Critical Thinker: Chocolate War & Inner Ring Lessons

Chocolate War Lesson 2 for Critical Thinking Class

Vulnerability of Jerry to Bullying

What demons must Jerry face now that his mother has died a cruel death from cancer?

He suffers shame from his own sense of powerlessness to help his mother, his own helplessness to put up a strong facade like his father, and perhaps most unknown to him an anger that roils inside him, an anger that is consuming him and causing him to make decisions that are not in his best interests.

He doing something we call “acting out,” when our inner torment cannot be located or articulated but it is doing its work in self-destructive behavior.

Part of his anger is watching the alienation between him and his father. More and more, they are becoming like strangers.

Jerry his angry at his father who, perhaps partly because of his grief, appears to live “like a sleepwalker going through the motions, like a puppet being maneuvered by invisible strings. Jerry felt hopeless and abandoned, all tight inside” (57).

With his mom gone, Jerry not only faces anger: he faces an overwhelming emptiness, “a yawning cavity like a hole in his chest” (58).

Does life have any meaning? Will Jerry grow up to have some boring pharmacist job like his father where he has to do the same routine forever and ever? Is life just a hell? Are the nihilistic Archies of the world right about the world being nothing but BS? If so, does anything matter? Do I even have a soul? All of these questions roil inside Jerry as anger consumes him.

Jerry is not only mad at the world; he is mad at himself for feeling so impotent and meaningless. Perhaps he joins the football team because his self-hatred demands that he punish himself. Perhaps he wants to die, to murder himself in order to terminate the anguish that vexes him.

On the nihilism spectrum, Jerry is ascending the Nihilism Ladder, with Archie, who is already a dead soul, far above him.

What motivates Jerry to say no to the chocolate sale in spite of pressure from Leon and The Vigils?

Jerry associates yes with his dad, a yes man, who is a member of the walking dead. Jerry would rather “disturb the universe.”

He wants to be like those dropouts and misfits by the bus stop who seem free, not prisoners of convention and peer pressure.

He has learned, ironically enough, from Brother Leon that to comply with brutality is to be part of the brutality, so he is resisting Brother Leon’s corrupt chocolate sale and the corrupt, bullying Vigils.

The chocolate sale is corrupt evidenced by Brother Leon’s questionable purchase of Mother’s Day chocolates and his false reports of sales figures (95).

Jerry is supposed to reject sale for 10 days and then accept them as part of Vigils assignment (108). But then he defies the Vigils (140). He creates a chocolate war, with students taking sides: either sell the chocolates or resist selling them.

Jerry wonders if he rejects sale to spite Leon who tortures students like Bailey (115).

Jerry becomes hero of resistance to other classmates who praise him. More and more students come out to express their hatred of Brother Leon.

Most famously, Jerry looks at a poster “wistfully” that reads “Do I dare disturb the universe?” Translation: Do I dare rock the boat and stand up for what’s right, or do I act like a groveling coward and go along with the status quo?

The universe in question is society’s status quo, its unquestioned scripts and assume reality, which has us all groveling and running scared so that we “make it” with a maraschino cherry on top, a splendid life that we can curate on social media.

In Chapter 23, The Goober claims that evil is taking over the school. Explain.

We see that the Vigils carry out assignments that give some teachers nervous breakdowns, force them to transfer, and make cozy relationships with corrupt authority figures like Brother Leon. The official adult world of bureaucracy and administration has an unspoken relationship with the dark underworld in a mutually beneficial relationship. This secret relationship goes unquestioned and results in evil.

The relationship is such that at one point, when the chocolate sale is dragging, Leon gives this threat to Archie: Help me with chocolate sale or the Vigils are going down. Leon and the Vigils rise and fall together.

“Wrecking” Brother Eugene is the equivalent of murdering him. The system murders people. It reminds me of “Don’t hate the player; hate the game.”

The “game” would have us be groveling sycophants begging for acceptance into some tribe such as mainstream society of status and power.

The evil pertains to novel’s theme: dehumanization.

Scapegoating Rituals

Much of the novel’s dehumanization results in the tribe’s tendency to randomly pick some scapegoat for humiliation as a ritual of power that reinforces the power hierarchy of the tribe.

We see these scapegoating rituals in the short story, “The Lottery.”

In Chapter 32, we see that Jerry has become the beaten-up scapegoat, demonized, ostracized, made into The Other.

Jerry’s Spiritual Death

The Chocolate War is about the different types of deaths we face when we compromise our individual conscience for power, conformity, and corruption, as Jerry does throughout the novel. One type of death Jerry suffers is the death of the identity of himself that he values:

His image of self as being courageous is gone for he realizes he is a coward who is manipulated by Archie to fight, not out of courage, but by pressure to defend his “manhood” and by revenge.
His image as a compassionate man is gone as he sees he can be calloused and apathetic, a slave to the barbarian tribal code, as he participates in the final fight.
His image as a moral man is gone during the fight when he sees his dead mother casting an admonishing gaze upon him, showing that he has betrayed her, by betraying the values she taught him.
His image as being loyal to his mother is gone as he realizes pride and self-preservation triumphs over all other interests.

Thus the novel is dealing with the death of the self, in a spiritual or psychological sense, much more than it is dealing with physical death.

Jerry’s complex character:

Jerry is a complex character. He is neither simply heroic, worthy of our sympathy and admiration nor simply a “failure,” worthy of our scorn and contempt. Jerry’s moral complexities defy simple analysis.

Some moral complexities of Jerry:

One. He sees the futility and mediocrity of his father’s spineless, complacent existence but fails to see that his father deals with his wife’s death by withdrawing.

Two. Jerry is wise to see the folly of becoming complacent to a life of conforming mediocrity like his father, but then he conforms to violence and the “man code” by participating in the fight at the end of the novel.

Three. Jerry is bold to defy the chocolate sale, Brother Leon and the Vigils, but one could argue that it’s not his free will that is doing the defiance, merely the depression from losing his mother. Less depressed, would he conform like everyone else?

Four. Jerry sees the malignancy that roils beneath Trinity High and the Vigils but he capitulates to the psychological warfare of Archie. As he result, Jerry becomes dehumanized, which is exactly what Archie wanted to witness. Already dehumanized himself, Archie’s main desire in life is to see others go through dehumanization as well. In this way, Archie is the devil, and he is the mastermind of the Vigils.

How do the Vigils contribute to dehumanization?

One. Strip a man of all his belongings, including clothes is powerful symbolically because his complete nakedness represents complete helplessness and powerlessness to both himself and the Vigils. In prison, they guards strip the prisoners of their clothes. While not as extreme, the Vigils do take the students to their hideout where the students are rendered helpless and in a way are “naked.”

Two. The Vigils will humiliate the students, explaining that they are losers who can only redeem themselves by fulfilling the Assignments.

Three. Impose strict rules, which must be rigidly enforced to keep a sharp dividing line between the powerful and the powerless: There are rituals of “respect” that must be maintained lest the students suffer the Vigils’ wrath. We see strict, arbitrary rules in hazing rituals.

Four. The dehumanization can only occur in mutual interdependence and cooperation: a cruel symbiosis between Vigils and students. This symbiosis is also evident between teachers and students when Brother Leon plays a humiliation game on Bailey (“Why do you cheat?”) and when the students go along with it, Leon says the whole class, a bunch of passive cowards, turned into Nazi Germany.

Five. The students mean nothing in the face of the Vigils’ power. The Vigils make the students perform Assignments, which are really exercises in self-abnegation.

Six. The Vigils’ strip the students of their masculinity by the Assignments, which are a reminder of who has all the power and who must be obedient.

Seven. Disobedience to the group will lead to being shunned, ostracized, demonized, and worse. Jerry will be punished for defying the Vigils. He can only refuse the chocolates under the Vigils’ order, but not on his own.

Eight. The Vigils make the students perform tedious acts that remind the students that they are insignificant, less human and more animal.

Nine. Reinforce power by assigning arbitrary, meaningless tasks and gratuitous acts of humiliation. Look again to the Assignment in which a screwdriver is used to unscrew everything in one of the teachers’ rooms. The Goober does it without question, but then is overcome with guilt for the effect it has on the teacher who has a nervous breakdown.

Lexicon of Terms to Better Understand Tribalism:

One. Tribalism: A sense of tribal oneness that entails entitlement and a sense of superiority for the tribe and a sense of subservience and inferiority for The Other. Trinity High consists of The Vigils and the Everyone Else, Us and Them.

Two. Scapegoating, unfairly blaming the misfit or The Other, often with tragic consequences. The Vigils scapegoat anyone who does not bow down to the Vigil's power evidenced by conformity and obedience.

Three. The Bureaucratic Chain of Death: Genocide or mass slaughter is given official sanction from the state and the responsibility is distributed through a bland, unfeeling bureaucracy so that no one feels personally responsible. The Vigils give "assignments" to students. Some of these "assignments" wreak havoc and even give one teacher a nervous breakdown, but the students are simply following orders. Evil is done when people are “just following orders.”

Four. Deference to authority: You are poised to give credibility to what the authority tells you and are not inclined to resist or question the “intelligence” of that authority. The chocolate sale is the work of Brother Leon, a corrupt teacher who engages in fraud, graft, kickbacks and other forms of skullduggery but is esteemed because he is an authority figure.

Five. Response to social consensus: Behaving like the Herd, conforming to the majority opinion of your society in order to share a sense of belonging and unity. Brother Leon relies on the Herd behavior for his chocolate sale to be successful.

Six. Willingness to embrace stereotypes, which means you embrace a monolithic definition of The Other when in fact groups are diverse and defy stereotypes. The Vigils demonize anyone who does not conform to their ways.

Seven. The “average” person. By average, we mean you are willing to make moral compromises to insure your security and the security of your family and your tribe. Sadly, most people are “average.” The goal of the "average" person is to be invisible by complying to the norms of society, the collective authority, even if these norms are immoral. An example is racism. If racism is widespread, a moral individual is compelled to fight it rather than go along with the immoral majority.

Eight. “Decency,” as it is commonly defined, is insufficient to repel evil in others and ourselves because too often “decency” means law-abiding, “nice,” passive, docile, malleable, and indifferent. A coward who conforms to the group is considered “decent.” Does Jerry behave decently in the novel or does he conform to the immorality of the Vigils? You'll have to decide for yourself.

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, homeowners 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.

Aren't All Opinions Alike?

Some people say after reading an essay, “Well, it’s just an opinion.” But are all opinions alike?

The answer is no.

Robert Atwan in his American Now textbook writes six major types of opinions.

As you will see, some are more appropriate for the kind of critical thinking an essay deserves than others.

One. Inherited opinions:

These are opinions that are imprinted on us during our childhood. They come from “family, culture, traditions, customs, regions, social institutions, or religion.”

People’s views on religion, race, education, and humanity come from their family.

Inherited opinions come from cultural and social norms.

In some cultures, it's okay to tell others your income. It's a taboo in America.

We are averse to eating dogs in America because eating dogs is contrary to America’s cultural and social norms. However, other countries eat dogs without any stigma.

We are also averse to eating insects in America when in some countries grubs are a delicacy.

We think it's normal to slaughter trees every year as part of our celebration of Christmas.

We eat until we're so stuffed we cannot walk in America; in contrast, in Japan they follow the rule of hara hachi bu, which means they stop at 80% fullness.

Peanut butter in America represents Mom's Love; in France and Brazil, however, peanut butter is trash and an insult to place in front of someone.

In America, we put dry cereal into a bowl and then pour milk over it. That is not practiced in a lot of other countries.

In America when a woman says yes to a man's date proposal, the man, Louis C.K. tells us, will shake his fist like a tennis champion and scream, "Yeah!" We admire this behavior because we grow up seeing it.

We soak up these types of opinions through a sort of osmosis and a lot of these beliefs are unconscious.

Two. Involuntary opinions: These are the opinions that result from direct indoctrination and inculcation (learning through repetition). If we grow up in a family that teaches us that eating pork is evil, then we won’t eat at other people’s homes that serve that porcine dish.

Or we may, as a result if our religious training, abjure rated R movies.

Or we may have strong feelings, one way or another, regarding gay marriage based on the doctrines we’ve learned over time.

We may have strong feelings about immigration policy based on what we learn from our family, friends, and institutions.

We may have strong feelings about the police and the prison system based on what we learn from family, friends, and institutions.

Three. Adaptive opinions:

We adapt opinions to help us conform to groups we wish to belong to. We are often so eager to belong to this or that group that we sacrifice our critical thinking skills and engage in Groupthink to please the majority.

A student from China back in the 1940s or 1950s was raised in the country. He went to a city school and the richest boy made a sculpture of a butterfly. Everyone loved the butterfly but my student. He explained that a butterfly had 4 wings, not 2. He was sent to the "dunce corner" for the whole day.

He should have kept his mouth shut or pretended that butterflies have 2 wings. That's an example of Groupthink.

Atwan writes that “Adaptive opinions are often weakly held and readily changed . . . But over time they can become habitual and turn into convictions.”

For example, it’s easy for one to be against guns in Santa Monica. However, those views might be less “adaptive” in rural parts of Kentucky or Tennessee.

It's easy to be a vegan in Southern California, but you'll have more challenges being a vegan in certain parts of Texas, Kansas, and the Carolinas where barbecue is king.

Four. Concealed opinions:

Sometimes we have strong opinions that are contrary to the group we belong to so we keep our mouths shut to avoid persecution. You might not want to proclaim your atheism, for example, if you were attending a Christian college.

Five. Linked opinions:

Atwan writes, “Unlike adaptive opinions, which are usually stimulated by convenience and an incentive to conform, these are opinions we derived from an enthusiastic and dedicated affiliation with certain groups, institutions, or parties.”

For example, the modern “Tea Party” people or self-proclaimed Patriots embrace a series of linked opinions: Obama is not American. Obama is a socialist. Obama is helping terrorists get across the boarder. Terrorists helped elect Obama. Obama wants to strip Americans of their right to own guns so that the government and/or terrorists can move in and take Americans’ freedoms.

As you can see, all these opinions are linked to each other. Believing in one of the above opinions encourages belief in the other.

Six. Considered opinions:

Atwan writes, “These are opinions we have formed as a result of firsthand experience, reading, discussion and debate, or independent thinking and reasoning. These opinions are formed from direct knowledge and often from exposure and considering other opinions.”

Often considered opinions result in examining mythologies or fake narratives that are drilled down our throats and we deconstruct these false narratives so that we can see the truth behind them.

Considered opinions are practiced by Vulcans, according to Jason Brennan, author of Against Democracy. Sadly, Vulcans are a tiny percentage of the population.

Troll opinions based on fake news are held by Hooligans.

No opinions at all are held by the mindless shoppers, known as Hobbits.

There are many fake narratives:

Columbus “discovering” America.

The European pilgrims “sharing” with the American Indians.

White slave owners “blessing” Africans with Christianity.

The pharmaceutical industry making our health job one.

Mexican workers in America "stealing" jobs from Americans.

Poor people "choose" to be poor.

Poor people deserve to be poor because they're bad, morally flawed human beings.

Obese people got fat from being morally flawed such as being selfish and gluttonous.

Developing critical thinking skills means being able to pick apart a false narrative and examine the true narrative behind it.

Some would define literacy as developing critical thinking skills and that failure to do so is to remain a mindless consumer, an obedient child to the parental authorities of market trends and advertising.

It's your choice: You can either swallow the blue pill (blissful ignorance) or the red pill (uncomfortable, often painful truth).

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

Signal Phrases:

About 80% of your essay should be your writing and 20% should be quoted, paraphrased, and summarized material.

Sample List of Signal Phrases

4 Steps of MLA In-Text Citations

You need to do four things when you quote, paraphrase, or summarize from a text.

Step One: The first thing you need to do is introduce the material with a signal phrase.

Make sure to use a variety of signal phrases to introduce quotations and paraphrases.

Verbs in Signal Phrases

According to . . . (very common)

Ha Jin writes . . . (very common)

Panbin laments . . .

Alan Jacobs proposes that we . . .

Alan Jacobs asserts that . . .

We read in How to Think that . . .

In How to Think, Alan Jacobs observes that . . .

Signal Phrase Templates

In the words of researchers Redelmeier and Tibshirani, “…”

As Matt Sundeen has noted, “…”

Patti Pena, mother of a child killed by a driver distracted by a cell phone, points out that “…”

“…” writes Christine Haughney, “…”

“…” claims wireless spokesperson Annette Jacobs.

Radio hosts Tom and Ray Magliozzi offer a persuasive counterargument: “…”

Step Two: The quote, paraphrase, or summary you use.

Step Three: The parenthetical citation, which comes after the cited material.

Kwon points out that the Fourth Amendment does not give employees any protections from employers’ “unreasonable searches and seizures” (6).

In the cultural website One-Way Street, Richard Prouty observes that Lasdun's "men exist in a fixed point of the universe, but they have no agency" (para. 7).

Step Four: Analyze your cited material. The analysis should be of a greater length than the cited material. Show how the cited material supports your thesis.

Example Set 1

Example Set 2

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:

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.
McMahon abstains from HomeTown Buffet, and he also avoids Shakey’s, Claim Jumpers, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Del Taco, Subway, Quiznos, and Dominoes.
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.

Going AWOL is a sign of cowardice, however, we should not coerce the absent soldier from going back to his platoon.
We are a country that dismisses sleep as the act of the Lazy Man, to the contrary, though, sleep is essential to supreme health.
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.”
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.
The crying cow grabbed my attention, never in my life did I look at a cow that way.
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

Essay Strategy:

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.

Posted at 07:26 AM in Chocolate War & Inner Ring Lessons | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Chocolate War Lesson 3: Nihilism, Evil, and Cruelty Define Characters Archie Costello and Brother Leon

The Chocolate War Lesson 2: Nihilism, Evil, and Cruelty Define Characters Archie Costello and Brother Leon.

English 1C Writing Assignment for Essay #1

Choice A

Develop a thesis that addresses The Chocolate War novel’s theme of dehumanization. You might consider the novel’s conflict between free will and determinism as you observe Jerry Renault struggle for his soul in the aftermath of his mother’s death.

Choice B

Develop a thesis that addresses the similarities between Archie Costello and Brother Leon, especially as they pertain to the sin of pride, moral depravity, nihilism, and sadism (wanting to inflict cruelty upon others).

Choice C

Develop a thesis that compares the theme of evil in The Chocolate War and Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery.” See this commentary.

Evil and Dehumanization Are Gradual

Dehumanization doesn’t happen overnight. It happens in increments. The novel’s two most evil characters, Archie and Brother Leon, did not wake up evil. Rather, they daily cultivate evil: corruption, nihilism, sadism to feed their enormous egos.

The evil is in a perverse way like a well-honed statue they’ve spent their whole life effort on: They’ve invested so much time in their own evil making that they must delude themselves that they have taken the best life course of all the options available to them.

Their willed delusions result in greater and greater dehumanization.

People who submit to evil don’t believe they’re doing evil. Rather, they believe they are choosing the past path for their self-interest.

Brother Leon and Archie are blind to the fact that their actions result in furthering their misery, alienation, and dehumanization, and their swollen egos prevent them from acknowledging the errors of their ways.

Moral Depravity and Loss of Critical Thinking Skills

Archie and Leon are smart in terms of mental powers, but their smarts is compromised by their egotism and moral depravity so that they lack the objective critical thinking skills to make a dispassionate analysis of what they’re doing that works in their self-destruction.

It is rare that individuals takes stock of their moral accountability and address their wrongdoings in the service of self-improvement.

It is rare that people can swallow their ego, examine unflinchingly their shortcomings, and then, resisting the temptation to self-pity and learned helplessness, take effective action to improve their behavior by embracing virtue and discovering a path toward happiness.

Two. The Coach asks Jerry Renault why a shrimp like him is trying out for football quarterback. Why is Renault doing so?

Some might argue that Jerry, who recently lost his mother to cancer, is trying to escape the grief over such a huge loss. Or that the pain from football is a welcome substitute to the pain of mourning for the loss of his mother, and he needs a distraction.

Sometimes when we are grieving, we go through so much pain that we eventually face an emptiness and numbness that can only be remedied, we believe, through self-hurt. We become desperate to feel--anything--even if the feeling is excruciating pain.

Three. Describe the complicated relationship between Obie and Archie.

Obie, referred to as an “errand boy,” hates and admires his boss, Archie, the seemingly sociopathic high official of the school underground gang or organization called The Vigils, who spends his time devising schemes and humiliating “assignments” while showing off his disbelief in religion and his general embrace of nihilism (the belief that nothing matters in this world because everything is BS).

Archie is a sort of deputy (The Assigner) to the head honcho Carter, the boss of The Vigils while Obie is a low-ranking secretary.

Archie wallows in his power and his condescension over the human race while Obie envies Archie for being so cool and apparently dispassionate about everything.

Archie is repulsed by physical violence and human sweat, but he relishes in psychological games and emotional warfare. He is a toxic soul who, unhappy, wants to make sure he makes others’ lives a living hell. If he can “murder” a human soul, he feels he has triumphed.

In Chapter 2, Archie says, “What the hell do they think I am?” suggesting he is full of self-regard and self-grandiosity. He is overcome by the sin of pride.

Obie can never trust Archie because Archie is duplicitous, a person of total affect, pretense, and facade.

In many ways, Archie is the Devil.

As the Devil, Archie needs to torment those who will put up a good fight and those who show special vulnerabilities. Archie is drawn to Jerry based on Jerry’s suffering and loss of his mother. An opportunity for cruelty and nihilism and the opportunity to see someone with a rich soul lose that soul is irresistible to Archie. Killing souls is Archie’s full-time job. Why? In part, because Archie is already dead, and he needs company.

The novel is nothing less than the fight for the human soul in the face of the tribe’s demands.

Four. What is it about Brother Leon that terrifies Archie?

That adults are not masters of their existence, that they run scared, that they have no answers, that they are morally crippled and corrupt, that at the end of the day they are scared little children wearing a facade.

Adults spend their whole lives conforming to a script to impress others, to put up a facade that will win respect, veneration, and approval. But beneath this facade is a terrified soul anxious that any misstep may result in a stumble that will result in humiliation and ridicule.

No doubt, Archie sees a reflection of himself in this portrait since he tries to portray himself as the Big Guy looking down at all the puny adolescent peons of his school.

Brother Leon, Trinity’s assistant headmaster, and Archie, Vigils’ deputy, are soulmates, two devilish souls entwined in skullduggery, including a corrupt chocolate sale, which includes a suspiciously large order of Mother’s Day chocolates with purple ribbons. Clearly, Brother Leon has committed some kind of impropriety, which we can only imagine though it’s hinted that Brother Leon purchased the chocolates at a great price as a money grab for the school. And he needs Archie’s help to expedite the situation.

Like Archie, Brother Leon is cruel and sadistic and he seeks out those with vulnerabilities and weaknesses and loves “exploiting those weaknesses” (25).

Leon won’t utter the Vigils by name, but he relies on their power to keep the school under control, the way prison guards rely on the inmate “shot callers” to manage the rest of the prison population.

In the famous Chapter 6 where Leon humiliates Bailey as a cheater, using several logical fallacies, we see that Leon is a grown-up version of Archie, a man who relishes in playing games with people’s heads, gaslighting others, and causing mayhem because his own inner torment compels him to torment others.

Five. How does Archie tempt Jerry at the end of the novel, beginning in Chapter 35?

Archie wants to see Jerry resort to violence, evidence that Jerry has no self-control, evidence that Jerry is a pawn of external circumstance just like the next guy, evidence that Jerry is just another soulless animal, evidence that Jerry has no moral core, evidence that in this world there is nothing to fight for, no soul to preserve, no moral code to uphold. Life is garbage. Life is nihilism. Archie, who is dead, must have this “truth” affirmed. It is his primary psychological motivation.

ike the short story “The Lottery,” they draw randomly to see who gets to commit violence upon whom. This stage of brutality has an audience that pays for a raffle of the 50 missing boxes of chocolates.

Archie loves the bloody spectacle and its appeal. As he gleefully says, “You see, Carter, people are two things: greedy and cruel. So kid pays a buck for a chance to win a hundred. Plus fifty boxes of chocolates. The cruel part--watching two guys hitting each other, maybe hurting each other, while they’re safe in the bleachers. That’s why it works, Carter, because we’re all bastards” (231).

The bloody spectacle affirms Archie’s nihilistic worldview, so nihilistic to the core that even his boss Carter is disgusted by it.

Six. The Goober has been morally repulsed by Trinity High School all along. Why is it important that he show up to the bloody spectacle in Chapter Thirty-Seven?

Sadly, our hero Jerry is too absorbed by grief and anger to be a moral point of view. The novel’s moral point of view actually belongs to a secondary character, The Goober, who must bear witness to the erosion of his friend’s morality as Jerry submits to violence.

He witnesses Jerry, now a broken young man on page 248, a young man broken by the “game,” the system,” saying, don’t rock the boat, play the game, do what they tell you because if you don’t, they will crush you into powder. Jerry has submitted to Archie’s nihilism, and The Goober bears witness to it.

Nihilism Is No Longer a “Choice” for Archie and Brother Leon

nihilism, the obliteration of right and wrong, losing any stakes in life, nothing is at stake anymore, beyond caring is the shortest definition, a sort of spiritual death where you wander the world not caring if you live or die or amount to anything. Death of a moral compass.
Anything Goes Morality or Moral relativism, make up your moral system depending on circumstances. Stealing, lying, cheating, and other immoral conduct can be rationalized under the right circumstances.
Populist Fallacy: Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t I? Brother Leon presumably sees other teachers getting kickbacks, so he “joins the party.”
Slippery slope is when your rationalizations lead to nihilism.
In nihilism you reach the point where there are no rules so that “all is permitted” or “anything goes.”
Inconsolable, learned helplessness, a sense that everything is futile so the only thing left in life is to “get yours.” In America, we have the nihilistic saying, “I’ve got mine. Get yours.”
Point of No Return, like the cop who steals drugs 1,000 times.
“Despair is not knowing it,” Kierkegaard
empathy vs. self-pity, an eternal battle
numbness, which leads to sadism, a perverted form of power in which one derives pleasure from inflicting cruelty upon others.

The General Causes of Nihilism in the Novel

nihilism, the obliteration of right and wrong, losing any stakes in life, nothing is at stake anymore, beyond caring is the shortest definition, a sort of spiritual death where you wander the world not caring if you live or die or amount to anything. Death of a moral compass. Jerry seems to suffer from nihilism. So does Archie. They are resigned to being helpless to evil and the lust for power.
Anything Goes Morality or Moral relativism, make up your moral system depending on circumstances. Stealing, lying, cheating, and other immoral conduct can be rationalized under the right circumstances. Archie is the supreme master of rationalizations. He never takes responsibility for his own actions. He always has excuses.
Populist Fallacy: Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t I? Students see other students doing the "assignments" so they feel that it's okay to do them.
Slippery slope is when your rationalizations lead to nihilism. Once you rationalize a small thing, like stealing a fruit juice at work, why not take a few twenty dollar bills out of the cash register?
The fear of having no rules so that “all is permitted” or “anything goes.” We need boundaries. This is the theme of the beloved classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Inconsolable, learned helplessness, a sense that everything is futile: In Chinese:mai ban fa: “Nothing can be done.” This is the emotional state of Jerry about his life.
Point of No Return; Archie's contempt for others, and himself, is so strong that one wonders if he can ever return to any kind of sympathy for the human race.
numbness, which leads to sadism, a perverted form of power in which one derives pleasure from inflicting cruelty upon others. Brother Leon loves to play sadistic games with the students such as Bailey when he calls this outstanding student a "cheater and a liar."
Nihilism happens to people who don't know it.

Part Three. What are Archie’s values and how do those values connect to nihilism?

See Chapter 2, page 8. In a way, Archie is the novel’s Satan. For Archie, there is no truth, only BS, and some BS is better than other BS. That is the measure of things: the quality of one’s BS. Nihilism means there is no truth and therefore no lie. All is B.S. Therefore, all is the same. People who embrace the B.S. Principle inevitably succumb to nihilism.
Archie prides himself as being beyond the norm, beyond the herd, beyond conventional morality. He is better than everyone and as such he is mired in intellectual pride. Archie sees himself as the supreme psychologist who can penetrate and manipulate anyone. Yet he is the butt of his own joke in that he lives in interminable isolation and anhedonia. While he is full of bluster and braggadocio, there is an underlying sadness and loneliness that afflicts Archie and in the end it suffuses him with a sense of nihilism and hopelessness.
Archie is a determinist. He doesn’t believe people have free will to exercise moral goodness or self-transformation. His “assignments” are designed to show how helpless people are in order to confirm Archie’s deterministic worldview. He lives to re-affirm his pessimism. His nihilistic pessimism is embodied in the statement “Life is shit.” Such a statement is evidence of nihilism.
Reinforcing Archie’s nihilistic pessimism, he sees all adults, including Brother Leon, as frightened children wearing an adult wax mask, which melts rather easily, upon the slightest provocation. The corrupt and cowardly Leon underscores Archie’s belief in nihilism, that the world is a hopeless and meaningless place. Brother Leon poses another nihilistic vision to Archie: Leon is both sadistic and helpless before his own sycophantic cowardice. He is also corrupt.
Archie’s complete absence of self-respect also contributes to his nihilism. Archie prides himself in his powerful role, yet he has no self-respect because in part he knows he is a man with no integrity. He plays the game just like everyone else. Deep down, he knows he sold his soul to the Devil. He is overcome with self-disgust, for he knows his own actions are vile.
Archie’s misanthropy (hating the human race) also contributes to his misanthropy. See the opening of Chapter 5. His sour attitude toward life is further reinforced by his belief that he is a genius surrounded by a “confederacy of dunces,” idiots who cannot appreciate his scintillating assignments.
Archie’s daily observation of human cowardice and conformity contribute to his nihilism. For example, every day he sees some scared, groveling student obeying the Vigils’ Assignments. No one stands up to the Vigils, evidencing the spineless student body whom Archie has contempt for.
The faculty’s unspoken tolerance of the Vigils reinforces Archie’s nihilism because he knows the faculty stands for nothing. They tolerate the Vigils because the Vigils have power and the Vigils’ control of the students is to the school’s advantage. This is analogous to prison guards and the wardens who tolerate gang leaders, shot-callers, controlling the inmates. In the end, it isn’t about values; it’s about power. And a world that worships power with no values is a nihilistic world.

Archie Is a Satanic Figure

One. Like Satan, Archie is full of pride and has blind faith that his superior intellect gives him the upper hand with others.

Two. Like Satan, Archie has contempt for the human race ("We're all bastards," he says in the novel). Having contempt means you believe every person has a price and that every person enjoys watching the humiliation and failure of others. This is called schadenfreude.

Three. Like Satan, Archie lives in eternal exile, apart from the human race. Archie is insufferably lonely and disconnected from others he attempts to compensate for his misery by exercising power.

Four. Like Satan, Archie is so proudful that he'd rather rule in hell that serve in heaven. That is to say, he prefers to live in his lonely world and marinate in his self-centered existence.

Five. Like Satan, Archie is the master of rationalization and manipulation. He can pull BS out of his you know what to trick others and suck them into his schemes.

Six. Like Satan, Archie easily rejects moral absolutes and moral values because he rationalizes that he is superior to others and thus lives beyond the moral sphere. Morality doesn't apply to him. What does? Moral relativism. You make up whatever morality you want depending on the circumstances.

Part Five. The Difference Between a General and a Specific Thesis. It's the Difference Between a Failed and Successful Essay.

A general thesis is too broad, too blah, and has a limp lackluster quality.

A specific thesis is razor-sharp in its focus, fiery, and sometimes argumentative.

Examples of a General Thesis

The Chocolate War is a deterministic novel.

Determinism imbues the novel's characters.

The characters cannot escape determinism and are doomed to a life without free will.

More Specific Thesis Statements Addressing Determinism

The Chocolate War affords us a dark vision of the world, one stripped of free will and taken over by determinism. This unforgiving determinism is the result of _________, __________, ___________, and ___________.

General Thesis Examples

A world of determinism can never rise above the despair of nihilism.

Nihilism is the novel's major mood and produces the novel's major theme.

The novel's characters cannot escape nihilism.

Improved Thesis Statement Addressing Nihilism

The novel's nihilism comes from Cormier's pessimistic view of human nature, which can be characterized by __________, ____________, __________, and _______________.

General Thesis Examples

Archie is Satan.

Archie's supercilious air makes him a satanic figure.

Archie has a devilish way about him.

Archie's devilish manner makes him repulsive.

More Specific Thesis That Addresses Archie's Satanic Aspects

While not devil's equal, we can see that Archie's psychology has many qualities in common with that Fallen Angel Lucifer. The most striking similarities include __________, __________, ______________, and _____________.

What is the dehumanization process that encourages those in power (teachers, the Vigils) to become more cruel and ruthless in their imposition of power against their subjects (students)?

Example: Chapter 6: Brother Leon is bored with his life and feels the need to terrify one of the "weaker" students for his own delectation and sick sadistic pleasure.

Brother Leon uses false logic in the form of a false syllogism to accuse Bailey of cheating.

Bailey, why do you cheat?
Bailey earns straight A's.
A's are a sign of perfection.
Only God is perfect.
Bailey can't be God and enjoy God's perfection.
Therefore, Bailey is a cheater and a liar.

There is also an example of the "Brain Tie."

Sometimes it works the other way around with the students abusing the teacher.

The spit wad incident for the teacher with PTSD.
The fat teacher who got stuck in the supply closet while getting the overhead projector.

Analyze the sadistic dynamics between “captors and captives” in Chapters 5 and 6 with the Stanford Experiment. Consider the process of dehumanization.

Goober is less human and more like “Vigil bait.”
Archie prides himself on being able to “build a house next door,” come up with a quick solution for the Vigils, but he can’t find a solution to his own misery, his own personal sense that he’s lacking in humanity. He also feels a sense of “self-disgust,” especially when he’s performing an Assignment, interrogating a student.
The interrogating takes place in a windowless room with guards and a bare light bulb. It’s essentially a prison cell.
“Tell me why you’re here.” What does this establish? Who’s in charge, who’s got the power. Obedience.
Archie tells Goober the Assignment isn’t personal, which shows the depersonalization or dehumanization of the subject performing the Assignment.
The Goober passively accepts the Assignment. It is “doom,” something inescapable, no student has been able to fight against it.
In Chapter 6, Brother Leon takes delight in humiliating Bailey, one of his best students, by accusing him of being a cheater. The scene underscores the powerful and the powerless.

Part Three. One Way of Approaching the Essay Assignment (If I Were Writing It)

In my first page, I would write about a time I compromised my humanity by conforming to some unwritten law, like the time I fought Ron Reynolds because he had said something in PE that had insulted me. I wasn’t really mad, but punched him to “defend my honor,” then felt guilty afterwards.

Or I'd write about the constant demonization of Tasmanian Devil.

Nihilism in the Novel

To suffer from the condition of nihilism means you’ve given up on the idea of right and wrong, free will (the free will to exercise individual conscience over the demands of the tribe), and reciprocity (treating people the way you’d like to be treated) for a better society. As a result, you’ve surrendered to the paralysis of self-pity and learned helplessness and see yourself as a victim at the mercy of powers larger than you.

There are two types of nihilists in the world, those who know they’re nihilists and those who don’t know. Most nihilists don’t know they are.

Most people slowly surrender to nihilism and become helpless to the point that it is often too late.

Two examples: A doctor who obsessed over his ex-wife taking the furniture from his million-dollar home and the woman who never recovered from her fiancé cheating on her two days before her planned wedding.

In contrast, Archie Costello knows he’s a nihilist. He believes everyone, including himself, is bad and cowardly at their core. He sees himself as superior to others because he at least has the courage to recognize that he is a horrible person, a mere puppet in the world’s power play. He knows that no matter how many people he is manipulating, there is always someone above him who manipulates him. His worldview makes him bitter and full of contempt and self-disgust, a condition he attempts to allay by inflicting cruel games on others.

Part Three. The Causes of Nihilism in the Novel

1. nihilism, the obliteration of right and wrong, losing any stakes in life, nothing is at stake anymore, beyond caring is the shortest definition, a sort of spiritual death where you wander the world not caring if you live or die or amount to anything. Death of a moral compass. Jerry seems to suffer from nihilism. So does Archie. They are resigned to being helpless to evil and the lust for power.

2. Anything Goes Morality or Moral relativism, make up your moral system depending on circumstances. Stealing, lying, cheating, and other immoral conduct can be rationalized under the right circumstances. Archie is the supreme master of rationalizations. He never takes responsibility for his own actions. He always has excuses.

3. Populist Fallacy: Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t I? Students see other students doing the "assignments" so they feel that it's okay to do them.

4. Slippery slope is when your rationalizations lead to nihilism. Once you rationalize a small thing, like stealing a fruit juice at work, why not take a few twenty dollar bills out of the cash register?

5. The fear of having no rules so that “all is permitted” or “anything goes.” We need boundaries. This is the theme of the beloved classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

6. Inconsolable, learned helplessness, a sense that everything is futile: In Chinese:mai ban fa: “Nothing can be done.” This is the emotional state of Jerry about his life.

7. Point of No Return; Archie's contempt for others, and himself, is so strong that one wonders if he can ever return to any kind of sympathy for the human race.

8. numbness, which leads to sadism, a perverted form of power in which one derives pleasure from inflicting cruelty upon others. Brother Leon loves to play sadistic games with the students such as Bailey when he calls this outstanding student a "cheater and a liar."

9. Nihilism is a form of self-pity and learned helplessness.

10. Nihilism is the product of not loving something larger than yourself.

11. The long-term effect of nihilism is anhedonia, the inability to experience happiness or joy.

Part Four. What are Archie’s values and how do those values connect to nihilism?

1. See Chapter 2, page 8. In a way, Archie is the novel’s Satan. For Archie, there is no truth, only BS, and some BS is better than other BS. That is the measure of things: the quality of one’s BS. Nihilism means there is no truth and therefore no lie. All is B.S. Therefore, all is the same. People who embrace the B.S. Principle inevitably succumb to nihilism.

2. Archie prides himself as being beyond the norm, beyond the herd, beyond conventional morality. He is better than everyone and as such he is mired in intellectual pride. Archie sees himself as the supreme psychologist who can penetrate and manipulate anyone. Yet he is the butt of his own joke in that he lives in interminable isolation and anhedonia. While he is full of bluster and braggadocio, there is an underlying sadness and loneliness that afflicts Archie and in the end it suffuses him with a sense of nihilism and hopelessness.

3. Archie is a determinist. He doesn’t believe people have free will to exercise moral goodness or self-transformation. His “assignments” are designed to show how helpless people are in order to confirm Archie’s deterministic worldview. He lives to re-affirm his pessimism. His nihilistic pessimism is embodied in the statement “Life is shit.” Such a statement is evidence of nihilism.

4. Reinforcing Archie’s nihilistic pessimism, he sees all adults, including Brother Leon, as frightened children wearing an adult wax mask, which melts rather easily, upon the slightest provocation. The corrupt and cowardly Leon underscores Archie’s belief in nihilism, that the world is a hopeless and meaningless place. Brother Leon poses another nihilistic vision to Archie: Leon is both sadistic and helpless before his own sycophantic cowardice. He is also corrupt.

5. Archie’s complete absence of self-respect also contributes to his nihilism. Archie prides himself in his powerful role, yet he has no self-respect because in part he knows he is a man with no integrity. He plays the game just like everyone else. Deep down, he knows he sold his soul to the Devil. He is overcome with self-disgust, for he knows his own actions are vile.

6. Archie’s misanthropy (hating the human race) also contributes to his misanthropy. See the opening of Chapter 5. His sour attitude toward life is further reinforced by his belief that he is a genius surrounded by a “confederacy of dunces,” idiots who cannot appreciate his scintillating assignments.

7. Archie’s daily observation of human cowardice and conformity contribute to his nihilism. For example, every day he sees some scared, groveling student obeying the Vigils’ Assignments. No one stands up to the Vigils, evidencing the spineless student body whom Archie has contempt for.

8. The faculty’s unspoken tolerance of the Vigils reinforces Archie’s nihilism because he knows the faculty stands for nothing. They tolerate the Vigils because the Vigils have power and the Vigils’ control of the students is to the school’s advantage. This is analogous to prison guards and the wardens who tolerate gang leaders, shot-callers, controlling the inmates. In the end, it isn’t about values; it’s about power. And a world that worships power with no values is a nihilistic world.

Part Five: In-Class Activity

Write a one-paragraph profile of someone you know who surrendered to nihilism. If you like your profile, you may use it as an introduction for your essay.

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The Chocolate War Study Guide

The Chocolate War

One. The novel’s first sentence is “They murdered him,” which announces the theme of violence. How is this novel about violence and mayhem?

Peer pressure too often compels us to abandon individual conscience and obey the whims of the tribe, and too often the tribe’s whims veer to violence. To obey peer pressure results in the abandonment of critical thinking, morality, and humanity. We become dehumanized.

The Tribe offers us entrance and eventual belonging (and rank) in the Inner Circle, but we must comply and conform to the Tribe’s demands, especially those demands that exact cruelty upon others.

As soon as we rationalize doing the tribe’s bidding, we murder our own soul. At times, the tribe collectively murders our will to stand up for ourselves and others.

We break down, get tired, give up, become apathetic, and we surrender to moral cowardice.

Such moral cowardice is a major theme in the novel.

We are tested.

The tribe “tests” us, as The Goober tells his friend Jerry Renault, who is getting crushed during football practice.

What is being tested? Notions of manhood and loyalty to the tribe, and how that loyalty makes one willing to surrender individual morality and conscience to meet the tribe’s demands.

Belonging to the tribe results in dehumanization.

Jerry sees the other football players on the field as “grotesque unknown creatures,” pointing to their dehumanization.

Jerry himself feels dehumanized. Part of his dehumanization is the result of his cowardice, which prevents him from standing up for himself and results in self-loathing and self-hatred.

Dehumanization is gradual.

Dehumanization doesn’t happen overnight. It happens in increments.