Open or Closed Part 2

This is a follow on, based upon some discussion that the last post provoked on Facebook.
If you haven't read the first part please do, this will make more sense it you have! ;)
One discussion took a route that these people don't want to push themselves and that people "these days" don't like to push themselves. I would suggest that some people have always avoided pushing themselves.

There are those that don't want to push themselves and don't like to push. Though they are not the ones I am talking about in the blog.

While the closed minded don't push themselves, in their case it is because they don't see the need, as they believe that they are already as good as they need to be, or that anyone outside their way of doing things can't push them.

It was also suggested that people these days don't like or understand hierarchies.

I tend to find that majority that have this closed mind attitude come from groups with rigid or strict Hierarchies, where they have allowed themselves to be brainwashed and believe that what they have been taught and how it was taught is "the only way" and as such they fight against anything that doesn't is outside.

Others come from a background where they are the "big fish in a small pond", they have been the top of there hierarchy and they have become to used to calling the shots, or when they swim in another pond they are reminded that they aren't as good as the have told themselves they were.

Others have such a stubborn and over inflated sense of their own skills and knowledge. This has meant that they have bounced from on group to another. Either because none of the groups could put up with them. Or because no group has given them the power and respect the "know" they deserve. They now travel around as the top instructor of their own group, which is normally only them. On occasion they may one or perhaps two, devoted followers who have brainwashed themselves in to deifying their teacher, others have come put could put up with the BS and have left. The Teacher  sees this devotion as validation of their own skills. In fact they normally see the fact that so few understand them or stick  to training with them as further proof of its truth and how special it is, as the "common herd" just don't get it.

Personally I don't like strict hierarchies, I have seen too many that may have started with the right intention, striving to be the best you can be, that have then become rigid and locked and really serve to only maintain those people at the top levels of the hierarchy.

Of course the teacher is the teacher, they should be given respect, and they should return it. However the teachers job is to make the student their equal or preferably superior in skills and understanding. To me you can't do that in a rigid hierarchy, though is does have to be carried out with acknowledgement and respect.

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