Five Reasons Why Belief in Authority is the Most Dangerous Superstition

‘Let’s get something straight, here at the outset. There’s nothing wrong with authority itself. It’s the belief part that messes everything up. Anyone can claim authority. But such authority only matters if others believe in it.
I can claim that I’m an authority on unicorns, but I better have the credentials to prove it. And it would also help if unicorns existed. But the point is this: If enough people “believe” that I’m an authority on unicorns, and they “believe” that I have dissected a unicorn and revealed the magical quality of its insides that causes it to shit rainbows, then I’ll not only have violated truth, I’ll have violated the minds of others and taken advantage of their ignorance.
But, and here’s the rub, it’s their fault for not questioning my so-called authority. As Albert Einstein said (himself an authority in the field of physics), “Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” So if we’re correct to question Einstein’s revolutionary theories, then we’re exponentially correct to question my unicorn theories.’
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