Hypocrisy of the Authoritarians

[Orffyreus]

Have you been scratching your head over how it can be that some 30% of Americans can still support Bush?

Here is some very interesting stuff I just came across regarding the pyschology of Right Wing Authoritarian Followers and Social Dominator types. I'm up to Chapter 5 so far, and thought this was definitely some material worth adding to the Ponerological discussion, especially the discussion in Ch. 5 of those who score high on both the RWA Follower scale *and* the scale for Social Dominance tendencies.

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

There's also a test to see where you fall on the RWA scale.

Maybe Laura should send a copy of Lobaczewski's material to this guy? He actually asks the question of whether the amoral Social Dominator types are sociopaths.

 

[Hildegarda]

The way that Sarah Palin's biography and recent revelations about daughter's pregnancy are discussed in conservative blogs, really underscores the hypocrisy of religious right \ authoritarian personalities.

One can only imagine the public outcry if it were Hillary's teenage daughter who got pregnant, or if it were Obama who once was a member of a separatist party.

But when it comes to one of their own, the religious right adjusts, twists and fits everything into their set of values. If that fails, they just deny the facts and call them "a smear campaign". You'd expect them to think Palin a "bad mom" for leaving the babies home, or failing to instill the values she preaches into her daughter. But no, she is a "good mom" because she was there for her daughter when the latter had a stroke of bad luck, and because abortion wasn't an option in their family. McCain had an affair with his staffer? Come on, this simply cannot be - he's just too old. Bush used drugs and alcohol? That's OK, he has found Jesus since then. Etc, etc.

These people, incidentally, are the ones claiming to have absolute moral values, unlike the "liberal" moral relativists.

Goes to show once again that those rigid absolute moral values are nothing more than a "moral exoskeleton", and inside of it is an amorphous lymph that can takes the shape of its vessel. The authoritarian personality is subjective, fitting the facts into its idea of what reality should be (belief factors heavily here). At the same time, it also adjusts itself to the most apparent currents of the objective reality around them, and this is why authoritarians are by their nature conformists and conventional thinkers. Just like Bob Altmeyer said in his book, "The Authoritarians" (available here: \\\http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/, and quoted in one of SOTT articles previously). A good resource for rereading, IMO.

 

[Laura]

Couldn't have said it better myself. Maybe you would like to write a short piece for sott about it, expanding on what you have written above? Somebody's gotta say it!

 

[Hildegarda]

Somebody's gotta say it!

will do, thank you! will be ready by the weekend.

 

[tendrini]

Did anyone read Bob Altemeyer's online book, The Authoritarians, that was referred to in this article? I found it to be quite enlightening and much of it reminded me of the material in Political Ponerology.

According to Altemeyer, there is a distinct kind of person who puts blind faith in what they view as established authority and have difficulty making objective judgements about the ideology or the leaders, just because they are "authorities". He says this happens in every culture, ideology and religion. The particular authority doesn't matter - a certain group of people will follow, just because they are most comfortable following an authority.

He describes a set of characteristics of these followers including high levels of aggression and conventionalism, the tendency to compartmentalize ideas and the inability to discern logical contractions in their beliefs.

This little book seemed so true to me, having spent many years among Southern Baptists and being baffled by what appeared to me to be their very peculiar mental landscape. I have known dozens of people that this this personality type fits exactly. People who are lovely to chat with, hold responsible jobs and raise their children carefully, but have no trouble at all with a "loving" God who requests a father to kill his own son, or an army ordered by God to destroy all the inhabitants of a city, or a "contract" to get into Heaven that leaves out most of the population of the planet.

Part of Altemeyer's reason for writing the book was his fear that the religious right is becoming more and more powerful in this country and his desire to pass on his insights from many years studying this type of person. Much of what he has to say is not new, but he put it all together in a way that left me thinking "of course - now I get it!".

Tendrini

 

[Mike]

I recently read it. I think the only thing I felt was missing from the book were numbers. Like, what percentage of Right Wing Authoritarian (RWA) are in the population, etc. I thought they would be in there and explained in further depth than what was in John Dean's book "Conservatives Without Conscience" that uses Bob Altemeyer's work as an explaination. I also felt at times a 'you have to be kidding me' reaction when he lays out his various surveys (the questions he asks) and how there can be even a few people that end up high on the RWA scale. Worth the time to read after hitting Political Ponerology and the other psych books.

If you don't like to read online, the book cost about $13 dollars with shipping to have it made by lulu.com.