Glenn Greenwald has written an excellent article about peoples' tendency to acquiesce to authority figures, particularly those who reside within government.
Greenwald writes,
People who resist the natural human tendency to follow, venerate and obey prevailing authority typically have a much different view about how oppressive a society is than those who submit to those impulses. The most valuable experiences for determining how free a society is are the experiences of society's most threatening dissidents, not its content and compliant citizens. It was those who marched against Mubarak who were detained, beaten, tortured and killed, not those who acquiesced to or supported the regime. That is the universal pattern of authoritarian oppression.
The temptation to submit to authority examined by Compliance bolsters an authoritarian culture by transforming its leading institutions into servants of power rather than checks on it. But worse, it conceals the presence of oppression by ensuring that most citizens, choosing to follow, trust and obey authority, do not personally experience oppression and thus do not believe – refuse to believe – that it really exists.
Click here to read more.
What follows is the trailer for the new movie Compliance, directed by Craig Zobel, which grimly highlights many humans' irrational trust in those they consider persons of authority.
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