Authoritarians

For this post let's reframe our questions. (The questions that were originally raised in this post)
This site gives you a better definition than I could for reframing.
Looking back at last week's post we see the questions really are:
Why are some people so easily led while others will do anything to be leaders.
Why do some people still believe things that are disproved by facts.
Why are some people so aggressive in the name of moral or political values or is it something else entirely?
Why do some people fear, in the extreme, change?
Why do some people fear those different from themselves?
Why racism? Why homophobic fears? Why fear other religions?

In these next posts, I want to give you some beginning information from two books. One is political while the other is more about the social behaviors and actions found in studies of authoritarians.

Here we need to define a few things:
Why the books Conservatives Without Conscience by John W. Dean and Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer. free here I chose to read the two books simultaneously as they are very interconnected. In an interview I saw on UCTV, John Dean talked about the studies on Authoritarianism and recommended the other book. His interest peaked my interest. Mostly however, I will be writing about The Authoritarians (Disclaimer: I am not necessarily a John Dean fan but find he can get my attention and I sometimes wondered about the reasons behind some of the chapters in Dr. Altemeyer's book. Guess I am not that easily led by “authorities.”)

Authoritarians Two kinds:
I had a hard time keeping my definitions of authoritarian out of my head at first.
My definitions were either about a form of government or a “bossy” person. But these are not quite appropriate.
Dr. Altemeyer explains that in his books on authoritarians he is mostly discussing extremely submissive “followers” of established authorities, “attacks others in their name, and is highly conventional.”
He lists 3 of the personality traits of the “followers”:

1)a high degree of submission to the established, legitimate, authorities in their society;
2)high levels of aggression in the name of their authorities; and
3)a high level of conventionalism.

(page 8)

Mr. Dean at one point describes authoritarianism as the behaviors and thinking of these personalities.

RWA Scale:
“The RWA scale is a personality test disguised as an attitude survey.”
the mid-point of the scale is 100. The higher the score the more the tendency to be an authoritarian follower.

Why the name “right-wing”:
The use of the word right as used here is “an adjective, right, lawful, proper, correct...”

Double Highs:
Social Dominators who also score high on the religion, fundamentalism, scale but the why is interesting. These people go to church more often than most but they go to “project a good image...”
and “It is more important to create a good image of yourself in the minds of others than to be actually be the person others think you are.”

Conservatives: Two kinds political and social: As Dr. Altemeyer explains you can have high RWA's even within the Communist party in a Communist country. Remember submission to “his” authorities and highly conventional. So keep in mind we are not always talking about political conservatives.
Though, if you will, take a look at the chart on page 203. I found it very enlightening and interesting.
I had forgotten about the “Southern Democrats”. Historically an interesting bunch.

I found so much about the people studied confusing-hard for me to get my head around all the seeming inconsistencies in logic as I call it but as pointed out in the book the compartmentalization of their ideas allows for some pretty interesting, conflicting, thoughts.

Now let's look for some answers to our questions. (I think we can actually lump our questions into fewer questions yet.)

1.Why are some people so easily led and hang on to false “facts”?
2.Why are some so aggressive...?
3.Why the prejudices?
4.Who are their authorities and why?


Question 1:

Dr. Altemeyer, as I do, doesn't get into the genetics of High RWA's but allows for it. He begins with parental guidance, then to “missed experiences”. They are not introduced to different groups and ideas.
“They got a “2 for 1 special deal on fear...they were raised by their parents to be afraid of others...”
They “traveled around on short leashes in relatively small, tight, safe circles all their lives.”
Their parents “try to send their kids to “safe” colleges.”

(Also remember the group thing, individuals into the group Venn diagram)

The compartmentalization of their ideas allow for holding conflicting ideas at the same time and can lead to confusing justifications for various actions and decisions.
The high RWA has not further developed or “thought through their ideas as much as most people have...”
In Chapter three How Authoritarian Followers Think, “...a high RWA can have all sorts of illogical, self-contradictory, and widely refuted ideas rattling around in various boxes in his brain and never notice it.”
Dr. Altemeyer gives the usual disclaimer so do we all have “inconsistencies in reasoning” then:
“...research reveals that authoritarian followers...exhibiting sloppy reasoning, highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness, a profound ethnocentrism, and ...a ferocious dogmatism (see definition 2) that makes it unlikely anyone could ever change their minds.

...they do not in general have a very critical outlook on anything unless the authorities in their lives have condemned it for them.”

Thus they are easily led and easily become apprehensive, or fearful.

What about hanging on to false “facts”:
One example given concerns the Iraq war. The compartmental mind had no trouble in “believing that America stands for international cooperation and the peaceful resolution of conflict on one hand, while on the other hand insisting it has the “right” to attack whomever it wants...”

After all, in the ethnocentric mind “We are the Good Guys and our opponents are abominations”...

Will some of these people ever change their minds? Dr. Altemeyer believes some will by revising their personal histories. Others? “petrified by their dogmatism” never. (99)


I have given you a only a few of the explanations found in the book The Authoritarians for the first question. Partly because there is so much information and partly because I have a hard time compartmentalizing. I see so much about the high RWA conflicting and yet interconnected.

But there we have the beginnings of my studies.

I hope you learned something as I did and still do from this book.

Next post will look at the Dr. Altemeyer's book for some insight into aggression and if I can keep more focused, so much information, hopefully question 3.

Heroes and Idols

Yes, I am still researching and reading for the promised post so here is another one in the meantime.

A short while back Thomas and I were ,commenting in a small way, back and forth about John Wayne.
Then today I saw this about the “Duke” in the N.Y. Times. Watch out it is a little bit of a tear jerker.

My Dad was a huge John Wayne fan. Many people were. I still am. Find that strange?
Let me explain a little.

My Dad had John Wayne Syndrome and once my older brother told me many men did. The Duke was the epitome of the strong silent hero. In many of his movies he was a black and white, pun intended, straight forward kind of guy. Most of the time his character met the bad guy or guys head-on and won the day not just for himself but for those who weren't as strong but were more silent. That must be hard to live up to anytime. But I thought we were supposed to outgrow that kind of thing I never thought I would be like June Cleaver. (Though I sometimes think if my spouse would be like Ward, I would be glad to be June. Easier life that.) Guess you had to be a male to get it.

But I got off why I still like John Wayne, the actor. In the late 60's Mr. Wayne went a little too far in his support of the Vietnam War, for me but that was before I worried about actors and politics. I didn't pay much attention to them except for enjoying, or not, movies. For some reason I always understood these were people playing roles . Sometimes the movies had much to say but the actors were just that to me, actors. Here is a pretty good link about the Duke, actor, his movies, and his life.

Some of my favorite Wayne movies: Three Godfathers, The Searchers,The Cowboys, True Grit, and Rooster Cogburn and the Lady, and of course, The Shootist. My list goes on. He sure was a prolific actor.
Here is a great site listing his movies.

and now that I look at the list I see so many I enjoy but hadn't thought about in years.

Here is Wayne quotation from the above wikipedia John Wayne link that I find poetic:

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.

(Surprising to me as I didn't expect such wisdom from the Duke. See, I am a reverse snob sometimes.)

In considering my own thoughts about John Wayne and his movies, I am regretting that we do not have such a hero today for folks. It is a confusing world and sometimes we need idols. The problem is in picking the idols. Maybe I should say heroes as idols are of stone and make no mistakes while heroes, as is often seen, are human and make mistakes.

The past few years I had times I felt young folks needed a hero. A black and white, good vs. evil, moral type even if they are the stuff found only in movies or good books. But I was wrong they do, Harry Potter maybe. Someone the media leaves alone to do good while having clay feet would be very nice. Why not leave a little fantasy and enjoyment to the young. A guide along the way of discovery of the society around us. The stage after parents lose their wisdom and no longer know just everything.
(I warned my son that there would be a time that his parents would get a disease. They would suddenly know nothing and it would last for many years. Then one day they would recover and they would be very wise once again.)

Maybe today the problem is many do not grow beyond this stage or something. We have our idols and some of us revel in every lurid tale about them. It is as though part of us wants our idols to be less than we think we are. Why are Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood still popular?

I leave you to your answers.

We admire them, we envy them, for great qualities which we ourselves lack. Hero worship consists in just that.

- Mark Twain's Autobiography site link