The Authoritarian Test

I got a 67. Some of the questions were confusing. Such as the one that said aethiests were probably just as moral/virtuous as churchgoers. Who assumes churchgoers OR aethiests are moral/virtuous?
 
Mr.Anderson said:
37...On the question of "Traditional Values" I was thinking, yeah like paleo, but I new that Altemeyer was not thinking of that so I disagreed.
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Yeah, I took "Traditional Values" to mean fundamental religious values too...now if he'd said "Tribal values" I would have though Paleo :)
 
Heimdallr said:
Turgon said:
17. There are many radical, immoral people in our country today, who are trying to ruin it for their own godless purposes, whom the authorities should put out of action.
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I was thinking of the psychopaths and people in power who are destroying good values. As well as just leaches in society and people who don't care and just manipulate. So is it highly authoritarian to want to see them out of commission? It's hard to not to even though we should live and let live. But if it's at the expense of other's how much lee-way should they get.
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Interesting, the way I look at that question is different. The key phrase for me is "whom the authorities should put out of action." This is basically a buzzword for RWAs. The "authorities" ARE the psychopaths. Who gets judged as radical and/or immoral by our current authorities and their mouthpiece the MSM? Pretty much anyone who thinks outside the box and doesn't accept the lies we've been given by those same authorities. My guess is many of the people who judge others for their "godless purposes" and want them out of action are all RWA-oriented.

Now, if it were phrased differently, without inclusion of action by authorities i.e. PTB, I might answer that question differently. But the way it's put, it's basically asking if you would agree to get rid of people like many of us on the forum who don't conform to RWA ideology. That, for me, was the key to many of the questions and why I scored lower on the test - because of my distrust and lack of belief in authoritative figures.
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That's some really good points, actually. When responding to that question, I kept thinking the radical, immoral people are the psychopath's that are destroying everything on the planet. But didn't take into consideration who the 'authorities' are.

I think sometimes my emotions can get the best of me in how I respond, and I can see now why I got a high score. Because it's that judgmental attitude of supposedly knowing what's best for everyone else fueled by anger, but without proper understanding and respect for others that leads to the authoritarian behaviour.

I used to be preachy towards people about how they should do this, do that, and if they didn't listen, get offended and hurt. Thinking I know all the answers to everyone's problems and if they listen they'll be much better off. I'm realizing it's completely determining what another person should be doing based upon my standards, which might not even be an objective perspective.
 
Bar Kochba said:
I got a 67. Some of the questions were confusing. Such as the one that said aethiests were probably just as moral/virtuous as churchgoers. Who assumes churchgoers OR aethiests are moral/virtuous?
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A few people have mentioned this question and said similar things - that since we can't assume church goers are moral and virtuous, one has to disagree with the statement. But I took it differently. The key for me is the phrasing "as good and virtuous as." Since I assume that some church goers are good and virtuous, and I assume some atheists are good and virtuous, (but certainly not all in either case) I agreed with the statement "Atheists and others who have rebelled against the established religions are no doubt every bit as good and virtuous as those who attend church regularly." Within both groups you have virtuous and not-virtuous alike.

I think the point to the question is whether you assume being an atheist or a church-goer automatically determines a person's virtuosity ("ie. there are no good atheists/church-goers"). By disagreeing with the statement, it basically means you think being a member of the group "atheist" or "church-goer" predetermines how good a person you are. The question is kind of evaluating whether you see these groups in terms of black and white or you allow for shades of grey in individual members, OSIT. A authoritarian atheist or an authoritarian church-goer would probably answer this question in the same way.

Or at least that's how I read it :)
 
Regarding the question about whether atheists were just as moral/virtuous as churchgoers - I do not find it confusing. The level of morality/virtue was not specified - simply said to be equal. It is completely irrelevant to the question how moral and virtuous both are, so long as they are equally so; so I agreed fully.

Even if all atheists as well as all churchgoers were to be completely (which implies to the same degree) immoral and unvirtuous - then as zero equals zero, it would be completely correct to say that the one was just as moral/virtuous as the other.
 
Re: The Authoritarian Test

Guardian said:
kenlee said:
The only question they had for me so far is if I'm Christain.
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I get the "Are you a Christian?" question A LOT where I live...and my stock response is "No, I'm just not into those new fangled religions" You should see the looks I get...definitely NOT one of the answers they were expecting. :lol:
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Where I live, being a Christian means accepting all the dogma sticking points. Because I don't believe in any of them any more, no one I know who is part of modern Christianity would consider me a Christian, so when asked if I'm a Christian, I say "not anymore."

I've been asked if if I know Jesus, and to that I've said 'yes, Jesus is awesome.'

Most of the time, that keeps the really viral folks at bay.

As for the test? I thought about it too much, and for some of the questions put '0', because to my thinking, until I'm near the situation on the ground, or able to ask other people their thoughts on matters, I'm not big on 'putting my foot down' and saying "I'd do ___", or "things have to be like this." It can appear wishy washy and vague, but there are some decisions that can affect too many people to say "It has to be this way."

I have a tendency to reject all authority, which makes me too cautious and suspicious for most people, and tests like this one are pretty useless. I can take a test like it every day and get a different score each time, just by monkeying with it.
 
Psalehesost said:
Regarding the question about whether atheists were just as moral/virtuous as churchgoers - I do not find it confusing. The level of morality/virtue was not specified - simply said to be equal. It is completely irrelevant to the question how moral and virtuous both are, so long as they are equally so; so I agreed fully.

Even if all atheists as well as all churchgoers were to be completely (which implies to the same degree) immoral and unvirtuous - then as zero equals zero, it would be completely correct to say that the one was just as moral/virtuous as the other.
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Exactly how I saw it. This also applies for the question of whether gays and lesbians are as healthy and moral as anyone else. Despite the degree of heath and morality, which may be close to 0, the question was comparing that degree, rather then existence or absence of those.

In the case of the latter question, if it would have been framed as: gays and lesbians CAN be as moral and healthy as anyone else, I would have found it easier to answer, for the following reason: considering that we live in such a sexually oriented society, the fact that one fluctuates away from the perceived norm, tends, I think, to exacerbate that very issue, in this case, sexuality. I've met many gays and lesbians in my life, some of which are good friends, but there seems to be this background tendency to over state and live their own sexuality as an answer to a straight society's sexual focus. So straight or non straight the core person is, of course, the same. The problem is what hidden programs are impinged into you for having a certain orientation within a society that so blatantly focuses on sex.
So being sexually healthy in a society with such a strong focus in sex, and a highly distorted view of it, is already near impossible, adding the fact that your orientation is not perceived as normal, may tend to condition even more such person to spend a lifetime trying to solve his/her own sexuality with all sorts of bizarre behaviors, because he/she isn't even aware of what the problem is.
 
Psalehesost and Gertrudes - that was basically what I was trying to say, but I think you both said it more succinctly. Thanks!
:D
 
This test is an example of a standardized test. I think it's hard for them to be objective, because they are usually written with a certain population in mind. Whoever creates the test must research the population being studied and word the questions appropriately so that they are geared to that population's level of knowledge, demographics, etc.

It's hard to judge the validity of such tests in certain cases. For example, a student from Mexico who comes to America and takes a test that includes the word, "radio flyer" might think of a radio flying instead of a little red wagon.

When I was taking this test I remember shooting out negative fours like nothing, lol, but I was hesitant to put positive fours. Hmm, interesting.
 
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