Overcome Lack of Power: Hierarchical Disadvantage

The correct sentence is "action speaks louder," but in organizations, sometimes most actions include debate and discussion in forums. So, we need to understand a little bit about the art of delivering arguments.

What I learned from my journey was that an argument isn't fully objectively observed. The argument comes from the perspective of other people about the quality of the speaker. People without any contribution records sometimes weren't expected to give a logical argument. Vice versa, an ilogical argument sometimes sounds logical if it comes from someone with great power. Of course, it is a common situation.

I want to talk about how to get away from the situation when we don't have powers but arguments.

You might have heard about "if you want to change the system, you need to be within the system." At first, I completely disagreed, which was wrong and also right. I was right that a system needs to be opened for criticism and suggestions from outsiders, especially those who are affected by the system. Sometimes the system doesn't recognize that it is a subsystem of a bigger one. However, my mistake was that the people within the system designed it that way. Outsiders can't have any influence on the system, even though they are within the bigger system.

Let's put our shoes in the shoes of new students who are having orientation periods, which tend to have controversies that suspect the event to involve bullying and acts of violence, both physically and verbally. I made this assumption because, as I saw back then, formal age determines your honor. New students are trapped in a situation where they have to respect their seniors just because they formally spent their time in school earlier. Actually, it is fine; it is an Asian value, as people say, to respect the older one. But in orientation, the demand for respect exceeds its appropriateness. In my opinion, respect for the age gap doesn't automatically attach to the absolute authority of someone's actions. You need more than just an age gap to get more respect for my acts.

The question is, "Why didn't the new students fight back if there was violence in their school orientation?". Simple, because they don't believe that they have enough power to be heard, or they just want to avoid getting targeted by seniors throughout the years. But another reason that might destroy meritocracy mentality in new students might be that they believe the seniors must have designed a perfect system, and I, who am just two years younger, have not been able to understand it yet. The thing is, there is no such thing as perfect argumentation that supports any design, at least in student debate. As I said before, an ilogical argument might have been used just because someone with a great contribution biased the forums.

I remember when I was talking to my father about killer lecturers, and he said something that I have used until now to get rid of my fear of seniority. "No matter how wild your ideas, arguments, or questions are, as long as you deliver them in a polite way, there will be no problems." My father taught politics at a private university for years. He is one of the oldest lecturers.

I use this mindset to overcome any fear of authority situations, and magically, it works every time. And I don't have any problem with people that I argue with. Sometimes I win, and sometimes I don't. It depends on the quality of the arguments. My point is that sometimes we are blocked from speaking by our weak mentality toward age gaps. It stops us from making any differences. We surrender before we fight. This is not a good way of communicating.

However, even though we have politely delivered an argument, people still get triggered and angry. But believe me, those people aren't worth the time to have a debate or discussion with. Debates and discussions in the student world are a pure war of ideas. Emotional feedback and acts are a natural self-defense-and-pride trigger due to the fact that he or she is not capable of defending their ilogical arguments.