>
> Since both Said and Khaled make personal decisions embedded in their
> shared culture (in which family and friendship mean a lot) and history
> (of the occupation), the film can't contrast one as making an
> individual moral choice and the other as following a herd.
Even further: the distinction between "herd mentality" and "individual moral choice" is dubious, because, the meaning of every individual action or thought emerges as a product of social relations. Even to make a moral choice requires that you participate in and accept certain moral guidelines that you have learned; thus an individual moral choice is a product of sociality, not something independently generated by the rugged individual removed from "the herd".
--Moreover, (and I have to admit I love the delicious irony of this), when Woj posits an obvious and clear delineation between "herd" thinking and "individual" thinking, he is repeating a trope that is more of less blindly accepted by almost everyone in our society: "I think for myself, and it's pathetic how those liberals/conservatives/feminists/fundamentalists all just believe what they're told". Thus one of the most vivid examples of "herd mentality" in our society is the naive belief that the autonomous individual is capable of making "individual moral choices" without any influence from the "herd".
Miles