Like a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other, in just a few decades we have gone from authoritarian, vertical, paternalistic and unsavory management to management devoid of any form of authority, which is just as unenviable. Right thinking never stops invading the professional sphere and extolling with solar sympathy mixed with satisfied stupidity the empire of personal development, benevolence, transversality, empathy, of the soft skills, of collective intelligence. Man is no longer “a wolf to man”, there must no longer be any discomfort in the microcivilization that is the company, well-being and its horde of fulfilled servants have ousted Hegel and Freud. We must swim in radiant harmony.
However, far from this radiant synergy, employees prefer to telework, work stoppages continue to accumulate, unhappiness has never been so good, burn-outs so abundant, coaches and psychologists are in great demand. So how can we avoid this egalitarian nonsense without returning to the authoritarianism of yesteryear? How can we avoid the current demagoguery of the all-horizontal, while avoiding the past rigidity of the all-vertical? By reaffirming authority, which is halfway between the two pitfalls. This reassessment is not without some confusion to sort out.
The first is political. Authority does not marry easily with democracy. Because recognizing and accepting superiority (what authority consists of) quickly comes into contradiction with the current (but false) interpretation of the democratic value of equality according to which everything is equal. How can we admit superiority in a society which tends to confuse equality and equivalence? But equality of law is not the equivalence of facts. We are all equal in law, but we are not equivalent. Some work better than others, some have more merit than others. Not admitting it is refusing to recognize people at their true value.
All equal in law, but not equivalent
This first confusion leads to a second. In the egalitarian era, any inequality is immediately assimilated to injustice. But there are unjust equalities and inequalities that turn out to be just. It’s called fairness. If I pay more taxes than my neighbor, it is an inequality that is justified. If I receive less social assistance than an unemployed person, that is fair inequality.
In this egalitarian frenzy, subordination is hastily assimilated to submission. The two terms are united by the common idea of obedience, hence their easy conflation. But a distinction is necessary between subordination (obeying by recognizing the legitimacy of the order giver and having the possibility of freeing oneself from it) and submission (which is forced obedience without the possibility of disobeying).
These three confusions lead to authority being made a form of authoritarianism, when there is nothing more opposite. When we become authoritarian, we lose authority. It is then necessary to use force, voice or other coercive means to be respected. In this sense, authoritarianism is an admission of weakness. Authority, a mark of power.
Supporting the idea and encouraging in practice authority can only be done by denouncing this constellation of confusions and understanding that it enhances the individual, as its Latin etymology indicates (auger, “increase”). Faced with the authority granted, one should not feel belittled or submissive, but on the contrary increased and improved, since one tries to rise to the height of the requirements of the recognized authority by giving the best of oneself. The difference between the teacher and the student, between the employee and the manager would no longer be felt as an unfair inequality, but would become conceivable within the very heart of the democratic world. Because what could be more democratic than making each individual increasingly elevated and autonomous? Contrary to what managerial fashions and the egalitarian right-thinking of our time assert, authority does not subjugate, but elevates a subject.