Authority operates as an unexplained representation of complexity, not revealed wisdom

Evidence

Authority is always a representation of a complexity which is not explained in detail. Its style depends on how the possibility of explanation is projected. As the old cosmos of truth has broken down, radical changes have occurred in the manner in which the world is knowable and recognizable as familiar. The theme of factual experience always relates to other possible, but unrealized, experiences. The world gains unity solely from the horizon of this ‘and so forth’. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 217

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines authority as standing in for unexplained complexity — the mechanism through which Stevens’s deference to Lord Darlington functions.
• XREF: Authority-as-unexplained-complexity parallels Giddens’s account of trust in expert systems where laypersons cannot verify the knowledge themselves. — connects to: Great administrators are made by tools, not born with instinct — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 257; Authority names for behavior do not certify coherent phenomena. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 292