Blind obedience kills truth

By Herman M. Lagon

Try a small exercise. The next time someone with a title—director, colonel, president, CEO, doctor, attorney, chairperson, mayor, congressman—tells you, “Share this, it is official,” pause. Ask, “How do we know?” That pause is where truth often survives. Albert Einstein once warned that blind obedience to authority is the greatest enemy of truth. In a 1901 letter, he called it “Autoritätsdusel,” a daze before authority, later translated as unthinking obedience. Whatever the nuance, the point is clear: when we surrender judgment to rank, we risk mistaking loudness for correctness. You see it in classrooms, council halls, even comment sections—compliance too quick, questions too few.

Ask any adviser in a homeroom. A bright student confidently answers C. The rest follow without checking. The right answer was B, and most of the class fails. This is not about morals—it is human behavior. Social psychologist Solomon Asch showed how people conform to wrong answers just to fit in. Another social psychologist Stanley Milgram found that ordinary people, urged by a lab-coat authority, could deliver what they thought were painful shocks. Decades later, we see the same echoes online. A confident thread, a loud barkada elder, and suddenly lies climb like stairs.

Blind obedience also happens in small, everyday ways. A Grade 7 student points out a wrong date in the module, and a classmate kicks him for being “pasikat.” A barangay official repeats a rumor about a teacher because a “police friend” said so. A parent, drained from work, tells a child to stop asking “why” since “the principal already said it.” This is a classic case of Argumentum ad Verecundiam—the appeal to authority, where a claim is accepted as true simply because it comes from someone with a title. Most of them are not malicious—just tired, hurried, or afraid to look defiant. But when authority becomes a shortcut for truth, errors spread faster and stick longer.

Consider our information diet after the pandemic. A 2024 survey showed that most Filipinos encountered fake news on politics and history online. Behavioral economics expert Cass Sunstein calls this a “rumor cascade,” where repetition, not evidence, makes a claim powerful. In schools, this means answers copied without sources. In governance, it sounds like “as per memo,” minus the data. In families, it appears as scolding instead of explaining. The damage is not just accuracy—it is trust. When people sense that orders stand on sand, they stop listening even when the ground is firm.

We also need to name the pressure to obey. In many settings, politeness is confused with silence. We think respect means never raising a hand. It does not. Respect includes the courage to ask for reasons and evidence. Historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote that the real danger of obedience is not monsters but ordinary neighbors who stop thinking. In my years as a school head, I saw that the best classrooms allowed gentle dissent. A student could say, “Sir, baka may ibang solution ito,” and the class would check the computation again. No shouting, no shame—just thinking together.

Authority is not the villain. We need teachers in charge of rooms, nurses in charge of wards, and officers in charge of scenes. The danger is the blindness—the leap from title to truth. Evidence, not ego, should carry the day. Social commentator and philosopher Karl Popper reminded us that a claim is only strong if it can be tested and proven wrong. That means leaving room to be corrected. I have seen heads reverse a memo when new data came in. I have heard councilors admit errors at the microphone. That is not weakness. That is leadership breathing.

Bring it down to the ground, where teachers live. In a MAPEH class in Iloilo, a teacher asked students to bring bottled water brands for a hydration lab. One brought an unsealed bottle with a fancy label. Instead of scolding, the teacher let the class test it. They learned three things: how to run a simple experiment, how easy it is to fake appearances, and how to treat mistakes as lessons, not shame. Pedagogy of the Oppressed author Paulo Freire called this dialogic education—students co-investigating reality. In practice, it is just asking, “Anong ebidensya mo?” and letting kids feel safe to answer.

Public life gains from the same stance. When a city launches a big project, ask, “Where is the supporting study about this?” Not to block it, but to make it last. When a celebrity promotes a cure, ask, “Where are the trials?” When a viral post shows a cropped video, ask, “Where is the full clip?” Discernment is not cynicism. It is love with a backbone. In a society where shame and rage spread cheap, asking for proof protects the innocent, humbles the powerful, and keeps institutions honest.

This habit of pausing is not strange to us. Many traditions already teach young people to reflect daily, to weigh choices carefully, to choose the good that does the most good. Real freedom is not doing what you feel—it is knowing why you choose. That habit trains leaders to welcome questions. A commander who explains decisions earns deeper trust than one who only demands it. A superintendent who lets teachers challenge a policy writes better memos. A parent who says, “Let us check together,” raises a child who will not bully or be easily bullied.

Of course, asking has a price. You might be tagged as stubborn, “pabibo,” paranoid, “nega,” or the classic—“masyadong academic.” There are times you must obey quickly because lives depend on it. Yet good systems build in reviews. After a fire, teams ask what worked and what failed, then revise protocols. Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman wrote about fast and slow thinking; both matter, but slow, deliberate thinking prevents costly mistakes. In schools, this looks like piloting a grading system before full rollout. In health, it looks like trials before approval. In politics, it looks like hearings that inform, not perform.

Our online lives need the same repair. A quick checklist helps: Who is the source? What is the claim? Where is the proof? When was it posted? Why might it be shared? How do I verify it? Astrophysicist Carl Sagan called this a “baloney detection kit”—simple, common-sense tools. Teachers can use it before group work. Families can try it at dinner. Offices can make it part of training. It is not complicated, but it works.

Let us also be fair to authority. Institutions weaken if we treat every expert as a liar. The task is not to despise leaders, but to expect explanations. A school head who says, “We changed the schedule because reading scores dropped 15 percent, and this adds 90 minutes of intervention weekly,” speaks the language of truth: claim, data, reason, plan. Citizens can still disagree, but now the argument rises to the level of evidence. Blind obedience fades, replaced by informed consent.

This is not lofty. It is work for tomorrow. Teachers can open classes with “challenge the slide.” Students can submit one counter-question for every essay. Barangays can host “Explain the Policy” nights. Parents can reward kids for asking reasons. I am sure that many of us know how much calmer homes and schools become when questions are welcome guests, not threats.

In the end, truth does not need volume. Truth invites light, endures tests, and accepts correction. Titles, uniforms, ranks—these are useful, but they are not proof. Blind obedience is tempting because it is quick and flattering. It feels safe, but it keeps us shallow. We deserve better. Our children deserve better. Let us raise a generation that respects but verifies, that listens but also thinks, that can say, kindly and clearly, “Sir, may we see the evidence?” That is not defiance. That is citizenship.

One line to keep: Obey the law, not the loud; ask for proof, then proceed.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.