Nisbet, Robert A. "The Nemesis of Authority." Intercollegiate Studies Institute-Education for Liberty. 1972.
Abstract:
IN our day “authority” is not a popular word. We tend commonly to confuse it with power or coercion, and generally give it low ranking among the civil virtues. Not for a long time in the West has “authority” come close to “freedom” in acceptability to creative minds, especial1y those carrying high influence in the letters and arts. There have been notable exceptions, of course. Shakespeare, as we know, yielded to no one in respect for, almost reverence for, authority in society. And no one can read Boswell’s Life of Johnson without vivid recognition of the passion for order and authority that dominated so much of Johnson’s view of the world. In our century, interestingly, some of the writers who, by common assent, have been the boldest and most original minds of the age – Eliot, Yeats, Pound, among others – have had a profound feeling for authority in society. And they have been right. Civil society, in whatever degree it may be said to exist at all, is a tissue of authorities, however loosely knit these may be in times of stress. Authority, unlike power or coercion, is not rooted in force, or threat of force. It is built into the very fabric of human association. Authority exists in the very roles and statuses of the social order. It is no more than an aspect, though a vital aspect, of the social bond. It is closely related to function, to membership, and to allegiance, in any degree whatever. In any reasonably stable…
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