Authority Games...

[Nwadour]

Who, among friends, decides what's a joke and what not? Who decides who can be mobbed? Who decides what is right in one moment, and what is wrong in another? We're talking about authority.

The person who is most smart, most friendly, most charismatic from the day itself the friends met him. Some characteristics that give authority to a person are also his maturity in life, and his being able to cope with problems. But many features that determine a charismatic person underlie in his physical traits (voice, muscles, etc.), which influence the subconscious of the "less stronger" people. Often, the fact that a person is physically more advanced endures a strong personality.

There is one of these guys in my class, the oldest among everyone, who aldready owns a small car, has good manners and knows how to cope with life. He is also one of the richest in the whole school, which gives him the possibilities to be who he is. He has a good inventory of experiences in life, from work to school, from love to sex, from cars to everything up to date and what's usefull in his community.

He has many friends and all this sums up to making him the most authoritary person in our classroom.

But he is a total loser at school. He has failed one year and, probably due to the many things he does in his life out of school, being very independent, he doesn't have time to dedicate to things that cannot be useful to him. He also becomes quite impulsive when teachers talk to him in a way he doesn't feel respected, and always answers quite aggressively to anything that could hurt his authority and his stability. Recently he also starts boycotting the lessons, as he feels totally abandoned by the teachers, probably ignoring the fact that he himself had made this true through his arrogant behaviour (dashing things on the ground, tearing examinations, leaving the classroom banging the door, etc.). It looks like either he'll be expelled one of these days or he is going to change school by own wish. But he still comes and does things until his patience doesn't find a limit. I simply cannot figure out what will happen with him.

But now let's come to the point:

I am quite good at school, and I also crave for very good marks. Once I was among the best, but now I've gone down a bit because of stress and other things in life. I am not a person with lots of life experience, and from the beginning of my schoollife on, I never had any sort of authority, except for the little respect I have from others for my being helpful and always thoughtful about others. I and this guy are quite good friends, but I often feel as if he makes too much use of his authority.

Since in the community of my school I'm not a very authoritary person, he tends to using me as a mob victim and targets most of his jokes against me, in order to provoke me and thereby also distracting me from paying attention to the lesson, often drowning me in thoughts close to anger.

In my humble opinion, he makes jokes against people who cannot be useful and he can anyway count on their help when he needs it: utilitarism!

However, in the past few months, in which I've managed to "broaden my horizons", I've discovered that out of school I am a VERY charismatic person, without automatic negative thoughts, or similar things and I, too, can be the most authoritary person of a group of many friends. But whenever I'm among the walls of my school, facts including what others expect from me, and a vicious cycle of other facts psychologically force me to become again the mobbable, unauthoritary, ignorant person. Without any doubt, there is a natural force of feedback created by the years of my history in my school, history which makes "personality/individuality".

Having read tons of literature regarding psychology I am convinced that "personality" is a fact that can be overridden, that "personality" only describes the way a person can present himself to others, and this was also proven by the fact that out of my school (or even better: my own city), I am able to be totally "myself", in the version I like. Since I, too, have a sense of morality, I prefer not having "multiple personalities" but I'd like to remain in my most "valorous, attractive, charismatic" version. Which of course is virtually impossible in the walls of my school, which contain years and years of negative history.

Nevertheless, in the past few months I've made lots of progress, especially making new friendships with people in other classes of my school, and being more "valorous", in the way I mean it, always trying to forget the "dark past" (I'm using such expressions only to add some flavor to the text...). I'm slowly starting to climb up in the social system of our school but there are still some hurdles: authoritary people who want to entertain the community by joking about someone.

And until now, nothing helped against this, so I decided to make the big step and try being authoritary myself. And this creates conflicts due to my past history. I know that joking is healthy, but as a proverb says, "it's better to laugh than being laughed at". And infact, I noticed, there is litterally nobody in our class who makes jokes about the two most authoritary people. The first one is the guy I talked about before, the second one is the best in class, with marks I can only dream of. At least he is a bit humble and less aggressive. But he, too, follows the rules of his authoritary duty and makes jokes about everyone. So there is a sort of alliance between the authoritary people.

My first plan was obviosly to start making jokes about these authoritary people. Infact today I'm coming back from a quite impulsive school day. The lesson before an important examination, I was trying to pay attention to the lesson, but as usual, the first charismatic guy was talking about other things, making jokes here and there, making use of his authority in order to kill his boredom (he doesn't care anymore what the results of his examinations are), and thereby I was severely pulled into distraction. I selfconfidently replied "shut up" and similar things, but he only continued. And whenever I try telling the teacher about "this idiot who is distracting me", the intelligent guy, who also started joking about me (he doesn't need to pay attention. He is a gifted genius and gets top marks without studying), defends him.

So I didn't remain innocent, and after the examination, when we had a lesson in which the guy who is bad at school tried to participate a bit, I distracted him in a very bad manner and made him make several gaffes "I'm just joking, just as you do with me!", I said, laughing.

What obviously provoked him, since I hurt his authority. But his sudden aggressivity only led him out of the classroom

What's injustice at this point is, that I did something wrong, and probably for the class I "hurt the respect of somebody who has authority in the class", thereby losing a bit of respect from the other classmates. My probably weak argumentation is that "just as he makes jokes about my weakpoints, I make jokes about his weakpoints", but injustice has made the world give the first authorities the priviledge to decide about which weakpoints one can make jokes, and about which not. Later, when I talked privately with the intelligent guy, he told me that I have to "ignore that guys jokes" and that my jokes against him were not jokes. The intelligent guy seems to be very opportunist and seems to make good friendships only with those who may result as useful to him.

The following question may come due to my current anger and impulsiveness towards the absurdity of things that currently surround me, so, knowing that it may be wrong: would ignoring his jokes (what I actually did all the years until today) make me an authoritary person?

Some, at this point would fight against my wish to be authoritary, defending the "social wish". I do lots of social things, I always help my classmates, also these two friends of mine, in the most thoughtful way one could define (I'm not judging myself subjectively, but quoting many friends of mine), I've always tried to be the same and even more than the two authoritary people of my class I've talked about above, but I've never joked about anyone, until now.

And as hard as it seems, the proverb "it's better to laugh than being laughed at" seems to be the only solution in the walls of my school to get out of the vicious cycle I am in... one thing is sure: my only hurdle to becoming authoritary is the fact that other authoritary people joke about me!

[dikaia880]

Wow, a lot of thoughts there...

 

I would think that being in your position as a "lower status" individual within your school setting does not allow you to all of the sudden switch into an authortative individual by making jokes...

The proverb you mention..."It is better to laugh than to be laughed at..." is a good thought, but it needs to be put to use in a more constructive manner... Rather than making jokes at this "authoritative" individual, you should be laughing at yourself (nothing shows confidence and self-esteem more than self-depricating sense of humor, i.e. if it doesn't bother you why should it bother anyone else?) Now I am not saying that your should allow the authoritative individuals to "cut you down to size" so to speak, by ignoring it you show a lack of confidence to stand up for yourself, but by laughing at it you show your confidence....

By making jokes at the authoritative few you lower yourself to their level....why would a "high status" individual need or want to waste his or her time putting someone down...You see the real authoritative individuals have a good sense of humor and charisma neither of which involve cutting someone down...While in high school it may seem that way, once beyond that it simply makes them look like idiots...

 

I think the better plan is to show your charisma, your confidence, and quality sense of humor...good natured ribbing of your friends and those with "authority" is good (after all if they are truly authoritative why would it bother them or upset them? all that shows is their true lack of confidence...)

 

Good luck as you strive to find your place, but remember as you say your school sets a personality on you, it does not seem to be your real personality so break free of that....and always remember that high school, in reality, means nothing more than four years of akward learning experiences...