"Third Wave" in the US. How a teacher turned his students into Nazis in a week.

Most people firmly believe that they will never fall victim to the manipulations of others. И... immediately take advantage of store discounts. Most are convinced that nothing can shake their beliefs. И... watches TV every day.
The post will go about a real psychological experiment, which confirmed the well-known unpleasant truth: in fact, people are amazingly suggestible creatures.

Everybody sit down!

In 1967, Ron Jones worked as an ordinary history teacher in an ordinary grammar school. At that time, before the explosive growth of IT, Palo Alto was an ordinary town, known only for nearby Stanford University.

The Ron Jones at the time of the experiment


In April, the students were going through the history of World War II. In one of the lessons, the students were outraged. How could the Germans calmly put up with the mass extermination of people, horrible concentration camps and other nightmares of Nazi Germany? Couldn't the people en masse rise up against the obvious madness and bring order to their own land.
According to Jones, he did not know what to answer to these questions. Instead of direct answers, he decided to conduct a psychological experiment on the students of one of his classes. Initially it was planned that the experiment would last exactly one week. The teacher could afford such liberty, as the students were ahead of the curriculum by exactly that week.

The experiment began with discipline. On Monday, Ron spoke at length about the virtues of discipline. It helps athletes, it helps you succeed, it makes you better, and it trains your willpower. Basically, it's a simple way to be better than others.


The class cheered. During the lesson, Jones trained the students to assume the correct posture at the desk: feet parallel to each other and tightly pressed to the floor, ankles locked, knees bent at a 90-degree angle, arms crossed behind the back, spine straight, chin down, head tilted forward. Surprisingly, the schoolchildren liked this game. After 20 minutes of training, they could already silently take their seats in the "correct" posture at the command "Attention".

"Many questions plagued me. Why do the disciples submit to the authority that is being imposed on them? Why are they not surprised or resistant to this 'martial law'? When and how will it end?"

Ron couldn't believe that he had managed to "train" the students so quickly. For the sake of interest, he made the "game" more complicated and introduced new rules. Not only did they have to take their seats quietly and in a certain posture, but they also had to put a pencil and paper on the table, stand next to the desk when answering or asking a question, and begin any address to the teacher with the words "Mr. Jones.
Everyone had to pass a kind of test. Answering slowly and uncertainly? Repeat until you develop automaticity, accuracy, and liveliness. Praise for your efforts. Something's not coming out? Repeat until you learn. The authoritarian method of teaching bore amazing fruit on the first day. The class activity increased dramatically, and even those who had previously sat silently from bell to bell took part in the discussion.

Third Wave fireworks.

The next day Ron seriously considered stopping the experiment here and now. The occasion for such thoughts was the beginning of class on Tuesday. When the teacher entered the classroom, all the students were sitting in the "correct" posture, almost no one was smiling, but many were very focused. There was complete silence in the classroom instead of the usual bustling noise.

Ron Jones


Still, Jones decided to continue. This time he devoted the lesson to the concept of community. He gave a short but emotional talk about how together people help each other not to be alone. Then the instructor proposed to test the power of togetherness and came up with a motto: "Strength in discipline, strength in togetherness!". First he had two students recite the slogan loudly, then another couple joined them, and so on.

"The students began to look at each other and felt the power that the sense of belonging to a group gave them. Everyone felt their own abilities and everyone was equal among themselves. They were making common cause. We worked on this simple action for an entire lesson. We repeated the motto in a raspy chorus or said it louder and louder. We always spoke together, and we always remembered to sit, stand, and speak correctly," Ron later recalled.

And at the end of the lesson, he came up with a salute - the Third Wave salute. Students in the class had to greet each other by curving their right arm and folding their hands in a boat. Why "wave?" Because the hand reminded Jones of the crest of an incoming wave. And "third" because sailors call the third wave the biggest wave. Anyway, both the name and the greeting were thought up in a flash and spontaneously.
In the following days, the students of this class greeted each other with "third wave" in the hallways and gym, in the library and on the street. Other students noticed the strange gestures. At first they were interested, and then some of them began to follow Ron's experiment.

Snitches, parents, principal

The most interesting thing started on Wednesday. On that day, the teacher brought membership cards to the class and made up tasks for each of the kids. Some of them were entrusted to report to him about those students who did not obey the rules. Others were tasked with recruiting new members of the Third Wave, teaching them the routines and greetings. Still others had to come up with a flag for the movement. Fourths had to keep a roll call of new members.

"My fear was mainly due to widespread whistle-blowing."

The school principal showed up at the pedagogical council. But not to clear the air. He simply gave Ron the Third Wave salute. And by the end of the day, the movement had grown from 30 people to 200. Each was promised a membership card and some important assignment. Jones even had a personal bodyguard. Robert was a big and not the most savvy guy, but now, with the same rules for all, he felt confident and able to do something. The tall boy began to accompany his adored teacher everywhere, opening doors for him and "guarding" him at the entrance to the teacher's room.


"I felt very alone and was somewhat intimidated. Although I had formally assigned only three students to report misbehavior, about 20 people came to me to tell me about Allan not giving the salute and Georgina being critical of our experiment," Ron later wrote.

That same day, the first overt defiance manifested itself. The three smart-aleck girls were unhappy that they could no longer stand out for their knowledge. They did what the other students did, of course, but without enthusiasm. Then they complained to their parents. A worried call from one of them followed in the evening. However, Jones assured them that the class was simply learning a German personality type. That was the end of the proceedings.

The government's secret program

On Thursday, Ron came to school depressed. He didn't know what to do next. The experiment couldn't continue because it had gone too far. Students began to skip other classes to work for the benefit of the Third Wave. Moreover, Jones was terrified of the fact that he was happy to get into the role of a dictator and justify it with good intentions. But it was also dangerous to stop the experiment. You'd have to declare everything a game. What would happen to the children, who, like Robert, would surely feel humiliated? After all, they had shown their commitment to radical views in front of the whole school.
When the teacher crossed the threshold of the classroom, he saw that there were at least 80 students gathered there. Everyone sat quietly and still, waiting for the revelations of the "guru". Then Ron came up with this idea. He said that the "Third Wave" was actually a secret government program in which teachers had to find the most deserving kids. They would be used to form youth squads designed to change the country, to make its people better.

"It was a ridiculous game. I kept talking, afraid that if I stopped, someone would laugh or ask a question and the whole great plan would fall apart"

Jones assigned four chaperones and ordered them to remove from the classroom three girls who had complained to their parents about the experiment. The students were forbidden to report to class tomorrow, because that was the day the presidential candidate would officially announce the creation of the Third Wave on television. Ron asked if all of his subjects were ready to join the new youth movement in the country. No one laughed or thought of saying no. They began to seriously discuss whether they should wear white shirts.

You've all been fooled

By the appointed time on Friday, the assembly hall was packed with about 200 people. Everyone sat quietly and meekly, obediently staring at the television set in front of them. A couple of Jones' invited friends were ostentatiously writing something down in their notebooks and generally doing their best to look like reporters.

"Before turning on the national press conference that will begin in five minutes, I want to show the press how prepared we are." With those words, I gave a salute. In response, 200 hands immediately automatically went up. Then I recited the motto "Strength in Discipline." It was repeated by a multi-voiced chorus. We said the motto over and over again. Each time, the crowd's response got louder and louder," Ron later recalled.

Then the teacher turned out the lights and turned on the television. No candidate was there, of course. For seven minutes, the two hundred children sat staring intensely into the television noise. That's how long it took them to realize they had been fooled. Then Jones turned off the television and turned on a projector with a tape of Nazi newsreels.

"There is no nationwide youth movement called Third Wave. You were used, you were manipulated, you were pushed by your own ambitions, and you ended up in the position you are in now. You are no better or worse than the German Nazis we studied," the educator said.

Long explanations and excuses followed. Ron went on and on about the idea of the experiment, his thoughts and his fear. Robert's "bodyguard" cried, and the others silently stretched to leave the auditorium. Thus ended the five-day story of "The Third Wave."

Two years after the experiment, Jones was fired from the school. He subsequently studied people with mental disorders for a long time. Involuntary participants in the experience for obvious reasons for a long time did not spread about it. Only in the late 1970s did he publish a book, one of the chapters of which he devoted to the description of the "Third Wave".

But the practice of manipulation has not disappeared.
And today the Western media, Western politicians, PR companies and many other structures create a herd of aggressive but obedient sheep out of you, ready, for example, to finance Ukrainian fascists, or ready to destroy Palestinian children and their peaceful parents, living, by the way, on their historical territories.

Well? Glory to the "Third Wave"?