emperor, Fuhrer, Shah, Pope, President, "Prophet", Grand Wazoo, whatever, to follow. Either that, or they don't have the confidence in their own ability to distinguish right from wrong, so they allow a leader to determine what is right or wrong for them, and subsequently blindly accept the judgments of the leader, no matter how nefarious the intentions of the leader, and no matter how awful and destructive the consequences of the leader's judgment and subsequent actions are.
They can seemingly rationalize and justify anything, as long as it is sanctioned under the "supreme authority" of their leader.
The phenomenon of authority idolatry is fascinating, but really scary, in that some people will trust a leader instead of themselves and their better judgment, and will literally follow their idolized leader to destruction, while committing and supporting all sorts of immoral, unethical acts of violence and destruction.
They will commit or condone all sorts of immoral unspeakably wicked acts of violence and destruction and believe that doing so is justifiable, as long as they are ordered or sanctioned by their idolized authority figure leader.
Human history is full of examples of people blindly and mindlessly following or supporting leaders who order or sanction destruction, torture and murder in the name of material gain. Crusades, Inquisitions, invasions, slaughtering indigenous persons across the planet, and of course the prime example would be the blind adoration and following of Hitler and other fascist leaders in Europe during the last century.
Seriously ~ How could so many people blindly and adoringly follow a fuckstick dirtbag idiot monster like Hitler? What were they thinking?
The problem was, they weren't thinking. They trusted their idolized supreme authority figure, Hitler in this case, to do their thinking for them. Which leads many of us to ask once again ~
Indeed. How can almost 60,000,000 Americans be that unforgivably stupid?
When Occupy was in the first stages of the revolution, there were some posters here at DU who were horrified that Occupy has no leader. It seemed to so go against their strongly and dearly held belief that a single individual authority, such as a king, was absolutely necessary in order for a group to make genuinely democratic decisions and take effective action. The very idea of collective leadership seemed to frighten them and make them irrationally angry. It seemed that they literally could not, and still cannot, comprehend how a group of like minded individuals can form a democratic collective and take effective action without a single individual leader to be subject to, to follow, and take orders from.
Yet Occupy very rapidly and successfully achieved our first goal of permanently raising awareness of economic injustice and inequality all over the planet.
Question everything; bow to no one.
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