Right-Wing and Left-Wing Authoritarian Followers

Authoritarian followers usually support the established authorities in their society, such as government officials and traditional religious leaders. Such people have historically been the “proper” authorities in life, the time-honored, entitled, customary leaders, and that means a lot to most authoritarians. 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; and
3) 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!”)

In North America people who submit to the established authorities to extraordinary degrees often turn out to be political conservatives, so you can call them “right-wingers” both in my new-fangled psychological sense and in the usual political sense as well. But someone who lived in a country long ruled by Communists and who ardently supported the Communist Party would also be one of my psychological right-wing authoritarians even though we would also say he was a political left-winger. So a right-wing authoritarian follower doesn’t necessarily have conservative political views. Instead he’s someone who readily submits to the established authorities in society, attacks others in their name, and is highly conventional. It’s an aspect of his personality, not a description of his politics. Rightwing authoritarianism is a personality trait, like being characteristically bashful or happy or grumpy or dopey.

You could have left-wing authoritarian followers as well, who support a revolutionary leader who wants to overthrow the establishment. I knew a few in the 1970s, Marxist university students who constantly spouted their chosen authorities, Lenin or Trotsky or Chairman Mao. Happily they spent most of their time fighting with each other, as lampooned in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where the People’s Front of Judea devotes most of its energy to battling, not the Romans, but the Judean People’s Front. But the left-wing authoritarians on my campus disappeared long ago. Similarly in America “the Weathermen” blew away in the wind. I’m sure one can find left-wing authoritarians here and there, but they hardly exist in sufficient numbers now to threaten democracy in North America. However I have found bucketfuls of right-wing authoritarians in nearly every sample I have drawn in Canada and the United States for the past three decades.

If your point is that all movements can, in theory, be hijacked by authoritarian dictators, I agree, but I’m not sure what the utility of the point is, or why you brought it up.

If your point is that progressive movements, but not right-wing movements, can be hijacked by authoritarian dictators, then I can see why you brought it up, but I don’t think it’s an accurate point.

Just goes to show, conservatives really are unable to fashion a reasonable, logical argument about anything. (ETA: Yes, that was unfair, but I don’t think Robert’s argument merited a fair response.)

Edited to add: “Leader of a communist dictatorship” does not equal “progressive leader.”

Er? Hitler. Pinochet. What’s-his-name the S Vietnamese leader under the US. I guess I can’t add Bush since you specified their own populations and he’s only killed hundreds of thousands to millions of Iraqis and Afghanis. Evil leaders come in all ideological flavors.

(Well, in fairness, Chavez hasn’t gotten around to killing huge numbers yet, and probably won’t be allowed to by his neighbors. And Castro was more of a gulag builder than a death camp builder.)

Edited to add: For that matter, what progressive leaders are you considering authoritarian, specifically? Barack Obama? Katha Pollitt? Howard Zinn? Angela Davis?

Jesus did, among others. They’re just DIFFICULT methods. And they don’t work for the authoritarians who so often hijack progressive movements, so they often aren’t in vogue in those circles.

I’ve gotten to know Daisy of Our Descent quite well, since she became a regular commenter at FCB, and I have yet to find a substantive difference between her views and mine on gender issues. Yet she is a feminist in good standing with the rest of the blogospheric movement, while I get vilified. Why is that?

Please, nobody answer that question. Or if you want it discussed (Daran or anyone else), please take it to an open thread. Thanks.

The question was rhetorical. However anyone is, of course, welcome to take it to FCB as well.

Dianne (quoting me):

I don’t care whether my comments are feminist or not. I say what I think, regardless of what labels other people choose to pin on me.

Good. But don’t worry too much, I’m always annoying people by labelling them in ways that I find consistent with their positions, even if not with their self-images. For example, Robert is pro-choice because, even though he hates abortion and is disgusted by it, he doesn’t want to illegalize it. Plus I probably should have put a sarcasm tag on.

I’m neither annoyed nor worried. What I find irritating is when people attribute views or attitudes to me that I do not hold, based upon the labels they or other people pin on me. That doesn’t strike me as a likely outcome of your remark.

Nothing much here, except some activists got arrested for trying to SAVE THE BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS FROM EVIL GREEDHEAD MOFOS!!!!! (Truthfully? I don’t think they/we will succeed, but we’re all gonna go down fighting, I hope.)

I was on Oprah for being an evil smoker. And it was kind of hilarious.