How do you react to authority (being controlled)?

[Ken S.]

I've always hated being TOLD what to do. My (ex) would try to tell me when to go to bed and then I'd use toothpicks to hold my eyes open if I needed to. You can ask or request and I'll do it probably, but to tell me or order me I can't do it. Funny, I was wondering myself if this was a control thing that everyone has or if there's some reason for it pertaining to the spectrum.

My wife is still that way knowing what I will say. Also there are two little words in the English language that when reversed make all the difference in attitude towards the person that spoke them. Will you/You will.

 

[Gracey]

If I understand the bigger picture or why, then not really, no.


When waiting on once, my boss said “Go and check the toilets”

I asked “what for?”

He thought I had attitude.

(What was I supposed to be looking for in the toilets?)

it turned out I was supposed to be checking they were clean and enough loo roll etc.

I know that now, but didn’t at the time.
I understood it to be the job of the cleaner he employed to deal with all things toilet,
not the waitresses.

Who knew.


When serving, during training, as a consequence of a mistake I made I was told to clean out and polish the inside of a metal, industrial, 6ft tall kitchen waste bin.

I understood that order (and why)
Doubled away and got it done.

 

[NecroCurator]

People often look around at the authority they see in their lives, and think they dislike authority in general. This has it's reasons, as authority in our current society and the way it is currently dealt with, is indeed humongous garbage.

That being said, I've had my fair share of acting in "non-authoritarian" groups. Trust me, you don't want that. I mean, no one wants that, but autists so much less as doing things properly in that environment means constant social life with absolutely no breaks whatsoever. As no one is in official charge, literally every small thing has to go through a touchy-feely meeting where everyone agrees that, yes, the fridge should indeed be repaired. Not doing this raises an immediate fracture in the group, as a person is seeing as having taken authority upon him/herself.

Putting someone in authority is not just objectively much better way of organizing things, but it also let's people concentrate on their own task and what they are good at. I am best at our town in driving a mobile library, but had I not been given an official authority over all things mobile library, every individual would be bothering me with their equal-in-jurisdiction-not-so-much-in-merit thoughts. It's also wonderful the other way around. I love the feeling of not having to go through endless meetings on fireman salaries or what buns we should bake at our next meeting. My god, just remembering the horror of non-authoritarian groups makes me fill with joy about not being part of one anymore.

The thing I hate about lack of official authority, is that even when all responsibility is divided equally, it still doesn't mean that power is. Every pathetic little clique has their leaders with actual social power. There is just no matter how unofficial and non-authoritarian the gathering is and on how pointless a topic, someone arrived at the gathering knowing more things and more people than the rest of participants. When a gathering takes place, even a relative noob can tell beforehand what, broadly speaking, will be decided. You can take just outright anarchists, and their scene is built so much on (unofficial) leadership, that if you convince the three top anarchists of finland on some specific oppinion, the rest will follow suit. Now, this much cannot be avoided, but the real bummer comes when you try to make these leaders take responsibility over their actions. They have no official position, so no official position can be taken away from them. Officially they don't even make decisions, since every decision is run through the touchy-feely process of "what I think we should do, is basically what we all think we should do, right?" With false collective agreement comes false collective responsibility. I want there to be an official leader, so that when he (and it's always he, isn't he) inevitably ruins everything, I can say that it is indeed he and not "us" who ruined everything.

Giving someone official authority is also an opportunity. Since dividing power is hard, granting that powerholder an official status makes it possible to also establish official limits to that power. If no one really admits openly that George pulls all the strings at our anime-club, then putting a leash on George's use of power is really hard. But if we openly declare that George is the president of the club, then that official declaration can be paired with definitions about what George can or can not do as president.

Are our current leaders just pure cancer? Yes. But it's not because they are leaders. It's just that they are such utterly poor leaders, that we can no longer even remember what it felt like to be part of a real good organization with a good leader. A few participations at non-authoritarian organizations will teach you as much.

So yeah. I'm for authority.