I was talking about "hard" authority that one cannot really avoid, because at this point in my life that's what I think of when I hear the word authority. By ad

I was talking about "hard" authority that one cannot really avoid, because at this point in my life that's what I think of when I hear the word authority. By adulthood it feels "soft" authority relationships are much more opt-in (even if calling them full choices is somewhat fallacious). So I'm not respecting soft authorities simply because they're "authority" but rather because I've personally decided that their direction is reasonable in service of some larger goal. I didn't mean to say that someone following barked orders is actively damaging their executive control, but rather saying that if the barked orders are directly affecting the prioritization of their executive control, then in a sense that control has already been damaged. Executive control and obedience to authority should really be seen as orthogonal aspects, and I'd say conflating the two is a shortcut preferred by those seeking the easy route of authoritarianism (eg a schoolteacher wondering why a "problem kid" doesn't "behave" when attempting to make them sit still for hours on end) Those are two clarifications. I feel there is definitely some constructive synthesis here but can't quite wrap my head around it right now.