Disobedience Essay

As a child, disobedience becomes an important part of our learning experience. We are frequently reminded of what is good and what is bad. We learn to continue doing what is accepted, and change what is frowned upon. In The Individual in the Chains of Illusion, Fromm tells why disobedience should be accepted rather than obedience. He believes obedience will be the cause of the human race ending. But how could being obedient ruin our society? “If the capacity for disobedience constituted the beginning of human history, obedience might cause the end of human history.” (The Individual, 332) Fromm says here that he believes that obedience can cause the end of human history. Although obedience has been passed down from our parents and from our

Our government is acknowledging the fact that they can easily control our minds by teaching us disobedience is anything we do that goes against what they want us to do. Since our parents have taught us as a child that we can not disobey the rules they lay out in front of us, society is manipulating this thought process so they can control the things we do and the way we act. Religion is an easy way to manipulate and control our society. People have realized this since the B.C.E time periods, when The Caste System was widely popular, religion was used to control their people. Hinduism became popular because it gave people hope, it made them believe that if they obeyed every rule presented before them, the gods would recognize and reward them with a higher life in their following life. This kept their people in their place so they did not rebel or disobey what society wanted them to do. “If mankind commits suicide, it will be because people will obey those who command them to push the deadly buttons,, because they will obey the archaic passions of fear, hate, and greed; because they will obey obsolete cliches of state sovereignty and national honor.” (The Individual,

“ Yet I believe that we are in great danger of being converted into complete organization men, and that means, eventually, into political totalitarianism, unless we regain the the capacity to be disobedient and to learn how to doubt.” (The Individual, 333). The world is slowly working towards full control, with obeying every rule presented to us, we are allowing them to follow through with that plan. If we started disobeying how society is asking us to live, we will learn more about what the world is offering. If we allow ourselves to be controlled, The Caste system could come back into place, and instead of advancing in our society, we would backtracking. We would be placed back into classes so we are not offered the same as some of the upper classes. This would easily destroy the human race and cause far more damage than