We face our first conflict with authority at a very young age. Parents, siblings, relatives and later teachers all represent authority whose job is seemingly to say No…So there’s a barrier between the child and the adult in charge…On one hand, the child wants the parent’s love, and on the other, the child rebels against being restricted…Authority, then, is the hostile force of an enemy locking us behind prison bars and causing frustration…
The child then develops an impatient longing to grow up and become an adult so these restricting walls will go away. But then the child actually does grow up and the face merely changes. Now, instead of parents and teachers, it takes the form of society, the government, police officers, bosses and other people in positions of power we must now depend upon. Same conflict, different day…
We can build common ground with others by seeing how their reaction lives in us. But not setting ourselves up as the judge. This balance is tricky to attain; we can only find it through solving our own inner struggle against authority…
Common criminals must be prevented from continuing their law-breaking ways, and this must be done by imperfect law-enforcing establishments…We can all contribute to building a world in which vicious circles get broken before they result in wrongdoing; the cornerstone for this work is to examine our own reactions to authority. For left unchecked, they can set an avalanche rolling.
Listen and learn more.
Read Pearls, Chapter 10: Two Rebellious Reactions to Authority
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