Conservatives Without Conscience (11 page)
Read Conservatives Without Conscience Online
Authors: John W. Dean
Tags: #Politics and government, #Current Events, #Political Ideologies, #International Relations, #Republican Party (U.S. : 1854- ), #Political Process, #2001-, #General, #United States, #Conservatism & Liberalism, #Conservatism, #Political Science, #Political Process - Political Parties, #Politics, #Political Parties, #Political Ideologies - Conservatism & Liberalism
Although
The Authoritarian Personality
is not without critics, Wolfe believes that despite its flaws it deserves a reevaluation. Public officials “make good subjects for the kinds of analysis upon which the book relied; visible, talkative, passionate, they reveal their personalities to us, allowing us to evaluate them,” he observes. A good example, he suggests, is United Nations ambassador John R. Bolton. At Bolton’s Senate confirmation hearings (after which the Senate refused to confirm him; Bush nonetheless gave him a recess appointment), his contentious personality was exposed, with one former State Department colleague calling him “a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy.” Wolfe notes, “Everything Americans have learned about Bolton—his temper tantrums, intolerance of dissent, and black-and-white view of the world—step right out of the clinical material assembled by the authors of
The Authoritarian Personality.
” Wolfe also finds Republican
senator John Cornyn of Texas and former House majority leader Tom DeLay in its pages as well.
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During the past half century our understanding of authoritarianism has been significantly refined and advanced. Leading this work is social psychologist and researcher Bob Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba. Altemeyer not only confirmed the flaws in the methodology and findings of
The Authoritarian Personality,
but he set this field of study on new footings, by clarifying the study of authoritarian followers, whom he calls “right-wing authoritarians” (RWA). The provocative titles of his books—
Right-Wing Authoritarianism
(1981),
Enemies of Freedom
(1988), and
The Authoritarian Specter
(1996)—and a few of his many articles found in scholarly journals—such as “Highly Dominating, Highly Authoritarian Personalities” in the
Journal of Social Psychology
(2004) and “Why Do Religious Fundamentalists Tend to Be Prejudiced?” in the
International Journal for the Psychology of Religion
(2003)—indicate the tenor of his research and the range of his interests.
*
Halfway through Altemeyer’s
The Authoritarian Specter
I realized that I should get guidance to be certain I understood the material correctly, because the information he had developed was exactly what I needed to comprehend the personalities now dominating the conservative movement and Republican Party. For instance, he asked a very troubling question at the outset of
The Authoritarian Specter:
“Can there really be fascist people in a democracy?” His considered answer, based not on his opinion but on the results of his research, was: “I am afraid so.”
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Altemeyer’s studies addressed not only those people mentioned by Alan Wolfe, along with my muses Chuck Colson and Gordon
Liddy, whose behavior had provoked my inquiry, but all conservatives. Altemeyer graciously agreed to assist me in understanding his work and that of his colleagues.
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To study authoritarians Altemeyer and other researchers have used carefully crafted and tested questionnaires, usually called “scales,” in which respondents are asked to agree or disagree with a statement such as “Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us,” or, “A ‘woman’s place’ should be wherever she wants to be. The days when women are submissive to their husbands and social conventions belong strictly in the past.”
14
As a professor of psychology Altemeyer has tested (usually anonymously) tens of thousands of first-year students and their parents, along with others, including some fifteen hundred American state legislators, over the course of some three decades. There is no database on authoritarians that even comes close in its scope, and, more importantly, these studies offer empirical data rather than partisan speculation.
Authoritarianism Vis-à-Vis Conservatism
Since the “authoritarian type” was first introduced in 1950, the question of the relationship of authoritarianism to ideology has been an ongoing investigation. Extensive research, and overwhelming evidence, shows “that authoritarianism is consistently associated with right-wing but not left-wing ideology.”
15
To underscore the fact that his questionnaire does not address the left, Altemeyer specifically calls his scale a survey of
right-wing
authoritarianism. “I have tried to discover the left-wing authoritarian, whom I suspect exists, but apparently only in very small numbers,” he told me. He is
not
testing for political conservatism per se, however. Nonetheless, he finds that those who score highly on his right-wing authoritarian scale are by and large “conservatives,” as journalists and the general public under
stand that term. Other social scientists have reached the same conclusions.
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In one of Altemeyer’s recent articles—“What Happens When Authoritarians Inherit the Earth? A Simulation”—he describes right-wing authoritarians as “political conservatives (from the grass roots up to the pros, say studies of over 1500 elected lawmakers).” He explained what can be a confusing distinction between a right-wing authoritarian and a political conservative:
When I started out, and ever since, I was not looking for political conservatives. I was looking for people who overtly submit to the established authorities in their lives, who could be of any political/economic/religious stripe. So in the Soviet Union, whose Communist government we would call extremely “left-wing,” I expected right-wing authoritarians to support Communism because that was what the established authorities demanded, and they did. So when I use “right-wing” in right-wing authoritarianism, I do not mean the submission necessarily goes to a politically “right-wing” leader or government, but that it goes to
established
authorities in one’s life. I am proposing a psychological (not political) meaning of right-wing, in the sense that the submission goes to the psychologically accepted “proper,” “legitimate” authority. That’s the conceptualization.Now it turns out that in North America persons who score highly on my measure of authoritarianism test tend to favor right-wing political parties and have “conservative” economic philosophies and religious sentiments. This is an empirical finding, not something that conceptually has to be, that was conceptually assumed or preordained. So my statement about authoritarians being political conservatives is a statement of what turns out to be true according to the studies that have been done. To put it in a nutshell: Authoritarianism was
conceptualized
to involve submission to established authorities, who could be anyone. But
it turns
out
that people who have “conservative” leanings tend to be more authoritarian than anyone else. (Incidentally, I put all those tiresome quotation marks around “conservative” and “liberal” because I don’t want people to think I know what I’m talking about. Good definitions are very difficult here, especially from place to place and era to era.)
While there is no question that a satisfactory definition of conservatism is elusive, it is not surprising that right-wing authoritarians are conservatives under almost any current definition, based on the items found in the principal tool for measuring authoritarianism, the RWA (right-wing authoritarian) scale.
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For example, in the RWA scale (see a full sample in Appendix B), the following questions would surely be answered in varying affirmatives (strongly agree or agree as opposed to disagree or strongly disagree) by social conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives:
- Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.
- The only way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get back to our traditional values, put some tough leaders in power, and silence the troublemakers who are spreading bad ideas.
- “Old-fashioned ways” and “old-fashioned values” are the best guide for the way to live.
- God’s laws about abortion, pornography, and marriage must be strictly followed before it is too late, and those who break them must be strongly punished.
- Once our government leaders give us the “go-ahead,” it will be the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the rot that is poisoning our country from within.
Social conservatives would just as likely
very strongly
disagree with these statements from the RWA scale:
- Gays and lesbians are just as healthy and moral as anybody else.
- Atheists and others who have rebelled against the established religions are no doubt every bit as good and virtuous as those who attend church regularly.
- There is absolutely nothing wrong with nudist camps.
- There is nothing wrong with premarital sexual intercourse.
Altemeyer explains the conservative-liberal dimension of his research in
The Authoritarian Specter.
“I submit that when journalists, educators, and politicians themselves talk about liberals and conservatives on the issues of our day,” he wrote, “they are usually talking about the dimension measured by the RWA scale.” He noted,
When I hear Rush Limbaugh, Jesse Helms, or Pat Buchanan say that liberals favor guaranteeing equal rights for homosexuals, I say to myself, “Actually,
Low RWAs
do, and it connects to much else in their thinking.” And when I hear Gary Trudeau, Edward Kennedy, and Barbara Jordan say that the conservatives oppose abortion and favor the death penalty, I say to myself, “Actually, if you understand that it’s
High RWAs
who do these things, you’ll realize why and a lot, lot more.” When people are “conservatives”—politically, religiously, economically—the odds are pretty good that they are High RWAs. That is not an opinion, but a scientifically established fact.
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A recent study employing the RWA scale, conducted by another researcher, showed it to be quite prescient in predicting voting patterns for Republican candidates in the 1996 and 2000 elections.
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While the right-wing authoritarian scale does not measure either conservatism or Republican party identification, this recent research again confirms Altemeyer’s findings that those who score high on the scale are, more than likely, both.
Early in our exchanges on authoritarians Altemeyer related, “The biggest thing that has happened recently has been the discovery that
there are two, not one, authoritarian personalities.” He explained that the Berkeley group’s research, like that of other social scientists and his own, focused on “authoritarian
followers,
persons who submit too fast, too long to established authorities.” (Emphasis added.) These people are RWAs. More recently social psychologists have “developed a measure to identify authoritarian
leaders,
persons who want to be submitted to.” (Emphasis added.) These individuals, because of their social dominance orientation (SDO), are take-charge types. Not unaware of my background at the Nixon White House—since Watergate was one of several events he had examined that demonstrated “that many citizens in a democracy will support high-handed, repressive, and anti-democratic policies” that obviously were not envisioned by the nation’s founders—Altemeyer suggested that I was no doubt personally familiar with these types of personalities. After learning more about them, I found he was correct, and, in addition, I have discovered them in my recent studies of the Bush White House and Washington political culture. And all of them are hard-right conservatives.
Working my way through Altemeyer’s books and journal articles, along with the writings of others in the field, I began to understand the particular categories within the authoritarian personality classifications. First there are the followers, the right-wing authoritarians. Then there are the leaders, the social dominators. And finally, there are those who uniquely combine the worst personality traits of both types and appear to be best positioned to become leaders of right-wing movements and undertakings, a group Altemeyer describes as “scary.” While many conservatives seem willing to set aside their consciences, it is not clear this last group possesses a conscience. But let us move forward one step at a time, first examining the nature of each of these authoritarian personalities.
Right-Wing Authoritarians: The Followers
Altemeyer characterizes right-wing authoritarians as “especially submissive to established authority”; as showing “general aggressiveness” toward others when such behavior “is perceived to be sanctioned” by established authorities; and as highly compliant with “social conventions” endorsed by society and established authorities. All these attitudes must be present in significant if varying degrees if an individual is to fall within Altemeyer’s well-honed definition. Both men and women may score high on the RWA scale. These three elements of the right-wing authoritarian personality, while not elusive, still call for a little further explanation.
S
UBMISSIVE TO
A
UTHORITY
By “submissive,” Altemeyer means these people accept almost without question the statements and actions of established authorities, and they comply with such instructions without further ado. “Authorities” include parents (throughout childhood), religious officials, government officials (police, judges, legislators, heads of government), military superiors, and, depending on the situation, other people like “bus drivers, lifeguards, employers, psychology experimenters and countless others.” High-scoring right-wing authoritarians are intolerant of criticism of their authorities, because they believe the authority is unassailably correct. Rather than feeling vulnerable in the presence of powerful authorities, they feel safer. For example, they are not troubled by government surveillance of citizens because they think only wrongdoers need to be concerned by such intrusions. Still, their submission to authority is not blind or automatic; these authoritarians believe there are proper and improper authorities (good judges and bad judges, good presidents and bad presidents), and their decision to submit is shaped by whether a particular authority is compatible with their views.