Introduction
Inherently, man endeavors to avoid anything that is perceived as amoral; instead, he craves, and competes to get and amass what is thought to be good. Here, it is worth to note that what is true or bad is relative and depends on a given society.
Out of the realization of his manifest weakness, man has established institutions into which he has surrendered all his power to judge or determine his course of actions freely in order to promote harmonious living, which is suitable for his overall development.
These institutions include the family, state and religion among others. Giving up all of his power to judge and do as he wishes places him in a situation that makes him fear or lack the courage to disobey authorities-religious, political or otherwise.
Fear vs. Courage
Obedience is promoted in all societies while disobedience is condemned (Fromm 683). Societies have even devised wise sayings in praise of obedience such the famous Judeo-Christian adage ‘Obedience is better than sacrifice.’ Amongst the young ones, the most obedient are celebrated and held highly while the disobedient are subjected to unpleasant punishments at home and school with a view to discourage them from disobeying. They are thus, patterned socio-psychologically to embrace obedience, which shuns and fears disobedience.
Every aspect of human nature has its direct opposite. These life opposites are usually in a perpetual struggle with each other. This struggle brings about order in an individual’s life and the wider society. For instance, the opposite of fear is courage while the opposite of obedience is disobedience.
Even though man is born with an inherent power of choice, that power is limited in many ways. He can for instance choose to obey or disobey, love or hate.
However, the choice is usually dependent on various factors, some external and others internal to his inner being. In fact, based on this power of choice, the renowned political philosopher, Nicollo Machiavelli, suggested that political leaders should use excess power where necessary in order to have their way especially on matters that are a threat to security of their territories and their positions.
Fear and courage in relation to obedience and other life aspects is also inborn. For example, human beings tend to be fearful and suspicious of anything new or anybody different from them. This line of argument, in fact, perfectly explains the prevalent clash of cultures that characterize the global community.
As pointed out earlier, man always endeavors to avoid anything untoward, compete for, and pursue what is perceived as legitimate. The unpleasant consequences of disobedience have perpetually forced man to fear to do contrary to the will of all that are accepted as authentic authorities and more powerful than he is, in terms of religion is, politically or socially.
On the other hand, the goodies that ensue from being obedient form the basis of his courage to adhere to set rules and do the will of his authorities.
Nickson, an outspoken and fun-to- be with teenager in my neighborhood, has loving and caring but strict conservative parents. Through out the days I have known him, he has always had a somewhat rigid routine, which he follows without failure rest he faces the wrath of his no nonsense parents.
Likewise, he chooses his friends carefully and cannot even risk being seen in the company of some of his age mates in our place of residence. However, when he does anything significant of which he is used to doing since he is a bright boy he is mostly showered with various kinds of gifts.
Sometimes back, an internationally distinguished reggae musician was holding a concert in a local nightclub. Nickson, a zealous lover of reggae music, was under pressure to attend the concert. There was also pressure from close friends to join them that night. Most of his friends are well known by his parents even though, unlike him, they had of late managed to break up, to some extent, the strong grip of their parents up on their freedom of choice.
However, he knew exceedingly well that his parents would never approve his desire to attend let alone allow him to attend an overnight. He, just like his friends, had started to ascertain his maturity having jus concluded his high school education. It was pointless and equally wrong to mention such a thing to them.
He was therefore, left with the option of mustering enough courage to disobey his parents by sneaking out on the night, irrespective of the obvious punishment he would get, if they got knowledge of his actions.
The day came, and everything went as he had planned. In fact, this event became the turning point in his life in terms of asserting his freedom from unnecessary parental control given that he was just about to join the university. Nevertheless, his obedience and loyalty to his parents’ opinions on various issues continued to be an influential factor in most of his choices.
In this case, Nickson always feared doing anything that was contrary to his parents’ will whom he revered because it was understandably wrong to disobey his parents and secondly because of the severe punishment that would be meted out up on him in case of his wrongdoing.
The envied gifts, that usually followed most of his virtuous deeds at home and school, gave him more courage to obey his parents without ever questioning the logic of their somewhat unnecessarily suffocating rules and principles. The acceptance that ensued from his obedient deeds was irresistible. As Fromm would put it, Nickson’s obedience to his parents’ power and influence made him “…feel safe and protected” (686).
It made him see himself as part of his parents and gave him some form of strength. In short, the consequences of an individual’s choices and actions within the inner self, family, school, and the wider society potentially makes him vulnerable to obedience and difficult to do contrary to the will and whims of a respected authority.
At one point in life individuals, as well as, groups or the majority in the quest for the much-needed freedom gathers enough courage to disobey an authority irrespective of the possible unpleasant consequences. Fromm argues that, man can only achieve freedom from what he calls nonsense control of a minority power through disobedience (686).
However, he correctly cautions that not all disobedience can be regarded to as liberating and that not all obedience can be considered enslaving (Fromm 684). Doing so he argues would lead to the danger of ignoring the obvious dialectical relationships between obedience and disobedience.
For instance, when Nickson chooses to obey his parent’s dictates and wishes he would disobey his peer pressure and desire to attend the eagerly awaited Reggae concert. Likewise, by bowing down to his desires and peer pressure he would be disobeying his parents’ rules (Fromm 684). The struggle between a choice of obeying his parents or disobeying them brings about the order of events in his life.
When he eventually chooses to attend the concert behind his parents’ knowledge and obviously contrary to their principles, he in other words chose to be free from their power. This, eventually, gave him courage to say no to his parents in the future whenever he felt that his space was unnecessarily being constrained by the excesses of his parents’ power and opinions. In other words, it set him in to a path of freedom as he approached a new life in the campus and the outside world away from his usual home environment.
His choice was also largely informed by the need to conform to his age mates who were determined to make him assert his maturity to his parents just like them.
The desire to show that he was also not under an absolute control by his parents was strong and irresistible. He was even oblivious of the dangers that would befall him at the club during that night. He unconsciously bowed to the will of the majority in terms of his age mates, regardless of whether they were aware of the dangers they were subjecting themselves.
Conformity can be as enslaving as the fear to disobey powers that people have accepted in their minds as authentic and befitting respect and honor. It can equally deny people an opportunity to be free from unfounded beliefs, superstitions and stereotypes that can potentially impede identification and nurturing of their unique talents and abilities (Asch 730).
In virtually all societies, people choose to conform to the will and opinions of the majority because they would like to be accepted (Asch 726). Very few people have the ability to chose and are comfortable for being different or having a different opinion from the majority who are always ignorant, and out of unfounded cowardice, believed to be always right.
Surprisingly, acceptance by the majority who could be wrong is better and easily bearable than being alone and right with regard to a given issue (Fromm 686).
Being different in opinion and principles, is worse construed by some to be an indication of inadequacy in oneself, which can blindly mislead them into self-hate. Nickson found himself in such a situation and being a teenager, he was easily swayed by the choice of his majority age mates because of the equally wanted acceptance apart from the one enjoyed within the confines of his family.
He could not bear being alone anymore on matters related to entertainment and partying. Therefore, he decided to ignore his parents’ warnings about dangers of going out at night in their absence so that he could conform to his friends.
According to Asch (730), even though when asked, many people say they would prefer to be independent, influence of the principle of conformity is overwhelming and tends to make us prisoners of unfounded fears, beliefs, stereotypes, superstitions and myths (Zimbardo 743). This, in turn, limits people’s freedom, which is necessary for intellectual, spiritual and material development.
Conclusion
Even though fear is inborn, our fear to disobey is largely informed by factors such as the need to avoid taking responsibility for our actions and to conform to the despotism of the majority who are ignorantly believed to be right. This, in turn, denies us our freedom and independence from the ruin that results from majority misjudgments and convictions.
Works Cited
Asch, Solomon. Opinions and social pressure. New York, NY: Freeman, 1955.Print.
Fromm, Erich. On disobedience and other essays. New York, NY: Seabury Press, 1981.
Zimbardo, Philip. Stanford prison experiment: a simulation study of the psychology of imprisonment. Stanford: Philip G. Zimbardo, Inc, 1972. Print.