PREVENTING THE FOURTH REICH: Is there a 'Nazi' lurking inside of YOU? [Prologue] human experiments

PREVENTING THE FOURTH REICH

Preface:
Essentially the entire Western World is on the verge of becoming the Fourth Reich. By many metrics, the case can be argued that it already has. Whether or not you could or would believe this, please at least hear me out as to why it is the duty of every one of us to ensure that it could never be so.

In the Western World its only likely that the Fourth Reich could rise not unlike how the United States could ever fall. As it goes "America will be destroyed from the inside", in the modern "global village" world, I argue 'the Fourth Reich will rise under the auspices of do-goodery'.

Here in the post-Nuclear Age, the United States is unlikely to fall from the outside short of an economic or nuclear war. We being the heralds of both the Revolutionary Age and the Nuclear Age, we should be best suited to be the vanguard of peace and freedom. Therefore we should always be ever vigilant in preventing the stages of a social shift towards a Fourth Reich if not for the reality that the stakes are too high now. If America becomes the true new dark imperial force, not only will the global beacon for liberty be gone, but it will goes on to take a nuclear war to put it to rest. With what it took to put down the Third Reich, leaving Germany's infrastructure not far off from nuclear devastation, int he technocratic modern surveillance state world, even the cockroaches would be lucky to survive what it would take to finish off the Fourth Reich once and for all.

They say 'those who do not know history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them'.

I say that those who do not understand how humans are manipulated and the systems of power in this world, are doomed to repeats history's mistakes.

As such, this series will be mostly about human nature and the mechanisms by which humans are manipulated, whereas this main topic compared to lessons from history along side trends and power structures of today.

I already have several chapters prepared for this series, and many more in mind. This series will be open ended, an ongoing legacy project as the times change. The first three are specifically about human nature. From there we will examine various trends from the current era. Technically, I've already written many chapters over the past 11+ years of writing as "IIB", as this has all been the primary jist of it. I'm an "American" and as such for now this will mostly be written from an "American Perspective", but for any wishing to research beyond the pace of this project, there exist many important 'chapters' to be found in the EU today (as well as everywhere else outside of the Western World).



PROLOGUE: Is there a 'Nazi' lurking inside of YOU?

The answer is there IS a 'nazi' lurking in essentially anyone and everyone, especially the most uninformed!

Would you say 2+2=5, just because everybody around you said so? Would you intentionally shock somebody with high voltage for not being able to correctly answer questions on a benign test? Would you suck up to superiors whom you don't even like, while spitting down on your subordinates? If you were abducted and held as a prisoner, would you grow to empathize with your captors? If you act the part of being a prison warden tomorrow, would you quickly become an abusive bully of the inmates(in a matter of a few days)? Could you go from being "normal" to being a fully prepared Nazi'esque authoritarian in a matter of 4 days (while studying Nazi history)?

If you immediately answered "NO" to all of these questions with a knee-jerk response, odds are most if not all of these could happen to you!

Here shall be highlighted some rather little known yet infamous social psychology experiments. There's actually a decent chance you're familiar with at least one of these. I had known about most of them, but this 'new' one "The Wave" caught my eye recently. Despite being familiar with this kind of stuff, I still found "The Wave" to be jaw dropping. The Wave is a most fascinating case study, especially since it was 'happened upon' by a high school history teacher. In the annals of dark social psychology experiments, and beyond, we also find many other similar results.

The Asch Conformity Experiment:

Asch Conformity Experiments
In 1951, Solomon Asch conducted his first conformity laboratory experiments at Swarthmore College, laying the foundation for his remaining conformity studies. The experiment was published on two occasions. Groups of eight male college students participated in a simple "perceptual" task. In reality, all but one of the participants were "confederates" (i.e., actors), and the true focus of the study was about how this subject would react to the confederates' behavior.

The confederates knew the true aim of the experiment, but were introduced to the subject as other participants. Each student viewed a card with a line on it, followed by another with three lines labeled "A", "B", and "C" (See accompanying figure). One of these lines was the same as that on the first card, and the other two lines were clearly longer or shorter (i.e., a near-100% rate of correct responding was expected). Each participant was then asked to say aloud which line matched the length of that on the first card. Prior to the experiment, all confederates were given specific instructions on how they should respond to each trial (card presentation). They would always unanimously nominate one comparator, but on certain trials they would give the correct response and on others, an incorrect response. The group was seated such that the real participant always responded last.

Results: In the control group, with no pressure to conform to confederates, the error rate on the critical stimuli was less than 1%. In the confederate condition also, the majority of participants' responses remained correct (63.2 per cent), but a sizable minority of responses conformed to the confederate (incorrect) answer (36.8 per cent). The responses revealed strong individual differences: Only 5 percent of participants were always swayed by the crowd. 25 percent of the sample consistently defied majority opinion, with the rest conforming on some trials. An examination of all critical trials in the experimental group revealed that one-third of all responses were incorrect. These incorrect responses often matched the incorrect response of the majority group (i.e., confederates). Overall, 75% of participants gave at least one incorrect answer out of the 12 critical trials.

So there it is, as George Orwell wrote about in 1948, in his landmark novel "1984", it turns out he called it right and that people will essentially believe that "2+2=5", just so long as their 'peers' say so.

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The Smoke Filled Room Test:

If you were sitting in a waiting room and smoke began to billow out of a vent in the wall, you'd probably do something about it. At least, you'd report the problem to someone. Or maybe not.

In a famous experiment conducted by John Darley and Bibb Latané during the 1960s, Columbia University students were invited to share their views about problems of urban life. Those who expressed an interest in participating were asked to first report to a waiting room in one of the university buildings where they would find some forms to fill out before being interviewed. They had no idea that the urban-life study was just a cover story. The real experiment occurred in the waiting room.

As they filled out the forms, smoke began to enter the room through a small vent in the wall. By the end of four minutes, there was enough smoke to obscure vision and interfere with breathing. Darley and Latané examined how the students reacted to this smoke in two different conditions.
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In this setting, according to Darley and Latané, "only one of the ten subjects... reported the smoke. the other nine subjects stayed in the waiting room for the full six minutes while it continued to fill up with smoke, doggedly working on their questionnaires and waving the fumes away from their faces. They coughed, rubbed their eyes, and opened the window -- but they did not report the smoke."

www.weirduniverse.net...

Yet more mindless conformity.

The next one I find particularly irritating. Several times I've been the only one to rush to pull somebody out of a wrecked car in a car accident. This one time there had to be at least 50 onlookers sit in their cars and watch me pull the heavy set elderly lady out of her minivan that was flipped over upside down in the middle of the huge intersection. The only guy that came to help on that occasion was her husband guy that arrived in another car. Shame on the rest of them.

The Bystander Effect:

The bystander effect occurs when the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation. Social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley popularized the concept following the infamous 1964 Kitty Genovese murder in New York City. Genovese was stabbed to death outside her apartment while bystanders who observed the crime did not step in to assist or call the police. Latané and Darley attributed the bystander effect to the perceived diffusion of responsibility (onlookers are more likely to intervene if there are few or no other witnesses) and social influence (individuals in a group monitor the behavior of those around them to determine how to act). In Genovese's case, each onlooker concluded from their neighbors' inaction that their own personal help was not needed. www.psychologytoday.com...

The Wikipedia page for The Bystander Effect the most most enriched out of all of the subjects. Likewise, Youtube is loaded with videos showing social experiments people have done.

Now it where things start to get dark...

The Milgram Obedience Study:

Milgram Experiment
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. They measured the willingness of study participants, men from a diverse range of occupations with varying levels of education, to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience; the experiment found, unexpectedly, that a very high proportion of people were prepared to obey, albeit unwillingly, even if apparently causing serious injury and distress. ...Milgram devised his psychological study to answer the popular question at that particular time: "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" The experiments have been repeated many times in the following years with consistent results within differing societies, although not with the same percentages around the globe.
...
Before conducting the experiment, Milgram polled fourteen Yale University senior-year psychology majors to predict the behavior of 100 hypothetical teachers. All of the poll respondents believed that only a very small fraction of teachers (the range was from zero to 3 out of 100, with an average of 1.2) would be prepared to inflict the maximum voltage. Milgram also informally polled his colleagues and found that they, too, believed very few subjects would progress beyond a very strong shock. He also reached out to honorary Harvard University graduate Chaim Homnick, who noted that this experiment would not be concrete evidence of the Nazis' innocence, due to fact that "poor people are more likely to cooperate." Milgram also polled forty psychiatrists from a medical school, and they believed that by the tenth shock, when the victim demands to be free, most subjects would stop the experiment. They predicted that by the 300-volt shock, when the victim refuses to answer, only 3.73 percent of the subjects would still continue and, they believed that "only a little over one-tenth of one percent of the subjects would administer the highest shock on the board."

In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40) of experiment participants administered the experiment's final massive 450-volt shock, though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment; some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment. Throughout the experiment, subjects displayed varying degrees of tension and stress. Subjects were sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips, groaning, digging their fingernails into their skin, and some were even having nervous laughing fits or seizures. en.wikipedia.org...

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The Shock The Puppy Experiment:

Charles Sheridan and Richard King theorized that perhaps Milgram's subjects had merely played along with the experiment because they realized the victim was faking his cries of pain. To test this possibility, Sheridan and King decided to repeat Milgram's experiment, introducing one significant difference. Instead of using an actor, they would use an actual victim who would really get shocked. Obviously they couldn't use a human for this purpose, so they used the next best thing: a cute, fluffy puppy.
As the voltage increased, the puppy first barked, then jumped up and down, and finally started howling with pain. The volunteers were horrified. They paced back and forth, hyperventilated, and gestured with their hands to show the puppy where to stand. Many openly wept. Yet the majority of them, twenty out of twenty-six, kept pushing the shock button right up to the maximum voltage.

Intriguingly, the six students who refused to go on were all men. All thirteen women who participated in the experiment obeyed right up until the end. www.madsciencemuseum.com... holah.co.uk...

An honaroable mention for this array, I had to include Stockholm Syndrome, as it helps show just how crazy we are as a sepceis, as well as it will go on to help explain a lot of crazy things in 'politics'.

Stockholm Syndrome:

Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon first described in 1973 in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness. The FBI's Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly eight percent of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome. en.wikipedia.org...

Stockholm Syndrome is perhaps the most publicly well known of these key subjects herein. Note that the FBI identifies a low incidence of it, but that the 'right conditions' for it to occur in abductions aren't ncessarily always present.

Stockholm Syndrome ia also a good lead-in for the next one:

The Stanford Prison Experiment:

The Stanford Prison Experiment
The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted at Stanford University on August 14–20, 1971, by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo using college students.[1] It was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research[2] and was of interest to both the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps as an investigation into the causes of conflict between military guards and prisoners. The experiment is a classic study on the psychology of imprisonment and is a topic covered in most introductory psychology textbooks.

The participants adapted to their roles well beyond Zimbardo's expectations, as the guards enforced authoritarian measures and ultimately subjected some of the prisoners to psychological torture. Many of the prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, at the request of the guards, readily harassed other prisoners who attempted to prevent it. The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his role as the superintendent, permitted the abuse to continue.[5][6] Two of the prisoners quit the experiment early, and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days, to an extent because of the objections of graduate student Christina Maslach, whom Zimbardo was dating (and later married). Certain portions of the experiment were filmed, and excerpts of footage are publicly available.

The effect found with that came true during the Iraq War, in Abu Ghairab Prison, a subject we will be sure to revisit during the course of this series.

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And now comes the big cahuna. Even already being familiar with most of the above, recently I encountered "The Wave" for the first time and it still blew my mind. This is a high level situation, where the others above are more of 'on the spot' little 'traps'. This classroom experiment played out in a mere period of what four days. The teacher managed to turn half the school into little goosestepping authoritarians. Perhaps the weirdest part was, it wasn't as if he did it on the sly. The whole came dovetailed right out of their classroom topic of how the Nazi's managed to whip their populace into such a rabid sinister force the way they did.

"The Wave" Experiment:

The Third Wave (experiment)
The Third Wave was an experimental social movement created by high school history teacher Ron Jones to explain how the German populace could accept the actions of the Nazi regime during the Second World War.[1][2] While he taught his students about Nazi Germany during his "Contemporary World History" class, Jones found it difficult to explain how the German people could accept the actions of the Nazis, and decided to create a social movement as a demonstration of the appeal of fascism. Over the course of five days, Jones conducted a series of exercises in his classroom emphasizing discipline and community, intended to model certain characteristics of the Nazi movement. As the movement grew outside his class and began to number in the hundreds, Jones began to feel that the movement had spiraled out of control. He convinced the students to attend a rally where he claimed the announcement of a Third Wave presidential candidate would be televised. Upon their arrival, the students were presented with a blank channel. Jones told his students of the true nature of the movement as an experiment in fascism, and presented to them a short film discussing the actions of Nazi Germany.

The experiment took place at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California, during the first week of April 1967.[1] Jones, finding himself unable to explain to his students how the German population could have claimed ignorance of the The Holocaust, decided to demonstrate it to them instead.[3] Jones started a movement called "The Third Wave" and told his students that the movement aimed to eliminate democracy.[1] The idea 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."

Here is The Wave audiobook for those interested.

The results from this case study I would categorize as 'proper' "Brainwashing" (huge results over a short term), opposed to typical 'everyday' "Indoctrination" (solid results following 'long' periods of 'Behavior Management' + 'Cultural Conditioning') as seen in child parenting.

Brainwashing / Mind Control
Mind control (also known as brainwashing, reeducation, brainsweeping, coercive persuasion, thought control, or thought reform) is a controversial theory that human subjects can be indoctrinated in a way that causes "an impairment of autonomy, an inability to think independently, and a disruption of beliefs and affiliations. In this context, brainwashing refers to the involuntary reeducation of basic beliefs and values".

Indoctrination
Indoctrination, or thought reform, is the process of forcibly inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology (see doctrine) by coercion. Conspiring institutions such as police and mental health institutions have been widely used as a modus operandi of indoctrinators. Some distinguish indoctrination from education, claiming that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned. As such the term may be used pejoratively or as a buzz word, often in the context of political opinions, theology, religious dogma or anti-religious convictions. The term is closely linked to socialization; however, in common discourse, indoctrination is sometimes associated with negative connotations, while socialization refers to cultural or educational learning.

These subjects make clear we as a species have inherent weaknesses. Considering so many historical examples of them in action, especially on the mass scale, I argue these subjects should be required reading for each and every individual human being to walk, from this day forth. When you look at the grandiosity of humanity's capability of destructive folly of yesteryear this argument is made clear, while now in the 21st Century the stakes are higher than ever.

Keep the visual results of these studies in mind as we move forward. The next couple-few chapters will dig deep into example mechanisms of 'Human Nature vs. Nurture' in light of the kinds of effects we've seen here. While they will prove citation heavy academic stuff, this series will prove most dynamic in methods as it moves forward. As it does I intend to unravel every mechanism and dissect every method by which we can and are manipulated, while breaking down the power structures bent on such ends.

edit on 28-10-2016 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss because: (no reason given)

I applaud the massive research you have put into this idea. (I personally disagree with your "do gooder" theory but I will go through your thread more carefully when I can before commenting further on that.)

It is imperative that everyone understand they are vulnerable to psychological manipulation, to being potentially on the "dark side" without realizing it. People have spent, as you've said, years of research understanding how we can be controlled both with authority and through marketing techniques (those aren't necessarily 'evil' but it all depends on how it is used).

So I wouldn't say "no, I'm impervious to all such bad manipulations!" Rather I would say that I will remain vigilant against them, and I worry when I start to see them come to play in the world.

I look forward to digging into your thread(s) on this subject.

- AB

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Check this out! Its called the Wave!!

Hitler was a bad man. There is no doubt about that, BUT he built Germany into an economic and industrial powerhouse in less than a decade.

Give credit where credit is due.

a reply to: 123143

Hitler was a bad man. There is no doubt about that, BUT he built Germany into an economic and industrial powerhouse in less than a decade.

And then the US rebuilt Germany & Japan's economies after WW2.

So... Credit where credit is due and such.

originally posted by: ColdWisdom
a reply to: 123143

Hitler was a bad man. There is no doubt about that, BUT he built Germany into an economic and industrial powerhouse in less than a decade.

And then the US rebuilt Germany & Japan's economies after WW2.

So... Credit where credit is due and such.

I am specifically addressing those who use Hitler as an example of evil. My point is that he did do some good during his tenure.

He also reached out to honorary Harvard University graduate Chaim Homnick, who noted that this experiment would not be concrete evidence of the Nazis' innocence, due to fact that "poor people are more likely to cooperate."

This is pure conjecture and is only indicative of Chaim Homnick's institutionalized Harvard elitism. Unless they are willing to perform the same test on people from multiple backgrounds they can't say for sure how their Harvard students would perform compared to poor people.

I suspect that poor people would be less willing to shock a puppy than the Harvard students would be. Why? Because University students are already under pressure to conform to all the rules and regulations of the University. A poor person likely has fewer obligations and would feel more free to act according to their own interests.

Really terrifying stuff, OP. Still need to watch the vid about the Third Wave (similar to you, that's the only one I hadn't previously heard about). I am flawed in many ways that negatively affect my life and those around me, but one good thing I can say to my credit is that I've been aware for some time of how fragile the community psyche is and how easily groupthink can take control.

I've been watching the media manipulation very carefully, even before this election cycle.. particularly how the media was inflaming old racial tensions beginning with Trayvon Martin and culmnating (so far, it's far from finished) with the death of 5 Dallas police officers. Very dangerous stuff.

This subject is not meant to be dismissed or rail-roaded as some of the above posters have done. This is a very serious and real subject.

Thanks for putting this all together, in such an articulate and well sourced thread!

Really, really what a load of codswollop. The ONLY questions you should ask are:-
1. Are you classed as a human.
2. do you breathe air.
3. Do you eat food.
Answer all those questions and you could be a potential Nazi. Everybody has the potential to be indoctrinated if you press the right buttons at the right times, so the whole premise of the post is a moot point.

originally posted by: crayzeed
Really, really what a load of codswollop. The ONLY questions you should ask are:-
1. Are you classed as a human.
2. do you breathe air.
3. Do you eat food.
Answer all those questions and you could be a potential Nazi. Everybody has the potential to be indoctrinated if you press the right buttons at the right times, so the whole premise of the post is a moot point.

I have to ask then: do you believe you could be manipulated to kill another human being at behest of the state? How eager would you be to step into line? Let's assume that you are not military, and that your life is not immediately threatened by your potential victim.. what would it take for you to get to that point?

There are always those very strong individuals who would rather die or be imprisoned than commit morally reprehensible acts. I pray I would be one of those (but also that it never comes to that!).

a reply to: zosimovYour question contains the complexity of indoctrination. It's not a black and white process but a steady drip, drip of what I could say is lies. But if you in a state and the state dictates what is and what is not morally reprehensible sooner or later you would have to conform as all those around you conform. Or object.
Firstly let me say that the Nazis were only demonized because the lost the war. If they had won the war then Germany would still be practicing their acts now and it would be classed as the norm. Let me also say something that gets skirted round often. The vast majority of Germans agreed with Hitler and his methods till it was too late to go back, though the majority of Germans now will always say"it wasn't me but a small minority of fanatics".
In answer to your question. What if you had a three year old daughter and she was being continually sexually abused
and the perpetrator was protected by the state and the states law enforcement officers. What would you do?
In all the wars that have ever been with British and American forces (and the rest of the worlds armies) soldiers have killed because their officers ordered them to do it. They followed orders. But when the Nazis used that at the Nuremberg trials it was refused as a feeble excuse.
No matter how styrong you are every man, and I mean every man has his breaking point.

a reply to: 123143

The propaganda was choice! Credit the propaganda.

They openly talked about it (I mean even the word itself). Goebbels Nuremburg speech was entirely about propaganda. He laid it right out how that's how they motivating them. I imagine they cheered the entire speech.
From the rally:

If such an art of active mass influence through propaganda is joined with the long-term systematic education of a nation, and if both are conducted in a unified and precise way, the relationship between the leadership and the nation will always remain close. From authority and following, that type of modern democracy will develop for which Germany is the model for the entire world in the twentieth century. research.calvin.edu...

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

I don't always know exactly what you're trying to say because you say a lot!. If you're saying what I hope and suspect you're saying...I entirely agree and applaud the awareness.

Check out names like Gustave le Bon, Serge Muscovia and Eric Cuddon. They were researching mobs and crowds before Milgram could even spell 'ethics.'

The subtext of their discussions is how we're all programmable with very few exceptions. We're all likely to be carried away on the tides of history. We'd be Nazis or Nazi sympathisers/collaborators if we'd lived in 1930s/40s Germany. We'd be lopping the limbs off Tutsis if we lived in Rwanda in the mid 1990s. If we lived amidst the Islamic State, most of us would comply and STFU and many would integrate and be active.

Most of us conform just like we have tendencies towards bystander apathy. We're inclined to get carried away in idealising charismatic political figures almost like sleep-walking or being brain-washed.

a reply to: crayzeed

Hey thanks for an excellent and thoughtful reply.. have you seen the movie The Act of Killing? It is aligned with your posit that, had the Nazis won, their actions would be classed as the norm.. using the real example of the Indonesian genocide and the fact that many of the worst perpetrators are still in power. I'd still say that there is a definite universal Right and Wrong and that, when all the truth comes out, the objective eyes of history can distinguish between the two. I'd also point to those brave souls who refused to submit to the state and risked their own and their families lives in order to do so and say that my ultimate admiration is with them. Whether I would end up doing the right thing, or doing horrible things (or passively acquiescing) in order to save myself or those I love, I cannot say.

It sure gets messy when we're caught up in the thick of things, I am sure of that.

I'm not sure I understand your example about someone abusing my 3 year old and being sanctioned to do so by the state but I can tell you absolutely I'd say it would be within my own moral perameters to do whatever it took to stop anyone sexually abusing my child and I would face my consequenses from the state or from God with a clear conscience.

This thread raises some very interesting (and horrifying) questions indeed.

Interesting thread. Will lurk with interest.

All I've got to say at this point is something I've often thought about.

I don't think "Stockholm Syndrome" is a real thing. The relationship between captor and hostage is a complex thing, and it might well be (e.g.) that around eight per cent of the population has revolutionary tendencies which have finally found an outlet.

It might be something else, of course, but it's hard to imagine that the Patty Hearst case is an example of extreme suggestibility. It looks suspiciously as though Ms Hearst had been secretly waiting all her life to be a bandit or outlaw of some kind and when the chance came up she took it with both hands. In fact, this urge might well have been exacerbated by her wealthy upper-class upbringing (as granddaughter of the infamous press magnate, William Randolph Hearst).

It might be that some kidnappers or hostage-takers have well-thought-out philosophies that they are able to argue convincingly, either in addition or separately to the hostage's hidden urge to cut loose.

But some kind of psychiatric syndrome - really?

Who hasn't, at some stage, yearned to be part of a dangerous gang, to take part in a riot, rob a bank, die for a noble cause, or something similarly spectacular? Everyday life is comfortably boring, which is all very well in itself and even a good thing, but everyone's a bit of a Walter Mitty on the quiet.

You know the phrase 'have-a-go hero', for someone nondescript and mundane who out of the blue becomes a temporary superhero and thwarts a crime or rescues someone from peril? Perhaps there's such a thing as a 'have-a-go villain' too. In fact, perhaps there are more of the latter than of the former.

a reply to: audubon

I realize it defies reason, but it happens.

Inside the mind of a kidnap victim: How Stockholm Syndrome leaves scars that last a lifetime
-Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight rescued on Monday Had been held captive in Cleveland for around a decade before escape. Could suffer from effects of Stockholm syndrome after their release.
-Elizabeth Smart reveals that many rape victims do not want to escape.
-Natascha Kampusch wept when she heard her captor had killed himself.
-Jayce Lee Dugard had two children with kidnapper during 18-year ordeal.

And those are hard abductions.

I brought this up because I believe the masses suffer from some variant of Stockholm Syndrome. Something I intend to make a feature in later chapters....

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

It is you who've been hoodwinked by the propaganda of the Allies.

Remember that it is the winner who writes the history.

"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."

"A lie can make it halfway around the world before the truth puts its shoes on."