This is less a criticism of their research on authoritarianism than a sign of my own confusion and laziness. But, when they say that non-authoritarian people can turn into authoritarians, are they saying that folks who feel very threatened can sometimes respond by changing their minds and deciding they’d rather their children be well-mannered than curious? Obedient rather than self-reliant?
In a really dire environment where your kids are under threat of getting kidnapped or murdered, I can see how this might happen, but not so much just because you’re out of work and there are a lot more brown faces around than there used to be.
There seems to be some definitional sloppiness here. I think it’s more accurate to say that authoritarian people are easily scared, and non-authoritarian people have different values. But when people are legitimately scared, regardless of the objective threat, they begin to act alike.
Not sure the article is clear on this, but it matters for what they’re trying to project for the future of the Republican Party and American politics.
For me personally, to combat climate change or a civilizational threat epidemic like H5N1 mass adaptation to humans, I would countenance all sorts if illiberal non cknstitutional measure. Because Im generally not authoritarian, I would try to see if it was working or not, but for instance the quarantines of medical personnel returning from Sierra Leone seem a perfectly sensible appropriate precaution to me because I am terrified of disease.
Seemed, quarantines now would be uneccessary.
By the time people like Christie ordered quarantines (and within the medical community it was far sooner), they were unnecessary.
I disagree.
Then you too might be an authoritarian. (Just joking.)
The science says that I’m not wrong.
Medical personnel coming from a place where the epidemic is hottest? I say better safe than sorry even if it’s only a miniscule improvement. The piss poor implementation of procedures in the hospitals of those two nurses that got it don’t fill me with confidence either.
Climate change and disease are my personal triggers for accepting authoritarianism. Climate change because I view it as a potential threat to civilization. Disease because I have a poor immune system (not a disorder, it’s just weak) so that I am always sicker for longer than others. Getting a disease like ebola/sars/h5n1 would undoubtedly result in my death, and as I hate feeling powerless, death from disease is without a doubt the worst way to die for me.
I think I’m what the article describes towards the end, a non-authoritarian who starts to act like an authoritarian under certain conditions. I am at least self-aware enough to realize what’s going on.
This research and testing for “authoritarian” and “non-authoritarian” has way too many false negatives and positives to be of much value. It’s a dodge to claim that “non-authoritarians” can turn into “authoritarians” “under certain conditions” without defining what those conditions are.
Cheney’s “one percent doctrine” is pure authoritarianism. An irrational (highly inflated) perception of a threat combined with an irrational, power/control response.
Your focus on the two nurses in TX that did contract the Ebola virus (exactly when and how isn’t known) ignores the fact that many people, with no protective clothing, came in contract with the primary patient while he was highly contagious and didn’t contract the virus. All of the contact staff at the hospital were advised as to how to monitor themselves for virus symptomatology and immediately seek medical attention if any were seen. The two nurses did just that and were under medical care before they were contagious. (How many that flew on the airplane with the second nurse contracted the virus? The answer to that is zero.)
Even in the epicenter of this latest Ebola outbreak, Liberia, once effective monitoring was put into place among the most at risk populations it was effective at reducing and then eliminating the epidemic; whereas, the quarantines were of little value (and at high cost).
Not really. Just that perceived dangers activate that political tendency. They have probably always parented in the authoritarian mold.
They learned their parenting skills from their own authoritarian caregivers.
Back in the ’60s, Dr. Spock was blamed for all DFHs because they hadn’t been reared by “spare the rod, spoil the child” parents. Hogwash of course, but sales of Spock’s book plummeted nonetheless.
They learned their parenting skills from their own authoritarian caregivers.
Yes. I am always surprised when adults abused as children by authoritarian parents merrily chortle about the ‘good lickin’s’ they got from their loving progenitors. Tuff love…
A necessary internal justification to continue the practice another generation.
‘Never did me no serious harm, I’m fine! (Now bend over). The righteous goal of teaching right from wrong merits even unsavory means, it’s a sign they cared.’
Hardy-har. Jack up some notches up and you got yer Abu Ghraib, right there.
Cue hand-wringing about “How come this happens? Perfectly ordinary soldiers getting kinky with Korans, light bulbs and German shepherds, it’s unthinkable“
Yes. Even the terms “authoritarian” and “non-authoritarian” aren’t neutral. Something that popped out at me was on support for Trump:
So, 48% among the “very high authoritarians” don’t support Trump, but over one-third that are low on the Auth-scale support Trump.
This suggests to me that they aren’t as close to getting at core differences as they are reporting.
I think we’ve been through this over here recently, but there’s something seriously wrong with the way authoritarianism is measured experimentally. The original Adorno F-scale questionnaire is defective for reasons mentioned in the Vox article, but the Feldman scale they use instead in the reported research is based on a reduced version of the Adorno questionnaire, just the first four questions.
The argument as a whole is interesting, but the data isn’t really usable as data.
The study didn’t work for me and I really wanted it to. That said, it does add meat to the discussion of why it is the Right embraces fear so readily whatever it is they are talking about. And now what should have been a short term acquiescence to authority has become habitual.
Habitual in that the followers are push button ready now, with each session taking fewer and fewer sound bytes to raise the fear & anger.
Nary a moment of a coherent, independent thought much less any curiosity.
The authoritarian mindset of a supermajority of the House GOP caucus continues to make governing extremely difficult and governance which meets the desires and needs of the American people impossible:
https:/www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/03/01/mcconnell-to-house-gop-you-need-to-take-
the-lead-on-spending-bills?tid=hybrid_content_2_na
“More than 170 House Republicans have already said they won’t vote for a blueprint that includes spending increases, but many more moderate members believe they can work around that pledge by cutting spending elsewhere in the budget.
Appropriations Committee member Tom Cole (R-Oka.) said he hopes that finding some way to cut long-term spending on programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid could be enough to shift the focus away from the fight over the $30 billion in spending increases and back to a long-term strategy.”
Yeah, campaign on that governing record, Republican Party.
My sense is the article and underlying research, though not conclusive, goes a long way toward explaining the rise of Trump and the divisions within the GOP. Really appreciate your posting it, Martin.
More of the authoritarian mindset placed into action:
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/271474-panel-members-clash-over-fetal-tissue-subpoenas
“Democrats on the panel argued that Republicans are on a “witch hunt” akin to former Sen. Joe McCarthy’s (R-Wis.) investigation of communists in the 1950s and are endangering researchers by requesting their names in the subpoenas.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said the committee could be “complicit” in murders of those researchers if their names became public and they are then killed. Democrats pointed to the shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado to illustrate the danger.
Nadler asked the committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), why the names of medical researchers are needed by the committee.
“No, sir, I am not going to answer that,” Blackburn replied.
Democrats also moved to quash the subpoenas, a motion that failed on a party line vote of 8-6.”
I always thought that the media’s excessive coverage of the Ebola virus right before the 2014 elections helped the Republicans by really stimulating the fearful ones. From the article, it looks like Nixon could be the “father” of this new 3rd party. Interesting article.
That’s an odd comment. Worrying about Ebola was justified. It was an epidemic, many persons got sick, there was a possibility of the disease being carried elsewhere – my health care system did ask people if they had been in W Africa lately.
Just because you’re paranoid does NOT mean that people are NOT out to get you.
But was the media coverage disproportional? The thing is, once you get people afraid, they are more easily manipulated, not just in regards to whatever specific threat triggered the fear, but in general.
Before Altemeyer, there was Spinoza; spelled it all out in the preface to his Theological-Political Treatise
I’ll allow medical professionals to make those calls. This is like saying I should worry about being attacked by terrorists on my way to work today because I am in a major population center on a highly trafficked public transportation system. Yet, I don’t think about this at all. Why would I? That’s how everyone should have felt about Ebola. Instead, we got people being so afraid that they were supporting travel bans, which everyone in the medical community oppposed. Seriously, was it ever on your mind you’d get Ebola? That’s ridiculous.
I know it was on the mind of a lot of consumers of right wing news. My dad certainly had a minor freakout about it, despite my continual hammering on how remote the threat was.
The fearmongering on ebola is the same kind that keeps people so scared that they feel compelled to carry guns with them everywhere.
We all know that fear is necessary for control. It’s how the right wing keeps everyone in lock-step. Everyone remembers the color coded Terror Alert Level that the Bush Administration used to great effect.
An Ebola panic is basically a metaphor for effective Republican messaging. Except it actually happened. They actually got to stoke an Ebola panic as a campaign message.
Yep, all they needed to do was keep showing the pictures from Africa and those people in Biological Hazmat suits at U.S. hospitals and suddenly this was all because Obama is weak and doesn’t want to protect America by rounding up or banishing people who look like those in the pictures.
!!!! BREAKING NEWS!!!! THIS WILL PROBABLY HAPPEN TO YOU!!!!! (And remember…Obama is doing nothing to protect you)
Emphasis on the “Africa” part. That’s the secret sauce.
Despite, of course, the epidemic was taking place in Africa.
There was a huge problem with Ebola. Only a massive effort of thousands of doctors and nurses and other health care professionals stopped it. And it will come back, because the reservoir is not clearly or certainly known.
I, and others, have linked to this book before.
It’s a complete, online/pdf version of the book, The Authoritarians.
It’s a great read. And funny.
If you want to know what an authoritarian is, and the social dominators that they follow, there isn’t a better book out there.
http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf
Good book. Interistingly, Trumo is not a “double high”, just an ordinary manipulator… may need a double high as a VP…
These authoritarians seem a very scary lot. Someone strong should round them up and get them out of the country…
Not to be glib (and didn’t read that entire Vox article, it went into the weeds in the first two paragraphs, so it’s likely the authors were lazy and confused, not the reader)…but don’t all parents prefer their children to be well-mannered and obedient first and curious and self-reliant second, if at all / ever? Pretty sure this is axiomatic.
There’s an entire realm of study, research, and speculation about this that I know as developmental psychology. It’s all theoretical because human behavior can’t be quantified. And social behavior is infinitely more difficult to abstract using modern, scientific tools. Trying to reduce history to behaviorism is idiotic.
We dont have kids but are thinking about it and discussions so far put us both firmly in the self reliant/curious category. Maybe that would change upon first contact. But you can be that way and still be polite.
Ah. A theoretical parent. Pardon my sarcasm, but you ain’t a parent until you changing diapers. And you are not a real parent until you have 2.
But it’s fun. I enjoyed it. All the theory in the world has nothing to do with a 2 year old.
Here is the easy way to tell if you are ready for children:
When you are in the presence of a small child, do you gravitate to the child? Do you watch the little child closely? Do you have the impulse to pat the little head?
I’ve always watched young women, and some young men, who are thinking about parenthood. If they have that “baby-lust”, they are ready.
Me, I’m a fool for small children. I am always watching them, making stupid faces, silly noises, etc. I like kids.
I react to children like Obama. I no longer like him or support him, but he is a great dad, and is a great person with the little folks. If you act like Obama around children, you are ready for the big parent thing.
GAHHHHHH!!!! Parents prefer that in some situations their children be obedient, while in others, they want self-reliant.
I just came off the plane from Orlando to Denver. Of course, Orlando, so the plane was filled with children. And for the first time in a while there were screamers. One for the first 1/2 hour, the second for the last hour. The poor mother was unable to stop the screaming, and I wanted to tell her “Look Momma, you cannot stop the screaming, so please do not cover his mouth. It is not helpful to the child, and it will not work.” But this mother wanted a child who was obedient at that moment.
The most stupid thing in the world is the notion that all children are X. Children are X at one time, Y at another. They are people.
However, you want a child who is obedient when they are stopped by the police, and you want a child that is curious in school. SITUATIONS!!
WHAT DOG WHISTLES?
Trump doesn’t speak in dogwhistles……he’s giving full racist siren calls.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 3/2/16
Trump dog whistles heard loud and clear by racists
Joy Ann Reid, MSNBC national correspondent, talks with Rachel Maddow about a racist element that is drawn to Republican front-runner Donald Trump, and how Trump is exploiting that appeal as he campaigns through southern states
Exactly.
The only real difference between Trump and the other pretenders is that Trump doesn’t dogwhistle.
He shouts.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 3/2/16
History offers lesson to GOP on defying will of party voters
Rachel Maddow revisits the events of 1968 Democratic National Convention as an example of what can happen when party leaders defy party voters in the selection of a presidential candidate, an idea being entertained by Republican establishment figures in response to the success of the Trump candidacy.