Authority

What is AUTHORITY?  Is there such a thing as TRUE authority?  If so, what is it?  Why do we devotedly crave and cling to authority figures that seem to possess an "inner knowing," wisdom, or that feeling that something rings true?  When a figure has some knowledge that we crave, we are naturally attracted to it.  Whether we find it in Tupac or Drake, Hamlet or Hannah Arendt, Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson, Martin Luther King or Caesar Chavez, our parent(s) or grandparent(s), or whomever else...What is it they seem to possess and when & why do we give them our trust and faith? 

          --both quotes taken from chapter 1 "Every Inch a King" in the book Lear: The Great Image of Authority (Bloom, 2021)