• Latest
  • All
Thomas Molnar: The disintegration of authority begins with the disintegration of the family

Thomas Molnar: The disintegration of authority begins with the disintegration of the family

August 4, 2021
Texas physician loses license over transgender treatments for minors

Texas physician loses license over transgender treatments for minors

October 29, 2025
NFL quarterback delivers strong testimony of Christian faith after comeback win

NFL quarterback delivers strong testimony of Christian faith after comeback win

October 29, 2025
Robinson texts reveal hateful motive: “I’ve had enough of his hatred”

Tyler Robinson allowed to wear civilian clothes in upcoming hearings

October 29, 2025
This image was originally posted to Flickr by Gage Skidmore at https://flickr.com/photos/22007612@N05/48514067462 (archive). It was reviewed on 13 August 2019 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0.

Michael Knowles describes left-wing violence in Senate hearing

October 29, 2025
Trans student pleads guilty to planning school shooting

Trans student pleads guilty to planning school shooting

October 28, 2025
Frenchman dies of grief after daugther brutally murdered by illegal immigrant

Frenchman dies of grief after daugther brutally murdered by illegal immigrant

October 28, 2025
Japan approves first over-the-counter contraceptive

Japan approves first over-the-counter contraceptive

October 28, 2025
U.S. Supreme Court set to decide whether to hear Kim Davis case

U.S. Supreme Court set to decide whether to hear Kim Davis case

October 27, 2025
Federal judge strikes down Biden era transgender regulation

Federal judge strikes down Biden era transgender regulation

October 24, 2025
This image was originally posted to Flickr by Gage Skidmore at https://flickr.com/photos/22007612@N05/44674207090. It was reviewed on 5 January 2019 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0.

Tucker Carlson condemns abortion as human sacrifice at student event

October 24, 2025
  • About iFamNews
  • Contact

Navigation Button Subscribe

  • Subscribe
October 30, 2025
  • Login
  • Register
No Result
View All Result
  • English
    • Italiano
    • Español
    • Français
    • Deutsch
    • Polski
    • српски
    • Русский
    • Hrvatski

Navigation Button Donate

  • Donate
International Family News Network (IFN)
  • Home
  • Opinion
  • Life
  • Family
  • Culture
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • Science
  • Shows
  • Petitions
  • Subscribe
  • Donate
International Family News Network (IFN)
  • Home
  • Opinion
  • Life
  • Family
  • Culture
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • Science
  • Shows
  • Petitions
  • Subscribe
  • Donate
No Result
View All Result
International Family News Network (IFN)
No Result
View All Result

Thomas Molnar: The disintegration of authority begins with the disintegration of the family

The Left is trying to rip apart the family and then the whole state, from the inside out. The bulwark against it is the restoration of true authority.

Jan Bentz by Jan Bentz
August 4, 2021
in Family, Foreground, Opinion
1.6k
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Thomas Molnar: The disintegration of authority begins with the disintegration of the family

Family portrait/image: Wikicommons

Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on TelegramShare on TwitterShare on WeChat

The first association people have with “authority” these days is negative. But–whether you like it or not–authority is omnipresent: in the family, school, court, church and nation in general. None of these structures could function without authority. Indeed, without authority these groups would not be structures but merely conglomerates of persons. Someone is “in charge” and “makes decisions”–so someone has “authority”.

According to Hungarian philosopher, historian and political theorist Thomas Molnar (1921-2010), authority is something that is originally part of human nature. We follow authority because it touches a “pre-existing consent of the heart.”

In his work, Authority and Its Enemies (1976), Molnar undertakes an in-depth analysis of authority and those ideologies that seek to abolish or destroy it.

The whole premise is based on the idea that no group of people can exist without authority. Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas and others all agree that people do not join together merely out of necessity, but that in the social nature of man the striving for something “higher” is inherent and fundamental. This higher “common good” can only be achieved through a social structure with an unfolding of authority.

What is fascinating here is that the enemies of authority (of which there are many) work with political tools to destroy structures in which human beings develop socially.

First and foremost is the family.

“Indeed, the brunt of the assault on authority is concentrated in the family, where the future adult and citizen is brought to the rational realization of a small replica of the common good, a model of the institutions that will be stages for all his subsequent acts of citizenship,” Molnar writes. The family is the school of authority where parents guide children into adulthood (cf. p. 96).

The basic assumption of the enemies of family and authority is that the child, unhindered by punishment and limits, will develop into something good and develop only the best side of his character.

“Man was born free, yet everywhere he lies in chains, Rousseau formulated, marking once and for all the anti-authoritarian stance. The only chance of transforming this civilization into a utopia would be, above all, to free the child, the still malleable being, to liberate it from constraints,” he writes further (cf. p. 97).

“The ideal in this view would be to limit the family to two mating partners and to the mother’s role as provider in the early period, after which the child goes to the communal (state) nursery and school” (cf. p. 97).

This nationalization of the child would transfer his obedience from his parents to the state, endowing the latter with power and control over the individual even in the later stages of development.

This nationalization of the child can only be counteracted in the family, where children can experience in a natural way the connection between authority and love, obedience and striving for the good, and–to borrow a pun from Gustav Siewerth–where daring and preservation are lived.

Nevertheless, Molnar also admits that the family needs the state.

“[This anti-authoritarian development is] neither the fault of the family nor that of the state (we cannot, of course, overlook the fault of the state, which at least bows to the will of the legislature when it enacts anti-family laws such as abortion), we can speak rather of the lack of cooperation of all the major links in the web of authority, a non-cooperation of such magnitude that one might say that a counter-authenticity has arisen in places where the author’s continuity was legitimately expected” (cf. pp. 98-99).

The family cannot survive and flourish without the structures of society and the state. But this link offers above all an opportunity: the family can intervene in the structures and thus transform the state towards a pro-family structure, as has already been successfully implemented in some countries in Europe such as Hungary. If the state, in return, pursues a supportive family policy, a synergy is created from the nucleus of society to the great overarching structures that make up a true nation.

Without any utopian self-sufficiency, Molnar was keen to aspire to this model and to propose it as a solution to the modern absence of authority.

Tags: AuthorityJean Jacques Rousseaunuclear famliyThomas Molnar
Jan Bentz

Jan Bentz

Dr. phil. Jan C. Bentz was born and raised in Germany, and graduated from High School in St. Louis (MI) as a foreign exchange student. Professor Bentz holds a doctorate in Philosophy (Dr. phil.) from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, a Master’s in Sacred Art, Architecture, and Liturgy and a Master’s in Church and Religious Studies. During his career as a journalist he has contributed to EWTN in English and German, Inside the Vatican, The Catholic Herald, Catholic News Agency, Jüdische Rundschau, and Nasze Slowo. He worked as a producer for EWTN focusing on the Vatican, the Pope, and Rome in general. His fields of expertise in Philosophy include the history of philosophy and the history of philosophy of art. Prof. Bentz teaches Philosophy for The Catholic University of America, Christendom College, and IES Study Abroad in Rome.

Discussion about this post

Popular News

  • Christian family sues Sweden for taking their children over faith based parenting

    Christian family sues Sweden for taking their children over faith based parenting

    0 shares 155 VIEWS
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • UN publishes report on homeschooling undermining family autonomy

    0 shares 130 VIEWS
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • New Georgetown University president rejects Catholic teaching on homosexuality

    0 shares 109 VIEWS
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Colorado opens “no limits” abortion clinic

    0 shares 84 VIEWS
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Turkish government labels Christians as “national security dangers”

    0 shares 82 VIEWS
    Share 0 Tweet 0

IFN – International Family News Network

© 2022 IFN – International Family News - All Rights Reserved.

Quick Links

  • About iFamNews
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

Follow Us

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Subscribe

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Opinion
  • Life
  • Family
  • Culture
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • Science
  • Shows
  • Petitions
  • Subscribe
  • Donate

  • en English
  • it Italiano
  • es Español
  • fr Français
  • de Deutsch
  • pl Polski
  • sr српски
  • ru Русский
  • hr Hrvatski
  • Login
  • Sign Up

© 2022 IFN – International Family News - All Rights Reserved.