Did anyone notice the statement posed by Teacher Ken in his diary from awhile back?
If what we are going to continue to see/experience is a refusal to address real issues of corruption, lying to the American people, refusal to allow access to information and witness relevant even to the ordinary processes of Congressional oversight (much less to the matters of an impeachment inquiry) it becomes questionable whether we can still have a democratic republic with co-equal branches.
I’ve been trying to write a diary on the situation he described ever since Ken wrote that statement in his diary, after he had his stroke. Authoritarian thinking is the first thing that came to my mind when I read it. And I started having that sick feeling that I get, whenever I think that there’s no solution to what I’ll call the polarization of truth. Though I’d love to be proven wrong, I don’t think our country can heal from this condition, certainly not without a good understanding of the factors that got us here.
There are political psychologists and other scholars studying authoritarianism and authoritarian systems, and they’ve contributed to advances in understanding how they develop, how they work, and how they perpetuate. While I’ve not read nearly enough of the relevant literature, the implications of what I have read, as it relates to the current surge in authoritarian governments, are sobering.
The reference I’m most familiar with regarding authoritarianism is the book by Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarians, the writing of which was encouraged by John Dean, the author of Conservatives Without Conscience. Dean’s book lamented the rise of authoritarianism in the Republican Party, and used Dr. Altemeyer’s research to support his arguments.
There’s plenty available to read about authoritarian followers and authoritarian leaders, so I’ll leave much of that to you all, but provide a simplified explanation.
Caveats: Keep in mind that while I am trained as a scientist, I’m not *this* kind of scientist. Also, keep in mind that I’ve been struggling with my own issues, that make it more difficult to put this kind of thing together. I started drafting this in November. It has now made it onto my New Years’ resolution list.
I’m writing this as much to help me digest and understand the implications of these findings about authoritarians and how they tick as for anyone else. Finally, any opinions expressed here are my own, and are indeed opinions.
How authoritarian are you? The right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) scale
The RWA scale was initially developed by Bob Altemeyer, and is well-described in his book. You can even take this test on line here. The degree of agreement (-4 to +4) to 22 statements is used measure the degree of authoritarian personality of the test taker. It’s best used to measure the authoritarian leanings of groups, rather than individual persons.
Authoritarians can be either left- or right-wing. This, of course, means we at DKos are not immune to authoritarianism. The left vs. right difference is in the type of leader followed; revolutionaries on the left, reactionaries on the right. In this country, the reactionaries dominate, and so does the threat of right-wing authoritarianism.
Authoritarian followers
Characteristics of authoritarian followers are:
Generalized fear: scoring high on the “Dangerous World” scale
The source in most cases turns out to be their parents raising them to be afraid of others. While threatening events elicit fear from most people, authoritarian followers feel afraid from most to all of the time. There’s always some national crisis requiring drastic action. And if there really isn’t one, one will be ginned up for them by authoritarian leaders. More on that later.
Self-righteousness
Authoritarian followers believe they are much better than everyone else, compared to those less authoritarian. Their authority is often seen as coming from God himself (the male pronoun is not accidental here), and their self-righteousness powers aggressive intervention in the lives of others to “make matters right”. Related to this, in the questionnaire used to measure the degree of right-wing authoritarianism, they cite sinfulness as precipitating our “plunge into the abyss”.
Authoritarian submission
RWAs pick and choose their leaders. After all, they don’t feel loyal to Bill Clinton, but do to leaders like Nixon, George W. Bush, and *45. The loyalty of authoritarian followers *sticks*, often even when the authority is dishonest, corrupt, unfair, and evil. Also, the authoritarian followers don’t see laws necessarily applying to their leaders. An experiment showed that if the Bill of Rights got in their leaders’ ways, authoritarian followers thought it might be sensible to repeal them.
Authoritarian aggression
RWA followers see punishment as beneficial. They get off on “smiting the sinner” and relish being “the arm of the Lord”…. but only if it’s a safe because they have superior numbers/strength, and approved by their leaders. Groups that RWAs have prejudged as wanting are also the object of their aggression. The RWAs will group together in “posses” (safety in numbers) to help enforce perceived laws against those who offend them.
Finally, in a simulated war game, high RWA teams responded aggressively to any moves by the other side, provocative or not, and usually brought the world to the brink of nuclear war before the end of the game, about 40 equivalent years (2.5 hrs of actual time) later.
Authoritarian conventionalism
….i.e. everyone should have to follow the norms and customs decreed by the RWA authorities. These norms and customs typically come from their religion, and their religions tend to be fundamentalist.
Authoritarians and the “Dangerous World”
Authoritarian followers score high on a metric of generalized fear and see the world as full of danger. The RWAs and their parents indicates that’s how they were raised. Most of the RWA aggression generated by this fear is directed at social “deviance/deviants” and social change more generally that they regard as “sinful”. No matter how calm and peaceful the times are, RWAs see them as troubled times requiring drastic action to save the country.
Authoritarian aggression justified by their (self-)righteousness
Holy Ones. The Chosen. The Righteous. This view of RWA selves justifies their aggression. Their hate of deviation (see above) includes hate of difference, and of those who are different.
authoritarian follower thought processes
Copy beliefs of authoritarians in their lives, without thinking through beliefs as much as most people have. It’s easy to plant thoughts and beliefs and have them stick there, even contradictory ideas.
This next part will sound kind of elitist, but it’s based on objective measurement, at least as objective as human measurement can get. RWA followers exhibit the following in their thought processes:
Illogical thinking
RWAs have more trouble remembering information details, determining if an inference or deduction is right or wrong, and being more likely to agree with a thought process ending with a conclusion they agree with. The conclusion validates the reasoning, leading to prejudice and acceptance of the Big Lie.
They also have trouble with empirical evidence. Any evidence that supports something they believe in must be true, no matter how ambiguous. This is not only true for religious beliefs, but for evidence in general. Rather than looking at evidence, in fact, they turn to their RWA peers and authorities to get reassurance for their illogical thinking.
Highly compartmentalized minds
This dovetails with the illogical thinking. Presented with two opposing statements, the RWA follower will agree with both of them, not checking for self-consistency as much as most.
Double standards
This goes with highly compartmentalized minds. It’s easy to use faulty reasoning to justify double standards under such circumstance. For example, in mock trials used to study RWAs compared to others, the RWAs punish a defendant with low social standing more than a defendant with higher social standing for committing the same crime.
Hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness
When presented a list of controversial proposals where half were offensive to liberals and half to conservatives, the RWAs wanted to impose censorship on all of proposals (except for on the sex education teacher that believed all premarital sex was a sin ;-) ). The conclusion? Authoritarians are “spring-loaded for hostility, seem all wound up to clamp right down on lots and lots of people.”
As you might expect, RWAs also think they have lots more integrity compared to others. In yet another study where students were asked to write down their biggest faults, the RWAs wrote fewer, mainly because they said they didn’t have any big faults, and that they were being “completely honest with themselves”. Additionally, they have no idea how much they differ from others in, for example, “the desire to associate with people with the same beliefs and opinions I have”. When Altemeyer gave feedback lectures to classes on his RWA studies, the RWAs almost always thought he was talking about someone else.
Profound ethnocentrism
Enough said in this subtitle. It falls out from the other thought patterns. It’s what lead George W. Bush to say, “If you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists.”
RWAs place a higher value on loyalty and cohesiveness within their group than most other people. Being part of their “in-group” is very important to them.
This part of RWA’s thought process makes it easy for the unscrupulous to manipulate them; their inability to detect lies when the narrative agrees with their beliefs. The RWA follower “… [chucks] out critical thinking and prudence as the price for maintaining his beliefs. …And the very last thing an authoritarian leader wants is for his followers to start thinking critically and independently about things.”
Dogmatism
Unchangeable, unjustifiably certain. This is dogmatism, and this is RWAs. Beliefs come from the in-group. “The things I believe in are so completely true, I could never doubt them.” Note that conviction about what you believe is true differs from commitment to the truth. Conviction about what you believe is relatively easy; commitment to the truth is hard, particularly when the truth doesn’t conform to your beliefs.
RWAs and Religious fundamentalism
Which do you agree with: “God has given humanity a complete, unfailing guide to happiness and salvation, which must be totally followed”; or “No single book of religious teachings contains all the intrinsic, fundamental truths about life.” Surprise! The RWAs largely agree with the first statement, as expected. This also most often indicates that s/he who answers is a fundamentalist and an RWA.
Religious fundamentalism provides a ready-made in-group, identity, justification for rigid ideology and prejudice, us v them construct. The same findings for RWAs fit religious fundamentalists as well. Which comes first … fundamentalism or authoritarianism? It’s suggested that authoritarianism is more basic.
social dominators
Characteristics
Social dominators aren’t necessarily RWAs, but recognize how easily RWA followers can be exploted. So, what’s different about them compared to RWA followers?
- Their desire for power
- Their religiousness
- The roots of their aggression
- Their thinking processes.
Power
These folks are real pieces of work, and it’s their overriding desire for power that makes them so. They agree with statements like
- “Some people are just more worthy than others”, and
- “I don’t spend a lot of time feeling sorry for people less fortunate than me”
In a psychological metric called the “Power Mad” scale, they indicate they’d rather be feared than loved, and viewed as mean, pitiless, and vengeful. Their love of power included the power to hurt others as they drive to the top. Social dominators see compassion as a sign of weakness.
Religiosity
Interestingly, they don’t tend to be religious fundamentalists. BUT they’re very good at pretending to be when it’s to their advantage. They score high on a metric called the Exploitative Manipulative Amoral Dishonesty scale (“ExploitativeMAD”), where they will admit to:
- Striving to manipulate others
- Being dishonest and two-faced
- Being treacherous and amoral
- Being unsympathetic and unempathetic
They hold a “certain contempt” for their adoring followers.
Aggression
Social dominators don’t need support from established authority to be aggressive. They already live in the dystopia that their followers fear, and they’re going to be the aggressors. The first order of business when meeting someone new is to determine if they need to gain the upper hand with them right now. If the someone is a vulnerable minority, social dominators use their vulnerability to exert their power.
Social dominators have no sense of self-righteousness, because they don’t need one to justify their amoral world view; there is no right or wrong, just what you can get away with.
Thought processes
Social dominators do not exhibit weak reasoning abilities, compartmentalized thinking, nor a tendency to trust people who ell them what they want to hear. However, they’re always thinking and then doing whatever will get them ahead, so it’s unwise to just believe them.
Origins
Where do such people come from? It’s not clear, though it is possible they had positive reinforcement from exhibiting power-grabbing behavior in the past. Since social domination appears in other species, including the great apes, there may well be a genetic component to the desire to dominate.
What’s next?
Well, that’s the $100000000000000 question. What I've written so far offers no solutions, and makes the task of changing minds of RWA followers in particular seem particularly daunting.
A number of us on DKos seem to see the situation that way, based on what I can infer from the writing here. I think it’s very important to understand what it is that we have to deal with in 2020 and beyond. Yes, in the short term, the existence, persistence, and resistance of RWA followers in particular implies that the best chance of success for the non-Trump electorate will be turnout, turnout, TURNOUT! RWA theory indicates there likely isn’t enough time to convince enough RWAs of the error of their ways to defeat Trump and his minions.
the longer run
The effort to turn things around long term will require a great deal of work and a change in our culture to put, in my opinion, people ahead of profit (and acquisition more generally). That’s a radical prospect, and it’s going to be necessary not only in our country but in the rest of the world for us to thrive, not merely survive.
I greatly welcome any insights, observations, or comments below. Thanks for reading.