1. I’m amazed & disturbed how many people, after reading one article of mine that they agree with, write to me as if I know all the answers to life—if they saw the shambolic details of my life they would not do this. It’s easy to see how the unscrupulous could take advantage.https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1045307656804560896 …
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5. The authority they submit to is nature: the need to survive & to do what is necessary. In the contemporary technocratic/technological world, this authority is veiled from us. The world of adventure, sailing, and war is a meaningful world for men. Dr. Johnson knew!pic.twitter.com/GEBEmmYltS
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We disagree merely over what seems to me your overstretching of the word "authority". Being compelled by reality to do something or other seems to me something importantly different to submitting to human authority. But perhaps just as satisfying.
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Humans and nature are one. There are eternal laws of survival—deviation from these laws, the laws of reality, means death. Legitimate human authority is that authority which is closest to the eternal laws of survival and so reality.
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How would you characterise the word "authoritarian", particularly the negative connotations it has? The word does not seem to me to have much to do with submission to nature.
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1. I see, per Aristotle, the “authoritarian” as someone who takes a virtue too far and turns it into a vice by becoming arbitrary and capricious. I actually view our current regime as authoritarian, though it defines itself against “authoritarianism”.
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2. Authority is defined as the power to enforce laws, exact obedience, command, determine, and judge. These laws, I would argue, must be derived from nature and reality.
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In other words, legitimate authority tells you what you had good reason to do anyway?
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Yes. This is evident in the idea of a just revolt against a tyrannous king. The revolt, as opposed to revolution, seeks to restore the natural order broken by a corrupted king, but not to instantiate a utopian political order in the place of monarchy.
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