Authority is the power you have over another person.regardless of whether it is deserved or not. They say that there are twelve types of authority: formal, moral, traditional, charismatic, rational, coercive, democratic, inconsistent, laissez-faire or permissive, operational, administrative, informal, but I I understand that there are as many as there are concepts of freedom.
Today I woke up asking questions, questioning myself if we are being excessively lax with ourselves and with everything that surrounds us. And if this attitude is taking us through too dark places with an increasingly distorted and empty concept of authority. Why do I think this?
Yesterday while shopping, like so many other times, a boy of about eight years old responded to his mother insolently. And she, unable to disapprove of those forms, which seemed usual, only told him to calm down. A few days ago, while I was waiting for my son to leave school, a girl abruptly failed a teacher, who I imagine had previously scolded or punished her for some notorious act, and the father took away the teacher’s authority, without even having listened to The other part. Not so long ago, we have all seen how a law that had to be created to defend women’s rights became her worst enemy, making viable the release of her vicious harassers. In short, I could go on with endless examples where the concept of authority has been constrained or, rather, I would say, modified.
And I think everything starts from the need we have to justify the unjustifiable, and the need to manage to stay above everything and everyone. The self, understood as absolute freedom and the birth of a concept of unlimited beings, has cut the ties of what, in my view, worked and is necessary, well understood authority.
Because when I was a child, the word of my parents was law, whether I liked it, shared it or denied it inside me. And let’s not say if a teacher simply told you to shut up, your chin sank into your sternum and there was no more to talk about. They are examples that, in an absolutist way of the concept of authority, are rejected at first sight. However, that authority, which in many cases was well understood and executed, has been stripped of strength, giving rise to an anarchic attitude that is not good at all. Because if everyone does what they want and there is no clear limit, this becomes a pitched battle. And this is what is happening in many places on our globe that need not be mentioned, because every day we can see cruel images of wars, rapes, murders.
And even love is exercised in a freedom marked by the authority that each one holds, in the time given, in the caresses given and accepted, in the response of an I love you within the limits that the authority of our feelings establishes. Because nothing is as free as the respect that must be shown to the neighbor in all its dimensions. Otherwise, we will not be honestly loved and respected either. And that is where the authority of our elders enters with their life experience, which translates into the authority (but not imposition) that their advice has, or the need to respect teachers, or philosophers, or entrepreneurs, or to those who in their day to day, and within the limits of a true good life, make their actions coherent and respected, becoming authorities on life and its future.
Norms, customs, values, in no way restrict illusions, goals and beliefs. Breaking them, throwing them away makes the exercise of freedom a pose, not a well-defended right.
My freedom is well directed when it adheres to the rules of good conduct, framed in the laws and in the spirituality that accompanies me.
Authority is not bad, those who use it to the detriment of others or for their own benefit are bad.
Just a reflection.