"The well-being of a society is enhanced when many of its people question authority."

A society is a constantly evolving mass, one with dynamic rules and ideas and opinions that come from the people that make up that mass. The well-being of a society is enhanced when many of its people question authority, but only under the condition that the body of authority shows respect for the opinions of the people and take into consideration the voices of the people during policy making and implementation.

The act of questioning authority is healthy for there is a constant need for people to test the validity of existing rules and policies. It is true that sometimes the power in authority might not always have the society’s best interest at heart. Sometimes questioning the authority is needed for it has the ability to spark the start of a revolution to create or change something for the better. Many instances in history have proven this point from political revolutions to overthrow a cruel dictatorship to fights for a country’s independence. On a large scale, questioning the authority can change the global landscape. For example, think about this. If colonies did not rebel against the idea of colonialism, would imperialism still be large and strong? Would the world as we know today exist? On a smaller scale, questioning the authority can change policies that affect the individual like tax laws, voting rights, abortion rights, etc.

On the flip side, the act of questioning authority can have adverse effects on a society as well. A healthy society works best where a majority of its people are in accord with the government. The key phrase here is this: the majority of the people. What about societies that consist of numerous sociopolitical groups that have conflicting views and agendas? In each trying to push their own ideas and opinions, this conflict could undermine the power of local governance and interfere with implementation of policies even though the policies are good for the society. In worst case scenarios, the situation could potentially escalate to war and internal strife.

Ultimately, for the most part I believe that it is healthy for the people of society to question authority. It is a form of regulating the power of governance and to drive them to continually improve things in order to bring better benefits for its constituents.