Ron Jones accidentally radicalized 200 students at Cubberly High School in the 1960s by simulating a fascist state, complete with red-X informants and student-led beatings. When a Holocaust survivor father intervened, Jones falsely claimed the "Third Wave" was a national movement to prevent its collapse, only to reveal the truth after a Time magazine ad convinced the class of its legitimacy. Although many students later viewed the experience positively, others suffered irreversible psychological trauma, while Jones was eventually fired by conservative parents for his left-wing activism rather than the experiment itself. Ultimately, the incident serves as a stark cautionary tale regarding how easily ordinary people can be manipulated into complicity under strong leadership and crisis conditions. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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That was terrible.
Sylvie.
Robert.
How do I, how do I podcast?
Hi, I'm Robert Evans, and you're listening to Brian the Bastard, the boss podcast about the worst people from history.
And today, I'm like something I'd say.
My guest, but also host/slash coup/slash Garrison.
Hi, everybody.
It's me again on the podcast.
It's another coup episode.
Garrison's helping me out because I have once again taken on enough projects that I'm terrified about my life.
Honoring Trump's Coup00:10:15
So yeah, we're doing another coup episode.
In honor of Trump's coup.
In honor of Trump's coup.
That's exactly what it is.
It's amazing how we keep recording these and coups are still relevant each time we record.
Oh, coups are always relevant.
Didn't you say Trump's is not technically a coup because no military?
Yeah, I mean, so far.
Yeah, but I do think we're splitting hairs a little bit.
But either way, I love a good coup.
So we're going to have us, we're going to have us another pod coup.
Podcast coup.
Podcoost.
Coup cast.
Robert.
Yes, Garrison.
How do you feel about Nazis?
Lukewarm.
How do you feel about child Nazis?
Also lukewarm.
Okay, because we're going to be talking about child Nazis.
Yay.
Oh, man.
I was holding back a little bit.
My favorite kind of Nazis are child Nazis.
If we're going to have them, which we shouldn't, but if we are, if they're little, if they're little baby teenagers, little baby teenage Nazis.
Then that is kind of the funniest.
Cute little, like your Garrison brought over his little baby kitten and it's very cute.
And I'm imagining the kitten with a swastika.
With like a little armband.
No, you're not.
It's like a Nazi kitten.
No, you're not.
It'd be so terrible.
I know.
I'm irony poisoning.
I did not like that.
But are we talking like Jojo Rabbit?
Like, what's the situation here?
Oh, kind of kid Nazis.
No, okay.
So today we're going to dive into one of the things that got younger Garrison to actually start to realize that fascism is like an ongoing and active problem and way more complicated than just weird people hating Jewish people.
And what we're going to be learning about, and the thing that I learned about a few years ago that got me on, you know, to learn more about fascism and kind of got me interested in the topic is the accidental five-day social experiment done on a group of teenagers in a California high school.
And this experiment is referred to as the third wave.
Some people may be familiar with this.
If you're from Germany, you are because they force you to learn about it.
But with the dubious ethics aside, looking at how a charismatic high school teacher got a small group of impressionable teenagers in the 60s to grow into a group of dedicated 200 like dedicated fascists over the course of just five days is something we can learn from.
And still relevant, even though this was an experiment done in the 60s.
I mean, it sounds like, first off, this is an incredibly, a story of an incredibly ethical teacher who did not do nothing wrong.
Yeah, like, that's why I started this by saying ethics aside, because, yeah, it kind of messed up a lot of kids.
Yeah, it sounds like it really fucked up some people, didn't he?
A lot of, yeah, like one of the people that the high school teacher became friends with is Philip Zimbardwe.
Zimbardo.
He's the guy who did the standard.
Who did the stamp-person experiment a few years later?
So yeah, they're buddies because they both did highly unethical experiments.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Philip Zimbardo is my favorite psychologist because he decided long ago that it was way more valuable to do things that were interesting rather than things that were morally defensible.
And I think that's beautiful.
Yeah.
And yeah, same thing kind of happened here.
All right.
Well, let's start this motherfucker, Garrison.
You know how when you do giant pours of liquid, it does show up.
Yeah, well, the audience wants me to have coffee, Sophie.
I mean, I want you to have coffee because without coffee, you're just Evans, not Robert.
I'm a Nazi.
You're just Evans.
Yeah, as soon as I get coffee in the morning, I stop understanding the benefits of national socialism.
That's the thing that really gets to have the academic understanding.
The best part of waking up is no longer believing that Nazism is morally defensible.
Yay.
Well, I mean, we're going to be learning a lot about that today, which is great.
That was so funny.
Speaking of Nazism, when people first learn about the rise of fascism and particularly the Nazis, usually one of the first questions I hear people talk about and ask is like, how could everyday Germans been so complicit?
Why did so many people just let things happen?
And then, you know, when you're learning about stuff, at least when I did, you know, the thought in your mind is like, oh, surely I would have done something to stop this from happening.
But I mean, if we look at the last American election, it's pretty clear that a lot of people, if not the majority, like would not take direct action against a rising fascist power in this country, let alone let alone other countries.
I have a feeling.
Yeah, I have an inkling.
But with that in mind, let's look back to the late 1960s and the high school classroom of one Ron Jones and how he quite by accident made 200 child fascists.
First, a little background on Jones himself, since usually different types of fascism have unique elements drawn from their central leader.
Ron Jones started teaching in 1966, having recently graduated from Stanford University.
He became a high school teacher in Cubberly High School, right outside of San Francisco.
Jones quickly became the favorite teacher due to his unique and unconventional teaching style.
He was young, very charismatic, and attractive.
Jones did not just follow regular curriculums and just give lectures.
He would often bring in guests.
Students recall him bringing in communists, Klansmen, members of the American Nazi Party.
And he actually got on the phone with Chairman Mao in his class.
How did he get on the phone?
Could you just call Chairman Mao?
Did he just have like...
I'm not sure.
That seems like it would be a lot of work to get Chairman Mao.
He also got all these great ideas.
Like, I don't think bringing a Klansman into your class is necessarily the best.
Bringing a Klansman or a Nazi into your class or a Nazi in your class or some tankies even.
I'm not, yeah.
As a rule, if you can get a world leader on the phone in your high school class, that's kind of cool.
Yeah, but like he brought in other like other like, you know, Soviet Union stands from like from America.
Yeah, I'm more fascinated by how the hell he got Chairman Mao on the phone.
He just says he did.
I cannot find any explanation how.
See, that I feel like that's a whole episode.
Like, how do you...
Okay, well, I'm very frustrated by this man because I want to know how he got Chairman Mao.
How do you got Chairman Mao on the phone for his class?
Yeah.
But yeah, he was, he was very, he followed lots of unconventional teaching.
With the guests, he would do like historical simulations in his class, like trying to replicate historical events, as we see here with the, you know, the Nazi thing.
A quote, a quote from Jones is, if you can feel something and work with it, that's better than just reading about it.
So he likes a lot of like, he likes a lot of learning that's not, that's not, you know, just reading a book.
He likes actually, you know, getting people to feel stuff, which, I mean, successful on the Nazi experiment.
He messed up a lot of kids.
Yeah, I mean, I agree with the basics of what he's saying, which is that kids learn, everyone learns best by doing.
And if you can give people some sort of direct experience with the things they're learning about, that's good.
Now, the problem is that he's teaching them about Nazism.
And I don't know of many ethical ways to give people experiences with Nazism.
It's kind of a bad idea.
Yeah, it seems like it.
And Jones probably should have known better because he was a left-wing activist back in the 60s and still is now.
He was a member of the new left Students for Democratic Society thing back in the 60s.
Lots of people recall him being a very, very supportive of the Black Panthers and participated a lot in the anti-war movement in the 60s with VNAM going on.
So he should have kind of known better, but I think his intentions were good, but it very quickly spiraled out of control with this.
But basically, he was basically just the cool new hip teacher, and students really, really did trust him, and lots of students really did really did like him.
So at the last quarter of his first year of teaching, in a 25-student sophomore world history class, Jones was talking about Nazi Germany.
They were coming to the end of their kind of history section on the Nazis.
And a student asked the question that most of us do at some point, which is, you know, how could everyday Germans been complicit?
Why did people just let things happen?
And Jones says he didn't really have a good answer.
So he thought up a short experiment.
Now, this is where kind of learning about the wave gets a little bit tricky.
There is a lot of, when you're trying to research this, there's kind of different accounts of what happened because no one really was able to document this as it was happening because the people that did all got beat up by the fascists who were trying to, you know, the people who were writing stuff down all got kind of beat up.
And I'm pretty sure that actually Jones tried this experiment in three classes at the same time.
But usually when people talk about the wave, they focus on like the one first class.
But there can be a lot of conflicting information when you talk to like students of this.
So we're going to kind of treat it as just focusing on this one class.
But there may have been two other classes doing this experiment concurrently, but it's kind of unclear.
So they were learning about the Nazis.
Student asked how the goodness happened.
Jones didn't know.
He thought of the experiment.
The next week, so like the Monday after, because this experiment ran five days, when students came into the class on this Monday, Jones had set up all the chairs in five by five rows, which is weird for Jones because he usually had a very loose setup because he was like the new hip teacher who had students in a circle or had people on the floor or whatever.
But it's like coming into his class and seeing like five, like five rows of chairs was kind of weird.
Music by Richard Wagner was playing, a German composer.
Wagner Garrison.
It's important to pronounce things correctly.
Wagner.
It's W. Richard Waggers.
Our wags.
Students were ordered to all sit in perfect posture with their hands by their side.
The Nazi Cat Experiment00:02:55
And on the chalkboard, Jones wrote strength through discipline.
So we can kind of see where this is going to be going.
Yep, that sounds healthy.
Yeah.
He began to lecture the class on the values of strict discipline, speaking on the efficiency of like a regimented system.
To quote Jones, I lectured on the beauty discipline, how an athlete feels, how an athlete feels having worked hard and regularly successful at a sport, how a ballet dancer or a painter works hard to perfect a movement, the dedicated patience of a scientist to pursue an idea.
It's discipline.
It's self-training, control, the power of will, in exchange for physical hardships for superior mental and physical facilities.
The ultimate triumph.
Now, all the text I'm quoting Jones from is written from him himself.
So all typos are his fault.
But yeah, basically.
Fair enough, Garrison.
It's not my fault.
He wrote this.
I fixed some typos.
Don't blame me.
Blame the teacher who made the Nazis.
Basically, Jones changed his...
Pretty good, pretty good summary of Nazism without using any of the Nazi terms.
Like, yeah, the strike-through discipline stuff.
Like, that's very much like a lot of Hitler-Jugend like shit.
Jones was very familiar with fascism.
As we see, like, he'll be talking, you know, he'll have sections later on when he talks about fascism.
It's like, yeah, he understands what it is very well.
So what Jones was doing on the first day, he basically changed his personality to, he made him skin, he was way more, you know, open, playful.
Oh, no, no.
Robert, look at my cat.
Oh, no.
The cat now has a Nazi band.
Someone put a Nazi band on my cat.
Tied around its torso.
So it is a Nazi cat.
It's now a Nazi cat.
How?
How?
Someone who is in my home mysteriously has given my cat a Nazi.
What do you mean?
My cat's name is my cat's name is Chairman Meow.
And now it's moved to a different type of authoritarianism.
Yeah.
Either way, either way, it's the responsible for millions of deaths.
Well, now it's a very cute little Nazi cat.
God, we would post pictures of this online, but we should not.
Nope.
Don't do it.
Not going to happen.
This is really great audio content, y'all.
People are really going to enjoy this audio content that there is now a Nazi cat in the house.
Walking with the leash.
Walking with a leash.
It is a very cute kitten.
Like, oh my god, this little kitten.
Y'all, you gotta.
You should see this kitten.
I mean, not.
You can see the kitten on my Twitter not wearing a Nazi.
Not wearing a swastika.
I'll take that.
I'll take that off.
That's so cute, though.
Again, this is very good audio content.
Yeah, the little kitten doesn't know that it's wearing it doesn't know it's tied to millions of deaths.
Millions.
Yeah.
Oh, little buddy.
Nope.
Oh, it's just chilling out now.
No, it's just chilling with a swastika.
That's healthy.
Yeah.
Okay, sorry, Garrison.
Walking With A Leash00:05:34
Yeah, so basically, Jones adopted a very strict personality.
He told the class to only address him as Mr. Jones, as opposed to Ron, as I usually called him.
He made rules about how many words you could use to answer verbal questions.
He said that students should arrive five minutes before class and wait in seated position.
He talked a lot about posture and how better posture leads to better learning, which is dubious, but he knows that.
He was just trying to make this disciplined environment.
Jones had his students line up outside the class and have them enter the class to get into perfect seating position.
And they drilled this over and over and over again with a timer, having everyone go outside and everyone come back inside and trying to get into perfect seated position very quickly.
They drilled this until everyone was perfectly in sync and got in and sitting under five seconds.
So he was trying to introduce this kind of the rules of discipline and listening to authority and just doing things without really any reason, but just listening and then in this disciplined environment.
As all of Jones' experiments, grades were based on participation.
If you wanted to opt out, you could just go to the library.
On the first day, everyone participated very, very willingly.
No one seemed to make a connection to the German history classes that the class had just completed.
The idea was to give students a peek into what it was like to be a regular German under the Nazis by turning the world history class into just a one-day fascist state.
And that's all it was.
It was supposed to just be a one-day simulation, and that was it.
The next day, the plan was to have just like a discussion over what the experiment was.
So that was all Jones wanted to do, which is this one-day kind of experiment into getting used to an environment of discipline and following a strict leader.
That's kind of all it was.
So not super harmful.
Like first day, kind of, kind of all right.
It's just a fun one-day thing.
But as Jones entered class the next day, all the students were like waiting inside the class five minutes early, and they were all sitting in perfect posture inside all their rows.
In unison, they all chanted, Good morning, Mr. Jones.
And Jones began to wonder how far he could take this.
And he walked over to the chalkboard and wrote down strength through community.
Uh-oh.
So this is.
So he saw everyone had like, he saw the students were very like into this and is like, huh, I wonder how much it can turn them into fascists.
And he just decided to do it.
And it was just like a spur of the moment decision because the experiment was over.
And he's just like, huh, what if it isn't over?
And I see, this doesn't speak well for him as a person.
Although I guess maybe it doesn't speak well for anyone as a person, because maybe the lesson here is that there's something intoxicating about fascism that can draw anybody in.
Jones talks about this later, how he actually got pulled into the experiment himself.
Don't like that.
Yeah.
That's very Zimbardo of him.
Which doesn't make it okay.
Which is why they're friends.
Yeah, because they're both kind of not great people.
Okay.
So Jones wrote strength through community on the chalkboard next to strength through discipline.
To quote Jones here, while the class sat in stern silence, I began to talk, lecture, and ceremonize, that's a weird word, about the value of community.
At this stage in the game, I was debating in my mind whether to stop the experiment or continue.
I hadn't planned on such intensity or compliance.
In fact, I was surprised to find that the ideas of discipline were enacted at all.
While debating whether to stop or go on with the experiment, I talked on and on about community.
I made up stories from my experiences as an athlete, a coach, and historian.
It was easy.
Community being something bigger than oneself, something enjoyable.
They really bought onto that argument.
So students were, I mean, like, Jones, by all accounts, was a very good lecturer.
He was very, very engaging, both when he was more like relaxed and charismatic, and both when he was, you know, putting on this more strict dictatorial character.
Jones had the class all chant together, strength through discipline, strength through community, echoing between pairs of students, getting the whole class in unison, starting with one person, then adding on another person each time.
Just a whole bunch of, you know, like community drills of doing this, you know, fascist chant.
I don't enjoy this at all, Garrison.
And it doesn't know where it's going, and it's just progressively getting lost sentence by sentence.
It is kind of predictable.
Yeah.
This might be, I don't want to be like radical here, but this might be why you shouldn't experiment on impressionable children.
Yeah, perhaps.
I mean, I've carried out some experiments on a child and it worked out pretty well.
But that was a Garrison joke.
Yeah, because I tear gas.
I mean, look at me now reading about fascism with my cat with a swastika band.
Yep, everything's going great.
Yeah, this is his plan from the start.
You know what won't convert a kitten to national socialism?
The fine folks who make those chips?
Yep.
Raytheon.
Raytheon would never do that, and neither will the other sponsors of this podcast.
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I vowed I will be his last target.
He's going to get what he deserves.
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Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians.
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Say you love me.
You know I.
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My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
It's Will Farrell.
My dad gave me the best advice ever.
I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
I'm working my way up through it.
I know it's a place to come.
Look for up and coming talent.
He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
Yeah.
He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
And he's like, just give it a shot.
He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
Yeah, it would not be.
Right, it wouldn't be that.
There's a lot of luck.
Listen to Thanksgiving on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckard found himself at the center of a paternity scandal.
The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story.
This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth.
You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?
I doctored the test once.
It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case.
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Clayton Eckard Scandal00:14:57
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They would uncover a disturbing pattern.
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Greg Oespi and Michael Marancine.
My mind was blown.
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As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges.
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And we're back.
All right, Garrison.
The Nazi armband is off the kitten now.
That's good.
The kitten has got it off himself.
The kitten has been de-radiant.
He's a little anti-fascist kid.
It's a little anti-fascist kitten.
Aww.
Most podcasts don't even radicalize a kitten.
So we're really very productive today.
That's great.
It's impossible to radicalize Anderson.
No, Anderson is a committed anti-fascist.
He's standfast in his beliefs.
Yeah, Anderson, she's a free thinker, you know.
Speaking of committed fascism, so after all of the chanting together in unison and stuff, at the end of the class, Jones made a terrible decision.
And that decision was to make a class member salute.
Oh, no.
No.
Someone really should have talked to him.
People did.
He had like rabbis calling him throughout this whole experiment.
And Jones is like, no, don't worry.
It's just an experiment.
They're like, okay.
Yeah.
I don't like this.
It's not great.
So the salute here.
Jones made, so students were commanded to give each other both in and out of class.
Like whenever two students met, they were supposed to, you know, salute each other both in school, out of school.
Jones, Jones called it, and now the experiment was also called the third wave.
Now, he claims the third wave is not a reference to the third Reich.
He claims it has to do with like waves and beaches and how like the third wave is like the strongest wave.
But I don't really buy that.
No.
Because it also sounds too much like a third position.
There's a lot of third fashy things that involve a third.
Yeah.
Don't ever count to three.
Never for fascists.
Skip two to four.
Right to four if you're going to count, if you don't want to, you know, enable Nazism.
To make the salute, you brought up your right hand towards your right shoulder in a curled position.
He called it the third wave or, you know, just the wave because the hand resembled a wave over the shoulder.
So like, I do buy that part for calling it the wave.
But the third part, I mean, is just, you know.
That's just, yeah.
Come on.
Come on.
Come on, buddy.
But just like how my cat removed its fascist armband and is now an anti-fascist, day two is where we also got to see the start of an anti-fascist resistance forming within the school.
So like the really cool thing about this experiment, even though it's highly unethical, is that we've got a really good microcosm of how fascism develops and how like anti-fascism develops beside it.
By the end of the second day, a student in the class got up and said, Mr. Jones, why can't we just say what we want to think?
Why can't we express our own opinions about what we think about the third wave and the experiment?
And Jones very quickly said, you to the library for the rest of the semester.
So this is the first time a student got banished from the class.
I say first time, it's not the last time.
This student went to the library.
And the librarian asked why the student wasn't in class.
Based on what Jones had told the students, the student thought that the whole staff was in on the experiment, which they were not.
So the student was actually scared to tell the librarian what happened and why she was there.
Now, it just so happened to be that the librarian was born and raised in Nazi Germany.
So this is actually good.
When the student finally told the librarian what happened, the librarian was very alarmed and very concerned.
The librarian told the student that she has to do something to kind of stop this.
From, you know, stop this from spreading to other students.
And just, you know, the librarian thought this was very dangerous.
So the student went home and talked to their parents about what they should do.
Their first idea was to make posters.
So that night, the student's father drove her back to the school.
Because of how hot the area is around the school, like the town, all of the hallways are technically outside of the school, just with like a canopy.
So the student was able to plaster all of the walls with anti-third wave posters.
So they filled up the school with like anti-third wave posters.
Yeah.
The next morning, within an hour of school starting, all the posters had been torn down.
And, you know, the students have admitted to like, yeah, no, like we tore down the posters because they were anti-third wave and we made a little Portland.
Yeah.
They made a little poster board.
That's great.
Then later, later that night, it's like on day three, so we're kind of skipping ahead here for this.
The student returned with a ladder to put up the posters up where they couldn't be torn down.
And the student had titled their anti-third wave resistance The Breakers, which is again another wave reference because waves break.
It's like, it's all very silly.
Like this student is traumatized and you can hear the student talk about this experiment later on.
Like they are very clearly traumatized by this experience.
You love to see it.
Yay.
By day three, so this is Wednesday.
So yeah, so the first day was strength through discipline.
Second day was strength through community.
By day three, the class had gained 20 extra students who were interested in participating in the experiment.
That's not how classes are supposed to work.
Why was this allowed?
Oh, it gets so much worse.
Eventually, people from other schools join the class.
It's bad.
And no one's...
The school administration is just like, yeah, he's recreating fascism on our campus.
Let it happen.
This is fine.
So the class had gotten from like 25 students to about 10 years.
God, it's just like America.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, yes.
Yeah.
So the class had grown from 25 students to about 60 students by day three.
That's not how schools are supposed to work.
It really isn't.
When Jones went into class, the new phrase he wrote on the chalkboard was strength through action.
So this doesn't get any better.
No.
It doesn't sound like it does, Garrison.
Jones announced that he was issuing third wave membership cards, which were just, which were just index cards he found in his desk.
Because again, he didn't plan this at all and was just kind of like going with it.
So he found these index cards and it's like, huh, I should give them membership cards.
And he's like, without a second thought for how bad this is.
Jesus Christ.
So he gave everyone third wave membership cards to every student who decided to continue the experiment.
All students were still continuing at this point.
Three cards, Jones secretly marked with a red X, which meant that these students were informants and were instructed to tell Jones if any students were not following the third wave rules.
Or as a student referred to them as in a documentary, the third wave community values.
Jesus Christ.
It's really bad.
Yeah, this doesn't seem good.
So like, you know, if one of these informants saw someone, you know, like not salute them in the hallway, or, you know, not do X, not do Y, you know, they were supposed to tell Jones.
Great.
Jones.
Awesome thing to do to kids.
Jones lectured the class on direct action.
And in Jones' own words, how discipline and community were meaningless without action.
Which is definitely not something Hitler would say.
He then gave the class different direct action assignments, varying from passing out third wave flyers and posters, outreach to other students and other schools, and setting up info tables in the hallways.
Sorry, I shouldn't be laughing, but it is kind of terrible.
To quote Jones, to allow students to have the experience of direct action, I gave each individual a special verbal assignment.
Quote, it's your task to design a third wave banner.
You are responsible for stopping any student that's not a third wave member from entering the room.
I want you to remember and be able to recite tomorrow the names of each member and addresses of each member.
I want you to...
This is good.
You're assigned the problem of training and convincing at least 20 children in the adjacent elementary school that our sitting posture is necessary for better learning.
It's your job to read the pamphlet and report on its entire content to the class tomorrow.
I want you to give me the name and address of one reliable friend that you think will want to join the third wave, etc., etc.
Basically a list of all these terrible things he got students to do.
Great.
To conclude the session on direct action, and this is still quoting Jones here, I instructed students in a simple procedure for initiating new members.
It went like this.
A new member had to be only recommended by an existing member and issued an ID card by myself.
Upon receiving his card, he's now a new member and had to demonstrate knowledge of our rules and pledge obedience to them.
My announcement unleashed a fervor is how he ends that section when he talks about this.
So students were very into it because these are like 15-year-olds in the 60s.
And we're going to talk more about why the experiment worked at the end and like why it works so well.
But people were very into this.
The result to this call to action was recruiters at these infotables were starting fistfights with people who didn't want to join.
Great.
There's like multiple just like brawls in the hallway over people like not wanting to join the third wave.
This is all making me wonder if maybe the original Nazism was a social experiment that just got out of hand.
Hitler was like, I don't know.
I guess I got to invade a couple of countries.
Shit.
He just had to get trying to keep up the act because everyone was so involved.
Even though only three people got the red X on their cards, way more than three people were turning in names of people breaking the rules.
Jones recalls, though I formally appointed only three students to report bad behavior, approximately 20 students came to me with reports about how Alan didn't salute or Georgino wasn't into the experiment and talking critically about it.
This instance of monitoring meant that half of the class members now considered it their duty to report and observe all other members of the class.
A student recalls, you never know who's going to come in the next morning and turn you in.
All lines of student communication were broken down because of this fear.
What a good history class this was.
But I find it really fascinating how, even though it was such the strength of your community and whatever, how like they're all out of the actual community all broke down over fear of people turning each other in, which is, you know, very accurate to what actually happened in Germany.
Sounds like a, again, just a real good high school history class.
Trials were held for members that were seen breaking rules.
Oh, good.
Yeah, that's because that's what, like, I, you know, I remember my favorite part of high school was the trials that we would hold for each other after informing on each other.
And oh, I've got enough antifa kit.
The kitten, everybody, for this great audio content, now has a little antifa band around its back.
So the kitten has been de-radicalized and it now shows the fervor of a convert in fighting its old ideology.
This has really been quite an arc for a very like what, a four-month-old kitten?
12 weeks.
12 weeks.
Little baby.
Very small.
Oh, you're so good.
Very, very happy.
You're so good.
Yeah.
So you didn't have trials in your high school?
Because again, I was homeschooled and we had some show trials, you know.
There were a couple of executions.
It was over football.
I grew up in Texas.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
That's the one with the never mind.
Okay.
Yeah.
Trials.
They were held for members seen breaking rules, members that were just joking about the third wave or being seen with, quote, known revolutionaries.
God damn it.
Good, good work teaching, teacher guy.
Ron Jones.
I can see, again, it makes so much sense that Philip Zimbardo likes this guy.
Oh, yeah.
Because they are both monsters who view the brains of other human beings.
Zimbardo often brings Jones into his class to teach.
Great.
See, I love Philip Zimbardo because whenever he comes up in a story, you know, things are about to get interesting.
He's that kind of character.
But also, he shouldn't be allowed to teach.
He shouldn't be allowed to do anything.
He's a terrible person.
No.
So in these trials, basically, Jones or like a senior class member would read aloud the alleged offense.
The entire class would immediately chant guilty all in unison.
And the accused was banished to the library.
I love that there's now banishments.
And again, a high school history class.
Yeah.
It's like the library became a concentration camp.
If you weren't catching on to where this was leading.
I mean, as concentration camps go, that's not the worst.
Better than most concentration camps.
Yeah.
Thank you, Ryan, for making ethical concentration camps.
Several students elected themselves.
I don't like me saying ethical concentration camps.
They're grass-fed.
That's not a great term.
They're buy local when you buy a concentration camp.
Stop it.
I mean, if Powell's Books was just one concentration camp, I wouldn't complain.
They have coffee and books.
Exactly.
Powell's Books is a large bookstore.
When the Proud Boys take over Portland and they send me to Powell's Books, I hate everything.
Everything happening right now.
Yeah, none of this is very good.
All of it.
Garrison.
Oh, no worry.
I can make it much worse by reading my script.
Oh, good.
Yes, please continue.
Please.
Several students elected themselves to become bodyguards for Jones.
Great.
And they made their own black armbands.
He's got an SS.
They made their own black armpits.
Yeah, so he has spontaneously his students developed an SS.
And they've made their own armpits.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's great.
Like, parents were, like, questioning their kids about why they had armbands.
Like, no, no, no.
It's to protect Mr. Jones.
It's just part of the experiment.
And they, they, like, called Jones very concerned, and Jones was like, no, don't worry, we're just, we're just studying the German psyche is what he told them.
Yeah, see, I would have additional questions as a parent.
Not to backseat parent, because I've never had a kid, but I think I would have questions at that point in the experiment.
Like, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Students Wear Black Armbands00:12:28
And why are you a teacher?
Raj was very offended by the sentence you just said.
Yeah.
Where's Risk?
Oh, my God.
You've never had a kid.
I had a baby.
The kid's sleeping on your leg.
The kitten's eyes are closed.
I know.
The Antifa kitten's sleeping on my leg now.
Raja's having a rough day.
My cat is not going to be happy, but she'll learn because I want her to raise a kitten and teach it all that she knows.
And because all of the quotes from Jones have just been amazing and full of typos, but also, you know, really, really interesting and terrible.
I'm going to do another one, and this one's actually pretty long.
Many of the students were completely into being third wave members.
They demanded strict obedience of the rules from other students and bullied those that took the experiment lightly.
Others simply sunk into the activities and took on self-assigned roles.
I particularly remember my student, Robert.
Robert was big for his age and displayed very few academic skills.
Oh, he tried harder than anyone else to be successful.
Remember this for later.
This is actually very important.
But he handed in elaborate weekly reports copied word for word from reference books and libraries, but he just wasn't very academically skilled, actually.
Robert, like so many other kids in school, didn't excel or cause trouble.
They aren't that bright.
They can't make the athletic teams.
They don't strike out for attention.
They're lost, invisible.
And the only reason why I came to know Robert at all is that I often found him eating lunch in my classroom because he always ate alone.
Well, the third wave gave Robert a place in the school.
He was at last equal to everyone else.
He could do something, be a part, be meaningful.
And that's what Robert did.
Late Wednesday afternoon, I found Robert following me, and I asked him what in the world he was doing.
He smiled and announced, Mr. Jones, I'm your bodyguard.
I'm afraid something will happen to you.
He followed me everywhere in the faculty room, which was closed to students.
He stood silently at attention as I gulped down coffee.
When accosted by an English teacher for having a student in the teacher's room, he just smiled at her and informed her that he wasn't a student.
He was a bodyguard.
That's good.
Yeah.
Child labor.
Yeah, well, more just like, that's how the SS got started.
It was initially Hitler's bodyguard.
Like, that's what it was.
And then it turned into kind of a state within a state.
Yeah.
And this spontaneously generated a Heinrich Himmler.
Yeah, so it started with Robert.
And then a group of seniors from another one of Jones' classes who were interested in the experiment.
They were part of like the car club, quote-unquote.
They all wore like leather jackets and worked on cars because they were cool.
That does sound pretty rare.
They all became the rest of his bodyguards, putting on the black armbands.
Great.
And they just beat up random students.
Awesome.
Yeah, they were not that cool.
They kind of sucked.
But yeah, we'll hear more about this at the end.
But Jones talks a lot about how the people who really got into the wave were all the students in the middle.
people who were not great at school, weren't terrible at school, or people who just kind of barely coasted by, and it like gave them something to be in something to do.
You know, for people like this rubber person who finally was able to, you know, feel like he had some kind of meaning in school.
Yeah, I mean, it's like we talk about in the little Nazis episode.
It's the little men who to whom Nazi appealed the most.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Scans.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, well, we will talk.
We'll talk a lot about this at the end, actually.
There's a lot of, there's a lot of really interesting parallels there.
By the morning of day four, so again, we've already had strength through discipline, strength through community, strength through action.
We've had fistfights in hallways, people trying to get kids from other elementary schools to join, again, not even high schools, elementary schools.
By the morning of day four, Jones started to realize that he kind of lost control of the experiment.
Earlier that night, a father of a student whom I believe to actually be the first person kicked out of class, the person who made the third wave posters, I believe I'm pretty sure it was actually her father, broke into the classroom and ransacked it.
To quote Jones, he was a retired Air Force colonel who spent a lot of time in a German prison war camp.
Upon hearing of our activity, he simply lost control.
Late into the evening, he broke into the classroom and tore it apart.
I found him that morning propped up against the classroom door.
He told me about his friends that had been killed in Germany.
He was holding on to me and shaking.
He pleaded with me that I understand, and I try to help him get home.
I called his wife, and with the help of a neighbor, walked him home.
We spent hours later talking about why he did what he did and what he was feeling at the time.
But from that moment on on Thursday morning, I was very concerned about what might be happening in school.
So you can't, you're, your, your self-appointed Schutzstaffel are beating up kids in the school.
In the hallways.
Like you have informants and show trials, but you weren't concerned then.
You finally get concerned when a Holocaust survivor tears up your classroom.
Yeah.
And speaking, I don't know if this is true or not, because this is something only Jones talks about.
And he seems credible.
But on day three, Jones claims how he got the extra bodyguards besides Robert was like the members of his car club beat Jones up and threw him in a dumpster and demanded that they be his bodyguards and he said yes.
Now, I have no way to very, I didn't put this in the script because I don't actually think it happened.
That seems like, well, he doesn't seem like a credible person.
But it may have happened, which I think is like, if that happened, that should have been the sign that things were getting out of control.
There's so many red flags here.
He should have...
He should, I mean, he never should have started this, but he certainly, like, there were a lot of points at which it was clear that this was bad before the Holocaust survivor destroyed his classroom.
Yeah.
So at this point, this is like the morning of day four.
The third wave was nearing 100 active members, which isn't how school works.
You shouldn't have 100 students in your class that aren't part of your class.
And the experiment was also affecting Jones.
He reports feeling like relaxed in his dictatorial position.
The character he was putting on was becoming his default personality.
Even his wife had to like, it was like getting him to be like, hey, you seem a little different at home.
What's going on?
Seems like you might have accidentally recreated Nazism.
Yeah.
The wave had taken over students' lives and how the whole school kind of operated.
Jones decided he needed to end it, but he didn't want to just end the experiment all of a sudden.
He wanted there to be a conclusion and closure for participants.
Jones wrote, if I stopped the experiment, a great number of students would be left hanging.
They'd committed themselves in front of their peers to this radical behavior.
Emotionally and psychologically, they had exposed themselves.
If I suddenly jolted them back to the classroom, the reality that would face them would be confusion over the whole student body that would remain for the rest of the year.
It would be too painful and demeaning for someone like Robert and the students like him to be twisted back into a seat and told it was just a game.
They would be ridiculed by the brighter students for their participation.
And I couldn't let people like Robert lose again.
Which is, I think, not a terrible...
Yeah, I mean, once you have recreated fascism in your classroom and have people who have dedicated their lives to it, you do have to, you can't just say, we're done now.
Like, yeah, you have to de-radicalize the students you radicalized, like we de-radicalized this kitten.
But Jones's solution to this is very perplexing from the standpoint of trying to limit the psychological damage and whiplash coming from this extreme simulation back to a classroom.
Because I think what he did actually made things way worse.
But it's very fascinating what happened from an experimental standpoint.
But again, I think this is way worse than just pulling the plug.
In class, Jones announced that the third wave isn't just a school experiment, it's a new national political movement.
In Jones's words, quote, across the country, teachers like myself have been recruiting and training a youth brigade capable of showing the nation a better society through discipline, community, pride, and action.
If we can change the way a school is run, we can change the way that factories, stores, universities, and all other institutions are run.
You are a selected group of young people chosen to help in this cause.
If you will stand up and display what you have learned in the past four days, we can change the destiny of this nation.
We can bring in a new sense of order, community, pride, and action, a new purpose.
Everything rests on you and your willingness to take a stand.
This doesn't sound like de-radicalization, Garrison.
It gets so much worse.
So yeah, like, no, everything he talked about for trying to eastern out of the experiment, this is not doing it.
No.
But that's not all.
Jones then, to quote, validify the seriousness of my words, quote, his words, ordered his bodyguards to escort three of the more intellectually astute students who had been dubious about the third wave.
So after he makes this big announcement and big lecture, he orders his guards to take three people to the library.
Okay.
And was told the bodyguards to never let them re-enter the class.
Jones then further explained that the next day there was to be a special third wave members only rally at noon.
There was to be a nationwide broadcast formally announcing the new political party and introducing a presidential candidate.
Quoting Jones, quote, over 1,000 youth groups from every part of the country would stand up and display their support for such a movement.
There were to be students selected to represent their area.
I questioned if they could make a good showing because press had been invited to record the event.
No one laughed.
There was not a murmur of resistance.
Quite the contrary.
A fever pitch of excitement swelled across the room.
So I really don't know why he thought this would calm things over.
Yeah, no, that doesn't seem like an attempt to de-radicalize.
It's very...
I think Jones's plan here and what happened, I think, made everything much worse, made the trauma much worse.
And to make things even more unfortunate, by pure happenstance, a student had a copy of the Time magazine from that month.
And it had a full-page ad for a lumber product, but the ad was just in big red, white, and blue lettering.
The third wave is coming.
So, like, it was a historical coincidence that got them all to believe this is like all very legit.
With the class convinced, Jones set a time for this members-only rally.
It was going to be Friday, so for them, it was tomorrow at noon.
Members were told to be there 10 minutes early, waiting for press in proper seating position and be there to, quote, display the discipline, community, and pride that you have all learned.
The class was instructed to not tell any third wave members about this.
So, yeah, that was Jones' idea to de-escalate things on day four, was to prepare kids for this national announcement and this big rally on the next day.
Oh, God.
Not what I would have done.
I think I wouldn't have let the experiment get to this point anyway.
No, but it seems like his attempt to de-radicalize them was to convince them that they were part of a national movement, which questionable call.
But you know what's not a questionable call, Garrison?
Buying all the dick pills.
Buying dick pills or whatever, whatever else advertises on our show.
Products are the only pathway to de-radicalize Nazis.
Services.
Free market capitalism.
The only thing that gets Nazis to become no longer Nazis.
Historically, that's true.
Capitalism de-radicalizes fashion.
Okay, well, here's some ads.
Yay.
Capitalism Cures Fascism00:03:18
There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
Rule one, never mess with a country girl.
You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
We always say, trust your girlfriends.
I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends...
Oh my God, this is the same man.
A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
I felt like I got hit by a truck.
I thought, how could this happen to me?
The cops didn't seem to care.
So they take matters into their own hands.
I said, oh, hell no.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He's going to get what he deserves.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back.
I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting.
Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians.
Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy.
Really too many to name.
And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more.
Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin.
You related to the Phantom at that point.
Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
That's so funny.
Share each day with me each night, each morning.
Say you love me.
You know I.
So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing Along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What's up, everyone?
I'm Ago Mode.
My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
It's Will Farrell.
My dad gave me the best advice ever.
I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent.
He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
Yeah.
He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
And he's like, just give it a shot.
He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
Yeah, it would not be.
Right, it wouldn't be that.
There's a lot of luck.
Yeah.
Listen to Thanksgiving on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckard found himself at the center of a paternity scandal.
The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story.
Ignored Middle Group Finds Purpose00:15:19
This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth.
You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?
I doctored the test once.
It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case.
I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for.
Sunlight's the greatest disinfectant.
They would uncover a disturbing pattern.
Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
Greg Gillespie and Michael Marancini.
My mind was blown.
I'm Stephanie Young.
This is Love Trap.
Laura, Scottsdale Police.
As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges.
This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona.
Listen to the Love Trapped podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, we're back.
Okay, so he's told his he's gotten scared because he recreated fascism.
Yeah.
And now there's a concentration camp in the library.
Yeah.
And also his students are, he's attempted to de-radicalize them by telling them they're part of a nationwide movement to change the character of the country.
No notes.
Okay.
No notes.
Now they're going to have a big meeting and he's going to tell them all to stop being fascist, right?
That's going to happen now.
Here's what happens.
Yes.
Okay.
But throughout the week, a school reporter was trying to find out about the third wave.
But whenever he asked questions about it to people, they just wouldn't talk until he got a hold of the librarian.
After the rally was announced, so basically he got a lead about what was happening through the librarian.
Because again, all the students who were banished were sent to the library.
After the rally was announced, two of the third wave bodyguards went into the school journalism office and beat up the reporter.
Telling him...
God damn it.
Yeah.
He did a good job remaking Nazis.
You gotta give him credit for the people wearing the black armbands.
It definitely wasn't his job, but he did it.
Telling him after they beat him up, they told him not to write about the third wave or the upcoming rally, which he had, I guess, learned a little bit about.
So yeah, that was the state of that.
If you're trying to keep a tally going on how well the fascism is working.
So day five, Friday morning, the final day, the school auditorium was plastered with third wave banners and posters like everywhere.
By 11.30, third wave members began already arriving and filling up the seats.
At noon, the auditorium held over 200 third wave members.
So again, this class started with 25 people and it grew to an auditorium filled with 200 Nazis.
Over five days.
So they were waiting to hear the national announcement of the new political party and their presidential nominee.
Jones had several of his friends in the room posing as reporters, taking pictures.
And he also set up a TV in the middle of the room.
As the clock struck 12, the bodyguards closed all the doors and were stationed in front of all the exits.
I don't know why this happened, but everyone reports that it did, so it probably happened.
Jones says, quote, says to the class, before turning on the national press coverage, which begins in five minutes, I want to demonstrate to the press the extent of our training.
He then moves his arm up to salute.
200 arms follow.
Oh, God.
All at the same time.
Great.
Apparently, also, one student on day four suggested they all wear white shirts, which they did on this last day.
So it's like, you know, very Unite the Right-ish with 200 people all wearing white shirts doing this Nazi salute.
Yeah.
Jones says, strength through discipline, and the students all in unison repeat back.
The phrase gets recited over and over, each time getting louder.
At 12.05, Jones orders the lights turned off, walks over to the television set, and turns it on.
The white static illuminates the room just enough to see the faces of the students.
Robert the bodyguard is standing beside Jones.
Jones tells him to watch the students' faces closely.
Minutes pass.
Nothing happens.
The TV's on, minutes pass, there's nothing, you know, nothing's turning on.
The students are in a trance watching the television.
Eventually, one student stands up and yells, there is no party leader, is there?
The class turns in shock to look at the student and then looks back at the television.
The other 199 students were all silent.
Some of them, but some of their posture was relaxing back to normal.
Jones turns out the television and says to the students, there is no leader.
There's no such thing as a national youth movement called the Third Wave.
Let me show you your future.
Jones turns on a projector right beside the TV, and on the wall, images and a film flash on the wall of Hitler, Nazi rallies, Third Reich marching with their trained discipline, people being put into train cars, off to death camps.
And so Jones begins lecturing as this film about the Nazis plays.
And are the kids just completely quiet just watching this?
Some of them are...
They're completely quiet right now.
Eventually they all start breaking down and crying.
Wonderful.
Yeah, like no one protests.
Everyone's very kind of feeling bad.
So as Jones is starting his lecture, the film finishes and freezes to hold on a single written frame that says, everyone must accept the blame.
No one can claim they didn't in some way take part.
Jones says to the class, you and I are no better or worse than the German Nazis that we've been studying.
You thought you were better than those outside this room.
You bargained away your freedom for the comfort of discipline and superiority.
We will watch our neighbors be taken away and do nothing.
We are just like those Germans.
We would give up our freedom for the chance of being special.
Jones then, I think, as he should have, expressed his remorse and apologized to the class for all the trauma that he had caused.
But he decides to give one kind of final lecture to kind of, I don't know, trying to smooth things over.
Again, this has already gone way too far and has made too many bad choices up to this point.
But this is the last thing he does for this experiment.
Here's a paragraph, a paragraph from Jones here.
Through the experiment in the last week, we've all tasted what it was like to live and act under Nazi Germany.
We learned what it was like to create a disciplined social environment, to build a special society, pledge allegiance to that society, replace reason with rules.
Yes, we would have all made good Germans.
We would have put on the uniform and turned our heads as friends and neighbors were cursed than persecuted.
We all know in a small way what it feels like to find a hero, to grab a quick solution, to feel strong and in control of destiny.
We know the fear of being left out, the pleasure of doing something right and being rewarded, to be number one, to be right, to be taken to the extreme, as we've seen and perhaps felt what those actions will lead to.
We each have witnessed something over the past week.
We have seen that fascism is not just something that other people do.
No, it's right here in this room.
It's in our own personal habits and it's in our way of life.
Scratch the surface and it appears.
Something in all of us.
We carry it like a disease.
The belief that human beings are basically evil and therefore unable to act well towards others.
That's what fascism breeds on.
It's the belief that demands a strong leader and discipline to preserve a social order.
Which is not a terrible...
No, I mean, he's right.
He's right.
He shouldn't.
Yeah.
It's a weird thing to say after creating fascism, but he's not wrong about the thing that he created.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He finishes up this small talk the same way this all started.
He asks the class if they, like the regular Germans, will claim ignorance and claim non-involvement.
Quote, if our enactment of the fascist mentality is complete, not one of you will ever admit to being at this final third wave rally.
Like the Germans, you will have trouble admitting to yourself that you've come this far.
You will not allow your friends and parents to know that you were willing to give up individual freedom and power for the dictates of this social order and unseen leaders.
You can't admit to being manipulated, to being a follower, to accepting the third wave as your way of life.
You won't admit to participating in this madness, and you'll probably keep this day and this rally secret, a secret that I will share with you.
Which Jones was eventually wrong about.
Jones himself wrote about this in semi-detail about like four years later after meeting a student like while shopping who gave him a third wave salute and it kind of got him upset.
Then he wrote down like...
Oh, yeah, he got upset about the fascism that he made.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So then he wrote an essay about it.
But students definitely do talk about it.
Well, we'll actually, we'll hear from some students in a bit.
Great.
But Jones turned off the projector that, you know, that still had everyone must accept the blame.
No one can claim that they weren't involved or no one can claim that they didn't in some way take part.
So he turns out to turn out this projector.
Then he sees Robert, who was sobbing, as many other students were as well.
Jones hugged Robert as he was crying and slowly students left the auditorium.
And that's the experiment.
So that was what happened.
That was the five-day...
Sounds like he may have permanently damaged some kids.
He did.
There's a lot of, yeah, a lot of kids now they're like adults in their 50s and 60s.
But yeah, they a lot of a lot of people think it was a good experience for them as a kid, but a lot of people say, no, this did irreversible damage.
I mean, it's an interesting experiment and a useful one if you want to study fascism, but it's bad that he did it to small children.
Yes.
Yeah.
To 15-year-olds mainly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So now we're left wondering why was the experiment kind of so effective, especially for being only five days.
Now, I do think Jones had a pretty solid understanding of fascism in some ways.
And he actually explains a lot of it well.
This is a quote for Jones.
This is a quote from Jones.
You have to understand the times.
There was a radical.
No, sorry.
There was racial integration taking place in the high school for the first time.
And that threw the school kind of upside down.
And all of the young men were facing the draft when they graduated.
I was basically promising, I can make you safe again.
This was written before Trump ran.
So the whole, yeah, it's just, you know, just a good thing to think of was the whole I can make you safe again thing.
Multiple students bring multiple students bring up Vietnam as a heavy contributing factor for why they, you know, fell into this, especially like bought into like the whole national movement thing.
And as well, of course, Jones had a lot of natural charisma and strength as a leader.
This is a quote from a student.
A big reason I went along with it was my trust for Jones.
And I was just beginning to feel bitter about Vietnam.
And the experiment seemed like we could change the government responsible for hurting us.
There was a feeling that something really remarkable was going to happen going on throughout the whole country.
And the movement was going to change politics, change the structure of the school.
The combination of everything just made it happen.
And a lot of the men who talk about what it was like in the experiment bring up the fear of Vietnam being a pretty heavy factor for why they bought into the whole thing.
Yeah, you're growing up into a world that seems dangerous and unhealthy for you.
And so you embrace a strong man in a hope that he can bring things back to an imagined past that you barely remember from your childhood.
Yeah.
That seems familiar.
Yep.
Okay.
The other thing that Jones makes a note of is who really thrived under the wave.
And it's those people like Robert, the ones that neither excelled in school nor caused much trouble.
Quoting Jones, I was accustomed to two very intelligent girls and the troublemakers in the back of the room.
But what the wave generated was a major rule for the great majority who stayed quiet and barely got through school.
I realized that as a teacher, I had probably ignored them for the most part.
And all of a sudden, this great massive energy took place and they were all brilliant in their own way.
So it was the people that were neither really good at school nor terrible.
It's just as people kind of barely, like barely getting by.
In another interview, Jones says, it was the middle group that became energized.
They became the winners for a brief moment.
And that's the thing that's also, the two things that come up the most often when reading about this from students and other teachers and the principal was one being Vietnam.
Oh, I guess also Jones being very charismatic.
But the other one was like, it gave this middle group that were kind of being ignored at the time really something to do.
And that's what they really latched on to.
Yeah.
And the next step I did after doing all the research for the for like the third wave stuff was just doing a brief, a brief re-entry into, you know, fascist studies to kind of see if I can pick up any other similarities between what Jones did and what these people talk about as being the traits or passions of fascism.
So I was looking at Robert Paxton's work for the underlying passions.
Yeah, an author of Anatomy of Fascism, which is one of the best academic treatments of the subject.
Yeah.
And almost every passion he has.
His theory is that one of his theories is that fascism basically is caused by these, you know, these feelings that we have in humans, and then that causes us to do different actions.
And all the passions that he talks about that kind of cause fascism to happen are all present in some degree for the third wave.
We obviously had the supremacy of the group, which is one of the traits.
The Vietnam War was definitely the overwhelming crisis that traditional solutions couldn't fix for a lot of the men at least there.
For all the teenagers who were facing the draft and who didn't want to go.
There was a little bit of group victimization with the warring poster wars, but not as much.
We definitely had an authority of the male leader, which was Jones.
We definitely had the superiority of the leader's words over abstract and universal reason in his announcement of the third wave rally.
And Jones even says during his final lecture that in times of uncertainty, it's easy to replace reason with rules.
Seeds Of Trump's Movement00:13:48
So yeah, it's like this.
This thing that we replace our natural logical thought process with this undying devotion to this leader, no matter how crazy things they say, is that you still believe it because they're offering you something in exchange, which of course we can also tie to the president and stuff.
In terms of the love of violence, the violence was minimal, but it was definitely there.
I mean, there were fist fights in the hallways.
They beat up that school reporter.
I don't know if I'd call it minimal.
Well, I mean, it could have been worse, I think.
I mean, it could have been what happened in Nazi Germany.
Yes, there could have been genocide.
From the perspective of this being a high school history class, I don't know how much worse it realistically could have been.
You're right.
In terms of a high school history class over five days, there was a lot of violence.
The other two passions that Paxton talks about are dread of the group's decline under corrosive effects of individualistic liberalism and the need for closer integration into a pure community.
And this is where things get a little bit more complicated.
Because a defining aspect of fascism is that it's self-contradictory and ideologically inconsistent.
And the way that I often see that surface in fascism is that how fascism is both heavily individualistic and heavily group-oriented and community-driven, as we see from like, you know, the strength through community kind of chance and stuff.
Yeah.
But I think part of this, part of how part of how this works is that the idea of community and the idea of being in this special group, it basically gives you the opportunity to pursue being an individual hero.
It's like this weird, it's this fake support system that lets you be this individual person.
It's the same thing we're seeing.
It's the same thing we see with like the proud boys and with these other sort of police.
It's like with the police.
If you look at like the warrior training they do, it's both like, no, you have to help other officers within like a moment you can't question them.
It's part of this very community driven thing.
But also they're training to be the individual warrior sitting on a rooftop with their cape flying in the wind.
It's both of those aspects.
The good old-fashioned cult of the hero that is kind of central to American culture because it's very easy to market because you can sell people body armor and guns and all the gear that they need to make themselves into a hero, but then they don't have anybody to fight and kill because that's what we say heroes do.
So they start going out into the streets and finding people to do it to.
Yeah, it's great.
It's very good.
Speaking of cult of the hero, which is the other kind of main scholar of fascism, which Umberto Echo, one of his 14 traits of fascism is the cult of the hero.
Yep.
And then the next, after I looked into Paxton, I looked over, I briefly, you know, browsed over Umberto Echo's 14 traits and tied a few of them pretty clearly.
Some of them don't fit as perfect because of how small and young the third wave was.
Like it didn't, you know, a lot of Paxton's trait, a lot of Echo's traits are for like actual political parties, which they didn't quite get to, but you can definitely see the seeds being planted there.
Yeah.
Of course, we have we have the cult of tradition with the third wave's emphasis on creating discipline and creating those traditions themselves.
Rejection of modernism and going back to the old strict teaching style and away from the loose modern style of the late 60s and the style that like Jones was really into, which was the very loose experimental thing.
The cult of action for action's sake was basically the focus of the whole day.
Remember the whole street through action day?
Yes.
So that definitely happened.
Disagreement was absolutely treason as people were banished to the library for just questioning the experiment.
And as Jones mentions, there were appeals to social frustration with the new racial integration in the school and the looming draft.
Jones writes of fascism, quote, fascism is always a possibility because it's so simple and people are frustrated.
They lose their jobs, their dignity, their sense of worth, and someone comes along and says, hey, I've got this answer.
So the rest of Bergako's traits, like the fear of difference, obsession with the plot, enemy being strong and weak, contempt for the weak, life is warfare, machismo and weaponry, selective populism, and newspeak.
Again, those get into a little specifically, those get a little too specifically into national politics to make really easy comparisons to the third wave, but I can definitely see the seeds being planted there with Jones talking about the third wave, like National Party and stuff.
I think those would have absolutely developed very quickly.
Especially, I think you can even, you know, Machismo and Republic to some degree with like the whole car club becoming bodyguards themselves.
And there was definitely a little bit of newspeak going on.
Now, Jones does regret doing the experiment.
As he says in almost any, every interview he talks, you know, when he talks about it, saying it was way too dangerous and way too damaging.
Yes.
Yeah.
But he still recommends people, you know, actually study and learn from it.
Since like since since it did happen, you may as well, you know, focus on it and like learn about it.
But he does regret doing it.
In fact, reading a book on the waves actually required reading in Germany for like all schools.
They're required to read a whole book about the wave because Germany actually cares about not fostering a culture of fascism.
Yeah.
Which is kind of fun.
It's just a fun little circle there from learning about Germany in their world history class.
To them learning about...
You fucked up so badly that Germany decided to make what you did a cautionary tale about fascism.
A required thing for school.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's good being a teacher.
Congratulations.
You did it.
Many students look back on the experiment as a positive learning experience.
One student became who became a filmmaker made a whole documentary on the topic and interviewed a lot of, interviewed a lot of students.
But there are many, many students and a lot of parents who are very upset at Jones for the experiment and thought it was way too damaging for their young psyches.
Oh, no way.
Yeah, so big shock.
Two years after the experiment ended, Jones was denied tenure in school and was fired.
Oh, good.
That was wrong.
But here's kind of the twist.
Jones was fired under pressure from the conservative parents, conservative school board, and the principal, who accused Jones of indoctrinating students into radical leftism instead of just teaching them.
He was fired for being a socialist, and he was fired for his links to his anti-war activism.
Oh, so not for the experiment.
He was fired for being a political activist and quote-unquote indoctrinating students into being like leftists.
Yeah.
There were actually huge student protests when news broke that Jones was being fired because he was still by far the most popular teacher in the school.
God, all of this is so bad.
All of this bodes so ill for the human condition.
Awesome.
Fantastic.
Like, the thing he should have gotten fired for is the fascist experiment.
Was making a concentration camp in the library, or maybe when his bodyguards were beating people.
He shouldn't have been fired for turning kids into commies.
No.
But like not by not by an experiment, just by teaching.
He should have been fired for like turning children into fascists into anything, really.
Like you shouldn't be ideologically brainwashing children either way.
Yeah.
But the communism wasn't the problem.
No, and he wasn't doing experiments to lead people into communism.
He was just teaching.
He was just actually like he was fired for just teaching a history class and actually learning about the labor movement and stuff like that.
And conservative parents didn't like that.
And the principal says, you know, the principal says he fired him because he was, you know, the way he was teaching students about, you know, like radical movements, students were becoming too sympathetic to these like, you know, racial justice causes and like labor rights causes.
So that's why he was fired.
The third wave has since been adapted into a few books, an 80s TV film, a focus of multiple documentaries, one of which being made by a student.
They made a whole German live-action film on it and a German TV show, because again, they care about this in Germany.
And Jones also wrote Jones wrote a musical based off the third wave, which I don't.
Great.
So, and since Jones has since spent his time, after in the 70s, he became like a very, he had a brief stint of being a punk rocker, which is just fun.
And then he became just like a writer.
He's written about 30 books, including some children's books.
Oh, good.
He should be including children.
He's actually an award-winning author.
And he's currently a teacher for special needs adults in disability schools.
And that's the third wave.
See, I wouldn't let that guy around kids anymore.
No, he's not around kids.
He's teaching adults with special needs.
Oh, okay.
Well, all right.
I don't remember around adults either.
Yeah.
But by all means, he is a very good teacher when he's actually teaching.
Yeah.
But as long as he doesn't turn all the adults with special needs into Nazis, then I don't know.
It does seem like he did that once and might again.
So what's your kind of insights?
Because you read about fascism on an often basis.
Scans.
Like the terrifying thing here is how quickly it happens and how quick, how easy it is to get children on board something like that.
Because all you need to do, like he's right.
Like the thing that he observed is very obvious, which is that when you have, when you create, like you go into a system that's that's kind of static.
Like you've got this high school, everybody has their places in it.
Everybody has kind of their places in the social order.
And there's a lot of people who aren't special, who don't do well in school or athletics, who aren't popular, who are just sort of there.
And you provide them with a way that they can be better than everyone.
And it's by embracing this new movement.
Like that's that's the thing that you do.
It's the thing that Trump did is you had all these people who didn't really have any kind of like they they you know our society was has been increasingly stratified.
There's an increasing gap between the rich and the poor.
And there was a large chunk of people who didn't really have anything to feel good about.
Like they were struggling at work.
They didn't like their jobs.
Their education hadn't gotten them anywhere.
They were they were bogged down with debt.
And then Trump comes in and says, hey, I'm going to give you a chance.
I'm going to like make a new thing that you can reinvent yourself as a part of.
Like that's where all these proud boys came from.
It's where a lot of these like Patriot Coalition Patriot prayer types, they're these people who didn't really have anything to do.
And suddenly fascism gave them a way to be special and a group of people to attack, which is what you need.
And it's a group of people that's the thing that separates that from like what Bernie Sanders did.
Yeah.
Is that Trump's solution was regressive and going back to a fake history?
Whereas, you know, movements on the left usually try to move forwards.
Now, when movements on the left gain an authoritarian leader and move forward, that still ends up bad.
Yeah, it's always bad to have an authoritative leader.
But fascism is so insidious in that it's way more comfortable to people because it's appealing to this past sense of society.
And usually the past isn't as scary as like a new thing in the future.
That's why a lot of people get hooked on it.
Yeah.
And you see, what you saw in this experiment was like, as soon as you get, as soon as these kids realize, as soon as the people who kind of embrace this start to feel attached to it because it's given them a way to be special, it's given them a place.
It's given them something to fight for.
They will use without thought violence to protect it because they can't, they are like horrified at the thought of going back to the old order in which they weren't special, in which they didn't have a place.
Like they, that's, that's the thing that also scares me about what's going to happen in 2021.
Like as we've been talking about this on Twitter, somebody posted a picture of like one of the people heading to DC this weekend for the big Trump rally.
And it was like, it was a guy who had like a Spartan helmet that had Trump 2020 on it.
It was in blue and red.
And he had like a Trump 2020 Make Liberals Cry Again shirt and like board shorts that had Trump's face as Captain America on them, like right over the crotch, which was weird.
And then a Trump 2020 flag that he was wearing as a cape.
And it's like, yeah, the movement, this fucking fascist movement that Trump created in the United States gave this guy something that makes him feel special, that makes him feel like things can't be going all that well for that dude.
No.
Which is not to say that like only, because obviously like Trump's voters tended to be higher income more often than lower income, but like he was not a, he was not happy with things before Trump.
Trump gave him something to feel like a part of and something to struggle against, this vague idea of the left of liberals.
So he has an enemy and he has a purpose.
And he's not going to just like, you know, it's the thing that it's the problem that the teacher had with the wave is that like, well, now that you've built this thing, how do you just stop it all of a sudden?
How To Stop The Wave00:07:17
Yeah, it's going to fuck these people up.
And they're either going to wind up weeping, which is the best case scenario, or getting violent.
I mean, yeah.
And, you know, the week after the wave happened, they basically sent in his class the week later, it was basically just a week full of therapy.
Yeah.
That was what he did.
He did not, they didn't like just move on to Russia.
It's like, no, like they spent a whole week basically doing therapy because they were all, you know, very messed up.
Yeah.
I mean, we could use some of that here, but it won't happen.
Instead, they'll just buy more guns, which is why ammunition is sold out.
But they could buy 4,000 rounds of blanks by accident.
There was that guy on 4chan who bought 4,500 rounds of 5.45 by 39 blanks and thought they were real bullets and then was very sad, which is quite funny.
Which is the best case scenario.
He lost money and got useless bullets.
Yeah, he lost money and got bullets that he can't use to kill people.
Yay.
Yay.
Unless it's Bruce Lee.
Sorry.
Oh, God.
Yeah, so that's kind of all I have here on the topic.
Yeah, I'm trying, you know, that's, that kind of, that kind of hits all of the boxes I wanted to talk about.
Yep.
Well, Garrison, thank you for bumming me out.
Normally it's my job to bum other people out.
It is.
We'll return to that next week.
I'm two for two on child abuse for my what's up, Sophie.
Oh, I mean, those are all the best episodes is where children get abused.
That's what people come to the show for is to watch kids be traumatized.
Yeah, I mean, but also, I mean, I guess I'm good for writing that because I am previously a child.
I'd be worried.
You were a child, unlike Sophie and I.
Yeah.
I thought they came for your sparkling personality, Robert.
No, no, they come for the child abuse.
But yeah, I mean, as someone who was someone who was like more conservative when I was like 15, the same age as all of these people, I can easily see if I was in this scenario, I would have also absolutely followed suit, which is why when I read this book as a 15-year-old, I'm like, oh, wait, oh, no, there's some problems here, which eventually, you know,
got me to not be a conservative anymore and learn more about fascism.
Well, that's good.
So I guess it's all good then that he traumatized those kids.
Yeah, because the weird thing about this, he's like, I read this book as part of a Christian homeschooling curriculum.
And I don't know why they included it because everything else was kind of just opposites to this.
So I'm not sure why they included this book.
But I mean, thanks.
I guess they included this book and one book on the history of labor in the 20th century.
And those are the books that got me.
I mean, I still had like hundreds of hundreds of other books that were just like conservative propaganda, but they included these, these were the only two books that had like a left bent and they kind of got me.
They're like, oh, wow, this was a new thing that's different from everything else I was reading and was kind of more interesting and made more sense.
Yeah, I don't.
From their perspective, they shouldn't include the book.
But I'm very happy they did.
So yeah.
Great.
Yay.
Well, Garrison, you got anything to plug before we roll out?
I guess my Twitter, if you want to see occasional street reporting, occasional Proud Boy Rally stuff.
Oh, and my kitten.
Yeah.
And now also I'll be offering occasional kitten content for those obliged.
Also, soon-ish, I'll be releasing like a 10-minute short documentary about Portland protests on my YouTube channel.
But I've been putting off doing the editing on that for like a month because I'm busy and lazy.
So eventually that'll be out.
So you can go to my YouTube as well.
But mainly Twitter.
Yeah.
At Hungry Bowtie.
I guess I should say it.
That'd be useful.
Or you can just Google my name because that's all you need to do.
Yay.
Well, everybody, this has been a fun episode of the podcast.
It hasn't, but I had a lot of laughs.
I'm glad you had a lot of laughs.
I'm bummed.
I'm going to go to the gym and cry and get COVID.
Don't ask me if that's different from yesterday.
Yeah.
Anyway, thanks for listening to the podcast, everybody.
Now go find a high school class to radicalize and then haphazardly de-radicalize for questionable academic benefit.
Zoom bomb them and turn them all into fascists.
Yeah, Zoom bomb them in the Nazis.
Or find a kitten and give it love.
The kitten is asleep in my lap now.
Oh my God.
It goes so limp.
His little head's just hanging over my hand.
Buddy.
That's the episode over.
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