Obedience: Why Do We Allow Others to Control Us?

Imagine sitting on a park bench on a sunny but cool spring day, enjoying the morning sun. Your eyes are closed, and you feel the warmth of the sunlight spreading through your body. You’re happy and content, your mind drifting into pleasant daydreams. Suddenly, a shadow falls over you. You feel cold, open your eyes, and see a man blocking your sunlight. He’s wearing a stylish, but not businesslike, suit and tie—handsome, relaxed, with graying temples. You smile and say, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” he replies, but doesn’t move.

His face is turned toward you against the sun, so you can’t make out his features. “He probably doesn’t realize he’s blocking the sunlight,” you think to yourself.

“Excuse me, but you’re blocking my light.”

“I know,” he replies.

You’re puzzled and decide to look at him more closely. He seems polite but serious, and doesn’t appear to want to provoke you. He shifts his stance and again blocks your light. Your confusion grows.

“Why is he doing this?” you wonder. You assume he must have a good reason, and that you’re missing the point. You don’t want to offend this pleasant man. You don’t want any trouble. He seems friendly, but you’re a little scared. There must be some mistake. You close your eyes again, but irritation starts to build. After a few seconds, trying to stay calm, you ask:

“Why are you blocking my light?”

The man answers seriously, “I’m glad you asked. What I’m doing is very important. In fact, I’m sorry, but I have to do something else to you as well.”

He steps closer and presses his heel onto your foot. You’re shocked; surely he’s mistaken you for someone else. He couldn’t have stepped on your foot on purpose.

Suppressing a groan, you shout, “You’re standing on my foot!”

“Yes, I know,” he replies.

“But why?” you ask again, trying in vain to hide your irritation.

He answers, completely serious, “It may be hard to believe, but the reason I’m standing on your foot is too complicated for you to understand. All I can say is that it’s crucial for the safety and economic prosperity of the country. If we’re forbidden to do this, the country will descend into chaos and terror. Trust me, you won’t regret letting me continue without resistance. Everyone else does, and we can’t let you undermine our efforts to protect our national interests.”

The man looks both serious and menacing. You consider yourself a good citizen, but you’re inexperienced and not well-versed in politics. You suppress the urge to ask questions, afraid to reveal your ignorance. This man seems educated. Judging by his manners and clothes, he’s probably a successful businessman or a university professor. He senses your lack of resistance and is clearly pleased: “You’re a good person; your parents must be proud. Not a troublemaker. Your children will be proud of you.”

You start to get used to the pain. Looking around, you see many others in the same situation. Everywhere, men in suits are standing on people’s feet. Everyone is smiling or trying to. Things aren’t so bad. You feel better, knowing you’re doing the right thing and not making a scene: you’ve earned this man’s respect and feel ready to help, a law-abiding, cooperative citizen.

In the distance, you see a few people trying to resist. They push away the friendly gentlemen standing on their feet and run down the street, shouting, “Get off our feet!” Why won’t they cooperate? How dare they endanger the safety and future of our country? You feel relieved as you see a line of police officers approaching, stopping the demonstration and arresting those who refuse to disperse peacefully. Justice prevails.

The stranger steps aside, no longer blocking your sun. You lean back on the bench, close your eyes, and focus on the warmth and the birdsong. You barely feel the pain in your foot anymore. You start to drift off and dream you’re running through a meadow, wings growing from your feet. You’re completely free—you can even fly. But then you suddenly wake up and realize it was just a dream. You’re sitting on a park bench, no one is standing on your foot; it’s just your new shoes pinching a little.

The Meaning of This Allegory

The purpose of this allegory is to clarify how we allow and justify subtle power plays over us. We don’t protest the discomforts caused by those in power. We rarely ask for reasons for what we’re forced to endure. When we see others complying, we assume our objections are unfounded. We forget our feelings and fears. We believe obvious lies. We disapprove of those who protest. In short, we become obedient. When we doubt, we doubt ourselves. If we don’t understand something, we decide it’s our own stupidity. If we don’t want to do something, we think we’re just lazy. If we’re too tired to resist those who oppress us, we believe we’re simply too weak.

To challenge, question, and doubt authority, to refuse to comply, to openly criticize others’ actions, and to defend our rights—all this takes more strength and skill than most of us have. We don’t want to risk what we have by angering those in power. Being stubborn and uncooperative is hard and risky. So we silently agree and “cooperate,” which in reality means we submit.

The first step to gaining power without playing power games to control others is to learn to be disobedient. You are a free person, and this freedom is a source of power—if you use it. Yet you spend most of your life being manipulated and oppressed by others. Refusing to submit to control that goes against your will and understanding releases your own power, allowing you to use it for your own good.

Obedience as a Learned Trait

Obedience is a quality instilled in many of us by our parents, schools, and childhood institutions. We’re taught to do as we’re told without too many questions, since we’re “just children.” Obedience means not asking obvious questions, not expressing what we want, not showing anger, sadness, or other feelings when we have them, not insisting on or defending our rights, smiling when we’re sad, and generally accepting everything as it is without protest. We’re so used to thinking of obedience as a virtue that the very idea of encouraging disobedience seems wrong or even dangerous. Yet civil disobedience is a centuries-old tradition, part of every significant historical movement.

Disobedience isn’t necessarily rebellious or violent, though it can be, and sometimes must be. Here, we’re talking mainly about disobedience that comes from self-respect and a firm resolve to be kind but demanding—with ourselves and others—not to accept what we disagree with, and to keep asking “Why?” until we get a satisfactory answer.

Obedience and the Critical Parent

Why are some people strongly inclined to obey authority, while others are not? Is it a matter of willpower? Are some people just born weak and others strong? Or do we learn to be strong or weak from our parents? What causes the significant differences in people’s characters that determine whether they’ll tolerate domination or resist it?

To answer this, it helps to have some basic knowledge of transactional analysis. As you may know, transactional analysis views human behavior as divided into three distinct “ego states”: Parent, Adult, and Child. These ego states represent three different behavioral options available to any normal person.

• The Parent ego state tells people what’s right and wrong, and what should be done. The Parent can be nurturing, caring, and protective, or critical and intrusive, controlling others through power games and harshness.
• The Adult thinks and acts rationally, making optimal decisions without emotion and according to logic.
• The Child includes the spontaneous and emotional, childlike aspects of personality.

The Parent ego state can appear as either the Nurturing Parent or the Critical Parent. The Child can be either the Adapted Child, influenced by the Critical Parent, or the Natural Child, encouraged and supported by the Nurturing Parent.

The main function of the Critical Parent is to control people. This is the source of power games and abuses of authority that restrict others’ freedom, which we all experience. This behavior is ingrained in most of us from birth and is either encouraged or suppressed by those around us, especially parents and teachers. Both forms of the Parent—Nurturing and Critical—have their own biases. The Critical Parent’s biases are against the Child, while the Nurturing Parent’s are in the Child’s favor. In the Critical Parent ego state, people use their power to control others. On the other hand, when people act from the Nurturing Parent ego state, they use their power to support and protect.

The Critical Parent is the controlling ego state of our personality. But it controls not only others, but ourselves as well. Autonomy, disobedience, and ultimately freedom are determined by how little we’re influenced by the Critical Parent—both external and internal. This means not using the Critical Parent—our capacity for control—against ourselves, and not letting others use it against us. Autonomy also frees us from the need to control others to satisfy our own needs and desires.

How the Critical Parent Works

The Critical Parent is a set of internalized, critical, and controlling viewpoints. It’s a pervasive problem in human lives, known by many names: harsh superego, catastrophic expectations, negativity, low self-esteem, Critical Parent, cognitive traps. The Critical Parent is present in everyone’s life, but the degree to which it functions varies greatly between people.

The Critical Parent ego state works in two ways. Externally, when we use it toward others, it shows up as power games, like when we force people to do what we want. Internally, it appears as our “inner voice.”

Speaking “in our head,” the Critical Parent keeps us from doing what we might otherwise do, threatening us with consequences if we disobey.

At its core, the message of the Critical Parent is: “You’re not good enough,” specifically:

• “You’re bad” (sinful, lazy, evil, etc.).
• “You’re unattractive” (your face, body, etc.).
• “You’re abnormal” (mentally, emotionally, irrational, out of control, etc.).
• “You’re stupid” (mentally deficient, unable to think clearly, etc.).
• “You’re doomed” (sick, hopeless, self-destructive, etc.).
• “You won’t be loved.”

There are selfish behaviors considered immoral, like lying, stealing, and violence. We avoid these because of our moral principles. There are also foolish actions we avoid because they’re pointless or harmful, like drunk driving, overeating, or going out in the cold without warm clothes.

But there are also actions that are neither selfish nor foolish, yet we still don’t do them because our Critical Parent forbids it. We feel ashamed, afraid, or just don’t want to get involved. The Critical Parent justifies its prohibitions with moral and rational arguments. In reality, the rules set by the Critical Parent come from respect for established authority. It keeps us obedient by threatening that if we don’t comply, we’ll be cast out and left to die alone, unloved. This ancient threat, rooted in primitive times, strikes fear into almost everyone’s heart.

The Critical Parent keeps us obedient and submissive to authority by making us feel we’re not good enough, so any beliefs or feelings we have are suspect unless approved by those in power over us.

For some, the Critical Parent is a persistent, nagging voice, telling them exactly how they’re not good enough. The voice can sound reasonable, impressive, and calm, making us doubt any important decision we make. It can be fatherly, authoritarian, moralistic, threatening us with all the torments of hell.

Most of us hear voices in our heads telling us what’s wrong with us and our actions. If people lie to us and we want to challenge them, the Critical Parent tells us we have no right to ask such bold questions. If someone tries to intimidate us, the Critical Parent says we’re weak and can’t stand up for ourselves, and that whatever we do, we’ll fail. If someone tries to take what’s ours, the Critical Parent insists we don’t deserve it, didn’t work hard enough, and wouldn’t keep it anyway. If someone tries to overwhelm us with eloquence and empty arguments, the Critical Parent says we’re too arrogant, uneducated, unread, and simply too ignorant to defend our point of view.

Not everyone is equally aware of what the Critical Parent is telling them. Some hear its words as clearly as if they were recorded and played back in their heads. Others experience the Critical Parent as a vague sense of dread, a fear of death that makes them submit, give up power, or play dead. The Critical Parent can haunt us as physical pain and illness, nightmares, or cold-sweat panic attacks. Whether it’s clear verbal messages or inexplicable feelings of terror and despair, the Critical Parent saps our strength to resist and makes us submit to those who abuse their power.

No matter what form the Critical Parent takes, how long it’s ruled us in the past, or how insurmountable its power seems, we can challenge it. The Critical Parent continues to function only as long as we tolerate it and accept it as a legitimate part of our inner world. To defeat it, we must recognize that its commands are baseless, and that the real source of these words is other people—we’ve internalized them and now listen to them. As long as we listen, believe, and follow its instructions, the Critical Parent will have power over us. That’s why it’s important to recognize the Critical Parent in ourselves and others, and actively resist it. The strength of our Critical Parent depends largely on whether we feel empowered or powerless in our daily lives.