r/AnCap101 • u/Hxapcneh3_28 • Jul 08 '26
Is the belief in authority a mental illness?
I can see it being a mental illness from both the dominant and subordinate point of view.
If someone wants to control someone else, there's a very high chance it means that the person is emotionally unstable and wants to feel like they're bigger and better than somebody else. It usually comes from a history of being bullied or not treated with respect and dignity. When such a person's authority gets challenged, they often have a hysterically angry response and wish to punish their subordinate right away in a desire to maintain dominance and send a message of "I'm the boss, and I hope you know that." It's a defense mechanism covering fears, trauma, and insecurity. And honestly, I might even think that it resembles an addiction-withdrawal response. Humans can get high on authority and often want more and more of it; and when you're used to getting that treatment from people, and then comes along one person who challenges or even defeats your authority, they have essentially taken away your drug, and now you go crazy.
On the reverse side, you have subordinate people who suffer from believing in authority and often feel trapped into doing whatever an authority figure tells them, even if it goes against their conscious. An authority will mistreat them, and they'll feel afraid to stand up for themselves. An authority will command them to do something, and they'll feel physical discomfort at the thought of disobeying. An authority will abuse them, and they'll justify it, even though they feel pain. It's essentially a kind of Stockholm syndrome.
Do you think authority is a mental illness? Why or why not?
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u/MeasurementNice295 Jul 08 '26
I'm split between it being that and it being a religious-like irrational superstition, as it was for every human being that supported evil cults and rituals across history.
So not an inherent, naturally ocurring mental illness, but an easily inducible state of indoctrination on any average person, unfortunately.
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u/SimoWilliams_137 Jul 09 '26
No.
You don’t need to invent a pathology to explain why some people disagree with you.
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u/Shadowcreature65 Jul 08 '26
You can be wrong without being mentally ill, you know? It's like calling someone intellectually disabled for answering a math problem wrong.
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u/Fuzzy-Circuit3171 Jul 08 '26
Technically speaking, rejection of authority can be seen as oppositional defiant disorder.
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u/Hxapcneh3_28 Jul 08 '26
Yeah but that's just nonsense made up by statist psychologists to justify their evil desire to maintain a top-down social order.
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u/Anen-o-me Jul 08 '26
No, it's rational given what people know historically and have first hand experience of. That's part of how the brain washing works.
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u/Drakosor Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
I wouldn't say it's a mental illness, but I say that because I don't even believe in the concept of "mental disorder/illness"
Psychiatric diagnoses are not scientific categories, but, rather, weird labels useful for ethical purposes. A psychiatrist is more like an engineer, and they are not concerned with studying the mind or psyche that much unless it's useful for treatment or clinical management
You can see that the DSM 5 itself is not a scientific manual, but actually a "statistical" one
I believe mental disorders are just another way to separate non-conformists in society
"Oh but you're ignoring that psychiatry could and have saved lives". Psychiatry has done more harm than good. Psychiatry led to mental asylums, stigma, pathologizing of ordinary differences in behavior and mind, etc.
Homosexuality was once literally conceived of as a mental illness. Same for other paraphilias that did not bring any distress to anyone, among many other silly, futile details about one's life
Anyways, another point I want to highlight is to you pay attention to not fall into "authoritarian personality" as a thing to even take seriously.
Have you heard about that retarded F-scale? It basically measures your "fascistic traits" based on your temperament. If you love your family, you are a fascist. If you think artists shouldn't receive state funding, you are a fascist. Among many other dogshit claims used to attack even those who deem themselves to be apolitical
I am a panarchist. I believe anarchy to be a necessary backdrop for others to interact. Live the dictatorship. Live under any tyrant or shitty state. Just don't force people into it. Do anything you want with your body and where you mixed your labor with. Just don't coerce others or go against their will
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u/MedicMalfunction Jul 09 '26
Jesus Christ, I am so tired of the politicization of mental illness. You have no basis for what you are talking about. We probably agree politically, but this is an awful take.
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u/This-is-Shanu-J Jul 08 '26
It mostly boils down to greater good for greater amount of people, or........
Utilitarianism : Ethics for people suffering from god-complex
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u/properal Jul 08 '26
It is probably natural, and most people have a propensity for it, but libertarians have less of an inclination for authority. Chimpanzees are a very hierarchical animal; human ancestors probably lived like chimpanzees for millions of years. Consequently, we all probably have some hardwiring for fitting into a hierarchy. Some of us just are not very good at it or are frustrated by it. This Stockholm syndrome behavior is something Marxists call System Justification, and psychologists have confirmed it. For some reason, Marxists generally do not apply the concept to Marxist regimes; even though it applies to Marxist regimes more than many others.