SOCIAL INCLINATION OF HUMAN PSYCHE - AN ANALYSIS WITH FILMS

SOCIAL INCLINATION OF HUMAN PSYCHE - AN ANALYSIS WITH FILMS

                                                      - Dinesh Kannan

Experiments prevails as a key component in research. With the results of experiment the research is being proved and established with the annotations and findings. It is of that way and the most accurate way to establish a research among other Methodical categories. Most of us are aware of the psychological experiments done by the Sigmund Froid and also there are many infamous psychological experiments conducted around the world in the bygone era where science is all about experiments. 

Having a strong connection to the psychological experiments there exists the sociological experimentation in the context of social psychology. In the light of social psychology many sociologists experimented to understand the structural formulation of the society and the social mind of the mankind. A school of thought which was born in 18th century at france and got rigorous emergence in Germany, sociology now had became a seperate academic criterion. But most of the sociological researches ended its scope by not surpassing the racks of libraries in the universities

Bundles of paper files encompassing the studies on how society evolved from the scrap and how it structured itself to be a society are preplanned to be remain monotonous to the people who seek the truth. In contrast to such deviations, there exists these two films, The Wave (Germany-2008) and The Stanford prison experiment (America -2014), which are based on true stories that experimented with the unique and forceful approaches to understand the functioning of society as a structured group of masses. All films and literature are prisms of human life and its social derivations. But these two particular films took it to the extent of having students re-enacting the operative characteristics of the power center in the social structure.

'The Wave' is a story set in a school located in the suburbs of Germany is about a teacher who seriously takes the students standpoint that Fascism is unlikely to re-emerge in modern times and all set to do an experiment involving them. He organised students into a power group that moves towards fascism. In the proccess of this experiment that begins with a special class on Autocracy, unique identities and rules are framed and from that the group 'Wave' that emerge from the scartch. Students who belong to the Wave begin to take this structure seriously, develps their unique costumes, labels abd symbols. They begin to hate those who do not belong to the Wave and are deeply absorbed in a power group psychology.

At one point the Wave bond was unbreakable even by the teacher who formed it in first place. He is unable to control the wave which elevates to fascism, turning against other friends who oppose the wave and the ideas of wave. Thus, finally it establishes the idea, that fascism will re-emerge at any time.

Statement of Denis Gansel, The director of 'THE WAVE' :

" I have always been very interested in this subject, the question of whether fascism could happen again, how the fascist system works, how people can be led astray.

In 'THE WAVE', the question is "How could we be led astray today? How could fascism work? Would it be possible today? Could that kind of thing happen again, at a normal school, here and now?"

Realizing the precarious position the Wave group has reached,  the attempt of the teacher in disbanding the wave only leads to the upmost evil of fascism, the vicious violence in the end. 

"The human mind is always ready to make itself a prey"

The Stanford Prison Experiment(2014) is a film based on the true story of another socio psychological experiment that was attempted at Stanford University in the United States. In one fine Summer vacation at Stanford in 1971 ,The psychology professor Philip G Zimbardo begins his infamous experiment. He makes the students to act as prison inmates and prison officers. His intention is to explore the psychological temptations of division of power and authority. The students involved in this experiment become victims of the structuralized mind that runs deep inside their social mind without realizing it and begin to think of themselves as real prisoners to obey and the real prision officers to abuse the power over prisoners. Eventually they reach chaotic stage of power subjugation that no one can control. Zimbardo originally planned to do his research for two long weeks, terminated it in merely six days. 

              Stanford Prision experiment 1971

Man always looks down to some authority to submit. That is the utmost reason, why new centers of power are emerging from time to time in the society. Human psych is open to manipulation, it yearns for a rule to live under. It waits for the lies that will ensnare it. Human psyche draws a circle to limit itself within the boundary of that circle. For this mind, the world doesn't matter. Compassion and kindness became the expired humanitarian elements. Man needs a group to fit himself into. What's happening within that group, the only live Human life for him. He does not care about what happens outside of it. For him, the deaths of tens of thousands of people outside the group are just mere numbers.

In both of the above films, this crisis of power within humans is the core that was analysed as it is and in a way these films and input of the films symbolises the nature of human groups that for the ultimate society.

These experiments, which begin casually and eventually reach a point where they uncontrollable, and the perpetuation of oppression for those who are outside the group is the way long story which has been happening throughout history of mankind that formed the society. In India it has established itself as casteism and in the western countries it has manifested itself as racism. The cast or race were unimportant for it, all it needs is a theory of power to establish the control. With these structural contemplations one civilization destroys another, one ethnic group enslaves another, and one class oppresses another.

All these civilizations, castes, ethnic groups, and classes that persists are Artificiality that were planned intentionally. We are blindly beating around this bush for an eternity. 

REFERRED FILMS AND RESEARCH PAPERS

*Die welle (The Wave) 2008 - Germany

*Stanford Prision Experiment 2014 - America

*Stanford Prision experiment study 1971- Psycology Professor Philip G. Zimbardo, Stanford University, California,America.