Mechanisms of Power
In a society the definition of cultural standards are set by the majority. Even if the United States is a tossed salad, the basic flavor and texture comes from the lettuce as the largest proportion of the salad. To maintain cultural stability the majority supports its culture and power, but sometimes the minority is stifled by the majority's mechanisms of power.
Indoctrination of Children
In Ceremony and Maus, the evidence of indoctrination of children is a mechanism of power used to suppress minority parts of the population. When the children are taught the ways of the majority, the value of the minority is undercut. The children grow to adulthood believing, even subconsciously, that the culture and the identity of the minority is unimportant. The children of the majority are taugtht their superiority by association with their culture and the children of the minority can learn at impressionable ages the superiority of the majority. These minority children can grow without the significant esteem that comes from cultural and ethnic pride. The majority children are already psychologically ahead. In Nazi Germany the Jewish children were not taught the superiority of the Arians because the Nazi's planned on their extermination. The German men, women, and children, however, were taught to hate and fear the Jews through the rhetoric of the Nazi dogma.
"He knew what white people thought about the stories. In school the science teacher had explained what superstition was, and then held the science books up for the class to see the true source of explanations. He had studied those books, and he had no reason to believe the stories any more. The science books explained the causes and effects. But old Grandma always used to say, " Back in time immemorial, things were different, the animals could talk to human beings and many magical things still happened." He never lost the feeling he had in his chest when she spoke those words, as she did each time she told them stories; and he still felt it was true, despite all they had taught him in school..." (Ceremony 94-95)
In Ceremony, the Indian children are taught that the cultural stories of their heritage are false. The culture itself is based on the stories of the past. By teaching the children that the white stories of science are the only truth and that the Indian stories are only fiction, the Indian children are encouraged to distrust their cultural heritage and to question the validity of their Indian upbringing. It might be different if the children were taught at an age where they could equally weigh both options, but young children are too impressionable to be bludgeoned with negative thoughts of themselves. The culture is such a critical tie of people to each other that dismissal of culture leads to a fragmented society. The Indians could not find unity as they have become more influenced and affected by white culture, and without unity, there was no mechanism of power.
"The mothers always told so 'Be careful! A Jew will catch you and eat you!'...so they taught their children." (Maus 149)
In this caption from Maus, Vladeg remembers the indoctrination of children by the Nazi's. The German children had been taught to look for people who appeared to be Jewish as threats to the children's own well being. Part of the power of the Reich in Germany was that their military force was supported by the German people, who bought into the hatred of the Jewish people. The Nazi's needed a scapegoat to bring the German people against a common enemy. The mothers taught their children what the Reich had taught them, that " Jews are the sworn enemy of the German people and must be eradicated." (spoken by Himmler, according to Hoss)
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"Everyday [the Native Americans] had to look at the land, from horizon to horizon, and every day the loss was with them;it was the dead unburied, and the mourning of the lost going on forever. So they tried to sink the loss in booze, and silence their grief with war stories about their courage, defending the land they had already lost." (Ceremony 169)
In Ceremony the physical resources that the white man took from the Indians constitute a difference in the influence of the powerful and the weak. The Indians constantly had to fight the depression of their loss. They did not see themselves as victims but instead as poor caretakers who had "lost" the land. The Indians were psychologically debilitated by the loss of their cultural claim in Tayo's world, and even in the present, the Native Americans are still being pushed around by the power of the U.S. government.
In Maus the Germans took Jewish property as a first step to weakening their influence and their ability to resist. Because people are willing to give up property to placate aggression, they do not stand up for their rights when they still can. Without financial resources, the minority is weakened to the majority. The lack of financial resources was quickly followed by more civil rights being taken away. As they lost their houses, furniture, and personal space, the Jews also lost the right to walk around at night and the right to life itself.