The opposite of authority is reason.<p>Authoritarian regimes hate disobedience. Coming up with your own ideas or rejecting what your priest, parent, or politician says is very disobedient.<p>Reasoning about the world is a threat to authority. Studying the history of something and keeping records about what is happening in order to attribute disastrous policy accurately is equally threatening. That de-legitimizes authority and justifies disobedience. This administration has worked to delete graphs that would require action or that show bad policy decisions rather than to take action or change policy.<p>Authoritarians need to subordinate institutions that ground themselves in reality and devote themselves to reason. Universities are the natural enemies of authoritarians.
As much as I disagree with Marcus whenever he opens his mouth on AI, <i>I wholeheartedly agree with him on this</i>:<p>A functioning democracy requires that academics, journalists, and law firms remain independent of the state.