Instead of the practical categories of skill or wisdom, arguments about authority are based on moral and ideological imperatives. Not all human societies have shared this way of thinking. In general, they lack laws and fixed hierarchies. Elman R. Service describes the minimal structures of authority among hunter-gatherer groups in his book The Hunters. These categories are useful, and can contribute to our understanding of authority.
Reinforcement is the maintenance of community norms.
In comparison, we can look at two cases at Dreamtime in which group sanction has not been applied to some potentially threatening behavior. One long-time friend of Liz, Miekal and Eric aroused suspicion each time he visited. He was a sharp thinker and eloquent talker, but tried to use his intellect to justify his violations of other peoples' boundaries. Group disagreement about how to handle the problem led to the breakup. Perhaps to criticize such behavior would risk being labeled a reactionary prude.