Respect my Authority!
I have always had a disrespect for authority figures whom I perceive to be less intelligent than me, especially in school, when completely illogical polices would be set by teachers who's arguments tended to be "don't talk back to me!" Wow, what an engaging environmen for young minds! The classic example of this was the banning of cards in sixth form. See, they decided that free periods wre to be our own, and while they encouraged us to study, it was not compulsory, and many people would sit around talking quietly. This was fine, but as soon as someone got a pack of cards out, this was apparently wrong. There was absolutely no rational justification for this, and in response, on the last day we filled the teacher most vigiliant in this policy's office with cards.... Ah glorious day!Anyway, I have a serious point behind this, and it is the tendency for certain people to be immune to critisism. These include teachers, but also doctors and the police too. There appears to be a taboo in politics to actually pointing out that, while the job all people are doing is noble, this does not actually make the people noble. Power corrupts, as the cliche goes, and mistakes can be made by anyone. This is critical in understanding why eroding civil liberties are a bad thing. Yes, in a perfect world where we not only had a perfectly incorruptible police force, but also a police force incapable of making mistakes, then eroding these liberties would be fine. After all, they would never be wrong, so anyone they suspected of being guilty, would be. Sadly (or perhaps not), we do not live in a world of perfection , and the liberties granted to the average citizen are there to protect them from abuse of power, which is SO easy to do. For crying out loud, here in the UK we have the example of two innocent people being shot, one killed, because they were suspected of terrorism erroneously. As far as I know, no-one has been disciplined over this. No-one. For the death by shooting of someone.
This, incidentally, ties into a certain tendency, certainly by the right wing, to talk about red tape, and how it gets in the way of police/teachers/doctors/nurses doing their job. Often, however, this paper work exists to try and protect against mistakes or abuses of power by said proffesionals. I am no claiming that all of it is necessary, merely that it is not necessarily the great evil some claim it to be.
I am fairly sure that most people have experienced, or know someone who have experienced, an abuse of power, or a serious mistake, by every one of these professionals.... so why is there a blindness to this? Well, firstly because no doubt the majority of these proffesionals are trying to do the right thing, even if failing, but also because they all do essential tasks. I do not mean to minimise either of these, but I do think it is easy to forget that these people are human, just like the rest of us, and that must be taken into account.
posted by Mr K @ 11:27 pm
2 Comments:
Part of the problem is that society demands perfection from these professions. We want them to be infallible because lives depend on their decisions. Therefore, having a doctor or engineer stand up and say "I made a mistake and someone died or may die" will often result in that person being disgraced and run out of the profession, even if it was an honest mistake and the person actually is competent. Thus, professionals are encouraged to hide their mistakes. It's definitely a real balancing act to have professionals that are willing to admit to their mistakes and still retain the public's confidence. I think that there needs to be more education of the public with regards to the fact that these professionals are human. Of course I'm discussing people who are competent. Unfortunately, their will always be professionals who are incompetent and try to hide their mistakes behind their authority.
Thats an excellent point, and something that certainly extends to politics also- politicians on a whole are encouraged to embrace machismo- they rarely refuse they are wrong, and do not back down on their choices.
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