Obedience is a vice, not a virtue!
(I took a lot of liberties in fine-tuning this post because the original poster speaks English as a second language, so he had several grammatical issues. However, I kept the core post. -Derrick Mills)
Although we live in a so-called “free society” most of us feel that there is something wrong with this view. Freedom is a highly cherished wish, but only a minority can also feel it in the reality of their life, at least to the degree they wish for. Obedience is an issue which strongly influences this feeling. Officially most people deny obedience in our times and believe to be free individuals, but when we take a closer look, we see very clearly that this is not the case at all. Authority nowadays is hidden and anonymous, and therefore it is tough even to detect it and to do something against it. However, even more, there is still a considerable amount of people who have an authoritarian character structure which forced them to accept obedience but also to adamantly demand it from others.
Obedience is something people need in particular that don’t know who they are, the ones who have never become their authority and therefore are dependent on others who accept to do the job on their behalf. However, for a free individual, obedience is unacceptable. If you want to be free who must be your authority, your law. To obey means that you cannot develop your actual being, not to create true responsibility for yourself. For obedience, liability equals doing what someone else tells them but not to stand up for their actions and their results. Ultimately this mindset is nothing else but pure irresponsibility. If there are too many people of that kind, they become a danger for the free society as well as for democracy. Also, that is the reason why obedience of others is not only their problem but the problem of us all.
Being obedient to someone else always means to betray yourself and your being!
Obedience means to pass over the burden of your responsibility for your life to someone else. It also means to let someone else fill the inner emptiness, the void (which is usually utterly denied) so that life seems to have some sense. Often, this mechanism is unconscious, and most people vigorously deny that this is the case when being confronted. Thus obedience is rationalized as “loyalty,” not only on an individual level but a collective one too. That is the perversion by which obedience is declared as a “virtue.”
We shall not deceive ourselves when it comes to the real source of obedience. The chains modern men and women wear are to be found on the inside of us and only quite rarely in other people or circumstances, which usually are held responsible for one’s misery. The mindset which enables such inside chains is established in our childhood and youth.
There is nothing worse in education then creating “good boys” and “good girls.” Making “good children” is the best way to rob the soul of a child. Furthermore, it turns him/her into a creature that is empty on his/her inside. He/she becomes a being that never finds out who he/she is. Moreover, who ultimately cannot live his/her truth; someone that doesn’t even know that such a core exists--or at least had existed in the past before the process of “education” began.
What we need is not obedience but empathy, empathy not only for others but most of all for ourselves. Compassion is a quality that usually is only partially developed but is an entirely natural characteristic of human beings; this doesn’t need to be acquired but solely set free.
Conclusion
Obedience is a sign that an individual is neither loving nor respecting itself. Such a person also lacks the feeling to deserve personal freedom entirely. The one that intends to be free has to change his mindset, lay down the chains that hold him captive and recognize and abolish the weak points in his/her psyche, that make slavery possible in the first place. True disobedience must begin on the inside, only then you have a chance to be free in your outside life also. As long as you fight against outer slavery but don’t change anything within your mind, nothing will change in your life, and you will become nothing but a rebel that gets a bloody nose in the struggles of life over and over again without ever succeeding. -Oliver Maerk, Courtesy of Freedom, Power, and Wealth (April 15, 2016)
(You can read more of Oliver Maerk’s posts at the aforecited link. You can also pick-up his book here.)
(If you enjoyed this post, then please consider subscribing to stay up-to-date with my latest postings and sharings. Also, please share and support Worldly Game.)
Although we live in a so-called “free society” most of us feel that there is something wrong with this view. Freedom is a highly cherished wish, but only a minority can also feel it in the reality of their life, at least to the degree they wish for. Obedience is an issue which strongly influences this feeling. Officially most people deny obedience in our times and believe to be free individuals, but when we take a closer look, we see very clearly that this is not the case at all. Authority nowadays is hidden and anonymous, and therefore it is tough even to detect it and to do something against it. However, even more, there is still a considerable amount of people who have an authoritarian character structure which forced them to accept obedience but also to adamantly demand it from others.
Obedience is something people need in particular that don’t know who they are, the ones who have never become their authority and therefore are dependent on others who accept to do the job on their behalf. However, for a free individual, obedience is unacceptable. If you want to be free who must be your authority, your law. To obey means that you cannot develop your actual being, not to create true responsibility for yourself. For obedience, liability equals doing what someone else tells them but not to stand up for their actions and their results. Ultimately this mindset is nothing else but pure irresponsibility. If there are too many people of that kind, they become a danger for the free society as well as for democracy. Also, that is the reason why obedience of others is not only their problem but the problem of us all.
Being obedient to someone else always means to betray yourself and your being!
Obedience means to pass over the burden of your responsibility for your life to someone else. It also means to let someone else fill the inner emptiness, the void (which is usually utterly denied) so that life seems to have some sense. Often, this mechanism is unconscious, and most people vigorously deny that this is the case when being confronted. Thus obedience is rationalized as “loyalty,” not only on an individual level but a collective one too. That is the perversion by which obedience is declared as a “virtue.”
We shall not deceive ourselves when it comes to the real source of obedience. The chains modern men and women wear are to be found on the inside of us and only quite rarely in other people or circumstances, which usually are held responsible for one’s misery. The mindset which enables such inside chains is established in our childhood and youth.
There is nothing worse in education then creating “good boys” and “good girls.” Making “good children” is the best way to rob the soul of a child. Furthermore, it turns him/her into a creature that is empty on his/her inside. He/she becomes a being that never finds out who he/she is. Moreover, who ultimately cannot live his/her truth; someone that doesn’t even know that such a core exists--or at least had existed in the past before the process of “education” began.
What we need is not obedience but empathy, empathy not only for others but most of all for ourselves. Compassion is a quality that usually is only partially developed but is an entirely natural characteristic of human beings; this doesn’t need to be acquired but solely set free.
Conclusion
Obedience is a sign that an individual is neither loving nor respecting itself. Such a person also lacks the feeling to deserve personal freedom entirely. The one that intends to be free has to change his mindset, lay down the chains that hold him captive and recognize and abolish the weak points in his/her psyche, that make slavery possible in the first place. True disobedience must begin on the inside, only then you have a chance to be free in your outside life also. As long as you fight against outer slavery but don’t change anything within your mind, nothing will change in your life, and you will become nothing but a rebel that gets a bloody nose in the struggles of life over and over again without ever succeeding. -Oliver Maerk, Courtesy of Freedom, Power, and Wealth (April 15, 2016)
(You can read more of Oliver Maerk’s posts at the aforecited link. You can also pick-up his book here.)
(If you enjoyed this post, then please consider subscribing to stay up-to-date with my latest postings and sharings. Also, please share and support Worldly Game.)
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