– Power and Authority Complex –

You Will Respect My Authoritah — Cartman/Chickenlover/South Park

.. ..

We are conditioned to structure relationships around who gets to be the boss. As children we are programmed to internalize the existing power structure through fear conditioning.

I call these structures around power, authority, and control, the PAC complex. Through my work with people, I’ve come to believe that it’s the fundamental cause of traumatic splitting in the human psyche. A single pairing of stimulus with fear arousal in the nervous system can bring on fear conditioning and permanently change the arousal system. Similar stimuli trigger past trauma and the fear response hi-jacks the frontal lobe of the brain where judgment and rational thought are located. The learned response can override reasoning even in adulthood and cause anxiety, phobias, and panic attacks.

We learn to internalize our own oppression and accept the attitudes and ideas of the PAC complex by making them part of self – these ideas and assumptions become our own. There is a powerful me that can be used to oppress others who are viewed as weak and there is a powerless me that is oppressed by authority figures. Some guy puts on a special hat and expects to be blindly obeyed. ( In Cartman’s case it’s mirrored sunglasses. See video link chickenlover/South Park).

The PAC Complex, internal and external, keeps us obedient and childlike. Until we free ourselves from it emotional maturity is impossible.