Breakthrough Writer

Reasons Students Are Rejected by Colleges

 

 

Here is a helpful list of why students are rejected from colleges.

Lecture for "Sonny's Blues"

Essay Topic: How does “Sonny’s Blues” complement the themes in Man’s Search for Meaning?

1.     The narrator, the older brother, and Sonny, the younger brother, both escape into nihilism. Sonny uses drugs; the narrator uses fear, apathy (“What can I do?”), hopelessness, and withdrawal, hiding behind decorum, manners, rules. The narrator is afraid to face the darkness within himself. He needs to confront his emotion or else his emotion will overtake him. Both characters want to die either through drugs or self-pitying despair.

2.     The brothers lost their father when Sonny was 15. The father was a drunk. Perhaps he was grieving over the death of his own brother. So he was haunted by past demons. And now so are the two brothers, the narrator and Sonny. Logotherapy is about finding meaning in the future, not about fixating on the past.

3.     We don’t choose meaning. Meaning chooses us. The older brother’s mom says to him tearfully, that he must never let go of Sonny. He must guide him into the light and in doing so the narrator will find light for himself. Initially, the narrator tries to escape his calling. He marries and disappears. One gets the sense that he is running away from his duties, using marriage as a disguise for his fear.

4.     He doesn’t listen to his brother or understand Sonny’s musical passion.

5.     The brother is jealous that Sonny treats others like family but not him, as if he deserves it. Also he feels guilty because their lack of connection is not what his mother wanted.

6.     Both brothers must grapple with the world’s inevitable suffering reminding us of Frankl’s principle:”We must be worthy of our suffering. We hear Sonny say, “I don’t want to see you die—trying not to suffer.”

7.     The narrator learns to listen to Sonny, to go into Sonny’s world and connect with him, thereby keeping his promise to his mother.

Excellent lecture on "Sonny's Blues"

Lesson for “The Lottery” and “The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas”

 

"The Lottery"

Why were so many Americans insulted, even spurred to threaten violence, by the story when it was first published?

 

1.   Its depiction is true and truth strikes a nerve, telling us something demonic about human nature.

2.   That we’re not as civilized as we think, for people are driven more by irrational and traditional forces than they are by logic and reason.

3.   In spite our façade of being civilized, we’re consumed by bloodlust and the need for violence.

4.   We’re too cowardly to admit our murderous violence, so we veil it within sanctimonious rituals.

5.   We have a backward primitive notion of God, who we see as a tribal deity thirsty for blood sacrifice. In fact, this so-called God is a projection of our own murderous unconscious.

6.   We corrupt our children’s innocence by forcing them to participate in our murderous ways.

7.   The glue that keeps our society cohesive and unified is often violence and the arbitrary killing of an innocent party.

8.   We reject the progress of science and reason so that we can uphold a primitive notion of appeasing a violent god.

9.   We commit violence against others with piety and middle-class morality in order to appease our conscience and to maintain our sense of moral superiority.

10.                 We commit violence as a group, rather than as individuals, because it’s easier to say we we’re simply following orders rather than taking personal responsibility. In other words, we’re cowards.

 

 

Conditions for the Banality of Evil in “The Lottery”

 

1.   For the evil perpetrators, the end justifies the means; usually the “end” is to “purge,” “cleanse,” or “purify” some human “contaminant.”

2.   Violence is not spectacular but part of the numbing, commonplace everyday activity.

3.   The perpetrators of evil are not conspicuously evil but mediocre, innocuous, conforming.

4.   The perpetrators of evil are not bold decision makers but placid followers, eager to please authority figures.

5.   For the evil perpetrators, there is no human dimension to cruelty and violence; rather, murder and/or torture are done in a cold, detached bureaucratic fashion.

6.   The evil perpetrators have an absence of imagination to see the human and moral dimensions of their actions.

7.   There is complicity between evil political agenda and the followers’ lack of empathy.

8.   The evil perpetrators are automatons who obey superficial “decency” and “manners” and outward appearances in order to hide their brutality to others and to themselves.

9.   The evil perpetrators assiduously exercise an adherence to convention and empty political clichés in order to enable their violent actions.

10.    Evil perpetrators focus on the letter of the law, no the spirit.

 

Major Theme in "The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas"

Scapegoating: Sacrificing a usually innocent party for the greater good of the majority or for an elite group.

Examples:

An Arizona politician wants to create an extra tax for fat people. Since most fat people come from a poor economic background, the tax will punish the poor to fund the needs of people with higher incomes.

Slave labor overseas and even in our borders (think chicken farms) keeps prices down so we can buy more crap we don't need.

Poor people agree to be subjects in medical experiments so that procedures and drugs can be approved for general use. This is also called being a "guinea pig."

We conduct hideous experiments on animals to make sure medical procedures and cosmetics are safe for humans.

 

Thesis Structure Examples

 

Using scapegoating to create a society does not result in meaning but the empty despair of tyranny.

 

“The Lottery” and “The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas” provide a study in the conditions that make the banality of evil possible. First, __________________.  Second, ___________________________. Third, ________________________. Fourth, ____________________________________.

 

 

Lesson for "Babylon Revisted"

Lexicon of Terms Pertinent to the Story

1. Nostalgia: inflating the glory of the past with distorted, sentimental memories

2. Fixation: Being stuck on nostalgia so you can't move forward with your life.

3. Juvenile hedonism: never growing up but staying in the "life is all about pleasure" phase

4. Boom and Bust Society: A society living on extremes, bubbles inflating until they burst; extreme emotional and financial ups and downs; a sort of collective bipolar disorder. 

5. Animus: Deep gut-filled hostility toward someone like the way Marion Peters feels about Charlie

6. Demure: Keep your emotions to yourself; don't put them on the table even as someone shows you animus be polite and dumure. This is Charlie's strategy.

7. Precipice: Behind him, Charles' ghosts of the past haunt him and seem to want to pull him back to his juvenile ways; in front of him, an abyss of the unknown with his daughter Honoria. Thus, Charles stands on the precipice. He can jump or he can turn back. Or if the metaphor is bad, the abyss represents him free-falling into the abyss of his past ways and he must turn to a more mature way of life in order to care for his daughter.

8. The 5 Motifs of Fiction:

One. Establish a home (which is what Charles wants by taking his daughter)

Two. Going on a journey.

Three. A battle or contest (Charles vs. Marion): Charles must prove that he can stay sober.

Four. Enduring suffering (Charles must endure penance to redeem himself and prove his worthiness of being a father)

Five. An obsession that results in consummation; we become consumed by our obsession whether it be love, revenge, greed, etc. Charles must not be consumed by his past, his nostalgia.

9. Tumultuous relationship: rocky, inflammed passions, extreme love and hate; alcohol; infidelity; Charles locked his wife out of the house after a drunken fight in which his wife Helen kissed a guy named Webb. Enraged, Charles locked the door not knowing his wife would die in a snow storm as she begged to be let inside the house.

10. Self-righteous self-certitude: Marion's spite and resentment toward Charles has made her addicted to her own sense of moral superiority. 

11. Open-ended story: No clear conclusion or resolution. We're left with more questions: Will Charlie reunite with his daughter? Will he find redemption? Is his life over, squandered on juvenile hedonism?

 

Major Themes in the Story

 

Bingeing and excess: A false sense of success and the sudden rush of wealth propels us to a life of self-abandonment and self-indulgence, a condition that always results in solipsism and disconnection from others. 

Rising is falling and falling is rising: False success gives us a delusion of invincibility, causing us to act in foolish, reckless ways. There is always a suicidal urge, metaphorical or not, in this false rising. We unconsciously want the death of our demonic self that has taken control of us.

Wealth is an intoxicant, a drug. It is also a truth serum. It brings out the true self, for good or bad.

You can never erase the past. Its demons will haunt you and singe your garments.

You can never completely destroy your urge for the old life.

 

Helpful links for maintaining consistent pronouns in paragraphs and other pronoun questions

Pronoun shifts

Should I Use I?

Appropriate Pronoun Usage

 

Review of Fragments and Run-Ons

Grammar and Spell Check:

While Neddy Merrill is an incorrigible drunk doomed to a life of solipsism; Charlie Wales is a quasi-reformed alcoholic who in spite of attempts to gain custody of his daughter must suffer the ignominy brought on. When the ghosts of his past arrive at Charlie’s sister-in-law’s house and serve as a reminder to Charles drunken splurges. Encouraged in part by his need to celebrate the bull market that propelled him into a life of easy wealth. Only to be lost during the Great Depression. We do get the sense that Charlie may limit his drink to just one a day, however, Neddy Merrill seems on track to soak his brain with alcohol until his dying days. Both Neddy and Charlie’s pathology can be traced to there reaction to the existential vacuum. Although, Charlie’s meaning may be traced to getting his daughter back; he wavers between a life of joyless hedonism and contrite reform.

 

Predictably Irrational Lesson #1: How We're Fooled by Relativity And Other Irrational Choices: Second Revision for Spring Semester 2011

 

In a 5-page essay use extended definition and classification to analyze Predictably Irrational. Develop a thesis that defines the term "predictably irrational" by breaking it down into 4 or 5 categories (your mapping components) that you will illustrate with examples that ARE NOT IN THE BOOK. 

Paragraph One: Introduction

Paragraph Two: Thesis with 4 or 5 mapping components

Paragraphs Three-Nine: Illustrate and elaborate your mapping components

Paragraph 10: Conclusion, a restatement of your thesis

Last page: Works Cited page with no fewer than 3 sources

 

 

Part Two. (Chapters 1-3)

 

One. What’s the book’s purpose? To identify hidden purposes behind our actions and in doing so rethink what makes us tick. More specifically, why even intelligent, well-meaning people make intelligent mistakes like the nurses who were convinced that ripping off bandages was preferable to slowly taking them off.

To look at these mistakes, we must look at the mind’s capacity for irrationality and what forces make even the best brains irrational. The question is if we identify these irrational forces, will we be able to free ourselves from them or at the very least minimize their control over us? Or are we hard-wired to be irrational and no degree of intellectualizing our condition can improve it?

Two. How do marketers use decoys to motivate consumers to spend more money? See Economist example. Marketers use the “truth about relativity,” namely, that we are irrational beasts compelled to always compare our choices.

 

By giving us false choices, we are often fooled by decoys into giving more value, or less value, to something by the way consumer items are juxtaposed with others. You might, for example, think you got a "deal" going to a UC school, which will cost you "only" 50K for two years instead of going to a private school, which will cost you 90K for the same period. 

 

A decoy is anything extreme that makes the desired choice seem better. A stupid price on a magazine subscription that is the same as the magazine and Internet subscription makes the latter seem cheaper.

Another example:

My wife and I have twin girls, born in 2010, and it’s really hard, but I have a friend whose second daughter is severely autistic. When I see what my friend goes through, I feel like my parenting duties are relatively easy.

 

Marketers use this same psychology when they price their items, trying to make you feel that a price is a “good deal” by putting it next to higher prices or “decoy deals.” Or you’ll notice “retail price” is artificially jacked up and the “sale price” seems really low when in fact it is high. I for example bought a “$1,300” watch for “only” for $257.

 

Three. Decoys draw us to their more similar comparisons. See the colonial house example on page 8. He calls this comparison, A, A-, B, or The Decoy Effect. Of the three, we will choose A. See page 9. Let’s say you’re looking for a good English 1C teacher. You hear McMahon, a male, is good, but you also hear that Miss Carbo, a woman, is bad. Another woman, Miss Seavers, is mentioned who is supposed to be as good as McMahon. According to the Decoy Effect, of the three teachers you’ll register to take Miss Seavers.

 

Another example: If you’re an average looking guy and you want to meet the ladies, bring an ugly version of yourself to the club. Suddenly, you will rise in real estate.

Another example: If we go to our 20-year high school reunion and we’ve gained 20 pounds but find that all our buddies have gained 50 pounds, we feel like a trim muscle man.

 

Four. What is the fallacy of supply and demand?

See Chapter 2. Make the common thing appear to be scarce like black pearls by inflating the price. Volvo had the same problem. No one bought their cars as a luxury brand until Volvo increased their prices.

Five. Arbitrary coherence. See page 28. Even though price settings are arbitrary, we are “imprinted” with the first impression as the “right price.” The first price we see is called the “anchor.” Take a 99 Cents store, as an example. The anchor in this case is clearly 99 cents. But if something is priced $1.50 or $4.00 and even though the same thing costs three times as much at Target, we find the item to be too expensive at the 99 Cents store because the anchor is 99 cents.

The anchor “brands” or “identifies” the product as upscale or downscale.

Six. The Cost of Experience. Buying the illusion of “experience.” You go into Starbucks and you spend more and more on coffee that costs ten times more than making it yourself with relative ease, but you’re buying more than coffee in the Starbucks ambience. You’re buying an experience, a lifestyle, and you are joining a tribe that you find is desirable. See page 41. The bottled water industry has relied on the same illusion. See the book Bottled and Sold.

When you buy a Mini Cooper, your are experiencing the joy of increased social status, the association of being educated, hip, and urbane. 

Seven. The Principle of Unquestioned Habit. We do things, not because we’ve examined their benefit to us, but because of reflex, impulse, and habit. We did it yesterday, so we do it today, and we will do it tomorrow. Once you establish a habit, you develop rationalizations, however absurd, to justify what might be deemed as misguided or even stupid behavior. See page 46.

Eight. From Chapter 3: How do we pay too much when we pay nothing? We assume, wrongly, that there is no downside in the transaction. See page 60. Amazon uses your irrational psychology to get you to buy more stuff, things you don’t need, by offering “free shipping.” I can get “free medical” from my work but how “free” is it? I have to wait for an operation and die before it’s scheduled. Six feet under, how free am I now?

 

Some cars give you “free” or zero financing, but you have to pay an inflated price in many cases, more than if you found the car for a cheaper price with a low interest rate.

I have a friend who gets restaurant coupons, including a “free” meal. Not once, has the service or food EVER been good.

Part Three. Lexicon

1.  behavioral economics: the science that studies judgment and decision making.

2.  Rationality, the human animal is hard-wired for logical and rational thinking, a condition that Dan Ariely disputes.

3.  Predictable irrationality: our irrational behavior shows up the same way again and again and again for perpetuity unless we learn to recognize it.

4.  Consumer relativity: we cannot be convinced of a “good deal” unless we see how our supposed good deal compares to a worse deal.

5.  Relativity Judgment Warp: Having something in common with someone in a sea of people you have NOTHING in common with makes you lower your standards for human comfort in part because you’re lonely. You fool yourself into believing you're compatible with someone on virtue of sharing a tiny commonality.

6.  Rarity Principle: To make consumers desire your product, create the illusion of rarity by making it seem hard to find.

7.  Imprinting: Like baby geese who follow the first thing they see, perceiving it as their Mother, we accept the first price we see equated with a product. See page 27.

8.  Arbitrary coherence: Once we experience imprinting with a product, we use that price for all other products in that category.

9.  Mindless centripetal motion: Mindlessly repeating your irrational behavior forever and ever as you become locked in your centripetal journey toward the Road to Irrationality.

10.   The Hidden Costs of Zero: Compromising quality to get something free and becoming blinded to better, finer, more rarified products.

 

 Part Four. Class Activity

Write about the manner in which relativity has caused you to compromise your judgment in an important area of your life.

Examples of Relativity

 

A woman stays in a marriage because her husband only cheats on her once a year while her friends' husbands cheat on them at least twice a week.

A college student hates his accounting major and gladly switches to business, not because he likes business, but because business is not as unbearable as accounting.

You go out to a restauraunt in spite of your diet and are relieved you got the banana split that was only 800 calories since the chocolate mud pie was 2,000. The only way to be consistent in your calorie counting is to get an app for your iPod called Meal Snap.

You put up with your boyfriend who refuses to wear deodorant because your previous boyfriend had chronic bad breath that was so odious you could barely breathe. Musky armpits seem like a better deal that rancid breath.

The $200 a month car insurance bill for your Honda Civic seemed bad until you discovered your friend spends $480 a month to insure his Nissan 370Z.

You feel horrible after spending 24K on a car but then feel a little better when you discover that the average cost of a new car is 31K. 

McMahon hates being bald but he's seen other bald men who look SCARY UGLY and he's thankful for his looks, however compromised by his baldness.

McMahon hates being bald but he's seen bald men who look like models and now he's depressed over how ugly he looks.

You thought you got a great deal on your Honda Accord, which you got fully loaded for 24K, two thousand below list price, until your friend says he got the same Accord for 22K. Now you hate your life.

 

 

Lesson #1 for The Chocolate War (Third Revision)

Review of Works Cited page MLA format:

Sample with Guide

Format Rules

Brief Format Rules

 

Review of Comma Splices (a continuing problem as I read your essays)

Comma Splices—joining two complete sentences with a comma (3 of these on an essay at Cal State or UC results in an automatic F)

 

The only words you can use to join to complete sentences with a comma before the joining word are what are called “FANBOYS”—for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so

 

For example, these sentences are correct with one of the FANBOYS words: 

 

1. Eddie Haskell was known as an obsequious sniveling fraud in the iconic Leave It to Beaver, but he has remained throughout the ages a beloved TV character.
2. McMahon abstains from HomeTown Buffet, and he also avoids Shakey’s, Claim Jumpers, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Del Taco, Subway, Quiznos, and Dominoes.
3. Paris Hilton remains the quintessential celebrity, yet her achievements in life are nil rendering her an absolute cipher.

 

You can NOT connect two complete sentences with conjunctive adverbs and use a comma. You must use a period or a semicolon. For a list of conjunctive adverbs, CLICK HERE. 

 

Examples of comma splices in which conjunctive adverbs, INCORRECTLY, are used to join two complete sentences. 

 

1. Going AWOL is a sign of cowardice, however, we should not coerce the absent soldier from going back to his platoon.
2. We are a country that dismisses sleep as the act of the Lazy Man, to the contrary, though, sleep is essential to supreme health.
3. Young people are addicted to text messaging, moreover, they ostracize their peers who are not “text-message literate” because they are considered “out of touch.”
4. You should avoid Claim Jumpers tonight for dinner, instead go home, barbecue yourself some salmon, and sauté a pound of spinach with olive oil, herbs, spices, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese. 
   
5. The crying cow grabbed my attention, never in my life did I look at a cow that way.
6. Mr. Dawkins is an exceptional professor, I am positive he changed my life.
   

 

One. Essay Assignment

In a 5-page research paper, explain why the novel is so painfully dark as to be almost unbearable in its worldview. Your outline might look like this:

Paragraph 1: Introduction

Paragraph 2: Thesis with 4 or 5 mapping components

Paragraphs 3-9: Elaborate on your mapping components

Paragraph 10, conclusion restates your thesis

Last page is your Works Cited page with no fewer than 5 sources

Another Option:

In page one, write a personal narrative about a time you compromised your individual conscience by obeying peer pressure or some authority figure.

Then in the second page, start your thesis paragraph in which you connect the themes to the dangers of obedience as it relates to power, authority, and symbiosis. Because this is your multiple-source research paper, you will need to connect the novel’s themes to themes outside the text. You may, for example, look at the theme of obedience in the context of Stanley Milgram’s famous experiments or the abuse of power in the Stanford Experiment.

A thesis might look like this: The Chocolate War shows the demands of tribalism, which compromises our humanity by ________________________, _____________________________, _________________________, and _______________________________.

In your final page, you will write about how you or someone you know who exercised noble disobedience to defy authority or peer pressure. Your conclusion will tie in your personal account with your novel analysis.

Your body paragraphs will correspond to the components you use to fill in the above blanks. Your conclusion will be one sentence, a brief, dramatic restatement of your thesis. Your final page, your Works Cited page, will show the sources you used from The Chocolate War, from my blog, from interviews, or from other helpful sources you find. Your Works Cited page and manuscript must conform to MLA format. Be sure to make your own catchy, creative title.

 

Another, Open-Ended Option for The Chocolate War

Analyze the conflict between the demands of conformity and individual conscience as they play out in the novel by comparing this conflict to someone you know. Same research requirements as above. 

Variation of Your First Option: Nihilism in the Novel

Answer the question: Why is the novel saddled in nihilism with no hope of free will or redemption? Consider centripetal motion of the characters, corruption in high places, blind obedience to power, dehumanization, and determinism. 

Lexicon

 

1.  embryonic stage of mental development, psychological immaturity that makes one blindly obey a parent or authority figure. To obey blindly is to never grow beyond the embryonic stage. A man who wants his wife to blindly obey him does not want an adult partner; he wants a child and vice versa.

The Orange County Diet Never Expands

Taco 7-Layer Salad

Macaroni and Cheese

Tator Tots

Chili

Fried Chicken

Cupcakes

People who marry someone, not out of love, but to please others, live in the embryonic stage.

People who let others make all their choices for them: college study, career, marriage, exercise, etc., live in the embryonic stage.

In Chapter 1, Jerry seems to be going out for football because “it’s the thing to do.” He seems to be on autopilot in his blind pursuit of conformity. He is in the embryonic stage.

2.  Emergence or birth of humanity is predicated on doubting, questioning, and sometimes challenging authority. Heroes and prophets question the status quo, the way things are. The death of humanity is a result of groupthink, sacrificing critical thinking to please the group. Consider groupthink experiments like counting lines in a diagram.

3.  Placid conformity, passive and unquestioning, without skeptical powers

4.  “Bread and Circus”: The disparity between technological and moral development: Even as technology evolves, most humans are content with “bread and circus,” which results in placid conformity. Since the beginning of time, 1% of the human race controls 99% of the masses by placating them with bread and circus.

5.  In our “free society,” most obedience takes the form of consumer obedience, which is conformity to desires stirred by marketing and peer pressure.

6.  Consumer ostracism (not having an iPod) or an iPhone or an iPad. You must have an iPhone, for example, to engage in all the exciting apps like push-ups wars and calorie counting.

7.  Tribal obedience, doing what the herd does to avoid being ostracized.

 

Example of Consumer Obedience: Costco Is a Super Store That Creates “Obedient Consumers”

 

1.  Costco shoppers believe they have to buy bulk to get a “good deal” even if their products perish or are consumed in such unhealthy large quantities.

2.  Costco shoppers like to show off what “a great deal” they got to other people.

3.  Costco shoppers feel they are in competition with other shoppers to get a “great deal.”

4.  Costco shoppers pay for an annual membership and are proud they belong to a special club that entitles them to remarkable privileges.

5.  Costco shoppers over-spend because they’re deluded into thinking they are getting a “bargain.”

6.  Costco shoppers are so compelled to “stock up” on “supplies” that they shop with a certain anxiety as if they were preparing for a drought, a famine, or a nuclear shelter. There is a joyless survival mentality.

7.  Costco shoppers shop to escape from a desperation and fear about life and the more they shop the more dehumanized and violent they become.

  

What Is “Noble Disobedience”?

 

One. Noble disobedience; an act of will in which we rebel against our caretakers, regardless of their intentions, when they wish to “protect” us by stagnating our growth and making us like babies in the womb. See the film Pleasantville or The Truman Show.

Two. Smothered by the Caretaker. When an authority figure—God, parents, spouse, teacher, school gang like the Vigils, community—takes care of all our needs but restrains our intellectual and emotional growth so that in essence we remain like fetuses in the womb. We never emerge and become fully human. We should be disobedient toward these smothering caretakers and establish our independence, our autonomy, and emerge as fully-realized adult human beings.

 

Three. Disobeying the Herd. Another form of noble disobedience is when we refuse to conform to the Herd, the group who acts cruel against the outsider, insists that we’re not cool unless we buy an iPod or a pair of True Religion designer jeans. Or there is Jerry’s refusal to sell chocolates, first from his teacher’s order, then from the order of The Vigils.

 

Four. Related the number 3, disobedience to Consumer Culture, which says you can’t define yourself as a “winner in society” unless you have a collection of “essential possessions.” For example, some believe, knowingly or not, that there are only two types of people in the world, home owners and renters.

 

Five. Disobedience as the courage to be different, to produce art that is not popular and then over time it becomes popular. This is called having the conviction of genius.

Six. Disobedience means venturing into the Unknown and leaving your familiar lifestyle behind you because though your familiar lifestyle gives you comfort and belonging, it does not give you a sense of meaning or individuality. For example, it may mean leaving a comfortable relationship that languishes in stagnation. I had a student who left her boyfriend and went to UNLV for this reason.

 

Seven. Disobedience means ignoring the expectations of your family and friends regarding your career and marriage plans.

 

Eight. Disobedience means refusing to worship society’s gods, heroes, and myths when you can see the fraud and emptiness behind the icons.

 

Nine. Disobedience means not being so needy as requiring the approval of others even if this absence of approval results in your having to stand alone. Your courage allows you to stand in solitude without the comfort and approval of the Herd.

 

Ten. Disobedience means “saying no to power.” This means from a philosophical point of view that we desire justice for all instead of a few enjoying power over the many.

Eleven. Disobedience means disobeying the bureaucracy that demands our dehumanization through unquestioned obedience of routine and sometimes immoral actions.

 

Twelve: Psychologist, philosopher, and author Erich Fromm writes: “If a man can only obey and not disobey, he is a slave; if he can only disobey and not obey, he is a rebel. Jerry’s conflict is choosing between being a slave to conformity or a noble rebel against it. We shall see.

Obeying the Herd: Examples from Students

1. Fighting because the herd expected you to, not because you wanted to. Men and women have provided this one.

2. Smoking.

3. Illegal racing on city streets.

4. Dating a woman who scared the hell out of a guy.

5. A guy majors in accounting to ingratiate himself with his father. Now he's an alcoholic truck driver for Frito Lay.

6. A girl in middle school lets her friends at a slumber party "dress her up" in meretricious, revealing, scandalously scanty garments and garish makeup to the point that when she looks at herself in the mirror she can't recognize herself.

7. A guy joins the Marines because all his buddies are doing it and then he realizes he hates military life. 

8. Stealing parents' prescription drugs to have a blindfolded drug party. 

 

Research Paper Sources for your Works Cited Page

Adolescent Literature

Alienation in The Chocolate War

Bryan-Chocolate War

The book's nihilism offends a school, which wants a petition to ban it!

The Chocolate War: Still Tasting Good

Why The Chocolate War Was Banned

LSU Faculty

Chocolate War Resource Guide