Authority / Rules

[Blue Dream]

Hey. First time posting, just found out about this forum after doing a bit of research to discover what my personality type is. I've read through a lot of posts on the INTP board and have found that I agree with almost everything that I've read. It's comforting to know other people think like I do..

As I'm about to head off to work, I wanted to ask you fellow INTPs a question; do all of you have problems listening to authority figures like I do? It's not that I'm intentionally being disrespectful for whatever reason (I'm not), it's that I find most rules/laws to be silly, and in general I tend to ignore most rules because I know that I'm not going to bring any harm to other people or their property. I don't vandalize things, I don't litter at all, and I generally treat everyone I run across in my day-to-day life with respect, although I don't say much to anyone who isn't a good friend of mine. But don't we all do that ?

I don't have enough time to edit this to state exactly what I want it to, but if I had the time I would. This has just been on my mind for a while, so I figured the best possible way to get some new perspectives is to ask people who think like I do.

Anyways, I will return in 4 hours to (hopefully) read some enlightening
comments

 

[a detached retina]

I respect rules that make sense and prevent people from causing others harm or distress in any way. I do not respect authority for authority's sake. I try to follow most rules though, because I feel it is arrogant of me to assume that I can foresee all of the possible negative implications of my not following rules. It is difficult to do this though, and sometimes I feel like I am dangling a "logical" carrot in front of myself to keep myself in line.

 

[ElvenVeil]

Well I don't know if there will come enlightening comments, but: Yes I can't deny I have problems with some authority figures.. In a way that I hate doing things which I do not agree with.. people bossing me around usually sends me to a rather rigid stance where I am split in two; The one that will at any cost refuse losing personal freedom vs a rational stance that says that everything would be a very lot easier if I just did what I was told.
However if I see a justified reason to why a person should give me orders, then I will usually accept the roles without any problems

 

[Claytoe]

Oh hey buddy, welcome.

Short response is yes.

Authority doesn't like me either though to be fair. I recently start a new job, there are a lot of rules and red-tape, things I hate, things that if I pay attention to annoy me. So most of the time I am in dreamland or getting things done in a non-approved way. Anytime a manager has any reason to talk to me is because I am not on procedure, I do not like this. So I start delineating the contradictions, ambiguities and just plain untruths there are in the provided operations literature. It only just occurred to me today how annoying it must be for the manager for me to do that to them. For me if they would stop being being bad at what they do I would be less annoyed. For them if I would just do what I am paid to they would be less annoyed. Mutual antagonism.

Note: This understanding does not change anything between us authority!

 

[Claytoe]

I am not normally one to quote at length, but this always really hits me in the gut when I read it. Maybe its not Authority that bothers me but the presumption of absolute need for it.

"if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible. It just depends what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're gonna try to see it." David Foster Wallace

Authority of choice.

 

[a detached retina]

From what I understand David Foster Wallace didn't always have such a positive outlook on things

 

[EyeSeeCold]

My problem with rules / authority comes two-fold.

One: I have no care whatsoever for official position. I don't care who you are and what label you carry - to me, you're just another fleshy pile of human arrogance. Why? Because I don't see inherent value in objects just because others value them. I see objects as waiting to be valued, therefore I only respect authority in people I deem worthy of it. Labels mean nothing. Rank means nothing. I won't adhere to your arbitrary social expectations.

Two: In the case that I do acknowledge and respect authority, such as the law or the clearly defined rules in given setting, I deem these rules to be flexible according to my own sense of integrity. I can and will use context to my advantage, but I mostly act in this way because I don't consider my self a threat to the continuous integrity of the situation. Rules are there to uphold order, when order is being upheld, I feel no current need to be obligated to them. Thus I exploit for personal gain, but never to hurt another. My actions in such situations are always reasonable; I would never break a rule without justification.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Authority derived through (claws of) oppression is false authority and should be overturned. Every time.

But in all seriousness; I've never really had problems with authority figures who seemed to be able to handle their authority wisely. Meritorious authority is fine. The problem comes when someone is not deserving of the position.

 

[Claytoe]

Thats part of why the whole piece makes me emotional. Its a call for rational and kind world, a call that I have made with 1/1000th the eloquence. His suicide makes me fear that he ended up feeling that the world he hoped for was impossible... That being said he had underwent ECT in an attempt to escape his depression, sadness profound enough to subject yourself to ECT probably blurs the lens a little bit.

I wouldn't claim that I am ever externally reasonable, but the math usually works out for me, which I am certain comes off as unreasonable to those left in line when I just walk in etc. A logical thought has to start with somewhere, the underlining presupposition for me is that I am important and deserve what I want. If I am important am I more important than rules, other people etc. is fully contextual... usually its yes.

 

[a detached retina]

I absolutely loved "the girl with curious hair" collection especially the jeopardy story. Hopefully going to get through "Infinite Jest" this summer.

But if you have a choice "authority of choice" then that's not really adhering to authority is it? That's supposing you can follow your own authority.

All I'm saying is that I don't really believe you DO have a choice on how you view the world sometimes. I almost see that piece as DFW fighting against his natural urge to perceive the world around him with his cutting, if depressing, insights. I think sometimes we answer to the authority of reality or the authority of biology. But rarely do we get to simply choose whether to perceive reality through rose colored glasses or not.

Just my opinion.

 

[Solitaire U.]

Lesson...

 

[a detached retina]

^Okay point well taken

 

[Zmaster]

A person will always to conform to a thing loved and not conform to a thing hated but regardless every creature always perform actions corresponding to acts of Will.

 

[mynystry]

Authority often deforms into authoritarianism. Most people (if not all) are corrupted by power above others, and as soon people give leaders the power to lead, they become corrupted and use that power for their own benefit and forget about the rest. Yes, we human are selfish, very selfish.

Many rules come from a long tradition of domination of a minority of leaders above rest of humanity. Through thousands of years fights between opressors and oppresed have moulded human laws but they are very uneven between different societies. Many of the rigths we enjoy in western societies were won by struggle and fight. But I think there are still a lot of laws that are unfair and authoritarian.

In general, if i understand and agree with a law, they i try to respect it. If I think it is unfair then I would not respect it, unless I am forced to.

 

[Claytoe]

Ultimately your own authority is the only one that is absolute, making a choice and standing by it gives you authority. Is a prisoner of conscience confined by authorities or his choices? A journalist refusing to divulge sources and spending months in prison as a result for example. Need, survival instinct all suggest to me that when placed under duress a persons views on abstract concepts like the value of journalistic freedoms would change, that their freedom would become more important. Time and again we see that isn't true. These people become paragons, sometime endowed with almost mystic authority, the Tank man is a great example, that image is so powerful that it shows us what people can become when they exceed circumstance and hold to choice in the face of well... a fucking tank. If I regardless of how slow people can make things are going, how dumb they appear, how terribly they treat me I can still see them as individuals with unique perspective and position in the world that is informing that moment we are sharing then I am changing the world. My own world. By seeing the world and other people that way I feel like I have become the ultimate arbiter of what is right and what is wrong (for me, exclusively) , because I act within my own convictions, or try as best I can.

Later in the essay he speaks of the the non-existence of adult atheists, asserting instead that we all worship something. Why not let it be empathy and intelligence?

The Essay is called This is Water. Consider the Lobster is also excellent, gave me a whole new lens though which to look at pain, I love essay collections.

 

[a detached retina]

"the non-existence of adult atheists" That is brilliant

I agree that one must try to embrace empathy and intelligence and minimize perceived pain by shifting perspective, but I still submit that sometimes there is no choice.

Here's David Foster Wallace on not having a choice:

Edit: at least not a very good one

"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flame yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don‘t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling." -Infinite Jest

 

[a detached retina]

In terms of stalwartly clinging to abstract moral values in the face of imminent pain.

 

[Claytoe]

I like you.

There is a point when you are stuck with only bad choices, but bad choice is still choice. Choosing how you meet you fate (or in this case WHAT your fate is) I think highlights just how important choice can be. Ultimately we choose the choices that are presented to us yes, but it is also we who make the conditions in which somethings become choices, others become what-ifs and others become impossibilities.

I am unlikely to ever be faced with the choice to rob or not rob a bank because I will never know criminals competent enough to pull off the job or I will never work for a bank or one of the thousand other variants that could make this a viable choice. I could, feasibly still make this choice regardless of context, its just far less likely. The genesis of the choice, long term, is internal. I chose at some point what kinds of friends I wanted, what sorts of jobs I am interested in.

I think you are 100% correct that sometimes a shit sandwich is a shit sandwich and there is not a whole hell of a lot we can change cognitively about that, but I think these events are less common than most people feel.

Additionally I would rather be wrong thinking that I can happen to life than be right thinking the opposite. I know what result the opposite type of thinking has on me; disengagement and apathy for the world/fetishizing knowledge and isolation. Not a good scene.

 

[a detached retina]

Additionally I would rather be wrong thinking that I can happen to life than be right thinking the opposite. I know what result the opposite type of thinking has on me; disengagement and apathy for the world/fetishizing knowledge and isolation. Not a good scene.

Agreed.

I like you.

Agreed.

 

[Yet]

Authority figures do not impress me very much. The figures are very usefull if they are good leaders and extremely irritating if they are bad ones. They are just human pawns. I mean... our species works that way, we're a pack animal thingie (whatever you call that in English).

Same goes for rules. I follow them because I understand their purpose. If I think they are actually contra-productive I tend to brake them (or if I can change them) only if neccesary.

 

[digital angel]

I don't mind rules that make sense. Otherwise, I question it.

Authority alone doesn't impress me. However, intelligence does impress me.

 

[Yet]

intelligence does impress me.

same here digital angel ... I do like to listen to nutty profs who are totally into a subject and did lots of research on it

 

[GYX_Kid]

a good leader with integrity is someone to respect and gain influence from.

a run-of-the-mill sociopathic nut is someone to kick the shit out of for personal narcissistic supply, hoping they don't find some way to win their game of power play and corrupt your life to x degree.

basically like jack sparrow i like to think of a "code" as more like guidelines than actual rules. absolute rule fails to make any sense, nor does it even really exist.

 

[The Gopher]

basically like jack sparrow i like to think of a "code" as more like guidelines than actual rules. absolute rule fails to make any sense.

There is always sometimes a sensible reason for rules but there is always a reason the rule is stupid. Except maybe rules like murder. So I agree mostly.

 

[GYX_Kid]

^ i edited my post, haha

There is always sometimes a sensible reason for rules but there is always a reason the rule is stupid. Except maybe rules like murder. So I agree mostly.

murder...let's see
assassinating destructive dictators who use dishonest foul play is less legal (by the terms of the USA's official code of conduct) and arguably more practical and fair than sending over troops to fight wars [not referring to any specific current event]

 

[Anthile]

For pretty much every rule you can construct a contrived scenario in which said rule is absurd. Just because such scenarios does not mean that the rule itself is invalid. Murder is outlawed in every culture and yet there are exceptions like self-defense or tyrannicide which do allow it. Rules and laws are (ideally) made so the majority benefits from them because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. People don't want to be murdered so we outlawed murder, people don't want to be stolen from so we outlawed stealing, etc. There are always exceptions and it surprises me that a lot of people here have a binary black-and-white view on these things.

 

[BigApplePi]

Where is Blue Dream who took the authority to rule in this thread, promised to return in 4 hours and says nothing?

There is no reason why I need any authority. They tend to make rules unlikely I want to jump to. I don't need no stinkin' authority. Better I wander around and you too all wander around all over the place and do exactly what we want.

But what happens when I need a job? What happens when the invaders come? I want a job. I demand protection. Take care of me. Who is to do that? Just me alone by myself can't seem to handle it. So I turn to someone who can coordinate. Someone who not only can do what I can't do but can get others to do what we can't do alone by our solitaries.

That means we all have to move in the same direction trading our wanderings for marching in a straight line. The problem occurs when the line grows crooked ... when the direction itself starts wandering around.

Authorities are just like us. They wander around. They forget forget our original purpose. But we remember (if we don't forget) and that bugs us. How do we who are one or who are weak remind an authority who represents many or who is nice and strong?

 

[Puffy]

What is authority really?

The majority of human memory likely functions within a collective context; it is why labels, despite how many of us may bemoan them, are appealing: they filter our experience within a collective identity.

If you are a Christian it is often it will not be considered good enough for you to maintain a private relationship to the religion; it is rather encouraged you participate in a Church as by this and participating in the same ritual/ commemorative experiences as the congregation it evokes a collective context. In this scenario is the ritual the authority, is it the pastor and others who maintains it, or is the social identity - the collective context - itself the authority?

Many want to be a part of a collective context whether they profess it or not. This forum is a perfect example really. Many approach MBTI get an INTP description and are apt to define themselves in opposition to a sensor dominant society. But even in the act of escaping a collective social context, for whatever reason, retreating to an MBTI type is participation in a new one; perhaps one, by the nature of a personality description, one identifies their personal experiences with.

Of course this is not everyone I'm sure, I'm just trying to define a pattern. You can't help but notice how many people come to this forum saying "I'm so glad I have finally found others like myself." At least in my experience finding a community whose experiences you identify with is a means of validation, especially if you do not personally identify with others in your waking life.

I'm surprised, over a year into joining this forum, how different so many of us are, yet at the same time how good we seem to be at maintaining a collective identity.

On this forum who is the authority? Is it the "pastors" Jung, or Meyers Briggs, Socionics or Pod'lair who define our collective context? Or is it the members of our "congregation" who in producing threads continue to remind us of what "INTP" qualities - of who we - are? Is "INTP" itself an authority? A series of personality codes interpreted to encapsulate the experiences of your life. It functions a lot like ideology I think.

 

[BigApplePi]

What is authority really?

The majority of human memory likely functions within a collective context; it is why labels, despite how many of us may bemoan them, are appealing: they filter our experience within a collective identity.

If you are a Christian it is often it will not be considered good enough for you to maintain a private relationship to the religion; it is rather encouraged you participate in a Church as by this and participating in the same ritual/ commemorative experiences as the congregation it evokes a collective context. In this scenario is the ritual the authority, is it the pastor and others who maintains it, or is the social identity - the collective context - itself the authority?

Many want to be a part of a collective context whether they profess it or not. This forum is a perfect example really. Many approach MBTI get an INTP description and are apt to define themselves in opposition to a sensor dominant society. But even in the act of escaping a collective social context, for whatever reason, retreating to an MBTI type is participation in a new one; perhaps one, by the nature of a personality description, one identifies their personal experiences with.

Of course this is not everyone I'm sure, I'm just trying to define a pattern. You can't help but notice how many people come to this forum saying "I'm so glad I have finally found others like myself." At least in my experience finding a community whose experiences you identify with is a means of validation, especially if you do not personally identify with others in your waking life.

I'm surprised, over a year into joining this forum, how different so many of us are, yet at the same time how good we seem to be at maintaining a collective identity.

On this forum who is the authority? Is it the "pastors" Jung, or Meyers Briggs, Socionics or Pod'lair who define our collective context? Or is it the members of our "congregation" who in producing threads continue to remind us of what "INTP" qualities - of who we - are? Is "INTP" itself an authority? A series of personality codes interpreted to encapsulate the experiences of your life. It functions a lot like ideology I think.

There is a force for conformity. It gives us an identity producing the strength of many not obtainable alone. Ideology? Well I would like to remember who I am and who I am not lest I be swept up in an error.

 

[Puffy]

There is a force for conformity. It gives us an identity producing the strength of many not obtainable alone. Ideology? Well I would like to remember who I am and who I am not lest I be swept up in an error.

Personally I feel ideology can be something very close to someones self-identity. By comparing MBTI to ideology I mean that they both operate via schemas. The more you come to understand your ideology or personality types the more "black hole-ish" they become, pulling in and providing explanation for more of your observations and life experiences.

I just can't help but notice those that become particularly enthusiastic about typology can't help but seek to define everything about people within its interpretative frameworks. Whether typology encapsulates personality that broadly or not, I don't know.

 

[Trebuchet]

Welcome, Blue Dream. You sound like the sort of thoughtful person that makes things go better.

I react to authority exactly like you do. I pretty much substitute manners for obedience. Littering, interrupting, and making life harder for people are all bad manners. But it doesn't matter to me whether it is an important official, a coworker, or some little kid; they all deserve to be treated decently. If rules keep things moving smoothly, I have no problem with them. Everyone who drives should turn on their headlights at night.

Stupid authorities are a different matter. I had a boss order me to do something illegal once, or I was fired. (Specifically, to use a pirated copy of some inexpensive software. My company made software, so it was doubly shameful.) I used the software and bought a license myself for $15. I kept my job and my integrity, but this did nothing to make me think well of that authority. They wanted me to do other unethical things; I left as soon as I found another job.

"...Maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible." David Foster Wallace

This is really beautiful. I've been trying to do things like this, especially since I want to teach it to my daughter. I strongly suspect she is INTP or INTJ like her parents, and people like us have to work harder at certain skills.

I look in people's eyes. If they look tired, or worried, maybe they are just at their wits' end. Do their clothes imply financial hardship? My daughter (then age 4) once went up to a store clerk and said, "You work too hard." I did not prompt her; in fact I hadn't noticed him. That is a good guess for anyone in such a job, but she couldn't know that. The astonished clerk wondered how she could have guessed that he had two full-time jobs and was near the end of a double shift. I think that made his day.

Certainly I'm not filled with charitable forbearance toward all people. I think I ruined a utility worker's day recently. Oh well.

 

[Blue Dream]

Where is Blue Dream who took the authority to rule in this thread, promised to return in 4 hours and says nothing?

There is no reason why I need any authority. They tend to make rules unlikely I want to jump to. I don't need no stinkin' authority. Better I wander around and you too all wander around all over the place and do exactly what we want.

But what happens when I need a job? What happens when the invaders come? I want a job. I demand protection. Take care of me. Who is to do that? Just me alone by myself can't seem to handle it. So I turn to someone who can coordinate. Someone who not only can do what I can't do but can get others to do what we can't do alone by our solitaries.

That means we all have to move in the same direction trading our wanderings for marching in a straight line. The problem occurs when the line grows crooked ... when the direction itself starts wandering around.

Authorities are just like us. They wander around. They forget forget our original purpose. But we remember (if we don't forget) and that bugs us. How do we who are one or who are weak remind an authority who represents many or who is nice and strong?

If you must know, I've simply been reading the posts as they come. I don't really see the need to add much to this thread because a lot of what everyone is saying already states exactly how I feel

I have been posting other places on this forum, though. I'm slowly integrating myself here, and that process involves a lot more reading than it does writing.

But anyhow, thank you all for the comments, as they have allowed me to better understand that there are at least some people out there who think like me, which is in turn strengthening my ideas. I just don't understand how some people can mindlessly accept the authority and laws that our government has created :\

 

[Cavallier]

I react to authority exactly like you do. I pretty much substitute manners for obedience. Littering, interrupting, and making life harder for people are all bad manners. But it doesn't matter to me whether it is an important official, a coworker, or some little kid; they all deserve to be treated decently. If rules keep things moving smoothly, I have no problem with them. Everyone who drives should turn on their headlights at night.

This is also what I try to do. Mostly I don't give a crap about rules and prefer things to be more fluid and less restrictive but I generally go along with the flow for the sake of everybody else around me.

Lately my boss has been getting very little respect from her employees. None of us have had raises in three years, the job benefits get worse and worse, we've been expected to do more work in less time efficiently, and still follow all the shitty little rules that are pointless time wasters. To top it off we're expected to go "above and beyond" to make those extra sales, get that extra little money out of customers, do that extra little task that makes the customers repeat their business with us. We aren't respected so we don't return respect. I find people in positions of authority often expect respect based purely on their title.

Authority has to at some point inspire a desire in the populace to be obedient. Often it involves some sort of negative aspect in enforcing it though. Even for those who would normally not need negative reinforcement. It goes to far.

 

[Trebuchet]

To top it off we're expected to go "above and beyond" to make those extra sales, get that extra little money out of customers, do that extra little task that makes the customers repeat their business with us.

Yeah, that's the boss who ordered me to use pirated software! I didn't know you worked for her. (And I am very sorry for your plight. Ick.)

 

[Fghw]

Sometimes, I think anarchy's the best option.