To the editor: Sunita Sah’s article regarding the compliance of most People ought to be required studying in each college, from the sixth grade by way of the twelfth. (“America thinks it’s a country of free thinkers. But we’re actually compliant,” Opinion, Feb. 28)
It’s after all in our nature to be good and never make waves, as it’s attribute of most human beings in every single place. We dislike aggressiveness and, largely, defiance. I recall berating a gross sales clerk for being racially disrespectful to a buyer and being subjected to glares from others within the retailer as a result of I dared to talk up.
Having lived, albeit as a baby, beneath the yoke of the Nazi regime that had invaded the Netherlands in World Battle II, I nonetheless ponder this query: How did individuals enable this monstrous totalitarianism to exist?
Among the many solutions, in accordance with Sah, is that we’re largely compliant when confronted with selections which will compromise our acceptance in our neighborhood. I’ll add that, by way of this passivity, a nation may conceivably turn into complicit in evil, as occurred in Germany.
That is the hazard that more and more confronts us in the present day. Once we are compliant — for instance by following edicts on banning variety, fairness and inclusion initiatives — we set the stage for an authoritarian authorities that may inevitably have an effect on us all.
Anneke Mendiola, Santa Ana
