Bracing!

I've been reading Matthew Crawford's book Shop Class as Soulcraft.  It's an extremely challenging book (frankly, it's kicking my ass up & down the street.  which is a good thing).  This passage was like a splash of ice-cold water:

Given our democratic sensibilities, authority cannot present itself straightforwardly, as authority, coming down from a superior, but must be understood as an impersonal thing that emanates vaguely from all of us [note].  So authority becomes smarmy and passive-aggressive, trying to pass itself off as something cooperative and friendly; as volunteerism.  It is always pretending to be in your best interest, in everyone's best interest, as rationality itself.

The risk is of being deceived into thinking there is a common good where there is not one.

[note:  I owe the formulations of this paragraph to Manuel Lopez.  In a related vein, he likens eruptions of obligatory office fun to "a high school pep rally, without the more natural enthusiasms generated by cheerleaders.  They're more like pep rallies led by a principal and middle-aged teachers, for example those 'say no to drugs, get high on life!' rallies that forced one to view the stoners with a new respect, or at least discover within oneself newfound powers of contempt" (personal communication).]

More to come.