"Question authority." This well-known slogan, which has a Socratic heritage (more on that later), also has roots in Benjamin Franklin's statement, "It is the first right of every citizen to question authority."
My guess, having lived in Eugene, Oregon, for nearly twenty years, is that most people in these progressive part of the woods understand "Question authority" as a call to reject authority, and I suspect that holds true for most Americans. I've joked on occasion of how fun it could be to track down a car with the "Question authority" bumper sticker and ask the owner, "By what authority do you advocate that others question authority?" The inherent humor of such subversive inversion is appealing—"See, I'm questioning your authority to tell others to question authority..."—but I doubt the conversation that would likely follow would live up to the irony of it all. Besides, and let me be perfectly clear, most progressives aren't openminded enough to tolerate the question of their authority.
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