[...]as been packaged as terror can be in fact misleading.

authority is the most elusive of terms that inform relations, and yet no politics, no family, no pride of accomplishment can exist without it

for Arendt, authority is an undeletable term, key to any grasp of politics
authority =/= rhetoric of persuasion

Plato's authority of philosophy: in an effort both to memorialize and to exact revenge for the verdict on Socrates. (as if Socrates didn't have any bullying tendencies in his persuasive energies.)
a recovery operation
the ‘need’ for authority
(Arendt:) “It was after Socrates’ death that Plato began to discount persuasion (and argument) as insufficient for the guidance of men and to seek for something liable to compel them without using external means of violence.” ==> a power that renounces power; coercion without violence, (invention of hell, is it nonviolent?! a more earthbound rhetoric of persuasion?!)
(when we are out of master/slave relationship) expert knowledge commands confidence and obtains compliance (without force nor persuasion); soft coercion associated with reason --> Plato's philosopher-king --> **“Authority establishes relationality prior to command, promising compliance in the absence of force or argument”** (Avital)

aspects of the authority that might take in or shake up the other without harm

historical comfort zones ...and ...the ongoing torment of worldlessness

(Avital,) are the mourners of authority masking another loss for which “authority” would be a cover?

Greek way of handling:
domestic affairs --> persuasion
foreign affairs --> force and violence


*authority of the Father
ontological proof of God's existence (Kojeve contends) rests on the metaphysical placement of divine authority as the authority of the Father, who is seen as cause*
--> paternal authority in power and political authority --> as author of a work who exerts authority over the ‘Oeuvre’

father/judge/Pir: the principal figure holding together political and ethical qualities of existence ~ imago (in psychoanalysis is an idealized image of someone--usually a parent--formed in childhood), firm but benevolent caretaking, funding sources of divine authority, hierarchical hold, categorical imperative, a secure ground from which commands can be issued, “Achtung!”,
-authority subsists on borrowed transcendence
-authority produces effects of respectful adherence
-softening the space of committed citizenry (ground for political relatedness)
-is it possible to keep authority separate from respect? what this seclusion assures?

(Pir's authority nearing the) sublime regions of human relatedness

Kojeve > What accounts for the unconditional surrender of human reactivity?
legitimate principle of coercion

God is always the God of our ancestors --> character of “tradition”

where violence begins or what gets counted as violence?

the discourse of effacement (امحاء emha’, self-effacement: withdrawing into the background, making yourself inconspicuous)

is there an authority outside inequality? responsible asymmetry, the egological space, tropes of domination?

%this is anout the quality of asymmetry----(are we still in the realm of the human?)

Levinas tactics is spectacular, he runs down patriarchy and meets the majestic escalade of the absolute other, he doesn't escape internment (toghif توقیف)
[patriarchy: when it is “of course” obvious who is the mother]

(where do we go with helplessness directed by the destruction of the world?)

...................................

[Sennett] on authority, trust and cooperation

...in both a subtle and a coherent social structure

inequality makes a profound difference in the lives of children

“earned authority” manages the everyday experience of inequality


cultures in which the *dramaturgical display of yourself* is foregrounded =/= diplomacy as model for social relationships

facebook, an engineered social network organized for display =/= communication



in capitalism, in firms people at the top has more power but less authority, and that is a problem.
in reverse, Lear loses its power but keeps his authority, his lag on administrative change.

authority is a bound, a volunteriy obidience and care-giving
parent-children: something the child needs desperitly, they need direction, they need people not only as guids but as witnesses of what they are doing.


the destructive charismatic authoiry in politics
tests if he/she can keep himself together

the charisma of the user on facebook (marat, jonathan, etc., but both are also very good at face to face communication)

...................................

Sennett

we don't know how to use material objects and machines well

craftsmanship: the quest to make physical things well
•how the head and hand are connected
•doing something well for its own sake --> skill (not honoured in modern society)
==> free the craftsman (Sennett)


in many social relations we do not know exactly what we need from others – or what they ought to want from us

cooperation as a craft --> skill of understanding and responding to one another

urban design is a craft in peril (dar khatar)
•too much urban design ==> homogeneous and rigid
•modern built forms ==> only a faint imprint of personal and shared experience

Sennett --> (better understanding of) ‘material craftsmanship + social cooperation’ ==> cities better made

‘homo faber project’: the ancient idea of Man as his or her own maker, man as a maker of life through concrete practices
•limits on desire and will
•the experience of other people's needs (which cannot be reconciled with our own)
+ to recognize and honour what lies beyond us (and before us)

social relations & physical environment

issues of practical skill, tool, meaning, value


***the rebellious child (in me)


United States has become an intensely tribal society
*tribalism* [= adverse to getting along with those who differ, solidarity with others like yourself, & “thinking you know what other people are like without knowing them"], in the form of nationalism, destroyed Europe during the first half of the 20th century
--✕--> complex societies:
•workers flowing across borders
•different ethnicities, races and religions
•diverging ways of sexual and family life

“The ‘self’ is a composite of sentiments, affiliations and behaviours which seldom fit neatly together; any call for tribal unity will reduce this personal complexity.”
-Sennett

(for Aristotle:) city = synoikismos(= coming together of people from diverse family tribes--each *oikos* having its own history, allegiances, property, family gods)
[some my german friends are making us all poor in not recognizing this, that similar people cannot bring a city into existence. city obliges people to think about and deal with others who have different
loyalties to (linguistic differences). Germany, lacking direct experience of others, because of lesser colonial encounters in its history, falls back on fearful fantasies with the new refugees coming. integration, a bad response to the problems of living with difference]


(Robert Putnam:) people who live in homogeneous local communities appear more sociably inclined towards and curious about others in the larger world : first- hand experience does not weaken stereotypes
-the case of Brussels: withdraw from neighbours who differ --> to hibernate

attitudes
actual behaviour

[*]cooperation: an exchange in which the participants benefit from the encounter
can be informal as well as formal: experience of mutual pleasure in a bar exchange gossip
difficult kind of cooperation: join people who:
•have separate or conflicting interests
•do not feel good about each other
•are unequal
•do not understand one another
•(different faith communities)
}==> responsiveness as an ethical disposition

rituals of civility
as small as ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ put abstract notions of mutual respect into practice

in the spirit of generosity, let's not write [...]