Religion & Violence: Dangers of Religious Authority
Structures of authority may be a necessary precondition for the functioning of human groups, but that doesn?t mean that authority is always used for the good purposes, whether from the perspective of insiders or outsiders. On the contrary, positions and structures of authority are readily given to abuse and easily result in oppression, repression, and even violence.
When a person is perceived as possessing legitimate authority, they may be able to order people to do things they would not otherwise consider doing on their own.
This is especially true of religious authority figures because they claim knowledge of or power over people?s eternal fates, not simply their fate here in this life.
Obedience is built in to the very nature of authority ? if I have authority over you, I can expect that when I make a decision you will go along with that decision regardless of whether I explain it to you and persuade you that it is right. In turn, your acceptance of me as an authority implies that you have already agreed to be persuaded implicitly and won?t demand explanations and reasons.
Once I begin to explain my reasoning process and get you to agree that my conclusion was the proper one, then you have reached your own decision ? when you act, it won?t be because of me enforcing my will over you, nor will it have anything to do with the legitimacy of my power. Therefore, without the presumption of obedience, the legitimacy of authority is effectively nullified.
This presumption of obedience makes it easy for authority to be abused.
Those with the power of authority can issue orders which someone would personally find objectionable. Obedience to authority might be regarded as a virtue or at least a necessity in many cases, so much so that it is allowed to overrides one?s moral qualms. But when the orders serve a malevolent cause, that obedience becomes immoral itself.
The power of authority figures to elicit immoral obedience is unusual in that it is entirely internal to the person doing the obeying. So long as the authority is acknowledged as legitimate, obedience is not achieved through threats or external force; instead, it is achieved through willing cooperation and a desire to help the authority figure to achieve his or her goals. Those conditioned to obey do not ask whether orders are moral or immoral, nor if they are rational or irrational.
All that concerns them is whether they are doing a good job or not ? whether they are adequately fulfilling the expectations that the authority figure has for them. They no longer assume personal responsibility for their actions, even if they are personally horrified by them. Instead, the authority himself is responsible while the other person becomes a mere tool or instrument.
Of course, the psychological power of obedience is in turn dependent upon particular social conditions. People are made more willing to obey when they are conditioned to do so by the society around them. People are also made more willing to obey cruel and violent orders when their society conditions them to, or at least desensitizes them to the nature of cruelty.
The same is naturally true of religious communities as well ? they can socialize people to question and doubt or they can socialize people to rely upon blind and even fanatical faith in the legitimacy of religious leaders, whatever orders they might issue. James Waller, in his book Becoming Evil, describes a number of factors which aid in this. They include ritual conduct, diffusion of responsibility, conformity to peer pressure, and escalating commitments. All of these can occur in both religious and secular contexts.
When a person is perceived as possessing legitimate authority, they may be able to order people to do things they would not otherwise consider doing on their own.
This is especially true of religious authority figures because they claim knowledge of or power over people?s eternal fates, not simply their fate here in this life.
Obedience is built in to the very nature of authority ? if I have authority over you, I can expect that when I make a decision you will go along with that decision regardless of whether I explain it to you and persuade you that it is right. In turn, your acceptance of me as an authority implies that you have already agreed to be persuaded implicitly and won?t demand explanations and reasons.
Once I begin to explain my reasoning process and get you to agree that my conclusion was the proper one, then you have reached your own decision ? when you act, it won?t be because of me enforcing my will over you, nor will it have anything to do with the legitimacy of my power. Therefore, without the presumption of obedience, the legitimacy of authority is effectively nullified.
This presumption of obedience makes it easy for authority to be abused.
Those with the power of authority can issue orders which someone would personally find objectionable. Obedience to authority might be regarded as a virtue or at least a necessity in many cases, so much so that it is allowed to overrides one?s moral qualms. But when the orders serve a malevolent cause, that obedience becomes immoral itself.
The power of authority figures to elicit immoral obedience is unusual in that it is entirely internal to the person doing the obeying. So long as the authority is acknowledged as legitimate, obedience is not achieved through threats or external force; instead, it is achieved through willing cooperation and a desire to help the authority figure to achieve his or her goals. Those conditioned to obey do not ask whether orders are moral or immoral, nor if they are rational or irrational.
All that concerns them is whether they are doing a good job or not ? whether they are adequately fulfilling the expectations that the authority figure has for them. They no longer assume personal responsibility for their actions, even if they are personally horrified by them. Instead, the authority himself is responsible while the other person becomes a mere tool or instrument.
Of course, the psychological power of obedience is in turn dependent upon particular social conditions. People are made more willing to obey when they are conditioned to do so by the society around them. People are also made more willing to obey cruel and violent orders when their society conditions them to, or at least desensitizes them to the nature of cruelty.
The same is naturally true of religious communities as well ? they can socialize people to question and doubt or they can socialize people to rely upon blind and even fanatical faith in the legitimacy of religious leaders, whatever orders they might issue. James Waller, in his book Becoming Evil, describes a number of factors which aid in this. They include ritual conduct, diffusion of responsibility, conformity to peer pressure, and escalating commitments. All of these can occur in both religious and secular contexts.