Visible centralized power creates the risk of tyrannical misuse.

Evidence

Conscious risks increase with increasing consciousness of selection. In the first place they are conceived in general terms, at the level of the processes of selection and transmission, as risks of making mistakes. In this conception of the problem, the solution lies in imposing standards of correct selection. This applies equally to all media – with vast differences in the type of rules about prudence, morals, dogmatisms and organizational and institutional provisions which are thought out and recommended in order to counteract the danger. In the particular case of power, one fears misuse by its holder. As soon as centralized power becomes visible and operational, the problem of tyrants, who use power despotically and arbitrarily, arises. Political theory counters this with an institutionally bound ethic. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 747

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s thesis: Stevens’s deference to the institutional ethic of Darlington Hall is exactly the ‘institutionally bound ethic’ that fails when the institution lacks moral grounding. — connects to: Exposing power risks replacing it with worse men, yet concealment is worse