Acting In the Name of Authority

After so much fuss and funding to address "acting-out" behaviors, we find ourselves without an answer to what I'd call 'acting-in' behavior, or autism. The new Don Quixote is the human-services professions with the quest to reach the unreachable star.

"Autism: An Inside-Out Approach" by Donna Williams sheds light on the problem with behavior modification. She writes, "Behavior modification practices, however, generally take little account of identity or personality."

They focus on what is desired by professionals and caregivers and their definition of normal, non-autistic behaviors.

Then she writes something that pertains to us all:

"Compliance may teach people more about other people's power than about their own behavior," and, I would add, about their diagnosed behavior problems.

Apparently, acting in the name of authority is allowed, especially when someone else is acting in the name of identity or personality. Just one question: Shouldn't we be concerned with any authority that claims to establish absolute truth/doctrine, factual history and/or universal religion/praxis? Pascal claimed that the human race is neither angel nor brute. But, he added, when it attempts to be angel, it is most like a brute.