The Taking Over of a Role


   
   Jane Elliott was interested in demonstrating to her young pupils what it feels like to be a victim of discrimination on the basis of some
arbitrarily and capriciously selected criterion such as skin color. She used role playing (psychodrama) techniques to accomplish this. And,
of course, she changed the criterion for discrimination from skin color to eye color. Both criteria are equally arbitrary inasmuch as a person
can choose neither his/her eye color nor his/her skin color.
   The point that needs to be stressed here is that blindness, deafness, clubfoot, AND INBORN MELANCHOLIA (being born high up in
quadrant #1 of the Eysenck Cross depicted in figure #1 on page 41), are all factors that are above and beyond the purview of human choice.
People are born with each of these various attributes. And each can be viewed as constituting a “handicap”. And just as millions of
Americans in past decades had been programmed by their parents through socialization to disparage and discriminate against black people,
so it is that many Americans are programmed to disparage and discriminate against melancholic boys--but not melancholic girls.
   The children in Jane Elliott’s classroom had only to put up with their second class status for a mere seven hours. But that was enough
time for a great deal of damage to be done. Riceville, Iowa, is an isolated, rural community, and Ms. Elliott’s pupils had indeed led sheltered
lives. So perhaps they believed her pro-discrimination rhetoric at the beginning of the school day faster and easier than older, less sheltered
children would have believed it. The point, however, is that all young children are to a substanfial extent highly suggestible. And if such
enormous changes for the bad or for the good can be effected in children in a mere seven hours, we can begin to appreciate the permanent
scars, the lifelong damage, which can and most probably will be done to children who cannot escape from this treatment after a mere seven
hours of an experimental psychodramatic exercise! Black children who grew up in the Deep South had to live the entirety of their formative
years amidst this sort of arbitrary and capricious discrimination and disparaging treatment. And melancholic boys (with high inborn
introversion/inhibition together with high emotionality) are similarly made to pass through the entirety of their formative years the victims
of this sort of mindless cruelty. It is no wonder that few black children had been able to cultivate a positive attitude towards the American
education system--AND TOWARDS THEMSELVES. And it is similarly no wonder at all that highly introverted, low anxiety threshold males
come to think very poorly of themselves. Simply put, disparaged people of all kinds develop negative self-attitudes as well as negative
attitudes towards their society as a direct result of the cruel and depersonalized treatment that they are accorded throughout the entirety of
their formative years.
   In Ms. Elliott’s study an exalted role had been superimposed over the blue-eyed youngsters. They had been defined as having all
the virtues, strengths and potentials; and they believed these definitions of the situation. A disparaging role had been superimposed upon
the brown-eyed youngsters. And they similarly came to believe what they had been told about themselves. Many sociologists today call
this process the self- fulfilling prophecy. In short, when we come to define certain things or ideas as real (even when they are actually quite
false), those things and ideas tend to become real in their consequences. Perhaps the Bible summarized the same idea in simpler terms: “As
a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”; “According to your faith, so be it unto you”.
   As a result of Ms. Elliott’s definition of the situation, each child came to embrace a role. And in so doing he/she incorporated a
label into the innermost depths of his/her subconscious mind--which is like a computer memory bank that does not know the difference
between what is true and what is false. For some children it was a self-disparaging role (label), and for others it was an exalted role (label).
And a great moral dilemma raised by Ms. Elliott’s experiment is summarized in the question: “HOW CAN WE ENGINEER A SYSTEM THAT
WOULD BRING THE VERY BEST OUT OF EVERY  BOY AND GIRL WITHOUT HAVING A DISPARAGED GROUP?” In studying Ms.
Elliott’s experiment most people pay attention only to what happened to the discriminated against group. But it is equally important for us
to focus upon what happened to the exalted group--to the blue-eyed pupils who had been defined as being intrinsically superior in ability,
potential, and in moral and behavioral attributes.
   As a result of having been placed in an exalted role and status, the blue-eyed youngsters began performing better than they had ever
performed before. And they enjoyed their school work more thoroughly than they had ever done before as well. Just one day before the
experiment had begun, these blue-eyed children had been performing in all ways no differently than the brown-eyed children had been
performing. But once they had been given some group of fellows to disparage, to make fun of, to haze and to bully, they started
performing better than ever whereas the disparaged victims began behaving worse than ever.
   This has a profound bearing upon the issue of children who bully and haze introverted and fearful children. Those who haze are
made to feel better about themselves to the extent that they have someone whom they can “put down”. Only the most secure human
beings are normally able to rise above the temptation to poke fun at others. In essence, emotionally secure, self-loving people do not have
any need to hurt others in order to feel good about themselves. What we sorely need in American society right now is a system of
education that would promote this inner sense of security and peace in all children.
   By the way, each time Ms. Elliott ran her experiment there was always a little boy who refused to go along with the procedure. He
refused to accept the benefits and rewards that accrued to those having eyes of the “right” color. And he similarly refused to participate in
the bullying and harassing of his less advantaged classmates. Indeed, he often helped out his less advantaged colleagues.
   Each of these noncomformist boys was found to be unusually mature for his age, well adjusted and self-accepting. Each had had the
benefit of well educated, highly articulate mothers and fathers who were very emotionally supportive, and who found a great deal of
pleasure in reading as opposed to watching television all the time. The parents of these unusually mature and compassionate youngsters
were in all cases liberal in their political and social views. And they were significantly less religious in a conventional sense than most
parents in their local community.