The Authoritarians

[Requia ☣]

http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf

Found this while cleaning my hard drive, linking it here.

[Cain]

This is pretty cool, except where he keeps trying to be funny or light hearted.

There also seems a bit of a tendency to blame everything thats wrong on RWAs, but otherwise, food for thought.  I might throw up some ideas in Think for Yourself later.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

It might also have been useful to not use "Right" as part of the term... even though he defines it in the beginning... it does feel like a direct assault on right-wing (politically speaking) people.

Of course, in current times, their Right-Wing authoritarianism seems a bit more obvious... but I think RWA's have become more apparent on the left (at least in this country right now) as well.

[Cain]

True.

Although, they could be considered right wing too, if we want to play around with the definitions of social convention as related to political alleigance and identity.  It could do with some complicating and deconstruction, as a theory, but otherwise seems fairly plausible.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

True.

Although, they could be considered right wing too, if we want to play around with the definitions of social convention as related to political alleigance and identity.  It could do with some complicating and deconstruction, as a theory, but otherwise seems fairly plausible.

Well sure... overall, our 'Left-Wing' and 'Right-Wing' are about as far apart as... well, they're not hardly far apart at all. LOL I just think that a lot of people will read and dismiss it as "Liberal propaganda" because he labels the authoritarians as 'Right Wing' (psychological) and then, in example uses authoritarian positions that the right-wing (political) holds (abortion, torture of detainees, religion etc). But then, I'm not done with the book yet, so maybe he goes after the other side as well?

[Cain]

I'm only in Chapter 3 myself, but he has mentioned Communists more than a few times.

The main problem I can see is that he has a monolithic view of culture that stops at the state borders, or at least the way he talks about it suggests so.  I would look both at subcultures, and transnational groups as well.  And would have much more literature on identity theory and political philosophy (even simplified.  I know its not meant to be a srs academic book, but an introduction to such things could make the critique so much deeper).

A new term would also help, too.  Something less politically loaded.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Also, this quote seems extremely interesting, particularly with respects to  the Think for Yourself concept:

also discovered that if you ask subjects to rank the importance of
various values in life, authoritarian followers place "being normal" substantially
higher than most people do. It's almost as though they want to disappear as
individuals into the vast vat of Ordinaries.

I'm only in Chapter 3 myself, but he has mentioned Communists more than a few times.

Sure, though I think your comments below fit closely with what I was trying to say

The main problem I can see is that he has a monolithic view of culture that stops at the state borders, or at least the way he talks about it suggests so.  I would look both at subcultures, and transnational groups as well.  And would have much more literature on identity theory and political philosophy (even simplified.  I know its not meant to be a srs academic book, but an introduction to such things could make the critique so much deeper).

A new term would also help, too.  Something less politically loaded.

I was thinking about some of the people that seem Authoritarian in regards to Science, Atheism and even Global Warming. I mean, these issues don't seem quite as critical to the foundations of democracy (which is what this seems to be about mostly), but I think it would feel less biased if he would have covered a broader area...

But then, maybe most of the risk to our society is from the Republicans... that seems counter-intuitive to me, but meh, I could be wrong.

[Cain]

Yeah, I picked up on that ordinary point as well.  I think there are some definite gems in this.  I shall collect and relocate them to Think For Yourself, for wider discussion.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Yeah, I picked up on that ordinary point as well.  I think there are some definite gems in this.  I shall collect and relocate them to Think For Yourself, for wider discussion.

Good idea.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Interesting... I'm beginning to note a lot of similarities between this guy's description of High RWA's vs. Low RWA's and the "Hostile Strength"/ "Friendly Strength" options on the RAW/Leary grid.

[Requia ☣]

I usually use conventionalist authoritarian when I talk about his ideas to other people, to avoid the republican link.

[barumunk]

thanks for the link Req.