Tony B said (June 19, 2021):

An insight on how to handle that kind of "authority" instead of simply accepting it as genuine. Like what is going on everywhere today.
Tony B.

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

T said (February 11, 2014):

The title is misleading and not accurate enough. It should read: "Film 'Compliance' Examines Submission to FALSE Authority".

There is nothing wrong with submitting to true authority. In fact, that's the solution to the problem. The problem most people have today is that they lack the ability to recognise TRUE authority. The perception of authority today has been so distorted that it is equated with brute force. This is portrayed in the film as a policeman, and we all know a policeman is armed and has a license to kill.

If we take a look at the etymology of the word "authority", it says:

authority (n.) Look up authority at Dictionary.com
early 13c., autorite "book or quotation that settles an argument," from Old French auctorité "authority, prestige, right, permission, dignity, gravity; the Scriptures" (12c.; Modern French autorité), from Latin auctoritatem (nominative auctoritas) "invention, advice, opinion, influence, command," from auctor "master, leader, author" (see author (n.)).

Usually spelled with a -c- in English till 16c., when it was dropped in imitation of the French. Meaning "power to enforce obedience" is from late 14c.; meaning "people in authority" is from 1610s. Authorities "those in charge, those with police powers" is recorded from mid-19c.
http://www.etymonline.com

We see that originally the word had connotations such as prestige, dignity, command, master and leader. A person with authority is someone who speaks about something with knowledge. Later the meaning of the word degenerated to the point where, in the mid-1900's, it simply meant "those in charge, those with police powers". Gone are the connotations of being a master in your area of expertise; someone with dignity and knowledge. It's enough to just have a gun. People of authority today are simply people who've usurped and taken by force the positions of influence from the true leaders, masters and people of true knowledge.

Eliezer said (February 11, 2014):

The reason "human nature lets this happen," can be summed up with two words... "APPROVAL SEEKING." In other words, unless a strong sense of self is inculcated, & supported by an attendant and benevolent family, and sometimes even then, one is early on cajoled & bullied into compromising one's morals, principles & boundaries, by a desire to meet with the approval of one's peers. This transition occurs roughly at the age of puberty, and more readily in public schools.

So, approval seeking is driven by a need to be accepted, and this need to be accepted, is in turn driven by what is conventionally perceived to be, a need to be successful. This adolescent or pubertal inclination to seek approval of and acceptance by one's peers, blossoms more fully with a need to submit one's views to "professionally" peer reviewed journals, which all too often act as filters to independent thought and innovation. So once again, puberty is the plateau, at which going along to get along, sets the stage for a submission to mob rule, and mob rule is endemic to the current system which demands compromise and an unprincipled compliance for success.

Representative of our currently inverted system of values, an inverted board game of Snakes & Ladders comes to mind. Those most willing to compromise on moral boundaries and principles, are permitted to rise up in the mob system - to "climb the snake" hierarchy of authority and power, conversely, falling down ladders should they displease the snake. In a snake system, inevitably, social climbers become some of the most compromised approval seekers of all. It is these snake charmers, who are most shuffled into prominent positions of power and authority. What we end up with then, is a "pathocracy," an autocratic system of approval seeking snake charmers, ruled by sociopaths and psychopaths.

Note: A "submission to authority," is an oxymoron. All true authority is self-evident. What we are currently dealing with, is a coercive, or external submission to power, which has no authority. Conversely, most people accept authentic authority.

Linda said (February 9, 2014):

Did you see this recent incident: Nurses sue St. Thomas over strip searches for drug tests

Reminds me of the Compliance movie premise. Two of the nurses have quit and all of them are suing the hospital. Wouldn't it have been easier to refuse - job or no job?

I know it is hard to judge another's decisions when we are not in that situation but I sure hope I would tell those perverts to take a hike before I took my clothes off during a urine test. Certainly it should be common knowledge that such a request is a violation of basic human rights as outlined by the law of the land...oops, I keep forgetting that many in this country don't know what the Constitution says and if the trend continues that important document will be a forgotten relic. That will be very bad indeed.

Dan said (February 9, 2014):

The trailer is chilling. Believe it or not, movies are easy to suppress. They can't stop films from being made, since good ideas can always find independent investors. So they control film distribution. Youth may not know that 35-years ago most movie theaters were 'mom & pop' family owned local businesses.

I could go into the detail of the Hollywood stealth campaign that killed independent theaters some other time. In brief, before the 1980's movie theatre owners could choose which movies they wanted to show, and nobody could tell them what movies they had to show. That left room for independent distributors. I doubt that a film like John Carpenter's THEY LIVE would be as widely distributed today as it was in the 1988. That one cost $3 mil and grossed $13,008,928 in theaters.

State by state, LA lawyers lobbied state legislatures to pass a 'blind bidding' law that allowed Hollywood distribution companies to force theater owners to show whatever Hollywood decided to provide, sight unseen. When passed, this was used to plow under 'mom & pop' theaters and starve out independent distributors. Suffice to say, that's the reason movie outlets today all belong to a handful of corporate chains. Theaters today are franchise operations owned largely by Freemasons. Next time you go to a multiplex theater, let me know if there is NOT a black & white chessboard pattern on the floor of the lobby and bathrooms. If it's carpeted in the lobby, the chessboard pattern of Masonry is usually in the bathrooms. There will also be 5 pointed stars and other subtle symbols in the decor. They're telling you that these are literally Masonic temples for the 'profane' to worship their Hollywood 'idols'.

I haven't seen this film, but when I do, I may pass it around to people I know in the hopes it will snap them out of their 'American Idol' trance. '

Victoria said (February 9, 2014):

Why is it that people can't seem to see that the whole problem begins with compulsory schooling?

Where do they think we first learn to feel helpless in the face of seemingly, unassailable authority? It is my opinion that if we dispensed with the abomination of society being able to put a gun to parents' heads and force them to put their vulnerable, little children into school, such craven, abject cowardice would come to a halt fairly quickly.

What do children learn to do in school other than comply with the orders of 'authority' figures? However, if they choose not to and show independence of mind, they are humiliated, shamed, ostracized and so on until the pain of going against the crowd forces them to submit and take their place amongst their more compliant peers.

A natural way of learning to deal with authority is by first having to deal with it as exercised by one's parents, who, despite any excesses they may demonstrate, are doing what they do out of love for their child rather than as agents of ideology as in the case of teachers.

And, in my experience, children will fight their parents for self-expression in a way that they rarely do with 'authorities' from outside the family.