Why Are Most People Cowards?

Obedience and the Rise of Authoritarianism

In a recent article, I discussed the importance of learning to say “No” with conviction. Saying “No” is like a muscle, and we need to build it daily. If you haven’t already, please read it first.

The truth is, it’s really not all that easy to “just say no” if you have no prior experience doing it. I grew up in the 80s, and that was burned into my psyche, as I’m sure it was in yours too if you were alive during the Reagan years.

But despite the simplicity of the slogan, I found it impossible to “just say no.” I said “yes” to all the drugs, all the sex, all the rock n’ roll at a breakneck pace. I was able to pull out of the dive before it was fatal, and in many ways, it was due to learning to have the fortitude to say “no”. Saying “yes” literally leads to ruined exhaustion.

Or, as another Substacker said to me yesterday:

If you can't say no, then saying yes doesn't mean anything (and vice versa) - SimulationCommander

Until this moment in our lives, most of us in the western world have lived without real consequences. The stakes have been pretty low, honestly. And I’ll be the first to admit that the insanity was always “out there” somewhere. Sure, I’d see signs here and there of it encroaching on my shores in the form of things like when the Westboro Baptist circus rolled through town or G8 protesters smashing a few storefront windows. That raised my eyebrows.

I remember going to workout at Planet Fitness during the Trump impeachment clown show saga and being moderately alarmed that a coup of a sitting president was taking place. Then I left my workout and went out to play hockey or have a dinner out or something, and it was a blip on the radar.

Then they shut down my kids school and aborted the 8th grade musical my son and his classmates were working so hard on for months.

Then they told us to stay home for two weeks.

Then my favorite Brazilian steakhouse that I’d been going to for years, run by the most genuine Brazilian woman in the world, closed.

Then big tech began censoring dissenting viewpoints.

Then BLM riots swept like a wave over the nation.

And THEN…then my governor, Tom Wolf, and his freak show of a public health expert, the pediatrician Rachel Levine, forced me into a mask.

They also forced thousands of Covid-sick patients back into nursing homes. It wasn’t just Cuomo or Murphy, don’t forget. Tom Wolf did this same thing. But I digress.

And the hits just kept on coming.

The mask mandate was the straw that broke my deep wells of rage and anger wide open. I channeled my fake 90’s teenage angst and had Rage Against The Machine “Killing In The Name” running through my head. But this time, the rage was real, and it was accurate.

As an aside, I heard Rage Against The Machine changed the lyrics to “OK, I’m gonna do what you tell me” in the last year. (Sarcasm font). What the actual hell happened to their spirit of rebellion and literally raging against the machine? But again, I digress.

I would imagine that many of you reading this followed a similar timeline. As the full weight of Covidstan descended upon us, unforgivingly and relentlessly, for the first time in our lives, we started to feel a reality that had been foreign to us. This stuff happened to others, in other horrible places in the world.

We thought, “surely, sanity will prevail at any minute. Surely the ACLU or human rights organizations will step in and make noise. Surely the adults will step up and the real leaders will lead. Surely SOMEONE will do SOMETHING, right? A sane voice will make this stop, right?”

Wrong. We were so wrong. I was so wrong.

The dam had been blown open, and all of the festering, greedy, vindictive, unethical, immoral, illegal, and tyrannical hives of abomination that had been multiplying in dark places were suddenly released out into the wild.

Governments, corporations, and petty tyrants of all kinds felt the surge of permission to go forth and conquer. From world leaders all the way down to the guy behind the counter at the local coffee shop, it was if some beacon of authoritarian affirmation was signaling to them all at the same time. They heard the call, and they took action.

Social proof and the fickle winds of public sentiment have, over time, become the flimsy foundation that our societies are built on. Rather than relying on eternal, fundamental principles that guide the universe, the majority of mankind has chosen to put their finger up to the wind, and whichever way that wind is blowing, that’s the way they’re going.

And that will ALWAYS lead to authoritarianism. Most people live in terror. Fear, anxiety, and the ever-present feeling that some unseen horror is just around the next corner are unfortunately more fundamental to the human spirit than peace, joy, and contentment. For eons, we’ve lived as hunted beasts in a world that seems at every turn to want our destruction. Thus, we become sheep, looking for a herd to protect us. Safety in numbers, right?

Because of that, many of us want someone to tell us what to do. They need to feel safe rather than feel free, because deep down, freedom means risk. It means being picked off. We all know the image of the gazelle on the plains being taken down by the lion, and we all know that in many ways, we’re the gazelle. We’re being hunted.

The ingrained drive to be the lion, the hunter, also exists though. There are those of us who, for some reason, have the drive to be the outlier. We know that while there’s a lot of risk involved in being outside of the herd, there’s a true freedom in that. That freedom that we taste is worth the risk of being outside the herd.

I consider myself a lion, and while I understand what it means to be a sheep, I just can’t stomach being in the herd. Like, I literally feel a revulsion in my gut when I think of it. I don’t know why. Sometimes, honestly, I wonder why I just am not wired to be a follower. Sometimes, it seems like a curse to be a lion. But if the last 3 years have taught me anything, it’s that I’m absolutely GRATEFUL to be a lion.

It all comes back to the mask for me. When I see a masked face, ESPECIALLY now, after 3 years, all I see is a sheep. I see someone who is completely content to be in the herd. It’s become a bright and shining light on who yearns to breathe freedom and who looks for protection.

So there’s the sheep. There are the lions. And then there are the wolves.

The wolves are the ones who feed because they enjoy the taste of death, not because they’re looking to take care of their family or do what’s needed to live free. These are the people who genuinely love to kill and can’t get enough of it. They are the ghouls that feed just to feed. It’s an insatiable, unquenchable thirst for them, and the more blood they can consume, the more powerful they feel.

For a long time, I was a lazy lion. I lived in a landscape that allowed me to roam pretty much as I chose. When I was hungry, I didn’t have to hunt. Everything I wanted was within arms length, a fake land full of artificial comforts. A savanna of illusion.

In short order, like looking at a mirage, the illusion faded, and the wolves burst through. And in an instant, real danger manifested right in front of me in a way that I’d never had to confront before. This destruction of the illusions made stark the reality of the land we really lived in. It presented every one of us with a choice, and the choice is and will remain:

Do we allow the inner lion in ourselves to be unleashed and stand up to the wolves? Or do we morph into sheep, quaking in the herd, praying the wolves don’t notice us?

Now that real danger has made itself indelibly clear and present, the lions need to stand up. We need to roar back and realize that the wolves need to be taken out.

But what of the sheep? How do those of use who are roaring back understand the sheep that only want to put their heads down and run away, hoping to just live another day? And what do we do about them?

I would highly recommend watching this video to further understand why people are cowards, because if you identify with a lion, then you’re going to have to realize that you WILL at some point be the hunted. The wolves WILL corral the sheep into the pen and promise them they won’t kill them if ONLY the sheep look the other way when they go after us. If they voice their support along the way…well, that might just get them more feed for the day, and who doesn’t enjoy more feed? Amiright?

To you, I say take courage. Count your costs, but take courage. Choose to roar. The sheep will always tremble and cower and blame and scapegoat. The wolves will always be bloodthirsty and looking for weakness and the corralling of those who choose cowering over courage. If you choose to roar, they will all come after you in one way or another.

But guess what? There will always be a predator, and there will always be those looking to scapegoat others. It’s coming for us all, one way or the other. As Aragorn said in The Two Towers:

Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.

The banshees are through the gates. It looks like for now we’re beating them back to some degree. It looks like enough lions are standing up and roaring. Even the sheep are sensing it, one by one.

But the wolves will not stop. Ever. They will retreat and regroup and assault anew. Like waves crashing on the shore, they will never stop until there’s only sheep and wolves. To them, the lions need to be consumed.

Will you allow that, Lion? Or will you take courage and roar, even if it means loss, pain, or even death? How much is that freedom on the savanna worth to you? How valuable are those blazing sunrises out on the edges of the earth? How sweet is that free air? How satisfying is it to see your cubs growing strong and healthy? How joyous is it when you gather with the other lions? How staggering is it to write your own destiny?

Take courage.