The meaning and place of authority has been continually eroded as time has gone on. I know you might hear the word authority or hierarchy and cringe, but please trust I mean it in the most responsible, healthy way. Ill try and illustrate what im getting at through a short example. If you live in the US you've no doubt got an idea of this, but modern teachers have really got it rough. After all the participation trophy and karen shenanigans, teachers really cant even teach now.

Many teachers are relegated to a daycare nanny since many parents now make totally unreasonable demands for how their children should be treated in school. The countless delusional parents going "I know my kid is an angel! I know my kid works hard! My kid would never do this! I taught my kid to do that!". A kid can totally ignore every assignment given to them and their parent just has to walk in the front office, throw a fit, and cry at a PTA meeting and they've rallied more than enough support to get the teachers career demolished. Also, their kid gets an A+ for the year. The whole situation reminds of the animation There's a Man in the Woods by Jacob Streilein, but the teacher in that goes a little too extreme lol.

Well now I go into my own personal and somewhat embarrassing story to add a personal emphasis.

In high school I was the leader of a section in band. I really didn't want to do band and definitely didn't want to be any sort of leader, bit my mom basically went "dont talk back." Anyways, I was met with a problem. One of the other people in the section was causing some trouble, nothing physical but it still could get really awful. Plenty of other kids cried, feelings got hurt, practices could get somewhat derailed, it was an uproar. And eventually, in a little band leader meaning, I was called out. Crossed arms and sassy head tilts enumerated endless grievances, and I was criticized and condemned. I needed to get my section under control, what was I doing?

So I indignantly rebutted. Because what was I supposed to do? When I was an underclassman, if I didn't play my part good enough, I was forced to run laps until I was remembered. But I wasn't allowed to force the problem child to run. I could tell them to, but I couldn't make them. I had no incentive, I wasn't allowed to kick them out of band, or even the section. I couldn't disallow them from playing for even a single practice, I couldn't change their part. I couldn't call their parents or even ask a teacher to call their parents. So what was I supposed to do? They didn't listen to a pretty please and my singular tool of guilt tripping them had no effect either.

I feel like modern teachers will describe a very similar circumstance now. Its a totally inept and inefficient dynamic. I'm not advocating for the paddle or for giving everyone ultimate authority. But the obvious alternative is raising people who don't feel the need to control themselves and can't be controlled. I want to be a humanist too but there will always be people who don't care. Do we just let bullies walk around? Or whatever they evolve into?

If you want to get into the technicalities and show off your reddit philosopher award, yes authority and hierarchy are a social construct. So yes, no one person has a special right to control someone else or whatever. But imbalances and inequalities between people exist. Whether in skill, strength, intelligence, experience, or etcetera, some will be better than others at certain things. And the interaction between people at different levels creates, or in my opinion necessitates, what we know as hierarchies and authority. This can be fair and in no way involve abuse, manipulation, injustice, or whatever byproduct sicknesses we see. The unfortunate reality is that the way to do that is still unknown, or may have gone extinct.

But now ill reveal the actual alternative and its danger. When people don't have an authority or hierarchy to navigate through life with, they'll try to find and recreate it themselves. The danger is people usually dont know how to do this in a healthy way, and they usually dont care about doing it in a healthy way. You can see this in the manosphere scourge and all adjacent enterprises. For example, a large entertainment source of mine are the "alpha man boot camps" led by random military veterans. They dont even have to be navy seals anymore, they can be dudes who only did bootcamp themselves lol.

So many people trying to be mentors and leaders today just pick up a gimmick and try to make that into a role model system. A real man goes to bootcamp! A real parent makes kids earn their life! A real woman is trad! Real dieting looks like this! Real wealth looks like that! As a result you get hyper aggressive, performative, and extremely insincere psychos. Your bullshit just has to look like it makes people satisfied for your course to do its own advertising. Because making people pay for a set of arbitrary boxes to check off is a satisfying ego stroke for them and a money glitch for you. And if you want more all you need is another course. Another course for the new meta. And another course for when things are different. And another and another and another.

People just get so distressed when they cant find the lines that should be drawn by the typical authority figures. The inner and extended families, the village, schools, sports teams, family friends, whatever. Healthy authority gives you guardrails and a grounded connection to the real world. Yeah they restrict you but so does a life vest or a seat belt. If either of those are too tight you will get hurt. But when shit hits the fan they're your saving grace. After sapping authority from everyone and everywhere, parents now really just have a million different daycare options. And they demand they raise their children without ever saying no.

Its sadly just a classic overcorrection story. If you try to tell me we were better off when teachers chimped out and smacked the backs of kids' hands with a rod for spelling a word wrong or talking during class then you're delusional. Yes we're much better off now but disallowing your kids' teacher from giving your kid the grade or detention they deserve is just trying to use the opposite side of the same coin. Other systems may need some remodeling too but I don't think where we are parked right now is a very good spot right regardless.

I feel so bad for the teachers nowadays, they are forced to raise kids but they aren't allowed to teach them the meaning of no or of a consequence.