Earned authority

One has to earn the right to authority to assume a position of power whether leading corporate governance, running a government, or even managing a social club. Earned authority does not mean the power to make persuasive statements and powerful speeches with the third eye on campaign finances and its associated quirks. The qualifying power for earned authority is to be smart, articulate and intelligent enough to make all the right decisions that are fortuitously popular.

So, do you learn and earn it through experience, are you born with it, or into family with prestige and influence? Tabula rasa (blank slate) is the theory that individuals are born without in-built mental content, and that all knowledge comes from experience or perception. This created the nature versus nurture phenomenon that has continued to baffle humanity throughout the ages. Then, of course, there is junk science and gutter politics – everywhere.

There is an exception to the rule if a bankable candidate with the right stuff makes into high office. Unfortunately, many enter politics driven by ego, vested interests aided by money politics.  That’s earning wrath, not authority notwithstanding the voters’ mandate.

Jacques Maritain declared that “authority and power are two different things: power is the force by means of which you can oblige others to obey you. Authority is the right to direct and command, to be listened to or obeyed by others. Authority requests power. Power without authority is tyranny.” There is a priceless nugget that leaders, and those aspiring for leadership, ought to hoard in order to be loudly heard to prevent herd mentality.

Have Malaysian politicians earned the authority and power to be obeyed so that the governed are satisfied with their selections of leaders? George Orwell opened semi-conscious minds: “when people elect the corrupted, they are not victims, but accomplices.” Malaysians have learned and earned a practical lesson in law, politics and government given the present scenario.

Thomas Hobbes unleashed a pernicious observation that it is “not wisdom but authority that makes a law.” This explains lucidly why the philosopher insists that there is unequal justice under the law. Another eye-opener when you select and elect third-rate individuals who have gained popularity for all the wrong reasons. Third-rates roam the professions, too, offering specious and unwarranted opinions as a cheap shot at advertising their third-rated knowledge.

Ferdinand Marcos grudgingly accepted that “authority has to exist before it can be limited, and it is authority that is in scarce supply in those modernising countries where government is at the mercy of alienated intellectuals, rambunctious colonels, and rioting students.” He paid the price as did other Asian leaders who allowed their egos to believe that pecunia non olet (Latin: money does not stink).

The citizenry must constantly monitor and regulate earned authority to correct its perennial blunders in selecting and electing individuals bedazzled with political party affiliations while running amok with their plainly visible agendas. The abuse, overuse and disuse of power and authority assails common sense and all the other five senses.

Elections are not solutions to right the wrongs caused by leaders. Thank Providence for social media. It showcases the malfeasance, misfeasance and nonfeasance in high office while inevitably requiring careful navigation around the minefield of defamation.

The present system of selection and appointment of judges by the Executive suggest that voters are constitutionally denied their right to elect judges as they do in electing politicians in obeisance, inter alia, to Article 8 and Article 10(1)(c), Federal Constitution. These Articles have earned authority in granting these strategic alliances, as supreme law rights, to voters.

In August 2022 the Malaysian judiciary launched the “promotion of its services to the public as part of its corporate social responsibility initiative in order to widen the public’s access to justice and legal literacy.” No reports mentioned whether the public participated with grit, gumptions, guts and gusto to enquire why judges could not be elected by popular vote to earn authority.

Former US Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren was not considered an intellectual heavyweight, but he had the uncanny sense and decency to issue rulings that reflected what was best for the country without worrying over legal technicalities or precedent by “cutting through the law.” That exemplifies earned authority with a well-calibrated moral compass that should motivate every independent judiciary.

Governments must necessarily continue to calibrate their moral, socioeconomic and geopolitical compass to qualify for earned authority.

The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.