Speaking with Authority

Speaking with Authority

Taylor Mali makes an excellent point that we should strive to speak with authority and conviction when expressing ourselves. He humorously illustrates that our pattern of speaking has become fraught with vagueness, ambiguity, and uncertainty. However, to “speak with authority,” we first have to come to considered conclusions about what we believe and why we believe it to be true. During the past fifty years, there has been a great deal of “questioning authority” that has, in many cases, lead to positive societal reform. Our society, in general, has become more open-minded and accepting of diverse perspectives. At the same time, the proliferation of conflicting perspectives and varying moral, religious, and political standpoints has presented us with the quandary of determining our own personal philosophies in such a pluralistic society.

Fifty years ago, America was much more homogenous in terms of moral beliefs. The authority on which our belief system was based was primarily our Judeo-Christian heritage.

Starting in the 1960s, we saw the beginnings of challenges to our traditional social paradigms—the Civil Rights Movement, the first major anti-war movement, Women’s Liberation, advocacy for Gay Rights, and the counter-culture movement. Much of the change brought about by such movements in our recent history have been accepted and assimilated into the mainstream of our culture, however our concept of “moral authority” was forever altered. How do we now “speak with authority” when it is oftentimes difficult to identify our source of authority.

There is a current proliferation of ideas and opinions on moral issues that is easily accessible via cable TV and the Internet. However, it seems increasingly difficult to find objective and unbiased reporting in the media. How do formulate our opinions and beliefs when the information we receive so often seems biased and even illusionary? In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the philosopher compares the way we “see” to that of prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads and forced to stare straight ahead. What they see and interpret as “real” are actually only the shadows of real objects held by puppeteers passing in front of a fire behind them that are cast on the cave wall in front of them. The solution to the dilemma of how to realize the truth is to allow one prisoner (the philosopher) to be freed from bondage and come to understand that the shadows on the wall are not real, but only a vague representation of reality. This is Plato’s analogy for the purpose of the philosopher—to seek the true nature of reality and share this truth with the unenlightened (the “prisoners”).

In our effort to speak with authority we need to come to a resolution of what we believe and why we believe it. Perhaps we would do well to explore philosophy as a tool to help us better come to conclusions about what we accept as true. Studying philosophical matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language can give us a better handle on determining what we perceive as true and what we deem as illusionary. As we are better able to determine what we believe to be true concerning moral issues in today’s world, the more we are able to “speak with authority.”