Daring to Defy

Changing social habits can be a frightening experience. As societies go, children are even before birth trained to unquestionably obey what they perceive as authority, beginning with parents and forces around his environment.

It may begin with the gentle coaxing by loving parents, and progress through authoritative declaration by adults who respond to a child’s “why” with a “because I say so.”

A healthy infant will resist inappropriate handling, and will show it in some way or another. To change his behavior and gain his cooperation, try consulting with him and getting his consent: “I’m going to pick you up and clean you to take the smell away, and make you feel clean and more comfortable.” Then proceed to change his diaper. Watch the different behavior and response. We don’t do it because we just do what was done to us, “infants have no intelligence, consciousness, and no understanding of language.” I’m not going to go through the logical explanations of why this works, you can prove it to yourself by changing your mind.

The fear to act against injustice or stand for what you think is right is totally distorted from infancy, through childhood, and so on. Even to this day, fairy tales invariably tell stories about kings, queens, princes, caliphs, emperor, and so on. This inspires and educates us all into the divinity of kings and people in power.

When adults, people can’t assert any rightness about anything because the conflicting educational base, and they lack the moral basis to evaluate their own actions; thus they hesitate to act, or simply will not act. “There’s nothing one can do about it.”

The 4 F's provides a self acquired sense of rightness upon which an individual can gain personal certainty about his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Some years ago, I worked for an educational employer. A new employee, nephew of one of the owners, was given a job that affected the zone of control of my own work. Within a few short weeks, the new broom swept my zone of work into a shambles, took and altered equipment, software, removed memory chips from computers, and nearly all mode of control I had over my classroom.

I confronted the 'boss' and asked him to get the man out of my area. The typical response is, “You do what he says, or I'll have to fire you.” “Respectfully, Sir, you have the wrong context and perspective. The job exists because I create it, the classroom, the materials, and the students welcoming environment. Your job is funding and your objective is profit; mine is students graduate and get a job.” The next day I came to work as usual, and the new man wasn't anywhere to be seen; parts and software he had taken, were back on my classroom desk.

The common reality is that you do your job as the boss says, or you're fired. Very difficult, nearly impossible to do away with that bit of insane reality. So revolution is in altering of conventional reality, with a higher, more workable one, and the the unquestionable need for acting on it. Fired for a 'slip' on Internet

2015 AD. Worker in Uruguay; Got fired for posting a complaint against the boss on his facebook! And the judge tried to walk a temperate line of defending both.

Fear of the boss still reigns. Probably the longest lived sacred cow...