Tag Archives: american politics

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The Disease of Authoritarianism

                                A.I. Image

[There is justified concern that the Trump Administration is descending into authoritarian rule.  Without functioning constitutional guardrails he is able to exercise unfettered dominance and control. The current makeup of the Congress essentially means that only the courts can stop him from seizing illegitimate power. Few of us imagined we would one day descend to the perilous level of electing a rogue president.

We speak of Trump as an “authoritarian.” But the term applies equally to people looking for the psychological comfort of an “all the answers” leader. ]

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German academic T. W. Adorno was the lead researcher of the first major analysis of social conditions that give rise to populations overly enamored with authority figures.1 The researchers, some of whom had escaped from Europe at the start of World War II, traced the origins of a multitude of personality traits, including anti-Semitism, “susceptibility to antidemocratic propaganda,” ethnocentrism (judging others by one’s own values), and predispositions toward fascism. The rise of the Nazi Party and its wide acceptance even among well-educated Germans was the puzzle they wanted to solve.

Their questions are still relevant. Are certain kinds of citizens susceptible to appeals based on authority, especially “official” sources? Are some types of audiences too willing to ignore the natural ambiguities of everyday life in favor of the rigid ideological certainties of a demagogue? And what psychological needs are satisfied by cult-like allegiance is given to a leader? Think of any leader who sees their position as allowing the extra-legal extension of laws or institutions to punish perceived enemies.  In this view, one can ignore  constitutional mandates that would limit powers. The perceived need to purge alleged enemies is greater.

The original concept of authoritarianism focused equally on followers who are predisposed to submissive attitudes that mesh well with a dominating leader. A paper and pencil questionnaire called the F-Scale inventory probing for signs of “authoritarian submission” and “uncritical attitudes toward idealized moral authorities.” It consisted of claims, such as the ones listed below, to which a respondent would agree or disagree. Agreement gave a person a high F (Fascism) score.

“Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn.”
“Every person should have complete faith in some supernatural power whose decisions will be obeyed without question.”
“What this country needs most, more than laws and political programs, are a few courageous, tireless, devoted leaders in whom the people can put their faith.”

The researchers found that anti-Semitism, rigidity, ethnocentrism, and undue respect for power tended to cluster within many of the same people. They theorized that the clustering was tied to styles of family life. They also learned that authoritarianism can be identified in segments of almost any population. Some people may be psychologically hardwired to seek a “place” in a clearly defined social order led by a dominating leader.  In Congress, for example, many GOP members seem happy to relinquish their constitutional responsibilities in favor of the President.  Right now, few committees led by Republican chairpersons are engaged in what is usually the routine work of oversight of executive actions.

As a researcher on the psychology of identification, it seems evident that–with exceptions–authoritarians tend to have a diminished capacity for social intelligence. Low social intelligence typically includes low levels of empathy for others, lower self-esteem, low self-monitoring (an inability to notice how one’s own presence effects others), attraction to charismatic individuals, and an aversion to social complexity and pluralism.

Our quickly atomizing culture unfortunately feeds some of these traits. Recent election results are a reminder that many among us want simple and magical answers to entrenched problems: all the better if the explanations include scapegoating others. We have lived through a seemingly endless number of false alternate narratives told and retold about stolen elections, pedophile Washington elites, dead voters who managed to cast ballots, or Social Security cheats. Presently the political right finds receptive citizens  with similar fears. Low-knowledge voters–and there are many–don’t have enough solid information to quell their imaginations. As a nation we need to get a whole lot smarter about weighing the claims of leaders who are willing to trade the complexities of modern life for dubious certainties.

1The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper and Row, 1950.
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Wondering What We Have Become

More than we may want to acknowledge, a large segment of the society is comfortable buying what Donald Trump is selling.

In a recent opinion piece in the New York Times Columnist Carlos Lozada wrote that “throughout Trump’s life, he has embodied every national fascination: money and greed in the 1980s, sex scandals in the 1990s, reality television in the 2000s, social media in the 2010s. Why wouldn’t we deserve him now?” Lozada notes that “the tragedy is not that this election has taken us back, but that it shows how there are parts of America’s history that we’ve never fully gotten past.”

G 7 meeting june10 2018 Jesco Densel photographer

The same view is quietly expressed in peer nations. Many believe we live in a culture awash in sensation-seeking and shallow pursuits. Even a sober friend of the U.S., former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, wonders what is going on. She expressed “sorrow” at Trump’s election because of her own experiences in his presence at international meetings. “He was obviously very fascinated by the Russian president,” she wrote in her new memoirs. “I had the impression that politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits captivated him.“ She also recalls the telling incident when he refused to shake her hand: an early clue to his basic rudeness. His aberrant behavior then was less focused on how the international community might solve common problems and more on the chances to exploit them.

The grifter is a familiar sometimes admired American type. More than we want to acknowledge, the avaricious President-elect is more like us than we might admit.

At its worst, American culture has shrunk from the idea of the common good or acceptance of the values and actions of humane and shared power. Our cultural interests seem to have narrowed to the shorter purview of how politics affects the acquisition of things or experiences. We may be comfortable, but we resent those who have even more. Hence, the price of gasoline matters more than attempts to mitigate the effects of its overuse. And vacationing like a prince can occur in the absence of awareness of basic realities like the monstrous American carbon footprint. According to the World Bank, the U.S. is far ahead of other nations in per capita consumption, doubling the rates of other peer states like France and those of Scandinavia. The idea of sufficiency doesn’t really apply. We have more clearly turned ourselves into exuberant materialists.

In the process of trying to purchase our way to a Mar-a-Lago of comforts, our older children now acquire huge amounts of consumer debt, most Americans drive fat cars, and cities are designed to accommodate them. Black Friday and Cyber Monday seem to have become national holidays for expressing our accumulated abundance. Many have forgotten the collective values once fostered by presidents, including sacrifice for the good of other democracies, or honoring our birthright commitment to accept new arrivals. As Lozada notes, in America there is “a long tradition of xenophobia — against Southern Europeans, against newcomers from Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.”  Under the next President this embedded habit is in danger of becoming a core American principle.

Beyond of love of things, where is the compensating consciousness of the nation’s giants of art and literature? The first Trump White House was mostly a no-go zone for concerts. I suspect the Scottish and Italians have a better collective awareness of titans in their shared past. The Japanese, British and Swedes seem to be ahead of us in protecting their nations’ natural assets. Even the simple pleasures of using nearby public spaces seem overlooked, with many localities barely providing basic amenities like sidewalks or housing for the destitute. In economist Kenneth Galbraith’s words, our mantra seems to be to amass “private wealth” even at the expense of “public squalor.”

Of course broad generalizations are subject to many exceptions. “We” can only be a suggestive pronoun when broadened to represent an entire culture. And the U.S. covers a large part of an entire continent. But 63 million Americans voted for Trump in 2016, and a commanding 76 million this time around. His bluster and fakery does not represent everyone. But many accept his forged identity as an achiever and a builder. As Daniel Boorstin noted long ago, America is the natural home of the “man on the make:” the striver who delivers more bluster than truth about achieving material success. With our now ominous avoidance of serious cultural ideas and ideals, more of us are willing to rely on the thinest of impressions to  to buy what Trump is selling.