- … [those] That scoring high on the scale of authoritarianism, agree that (trained words are direct quotes from the scale) Our country needs a powerful leader; that the leader should destroy Opponents; that people should trust the judgment of the right authorities, Don’t listen to Noisy mob in our society who try to create doubts in the heads of people, a number of heavy leaders put into power who oppose those values and silence the problem makers, And break the beliefs of opponents; That What our country needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush the evil; That society should punish Those with whom they disagree. They also deny that an opponent is entitled to Be where he or she wants to beand support the explanation that the country would be better off if certain groups Would just keep his mouth shut and accept the right place of their group in society.
- – Luke Conway, Liberal bullies: which psychology teaches us about the authoritarian problem of the left – and how to solve itP. 160
In the aftermath of the Second World War, psychologists developed the theory that there is an authoritarian personality type. They wanted to understand the support for fascism in their time, and they assumed that authoritarianism was a characteristic of people with right -wing political beliefs.
Psychologists eventually came to a scale that could be measured with the help of a questionnaire. Someone who scores high on the authoritarian scale will have an answer to a conviction that bad people must be checked, suppressed and punished.
What Conway and others have discovered is that high-scorers are on the authoritarian scale on both the political left and on the right. They are further dug to try to understand the authoritarian personality.
Authoritarians tend to show what Conway evokes Intellectual apathy. When they get a somewhat challenging mental practice (have nothing to do with politics), they tend to answer quickly, without the patience to find the correct answer. They have cognitive stiffness.
- Persons with high rigidity ignore evidence and rational argument; Instead, they focus on lazy, quick and easy heuristics that are not functionally relevant to the argument itself. P. 54
Conway argues that intellectual apathy and cognitive stiffness are contagious to a certain extent. Part of this is unconscious imitation. However, it can also be due to authoritarian repression of deviating opinions. People just accept that it is wrong to question established stories.
- Why would you take the trouble to listen to the arguments of your opponents if you can easily ignore them, knowing that they will be punished by an authority figure sooner or later? P. 59
Another authoritarian feature is an obsession with wrong information. Conway attributes this to an inability to handle ambiguity. In practice, many issues such as whether Covid came from a Lablek or originated naturally, are disputable. Freedom of expression is necessary to get people the chance to get to the best approach to the truth. Someone who cannot tolerate ambiguity responds to disputable situations by trying to close opposing views and label them as wrong information.
- Authoritarians real, Real Not of uncertainty. The non -keeping of ambiguous ideas; They don’t like ambiguous poems; Heck, they don’t even like ambiguous Photos. P. 85
Conway quotes a study that demonstrated that people on a political left or political right who have a low tolerance for uncertainty in a more polarized way respond to political debate. Another study, which looked at the extent to which people admitted “mixed feelings” about a subject, discovered that liberals were actually less likely than conservatives to manifest ambivalence.
‘[P]Eople who cannot tolerate uncertainty is not only intolerant for what they regard as incorrect information. They are more susceptible to believe self -information. ‘
He points out that people who cannot tolerate uncertainty are not just intolerant of what they regard as incorrect information. They are more susceptible to believe self -information.
Conway argues that another feature of authoritarian is the use of double standards. They overlook authoritarian behavior on their own side and accuse the “other” side of authoritarianism for lesser violations.
Another feature of authoritarian is what Conway shouts simplicity.
- We have done a linguistic analysis of more than 6,000 people who use many different language variables themselves, and for both left and right-wing tires, simple language was one of the most consistent predictors of authoritarianism. P. 128
What to do about authoritarianism? Conway says that it is obvious answer to combat intellectual apathy, intolerance of ambiguity and other characteristics of the authoritarian.
He argues that many people, perhaps most, neither strongly authoritarian nor anti-authoritarian. Unfortunately, these moderate people often find it easier to go with the authoritarian instead of hiring them. I wonder if moderates who are not willing to stand up for professors with unpopular points of view, allow radical authoritarianism to be found at university campuses today.
Conway says that resistance to authoritarianism can be self -destructive if it takes care of authoritarian forms. I think this was shown in the late stages of the US presidential elections of 2024, which took place a few months after his book appeared. In October, both parties made statements that sounded authoritarian on the other side.
Asks conway,
- Do you want the temporary satisfaction to crush your enemies or do you want your children to grow up in a free society? Because in the end you can’t have both. P. 239
In his final chapter, Conway offers a set of six principles for combating authoritarianism. These principles, such as ‘win Siervly’, considered me vague and general.
What I was waiting for was a way to apply The insights of personality psychology. If authoritarianism is something that is ingrained in a person’s personality, then suggests that to stay free, we have to make a determined attempt to identify and ward off authorists.
For more information about these topics, see
Conway seems to lean in the direction of believing that authoritarianism arises in people based on social context. If so, how can we guide people away from intellectual apathy, intolerance for ambiguity and tribal double standards? It seems to me that this used to be the position of education, especially higher education. That rich is where things have gone very wrong, and where we should concentrate if we want to repair things.
Footnotes
[1] Luke Conway, Liberal bullies: which psychology teaches us about the authoritarian problem of the left – and how to solve it. PitchStone Publishing, 2024.
[2] Fifteen years ago Jonah Goldberg wrote Liberal fascism, in which he pointed out that in the 1920s liberalism and fascism resembled each other. Conway does not seem to be aware of the book of Goldberg. Goldberg undoubtedly provided the attraction of progressive ideology to someone with an authoritarian personality. You are very welcome to go back and read my review, although it is not one that I am particularly proud of. Available online via the Wayback archivefrom TCS Daily, January 23, 2008.