Comment by nephihaha

Comment by nephihaha 4 hours ago

We are trained to be scared of lone individuals and rural environments, when in fact most abuses occur within a hierarchy and urban settings. I feel the fatal flaw in human nature is so many are obedient to power without question, especially when power has some kind of uniform, but also within gangs etc.

In the hospital environment, power is partly conveyed by the clothes people where and if you do not conform or obey, then you are punished. It is a pattern we are conditioned into from nursery/kindergarten onwards.

jordwest 2 hours ago

I think it comes down to a fear of uncertainty. It's comfortable to believe in authority.

Authority provides the illusion of a sense of control, predictability, certainty and orderliness, and it's like we gravitate toward that even when it leads to bad outcomes for us.

For most of us the fear of being out of control seems to be greater than the fear of being controlled.

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nephihaha an hour ago

I'm not sure it's even uncertainty. Authority carries a bigger stick, and things like witch hunts and burning of heretics and rebel peasants, have deselected independence of mind over the centuries. Society has an unconscious memory of what used to happen when people disagreed. And still does in some places.
People today worship the white lab coat and the military/police uniform in the same way their ancestors honoured witch doctors/shamans and the tribe's warriors. They assume the former groups will dish out good advice and the latter will protect them. The general public experiences this in hospitals and schools, with psychiatric hospitals being the most extreme version of hierarchy. I've mentioned that I currently have two friends who are stuck in a mental hospital, and I have told both of them that they need to be respectful of staff if they want to get out sooner. The woman seems to have had her day passes revoked, and been placed on a more secure ward, after being cheeky to staff. Maybe the staff were awful but she isn't in much of a position to negotiate — she's been in there for nine months. (I've heard rumours of one of the other patients being sexually assaulted by staff, but thanks to the nature of these places I don't know whether it is fantasy or a real crime, since the supposed victim is doped up to the eyeballs much of the time and would not remember it properly.)

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