Authority resembles those secret agents dear to Graham Greene who conceal their identity so as not to lose it further during a bad encounter. She still has a few admirers who love her and deploy treasures of ingenuity to define her, redefine her, so that she is understood in her time. To do this, they bring her closer to tradition, to honor, to hierarchy, to natural law... they constantly give her a cane, crutches, a tripod, so that she can still get out of his hiding place and get some fresh air. The words to which they attach authority resemble bandages, cautery, which, in the end, hide it a little more. The disenchantment has been pronounced for a long time and is increasing. Nothing can save authority, everything that it inspires brings to mind old things that we know how to do without. It is of no use. It is of no use.
Authority, in its Latin sense, comes from auctor which means “one who increases”, and from auctoritas , which has “power to impose obedience”. Authority is equated with power, which we forget when separating power and authority. On the other hand, it is a power without power, it does not constrain. Its field of action is born from ethics, knowledge, belief... Because it requires obedience. This is where we begin to stumble over its meaning, because the times do not like obedience. And, as the era no longer appreciates belief, it denigrates authority. It devalues it, it identifies it with cowardly and blind power. She gives him a nickname that has become an implication: authoritarianism . As if to reveal what she hides under her mask of leniency: a brutal, violent and unstable character. It must be unmasked. She must be slandered. Above all, we must no longer understand anything, and what is not understanding anything if not a new form of belief? Authority imposes limits that no one wants anymore, which oblige and prevent us from being what we want. The era believes that it is by being what we desire that we will be what we deserve. Individualism reigns supreme, and unchallenged. No one knows better than you what is good for you. Let’s take it for granted! As it was necessary to ignore limits and hierarchy, the era threw authority aside after having put it on the picket line. Authority catalyzed modernity. She had to be subdued.
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