The Authorities
by Vic Neptune
Do we have a psychological need to believe in authority figures? A man wearing a general’s uniform; a mayor; a politician running for re-election; a doctor; a Nobel Prize winner; the King of the United Kingdom and the fourteen Commonwealth realms; a cable news pundit; a police officer; a famous lawyer; an alien governor assuming control of Earth; any boss, all of these and more authority figures have one thing in common: depending on circumstances, wha they say goes. Some gain authority through respect for their accomplishments, dubious or otherwise (the Nobel Prize winner), while others, King Charles III for example, live long enough to inherit vast wealth, and the authority symbolized by a gold scepter topped with a 530.2 carat diamond.
Authority figures have the advantage of saying or declaring in writing something and the statement rings true for those who automatically accept their words as gospel. The expression “the gospel truth” derives from the idea that the familiar selection of gospels dealing with Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were picked as “authoritative” and made it into the New Testament) should not be questioned, while other gospels—Thomas, Philip, Judas, and others--were deemed heretical by early Church fathers. That process took about three centuries. What we call the Catholic (meaning “Universal”) Church didn’t come about until the first half of the fourth century, but with the power of the Roman Empire behind it, that variety of Christian faith became an Authority, its Roman Bishop the lead man; indeed, the Pope, the one who now can meet with a U.S. President or a British monarch or any other important authority figures to discuss we never know what.
That’s the thing about authority figures. Because they operate above ordinary people, their views, their orders, their conditions set for the common people are beyond explanation. At this time, the election year 2024, no one outside the inner circle of the Executive Branch and other top government loci knows who’s running the country. President Biden was forced out of running for re- election by his own party, the reason for this his obvious cognitive decline, noticeable to me in 2019. It’s been obvious to anyone who’s ever cared for an elderly relative and witnessed a deterioration of that person’s mental processes. Yet, U.S. news media personnel and politicians have pretended there’s nothing to this, and how dare anyone bring it up. Top Democrats, like Senator Schumer and Congresswoman Pelosi, with the necessary agreement of Vice President Harris, and an assist from Barack Obama, got Biden to agree to withdraw from the nomination, though he didn’t resign. Kamala Harris was thus given the nomination without any American citizen voting for her to win it.
The Democratic Party is hardly democratic, but they are authoritative. It’s a stunning achievement to pull off a coup d’etat on the sitting President of the United States and convince millions of Democratic Party supporters that it hardly matters. I’m not a Trump supporter, or a supporter of the Republican Party. I see two rich and powerful parties obsessed with pleasing the wealthy donors above them while ignoring the American people. The Democrats and Republicans suck, but they have the magic of authority.
“It’s the system we’ve got,” the argument goes. Resignation follows. The philosophy of low expectations rules. We’re told that the minimum wage has to be kept low to satisfy corporate profiteers--the big bosses will just do layoffs instead of giving their workers a living wage. We can’t have Medicare For All because “who’s gonna pay for it?” The most recent budget for the Department of Defense is $849.8 billion. This is an organization that lost a nineteen year long war in Afghanistan to the Taliban, for Christ’s sake! I wouldn’t give them five cents. They are the modern Roman army and navy roaming all over the world, trying to enforce the American empire’s will, but doing it badly. Again, who’s running the country? It’s not Biden. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan are strong candidates for acting as the real, and extremely incompetent, leaders (behind the scenes authority figures) of our country until either Trump or Harris take over in January.
My commitment to writing as truthfully as I’m able about these matters is not my vicious way of upsetting Kamala Harris or Donald Trump supporters. I’m not an authority in the sense of some professor, say, who’s written dozens of books about politics and world affairs. I’ve been studying and absorbing current events, politics, and history since the mid-1980s. I’ve noticed trends. I’ve noticed that politicians lie as easily as they put on their American flag pins. They make decisions that have woeful effects on other nations and on this nation. Sometimes they do the right thing, but more often they don’t. They’re human, thus, their capacity to deceive is as real as that of a career criminal. On top of that, they are authority figures.
The solution, perhaps, for ordinary individuals anyway, is to be one’s own authority. To spend at least a little more time looking under the surface of what authority figures declare to be the truth. President Bush and Vice President Cheney lied to the world about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. Upon that lie, they got the Senate and Congress to go along with a war of aggression that led to the deaths of about 4,500 American military personnel and at least a million Iraqis. The long term effects of that lie, from authority figures, are still with us in wounded and wrecked U.S. veterans, many of them homeless, while the MIddle East still burns, and George W. Bush paints pictures, and Dick Cheney endorses Kamala Harris for President. The Authorization For Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 was a flaming pile of bullshit, adapted for use outside Iraq in every U.S. military operation since then—it’s authoritative, and we are the chumps.
On the positive side, there’s a way out of this mental cage. Don’t take what authority figures say at face value. Some of them are sincere, some produce great and lasting works. Distinguishing between the manipulators and the genuine, caring people is worth doing, whether on the scale of politics and world events, or in one’s personal relationships.
Vic Neptune writes, makes movies (YouTube Channel John Berner), collages, paintings. Movies made as Rhombus. Film criticism based on thousands of movies of all eras seen. Strong interest in literature: Shakespeare, Thomas Mann, Jack London, Robert E. Howard, Joan Didion, Philip K. Dick, and many others. History and religion other interests also. Favorite filmmakers: Jean-Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Federico Fellini. Life without art is art without life.