Fork in the Road

Some people have looked at authoritarian personalities in relation to Republicanism. It's confusing because authoritarianism and dominance require submission. Worldly authority requires subservience, resulting in a loss of humanity on both ends, the authorities thinking they are superior beings and the submissives that they are their lessers.

I have another model. I believe that we are always in a moral situation but that some people want to think that morality is an option, especially in relation to self-interest. They think there are often forks in the road and that realism requires the choice of self-interest over morality. You can return to your principles once you have kicked some ass. 

But an assumed moral vacuum is systemically unsound and unstable. People take on roles for which they are unsuited, as masters and slaves. I think that morality and practicality and self-interest are all in harmony and that morality and self-interest are in fact the same thing, morality embodying the realty of the connectedness of everybody. 

In a situation of individual conscience and accountability authority isn't an issue, it's a convention. The morality of everyday life is inescapable anyway. In the event of that delusion, that people can escape, unnecessary ass-kicking is the result but, once things play out, the ass getting kicked may be your own, and it usually is, sooner or later.