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View Full Version : Are more civilised nations breeding out the Authoritarian personality?



Carygrant
12-30-2012, 03:30 PM
According to theory, the elements of the Authoritarian personality type are:

Blind allegiance to conventional beliefs about right and wrong
Respect for submission to acknowledged authority
Belief in aggression toward those who do not subscribe to conventional thinking, or who are different
A negative view of people in general - i.e. the belief that people would all lie, cheat or steal if given the opportunity
A need for strong leadership which displays uncompromising power
A belief in simple answers and polemics - i.e. The media controls us all or The source of all our problems is the loss of morals these days.
Resistance to creative, dangerous ideas. A black and white worldview.
A tendency to project one's own feelings of inadequacy, rage and fear onto a scapegoated group
A preoccupation with violence if only in thought and fantasy .
As an outsider to American behaviour , I am constantly surprised how different modern Europeans are from old style Americans . The supposed new world has become old and tired and in need of a make over . Now a popular and widespread general view .
But in attitudes and comprehension , rather than appearance .
Is this broad view symptomatic of the need for Americans to be better represented by those who actually make up the full electorate , rather than the heavy bias toward old white men with their 19 century hang over legacy of attitudes and outlook ?
Why is it that such personality types are inextricably linked to the right wing of political opinions -- with the fringe element almost Fascist in their behaviour .

http://www.psychologistworld.com/influence_personality/authoritarian_personality.php

Mister D
12-30-2012, 03:35 PM
We remade you in our image. :smiley: The UK was Cocacolonized before you were born.

Calypso Jones
12-30-2012, 03:42 PM
Civilized. You think western europe and the world will be civilized!! We are on the verge with King Bones leading the way of a return to the middle ages under the control of the damned to hell muslims.

Peter1469
12-30-2012, 03:54 PM
It sounds like a push for the end of nations and the creation of a global government.

In other words, a scam.

KC
12-30-2012, 04:21 PM
Everyone, please stick to the thread topic, as per rule #9.

KC
12-30-2012, 04:24 PM
According to theory, the elements of the Authoritarian personality type are:

Blind allegiance to conventional beliefs about right and wrong
Respect for submission to acknowledged authority
Belief in aggression toward those who do not subscribe to conventional thinking, or who are different
A negative view of people in general - i.e. the belief that people would all lie, cheat or steal if given the opportunity
A need for strong leadership which displays uncompromising power
A belief in simple answers and polemics - i.e. The media controls us all or The source of all our problems is the loss of morals these days.
Resistance to creative, dangerous ideas. A black and white worldview.
A tendency to project one's own feelings of inadequacy, rage and fear onto a scapegoated group
A preoccupation with violence if only in thought and fantasy .

As an outsider to American behaviour , I am constantly surprised how different modern Europeans are from old style Americans . The supposed new world has become old and tired and in need of a make over . Now a popular and widespread general view . But in attitudes and comprehension , rather than appearance . Is this broad view symptomatic of the need for Americans to be better represented by those who actually make up the full electorate , rather than the heavy bias toward old white men with their 19 century hang over legacy of attitudes and outlook ? Why is it that such personality types are inextricably linked to the right wing of political opinions -- with the fringe element almost Fascist in their behaviour .

Authoritarianism is the opposite of classical liberalism, which is the root of American conservatism/libertarianism, so I think the attitudes you are claiming to be "nineteenth century" and "fascist" are actually inventions of twentieth century Europe.

Chris
12-30-2012, 04:33 PM
According to theory, the elements of the Authoritarian personality type are:

Blind allegiance to conventional beliefs about right and wrong
Respect for submission to acknowledged authority
Belief in aggression toward those who do not subscribe to conventional thinking, or who are different
A negative view of people in general - i.e. the belief that people would all lie, cheat or steal if given the opportunity
A need for strong leadership which displays uncompromising power
A belief in simple answers and polemics - i.e. The media controls us all or The source of all our problems is the loss of morals these days.
Resistance to creative, dangerous ideas. A black and white worldview.
A tendency to project one's own feelings of inadequacy, rage and fear onto a scapegoated group
A preoccupation with violence if only in thought and fantasy .
As an outsider to American behaviour , I am constantly surprised how different modern Europeans are from old style Americans . The supposed new world has become old and tired and in need of a make over . Now a popular and widespread general view .
But in attitudes and comprehension , rather than appearance .
Is this broad view symptomatic of the need for Americans to be better represented by those who actually make up the full electorate , rather than the heavy bias toward old white men with their 19 century hang over legacy of attitudes and outlook ?
Why is it that such personality types are inextricably linked to the right wing of political opinions -- with the fringe element almost Fascist in their behaviour .



This is plagiarized just about word for word from A Look At The Authoritarian Personality (http://www.psychologistworld.com/influence_personality/authoritarian_personality.php):


According to Adorno's theory, the elements of the Authoritarian personality type are:
Blind allegiance to conventional beliefs about right and wrong
Respect for submission to acknowledged authority
Belief in aggression toward those who do not subscribe to conventional thinking, or who are different
A negative view of people in general - i.e. the belief that people would all lie, cheat or steal if given the opportunity
A need for strong leadership which displays uncompromising power
A belief in simple answers and polemics - i.e. The media controls us all or The source of all our problems is the loss of morals these days.
Resistance to creative, dangerous ideas. A black and white worldview.
A tendency to project one's own feelings of inadequacy, rage and fear onto a scapegoated group
A preoccupation with violence and sex

I think it important to also cite more about Adorno's theory:


How much do you agree with the following statements?

People can be divided into two distinct classes - the weak and the strong.
Some people are born with the urge to jump from high places.
No weakness or difficulty can hold us back if we have enough willpower.
Most of our social problems would be solved if we could somehow get rid of the immoral, crooked and feeble-minded people.

The statements you just read are a part of one of the most infamous psychological scales of the 20th century - Theodor Adorno's F-scale. The F stood for Fascist - and the test was meant to help identify how racism develops in people.

In 1950, Harper and Row published a book that had all the earmarks of a blockbuster in the field of psychology. The Authoritarian Personality was an attempt by a group of researchers to explain the conditions that allowed Nazi-ism to gain a foothold in Europe. The researchers, led by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, used various psychological scales to attempt to explain racism and the atmosphere that led to the slaughter of six million Jews and others in psychological terms. The book weighed in at a hefty near-1000 pages, and included contributions from a number of social psychologists who helped to correlate and analyze the data collected.

Almost from the start, The Authoritarian Personality engendered heated controversy. By 1955, the book and its theory had been vilified and torn down by many critics as propaganda masquerading as poor science. The most notorious part of the book - and the most enduring - is the infamous Adorno F-scale (F for Fascist), which purported to measure Fascist tendencies by evaluating responses to a series of weighted questions. The F-scale was only one of the research instruments used by the group, but it is the one that has endured the longest.

As such, it seems modern European thought is based on old vilified thinking. It is modern Europe that is old and tired and in need of a make over.

This however will never happen so long as European, like yourself, confuse fascism with the right wing instead of a lft wing branch of socialism not much different than nazism, communism and European's modern form of socialism, social democracy.

Now, inasmuch as Obama and other liberals admire and want to model America on European socialism, just as FDR and his fellow travelers did, then I think we are in as much danger as Europe is of collapse.


The increasing veneration for the state, the admiration of power, and of bigness for bigness’ sake, the enthusiasm for “organization” of everything (we now call it “planning”), and that “inability to leave anything to the simple power of organic growth,” which even von Treitschke deplored in the Germans sixty years ago, are all scarcely less marked in England now than they were in Germany.
~ Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

Mister D
12-30-2012, 04:34 PM
Authoritarianism is the opposite of classical liberalism, so I think the attitudes you are claiming to be "nineteenth century" and "fascist" are actually inventions of twentieth century Europe.

Those attitudes among others have deep roots in Europe but after WW2 Americans taught Europeans that their traditional cultures are naughty. Many Europeans resented that then and the better ones resent it now but, as you can see, there are some Europeans who know nothing other than the values derived from American colonization. It can be sad or funny depending on your perspective but these folks have come to conceive of American values as their own while ridiculing America at the same time.

KC
12-30-2012, 04:47 PM
Those attitudes among others have deep roots in Europe but after WW2 Americans taught Europeans that their traditional cultures are naughty. Many Europeans resented that then and the better ones resent it now but, as you can see, there are some Europeans who know nothing other than the values derived from American colonization. It can be sad or funny depending on your perspective but these folks have come to conceive of American values as their own while ridiculing America at the same time.


Well, to be fair, I think liberal values come from English enlightenment thought, so liberalism in England would be a more a natural disposition then say, liberalism among Slavs.

Chris
12-30-2012, 04:52 PM
Well, to be fair, I think liberal values come from English enlightenment thought, so liberalism in England would be a more a natural disposition then say, liberalism among Slavs.

And yet, according to Herbert Spencer's chronicle of liberalism in The Man Versus the State, it was in England that classical individualistic liberalism first turned upsidedown and insideout to become modern authoritarian liberalism.

Mister D
12-30-2012, 04:56 PM
Well, to be fair, I think liberal values come from English enlightenment thought, so liberalism in England would be a more a natural disposition then say, liberalism among Slavs.

Ultimately, almost everything American is rooted in Europe's intellectual history but America exemplified the classical liberal conception of a society. There was always a struggle in Europe between liberalism and traditional political culture but the disaster of WW2 and, more importantly, subsequent vassalage to the US ended traditionalism (let alone fascism) as a political force.

KC
12-30-2012, 04:59 PM
And yet, according to Herbert Spencer's chronicle of liberalism in The Man Versus the State, it was in England that classical individualistic liberalism first turned upsidedown and insideout to become modern authoritarian liberalism.

I think that's an inherent problem with liberalism. It always swallows itself up with the political rights it gives members of the society.

KC
12-30-2012, 05:07 PM
Ultimately, almost everything American is rooted in Europe's intellectual history but America exemplified the classical liberal conception of a society. There was always a struggle in Europe between liberalism and traditional political culture but the disaster of WW2 and, more importantly, subsequent vassalage to the US ended traditionalism (let alone fascism) as a political force.

And here's where I'm the opposite of Francis Fukuyama, who argued that societies generally tend toward liberal democracies as history progresses. I see the opposite happening, and I think there's a wealth of evidence to support it.

Chris
12-30-2012, 05:08 PM
I think that's an inherent problem with liberalism. It's always swallows itself up with the political rights it gives members of the society.

That may be true, soon as liberalism turns from negative to positive right. No democracy (or republic) is immune. Why Jefferson spoke of spilling blood every 20 years or so:

"What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure."
~ Jefferson, Letter To William S. Smith Paris, Nov. 13, 1787

Chris
12-30-2012, 05:10 PM
And here's where I'm the opposite of Francis Fukuyama, who argued that societies generally tend toward liberal democracies as history progresses. I see the opposite happening, and I think there's a wealth of evidence to support it.

Agree, besides Fukuyama declared the end of history and look how wrong that was!

KC
12-30-2012, 05:16 PM
Agree, besides Fukuyama declared the end of history and look how wrong that was!

Aha, it's still happening!

The end of history reminds me of the the Marxist idea that class conflict would ultimately produce a classless society, which is also seems to be painfully incorrect.

Mister D
12-30-2012, 05:17 PM
And here's where I'm the opposite of Francis Fukuyama, who argued that societies generally tend toward liberal democracies as history progresses. I see the opposite happening, and I think there's a wealth of evidence to support it.

We agree. The secular conception of history progressing to some end is a modern, liberal one. It is a distinctly western (post) Christian perspective.

And wouldn't you know history progresses to a society that looks like ours? It's also profoundly, albeit unconsciously, racist.

Mister D
12-30-2012, 05:18 PM
Wasn't Fukuyama a neocon?

KC
12-30-2012, 05:21 PM
We agree. The secular conception of history progressing to some end is a modern, liberal one. It is a distinctly western (post) Christian perspective.

And wouldn't you know history progresses to a society that looks like ours? It's also profoundly, albeit unconsciously, racist.

Maybe not racist as much as it is ethnocentrist :grin:

Chris
12-30-2012, 05:23 PM
Yes, Fukuyama was a neocon, a liberal mugged by reality, but an authoritarian thru and thru, just like socialists (fascists, etc).

Which, "brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to" authoritarianism.

KC
12-30-2012, 05:24 PM
Wasn't Fukuyama a neocon?

Yes, which probably also explains why he doesn't get much respect from a lot of academics.

garyo
12-30-2012, 05:33 PM
Shouldn't you cite your source when copying and pasting instead of trying to pass it off as you're own? By the way I would hate to be near you in a lightning storm, you're karma sucks.

Calypso Jones
12-30-2012, 06:00 PM
Adorno sucks. And i have to wonder if the initial poster and his source aren't putting words in Adorno's mouth even as bad as Adorno's philosophy is. problem is. The left gets to define the words. We shouldn't let them do that.

Captain Obvious
12-30-2012, 07:01 PM
Please refer to rule#9 when replying to topics posted in Other Discussions.

http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/6236-The-Political-Forums-Revised-Rules-and-Regulations


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Carygrant
12-31-2012, 04:29 AM
History of the Term

Although the first usage of the term "authoritarian personality" goes back to Abraham Maslow (http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Abraham_Maslow) in 1943, whose work in turn rests upon Erich Fromm's (http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Erich_Fromm) theory of the authoritarian character, in its essentials it has been marked by the 1950 study The Authoritarian Personality (http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/The_Authoritarian_Personality) by Theodor W. Adorno (http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Theodor_W._Adorno), Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford. Conducted at the University of California at Berkeley (http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/University_of_California_at_Berkeley), the study was part of a large research project aimed at examining the psychological bases of anti-Semitic prejudices. The researchers performed their work heavily influenced by Second World War (http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/World_War_II) and the Holocaust (http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Holocaust), which had just ended, and these events strongly informed the direction of the project. A result of their research was the development of a measure for fascist tendencies known as the F-scale (http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/F-scale) that is still in use today, but disputed though.
In light of this background, it was the goal of the study to explain the onset of fascist and antidemocratic attitudes from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, and thereby to make a scientific contribution in the struggle against fascism. The theory of the authoritarian personality laid the cornerstone for a rich, extensive tradition in social science research that continues down to the present day, even though practically everything about the theory has subsequently been questioned.
Theory of the Authoritarian Personality

Those persons who cling to fascist ideologies, according to the theory, distinguish themselves through their inappropriate, prejudice-laden view of social and political relationships. From this background in their personal history arose the assumption that the emergence of certain phenomena such as anti-Semitism and ethnocentrism stands in close connection with this particular personality structure. Because fascistic groupings get support essentially from the right-conservative camp (although that does not suggest that the right-conservative camp invariably lends these groupings such support) parts of the conservative outlook are likewise judged as an expression of this personality structure. As an instrument to measure this outlook, the AS-scale (for "anti-Semitism") the E-scale (for "Ethnocentrism") and the PEC-Scale (for "political-economic conservatism") are used.
The instrument for assessing the underlying authoritarian personality structure was the so-called F-Scale ("implicit antidemocratic tendencies and fascist potential"). This scale is comprised of the following subscales:

Conventionalism -- the tendency to accept and obey social conventions and the rules of authority figures; adherence to the traditional and accepted
Authoritarian Submission -- submission to authorities and authority figures
Authoritarian Aggression -- an aggressive attitude towards individuals or groups disliked by authorities; particularly those who threaten traditional values
Anti-Intraception -- rejection of the subjective, imaginative and aesthetic
Substitution and Stereotypy -- superstition, cliché, categorization and fatalistic determinism
Power and Toughness -- identification with those in power, excessive emphasis on socially advocated ego qualities
Destructiveness and Cynicism -- general hostility, putting others down
Projectivity -- the tendency to believe in the existence of evil in the world and to project unconscious emotional impulses outward
Sex -- exaggerated concerns with respect to sexual activity
The authors of the study expected a positive correlation between results on the F-scale and being marked by conservatism, ethnocentrism and anti-Semitism.Robert Altemeyer (http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Robert_Altemeyer) found that three facets of this authoritarian personality were important: conventionalism, authoritarian aggression and authoritarian submission. He has refined the concept of the authoritarian personality into the Right-wing Authoritarian (http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Right_Wing_Authoritarianism) scale, though his conceptualization is in some ways more primitive than that of the Adorno group. The Adorno group did, for instance, try to keep the concepts of authoritarianism and conservatism separate (using different measuring instuments for the two) whereas Altemeyer confounds them inextricably.
Psychoanalytic aspect

Adorno and his colleagues regarded the fundamental basis of this presumed system of personality qualities and its linkage to certain attitudes according to a psychoanalytic viewpoint: experiences in early childhood and their internalization.
Freud's psychoanalytic theory suggests that values and norms that are first represented in the person of the father are internalized in the course of the child's development. From these the first unconscious stage of the so-called superego develop. The grappling with an authoritarian, very strict father leads to the development of a very strong superego. Thereby, from the earliest childhood onward, unconscious desires and drives (e.g., power and sexual license) must be thrust down and remain unsatisfied.
The unconscious conflicts that are unleashed thereby are solved when the person projects the "forbidden" drives and aggressions of his superego onto other people. As a rule, ethnic, political or religious minorities are selected as a screen for these projections, because this way there are no social sanctions to fear. Often, he can fall back on socially acceptable prejudices. Studies by Hans Eysenck (http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Hans_Eysenck), Milton Rokeach (http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Milton_Rokeach) and many others go into this question.
Extent of Validity

Besides these problematic concerns, many have criticised applying the theory with too broad a sphere of validity--that the authors did not account for variables that reflect socioeconomic status such as class and level of education. Some have argued that in these circumstances, these would offer simpler explanations, and increase the practical relevance of the study.
Despite some methodological deficiencies, the theory of the authoritarian personality has had a major influence on subsequent research. One criticism is that the theory of the Berkeley group insinuates that "Authoritarianism" is present only on the right of the political spectrum. As as result, some have claimed that the theory is corrupted by political bias.
In Germany, research on authoritarianism has been more recently carried out by, among others, Klaus Roghmann, Detlef Oesterreich and Christel Hopf. The most active researcher in the field today, however, is probably the Dutch psychologist J.D. Meloen. The most active critic of the theory has been Australian psychologist John J. Ray. Most academic journal articles that mention the theory, however, assume that it is at least largely true.

Just to assist anybody interested in the subject .
I feel sure you can work out why I never mentioned Adorno in the OP . It is hard enough to get any meaningful opinions here from anybody without a string of labels prefacing a negative conclusion .I personally see this more as a defence mechanism rather than a nod to real scholarship .
Ironically , the sign of an Authoritarian Personality .

Chris
12-31-2012, 12:12 PM
Back to discussion and the point raised earlier that, contrary to the OP's contention, America is Becoming Europe: Wild-child US slouching toward paralysis of our ‘parent’ nations (http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/books/becoming_europe_RErPSeqkADq4K7N1ZUhHiO):


...In one sense, to say that America is becoming like Europe seems odd. After all, when it comes to its dominant political ideas, religious culture, institutions and history, America is obviously Europe’s child.

That, however, is not what Europeanization means today. Instead it’s about the spread throughout America of economic expectations and arrangements directly at odds with our republic’s founding. These lead to the prioritizing of economic security over economic liberty; to the state annually consuming close to 50% of GDP; to the ultimate economic resource (i.e., people) aging and declining in numbers; to extensive regulation becoming the norm; and perhaps above all, to a situation in which economic incentives lie not in work, economic creativity and risk-taking, but rather in access to political power.

Unfortunately there’s a great deal of evidence suggesting America is slouching down the path to Western Europe. In practical terms, that means social-democratic economic policies: the same policies that have turned many Western European nations into a byword for persistently high unemployment, rigid labor markets, low-to-zero economic growth, out-of-control debt and welfare states, absurdly high tax levels, growing numbers of well-paid government workers, a near-obsession with economic equality at any cost and, above all, a stubborn refusal to accept that things simply can’t go on like this.

It’s very hard to deny similar trends are becoming part of America’s economic landscape....

A great European and honorary American citizen Winston Churchill once said: “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing — after they’ve tried everything else.” I hope and pray he’s still right.