• Mission
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Subscribe
  • Terms of Service
Conscious Life News
5-day Holosync Challenge
  • Home
  • Conscious Living
    • Activism
    • Animals and Pets
    • Conscious Evolution
    • Conscious Parenting
    • Happiness & Humor
    • Inspirational
    • Manifestation / LOA
    • Meditation
    • Peace & Human Rights
    • Relationships & Sex
    • Thrive
  • Economy
    • Business
    • Education
    • Loans and Frugal Living
    • Investing and Insurance
  • Environ.
    • Climate Change
    • Eco-Friendly
    • Farming & Gardening
    • Environmental Hazards
    • Nature & Wildlife
    • Preparedness
  • Govt.
    • Agencies & Systems
    • The Fed & Banking Cartel
    • Censorship
    • Govt. Corruption
    • Internet Control
    • Military Industrial Complex
    • Policies
    • Politics
    • Govt. Surveillance
    • Whistleblower
  • Health
    • Alternative Health Care
    • Big Pharma, CDC & FDA
    • COVID-19 Vaccine
    • Diet, Weight Loss, Obesity
    • Exercise and Fitness
    • Food, Drink & Nutrition
    • Healing & Natural Remedies
    • Herbs, Seeds & Spices
    • Human Energy Systems
    • Longevity & Life Extension
    • Mind-Body Connection
    • Pet and Animal Health
    • Prevention
    • Skin & Hair Care
  • Horoscopes
  • Media
    • Alternative Media
    • Books
    • Art and Music
    • Corporate Controlled Media
    • Films & TV
    • Internet
    • Social Media
  • Reality’s Edge
    • Afterlife & Past Lives
    • Ascension
    • Astrology & Numerology
    • Channeling & Readings
    • Dreams, ESP & Remote Viewing
    • Dying, NDE, & OBE
    • ETs, UFOs & Crop Circles
    • Mandela Effect
    • Mysteries
    • Predictions & Prophecies
    • Quantum Physics
    • Reality Shifts & Timelines
    • Spirituality and Religion
    • Angels & Spirits
  • Sci-Tech
    • Archaeology
    • Earth & Space
    • Futurism & Inspiring Inventions
    • Medical Advances & Procedures
    • Nature
    • Psychology-Psychiatry
    • Science
    • Technology
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Conscious Living
    • Activism
    • Animals and Pets
    • Conscious Evolution
    • Conscious Parenting
    • Happiness & Humor
    • Inspirational
    • Manifestation / LOA
    • Meditation
    • Peace & Human Rights
    • Relationships & Sex
    • Thrive
  • Economy
    • Business
    • Education
    • Loans and Frugal Living
    • Investing and Insurance
  • Environ.
    • Climate Change
    • Eco-Friendly
    • Farming & Gardening
    • Environmental Hazards
    • Nature & Wildlife
    • Preparedness
  • Govt.
    • Agencies & Systems
    • The Fed & Banking Cartel
    • Censorship
    • Govt. Corruption
    • Internet Control
    • Military Industrial Complex
    • Policies
    • Politics
    • Govt. Surveillance
    • Whistleblower
  • Health
    • Alternative Health Care
    • Big Pharma, CDC & FDA
    • COVID-19 Vaccine
    • Diet, Weight Loss, Obesity
    • Exercise and Fitness
    • Food, Drink & Nutrition
    • Healing & Natural Remedies
    • Herbs, Seeds & Spices
    • Human Energy Systems
    • Longevity & Life Extension
    • Mind-Body Connection
    • Pet and Animal Health
    • Prevention
    • Skin & Hair Care
  • Horoscopes
  • Media
    • Alternative Media
    • Books
    • Art and Music
    • Corporate Controlled Media
    • Films & TV
    • Internet
    • Social Media
  • Reality’s Edge
    • Afterlife & Past Lives
    • Ascension
    • Astrology & Numerology
    • Channeling & Readings
    • Dreams, ESP & Remote Viewing
    • Dying, NDE, & OBE
    • ETs, UFOs & Crop Circles
    • Mandela Effect
    • Mysteries
    • Predictions & Prophecies
    • Quantum Physics
    • Reality Shifts & Timelines
    • Spirituality and Religion
    • Angels & Spirits
  • Sci-Tech
    • Archaeology
    • Earth & Space
    • Futurism & Inspiring Inventions
    • Medical Advances & Procedures
    • Nature
    • Psychology-Psychiatry
    • Science
    • Technology
No Result
View All Result
Conscious Life News
No Result
View All Result
Home Conscious Living Activism

Overcoming the Myth of Authority

by clnAdrian
March 14, 2021
in Activism, Conscious Living
Reading Time: 7 mins read
0 0
A A
0
Overcoming the Myth of Authority
1
SHARES
546
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on WhatsApp
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

By Gary Z McGee | Waking Times

“For thousands hacking at the branches there is one striking the root.”~Henry David Thoreau

If, as Albert Einstein said, “unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth,” then it stands to reason that we should think critically toward, rather than blindly believe in, authority. No matter who or what that authority might be.

Whether it’s an eccentric physicist with wild hair or an authoritarian president demanding respect without giving it. Whether it’s a flat-earther challenging the very foundations of physics, or an overreaching cop high on false power. Belief in authority is a huge psychological hang-up for our species. It’s an evolutionary impediment of monumental proportions.

Even as we daily self-overcome, so too should we daily overcome the myth of authority. It’s a myth because it’s foremost a story. It’s a story we’ve all fallen for –hook, line, and sinker. It’s a story that most of us were culturally conditioned to believe in. It’s a story that most of us take as a given, but certainly should not. For, ultimately, “it’s just the way things are” is a cowardly copout.

Rather than cowardice, rather than willful ignorance, complacency, and intellectual laziness, we should challenge the myth of authority –across the board. We should be ruthless with our skepticism, like a scientist regarding his own hypothesis, like peer-reviewed interrogators keeping the science of others honest.

Because the art of life, especially an examined life that’s well-lived, is scientific, logical, and reasonable. It strikes at the heart of the orthodoxy, whatever that may be. It undermines the Powers That Be, whoever they may be. And that’s likely to upset more than a few blind worshippers, myopic rule-followers, and willfully ignorant law-abiding citizens. So be it. Upset their precious apple-cart anyway. Especially if that apple-cart is outdated, violent, and based upon parochial reasoning and fear. As Oscar Wilde stated, “Disobedience was man’s original virtue.”

Overcoming authoritarianism:

“As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn’t go. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.” ~Wendell Berry

The problem with belief in authority is that it leads to the idea that we need to give a group of people permission to control us. And, as Lord Byron taught us, the power given to an authority tends to become corrupt.

The problem with power is not the intent behind it. The problem with power is that it tends to corrupt the one wielding it regardless of their intent. So, since we all know that power tends to corrupt whether one has good or bad intentions and since we know that we will all seek power anyway, it behooves us to be mercilessly circumspect both with our own power and against the power of others.

It stands to reason that we should not ignorantly give power to an authority by blindly believing it. We should instead challenge authority first and trust it second, if at all. The best way to use our power is to use it against authority by ruthlessly questioning it. It’s a social leveling mechanism par excellence. As a wise, young sixth grader once said, “Question authority, including the authority that told you to question authority.”

Otherwise, people will fight and murder and commit genocide and ecocide for the so-called authority that they “believe” in. But they might not have fought so violently and thoughtlessly had they simply taken the power dynamic into deep consideration, nonviolently challenged that perceived dynamic, and then moved on smartly with their lives.

The best way to maintain a healthy skepticism, and not devolve into an ignorant, sycophantic, violent mess, is to take things into consideration and question them rather than blindly believe in them.

Overcoming tribalism:

“To be modern is to let imagination and invention do a lot of the work once done by tradition and ritual.” ~Adam Gopnik

By becoming worldly patriots instead of patriotic nationalists, we turn the tables on xenophobia, apathy, and blind nationalism, and we become more compassionate and empathetic towards other cultures. When we celebrate diversity instead of trying to cram the square peg of cultural affiliation into the round hole of colonialism, we turn the tables on the monkey-mind’s one-dimensional moral tribalism and we usher in Joshua Greene’s multi-dimensional concept of metamorality.

By reinforcing global citizenry rather than nationalism, we turn the tables on both our lizard brains and the Powers That Be. Like Joshua Greene says in Moral Tribes,

“We need a kind of thinking that enables groups with conflicting moralities to live together and prosper. In other words, we need a metamorality. We need a moral system that resolves disagreements among groups with different moral ideals, just as ordinary first-order morality resolves disagreements among individuals with different selfish interests.”

Going Meta with morality launches us into a big-picture perspective. We’re shot out of the box of outdated tribal thinking and into a realm of higher consciousness, where our inherent tribalism gets countered by an updated logic and reasoning. We gain the holistic vision of “over eyes” (like the astronaut Overview Effect), where societal delusions and cultural abstractions dissolve into interconnectedness and interdependence.

Overcoming magical thinking:

“Every fact of science was once damned. Every invention was considered impossible. Every discovery was a nervous shock to some orthodoxy. Every artistic innovation was denounced as fraud and folly. The entire web of culture and ‘progress,’ everything on earth that is man-made and not given to us by nature, is the concrete manifestation of some man’s refusal to bow to Authority. We would own no more, know no more, and be no more than the first apelike hominids if it were not for the rebellious, the recalcitrant, and the intransigent.” ~Robert Anton Wilson

Overcoming magical thinking is vital for the healthy and progressive evolution of our species. Healthy progress depends upon courageous individuals capable of challenging authority. Especially authorities that are based on magical thinking.

If we don’t have the courage to challenge an authority that preaches magical thinking, then we are doomed to become a victim of their magical thinking. It’s for this reason, above all, that authority should be challenged.

Refusing to bow to authority is not without its consequences. But upsetting an authority should not be avoided at the expense of progress. Progress should be embraced at the risk of upsetting an authority.

Otherwise, there would be no progress. We would remain stuck in parochial, magical thinking. We would become a stagnant –or worse, devolving– species. To avoid unhealthy stagnation and entropic devolution, we need courageous individuals who refuse to bow to authority and instead choose to ruthlessly question and nonviolently challenge that authority.

Without those who are willing to disobey, we are lost. Without them, we are left with cowardly conformists, xenophobic nationalists, complacent pacifists, dogmatic believers relying upon blind faith, and tyrannical powermongers using their power to control others. In short: we are left with magical thinking over logic and reasoning.

So, I implore you, if you would be courageous, reasonable, healthy, progressive human beings: challenge Authority. Strategically disobey. Nonviolently revolt. Lovingly crush out. Tenderly recondition the cultural conditioning of others lest they collapse in upon their own cognitive dissonance. Dare to pull the blindfold from your brother’s eyes lest they unwittingly force the blindfold back upon you.

Above all, practice self-overcoming. Otherwise, power –either yours or someone else’s– will overcome you. Be just as circumspect with your own power as you are toward the power of others.

Authorities will come and go. As they should. Your own authority will wax and wane. As it should. The balance of power within the human condition is vital for the healthy and progressive evolution of our species. And nothing balances out power better than the courage to challenge authority. The biblical courage of David pales in comparison to the individual who bravely challenges the modern-day Goliath of entrenched authority.

About the Author

Gary ‘Z’ McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide awake view of the modern world.

This article (Overcoming the Myth of Authority) was originally created and published by The Mind Unleashed. 

Tags: "featuredauthority mythbelief in authorityblind belief in authorityfeaturedgovernment authoritarianismmyth of authorityOvercoming authoritarianismovercoming the myth of authorityOvercoming tribalism
ShareTweetSend
Previous Post

‘We’re Destroying Our Life-Support Systems’: Study Suggests the Amazon Now Contributes to Warming

Next Post

George Orwell’s 1984 Eerily Predicted What Our Society Would Be Like Today, 72 Years Ago

Related Posts

The Moral Issue of Our Time – Gabor Maté on Palestine
Activism

The Moral Issue of Our Time – Gabor Maté on Palestine

May 24, 2025
War Dust and Collateral Inhalation: Israel Breathes in Gaza’s Dust | Dennis Kucinich
Government

War Dust and Collateral Inhalation: Israel Breathes in Gaza’s Dust | Dennis Kucinich

April 29, 2025
Not Taking A Position On Gaza IS Taking A Position On Gaza | Caitlin Johnstone
Activism

Not Taking A Position On Gaza IS Taking A Position On Gaza | Caitlin Johnstone

April 24, 2025
Pope Francis Dies at 88 After Urging Gaza Cease-Fire
Peace & Human Rights

Pope Francis Dies at 88 After Urging Gaza Cease-Fire

April 21, 2025
Why Trump Supporters Don’t Understand Free Speech
Activism

Why Trump Supporters Don’t Understand Free Speech

April 19, 2025
Massive Protests Erupt Worldwide Against Israel and U.S. Over Gaza Bombings
Activism

Massive Protests Erupt Worldwide Against Israel and U.S. Over Gaza Bombings

March 19, 2025
Next Post
George Orwell’s 1984 Eerily Predicted What Our Society Would Be Like Today, 72 Years Ago

George Orwell’s 1984 Eerily Predicted What Our Society Would Be Like Today, 72 Years Ago

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Conscious Life News

The mission of Conscious Life News is to be a global leader in the consciousness-raising of the planet.

Follow Us

Browse by Category

  • Activism
  • Afterlife & Past Lives
  • Agencies & Systems
  • Alternative Health Care
  • Alternative Media
  • Angels & Spirits
  • Animals and Pets
  • Archaeology
  • Art and Music
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Ascension
  • Astrology & Numerology
  • Astrology Overview
  • Big Pharma, CDC, FDA & NIH
  • Books
  • Business
  • Careers
  • Censorship
  • Channeling & Readings
  • Climate Change
  • Conscious Evolution
  • Conscious Living
  • Conscious Parenting
  • Corporate Controlled Media
  • COVID-19 Vaccine
  • Daily
  • Diet, Weight Loss, Obesity
  • Dreams, ESP & Remote Viewing
  • Dying, NDE, & OBE
  • Earth & Space
  • Eco-Friendly
  • Economy
  • Education
  • Environment
  • Environmental Hazards
  • ETs, UFOs & Crop Circles
  • Exercise and Fitness
  • Farming & Gardening
  • Featured
  • Federal Law
  • Films & TV
  • Food, Drink & Nutrition
  • Futurism & Inspiring Inventions
  • Government
  • Govt Censorship
  • Govt. Corruption
  • Govt. Surveillance
  • Happiness & Humor
  • Healing & Natural Remedies
  • Health
  • Herbs, Seeds & Spices
  • Home Maintenance, Repairs & Improvement
  • Horoscopes
  • Human Energy Systems
  • Inspirational
  • Internet
  • Internet Control
  • Investing and Insurance
  • Laws and Lawyers
  • Lifestyle and Fashion
  • Loans and Frugal Living
  • Longevity & Life Extension
  • Mandela Effect
  • Manifestation / LOA
  • Maya / Matrix / Virtual Reality
  • Media & Arts
  • Medical Advances & Procedures
  • Meditation
  • Military Industrial Complex
  • Mind-Body Connection
  • Monthly
  • Mysteries
  • Nature
  • Nature & Wildlife
  • News Flash
  • Peace & Human Rights
  • Pet and Animal Health
  • Policies
  • Politics
  • Predictions & Prophecies
  • Preparedness
  • Prevention
  • Psychology-Psychiatry
  • Quantum Physics
  • Reality Shifts & Timelines
  • Reality's Edge
  • Relationships & Sex
  • Sci-Tech
  • Science
  • Skin & Hair Care
  • Social Media
  • Spirituality and Religion
  • Stuff
  • Technology
  • The Fed & Banking Cartel
  • Thrive
  • Uncategorized
  • Weekly
  • Whistleblower
  • World

Recent News

Astrology Oveview June 2025

Astrology Oveview June 2025

May 27, 2025
Gorgeous Gemini New Moon 26th/27th May Deep Dive Video + Zodiac Forecasts…

Gorgeous Gemini New Moon 26th/27th May Deep Dive Video + Zodiac Forecasts…

May 27, 2025

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 ConsciousLifeNews.com - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.