Power And Authority

POWER AND AUTHORITY OR AUTHORITY AGAINST POWER José Andrés Murillo* Authority is in crisis. We say this phrase and hear it said everywhere. Young people do not respect adults or their teachers; people no longer respect institutions, etc. But if it is undergoing a crisis, it is largely due to the fact that the authorities (parents, teachers, religious leaders and others) don’t know what authority is, they don’t know what to do with the power they have or what are its limitations. However, if authority is in crisis, it is good news: we’ll have to think about it. Its grounds, its forms, and above all, its limitations. My aim in this article is to reflect about its limits, especially when it becomes power, in other words, when authority becomes mere force, violence. What makes it legitimate or not, from the theoretical perspective, is way beyond the intentions of these lines. Throughout history its legitimacy has been based on many different grounds. Force, tradition, God, science, reason, etc. On the whole, these are dogmatic discussions or philosophically too "elevated", incapable of listening to one another (as in every dogmatic discussion) and which tell us very little, if nothing at all, of our concrete experience with power. Nonetheless, there is one fact that I feel goes beyond (or is closer than) any dogma about authority: when a child is born, he/she lacks the necessary tools to enter into the world, to live in it independently; he/she needs the others to teach him/her to take the first steps. This is what we call "natality". When we arrived in the world, this was a completely unknown place and somebody took over and helped make it into something more like a home. Somebody taught us to act in it, ask for things, to talk; later we were taught a skill or a way of making a living. Somebody taught us to say "I": the family (or whoever took up this role), artistic and educational institutions, the churches, etc. We aren’t "finished" when we arrive, rather, we have to build ourselves, to construct and create ourselves together with others who aren’t "finished" either, in a world that isn’t finished either. It is a never-ending process (at least in our life experience). Nobody is ever "finished". Saying: I am finished, done, equals saying: I am through, dead. The human world, the common world, we are constantly building (or destroying it). Not only the physical or architectural world, but also the world of human relations, the spiritual world. If we enter a place shouting and demanding something in a violent manner, for example, that is a way of building a very concrete atmosphere, which will be the way how we will show the world to others. The world of a child who is constantly ill-treated is an ill-treating world. The world of a child who is loved, welcomed and recognized in his environment is a world that loves, welcomes and recognizes. As this child grows up, he will continue to build this world and will be able to question, keep, change or destroy it.

In the course of life, we always take sides in the world. Life never happens in an emotionally neutral scenario, on the contrary, it is a space that is always filled with some kind of feeling, which not only comes from us, but also from our meeting with other people and from circumstances. We are co-creators of this world, and this world, in turn, creates us. AUTHORITY In order to be part of the world, we need others to accompany, guide, and teach us, and we trust them. They are our elders, parents, teachers, trainers. That is where authority stems from. The older people have more strength, experience, they have power, they have authority. Do they have authority? The purpose of this article is precisely to determine the difference between power and authority. I believe it is a very important difference when it comes to analyzing and assuming human relations. Authority as well as power requires obedience, that is why we tend to mistake them (1). But they are different in the motivation that creates them as in the way they use to make themselves obeyed. And they are different, of course, in what they produce. Basically, power is obeyed through some form of violence, while authority does it through respect, which, as we shall see, is mutual. Obedience, in the case of power is a reaction to fear, and in the case of authority, it is an answer of confidence. VIOLENCE Power acts through violence. It must be clearly stated that violence is not only physical. There is violence each time the dignity of a person is rejected or denied. It can be a physical punishment, but threats, ridicule, exclusion, confinement and even silence, are forms of violence. Violence generates suffering, either physical or spiritual, precisely because the person that suffers it is treated as a thing, a thing that obeys. His dignity his condition of being a person is not recognized. In the logic of mutual recognition, the person that exerts violence over another is also being violent to himself, because he is not recognized as a person by the one he is being violent with and we all need recognition when we act; nobody can recognize himself other than through somebody else. A father recognized himself, in his full dignity as a father, when his son calls him "dad" with respect and admiration and not with fear. The same happens in every relation of authority. Power is not respected, it is simply feared. Something quite different happens with authority, since it stems from respect. This respect, in turn, stems from the commitment with the other and with the world. The person that exerts authority and not just power know that his actions are creating a world for another person, for himself and for others. He is committed to make this world a space or recognition, respect and freedom, not of domination, violence and power. The world never remains untouched with every thing we do or cease to do. That is why, as Hannah Arendt says, in a relation of authority, the person that obeys keeps his freedom (2). We could even add that through authority, people not only keep their freedom, but increase it. Indeed, the word authority is etymologically related to other words author and increase (auctor, augere). Being authority means creating,

producing something in the others and in the world. What stems from respect and commitment, creates freedom. Whereas power, which stems from fear and violence, reduces it. INSECURITY AND FEAR OF POWER Just as there is mutual respect and recognition in the exercise of authority, in relations of power, there is mutual fear and violence. The one who has the power fears to be seen naked, weak and fragile in front of those he subjugates. The one who thinks he has authority is so afraid of losing it if he shows himself weak, insecure, that he holds on to it transforming it into power through some kind of violence. The one who has the power is afraid of those he subjugates. His look weakens him. That is why he cannot truly look at him, he cannot recognize him. One way of acting in front of fear of one’s own fragility is eliminating the other. Facing his own insecurity, the one who has authority may want to eliminate every possibility of questioning from those he is in charge of. He eliminates this possibility by reducing them to obeying animals. A teacher who feels insecure of his own knowledge demands that his students obey, that they repeat without questioning. But this same insecure teacher, instead of forcing his students to repeat the little he knows, can become involved in a search together with the students and transform his insecurity into a common question, in which he is also involved. Anxiety facing insecurity, the lack of certainties, can cause a violent reaction, but true authority consists in transforming that anxiety in a shared quest, a commitment in the question. Sometimes the fear of not having the answers eliminates the possibility of making questions and creates false answers. False because they do not stem from a real question. This is what power does. Authority is reconciled with uncertainty, with lack of answers and helps those under his care to search together, guides them in the search without subjugating them. It is not necessary for the teacher to know all the answers. He can commit himself with his students in the joint formulation of questions which they will also face together. Hence he will act as a guide and not as an answering machine. A mother or a father who have also felt unloved, insecure, can use their son in order to feel unconditionally loved, manipulate him and force him to give them his undivided attention. They transform the son into an object of their own security. The son, the child, the student, are afraid to question their teachers, their parents, because any questioning entails violence towards them. They are punished, they are forbidden to speak, to go out, they are ridiculed in public. This way critical thought and freedom are eliminated and a world of violence and fear is built. Anybody who has been formed in fear of being punished, abandoned, shamed, condemned, sees authority as a power, an enemy, as violence. In the best of cases, he will rebel against it. And in the worst and more frequent, he will reproduce the violence he has received applying it against those who are weaker than him: sons, students, subordinates, parishioners.

THE QUESTION AGAINST THE ANSWER Every newborn child brings along a new and unique perspective to the world. This new outlook is seen through questions. The family, the educational and artistic institution, the churches, can help us formulate these questions that are part of our identity. Now then, when authority becomes mere power it gives out the answers before the questions see the light. Maybe for fear of not finding the answers. Every new question is a challenge and power does not want to be challenged, only obeyed. This is how it feels safer. But of course the price of this security is very high, just as this security is false. The one that exerts power wants to ensure himself through the person he is in charge of. He uses this person to feel safer. However, besides being in itself unworthy and outrageous, power does not bring that promised security, instead, the person who exerts it is lonelier still: the one who subjugates others is alone, he has nobody with whom to share his life. Power does not respect and has no self-respect, because it does not recognize others or itself. TEACHING SELF-DEFENCE Respect for the other and his freedom is the mark of authority. Although we must clarify that it isn’t a passive respect, that draws back in order not to interfere, but a respect that is actively committed with the freedom of the other, a respect which we could say, does not allow the other to cease being free. This is what the force of his authority should consist in. In engaging in the construction of the freedom of the other and oneself. This commitment of the authority with the people it has in charge, also includes defending them from the powers, from the violence. Power and violence these people can suffer or exert themselves. Finally, defending them means teaching them selfdefence. How? In the first place, awakening the awareness that victory against power is never definite. Power assumes different forms throughout life. Parents, teachers, professors, couples, bosses, can constitute a power which can act violently and from which we must protect ourselves. Also by teaching to question; promote critical thought, even critical of authority itself. It is important to stop being afraid to question, of uncertainty, to demand reasons, respect. To teach anger when facing a situation that offends one’s dignity or somebody else’s. To teach how to establish relations with the authority respecting and making oneself respected through commitment and not through fear. Being there during the process of posing questions, despite ignoring the answers, coexisting with uncertainty, frustration and frailty, assuming the complexity of reality and not being content with easy answers, commonplaces or cliché answers. I wonder if there is an authority who is willing to run the risk of committing himself with what being authority really means. Perhaps the question should rather be if we dare to be free, if it is simply easier and more comfortable to relate through power. (1) Arendt, Hannah, "What is authority?", in Between the Past and the Future, Eight Exercises about Political Reflection, Peninsula, 1993.

(2) Arendt, "What is authority?", Op. Cit.

__________________ *José Andrés Murillo. Master’s degree en Sociology of power, Paris University, [email protected]. http://www.miradaglobal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1043 %3Ael-poder-y-la-autoridad&catid=30%3Asociedad&Itemid=34&lang=en