Reverse Thinking

Good and faithful slaves

On Friday I wrote about how obedience can kill. I should really have used the word 'slavery' as there is nothing wrong with obedience in itself (as people in hospital who broke the Highway code will tell you).

Slavery means doing what you are told without courage, without emotion and without reflection. If you are a slave you have become an automaton.

• Work-slaves stay in jobs they hate
• Timid slaves stay in relationships they have outgrown
• Grown-up slaves do what their parents tell them
• Success slaves bully their children
• Drug slaves do it because they can't imagine a life without it
• Intellectual slaves believe what scientists, lawyers,    politicians, academics and newspaper editors tell them to think
• Fashion slaves want to be one of the crowd
• Murderous slaves do it because they have their orders in writing

Wilhelm Reich - one of the grandfathers of Reverse Therapy - explains how humans become slaves in Listen Little Man. Because they are afraid of their own passion, of life itself. They would rather remain small because it's safer in crowds. But secretly they envy people who have broken free. And when that happens, Reich tells us, slavery can become spiteful, cynical, vindictive.

Now would you rather be a slave or would you rather be Spartacus?

If you want to be Spartacus then take a risk right now! Say it! Do it. Try it!

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson

First image by dailyinvention

Murderous obedience

In the 1960s Stanley Milgram was reading about the trial of Adolf Eichmann - the SS Colonel who participated in The Final Solution during World War II. He was struck by the fact that, like many war criminals, Eichmann relied repeatedly on the defence that he was 'only obeying orders' and that he did not have a choice on whether or not to sign the orders that transported Jews to the death camps.

So what, thought Milgram, if Eichmann was telling the truth? That would mean that anyone would do what Eichmann did if they were given an order to do it. Even if that meant sending someone to their death.

So Milgram designed an experiment to test whether that could happen. It turned into the most famous experiment in the entire history of Psychology. The experiment would be banned now - which is why most Psychological experiments nowadays are so boring.

Here's what he set up:

People were recruited from newspaper ads and paid large fees for participating in what they were told was an important scientific experiment on human learning. They were paired up with a 'student' (in fact an actor who pretended to be a poor learner) who was strapped in a chair with (false) electrodes strapped to his arms (see picture below).

The 'teacher' was taken to a room next door and handed over to a 'Psychologist' in a white coat and clip-board who gave them their orders. They were told that the student had to learn a list of words. Each time he got one wrong the teacher was to deliver an electric shock, starting at 15 volts and going all the way up to 450 volts. As each shock was delivered the actor-student would groan, cry, plead, yell, beg for mercy. As his sufferings went on a minority of 'teachers' would question whether it was right to deliver heavier shocks and were given the stock answer - that they had no choice but to keep going.

Before you read on - ask yourself how what percentage of people do you think would go all the way on to to 300 volts - enough to inflict severe pain (at which point the teacher could hear the 'student' pounding on the wall begging them to stop)? 

The actual figure was 100%.  And - still more disturbing - 65% of all people tested went all the way up to 450 volts - enough to kill some people even though the 'student' was unconscious and no longer answering questions.

Meaning that people (that's you and me) are capable of injuring or killing their fellow human beings because they are paid to do so, told to do so and because they think they are doing it all in the cause of 'progress'. Exactly like Eichmann.

Unless you are a Psychopath you will not be indifferent to suffering. You will, in most circumstances, be unwilling to inflict it. That is because you have built-in empathy - the ability to feel other peoples' pain. You also come ready-made with emotions that drive you towards compassion.

The fact that Bodymind connections to our fellow human beings can be over-ridden by blind obedience tells a lot about why we become dysfunctional.

In my next post on Monday I will be writing about how the habit of obedience can make you trapped, unhappy, depressed and ill. How it can damage your work and the relationship you have with yourself and those you love. And how you can reverse that.

First Image By Ed_45