MeatballDuplicateThe distinguishing facet of an anti-authoritarian is that they do not respect rules because they are rules, and they do not respect authorities because they are authorities. On the other hand, they don't ignore the rules: that is, they're not criminals. The rest of us, the non-criminals, non-anti-authoritarians, have learnt to do as we're told and say "baa!" occasionally.
Anti-authoritarians force the community authorities to choose between three options:
- Hurt me. Make rules against me criticising you or your rules, attack me, attempt to blacken my reputation and CommunityExile me. Break out the HardSecurity and FlameWars - you know you want to, and I can give as good as I get. I can troll with the best of them.
- Ignore me. Let me have my right to FreeSpeech, pretend to listen, but do nothing to address my concerns. That's ok: I can bypass you and take my case to TheCollective. Give me enough time and I'll organise a MilitaryCoup or hostile fork - but only if I can convince others that I'm right.
- Embrace me. Or rather, embrace FairProcess and DevolvePower. Yes, I'm naive and idealistic, but CriticismIsFeedback, and you know I'm right. Get me on your side, and I'll show you I can do friendship as well as attacks. Give me some limited responsibility and I'll perform my role with zeal, though I've no desire to take your job.
The best approach is to embrace anti-authoritarians who appear to be rational, and ignore the ones that have failed to DefendAgainstParanoia. If you want to detect true anti-authoritarians, a couple of SillyRule?s normally does the trick.
Just as ColdBlankets are the balancing force to help communities DefendAgainstPassion, so anti-authoritarians are the balancing force to help communities defend against misuse of power. Like cold blankets, anti-authoritarians can cause problems too:
- Anti-authoritarians are part of the burden of power and responsibility, but if this burden becomes too large, then it may be that nobody suitable is willing to take on this burden, leading to the AbsentLeader problem. While that is typically better than a GodKing, it is a huge loss over a capable FirstServant.
- Anti-authoritarians make it difficult to resolve a ConstitutionalCrisis, as they do not DefendAgainstParanoia with regards to issues of power.
Despite this, AssumeStupidityNotMalice. Though anti-authoritarians can cause problems, they are typically not intending to cause problems, but rather (in their eyes) to solve problems. Contrast usurpers, below.