Nearly everyone is taught that respect for “the law” is paramount to civilization, and that the good people are those who “play by the rules,” meaning they comply with the commands issued by “government.” But in reality, morality and obedience are often direct opposites. Unthinking adherence to any “authority” constitutes the greatest betrayal to humanity that there could possibly be, as it seeks to discard the free will and individual judgment that make us human and make us capable of morality, in favor of blind obedience, which reduces human beings to irresponsible robots. The belief in “authority” – the idea that the individual ever has an obligation to ignore his own judgment and decision-making process in favor of obeying someone else – is not just a bad idea; it is self-contradictory and absurd. The profound lunacy involved can be summed up as follows: “I believe it’s good to obey the law. In other words, I judge that I should do as the legislators command. In other words, I judge that, rather than making my own decisions about what I should do, I should subjugate myself to the will of those in government. In other words, I judge that it is better for my actions to be dictated by the judgment of people in power instead of by my own personal judgment. In other words, I judge that it is right for me to follow the judgment of others, and wrong for me to follow my own judgment. In other words, I judge that I should not judge.” In any case in which there is a conflict between a person’s own conscience and what “the law” commands, there are only two options: either the person ought to follow his own conscience regardless of what the so-called “law” says, or he is obligated to obey “the law,” even though that means doing what he personally thinks is wrong. Regardless of whether the individual’s judgment is flawed or not, it is schizophrenic insanity for a person to believe that it is good for him to do what he believes is bad. Yet that is the basis of the belief in “authority.” If one understands the fact that every individual is obligated, at all times and in all places, to do whatever he thinks is right, then he cannot have any moral obligation to obey any outside “authority.” Again, if a “law” coincides with the individual’s judgment, the “law” is irrelevant. If, on the other hand, the “law” conflicts with his individual judgment, then the “law” must be viewed as illegitimate. Either way, the “law” has no “authority.” (An obligation to obey an “authority” is not the same as people voluntarily altering their behavior for the sake of peaceful coexistence. For example, a person may think he has every right to play music in his own backyard, but may nonetheless choose not to at his neighbor’s request. Or a person may change how he dresses, talks, and behaves when he visits some other culture, or some setting where his usual behavior might offend others. There are many factors which can impact someone’s opinion about what he should or should not do. Recognizing “authority” as a myth is not at all the same as not caring what anyone else thinks. Going along with various customs, standards of behavior, and other societal norms, for the sake of getting along and avoiding conflicts, is often a perfectly rational and useful thing to do. What is not rational is for someone to feel morally obliged to do something he does not personally judge to be the right thing to do, given the circumstances.) To be blunt, the belief in “authority” serves as a mental crutch for people seeking to escape the responsibility involved with being a thinking human being. It is an attempt to pass off the responsibility for decision-making to someone else – those claiming to be “authority.” But the attempt to avoid responsibility by “just following orders” is silly, because it requires the person to choose to do what he was told. Even what appears as blind obedience is still the result of the individual choosing to be obedient. Not choosing anything is not possible. Or, as the band Rush put it, in their song “Free Will,” “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” The excuse “I was only following orders,” neatly dodges the fact that the person first had to decide that he would obey “authority.” Even if some “authority” proclaims, “You must obey me,” as countless conflicting “authorities” have claimed, the individual still must choose which one, if any, to believe. The fact that most people give very little thought to such things does not change the fact that they had the option of not obeying, and are therefore completely responsible for their actions – precisely the responsibility they wanted “authority” to relieve them of. It is impossible not to judge; it is impossible not to make choices. For a person to pretend that someone or something else made his choices for him – that he played no part in the decision, and thus bears no responsibility for the outcome – is utterly insane. Loyal obedience to “authority,” while painted by many as a great virtue, is really nothing more than a pathetic attempt to escape the responsibility of being human and reduce oneself to an unthinking, amoral, programmable machine. Everyone, at all times, makes his own choices and is personally responsible for those choices. Even those who hallucinate an “authority” are still choosing to believe, and choosing to obey, and are still responsible for having done so. “Authority” is merely a delusion whereby people imagine that it is possible to avoid responsibility by merely doing what they were told. Or, to express it in a more personal way: Your actions are always determined entirely by your own judgment, and your own choices. To try to attribute your behavior to some outside force, such as “authority” is cowardly and dishonest. You made the choice, and you are responsible. Even if you just stupidly obeyed some self-proclaimed “authority,” you decided to do that. The claim that there was something outside of yourself making your choices for you – the claim that you had no choice; that you had to obey “authority”– is a cowardly lie. There is no shortcut to determining truth, about morality or anything else. All too often, the basis of people’s belief system boils down to this: “To know what is true, all I have to do is ask my infallible authority; and I know my authority is always right, because it tells me that it is always right.” Of course, countless competing, contradictory “authorities” will always exist, and each will declare itself to be the source of truth. It is, therefore, not merely a good idea for people to judge for themselves what is true and what is not; it is completely unavoidable. Even those who consider it a great virtue to have a belief system – political, religious, or otherwise – based upon “faith” fail to realize that only an individual can decide what to have faith in. Whether he wants to admit it or not, he is always the ultimate decider; he always uses his own judgment to decide what to believe and what to do. This is an excerpt from the book The Most Dangerous Superstition, by Larken Rose. Free download link in comments.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 15:05:01 +0000
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