Call Them "Radical Right", NOT "Conservative"

Most of the posts I have written here address the issues of why most of the people chronically labeled "conservative" by our main stream and corporate-owned media are utterly mislabeled by this term. I have suggested that they are more appropriately labeled "pseudo-conservative" following the original use of that term in the classic book "The Authoritarian Personality" and in Richard Hofstadter's writings from the 1950s and 1960s. However, there is another term that comes from the 1960s that is also a more accurate label for many on the American right and that is "Radical Right". I recommend that these two terms can be used largely interchangeably and that just as the Radical Right has used its powers of redefinition to turn the term "liberal" into practically a dirty word and refused even to honor the long chosen and essentially accurate name of "Democratic" Party, insisting on calling it the "Democrat" party, those of us on the libertarian left and right should stop unconsciously parroting right-wing propaganda by continuing to mislabel the pseudo-conservative radical right as "conservative".

Be Sure to read "The Authoritarians" by Bob Altemeyer

I have just finished "The Authoritarians" a free online book written by Bob Altemeyer who has been researching this topic for 40 years. Apparently he is close to retirement and this book gives a summary of the many studies he has run over 40 years. This is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the American Radical Right today and why the term "pseudo-conservative" was first prominently used in a book called "The Authoritarian Personality" almost 60 years ago. Altemeyer also distinguishes 'conservatism' from 'authoritarianism' and I believe that authoritarianism is in large part what I refer to as pseudo-conservatism. It is important to understand that Altemeyer is reporting what he has found with scientific studies conducted over four decades and not, like me, just presenting opinions based on my own reading and thinking. I heartily recommend this book!

Still Trying to Distinguish Authoritarianism from Genuine Conservatism

Reflections on Authoritarianism

How should we define authoritarianism? Reading both Stenner (2005) and Altemeyer’s online book, “The Authoritarians” (2007), I have some thoughts. Let us first look at how Altemeyer defined authoritarianism. On page 9 he defined authoritarians as: “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.”

I think there are good reasons to question Altemeyer’s use of “established, legitimate authorities” as a reference group upon which to base his most fundamental definition. And he himself provided examples of such reasons. On p.16 he wrote: “right-wing authoritarians did not support President Clinton during his impeachment and trial over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. So as I said, the support is not automatic and reflexive, but can be trumped by other concerns. In Clinton’s case his administration not only had advocated for groups anathema to authoritarians, such as homosexuals and feminists, his sexual misdeeds in the White House deeply offended many [authoritarians].”

But Bill Clinton was the duly elected President of the United States and thus he met every criterion of an established, legitimate authority. If authoritarians did not support an elected President then the definition of their group as exhibiting “a high degree of submission to the established, legitimate authorities in their society” is not accurate. Altemeyer (p. 15) had already pointed out: “We would expect authoritarian followers especially to submit to corrupt authorities in their lives: to believe them when there is little reason to do so, to trust them when huge grounds for suspicion exist, and to hold them blameless when they do something wrong.” Moreover, on p. 16 he showed that authoritarians supported Presidents Nixon and George W. Bush when their integrity had been challenged; why not Bill Clinton, an at least equally established, legitimate authority?

Altemeyer (p. 9) also referred to “traditional religious leaders” as examples of the kind of “established authorities” that “authoritarian followers usually support”. But authoritarians certainly discriminate between religious leaders such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, whom they usually support, and more liberal religious leaders whom they emphatically do not support, e.g., the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Another example occurred to me in relation to another study Altemeyer reported on (p. 28): “Gidi Rubinstein similarly found that [authoritarians] among both Jewish and Palestinian students in Israel tended to be the most orthodox members of their religion, who tend to be among those most resistant to a peaceful resolution of the Middle East conflict. If their authorities endorse hostility, you can bet most authoritarian followers will be combative.” But consider that Yitzhak Rabin was the duly elected Prime Minister of Israel, an established, legitimate authority, when he was assassinated by an ‘orthodox’ right-wing Israeli radical who opposed Rabin’s peace efforts. Rabin was obviously not the assassin’s authority even though he was ‘established’ and ‘legitimate’. Can it be merely a coincidence that Rabin and Bill Clinton were so close?

Throughout Chapter 1 of “The Authoritarians” Altemeyer repeatedly uses phrases like “their authorities” or “their in-groups” to refer to the groups to whom authoritarians give their allegiance. For example (p. 29) he wrote: “They are quite capable of adhering to the beliefs emphasized by their in-groups when these conflict with what is held by society as a whole.” (emphasis added) This seems to me an implicit admission that authoritarians have their own ‘authorities’ and ‘in-groups’ and do not give their allegiance to any and all “established, legitimate authorities”.

In thinking about this it has seemed to me that authoritarians will only glorify and submit to certain specific types of established authority, ‘authoritarian authorities’. However, this sort of formulation begs the question of defining “authoritarian”, which was the problem we set out to solve initially.

Stenner’s “authoritarian dynamic” involves the idea that when individuals with “authoritarian predispositions” are challenged by “normative threat” they will become more sharply authoritarian in thought and behavior (as well measured by Altemeyer’s Right-Wing Authoritarian Scale or RWA). She defined (p. 15) authoritarian predisposition in terms of “attitudes and behaviors variously reflecting rejection of diversity and insistence upon sameness…. The predisposition is labeled ‘authoritarianism’ because suppression of difference and achievement of uniformity necessitate autocratic social arrangements in which individual autonomy yields to group authority.”

Having “normative threat” as a very central concept she is required to consider what kind of “normative order” authoritarians would need to protect. Stenner wrote (p. 18) that she wished to distinguish authoritarians from “conservatives” by defining the latter as those who are committed to preserving a specific normative order, e.g., American Constitutionalism. She argued that although authoritarians would begin by defending the status quo and thus be hard to distinguish from mere conservatives, true authoritarians are primarily interested in maintaining uniformity and sameness in ethnic composition, political beliefs and moral values—and thus they would ultimately be willing to sacrifice any existing status quo (e.g., Weimar constitutional democracy) in favor of a new normative order that would guarantee uniformity and sameness. This then requires her to describe what type of normative order this would be.

Stenner wrote (pp. 18-9): “This is not to say, of course, that the ‘normative order’ of authoritarianism is completely interchangeable, that its content is entirely fungible, that oneness and sameness could be instituted and defended by collective commitment (voluntary or otherwise) to any set of values, norms, and beliefs. Oneness and sameness are attributes of the collective rather than the individual, and they are end states, not processes. They cannot be achieved without some type of coercive control over other people’s behavior…. If individuals are free, collective outcomes will vary, and oneness and sameness cannot be assured…. Thus, while the content of authoritarianism’s ‘normative order’ is somewhat flexible with regard to the specification of right and wrong… it is by no means value neutral. The normative order whose institution and defense might render ‘us’ one and the same can never value individual autonomy and diversity, and will always tend toward some kind of system of collective authority and constraint.”(final emphasis added)

Perhaps it is now somewhat clearer why I have been tempted to talk of ‘authoritarian authorities’. Altemeyer’s contention that authoritarians are characterized by “a high degree of submission to the established, legitimate authorities in their society” is not accurate. The only ‘established’ authorities that authoritarians glorify and defend are those who endorse a strict obedience to some form of coercive normative order that satisfies the needs of authoritarian followers. This could be Islamic fundamentalism or Christian fundamentalism, it could be Mussolini’s fascist philosophy or Hitler’s Nazi philosophy, it could be some form of coercive Marxism-Leninism or ‘democratic centralism—but, as Stenner argued: “The normative order whose institution and defense might render ‘us’ one and the same can never value individual autonomy and diversity, and will always tend toward some kind of system of collective authority and constraint.”

This may help to differentiate genuine conservatives like Bruce Fein and his call for impeachment of Bush and Cheney because of his profound commitment to the Constitution, from authoritarians like Bush and Cheney. To the degree that a conservative is committed to a particular normative order and advocates only slow and prudent changes to that order, like Edmund Burke, they qualify as genuine conservatives.

The category of so-called ‘laissez faire conservative’, which Stenner discussed (p. 86 and see her Index), as did Rossiter (1962, pp. 131-62) is, I believe, close to a contradiction in terms and I will deal with that at more length later. The only way I can see to save this concept is by arguing that American society as it has been constituted for a long time is committed to a type of ‘laissez faire’ philosophy and thus a conservative in the specifically American context might be an advocate of laissez faire. Nonetheless, the recognition that capitalism is itself sometimes a revolutionary force, as in the only true social revolution in American history, the industrial revolution—suggests why I think a philosophy that advocates giving free rein to capitalism and keeping government from regulating the economy cannot easily be called ‘conservative.’ And this is without dealing with the enormous revolutionary changes in American society worked by the corporate revolution, which should be kept conceptually distinct from the industrial revolution. If U.S. state governments and the courts had not awarded corporations such immense powers we would have surely had an industrial revolution but not necessarily a corporate revolution as well.

Barbara O'Brien's Mahablog Has Interesting Posts on Pseudo-Conservatives

I want to direct people to a series of very interesting posts by Barbara O'Brien's The Mahablog concerning the whole topic of pseudo-conservatives and authoritarianism. You can start with today's post or search her blog under relevant terms. This whole topic of pseudo-conservatives being best understood as authoritarians is central, I believe.

My Struggles to Understand the Appeal of 'Tough' Foreign Policy

In an earlier post I struggled mightily to understand the appeal of 'tough' foreign policy. I now think that this thinking makes so little sense to me because I can't empathize enough with the authoritarian personality. This notion of 'tough' punitive treatment of our opponents comes right out of the authoritarian's psychological playbook. See my previous posts involving Karen Stenner's The Authoritarian Dynamic. Search for these by using the Search tool in the upper left of my blog's homepage and type in Stenner.

Why Authoritarians Have a Fundamental Advantage

I have been reading an interesting book, Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America's Most Important Idea, by linguist and cognitive scientist George Lakoff. This is a good book with many good ideas. One of his most fundamental ideas is that 'progressives' have a very different concept of 'freedom' than right-wing 'conservatives'. He believes these different concepts of 'freedom' are based upon differing conceptions of the family: 'progressives' are committed to a "nurturant parent" family model and 'conservatives' are committed to a "strict father" family model. This is a reasonable attempt to organize the fundamental differences between so-called 'conservatives' and 'progressives' or liberals. This task is one that needs to be done: how do we understand and organize the fundamental differences between 'conservatives' and 'liberals'?

While reading Lakoff it occurred to me that Karen Stenner's book "The Authoritarian Dynamic" might really have more to say about these differences (see my several earlier posts on Stenner's book beginning with this) than Lakoff. Lakoff simply posits that different people have different conceptions of the family while not going deeper to ask why. Stenner argued that there are perhaps 30% of people who are born with a biological disposition to be authoritarian. I wrote:

In an excellent book, The Authoritarian Dynamic, political scientist Karen Stenner gave a brief description of the predisposition to be authoritarian; she wrote (p. 16) that the stances taken by the authoritarian “have the effect of glorifying, encouraging, and rewarding uniformity and of disparaging, suppressing, and punishing difference.” Ad hominem attacks are attempts to glorify uniformity and suppress difference. On the other end of the continuum from authoritarianism is libertarianism.

I frankly think it is at least plausible that approximately 30% of humans are born with a biological predisposition to be authoritarian and that this means they feel compelled to glorify, encourage, and reward uniformity and disparage, suppress and punish difference. It is these people who would naturally be drawn to Lakoff's "stern father" model of the family.

The fact that authoritarians glorify uniformity and punish difference gives them a fundamental political advantage: their stress on uniformity and rejection of difference allows them to share a reasonably common set of beliefs that give them solidarity. Liberals, on the other hand, stand for a diversity of beliefs and the right to disagree and be different. This puts them at a fundamental disadvantage to authoritarians! Look at Hitler's emphasis upon the necessity that members of the Nazi Party declare absolute allegiance to his 25 points (see Richard Evans, "The Coming of the Third Reich", pp. 179-180). As Evans points out these 25 points were "soon declared 'unalterable', so as to prevent it from becoming a focus for internal dissension." Although I haven't got a ready citation for this think of Lenin's emphasis upon the need for "democratic centralism" in the Bolshevik Party so that once a position or strategy had been agreed to all discussion and criticism must stop. Totalitarianism has this fundamental advantage over liberals and progressives because the latter prize diversity and believe that free discussion will eventually bring one to the truth.

In fact it seems to me that a very basic belief of liberalism is that humans are not in possession of the truth and thus using tools like free public discussion, or the scientific method, or continued search for innovation in technology and industry are at the very heart of liberalism. On the other hand, the authoritarian believes we know the truth (the Bible is the unerrant word of God, America is always right and thus you must love it or leave it, questioning the government in wartime is tantamount to treason, etc.) and thus diversity and differences are simply annoying discomforts that should be punished and suppressed. The uniformity, discipline and subordination to a leader (father) gives authoritarians a very strong advantage over liberals and this is at least worth being aware of.

Pseudo-Conservatism Unmasked as Early as 1951

In a marvelous review of William F. Buckley’s 1950 book, God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of 'Academic Freedom' (New York Times, November 4, 1951), Peter Viereck, a true conservative, early espied Buckley’s central contradictions. Complimenting Buckley’s insistence that “man has a moral nature”, “that freedom depends on the traditional value-code of the West and that unmoral materialism results in a suicidal intolerance debunking all values as equally ‘relative’", nonetheless Viereck found much to criticize:

Yet what is his alternative? Nothing more inspiring than the most sterile Old Guard brand of Republicanism, far to the right of Taft. Is there no ‘selfish materialism’ at all among the National Association of Manufacturers as well as among the ‘New Deal collectivists’ here denounced?

Only a true conservative with the integrity of self-criticism and the desire to advocate a consistent set of principles could ask that question—and William F. Buckley, “this product of narrow economic privilege” as appropriately described by Viereck—certainly did not, and to this day does not, satisfy those criteria. (See my William F. Buckley's Courageous Fight for Principle--NOT.)

Buckley raised concerns about excessive ‘materialism’ but only the alleged materialism of “New Deal collectivists” while conveniently ignoring the primary source of American materialism, the consumerism of those like the National Association of Manufacturers. In other words, Buckley takes arguments often dear to American conservatives (e.g., importance of traditional morality, anti-materialism, individual freedom) but transforms them to suit his own ideological prejudices and utterly ignores the blatant contradictions underlying his own tortured usage of ‘conservative’ positions. Buckley, from the beginning really had no principles, he merely cunningly used what he alleged were positions of principle to advocate for a group of interests to which he personally subscribed. Viereck: “[T]he author irresponsibly treats not only mild social democracy but even most social reform as almost crypto-communism. He damns communism, our main enemy, not half so violently as lesser enemies like the income tax and inheritance tax.” Buckley, like his oil baron father, was avidly pro-capitalist and out to protect in every possible manner the prerogatives and privileges of businesspeople who had benefited from American capitalism—thus the attacks upon the income and inheritance taxes (and today's pseudo-conservative attacks on the 'death tax'). He was ferociously anti-New Deal and wished to tear down its edifices and engaged in typical right-wing Cold War hyperbole identifying not only “mild social democracy but even most social reform as almost crypto-communism.”

Buckley posed as a great champion of individual freedom but when it suited his ideological agenda he quietly switched to authoritarian thought control to ‘banish from the classroom’ those ideas he deemed heretical. Viereck: “Words will really fail you when you reach the book’s final ‘message’: [Yale]trustees and alumni should violate the legally established academic freedom to ‘banish from the classroom’ not merely Communists but all professors deviating far from Adam Smith!”

Viereck: “And why is this veritable Eagle Scout of moral sternness silent on the moral implications of McCarthyism in his own camp?” Buckley was a rabid anti-communist willing to blink at the attacks upon civil liberties of those such as Senator Joseph McCarthy. On the one hand he’s against communism for its attacks upon Western freedoms, on the other he undermines these freedoms in the very battle to save them. As the writers of The Authoritarian Personality wrote: “The pseudo-conservative is a man who, in the name of upholding traditional American values and institutions.., consciously or unconsciously aims at their abolition.”

Viereck went on to identify more fatal contradictions: “Is it not humorless, or else blasphemous, for this eloquent advocate of Christianity, an unworldly and anti-economic religion, to enshrine jointly as equally sacrosanct: ‘Adam Smith and Ricardo, Jesus and St. Paul?’” This is a contradiction too infrequently noted: Christianity as preached by Christ is not compatible with the secular worship of the pursuit of wealth, though the 'protestant ethic' may have been twisted to fit 'the spirit of capitalism'.

Viereck, an excellent writer, concluded: “Not for economic privilege but for ethical and anti-materialist reasons, some of us have preached a conservative ‘revolt against revolt.’ If the laboring mountain of the new campus conservatism can turn out no humane and imaginative Churchill but merely this product of narrow economic privilege, then we might need a revolt against the revolt against revolt.”

Many of Peter Viereck's books are still available. For an evaluation of Viereck's conservative credentials see George H. Nash's The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, (1996, p. 60): "[Conservatism Revisited, Viereck's 1949 book] was the book which, more than any other of the postwar era, created the new conservatism as a self-conscious intellectual force." If that was so, Viereck certainly disagreed with Buckley's 'conservatism', as published only a year later.

So You Don't Believe in the Authoritarian Personality Huh?

This just in from the New Haven Advocate thanks to Bill Christensen: a study "found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.... 'Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader,' Lohse says. 'If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’”

Have Americans Become More 'Conservative'?

Examining survey data carried out from 1972 to 2000 Karen Stenner (The Authoritarian Dynamic, pp. 189-92) suggested that over this 29 year period Americans have become more "intolerant." This racial, political and moral intolerance has not been primarily due to 'conservatism' but to 'authoritarianism.' Stenner wrote (p. 191): "Authoritarianism is the primary determinant of general intolerance of difference in the contemporary United States, and it becomes increasingly powerful over time.... Authoritarianism alone can explain a quarter of the variance in all intolerance of difference in [1972-82], and very nearly half the variance in [1990-2000].... Both the explanatory power and impact of conservatism are far more modest, and they generally diminish from the earlier to the later period, as the traditions conservatives are dedicated to conserving grow increasingly tolerant."

This suggests that what was growing in the United States over the 1972-2000 period was not the expression of 'conservatism'; rather it was the expression of racial, political and moral intolerance that was increasing, i.e., authoritarianism.

Although "punitiveness" plays a role in authoritarianism, as a sidelight it is interesting to note that it apparently played no significant role in accounting for intolerance during this period. Why? Stenner wrote (p. 191): "The United States is one of the most extraordinarily punitive nations, by every indicator, and by any comparison, not limited to liberal democracies or 'advanced' economies. This exceptional punitiveness includes, among other things, the proportion of the population imprisoned or otherwise in the 'care' of the criminal justice system; the severity of sentencing for minor crimes; and support for, imposition and execution of the death penalty [sources provided].... Since there is nothing the least bit abnormal about extreme punitiveness in the United States, then or now, we cannot expect authoritarianism to exercise much influence in regulating intolerant responses in that domain, then or now." In other words, if we're trying to explain variation in intolerant views over time, then a potential contributor that doesn't vary much (punitiveness) isn't likely to help.

Stenner (pp. 192-95) also examined the comparative influence of conservatism vs. authoritarianism upon the variation in racially intolerant views in both 1972 and 1996. She found that whereas conservatism explained some racial intolerance in 1972, given the generally increasing racial tolerance over 1972-96, conservatism accounted for very little racial intolerance in 1996. However, at both points in time authoritarianism accounted for a good deal of the variation in racial intolerance.

Bottom line: It is absolutely critical for accurate understanding of the U.S. political landscape to carefully differentiate conservatism from pseudo-conservative authoritarianism.

Conservatives, Liberals and Authoritarians: Cleaning Up American Political Terminology

In her The Authoritarian Dynamic, political scientist Karen Stenner has been a great help in clarifying the landscape of American political ideology. On p. 138 Stenner wrote that "the way in which the notion of 'conservatism' is typically employed in American politics... hopelessly entangles... three dimensions we have so far striven to distinguish: authoritarianism, status quo conservatism and laissez faire conservatism.... In contemporary U.S. politics, 'conservative' does tend to mean, all at once, intolerance of difference, attached to the status quo, and opposed to government intervention in the economy."

Stenner correctly distinguishes these three ideological stances and argues that they can be largely independent of one another; one can endorse laissez faire and be quite critical of the status quo (say you were a bourgeois for laissez faire in Louis XVI's pre-revolutionary France), one can support the status quo and be opposed to laissez faire (say you were a loyal Communist under Brezhnev), and, most important of all for my purposes, being a 'conservative' who wishes to avoid radical or abrupt changes in the status quo does NOT make you an authoritarian (say you are a moderate Republican critical of the Bush-Cheney administration's super-patriotism, hyper-nationalism, moral intolerance, and subversion of political dissent).

Stenner, with characteristic conceptual care, differentiates 'status quo conservatism' from authoritarianism (p. 151): to status quo conservatives “a stable, institutionalized, and authoritatively supported respect for diversity should always be preferable to dismantling those well-established protections and moving toward an uncertain future holding out prospect of greater uniformity of people and beliefs, yet at the cost of intolerable social change and uncertainty.” In other words, if you want to preserve the status quo and you in fact exist in a society respecting diversity, then that’s the status quo you’d wish to preserve; however, if you’re an authoritarian existing in a diverse society you might wish for even abrupt radical changes in the status quo if they promised more uniformity of people and beliefs. A 'status quo conservative' presumably would support whatever status quo existed in his/her society; an authoritarian is predisposed to want uniformity of people and beliefs in whichever society he/she lives and may be willing to risk change to increase uniformity.

Let's parlay this into a clarification of American political ideology.

1) As both of the two patron saints of laissez faire doctrine, Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek believed, those supporting laissez faire should not be called ‘conservative’ at all, but ‘classical liberals’ (here I depart somewhat from Stenner in that I agree with Hayek and Friedman that 'laissez faire' and 'conservative' designate different views). If contemporaries won't take the word of Friedman and Hayek that 'conservative' is an inappropriate term it's because ideologues like William F. Buckley wished to 'fuse' disparate and often contradictory ideological traditions for their own intellectually inconsistent political purposes. Buckley and those around him in the 1950s put together a witch's brew of 'conservatism' that still confuses American political discourse today. A true conservative, like Edmund Burke, refers to someone who opposes abrupt and/or radical changes in contemporary social institutions but supports temperate evolutionary changes as needed. (Two qualifications: 1) in the U.S., with its longstanding and widely held commitment to less government and more 'free' market, a Burkean respecter of the status quo would also tend to support laissez faire, but this is a culturally and historically specific association; historically specific because there were times in American history when leaders who were in many ways staus quo conservatives advocated more government intervention in the economy: e.g., Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay; 2) since capitalism is always a force for innovation, change, and "creative destruction", it is difficult to be consistently pro-capitalist, i.e., laissez faire, and be a Burkean respecter of the status quo. Go figure. I suspect laissez faire and status quo are too often contradictory.)

2) Classical liberals, like Friedman and Hayek, are opposed to undue interference in the economy, and in society more generally (they would oppose legislating morality), by the central government. The libertarian (see U.S. Libertarian Party) of today tends toward the beliefs of the classical liberal, but also strives for consistency in pursuing liberty by supporting strong civil liberties, opposing government legislation of morality (support for women's rights to abortion), and opposing a meddlesome, interventionist foreign policy requiring the central government to have a huge 'defense' and 'national security' establishment.

3) So what's a 'liberal'? The ‘modern liberal’ or ‘progressive’ believes that the rise and growth of modern corporations in the America of the 19th century has interfered massively and significantly in the 1825 (pre-industrial) world of the classical liberal; this growth has enabled corporations to interfere with the ‘free market’, enabled representatives of corporations to exercise excessive influence over government and elections, and enabled the ‘collectivism’ of the corporation to exercise undue influence over most social decisions (environment, health care, retirement, unionization of workers, development of law, popular tastes, favored entertainments, use of the broadcast airwaves, etc., etc., etc.). Thus the modern liberal believes that government--as the only institution within modern capitalist society having adequate power to regulate the corporation as well as being under some popular control through democratic elections--that this central government must be supported in its role of corporate regulation. Other than this, and with some notable backsliding (McCarthyism, the Cold War, the 'war on terror'), the modern liberal probably agrees with the libertarian on many issues. That the three examples of 'backsliding' that came to mind concern foreign policy is no coincidence; probably the biggest problem for modern liberalism is that 'liberals' support aggressive, 'idealistic' foreign policies in which the U.S. brings its 'superior' values to the poor and benighted of foreign lands. I believe such interference in the affairs of sovereign countries contradicts liberal principles of freedom, equality before the law, and self-determination for all peoples.

4) What is an "authoritarian" or pseudo-conservative? As Stenner argues, an authoritarian is someone who likely has an innate disposition to strongly favor uniformity of beliefs for all members of society, and sameness of characteristics of all members, and thus tends to be racially, politically and morally intolerant of diversity and dissent; the authoritarian when threatened or challenged by a perceived excess of diversity and/or dissent responds with an aggressive, coercive punitiveness aimed at suppressing unwanted difference and enforcing uniformity upon others. Thus, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, along with many of their most fervent supporters, are more accurately considered authoritarian pseudo-conservatives and should never have been labeled 'conservative' at all. Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower, Senator Robert Taft (1889-1953), and George H. W. Bush might more accurately be considered 'conservative'.

Clarification Regarding "The Authoritarian Dynamic"

In my Is There an Inborn Authoritarian Disposition? I wrote that Karen Stenner, author of The Authoritarian Dynamic, "doesn't really have much to say about the origins of authoritarianism, i.e., whether it is inborn temperament or not." Dr. Stenner has kindly corrected me on this stating:

I do in fact state explicitly and provide a good deal of empirical evidence (e.g., see Chapter 6!) that authoritarian predisposition is an "inborn temperament" (it is much like a personality disposition, and is in fact substantially related to lack of "openness to experience", one of the 'Big Five' personality factors). I argue and show that it is substantially genetically 'programmed', heritable, immutable. There are even studies of identical twins reared together or apart that provide pretty conclusive evidence on this point. So the predisposition sits there, latent, in a fair chunk of any country's population, and the key is that it can either remain quiescent and relatively innocuous, or else be activated and expressed openly in aggressive, racist and intolerant stances...

This is very interesting. Stenner presents data (see her pp. 91-2) supporting the interpretation that perhaps 59% of any national population could have an "authoritarian predisposition" while 39% could be predisposed to a libertarian stance. If I am reading this correctly it could give pseudo-conservative politicians an edge in working up the approximately 60% majority of authoritarians with their messages of fear and 'toughness'.

Is There an Inborn Authoritarian Disposition?

I've been reading a wonderful book by Karen Stenner, The Authoritarian Dynamic. (The book is serious academic social science rather than light reading, but it's probably the most clearly thought through social science I've read in years.) Though she doesn't say so the book at least suggests the possibility that there could be an inborn temperamental tendency toward authoritarianism at one extreme and libertarianism at the other. Thinking about this possibility I was reminded of a lyric from Gilbert and Sullivan's operatta Iolanthe:

I often think it's comical
How Nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That’s born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative!

Actually I'm doing Dr. Stenner a disservice in a couple of ways: she doesn't really have much to say about the origins of authoritarianism, i.e., whether it is inborn temperament or not, and she explicitly does argue that authoritarianism is NOT equivalent to conservatism. I may be able to use this point later on because, as I've been at pains to argue (see Why Pseudo-Conservatives are not "Conservative"), I believe today's pseudo-conservative is an authoritarian and not a genuine conservative.

Pseudo-Conservative Contradictions, Part 2

This is a continuation of my earlier Pseudo-Conservative Contradictions. One of the best ways to see that pseudo-conservatives are not advocates of ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ as they constantly claim is by noting how they handle debate with opponents. Most pseudo-conservatives I hear use authoritarian tactics in debate which show they don’t foster ‘freedom of expression’. Prime among debating tools for pseudo-conservatives is the personal attack, the ad hominem tactic: attack the person and not the substance of the disagreement. Thus, you’ll hear those on the right, who otherwise maintain they are the arch defenders of liberty and freedom, use dismissive attacks on opponents like “cut and run”, “hate America first”, “unpatriotic”, etc. The goal is to encourage audiences to emotionally dismiss the opponent and not even listen to what they have to say. In other words, these defenders of liberty aim to squelch debate and the free exchange of ideas.

In an excellent book, The Authoritarian Dynamic, political scientist Karen Stenner gave a brief description of the predisposition to be authoritarian; she wrote (p. 16) that the stances taken by the authoritarian “have the effect of glorifying, encouraging, and rewarding uniformity and of disparaging, suppressing, and punishing difference.” Ad hominem attacks are attempts to glorify uniformity and suppress difference. On the other end of the continuum from authoritarianism is libertarianism. The true and consistent libertarian can reasonably make a claim that they are defenders of liberty. The pseudo-conservative is a sham defender of liberty, an authoritarian masquerading as a true lover of freedom. How long are Americans going to allow the pseudo-conservative, authoritarian right to get away with this scam? They pump themselves up as guardians of liberty but consistently behave in ways that undermine it.

"Pseudo-Conservative": Origins of the Term, Part 2

In my "Pseudo-Conservative": An Update on the Origins of the Term I wrote: "As far as my etymological researches are concerned 'pseudo-conservative' may have first been used in a rather famous book, The Authoritarian Personality, written by Theodore Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford in 1950." My learned correspondent, Bill Christensen, tells me his etymological researches show usages of "pseudo-conservative" going back at least to 1863. Mr. Christensen advises: "For example, in a 1936 Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, we find this notation: 'We need to know more about the pseudo-conservative revolt against the very spirit of modernity which animates the members of these right-wing groups... ' In a 1914 issue of The New Republic, we read: 'The pseudo-conservative would object that such a program offers no relief from the taxation that now absorbs much of the funds needed to provide capital for industry. The true conservative would also be solicitous about capital for industry, but...' In a book on William Seward's foreign correspondence from the year 1862 (published in 1863), we find this gem: '...the leader, in conjunction with the kindred spirits who have always clustered round him, in a new Pseudo-Conservative party, who imagine they can restore to life the Union which they have stabbed, and the Constitution they have violated.'"

The 1936 Menninger Clinic reference is interesting for two reasons: 1) the Menninger Clinic was a psychoanalytic institution and the authors of The Authoritarian Personality were psychoanalytic in orientation; 2) the Menninger Clinic quote used the phrase "the pseudo-conservative revolt", and this was the title of historian Richard Hofstadter's very widely read 1955 article. Hofstadter cited The Authoritarian Personality and his thinking was influenced by psychoanalytic ideas at that time.

Many thanks to Bill Christensen who is the developer of two excellent websites: The Site Doctor.com, for increasing your website's usability and Technovelgy.com, "Where Science Meets Fiction."

"Pseudo-Conservative": An Update on the Origins of the Term

For previous posts on this topic see Why Pseudo-Conservatives are not "Conservative" and Recognition of the Need for the Term "Pseudo-Conservative".

As far as my etymological researches are concerned "pseudo-conservative" may have first been used in a rather famous book, The Authoritarian Personality, written by Theodore Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford in 1950. The authors wrote that the pseudo-conservative "in the name of upholding traditional American values... and defending them against more or less fictitious dangers, consciously or unconsciously aim at their abolition." I find it difficult to improve on that definition fifty-six years later. Our pseudo-conservatives of today are also fighting "more or less fictitious dangers" such as "Islamo-Fascism" and "International Terrorism" in the "name of upholding traditional American values", and in this very struggle are "consciously or unconsciously" threatening the abolition of these very American values. (From previous posts I've made it clear I do consider "terrorism", properly understood, as our biggest current foreign threat, see What is a Progressive Foreign Policy?).

After The Authoritarian Personality appeared it was rather savagely attacked for methodological and other alleged shortcomings and was assigned to the social science slag heap. What is quite unusual is that it has undergone rediscovery, improvement and validation over the last 25 years. At least two psychologists have contributed to this rebirth: Bob Altemeyer of University of Manitoba and John Jost of New York University. Altemeyer has overcome many methodological shortcomings reported in books like Right-Wing Authoritarianism (1981), Enemies of Freedom: Understanding Right-Wing Authoritarianism (1988), and The Authoritarian Specter (1996). Jost has done a long series of studies finding support for the concept. Jost recently published a summary article in the American Psychologist entitled "The End of the End of Ideology".

Jost sums up the "end of ideology" well: "The end of ideology was declared more than a generation ago by sociologists and political scientists who—after the titanic struggle between the ideological extremes of fascism and communism in the middle of the 20th century—were more than glad to see it go. The work of Edward Shils..., Raymond Aron..., Daniel Bell..., Seymour Lipset..., and Philip Converse... was extremely influential in the social and behavioral sciences, including psychology. The general thesis of these authors was that in the aftermath of World War II and the Cold War, both the right and the left had been equally discredited and that “a kind of exhaustion of political ideas” had taken place in the West.... Ideological distinctions, it was suggested, were devoid of social and psychological significance for most people, especially in the United States."

Shils in particular demonstrated that his predictions regarding "conservatism" were more a reflection of his wishes than anything else. In 1958 Shils opined: "The conservative revival, though genuine, is moderate. People take Burke in their stride. They have become “natural Burkeans” without making a noise about it. The National Review, despite its clamor, is isolated and unnoticed, and the effort to create a “conservative ideology” which would stand for more than moderation, reasonableness, and prudence has not been successful." A worse social science assessment might be difficult to find. The only other that occurs to me is economist Irving Fisher's prediction on October 16th, 1929: "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanent plateau...I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months."

Commenting upon what this "end of ideology" era did to The Authoritarian Personality Jost wrote: "Adorno et al.’s [book] is one of the most influential—and also one of the most badly caricatured—books in the history of social science. One Web site claims that Adorno and colleagues “attacked the ‘authoritarian character’ of the American nuclear family, the ‘problem’ of the American people’s belief in a transcendent monotheistic God, the underlying ‘fascist’ character of all forms of American patriotism, and American culture’s excessive reliance on science, reason, and ‘abstract ideas.’” Another lists it as one of the “most harmful” books of the last two centuries. Roiser and Willig... noted that even in academic circles, “The Authoritarian Personality has been the victim of several determined attempts at psychological and political assassinations”." Hmmmm. Sounds like The Authoritarian Personality may have hit a nerve with pseudo-conservatives.

Jost continued: "There are signs that Adorno et al.’s... work is gaining new appreciation, at least in part because of the current political climate.... Many of the fundamental ideas of the theory of right-wing authoritarianism have resurfaced in contemporary accounts of the “culture wars".... There is now sufficient evidence to conclude that Adorno et al... were correct that conservatives are, on average, more rigid and closed-minded than liberals. My colleagues and I published a meta-analysis that identified several psychological variables that predicted, to varying degrees, adherence to politically conservative (vs. liberal) opinions.... The original studies, which were conducted over a 44-year period that included the end-of-ideology era, made use of 88 research samples involving 22,818 individual cases and were carried out in 12 different countries: Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Scotland, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States. The results,.. show a clear tendency for conservatives to score higher on measures of dogmatism, intolerance of ambiguity, needs for order, structure, and closure and to be lower in openness to experience and integrative complexity than moderates and liberals. Several studies demonstrate that in a variety of perceptual and aesthetic domains, conservatism is associated with preferences for relatively simple, unambiguous, and familiar stimuli, whether they are paintings, poems, or songs."

I believe these findings that pseudo-conservatives are likely to share characteristics of an authoritarian right-wing personality is at least a step toward solving my problem of understanding what is so compelling to some leaders and some followers about "toughness" in foreign policy (See What Are the Assumptions Underlying "Tough" Foreign Policy? and Why are Pseudo-Conservatives Addicted to "Toughness"?). However, it is not the whole answer and I will continue my researches upon this question.