The one with obedience

Personality, which could be the most essential feature or quality of a person, as a combination of emotions, feelings, attitudes and behaviors, depends on people's cultural and educational background greatly. Interestingly, personality can be also used as national personality to describe the common or typical characteristics of entire people from a country or culture, such as tenacious for Japanese, precise for Germany and independent and realistic for Americans. According to most people's impression, modesty and cautiousness could be the national personalities of Chinese people; however, obedience is actually another essence of Chinese people’s ideology and philosophy. Chinese people tend to and are used to obeying not only rules or codes but also rulers or any people who are powerful than them. This has rooted in Chinese people’s souls. Moreover, especially in ancient China, this was considered as an unalterable principle in most Chinese people's mind. Although the phenomenon is obvious, the reasons are complicated. Summarizing them briefly, the most possible reason could be philosophical.

Researching the history of ancient China, a very interesting fact that the core of Chinese philosophy is obedience will be found in many historical references. According to the theory of Confucius, Sky and Land, Monarch and Minister, Father and Son are three pairs of essential conceptions of the Confucianism and the relationships between each pair would be unconditional obedience, which means the latters of these three pairs must obey the formers absolutely. Furthermore, the any kind of behaviors of resisting or disobeying can be considered as treason or unfilialness, which will be judged by law or family discipline. Even if a father killed his son for reason of unfilialness, he would be innocent according to the law at that time. The obedience principle of the Confucianism embodies the demand of ruling and administrating in feudal society, and it is good for the national stability. For example, since Sky rules Land in the Confucianism, people must obey the conditions of climate to do agricultural production. For another example, in a typical ancient Chinese family, the grandfather is the dominator who gives orders; his son, the father, is the executive who obey these order and he will be the next dominator after the grandfather die; the son of the third generation is the one ruled. Unfortunately, women cannot participate in the family events’ decision-making; they are just involved in household duties. Predictably, a boy growing up in such a family will be definitely a loyal who respects and supports his monarch when he becomes a member of the empire.

Thousands years later, this principle of obedience was pinned in the personality of Chinese people. Even nowadays, we can still see some phenomenon of blindly obedience occurring in many situations. At schools, students must obey the rules of school. Moreover they must obey their teachers, even if the orders given by the teachers are not according to the school rules. 15 years ago, when I was an elemental school student, I used to be asked to do some garden works in my teacher’s yard after school when I did not do well during the school days. Although I knew clearly that there was not such a rule in my school that gardening was used as a punishment and I also knew clearly I would not get any payment or tip, I still performed my services on and off until I graduated. Ironically, my teacher tried to persuade me to keep the job as my part work when she finally found that I was the best gardener among those students after my graduation. It is really amazing that I remembered such a tiny little thing that should have been forgotten since forever after I read Stanley Milgram’s article about obedience. I tried to ask myself, ‘Why? Why I still did that even if I knew it is not a rule? It is just a personal order from my teacher.’ Then I thought about it and gave the answer--- because she is my teacher and she is powerful. This kind of power is not given by school or education bureau. According to the definition of this profession, they cannot control students after school. However, in China, teachers are offered more powerful authority so as to not only dominate in classroom but also control students after they go home. Surprisingly, the givers of this superpower are not others---just the students and parents. Every morning before I went to school, my mom always reminded me: ‘Don’t naughty! Listen to your teacher!’ Every time when my mom visited my teacher, she always said: ‘If he don’t listen to you, you can punish him at once and don’t wait to tell me.’ Thus, my teacher can totally handle with me and I also did not dare to resist. When I told my the weeding things of my teacher’s backyard, my mom told me ‘Just do it. It is good for you.’ Then I obeyed. Since my mom thought I should obey my teacher because it is good for me and I thought I must obey my mom because she is my mom, I followed the Chinese people’s obedience principle subtly and brought it into my further study experience, life and career in future.

I did not realize it until I read the paper. Obviously, I have been used to obeying. However, I don’t want to change it totally after I realize it. Obedience is not that terrible and it could also be moral excellence. In some meaning, obedience means tolerance. When I think through my life used to be, I know that I might obey too much or silence too much---sometimes, I should; sometimes, I shouldn’t. The rethinking about the obedience thing illuminates me and offers me more options. Maybe I should ask myself first when I face the situation of obedience.