Priests & Pedophilia: What Authoritarian
Religion, Families & Schools Have Wrought

From AlterNet:

If we are willing to ask the deeper question: What is it about hierarchical orthodox religions which is so conducive to abuse?” We have expert guidance in solving that mystery.

We have help from Louis Althusser, one of France’s great philosophers. Althusser discovered subtle forms of influence that keep people subordinated to unjust authority. They influence people even more deeply than the police, the law, and the army. They inspire people to discipline themselves from the inside, as if their subordination is the way things have to be. The serfs in medieval Europe toiled for the Lord of the manor because they deeply believed that toiling for the Lord was their ordained, God impelled destiny. People obey their parents and their church or temple because they learn to obey before they even know what they are learning. They usually follow directions at school because they learn that the teacher and the principal are to be obeyed without question. They internalize discipline that therefore, does not have to be externally enforced. They learn the lines of dominance and subordination before they know that there could be any choice. Althusser names the biggest three types of internal disciplinary forces "ideological state apparatuses". They prepare citizens for unquestioned obedience. The three primary ideological state apparatuses are: the authoritarian family, hierarchical authoritarian religions, and authoritarian hierarchical educational systems.

More here.

Well, that's what I've been saying. At least the part about "authoritarian hierarchical education systems," which is a pretty good description of the American approach to schooling. The above excerpted essay focuses on the end result of authority indoctrination within the Catholic Church, and if you also consider the Inquisition, Galileo's house arrest, the role priests played in the enslavement and mass murder of Native Americans, and a whole lot more, you see that, historically, it's about much more than molesting hundreds of thousands of children. That is, authoritarianism, in the guise of Catholicism, has exacted, and continues to exact, a harsh and massive toll measured in human lives.

But it's the same thing outside the Church.

In spite of all our talk about freedom, the United States is a well disciplined nation. Sure, we bitch and moan about pretty much everything, but, in the end, most of us usually do what we're told, and believe what we're told to believe. Many of us laugh at the Tea Partiers who have been told by authorities they trust that President Obama is a socialist, or a fascist, and that he and the Democrats are going to end America as we understand it. But are they really much different from the the rest of us who eagerly believed that we needed to invade Iraq because of Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction, even while we were swallowing the contradictory White House line that North Korea, which definitely has nuclear weapons, should not be invaded? Are the Tea Partiers any different from the rabid foam-mouth Democrats who blame Ralph Nader voters for the entire Bush presidency? Any different from the progressive Obama supporters who ignored his winking and nudging about withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan because he was telling them to "hope"?

No difference. Most Americans respond positively to authority. I mean, it's more complicated than that, of course, because people obey the authorities they trust. But the key word here is "obey." We want to obey because we've all undergone obedience training.

My posts on education and authoritarianism tend to emphasize how obedience training is antithetical to critical thinking, which is education's holy grail. But a necessary ramification of a nation filled with people who cannot think critically is a nation that is ill suited to democracy. That is, when the people don't question what authorities tell them, don't disobey illegal orders, don't break unjust laws, don't defy illegitimate leaders, rule of, by, and for the people becomes moot. In other words, obedience training masquerading as education doesn't simply result in a dull and thick-headed population: rather, it makes democracy impossible.

And that's pretty much where we are right now.

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