Thursday 30 July 2015

Philosophical discussion on Power & authority

BONUS BLOG … Who Rules?


Which is the winning hand ?

Well, that depends! In the “Wild West” or even now in some of the less desirable places on earth to live, “a Smith & Wesson beats four aces”. In the times and places most of us would prefer to inhabit, four aces wins because those are the rules of the game!

Now please don't go all mushy on me and say something silly like “Oh yes! Violence never achieves anything. It is not true; it is not Biblical!

The “Peacemaker” that transformed the lawless wild west into a place where decent folk could live in safety was of course the newly invented rapid fire “Colt Peacemaker” in the hands of brave lawmen. Even now no country has peace unless criminals at home know the Police can out-violence them and potential enemies abroad decide that invading them would be a painful mistake.

Not surprisingly the Bible, being true, says the same. “rulers do not bear the sword for nothing, they are God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” (Romans 13:4) and of course finally heaven is ushered in by God's violence prevailing over the forces of evil (Christ has of course on the cross won the moral victory! When God acts in judgement and also when he welcomes pardoned sinners into heaven both acts will be totally righteous!) “There before me was a white horse, whose rider was called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. … the armies of heaven are following him … He treads the wine-press of the wrath of God Almighty … I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war on the rider on the horse and his army. But the Beast was captured, and with it the false prophet … the two of them were thrown alive into the lake of burning fire … the rest were killed ...” (Revelation 19)

Having very briefly, but I hope sufficiently busted that modern myth, let me go on to the main myth of interest here – which strangely comes out of the same ideological base. This is that Power (the Smith and Wesson) is the same as Authority (four aces win).

Now I am in a slight quandary as to how to put my argument succinctly. A lot has gone into making me think this way. When I was at Lang Lang and found that I could bring people of all sorts to Christ but I could not bring them into church, I studied up on sociology – because it seemed that the problem was “social” rather than “spiritual”. One of the acknowledged “fathers of modern sociology” I studied was Max Weber. His great contribution was in the field of what at the good end we could call “human leadership patterns” and at the bad end “human domination and subjugation”.
Just before I went to Vermont I was given and studied a fascinating book “The loss of the Good Authority” I could not begin to distil these down to a short blog post. But let me try to float a couple of ideas:

My wife's grandfather believed every word he read in the newspaper. “They wouldn't let them print it if it wasn't true!” he would say. I hope not many would be so gullible today! One-time authority figures have fallen off their pedestals all around us. And in most cases our growing distrust of people and institutions we once trusted implicitly is, sad to say, well grounded. That is one side of the story.

The other side is this: Repugnance of bad authorities has led us to reject the very idea of authority or authorities. This has made us throw out the baby with the bath water: we have dismissed the notion of there being a “good authority” at the same time! Big mistake! A mistake that has left a vacuum which has been filled-in by the ideology that “Power” is as good as (or better than) “Authority”


One big thing that makes authority safer than power is that it is controlled. Sure the authority of the rules sometimes lets you claim “I won!” but at other times it makes you admit: “You won.” The Smith & Wesson always lets you say “I win!”

Look at a Biblical example:

Take the story of the Centurion who particularly impressed Jesus with his faith (Matthew 8). When Jesus quizzed him did he say something like “I'm a Centurion, I got power! So I understand you having power!” NO! Nothing of the sort! He said: “I am a man under authority with soldiers under me. I say to this one 'go' and he goes...

A man under authority” This Centurion knew the difference between power and authority: Power you can use how you like (like a Smith & Wesson); authority comes from above, so you are first of all under the authority of whoever or whatever can give authority, so you can only exert the authority delegated to you as this higher authority dictates. Within those bounds certainly you have power to command, but only within those bounds!

The Centurion was under the discipline of the Roman Imperial Army. When he said to a soldier 'go' the soldier went!

Now the Roman army punished going to sleep in duty by death. So let us ask the question: Could a Roman Centurion order his guards: “Its a quiet night men, you just get a bit of shut-eye!” Could he if he discovered a guard asleep on watch say: “I'm the senior officer here, I'll let you off this time with 50 push-ups!” NEVER! And NEVER! As illustrated by the story of the Centurion who found his own son asleep on duty. The centurion drew his sword and beheaded his son on the spot. True authority is not the same as power!

On a different genre of authority, take the scientist. People were prepared to accept that the grey haired scientist knew things which he or she could never explain to the person in the street. So they were accepted as an authority, and their pronouncements accepted as authoritative on that subject. But his was predicated on the knowledge that all scientists submitted to the rules and ideals of scientific integrity and procedure. At that time, a scientist who faked his results or who hid the one result that showed his famous theory was wrong was forever banished as a pariah. Sadly scientists who sold their names to propaganda that products like asbestos were safe without due regard for the evidence led to doubts that they were truly under the authority of science. This led to doubts that they could be trusted as authorities.

The modern ideology espoused by more and more people is: “We want what we want, and if the “rules” are standing in our way, then lets get rid of the rules!” It sounds attractive. Just as it sounded attractive to the scientists at Chernobyl who wanted to run an experiment. The safety devices would get in the way of running their little experiment, so what did they do? They simply disconnected those troublesome safety devices. We know how that ended!

So, by all means be angry at “authorities” when they act badly – they are indeed causing harm far beyond the instance in question. But never, never throw out the baby with the bath water! There is a good authority which is in turn under the authority of some higher authority be it an acknowledged form of good practice, a set of rules, or a constitution. We need that kind of authority


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