When confronted with the question "What is the greatest crisis facing people today?", few would answer "authority." And yet, who to believe and who to follow faces us every day, and we must live with the consequences, some of which are quite significant.
Back in the Middle Ages, the answer was simple. You were expected to follow the direction of whomever was immediately above you in the "Great Chain of Being" with God at the top, the King the anointed and infallible representative on earth, below him the Queen, and so on down to the father as head of the family, etc. Authority came down from above, and failure to comply was regarded as "heretical" and "criminal."
But following the American and French Revolutions and the rise of democracy, the world was turned on its head. Authority emanated from down below, from the people, as expressed, hopefully, by elections, petitions, persuasion, etc. The business model reinforces this because to be successful we need to please the customer. This frame of mind has made life particularly hard for teachers of any stripe, since parents, politicians, "experts," all seem to have their own ideas of whom should be teaching and what should be taught. And the revolutionary notion of "equality" has put everyone, it seems, at the same level of credibility. Some families even turn to their children for leadership.
So whom do we turn to for authority? Whom do we believe and trust? In L'Aquila, Italy the scientists are on trial for not predicting and warning against an earthquake. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14981921 If we could sue economists and politicians for failed policies, would the world be in better shape?
For my own part, I like to turn to authors and artists for direction. If they are "worth their salt," they are true to their art or ideas. Like Shakespeare, Federico Fellini, and Michael Moore, their works create quite a bit of controversy and discussion. I don't trust the propagandists, advertisers, and people who want to profit economically from their works. No two people are alike, and we must know ourselves individually and what we want out of life, as well as what we can tolerate, to know who to believe and what choices to make. One thing's for sure, those who claim to have all the answers are least to be trusted. A healthy doubt, as author John Ralston Saul wrote, tends to accompany wisdom. And I believe we must be prepared to learn from our mistakes.
And with that thought, I release my first blog, a message in a bloggle. Up? Down? To? Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season, to quote the great T. S. Eliot.
