External Will and Influence of Authority Figures Essay

Conformity is a survival function. When one is growing up, there is a constant process of categorization, of learning, that takes place in the mind. We are constantly checking in with our peers and families to make certain that our assessments and perceptions are accurate. As we grow older and begin to develop a more concrete sense of the world, our dependence on others to verify our inductions and deductions gradually withers away in ideal circumstances. Before this happens—before one’s sense of right hardens—there is a window of opportunity for a person to have a sense of right without possessing the strength yet to assert it.

Nathaniel Branden, a present-day philosopher and psychologist, writes “man’s capacity for development does not end at physical maturity; his capacity is virtually limitless” (Branden, 141). He mentions that our intellectual growth depends on our capacity to believe in our judgment, in our sense of the world. Authority figures then possess a special power to either encourage individuation or create in a person the kinds of psychic phenomenon described so in the essays we have read.

When I was fourteen, I began high school in a district my family had moved to over the summer. My mother had just found a new boyfriend, and they decided to move us closer to my mom’s job—which was, by car, two hours away or some. Closer to the metropolis we were, but this was the second time I had to start in a new school and was morbidly depressed at the prospect.

As an aside, it is important to know that up until this point in my life, every school I attended was of a racial breakdown that made me the majority. Though I considered myself without prejudice, I never before experienced what it is like to be a member of the minority at a public institution. That is what I found out during my first few weeks of high school.

While we were registering, I was staying open to the idea that this place, with these people that I do not look, act, or seem like, was going to be okay for me. My mother always needed me to be okay—she had many issues and problems to contend with and though it was unspoken, I knew she needed me as a sort of light—a reprieve—from the stresses of her life. We were waiting in a long line, and I know I seemed scared. I was scared. My mother leaned over me and whispered in my ear, “You don’t have to go here. We’ll figure something out.” Her voice had a stiffening sense of rage that I could not place as appropriate.

The first couple of weeks of school were hard. I didn’t know anyone. Students in the halls commonly spoke another language. I felt threatened—but there was an upside. I loved my teachers. I remember an English class, in particular, that made me feel like the entire ordeal was going to pan out in my benefit. Still, I did not know a soul, and did not have the confidence to reach out. To make matters worse, I came home to my mom and her boyfriend’s inquiries.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“If you feel uncomfortable, just let us know.”

“I’m fine.”

This went on at dinner after dinner after dinner. Finally, in P.E. one day, some scary guy was talking to me in a way that suggests an undecided intent to harass. He was not harassing me yet, but feeling me out. He was trying to tell if I was weak—he laughed with his friends and spoke in his first language with them about my responses to his questions. Maybe I was just freaked out, but this scared me. I looked around and could see no one to turn to for reassurance.

That night, I caved. My mother said something, suggested we try to get me into another high school the next town over. I collapsed in my chair and agreed, against all that I knew was right up until that moment in my life, against everything that I was sure that I was.

Though my mother and her boyfriend did not demand me to change schools, I still feel there is so much in the reading that I can relate to this experience. Soloman E. Asche’s experiment takes a very different context as described in “Opinions and Social Pressure,” but the lessons learned in the experiment are applicable nonetheless. The fact that the authority figures in my life made it clear to me that they were uncomfortable, and that they would have liked to see me go to another school—even though these desires were not made explicit—was definitely a component in my ultimate decision to act against my beliefs.

One quote from Asche’s work struck home with me: “More disquieting were the reactions of subjects who construed their difference from the majority as a sign of some general deficiency in themselves” (Asch, 309). I felt, every night, that their interrogations were in response to something in themselves that I lacked. I had felt this way for a long time. I was always very slow to anger and rashness as a young person, and this quality stood out against the manners of my family. This experience added to my growing sense that I did not know when enough was enough, when to take a stand, and when to remove myself from a situation.

I had an incredible amount of doubt over my instinct to self-protect aggressively, and their constant suggestion that we take action and make up an excuse to transfer, to me, was another example of how others were more assertive and powerful than I was.

Asche’s study also resonated with me in its recognition of the fact that those in the experiment who decided on a course of conformity did not alter their courses. This is something that holds up with me in this experience as well. I found it very difficult to assert my independence with my mother and future step-father after that initial break with my own sense of right and wrong. This phenomenon added to the pains of my young life in immeasurable ways, as it prolonged my stay in adolescent dependency on both of them.

One does not realize it, but in instances when the choice is between a judgment believed in vehemently by oneself, and the wisdom of the group, choosing the group is crippling not in that instance alone, but for years. Asche says: “When the consensus comes under the dominance of conformity, the social process is polluted and the individual at the same time surrenders the powers on which functioning as a feeling and thinking being depended” (Asch, 311).

Phillip G Zimbardo’s essay “The Stanford Prison Experiment” is another discourse on the phenomenon of obedience that does not, at first glance, appear to apply in any meaningful way to my experience as a freshman in high school. However, there are some very meaningful parallels that I would like to explore.

One excerpt, in particular, seems pertinent:

There was a general decrease in all categories of response as they learned the safest strategy to use in an unpredictable, threatening environment from which there is no physical escape—do nothing, except what is required. Act not, want not, feel not, and you will not get into trouble in prison-like situations (Zimbardo, 351).

Was I a prisoner? No. Yet, the results of handing over my judgment to the authority figures of my young life included a sense of inured dependence, however unwilling, on whatever they decreed. I lost my sense of confidence in my courage to do the right thing, gave up hope on my ability to be a person of integrity, and complied with the majority of their value judgments—judgments that were seemingly unpredictable. In prison, one’s will is stripped away.

When one decides to forego his own will, the psychic condition is much the same as actually being in a cell. I lost status in my own eyes. I tarnished my reputation with myself and lost years of my life trying to find ways to reassert my will and self-actualize. “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem,” an essay by Erich Fromm, marks the evolution of humankind as a series of acts of disobedience. He says “Indeed, freedom and the capacity for disobedience are inseparable” (Fromm, 360). His writing is a far-reaching synopsis on the very essence of what is wrong with the belief in disobedience as a sinful experience.

In conclusion, I must confess after all that has been read that disobedience and sense of right and rightness are dramatically different. People should respect the moral principles and listen to experienced people as well. But still, one should always bear in mind that social constraints imposed by either your parents or your teacher should be tackled with reason and obedience. At the same time, this authority must not capture your personal dignity and the right to self-expression and assertion. In my case, the authority has overwhelmed my personal goals and the self that I lost when agreeing to move from one school to another.

However, what is more important is that I have managed to sense the difference between disobedience and the sense of right with the help of the book by Asche and Zimbardo. They have taught me that there are subtle moments in our life to distinguish when you could choose the path either to be a prisoner of authority or to be the builder of your fate and life. My personal situation is a grief experience to remember, but it serves as a solid incentive for imposing change on my future life.

Works Cited

Asche, Solomon E. “Opinions and Social Pressure.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum: Ninth Edition. Ed. Virginia L. Blanford. New York: Pearson Longman, 2005. 306-313.

Branden, Nathaniel. “Divine Right of Stagnation.” The Virtue of Selfishness. Ayn Rand. New York: Penguin Group, 1964. 141-146.

Fromm, Erich. “Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum: Ninth Edition. Ed. Virginia L. Blanford. New York: Pearson Longman, 2005. 356-361.

Zimbardo, Phillip G.. “The Stanford Prison Experiment.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum: Ninth Edition. Ed. Virginia L. Blanford. New York: Pearson Longman, 2005. 344-355.