Citing the last show below, was able to catch it, and its subject, of course, is a timeless one - ratcheted up these days as most are more than aware (too many examples).
In 2006, Canadian psychologist Bob Altemeyer wrote a book called 'The Authoritarians' detailing his research on the subset of the population that seem to thrive on following orders. They have a high degree of submission to established and...
www.sott.net
The show preamble was spot on with references back in time and how it has reemerged (it never went away), and the hosts (thank you for asking these questions) brings up Bob's work and had wondered if he had updated to reflect (reflect the left aspect). Apparently he has not, and yet it is an important factor since he did his studies, and it can be confusing just jumping in because of the term Right-Wing Authoritarian Followers - it sets up the conditioning in ones mind, like a default. However, Bob does define this right up front, so though to add it here in his own words:
Right-Wing and Left-Wing Authoritarian Followers
Authoritarian followers usually support the established authorities in their society, such as government officials and traditional religious leaders. Such people have historically been the “proper” authorities in life, the time-honored, entitled, customary leaders, and that means a lot to most authoritarians. Psychologically these followers have personalities featuring:
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.
Because the submission occurs to traditional authority, I call these followers rightwing authoritarians. I’m using the word “right” in one of its earliest meanings, for in Old English “riht”(pronounced “writ”) as an adjective meant lawful, proper, correct, doing what the authorities said. (And when someone did the lawful thing back then, maybe the authorities said, with a John Wayne drawl, “You got that riht, pilgrim!”)
In North America people who submit to the established authorities to extraordinary degrees often turn out to be political conservatives, so you can call them “right-wingers” both in my new-fangled psychological sense and in the usual political sense as well. But someone who lived in a country long ruled by Communists and who ardently supported the Communist Party would also be one of my psychological right-wing authoritarians even though we would also say he was a political left-winger. So a right-wing authoritarian follower doesn’t necessarily have conservative political views. Instead he’s someone who readily submits to the established authorities in society, attacks others in their name, and is highly conventional. It’s an aspect of his personality, not a description of his politics. Rightwing authoritarianism is a personality trait, like being characteristically bashful or happy or grumpy or dopey.
You could have left-wing authoritarian followers as well, who support a revolutionary leader who wants to overthrow the establishment. I knew a few in the 1970s, Marxist university students who constantly spouted their chosen authorities, Lenin or Trotsky or Chairman Mao. Happily they spent most of their time fighting with each other, as lampooned in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where the People’s Front of Judea devotes most of its energy to battling, not the Romans, but the Judean People’s Front. But the left-wing authoritarians on my campus disappeared long ago. Similarly in America “the Weathermen” blew away in the wind. I’m sure one can find left-wing authoritarians here and there, but they hardly exist in sufficient numbers now to threaten democracy in North America. However I have found bucketfuls of right-wing authoritarians in nearly every sample I have drawn in Canada and the United States for the past three decades. So when I speak of “authoritarian followers” in this book I mean right-wing authoritarian followers, as identified by the RWA scale.
Given that Bob's valuable work was published in 2006, which is still a while ago, one might today take issue with his words
"left-wing authoritarians on my campus disappeared long ago...they hardly exist in sufficient numbers now to threaten democracy". I'm not sure if Jordan Peterson might agree at his campus, yet perhaps in Winnipeg for Bob it was just that? One might add, however, that it did not disappear at all? It seemed it was masked and it rose in the latter years in a colossal progressive form cooing to left-wing identity followers. Special groups - so many, aided by fascist philanthropists who tapped the press, who in turn echoed out these sentiments loudly (whatever the flavor of the day), and then the legislators and drafters of law did even more. Thus, it seems it drifted back into the education systems and so many other segments of society - inverting so much. It's modus was to divide and attack anyone who was seen to not be conforming, and it is perverse. In society today - driven by material, corrupted science, ego, social media, corporate branding and control, it also plays to those who are highly submissive and aggressive, two of Bob's markers.
In thinking back to 2006 when Bob published, just after the 911 years that may have influenced his groupings (Iraq with its pseudo yellow-cake et cetera), things had rapidly gone wrong across the board. Omitted in psychological ways during those years was its outcome; born of a pervasive psyops programing job for minds, and it grabbed many and converted them into new authoritarians and new followers. Since, the playbook has been revised numerous times to what can be seen today - mass programing being its fundamental instrument. Sadly, look at the covid-followers being ruled by the primal instinct of fear alone - no need to do any work to dispel this fear as it is all provided 24/7 on TV and repeated ad nauseam - in reality, people have become like putty in the hands of the Authoritarians, and if they have an aggressive bent, watch out.
So, it seems to me that the dichotomy of the left/right divide has been a useful authoritarian tool, and when the underlying ponerogenic aspects of who Bob discusses as being some elites and 'Double Highs' is then unmasked and re framed, it reveal the six or more percent that thrives in spreading chaos, and as Lobaczewski said, it is basically done "at every opportunity."
In any society in this world, psychopathic individuals and some of the other deviant types create a ponerogenically active network of common collusions, partially estranged from the community of normal people... Their sense of honor bids them to cheat and revile that ‘other’ human world and its values at every opportunity." (Lobaczewski, 138)
[...]
Living in a world whose morals and customs are meaningless to them and even seen as oppressive, psychopaths dream of a "happy" and "just" world where their depraved worldview is accepted as reality. They seek, by any means necessary, to achieve positions in government where their dreams can be brought to fruition. If injustice does exist in a society, their statements regarding the 'unfairness' of their situation can resonate with those who actually do experience such injustice. Thus, revolutionary doctrines can be accepted by both groups for diametrically opposed reasons.
It would be interesting if Bob was to revise his study, because clearly we are in the midst of his 'Global Change Game' for real, and this time it's not a simulated version.
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