In last night’s appearance on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, former White House counsel to President Nixon, John Dean, discussed his recently released book, Conservatives Without Conscience, where he says he came across a little known fifty-year academic study that chronicled the characteristics of the authoritarian personality.
Well worth perusing, but here are some money quotes:
Both those who are inclined to follow leaders and those who jump in front and want to be the leaders. It was not the opinion of social scientists. It was information they drew by questioning large numbers of people — hundreds of thousands of people — in anonymous testing where [the subjects] conceded their innermost feelings and reactions to things. And it came out that most of these people were pre-qualified to be conservatives and this, did indeed, fit with the authoritarian personality.
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OLBERMANN: And the idea of leaders and followers going down this path or perhaps taking a country down this path requires — this whole edifice requires an enemy. Communism, al Qaeda, Democrats, me… whoever for the two-minutes hate. I overuse the Orwellian analogies to nauseating proportions. But it really was, in reading what you wrote about, especially what the academics talked about. There was that two-minutes hate. There has to be an opponent, an enemy, to coalesce around or the whole thing falls apart. Is that the gist of it?
DEAN: It is one of the things, believe it or not, that still holds conservatism together. There is many factions in conservatism and their dislike or hatred of those they betray as liberal, who will basically be anybody who disagrees with them, is one of the cohesive factors. There are a few others but that’s certainly one of the basics. There’s no question that, particularly the followers, they’re very aggressive in their effort to pursue and help their authority figure out or authority beliefs out. They will do what ever needs to be done in many regards. They will blindly follow. They stay loyal too long and this is the frightening part of it.
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DEAN: The lead researcher in this field told me, he said, “I look at the numbers of the United States and I see about 23% of the population who are pure right-wing authoritarian followers.” They’re not going to change. They’re going to march over the cliff. The best thing to deal with them — and they’re growing, and they have a tremendous influence on Republican politics — The best defense is understanding them, to realize what they are doing, how they’re doing it and how they operate. Then it can be kept in perspective and they can be seen for what they are.
The masses are motivated by fear and those at the top use it as a weapon, a goad.