There are many interesting social psychology concepts which allow for an authority such as Adolf Hitler to eventually persuade the majority of Germans to support his genocide. Although it is frightening, a number of these very phenomena are a part of everyday life. Thankfully they do not necessarily lead to destructive behavior. James Waller describes the “Binding Factors of the Group” to be the encompassing title describing the causes of irrational behavior. By nature humans desire to be a member of a group and for that group to maintain authority or power. For this reason members of the Nazi party allowed themselves to act as they did, not because of their moral beliefs and ideologies, but because of the applied strategies which pushed for the group to act a certain way, not the individual. The three “Binding Factors of the Group” include Diffusion of Responsibility, Deindividuation, and Conformity to Peer Pressure. By diffusing responsibility, the individual does not blame themselves for their actions, but the group and the authority of the group. This is the reason why bystanders do not often rush to help others in trouble when many of them could. Everyone assumes that someone else will act or take control. In certain groups, deindividuation is mandatory, especially in military regimes. This is the idea that an individual can only be identified as a member of that group. Not only does this support camaraderie within the group, but also creates anonymity to outsiders. It is easy for rioters to act as they do when all others are acting in a similar manner. Finally, because individuals often conform to peer pressure, members of a group to avoid embarrassment, ridicule, etc. people will act out of character in order to retain their place in a popular (or powerful) group. Delillo specifically incorporated Adolf Hitler as a critical piece of the story because of how he managed to form a mass culture of Germany which also appears as
an aspect of life his main character interacts with throughout the novel.
Central to the thematic elements incorporated in Don DeLillo’s White Noise is the idea of the pervasiveness of television and advertising in the post-modern world. Throughout the book, the Gladney family experiences this bombardment in a variety of mediums and settings that appear innocuous, however, the reader is reminded constantly of the presence of these forms of stimulation leading to the conclusion that whatever good comes from them are overshadowed by the negative. Emblematic of this concept occurs when DeLillo writes “It seemed to me that Babette and I, in the mass and variety our purchases, in the sheer plenitude those crowded bags suggested, the weight and size and number, the familiar package designs and vivid lettering, the giant sizes, the family bargain packs with Day-Glo sale stickers, in the sense of replenishment we felt, the sense of well-being, the security and contentment these products brought to some snug home in our souls,” (DeLillo 20). Here, Jack Gladney expresses the feeling of happiness and contentment that the packages and brands bring to him and his family, which illuminates DeLillo’s idea that our senses are bent to the constant pull of the brand, logo, and packaging. Again, this pervasive intrusion of the unconscious is exemplified by the quote “She seemed to think that if kids watched television one night a week with parents or stepparents, the effect would be to de-glamorize the medium in their eyes, make it wholesome domestic sport. Its narcotic undertow and eerie diseased brain-sucking power would be gradually reduced,” (DeLillo 16). Today, this enveloping immersion of television and advertising is even more prevalent with the popularity of brand placement in video games. In a recent study conducted among 2453 girls ages 11 and 17, researchers found that “confrontation with interactive brand placement in the game resulted in more positive attitudes toward the game, higher top of mind awareness of the brand, more positive brand images, and more favorable behavioral intentions,” (Van Reijmersdal et al.). Remarkable as these findings are, the overwhelming facts remain that advertising and media will continue to be a dominant force today and in the future as Don DeLillo advocates in White Noise.
DeLillo also deals with the issue of death or more specifically a fear of death in White Noise. In O.H. Green’s paper “Fear of Death” he quotes Bernard Williams as saying, “To want something, we may also say, is to that extent to have reason for resisting what excludes that thing: and death certainly does that, for a very large range of things that one wants. If that is right then for any of those things, wanting something itself gives one a reason for avoiding death” (Green 100). Here we see that desires may be a cause for a fear of death. Jack clearly has a fear of death in this novel. He obsesses about the idea and it becomes clear that this fear stems from his wanting to be a part of a group. This is exhibited when he and his wife are looking through photo albums in bed when he states,
Children wincing in the sun, women in sun hats, men shading their eyes from the glare as if the past possessed some quality of light we no longer experience, a Sunday dazzle that caused people in their churchgoing clothes to tighten their faces and stand at an angle to the future, somewhat averted it seemed, wearing fixed and fine-drawn smiles, skeptical of something in the nature of the box camera. Who will die first? (DeLillo 30).
Here we see as he describes the people in the photo album that he is afraid of being alone. He does not want his wife to die, join the people who are long gone in the photo album and leave him alone. This idea of being a part of a group relating to death is brought up again,
There must have been something different about those crowds. What was it? Let me whisper the terrible word, from the Old English, from the Old German, from the Old Norse. Death. Many of those crowds were assembled in the name of death. They were there to attend tributes to the dead. Processions, songs, speeches, dialogues with the dead, recitations of the names of the dead. They were there to see pyres and flaming wheels, thousands of flags dipped in salute, thousands of uniformed mourners. There were ranks and squadrons, elaborate backdrops, blood banners and black dress uniforms. Crowds came to form a shield against their own dying. To become a crowd is to keep out death. To break off from the crowd is to risk death as an individual, to face dying alone. Crowds came for this reason above all others. They were there to be a crowd (DeLillo 73).
Here he again brings up the idea of loneliness about facing death alone and the idea that one can ward off death as part of a crowd. Jack does not want to be alone and face death alone so he fears death but he also fears the loneliness that comes with death. An example of this is the passage Kyle references in the last paragraph on page 20 where Jack is very happy to buy things and be a consumer, but it seems he is also happy to be a part of mass culture. Jack feels that by being a part of a crowd he can avoid death and loneliness.
Works Cited
Green, O.H. "Fear of Death." Philosophical and Phenomenological Research 43.1 (Sep., 1982): 99-105.
Van Reijmersdal et al. “The effects of interactive brand placements in online games on children’s cognitive, affective, and conative brand responses.” Computers in Human Behavior 26.6 (2010): 1787-1794.
Waller, James. "What Is the Immediate Social Context? A Culture of Cruelty." Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. NetLibrary. Web. 16 Nov. 2010.