The effect of a perceived authority
14 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
We project authority in many different ways on many different people. We all know all about authority, through our own individual experiences.
The first authority in our lives is our parents. That is how our brains became conditioned. And what was the conditioning? How did you respond to an authority when you were very young? You obeyed! Of course later on in life we also learned to rebel, however the first appeal was to obey.
We project authority on god, priests, doctor’s, the law, accountants, the taxman, the spiritual teacher, etc.
In the 1960’s Stanley Milgram did a now famous experiment that vividly reflects the neurological tyranny we live under. He took 40 normal people and told them they were part of a study on how “negative reinforcement” affects learning. In fact, it was all a set-up. The scientists were studying how the 40 volunteers would respond to a perceived authority.
The 40 people were required to electrically shock a student (an actor who was not really being shocked) when questions were answered incorrectly. The person doing the shocking and the student were in adjoining rooms. They could hear each other through an intercom, but there was no visual contact between them.
During the experiment, the voltage of each shock was increased with every wrong answer. With each increase in voltage came increased cries of severe pain, heart problems, and agonizing pleas to stop the experiment by the one being shocked (the actor). Yet, not a singe person stopped shocking the student with these initial signs of distress.
… not one of the forty subjects in this study quit his job as Teacher when the victim first began to demand his release; not later, when he began to beg for it; not even later, when his reaction to each shock had become, in Milgrim’s words, “definitely an agonized scream.”
Every one of the 40 subjects knowingly shocked the students all the way up to 300 volts. Ouch! Your outlet at home is only 110 volts, and that hurts a lot! Two thirds of people kept right on shocking the victim all the way up to 450 volts as long as the perceived authority (some guy in a white lab coat) encouraged them to continue. Fortunately, the shocking of the people was all faked. However, these ‘normal’ people doing the shocking did not know this. Many of the subjects agonized over pulling the lever as the voltage increased; yet, they still did it. All they knew was that someone they perceived as an authority was telling them to continue.
All of us like to think that we would act differently. Relate this study to virtually anyone, and without fail they feel they would somehow be the exception. The truth is that the odds are against us. This experiment has been repeated in Australia, Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland and Jordan with the same results. There is a pre-conscious neurological response when we are in the presence of a perceived authority over which there is no conscious control.
If you think about it for a moment, it’s not so mysterious. We were all raised children with parents and teachers whose authority helped us navigate the world; ignoring their dictates often led to negative consequences. We bow to authorities called doctors, policemen, and accountants all the time when it comes to physical and mental health, personal safety, and the IRS respectively. It’s quite frequently a beneficial thing to do, so our neurology often makes the pre-conscious decision to lead us down the path of acquiescence, even when it might not serve us.
Your pre-conscious neurological functioning determines your reaction patterns. The illusion of conscious will runs deep, but it is still an illusion. (Taken from From Here to Here – Gary Crowely – pages 25-28)
In my own personal life, authority was mainly represented through the spiritual teacher. My parents were the sweetest, non-invasive, loving and mild authority figures a child could wish for. But the spiritual teachers were a different story.
They not only represented authority, they represented the highest authority, for I equaled them to God. Not only was their wish my command, their every statement was my command. Without questioning it, ever.
Nevertheless, the conditioning is the same old pattern. The spiritual teacher says: ‘come and follow me, for this will make you worthy and forever happy’, the spiritual teacher says: ‘incorporate this discipline, for it will take you towards the highest goal and keep you on this virtuous path’, the spiritual teachers says: ‘give me your money, your time, your energy, your dedication and devotion, because only then will you attain what you desire’. And of course I would silently obey.
What the spiritual teachers didn’t literally say out loud, but what was apparently strongly implied to me was: ‘I am perfect. I have already attained the highest. I am your role model, therefore you need to do as I say, and not do as I do. Since I am already there, I cannot be questioned. Everything I do to you is nothing but a test, and will ultimately serve your highest good’.
Within the spiritual community, it is customary for the teachers to have their pictures up as much as possible. I realized that the portrayal of their face serves as a subliminal reminder of authority, and will constantly reinforce the neurological path to obedience. This is observed commonly within religion. However, this tactic is also frequently utilized by dictators (Saddam Hussain had his pictures up everywhere, and so did Adolf Hitler), to serve the same purpose.
I came to realize the only thing my obedience did for me, was to feed my fear. Fear of a lot of things, but mainly fear of not being worthy, not being good enough, which of course in turn fed the sense of shame and guilt.
Hidden behind these forces of fear and shame, is the drive to control my life. It will keep me forever on the very virtuous path of change, improvement, growth, achievement, development, etc. Always on my way to somewhere else, something else, some tomorrow, some new dawn that will make everything all right… in the future.
I saw that I was missing the point entirely. Everything is already perfect, exactly what it should be: a divine expression of a magical mystery arising as this, peacefully waiting for me to interpret and label it.
For me, life is not about ending our suffering, but about the realization that there is no one suffering, and within that, suffering may arise, as it does. The seeing of this may bring about a shift in perception, which entirely transforms the experience of suffering.
“The nature of suffering is that it speaks deeply to me of another possibility. By desiring pleasure and avoiding pain, I chop in two the very root of that possibility. (Tony Parsons – The Open Secret).
Janaki – December 2008
