Authority
Authority, in the sense spoken of here, refers to “the capacity to enforce obedience in others through coercion,” and especially “by means of official sanction.” This is different from other uses of the word, such as those meanings running cognate to or otherwise relating to authorship, which can also be a means of getting others to do what one wants, but which relies on persuasion, rather than coercion. These differ in that authority as authorship is an appeal to Reason, whereas authority as is used here is the threat of violence. Authors convince, but bosses command. The sense of authority that relies on persuasion is not the one used here.
Ignorance
Ignorance, in the sense used here, means “to ignore information,” or “to engage in willful obliviousness.” This is different from simply not having been made aware or being uninformed, because it involves untaken opportunities for learning. Ignorance is favorable to authority for a number of reasons. Authority prefers an ignorant populace, because ignorant people are able to accept authority. But authority, while also making great use of learning, also rests upon ignorance, because it takes ignorance to do what is morally bad and ethically wrong. By remaining ignorant, authority can claim innocence. Remember, the poster child of innocence is a baby, particularly because uninformed of the world. By remaining ignorant, appeals to innocence can be made.
Inadequate Ideas
Inadequate ideas are those that are not coherent, making sense of the collection of known facts about causation and context, or that are not correlative, meaning that the concepts do not correspond to what is known about reality. Authority has a strong relationship with inadequate ideas. Authority is itself an inadequate idea, because adequate ideas can be spread by way of persuasion, whereas authority has to compel others to follow its ideas because they are inadequate. Authority neither corresponds to reality, because often authorities are not good or correct, nor coheres with the known facts, because authority pretends to be one thing and is found to be something else.
Nonbeing
Nonbeing is the concept of there not being an existent, “a thing that exists.” Such a belief often serves as the foundation for religious discourse, such as in the Abrahamic concept of creation ex-nihilo, or “creation from out of nothing,” or the Buddhist concept of emptiness, that there is no existence, or that existence is empty of real content. Such ideas are, of course, absurdities, or “concepts disproven by the nature of their contents as being ridiculous and impossible.” We experience something, and nothing can only be contrasted against that. For this reason, it is understood in physics that there is no such thing as cold or dark, but only heat and light. Cold and dark are merely the relative absence, or reduction in potency, of heat and light. Nonbeing serves as the metaphysical basis of authority.
Religion
Often upon the metaphysical premise of nonbeing, and sometimes in association with some form of being outside of, giving way to, or resulting from nonbeing, but always upon inadequate ideas (or else philosophy), religion is founded. Religion is often the belief in superstition, or the supernatural, that there is something outside of but acting upon natural reality, or which is not constrained by natural limitations such as causality. Authority, and especially but not exclusively the clergy, or religious authority, has benefitted greatly by religion, which has served as a means by which to encourage ignorance and inadequate ideas in the populace, and to thereby be made to passively accept authority, often as demanded by the main deity, or god, of the religion.
Scientism
Where religion has been found impotent, scientism, or the ideology that all knowledge must be scientific and often of an inductive variety, has served the same purpose. Like religion, scientism is an inadequate idea fueled by the passions, but instead of the supernatural, scientism subscribes to a muted form of naturalism whereby all knowledge pursuits must be performed according to the scientific method. Importantly, this does not only exclude religion from the picture, but also important areas of the humanities such as natural philosophy that employs other means of investigation. Like religion, scientism is important for authority because it fosters inadequate, and thus powerless or stunted, ideas, which can be given command by authority. Many of these ideas, counter to the intentions of the proponent, end up being pseudoscientific.
Evil
While there is no absolute evil, and all wrongs and bads happen as Aristotlean accidents, evil, as distinct from wrong or bad, does have a relative existence. Whereas doing bad is to do something morally or subjectively unacceptable, and to do wrong is to do something ethically or objectively unacceptable, to do evil is to knowingly do bad or wrong. This does not happen for its own sake, as there is no such thing as absolute evil, but it does occur in the pursuit of something else, which is taken to be good or right. That is, evil occurs not in order to do evil, but in order to achieve some good, the consequence of which entailing something bad or wrong done along the way, which is found to be acceptable to the evil-doer. All of the actions essential to authority, without which authority would not exist distinct from authorship, etc., are evil. For the evils authority does, it often claims innocence or immediate utility in its actions in expressions of self-indulgence. Evil often claims it is done for the sake of ending evil.
Passions
Authority rests upon the passions, which are excited emotional drives against which people who do not know the value of reasoning submit their capacity to reason. Passions are uncontrollable urges resulting from passive and mechanical resignation to the results of inadequate ideas concerning external stimuli. They occur when an environmental stimulant excites the emotions, and in particular when Reason fails to be made the supreme judge of the situation, such as when there are religious or scientistic motivations at play. Passions can be forgone through rational comprehension and total love and acceptance of Nature, but authority relies on the passions for its very existence. Authority incites passion for its inadequate ideas in order to do the evil of compelling others into obedience. By inciting this passion in others, authority can reduce rationally inadequate human beings to automatons.
Sensibility
The awareness and sensitivity toward the passions of others is known as sensibility. Sensibilities are a sensory response to the bad experiences faced by others. These bad experiences can result from wrong done by the individual or wrong done to the individual, or as a result from natural problems. As such, sensibilities can be consistent with irrational passions or with rational concerns. When consistent with rational concerns, sensibilities are a factor in conscientiousness, the mindful pursuit of doing good and right, which involves discerning whether the sensibility is justified or not according to Reason. Bare sensibilities, divorced from Reason, must be understood to be distinct from conscientiousness, and instead considered passions. Sensibilities of this sort are very important for authority, because authority, unlike authorship, rests almost entirely upon appeals to popular sensibilities for its legitimacy.
Nobility
Consideration toward popular sensibilities results in nobility, “the quality of having refined senses.” Those who command the ignorance, inadequate ideas, and passions of others through keen perception of popular sensibilities are seen as noble by the ignorant, inadequate, and passionate individual. The noble individual understands their obligation to behave sensibly as a part of their noblesse oblige, or “noble obligation.” In particular, it is important that acts of dominance by authorities be perceived as noble, such as by their perception as being sticking up for someone who is facing bad experiences who does not have to so long as the authority takes some evil action. Thus, evolutionarily burgeoning or struggling groups may be given favor at the expense of a better-established one, on the grounds that it is more sensible for the newer or departing groups to survive off of their efforts. The conscientiousness of such an act must generally be disallowed from becoming a feature of popular discourse.
Dupes
The nobility, through its keen sensibilities, is successful in establishing dupes, or “useful idiots,” people whose passions can be used for the ends of the noble. This is an element of realpolitik, or the practical rather than sentimental use of belief systems for the achievement of often idiosyncratic ends. In other words, nobles will encourage dupes in holding and acting upon beliefs that the noble does not themselves have or may not actually support, though which the noble will propagate, if the noble believes that in the pursuit of those ends by the dupe the dupe will achieve ends that are actually beneficial for the noble, whether or not they are also beneficial for the dupe. For instance, a noble who wishes to do harm to an individual may smear their reputation or engage in character assassinations so that dupes who believe the false information, or who are motivated by wrong beliefs, will do harm to that individual, serving the noble as useful idiots.
Secrecy
Secrecy can have a number of purposes, including both nefarious and revolutionary purposes. Authority often relies on secrecy and, while not alone in doing so, organizes itself into secret societies, or societies with secrets, in order to maintain control of the population. These have taken the forms of religious cults or more casual “smoke-filled rooms.” This secrecy allows authorities to go about their business of planning and engaging in culturally and economically manipulative activities, such as utilization of dupes.
High Black Magic
The elites of the nobility, responsible for establishing institutions of authority, engage in high magic, also known as ceremonial magic, referring to magical practices aimed at achieving the ends one seeks through the performance of group rituals. This is distinct from natural or green magic, which refers to practices such as alchemy, astrology, herbal remedies, and etc., which would develop into chemistry, astronomy, and naturopathy, for instance. Instead of regarding natural, external phenomena, high magic involves the human will. In particular, the elites of the nobility have depended upon one of two important tools for achieving their magical success. These have included rituals that have cemented authority, including those of coronation, the act of declaring a monarch— often surrounding notions of Divine Right—, and of election, the act of gaining the favor of a participating majority in the populace. Both coronation and election involve ceremonial activities for the purpose of aligning the human will with the inadequate idea that a king or statesman, so-declared and however fictional, is to be recognized as an authority. Because this is an evil action, these are acts of black magic, or magic done for evil ends.
Governments and States
Those individuals who have been coronated, elected, or etc. compose the government, that executive body that administers the state, referring to the condition resulting from popular impression by way of the pomp of ceremonial magic whereby an authority, whether individual or associational, is accepted as a monopolist of the legitimate use of violence, and, by extension, a monopolist of aggression. This means that such an authority has the solely and exclusively recognized right to protect the population, granted by means of coronation or election, but which results, due to lack of accepted competition for legitimacy, in abuses including non-defensive and non-restorative uses of violence, or acts of aggression. By being elevated to the positions of governments, authorities can engage in evil actions without having to face recompense. Matters of government, and opinions of its behaviors, are known as politics. Secret governments are known as deep states, shadow governments, or parallel empires.
Dissensus
Very important to the maintenance of authority, especially today and in areas where consensus cannot be manufactured (as with scientism), is the propagation of popular dissensus, or widespread disagreement. Whereas consensus is about fostering or is fostered agreement, dissensus is about fostering or fostered disagreement, or discord. Dissensus is promoted by elite authorities in their supporting adverse passions rooted in hypersubjectivity, hyperrelativity, or reductive objectivity simultaneously. This act polarizes the situation, and the sustained polarization is the cause of the discord or dissensus.
Factions
In order to maintain their status as clergies and governments, elite authorities engage in the propagation of factions, or subgroupings of people according to ideological or, more often, rhetoric-based fracture-lines, especially as aligning with popular, inadequate ideas. Factions are portions of the population that have developed a consensus around particular issues or matters for which they are very passionate, and a strong dissensus with others. Such passions are typically religiously, scientistically, or politically-motivated, splitting people according to religious denominations, scientific camps, or political parties. By keeping people separated according to the dissensus of their various factions, authorities can keep the population divided and conquered, which is essential to maintaining a monopoly on aggression.
Agonism
Authority operates according to the principles of agonism, or violent social contest for positions of leadership. According to these dynamics, leadership positions are limited, and in order to decide who is to fill those positions it is necessary to engage in contests, wherein winner-takes-all. The contest may be political, as by way of coronation and election, or clerical, as by way of the seminary or academy. The winner has full control in the area in which they have become the leading agonist, such that the area under influence effectively becomes the property of the agonist, and such that all who fall under the agonist’s authority must do as the agonist says. In other words, agonism involves a contest for dominance. Quite often, the most effective agonist will be the most noble, and this will be essential to covering up for the evil they will be doing when they acquire positions of authority by way of contest.
Coalitions
Leaders will form coalitions between factions, managing to rise past the divides. This can only be easily achieved by those who have stoked the factions to begin with, which is the point of the factions. By letting up on certain cultural stimulants that dupes have rallied around, and focusing on others that relate those dupes to dupes in other factions, which have been similarly manipulated, authorities can manufacturer coalitions of dupes to serve as their feet on the ground. This is especially important when working for elections, because cross-factional coalitions serve to drive people to one of two political parties, which serve to funnel factions into one of two polarities, which is useful for agonistic purposes where options have to be whittled down.
Co-Option
Agonistic practices rely heavily on co-option, the assimilation of competing ideas or authorities by a more dominant one in order to use them for the dominant authority’s own use or to divert them to an end that differs from their own original intention. When an idea is co-opted, one could say that it has been corrupted or perverted, because it will have been reinterpreted and repurposed in order to neutralize the original concept. Similarly, a co-opted individual will typically be given a realm in which they have absolute domain, but must not act outside of that domain, and this often limits the individual from achieving the ends that they have sought after, their co-option being an act of evil both on their part and that of the dominant party. Co-option allows dominant authorities to maintain control over apparently lesser authorities and to neutralize their competitive efforts in favor of incentivizing efforts that function to the benefit of the dominant authority.
Credentialism
In order to be co-opted, some authorities demand that one have credentials, or a statement by another authority that one has obeyed that authority’s dictates to a satisfactory level. The system of demanding credentials from others is called credentialism, and it is a means by which to sanction against individuals who may have a mind and a will of their own, thereby securing positions against the conscientious. Credentialism ensures that the self-taught and self-led, or those who may have a disagreement with authority, do not have a chance to be considered for higher-class positions that may allow them to challenge existing authority structures.
Obscurantism
Intellectual authorities have come to practice obscurantism, or the purposeful abstraction of otherwise concrete ideas. Obscurantism involves the keeping of information from popular understanding by its presentation in a deliberately abstruse fashion, so as to make the topic appear difficult to grasp, overly technical, or hard to perceive, in an effort to occultize the topic. This both disincentivizes the learner from engaging further in the topic and makes the knowledge of the authority appear sensational, thereby elevating them in popular conception. By making knowledge seem unattainable, that is, a clear hierarchy is established between those who are conditioned to believe it is beyond their level of comprehension and those who espouse having reached such a level.
Deference
A major aspect of agonistic institutions is that there is a culture of deference, or deferring to others within their area of specialty, and recognition of experts, or credentialed specialists who are recognized to have domain or authority in the area. The culture of deference is very important for maintaining a sense of legitimacy for the institution. Experts referring to one another establishes a spectacle of influence, plays on ignorance and inadequate ideas, and incites passion for the institution, much as musicians referring to or working with one another. It creates a synergy of sensibility that mutually reinforce one another. Without experts recognizing one another’s domain of authority, the general population would not be conditioned to do the same, but might be encouraged to follow rogue authorities, or worse yet, might snap out of authority’s spell.
Compartmentalization
An extreme form of deference, when mixed with secrecy, results from compartmentalization, the placing of barriers between areas of inquiry or expertise. Especially common in the military, and particularly in regard to classified matters, compartmentalization has also become a feature of universities, where studies can be hidden from popular view. This results in much surrounding paranoia and wild logical abductions derided as “conspiracy theories” (and by that they mistakenly mean absurd ideas) about what is actually happening, and interestingly appears to manifest in a collective, sociological variant of splitting or schizophrenic disorder.
Revolution from Above
When popular opinion has risen against the authority, such that the authority’s legitimacy may be challenged by a contender, the authority has the potential to co-opt the revolutionary, and by extension the revolution, in what is called a revolution from above. In such a revolution, the revolution itself is co-opted by the authority and used for the authority’s own ends. This is typically best performed by a deep state or shadow government who, in changing the figurehead, does not ultimately lose any ground by satisfying the revolutionaries with a spectacle of success that, ultimately, has no fruits but which was, nonetheless, led by dupes who, to one extent or another, were originally themselves led by genuine passion, which ignorant and inadequate people find to be very sensible.
Controlled Opposition
Instead of having to engage in revolutions from above, which can be costly, it can be easier for authority to establish controlled opposition, or dupes who are co-opted into knaves and who are full-time revolutionaries from above. This is a sort of permanent revolution from above, whereby revolutions do not generally arise at all, owing to the revolutionaries themselves being counter-revolutionary or led by counter-revolutionaries role-playing as revolutionaries. In this jiu-jitsuing of dissident factions, authority can not only stop the influence of genuine revolutionaries, but pre-empt and steal their influence, by way of their own, pre-selected figureheads. These figureheads can misdirect their dupes all along the way, especially when it is crucial to do so.
Adhocracy
Part of having a team of controlled opposition engaged in permanent revolution from above is to have influencers who can lead others on the go, without a plan. This sort of spontaneous authority, where things are always changing and the faces of leaders often change, is called adhocracy. Adhocracy is important especially for secret governance, because the rapid rotation of leadership positions and choice between leaders masks the source of the appointing power or financial influence behind the influencers, and makes their leadership appear as if it had arisen naturally, without influence, at least to the ignorant, inadequate, or unwitting.
Ochlocracy
At the same time, the less direct influence is needed the easier time authority has. If people are willing to lead themselves according to popular sensibilities, this can be very fruitful for authority, and especially if those sentiments have been established according to authority’s influence. This sort of mob rule, which has especially strong currency among crowds, is known as ochlocracy, “the rule of the vicious majority.”
Immediatism
Accompanying and underlying the practices of adhocracy and ochlocracy is the notion of immediatism, that something must be done right now to resolve the pet insensibilities of each of the competing factions. Some have taken this notion to the extreme, in forms such as accelerationism, the idea that the faults of existing systems should be amplified so as to cause systemic failures. Immediatism helps to ensure a subjectivistic, relativistic, and momentary approach to decision-making, and to secure noble authority through popular influence, particularly when the accelerationist is both the cause and the solution to the problem.