A Different Mirror
This book begins and ends with 1992's Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, following the aquittal of 4 city police involved in the Rodney King beating. Fast backward to early colonial times in the 1600s, with a brief stop in Vinland around the year 1000 C E when Vikings led by Leif Ericsson arrived in the New World and met with Indians they called skraelings. Shap]kespeare's play The Tempest, about English expansion in North America, offers its main character, Caliban, as reference throughout the book as an example of nonEuropean savagery. England, France, Spain and Holland each had colonies in North America.
Halfway through the book it's the 1800s already, and manifest destiny. Then come the 1900s and Civil RIghts laws. Takaki uses the word capitalist as an epithet for corporate interests whose search for cheap labor continues today by offshoring jobs. Most skilled, better-paying jobs are still dominated by white men, although others have made progress in white-collar careers. Takaki also fails to see President Reagan's SDI (Space Defense Initiative) as a peaceful end to the Cold War and freeing up national resources for consumer spending, instead of a huge Federal deficit for future generations to pay off.
The book tells how each selected immigrant group faces hardship and discrimination on arrival in the United States, particularly those who are nonwhite and non-English-speaking. Several chapters are about blacks, Mexicans, Indians and Japanese, pluse one each about Irish, Jews, and Chinese. The last chapter covers each group in turn, toward 1992 when the book was written. At the last minute Malcolm Little and Martin Luther King appear onstage, following centuries of fighting for economic and political power. Statistics accompany poems (the Japanese chapter contains haiku that actually conforms 5 7 5) songs and quotes from both immigrants and the dominant white culture, each with their own points of reference.
This book reads like a cliffhanger, like tune in next week. Just when things seem hopeless, here comes the hero - the social psychologist - with a brand new experiment in a lab under controlled conditions. You're left wondering for a page or two, itching to rebut a theory Aronson just posed. Turn the page and voila! Your question is answered. Ah, but no one's perfect, not even the experimenter and his trained confederates. Despite speculation, the actor doesn't always reveal his motives. Until Mindreading 101 is offered as a college course only the actor knows what goes on in his own mind.
Will Rachel's mother buy the best cereal? Can prejudice be unlearned in high school or later? What makes people conform and obey, even against their own beliefs and principles, without real or perceived coercion? Under what conditions do subjects deliver electric shocks to others? Will Alice and Phil kiss and make up or is their marriage on a downward spiral toward divorce? Does violence breed violence? Does media violence make children violent? Why are some children violence-prone and others not? How did antisemitism get its start? Will you buy the right car for your needs and budget? How do political candidates win people's hearts and votes? Can sexually active college students be persuaded to use condoms and prevent AIDS or other STDs? Do jurors chosen for their support or lack of support for the death penalty affect a trial's outcome? Can aggression and hostility be channeled into constructive activities such as sports? How are cooperativeness and team spirit developed? How does an A W A get that way?
Find out right here. This book reads like a good TV ad: the product - an experiment - saves the situation or at least explains it. The jury's still out on some questions at least for now. What's the difference between murdering for hire and murdering when hearing voices? How are psychopaths different from gangs and crime syndicates or professional assassins and sharpshooters? What disillusions returning veterans about war and about killing innocent civilians who may be enemy sympathizers or shooting fellow troops however inadvertently? Why are women still less accepted socially despite advances made (at least in the U S) towards equality? Why are women seen as sex objects or housewives in the media and in life?
Most experiments cited are from earlier decades, with different prevailing social issues, surrounding events and attitudes. Many of Aronson's early experiments involve taped conversations on the psychology of sex. Women hear enough of it outside, why hear it in the lab without sufficient reward for their efforts? A pattern forms, as with any artist or athlete. Aronson, retired from teaching at U C Santa Cruz, now teaches part time at Stanford. Aronson does make an honest, readable, professional, empirical effort to explain things. His book is generic enough for use in explaining topics relating to Sept 11, 2001's events as discussed in class lecture. Future editions of this book or others like it should contain new material and retain relevancy, explaing to future generations of lower-division college-level psychology students the social conditions and events of their day, a day many of us long to be around to see first hand. Aronson is right - it's a good idea to consult social psychologists about patterns of social phenomena. Aronson's open honesty, sincerity and good nature, shared by classmates and by Dr. Potterton teaching this class, show strongly in his writing.
Professor James Potterton says: Most of the experiments in this book are done in the United States, giving results based on European-American culture.