Social belonging

An after-class meeting with two MGT3353 students led to a conversation about the inclination for many individuals to follow others (their beliefs, their ideas) without questioning the consequences of "following." Indirectly, the discussion we had in my office was about leadership and communication. I was reminded of a social experiment conducted by a high school teacher named Ron Jones. In 1967, Mr. Jones, with the permission of the principal, led his students through one of the most harrying experience of their lives. You can listen to a documentary about Ron Jones and his experiment here. "Lesson Plan" is documentary featuring interviews of the original students and teacher of the 1967 Third Wave experiment. This exercise in fascism took place in Palo Alto, California. Within one week, 30 students grew to 200 as the Third Wave took on a life of its own, and the students unwittingly re-enacted the roots of the Third Reich. (Here is a short trailer of the documentary.) A 44-minute film called The Wave is a frightening account of the experience/experiment.