05/11/10
Comments:
05/08/10
Comments:
Here's another conversation, this time regarding the global warming issue, that has veered strongly toward the issue of authoritarianism. An interesting development for me is the way one commenter tried to correct the rest of us over how to define an authoritarian. It brings up one of the most common difficulties I have trying to debate politics with others, and that is the common perception of what is meant by an authoritarian.
All to often the perception is that, for instance, Hitler or Stalin were authoritarians, and those who followed them were merely "gullible or manipulable" (his words). The RWA portion of the "RWA-SDO embrace" is not perceived as having much responsibility for the devastation they performed for them. Needless to say, 'therein lies the problem'. ;-)
http://harryhammer.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/patrick-michaels-is-a-buffoon/#comment-59
05/05/10
Comments:
I just posted this over at the Washington Post. I'd appreciate your comments Dr. Altemeyer.
GW.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Understanding the conservatism that no one denies being prevalent in the TP movement will help to understand the charge of racism. Several decades of empirical, scientific research into conservatism reveals that authoritarianism has a strong correlation to political conservatism. So strong in fact that one leading researcher in the field stated that "neither conceptually nor empirically does there appear to be any grounds for distinguishing authoritarianism and conservative personality except that the former may be regarded as a somewhat more particular case of the latter" (Wilson, 1973).
The authoritarian personality (or RWA) is characterized by a strong tendency to believe whatever their leaders tell them they believe is true. Given that the RNC is a party strong affiliated with the wealthy and the corporate world, trying to stay relevant in a democracy where their base only makes up a small fraction of the percent needed to win an election makes it almost imperative that they look for votes outside that small fraction. As such, trying to appeal to blacks requires that they tell everyone that they oppose racism. The curious result is to have all these whites who, because of their authoritarianism, now /consciously/ believe they are not racist...and who tell everyone - including themselves! - that racism no longer plays a part in their belief system. Of course reality says something much different, which leaves them in a position of trying to justify their hatred of Obama in ways that are not openly racist.
To that end, they displace their racism by instead focusing on Obama's illegitimacy as a president through the many other areas they now use to attack him. The "birthers" - who deny him as their president based on his supposed birth outside the USA - are a fascinating group who, if they didn't already exist, could be created as an almost perfect metaphor for what's happening at the psychological level given how well it portrays self-denial of racist tendencies by shifting it to some other area from which they can continue to self-righteously declare their opposition to his power over them as POTUS.
In any case, the racist tendencies present in many conservative is not in question. Study after study has revealed their strong correlation with conservative politics. It is rarely reported in MOTR media probably due the fear of their editors and producers in alienating a sizable portion of their buying audience. But nowadays all one has to do is direct their browsers to either Dr. Altemeyers "The Authoritarians" or the more technical "The Authoritarian Spectre" at http://tinyurl.com/yj3pnao; or a paper at Okla. Correctional from which the above quote from Wilson was taken: http://tinyurl.com/yzcgm8s; or the DHS Counter-Terrorism panel members whose focus has been on the portion of society from which we are most likely to see politically motivated violence arise: http://tinyurl.com/483b4n."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/04/AR2010050405168_Comments.html
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04/26/10
Comments:
Thank you so much for this book. It puts much into perspective, and leaves me feeling I am not alone in my drop-jawed amazement at the easily reputed lies coming from republican leaders and self-appointed GOP spokesmen and women, and the proud ignorance of the teapartiers who hang on every word. Having dodged the bullet of a McCain/Palin administration, we have to be ever on guard against yet another potential catastrophe.
I scored a 30. Proudly.
04/23/10
Comments:
Are you planning on also writing a note on the Democratic RWA followers who persist in believing Obama and the Democrats are "progressives" even as they continue and in most cases escalate Bush/Cheney policies on the Bailout, the war and war crimes, the assault on civil liberties, and corporatism in general, just to name a few?
04/20/10
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Ah, thank you very much. At least now I know where to ask.
I think the implementation of the Global Change Game as an online video game could be very interesting. Since producing games gets easier and easier, maybe someone will try to do something like that in the future...
04/20/10
Comments:
First, let me apologize to Grant in Regina for calling him "Matt" the other day. I was working off the wrong list.
Now, as to the Global Change Game, it's easier to answer questions about the set-up than to try to give a more detailed account of everything than I already have. So what do people want to know? I think I mentioned all the rules in the write-up. The basic idea was to give the players Planet Earth for about 40 years, starting from the present situation, and see what they'd do. In my experiments, however, I populated the earth with particular people (non-authoritarians or authoritarians) to see what would happen.
I should also say that the game has passed out of local control. The university students who were running it in the '90s are now in their 40s, have families and careers, and no longer go traveling around the country from school to school. The last I heard, Oxfam of Quebec has the map and supplies. I don't know if they're using it for anything.
04/20/10
Comments:
The Global Change Game you are describing in your book has been the topic of discussion on the forum of Something Awful:
Right Wingers put in charge of planet, everyone killed in nuclear holocaust
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3294497
Is there a way to gain more insight how the game worked and what the ruleset for this game is?
I've read the The Authoritarians in two sittings and found it very interesting and also disconcerting.
04/19/10
Comments:
To Matt: It won't be a book, just a comment like the one I posted after the 2008 election. My 8,000 word Tea Party comment should be on this site by Wednesday.
By the way, anyone who knows me knows I did not choose the ads about shrinking one's belly.
04/18/10
Comments:
Fantastic!! Great to see you back in business. This is about the 5th time in 3 months that I've tried to get on. It will be a treat to read your book on the Tea Partiers. Would you be willing to give some early infomation of your findings?
04/12/10
Comments:
To Matt: Thank you very much. What you said really means a lot to me, since that was one of the goals I had in writing the book.
To Valerie: Pretty amazing quote, and maybe the person wasn't serious. If it was serious, I hope someone helps that Tea Partier realize that Communists are not likely to honor the Constitution.
I also sort of noticed the connection between the research in this book and the Tea Partiers. I'm writing a paper on the Tea Party movement, which I'll post on this website in about a week...once I get the spelling errors corrected. But I think most people who've read this book have already figured out what I'll say.
To Patricia Shanon: Yeah, I'm still alive and well, just temporarily bollixed by the old Comments system. And since you like interesting comments, the next two strike me as noteworthy.
To John: Hmm. You're saying that all the protraits are really contraits. So that means someone who agrees with Item 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" would be showing a lack of authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, and conventionalism. You're going to have to explain that to me.
To Richard: Well, your "Authoritarianism for Dummies" approach might work with high RWAs. We know from studies that they lack self-insight, and after hearing about the research on authoritarianism, they think it applies to someone else, not to them (p. 86). But that also means they probably wouldn't be affected by the results. They'd be more likely to act as high RWAs did in the "Posse after RWAs" experiment (p. 25): "Lets go round up those rotten authoritarians!"
If it did sink in that they were the authoritarians, an experiment (also described on p. 86) indicates they would probably run away, run away from bad news about themselves. So I never thought that the book would produce clinical insight in high RWAs. They're way too defensive and dogmatic. (And I'm not sure I'd try to take them unawares by soft-pedaling the findings, which seems manipulative if not dishonest.)
I did hope that moderate and low RWAs would come across the book and find the studies compelling. (I sense the readers have mainly been Lows, however, and very few moderates have heard of the findings.) I think authoritarianism poses a real threat to American democracy, and after years of being non-alarmist about it, I agreed with John Dean that there was plenty of reason for concern now. I do hope I let the data speak for themselves, by and large, without hyperbole. But you're right, I made pointed points when the results provided insight or application (as in the case of Tom DeLay).
Please let me know if you find an approach that helps high RWAs realize the danger they pose to the country.
04/09/10
Comments:
Interesting read.
I have one suggestion to make if you want American authoritarians to read it: don't rebuke them so often. As soon as you bring in references to Tom Delay or, even with caveats, refer to RWAs as such, you lose right wingers. None of those people are going to read 200+ pages on how they're horrible people, even if their behaviour is, objectively speaking, genuinely horrible.
I think I understand (and share) your beliefs on the subject but if you want to reach anyone who's afflicted by authoritarianism, you'll have to make your text shorter and your language seem more centrist and less vilifying. These are people who see the world as us vs. them in 30s Fox News sound bites.
Make an "Authoritarianism For Dummies": briefly identify traits of "authoritarians", show how destructive that behaviour can be, and then link those traits to traits they may themselves have; try to trigger an epiphany, perhaps?
04/09/10
Comments:
The Authoritarians' RWA scale rates question three from 1 to 9 along the -4 to 4 statement reactions.
I believe it should be grouped with items 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 19 and 22 to be rated from 9 to 1.
04/01/10
Comments:
I'm glad to see you have comments again.
For one thing, the comments are interesting and informative.
And I'm glad to see that Mr. Altemeyer is still here and healthy :-D
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