After 40 years research on Authoritarian personalities, Robert Altemeyer has concluded that "militant authoritarianism has become a cancer upon the USA."
Why and how he has reached these conclusions is explained in detail in his book "THE AUTHORITARIANS", and what follows is an attempt to condense its 267 pages into a summary that can be read in half an hour or so.
Altemeyer labels people who have personalities that feature:
1) a high degree of submission to the established, legitimate authorities in their society;
2) high levels of aggression in the name of their authorities; and
3) a high level of conventionalism.
as RIGHT WING AUTHORITARIANS (RWAs).
["RIGHT" in this sense means "lawful, proper, correct, doing what the authorities say"]
In North America people who submit to the established authorities to extraordinary degrees often turn out to be political conservatives, so you can call them “right-wingers” in both Altemeyer's psychological sense and in the usual political sense as well.
But someone who lived in a country long ruled by Communists and who ardently supported the Communist Party and its leaders no matter what they did would also be a RWA even though we would also say he was political left-wing.
"Rightwing authoritarianism is a personality trait, like being characteristically bashful or happy or grumpy or dopey."
"You could have left-wing authoritarian followers as well, who support a revolutionary leader who wants to overthrow the establishment. 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. So when I speak of “authoritarian followers” in this book I mean right-wing authoritarian followers, as identified by the RWA scale."
Your score on Altemeyer's RWA depends on how strongly you agree (<+4) or disagree (>-4) with 22 statements such as:
- 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.
- Gays and lesbians are just as healthy and moral as anybody else.
- 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
- 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.
- 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
- There is absolutely nothing wrong with nudist camps.
- Our country will be destroyed someday if we do not smash the perversions eating away at our moral fiber and traditional beliefs
- Everyone should have their own lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences, even if it makes them different from everyone else.
- 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.
- 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..
- There is no “ONE right way” to live life; everybody has to create their own way.
and so on.
The theoretical maximum score is 180, and the minimum is 20.
Most North Americans score between 70 and 90. RWA's have significantly higher scores and Altemeyer distinguishes between low RWAs and High RWAs.
As you might expect, Altemeyer then found that High RWAs and Low RWAs had profoundly different responses when asked their views on issues such as
- a police burglary of a newspaper office to get confidential information.
- drug raids carried out without search warrants because judges wouldn’t give them.
- denial of right to assemble to peacefully protest government actions.
- “dirty tricks” played by a governing party on the opposition during an election.
- immigration office discrimination against radical speakers.
- placing agents provocateurs in organizations to create dissension and bad press relations.
- burning down the meeting place of a radical organization.
- unauthorized mail openings.
High RWAs ... 'seem to have a “Daddy and mommy know best” attitude toward the government. They do not see laws as social standards that apply to all. Instead, they appear to think that authorities are above the law, and can decide which laws apply to them and which do not--just as parents can when one is young....Such people "have bought their tickets and are standing in line waiting for 1984..."
Altemeyer has tested the validity of the RWA rankings in many ways over the decades. One chilling finding concerns their propensity for aggressive behaviour if High RWAs believe right and might are on their side. Moreover, Altemeyer notes that, authoritarian aggression often "happens in dark and cowardly ways, in the dark, by cowards who later will do everything they possibly can to avoid responsibility for what they did. Women, children, and others unable to defend themselves are typical victims. Even more striking, the attackers typically feel morally superior to the people they are assaulting in an unfair fight."
And it gets worse, Groups of High RWAs were recruited to play a "game" that simulated a series of confrontations between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. "The high RWAs on the other hand usually reacted to the opening Warsaw Pact moves aggressively, and sowed a whirlwind."
Over the course of the simulation, the high RWA teams made ten times as much threat as the low RWAs did, and usually brought the world to the brink of nuclear war." Admittedly, these were just simulations, but the implications are very alarming.
Recruiting 68 High RWAs to play the awareness-raising Global Change Game ( www.ourworld.ca/ow2002/gcgame.html ) resulted in the "simulated" deaths of over 9 Billion people in an all-against-all nuclear showdown. Even when given the chance to replay the game and change their decisions, the High RWAs, still went ahead with strategies that led to mutual annihilation.
As you might expect by now, High RWAs are comprehensively prejudiced against "outsiders"and "inferiors". They tend to strongly agree with statements such as
1. There are entirely too many people from the wrong sorts of places being
admitted into our country now.
2. Black people are, by their nature, more violent and “primitive” than others.
3. Jews cannot be trusted as much as other people can.
4. As a group, aboriginal people are naturally lazy, dishonest and lawless.
5. Arabs are too emotional, and they don’t fit in well in our country.
6. We have much to fear from the Japanese, who are as cruel as they are ambitious.
These are just some headlines from Altemeyer's book. The bottom line, says Altemeyer is that
"Probably about 20 to 25 percent of the adult American population is so right-wing authoritarian, so scared, so self-righteous, so ill-informed, and so dogmatic that nothing you say or do will change their minds. They would march America into a dictatorship and probably feel that things had improved as a result … they are not going to let up and they are not going to go away."
"Probably" in this context is the kind of scientifically-required caveat that atheists adopt in saying "There is probably no God."
AUTHORITARIAN LEADERS. AND THE SDO SCALE
People who are high on the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) scale agree that;
- This country would be better off if we cared less about how equal all people are.
- Some groups of people are simply not the equals of others.
- Some people are just more worthy than others.
- I don’t spend a lot of time feeling sorry for people less fortunate than me,
- I have a ‘tough’ attitude toward people having difficulty: That’s their problem, not mine.
- You know that most people are out to “screw” you, so you have to get them first when you get the chance.
- There is really no such thing as “right” and “wrong.” It all boils down to what you can get away with.
- One of the most useful skills a person should develop is how to look someone straight in the eye and lie convincingly.
- Basically, people are objects to be quietly and coolly manipulated for your own benefit.
- Deceit and cheating are justified when they get you what you really want.
- The best skill one can have is knowing the “right move at the right time”: when to “soft-sell” someone, when to be tough, when to flatter, when to threaten, when to bribe, etc.
- The best reason for belonging to a church is to project a good image and have contact with some of the important people in yourcommunity.
- There’s a sucker born every minute, and smart people learn how to take advantage of them.
- One of the best ways to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear.
- It is more important to create a good image of yourself in the minds of others than to actually be the person others think you are
High SDOs disagree with statements like
- Honesty is the best policy.
- If people were treated more equally, we would have fewer problems in this country.
- We should try to treat one another as equals as much as possible.
- I feel very sorry for people who are treated unfairly”
- I have a lot of compassion for people who have gotten the bad breaks in life.”
Altemeyer imagines a white person with a high SDO score meeting a white person with a High RWA score in a coffee shop. If they.. chat about African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Jews, Arabs, homosexuals, women’s rights, free enterprise,unions leaders, government waste, rampant socialism, the United Nations, and which political party to support in the next election, they are apt to find themselves in pleasant, virtual non-stop agreement.
High SDOs resemble High RWAs in that they tend to have conservative economic philosophies and favour right-wing political parties, but only a minority of High RWAs also have high SDO scores. The combination of the two scores produces ATHORITARIAN LEADERS.
And, of course, the combination of Authoritarian Leaders and High RWAs is a marriage made in (Right-wing) heaven.
The RWAs feel admiration bordering on adoration for High SDO/Authoritarian Leaders, while such leaders feel a certain contempt for their followers. They are the suckers, the “marks,” the fools that social dominators find so easy to manipulate.
Nor are Authoritarian Leaders afraid that civilization might collapse and lawlessness ensue. For them, laws, need not necessarily be obeyed, so long as you don't get caught. And in the amoral universe of most social dominators, they will speak of the righteousness of their cause, because that will reassure and motivate their followers. For both of them, however, might makes right.
The core beliefs of social dominators centre on the worship and pursuit of power, by any means fair or foul. Thus, they do not need to be attached to any particular cause or philosophy. Power-worship is enough.
It is not hard to see that there is a close match between the psychological drives of High SDO/Authoriarian Leaders and the Command and Control techniques that the UK Goverments PMMI seeks to impose on every branch of the public services.
Equally, the rigid ideological disciplines imposed by certain political parties on their members fits very well with Altemeyer's explanation of the fit between High RWAs and their High SDO leaders.
When people like John Seddon, W. Edwards Deming, try to help senior managers to change their ways of thinking so as to adopt participative systems-improvement strategies to improve their organisations' performance, they will never succeed when dealing with High SDOs. When senior executives try to spread the use of systems-thinking to imp-rove the performance of their organisations, they will encounter deep resistance and even sabotage from subordinates with High SDO personalities, although they will be told what they want to hear of course.
The consistency with which High SDOs and High RWAs openly lie, cheat and steal in simulation exercises is echoed in the behaviour of international corporations that flout environmental regulations, bribe politicians and regulatory officials, displace indigenous communities, collabore with para-militaries against trade unionists.
In The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, Joel Bakan describes the culture of trans-national corporations as 'psychotic' and High SDOs and RWAs would seem to be very well equipped to flourish in such organisations.
At the most extreme of both these groups are what Altemeyer calls "Double Highs": Dominating Authoritarian Personalities who have high scores on both the SDO and the RWA tests. There is a potential contradiction here because one test measures an
inclination to submit to authority and the other measures a drive to dominate. How can one be a submissive dominator?”
At one level aspiring dictators can score highly on the RWA scale when they see themselves as the obvious choice when “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.” An authoritarian follower wants to follow such a leader and authoritarian leaders visualise themselves in the role.
At a deeper level, Double Highs usually had a much more religious upbringing than other social dominators, or they may have “got religion” as adults. Simply put, they are “religious” social dominators. They thus respond to the religious content on the RWA scale which ordinary social dominators do not, and that helps make them Double Highs.
The prevalalence of typical Double High behaviours in the US Republican party since the mid-1970s and especially in Bush administration since 2000 leads Altemeyer to say that 'With their followers’ eager help, they’re ruining America.'
Politically, the Double Highs pose a particular threat because they are the consumate leaders of a readily-formed army of zealots longing for a great warrior. They come packaged as “one of our own,” one of the in-group. They not only share RWAs prejudices, economic philosophy, and political leanings, they also profess their religious views, and that can mean everything to high RWAs. They will have the credentials up front, and the phrase-dropping familiarity with the Bible to pass the test with flyingcolors. They’ll know the code words of the movement. They’ll appear to believe everything “all the good people” believe about Satan, being born again, evolution, the role of women, sex, abortion, school prayer, law and order, “perverts,” censorship, zealotry, holy wars, America-as-God’s-right -hand, and so on.
Given this head start,you can expect to find a Double High leading most of the right-wing authoritarian groups in North America, and working relentlessly and ruthlessly to gain power at every level from public school boards to the White House.
Thus, although they used every underhand trick they could to "steal" the 2000 election, Bush and his Cabinet never hesitated to do anything they and their cronies such as the The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and the oilocracy wanted. And so greed ruled, the rich got big, big tax cuts, the environment took one body blow after another, religious opinions decided scientific issues, the country went to war, so that Bush and his corporate allies could impose their will wherever they choce to do so.
Now Bush and his cronies have slunk away in disgrace and many think that President Obama offers the prospect of a profound change in what it means to be "American". Certainly we all hope so. But, it would be wise for all of us, whatever our nationality to heed Altemeyer concluding words.
The biggest problem we have now, in my view, is authoritarianism. It has
placed America at one of those historic cross-roads that will profoundly affect the rest of its history, and the future of our planet. The world deserves a much better America than the one it has seen lately. And so do Americans.
So what’s to be done right now? The social dominators and high RWAs
presently marshaling their forces for the next election in your county, state and country, are perfectly entitled to do what they’re doing. They have the right to organize, they have the right to proselytize, they have the right to select and work for candidates they like, they have the right to vote, they have the right to make sure folks who agree with them also vote.
If the people who are not social dominators and right-wing authoritarians want to have those same rights in the future, they, you, had better do those same things too, now. You do have the right to remain silent, but you’ll do so at everyone’s peril. You can’t sit these elections out and say “Politics is dirty; I’ll not be part of it,” or “Nothing can change the way things are done now.”
The social dominators want you to be disgusted with politics, they want you to feel hopeless, they want you out of their way. They want democracy to fail, they want your freedoms stricken, they want equality destroyed as a value, they want to control everything and everybody, they want it all. And they have an army of authoritarian followers marching with the militancy of “that old-time religion” on a crusade that will make it happen, if you let them.
