Authority: Real or Not?

Authority

It is not a force of nature, or some unquestionable truth, it is a fabrication. It exists only because people agree, consciously or not, to pretend it is as real as the sun in the sky.

It is part of a matrix of beliefs chiseled into each and every one of us by our parents, peers, and community at large. Many will rightly point to the concept of authority as essential to a functioning society.

But the part of the story largely ignored, rarely acknowledged outside hushed tones or resistance literature, is that, when examined from an empirical perspective, several of these beliefs appear to either serve little function, or are actively being used to oppress.

Ultimately, when you strip away the rituals, the uniforms, the stamps and the seals, and you are left with one truth: no one has any power over you unless you give it to them.

This is not some fringe philosophy. This is physics. Even the most tyrannical regime collapses when enough of the people it subjugates stop complying. Not always with guns, or violent revolution,

but at the end of the day no law can hold back the refusal of the masses to comply. History proves this, empires that spanned continents and centuries crumbled not because they were invaded, but because their own people stopped believing in the myth of the regimes authority.

The Berlin Wall didn’t fall to bombs or heroes, it fell because the people stopped playing along.

Authority, at its core, is the belief that someone else has a rightful claim to dictate your behavior, your time, your autonomy. But who gave them that right?

A vote? A title? A birthright? Some god? At every level, it comes back to the same sleight of hand: they claim power, and you submit. Either because you’re afraid, or because you’ve been trained since birth to believe obedience is virtue.

But look closer and you’ll see it: control over anything but the self, is an illusion. Bureaucrats with clipboards, police with weapons, judges in their robes, they undeniably serve a function in society, but they don’t own you.

They only assume you’ll follow their rules because most people do. The second you don’t, they threaten your freedom or safety because they have no further recourse.

Many people even mistake power for Authority, perhaps because of the aforementioned commonplace threats from figures of supposed "authority" when that delusion is questioned.

There appears to be a systemic arrogance permeating humanity. To even consider, let alone believe truly that humanity can impose “order” on a universe that is fundamentally chaotic, wild, and untamable.

Galaxies collide. Planets are swallowed by stars. The wind howls without permission. But here we are, carving imaginary lines into the dirt and declaring, “This is a nation. These are the laws. You must comply or else.”

Nature does not care about the laws of man. No animal but man recognizes national borders. The rain doesn’t care for zoning laws. And yet man, in his hubris, demands that the universe conform to his shallow, fabricated "world".

A "world" created largely to combat fears of uncertainty, of unpredictability, of loss of control. So humanity wraps the world in red tape so we can all feel safe and then calls it civilization.

But real power comes not from control, it comes from agency. From standing up and saying, “I do not consent” and from recognizing that no one, no office, no system, no mob, has a rightful claim over your existence until you allow it.

This is not a call to chaos, but to clarity. Not to destruction, but to discernment. I implore you, question authority wherever it is purported to exist, and to evaluate the motives of it, and its impact upon you and your community, before blindly bowing to it.