When a new administration appoints the cabinet members, state or federal, the prayer is the appointees have the authority (authenticity/expertise) to handle the power (simple leverage) of their new charges. The attribute of authority is a life time disciplined project, but power can be an ‘idiot’s game’.  Oddly enough so many people have conflated the two words.  People say “I wish I had the authority to make this stop and that go”. They mean, “I wish I had the power to flip the switches”.  Authority is deeply embedded expertise, developed by relating hard facts to phenomenon and wrestling in a heartfelt way with nuance and ambiguity. Power is a useful but dangerous amoral force that depends entirely on the person handling it to give it good purpose and the capacity to advance good action.  The use of power, it seems, also always carries a unique Power-tax attached to its use and wise users are always careful in its use.

A hierarchy is an organizational structure that, on its own, is as moral as the average crescent wrench or hammer.  Hierarchy in organization though  is necessary because life needs some predictability and accountability not to mention leverage in a crisis.  Winston Churchill was a person with authority on a hierarchy in a critical moment in history and he put authority to power and saved Great Britain.  But the current administrative narrative of this new administration’s proposal of mass mindless firings of  people in public roles, pulling down human service and education structures that millions depend on, and mass deportation can only occur through the use of the ‘idiot’s power’ using hierarchy as a hammer.  In short the Power-taxes imposed by that kind of thoughtless power will be made plain  in the consequences.  Whatever is accomplished in this misuse of power and hierarchy will never pay power’s future taxes on such carnage.  Our children and grandchildren will get that bill.

When did expertise and competency become such negative attributes. If one ran a survey in mid-flight  with the passengers on a plane at 30,000 feet regarding the need for competency of aircraft service technicians this nonsense of disdain for expertise would suddenly disappear in public opinion.  Of course the passengers would say the mechanics should know what they are doing, have training experience, hard knowledge and understand the complex systems of flight.  So when  did we decide our leaders in education, health, public or private, education or environment needed only a hammer to serve their constituents.  We are, all of us, on this planet minimally 30,000 feet in the air without parachutes so please let us collectively raise the bar.  We still need competence with authority first and hierarchy second. That, I think, would be good.