In which situations is it meaningful/necessary to adapt to them or to rebel against them?
"O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet."
(William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)
Acceptance or Revolt?
by Annalena Rieser and Magdalena Dessl, BG-BRG Kufstein/Austria
In school, work and everyday life we often face the question: acceptance or revolt? But which principles should we carry out; moral and vreedom or cConsequences and self-interest?
We always talk about the past and how we would have acted in specific situations. But imagine you are a parent of two let us say, Hermann and Anneliese, and live in times of Nazi-Germany. You yourself do not believe in the common ideology, although all your friends do. If you speak up and stand in for your sense of ethics you put your family and yourself at risk. However, if you stay quiet, you will betray your beliefs and simply watch cruel things happening to others.
A more harmless scenario is offered in the book “The Wave” by Morton Rhue, in which a teacher tries to show the students that they would not have acted any differently from the Germans in the Third Reich. As the experiment gets out of hand, the pupil Laurie is confronted with the question:” Should I try to stop the development and maybe lose my friend and the sympathy of the teacher or stand up for my attitude of morality?
Albert Einstein once said:” The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil but because of those who watch and do nothing”, and we definitely go along with him.
I liked the text that you guys wrote. The text was very well written and thoughtful. Even the ones who haven't read the book before can read this text and understand what you mean. When you wrote "There is no racism and no war in Bruno’s mind, that’s why his explanation is so far from reality. He associates the pyjamas with a happy time. He imagines the life on the other side of the fence the way he wants it to be, with lots of friends to play with him" It was a good thought and I do agree with that very much. And when you put it in perspective it's easier to understand Bruno's character. Because I think it is very easy to forget that he is very young. In summary, I really think that this text brings up a good subject that we should talk about more often.
Vera Petersson - 09.05.2019 @ 11:38
You've touched a very serious topic, whether to risk your life, friends, reputation in the defense of what is right to you, or to conform and live with the consequences. I think the example of Nazi -Germany you mentioned is very adequate because lots of people living there faced that problem. You would have thought that people have evolved and would know better now. As it turns out no, the same situation repeats itself in Mr. Jones' class in the book "The Wave". Another character, who had a similar choice to make is Katniss Everdeen from the trilogy "The Hunger Games". She lives in a totalitarian country, in which her district is under the regime of the Capitol. After taking part twice in the hunger games, she decides to join the rebels and become the face, the mockingjay, of the rebellion. Despite the disastrous consequences this choice might have, she fights for what she believes in.
Marianna Gawron - 24.05.2019 @ 16:08
The topic of this thread includes a quote from William Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet” in which Julia offers to refuse her family name if Romeo does the same, in order to be able to be together. They don’t want to accept the fact that a never-ending argument between their families stands in the way of their love. The idea standing behind their beliefs is right- they want to end the quarrel between two homes, though the execution isn’t done quite the way it should and results in their death.
As you've mentioned, the book "The Wave" also features the dilemma of acceptance or revolt. Moreover, it shows how difficult it is for the people who rebel to show the manipulated community what is actually going on. Students are pressured to join the Wave. Laurie gets an anonymous letter from a student who doesn’t agree with the ideas represented by the group but is too scared to speak up. When she decides to take the matters into her own hands, she gets almost beaten up by her boyfriend, which shows how dangerous rebelling against a big group can be.
At one point in the book “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” the hero of the story-Bruno- sees Shmuel in his kitchen cleaning glasses. As he doesn’t see why Shmuel is imprisoned he offers him some food. When the officer that took Shmuel to Bruno’s house comes back to the room, he gets furious. He asks Bruno whether he knows the other boy. This is just one of those questions to which there is no right answer. Should he rebel against his family and stay true to his friend even if that can mean that they will face horrible consequences or try to save Shmuel’s life and deny their friendship?
Martyna Kołek - 07.06.2019 @ 21:21
A very similar topic is shown in Lois Lowry's book "The Giver". The main character, Jonas, lives in a perfect world. When he meets his new teacher - Giver- he starts to discover the truth about his world. It turns out he's not perfect at all. The authorities are manipulating society so that everyone thinks they can live in a world without problems. Every day, every citizen takes a shot that makes him stop seeing colors. People stop feeling emotions. Jonas decides to change that. He confronts the authorities and wants to defend his values. He doesn't want to mindlessly follow orders. He defends what he thinks is important to himself.
Jakub Stanek - 16.06.2019 @ 16:41
I think your text showed the dilemma of having two choices, which are both connected with some uncomfortable things, really well.
It must be very difficult to decide whether you should stay true to yourself or keep going with the majority. Maybe we should be braver sometimes and take a step even if we know that there could be bad consequences for us. If there is something happening that doesn’t feel okay or right to us, we should try to stand up against it.
But sometimes it isn’t that easy. If there are many people with the same idea of something it is difficult to prove to them that they are doing wrong.
It‘s important to have such brave people, who don’t always go the easy way, who don’t care about the thoughts of the others, who try to do everything they can to change things into good.
Johanna Holaubek - 04.10.2019 @ 13:27