Children rebel against their parents. Students ignore their teachers. The Carabineros pluck from the demonstrators. Citizens do not obey the authorities. Parliamentarians do not abide by the Constitution. A trade association and its leader affront to presidential authority. The rebels “are not even there” with the boss. Does the world seem upside down? Maybe not, if you’re an anarchist.
What is happening with authority? Is it dying and will it vanish forever? Has he already died because he was meaningless? Are you just changing skin? Or does it take more courage to exercise it?
It may help to think a little about this. In this regard, my friend Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher of the first century, said that “what really frightens and dismays us is not the external events themselves, but the way we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their importance.”
We may need to think of new ways of understanding and exercising authority. Perhaps we are still tied to concepts that no longer have support in the current cultural and technological reality, which have changed radically, unimaginable and quickly like lightning. Such changes – whether we like it or not – also impact authority as we have conceived it so far.
Since the mid-twentieth century there has been a crisis of authority throughout the world. Authority in education has also been in question, with successive and pendulous psychological approaches on how to exercise it. Some at the point of scolding in the full carnality of the ass, others with total “laissez faire”, and several half-measures, between clubs and carrots. I had to see different methods. Perhaps the most fun to watch has been the total “letting go”, with free self-government of the child, freeing him from the “oppression” and tradition of adults for full playful action. It was applied by avant-garde fathers and mothers of the early 70s. One saw the child on the table, kicking the vase until it broke into a thousand pieces and at the same time occupying his hands to welcome his brother. And his mother, undeterred, said softly to him as if singing to him in the crib: “No, no, noooooo, that noooooo.” For one it was infuriating and he was torn between giving a fierce challenge to the child and sending him to fry monkeys to his piece, or whether to do the same but with his mother.
In short, perhaps it is good to know that we are not alone in this crisis of authority, neither in the world, nor today, nor even for decades. It is an evil of many years and countries, consolation for fools.
What is power, who is authority and what is leadership? Three different concepts, three ways of exercising command, influence and leadership of a group or a society, to maintain an order that allows us to live peacefully and lead us somewhere interesting. I think they have blurred borders. Regarding its moral value and effectiveness in command, I think that the poorest is the power “to dry”, it is surpassed by authority and headed by leadership.
I believe that power, authority and leadership can be exercised simultaneously, like a cocktail similar to the elixir from whose chalice we have not drunk long ago. This allows the rules to be respected, if necessary with force, maintaining a legitimate and democratic order in which authority is followed and obeyed in a consensual and voluntary manner, and leading society with clarity and conviction towards valuable and shared objectives.
Among the three, authority is the essential minimum as a mechanism of peaceful, legitimate and democratic administration of power, which orders our coexistence.
Authority seems to be dying. But for now, whoever assumes it must be clear that, if he does not exercise it timely and properly, without fear, he will lose it. On the other hand, if authority is not legitimate and if it is not well deserved by those who hold it, it will not be effective. Because the one who exercises it needs to have the recognized merit of a certain ethical, intellectual, political, spiritual or other prestige. Otherwise, your capacity for persuasion as an authority, on the one hand, and the willingness and consent of others to obey you, on the other, will vanish like incense.
That is why the good Aristotle said that it is preferable to be governed by the best of men than by the best laws.
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The content expressed in this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
