A Class Divided Film Analysis

When watching the film A Class Divided, a film over how people react to being separated by their eye color and though down on, and reading the article “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problems” by Fromm, an article over why a person is obedient and how someone can be disobedient, a people learns a little bit about how quickly one's attitude and character can change rapidly and why someone might change or even conform to an authoritarian figure. People listen to their self-conscience but tend to conform a person in charge. A person, who is listening to an authority figure, has a hard time walking in a different direction than most people, but it is an act of courage to truly stand up. A person wants to please their own self-conscience,

People tend to follow the outside voice because it takes an act of course to stand up against someone who has power and a person believes that they are consciously following their own conscience (Fromm 126). The reason being that people have the “humanistic conscience” trait that following orders pleases yourself and when you please the authority then your conscience becomes satisfied (Fromm 126). You even see that power being applied to these third graders when the teacher says that it’s okay to get rid of the collar around blue eyes neck and become a family (A Class Divided). Yes, the children are happy that no one is looked down on, but at the same time they are following the leader like the children always had been but this time the students think it’s also a decision on themselves. Although the children are following instructions their minds are still pleased and they are following the instructions. Later in the film, though a viewer does see a person who has enough courage to stand up against the authority figure, but lack support. Even though the minority has ruled over majority, a person who stands up against the figure still needs support to overcome the authority figure (Fromm 125). Perhaps there is also a fine line between disobedience and listening to what you are told.Fromm, author of Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problems, states that to

As children are taught to go with what the authority tells them to do, they played along with the rules, but one thing that the children learned fast was that being on bottom most of them felt worthless and that there was no hope, yet being on top made them feel like a king and that they could do anything. A Class Divided shows perfect example of this when the teacher test the kids over their multiplication with flash cards. The children with the “correct” eye color of the day were faster when testing the flash cards, while the children with the “wrong” eye color were slower. Even Fromm’s article states that one’s obedience makes them part of the power, one feels stronger, and one cannot make an error (Fromm 127). A person felt a sense of hopeless that being on the bottom you would just get attacked and that it was best not to speak up but rather do what the authority says so that they would but obeying. A Class Divided shows that later in the film, this gentlemen was not following the instructions, so he got rather made fun of in front of other people and kept quiet during the rest of the lecture because he did not want to be made fun of again. The gentlemen at the end of the film stated that he felt