Change In Susan Faludi's The Last Samurai

Order and stability are the two themes that societies or groups of people desire to achieve. No matter whether people are being hurt or certain types of people are negatively affected, society wants to keeps itself how it is. Change, whether good or bad, is a force that is dreaded by groups of people. Change destroys order and brings about new ideas and practices that a society will have to learn and adapt to. However, bringing about that change is a very difficult task. Masses of similar people, including cultures, will try their best to resist change and eliminate its source. Unconsciously, individual people will also turn away from any initial change or deviance. However, when the source of that change becomes powerful enough, nothing will

be able to stop society from being changed. New traditions will emerge, new opinions will be believed, and new customs will be put into effect. This resisted yet potential change is demonstrated in three certain essays. In Susan Faludi’s “The Naked Citadel”, a woman arises to challenge the strongly held misogynistic attitudes of the men of a military school, the Citadel. In Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Power of Context”, small changes to New York’s train stations unite against the horrific crime-filled city. In Ethan Watters’ “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan”, clever marketing techniques and strategies combine to alter the views of an entire culture. An individual, specifically someone or something that brings about a change into a group of people, will be, by all means, resisted and put down by a society or culture unless the power of that change is so strong that a society or culture will, at the end, have to accept and adapt to that certain revolution.
In the beginning, all change will be resisted. Society will do its best to not only lessen the spread of any change but also eliminate the source of where the change is emerging from. In all three texts, a new change created by an individual is fought against by its society or culture. In Faludi’s “The Naked Citadel”, the admission of a woman is intensely fought and opposed by not only the administration of the military school but also by every male student: “The Citadel’s administration has fought the female hunter with a legal arsenal of nearly a million dollars” (Faludi 78). This female student represents a change that the school has not seen before. In order to maintain its stability, the Citadel employs every technique to force her out from the school. Initially, the school tries to win the battle in the court; however, it fails to succeed. Afterwards, the administration does not show approval of the female student by excluding her from certain events. Finally, and most importantly when all else fails, the students not only threaten her with hateful words, but also vandalize the surrounding area where she lives in order to force her into depression. Trying their best to remove any new changes arising, the Citadel and its inhabitants unsuccessfully were able to remove a determined woman like Shannon Faulkner from the school. In Gladwell’s “The Power of Context”, the small changes in the environment placed by officials are initially greatly opposed by most people in the New York society. Criminals still tried their best to overcome the new policies enforced. Even though lots of them were getting arrested, the point where the change would be realized had not yet come. Criminals did fear the new policies, but their fears were not yet strong enough. In Ethan Watters’ “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan”, the company GlaxoSmithKline tries to implant a new point of view towards depression in a highly-resistant Japanese culture: “…a multinational pharmaceutical corporations working hard to redefine narratives about mental health” (Watters 519). In the beginning, however, Japanese people did not take the new views of depression described by the company too seriously. The idea of depression not only was not thought of a malicious disease, but also it was actually looked up to. The Japanese people believed that depression was a way for a person to be more thoughtful of his or her surrounding and environment. The entire culture would not change its beliefs because one individual, or in this case a company, views a certain idea differently. In all three texts, any idea of change is strongly opposed by the majority. However, only when the strength of an idea of change gains enough potential energy, a society or culture will finally be forced to accept that idea or view.
Only when an idea gains enough support or is believed in by a lot of people can that idea of change finally be activated. Only after this tipping point will people actually start supporting or believing in the change that was originally being resisted. In Watters’ “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan”, only after lots of advertising and marketing the company GlaxoSmithKline was able to finally change people’s definition of depression: “These advertisements…both featured the brand name of the drug and promoted the idea of depression as a common ailment” (Watters 524). When people finally believed the theory of depression placed by GlaxoSmithKline, many things started to change in Japan gradually. More and more people changed their views and started to support the idea that depression is harmful and needs to be treated. In Gladwell’s “The Power of Context”, only after many incidents of enforcing the change the officials placed into the New York society did New Yorkers finally understand that things are now different: “The team would nab fare-beaters one by one, handcuff them, and leave them standing…until they had a full catch” (Gladwell 154). Once people, specifically criminals, understood that their crimes would not be tolerated, only then did they finally change their attitudes and start adapting to the new changes placed into their society. In Susan Faludi’s “The Naked Citadel”, there are points in specific periods of time when schools that were not co-ed began opening their doors to the other gender: “There was also the fact that female students made up seventy-seven percent of the enrollment of the evening school” (Faludi 74). In the Citadel itself, only after much force for change did the school finally start allowing women to be part of the night school. Even though this institution was very firm in its belief that no women would be admitted, in the end the school finally did open its doors to women. In all three texts, only after a tipping point or certain type of climax is reached does a change or new idea finally becomes accepted by a society of culture. Once that tipping point is reached, the new change in that specific society or group of people will automatically be practiced and supported by the majority of its inhabitants.
After the idea of change is finally accepted in a society or group of people, the majority of its inhabitants will quickly adapt to the new changes instantly.

In Susan Faludi’s “The Naked Citadel”, an example of how an all-male school finally opened all of its door to women is mentioned: “At Norwich University…voluntarily opened its barracks to women” (Faludi 79). This school, once a conservative male school, allows all females join. This school is an example of what the future looks like for the Citadel. Before the Citadel allowed women into its night school, then the school was forced to take in a female into its day program, finally, maybe in the future, the school would finally convert to a modern co-ed school. In Gladwell’s “The Power of Context”, after people finally accepted that their crimes will not be tolerated anymore, both criminals and innocent people were able to accept that their society is a new place: “In New York the decline was anything but gradual” (Gladwell 152). With justice finally enforced, not only did the crime rates drastically dropped, but also people were able to completely change their attitudes on what the society of New York offered them. In Watters’ “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan”, once people understood depression was a harmful disease, the company GlaxoSmithKline was able to make billions of dollars by selling their drug to Japanese people: “In the end, however, the coherence of these various messages [about the science of the drug] took second place to their effectiveness” (Watters 527). GlaxoSmithKline was now able to successfully use the brainwashed minds of the Japanese people and make tons of profit. In all three texts, after a certain idea of change is finally accepted in a society of culture, that change is able to spread like a disease to every single inhabitant of that

society.
If change acted as a stone thrown into a lake, the body of water, representing society or a group of people, will do its best to diminish and eliminate the ripples caused by that stone; however, if the energy or intensity of that stone is so great, the entire lake will succumb to the after-effects created by the stone. Change acts in a very similar way. The individual, including something as big as a company, who places or creates a change is always viewed negatively by his or her or its society. Only after much convincing will the group of people finally accept any new changes. And right after that change has been accepted, it will be difficult to realize that that society or group of people was the same as the one before that change had been implemented.