding film "Die Welle"-the world is only five days away from dictatorship.

1. Crash Course Nazi

car swaying, outside the car coming and going, the movie "wave" opening in a relaxed and warm rock music. This is an ordinary German middle school, and the protagonist Rainer Wenger (Rainer Wenger) is a teacher of the school. Unfortunately, today he was told that his favorite "anarchism" class was preempted by another teacher, and there is no room for maneuver. Wenger can only bite the bullet and focus on the next "state system" theme. During the event week, he talked about the "dictatorship" he didn't like.

The story revolves around the following week:

Monday. When Wenger came to the classroom, there was a free and undisciplined atmosphere in the classroom. Obviously, Wengel is not suitable for this class and the class he is about to teach. "If I were you, you would go to anarchism class instead of listening to this hapless dictatorship." This was his opening statement. When he wrote "Autokratie" (dictatorship) on the blackboard, the students were still reading idle books and texting text messages, to the point that Wenger had to stop and hope that everyone would "give me some reaction" or "this week, anyway." Dismiss it." However, when everyone was talking about dictatorship indiscriminately, Wenger fell into deep thought. Obviously, he did not believe that the students said "The Nazis are far away from us, and we Germans don't have to always feel guilty." Or "dictatorship cannot happen today because there is no popular foundation." After the break Wenger asked the students to rearrange the tables, chairs and seats. He was going to do an experiment to let the students experience the charm of dictatorship. Wenger said that the main characteristic of dictatorship is "discipline." Through oral voting, Wenger finally became the "head of state" in the class. Next, he has to correct everyone's sitting posture, and he must stand up when speaking, he must be called "Mr. Wengel" respectfully, and those who disobey can withdraw.

Tuesday. When Wenger walked into the classroom again, the students sitting with their breasts yelled "Good morning, Mr. Wenger" to him. "Discipline creates strength, unity creates strength." In this lesson, Wengel asked everyone to stand up and step like a soldier, "I feel that everyone is integrated. This is the power of the collective." Moreover, another purpose of stepping is to step on the "anarchy class" downstairs together and "let our enemies eat the ashes from the ceiling". Obviously, through this collective action, Wengel tried to give the students in the "dictatorship class" a sense of superiority - "No matter how we perform, our class is better than the "anarchist class" downstairs." Next, Wengel discussed with the students whether they need to wear uniform clothes, and finally everyone agreed to choose a cheap white shirt and jeans as theirs."

Wednesday. In class, only the girl Carlo continued to wear her red shirt, and the other students put on white shirts as scheduled. The uniform has left Carlo in an unprecedented isolation: she does not seem to belong to the group. On the way to school, her boyfriend was saying that she was "selfish", but now Wenger almost ignores her existence, and her classmates don't discuss with her, and regard her as a stranger and uncooperative. Someone suggested to give the class a name. In the end, "Inspur" stood out from the names of "Terror Group", "Dream Club", "Tsunami", "Cornerstone", "White Giant", "Core" and other names, and was successfully elected. The girl in red was left out, and no one responded to her "change makers". This lesson also set the "wave" sign. That night, members of "Inspur" began to post their Inspur logos in every corner of the city.

Thursday. The creativity of the members who gained a sense of belonging in the "Inspur" organization was also stimulated. Someone in the class moved that since each group has its own gesture, Inspur should also have its own unique gesture. This is a gesture of making waves with the right hand on the chest. More and more students join the "wave" and use this gesture to demarcate their boundaries with others. Even Carlo's young and cynical little brother joined in, willing to guard the "wave", and anyone who could not make wave gestures was not allowed to enter the school. Carlo felt more and more that the situation was not good, and she advised Wenger to stop the game immediately because he "can't control the situation anymore."

Friday. At the end of the course, Wenger hopes that everyone will write down their experience of participating in the "wave". Wenger's radical teaching methods are also under increasing pressure from the school and family. Marco, who slapped his girlfriend Carlo because of his emotional loss, regretted it, begging Wenger to stop all of this, and accused the so-called "discipline" of just fascism. Wenger knew that it was time to end. What is needed now is a beautiful ending as planned. That night, all Inspur members received a text message from Wengel: It’s about "Inspur"

Saturday. School auditorium. Wenger told the students to close the auditorium. After reading a few of the students' experiences on "Inspur", Wenger delivered an exciting speech and incited the students to bring Marco, who raised objections, to the stage. Amidst the shouts of "traitor! Traitor!", Marco was raised to the stage by the scrambling students to accept punishment. This is the end of the matter. What Wenger wants to tell everyone is, "What we are doing now is what fascists did in the past" and announcing the end of the dictatorship experiment, and the "wave" will be disbanded! Unfortunately, however, things did not proceed according to Wenger's wishes. Fanatic Tim pulled out a pistol he had bought from the Internet, begging Wenger not to dissolve the "wave." "Lang Tide" is his second life, and he will never allow betrayal, even Wenger would not. The movie reached its climax. Tim shot a classmate and committed suicide by swallowing a gun in despair. He fell heavily.

This is the story of "Inspur", or the story of a "Nazi crash course". It is fast and fast decay, but everything is logical.

2. Tim is a metaphor

"The Wave" is based on real historical events that occurred at Palo Alto Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California. That was in a history class in April 1967. A student asked his teacher Ron Jones a question, "Why do the Germans claim that they don’t know about the slaughter of Jews? Why are farmers and bank employees ignorant? , Teachers or doctors claimed that they did not know the tragedy that happened in the concentration camp?" Jones did not know how to answer this. Then he decided to boldly conduct an experiment. He wants to rebuild Nazi Germany, a miniature Nazi Germany, in his classroom. He wants his students to experience fascism firsthand, not only its horror, but also its charm. Moreover, as expected by Jones, as shown in "The Tide", more and more people join this experiment, falling into an unstoppable enthusiasm, and whistleblowing is becoming a trend. Five days later, when hundreds of students extended their arms in the auditorium to extend their lofty "wave" greetings to Jones, the first thing you can think of is probably Riefenstahl's "Victory of Will" (1934). ) Recorded in the German cheering to Hitler. But everything was fine. Jones finally took control of the situation and stopped abruptly-"We almost became good Nazis." At the final party, Jones next showed the students a film about the Third Reich. : The imperial party congress, collective, discipline, obedience, and what this collective did: terror, violence, gas chamber. Jones looked at the bewildered faces. The first question was answered.

Compared with Jones' teaching experiment, the ending of "The Tide" is obviously more dramatic. You have to think that director Gansell got inspiration from the ending of "Death Poetry Society" for the cruel and steep transfer. Although this violent conflict drew some criticism. But in my opinion, the appearance of the fanatic Tim (Tim) is precisely the key to distinguishing and even surpassing Jones' teaching experiment in "The Tide." I even think that in terms of the ideological height of the film, the protagonist of "The Tide" is not so much Wenger as it is Tim.

Tim is introverted, not good at communication, and has little sense of accomplishment. He is often bullied at school and is called a "soft-footed shrimp". Perhaps for this reason, he has always hoped that there will be a few "brothers" around him. For this reason, he often gave some small favors to other boys, and said in the latter's almost contemptuous eyes: "It is for you, we are brothers." However, in fact, no one regards him as a wretched brother as a brother.

Every member has his own reason for why he joined "Inspur". Obviously, for Tim, "wave" means a kind of coveted power, just like the pistol he held in his hand later. Wenger's intervention and the establishment of "The Tide" obviously brought a turning point in the life of Tim, who has always been at the "bottom of the campus". Moreover, he was so wholehearted and willing to take risks. In order to be uniform, he burned all the brand-name shirts in the family. The uniform did give Tim a magical sense of power. When he was bullied, he tried to resist, and members of the "wave" who wore uniforms with him also came to protect him. Because of the existence of the wave, Tim felt that he was no longer a bug, but a part of a dragon. While spraying the "wave" mark, he ignored the danger and climbed the listed government building. Not only did he use a fake pistol to frighten off the provocative brawlers, he even volunteered to be the bodyguard of the "Führer" Wenger, making Wenger baffled. Tim sincerely wants to maintain the solidity of the "wave" and to promote its glory. In his opinion, "wave" is the empire of his dreams, and Mr. Wengel is the leader who can lead the future for him.

Knowing Tim's almost crazy psychology, it is not difficult to understand why he draws his gun in the end. It is not difficult to find out that in organizations like "waves", the process of joining the organization is actually a process of kidnapping each other. It advocates the elimination of aliens in the name of the organization, but does not allow members to quit actively, because voluntarily quitting is an uncontrollable behavior for the organization. Wenger is no longer himself, but the spokesperson for the interests of the tide. When he was like Zhao Kuangyin who was about to be added by his imperial robe, he could only agree, but could not voluntarily withdraw.

Voltaire said, "Everyone holds the sacred flag in their hearts and turns red to sin." Holderlin said, "What always turns a country into a hell on earth is precisely what people try to turn it into a paradise. "It is not evil for a person to believe in a utopia. The real evil is that this utopia is endowed with magic power and thus has an offensive nature. Obviously, in "The Wave", Tim is more like a metaphor, a monster awakened by the revolution, Frankstein created by a scientist, or something else. The "wave" gave Tim a "new life", and his growth was far beyond Wengel's control. The growth of the organizational self also means the demise of the individual self.

3. The

"Nazi Crash Course" on the road to slavery not only shows the audience a miniature Nazi Germany, but also clearly shows how these students are on the road to slavery. Simultaneously with it is how the individual is collected and alienated.

In the first class, when asked "What is the basis of dictatorship?" The students answered including ideology, control, surveillance, a head of state, and so on. Similarly, high unemployment and social injustice, inflation, political credit bankruptcy, nationalism, etc., all contribute to the birth of dictatorship. However, these are all knowledge learned from books. When all this becomes a daily gentle drizzle, the members of "Inspur" seem to lose their vigilance, but indulge in their comradeship and common ideals.

In "The Wave", the audience can see almost all the typical elements of dictatorship: collectivism without principles, uniforms that eliminate individuality and eliminate differences, isolation of dissidents and abolition of freedom of speech, a head of state, a scapegoat, in broad daylight. Arrogant gestures, inflammatory anti-government speeches, coercion in the name of altruism, promises of future benefits, ceremonies flaunting unity, a sense of belonging, etc.

Moreover, "Inspur" is not only an equal collective, but also a healthy collective. Standing up to answer questions is first "to promote blood circulation." At the meeting on Saturday, when Wengel accused Marko of being a "traitor" instigated by his girlfriend, a girl next to him said that Marko "has been infected." In their view, whoever opposes the wave is the plague. Only those who support the "wave" are healthy. In order to maintain this health, Wengel accused Germany of becoming a loser in the process of globalization in his speech, and that politicians are fundamentally economic puppets. "As we push our planet to destruction step by step, those rich people are gearing up to build space stations and want to appreciate all this from a height. Here and now, we have to make history. From now on, the wave It will sweep across the country, and whoever stops it, the tide will swallow it." It is also for this reason that Marco the Awakened is treated as an enemy to be cleared and swallowed by the tide.

Regarding why he joined and indulged in the "wave", Wengel selected some of the students' feelings: "The life these days is very interesting. It does not matter who is the most beautiful and who has the best grades. The "wave" makes us all equal. . Birth, beliefs, family environment are not important. We are all members of a movement. The'wave' regained meaning in our lives and gave us an ideal we can fight for." "I was always in the past. To cause trouble, the'wave' allowed me to devote myself to a meaningful thing, which is enough. ""If we can trust each other and achieve such great achievements, I would like to be a new man for this."

However, this kind of Equality, as Tocqueville mentioned in a speech in 1848: "Democracy expands the scope of individual freedom, while socialism limits it. Democracy bestows value on everyone, while socialism does Just make everyone a tool and a number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common with the word'equality'. But please note this difference: democracy seeks equality in freedom, while socialism is restraining and enslaving Seek equality among them."

As Wenger said when he opened the mystery at the end: "Do you remember the question I asked, whether the dictatorship will be realized, and what we are doing now is fascism. We think we are superior, better than others," We line up all those who oppose us outside this collective, we hurt them, and we don’t know how serious things will happen. "The tide" is originally a neutral term, and when it becomes a form of violence, it becomes The evil that swallows all.

4. humanity does not end

when Nazi Adolf Eichmann was recaptured Jerusalem • trial, a problem for many people. "Is it possible that Eichmann and the millions of other Nazi followers who participated in the Holocaust simply obeyed the orders of their superiors? Can we call them the murderers of the Holocaust?" The famous totalitarian study Expert Arendt discovered an evil based on daily obedience. In other words, Eichmann’s so many acts of evil are not because of his evil nature, but because of his "due diligence" in an evil system. Behind this kind of diligence is a collective unconscious, or even a kind of collective unconsciousness. virtue.

For this reason, the American psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a famous experiment in 1974: Ask a group of experiment volunteers to inspect under the supervision of a group of experiment organizers—psychologists The word memory ability of a group of subjects. Each subject’s body was connected to an electric shock stick. The shock stick was controlled by the volunteers. Every time the subject memorized a word incorrectly, the volunteers would give him an electric shock once, and the voltage intensity was increased by 15 volts. Up to 300 volts. During the experiment, under the stimulation of high-voltage current, many subjects repeatedly struggled and screamed, requesting to stop the experiment. The situation at the time was like a nightmare. According to ordinary people’s logic, many volunteers would definitely be able to witness the various struggles of the subject. Stop the electric shock and give up the experiment. However, the fact is that only a few of all volunteers stopped, and all the others completed the experiment, that is to say, the subjects were given electric shocks up to 450 volts. That is, when the authority is present, people will obey the authority, and even if they do evil, they will not feel any psychological anxiety.

When democratic politics was conquering cities around the world and blossoming everywhere, Francis Fukuyama believed that human history was "end". In Fukuyama's view, liberal democracy is "the end of the development of human ideology" and "the last form of human domination." However, even so, no one can guarantee that mankind can enjoy the achievements of democracy once and for all, because "humanity has no end", because any system is not as old as humanity, and it will die out earlier than humanity. Whether it is dictatorship, democracy, or other forms, it all comes from human nature. Otherwise, we will not read the creepy news over and over again today.

For example, on the evening of April 13, 2008, a minor incident of loss of underwear occurred in a college in Kunming, which intensified into a bad school violence case. Ten girls surrounded the other and kept beating. Some poured instant noodle soup on her head, and some wrote on her face with an eyebrow pencil. Even worse, even in front of the boys, these people forced the girl to take off her pants to expose her lower body, and used her mobile phone to take photos and videos of violence and humiliation...

Who can imagine that these evils are exactly what It is done by a woman who is regarded as a symbol of goodness and beauty. I once said that if there is no bottom line, human beings will go crazy. There is a tyrant in everyone's mind. Everyone is the seed of dictatorship and has the potential to irrigate dictatorship. As long as the conditions are ripe, all this will inevitably be in harmony with a kind of evil collectivism, and the evil flowers of dictatorship will grow.

The world is only five days away from dictatorship. Let's go back to the experiment at Kerberley High School in April 1967. At the end of the experiment, Ron Jones said to his students: "Like the Germans, it is difficult for you to admit. If you have done so excessively, you will not be willing to admit being manipulated, and you will not be willing to admit. Participated in this farce."

View more about The Wave reviews

Extended Reading
  • Vincenzo 2022-03-28 09:01:03

    Fanatical collectives are home to the frustrated.

  • Citlalli 2021-12-16 08:01:05

    In the "mini-Nazi development course" that took only five days, the most normal students are often the most abnormal.

The Wave quotes

  • Rainer Wenger: Come on, there must be one autocracy you all heard about?

    Bomber: Third Reich...

    Kevin: No, not again...

    Rainer Wenger: I did not choose this either, but we have to get through this week. I will copy some papers...

    Bomber: No, not this shit again!

    Mona: It's an important subject!

    Bomber: The Nazis sucked, we get it!

    Kevin: Those fucking Nazis!

  • Mona: It's not about guilt! Germany has a special responsibility.

    Sinan: Well... I am a turk.