> At 8:01 PM -0800 13/11/06, Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> >It seems pretty straightforward to me: in a society with many
> >bureaucratic organizations, there are by definition many people in
> >positions of authority over others. This means that conformity to
> >obedience is necessary for our society to function,
I though this was a leftist list. Why is that particular aspect of current society one we should accept, rather than strive to change?
It seems to me that if we change other major structual elements without changing that, we just get "Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss."
> >and people are
> >effectively socialized into this basic social norm ("obey legitimate
> >authority!"). --Thus the results of the Milgram studies.
>
> OK, good point. Though I think society has evolved past the point
> where unquestioned obedience is a good thing.
The only circumstances I can think of where unquestioning obedience is ever a good thing are crises. On a sinking ship, obey the captain. If someone's shooting at you, do what the sargeant says.
Even in such cases, there are probably exceptions.
> However, authority is still necessary for other reasons. If for no
> other reason than that a lot of people in our society can't seem to
> live without it. Just as glove puppets need someone's hand to animate
> them.
>
> Maybe its socialised, rather than in-bred. I'd certainly prefer to
> believe that. But that doesn't contradict the assertion that it is
> hard-wired. Our brains are wired as we develop from children to
> adulthood, so that implies that a lot of the influence is social. So
> far so good for your argument. Nevertheless, once it is wired a
> certain way, the human brain becomes fixed in its ways of thinking.
> In that sense at least, the patterns I'm talking about are hard-wired.
Tim Leary wrote extensively on the notion that much of our psyche develops through "imprinting" at vrious crucial stages, and that psychedelics can break that imprinting, free you to re-program yourself.