Inaction in the face of Injustice makes an individual morally culpable

Contention 1: Inaction allows bullying and discrimination to be legitimized By not standing up to a major problem within our world, we legitimized bullying and discrimination. An estimated 77 million people in the United States alone go to school, and 77% of these children are bullied. Eliza Ahmed, a professor at the Australian National University argues "When it comes to verbal bullying, this type of bullying is the most common type with about 77 percent of all students being bullied verbally in some way or another including mental bullying or even verbal abuse. These types of bullying can also include spreading rumors, yelling obscenities or other derogatory terms based on an individual's race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc." By taking inaction against bullying, discrimination is allowed to continue, and bullying is legitimized because no one ever stands up or will tell them that its wrong. If this is allowed to continue then the bullies will find that discrimination, and physical or verbal abuse is correct, making them into criminals. "Bullying can be a gateway behavior, teaching the perpetrator that threats and aggression are acceptable even in adulthood. In one study by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, nearly 60 percent of boys whom researchers classified as bullies in grades six to nine were convicted of at least one crime by the age of 24, while 40 percent had three or more convictions." This is the key issue that we must first resolve in order to be able to resolve other issues such as murder and rape. http://www.ncpc.org... Contention 2: Protecting the collective allows for survival of the race Acting in order to prevent injustices in order for the general wellbeing of society is better. Darwin argues "a tribe including many members who...were always ready to give aid to each other and sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection" If we don"t have to obligation to act we don"t preserve our species and we don"t allow us to continue to live in the way that we currently do. Subpoint A: Lack of action creates fascism Fascism relies upon the complacency of individuals Arendt, 1963 [Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem p. 150] And just as the law in civilized countries assumes that the voice of conscience tells everybody "Thou shalt not kill," even though man"s natural desires and inclinations may at times be murderous, so the law of Hitler"s land demanded that the voice of conscience tell everybody: "Thou shalt kill," although the organizers of the massacres knew full well that murder is against the normal desires and inclinations of most people. Evil in the Third Reich had lost the quality by which most people recognize it"the quality of temptation. Many Germans and many Nazis, probably an overwhelming majority of them, must have been tempted not to murder, not to rob, not to let their neighbors go off to their doom (for that the Jews were transported to their doom they knew, of course, even though many of them may not have known the gruesome details), and not to become accomplices in all these crimes by benefiting from them. But, God knows, they had learned how to resist temptation. AND Individual action in the face of injustice is the only way to prevent fascism Ahmed 2008 [Saladdin Said "Mass Mentality, Culture Industry, Fascism" Kritike http://www.kritike.org... accessed 6/29/14] In "Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda," Adorno studies the relationship between the bonds that turns "individuals" to masses. He credits Freud"s study of mass psychology for predictingfascism in the twentieth century. "According to Freud, the problem of mass psychology is closely related to thenew type of psychological affliction so characteristic of the era which for socio-economic reasons witnesses the decline of the individual and his subsequent weakness."44 According to Adorno, Le Bon"s contribution is also crucial in the realization of "psychology of masses," though Freud was the first psychologist who did not disgust the masses and instead he wondered what turned groups of individuals into masses. Adorno writes, "he [Freud] tries to find out which psychological forces result in the transformation of individuals into a mass. "If the individuals in the group are combined into a unity, there must surely be something to unite them, and this bond might be precisely the thing that is characteristic of a group." This quest, however, is tantamount to an exposition of the fundamental issue of fascist manipulation."45 For Freud, Adorno explains, what happens to individuals when they form masses can be explained in terms of libidinal phenomena. Individuals lose their rationality when they join masses.46 Adorno tries to connect that with fascism as a "rebellion borrows its energies partly from other psychological agencies which are pressed into the service of the unconscious."47 Adorno then searches for the mechanisms that change sexual energy to feelings on which masses are constructed internally.48 He says Freud noticed how "love" in organized groups is masked by religious images and rituals.49 Fascism needs to turn "love" to authoritarian fetishism and that is exactly what shapes the pattern of fascism.50 Freud explains the relation between a leader and the followers (masses) in terms of a father-children relation. The children feel the need for total obedience to the father, who is the representative of the super ego. The herd feels the need to submit to an absolute authority. They want to be governed because they cannot bear their freedom.51 Fascist propaganda, Adorno explains, relives the primal image of "the father" which stimulates the psychological thirst for obedience. That is why fascist media concentrate on the "greatness" of the leader rather than the problems in reality and possible objective corresponding politics.52 In Saddam Hussein"s Iraq, the media did little else besides extol the "wisdom of the father-leader," to use one of their own expressions. Even after Saddam Hussein was executed, some Iraqis claimed that to have seen his image on the face of the moon, which for them is a sign of divinity. "Idealization," according to Freud, is the process according to which sexual energy is transformed to a fascist bond among the members of the herd and between themselves and their leader.53 AND Totalitarianism is a massive impact. Caplan 06 [Bryan, Department of Economics and Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University, "The Totalitarian Threat," January 06] It is obviously harder to refine my numbers than it is to refine estimates of the probability of an extinction-level asteroid impact. The regularities of social science are neither as exact nor as enduring as the regularities of physical science. But this is a poor argument for taking social disasters like totalitarianism less seriously than physical disasters like asteroids. We compare accurately-measured to inaccurately-measured things all the time. Which is worse for a scientist to lose: 1 point of IQ, or his "creative spark"? Even though IQ is measured with high accuracy, and creativity is not, loss of creativity is probably more important. Finally, it is tempting to minimize the harm of a social disaster like totalitarianism, because it would probably not lead to human extinction. Even in Cambodia, the totalitarian regime with the highest death rate per-capita, 75% of the population remained alive after three years of rule by the Khmer Rouge. (Margolin 1999b) But perhaps an eternity of totalitarianism would be worse than extinction. It is hard to read Orwell and not to wonder: Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy " everything... There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except for the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. (1983: 220)