To the editor: Sunita Sah’s article in regards to the compliance of most People needs to be required studying in each faculty, from the sixth grade by the twelfth. (“America thinks it’s a country of free thinkers. But we’re actually compliant,” Opinion, Feb. 28)
It’s in fact in our nature to be good and never make waves, as it’s attribute of most human beings in all places. 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 Warfare II, I nonetheless ponder this query: How did individuals permit this monstrous totalitarianism to exist?
Among the many solutions, in line with Sah, is that we’re largely compliant when confronted with selections that will compromise our acceptance in our group. I’ll add that, by this passivity, a nation might conceivably turn out to be complicit in evil, as occurred in Germany.
That is the hazard that more and more confronts us immediately. 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
