We Fear Authority

The psychology of fearing authority is by no means unique to any one person — everyone has it to some degree, and Chinese people seem to suffer from it especially badly. So many matters of judgment and discernment require some “master” to “open a forum” and lecture us, so that we can hear what the master hears and think what the master thinks.

Yesterday Sina Tech published a piece of news: “Are Earthquakes Really Becoming More Frequent?”, which argued that “in recent years seismic activity may be somewhat higher than the long-term average, but it still hasn’t departed from the normal range.” This news item originally appeared on America’s LiveScience website. I have no idea whether it’s accurate or authoritative, but I’m certain that the moment people see the words “American LiveScience,” they feel as though they’ve received sage counsel, and their worries gradually dissolve.

Likewise, some parents see that Lang Lang or Ding Junhui never finished school and instead trained relentlessly to become masters of their craft, and they rush headlong into pulling their own children out of school, forcing them into grueling practice. Yet neither Ding Junhui nor anyone like him ever claimed that dropping out of school is a prerequisite for success. Still, the public is remarkably adept at distilling the life stories of successful people into a formula, and forming an “implicit” pattern of imitation.

This is all the fault of blindly following “masters”! Seen this way, the “leaf” that blocks one’s view in the old saying about a single leaf obscuring the eye is, more often than not, exactly the kind of person who merely appears formidable.