SimerleenKaur

The well-being of a society is enhanced when many of its people question authority. The issue posed presumes a positive relationship between the society’s well-being and the challenges to authority by the people. Even the correlation between the two can seem a little unbalanced at times, my position weighs more in support of the statement. As democracy has it, the well-being of society more generally points at the development and well-being of its people, who, however have placed a party in the position of authority for the very same purpose. Economics run on the fundamentals of individuals behaving in a way that best suit their individual interests and hence, questioning the authority is a way of expressing disagreement with the actions of authorities in terms of interests of the people, and evidently, the society. The position of authority is best utilised when those in power do not become lethargic at the position and questioning the authority ensures just that. It is because plain assertiveness with those in power serves best in interests of those in the position for it cannot be expected from an individual to completely replace their rational interests with feelings of altruism, irrespective of the position of authority. A peek at a regular day in today’s world politics would establish the same point significantly, with authorities in power riddled with their own ideologies and self-interests at the expense of what the people in the country want. Even though it is true that a group of people can act in their selfish interests and question the authority with motives not aligned to the well-being of the society as a whole, if many of the society’s people question the authority, as the question proposes, the selfish interests of individuals or a group of individuals are overshadowed with those that extend the well-being of the society. Questioning the authority has proved to be an efficient mechanism behind the working of democracies for the longest time, in countries belonging to all categories in the world. How else do we justify the overpowering role of unbiased media in ensuring allied behaviour of the authorities with the people’s demands and needs? After all, media explicitly works to amplify the voices of the people. Hence, it can be concluded that a society functions better when its people question authorities, more often than displaying unrivalled faith in those in power.