Chair Activities

The first time we played musical chairs, people were losing because there was not enough chairs for everyone. There was always one less chair than the number of people that were playing the game. Unlike the game, I think that there is enough wealth in the US but the rich people are just hogging up the wealth. The game also supports Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest; some people were able to stay in the game for a longer period of time because they elbowed and pushed people out of the way while others did not. This is similar to the social class system because the some of the rich people were born with money; allowing them to accumulate more wealth and expropriating from the poor. The second time we played musical chairs, it was unfair for the people who did not have a chair reserved for them so they had to fight for the limited chairs. Likewise, poor people have to live off of a limited resource, the government while the rich people have more than enough. The people who had chair reserved for them slowly walked to the seats, while the poor people fought for the free ones. This connects to how the rich people just sit back and collect the wealth while the poor have to compete against one another. Only a few people sat in chairs that were reserved for some people were kicked out by the "police". The others, like most people, have been trained to obey the authorities so they felt that they were not allowed to sit in the reserved chairs.

When we did the activity with the twenty chairs, I felt that if you looked at the top section (where the rich people are sprawled out), you wished that you could be just like them. Then, if you looked at the bottom section (where the poor people are crammed), you feel like the system is messed up. Because of the rich people, others think that they have a chance to be like the rich ones so no one starts a revolution. Wishing to be like the rich people and hating the system at the same time shows that people tend to have mixed feelings. I agree with Ali Jo, about the fact that it also follows the thesis and the antithesis concept; the thesis is the class system and the antithesis is the mixed feelings, all we have to do is wait for the higher synthesis.