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Morroque
Mar 6, 2013

Prester John posted:

This all ties into another area I'm going to try and explore but I still haven't quite figured out a way to translate into relateable terms yet. But let me describe it this way. There are certain Pillars of belief that an Authoritarian accepts subconsciously, certain base assumptions that exist beneath the level of active awareness and have never been consciously examined by the Authoritarian. There are several of these Pillars, but the most important one I call The Pillar of Perfect Safety, which is the premise that the Authoritarian must never feel at risk or afraid of anything. A great deal of Authoritarian behavior stems from this idea that they must be able to feel perfectly safe at all times, and a key feature of Inner Narrative's is how safe they make the Authoritarian feel, no matter what.

Stroop There It Is posted:

I was using "militant SJW" specifically to refer to people who claim to support social justice, but instead spend all of their time taking ideologically pure positions and mindlessly attacking those who have any slight difference in opinion (hence, the tongue-in-cheek usage of warrior) in order to feel better about themselves. These are people who are supposedly liberal, but do not actually support democracy because that involves slow progress and compromise. They want a fascist power structure--one that enforces only their way of thinking. They are not remotely concerned with how to actually effect social change; they actively ostracize allies who disagree with them on any front and when they deign to reach out with "education", it's inevitably more about congratulating themselves than convincing or educating anyone.

That said, I can understand where the reaction to the term comes from, as it is essentially meaningless now and has been used plenty to deride people who actually fight for social justice. So I'll drop it.

Combining these two, it would be clear to me the phenomena at hand vis-a-vis things on Tumblr, is likely not a type of authoritarianism. While I do not doubt the use of narratives in that sphere, it may be too much to assume the character of any authoritarian's inner narrative would be one of the "victim." A victim, as per its role, can never feel perfectly safe at any given point; yet victimization from given social/power structures is a prime motivator towards the kind of thought Tumblr espouses. Perhaps they are in some role that requires others to be victims, but even the act of doing so promotes a kind of disharmony which would break that particular pillar.

Prester, I know you said you are still working on it, but perhaps these still-elusive pillars might help us clarify who exactly is an authoritarian versus who, while superficially possessing authoritarian-like qualities, may be some other kind of group instead.

In lack of that at the moment, I have another question: authority, and what it means to the authoritarian.

From your examples of the Grand Narrative, authority has a sort of divine quality to it that a given authoritarian feels it necessary to align themselves with, or to give fealty to in order to win safety and favour: God, the Free Market, the advanced alien species controlling everything from behind the scenes, and so on.

However, if I am recalling my James P. Carse correctly, "authority" is derived from the root word for "author." The context in which it was originally used is a little bit different than what we have now, but the social function is the same. An author is to be considered "an authority" on a given subject, and that authority is earned through some narrative, story told, or act of creation. Authority is therefore held, not by the same one who has the almighty power, but the one who knows of they who have the power.

This is where, as I understand it, you may differ from Altemeyer. He identified those on his RWA scale as a sort of liability to the rest of society. In the experiments he did, they tend to be very timid and withdrawn when expected to steer their own ship. (A group of cowards in mob mentality is still a group of cowards.) It is for this reason why, when a leader-type figure comes along, they align themselves behind them. Such leaders are, more usually than not, somewhere along on the DSM for socio- or psychopathy, and tend to misuse any power they are given. Altemeyer offered those experiments he did as an example of "authority," but kind of tips his hand when doing so. If I wanted, I could quite accurately paint him as a scared leftist, nervous of the powermongers who would so willingly harness the power of authoritarianism to further the nefarious and degrading cause of neoconservative capitalism. A kind of reverse-antichrist, if you will. (It is one of the reasons why he, himself, can draw no conclusions about Left Wing Authoritarianism, even though he claims it does exist.)

You, however, are not claiming this. You claim that this authoritarianism is only seen as "right wing" out of historical happenstance, as the early days of the Cold War effectively purged a lot of left-wing thought out of the scope of the United States, meaning there is statistically less left wing authoritarianism because there is overall less left-wing anything. We would have to go back about 100 years to the various bents of ideological Marxism before we could find an example of authoritarianism in that context. (God Capitalism passes judgement on the world by sending the perfect man revolutionaries as a thief in the night to rescue his chosen people the proletariat... etc. etc.) Furthermore, the Republicans are not evil demigods who are using the authoritarian voting bloc as a means to advance their calculated plans, but are instead bumbling fools who went with the authoritarians as easy votes and now are paying the price for it by getting torn apart from the inside.

So then, where exactly does authority come up in the authoritarian mindset? Is authority even the right word for it?

Morroque fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Mar 26, 2015

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Prester Jane
Nov 4, 2008

by Hand Knit

Morroque posted:


This is where, as I understand it, you may different from Altemeyer. He identified those on his RWA scale as a sort of liability to the rest of society. In the experiments he did, they tend to be very timid and withdrawn when expected to steer their own ship. A group of cowards in mob mentality is still a group of cowards. It is for this reason why, when a leader-type figure comes along, they align themselves behind them. Such leaders are, more usually than not, somewhere along on the DSM for socio- or psychopathy, and tend to misuse any power they are given. Altemeyer offered those experiments he did as an example of "authority," but kind of tips his hand when doing so. If I wanted, I could quite accurately paint him as a scared leftist, nervous of the powermongers who would so willingly harness the power of authoritarianism to further the nefarious and degrading cause of neoconservative capitalism. A kind of reverse-antichrist, if you will. (It is one of the reasons why he, himself, can draw no conclusions about Left Wing Authoritarianism, even though he claims it does exist.)

You, however, are not claiming this. You claim that this authoritarianism is only seen as "right wing" out of historical happenstance, as the early days of the Cold War effectively purged a lot of left-wing thought out of the scope of the United States, meaning there is statistically less left wing authoritarianism because there is overall less left wing anything. We would have to go back about 100 years to the various bents of ideological Marxism before we could find an example of authoritarianism in that context. (God Capitalism passes judgement on the world by sending the perfect man revolutionaries as a thief in the night to rescue his chosen people the proletariat... etc. etc.) Furthermore, the Republicans are not evil demigods who are using the authoritarian voting bloc as a means to advance their calculated plans, but are instead bumbling fools who went with the authoritarians as easy votes and now are paying the price for it by getting torn apart from the inside.

So then, where exactly does authority come up in the authoritarian mindset? Is authority even the right word for it?

This is an excellent post, let me try to answer some of this before I go bed off for bed tonight.

Having given it some thought I think there was a critical flaw in Altameyer's social experiments that he would have been largely blind to. authoritarians do not adapt very quickly or very well (especially not the "follower" types he described) and they do not function well outside of established social orders they are already familiar with. So Altameyer's experiments were all about a bunch of strangers doing essentially creative activities, which would cause the average Authoritarian to clam up and go into Observation Mode. I can honestly think of situations where I have seen people that were nominally leaders in Authoritarian groups sort of shut down and just passively accept whatever if the situation they were suddenly faced were sufficiently outside their experience. Authoritarians depend on previously established social relations and existent hierarchies in order to function. Authoritarian groups also do not typically add new members too quickly so as to not upset the already existing social order. In my view then, Altameyer's experiments would have been dramatically skewed because his experiments were really testing the rate at which Authoritarians adapt without an existing hierarchy, and not really how Authoritarians behave in their self selected environment.

"Furthermore, the Republicans are not evil demigods who are using the authoritarian voting bloc as a means to advance their calculated plans, but are instead bumbling fools who went with the authoritarians as easy votes and now are paying the price for it by getting torn apart from the inside." This is a really excellent point and yes, is what I have been trying to communicate. I want to really highlight this because I feel that when the GOP started to court Authoritarians they were just courting the easiest suckers around and had no real concept of the fire they were toying with. And now, in the words of Ted Cruz, the GOP's "Whole World is on Fire!"

As far as where the authority comes from, that is a fantastic question, let me sleep on that one. You are basically asking "What makes God, God?" I will need to think this one out.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Altemeyer says he's center-right himself, as I recall, and has a forward to at least one edition of his book from John Dean, an American Republican who's terrified of the authoritarians in his party.

Remember that conservatives who score low on his index perform similarly to liberals low on the index. There are few left-authoritarians because no structures exist to cultivate them. Stalinists in the 40s and Larouche Youth today would qualify, as would some 9-11 Truthers.

Orange Fluffy Sheep
Jul 26, 2008

Bad EXP received

Morroque posted:

So then, where exactly does authority come up in the authoritarian mindset? Is authority even the right word for it?

I think he's using authority in the sense that authoritarians have a specific something that is beyond their influence demanding they live specific lives that will reward believers but destroy those who do not comply. A vengeful God is obviously that, and the Free Market fills the spot if you consider economic forces far bigger than any given person but will give riches to the captains of industry and leave those who won't ride its waves destitute.

On this idea, I think the part where people get this confused with totalitarianism is that totalitarianism is based around a human being. Stalin can age and die, or be killed, or change his mind on a subject, which would cause change in the rules. Authoritarians are based around a static and abstract being. God laid out His rules thousands of years ago and has not and will not change them. The Free Market is a concept beyond any given person and we all abide by its principles whether consciously or not. You could converse with Stalin in a way you can't exchange ideas with the concept of Free Market.

There's also the sense of omniscience with the Authority. You could, when completely alone, say "Stalin's dumb and his twitter feed sucks" without him knowing. God would know, because He knows all. To an Objectivist, there's no way to have interactions with another being without Free Market principles applying.

So I agree about SJWs (defining the term as the sort of people who inspired this tumblr) aren't Authoritarian, as they don't quite have the abstract law-giver beyond reproach. I imagine if they got their society the principles of social justice would stop guiding their lives so strongly, in the way that... uh... treatment of the Irish in the U.S.? I don't have a good comparison. But even after the victory they desire, the Authoiritarians would still be all about God's rule, or the Free Market, or whatever.

Vermain
Sep 5, 2006



Prester John posted:

This all ties into another area I'm going to try and explore but I still haven't quite figured out a way to translate into relateable terms yet. But let me describe it this way. There are certain Pillars of belief that an Authoritarian accepts subconsciously, certain base assumptions that exist beneath the level of active awareness and have never been consciously examined by the Authoritarian. There are several of these Pillars, but the most important one I call The Pillar of Perfect Safety, which is the premise that the Authoritarian must never feel at risk or afraid of anything. A great deal of Authoritarian behavior stems from this idea that they must be able to feel perfectly safe at all times, and a key feature of Inner Narrative's is how safe they make the Authoritarian feel, no matter what.

I'd argue that this is, to a certain extent, prevalent in the majority of people, rather than merely being a purely authoritarian element. That is: what people tend to desire most is control over the circumstances of their life. This can manifest in both direct control (I can directly decide the course of my own existence by taking actions that lead me towards a conclusion), and in indirect, "knowledge" control (I am aware of, and understand, something that exists, even if I cannot exert direct control). A lack of one tends to lead to the other, and a lack of both can lead to attempts to assuage this lack of control through ritual action or a vicarious "investment" in something that does seem to have control. A belief in a "higher power" that interferes in the human world, and which responds to ritual supplication, grants a measure of security, because I now (in theory) have direct control over a circumstance I otherwise wouldn't have been able to affect, under the assumption that the ritual supplication is sufficient to grant me their favor. Authoritarian leaders work in a similar way: one invests oneself in the leader (who is perceived as having control over a situation where you lack control) and ritually supplicates them (through marches, rallies, hanging their portrait in your house, etc.) in order to bring about the control that you otherwise lack.

This sort of investment isn't the only way to deal with a lack of control. Even in a relatively atheistic modern society, we still perform numerous ritual actions to try and remove the anxiety of losing control in a situation. Yelling angrily at machines, honking our horns in a traffic jam, playing "lucky numbers," and organizing our houses according to the principles of feng shui all work to minimize internal dread over our perceived inability to exert control. The way the authoritarians do so, meanwhile, is via vicarious investment and the construction of conspiracy theories (which provide knowledge-based control over a situation, even if that knowledge is fundamentally false). It's why you see folks clinging so desperately to fascist leaders and patently false theories: the alternative is a feeling of helplessness.

Vermain fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Mar 26, 2015

SMILLENNIALSMILLEN
Jun 26, 2009



Rodatose posted:


In my experience, i've found the best way to react to actions like this is to show a complete lack of effect or a completely inconsistent reaction. That'll eat away at them and reinforce their self-doubt and the fears of their impotency. If you're in repeated contact with them and they're not potentially dangerous, then later you can talk it out after warming up to them (after all, if they are doing it out of vulnerability and and aren't the ~1% that are sociopathic, then they would probably welcome it and might congratulate themselves for branching out), or you can just avoid them if you don't want to bother - they'll probably leave you alone because an unreceptive audience isn't worth the effort.
Can you give an example of what you mean by give an inconsistent reaction?

Vermain
Sep 5, 2006



katlington posted:

Can you give an example of what you mean by give an inconsistent reaction?

I think the absolute best example of what Rodatose is talking about is the Reverend Wade Watts' battle against the KKK. He repeatedly turned the tables on the Ku Klux Klan's attempts to intimidate him, and, ultimately, made one of the Klan's leaders (Johnny Lee Clary, the interviewee) realize the emptiness of his own actions. This also happens to be why the Socratic method remains one of the best ways of dispelling falsehoods: you might be able to ignore other people, but it's drat hard to ignore that gnawing at the base of your cerebrum.

Smudgie Buggler
Feb 27, 2005

SET PHASERS TO "GRINDING TEDIUM"

site posted:

I think my problem is that I fundamentally disagree with how y'all are defining authoritarian, so I may have to bow out here.

Very interesting thread though. Definitely gonna keep following it.

I don't really agree with how narrowly the term 'authoritarian' is being used in this thread either, but I'm choosing to read it more as an analysis of what I would call Fanatics of all stripes but who, in the mainstream American experience, will be almost exclusively next-level authoritarians. I roll in very left-wing circles in a country other than America. I've met people who fit the bill that PJ is describing very closely, but who believe they have a semi-divine mission as an anti-Fascist activist to stomp on the head of every racist they encounter. It doesn't work philosophically to call a legit communist-anarchist Bakunin-worshipper an authoritarian, but PJ's analysis is still extremely interesting in light of my experiences with some of these people (a few of which I'd even call good friends).

On the flip side, there's a lot of paternalistic, authoritarian shitheads out there who are nowhere near intense enough for this analysis to apply to them, but that's also not really the point. They're not the people who cause total bafflement in their way of thinking to sane people, and the latter is clearly the set of people who this thread is about.

Smudgie Buggler fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Mar 26, 2015

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007
He specifically outlined in his first post that he's using Authoritarian to define a single specific type of behavior, and went on to explain what said behavior pattern is. He also said it was relatively rare, and that most people don't actually fit into it. People are having a really hard time with this concept.

Armack
Jan 27, 2006

Captain Monkey posted:

He specifically outlined in his first post that he's using Authoritarian to define a single specific type of behavior, and went on to explain what said behavior pattern is. He also said it was relatively rare, and that most people don't actually fit into it. People are having a really hard time with this concept.

Yes, count me among those who are having a really hard time with this concept. I get that "Authoritarian" here refers not to a specific political worldview but rather a psychology. I'm just confused about the boundaries of this psychology, and I hope that Prester John and others can field some additional questions about it. Please forgive the rapid fire questioning below, I just really want to understand where we draw the line.

Is Authoritarian thinking vs other types of thinking merely the difference between moral absolutists and moral relativists? Is Glenn Greenwald an Authoritarian? What about MLK in the year leading up to his death? Is Noam Chomsky an Authoritarian"because he believes in a grand moral narrative about essential characteristics of truth and justice? Is a person who resists authority based on a feeling that he/she is ethically obligated to do so an Authoritarian? What if that person refrains from sharing his/her whole worldview in favor of an Outer Narrative? What are some examples of "extremists" who are not "Authoritarian"?

Prester John posted:

Authoritarians live in a constant state of anxiety/fear, and because they have never developed sophisticated thinking...

Well, this seems to rule out many who are characterized as far-left. Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Cornel West, Kshama Sawant, and Glenn Greenwald all exhibit sophisticated thinking, whatever else you might say about them. They also seem to operate on motivations other than just fear. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am on the far-left and I am biased in favor of these individuals).

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007

Jitzu_the_Monk posted:

Yes, count me among those who are having a really hard time with this concept. I get that "Authoritarian" here refers not to a specific political worldview but rather a psychology. I'm just confused about the boundaries of this psychology, and I hope that Prester John and others can field some additional questions about it. Please forgive the rapid fire questioning below, I just really want to understand where we draw the line.


The thread is about defining the term that she invented of capital-A Authoritarian. The lines are not drawn yet, and the discussion is literally happening around your confusion. She pointed out, explicitly, that due to her neurological condition, she has a penchant for capitalizing words to increase their supposed importance in order to help define things that she or we as a group do not yet have a term for. This isn't a textbook where you just read the information, nod, and move on, it's a discussion about a specific type of person, and where those lines are.

Armack
Jan 27, 2006

Captain Monkey posted:

The thread is about defining the term that she invented of capital-A Authoritarian. The lines are not drawn yet, and the discussion is literally happening around your confusion. She pointed out, explicitly, that due to her neurological condition, she has a penchant for capitalizing words to increase their supposed importance in order to help define things that she or we as a group do not yet have a term for. This isn't a textbook where you just read the information, nod, and move on, it's a discussion about a specific type of person, and where those lines are.

Yes..? Did I say otherwise? I realize this is an ongoing discussion and I tossed out those questions as prompts for her (or others) to reflect some more about where those lines are.

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007

Jitzu_the_Monk posted:

Yes..? Did I say otherwise? I realize this is an ongoing discussion and I tossed out those questions as prompts for her (or others) to reflect some more about where those lines are.

Ok. That's literally the point of the thread, just read it.

Armack
Jan 27, 2006
I have read the thread. In reading it there seems to be differing opinions on what belongs in Prester John's category, "Authoritarian" (still being formulated). Some people are hung up on how there can be a left-libertarian Authoritarian. You and others rightly point out that there is an equivocation happening there. "Authoritarian" in this context refers to a kind of psychology, not any one political ideology. I'm curious about what "fits" in the psychological category and what doesn't. When you say that's what this thread is about, YES, that's why I'm posing specific questions in this thread for consideration about those boundaries. I'm not sure why we are having a misunderstanding about this.

Morroque
Mar 6, 2013
It is also worth noting the original thread this came from. It was wondering about the opposition to marriage equality and grasped to understand the exact nature of its fervent opposition. Many of Prester's predictions, based on this model, were fruitful in the immediate term -- though the mods did request we branch it into a separate topic to prevent clutter.

While the outer boundaries of this realm of discourse may be a bit porous at the moment, I think we can safely say it does include the current source of opposition to marriage equality in the United States. We know that much for absolute certain.

For an example, try this from a few pages back in the other thread.

McAlister
Nov 3, 2002

by exmarx
To many posts to quote properly on my phone touch on the idea that authoritarians exchange autonomy for safety. But posters say this with overtones implying that this is unusual.

I don't think it is. I think the instinct to submit to authority when we find ourselves out of our depth - with important things at stake - is a universal human response. Every human being on the planet will adopt this behavior pattern if sufficiently stressed. The sociopathic leaning people will do it to protect themselves and normal people will bow to protect loved ones. This is why the rebel hero snapping and deciding to fight back after their family is killed is a trope. The anti-social can do quite well for themselves in a dystopia and the social can be to easily controlled by threats to others. So you have to contrive an unlikely scenario to get someone both willing and able to rebel.

I would argue that what distinguishes Authoritarians isn't that they do this, it's that they get out of their depth more easily than other people do and thus resort to this behavior in situations that most people would not consider extreme enough to warrant it.

And I think this is where the correlation with loving/abusive parents comes in. When parents are consistently loving or consistently abusive then at least there is stability in the child's life. But when a parent flips unpredictably between the two then the child must constantly be alert to the rules changing. They can never relax. I believe torturers and interrogators do something similar to break people, no?

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin

McAlister posted:

And I think this is where the correlation with loving/abusive parents comes in. When parents are consistently loving or consistently abusive then at least there is stability in the child's life. But when a parent flips unpredictably between the two then the child must constantly be alert to the rules changing. They can never relax. I believe torturers and interrogators do something similar to break people, no?

Do you think this ties into Lakoff's Strict Father vs Nuturing Parent models?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RytyWu3zUq8

McAlister
Nov 3, 2002

by exmarx

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

Do you think this ties into Lakoff's Strict Father vs Nuturing Parent models?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RytyWu3zUq8

Hrmmm .... Kind a? Indirectly?

I was raised in an extreme version of the strict father model. My father is a tyrant - both professionally and by natural inclination. His career is to be a ceo of dying companies. This is because he is intolerable in healthy companies and only in a company facing bankruptcy will people submit to his rule in the manner he demands. He's one redeeming virtue is that he is very good at resuscitating dying companies. Good enough that he works with no pay and then collects a portion of the profits for some years after stepping down.

And he is able to let his tyrannical flag fly because he deals with real emergencies that make people really desperate. And desperate people want so very badly to believe that if they do what you say everything will be all right. They want a simple weird trick that will bring the contracts back and boom business and if that means working unpaid overtime to spare money for greasing the right palms to get a government contract casting tank parts - err, for the marketing budget - then so be it.

So the relation between the two is that everyone craves a "strict father"/authority figure in times of emergency. Someone to make the complexity and worry go away by telling you, "I've got this. It will be ok. Obey me and your livelihood will be protected". It doesn't have to be a man or even a real person. Dieties will do in the absence of a flesh and blood option.

So the key is feeling overwhelmed and seeking stability - even if it's a lovely stability - authoritarians are just a lot easier to overwhelm than other people.

Lakoff appears to be saying in the video that the model you desire is the one you grew up in. And that I contest vigorously.

What's wrapping me around the axle is that Prester is strongly linking child abuse with weakness as an adult. With fear/doubt/anxiety and a desperate need for rigid roles and clearly defined expectations. I've made it a central tenant of my own mindscape that child abuse made me stronger. More resilient , more flexible, more able to resist social norms and assert myself, precisely because of my lovely childhood.

And I think both are true. Child abuse can both shatter and temper. When it tempers you end up with an adult in the nurturing mode who seeks to protect others from what they went through. But why does it sometimes temper and sometimes shatter?

And that's where I'm focusing on consistency. Dad was a tyrant. But he was a completely predictable tyrant. His desires were clearly spelled out and consistently enforced. Robo-manager indeed. I could accurately predict if I would get in trouble for something and how badly. This is completely different than an unpredictable tyrant who might romp and play with their child one day and the next day beat them for running in the house because the next day he's got a hangover and the noise enrages him. Or at least that's what I imagine when Prester says loving/abusive. But he might be talking about something else.

Also, Children lack a moral compass and view the rules as the source of right and wrong. So what do they do if the rules change from one day to the next? How can a moral compass develop in that environment?

Anywho, both nurturing mode families and strict father families can be either stable or erratic and I would wager that this is what most strongly predicts the model their children prefer.


McAlister fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Mar 26, 2015

No Pants
Dec 10, 2000

McAlister posted:

I would argue that what distinguishes Authoritarians isn't that they do this, it's that they get out of their depth more easily than other people do and thus resort to this behavior in situations that most people would not consider extreme enough to warrant it.

Altemeyer (kind of) mentions this in his book. Most people are pretty much ready to become right-wing authoritarians in a serious crisis.

Ardennes
May 12, 2002

No Pants posted:

Altemeyer (kind of) mentions this in his book. Most people are pretty much ready to become right-wing authoritarians in a serious crisis.

I would say look at Russia, if anything the country is in almost continual crisis, lurching one from the other and it has almost certainly made its politics more right-wing and authoritarian leaning. You could say it is has always been there to a degree, but certainly from 1992 to now you can see some real movement of opinion.

More acutely though, I think the material causes for it in Russia are more self evident on their face, in the US you have to suss it out a bit but I do think there are still material causes there. How much of the Tea Party are actually wealthy/upper class rather than lower middle class/working people?

Zodium
Jun 19, 2004

Smudgie Buggler posted:

I don't really agree with how narrowly the term 'authoritarian' is being used in this thread either, but I'm choosing to read it more as an analysis of what I would call Fanatics of all stripes but who, in the mainstream American experience, will be almost exclusively next-level authoritarians. I roll in very left-wing circles in a country other than America. I've met people who fit the bill that PJ is describing very closely, but who believe they have a semi-divine mission as an anti-Fascist activist to stomp on the head of every racist they encounter. It doesn't work philosophically to call a legit communist-anarchist Bakunin-worshipper an authoritarian, but PJ's analysis is still extremely interesting in light of my experiences with some of these people (a few of which I'd even call good friends).

On the flip side, there's a lot of paternalistic, authoritarian shitheads out there who are nowhere near intense enough for this analysis to apply to them, but that's also not really the point. They're not the people who cause total bafflement in their way of thinking to sane people, and the latter is clearly the set of people who this thread is about.

I think that's what I find more appealing about PJ's use of 'authoritarian' than Altemeyer's: it seems to be a theory of particular behaviors more than a theory of personality or persons, and the heavy North America-specific political overtones are much reduced. Instead of a mile wide personality type or trait theory, there is an authoritarian behavior dynamic for which a metacognitive mechanism is (loosely) proposed which applies in very specific cases, not just to "things conservatives do." It's also reasonably clear to me how PJ believes this dynamic comes about and is maintained based on PJ's explanations and personal experiences.

Just riffing here, but I think it even makes testable predictions, like that authoritarians would be expected to suffer less cognitive dissonance on their political beliefs than not-authoritarians. I could definitely buy that what Altemeyer's scale actually measures is something like general fanaticism, and the authoritarian interpretation is just an artifact of political circumstances. It might not work philosophically to call a legit communist-anarchist Bakunin-worshipper an authoritarian, but that seems like just another political artifact to me: it doesn't mean it can't work empirically within this framework, depending on your definition of legit. (I'm not particularly political, but I imagine it's not that easy to discriminate legit from illegitimate communist-anarchist Bakunin-worshippers?)

ikanreed
Sep 25, 2009

I honestly I have no idea who cannibal[SIC] is and I do not know why I should know.

syq dude, just syq!
This whole thread is very postmodern. OP said we are too cold and academic about the subject, but I feel like a lot of these observations are the kind that need more objective, empirical support.

Zodium
Jun 19, 2004

ikanreed posted:

This whole thread is very postmodern. OP said we are too cold and academic about the subject, but I feel like a lot of these observations are the kind that need more objective, empirical support.

Unfortunately, we've been having some unexpected, temporary problems with recruiting research participants who are members of insular authoritarian cults on the academic side of things. I don't know what the problem is, but I'm sure someone will be publishing double-blind experimental evidence any day now. Eye are bee approval? I don't know what that means, excuse me. :science:

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin

McAlister posted:

So the relation between the two is that everyone craves a "strict father"/authority figure in times of emergency. Someone to make the complexity and worry go away by telling you, "I've got this. It will be ok. Obey me and your livelihood will be protected". It doesn't have to be a man or even a real person. Dieties will do in the absence of a flesh and blood option.

And I think both are true. Child abuse can both shatter and temper. When it tempers you end up with an adult in the nurturing mode who seeks to protect others from what they went through. But why does it sometimes temper and sometimes shatter?

Also, Children lack a moral compass and view the rules as the source of right and wrong. So what do they do if the rules change from one day to the next? How can a moral compass develop in that environment?

Anywho, both nurturing mode families and strict father families can be either stable or erratic and I would wager that this is what most strongly predicts the model their children prefer.

I think that sounds reasonable. It seems like there's a degenerate form to each of the parenting models. You can have a failed"Nurturing Parent" model where the parents fail to set any boundaries and do not adequately prepare their children for real risks. I imagine that this could lead to an adult who does not feel prepared to deal with the dangers and anxieties of adult life and might seek the security of authoritarianism.
Similarly, the degenerate form of "Strict Father," whether it's inconsistent discipline or discipline that is ridiculously out of proportion to the actual dangers of life might result in an adult who is similarly unprepared to deal with the dangers and anxieties of adult life.

I'd be interested in evidence to support this though, right now it's just theorycrafting in my head, but it doesn't seem unreasonable.

Spazzle
Jul 5, 2003

Is "authoritarian" really the best term to use here? It seems too tied up with other meanings and will probably always derail the conversation.

The whole thesis of this thread deal with the flow of ideas and people between various fringe and isolated groups. I think the ideas can be mapped directly to groups of almost any ideology, some of which calling authoritarian would be somewhat confusing.

For example, portions of the environmental movement would probably map exactly onto the descriptions and hierarchies described here, but calling them authoritarian is just adds confusion.

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007

Spazzle posted:

Is "authoritarian" really the best term to use here? It seems too tied up with other meanings and will probably always derail the conversation.

The whole thesis of this thread deal with the flow of ideas and people between various fringe and isolated groups. I think the ideas can be mapped directly to groups of almost any ideology, some of which calling authoritarian would be somewhat confusing.

For example, portions of the environmental movement would probably map exactly onto the descriptions and hierarchies described here, but calling them authoritarian is just adds confusion.

Captain Monkey posted:

The thread is about defining the term that she invented of capital-A Authoritarian. The lines are not drawn yet, and the discussion is literally happening around your confusion. She pointed out, explicitly, that due to her neurological condition, she has a penchant for capitalizing words to increase their supposed importance in order to help define things that she or we as a group do not yet have a term for. This isn't a textbook where you just read the information, nod, and move on, it's a discussion about a specific type of person, and where those lines are.

your welcome

Spazzle
Jul 5, 2003


Yeah, I read it before. I'm saying authoritarian/Authoritarian as a term is needlessly provocative and distracting.

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007

Spazzle posted:

Yeah, I read it before. I'm saying authoritarian/Authoritarian as a term is needlessly provocative and distracting.

I see you didn't bother reading the OP. There's not a term for this yet, so she's using Authoritarian and trying to define it. It's not needlessly provocative and distracting, it was very explicitly and clearly explained in the first post. I don't know why people are having such a problem with this, have you never taken a philosophy class or had a discussion like this before?

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin

Spazzle posted:

For example, portions of the environmental movement would probably map exactly onto the descriptions and hierarchies described here,

This is actually pretty interesting. I've never been involved with environmentalists but I can guess that at least some of them have that outer narrative shield thing going on because the inner narrative would be sound like madness to the general public.

Dietrich
Sep 11, 2001

You've got your envrionmentalists that think we should reduce the human population down to pre-industrial levels and live simple agrarian lives, they probably would fit into the model.

Spazzle
Jul 5, 2003

Dietrich posted:

You've got your envrionmentalists that think we should reduce the human population down to pre-industrial levels and live simple agrarian lives, they probably would fit into the model.

Yeah, those are the ones I'm thinking of.

twodot
Aug 7, 2005

You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Captain Monkey posted:

There's not a term for this yet, so she's using Authoritarian and trying to define it.
If you're using Authoritarian to describe a concept, then that concept does indeed have a term. Maybe it's a good or bad term, but you are actually using it as a term.

quote:

It's not needlessly provocative and distracting, it was very explicitly and clearly explained in the first post.
Please quote this explicit and clear explanation.

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007

Prester John posted:

Schizotek posted:

And the capitalization thing people mentioned is just something schizos tend to do even when they aren't babbling about the CIA trying to assassinate them by slipping an empty Monster can underneath their brake pedal. It's "this represents a concept related to but not identical to this words textbook meaning, but I don't have a separate word for what I'm trying to describe so I'll turn it into a proper noun to distinguish that", as opposed to just trying to make it look scary. Normal people do it too but it's practically a schizophrenia trademark.

Please bear in mind, this all comes from a weird spot in a schizophrenic mind, and it is really hard for me to put it all into a coherent form. Schizophrenia interweaves and ties things into a Gordian Knot, and finding a few strands I can tug at enough to elaborate on is rather taxing. So while this is all written in a pretty direct manner, it is just like, my opinion man. I recognize that there is probably no way to test any of this, and furthermore, it is written with an air of authority it does not deserve. (Such is Schizophrenia though, if I tried to properly caveat everything I would never be able to get myself to actually write it down.) I suppose this is something like what a Kyoon rant might look like if he actually took his meds.



Hey look, an explanation of how the term is being used, and why the author decided to use that term based on how she thinks and interacts with the world. She later even defines quite specifically what the term is meant to apply to.

:ninja: edit: The entire second post is actually set up to help explain the definition of her term Authoritarian, you should read it!

Prester John posted:

One more brief caveat, I want to make it clear that I am not discussing Joe Shmedley white flight suburbanite or your average college Republican. I am discussing Authoritarians, which are a specific subset of the population. (Actual portion of the population is not known, but its probably not even in the double digits range percentage wise.) Authoritarians may be right or left leaning, however, in the US, left leaning Authoritarians (ex Anti-vaxxers, Homeopaths, etc) are essentially powerless, whereas right leaning Authoritarians have a disproportionate amount of influence over the GOP, for reasons I shall try my best to describe in this thread.

If you're having problems with simple things like defining the terms of a discussion and keeping Authoritarians (as a term within the context of this thread) separate from authoritarians (as the literal word in English) then maybe this just isn't the sort of thread you will enjoy.

meristem
Oct 2, 2010
I HAVE THE ETIQUETTE OF STIFF AND THE PERSONALITY OF A GIANT CUNT.
This thread is cool. It reminds me of Jost's "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition", that meta-study from back in 2003 that correlated conservatism to high death anxiety and intolerance of ambiguity and need for closure. So, I'm curious: Prester John, have you read that study, and if so, what do you think about it?

Spazzle
Jul 5, 2003

Prester john has posited a set of behaviors and trends, which I'll call X. X includes tiered naratives, radicalization of groups through purging of members, radicalization of members after they switch groups, and the convergence of naratives through political expedience.

Pj has has given examples of X in the context of authoritarian rear end in a top hat groups. I'll call this X + A.

Is only X + A interesting? Is X in general interesting? Is X synonymous with X + A in actual practice even if we can contrive examples where they may be distinct?

If X alone is interesting, I'm positing that a label other than authoritarian should be described. Then we can discuss Authoritarian X and non authoritarian X.

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007

Spazzle posted:

Prester john has posited a set of behaviors and trends, which I'll call X. X includes tiered naratives, radicalization of groups through purging of members, radicalization of members after they switch groups, and the convergence of naratives through political expedience.

Pj has has given examples of X in the context of authoritarian rear end in a top hat groups. I'll call this X + A.

Is only X + A interesting? Is X in general interesting? Is X synonymous with X + A in actual practice even if we can contrive examples where they may be distinct?

If X alone is interesting, I'm positing that a label other than authoritarian should be described. Then we can discuss Authoritarian X and non authoritarian X.

Feel free to define a term and come up with a way to discuss it then? You're just sort of whining that she labeled Authoritarians without offering anything of merit, save for a really basic idea of how a discussion works that you keep repeating without actually contributing.

Sort of how I keep whining that you're unable to understand really simple things like definitions, and I keep repeating it without contributing much to the overall discussion.

a slime
Apr 11, 2005

Prester John posted:

This is an excellent post, let me try to answer some of this before I go bed off for bed tonight.

Having given it some thought I think there was a critical flaw in Altameyer's social experiments that he would have been largely blind to. authoritarians do not adapt very quickly or very well (especially not the "follower" types he described) and they do not function well outside of established social orders they are already familiar with. So Altameyer's experiments were all about a bunch of strangers doing essentially creative activities, which would cause the average Authoritarian to clam up and go into Observation Mode. I can honestly think of situations where I have seen people that were nominally leaders in Authoritarian groups sort of shut down and just passively accept whatever if the situation they were suddenly faced were sufficiently outside their experience. Authoritarians depend on previously established social relations and existent hierarchies in order to function. Authoritarian groups also do not typically add new members too quickly so as to not upset the already existing social order. In my view then, Altameyer's experiments would have been dramatically skewed because his experiments were really testing the rate at which Authoritarians adapt without an existing hierarchy, and not really how Authoritarians behave in their self selected environment.

Does this mean that the radical right's current flavor would never survive becoming mainstream? What happens as they continue to grow in power and influence? I understand that isn't the point---I was raised in a very similar environment to you (all the way down to the schooling, born in Garland TX heyooo), and I understand exactly what you mean when you say their battle is not meant to be won. But they do seem to be gaining in number year over year. What happens when they win?

Thanks very much for the thread, it is extremely compelling to me.

a slime fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Mar 26, 2015

woke wedding drone
Jun 1, 2003

by exmarx
Fun Shoe

Spazzle posted:

Yeah, I read it before. I'm saying authoritarian/Authoritarian as a term is needlessly provocative and distracting.

Needlessly provocative to whom? We're talking about people who are provoked when Michelle Obama says it's healthy to drink water.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Spazzle posted:

Prester john has posited a set of behaviors and trends, which I'll call X. X includes tiered naratives, radicalization of groups through purging of members, radicalization of members after they switch groups, and the convergence of naratives through political expedience.

Pj has has given examples of X in the context of authoritarian rear end in a top hat groups. I'll call this X + A.

Is only X + A interesting? Is X in general interesting? Is X synonymous with X + A in actual practice even if we can contrive examples where they may be distinct?

If X alone is interesting, I'm positing that a label other than authoritarian should be described. Then we can discuss Authoritarian X and non authoritarian X.

Authoritarian has been the preferred term in the literature to describe these people since the 60s. It's a lot more than just Bob Altemeyer.

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Zodium
Jun 19, 2004

Jack Gladney posted:

Authoritarian has been the preferred term in the literature to describe these people since the 60s. It's a lot more than just Bob Altemeyer.

It has also been criticized in the literature on the same grounds. But it's not really important, since PJ's theory is only superficially related to Altemeyer's personality theory.

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