Thinking we could have said or done something to change an oppressive group is like small kids who break their own little hearts being convinced that if only they had been nicer, quieter or done something better, Daddy would not have become alcoholic, or had a heart attack.
A wee kid has to hang onto a sense of personal agency and rather than face his or her family and the Big People are totally out of control, will convince him or herself that something a tiny kid can do or say will Change Everything.
Its like believing one can sweep the waves back out to sea by using a push broom.
But in chaos or total oppression, magical thinking is what many people take to.
This is not to say one cannot try to fight back. But the resistance fighters of
World War II worked as members of adult networks, could listen by radio to information from outside sources, created underground newspapers to keep fellow citizens informed and in Poland, at least even created a system of underground universities to educate their young for roles in a future after Poland was liberated from the Nazis.
The Nazis failed to ID and eliminate enough of the persons who had leadership skills
and those who remained created resistance networks.
You cant fight off a rigged card game or dicatatorship by your lone self.
(Jan Karski-Story of a Secret State)
Their objective was to keep their fellow citizens from being scared into regression by the Nazis by imagining a way to live as citizens of a nation that had a long and noble history --a history the Nazis forbade teaching and that the underground made sure to teach in its floating colleges.
They didnt want Poles to blame themselves--they wanted them to have a sense of adult patriotism and fight back!
Back to this thread. Stoic made a valuable point--one can get paralyzed by believing in 100% hindsight and by believing one could have Done Something.
Still--important point. If a person does something defiant in a group it might be a radicalizing memory for those who remain.
But..remember this: Many bad leaders take care to do selective recruiting. They find ways to filter out or kick out anyone who shows dangerous qualities such as leadership talent, kindness that make a leaders nastiness look bad, subversive humor, creativity, levels of competance that make the leader look bad.
This was reportedly done in POW camps by the North Koreans. The Communist Koreans wanted to prevent a set up in which America POWs could organize resistance (as enough Poles did under the Nazi regime)
Method: ID and sequester potential leaders.
[
forum.culteducation.com]
Quote
Colin Wilson's book Rogue Messiahs.
Wilson said he was told something by Robert Ardrey that was, for some time kept classified during and after the Korean War. It was a key component to the success that the Communist Chinese and North Koreans had in pressurizing POWs to take on the Communist belief system.
This is an important component of what was done: Closely observe the captured soldiers and officers.
Identify the ones (regardless of rank) who showed leadership, initiative, ability to take risks, refusal to respect or fear authority and coercion.
These persons were the ones who were identified ASAP and removed from the general prisoner/POW group and segregated as hard cases.
By identifying and removing the potential leaders, the ones capable of defying the authoritarian belief system (whether by smirking, looking bored, making jokes, digging
escape tunnels and making weapons)--that meant the larger group of prisoners were
much more docile, once this tiny but very important subset of potential leaders and dissidents was 1) identified and 2) removed and segregated.
The docile remainder, without their leaders (and in house jokers, the ones who scribble subversive graffiti, make faces, rude remarks or rip a fart right when the virtues of Communism are being extolled) were that much more easily controlled and manipulated--they were, neurologically, a more uniform group once the leaders and disruptors had been identified and removed.
So. see if your former employer found ways to identify and kick out leaders.
Its especially ugly if a bully not only removes people with leadership potential but cons them to feeling bad about themselves and distrustful of their own talent--a talent the bully does not have.
To con a gifted person into distrusting his or her talent for hard work and leadership is the ultimate and poisonous revenge of a bully.
Most of us dont know nearly enough about Lifton's criteria. But the added element of identifying and removing potential pranksters leaders and escape savvy people would tremendously enhance the impact of the cultic features itemized by Lifton in his list.