> True authority automatically draws respect because it enables those experts to do things and explain things ordinary people cannot.
Taking a generous view of what you're saying ("authority gets as much respect as it merits in a kind of free market of ideas/actions"), I just think that's not true of contemporary Western culture at all. People denigrate authority all the time without any knowledge of the subject-matter. It's become a real problem in this culture.
I also don't know why you think authority and expertise need to be tied to "doing".
And, on both points, I can assure you lawyers can't "do" anything particularly interesting and also that what narrow expertise they do have is constantly denigrated--it definitely does not automatically draw anyone's respect lol. Often, they have a good knowledge of how law and government work, and also the reason why some laws are how they are. I see a lot of people denigrating and dismissing reasoned articulations of why some laws are x, why you can't automatically blame y government official for z outcome, etc. I find that people on the political fringes tend to really just totally ignore such things because they just want to blame (blame is a huge part of both progressivism and Trumpism). We have an adolescent culture.
> I just think that's not true of contemporary Western culture at all. People denigrate authority all the time without any knowledge of the subject-matter.
Not authority that delivers tangible results. Nobody is like "those aerospace engineers don't know what the heck they're doing."
> It's become a real problem in this culture.
I would say a worse problem is practitioners of non-rigorous fields demanding the deference accorded to rigorous fields. For example the recent kerfuffle in Virginia about parents versus "expert" teachers.
> I also don't know why you think authority and expertise need to be tied to "doing".
Because that's the only way to separate what's real from quackery and avoid recreating the clerical classes of yore.
> And, on both points, I can assure you lawyers can't "do" anything particularly interesting and also that what narrow expertise they do have is constantly denigrated--it definitely does not automatically draw anyone's respect lol.
At the end of the day, when the government knocks on their door, people call the most expensive lawyer they can afford. Yes, that expertise is narrow, just like a carpenter or electrician or a mechanic. But within their narrow expertise--writing briefs or making a case to a jury--they can deliver tangible results for their clients.
> I see a lot of people denigrating and dismissing reasoned articulations of why some laws are x, why you can't automatically blame y government official for z outcome, etc.
Which is great! It would be profoundly anti-democratic for lawyers to point to their credentials and say that someone makes them "experts" in fairness, justice, and governance. But that's exactly what you see people in non-rigorous fields doing. Teachers think that because they have expertise in how to teach Phonics, that means they should be broadly untrusted to decide what children should learn and how they should be socialized. Epidemiologists think they should be making calls on whether bars are more or less essential to society compared to churches.
Society has lots of debates about very important things: how to socialize children, what's fair and w hat's not fair, how to treat people who are different from the majority, how to make tradeoffs between safety and freedom, etc. You can't have a healthy society where these debates are being monopolized by people saying "do what I say because I have a PhD."
I agree it's a counterpoint, but I disagree it's fatal. I think they're an instance of "bad facts make bad law."
Vaccines are unusual in a few respects: (1) recently they've fallen into the generalized backlash against lockdowns; (2) by their nature the benefit is in the reduction of low probability events that people mis-estimate anyway; and (3) polling on the issue often conflates questions of science, such as do vaccines work, with questions of policy, such as whether they should be mandatory.
Your personal agreement with the opposing view notwithstanding, if a counterexample is true (OP posted a good one) then it is fatal to the rule it contradicts
so feel free to retract the now dead claim that "True authority automatically draws respect" (which itself is perfect example of a no true Scotsman fallacy)
Taking a generous view of what you're saying ("authority gets as much respect as it merits in a kind of free market of ideas/actions"), I just think that's not true of contemporary Western culture at all. People denigrate authority all the time without any knowledge of the subject-matter. It's become a real problem in this culture.
I also don't know why you think authority and expertise need to be tied to "doing".
And, on both points, I can assure you lawyers can't "do" anything particularly interesting and also that what narrow expertise they do have is constantly denigrated--it definitely does not automatically draw anyone's respect lol. Often, they have a good knowledge of how law and government work, and also the reason why some laws are how they are. I see a lot of people denigrating and dismissing reasoned articulations of why some laws are x, why you can't automatically blame y government official for z outcome, etc. I find that people on the political fringes tend to really just totally ignore such things because they just want to blame (blame is a huge part of both progressivism and Trumpism). We have an adolescent culture.