Let's talk about being anti-establishment.

I have this default attitude of challenging any sort of authority. The 'authority' often shifts from person to person.

At a young age, it was my parents and family who were the authority. In school, it was my teachers, in my job, it's my bosses or whoever is paying me.

And ultimately, the authority is now the Government.

But I've been wondering for a while what was the origin of this anti-authority attitude.

The first answer is in my childhood. I was a terrible af student, didn't really excel at anything and I always felt like adults hated me. So I hated them back.

Second answer is in power structures. Since I really didn't have any real power or felt like I had any, it was always a game of taking power away from others.

My attempt is to Redistribute that power to people who need it.

Now I can detect a power hungry human being from miles away. Earlier I used to slink away and not really deal with them, but now I actively seek them out.

Now I try to chip away at that power they have accumulated over the years and give it to other people who don't have any.

In my head, nobody deserves to have insane amount of control over other human beings.

Pretty much explains my attitude towards everything.

There is an element of saviour complex here, of course. But then I also think about how privileged I am that I am able to even think like this.

That too is power, in its own way. Knowledge IS power. So if you are an anti-establishment person like me, understand that you're not alone.

Hi5!

Sidenote: This is the kind of stuff I'm going to use Mastodon for. Going to try and spark conversations like these as much as I can.

So please, do express your thoughts on being anti-establishment and what it means for you.

I'm listening eagerly!

@Memeghnad Being anti establishment or anti anything is a good thing as long as it is not anti just for the sake of being anti. I would say I am more of a critical thinker and won't take anything from anyone especially those who think "because I say so"

@VivekT Of course. So I think if you're anti-establishment just to be anti, the authority actually gets more strength.

Effective anti-establishment attitude would be to understand the nature of authority and suggest alternatives BEFORE trying to chip away at power structures.

@Memeghnad Agreed. One doesn't want to be Nihlistic(at least I don't) That is the mistake the Communists made (not Marx but those who tried to implement his ideology) when they tried to destroy religion without giving a viable and credible alternative to God.