The Demise of Legitimate Political Authority

Some forty years ago, in his groundbreaking study, Twilight of Authority, sociologist Robert Nisbet observed a disturbing trend in American culture. As respect for authority had declined among the population, he wrote, members of that population became increasingly willing to accept and actually applaud an increasingly powerful, albeit less legitimate, government

 The notion of true authority, Nisbet wrote, assumes the strength of two essential social qualities—hierarchy, and privacy. Yet both are fading before our eyes. For Nisbet, the egalitarian agenda of the elites—especially the liberal intelligentsia—is a driving engine of social collapse. It crushes a rich, varied, and multidimensional culture featuring an ­array of localities, organizations, institutions, and voluntary associations. The collapse produces a paltry pancake of “equality of result”—a result both fed and enforced by an ever more powerful government.

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