Why do people trust authority figures when they often make them frustrated? There is a problem with trusting authority. Instead of committing the logical fallacy of appealing to authority, you can apply five ways to begin to question authority figures and to arrive at your own conclusions.
A Return To Questioning Authority
Problem With Trusting Authority
The problem with questioning authority is that an authority figure, whomever it may be, presents only one solution. There are many examples of this in society. One example is to go to college because then you will be able to get a good-paying job that will turn into a career. A second example is to trust politicians because they are public servants with your best interest in mind, despite having insider trading and not following their own covid restrictions. A third example is that the education system only teaches students to study enough to pass a quiz or exam for a professor without teaching them any essential life skills that will adequately prepare them for life.
Trust authority makes you subjugate to someone you think is your leader or who is better than you. This makes you believe they know more than you, are more intelligent, and can do things you cannot do. By trusting authorities, you are devaluing yourself as an individual and not acknowledging your full potential. You remain stuck in a fixed mindset by lettering leaders or those in authority to tell you what to do and how to live your life.
Logical Fallacy Of Appealing To Authority
Another reason not to appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. According to Logical Fallacy, “Appeal to Authority (argumentum ad verecundiam) logical fallacy and Argument from Authority(argumentum ab auctoritate) are the same form of of [sic] discussion argument in which person producing a claim referencing the opinion of an authority as evidence to support an argument. As a fallacy it’s included onto Red Herring Fallacies group.”
It is a logical fallacy because a person is appealing to an authority believing that they are a credible source and unquestionably believing what the authority figure is saying to be true. When you take someone whom society tells you is an “expert” or an “authority” figure at their word instead of doing your own research and arriving at your own opinion, you are committing the logical fallacy of appealing to authority. What can be a supposed source of authority? It could be the mainstream media, a politician, a public health expert, or anyone else who claims they are the one source of authority on a topic or issue.
5 Ways How To Begin To Question Authority
Obeying authority kills the best parts of human nature. It kills creativity. It kills critical thinking. It makes people mindless followers. People stop being able to think for themselves when they rely on authority figures. Here are five ways how beginning to question authority can help you!
Be More Creative
When you question authority, you will start to be more creative. You may find yourself no longer being boxed into one way of thinking. Instead, you will begin to unleash your full creative potential. It may look like writing your first book or novel. It could be painting a picture. Maybe it is opening an Etsy store to sell jewelry or something else.
You never did those things because people, especially someone in authority, said you could never do those things. You believed that person, so you never did. When you question authority, you realize that they may be wrong and that you could do a creative venture which you always wanted to do, but you allowed others to hold you back.
Critical Thinking
You will also begin to think critically instead of relying on a source of authority for everything. You will start to learn about logical fallacies. You will learn how to make rational arguments. This will help to improve your recognition of invalid arguments when people use them. You will even be able to recognize when a supposed expert makes a logical fallacy. You can also apply critical thinking in other areas of your life to help you make decisions and arrive at a choice rationally.
Think For Yourself
You can then begin to think for yourself. Rather than always taking an authority figure at their word, you can judge for yourself. Does it make sense? How accurately does what you are being told to think match reality? You can apply critical thinking skills to arrive at your own conclusions on different topics and issues.
Do Your Own Research
You can also begin to do your research. Instead of believing an authority figure or what the mainstream media says, you can do your research or read the documents that the people in authority are citing. You may find they are trying to skew the data to push their narrative when data or information may go against what they are saying.
You can begin by using search engines to read different articles from people across the political spectrum. You can also read articles from people who come from different backgrounds and have additional expertise. There is no such thing as an “expert” that everyone must trust and never question. You can then use other search engines, like Brave instead of Google, since it does not censor or manipulate the results. You may then find the information you could not find on other search engines.
You can then learn how to read academic and scientific papers so you can decide if what they are presenting holds up or not. You can investigate who funded the academic and scientific research to be done. Is there a conflict of interest?
Finally, you can find good investigative journalists who don’t just tell you information that fits into one side of the right versus left political paradigm but do research. These journalists have become difficult to find today, but you can find them mostly on alternative video platforms such as Odysee or Rokfin. They will find and cite documents you will never hear about or see on mainstream news outlets like Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC, whose only job is to push propaganda onto people.
Question Everything
Learn to question everything. Trust and verify—practice due diligence. Stop relying on emotions and begin to think critically. Start to go below the surface on issues and topics and begin to go deeper. Stop taking the things that society, “experts”, and people who are in positions of authority tell you what to do, how to think, and how to live your life.
Why Questioning Authority Is Important
Questioning authority is important because they are human, just like you and me. They make mistakes. They have their own biases. They have their self-interests. There is no reason to trust an authority figure simply because society says you must.
You will begin to be more creative when you think for yourself. You will start to discover your solutions to problems. This could help you to stop being stuck where you are and to find a way to improve your life. If you always trust an authority figure or an institution to have your best interest in mind, which they may or may not, then you will likely remain stuck where you currently are.
How Questioning Authority Benefits You
It can help you to find solutions for yourself and others. It will make you an independent thinker. You will stop conforming or going along with things merely to please people. When you stop conforming and going along with the crowd and begin to go against the grain, you will start seeing things that others do not. When you think critically, you begin to discover problems to find solutions. You can then present solutions to people in different ways to help yourself and improve the lives of others. What that looks like will depend on you.
Conclusion
Contrary to what society tells you and what you were taught in school, there is nothing wrong with questioning authority. A return to questioning authority can improve your life. It can also improve the lives of the people around you as you present them with solutions to problems that you people have to deal with in everyday life. You can teach your friends and family to think for themselves instead of always trusting authority.
Views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of Secure Single. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment or financial advice. James Bollen is the author of Thriving Solo: How to Flourish and Live Your Perfect Life (Without A Soulmate). Now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon. Subscribe to Secure Single’s Substack for free!
It is October. The month for fun thrills and horror. It is also the month of the Day of The Dead. While October is fun month to dress up for Halloween, it is also a month to reflect on mortality as is the tradition with the Day of the Dead. It is important for singles to realize that while life can be fun and great that in the end we are all mortal.
Memento mori is a Latin phrase that means to remember that you are mortal. The phrase has been traced back to the time of Socrates in Greece. Socrates believed that the role of philosophy is “about nothing else but dying and being dead.” The concept of memento mori is also found in Buddhist texts with maraṇasati that means ‘remember death.’ This is an ancient and classical idea that directly confronts the reality of death. Marcus Aurelius summarizes memento mori in his Meditations, “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
In the 21st Century and the postmodern world, people do not like to think about death since we like everything to be gratified at the moment. Medicine and modern science have helped to increase the human life span compared to what it was during ancient times. However, while all of things have increased the length of human life, death still remains a reality. For this reason, wherever singles are in life they should remember that they are mortal.
Memento Mori will help singles to better assess the value of things that are considered to be important by society by recognizing that this life is temporary. While it is good to pursue careers, goals, and ambitions, it is necessary to step back and place those aspirations within the context that life is ultimately short. Memento mori will also help singles to realize that life is fleeting and to embrace every second of life instead of taking life for granted. Singles can use memento mori as the foundation of their single lives to work to not waste a second of life.
The single life is a great life, but sometimes life requires a hard and honest recognition that in the end we will all become dust. Singles should not be afraid of death. Singles need to use memento mori to direct them to live their fullest life by acknowledging their mortality. This October with Halloween and the Day of the Dead, become comfortable with your own mortality and use it as the reality that you construct around the single life.
Views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of Secure Single. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment or financial advice. James Bollen is the author of Thriving Solo: How to Flourish and Live Your Perfect Life (Without A Soulmate). Now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon. Subscribe to Secure Single’s Substack for free!
For someone to decide to commit one’s life to living as a single person comes across as bizarre and absurd in a society that loves and adores couples. As I wrote in my post concerning Valentine’s Day about the different types of love, eros originally was understood in the classical world was an act of an individual to devote oneself to a higher cause. Today the individual is often hailed as the center of all of life. The opposite of this that can also be seen often is that society as a whole, a collective, is the ends of an individual. Both of these, while having aspects of truth, neglect the call of an individual to commit themselves to something beyond oneself. Individuals may choose the vocation of singleness in order to devote oneself to that higher calling, an ideal, as eros was traditionally understood to mean in the classical world.
I was at an event in Denver, Colorado called Pint with a Priest that is held at Platt Park Brewing Company in Denver, Colorado by Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in January. At the event someone asked the priest if there is a vocation to living a single life. The priest’s short answer was that an individual must decide commit oneself to live a life that one chooses, but in so doing must also seek for ways to contribute to the common good. This answer demonstrates that there is nothing wrong with being single or living the single life. Some people may choose to get married. Some people may choose to remain single. It ultimately is a personal decision about how an individual decides how is the best way for one to life one’s life.
Whether married or single, an individual chooses one of the main two options should still contribute to the common good of society. For married couples, the family is the foundation of society as Aristotle writes in Politics:
First, then, there must be of necessity be a conjunction of persons who cannot exist on the one hand, male and female, for the sake of reproduction… on the other, the naturally ruling and ruled, on account of preservation…. [this leads to how] the household first arose… [because] the household is the partnership for the needs of daily life… [and this] partnership arising from the union of several villages that is complete is the city” (II 2-8, p 35-35).
Family is prior to the city, or society, and the political institution of government. It provides future citizens and individuals who will contribute to the economy and society. If one or both individuals of the couple work as well, they also contribute economically to society through their work. By having children and working is how couples normally contribute to the common good. However, single people who do not have children — with the exception of single parents– should find an ideal to devote themselves to if they commit their lives to the vocation of singleness.
Aristotle is concerned with how a polity comes about in the Politics and for this reason focuses on bringing and upbringing of children since the family comes before the city and nation according to the classical view. For this reason, Aristotle does not expand on the other two classical understanding of the purpose of marriage. Aristotle was concerned with the question of human flourishing, or eudaemonia, and its connection to virtue. This was why he wrote about marriage and its connection to the creation of society. Following Aristotle’s explanation above about how the state comes about, there are two other parts to the classical understanding of marriage. These are love and spousal unity. The classical view understood marriage with these two parts of marriage -love and unity- along with the generation and upbringing of children was a natural cause of the love between the couple. It was understood according to certain classical philosophers, particularly Aristotle, that society was made of multiple families and that the family unit was the foundation of society. (Secure Single plans to write future articles presenting different views on marriage since the classical view is only one view among many).
In the classical world, this meant devoting one’s life to the higher ideals of philosophy. An individual would practice and seek to attain Truth by studying philosophy or becoming a priest at a temple to one of the classical gods. Forms of this are still found today where an individual decides to commit ones life to the Church by becoming a priest, a religious order, or by becoming a monk in various religions found in both the East and West. However, someone who decides singleness as a life choice does not need to become a monk or a priest to live a life of singleness.
In the modern world, an individual can decide to devote oneself to a cause or a community that one is passionate about to better the world and society as a whole. (Secure Single plans to write future articles presenting different views on how best to live the single life since there are more than one view). Some examples could be for a single person to volunteer one’s time to help the poor, to volunteer one’s time to a variety of causes from civil rights movements to helping communities get clean water, or to devote one’s life to business or politics as ways for an individual to give back to society and the common good. An individual’s particular worldview will inform the ways that one will decide to contribute to one’s particular society and to the common good in the society in which one lives. Once an individual has found the cause or community that one is passionate about, one needs to seek to spend a majority of one’s time to that cause. In this day and age, that can be physically going to a place or helping out by getting the word out about an issue in the variety of mediums available today that the Internet provides that are accessible to most people around the world. Time and commitment to a cause or community is the key, along with passion for the subject matter to living a life of singleness.
The reason why a single person may decide wants to give oneself to more than just one’s daily routine is if an individual believes there is a greater and common good that one should contribute to as a person. This would entail that this particular individual holds to the classical view of arête that there is a proper function of a thing. Arete simply means that there is a proper function for how to use a thing, for instance the purpose of scissors are to cut, and similarly this would means that humans have a proper function as well as human nature. The classical ideal of vocations recognized marriage, priesthood, or giving oneself to religious life and for singles who choose to follows this classical understanding the single life of singleness naturally follows from the classical conception of arête.
The classical world and classical philosophy was very concerned with how one ought to live. The modern world and modern philosophy was not concerned with that question but with simply how to live life. Remember, eros for Plato did not mean romantic love, but rather, it was the goal to seek and to understand through reason all that True, Beautiful and Good and than to live life after attaining the knowledge of the higher forms. This is because this Eros is more than just romantic love, eros is devoting oneself to a higher ideal. It is according to this classical view that a single person should use one’s skills to help a community, cause, or issue that one is passionate about in life. Singles who choose a life of singleness should commit oneself to the classical understanding of eros by devoting themselves to a cause above oneself.
Views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of Secure Single. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment or financial advice. James Bollen is the author of Thriving Solo: How to Flourish and Live Your Perfect Life (Without A Soulmate). Now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon. Subscribe to Secure Single’s Substack for free!
The English language is an imprecise language compared to other languages, especially classical languages such as Greek. Love in the English language could mean a range of things from loving one’s wife or husband to loving chocolate. English does not clarify what type of love a person means when one says “love.” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy expounds on this problem by explaining that because love is “broadly defined and hence imprecise, which generates first order problems of definition and meaning, which are resolved to some extent by the reference to the Greek terms, eros, philia, and agape.” Society celebrates Valentine’s Day as a day devoted to romantic love while dismissing philia and agape love in favor of erotic love.
Erotic love is the type of love commonly associated with love by modern society and the type of love that Valentine’s Day celebrates today. Erotic love, or eros, IEP explains “refer[s] to that part of love constituting a passionate, intense desire for something; it is often referred to as a sexual desire, hence the modern notion of “erotic” (Greek erotikos)”. However, the modern notion of erotic love is not what Plato had in mind in Phaedrus. When Plato talks about erotikos in Phaedrus he describes a love that is universally known by humanity and transcends a particular beauty of an individual. Practically, this means that an individual’s particular beauty points to the higher form of Beauty that is in the world of Forms or Ideas following Plato’s Theory of Forms. However, Aristotle’s conception of romantic love recognizes that there is a “special love two people find in each other’s virtues-one soul and two bodies” (Ibid). It is Aristotle’s version of romantic love between two people that is understood today by modern society and the kind that is being celebrated this Valentine’s Day. For most singles in the state of singlehood, romantic and erotic love is the type of love that one does not normally experience in life until a single person transitions from singlehood to a romantic relationship.
The type of love most singles experience is what the Greeks called philia. The classic Greek philosopher Aristotle elaborates upon philia in Rhetoric noting that “things that cause friendship are: doing kindnesses; doing them unasked; and not proclaiming the fact when they are done” (Rhetoric, II. 4). The love of philia is associated with appreciating ones’ friends, family, loyalties, and different communities that one is involved with in life. This means that there are different types and different levels of philia from having best friends, to family, and to professional work relationships. For single people, phila will be the most common love that singles will experience during single life. This Valentine’s Day, celebrate philia love with your fellow single friends by doing something different than what the modern holiday celebrates this Sunday.
Agape is the final type of love that the classical world separated from eros and philia. While philia distinguishes between different levels of friendships between people and eros is romantic –and devoted love to ideals—love between lovers or partners, agape “refers to the paternal love of God for man and of man for God” (IEP). Agape love is a universal love that applies to all of humanity. This is the Golden Rule to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and to love your enemies. This incorporates personal self-love with loving others. Everyone is capable and able to experience agape love by either a relationship with a spiritual entity or by showing love to all of humanity. Single people and married people can share and grow in agape love between friends and with people that they have never met as well as by showing respect between those who are single and those who are married. Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Remember that Valentine’s Day only celebrates one type of love in a very narrow sense: eros. Single people should be able to celebrate the holiday too by celebrating philia love with their friends and family. Valentine’s Day should also be used to celebrate universal humanity and to apply the Golden Rule of to love others, and your enemies, as you love yourself on the holiday. These three distinct loves are often forgotten because the English language is imprecise. Reconsider the love that society celebrates on Valentine’s Day and celebrate philia or agape love instead this Sunday.
Views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of Secure Single. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment or financial advice. James Bollen is the author of Thriving Solo: How to Flourish and Live Your Perfect Life (Without A Soulmate). Now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon. Subscribe to Secure Single’s Substack for free!
Modern society and dating websites adore the concept of the soul mate theory. It allows for easy promotion and marketing while responding to clients concerns for matchmakers when someone does not find a suitable date. Hollywood and television love the soul mates too because it an easy story. The usual soul mate story in media is an easy formula: boy meets girl, boy likes girl, girl likes boy, girl/boy gets separated, and but despite inevitable odds they both end up successfully getting together! Despite society’s fascination with the soul mate theory, what is the origin of this popular theory that enthralls individuals, the media, and society? The Soul Mate theory can be traced to Plato’s Symposium where he philosophizes about love and his friend Aristophanes. It is Aristophanes who presents the Soul Mate theory as an origin story for the human race and who is responsible for this theory that now plagues society.
Aristophanes’ Soul Mate theory goes like this. There were three different types of round beings. One type was male connected to male. The second type was female connected to female. The third was androgynous with a male connected to a female. This round creature had to roll around like a ball in order to move around and across the Earth. One day, as is common in classical mythology, these round creatures decided to attack Zeus up on Mount Olympus. They lost. Zeus cursed them initially by splitting them in half. This created a problem for these creatures. The problem was that their split halves desired connection and sought their original missing half in order to become whole again. But the secondary problem was that they could not truly connect with their other half the first time because their sexual organs were on the back of their bodies. Zeus with all his mercy, or really just desiring more worship, was kind to the creatures that would become the human race and made the placement of mankind’s sexual organs in order that they may have pleasure, procreate, and produce more children who would worship Zeus. He also gave humans a torso, a belly button, and nipples. (This story also answers the question of why both sexes of human have nipples.) Since the human race could now reproduce after finding there other half, Zeus would ultimately receive more worship as the human race multiplied on earth Zeus was satisfied.
If the Soul Mate theory is the foundation of romantic relationships and the romantic ideal of love, then it would make more sense to remain single. Remaining single is the better option statistically, if this myth were true. Secure Single is more concerned with the practical application of this theory for couples and singles in society, but for those mathematically inclined who still want to hold on to idea of the “the one” you can read this article by BrainPickings to learn that the odds are never and cannot work in your favor with this theory. Additionally, in Aristophanes’ story the other half would eventually die after wondering aimlessly around the world if it was unable to find “the one” part that completed the original whole. Despite the fact that it would die if unable to find “the one”, the better option and use of time would be to enjoy life, succeed in what the one half thinks is valuable in life, and just enjoy the single life rather than spending one’s entire life seeking the lost half from Zeus’ curse upon humanity.
The single life provides different social and life benefits than does being in a romantic relationship or seeking “the one” in life. The single life gives an individual freedom to go and act as one pleases in life without an attached other person. This allows an individual to move around, without having to worry about a missing half and travel freely from location to location without having to be worried about the concerns or input from the other half. Finally, it also allows for an individual to spend time how one wants rather than having to go out to bars, restaurants, speed dating events, and join an online dating website in order to increase a person’s utterly hopeless odds in finding, meeting, and falling in love with “the one.”
The next time you are watching a movie, shows, or reading a book where two star struck and star crossed lovers miraculously end up together, you can thank Plato’s friend Aristophanes’ for his story from the Symposium. Since finding love in life is the focus of the story and finding one’s soul mate ultimately completes a person according to society, the option of being single should presented equally in society and in the media. Regardless, the soul mate origin story is entertaining and preposterous. Secure Single is pretty sure that there are enough couples in society that the human race will continue without any problems and single people can contribute to society in their own ways without having to worry about angering Zeus.
Views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of Secure Single. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment or financial advice. James Bollen is the author of Thriving Solo: How to Flourish and Live Your Perfect Life (Without A Soulmate). Now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon. Subscribe to Secure Single’s Substack for free!
The Oracle of Delphi was a Priestess in the ancient Greek city of Delphi. The inscription of the maxim was written the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and was visible to worshippers as they entered the temple and a favorite maxim repeated often by the classical Greek philosopher Socrates. The maxim “Know Thyself” means that it is important for individuals to understand oneself and one’s nature and after one understands oneself, then one can understand the nature of other people. The Greek maxim is as applicable today as it was in about 10th Century B.C. For singles in the state of singlehood, “Know Thyself” is helpful because one should know one’s strengths and weaknesses before entering into a relationship and in life.
It is important that am individual is aware of one’s strengths in personal, romantic, and professional relationships. Strengths are the abilities that one has and uses every day. An individual should accurately gauge one’s strengths and act upon them. After an individual assesses and is aware of one’s strengths, then one has become more aware of oneself and of one’s realistic capabilities in life. These strengths can than be applied to a variety of relationships in daily life.
Likewise, it is important that an individual knows one’s weaknesses. In contrast to knowing one’s strengths, one should know one’s weaknesses because they are skills that one lacks knowledge or expertise. Further, it displays to others that one has humility and one does not seek to control all aspects of something by oneself because one knows and understands one’s limits. Similarly, knowing one’s weaknesses in life will make one more attractive to an employer or in different contexts of personal relationships in singlehood.
When it comes to personal or romantic relationships, it is wise for an individual to know one’s strengths and weaknesses in life. This knowledge will create meaningful discussions and show to your friend, or romantic partner, that you know what you able to do proficiently as well as you are not able to do by yourself. Communication, verbal and nonverbal, is essential to any type of relationship. If you want to succeed in professional, personal, and romantic relationships in life, then it is important as a single person to “Know Thyself.”
In the year 2016 A.D., there are still many lessons that modern civilization can learn from classical Greece. For single people, it is paramount that one learns what one’s strengths and weaknesses are in life. This will help in professional and work life when applying for jobs or when a boss asks if you can successfully finish a new job by a deadline. This knowledge will help when working on personal projects for solving problems in daily life or helping friends because you can communicate about the things that you enjoy and that you dislike doing because you know your skill set. For romantic relationships, you are able to articulate to your romantic partner what skills and knowledge you bring to the relationship and learn to work better as a team. The Temple of Apollo in Delphi taught a wise maxim to visitors of the temple to “Know Thyself” and single people today should apply this aphorism throughout one’s life.