09/09/10
Comments:
Seth,
See my post of 3-Sept 12:01 am. LWA test.
I think if you change the test to determine one "faith-in-a-higher-power" with another - religion vs. science - a LWA test is pretty easy to conceptualize for all but Dr. Altemeyer.
Again it is 100% totally biased bull-crap to use the term "right wing" or "left wing" when describing authoritarians, and Altemeyer's use of RW-A is only to correlate current conservative Americans as RWAs.
09/09/10
Comments:
@ Doug Thompson: It is true that previous claims that religion is linked to the great evils of the world have been undercut in recent centuries by the rise of communist, irreligious regimes like those of Soviet Russia, China, and North Korea; who despite lack of proper religious motivation still manage to perpetrate evils upon the world.
Nevertheless, Dr. Bob has seemed willing to at least discuss concerns about the book with Dr. Friedman and others from what I've seen of him. Much as I dislike his methodology and conclusions I would not wish to demonize him. Perhaps he truly and sincerely does not realize the level of bias inherent in the questionnaire?
09/09/10
Comments:
Joshua,
At this point, Dr. Altemeyer will challenge if you have really read his book. Then he will likely challenge your motives, or try to show that you have difficulty "grasping conceptualizations." Any challenge to Dr. Altemeyer must mean that it is you who cannot understand that "his world is flat."
Does the A-test correlate to Christianity? Yes, it is easy to see that it does.
Is correlating Christianity to Authoritarianism a goal of Dr. Altemeyer? I postulate that it is, otherwise he would have developed a test without Christian bias.
Is correlating Christianity to Authoritarianism and current American "right wing politics" a goal of Dr. Altemeyer. I postulate that it is, otherwise Dr. Altemeyer would not have chosen the phrase "Right-Wing Authoritarian" when developing his Christian biased test.
When Dr. Altemeyer says that the A-test was given to post-Soviet Russians in Gorbachev's time to college students, and found it correlated to militaristic aggression, I scratch my head and ask - Really? This would be remarkable, as the test is definitely "Christian-biased".
When Dr. Altemeyer says that political left-wing authoritarians exist, I ask: "Why not study LW-As, as they have caused the murder of over 100 million in the past century, much much more then the right-wings?" (I also ask that if they exist there should be some simple research done to prove they exist.)
This is probably good reason for Dr. Altemeyer to either censor my posts or to put his head deeper into the sand.
09/09/10
Comments:
@Joshua, If you can find or help create accurate studies regarding LWA I'd sure be interested in seeing them.
It appears that Bob has done a lot of research regarding the differences between people who are high-RWA and low-RWA. It appears to be an area that interests him and seems to have provided solid results.
This is not a double standard any more than a biologist who studies a specific common plant in more detail than the rest.
Even if it were a considered a double standard, it is still valuable research.
09/09/10
Comments:
Nevertheless, corruption is not restricted solely to the Republican Party. It has been occurring among Democrats as well, and even among major celebrities (Tiger Woods). If anything, the collapse of traditional values in recent years is what conservatives would point to as the basis for such corruption.
My concerns about the study are not that it could highlight corruption as an epidemic among Republicans, but that it would apply a double standard in not unmasking this as equally plaguing the broader society, including the other side of the aisle.
09/09/10
Comments:
I live in western Iowa, where Rep. Steve "I <3 Joe McCarthy" King is routinely reelected by a landslide, where my state senator Jim Seymour extolls the virtues of traditional marriage despite his arrest for soliciting prostitution, where my home-schooled state rep Matt Windschitl votes against a bill designed to reduce school bullying because it might protect gay students. In 2008, those who knocked on my neighbors' doors campaigning for Obama were likely to be told "I'm not voting for a nigger" a couple of times before lunch.
So I think this is an important book. It gives me a new understanding of my neighbors, and new energy for dealing with them. Thank you.
09/09/10
Comments:
Furthermore, as can be seen from that rewording of what proper answers can be, the answer key is in effect just a statement of your own political opinions and worldviews. You then define everybody who disagrees with you as an authoritarian and use a scale to codify this as a numerical value.
However, left-wing Communists and Marxists, as well as other authoritarians would not be found using the current format of that test. If you were to use the U.S. Canada version seen here, in Russia, it would not get the Communist/Marxist responses needed to make the book's conclusion work. Likewise if you used the Russian version here it would not get the Christian/conservative responses required.
I do not think left-wing authoritarians, Communists and Marxists, would even hold such beliefs at all. The test can not find anything but right-wing authoritarians unless it has key words changed because it is only targeted at Christians and conservatives.
I think what you needed to do to prove your case was use generic questions that avoided any mention of religion, sinfulness, atheism, etc., and which dealt with topics like general submissiveness and susceptibility to leadership or authority regardless of whether or not it's right.
Even then you could have slight biases since Christians believe Biblically according to Romans 13 we should obey leaders even when they're wrong, but that doesn't mean we support them or follow them; but at least the test would be far more accurate.
Then, if the results were to show a surprising number of Christians and conservatives you'd have probable cause for thinking the testing, since it had appeared unrelated to Christians and conservatives, but simply generic, was showing a link to them. But since it incorporated so much emphasis on Christians and religious/political belief in the questions themselves, it threw off any credibility the results might have.
As such, I believe the test flunked the following standards which Gallup or other professional pollsters would apply:
-Uniformity: The test, in multiple ways, was not uniform and consistent. It used different surveys in both Russia and the U.S./Canada, without using the other's version in the other country to verify the results were consistent. As such, bias could be introduced in the different polls to make dissimilar results appear linked when they had nothing to do with each other.
-Sampling Bias: It did not check that it was applicable to left-wing authoritarians as well as right-wing (except for the Russian version, in which case the results don't hold true from one country to the other - they surveyed different results for different groups in different areas). The U.S. version was only surveying conservatives.
-Terminology Bias: By using words obviously specific to religion and political ideology in the U.S./Canada versions and then changing them to be specific to another religion/political ideology for the Russian version, the results of course would be expected to have religious/political bias. The goal for any good polling is to use words that will be applicable to all groups, such as Friedman's suggestion of "labor unions" instead of churches. By relying on stereotypes of what Christians believe it was targeted at Christians specifically, rather than authoritarians.
-Relevance (to Authoritarianism): Whether it was even polling for the result it sought is highly questionable. Such questions seem less likely to broadly apply to authoritarianism as per the concerns about Sampling Bias as to conservatism or Christianity in general. And if the questions themselves are flawed and more applicable to polling for something else, then you will not get accurate results - or rather, those results will be for something entirely difference.
09/09/10
Comments:
Now, you say this is testing for authoritarianism, and supposedly it just happens to find that authoritarians are more likely to be Christians or conservatives. Yet I don't think many people in the world, given decent intelligence, a rudimentary understanding of politics, and at least limited verbal comprehension would at first guess call that list of beliefs anything but statements about Christian identity or conservatism. What I don't think they would guess it to be would be a list of beliefs about authoritarianism - unless they already dislike Christianity and conservatism, were a die-hard liberal, and already believed Christianity involved authoritarianism.
As such, it appears to be testing not for authoritarianism but for Christianity and conservatism, making it a test of circular reasoning. It locates Christians and conservatives with questions only they would respond to, then uses this to say they are authoritarian. And why are they authoritarian? Because they responded to the questions.
You yourself admitted that left-wing authoritarians exist on pg. 10, stating,
"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."
However, do you really think that Marxists or other kinds of left-wing authoritarians, including non-religious ones are going to support the list of beliefs you based your questions around? Of course not! Therefore, the only reason you're finding "bucketfuls of right-wing authoritarians" is that that's all you were testing for!
It was never testing for authoritarianism so much as right-wing identity, Christianity and conservatism. It is primarily centered around Christian and conservative values, not so much traditional values. To re
It's not built as a character judgment test but a Christian identification test. If it was going to avoid an anti-religious bias it wouldn't use terms like 'sinfulness', 'religion', and 'atheists'.
You yourself admitted on David Friedman's blog that "The Soviet Union studies used the 30-item RWA scale that I was working with at the time. Both teams of researchers independently dropped a couple of the items because they just didn’t seem to apply to the Russian situation. And in some items “religion” and “religious beliefs” were changed to “Communism” and “Marxist theory,” etc. But basically, the scale was the same one answered by North Americans at the time. Nudist camps here, and nudist camps there. So the question remains, if the RWA scale is measuring right-wing political beliefs as well as authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, and conventionalism, how come Communists scored so highly on it?"
I don't understand how you can believe that you can equate Christians/conservatives who scored highly on this test with Marxists in Soviet Russia with a test that replaces words like "religious" and "religious beliefs" with words like "Communism" and "Marxist theory". Such replacement could only be justified for someone who already believed religion and religious beliefs were the same as Communism and Marxist theory.
However, I am unaware that you have shown the proof necessary at this point to be making such an assumption. Don't you realize that the testing entirely revolves around the terminology? And that altering key phrases like that changes it from a test targeting specifically Christians and conservatives to one targeting instead Communists and Marxists?
You can make a test say anything you want if the terminology and beliefs required for positive answers underlying the test is such that it would appear to show the result desired.
While I appreciate your willingness to answer critics and discuss them openly, I sincerely think your test is flawed and biased beyond belief, and the book as such unsalvageable.
Joshua
09/09/10
Comments:
Hello, I was recommended your book by a friend and read up until the test section. I may read more at some point, but at the moment do not understand how such a test allows for the conclusion you are purporting it does.
The test you use to show Christians and conservatives are authoritarian, which as you define it, "happens when the followers submit too much to the leaders, trust them too much, and give them too much leeway to do whatever they want--which often is something undemocratic, tyrannical and brutal", utilizes the following questions:
___ 3. Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.
___ 4. Gays and lesbians are just as healthy and moral as anybody else.
___ 5. It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people’s minds
___ 6. 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.
___ 7. The only way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get back to our traditional values, put some tough leaders in power, and silence the troublemakers spreading bad ideas.
___ 8. There is absolutely nothing wrong with nudist camps.
___ 9. Our country needs free thinkers who have the courage to defy traditional ways, even if this upsets many people.
___ 10. Our country will be destroyed someday if we do not smash the perversions eating away at our moral fiber and traditional beliefs.
___ 11. Everyone should have their own lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences, even if it makes them different from everyone else.
___ 12. The “old-fashioned ways” and the “old-fashioned values” still show the best way to live.
___ 13. You have to admire those who challenged the law and the majority’s view by protesting for women’s abortion rights, for animal rights, or to abolish school prayer.
___ 14. What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path.
___ 15. Some of the best people in our country are those who are challenging our government, criticizing religion, and ignoring the “normal way things are supposed to be done.”
___ 16. God’s laws about abortion, pornography and marriage must be strictly followed before it is too late, and those who break them must be strongly punished.
___ 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.
___ 18. A “woman’s place” should be wherever she wants to be. The days when women are submissive to their husbands and social conventions belong strictly in the past.
___ 19. Our country will be great if we honor the ways of our forefathers, do what the authorities tell us to do, and get rid of the “rotten apples” who are ruining everything.
___ 20. There is no “ONE right way” to live life; everybody has to create their own way.
___ 21. Homosexuals and feminists should be praised for being brave enough to defy “traditional family values.
___ 22. This country would work a lot better if certain groups of troublemakers would just shut up and accept their group’s traditional place in society.
Your "right answers" are NO to 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 19 and 22, and YES to everything else.
So, to score your test properly, one would have to have the following beliefs, as seen from a straightforward rewording of the questions, correct?
3. It is wrong to oppose radical new changes and sinfulness.
4. It is wrong to oppose homosexuality.
5. One should not listen to authorities in government and religion but to those who defy them.
6. Atheists are as morally sound as regular church attendees.
7. It is wrong to support traditional values or oppose those viewed as "troublemakers spreading bad ideas".
8. Nudist camps are a bastion of American goodness.
9. Traditional beliefs are always wrong and should be opposed, even if it means quashing public opinion.
10. It is wrong to oppose "perversions eating away at our moral fiber and traditional beliefs."
11. Individuality for the sake of individuality's sake is to be prized when it comes to lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preference.
12. "Old-fashioned ways" and "old-fashioned values" are wrong at all times under all circumstances under all contexts.
13. Those who support abortion rights, animals right, and the abolition of school prayer should be viewed as admirable.
14. It is wrong to pine for a strong determined leader who will crush evil and get our country back on track.
15. It is right to challenge government, criticize religion, and ignore normative standards of society.
16. It is immoral to support God's laws about abortion, pornography, and marriage.
17. It is wrong to oppose radical immoral people trying to ruin the country for godless purposes and support intervention by the authorities.
18. It is wrong to believe a wife's submissiveness to her husband and related social conventions are anything but a thing of the past.
19. We should not honor the ways of our forefathers, do what authorities tell us, or get rid of bad people from society (NO to prisons!!!).
20. There are no moral absolutes, it's just what's right for an individual. Hitler was just following his own way and is a swell fellow.
21. It is wrong to support traditional family values. It is right to praise the bravery of homosexuals and feminists.
22. It is wrong to want troublemakers to shut up and think they should stick to their place in society (one of the few here I might actually agree with).
Anyway, now that we've established what the test's grading key is, I'd like to make a few points about that answer key.
09/07/10
Comments:
I just read "The Authoritarians" and have now ordered a print copy (and a buddy has as well).
I believe that this mindset may be the missing link connecting many of the issues that I've had with people in my lifetime.
Is there any research that draws a correlation between high-RWA and being a sports fanatic? I would assume that authoritarian followers would be drawn to cheer for their local sports teams. I wonder if there is any supporting research.
Sorry, this is a private entry which is only viewable by the owner.
[View Entry]
09/07/10
Comments:
Now we have that cleared up... Let's get back to the central question that I have posed:
If Altemeyer is to be considered an unbiased/apolitical source it should be a simple matter to point out some research that he has done to prove authoritarianism is problematic on the American political right and on the political left, It should be a simple matter to investigate labor unions, feminists, eco-terrorists, or others to show that the goal is to understand the authoritarians.
Dr. Altemeyer, it is you who stated that the political left can be authoritarian without evidence. Where is the evidence that the American political left is authoritarian?
Why was the terminology "right-wing" chosen to describe all authoritarians, if not to skew the conversation to discriminate against the "right-wing". The term "Authoritarian" could have been used to precisely describe this group.
Altemeyer has discriminated some of the political right as "right-wing authoritarian". Is it a secondary goal of Altemeyer to create opprobrium against RWAs or all authoritarians? Is your research only "to help explain how America was going to the devil" from the current political right-wing? (The left-wing must be all sunshine and lollipops.)
Is this question too vague, irrational or emotionally-charged to be answered?
Maybe only Dr. Altemeyer gets to answer the questions which he poses, thereby injecting his political bias of "right-wing authoritarians" into the vernacular.
At this point, I contend that the self-censorship of Dr. Altemeyer from responding to the simple questions posed should prove to others that, indeed, the real goal of his research is to not understand human psychology, but to shame the American political right. It should be easy to prove me wrong...
In summary, it is / (there are):
1) illogical to not study the "left wing",
2) contradictory in studying one political extreme, without the other,
3) double-standardizing to demonize one politcal faction without demonizing the really bad apples on the left,
4) hypocritical to not have the desire to study authoritarianism on both political spectrum ends,
5) self-blinding that you have never studied the political left,
6) ethnocentric to use the term "right-wing" authoritarianism, as opposed to just "authoritarianism", and
7) dogmatic to think that the "right-wing" equates to America going to the "devil".
(crickets chirp....)
09/07/10
Comments:
I'll post unedited communication between the good professor and myself to clear up some initial information.
Sent: Thu, September 2, 2010 2:05:10 PM
Subject: Re: Conflict of Interest - Altemeyer
Doug Thompson wrote:
> Mr. Mondor,
> It is a conflict of interest to use public resources for private gain.
> "Part of protecting the public interest involves avoiding or effectively resolving conflict of interest situations where private or personal interests influence, or appear to influence, the performance of their duties and responsibilities. Ultimately, these situations must be resolved in favour of the public interest." http://www.gov.mb.ca/csc/policyman/conflict.html
> Robert Altemeyer is using the U. Manitoba's website for personal gain, by promoting the direct sale of his books, which are politically skewed.
> http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ <http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/>
> Thank you for your attention to this matter.
> Doug Thompson
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
Uh, I'm not sure this is a conflict of interest. And I'd point out that I've made no money from the sale of the books on the website. The Authoritarians is free, and if one wants to buy a printed copy, or the audio book, they are sold at cost. The $9 income from Sex and Youth goes to the U of M.
Actually, these works are just reports of research, which is something professors are supposed to do, even though some people may not like what the research found. It might be more to the point for Mr. Thompson to document the "political skewing," and how I have supposedly misinterpreted the data or misapplied them.
I wonder if Mr. Thompson has actually read the books. Let me ask him a few questions: 1) What was the "mirror-image" experiment? 2) What causes RWA scale scores to jump about 10% in the life cycle? 3) What is the "lethal union"? 4) How many national polls in the United States have used the RWA scale, and what did they find?
And especially: 5) What was found when RWA scale scores were compared with a desire to censor information that one did not like?
If you've read The Authoritarians, you will immediately know the answers to these questions.
------------------
Uh, directing profits from your book to a specific scholarship fund is a unique case. I would assume you first receive the income, then pay taxes on the income, then donate from your income to the scholarship. This is unless you have set this up properly as a NPO or a Registered Charity through Revenue Canada. You did think of that, didn't you? Do I need to send an email to the CRA? I have also published on Lulu, so I tend to believe that your price is likely the cost. You should allow an independent review of the sales records. As for the political skewing, you prove your position with the quote: " George W. Bush has been the most authoritarian president in my lifetime, as well as the worst." A few of your examples were wiretaps and torture. Now, that Obama has extended the wiretaps, and is the first American president who has authorized the execution of an American your position should have changed. You keep up your little rant about 5-20 seconds of waterboarding, and keep your head in the sand about executing an American just for expressing his freedom of speech. "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." is attributed to whom? Is the Tea Party losing steam: Can you understand that using disparate polls from three different sources to try to make a point is junk science? Of course your bias is confirmed when you refer to the Tea Party Patriots as "Tea Baggers". Do you not believe in the rights of homosexuals placing their balls in the mouths of their partners that you disparage all homosexuals and equate them with right-wing extremists? Always the professor, albeit one whose ingrained belief structure cannot accept the intellectual conservative. Yes, I read all about your thought experiments of beating up gays and the trains do run on time. I have also questioned your history of the Tea Party, showing that you are incorrect in your timeline. I'm sure you now know about FedupUSA and the Ticker Forum? You did thorough research didn't you? As the non-scientific left digs a deeper hole, puts their head in it and has the person to the left of them fill the hole with sand - you might research the LWAs, as they have caused the destruction of nearly 100 million human lives in the last century. Sure the RWAs will burn a few books, but the LWAs prefer bullets in the intellectuals' skulls. Even this week an eco-terrorist took hostages near Washington DC. Keep trying to promote your thought that right wing extremists must have some type of mental disorder while you put on your blinders to the real history of the world. Left-wing socialists equate to murder and slavery. Right-wing capitalists equate to life and freedom. Maybe, just maybe, you should devote some of your time to study extremism on both sides. The rights and the lefts may be part of the same continuum. (Think 3 dimensions not 1.) (Spheres not lines.) Have a pleasant day, Doug Thompson
09/07/10
Comments:
Just to clear the info.
I did answer the good professor's questions at 2pm 3-Sep, which is after the posting of the email interaction we had.
He wanted the following answered:
4q) How many national polls in the United States have used the RWA scale, and what did they find? and 5q) What was found when RWA scale scores were compared with a desire to censor information that one did not like? Answer below... 4a) The word "poll" occurs exactly 29 times in the book. p4 - Politicans rebuffed at the polls.. p37 - Libertarian party score 90 p42 x2 - Balanced polls - RWA good, F bad. i.e. not response biased. p47 - Polled the athiest Soviets to the faith-centrist RWA scale. Really?... p79 - Polls show people have faith. p89 x4 - Politican matches platform to poll. p96 - Polls show Bush was a righteous dude. p97 - Rightous dudeism affects polls. p97 - Polls still show Bush was a righteous dude. p102 x2 - Re. p97. p103 - Polling the idiots. p103 x4 - Polls show righteousness dudeism is falling. p103 x2 - Bu -people split on opinion of GWB - sh p104 - Tricky ticks picks the trickster's tricks. Say that fast 4 times. p110 - Dunk-a-poll. (vague reference to baptism..) p123 - Go tell em on the mountain that you're happy poll. p154 - You're-a-peein' on religion poll. p198 - If you poll an authoritarians, at least they are straight with you. p213 - Right-on, right-on vote for King Bush II. p213 - Goin' to the polls again. and... p214 - I assume you ment to say that 40% went to the polls, not "sent to the polls" - Did you proof-read this document? Maybe you should re-re-read it. I am suprised that all of the smarty-pant left-wingers didn't recognize this error? Blinded by Bush bashing? Cheney-cum-Cantor chasing? And that's all the references to the word poll in your book. As for a true "national poll", I for one, have never taken the poll, so I can assume it has never been administered nationally. 5q) What was found when RWA scale scores were compared with a desire to censor information that one did not like? 5a) Burning books, or putting bullets in the brains of the educated.... So many minds to change...so little time... The RWA will censor all info from all controversial subjects, left and riglt. But we make sure that if you're cheating on your taxes - you get the maximum punishment...
09/03/10
Comments:
Regarding the two postings from "Doug T."
He posted his first message shortly before noon (CDT) yesterday. You can read it three postings below.
About an hour later he sent me a copy of an email he had sent to the head of my former department, and to the Manitoba government, saying that this web-site (which is sponsored by the U. of Manitoba) violated the province's conflict of interest regulations. It did so, the argument went, because I was using a public resource for private gain. DT also said that my books were politically skewed.
I wrote back that I doubted posting books reporting my research violated any conflict of interest guidelines. That is what professors are supposed to do. And there was no personal gain involved. The Authoritarians is free to read on the web, and if people want a printed copy, it is available at cost. My book Sex and Youth is available at a mark-up price, but all the royalties go to the University of Manitoba.
Both these facts are evident on the web page itself, which led me to believe it was the perception of "political skewed-ness" that was motivating DT's complaint rather than a supposed violation of conflict of interest which obviously wasn't happening. So I responded by saying I doubted he had read The Authoritarians, and he could show me he had by answering five questions I then posed. The last question was, what RWA scale connection has been found with a desire to suppress information one does not like?
At 2:05 PM I responded to him about his first posting:
Hello. It's nice to meet you, even though you may not think it's nice to meet me.
I knew about the FedUp demonstrations in 2008, and I appreciate their role in making the eventual movement the "Tea Party" movement with the "mail your rep a tea bag" suggestion in January, 2009. I chose to begin my discussion of the Tea Party Movement with the February, 2009 protests, because that is the date commonly assigned, as at the beginning of the Wikipedia reference you provided. But if someone wants to say it really started in 2008, or with some earlier protest against government spending, one could. It's probably a bigger deal to members of FedUp than it is to most others. For that matter, members of different Tea Party groups probably have different ideas of when the protest "really began," and I doubt it's just liberals who give the FedUp protest short shrift.
I doubt I can change your mind about my being a liberal, but I don't think I am. As I explained in the book, I think I'm a moderate. Liberal friends of mine, when we get into discussions of (say) abortion, Afghanistan, and fiscal responsibility, think I'm a conservative. Conservatives think I'm a liberal over the same issues. My own perception is that people on each end of the political spectrum think those who do not strongly agree with them are "the opposite." (There's a theory in social psychology, called social judgment theory, that predicts this.) If you're in the middle, you're part of the enemy.
But I don't think it matters one bit, as far as the data go, whether I'm a Tea Partier or a Communist. The experiments found what the experiments found. What wasn't true? What didn't happen? What was misinterpreted or overgeneralized? Arguments with the results of scientific studies are much more convincing than simply calling people names, which anyone can do, rightly or wrongly.
Do I think that liberals have a hard time understand(ing) history, as their viewpoint is skewed (by) their authoritarian submission to me? I think there are both liberal and conservative biases in interpreting the past. I see this every day as I read The Drudge Report, Politico, Talking Points Memo, and the Huffington Post. I value science because it gets us past such matters of opinion. Most importantly, it tells us when we're wrong.
There is an intentional bias in scientific investigation against believing falsehoods. We're quite willing to miss a true conclusion rather than accept a false one. You have to be at least 95% certain that what you've found is not due to dumb luck before you can say you've found anything. That's what the phrase "statistical significance" means. It throws up a high barrier against misinformation, and all the findings in The Authoritarians were statistically significant. The facts, the outcomes of the study are definitely there as described. To claim otherwise is to take on a massive burden of proof.
As to liberals' authoritarian submission to me, if you have read The Authoritarians you know that experiments which compared Low and High RWAs tendencies to submit did find that some Lows did submit, but Highs proved much more likely to. It wasn't black and white, which your statement implies by seemingly assuming all liberals act alike. It's a matter of degree, which you will also know I say often in the book, if you've read it. But there is a sizeable difference between the two. If I am an authority to liberals (which I sincerely doubt; most of the liberals I know think I'm some sort of hopeless ivory tower recluse), some of them will probably accept what I say just because an authority they like says it. But conservatives, according to many studies done in many different places over many years by many different researchers, are much more likely to submit to an authority they like.
As for whether it is liberals' fear, self-righteousness, etc. that "skews" (?) them to post on my website believing my "inaccurate information" is factual, I think (again) you need to show the information I presented is not factual. You haven't done that, have you, but just asserted it. (Maybe "shouted it" is a better way to put it, but people who are fed up may understandably be given to shouting.)
And quite frankly, I don't know what your last question ("Are you researching the mentality of liberals...") is asking. I get the emotion, but not a decipherable thought.
At 3:58 DT wrote me back. He started with a discussion of verifying my agreements with LuLu Press not to take any money from the publication of my books. Then he continued:
As for the political skewing, you prove your position with the quote: " George W. Bush has been the most authoritarian president in my lifetime, as well as the worst." A few of your examples were wiretaps and torture. Now, that Obama has extended the wiretaps, and is the first American president who has authorized the execution of an American your position should have changed. You keep up your little rant about 5-20 seconds of waterboarding, and keep your head in the sand about executing an American just for expressing his freedom of speech. "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." is attributed to whom? Is the Tea Party losing steam: Can you understand that using disparate polls from three different sources to try to make a point is junk science? Of course your bias is confirmed when you refer to the Tea Party Patriots as "Tea Baggers". Do you not believe in the rights of homosexuals placing their balls in the mouths of their partners that you disparage all homosexuals and equate them with right-wing extremists? Always the professor, albeit one whose ingrained belief structure cannot accept the intellectual conservative. Yes, I read all about your thought experiments of beating up gays and the trains do run on time. I have also questioned your history of the Tea Party, showing that you are incorrect in your timeline. I'm sure you now know about FedupUSA and the Ticker Forum? You did thorough research didn't you? As the non-scientific left digs a deeper hole, puts their head in it and has the person to the left of them fill the hole with sand - you might research the LWAs, as they have caused the destruction of nearly 100 million human lives in the last century. Sure the RWAs will burn a few books, but the LWAs prefer bullets in the intellectuals' skulls. Even this week an eco-terrorist took hostages near Washington DC. Keep trying to promote your thought that right wing extremists must have some type of mental disorder while you put on your blinders to the real history of the world. Left-wing socialists equate to murder and slavery. Right-wing capitalists equate to life and freedom. Maybe, just maybe, you should devote some of your time to study extremism on both sides. The rights and the lefts may be part of the same continuum. (Think 3 dimensions not 1.) (Spheres not lines.) I responded at 4:55:
I notice you did not answer my five questions. You may have read a few parts of the book, but I do not believe you have read the book you claim to have read. (You could have easily convinced me if you had. But I've been down this road before, and I've not yet met someone who thinks this is "all liberal clap-trap" who had actually read the book. So I was pretty sure you hadn't. If you had, and you had at least an average memory of what you've read, you'd have answered the questions by now. They're pretty major findings.)
I did know about the 2008 and January 2009 protests. Just because I didn't say that's when the Tea Party movement began doesn't mean I didn't know about them. And I left out other protests that occurred in various places at various times that someone else could call "the beginning." Do you think that everyone who does not give the FedUp protest credit for starting the movement doesn't know about it? The Wikipedia editors obviously knew about it, but said the Tea Party movement began later than that.
Protest movements usually have many roots, and different people have different ideas about when they started. Do you believe that all, or even most of the people who identify with the Tea Party movement even know about the events you're talking about? (I suspect more of them would say Sarah Palin started it than anything else.)
When I discuss these matters with "intellectual conservatives," and "intellectual liberals," the tone is rather different from your tone. It is an intellectual discussion. People don't use phrases such as "homosexuals placing their balls in the mouths of their partners." I try not to let my adrenal glands form my sentences.
I decry some of Obama's actions, and am not happy about extending the wiretaps--although I understand they are being done with new safeguards. You'll have to tell me about the American whose execution has been approved by the President simply because s/he expressed an opinion. I don't know about it, and if it is as you say, I shall protest against it.
You should know that I pointed out the differences in the three polls of support for the Tea Party movement. "Junk science" is just more name-calling. Anyone can do that.
DT replied at 6:20:
I also re-read book, and apologize for missing that you do point out liberal authoritarians exist, e.g. communists.
A fundamental question I have is that since the worst authoritarians have been left-of-center politically, why do you insist that authoritarian-ism is a "right wing" issue? I would have proposed calling authoritarians "LWAs", as they have accounted for the untimely demise of over 100 million humans. Right-wing authoritarians in a democracy (we still have that don't we?) have never caused much long-term harm. How about you propose that you change all your research to the term LWA instead of RWA?
As for Obama ordering the assination of an American, the story was an embedded link. Here is another way to get the story: At 8:59 PM I responded:
You need to re-re-read the book, or at least read it once, more carefully. I gave my answers to most of your questions at the beginning of Chapter 1. One of the several ways I knew you had not read the book was you assumed I meant, by "right-wing," the political right wing. You've obviously gotten to Page 8 now, but you still haven't understood what I mean by "right-wing." If you did, you would know the answers to your questions.
And if you had read the book, you would know the difference research has shown us between authoritarian followers and authoritarian leaders. We agree that Communist leaders such as Stalin and Mao had millions upon millions of innocent people brutally killed. I just wouldn't call them left-wing authoritarians, although (you will have read on P. 9) some of Mao's followers I knew in the 1970s in Canada seemed to be. As to what I would call them, that's waiting in the book for you.
Thank you for the link to Glen Greenwald's column. (I tried the link you provided first, and it did not work. Also one of your links to the early Tea Party protests came up dead for me.) I did not know this story, and will write to Glen Greenwald expressing my support, for what it's worth.
Finally, you have given me excellent reason to doubt your truthfulness, and that matters enormously with me. So I'm not going to continue this correspondence until you have actually read the book you have tried to get removed from the website the U of M provides for me, and can answer the five questions I posed. The correspondence should be on a higher plane then..
And at 12:01 AM this morning he posted his second message on this website. You can find it two postings below.
At 2:15 AM he "answered" the five questions I had asked. He got three right, at best. He still didn't know what research has shown about people who try to suppress information they don't like.
So what's your point? I am loathe to censor any submission to this website, although it is done elsewhere. But I do frankly despair of having a reasonable discussion with DT about The Authoritarians. He frankly doesn't know what he's talking about when he attacks this research, his criticisms are vague to the point of being unanswerable, he's often unintelligible, he tends to make emotional appeals when he can't advance a rational argument, and he seems to have difficulty simply grasping conceptualizations. (You can see from the beginning of his second posting that he still doesn't understand the right-wing vs. left-wing authoritarian distinction made at the beginning of the book.) And to top it all off, I don't think he's very honest.
So I am going to let him post away, if he wishes, but I'm not going to bother responding here unless I think he actually says something cogent. It appears he mainly wants to confront his chosen enemies and provoke heated arguments whether they give light or not. I hope I've got better things to do with my days than what's taken place over the past 24 hours.
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