Monday, January 12, 2015

Fighting Authoritarianism

Bullying and "Right Wing Authoritarian" behavior aren't confined to right wingers, but is a primary issue in American Politics and one we have to combat rationally. Anyone following my series on Social Dominance and Right Wing authoritarian behavior knows that the attributes of RW people are that they are:

Authoritarian Followers

Authoritarian Followers are:
A. highly submissive to established authority,
B. aggressive in the name of that authority,and
C. conventional to the point of insisting everyone should behave as their authorities decide.
The described behaviors include:
Illogical thinking
Compartmentalization
Double Standards
Hypocrisy
Self Blindness
Ethnocentrism
Dogmatism

Social Dominators

And that the people they submit to are usually high scoring on "Social Dominator scales" which basically translate to "Exploitive Manipulative Amoral Dishonesty (EMAD)" behavior. The studies describe hierarchy formation, pecking order behavior, discrimination, oppression and bullying in society. None of the material is that new and all of it derives from studies that date to the 40's when behavioral scientists were trying to understand the madness of Totalitarianism, especially the Nazis. In addition to studying the appearance of the phenomena the studies also try to describe how that behavior is produced.

Pecking Orders

Essentially, what social dominance and submissive authoritarian behavior produce is a Pecking Order:

In a pecking order the top rooster dominates, pecks at, bullies and rules the roost. And the increasingly submissive and frightened chickens down the hierarchy suffer bullying, pecking, clawing, and ultimately an early death from the hierarchy. We eat the Chicken Chickens. Dominating animals (or people) pick on everyone with lower rank than they have. And the members of the hierarchy enforce the hierarchy by punishing any animals (or people) who don't "know their place." Authoritarianism is essentially an ideology based on Chicken hierarchies.

If we want to do something about it, then we have to learn what produces that behavior and what to do about it.

Two kinds of enemies to peace

The studies show that there are two kinds of people involved in authoritarianism, totalitarianism and oppression. One kind are the enablers and followers. The other kind are the alphas who lead them. Combatting the behavior of authoritarians means fighting two very different styles of thinking and reacting to the environment. Which means that if we are to produce a better governed society we have to have at least two prongs on our forks for fighting Authoritarianism. On the one hand we have to have tactics that encourage ordinary people to question and stand up to authority (A), reduce the fear that causes the "aggression in the name of that authority (B), and that encourages folks to be less afraid of the unconventional and more accepting of diversity (C). Dealing with authoritarian followers requires we find ways to get them to shift allegiance from Conniving dishonest leaders to people with genuine moral authority. That requires us to fight fear and hatred, false myths and.... At the same time we have to deal with the exploitive, manipulative, immoral (forget amoral) and dishonest people who lead them.

Authoritarian followers require one kind of strategy, but the EMAD leaders require a very different one.

Authoritarian Followers
Require confidence building, "getting to know you", "Kumbaya", getting folks together and talking type behavior. As well as efforts to combat nasty myths with more positive narratives. Unfortunately dealing with the followers requires defeating the manipulative scoundrels who they trust and followers and that requires a different kind of strategy.
Fighting EMADmen (Exploitive, Manipulative, Amoral, Dishonest) Authorities
There is no authoritarianism without such authorities. The real thing depends on expertise and confidence in what they are doing. But the authoritarian leader exudes confidence and pretend expertise on the subjects he dominates. Followers and manipulators alike will engage in mental gymnastics, defamation, sophism, but the manipulators know they are lying and the followers are usually just in profound denial about the truth out of fear of the "Other" and/or misplaced loyalty to authorities who claim to know how to herd them through troubles. That the shepherds are herding them over cliffs or to the slaughter never occurs to the follower.

Two different strategies that have to combine.
Thus if one can compromise and work with the Authoritarian Followers to calm their fears and get their brains engaged one must first overcome their blind attachment to their leadership. And that is not easy. Sometimes the leaders themselves can be won over, but first we have to be aware that they won't be won over by reason. It has to be self interest.

Anyway. I'm still working on this subject, but I wanted to state the bald outlines.

Refer to:http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/01/understanding-social-dominance-theory.html

Also read this article from "Raw Story:"

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/conservatives-fear-center-brain/
Not sure if the large fear center is a response to continual fear, or something genetic. Probably a "mind/body, genetics/nurture" thing with all four elements involved. Probably some folks are more prone to grow their fear centers in response to constant fear-mongering due to genetics. I suspect people with same genetics can be conditioned to respond to fear that way.

From Above article about fear response:

"A study at University College London in the UK has found that conservatives’ brains have larger amygdalas than the brains of liberals. Amygdalas are responsible for fear and other “primitive” emotions. At the same time, conservatives’ brains were also found to have a smaller anterior cingulate — the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism." [Raw Story]

And:

“It is very significant because it does suggest there is something about political attitudes that are either encoded in our brain structure through our experience or that our brain structure in some way determines or results in our political attitudes,” [Raw Story]

Genetic study:

"researchers at Harvard and UC-San Diego found that a variant of the DRD4 gene predisposes people to being liberal, but only if they had active social lives as adolescents. The “liberal gene” has also been linked to a desire to try new things, and other “personality traits related to political liberalism.”" [Raw Story]

Thursday, January 8, 2015

The Collective in the Federalist Papers

Introduction

There are too many references to the "collective" in the Federalist papers [I counted 26] for me to do anything but laugh when I hear the sophistry of the Randian types in their collective equation of collective and democracy and the collective animosity of insults aimed at the concept of collective action. Now the collective in their writings is an ideology, but that is a strawman because we Americans have never seen our government as a false choice between collective and individual except under the influence of foreign writers like Rand or Nietzche. To prepare for this post I downloaded the entire Federalist papers in text form so I could do word searches and word counts. I counted 26 references to collective and collective actions in the Federalist Papers. I would prefer to go into a detailed explanation of each of the references in context. But for this post I'll try to cover all 26. This is for future reference so don't stress too much in reading it.

Collective Action is also a plea for Unity

In Federalist 6 is the first reference to Collective. It's part of a plea for Union versus chaos titled:

Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States For the Independent Journal.

In it he writes, admittedly warning of the dangers of collective animosity:
"The causes of hostility among nations are innumerable. There are some which have a general and almost constant operation upon the collective bodies of society. Of this description are the love of power or the desire of pre-eminence and dominion--the jealousy of power, or the desire of equality and safety."
In Federalist 9, continuing his theme of "The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection For the Independent Journal", Hamilton refers to the artificial and arbitrary distinction:

"A distinction, more subtle than accurate, has been raised between a CONFEDERACY and a CONSOLIDATION of the States. The essential characteristic of the first is said to be, the restriction of its authority to the members in their collective capacities, without reaching to the individuals of whom they are composed. It is contended that the national council ought to have no concern with any object of internal administration. An exact equality of suffrage between the members has also been insisted upon as a leading feature of a confederate government. These positions are, in the main, arbitrary; they are supported neither by principle nor precedent."

You see echoes of this argument in current debates, where "States-Rights" proponents suggest that the Federal Government only be responsible for those responsibilities of government that are the jurisdiction of the country as a whole "in their collective capacity." As he notes the distinction between what is enumerated as a collective responsibility and what is or ought to be left to the States on their own is "in the main, arbitrary." This passage supports notion that whatever is in the general interest of the United States should be addressed in the capacity of the United States as a collective. That doesn't mean we ought not to adjust the constitution to spell out the respective roles of Local communities, states and Federal government.

In Federalist 15 "The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union"

Hamilton does inveigh against;

"The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing Confederation is in the principle of LEGISLATION for STATES or GOVERNMENTS, in their CORPORATE or COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as contradistinguished from the INDIVIDUALS of which they consist."

This quote comes close to supporting a civil liberties position, but since most Libertarians are blind to the meaning of the term "corporate" in this context, it is stating a common principle of our commonwealth that all our rights and privileges are there to protect our rights and happiness as individuals. This was true of the Articles of Confederation, and those great pretend Civil Libertarians of the Right would shift individual rights to corporate or property rights of the "right peopel" (aristocrats) now. SCOTUS does this when it defines Corporations as people with more rights than natural persons.

Hamilton also makes an appeal to the rule of law that shows how we transfer power to individual rights and responsibility to obey the law by shifting guilt for breaches to the individual through the use of courts. I'm taking the liberty of providing the whole quote again because I love it so and it is so important to know:

"Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation."

We are seeing the fruit of this with the misbehavior of those standing Armies we call police forces at the current time.

"This penalty, whatever it may be, can only be inflicted in two ways: by the agency of the courts and ministers of justice, or by military force; by the COERCION of the magistracy, or by the COERCION of arms. The first kind can evidently apply only to men; the last kind must of necessity, be employed against bodies politic, or communities, or States. It is evident that there is no process of a court by which the observance of the laws can, in the last resort, be enforced."

He's saying that courts need to have the power to act against individuals and enforce their decrees. But that judges are far less likely to employ armies to enforce the law. Indeed most courts are dependent on the executive.

"Sentences may be denounced against them for violations of their duty; but these sentences can only be carried into execution by the sword. In an association where the general authority is confined to the collective bodies of the communities, that compose it, every breach of the laws must involve a state of war; and military execution must become the only instrument of civil obedience. Such a state of things can certainly not deserve the name of government, nor would any prudent man choose to commit his happiness to it.

Hamilton is referring to Governments versus Governments and is making a recommendation for the principle that no person (including magistrates and their executive authority) be above the law. That is an individual duty and an important principle of a republic. But he's also warning of the consequences of governmental offices having impunity.

He continues in Federalist 16 referencing the collective:

"It seems to require no pains to prove that the States ought not to prefer a national Constitution which could only be kept in motion by the instrumentality of a large army continually on foot to execute the ordinary requisitions or decrees of the government. And yet this is the plain alternative involved by those who wish to deny it the power of extending its operations to individuals. Such a scheme, if practicable at all, would instantly degenerate into a military despotism; but it will be found in every light impracticable. The resources of the Union would not be equal to the maintenance of an army considerable enough to confine the larger States within the limits of their duty; nor would the means ever be furnished of forming such an army in the first instance. Whoever considers the populousness and strength of several of these States singly at the present juncture, and looks forward to what they will become, even at the distance of half a century, will at once dismiss as idle and visionary any scheme which aims at regulating their movements by laws to operate upon them in their collective capacities, and to be executed by a coercion applicable to them in the same capacities. A project of this kind is little less romantic than the monster-taming spirit which is attributed to the fabulous heroes and demi-gods of antiquity."

Of course what the Government did do was to rename "army" into "police, FBI, Secret Service, etc...." and enlist the States into collaborating on it's projects through money, shared project and shared resources. So in this case, again Hamilton is referring to things the Right Wing, when they aren't scheming to build just such institutions, claim to fear. The States need not fear having their movements regulated. Just us common citizens.

FEDERALIST No. 23 The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the Preservation of the Union

In Federalist 23 Hamilton excoriates the failures of the Articles of Confederation. Making it possible for the Federal Government to demand resource, but making the actual delivery of those resources voluntary.

"The experiment has, however, demonstrated that this expectation was ill-founded and illusory; and the observations, made under the last head, will, I imagine, have sufficed to convince the impartial and discerning, that there is an absolute necessity for an entire change in the first principles of the system; that if we are in earnest about giving the Union energy and duration, we must abandon the vain project of legislating upon the States in their collective capacities; we must extend the laws of the federal government to the individual citizens of America; we must discard the fallacious scheme of quotas and requisitions, as equally impracticable and unjust. The result from all this is that the Union ought to be invested with full power to levy troops; to build and equip fleets; and to raise the revenues which will be required for the formation and support of an army and navy, in the customary and ordinary modes practiced in other governments."

In this passage he uses collective almost in the fashion described by the anti-Communists who found collective decision making by committee as maddening as our founding fathers did. But the objection is to notions like 100% agreement before something becomes law and excessive strictures on the taxing power. Those were objections to the Articles of Confederation that Hamilton refers to repeatedly in his writings here. And we see this clarified in Federalist 27.

In Federalist 27 "The Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered."

He refers to "Collective" in referring to the potential of sedition by persons and governments from the States. In this collective power is a good thing:

"The hope of impunity is a strong incitement to sedition; the dread of punishment, a proportionably strong discouragement to it. Will not the government of the Union, which, if possessed of a due degree of power, can call to its aid the collective resources of the whole Confederacy, be more likely to repress the FORMER sentiment and to inspire the LATTER, than that of a single State, which can only command the resources within itself? A turbulent faction in a State may easily suppose itself able to contend with the friends to the government in that State; but it can hardly be so infatuated as to imagine itself a match for the combined efforts of the Union. If this reflection be just, there is less danger of resistance from irregular combinations of individuals to the authority of the Confederacy than to that of a single member."

And then he continues later extolling the collective power of union over the collective power of factions or States:

"One thing, at all events, must be evident, that a government like the one proposed would bid much fairer to avoid the necessity of using force, than that species of league contend for by most of its opponents; the authority of which should only operate upon the States in their political or collective capacities. It has been shown that in such a Confederacy there can be no sanction for the laws but force; that frequent delinquencies in the members are the natural offspring of the very frame of the government; and that as often as these happen, they can only be redressed, if at all, by war and violence."
In Federalist 31, "Concerning the General Power of Taxation"

He refers to Taxation and the necessity for the Federal Government to be able to collect taxes directly:

"As theory and practice conspire to prove that the power of procuring revenue is unavailing when exercised over the States in their collective capacities, the federal government must of necessity be invested with an unqualified power of taxation in the ordinary modes."
In Federalist 31 Madison weighs in using the term "Collective"
"The difference between a federal and national government, as it relates to the OPERATION OF THE GOVERNMENT, is supposed to consist in this, that in the former the powers operate on the political bodies composing the Confederacy, in their political capacities; in the latter, on the individual citizens composing the nation, in their individual capacities. On trying the Constitution by this criterion, it falls under the NATIONAL, not the FEDERAL character; though perhaps not so completely as has been understood. In several cases, and particularly in the trial of controversies to which States may be parties, they must be viewed and proceeded against in their collective and political capacities only. So far the national countenance of the government on this side seems to be disfigured by a few federal features. But this blemish is perhaps unavoidable in any plan; and the operation of the government on the people, in their individual capacities, in its ordinary and most essential proceedings, may, on the whole, designate it, in this relation, a NATIONAL government."
Madison in Federalist 40 "Powers to form a Mixed Government:"

Madison talks of how the Federal Government will and ought to have a mixture of national and Federal roles:

"....In some instances, as has been shown, the powers of the new government will act on the States in their collective characters. In some instances, also, those of the existing government act immediately on individuals. In cases of capture; of piracy; of the post office; of coins, weights, and measures; of trade with the Indians; of claims under grants of land by different States; and, above all, in the case of trials by courts-marshal in the army and navy, by which death may be inflicted without the intervention of a jury, or even of a civil magistrate; in all these cases the powers of the Confederation operate immediately on the persons and interests of individual citizens...."
In FEDERALIST No. 46,
"The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared From the New York Packet. Tuesday, January 29, 1788." Madison warns of the dangers to the Collective well being of the Country from parochial concerns for the collective well being of their own state:
"Every one knows that a great proportion of the errors committed by the State legislatures proceeds from the disposition of the members to sacrifice the comprehensive and permanent interest of the State, to the particular and separate views of the counties or districts in which they reside. And if they do not sufficiently enlarge their policy to embrace the "collective welfare" of their particular State, how can it be imagined that they will make the aggregate prosperity of the Union, and the dignity and respectability of its government, the objects of their affections and consultations? For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects. The States will be to the latter what counties and towns are to the former. Measures will too often be decided according to their probable effect, not on the national prosperity and happiness, but on the prejudices, interests, and pursuits of the governments and people of the individual States."
FEDERALIST No. 58
Objection That The Number of Members Will Not Be Augmented as the Progress of Population Demands Considered Madison:
On the same principle, the more multitudinous a representative assembly may be rendered, the more it will partake of the infirmities incident to collective meetings of the people. Ignorance will be the dupe of cunning, and passion the slave of sophistry and declamation. The people can never err more than in supposing that by multiplying their representatives beyond a certain limit, they strengthen the barrier against the government of a few. Experience will forever admonish them that, on the contrary, AFTER SECURING A SUFFICIENT NUMBER FOR THE PURPOSES OF SAFETY, OF LOCAL INFORMATION, AND OF DIFFUSIVE SYMPATHY WITH THE WHOLE SOCIETY, they will counteract their own views by every addition to their representatives. The countenance of the government may become more democratic, but the soul that animates it will be more oligarchic.

In this passage, the infirmaries of collective meetings is described. And the reasons for the error. Representation can seem democratic when in fact is is oligarchic and directed from behind the scenes. And note Madison refers to the word "democratic" as a positive property of society.

In Federalist 59 and 60 Hamilton talks of elections. In his concept the State Legislatures would be choosing Senators and those legislators would:
"As to the Senate, it is impossible that any regulation of ``time and manner,'' which is all that is proposed to be submitted to the national government in respect to that body, can affect the spirit which will direct the choice of its members. The collective sense of the State legislatures can never be influenced by extraneous circumstances of that sort; a consideration which alone ought to satisfy us that the discrimination apprehended would never be attempted. For what inducement could the Senate have to concur in a preference in which itself would not be included? Or to what purpose would it be established, in reference to one branch of the legislature, if it could not be extended to the other? The composition of the one would in this case counteract that of the other. And we can never suppose that it would embrace the appointments to the Senate, unless we can at the same time suppose the voluntary co-operation of the State legislatures. If we make the latter supposition, it then becomes immaterial where the power in question is placed whether in their hands or in those of the Union."

Again the constitution was seen as a collaborative government where States would be to the Feds as Counties and Municipalities to the States. The goal was to moderate "passions" of the house by having a Senate that reflected State Legislatures and would thus be a bit immune to any excessive influence from Federal Authorities. And Madison weighed in with a similar argument

Madison or Hamilton in Federalist 63 "FEDERALIST. No. 63, The Senate Continued"

This one took some close reading to figure out because of the complex logic of the writing. It opens with Hamilton explaining the importance of having a Senate with a longer term of office than the House. He talks about the "defects" of the House of Representative and "desideratum" of the Senate with regard to one another

"I add, as a SIXTH defect the want, in some important cases, of a due responsibility in the government to the people, arising from that frequency of elections which in other cases produces this responsibility. This remark will, perhaps, appear not only new, but paradoxical. It must nevertheless be acknowledged, when explained, to be as undeniable as it is important."

... and in the process he notes two principles of responsibility

"Responsibility, in order to be reasonable, must be limited to objects within the power of the responsible party, and in order to be effectual, must relate to operations of that power, of which a ready and proper judgment can be formed by the constituents. The objects of government may be divided into two general classes: the one depending on measures which have singly an immediate and sensible operation; the other depending on a succession of well-chosen and well-connected measures, which have a gradual and perhaps unobserved operation."

The author (Hamilton or Madison) is saying that one body should be more deliberative and able to form measures over a period of time.

"The importance of the latter description to the collective and permanent welfare of every country, needs no explanation. And yet it is evident that an assembly elected for so short a term as to be unable to provide more than one or two links in a chain of measures, on which the general welfare may essentially depend, ought not to be answerable for the final result, any more than a steward or tenant, engaged for one year, could be justly made to answer for places or improvements which could not be accomplished in less than half a dozen years. Nor is it possible for the people to estimate the SHARE of influence which their annual assemblies may respectively have on events resulting from the mixed transactions of several years."

Hamilton wanted a Congress where the representatives would serve for 6 to a dozen years or more. He would not have been happy with term limits. The two year limit on militia wasn't to limit planning. It was because the Framers wanted the Army to be small and temporary if it needed to be big. These two founders envisioned a collaborative system where it didn't matter whether a cause was Federal, State or local as long as the scope was Federal, State or local. Later they would disagree about Federal power versus State power but that reflected failures do to unresolved conflicts not original vision. Long term projects such as roads, canals, rails and similar would be precisely where Madison would eventually issue his veto. But his Veto was issued in order to prod a constitutional amendment. He never got the amendment. His issue was sectarian advantage and the fact that some projects being sought by Senators and House members were being sought without the kinds of constitutional authority that the constituted charter (constitution) mandated and thus were liable to be too arbitrary, sectarian and not wholly in the national interest. Later Sectarianism would even divide that argument. But Madison stated the issue in his veto:

"The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and secure such commerce without a latitude of construction departing from the ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress." [http://constitution.org/jm/18170303_veto.htm]

A constitutional Amendment was needed. Probably would have passed. And never was. Congress couldn't even agree on how to regulate money. But the Federalist papers were pretty clear on how congress should have functioned.

Madison or Hamilton then goes on to explain the attributes of (indirect) democracy and praise the concept behind the Senate:

From these facts, to which many others might be added, it is clear that the principle of representation was neither unknown to the ancients nor wholly overlooked in their political constitutions. The true distinction between these and the American governments, lies IN THE TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE PEOPLE, IN THEIR COLLECTIVE CAPACITY, from any share in the LATTER, and not in the TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE from the administration of the FORMER. The distinction, however, thus qualified, must be admitted to leave a most advantageous superiority in favor of the United States. But to insure to this advantage its full effect, we must be careful not to separate it from the other advantage, of an extensive territory. For it cannot be believed, that any form of representative government could have succeeded within the narrow limits occupied by the democracies of Greece.

The wording of the passage does seem to indicate that Hamilton or Madison wanted at least one body of the legislature, the Senate, to exclude direct representation. Specifically he wanted the Senate to exclude the representatives of local districts in their "collective" capacity from deliberating on long term projects where (as happened) the short term and parochial needs of individual congressmen would defeat long term planning efforts. On this subject the anti-federalist did have a point too since they warned of the Senate becoming an Aristocratic body and it nearly became one in the late 19th early 20th century.

John Jay weighs in next,

FEDERALIST No. 64 The Powers of the Senate From the New York Packet. Friday, March 7, 1788. JAY
"they have directed the President to be chosen by select bodies of electors, to be deputed by the people for that express purpose; and they have committed the appointment of senators to the State legislatures. This mode has, in such cases, vastly the advantage of elections by the people in their collective capacity, where the activity of party zeal, taking the advantage of the supineness, the ignorance, and the hopes and fears of the unwary and interested, often places men in office by the votes of a small proportion of the electors."

So again we see that the founders don't seem to have liked the "people in their collective capacity" being manipulated by politicians and wanted a staid, aristocratic Senate that would make decisions more sedately. Of course in reality those aristocrats often make decisions on the basis of private needs and secret factions. But yes, the founders didn't like direct democracy mostly because they knew people could easily be manipulated by greedy grifters and the politicians they could buy.

FEDERALIST No. 66

Objections to the Power of the Senate To Set as a Court for Impeachments Further Considered From the New York Packet. Tuesday, March 11, 1788.

"The security essentially intended by the Constitution against corruption and treachery in the formation of treaties, is to be sought for in the numbers and characters of those who are to make them. The JOINT AGENCY of the Chief Magistrate of the Union, and of two thirds of the members of a body selected by the collective wisdom of the legislatures of the several States, is designed to be the pledge for the fidelity of the national councils in this particular."

And later

"he truth is, that in all such cases it is essential to the freedom and to the necessary independence of the deliberations of the body, that the members of it should be exempt from punishment for acts done in a collective capacity; and the security to the society must depend on the care which is taken to confide the trust to proper hands, to make it their interest to execute it with fidelity, and to make it as difficult as possible for them to combine in any interest opposite to that of the public good."

Again "collective" is not a dirty word in this comment.

FEDERALIST No. 76

The Appointing Power of the Executive From the New York Packet. Tuesday, April 1, 1788.

"It will be agreed on all hands, that the power of appointment, in ordinary cases, ought to be modified in one of three ways. It ought either to be vested in a single man, or in a SELECT assembly of a moderate number; or in a single man, with the concurrence of such an assembly. The exercise of it by the people at large will be readily admitted to be impracticable; as waiving every other consideration, it would leave them little time to do anything else. When, therefore, mention is made in the subsequent reasonings of an assembly or body of men, what is said must be understood to relate to a select body or assembly, of the description already given. The people collectively, from their number and from their dispersed situation, cannot be regulated in their movements by that systematic spirit of cabal and intrigue, which will be urged as the chief objections to reposing the power in question in a body of men."

And:

"A single well-directed man, by a single understanding, cannot be distracted and warped by that diversity of views, feelings, and interests, which frequently distract and warp the resolutions of a collective body."
FEDERALIST No. 78
The Judiciary Department From McLEAN'S Edition, New York. HAMILTON
"This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of those ill humors, which the arts of designing men, or the influence of particular conjunctures, sometimes disseminate among the people themselves, and which, though they speedily give place to better information, and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency, in the meantime, to occasion dangerous innovations in the government, and serious oppressions of the minor party in the community. Though I trust the friends of the proposed Constitution will never concur with its enemies, in questioning that fundamental principle of republican government, which admits the right of the people to alter or abolish the established Constitution, whenever they find it inconsistent with their happiness, yet it is not to be inferred from this principle, that the representatives of the people, whenever a momentary inclination happens to lay hold of a majority of their constituents, incompatible with the provisions in the existing Constitution, would, on that account, be justifiable in a violation of those provisions; or that the courts would be under a greater obligation to connive at infractions in this shape, than when they had proceeded wholly from the cabals of the representative body. Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon themselves collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption, or even knowledge, of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives in a departure from it, prior to such an act. But it is easy to see, that it would require an uncommon portion of fortitude in the judges to do their duty as faithful guardians of the Constitution, where legislative invasions of it had been instigated by the major voice of the community."
FEDERALIST No. 83
The Judiciary Continued in Relation to Trial by Jury From MCLEAN's Edition, New York. HAMILTON
The excellence of the trial by jury in civil cases appears to depend on circumstances foreign to the preservation of liberty. The strongest argument in its favor is, that it is a security against corruption. As there is always more time and better opportunity to tamper with a standing body of magistrates than with a jury summoned for the occasion, there is room to suppose that a corrupt influence would more easily find its way to the former than to the latter. The force of this consideration is, however, diminished by others. The sheriff, who is the summoner of ordinary juries, and the clerks of courts, who have the nomination of special juries, are themselves standing officers, and, acting individually, may be supposed more accessible to the touch of corruption than the judges, who are a collective body. It is not difficult to see, that it would be in the power of those officers to select jurors who would serve the purpose of the party as well as a corrupted bench. In the next place, it may fairly be supposed, that there would be less difficulty in gaining some of the jurors promiscuously taken from the public mass, than in gaining men who had been chosen by the government for their probity and good character. But making every deduction for these considerations, the trial by jury must still be a valuable check upon corruption. It greatly multiplies the impediments to its success. As matters now stand, it would be necessary to corrupt both court and jury; for where the jury have gone evidently wrong, the court will generally grant a new trial, and it would be in most cases of little use to practice upon the jury, unless the court could be likewise gained.

And later

"The propositions which have been made for supplying the omission have rather served to illustrate than to obviate the difficulty of the thing. The minority of Pennsylvania have proposed this mode of expression for the purpose ``Trial by jury shall be as heretofore'' and this I maintain would be senseless and nugatory. The United States, in their united or collective capacity, are the OBJECT to which all general provisions in the Constitution must necessarily be construed to refer. Now it is evident that though trial by jury, with various limitations, is known in each State individually, yet in the United States, AS SUCH, it is at this time altogether unknown, because the present federal government has no judiciary power whatever; and consequently there is no proper antecedent or previous establishment to which the term HERETOFORE could relate. It would therefore be destitute of a precise meaning, and inoperative from its uncertainty."
FEDERALIST No. 85
Concluding Remarks From MCLEAN's Edition, New York. HAMILTON
"I should esteem it the extreme of imprudence to prolong the precarious state of our national affairs, and to expose the Union to the jeopardy of successive experiments, in the chimerical pursuit of a perfect plan. I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. The result of the deliberations of all collective bodies must necessarily be a compound, as well of the errors and prejudices, as of the good sense and wisdom, of the individuals of whom they are composed. The compacts which are to embrace thirteen distinct States in a common bond of amity and union, must as necessarily be a compromise of as many dissimilar interests and inclinations. How can perfection spring from such materials?"

Hamilton is saying that "collective bodies" are both risky and beneficial structures. And later

"Every Constitution for the United States must inevitably consist of a great variety of particulars, in which thirteen independent States are to be accommodated in their interests or opinions of interest. We may of course expect to see, in any body of men charged with its original formation, very different combinations of the parts upon different points. Many of those who form a majority on one question, may become the minority on a second, and an association dissimilar to either may constitute the majority on a third. Hence the necessity of moulding and arranging all the particulars which are to compose the whole, in such a manner as to satisfy all the parties to the compact; and hence, also, an immense multiplication of difficulties and casualties in obtaining the collective assent to a final act. The degree of that multiplication must evidently be in a ratio to the number of particulars and the number of parties."

In Conclusion

I did this work to make debate a little easier by providing some "common reference" for others to use. I have my opinions but I hope everyone reads the Federalist Papers and forms their own opinions. I'm going to reference this post in other posts. So I forgive anyone who skips it!

Monday, January 5, 2015

Understanding Social Dominance Theory

Introduction

If you are in hurry or read my previous post and The Dictator behind/in front of the mob skip to the next title.

Social Dominance Theory is a line of inquiry that started with some horrifying things we learned about the Nazis. In my previous post on the subject; Right Wing Authoritarians and Totalitarians" I talked about what I learned from reading Bob Altemeyer's writings, and specifically his book; The Authoritarians. It turns out that the horrifying things we learned from Nazis were followed on by almost as horrible things we learned about ourselves and our own societies. Ironically this subject was first popularized by John Dean, who became famous as the penitent Legal Advisor of Richard Nixon who wrote some books based on Robert Altemeyer's work.

But of course when I talk about Right Wing (RW) authoritarian types and the ambitious and tricky folks who support them, their reaction is usually "see left and right are the same" but Robert Altemeyer wasn't making that point:

"We found that in both countries the high RWAs believed their government’s version of the Cold War more than most people did. Their officials wore the white hats, the authoritarian followers believed, and the other guys were dirty rotten warmongers. And that’s most interesting, because it means the most cock-sure belligerents in the populations on each side of the Cold War, the ones who hated and blamed each other the most, were in fact the same people, psychologically."

For those who came late. RWA is not about Left and Right so much as authoritarianism. Which is a matter of an extreme conventionality. A conservative mindset that reifies and rationalizes authority:

the behavior he describes is:

  1. highly submissive to established authority,
  2. aggressive in the name of that authority,
  3. and
  4. conventional to the point of insisting everyone should behave as their authorities decide.

Bob Altemeyer also presented a list of RWA associated traits later in his book (chapter 3) that are produced by drawing beliefs from authority:

  1. Illogical Thinking, which makes sense if you are told to believe 2 + 2 = 5 if your authority figure says it is.
  2. Highly Compartmentalized Minds, this too could be a reaction to trauma and cognitive dissonance.
  3. Double Standards -- which comes from having to rationalize real world decisions.
  4. Hypocrisy
  5. Blindness To Themselves
  6. A Profound Ethnocentrism [chapter 3]
  7. Dogmatism: The Authoritarian’s Last Ditch Defense

All well and good, but these are the followers, not the dominators. It was easy to follow the relationship between social dominators and Right Wing Followers. The followers sought safety (and a recreation of Mommy/Daddy Dearest relationships) in the Dominators. But what gives with this "Social Dominance" Thing?

Social Dominance Theory

If in the USA most RWA authority types are currently Right Wing. The same thing is not always true of the machiavellian leaders who dominate Authoritarian Followers so easily. People who score high on the "Social Dominators Test" are probably found where-ever there is power and money. More importantly they emerge where-ever groups have resources to allocate.

If the Con phenomena were only a phenomena of a tiny far right fringe it would be easier to combat. The Right Wing Authoritarian follower syndrome and associated sociopathy that the RW base has is often over-matched by the brazen and reckless sociopathy of the people his studies identified as "High Social Dominators". As examples like John Edwards show, High Dominance ruthless behavior is not confined the the far right. Rather what he described is an illustration of a larger phenomena.
Altemeyer's pioneering work is illustrating a more general principle, which is lumped under the term "Social Dominance Theory." That theory was developed by Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto based on Altemeyer's and other's work and generalizes the observations into a broader theory. It's also based on the work of a guy named McFarland.

Social Dominance Theory Translated; and Bullies

Social Dominators exist because most Social groups are places where folks allocate resources. And the allocation of resources is a source of power. Some people crave power. They use other people's prejudices and weaknesses to get and maintain that power. What that is normally called is "bullying" and bullying establishes social dominance hierarchy. The social scientists call folks who seek to dominate societies "High Social Dominators." They even have cool and fancy tests to measure the attributes. It looks like bullies grow up to be politicians and bosses.

"High Social Dominators" have a massive and corrupting influence out of proportion to numbers because Social Groups use prejudice coupled with power to allocate resources.

Social Dominance theory:

It gets a little wonky from here. So for the wonks out there (I'm an amateur) I'll try to translate the wonk-talk to concepts easier to understand.

"Social dominance theory notes that chronic group-based oppression is driven by systematic institutional and individual discrimination. That is, many social institutions (e.g.,schools, organized religions, marriage practices, financial houses) and many powerful individuals disproportionately allocate desired goods—such as prestige, wealth, power,food, and health care—to members of dominant and privileged groups, while directingundesirable things — such as dangerous work, disdain, imprisonment, and prematuredeath—toward members of less powerful groups” (Sidanius and Pratto 2004,847).[Social Dominance in Children]"

Sounds to me like this is a theory of bullying both on a collective level (by groups against sub-groups or individuals) or by "Social Dominators." Yep Bullies.

The scientists have devised cool diagrams to illustrate them:

First Chart:

The Chart describes 3 levels of behavior

System Wide Level
At the System level groups differentiate into different roles and functions, with the allocation of power and resources dominated by the establishment of a hierarchy. Someone acts "top dog" and the rest form a pyramid.
Legitimizing Myths
Guiding the formation of such hierarchies are narratives, some of which are referred to as myths because they don't have to be in fact true but they do have to be normative or provide guidance for the hierarchy developing. The word principle can fit in here as well.
Hierarchy Enhancing/Attenuating Myths
The authors describe these as hierarchy enhancing or hierarchy attenuating myths.
Hierarchy Enhancing
Hierarchy enhancing myths tend to setup some actors as top dogs and justify oppression (often non-violent bullying) of other actors.
Hierarchy attenuating myths
are things like the principles of equality or fairness. When people apply those myths during their struggles for power and authority (Hierarchy) some myths make it easier for some actors to dominate the society developing.
Social Institutions
Contributing to the assignment of roles are institutions. Some of which enable hierarchy establishment and bullying. And of course some of them attenuate bullying.
Intergroup Level
Various social habitual patterns of behavior, referred processes drive discrimination.
Context
For example; "Unequal contexts readily dredge up stereotypes and remembered histories of past conflicts, perceived intergroup threat, and belief in separate identities, all of which provoke discrimination and stereotyping (see Pratto, 1999, for a review).[Surrey Study]
likewise re-contextualizing relationships can mitigate the effects of past conflicts and break stereotypes.
Auto Discrimination or "behavioral asymmetry"[Surrey Study]
"members of subordinate groups tend to behave in ways that are less beneficial to themselves and their ingroups than dominant group members do with reference to their ingroups. "
Essentially people internalize narratives that sometimes enable their own oppression. [Chains on the Brains].
Context
Person Level
Social Dominance Orientation
Each person has a set of beliefs, propensities, roles and prejudices which drive his or her behavior and his or her propensity to dominate others, be dominated, or let or even help others dominate others.
Aggregated behavior;
Coordinated and Systemic Person on person actions (Bullying)
"the roles, prejudices, social beliefs that contribute to discrimination are coordinated, often in the same directions, so that thousands of aggregated individual acts of cruelty, oppression and discrimination help sustain group-based hierarchy political ideologies, and temperaments, including openness, conservatism, authoritarianism, and empathy make certain people more or less likely to be prejudiced or to discriminate against subordinates (Akrami and Ekehammar, 2006; Altemeyer, 1998; Pratto et al., 1994; Stephan and Finlay, 1999)
This is called "Social Dominance Orientation

The Following Chart summarizes what was just said:

The Researcher McFarland came up with a schema that describes how bullying, systematic oppression and even warfare are produced via the interaction of social interactions driven by Social Dominance behavior interacting with Right Wing Authoritarian behavior. The idealized schema below includes the alternative paths to authoritarian decision making providing the alternative (and Right wing attenuating) inputs of Principled Moral Reasoning and Dispositional Empathy. Each line shows numbers indicating how strong the related influence was in a particular (or in this case generalized) decision path.

I realize this was a bit Wonky. But I think that activists need to understand what is going on in order to intelligently deal with bullying and Social dominating individuals and the Right Wing Authoritarian movements they lead. To do that we have to translate the jargon language used by the social scientists to something the rest of us can understand.

Measuring Social Dominance - Exploitive Manipulative Amoral Dishonesty scale (EMAD)

One of the best ways to measure Social Dominance is the Exploitive Manipulative Amoral Dishonesty scale (EMAD) scale which measures exploitiveness, manipulativeness, Amoral orientation, and dishonesty. Surprisingly people answer these questions honestly when they think the questions are asked anonymously. And researchers ask witnesses (family, friends, teachers) corroborating questions.

Further discussion

It has these "basic assumptions" (See Links at bottom of page):
First, "human social systems are dynamically tenacious."
"Thus, even as they adapt and change, societies that are group-based dominance hierarchies will tend to continually reorganize themselves, and even other societies, as such."
Second, "various forms of group based oppression" [are specific instantiations]
(e.g., sexism, racism, nationalism, ethnocentrism, classism) should be seen as specific instantiations of group based social hierarchies."
Third, social hierarchy is multi-level reflecting interacting forces
"the degree of group-based social hierarchy within any society at any given time will be the net result of the interaction of multileveled hierarchy enhancing and hierarchy-attenuating forces within that society at any given time."

Further reading

On Sociopathy
Some Alarming Experiments:
http://www.trainingourprotectors.com/uploads/5/4/1/5/5415260/when_rwa_inherit_the_earth.pdf
http://www.uv.es/garzon/psicologia%20politica/N27-7.pdf
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/politics/research/researchareasofstaff/isppsummeracademy/instructors/Sidanius%20&%20Pratto,%20in%20press.pdf
Related to Jodi Arias:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-is-2020/201304/understanding-the-sociopath-cause-motivation-relationship
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/jodi-arias/
Social Dominance Theory:
A Proposed Measure of Social Dominance Orientation in Children: https://www.academia.edu/954487/A_Proposed_Measure_of_Social_Dominance_Orientation_in_Children
Social Dominance Theory, Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/politics/research/researchareasofstaff/isppsummeracademy/instructors/Sidanius%20&%20Pratto,%20in%20press.pdf
Altemeyer's Test:
http://helloquizzy.okcupid.com/quizzy/take
Are you a Social Dominator?
http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/01/are-you-social-dominator.html
Related Articles and Issues:
Broken Windows Theory
Broken Windows Theory: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-neighborhood-and-city-village-and.html
Why Broken Windows Theory was corrupted http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/11/why-broken-windows-theory-was-corrupted.html
Bullying:
Bullying and What to do about it: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/08/bullying-and-what-to-do-about-it.html

The Cliff dance, Hawk and prey, Chicken and Crazy Chicken Dance

I frequently refer to game theory. So I wanted to explain some of the games:

The Cliff Dance

The Cliff Dance occurs when one side of a game is playing "crazy" and refuses to compromise with the other. It's related to the game of Chicken.

The Game of Chicken

Andrew Steele refered to it in an article in the Globe and Mail titled "Obama, Game Theory and the Fiscal Cliff" [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/obama-game-theory-and-the-fiscal-cliff/article5521116/] when covering the Fiscal Cliff negotiations that year.
Andrew Steele
“In the most memorable image of the sport, James Dean and his opponent hurl themselves toward a cliff in their cars; the first one to jump out is labelled a “chicken.” Unfortunately for the opponent, his jacket snags on the car and his game ends with his death.” [Steele Article]
“Chicken – or Hawk-Dove – is also an established tool in the science of game theory. As I have explained previously, this is a two-player game where both players would mildly prefer the other to yield, but where neither yielding is the worst possible outcome.” [Steele Article]

In the Cliff Dance as Andrew Steele envisioned it, both parties really wanted compromise and going off the cliff would punish one or both of them. That version of the cliff dance is almost rational.

The Crazy Cliff Game or Crazy Chicken Dance

The Cliff Game involves the perception by one side that the opponent is crazy and willing to go off the cliff. When Andrew Steele wrote he was sure all the potential for loss would be on the side of the Republicans. And that was true if one looked at what was going on universally and rationally. But the problem is that most of the participants weren't looking at the situation universally and rationally. Even in 2012 the Con movement was increasingly being dominated by Right Wing Authoritarians for whom the loss of the country would be their game. There was no net loss for them in going off the cliff with their base. In fact their base wanted them to go off the cliff.

The Crazy Cliff Game

In the Crazy Cliff Dance game the insane (or pretend insane) party grabs hold of the opponent and dances with them threatening to go over the cliff if they don't comply. And what makes that game irrational, is that for the game to work the opponent must believe they are serious about the death wish they are dancing to.

What is frightening is that because of human psychology in order to convince the opponent they are serious they must act in ways that may transform their psyche to where they really are in fact willing to commit suicide to get their ends. In many cases they convince themselves they have no choice but to get their wishes or both die. At that point this is no longer a rational game. Trauma can cause Sudden Personality Change. Indoctrination induces personality and belief changes gradually. But willingness to do the Crazy Chicken Dance is a symptom of deep personality issues. Indeed, it is a symptom of needing to dominate others something called "Social Dominance".

Further Reading

Game theory: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/whatis.htm
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/obama-game-theory-and-the-fiscal-cliff/article5521116/
Further Reading:
http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/01/understanding-social-dominance-theory.html

Saturday, January 3, 2015

A Unified Plank

The list of demands below is not a list of all the issues that all of us progressives, democrats, liberals and labor have in common. It's also not focus group tested. And yes it's a strawman, but I think that it would make a great starting point. It's based loosely on Bernie Sander's list but it departs a bit as it takes into account a variety of our coalition needs:

All Candidates must:

  1. support rebuilding our infrastructure.
  2. One: Dedicate a Minimum of 50 billion per year and 250 billion over the next 5 years restoring neglected infrastructure and funding needed projects.
    Two: Should create an Infrastructure Finance Authority (Bank) to Fund and regulate Infrastructure projects
  3. Need to fund Green energy and mitigation of Climate change, including encouraging and linking solar technology infrastructure.
  4. We must reform our tax structure to protect labor, the poor and the middle class and provide the carrot of progressive tax policy and the stick of regulations to mitigate the massive unequal unearned distribution of wealth due to privilege.
  5. Working people must, by law, have the right to assemble, petition their employers and if necessary form a Union.
  6. We must raise the minimum wage to above the poverty line for a family of 4 and fix that rate to the cost of living.
  7. All Candidates must support the Lily Ledbetter fair pay act and it's enforcement, threshold=objective.
  8. We must only support trade laws that protect workers and don't undermine environmental or Tort law.
  9. We must return to the notion of affordable access to advanced education for our young people. Threshold to keep it out of Wall Street's hands and objective to make it free to the student.
  10. We must reign in and reform Wall Street, make Wall Street pay premiums on it's risk engagement, support Dodd Frank as a threshold and break up Wall Street to separate money lending functions from consumer banking functions and protect the consumer.
  11. We must strengthen Health Care reform by introducing a public option medicaid for all option and improving the ACA not repealing it.
  12. We must end poverty and Hungry in America by restoring programs that help the poor, elderly and working people.
  13. We must fund the government by making those who benefit from their privilege pay progressive taxation on unearned wealth and privilege.
  14. So far this has tracked Bernies list.

  15. Voting rights must be protected as a threshold. As an objective; We need a Constitutional Amendment making it clear that the right to vote is an inalienable right.
  16. Under Article 1 Section 4; all voting machines must produce a durable ballot and that ballot must be preserved for a minimum of 5 years and be verifiable for purposes of recounting and verifying votes.
    No state may infringe the rights of voters to vote or restrict the hours or locations of voting in such a way as to suppress the vote.
    Elections shall be held on either the dates specified by the States or by the Federal Government, but the ballots shall be published a minimum of 2 weeks in advance of the election and every State must either provide polling places within every neighborhood where people live.
    The states shall provide mail in ballots on demand of those registered in their state and no other. They shall accept any mail in ballot posted by the day of the election through the USA Post Office. The USA post office shall remain open on the day of elections so that voters can vote there as an option. And shall deliver such ballots expeditiously.
    We should consider making primary votes and election days legal holidays and require employers to give voters time off to vote with pay.
  17. Police shall be under civilian control.
  18. The USA shall add a Police Reserve under direction of the FBI to it's national Guard training and provisioning and no person shall be a policeman unless he has had the training specified by a Police Oversight Training Advisory Organization which shall develop classroom materials and training guidelines to be implemented through the FBI and States.
    All police forces shall have community citizen commissions to oversee their operations and investigate allegations of police corruption or abuse. These commissions may be created under any local government sponsorship or on petition of local residents of a neighborhood.
    A volunteer reserve may supplement the police. These volunteers may not carry guns or make arrests.
  19. The Federal Reserve shall be reformed to operate as an agency of the Treasury. The Treasury shall print it's own money.
  20. The Press must be free and private. It cannot be in the hands of oligarchs. The giant monopolies must be broken up and local autonomy should be enforced in communications, internet and broadcast. Public broadcasting must once again be a Utility and the use of the radio waves and wires a privilege tied to providing public information.

This is my list so far. We can add to it. The numbered items should be demands not a mere set of words.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Authoritarians and Totalitarians Reviewing Altemeyer's book

Value of Reading Altemeyer and Arendt

If you are going to read The Authoritarians by Altemeyer then you you may as well skp to reading it before reading this post. But if you are time pressed, you might want to skim this article. I've tried to summarize a few basic points.

Key point is:

"ultimately, in a democracy, a wannabe tyrant is just a comical figure on a soapbox unless a huge wave of supporters lifts him to high office. That’s how Adolf Hitler destroyed the Weimar Republic and became the Fuhrer. So we need to understand the people out there doing the wave. Ultimately the problem lay in the followers."

The Cons get away with what they do because there are so many Authoritarian Followers willing to lift them up.

When we discussed yesterday's blog The Dictator behind/in front of the mob" Bob Altemeyer's name came up.

Bob Altemeyer shared a book called The authoritarians "The Authoritarians" several years ago.

I recommend people read it. And I remember reading it and taking the test it recommends. It describes the authoritarian mindset and follows on years of work by social scientists to study authoritarian behavior starting with folks trying to understand Hitler and his minions. Altemeyer focuses on Authoritarianism, which is one of the attributes that produces tyranny. Totalitarianism is produced by conditions of tyranny, authoritarianism and a level of ruthlessness and ideological absolutism that take authoritarian tyranny to new levels of total control. Totalitarian ideology can be left or right, but the people involved share certain traits. Authoritarianism is by it's nature "right wing" in attitude. Communist countries could be right wing despite holding left wing ideology because the authorities had become communist. This authoritarianism of leadership and followers combined with the tools needed to make it total authority produce totalitarianism.

Part of a constellation of literature on Authoritarianism

A lot of this follows more literature based studies such as those by Hannah Arendt who wrote "The Origins of Totalitarianism" years ago and experimental data gathered by a number of researchers including Sidanious and Pratt and McFarland. I have a physical copy of "The Origins of Totalitarianism" that my wife bought years ago and that I started reading more than 9 years ago and have referred to periodically since. Hannah Arendt's work was the more universal because she pretty much explains how the authoritarian mindset produces totalitarian governments. But tonight I'm reviewing Altemeyer's "The Authoritarians"

Right Wing behavior is predictable

Altemeyer explains how that can be in his book:

"Psychologically these followers have personalities featuring:
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;
3) and a high level of conventionalism."

"Because the submission occurs to traditional authority, I call these followers rightwing authoritarians. I’m using the word “right” in one of its earliest meanings, for in Old English “riht”(pronounced “writ”) as an adjective meant lawful, proper, correct, doing what the authorities said. (And when someone did the lawful thing back then, maybe the authorities said, with a John Wayne drawl, “You got that riht, pilgrim!”)" [Altemeyer]

So the authoritarian mindset is the same whatever the political system. It reifies (valuates) authority, and deprecates even the potential for error of legitimate authority. It is also resistant to changes in authority that challenge the established authority. It also has testable attributes and he found high "RWA" test scores in the USA among both Right Wing believers and Christian fundamentalists.

And they also found that they tended to be "in the closet about the beliefs they were most adamant about. Their assertions of faith were in spite of doubts about that faith. He writes:

"I have then, at a later date, asked my students to let their Hidden Observers answer a question about the existence of God. “Does this person (that is, you) have doubts that (s)he was created by an Almighty God who will judge each person and take some into heaven for eternity while casting others into hell forever?” A third of the high RWA students checked off an alternative that read, “Yes, (s)he has secret doubts which (s)he has kept strictly to herself/himself that this is really true.” Another twenty percent said they had such doubts, but at least one other person knew about them. That adds up to most of the highly authoritarian students." [Altemeyer page 139]

As I've observed myself over time based on anecdote and personal encounters. Authoritarian views are asserted in spite of secret doubts, evidence to the contrary, or even personal experience. The conservative mindset won't even change their minds on most subjects at all unless they have a personal transformative experience (such as a son or daughter coming out of the closet for gay rights). And many of them are closet cases, repressing their own thoughts about God, sexual subjects, or other things they've accepted on authority. As Altemeyer notes, they one sided search for justifications for what they accepted on authority don't produce a satisfactory argument even for themselves and:

"The doubts remain, but are enormously covered up." [p 139]

Hence my calling them "closet cases." Essentially they keep their faith at the expense of fearing that they themselves are secretly liars.

Since his study there have been other studies that have linked authoritarianism to trauma, fear, and resulting anger. Hence the behavior he describes:

highly submissive to established authority,
aggressive in the name of that authority,
and conventional to the point of insisting everyone should behave as their authorities decide.

And he also presented a list of RWA associated traits later in his book (chapter 3) that are produced by drawing beliefs from authority:

1. Illogical Thinking, which makes sense if you are told to believe 2 + 2 = 5 if your authority figure says it is.
2. Highly Compartmentalized Minds, this too could be a reaction to trauma and cognitive dissonance.
3. Double Standards -- which comes from having to rationalize real world decisions.
4. Hypocrisy
5. Blindness To Themselves
6. A Profound Ethnocentrism [chapter 3]
7. Dogmatism: The Authoritarian’s Last Ditch Defense

People are submissive when they are afraid. Hence it's no surprise that he notes the reaction to Gays and blacks among people with high RWA scores:

"It reminds me of the reaction of many high RWAs when homosexuals began to come out: “Don’t these people know they’re supposed to be ashamed of what they are?” That in turn reminded me of the reaction of many White supremists to the civil rights movement: “Don’t these n------ know they’re inferior and should never be treated as our equals?”"

Is probably an expression of that fear. In the Buddhist 3000 World theory developed over 1000 years ago this kind of behavior was identified with the "world of animality" which was often described as an actual place. It's also a combination of shaming behavior and feeling shamed about what is not conventional.

Recent studies show this is wired behavior: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/how-conservative-brains-are-wired-differently-and-what-means-our-politics

Right Wing Authoritarian Dominators

But what is scary are the Right Wing Authoritarian "dominators". The traits involved map to sociopathy. People leading (or trying to lead) authoritarian movements tend to score high on Social Dominance tests as well as the RWA test. For example Altemeyer notes that folks with High Social Dominance Scores and High RWA scores would likely agree with the following three statements:

"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.

...coming out foursquare against equality. In turn, [they would] disagree with:

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.
Increased social equality."

So if you add "social dominance" traits, essentially the desire to be a "wolf among the sheep", a "king", to have power and wealth, coupled with the kind of ruthlessness needed to produce such dominance. People with high "Social Dominance" plus high CSA scores tend to be the ones who become the Authoritarian leaders.

"Felicia Pratto of the University of Connecticut and Jim Sidanius at UCLA presented the test in 1994 as a measure of belief in social inequality. Whereupon Sam McFarland at the University of Western Kentucky used their scale and twenty-one others in a magnificent “pitting experiment”aimed at finding the best predictors of prejudice. He discovered that only two of the 22 tests he threw “into the pit” to fight it out could predict prejudice at all well: the Social Dominance Orientation scale, and the RWA scale." [Altemeyer]

So social prejudice goes with Authoritarian traits and tends to be strongest among those with strong social dominance scores.

Altemeyer was able to repeat McFarland's test and replicate the results:

"Generally, the Social Dominance scale predicted such unfairness better than the RWA scale did"

Indeed he showed how the tests were identifying clumps of behavior. Those with high Social Dominance & RWA scores tended to be more prejudiced and authoritarian leaders. Those with low social dominance scores but high RWA scores tended to become the followers:

"That’s why the two tests could predict so much together: each was identifying a different clump of prejudiced persons--sort of like, “You round up the folks in the white sheets over there, and I’ll get the pious bigots over here.” So it looks like most really prejudiced people come in just two flavors: social dominators and high RWAs. Since dominators long to control others and be authoritarian dictators, and high RWAs yearn to follow such leaders, most social prejudice was therefore connected to authoritarianism" [Altemeyer]

And he notes that their political social views are usually compatible:

"Social dominators and high RWAs have several other things in common besides prejudice. They both tend to have conservative economic philosophies--although this happens much more often among the dominators than it does among the “social conservatives”--and they both favor right-wing political parties. If a dominator and a follower meet for the first time in a coffee shop and 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." [Altemeyer]

But Altemeyer notes huge differences in:

(1) "their desire for power,
(2) their religiousness,
(3) the roots of their aggression, and
(4) their thinking processes"

Desire for Power

The Will for Power is in the Social Dominators not their followers: "Social dominators in each of two studies I ran wanted to have much more than most people did. Authoritarian followers did not." So much so that some investigators called the tests "power mad" tests:

"But social dominators will run to take their chances on that slippery slope. They thrill to power in and of itself. They want to control others, period." [p 163-164]

And he concludes:

"High scorers are inclined to be intimidating, ruthless, and vengeful They scorn such noble acts as helping others, and being kind, charitable, and forgiving. Instead they would rather be feared than loved, and be viewed as mean, pitiless, and vengeful. They love power, including the power to hurt in their drive to the top. Authoritarian followers do not feel this way because they seldom have such a drive to start with"

In short the Social Dominators are wannabe tyrants. Whatever they may tell the general audience. This is how they score on tests when they think no one is looking. He also presents a list of attributes:

High demand for followers to be loyal, little loyalty to followers.
Little empathy

Roots of Aggression

RWA Followers act out of misguided loyalty:

"high RWAs are especially likely to aggress when they feel established authority approves of the aggression, when they are afraid, and because they are self-righteous. Since the Bible condemns homosexuality in several places, and “giving” rights to homosexuals seems to right-wing authoritarians yet another nail in the coffin of moral society, aggression against homosexuals is aroused and blessed. Similarly high RWAs are more likely than social dominators to impose stiff sentences in the Trials situation, and more likely to help the government persecute radicals when it’s time to round up a “posse.”"

And of course their social dominant leaders aggress for different reasons:

"unlike high RWAs who fear an explosion of lawlessness, they already live in the jungle that authoritarian followers fear is coming, and they’re going to do the eating. They do not ask themselves, when they meet someone, “Is there any reason why I should try to control this person?” so much as they ask, “Is there any reason why I should not try to gain the upper hand."

To the Social Dominators:

"Dominance is the first order of business with them in a relationship, like dogs encountering each other in a school yard, and vulnerable minorities provide easy targets for exerting power, for being mean, for domination. It’s an open question whether the aggression mainly serves a desire to dominate, or if the domination mainly serves a desire to hurt others. But either way in the dog-eat dog world of the social dominator, they’re out to claw their way to the top."

Thus you get the incongruity of leaders who wage war against Darwin's teachings while preaching social darwinism. For dominant types, basically alphas, what really matters is the social hierarchy and everything (& everyone) else is a tool needed to claw one's way to wealth, fortune, fame and power. And so they aggress when they feel challenged.

Religion

His research confirms what many of us observe anecdotally:

"High RWAs, we know, strongly tend to be religious fundamentalists. Social dominators do not. In fact, like most people in my samples, most dominators only go to church for marrying and burying. This would be “Three strikes and ye’re out” as far as the religiously ethnocentric high RWAs are concerned except for one thing. Dominators can easily pretend to be religious, saying the right words and claiming a deep personal belief and, as we saw in chapter 3, gullible right-wing authoritarians will go out on almost any limb, walk almost any plank to believe them."

He even created a scale for them:

"So some non-religious dominators, as part of the act, do go to church regularly, for manipulative reasons. This amounts to lying, but I hope you don’t think social dominators would never, ever, ever, tell a lie. Here are the items from another measure I’ve concocted, called the Exploitive Manipulative Amoral Dishonesty (“Exploitive- MAD”) scale. Again, high social dominators’ responses, compared with others, really open your eyes."

Which explains why so many RW leaders are Ayn Rand followers (who was an atheist) and try to reconcile the two.

Sociopathy

The

Exploitive Manipulative Amoral Dishonesty Scale

actually measures sociopathy. And they score high in hostile and sociopathic traits as well. In anonymous testing they admit they are ruthless:

"Social dominators thus admit, anonymously, to striving to manipulate others, and to being dishonest, two-faced, treacherous, and amoral. It’s as if someone took the Scout Law (“A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, ...”) and turned it completely upside down: “A ‘winner’ is deceitful, manipulative, unfair, base, conniving, ...”"

And these studies bear out why I call the "Social Dominator" so-called conservatives "Cons" because:

"followers may feel admiration bordering on adoration of their leaders, we should not be surprised if the leaders feel a certain contempt for their followers. They are the suckers, the “marks,” the fools social dominators find so easy to manipulate."

Cons... and we are the “marks

The RWA followers may fear the Zombie Apocalypse or the end times. But the Cons don't:

"Dominators aren’t usually afraid that civilization might collapse and lawlessness ensue. Laws, they think, are not something you should necessarily obey in the first place, so much as things you should not get caught disobeying. And as for self-righteousness, it’s pretty irrelevant to people as amoral as most social dominators tend to be. They may speak of the righteousness of their cause, but that’s usually just to assure and motivate their followers. Might makes right for social dominators."

A few years ago the Dominionists were advancing the theory that Con leadership could engage in lawless acts on the example of King David. For them King David's misdeeds showed that a person "doing God's work" could literally get away with murder. But the exegesis is just a balloon floated because most Cons walk a fine line between their own secret amoral and immoral beliefs and what they preach to the RWA followers. They aren't crazy or stupid (most of them) but just incredibly ruthless:

"Persons who score highly on the Social Dominance scale do not usually have all the nooks and crannies, contradictions and lost files in their mental life that we find in high RWAs. Most of them do not show weak reasoning abilities, highly compartmentalized thinking, and certainly not a tendency to trust people who tell them what they want to hear. They’ve got their head together. Nor are most of them dogmatic or particularly zealous about any cause or philosophy. You have to believe in something to be dogmatic and zealous, and what social dominators apparently believe in most is not some creed or cause, but gaining power by any means fair or foul."

High Functioning Sociopaths

Just high functioning sociopaths:

"They are quite capable of saying whatever will get them ahead. After all, they hold that there’s no such thing as “right” and “wrong.” It all boils down to what you can get away with. And one of the most useful skills a person should develop, they say, is how to look someone straight in the eye and lie convincingly."

And if they thought the way to power was to appear to be liberal. I suspect many of them would preach liberal beliefs on the pulpit. They just have latched onto folks they know can be manipulated easily.

And they give reasons for their belief in inequality that are familiar to all of us:

"What reasons do dominators give for giving equality short-shrift? Well, they say, ultimately complete equality is a pipe dream. Natural forces inevitably govern the worth of the individual. And people should have to earn their places in society, not get any free rides. All that society is obliged to do, if fairness is an issue, is provide a level playing field. The poor can pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they really want to. Lots of people have, haven’t they?"

What creates Cons

And what makes social dominators a bit worrisome is that their public act is just an act. At least most of their followers learned their beliefs from Mom and Dad. But what makes them that way is that society rewards them for acting that way:

"future dominator was rewarded earlier in life when he cheated, took advantage of others, made people afraid of him, overpowered others, got away with doing something wrong, or beat somebody to the punch. All of these actions may in turn have been predicated by a “tooth and claw” outlook that he learned from (say) his parents. Or that outlook may just serve as a rationalization for being amoral, unsympathetic, and exploitive because acting this way often pays off. Psychologists talk about the “Law of Effect,” which says you learn to do what works. Being unscrupulous works for social dominators."

But he doesn't believe they learn this from their parents consistently as he saw "little correlation" between parents scores and those of their children. These traits emerge. And the book concludes by talking about "Double Highs" -- folks who scored high on both the RWA test and the Social Dominance test. These were the "worst of the Lot."

He quotes Jimmy Carter:

"Ex-president Jimmy Carter, in describing the fundamentalist movements that have taken control of the Republican Party, recently wrote, “Almost invariably, fundamentalist movements are led by authoritarian males who consider themselves to be superior to others and, within religious groups, have an overwhelming commitment to subjugate women and to dominate their fellow believers.”"

And the author concludes his book with a list of warnings and remedies. Because these two kinds of authoritarians are not going away with Obama's Presidency, but are on the warpath and are now in both houses of congress. The social dominators can pretend to be "moderates" gravitate as much to business governorships as to legislative and executive government. And seem to have the upper hand right now. I'd suggest anyone who has waded through my summary should now go on and read Altemeyer's book:

The Authoritarians by Altemeyer