The Combine

    Chief often refers to "the Combine" in his thoughts about the patients in comparison to the ward. The combine is simply the social status quo that the patients are eventually conformed into. In the Chief's mind, most patients , with the exception of McMurphy, have been cut down to their modest personalities that the staff sees as favorable. Although McMurphy is still himself and continues to protest against ward policy, he is about just as vulnerable as the other patients were when they were introduced into the psych ward. This is because McMurphy stands alone in his rebellion and has been put into an environment full of people that have already been cut down and have little hope of becoming independently rebellious. Furthermore, the ward staff works so well in keeping its policies intact that even McMurphy can't avoid succumbing to the ward's policies, thus making him a target for the combine. The combine hasn't gotten to him quite yet because he continues to be loud and rebellious and expresses his own ideas to live by in the ward.

    It can be argued that most, if not all, institutions are some sort of combine. The school is a simple example of a combine-like institution. These institutions contain some sort of policy that is meant to cut down people's personalities. I agree that most institutions act as combines towards the people inside as long as the people remain inside. In school, we are meant to remain somewhat disciplined and perform our daily tasks. However, these institutions, fortunately, do not limit its people while the people are not within the institution's boundaries. As long as one remains inside one such institution, the institution will act as a combine to cut down one's complete individuality to create some sort of conformist personality. In our case, our state of conformity is known as being every-day students.

Psych Ward? Prison?...School?

   In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, it is easily seen that Big Nurse's psych ward is run with the complete precision of a well-engineered machine. If one looks into the modern world and our current setting in school, it is possible to find similar characteristics of such a precise facilitation within the school administration itself. The first obvious characteristics are the structures of the settings' hierarchies. Big Nurse demonstrates the head authority figure within her psych ward just as Principal Welch is known as the head authority figure of the school. The psych ward's hierarchy is followed by the Three Black Boys and the nurses. This can be compared the school's hierarchy of vice principals and teachers, one role to provide discipline and the Head's will and another role to help facilitate the daily processes of such large institutions. In terms of both of these settings, the students of the school can be seen as the patients of Big Nurse's psych ward: under the authority of all the characters within the facilities administration systems.

    Big Nurse's main role in her psych ward is her responsibility to enforce her policies upon the patients. In the school setting, the entire administrative staff and teachers also enforce the school's policies and rules. Big Nurse often reminds patients of her policies, especially when a patient strays from policy parameters. Similar to the psych ward, the school staff frequently reminds students of the school's rules when it seems fit or when a rule is broken or in jeopardy of being broken. Through this simple comparison, it can be easily seen how a school can come to represent a psych ward, or a similarly operated institution *cough* prison *cough*

   Finally, one more characteristic shared among school and Big Nurse's psych ward: no one can leave unless specified and everyone has certain tasks they are meant to perform. Although the conditions of students' imprisonment in school vary from a patient's 24 hour stay in the ward, both students and patients are not allowed to leave their institutions without permission. Patients in Big Nurse's ward are allowed to leave when they are released into the outer world while students are only allowed to leave when they are dismissed. Furthermore, the patients in the psych ward must perform certain tasks just as students are also required to work. Patients are expected to take their medication, attend meetings, and follow the order of activities of the day. Similarly, students are expected to attend class and follow the periods of the day without causing a ruckus. This proves to be the third, but probably not the last similarity between the school and Big Nurse's psych ward.

Justification for Medicine?

   Although the field of medicine in meant to develop and utilize cure for illness, it also has its own downfall. The development of the lobotomy is probably one of the most prominent examples of a negative development of medicine. Especially today, such a crude process of surgery is seen as a purely evil method in an attempt for a cure of widely unknown diseases. However, during the development of this surgery, justification was often fabricated for such an invasive and brutal surgery with a wide array of side effects.
  
   The lack of knowledge often leads people into searching for a way to gain such lost knowledge. However, these searches are sometimes conducted with unbroken determination for the goal, with little consideration of the consequences of the actions that may be taken. Walter Freeman pursued his goal for a cure for mental illnesses with great determination, while also managing to ignore the nature of his methods and the consequences of his treatments. Justification for such actions lie only on the argument that in order to achieve knowledge in the field of medicine for undocumented illnesses, any measures should be allowed, including the experimentation of methods on humans. However, such a justification is blatantly fabricated in order to supply a hasty method of pioneering new methods of medicine.

    Justification for the use of humans in order to gain knowledge for the treatment of uncured, undocumented or unknown diseases is one of the most ridiculous arguments one may hear in the field of medicine. Although modern medicine has established processes to prevent, immediate, crude and often - for the lack of a better word - stupid experiments on humans, such regulations can be considered rather recent and modern. The process of the lobotomy was tested and performed on humans for the simple sake of seeing what it could do. Such arrogant, foolish and childish actions can never be justified by any arguments, no matter the goal. The immediate experimentation of human beings is inhumane, no matter the nature of the experiment. Until safety of the patients can be truthfully declared, new experiments should not be implemented on human patients.