[extropy-chat] italian football victory

Martin Striz mstriz at gmail.com
Tue Jul 11 18:46:55 UTC 2006


On 7/11/06, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

> Same thing with Germany. That Hitler incident was a rather radical cure.
> The more jarring to suddenly see lots of aggressive flagwaving everywhere.
>
> I think the immunization has started to wear off. But I'm genuinely
> worried about people elsewhere yet immunologically naive in respect
> to nationalism. Let me tell you, that shit can really ruin your day.

How a propos.

John Dean published a book today about authoritarianism and how it
effects political affiliation.  Dean was a counsel to Nixon and a
self-styled Goldwater conservative.  During the Republican takeover of
the American Congress in 1994, he had many conversations with
Goldwater about the strange turn that the Republican Party was making.
 It was only later, after years of research, that he came upon
information that is still not well publicized: decades of social
science research and hundreds of studies have revealed that people
with "authoritarian personalities" tend overwhelmingly to be
conservative in their political beliefs.

Having an authoritarian personality doesn't mean that one is a
dominating, authority-type figure.  It means that one prefers to have
authority or authority figures in one's life.  Although a small
percentage of such people are leaders, most of them are followers, and
like to be.  These are people who are rule-bound and like structure,
law and order, police, and (authoritarian) religion.  Social
conservatives in America have risen to dominance by virtue of this
personality type.

Since whole populations tend to move toward and away from such
authoritarian convictions, Dean (as well as others) believe that it is
partly under environmental control.  Dean suggests that such
personalities like to have enemies, and that having perceived enemies
can foment authoritarian personalities.  It's why social conservatives
can always use some bogeyman (gay marriage, flag burning, terrorism,
etc.) to fire up their followers.  He believes that the Cold War
provided a common enemy which fueled the rise of modern conservativism
in America, and which has given it its particular authoritarian,
social conservative flavor.  Terrorism has been a further boon to
authoritarian people.  These folks will always invent enemies for the
United States.

He also points to other instances in history when this has happened,
such as Germany and Italy in the 1930s, where plenty of enemies were
invented.  Authoritarian type people need a leader in whom they
believe completely and do not question.  Life is black and white.
There are no shades of gray ("you're either with us, or you're against
us").

G. Gordon Liddy once said that he would rather be shot than snitch on
Nixon (or was it Reagan?), even if he knew they did something wrong.
That's a rather glaring example of the authoritarian mentality.
Today, many people in American politics ask for unquestioning support
of Bush.  Critics of the president or the country are castigated as
unpatriotic.  There was certainly a dampening of public debate after
9/11.

Dean suggests that the authoritarian mentality is veering the United
States dangerously in the direction of other fascist countries in the
past.  Luckily, that meme has only caught 51% of the population and
not 60 or 70%.  Further, the fact that Bush's approval ratings are so
low now may be a sign that the crest of this movement has passed.

As a person who has made no secret of my criticisms of Bush and
conservatives, I have to be careful in considering such information.
Is it easy for me to accept the premise because it provides a simple
explanation for why I think some people are wrong?  Certainly reality
is far more complicated, but the fact that an actual conservative
(someone who held conservative convictions long before so-called
movement conservatism arose in the United States) is promulgating this
view should be worth something.  It certainly fits with their
behavior.

It's no secret that American conservativism is an unholy marriage
between fiscal and social conservatives, but this information puts it
into a new light.  American conservatism is an unholy marriage between
ideological and personality-driven conservatives.

Martin



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