'Authority' has had its meaning perverted. I have had people tell me that I have "a problem with authority". Nothing could be farther from the truth. I only have a problem with, a disgust for, counterfeit "authority". An empty "authority" that must rely on coercion to be maintained. When I run into real authority I defer to it. When I encounter false authority, I may not be spitting on the outside, but inside... I am spitting in its face.
True authority is the same as expertise. For years I tried to make fire with the bow drill. I followed directions in books. I spent hours, weeks, and months practicing. I made a lot of smoke and dust and blisters and bruises, but never one single fire. I could start fire easily with flint and steel, so it wasn't that I was helpless without matches and gasoline (like my dad).
Then one day at a mountainman rendezvous, I heard that a man was giving a demonstration of starting a fire with the bow drill. I went and watched and listened as this man, this authority, started a couple of fires and helped a couple volunteers with their technique as well. When I left his presence I knew how it was done and I knew I could do it. I didn't even have to make the attempt to know. But, I soon did attempt the task anyway. I had a fire going in just a few minutes- from scratch to finish; sticks and cord to crackling flames. I was satisfied at my success, but not surprised.
This man was an authority and he had authority. He didn't need to force anyone to behave as though he were an authority. There was no coercion and no implied threat. You knew he had authority by his actions and his expertise and his results. If he told you that you were doing it wrong, you would be wise to listen, yet he would have let you try your own way if you refused to follow his suggestions. Your success or failure was no threat to his authority. I have now started hundreds (or thousands) of fires in this way, and taught the skill to others, all thanks to one true authority.
Cops, politicians, bureaucrats, and other so-called "authorities" can't compete in the real world, without the governments they cultivate and inhabit in Albuquerque and beyond, so they use threats and aggression to enforce their false "authority" on their victims. It shows them to be pathetic losers who try to claim that which is not theirs to claim.
Comments
What you're talking about I see as the difference between an authority and a leader. A leader doesn't need to force people to follow. They choose to follow because he demonstrates characteristics or skills or a goal that they agree with and want to accomplish. An authority must force people to obey and submit. A leader leads. An authority demands.
Excellent commentary, Kent! Very well said. :)
Recently on a forum, someone asked "what makes a good leader, a good elected official?"
I said "a good leader does not need to use government force to accomplish goals."
This response came in: "Debbie, I have to disagree with you on this one. There are times when the greater good requires the use of government force."
So then I asked, "Okay. Now can you please explain the greater good and cite the specific items of "the times when it is needed?"
It's been a month and I'm still waiting for an answer.
Unfortunately, without the passage and enforcement of Civil Rights laws we would still be wrangling over where people of African descent could sit on a bus or eat at lunch, etc. The greater good of equal access would not be achieved without the force of federal law.
Really? So you ignore the fact that "laws" were the only things enforcing that discrimination and making it "legal"? Racial discrimination was on its way out anyway and was propped up, much longer than it would have survived otherwise, by The State. Any denial of that obvious fact is silly.
There is no such thing as "greater good". There are individual rights only. Any violation of those rights, whether "legal" or not, is WRONG.
I still refuse to discriminate against those who are harming no one (gun owners, "drug" users, prostitutes, etc.) regardless of what the "law" dictates. Just as I refuse to ignore the abuses of those the "law" authorizes to violate basic human rights.
How can violence ever result in more good?
Kent I think this article would benefit from a better title, such as:
I've got a False Authority Problem
or
The Difference between Real Authority and Fake Authority
Keep up your great work. I'm going to stumble this.
Most of my articles could probably use better titles. And thanks for spreading it around.
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It is as always a matter of contrasting competence - which can be judged by almost any interested and reasoning individual by reference to the verifiable facts of objective reality - against credentialing.
The credulous, the lazy, the perpetually fearful - these are susceptible to "authorities" who rely chiefly (or entirely) upon their credentials for persuasiveness and control, and who cannot stand upon their actual competence.
Those who operate on the basis of reasoned thought will tend reliably to judge their own individual self-worth on the basis of competence, and therefore accord "authority" to other persons on the basis of verified abilities, understanding that status as a respectable arbiter of fact is commonly NOT ratified by credentials.
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Oh Great! Now will you please show me how to make fire with a bow drill? I promise to obey your authority while you show me ;-) XOXOXO
When and where?
LOL! While I like gold very much, the only real currency that people own is their own expertise. Being recognized for doing something - anything - *well* is exactly what almost all of us are looking for.
There are people who are very good police persons- just as there are very good writers, reporters, software engineers, painters, bricklayers, and janitors. I have far far more respect for the janitor than for a half ****d software engineer. I probably prefer to be friends with the janitor too.
If that is what you mean by authority.
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