Do you respond to authority, without even being aware of it?

[MoseyWalker]

We are all "trained" to respond to authority from the first time mom or dad smacks us on the butt. We all, also, like to think we are somehow above having a Pavlovian response to authority, but the truth is, we usually are not.

It is so difficult to fight mentally against all the assaults that greet us every day, these days.

Think about it.

You responded respectfully to your parents.
Next. You responded respectfully to your teachers.
Then, you may have had a little rebellious period, but were brought back in line because of economics. You were getting old enough that you had to find a way to survive. You had to respond respectfully to your employers and their flunkies in order to have a paycheck.

Next you reached a point where you thought you had obtained enough seniority to command respect. Then you learned that the rules had changed.

Now you are expected to kiss the youngish ass of someone who has no concept of the meaning of respect for authority.

Not for elders. Not for authority.

One would think that would be a good thing, except for just one thing.

They no longer realize that they are being played by those in authority, and are expendable. The cultural loss of the concept of meaningful authority is the greatest loss this culture has lost in the past 50 years.

It's not likely anyone will care about or try to understand this rant, but there it is.

Long live the revolution

[jeff30997]

1. No!

[Sanity Claws]

2. Some of us rebel unconsciously.

I recently reverted to a high school state of mind when the man at the bike shop started telling me how I'm wearing my helmet wrong and why it's wrong for me to leave my bike out in the backyard. I immediately rebelled against this set-up authority by asking if the lecture was free. I was later embarrassed because I could have handled it more politely.

[knowbody0]

3. watching my comrades and brothers march off to Vietnam

I vowed that as a parent, the most important lesson for my own children was going to be knowing they had the "right" to ask "why" and to expect logic to follow. it became a bit cumbersome at times, but in the long run I guarantee, I did not raise sheep.

[sam sarrha]

4. yea, that is why i get a paycheck every week...

[sam sarrha]

5. yea, that is why i get a paycheck every week...

[graywarrior]

6. That's why business people wear suits and doctors wear white coats

Obey.

[LWolf]

7. Yes. The instantaneous resistance is automatic.

I comply with professional and legal authority, whether or not I agree. I more often resent such authority than agree, but I comply.

Underneath the general necessities of working, paying bills, and staying out of court, I don't, in reality, recognize any authority but my own.

[Bonhomme Richard]

8. LOL, I respond but not positively. n/t

9. Yes, you have to respect authority

to get through daily life. However, I use my own conscience to guide me. I have a friend who is a highly accomplished doctor and he has intimated to me in his round about way, that he actually likes having authority figures, because this way, he knows what he should do. He used to really kiss ass to a high up person in the bureaucracy, even though this person was a real knife-in-the-back type of person. However my friend is a beautiful person. Go figure. People are strange.

[Prophet 451]

10. Most people do.

Psychologically, most humans are instinctively conformist and will, to a great extent, follow the orders of authority figures (see, Milgram and many others). Partly, there's some sound evolutionary reasons for that and partly, it's the end result of 5,000+ years of humans forming heirarchies and societies. The Biblical author who described humans as "sheep" was not entirely wrong.

The point where it becomes interesting is where you have two competing paradigms and can, to some extent, choose which to conform to, that's when a lot of other factors start coming into play. EXAMPLE: According to the results from the 2004 election, the country was pretty evenly split between Republican and Democrat (let's leave the massive evidence of vote-rigging aside for the moment) so you had two paradigms competing and what studies have shown us is that in that kind of situation, other factors (for example, the fear card played long by Republicans) come into play. I have a friend who is doing her thesis on gender differences in voting behaviour (look it up sometime, it's fascinating... if you're an academic) and what the evidence shows is that men and women are roughly equal in that drive to conform (I should point out that all of this works on an entirely subconscious level) but in cases where there is a near parity (or percieved parity) between two groups, men and women respond to very different factors. At the most simplistic level, men tend to think more individually while women tend to think more collectively but women also tend to think more short-term than men (and my friend would probably shoot me for boiling the incredibly complex research down to that overly simplistic view).

Also, there's some correlation between age and voting behaviour. While young voters vote Democrat or Republican in accordance with their views, as you'd expect, young people of generally liberal views have a much higher incidence of political apathy (something the Democrats will have to deal with).

[MindPilot]

11. Yes, and it manifests in really uncomfortable ways

I was in Vons a few days ago and saw a Navy officer. I immediately stiffened and for a split second started running through that mental checklist of things that might get my ass chewed: Did he see me? Is my uniform squared away? Is my hair too long? Is there someplace else he might think I'm supposed to be? I've been out of the military for over 30 years, but that shit never goes away.

Today I bought gas and was washing my windshield while the tank filled and my wallet emptied. Flashback to my teenage years working at a gas station where "the customer is always right" and some asshole shithead fucking bastard old prick would spend a good fifteen or twenty minutes pointing to every little mark and smudge until he was done exercising the only bit of authority he ever held in his life.

Yeah, I still respond to authority...with utter and absolute contempt primarily because I see most authority figures as sociopaths who never advanced beyond school yard bullies.

[sweetheart]

12. The myth of the perfect ego

Your ego is not perfect, perfection is in someone who's "better"
than you. This is a message, a "meme" transmitted since young
age to adapt persons to the "attaboy cycle"... that as you
graduate from the different experiences of life, that a wise
authority will know more than you about your life and give
you an attaboy.

But once you are an adult, if you are getting an attaboy, it is
because they are not giving you hard cash. Then we are all
equal as slaves, unable to trust anyone with pleasant or direct
comments, as if the actor becomes perfect, rather than awake.
And if someone is more awake than you, they will already know,
and generally be more compassionate, understanding even more
sensitively how painful the suffering of your life is, maybe
even that persons themselves do, hardened as persons must become
to endure the sorts of slavery and bowing to authority that
must be done for survival's sake.

And then, when do we get to be men and women, free citizens
who are not buying or selling something, but enjoying the
civility of open discussion.

[Marie26]

13. I rebel w/o being aware of it.

It's a bad habit. Dean wrote a book describing the "authoritarian personality", who will automatically follow those in power. I wonder if there's such a thing as an "anti-authority personality"?

[Nikia]

14. I don't mind authority under certain conditions

That I believe that they are competent and acting in the best interest of the goal (Success for the country, company, ect.) as well as fair treatment of people under objective rules. I get uncomfortable with authority if I believe that any of these things is not true.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

15. Not Me. Not Parents, Teachers, Authority Or Otherwise.

I've never taken shit from people. My mother and I were at war constantly. I was 8 or 9 years old already cursing her in ways you couldn't imagine.

Teachers? Forget it. I'd mouth off to them in a second if they were being inappropriate. I was taking enough abuse at home. Damned if I was gonna let teachers get away with abusing me.

Police? Sure, I've gotten beat by em here and there. But I never feared telling them to go fuck themselves when they too were being inappropriate. I got harrassed by the cops alot. But I'd also mouth off to them quite a bit as well. (ie Yeah? Put the cuffs on me then motherfucker. Put your money where your mouth is. Here. Put em on. --while holding my arms and hands out)

Judges? Not even them. I had a shouting match at the top of my lungs with a Judge. I frustrated him so much that he threw the book off the bench, stormed off from behind it, while taking his robe off and throwing it on the floor as he tantrumed his way out of the courtroom into his chambers. The next week when I was to answer to the contempt charge, I was instead told in court when I went to speak to the prosecutor that the charges were going to be dropped and the judge was going to apologize publicly for his behavior the week prior. True story. The judge had to apologize to me. In front of everyone. One of the best days of my life.

So no, I've never takin shit from authority just for the sake of them being authority. I will obey authority when it is legitimate authority, and respectful authority. I don't just lash out because of a need to rebel. It is about not taking shit from false authority or from those who abuse their authority. For those, I shall never obey.

[MindPilot]

16. Man, I always thought that phrase was just a figure of speech...

...throwing the book.
At least it wasn't AT you.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

17. It Was Absolutely Juvenile, Seriously. (some details)

But this is a judge of whom I appeared before dozens of times for traffic violations in the past. This town was infamous for harassing teenage drivers. This judge and the P.D. itself had a grudge against me and my family (brothers) and we against them. But in this case I wasn't gonna take any shit from him. This judge is a prick and actually used to be on the bench drunk all the time. You could smell the wild turkey easily coming from him sometimes, and he would cheat on his wife with the court clerk (I know this for fact). Anyway, one day he was obviously lit again but said some things that were totally unbecoming of a judge. I'll give you a quick (doesn't totally do the story justice) summary of what it was about:

I was there for some traffic offense or another. Anyway, when it was time to pay my fine I went up to the court clerk window (she's a real bitch) to pay. The kid in front of me I knew for years. He was a good kid. He had some big fines and asked for a payment plan, which is standard practice. She gave him a super bitchy snarky comment and said "well I see you could afford that leather jacket you're wearing, why the hell should I give you a payment plan" etc... So anyway, when it was my turn to pay I said straight faced looking into her eyes "that was completely inappropriate the way you treated him. He didn't deserve that" etc.. I filled out my check and in the memo section I wrote "Stupid court fines". She said "I'm gonna hold you in contempt if you don't write a new one". I said "those comments aren't for you, they're for me when I get the check back. What I wrote there is none of your business" and I walked away.

I was just about to the door when two cops stopped me and dragged me back in saying I was being held in contempt (since when can a court clerk hold you in contempt herself?). They handcuffed me to a chair in the front row and I waited again to appear in front of Judge drunky. When he finally called me he started totally bitching at me. I won't go into all the details cause this story's too long already, and that would take a while. But the jist is this: He started yelling and screaming saying I harrassed his court clerk and threw my check in her face. I absolutely did NOT do that. So I said "Excuse me? I don't think so". This went back and forth for a bit, and never did he ask for my side or inquire as to what happened at all. Good judge huh? In any case finally it ended with me declaring "I don't care what the hell she says I didn't throw any check at her". Which then he replied "Well she says you did it, so I SAY YOU DID IT!". Yeah, that's being impartial for you. Still didn't ask for my side. Fuckin drunk bastard. So I replied "How dare you be that partial in front of a courtroom full of people without yet asking for my side of the story". We were both getting really pissed and frustrated at this point. So annnnnyway, he angrily says "You watch your mouth, you have respect for this court and keep quiet!". I then, with arms folded tight and as defensively and prickish as I could say said "Excuse me?? You expect me to friggin sit here with false accusations made about me, and you declaring me guilty before having even asked for my side of the story, and not goddamn defend myself??????"

That's when he waved his arms in a 3 yr old tantrum fashion, sliding the book way across the bench onto the floor, he storms up from his chair, and starts storming away walking quickly like a tantrum throwing child would, whild yelling "You want a chance to defend yourself? You got it! You can defend yourself next week in this courtroom on two contempt charges!". He threw his robe to the floor and slammed the door to his chambers.

Next week, when I went to answer the charges, the prosectutor came to me and said the charges would be dropped, but to please stay as the judge is to offer a public apology.

That apology: Best day of my life.

[MindPilot]

18. Great story--reminds me of a great old line the source of which I forget

"Yer honor, anyone showing contempt for THIS court is only exercising good taste!"