Introduction
Conformity and obedience are distinct kinds of social influences when individuals change behavior or attitudes under the influence of the views of others. Obedience is a direct request from the authority from one human to the other. The paper discusses the real-world application of obedience from a personal experience. It also discusses how obedience can lead to negative and positive outcomes and its impact if a society lacks it.
Personal Experience On the Dark Side of Obedience
While in high school, our class teacher used to teach us about leadership through real-life events. He mentioned that this would help us gather specific helpful life skills in the future. Our teacher used to pick a student randomly and ensure that they led the class through the week. Some responsibilities included reminding teachers about lessons, ensuring the class was in order, and collecting books for assignment checking. Besides equipping leaders, this method helped shape discipline for every individual, and most people anticipated having their turn. There was a time when one of the selected students, Paul, harassed people during his week of control.
Paul enjoyed bullying people during his turn, making most people dislike him. It reached a point when people knew his turn and order would be in the class for the entire week. Generally, Paul threatened people and those who never confirmed his behavior were brutally kicked or punched before he could further report the issue to the teacher. However, he could be lenient with some of his friends. The punching and kicking were at the expense of his friends being happy.
Obedience Leading to Dangerous Outcomes
The Nazis in Germany was a rule characterized by totalitarian and dictatorship regimes. The rule privileged party leaders and suppressed independent bodies, including churches, trade unions, and youth movements, as it favored party organizations. The Nazi’s leadership is a clear example of conformity and obedience that led to disturbing outcomes. For instance, civilian deaths were more than 15 million during that time, including 1.5 military actions (Akbulut et al., 2020). Nearly 1.8 million people were deported to Germany to work on forced labor while 5.5 million died of diseases and famine, while 7.1 million became victims of Nazi genocide and reprisals (Akbulut et al., 2020). In the subsequent years, famine led to more than 1 million deaths.
Obedience Leading to Positive Outcomes
Obedience can be a good thing leading to positive outcomes. When we grow up, most of us are entitled to obey our parents. We respect parents, honor their ideas on what is best and what is bad for us, and show them that they are worth being listened to. Such obedience leads to positive outcomes such as love and prosperity in life (Kassin et al., 2019). For instance, our parents love it when they are obeyed and buy gifts, pay for tuition fees and make life easier. From a bible perspective, most of the leaders selected by God were obedient, and He promised them huge lands. Moses, for instance, was made a father of the nation for being obedient.
Social Life Without Obedience
Obedience is one of the fundamental foundations of society. Lack of obedience would lead to anarchy and chaos. Moreover, the productivity and existence of humans would be non-existent since human well-being would be compromised. Adherence helps differentiate between collectivism and individualism in a society (Kassin et al., 2019). It ensures peace and aguish prevail. It is vital to strike a balance between obedience and critical to equip an efficient society that retains healthy individuals. Lack of compliance in a community is similar to being obedient with adverse outcomes.
Conclusion
Obedience is a necessary tool in any society. The dark side of obedience is worse when poorly implemented. This mostly arises when a person wants to prove conformity for a certain group and ends up taking advantage. Drought, famine and killings are the main implications of poor governance and the dark side of obedience. Moreover, a lack of obedience in a social life also leads to similar consequences.
References
Akbulut‐Yuksel, M., Okoye, D., & Yuksel, M. (2020). Social changes in impressionable years and adult political attitudes: Evidence from Jewish expulsions in Nazi Germany. Economic Inquiry, 58(1), 184-208.
Kassin, S, Fein, S, & Hazel, R.M. (2019). Social Psychology (11th ed.). Cengage.