I’m glad you are braver now that you’re free of debt (which is a wonderful accomplishment). When you say that you feel “just a little dirty” because of what you had to do in order to work with this person, I feel sympathetic, but it speaks for what a decent human being you are. The goal of my adult life has been to be able to hold my own, no matter what, to be true to myself no matter what, to stand up for what is right, no matter what. I am falling short all the time, because I have a lot of fear.

A long time ago, I read a book entitled THE BONDS OF LOVE by Jessica Benjamin. She said that Hegel maintained that in all interactions, one person is dominating another and it will always be that way. I don’t remember whether it was Benjamin or Hegel who said that after all revolutions, the first thing people do is establish a hierarchy. Benjamin, though, was writing about something called intersubjectivity, where each person in an interaction is working to maintain equality. No one is in authority. At the time, I also read a definition of trauma that involved violating someone’s integrity. I had to look up the definition of integrity, and that was how I learned that I was being traumatized on my job by my boss. It was the first time in my life that I understood the meaning of the word “integrity.” I was 48 years old.

I’ve noticed that when you have a position of authority but you try to work collaboratively with people, often they think you’re shirking your responsibilities, perhaps become angry that you’re not telling them what to do, even push for you to infantilize them. You asked for an example of work we could do collaboratively with people in a society where people learned to bring their souls into balance. EVERYTHING. Whatever was needed by the people, whatever people most wanted to share. People you’re teaching or working with might be a lot better than you are at a certain task, or someone in a group you’re assigned to supervise might have better ideas for a certain job or much more talent. Those kinds of things are threatening in hierarchical settings. If you’re the supervisor or teacher and you’re not the best, you might be seen as incompetent. If you’re in a position of authority but you learn from people you supervise, someone may accuse you of being unprofessional. Etc.

My interest in Eastern philosophies (and for me, it IS about philosophy, not religion) comes largely from experiences I have had while meditating. Amazing experiences that are better than anything I’ve ever felt. I just have my eyes open for whatever will explain these things or answer questions I have about life. I read bits and pieces. I also read the Tarot, not in the fortune telling sense but in a very spiritual sense. I just saw the film, TRAVELLERS AND MAGICIANS by K. Norbu, the Tibetan Buddhist monk, and I also loved his first film, THE CUP (PHORPA), about Tibetan monks. But I will probably never become Buddhist. Recently I have begun to listen to lectures given by J. Krishnamurti in the 1970′s. I just looked up “Krishnamurti+audio” in google and got a site that has audio archives. They’re very interesting. He discusses authority, how you, yourself, are the only authority that matters. I hope I’ve answered some of your questions.

Jazzman: I want to thank you for what you wrote. I always enjoy your comments and I was so surprised and delighted when I saw that you had written something to me. I’m grateful. Also, congratulations on your new granddaughter. She’s lucky to have been born into your family.

Wordsworth notes:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

Capitalism free of cumbrances to achieve its ultimate conclusion would result in a single entity (oligarch) owning (i.e. controlling) all commodities and therefore the de facto authority on what will be produced and what choices are available at the pleasure of those in power.

Consumerism theoretically may be based in free choice out of the available (controlled/limited) choices and is dependent on the means to acquire the desired consumables.

As to the time in recorded history AFAIC the 1990’s was far more conducive to exercise one’s anti-authoritarian bent, far more than post 2001 hysteria and GWB’s usurping of civil rights in the name of safety and patriotism via Homeland Security and the Patriot Act.

I agree with your position 100%. I break no authoritarian proscriptions or laws with which I agree and I obey no authoritarian dicta with which I do not agree, save the exception of the instances in which the metaphorical gun is pointed at my head and then I comply till the threat has passed.

I agree that having one’s soul/psyche in balance is essential to successful interpersonal transaction and why I have taught my children (and now my grandchild(ren)) the philosophy of Absolute Morality, the reality of primary and secondary information and to recognize exploitation by FEAR and to resist such psychological manipulation. When people operate without fear of each other and themselves, the cooperation and empathy that is truly the nature of all consciousness rather than the Darwinian tooth & claw competitive struggle that is the current paradigm, holds sway.

rc21 Children indeed need structure (a safe, loving structure) in which to develop their potential to be their best selves. This may be accomplished by patience and explanation of what is expected within their ability to process the information.

Unfortunately it is often the case that they are inculcated by misguided parents, authorities (religious, academics, other adults etc.) before they possess the capacity to discriminate among these authoritative stimuli (large adults, and their power of certainty that they possess the “truth” are extremely influential and difficult to resist.)

In matters regarding questions of physical protection, authority relies on obedience and sometimes force to ensure the child’s best interest in their judgment; the problem is most do not consider the ramifications on one’s psyche of shoddy mental protection or even recognize it due to their own beliefs and prejudices.

I believe that people are largely alienated from themselves in a capitalistic economy, a consumerist society.”

These two statements are contradictory. Capitalism and consumerism are NOT based on obedience to authority. To the contrary, they are based on free, individual choice. ALL the other major economic systems are/were authority-based: socialism, communism, mercantilism, etc. In all of them there is some authority that decides what will be made or sold, what you can buy, what business or profession you can be in, who has trading or logging rights in a particular colony, etc.

As a hyper-individualist you should be thrilled to live in these times where you have so much personal choice. Is there any time in recordedhistory when you feel someone like you could exercise their anti-authoritarian instincts BETTER than in 2007?

The pitfalls of obedience – of course, how did no one mention that? I’d like to riff off your ideas a little. I believe that the focus on obedience in a consumerist society that you mention, is a direct result of us all being overextended financially. Most of us are in debt in America and as a consequence we are very fearful of losing our job. The fear of losing our job is so powerful that we compromise our dignity.

Personally I have succumbed to this more than once in my life. First it was when I was in the Navy. No matter how oppressive your boss is when you are in the military, you are beholden to that person, because they literally control your life. ONE bad review and your career can be compromised. In the military if you have a bad boss you can’t just say screw this I’m out of here – you’ll be in the brig. What would be the consequence of reacting to a bad boss if we had this compulsory service that’s been proposed?

After the Navy I went to grad school and in the process accumulated thousands in credit card debt. I decided to spend the last few months bartending to escape from that debt, and I just recently went into the black. I relay this story because I also just recently became braver when dealing with a rude bar manager. Let me be clear, I never kissed his butt – but I guess you could say that I appeased him a little too much. Now that I’m debt free – I’m free, but in many ways I feel just a little dirty because of my earlier compromises – no matter how small.

Katemcshane you write, “we might be able to think about national programs to allow people the opportunities to help other people with compassion, programs that would be run collaboratively, where everyone involved would learn from everyone else.”

Can you elaborate on this? It doesn’t have to be concrete, just some potential example. I’d also like to know an example of the Eastern readings you’ve been reading. It would also be great if you could jump over the Groundhog Day thread and respond to Jim Leff’s great Buddhist blog – that is of course if you’ve seen the movie.

In schools at the present time, chidren do not learn how to find their own centers, to trust themselves, to seek within themselves. Many (perhaps most) families are not equipped to teach their children how to do this. We focus on children’s ability or inability to obey. They’re medicated or referred to therapists for their “issues with authority.” I’ve worked in many programs supposedly designed to help children and families and in all of them, obedience to command or respect for authority was the hidden value above all others, whether the staff was supposed to follow orders of supervisors, or the clients were supposed to obey someone on the staff who was supposed to be helping them. An unstated political agenda operated at all times. Intelligence and sanity rarely contributed to thinking among the staff. Social control was the real task and people making the rules were invariably reactionary. Class differences figured prominently. Middle class people tended to make up the staff and working class or poor people were more likely to be clients. I noticed that middle class staff often found it easier to “obey” management without question and often, even when management made outrageous policies or treated people with very little respect, denied problems.

We want people to be in possession of themselves. We want people to be grounded. We want people to know what it’s like to respect their own integrity, to be respected. I would submit that many, many people have no idea what it means to HAVE integrity and are violated every day by bosses, teachers, parents, government officials, and other “authoritiy figures”. For the last several years, millions of people have had their own integrity violated by the president of this country and he has made it clear that he couldn’t care less what it feels like or what they think, because what they want, what they believe means nothing to him. This is no different (except in scale) from what is happening to people all their lives.

So, no, I would not go along with national service that emphasized obedience to command. I think it’s not a question of EITHER a “simple pleasure economy” or the inculcation of military values. I believe in self-discipline and self-possession. I believe in integrity and whatever any of us has to do to respect others’ integrity. Maybe that’s what emmettoconnell means by being subject to each other. I learned at a too early age what it means to have authority figures violate my integrity and I’ve been looking at authority with suspicion ever since. It has only been in the last few years, while meditating and reading about Eastern philosophies that I’ve learned about bringing my soul into balance.

It seems to me that if we could teach children about bringing their souls into balance, we might be able to think about national programs to allow people the opportunities to help other people with compassion, programs that would be run collaboratively, where everyone involved would learn from everyone else. This is where our strength would come from.

There is an open question on how valuable our military leadership training is.

For example on 9/11 while the airliners were had not crashed into the WTC and the Pentagon, there is a gaping lack of leadership for several hours across the board from Commander-inChief to NORAD, FTC, 9/11 Commission.

True leadership demanded that someone disobey that order and Air Force assets intercept and escort those airliners away to safely land in open fields far to the west. Abu Grahib is another appalling display of leadership failure from White House down to the boots on the ground.

Failure of leadership there cascaded into having soldiers sent to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. As we should all know by now that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda. Had no WMD. Did not and had no intention of attacking the US. Had every right to resist UN Inspectors looking for lost “WMD” since there weren’t any.

This radio program is based largely on military service in Iraq which is a war of choice based on “bad” intelligence at best. Someone having a Harvard education is expected to be well-schooled in critical thinking and would certainly question authority before voluntarily commiting to a military action unauthorized by the UN, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, collaboration with widespread corruption fleecing the US tax payers of billions of dollars.