"All authority is violence. [...] We may well assume that not all those who govern have the courage to make such a confession; and furthermore it might be dangerous for them to make it too loudly. They try to mask the crime from themselves; at least they try to conceal it from the notice of those who submit to their law. If they can not totally deny it, they attempt to justify it. The most radical justification would be to demonstrate that it is necessary: it then ceases to be a crime, it becomes fatality."
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Simone de Beauvoir, |date=1948 |publisher=Philosophical Library |isbn=978-0-8065-0160-4}} Part III: The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity
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Authority
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