"If you want me to talk to you, please be quiet."
The voice of authority demands quiet and passive adherence. It wants to talk to you; it has no interest in listening to what you have to say.
"Listen and listen well, this is the way its gonna be...
Be quiet, be still, don't step out of line; we know what's good for you..."
Critical thought, it is assumed, subverts order, leading invariably to anarchy. The voice demands quiet passivity. The voice sermonizes, for what emanates from its lips is assumed to be true. Why resist what is true? O, great Rationality rears its head.
To challenge the voice of authority does not, as it likes to believe, spawn anarchy. The challenge requires a quality other than silent adherence or tacit consent. It involves someone standing before fellow citizens and courageously speaking out against injustice and inequity, arrogance and vanity, and against ignorance in general. "I rebel, therefore we exist."
