"Authoritarianism in religion and science, let alone politics,
is becoming increasingly accepted, not particularly because so
many people explicitly believe in it but because they feel
themselves individually powerless and anxious.
So what else can
one do... except follow the mass political leader... or follow
the authority of customs, public opinion, and social
expectations?"
Rollo May
Man's Search for
Himself
The American
psychologist Rollo May wrote these words in 1953, and in the decades
that followed the West tiptoed into tyranny.
A mass surveillance
state was established, free speech gave way to increasing levels of
censorship, statist bureaucracy and stifling regulations invaded
ever more areas of life, and tax rates reached levels that in the
past would have caused a revolution.
However, in recent years this
tiptoe into tyranny has turned into a sprint, as some Western
countries are flirting with full-blown totalitarian rule.
But the
existence of power hungry and psychologically disturbed politicians
who desire total control is not what makes our situation
particularly precarious, for such individuals exist in all ages.
Rather, our troubles lie with the fact that very few people posses
the one virtue that can turn the tide back in the direction of
freedom, that being, the virtue of courage.
And as
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warned
in 1978:
"A decline in
courage may be the most striking feature which an outside
observer notices in the West in our days...
Should one point out
that from ancient times declining courage has been considered
the beginning of the end?"
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A World
Split Apart
In this (below) video we
are going to explore how a hyper-conformity and blind obedience has
infected the West and, in the process, crowded out the cultivation
of courage.
We will discuss how a widespread cowardice is permitting
the rise of authoritarianism, and how a rebirth of courage is the
antidote to our precarious political predicament.
The pathological
conformity that infects the West is generations in the making and
the result of a confluence of factors.
It is driven by a value
system in which social validation occupies a pre-eminent position.
It is furthered by the use of social media and the fact that success
on these platforms is achieved by virtue signaling and conforming to
the moral flavors of the day.
It is also a product of of an
education system which deifies the democratic ideal and promotes the
rights of the majority over the rights of the individual.
These
factors, combined with others, has created a society of
hyper-conformists, and as the psychologist Rollo May explained:
"The opposite
to courage... in our particular age, is automaton conformity."
Rollo May
Man's Search for
Himself
One of the ways
that Western conformity manifests is through a blind obedience and a
pathological need to follow rules.
Most people believe that to be a
good person is to be a compliant person and to do what one is told
by those in positions of political power and their lackeys in the
media and celebrity culture.
In acting with blind obedience, the
conformist fails to differentiate between morality and legality and
so remains willfully ignorant of the fact that government rules can
be immoral, driven by corruption, and that sometimes they pave the
way for individual and social ruin.
Or as Rollo May explains:
"... our
particular problem in the present day... is an overwhelming
tendency toward conformity...
In such times ethics tend
more and more to be identified with obedience. One is "good" to
the extent that one obeys the dictates of society...
It is
as though the more unquestioning obedience the better...
But
what really is ethical about obedience? If one's goal were
simple obedience, one could train a dog to fulfill the
requirements very well."
Rollo May
Man's Search for
Himself
To see other people
exercise independent judgment, self-responsibility and
self-reliance, disturbs the conformist's belief in the value of
obedience and so threatens their sense of self.
It is not the case,
therefore, that the conformist obeys while permitting others the
freedom to make their own choice, rather, as Stanley Feldman
explains in a paper titled Enforcing Conformity:
"... people who
value social conformity... support the government when it
wants to increase its control over social behavior and punish
nonconformity... valuing social conformity increases the
motivation for placing restrictions on behavior... the desire
for social freedom is now subservient to the enforcement of
social norms and rules.
Thus, groups will be targeted for
repression to the extent that they challenge social
conformity...
Stanley Feldman
Enforcing Social
Conformity: A Theory of Authoritarianism
When a majority
advocates for the government enforcement of conformity, a society
places itself on what the psychologist Ervin Staub called a
continuum of destruction.
As the government uses coercion and force
to punish a noncompliant minority, the majority rationalizes their
support of such authoritarian measures by further demonizing the
noncompliant, thus leading to increasingly severe government
measures.
"One
psychological consequence of harm-doing is further devaluation
of victims... people tend to assume that victims have earned
their suffering by their actions or character."
Ervin Staub
The Psychology of
Good and Evil
In several
countries in the 20th century, such as the Soviet Union,
Turkey, Germany, Cambodia and China, government measures such as
banning certain minority groups from restaurants, pubs, cafes, and
other public spaces, imposing curfews, expelling them from their
jobs, forcing them to pay fines, and restricting their freedom of
movement and assembly, functioned as the first steps on a continuum
of destruction that ended in mass-scapegoating, mass-imprisonment
and mass-murder.
In his book the
Psychology of Good and Evil, Ervin Staub elaborates on the psychological mechanism that facilitates a
continuum of destruction.
"How does
harmful behavior become the norm?...
Doing harm to a good person
or passively witnessing it is inconsistent with a feeling of
responsibility for the welfare of others and the belief in a
just world. Inconsistency troubles us.
We minimize it by
reducing our concern for the welfare of those we harm or allow
to suffer. We devalue them, justify their suffering by their
evil nature or by higher ideals.
A changed view of the victims,
changed attitude toward that suffering, and changed self-concept
result."
Ervin Staub
The Psychology of
Good and Evil
To counter the
continuum of destruction that is a product of too-much conformity
and too-much government force, more people need to act with moral
courage.
Moral courage entails a willingness to encounter risks so
as to defy immoral orders, reject authoritarian government control,
and to stand up for the disappearing values of truth, freedom, and
justice.
And as Rushworth Kidder explains in his book
Moral Courage:
"Where there's
no danger, there's no courage...
Anyone can "endure" security
and well-being. The real challenges... arise in the face of
hazard...
So it is with moral courage, where danger is
endured for the sake of an overarching commitment to conscience,
principles, or core values.
Rushworth Kidder
Moral Courage
Some acts of moral
courage are accompanied by mild risks, such as being ridiculed,
insulted or ostracized.
If, for example, we speak out against a
status quo belief in the presence of a group of conformists, or if
we refuse to adhere to social practices or mandates that are immoral
or idiotic, we may lose friends or attract choice words from the
obedient.
But this is a small price to pay in exchange for doing
what we believe is right, for as Rollo May explains:
"The hallmark
of courage in our age of conformity is the capacity to stand on
one's own convictions... "
Rollo May
Man's Search for
Himself
However, sometimes
acts of moral courage are accompanied by more grave risks including,
but not limited to, the loss of employment, physical or financial
penalties, imprisonment, or in some cases, even death.
"Of all the
agonizing ethical dilemmas facing humanity," writes Rushworth
Kidder, "few are more wrenching than the choice between what's
right for the world and what's right for [you and] your family."
Rushworth Kidder
Moral Courage
Carl Jung called
the men and women willing to confront great dangers in defiance of
tyranny "the true leaders of mankind".
And to learn about the
mindset of one of these leaders we can turn to the story of Viktor Pestov.
In 1967 Pestov was
a 20-year-old living in the Soviet Union.
His family was well off by
Soviet standards, and his mother was a high-ranking member of the
KGB.
Yet Pestov could not avert his eyes from the boot of tyranny
that was crushing society and so he took a keen interest in
political matters, and when Soviet tanks rode into Czechoslovakia
and violently stamped out the human rights protest known as the
Prague Spring, Pestov told his friend:
"We must do
something about this."
Viktor Pestov,
quoted in
Moral
Courage
by Rushworth Kidder
Pestov and his
brother set up a clandestine group called "Free Russia", and he
warned those who joined that they would likely be arrested within
the year.
Yet all agreed that the battle for freedom justified the
risk, and so they began publishing pamphlets exposing the lies of
the Soviet Regime and snuck out in the dead of night to distribute
them.
The KGB quickly identified the group as a threat and in 1970 Pestov was arrested, his mother was fired from the KGB and never
allowed to work in Russia again, and Pestov was sentenced to 5 years
in a Soviet prison camp.
Pestov
decided to stand up to the Soviet Regime and therein place himself,
and inadvertently his mother, in great danger, because he could not
in good conscience sit idly by as a corrupt regime of thousands
destroyed the lives of millions.
He understood that if he did not
stand up for the freedom of others, he could not expect others to
stand up for his, and that if nobody did anything, everyone was
doomed. And so, he chose to face danger, to fight for freedom, and
to place a portion of the fate of society on his back.
He saw
himself as fighting against the malevolent idea that:
"someone will
think for you, someone will make decisions for you", and as he
explained, "A person
should be the master of his own fate."
Viktor Pestov,
quoted in
Moral
Courage
by Rushworth Kidder
In a conversation
with Rushworth Kidder, Pestov reflected on the grave dangers he
voluntarily faced and on the 5 years he spent in prison:
"I believe I
did the right thing, I wasn't silent. I was saying and doing
what I had to do.
There was a very small contribution of mine to
the fact that the Communists were pushed out of power."
Viktor Pestov,
quoted in
Moral
Courage
by Rushworth Kidder
Unless more people
can muster up the moral courage to renounce conformity in favor of
standing up for freedom and for what is right, and at the very least
make a small contribution to combating tyranny, Western societies
will continue moving towards what Ayn Rand called the stage of the
ultimate inversion.
Or as she warns:
"We are fast
approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where
the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the
citizens may act only by permission.
Which is the stage of the
darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute
force."
Ayn Rand
Capitalism: The Unknown
Ideal
