Weekend Book Review - The Authoritarians

By Ron Beasley

This is a different kind of book review in that you don't have to buy it and in these times free is a very good price.  But make no mistake this is a very important book.  The constitution of the US was viciously attacked by the Bush/Cheney administration.  It's important to realize how and why this happened.  In his online book Bob Altmeyer explains.  Bob Altmeyer is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba.  He has studied tyrants  and come to the conclusion they are not the problem.

Because this book is called The Authoritarians, you may have thought it dealt with autocrats and despots, the kind of people who would rule their country, or department, or football team like a dictator. That is one meaning of the word, and yes, we shall talk about such people eventually in this book. But we shall begin with a second kind of authoritarian: someone who, because of his personality, submits by leaps and bows to his authorities. It may seem strange, but this is the authoritarian personality that psychology has studied the most.

We shall probably always have individuals lurking among us who yearn to play tyrant. Some of them will be dumber than two bags of broken hammers, and some will be very bright. Many will start so far down in society that they have little chance of amassing power; others will have easy access to money and influence all their lives. On the national scene some will be frustrated by prosperity, internal tranquility, and international peace—all of which significantly dim the prospects for a demagogue -in-waiting. Others will benefit from historical crises that automatically drop increased power into a leader's lap. But 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 Wiemar Republic and became the Fuhrer. So we need to understand the people out there doing the wave. Ultimately the problem lay in the followers.

We tend to think of the Republican base as bigoted conservative Christians.  While that's true it;s not the real story - they are people who feel comfortable  being led and controlled by a tyrant.   Of course organized religion is by it's very nature despotic so this should come as no surprise. 

Bob Altmyer's The Authoritarians is an important work and is a must read.

Comments

[zenpundit]

"We tend to think of the Republican base as bigoted conservative Christians. While that's true it;s not the real story - they are people who feel comfortable being led and controlled by a tyrant"

Gee Ron, a good thing that the history of the 20th century doesn't have millions upon millions of examples of that same behavior occurring on the political Left!

All those Western leftists who apologized for Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Ho Chi Minh etc. can now breath a sigh of relief as they slip on their Che Guevara T-shirts - it's only the right that has people who want to be led by tyrants.