Today I have a very short post on maturity and authority. It is meant to raise questions more than to answer them, so you can decide for yourself what a mature approach to dealing with authorities consists of. The questions at the end are borrowed from The Radical Thinking Course.

We can see from history and experience that unthinking obedience to authority can have tragic consequences. A mature person sees that the verdict of ones own mind can’t be safely ignored. On the other hand, we can see that fighting every battle makes no sense either, so we may sometimes cooperate with authorities, perhaps even when they are doing something that is wrong or unproductive.

So maturity is not about mindlessly rebelling against authority, nor does it mean mindlessly cooperating with it. A mature person thinks, and chooses when it is best to cooperate or not cooperate with authorities, according to important criteria. And those criteria have to be essentially self-determined, because even acting according to the criteria of others requires the decision of whose “rules” to trust.

Here are four questions about maturity and authority, which I leave for you to answer.

1. For a mature person, is there any moral duty to obey any authority, whether that authority takes the form of powerful people, laws, or written rules?

2. Is there any authority on earth which can be followed safely without thought?

3. If you follow authority with thoughtfully rather than mindlessly, aren’t you establishing yourself as the ultimate authority?

4. How should you decide when to obey and when to disobey those who are in power?