Zinn Paper #1
Chapters 1 and 3
Chapter 1:
This chapter begins with a discussion of a few instances in history where groups of people believed that other races and social classes were inferior to others. The end result of these instances was that many, if not all, of the inferior people were killed. From these occurrences, Zinn concludes that our thinking does not merely spark debates, but ultimately is a variable of life and death. He also believes that although we live in a democratic country, the ideas of ethical behavior that were formulated by our forefathers has condemned us to accept them as right, without questioning why they are right. These ideas were not framed by a group of conspirators, nor were they accidental; these ideas were a result of natural selection in which ideas were encouraged, financed, and pushed forward by those who were in power or by those who had great influence on the general public. Although these beliefs were written off as correct, Zinn believes that if we decide to reexamine these beliefs, and see that they are not “natural” ideas, we have come to a major turning point: we are examining and confronting American ideology. These ideas that are expressed in “Introduction: American Ideology,” are very sound because they help me to see why it is important to challenge the status quo. If I sit back and just allow people to feed me information about one fact or another, and I just absorb it all in, then I may not really be formulating my own beliefs, but accepting someone else’s. There should be a deeper meaning to what I believe further than what someone has dictated to me to be correct. I should ask intuitive questions about why someone views something as correct, and by that process, I might begin to clearly see their idea as acceptable. Oftentimes, many people, including myself, suppress what they believe in because as Zinn mentioned, these dissenting ideas are most often drowned in criticism because they are outside of the “acceptable or popular choices”. By doing this, those who believe that their idea is right, maintain power. In a real world example, you may be hanging out with a group of friends at a party when all of a sudden, your friends start smoking marijuana. Everyone but you is an avid believer that smoking it is cool, and is acceptable because everyone else is doing it. You have never smoked marijuana a day in your life, but under the circumstances, you fall into peer pressure when a joint is passed your way. In this instance, you know you believe that smoking marijuana is wrong, but you suppress your beliefs since every single one of your friends is doing it, and by speaking up, your belief will most definitely be covered in criticism. The end result is that your group of friends maintains power over you, and will find it that much easier to influence you to smoke marijuana again.
Chapter 3: Zinn’s point of his writing in chapter 3 is that human ‘violent nature’ is usually by the upbringing of the individual. The one consistent in Zinn’s writing with this chapter is: Are we supposed to blame war on human nature? Is the government the be-all-end-all when it comes to how humans react and act during war? Those are some extremely well thought out questions that Zinn brought up multiple times. There are not many ties resulting back to any psychological, physical or any other type of studies to relate on how humans become violent/aggressive in the world we live in. History is the one thing that Einstein, Freud and many other intellectual people have pointed back to the reason why some people would become hostile. Milgram experiment can really put some perspective on how it affects humans with how close they are when it comes to inflicting pain, or making a situation worse, for another individual. When those people saw wrong answers, they were supposed to hit a button to inflict an electric buzz. When the study examined when someone was put closer to the person, they were more likely to exit the experiment. If they were place further away with less conflict of interested, they were less inclined to leave the experiment. Never the less, people still were pushing the button because a person with ‘more power’ told them that they had to push that button if they were to get an answer wrong. Zinn also points out that the notion of violence in war is usually just another man following his country’s best interest. We as humans, almost always, assume that our political leaders know best. There were multiple stories in there of men that were not proud of what they did but just simply put that they were doing what they were told to do. To the people that don’t do what the government tries to ‘brainwash’ them in doing for war purposes are dismantled and looked down upon by the government. They are out casted as cowards and usually put into jail. Usually Zinn’s main theory is that most people aren’t genetically violent people (unless they has specific mental health issues) it is usually involved with what type of culture they have been exposed to. When it comes to war, those people are just really doing what they are told to do because they believe it is in their best interest, and their countries.