Dr. Daisy Grewal of the Stanford School of Medicine published, in Scientific American, the results of a study on anti-atheism. “Reminding people about God, “she concluded, “has the same effect as telling people they are being watched by others. It increases their feeling of self-consciousness and leads them to behave in more socially acceptable ways”. She found that people trusted atheists more when they were reminded of authority figures, like judges and police chiefs. In other words, any divine or secular authority figure will do, and it is the authority vacuum that feels uncomfortable for many people.

Ancient Epicureans voluntarily accepted the authority of a senior member of the community in order to learn how to live a pleasant, Epicurean life. Indeed, if you believe the history, the gurus could be polite but direct and painfully truthful about the shortcomings of their pupils. So Epicureans had authority figures as much as anyone else. My own education made me highly skeptical about them. One should be able to think laterally and out of the box, able to spot both flaws in the arguments of authority figures and their frequent less-than-straightforward motives and objectives.

This is why, despite the hostility of Epicurus himself to politics and politicians, I wander into politics in order to criticize it. So I don’t recognize what Dr. Grewal has to say, and think it’s so much nonsense. Of course, everyone is different, not excluding Epicureans, and one has to accept that some people do crave a masterful person in their lives.