On the problem of understanding authority in Hannah Arendt

The aim of the article is to criticise the concept of authority as presented by Hannah Arendt, who claims that crisis in, and subsequent loss of, authority are typical features of the modern world. The weakening of authority goes hand in hand with the retreat of freedom, which has been seriously jeopardised by totalitarianism since the early-20th century. The reason for the claim that authority is afflicted by crisis, causing its demise, is more philosophical than political; this mixture of relativism, scepticism and pessimism began to take shape in Western European thought after World War II. However, authority should be derived not from an ideological or political tradition, but from real social conditions. It must be seen against the background of the diverging reality of the world characterized by social contradictions and struggles, in which an effort to bind the world by traditional authority and religion must ultimately fail. Yet, authority is a relative concept and so its scope of application varies in different stages of social development