Obeying Authority

Human beings are all born with free will and the ability to choose for ourselves which actions to undertake, however this ability has been modified over time as we are trained to obey figures who we perceive to have authority over us. This process begins in childhood when our first understood authority figures, namely our parents, inform us about what behaviors are appropriate within a given social context and which behaviors are inappropriate. We are trained to understand that behavior is contextualized by the social setting, by the characteristics of the population around us, and by our own the rules and regulations of the society as a whole. The way we are taught to behave is wholly dependent on our perceived authority figures. If there is an individual or group that we believe to have authority over us, then we internalize their orders and their versions of acceptable...
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