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The draw for some authoritarians [1]

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Date: 2022-07-25

An ideology based on the worship of power and physical force, on the subjugation of other people’s will, and on the absolutisms of religious, political, and sexual dogmas, all too clearly reflects the underlying failure in that person’s progress toward a reasonable independence—toward an emancipation from the state of attachment that characterizes childhood. Such an ideology fails to disguise the other side of the person’s character; the sick showing is a profile of dominance, the side hidden is of a person dominated. And the individual harboring such ideology suffers a reversal to the flip side sooner than later in his life cycle.1

This goes to Wilhelm Reich’s insistence that the people (certain people, I would say: the irrational masses) crave authoritarianism, crave domination. Robert Altemeyer, in The Authoritarians, breaks this down for us:

[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. Right-wing authoritarianism is a personality trait, like being characteristically bashful or happy or grumpy or dopey.2

The desire to dominate or to be dominated is an orientation, a certain configuration determining relations with others. This can be viewed as no different from a sexual orientation, as it is a basic way of interpreting oneself in social interactions.

This ambivalent attitude toward authority—rebellion against it coupled with acceptance and submission—is a basic feature of every middle-class structure from the age of puberty to full adulthood....3 [W]e know that it is the authoritarian upbringing of little children, the teaching them to be fearful and submissive, that secures for the political power monger the slavery and the gullibility of millions of adult industrious men and women.4

“Authority is a manifestation of the relationship of domination and servitude as a social relationship of dependence,” Herbert Marcuse tells us.5 Some of these authoritarians merely want to be dominated; others, probably reared in or simply used to hierarchical formations or groups, want to both dominate and be dominated. Formalized systems of rank (such as found in the military, but also deference cultures) enhance or encourage such hierarchical systems of interrelation with others.

[B]ecause no amount of submission or domination (or possession or fame) is enough to give a sense of identity and union, more and more of it is sought.6

The person secure in such a system “knows their place” and understands and/or yearns to move up in this established hierarchy. This is why it is a mortal offense to this person when others get “uppity” or fails to know their place. To transgress in such a way strikes at the heart of the central morality (as such could be said) of hierarchy. In this way, hierarchy is an ultimate value.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/25/2112502/-The-draw-for-some-authoritarians

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