[A Straight Deal by Owen Wister]@TWC D-Link book
A Straight Deal

CHAPTER IX: Concerning a Complex
3/5

That's a good simple ordinary example of a complex.

Its workings can be discerned in the experience of us all.

In our present discussion it is very much to the point.
Established in the soft young minds of our school boys and girls by a series of reiterated statements about the tyranny and hostility of England towards us in the Revolution, statements which they have to remember and master by study from day to day, tinctured by the anxiety about the examination ahead, when the students must know them or fail, these incidents of school work being also tinctured by another emotion, that of patriotism, enthusiasm for Washington, for the Declaration of Independence, for Valley Forge--thus established in the regular way of all complexes, this anti-English complex is fed and watered by what we learn of the War of 1812, by what we learn of the Civil War of 1861, and by many lesser events in our history thus far.

And just as a Republican will admit nothing good of a Democrat and a Democrat nothing good of a Republican because of the political complex, so does the great--the vast--majority of Americans automatically and easily remember everything against England and forget everything in her favor.

Just try it any day you like.


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