Quotes About Authority

Propaganda is only successful when it is in harmony with something in the patient: his desire for an immortal soul, for health, for the greatness of his nation, or what not. Where there is no such fundamental reason for acquiescence, the assertions of authority are viewed with cynical scepticism. One of the advantages of democracy, from the governmental point of view, is that it makes the average citizen easier to deceive, since he regards the government as his government.

Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation.

Protestants, on the contrary, rejected the Church as a vehicle of revelation; truth was to be sought only in the Bible, which each man could interpret for himself. If men differed in their interpretation, there was no divinely appointed authority to decide the dispute. In practice, the State claimed the right that had formerly belonged to the Church, but this was a usurpation. In Protestant theory, there should be no earthly intermediary between the soul and God.

It is a curious fact that the more democratic a country becomes, the less respect it has for its rulers. Aristocracies and foreign conquerors may be hated but they are not despised.

The effects of this change were momentous. Truth was no longer to be ascertained by consulting authority, but by inward meditation. There was a tendency, quickly developed, towards anarchism in politics, and, in religion, towards mysticism, which had always fitted with difficulty into the framework of Catholic orthodoxy. There came to be not one Protestantism, but a multitude of sects; not one philosophy opposed to scholasticism, but as many as there

In our own day, there has been too much of a tendency towards authority, and too little care for the preservation of initiative. Men in control of vast organisations have tended to be too abstract in their outlook, to forget what actual human beings are like, and to try to fit men to systems rather than systems to men.

The principle that we ought to obey God rather than man has been interpreted by Christians in two different ways. God's commands may be conveyed to the individual conscience either directly, or indirectly through the medium of the Church. No one except Henry VIII and Hegel has ever held, until our own day, that they could be conveyed through the medium of the State.

The conception of duty has been a means used by the holders of power to induce others to live for the interests of their masters rather than for their own.

As soon as absolute truth is supposed to be contained in the saying of a certain man, there is a body of experts to interpret his sayings, and these experts infallibly acquire power, since they hold the key to truth. like any other privileged caste, they use their power for their own advantage.

The lunatic who believes he is a poached egg, is to be condemned solely on the ground that he is in a minority. Or rather, since we must not assume democracy, on the ground that the government disagrees with him.

I have spoken hitherto of those who command and those who obey, but there is a third type, namely, those who withdraw. There are men who have the courage to refuse submission without having the imperiousness that causes the wish to command. Such men do not fit readily into the social structure, and in one way or another they seek a refuge where they can enjoy a more or less solitary freedom.

the work of inspection was left to magistrates and clergymen. To the relief of employers, experience showed that magistrates and clergymen had no objection to law-breaking when its purpose was merely the torture of children.

Those who have the habit of controlling powerful mechanisms, and through this control have acquired power over human beings, may be expected to have an imaginative outlook towards their subjects which will be completely different from that of men who depend upon persuasion, however dishonest. Most of us have, at some time, wantonly disturbed an ants' nest, and watched with mild amusement the scurrying confusion that resulted.

In international affairs the same formula of federalism will apply: self-determination for every group in regard to matters which concern it much more vitally than they concern others, and government by a neutral authority embracing rival groups in all matters in which conflicting interests of groups come into play.

Every organisation, whatever its character and whatever its purpose, involves some redistribution of power. There must be a government, which takes decisions in the name of the whole body, and has more power than the single members have, at any rate as regards the purposes for which the organisation exists.

This argument, expressed in Latin—which is held to make any nonsense respectable—has been erected by the Catholic Church into a first principle: that we cannot err in believing what has been believed always, everywhere, and by everybody. Those who use this argument conveniently forget how many once universal beliefs are now discarded.

Only the guardians, in Plato's language, are to think; the rest are to obey, or to follow leaders like a herd of sheep. This doctrine, often unconsciously, has survived the introduction of political democracy, and has radically vitiated all national systems of education.

Men would be chosen for jobs on account of fitness to do the work, not because they flattered the irrational dogmas of those in power.

Power is naked when its subjects respect it solely because it is power, and not for any other reason. Thus a form of power which has been traditional becomes naked as soon as the tradition ceases to be accepted. It follows that periods of free thought and vigorous criticism tend to develop into periods of naked power.

Not only teachers, but all commonplace persons in authority, desire in their subordinates that kind of uniformity which makes their actions easily predictable and never inconvenient. The result is that they crush initiative and individuality when they can, and when they cannot, they quarrel with it.

I come now to the question of forms of government, and it is natural to begin with absolute monarchy, as the oldest, simplest, and most widespread of the constitutions known in historical times.

We have seen that monarchy and oligarchy have both merits and demerits. The principal demerit of both is that, sooner or later, the government becomes so indifferent to the desires of ordinary men that there is revolution

The laws of social dynamics are—so I shall contend—only capable of being stated in terms of power in its various forms. In order to discover these laws, it is necessary first to classify the forms of power, and then to review various important historical examples

The principle that we ought to obey God rather than man has been interpreted by Christians in two different ways. God's commands may be conveyed to the individual conscience either directly, or indirectly through the medium of the Church.