132. Authority Is Insidious

If someone imposes an ultimatum on you, you immediately feel annoyed. They are threatening you with a bad outcome in an attempt to force you to do what they want. Even if you want the same thing as they do, you’re frustrated because you believe you could have easily reached an amicable agreement. But now you feel like you’re being coerced.

Every time an authority demands you do something, you are being given an ultimatum. You will comply with the authority because you feel the consequences of noncompliance would be too much to bear. You know you’re being coerced, but you feel there’s no real alternative. If you don’t feel this way, then the authority is not actually an authority. It is you who is the authority, for you agree with it and you would do what you are being told to do anyway.

To reject the authority is to reject the ultimatum. It is to declare that you will make your own choice freely, and that you will not bow to pressure. If you choose to act other than as the authority demands, then you are in rebellion and the authority will impose its consequences on you.

But at no point have you been forced to do anything. You either agree with the authority and do what it wants, or you disagree and you accept the consequences. In both cases, the outcome is your choice. The fact that there will be consequences is nothing other than the nature of a choice.

For there will be consequences even if you choose to accept the authority’s demands. One of these consequences is that you will validate the authority, and by doing so, you will encourage other authorities to impose their ultimatums on you. This happens even if you agree to do what the authority wants for your own reasons.

The problem with authority is that it is insidious. Once it gets started, it keeps appearing, imposing all sorts of obligations on you regardless of your feelings or choices. To rebel openly and regularly is not necessarily a sign of disagreement with the authority’s goals. It is rather a protest again the ultimatums that have been unjustly imposed on you.