> At 8:01 PM -0800 13/11/06, Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>>
>> >It seems pretty straightforward to me: in a society with many
>> >bureaucratic organizations, there are by definition many people in
>> >positions of authority over others. This means that conformity to
>> >obedience is necessary for our society to function,
>
>
> I though this was a leftist list. Why is that particular aspect of
> current society one we should accept, rather than strive to change?
>
> It seems to me that if we change other major structual elements
> without changing that, we just get "Here comes the new boss,
> same as the old boss."
>
When I'm talking about legitimate authority, I'm not talking about the
capitalist class. I have no trouble imagining how to get rid of that.
I'm referring to all the people with legitimate authority in our
society who really do make our way of life possible:
engineers doctors lawyers (jokes aside, the law doesn't interpret itself!) teachers parents union leaders scientists of all stripes computer programmers
In their fields of expertise, people in these positions have important things to teach the rest of us, and it's not useful for us to ignore their input because they're "in authority". (Doctor: "you have diabetes". Patient: "So what? I don't care what you say!") Perhaps it's just my lack of imagination, but I don't see how we can have an industrial society without this kind of legitimate authority based on relevant knowledge.
Miles