My husband and I always said we wanted to raise our children to question authority. This, I have found, is not a popular notion among parents, and I can see why: as parenting techniques go, it's a real pain in the ass. But I think it's worth it, and here's why:
There was a long piece on NPR today about the Stanford Prison Experiment which took place in the late 1960s. In it, Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo recruited about 24 college-aged young men, divided them into prisoners and a few guards, and meticulously recreated the prison experience--shaving the prisoners' heads, "delousing" them, subjecting them to prisoner counts at all hours, forcing them to do push-ups for alleged "behavior infractions," and so on. The "prisoners"--all paid volunteers--immersed themselves in their new environment; after a day or so of nervously kidding around, they started to act like real prisoners. They even began identifying themselves by their assigned number instead of their names. The "guards," meanwhile, also threw themselves in their roles--becoming increasingly authoritarian, coercive and--when a few of the prisoners staged a short-lived rebellion--resorting to sexual humiliation to keep the prisoners in line. Even the researcher, Zimbardo, became so invested in his experiment that, by his own admission, he began thinking like a prison warden instead of a psychologist. The experiment ended only when his then-girlfriend (now wife) saw the experiment on its fifth day and demanded that it stop.
The study, which is famous in academic circles, has come up in the news lately because of the prison abuse scandals now emerging out of the war in Iraq--the secret CIA prisons in countries that use torture, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib. The experiment shows us clearly how easily most of us can come to participate in something deeply immoral just because....well, because someone tells us to. Context is everything. Put ordinary people in a hermetically sealed world where they are humiliated and dehumanized, and they are apt to quickly lose their ability to fight back; put ordinary people in that same environment in positions of authority and unless someone holds them in check, many will venture past the bounds of decency. It always starts small; it ends only when someone steps in and says, "Enough."
But who are those people? My theory is that they are people who have a strong internal moral compass that points to True North (however you define that, in spiritual or ethical terms), and which is not affected by their immediate surroundings. How do you instill that? I'm not sure. But I think that learning to question authority--not defy it, mind you, just think about what it's telling you to do--is a vital first step.
This is not something we can expect schools to teach. Public schools, especially, are there to teach kids to abide by the rules; otherwise, there'd be mayhem. And mostly, I think, this is okay--though public education seems to attract its share of Nurse Ratcheds (and if you don't catch that reference, go rent One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). It pays to be on the lookout for them.
In fact, it pays to be on the lookout for them everywhere. This is why I encourage my kids to ask questions about things they're told to do, and I tell them when I think school assignments are dumb (note to teachers: Science Fair is THE most effective way to suck all the joy out of science). With a five-year-old and nine-year-old who are quick learners on this point, I have to admit there are days when I question myself. ("Why do you want me to sweep the porch?" "Why should I clean the catbox?") There are times when I resort to the old tried and true "Because I said so" or--more ominously--I start describing that great big can of whup-ass I am about to open if they don't hop to it. But on the whole, I'm willing to put up with a little lip if it means I can raise kids who may someday, heaven help us, say "no" to some Big Cahuna who tells them to do something vile.