However, because of the power of authority that imposes obedience through the fear of punishment, individuals may obey their superiors in ways that are destructive and contrary to their personal moral values.
Obedience in the family system
Jutta Ecarius, a professor of educational sciences at the University of Cologne and an expert in educational research, wrote a large qualitative empirical study on the change in family upbringing over three generations. As for Jutta Ecarius, she does not like the words “under control” or “obedience” because it reminds her of the age of authoritarian parenting, and she shouldn't be around today.
Power was clearly distributed between parents and children. Anyone who did not follow the rules - mostly set by the father - was punished with deprivation or cruelty, and if necessary, with physical violence. "Today's parents have a completely different relationship with their children," says Jutta Ecarius. Today's education is based more on trust than on obedience or control.
How can anti-obedience education be applied in a contemporary way?
When a child is born, we want to be the best fathers or the best mothers, and the only reason behind this is the desire to give the child a loving home and a good upbringing. However, what is meant by good education or proper upbringing?
There are many forms of education, one of them is: anti-authoritarian education, or anti-obedience education.
In the first place, the anti-obedience upbringing is not a rigid construct; Rather, it is a way of life. In the past, obedience and respect for the elderly were among the most important pillars of education, but anti-authoritarian education is otherwise.
In the event that young parents want to do things differently from their parents and raise their children on different principles, then there is no problem. Parents can also give children the opportunity and freedom to make decisions, and their role here is to advise their children without forcing them to do anything.
Individual Obedience and Disclaimer
Through extensive research on this interesting idea, researcher Stanley Milgram confirmed that when a person obeys orders that have negative or immoral consequences, the ultimate responsibility or blame rests with the higher rank in the ladder of power. This is because the individual simply obeys orders, as they do not take responsibility for their actions.
The totalitarian military regime, acts of genocide, and inequality between men and women are all negative products of collective obedience. Milgram explains in his book Obedience to Authority the bad effects of obedience that threaten the stability of our lives, saying: “We have been trained to practice obedience, but in order to have a stable and civilized civil society, we must take full responsibility for our actions and try to think for ourselves, even if it was hard at first."
Achieving obedience requires isolation
Military training areas are spatially isolated from society to ensure that there are no competing authorities. Also, rewards and punishments are determined according to one's level of obedience to their subordinates, and usually several weeks are spent in grueling and exhausting physical training. Although its ostensible goal is to provide the soldier with military physical skills, its main aim, however, is to destroy any existence of individuality or subjectivity, or at least to isolate it from the orders given to the soldier in the army.
Position or power can cause anyone to commit heinous and bloody acts without asking any questions on the principle of "do and object", as the authority trains its soldiers to obey and abandon any personal moral principles that may interfere with the implementation of the required mission.
Obedience and World War II
We all remember the heinous and inhumane crimes committed by German soldiers in World War II, and the important point is that damned war is the agenda of one individual, "Adolf Hitler", and although many soldiers regret their actions, but when they are on the battlefield, implementing orders become a matter of life and death.
Disobedience or rebellion may lead to imprisonment or execution; This is because disobedience weakens the strength of the army in battle; thus maintaining discipline becomes an essential element of survival and leaves the soldier with no choice but to obey. Those who chose to disobey Hitler's orders during World War II were arrested or executed.
Why do we fail to break the cycle of obedience?
The latest (Bryan Singer) movie (Valkyrie) confirms the difficulty of overthrowing a strong authority that relies on intimidation. Colonel "Klaus von Stauffenberg", played by "Tom Cruise", tries to eliminate the authority of "Hitler", and here "Milgram" says: "The great danger lies in the possibility that a lone dissenter may motivate others to this, so that he must be exiled, deposed, or severely punished in order to intimidate anyone who thinks of rebellion."
Unfortunately, due to the army's submission to Hitler and the constant fear of torture and execution, most of the soldiers participating in Stauffenberg's campaign did not dare to rebel or disobey.
Why is obedience easy?
Why is it easier to obey a rule or authority that orders you to kill thousands of people than to obey an individual working for peace and social security?
People can commit criminal acts when asked to do so, not only because it is their responsibility or duty, but because there are no consequences for those crimes, and not to do immoral and inhumane acts.
An example of the disadvantages of obedience
My friend is currently working in the army. When I asked him hesitantly if he had killed someone, he paused and said, “Killing someone in the army is different than killing someone at home.” He knows what he is doing is wrong, but he ignores it and runs away from it either consciously or unconsciously. For him, there are no consequences or reckoning for his actions; Rather, it is expected and known; It is simply his duties, and this soldier has been trained to obey orders without question, and then he has forgotten his morals, principles, and even common sense, and has replaced them with obedience and fear of punishment.
Every human being has a conscience that works to some degree to curb the internal tendencies or desires to harm or offend others, but when it merges into an organizational structure, it becomes a new person, free from the barriers and restrictions of morals and personal principles, and disobeys the innate human inhibition, so nothing stops or deters it except the sanctions of authority.
Obedience is the official sponsor of Genocide Concerts
Thousands of people die every day because of the color of their skin, sect, political affiliation, or even their opinion, and acts of genocide occur in many parts of the world and harm the stability of societies. In the book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Power analyzes the horrors of genocide and how one group's obedience to its race or tribe can kill millions of innocent people.
People who have fallen victim to genocide or who have been abandoned by the international community will not become good or peaceful people; This is because their thirst for revenge and their conviction of violence as the only means to regain their rights may explode at any moment, and we will all return to the bloodbath.
In conclusion
Dear reader, you may be wondering about the strange title that you read “Do not obey your parents” and its relationship to the topics of the article.
There is no doubt that obedience to parents in the sense of care, love, return of favor and respect is axioms that no one disagrees with. However, what we meant is to avoid blind obedience that is based on executing orders to the letter without subjecting them to mental judgment, whether out of fear of punishment or out of obedience motivated by love.
There is no doubt that our friend, the soldier who justifies killing, was blindly obedient to his parents, then his teachers, then his superiors. There is also no doubt that Colonel Stauffenberg rebelled against his parents, teachers, and finally his superiors, but remember that he died in the end. So, be careful.
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