I don't respect authority

But I want to respect you

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Lately I have found myself increasingly frustrated by the certainty I see around me. Of course, everything we see is a projection of ourselves, and so this certainty I recoil from in others is showing me something I need to examine internally. but in this essay, I’m commenting on the outside world instead.

Much of our culture seems to convey the message that we need to respect authority. We are supposed to respect the authority of our parents, the police, the government, our medical system, or Science. Our authorities don’t like it when we don’t respect their laws, perhaps fearing widespread revolt or societal collapse if their exhortations aren’t followed. Sometimes it’s just societal disapproval we earn when we don’t respect the advice of authority (if we tan without sunscreen, smoke cigarettes, don’t wear a helmet when cycling), other times we must pay fines (for not wearing a seatbelt), be banned from travel (unvaccinated people can’t enter the US), or be imprisoned (for not paying our taxes or failing to show up for jury duty).

I personally don’t feel authority has done anything to earn our respect. That doesn’t mean I completely oppose all types of social control. But I believe we should take away the disguise that “respect” gives to such methods of control.

Right now, I am allowing others (like the police and my official political leaders) to have a great deal of power over me. My preference would be that they had far less power, but I currently accept much of it given the tradeoffs. I pay my taxes and obey the speed limit in return for comfort and security. That doesn’t mean I respect the authority that decrees the tax level or speed limit. I obey laws on private property since right now they work in my favour - so far no one has tried to take the house I’ve paid for and I get to sleep in my own bed every night and cook in my kitchen without someone being allowed to walk in and take over. That doesn’t mean I respect the authority that decrees what property belongs to who. Some authority I don’t accept the tradeoff for and do my best to evade. A minor example, I exercise my own power in opposition to authority when I walk across the street even when the light is red, a more major one is my refusal to obtain and carry around proof of a governmentally prescribed medication, something which I paid and continue to pay various consequences for.

Whether or not I obey authority has little to do with respect. Handing down laws that we must obey is simply a way for those in power to exercise control over a population, it’s not something that is worthy of respect. Some laws we may agree with (don’t kill your neighbour), others we may not (setting off fireworks on holidays). I am not going to guess at the motives authorities have for control. Just as I try to control my own children by regulating, for instance, their sugar consumption, screen consumption, and outdoor exercise, it is entirely possible that people who are trying to exert control are doing it for reasons that seem benign and beneficial to them.

Authority has and continues to be wrong, time and time again. Knowledge is updated and revised. Ethics change. Perspectives change. Right now I’m reading Science Fictions, a book which exposes the staggering level of mistakes - everything from outright fraud to random typos that completely change the conclusion of a study - in science. And, of all human endeavours for knowledge, science is supposed to be the most impartial, the most honest, the most objective and therefore most likely to provide the truth. Yet it is riddled with false conclusions and mistaken interpretations that originate from our human nature and therefore are extremely challenging, if not impossible, to overcome.

So I don’t believe I need to respect authority, especially authority that claims to know the truth. I don’t think any of us need to respect authority. We just need to decide if, how much, and when we will allow others to have power over us. Will we grant authority to others, obey it, ignore it or resist it?

Respecting people? That I agree with. I have no idea what is anyone else’s mind - I barely know my own - and so the least I can do is stop trying to know it and instead simply respect it. I can respect that someone else is here, part of this divine and unknowable universe, contributing their ideas, their being, their output, to the world and that alone is worthy of respect. I don’t have to agree with you, but things will go better for both of us if I remember that you are absolutely worthy of my respect. It’s just your authority over me that I don’t.