Obedience, the abyss, a Welsh furniture restorer and Occupy
Obedience
Obedience is an interesting human instinct, deeply rooted in our animalistic ancestry.
It’s defined as “social influence in which a person yields to explicit instructions or orders from an authority figure”. It’s a trait that we are born with socially — most animals or creatures conform to a social hierarchy even with low levels of sentient awareness. And we are taught obedience from the cradle, through school and into adulthood.
Our natural instinct and conditioning is to obey.
Does our tendency to obey always work in our favour?
Our early experiences with authority tend to be very one-sided seeing as we are born in the role of “infant child” and woefully unequipped for the fight. Truly the “authority figure” has the upper-hand in this one, although the new parent might not think so
Authority in childhood is normally in the form of nurturing and support, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time. Obedience to your parents and teachers is normally in the spirit of self-interest and preservation.
This indoctrination into obedience at a young age stops the infant wandering away from the safety of the pack into the path of a hungry, snarling predator — or some such thing.
But as we grow older and shake off the protective cloak of our packs support we retain our instincts for obedience, even against our better interests.
Do we obey the right people?
Almost certainly not. Unlike the nurturing protection of our parents there are many other forms of authority that work directly against our best interest.
Humans are shown to be obedient in the presence of perceived legitimate authority figures. That isn’t to say that the authority actually is legitimate — in a legal but more importantly moral sense.
This video shows how easily people can be manipulated into doing seemingly bizarre things instructed by an actor wearing a uniform. More worryingly the first example is a passer-by willing to administer an electric shock to a stranger after being instructed by a perceived legitimate authority.
Interesting stuff, eh? I think it strongly suggests that our instinct to obey is strong enough to override our common sense.
In that video we saw this gentleman talking. He is Dr. Philip Zimbardo a Stanford University professor of psychology.
Famously he ran the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971 where twenty-four male students were randomly assigned a role of prisoner or guard in a mock prison.
The experiment was to learn about the psychological effects of becoming a guard or prisoner. The experiment, scheduled for up to 14 days, was abruptly stopped after 6 days by which time the guards had enforced authoritarian measures and subjected some “prisoners” to psychological torture.
Most interesting, even more so than the “prisoners” willingness to be subjected to psychological abuse from their university peers, was the fact that “prisoners” started turning on each other when some tried to intervene and stop the mistreatment.
“The results of the experiment have been argued to demonstrate the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional support.”
Basically we’re happy to assume the role of the oppressed if we perceive the legitimacy of our oppressors
I want to draw your attention to the following quote by Howard Zinn and then tell you a story about a Welsh furniture restorer
The story of a Welsh furniture restorer
Over the Easter weekend I spent two nights working in a homeless night shelter. My duties and my contribution were modest — just helping set the dining room up, some food preparation and serving the guests, and providing some entertainment and company for them.
I video-blogged the first night here.
On the second night I met a guy that profoundly affected me.
Working in a homeless shelter is a emotionally confusing experience. On one hand there are fantastically generous volunteers who donate time, energy and love. The guests are also delightful, warm, funny, appreciative people. There is a great community spirit between the volunteers and guests and a lot of love to go around.
On the other hand I walk out of the shelter into the night ready to kick the fucking walls down. Ready to march on Downing Street and scale the fences. Ready to grab a tarpaulin and sit in Parliament Square until things change.
There are a lot of sad stories in homeless shelters and the guests are often open about their backgrounds. Addiction, abuse and relationship breakdowns are common causes why people end up on the street.
But more and more people are being driven onto the street because of austerity, benefits cuts, zero-hour contracts, minimum wage, soaring rental prices and the other contributing factors caused by living in the UK through this Conservative/LibDem government.
I met a guy that night that had been homeless for only 5 weeks. He was formerly a furniture restorer in Cardiff and had — I think — just run out of money or run out of work to do.
Now he’s homeless on the streets of London, hoping for an opportunity to get back on his feet. But homelessness means a life of being on the move, living in cold, wet, dangerous situations, lack of sleep, fear of attack, exposure to poor physical health and a huge amount of mental stress.
5 weeks ago he was a tax paying, contributing member of society that ran out of luck and then money.
I recorded this video-blog the morning after meeting him:
The Abyss
Why am I talking about obedience to perceived authority and homelessness, using the example of a man recently on the streets?
In my head I’m visualising a mass of people that represent 99% of the population of the UK repeatedly taking one more step towards the edge of an abyss because some joker in a uniform is telling them to.
This instinctual response to authority is taking us closer and closer by small steps towards an economic, social and spiritual deep, dark bottomless pit. And the man telling us to keep shuffling forward is just a man with a clipboard.
Our shuffling steps forward towards the edge is in time synchronisation with the widening gap of equality between the 1% and the 99%
What happened to the Welsh furniture restorer could happen to me if I happen to end up out of work. Or to you, or your children in the future if we allow this mindless obedience to continue.
Our society has allowed attacks on our disabled people through the abolition of the Independent Living Fund. It’s allowed us to withhold benefit money from those out of work because they missed appointments they didn’t know they had.
Austerity has driven some to suicide, others to the streets.
We all have more in common with this homeless Welsh furniture restorer than we do with the members of the 1%. We live in this country (many of them don’t or claim to be non-domicile), our children go the same schools and we queue at the same bus stops.
Like the Stanford students of the 1970's we’ve become resigned to our fate as the prisoners despite the guards having no legitimate authority.
Society is governed by our consent and many of the systems that are causing hurt and pain and economic violence on the poor are man made. We’ve suffered austerity for 5 years because the 1% told us there wasn’t enough money. Despite the banks printing more at will for themselves.
Austerity is a man-made concept and this system of ineffectual, unfair democracy is an artificial relic maintained only by our instinct for obedience.
I want to ask you to shake off your instinct for obedience.
On May 1st Occupy Democracy will return to Parliament Square to highlight the issues with our democracy, our environment and society.
This is a non-violent, direct action against a range of issues — fracking, austerity, tax-evasion, TTIP, human rights, education and so on.
Please check out Occupy Democracy and ask if now is the time to wake up and stop shuffling forward out of blind obedience to the system
