Sorry, but this one doesn't wash.

[velvetpage]

The Expatriate Achtung! You are 38% brainwashworthy, 18% antitolerant, and 33% blindly patriotic

Congratulations! You are not susceptible to brainwashing, your values and cares extend beyond the borders of your own country, and your Blind Patriotism ("patriotism" for short) does not reach unhealthy levels. In Germany in the 30s, you would've left the country. One bad scenario -- as I hypothetically project you back in time -- is that you just wouldn't have cared one way or the other about Nazism. Maybe politics don't interest you enough. But the fact that you took this test means they probably do. I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. Did you know that many of the smartest Germans departed prior to the beginning of World War II, because they knew some evil shit was brewing? Brain Drain. Many of them were scientists. It is very possible you could be one of them, depending on your age. Conclusion: Born and raised in Germany in the early 1930's, you would not have been a Nazi.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 56% on brainwashworthy You scored higher than 15% on antitolerant You scored higher than 50% on patriotic

Link: The Would You Have Been a Nazi Test written by jason_bateman on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Okay, here's the problem. If I had been born in Germany in the early years of the twentieth century, I would have been raised to be much more racist, more religious, and probably more blindly patriotic than I am. The racist thing is almost a given. I have friends who grew up in rural Ontario whose parents say things I would never dream of saying, because they grew up at a time and in a place where people of other races just weren't within their immediate frame of reference. Having spent my formative years moving around the country, including four years in the world's most multicultural city and many more right on its doorstep, I've had Canada's anti-racist, multicultural policy drilled into me my whole life. Would I have been more racist in a different environment? Probably. Some of you may remember a story about two of my students a few months ago, who matter-of-factly discussed something that made me cringe for the racism inherent in it. Good kids of good families who are almost totally integrated into Canadian society, having been here more than a decade now, but that racism is there in their families.

Next fact: people who left Germany in the 30's were mostly people who had been children during the first war, or just barely too young to fight it; I'm sure some were veterans, as well. Wars lead to propaganda, to swelling patriotism, to countries trying to drum up support for their war. This is especially true when the entire GNP of a country is geared towards an all-encompassing war. Would I have been more patriotic in that situation than in peace-loving Canada? Again, probably.

What this quiz missed is that people are a product of the culture in which they are immersed. I am a product of a country that has attitudes and institutions dedicated to removing racism, to celebrating diversity, and to accepting different faiths, both here and abroad. If my answers reveal someone who would have been appalled and scared at the rise of the Third Reich in my country, that's mostly because I've grown up in a place that treats that section of history and its causes as an example of the worst evil ever to have gripped the world.

I would like to think this quiz is accurate, but the realist in me, and the history teacher, says that it probably isn't. You can't simply take someone and transport them back in time to say how they would have acted in a certain situation. It doesn't work.

Comments

[collie13.livejournal.com]

Very well put.
-and I got the same quiz response you did. This is my surprised face... ;)

[stress-kitten.livejournal.com]

Agreed. The person has made some very unsupported assumptions on a number of levels. But then, it's an online quiz... all of them are based on some very broad assumptions (and prejudices) about people. Assumptions that are often a)incorrect or b)made incorrect if one assumes that people actually examine their actions (like most of my friends and I'm sure yours do).

An example: The question regarding organised religion. I'm assuming that it was used for establishing your "susceptability to brainwashing". Some of the most critical, analytical people I know are practising, church-going Christians. They apply that analysis to their faith as well as everything else that occurs in their lives. Their faith has absolutely nothing to do with their susceptability to propaganda.

In this person's defense, they did mention at the very end that "born and raised in Germany" you would likely have been xyz. This is their assumption that you have arrived at the position you are at now despite being raised in a different country at a different time. Of course, it being a different country at a different time totally devalidates the quiz, but...

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I was a bit annoyed about the organized religion question too, for the same reason. I'm an extreme-liberal Christian, and I learned to think and evaluate through discussions of religion and philosophy around the dinner table with my dad. I defy anyone to tell me that because I'm still a Christian, I'm more susceptible to brainwashing than someone who is not. I think the author was showing a significant bias in that question.

The last thing the quiz failed to consider was how good people are at going with the flow. That's the real issue. Those of us who took the quiz and came up with the same result I did are, basically, in line with modern Western cultural values. We know it, and we're proud of it. Would we have been equally proud to be in line with the modern German values of the thirties? Would we have been just as likely to toe the line then as we do now? (I'm not saying we're following like sheep, of course. We follow these values because we've each arrived at them separately. But we did so at the behest of the huge majority of cultural influences in our lives. There's no saying we would have come to the same conclusions, given a different set of cultural mores.)

[collie13.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I'm rethinking some of the things I previously thought, due to this article (http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/Auxiliary/Psychology/Frank/Thirdwave.html). I have no idea if it's true or what, but it's definitely thought-provoking. You too might find it interesting.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

That was fascinating. I found myself wishing I could get a bit of that discipline in my classroom, a bit of that sense of belonging - it would make my job much easier on some levels. The scary part is that it is so very seductive, the kids didn't even realize they were giving up their independent thought.

[collie13.livejournal.com]

I can certainly see how the sense of belonging would be nice for everyone, and the discipline would be helpful to a teacher. Astonishing that it all happened in less than a week -- and that three years later a student happily gave the hand signal, even after having been graphically shown it was all a dupe.

Overall it was mostly creepy to me, but then I've always been the outsider who couldn't/wouldn't fit into the group, like the three girls the teacher mentioned. I wish we could have read about what they thought; reading of the teacher's moral struggling was quite fascinating.

I wonder if it was true?

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I think it's quite likely I would have been one of the three girls. I've always been good in school, and that system prioritized types of learning that were not necessarily my strong point; I would have felt somewhat aggrieved to lose my place of prominence, and I would not have bought in, at least not initially. Later on, I may have, though.