On Authourity

We swim with questions about what is truth, what is fact, and what is authoritative. What is real news that has authority, and what is fake news? There are many people who claim authority, and not all of them are worthy of it. Few wield it, and fewer still are good at articulating what is necessary to have it. Part of the problem is we have culturally dismantled the term. We use the word “authority” now only in a vestigial sense. It is long divorced from any real meaning or moral weight.1 For all of our postmodern mistrust of authority, and for all of our self-righteous rejection of all things hierarchical and institutional­ —­ we are breathtakingly silent when it comes to defining exactly what it is that we are throwing out with our bath water. Therefore, for a...

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