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Are we all shocking the guy in the next room because some important looking guy in a white coat with a clip board is telling us to?
We are slowly waking up. We’ve been hypnotized by people wearing suits telling us crazy things. We’ve been believing them. But what they keep telling us is cruel and insane.
It’s not that politicians and businessmen are inherently cruel. Although it’s true that the economic system (and a culture that supports the economic system) brings out the worst in them. We reward greed and accept cold-hearted financial calculations taking precedence over human kindness and empathy. All humans have capacity for both. But our leaders are hypnotized by their own power, their authority, and the culture of the world into which they were born.
Just like us ordinary folks who are going along with them. Or have been, up to now.
The view of the world that we share is the one we hear over and over again. It’s the one we see on TV, on the internet, in movies and our personal and public discussions. But it’s not really OUR view and it’s a view that seriously contradicts reality itself.
Milgram and Obedience To Authority
There’s a famous experiment — you may have heard of it — about obedience to authority. The experimenter was Stanley Milgram. He had test subjects give increasingly strong shocks to a person in another room. The test subject was encouraged by a guy wearing a white lab coat. Someone with the appearance of authority. Meanwhile, the guy getting the shocks (actually someone working with the experimenter and not getting shocked at all) would be moaning in pain and finally not making a sound at all — seemingly unconscious or worse.
Now, over time, this experiment has been somewhat discredited. More people stood up to the “authority” than was originally reported — albeit few of them stood up forcefully or refused to submit shocks. But many voiced objections and hesitated.
In any case, there IS a tendency for people to submit to authority or at least refuse to object. That pattern is, I believe, on the verge of breaking down. I believe it’s breaking down because we continue to get excuses from our leaders instead of emergency action on the climate crisis…
