|
|
Home | Switchboard | Unix Administration | Red Hat | TCP/IP Networks | Neoliberalism | Toxic Managers |
| (slightly skeptical) Educational society promoting "Back to basics" movement against IT overcomplexity and bastardization of classic Unix | |||||||
|
|
|
|
Have you got an ‘authoritarian personality’?
Many try and intellectualize what makes a person become naturally attracted to ideologies or religions that demand allegiance to a strong dictator figure or authority. What makes someone voluntarily join such an organization?
If you study sociology or politics then you might have heard of Theodor Adorno, the main theorist of the Marxist Frankfurt School. He was one of a number of Jewish Marxist intellectuals who found themselves as exiles in the US during and after WW II.
Much of their work tried to explain the rise of fascism in Europe. Adorno’s most famous work, The Authoritarian Personality was yet another attempt to merge Freud with Marx. The results, I think, were a bit of a dog’s dinner (something to do with your relationship with your dad, or something) but very influential for a while.
Some people have tried to explain the rise of religious fundamentalism (and suicide bombing) using Adorno’s method.
So, are you a possible suicide bomber or fascist? Have you got a personality that desires a strong hand to guide you, as it were? Do you love Big Brother?
Take the F-scale test here and find out.
Warning: some of the questions are a bit odd.
Latest attempt to refine specific personality came from Conservatives Without Conscience
Amazon.com
In "Conservatives Without Conscience," author John Dean makes the observation that seemingly good people will do unconscionable even criminal acts, and put their consciences aside without guilt. Dean wants to know why, and he provides a hypothesis to explain why some will lead people in this direction, and explain why others are willing to follow them.
The author may be well-suited for such a task. As White House Counsel to President Richard M. Nixon, and an admitted Barry Goldwater conservative, he was surrounded by the Watergate Investigation, in which White House staffers conducted burglary, perjury, obstruction of justice, and other crimes, or knew of them, or concealed them, all in the name of their leader, Richard Nixon.
John Dean relies heavily on the work of a social psychologist, Dr. Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba, who has done much work on the theory of authoritarianism. According to Dean, Altemeyer's work in this area has been officially recognized, and he is considered an expert in the field.
Dr Altemeyer categorizes authoritarians as followers and leaders to varying degrees. What he also found was that authoritarians are likely to maintain certain beliefs about themselves which include a deep belief in God, patriotic, conservative, and see themselves as being more moral, ethical, honest, and better people than others in general. Their behavior however, is likely to be less honest, loyal or ethical than others.
Dean attempts to apply this to our modern day politicians of whom he is very selective. He finds a match between Altemeyer's theories and list of traits in people like Dick Cheney whom he contends is the real president, George W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, Bill Frist, Tom Delay and others.
The author provides plenty of anecdotal evidence to support his hypothesis: the president's signing statements, the secret meetings that are withheld from the public because of national security, George Bush's comments: "A dictatorship wouldn't be bad, just so long as I'm the dictator," or "I'm the decider." Newt Gingrich's ability to discard friends once he no longer finds them useful, and of course, Tom Delay who changed the rules of congress, where subterfuge and heavy-handed tactics have replaced debate, discussion, and compromise.
Because of the abiding belief in their leaders, authoritarian followers will put their scruples aside, for the greater good. Examples of these followers were: Attorney General, John Mitchell, G. Gordon Liddy, Paul Ehrichman, H.R. Haldeman, and Charles Colson during the Nixon administration. According to Dean, their modern day counterparts are members of Congress, cabinet secretaries who serve at the pleasure of the president, and millions of others who believe that patriotic Americans are leading them.
The reader should keep in mind that the author is attempting to prove a thesis here but offers no scientific evidence. It does not prove that all the people described earlier fit neatly in this authoritarian theory, nor can it explain their behavior with any certainty.
The one part of this book that is unquestionable is Dean's assertion that Americans must participate in their democratic form of government if it is to succeed. It cannot be simply observed or ignored. If it is, authoritarians will pick it up and take it away. Dean warns that we haven't lost it yet, but we are losing it day by day.
I recommend this book (after the first chapter) because it provided another way for me to look at family members and acquaintances whose rabid or knee-jerk loyalty for anything conservative I could not explain.
At least, now I have an explanation.
Society
Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers : Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy
Quotes
War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes : Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce : Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes
Bulletin:
Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law
History:
Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds : Larry Wall : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS : Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development : Scripting Languages : Perl history : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history
Classic books:
The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month : How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite
Most popular humor pages:
Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor
The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D
Copyright © 1996-2021 by Softpanorama Society. www.softpanorama.org was initially created as a service to the (now defunct) UN Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) without any remuneration. This document is an industrial compilation designed and created exclusively for educational use and is distributed under the Softpanorama Content License. Original materials copyright belong to respective owners. Quotes are made for educational purposes only in compliance with the fair use doctrine.
FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to advance understanding of computer science, IT technology, economic, scientific, and social issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided by section 107 of the US Copyright Law according to which such material can be distributed without profit exclusively for research and educational purposes.
This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site written by people for whom English is not a native language. Grammar and spelling errors should be expected. The site contain some broken links as it develops like a living tree...
|
|
You can use PayPal to to buy a cup of coffee for authors of this site |
Disclaimer:
The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or referenced source) and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the Softpanorama society. We do not warrant the correctness of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without Javascript.
Last modified: March, 12, 2019
