Maybe Authoritarianism Is What It's All About
Posted by CircuitGuy 6 years, 9 months ago to Politics
[Repost to correct error in title.] I see most mainstream politicians and are not that radically different. They accept a bipartisan consensus of the government managing things, taking responsibility for the economy, and gov't spending remaining a big fraction of GDP. So when I read about a bitter partisan divide, I'm baffled. I just don't get why anyone is so fired up. This article in the NYT says it's because of levels of authoritarianism. I'm not of this answer, but it's better than any others I've heard. If I'm right, politicians are convincing people to hat one another over minor personality differences. The article quotes a paper titled Idealogues Without Issues. I love that title. "The three authors use a long-established authoritarian scale — based on four survey questions about which childhood traits parents would like to see in their offspring — that asks voters to choose between independence or respect for their elders; curiosity or good manners; self-reliance or obedience; and being considerate or well-behaved. Those respondents who choose respect for elders, good manners, obedience and being well-behaved are rated more authoritarian. "The power behind the labels “liberal” and “conservative” to predict strong preferences for the ideological in-group is based largely in the social identification with those groups, not in the organization of attitudes associated with the labels. That is, even when we are discussing ideology — a presumably issue-based concept — we are not entirely discussing issues. "Identity-based ideology can drive affective ideological polarization even when individuals are naïve about policy. The passion and prejudice with which we approach politics is driven not only by what we think, but also powerfully by who we think we are." Affective means emotionally driven. I had to look it up.
I even tried to re-read the article thinking about the content as if it was published by an independent un-biased source. It was impossible. It is filled with biased statements without any objective support.
As for the "long-established authoritarian scale"? Who "established" it and when did it become accepted by peer review? Frankly the questions are total horse poo and are ignoring reality. Judging everyone and labeling them with a biased connoted label on 4 puny unrealistic question? The only person who could take that seriously is one who wants to support an irrational premise without any objective evidence.
CG, your comments on it are much more interesting and are intellectually honest, unlike the puerile article itself.
" Authoritarianism, Social Dominance, and Generalized Prejudice: A proposal to continue studying Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation in the 2016 ANES Times Series" http://www.electionstudies.org/online...
"The child-rearing questions are deceptively simple — just those four pairs of words in the first paragraph of this story. Is it more important for a child to have independence, or respect for elders? Obedience or self reliance? Curiosity, or good manners? Being considerate, or well behaved? " -- https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-02-2...
Establishment Republicans and Democrats have been drifting toward the all powerful state, which is why the indivdualists in the Tea Party created an uprising among conservatives. Establishment Democrats have drifted so far toward socialism and overbearing state control that the Communist Party of the USA has embraced Democrat candidates for President, rather than field their own. Electing Trump was a rebellion against an authoritarian state. People recognized he would likely be somewhat of a bull in the Washington china shop, but felt it was necessary to loosen the ever tightening grip of establishment parties.
Trump is doing nothing for individual freedom. Whatever he temporarily does that is good for the economy in some way despite his statism and unpredictability is an accident drowned in the combination of his bad policies and the downward, collectivist, authoritarian trend of the country. His anti-intellectual emotional shoot-from the hip thinking is adding to that. Range of the moment 'man on the white horse' and "'purists' shut up" does not help.
Some of what he does happens to be good and some not, but none of the good has been motivated by supporting the rights of the individual. It's all about what he emotionally decrees as best for a collective economy.
And that's my mean old grump for the day. Now I'll go searching once more for unicorns and rainbows.
A false major premise helps explain why: "Those respondents who choose respect for elders, good manners, obedience and being well-behaved are rated more authoritarian", as selected from the false alternatives of children with "independence or respect for their elders; curiosity or good manners; self-reliance or obedience; and being considerate or well-behaved." Equating well-behaved children with "authoritarian" while implying that the four choices for children are mutually exclusive explains how the left can pretend that ANTIFA and Clinton are "not authoritarian".
BTW, is there an error in "The election of Donald Trump has created""
The election did not "create" an "authoritarian moment". Trump has been authoritarian all along and so has politics before his election. Only the style of openly anti-intellectual, loutish rhetoric has become worse. As the "man on the white horse" claimed to save us from the authoritarian swamp he and his supporters are only further entrenching it. It isn't "built on several long-term trends that converged"; it is the trend. It's also contrary to the tea party movement, much of which has supported it.
"It's also contrary to the tea party movement, much of which has supported it."
Why do you say the tea party movement is contrary to authoritarianism yet supporting authoritarianism?
I am tired of inadequate proofreading! And I am finished with wasting my time trying to figure out what the author meant to say. You are being very rude to your readers not to take the time to read over your post before posting it!
Yes. I say the Constitution is broken; it doesn't have teeth to limit gov't. ewv will say no document can have teeth. It depends on the philosophy of the people.
I wish there were some amazing communicator who could broker some great agreement to limit gov't. That's probably the person-on-a-white-horse wish.
I don't see an obvious path to reducing gov't size/intrusiveness.
Ayn Rand did that but could not do it all alone or all at once, which is why she spent the last couple of decades of her life after publishing Atlas Shrugged publicly speaking and writing on non-fiction -- in defense and explanation of her philosophy -- and on contemporary trends. She urged that those who agreed with her ideas go into the professions where they could spread and apply them. Understanding that and what is required is far more and much different than the emotional conservatives running around with their inconsistencies, believing their slogans about tradition and faith will make any improvements as they undermine reason and egoism as required for political freedom and pursuit of happiness.
I said since he was a candidate he was a Rorschach blot that people see their desired policies in. I suppose that's true for any good politician or showman.
After he was elected, I decided he was just attention seeking. I also think he may or may not have some kind of problem with drugs/alcohol. In any case, he seems to say one thing and then contradict himself, for not reason. It's not like he caved to political pressure. He just runs is mouth without thinking.
I used to think things like this, and I came to see him as random. Does he want US to spend less on defense of NATO countries? When does he believe in deal-making protectionism and when does he believe in letting market participants alone? Should PATRIOT Act powers be reduced? Should the fed encourage, discourage, or stay out of asset forfeiture? Should the Fed adopt a tighter monetary policy?
He doesn't know or care? He never thought about it. He just knows what gets morbid attention. He knows what to put on an infomercial to make someone stop channel surfing to gawk.
His critics and supporters alike speculate on how it could all be head-fakes in some complicated chess game. They think he went along with increasing deficits because that was the one move all the career politicians didn't leave covered. They think his lurid tweets are timed to cover up politically unpopular policies.
I can't rule the idea that he's smarter than his public persona, but I don't see evidence of it.
I think he wants free trade, but he wants all around free trade. His duty ideas are a negotiating tactic which may yet work, who knows. If he just caves and leaves the tariffs there, I would say he caved to the idea of getting more money for the government.
He totally caved on Patriot act powers, and going after Snowden (I expected him to pardon snowden and let him come back to the USA and help to protect us FROM the government)
He wanted to get rid of DACA, but eventually caved to allow even 18 million of potential DACA people stay. Even that was not enough caving to enable him to get anywhere.
I would say that the entire system is fu&k$% up. If trump cant protect our freedoms, even a little bit, this country isnt going to be saved from collectivism. Look to Venezuela, as we are going there fast.
I'm not saying he did not take action. I'm saying he does not know or care what he thinks about policy ideas. He cares about attention, which comes in the form of "winning", making people angry, or making people look bad. His policy idea on healthcare was PPACA was awful, and he was going to replace it with something similar but much more effective. He said it turned out creating such a program was complicated. "Who knew?" he said.
"he wants all around free trade. His duty ideas are a negotiating tactic"
This is one issue that he's been consistent on and followed through. He doesn't want free tree. He wants protectionism, or what protectionists call "fair trade". I disagree so strongly with protectionism that I find it hard to evaluate him on this. In general, I think this is one example of him having an actual policy idea, and he followed through on it.
"caved on Patriot act powers,"
You think he has an opinion on this and he's going against his opinion for political reasons?
"He wanted to get rid of DACA"
I'm less than knowledgeable about this. It seems to me like he had the reasonable position that he wanted to Congress to address it because that's what the Constitution requires. I didn't follow the ups and downs, but it seems like he started out campaigning on really stupid racist arguments. Then he seemed to be saying Congress should act. Then I heard he was going work with them not only to DACA but on a path to citizenship for millions of people who are here illegally. Then he bounced back to the mindless racists crap. Democrats jumped on at the first sign of he implied racism, as if they wanted the "issue" more than to resolve the problem of 15 million people living here illegally.. And nothing gets done. We're back to the same policy of looking the other way.
"If trump cant protect our freedoms, even a little bit, this country isn't going to be saved from collectivism. "
I hope you're wrong about this because I am confident President Trump cannot protect freedoms. He campaigned on breaking the law. In a debate when the moderator said something he proposed was against the law and Constitution, he said he'd get 'em to do it, not that he would work with Congress to get a law the courts find constitutional; just that he's a strongman negotiator who can get people do operate outside the law. He's the very opposite of protecting freedoms.
I am counting on other things to reduce collectivism. There're very few politicians running on this, so it won't come from the top down. It has to come from people telling the Congressmen to remember individual freedoms on issues as they arise.
So he is realizing he really can’t accomplish much of the swamp draining he promised. The establishment doesn’t want it drained
I don’t like protectionism. If he isn’t doing a tactic, I disapprove totally
I think he is pandering and weakening his positions in hopes of keeping some majority in 2018. Too bad but I say he is realizing the establishment is winning
All he can do is slow down the spread of collectivism with his veto
I don’t hold out much home for the country at this point. It will become another Venezuela before there’s any chance of change
I further claim that neither party is actually significantly less likely to send our young people to war or to threaten anyone who's worked hard by borrowing and spending.
We're supposedly very divided, but most politicians agree US gov't will stay large and intrusive. So then I come "what's this all about?"
The article offers one possible solution. Maybe it's people's orientation on issues like those four questions. Politicians find ways to exploit those differences and turn people against their neighbors. Politicians tell people who have no problem with one another for valuing curiosity or good manners that they should hate each other.
Keeping us in fear of each other for no rational reason is their best hope to maintain power.
Government does nothing well and when it fails just steals more from us.
Both parties are run by looters. At the bottom grassroots level both parties have good people who are somewhat brainwashed to be afraid of the imagined enemy that is never the government.
Yes. They no longer explicitly save if it saves one child, but that that's the idea. If the premise is anything is justified by saving one child, you can justify imprisoning everyone.
"There are authoritarians across the political spectrum, and political scientist Marc Hetherington found that in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, authoritarians favored Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama.
"Hetherington, who with fellow political scientist Jonathan Weiler wrote the book Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics, has also found that over the past couple of decades, authoritarians have moved steadily from the Democratic to the Republican party, as Democrats stood up for gay rights, immigrant rights, civil rights and other forms of freedom and equality. -- https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-02-2...