The Authoritarian Model: Cultivating Helplessness

This is the reason we have to wake up.

Authoritarian organisations – be it politics, media or religion – foster learned helplessness. We want change, but change never comes. We don’t realise that we’ve been switched off by a confusion of words.

If politicians, media and gurus treat us like four-year-olds, we then act like four-year-olds by being drawn into their narrative.

When people are programmed to think that “Truth is impossible to find” and “Everyone is corrupt anyway”, we become cynical and passive, and feel entirely powerless to change anything as the majority has become followers and repeaters.

The only way to break this cycle of existence is to question the source of our assumptions. Why do I believe this? Who benefits if I believe that? What are they trying to distract me from?

Once we realise that our focus has been drawn by an external source, we start to think for ourselves because we realise that our internal narrative is being managed. We stop looking for truth out there within the options of a system, and start looking within our constructed self.

Systems, like AI (artificial intelligence) may have all the right words, but there’s no direct experience of wisdom, empathy and compassion.