# Authoritarian personality: The limit of psychology?



## Innocentia (Jun 30, 2019)

Hi everybuddy h:,

This will not be a poll so to say but there is a personality test at the end of the thread which you can answer and then publish your results, if you wish to do so, and add any comments (on the test).

Disclaimer, I'm not judging people on their intents or on their individuality, so don't worry about that, there will be no consequences coming from me (better answer anonymously, you can never trust everyone), and I hope you will do the same to your fellow comrade, so we can keep a good mood under this thread. *Ultra-important personal and subjective advice:* And don't use it to judge your entourage, it's stupid and counterproductive, don't try any individual solutions or you could be burned (metaphorically) (check "philosophy tube"'s video on Steve Bannon to understand the metaphor :tongue

So there's this book which is called "The Authoritarians" from Bob Altemeyer who is researcher in social psychology, you don't need to read it to understand anything I will say (hopefully), but feel free to check it out (it's free and on the internet). And in this book he speaks of the authoritarian personality, the authoritarian followers (who share near every characteristics of the authoritarian personality), the fundamentalists (who, again, share near every characteristics of the authoritarian personality) and the social dominators (who can share characteristic of the authoritarian personality, and if they do, they are called "double high").

Now what I want to discuss is the following: Why we cannot use psychology to fight authoritarianism?

But first thing first, why would you want to fight authoritarianism? Well if you allow me this Godwin point, because you don't want to live under Nazis, fascism, or stalinism, or maoism, or any governement which claims to protect you but actually is willing to kill you, or your family, or your friends, or anyone who live under this governement, or maybe even outside of your "country", because they're enemies of the beloved order of the governement, they're not at their place (like we could choose where we are and who we are).

Let's be clear between us, I'm not saying their are evil, not because I don't believe it, but because it adds nothing to the argument. I'm not saying we should kill them or put them in prison, I said we should fight it or them, but not how, allowing people to think otherwise than to promote authoritarianism is a kind of fight (which I would advocate more likely than any form of violence).

This said, let's deconstruct the tool Bob Altemeyer gave us to identify the very same people who want an authoritarian governement. Not that they don't exist, they do, but that you cannot actually use this tool to fight authoritarianism. The reason is simple, if you generalize the use of this tool (like I'm doing right now), people will eventually figure it out that it is a test that will bring them problems, and as such will answer it in bad faith. The tool become useless, and you probably noticed that an authoritarian governement would like so much to use a (not for long) secret test to eliminate the enemies before they become a threat (in this case someone should score low in the test to be considered a threat to the governement). But furthermore, from Bob himself, he admits that the test is culturally contextualized, so it would ultimatily fail wether you live far from Canada or the U.S., or you wait long enough that the culture change.

Now, because you really want to address this issue on objective and systemical terms, you may want to produce a test which is not culturally contextualized, like a neuro-biological one. Well, if it's possible to make such a test, you are giving the exact right weapons for an authoritarion governement, so hmm think a second time before building such a thing, will you? It's almost like the failure of such test is a gift for humanity to fail at being ultra-authoritarian, but is it?

Well as you well now, social psychology is sometimes used to manipulate (some technic are illegal) people consumers and voters, basically we have technologies to manipulate which are never based on sociological and anthropological research, which again, you could say it's because they contain more errors than psychology or neurobiology. But maybe, it's because the tools we can produce from sociology are anti-authoritarian, and that's a bold claim, but it's my claim.

Let's take propaganda for an exemple, we can distinguish: the technologies and the manipulative technics from the content. There is a saying that technologies are "neutral" (which they aren't but let's put aside this debate), so let's put aside the technological part (no constraint on technologies). Now the manipulative technics, there are a lot of them, and we cannot disable all of them, and they do not work all so well, and once one is to much generalized, its effect is lowered. But there are technics which play on emotions to blind people from your use of illogical reasonings, but to provoke emotions you need to use a specific vocabulary which is culturally linked, basically you need a well thought content. And here we begin to lessen the usefulness of more "objective" science like psychology. To make fast, we need to be aware that if we promote authority to the level of national value, you will ultimatily promote authoritarianism, if we promote violence in the name of any authority, you promote justification to use violence because your superintendent told you so, if you promote any justification that allow you to say to someone that they belong somewhere where the authority want it, you promote the authoritarian ordrer, present or future.

Now, from Bob himself, the "double highs" I told you at the end of the third paragraph, are an auto-destructive demographic and if you want that none follow them, you will have to teach people to not be promoters of any conclusion that just fit their own ideas of order but promoters of logical reasoning. But not only, the content of the reasoning must allow everyone to participate, in an equal distribution of power, to the future of the society, if not, then you begin the ascension of authoritarianism, which again is not evil in itself, it just allow the double highs to act their auto-destrucive agenda (its a risk at least, particularly in time of crisis, and I don't want to take it), which is meh to say the least.

I find very interesting that Viktor Orban and the actual president of Brazil wish to shut down the universties where sociology and social sciences are the most taught. We know for a fact that there are social determinism, and that we don't just choose where we want to belong, but it's the social order which determine (not at 100%) where you belong, if the authorities can decide to wipe off a social demographic, and that some people accept blindly authority, you aren't making the world better, you're killing yourself, cause they could be you, only being an hypocrite (thus a lack of logical reasoning) allow you to not see that it's a completely auto-destructive kind of society. And sociology wishes to exactly give those determination to see to the eyes of the public, and so to prevent hypocrisy, and hyporcisy is a main characterestic of the authoritarian personality, listening to sociology and allowing it to do its job is a must.

Well here it ends, the solutions and reflexions have to be discussed on another thread, cause the purpose of my commentary is to contextualize the limit of the following test, and I chose the "member polls" part of the forum so people are more eager to follow the behavior we tend to have in front of a poll or a test. You can still comment on the *test* (not what I said, even if you so badly want to do it :tongue, giving your result would be better, and it's suppose to be a safeplace for non-authoritarian *and* authoritarian demographics. Please don't insult or judge anyone based on the result to this test, for the sake of a pleasant environnement.

TEST TIME:The test is directly taken from the book in pdf format from the page 16 to 19:

This survey is part of an investigation of general public opinion concerning a variety of social issues. You will probably find that you agree with some of the statements, and disagree with others, to varying extents. Please indicate your reaction to each statement on the line to the left of each item according to the following scale:

Write down a -4 if you very strongly disagree with the statement.
Write down a -3 if you strongly disagree with the statement.
Write down a -2 if you moderately disagree with the statement.
Write down a -1 if you slightly disagree with the statement.
Write down a +1 if you slightly agree with the statement.
Write down a +2 if you moderately agree with the statement.
Write down a +3 if you strongly agree with the statement.
Write down a +4 if you very strongly agree with the statement.

If you feel exactly and precisely neutral about an item, write down a “0."

Important: You may find that you sometimes have different reactions to different parts of a statement. For example, you might very strongly disagree (“-4") with one idea in a statement, but slightly agree (“+1") with another idea in the same item. When this happens, please combine your reactions, and write down how you feel on balance (a “-3" in this case).

1. The established authorities generally turn out to be right about things, while the radicals and protestors are usually just “loud mouths” showing off their ignorance.

2. Women should have to promise to obey their husbands when they get married.

3. 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.

4. Gays and lesbians are just as healthy and moral as anybody else.

5. It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people’s minds.

6. 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.

7. 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 spreading bad ideas.

8. There is absolutely nothing wrong with nudist camps.

9. Our country needs free thinkers who have the courage to defy traditional ways, even if this upsets many people.

10. Our country will be destroyed someday if we do not smash the perversions eating away at our moral fiber and traditional beliefs.

11. Everyone should have their own lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences, even if it makes them different from everyone else.

12. The “old-fashioned ways” and the “old-fashioned values” still show the best way to live.

13. You have to admire those who challenged the law and the majority’s view by protesting for women’s abortion rights, for animal rights, or to abolish school prayer.

14. What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path.

15. Some of the best people in our country are those who are challenging our government, criticizing religion, and ignoring the “normal way things are supposed to be done.”

16. 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.

17. There are many radical, immoral people in our country today, who are trying to ruin it for their own godless purposes, whom the authorities should put out of action.

18. 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.

19. Our country will be great if we honor the ways of our forefathers, do what the authorities tell us to do, and get rid of the “rotten apples” who are ruining everything.

20. There is no “ONE right way” to live life; everybody has to create their own way.

21. Homosexuals and feminists should be praised for being brave enough to defy “traditional family values.

22. This country would work a lot better if certain groups of troublemakers would just shut up and accept their group’s traditional place in society.

"Done them all, as best you could? Then let’s score your answers, and get an idea of
whether you’re cut out to be an authoritarian follower. First, you can skip your
answers to the first two statements. They don’t count. I put those items on the test to
give people some experience with the -4 to +4 response system. They’re just “warmups.”

Start therefore with No. 3.

If you wrote down a “-4” that’s scored as a 1.
If you wrote down a “-3" that’s scored as a 2.
If you wrote down a “-2" that’s scored as a 3.
If you wrote down a “-1" that’s scored as a 4.
If you wrote down a “0" or left the item unanswered, that’s scored as a 5.
If you wrote down a “+1" that’s scored as a 6.
If you wrote down a “+2" that’s scored as a 7.
If you wrote down a “+3" that’s scored as an 8.
If you wrote down a “+4" that’s scored as a 9.

Your answers to Items 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 16, 17, 19 and 22 are scored the same way.

Now we’ll do the rest of your answers, starting with No. 4.

If you wrote down a “-4" that’s scored as a 9.
If you wrote down a “-3" that’s scored as an 8.
If you wrote down a “-2" that’s scored as a 7.
If you wrote down a “-1" that’s scored as a 6.
If you wrote down a “0" or left the item unanswered, that’s scored as a 5.
If you wrote down a “+1" that’s scored as a 4.
If you wrote down a “+2" that’s scored as a 3.
If you wrote down a “+3" that’s scored as a 2.
If you wrote down a “+4" that’s scored as a 1."

Note from me, Innocentia: It's the end of the test, so just add up your score, you should have a score between 20 and 180. I don't think I need to explain your score, it's kinda self-explanatory taken into account the statements of the test. Beside you can always read the book from Bob Altemeyer which is called "The Authoritarians" (for the people who jumped to the test), if you want to know more about it.

Thanks for your time and see you on the internet.


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## Eliane (Sep 18, 2019)

I got 140 if I did the math correctly


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## Shrodingers drink (Nov 30, 2018)

Question 6 is hilarious! Virtuous should be a dirty word due to all the self righteous types.


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## Hexigoon (Mar 12, 2018)

38


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## 74893H (Dec 27, 2017)

I got 57. I wasn't sure how to interpret the wording of some of the questions, but if I guessed wrong then my score's higher than it should be so it'd still be low. Some of this is more traditionalism vs progressivism than authoritarianism vs libertarianism though, which I wouldn't say is the same thing.


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## Innocentia (Jun 30, 2019)

Pizzafari said:


> I got 57. I wasn't sure how to interpret the wording of some of the questions, but if I guessed wrong then my score's higher than it should be so it'd still be low. Some of this is more traditionalism vs progressivism than authoritarianism vs libertarianism though, which I wouldn't say is the same thing.


You point different interesting things in your comment, I'll try my best to answer some of the questions that could be raised from it.

First the wording. All tests hold ambiguities on the wording, based on cultures, social classes, periods etc. Nothing new here and a good researcher take this into account and try to use a limited vocabulary, general enough so everyone can understand the general meaning of the statement, and specific enough so that you avoid some biais due the generality of the statement, either way you still get biais, but reduced. To assure yourself that you measure what you want to measure, you'll have to reword many times your test, and compare it to other tests with which you can get a link (for example the F scale, the scale for fascism from Adorno). On this particular test, nearly everything has been done so the test measure what we want it to measure and in the most rigorous way possible. We can still make better, or a similar test more adapted to different regions of the world, but for the US/Canada context, at this period, it's the best we have for the moment.

Secondly, it's a psychosocial test, what is important isn't "you" as an individual, but "you" in a social context, so your individual score mean nothing, alone, but it's the results of many people within a specified context, either a political party, a classroom, or a forum. Even if everyone got the wording a bit different, some people lied, some people didn't took the test seriously etc. if enough people answered to the test, and the researcher were rigorous enough, you should have still a significant result with which you can work within the study of the people adhering to authority, concerning the current scale.

Thirdly, getting to your "vs.", this test is called Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale (RWAS) which partly answer to your traditionalism or authoritarianism question, it's kinda both in fact (in the current US/Canada context). Also, even if we can suppose that the people who score low are anti-authoritarian, it's not that clear, firstly the following statement: "21. Homosexuals and feminists should be praised for being brave enough to defy “traditional family values." There's in the same statement an authoritarian word and an anti-authoritarian word, to "praise" (blindly?) and to "defy", we could make the assumption that the person agreeing to the statement could be a left-wing authoritarian against a right-wing authoritarian. So someone who score low on the test can not be deemed libertarian or progressist without having to measure it through some other kind of tests, we can only assert that this person is anti-right-wing authoritarian, which may be good enough if you want to know how right-wing authoritarian get along with people who have or not this profile, but if you specify another profile, like you're doing with your "vs.", you will need other tests. But you couldn't know that if you hadn't read the book, cause I didn't specify the "right-wing" part on my introduction to the test. But Bob, the author of this scale, noticed that there're way more authoritarian on the right, than on the left, we could explain that by this simple (and thus limited) statement, that it's easier to obey to something that has been promoted since you were born, than to something that is new and got little media coverage. And by the way we can add that children are nearly always less authoritarian than their parents.

Fourthly, I'll make an account of all the statements (without the 1. and 2.) which clearly state authoritarianism (A), right-wing authoritarianism (RA), anti-authoritarianism (AA), anti-right-wing authoritarianism (ARA) or nothing related to authoritarinaism (¬). 3. RA 4. ¬ 5. RA 6. ARA 7. RA 8. ¬ 9. ARA 10. RA 11. ARA 12. ¬ 13. ARA 14. RA 15. ARA 16. RA 17. RA 18. ARA 19. RA 20. AA 21. ARA/A 22. RA From this account, there're 3 statement who have no direct link to authoritarianism, only one isn't linked to the Right-wing, and there's this ambiguous one, which could hint to a left-wing authoritarian. So the scale kinda meet the expectation we can have frome an RWA scale, which could be translated to traditionalist authoritarianism in your own words. But again you couldn't know it from my introduction to the scale that both were mixedup, even if there're really good reason they were, which I will not speak of here because my answer is long enough .

So thanks for your comment, and to everyone else who shared their results till now.

BTW I fully understand that you don't want to read the book from which the scale has been taken from, I don't hold grudge against any of you. And if you lost the name of the book in my flood. Here it is again: "The Authoritarians" by Bob Altemeyer (who isn't a progressist, not even a liberal) available freely on the internet in pdf format. https://www.theauthoritarians.org/options-for-getting-the-book/


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## Forest Nymph (Aug 25, 2018)

I'm not taking your test. I would be a lot less authoritarian if climate change didn't exist, because I care about the survival of global species and human beings. If it weren't that dire, in the 70s or something, you could have counted me low on authoritarian. In fact I'm ideally anarchist or left libertarian from various sources. Climate change changes everything. You really should take that into consideration when talking about anything. People are capable of ANYTHING. Every single one of us is capable of murder, we just lean further in different directions. If you are still convincing yourself there isn't a situation or event or life trauma that could push you in the other direction, you're probably not an adult yet. 

On the other hand, there are people who will die rather than serve ego. I think the two most important distinctions are between those who serve all and those who serve ego. People who serve ego are more likely to become authoritarian on a hair trigger, or to murder more quickly or in greater numbers, and congratulate themselves in the process somehow rather than serving the whole.

That's why I don't trust right wing libertarians. Snap.


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## Innocentia (Jun 30, 2019)

Forest Nymph said:


> I'm not taking your test. I would be a lot less authoritarian if climate change didn't exist, because I care about the survival of global species and human beings. If it weren't that dire, in the 70s or something, you could have counted me low on authoritarian. In fact I'm ideally anarchist or left libertarian from various sources. Climate change changes everything. You really should take that into consideration when talking about anything. People are capable of ANYTHING. Every single one of us is capable of murder, we just lean further in different directions. If you are still convincing yourself there isn't a situation or event or life trauma that could push you in the other direction, you're probably not an adult yet.
> 
> On the other hand, there are people who will die rather than serve ego. I think the two most important distinctions are between those who serve all and those who serve ego. People who serve ego are more likely to become authoritarian on a hair trigger, or to murder more quickly or in greater numbers, and congratulate themselves in the process somehow rather than serving the whole.
> 
> That's why I don't trust right wing libertarians. Snap.


I'm myself an anarchist-communist. As said in the post just above this is a right-wing authoritarian scale not just an authoritarian scale, and if you add up what I said on my introduction, the authoritarian personality equal the follower of the authority. It's a strange wording, but authoritarian mean the organisation of the society so an authoritarian personality is someone who like this kind of organisation but does not necessarly want to be at the top, those people are called Social Dominators, and the conjunction of an authoritarian and a social dominator is called a "Double High" (because they score high on both scales). And actually most followers of the authority (here the right-wing ones cause there're much less on the left) don't like to be at the top or even being small leaders, or even having some kind of responsabilities, they do what we told them to do without question, the perfect soldier or worker for the social dominator. But none is authoritarian from nowhere, universally authoritarian, you're always within a context, and as stated before, it's easier to follow some values which have been taught since you were born than the new ones that has been put forward lately, which is a simplist and limited explanation, but nonetheless an explanation on why we tend to see far more authoritarian on the right-wing.

On being able to do anything has nothing to do with authoritarianism, the problem lies in the justifications, do you need a simple justification to murder someone, or does it require many ones? If it's a simple one, then you probably are an authoritarian, if you need many, you probably aren't. But this statement is very limited as we have many different choices to make other than having to murder, and it's by adding how much you require justifications to act in the different context (which you cannot be aware of, we aren't omniscient), that will matter, not just on a single subject.

On changing direction regarding right-wing authoritarianism it's not only possible, but it's required, none has a clear defined universal ultra-resilient personality. For example, having children early tend to increase the score at the RWAS (right-wing authoritarianism scale) more than if you got them late. Having studied in a public university longer, particularly on social and human sciences, tend to lower your score on the RWAS. But here a counter example, myself, I have been to a public university in anthropology and philosophy, but I didn't engage in social interactions for almost three years, at the end I was an anti-feminist and into conspiracy theories, and some kind of individualist confused anarchist, didn't got any degree, but I'm okay now, psychologically and socially. I'm not saying that scoring high or low on the RWAS is good or bad, but at this time I would have scored higher on the RWAS, that for sure.

I will not enter into which kind of organisation we should have to fight against climate change, as it this another subject too far from the thread, as much as I would like to discuss it. You do good by connecting those ideas, it's better than to say there are no link between them. But I will focus on another parameter which tend to rise the score on RWAS by a lot, it's fear. There's within the political movement against climate change a number of people who brandish fear to motivate people to act against climate change. This thesis is defend by some philosophers that if you instill enough fear about an event to come people will do everything to act so this event never happen. This thesis is not only false, but force people to stop looking for a justification to act too, and then social dominators can profit from this, they just have to say I will do everything to counter this event and afraid people will follow blindly. So this out of the way, the second problem by relying on an right-wing authoritarian organisation, is that an authoritarian personaly tend to be highly hypocrite, highly submissive, highly prejudiced, highly aggressiv and highly conventionnal. Now we see a rise in far right ecological political movements, you may think that they could do good against climate change, but there're a lot that could be said against, but I sadly can't say more as it goes beyond the subject.

On your second paragraph, I'm sorry to say, but the research prove the opposite. Mass murder are done by people obeying to ideological authorities: stalinism, nazism, fascism, maoism, imperialism, racism, colonialism, christianism, islamism, nationalism, white supremacism, masculinism (in a broad sense) etc. You will have hard time to connect mass murder to an individualist purpose, as mass murder almost never benefit an individual but a social organisation. Now there're could be a grain of truth in the fact that a right-wing authoritarian has a great self-esteem, but dislike to be confronted against their misbehaviour or anything that is seen as a weakness by the authority they obey to. Which tend to show that actually serving "all" isn't opposed to serve their ego, which isn't as illogical as it seems at the first glance. Now because right-wing authoritarian are highly ethnocentric, while you could to try to profess an ecological humanism, first you will lose a lot of followers, as you will attract more anti-authoritarian, and there're no authority that can be based on the absence of followers, thus you will have no authority. So in conclusion nope, this distinction makes not as much sense as it could seems, and both stance, if "all" means the entire humanity, tend to attract anti-right-wing authoritarian, which includes some left-wing authoritarian, but you won't have a big movement cause they're few.

Now to make things clear I'm not an individualist anarchist, I would have told you so in the first place. I actually defend the idea that you cannot have a sense of self if you have no social interactions, and those social interactions could promote, or not, self-esteem disregarding the "other", or not, and things are far more complicated than it seems, now, that it has been previously stated by your distinction.

So I'll let you here with my reply, thanks for your comment and contribution to the thread .


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## Dustanddawnzone (Jul 13, 2014)

> I'm not taking your test. I would be a lot less authoritarian if climate change didn't exist, because I care about the survival of global species and human beings. If it weren't that dire, in the 70s or something, you could have counted me low on authoritarian. In fact I'm ideally anarchist or left libertarian from various sources. Climate change changes everything. You really should take that into consideration when talking about anything. People are capable of ANYTHING. Every single one of us is capable of murder, we just lean further in different directions. If you are still convincing yourself there isn't a situation or event or life trauma that could push you in the other direction, you're probably not an adult yet.


I think you unintentionally brought up a point I would like to make which is that many of these personality test work best in aggregate and to note general correlation, but their accuracy when describing a specific individual can be all over the place.


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## Eliane (Sep 18, 2019)

I was just wondering. You said there are two types of authoritarians. Authoritarians and social dominators. Is it possible for a person to be a social dominator without being an authoritarian personality? And what about the third category, the fundamentalists you mentioned in your first post? How do they differ from authoritarian followers? Also, I don't think all people who score highly are perfect soldiers who are blindly following orders. It is possible to actually believe in right wing authoritarian values. And lastly, I searched online about what this test measures and people said it measures authoritarian aggression, authoritarian submission and conventionality. Do you know which individual questions measure each subscale? Sorry for the many questions😅.


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## Judson Joist (Oct 25, 2013)

My score is -3, so that classifies me as anti-authoritarian. So much for the assumption that nationalists are inherently authoritarian. _ARISE_ and _RESIST_ Babylon!



> 1. The established authorities generally turn out to be right about things, while the radicals and protestors are usually just “loud mouths” showing off their ignorance.


-4
I always operate by the assumption that "power is always wrong."



> 2. Women should have to promise to obey their husbands when they get married.


+4
And husbands, likewise, must honor their wives. The authority granted to a husband is a test of his character, not a license to be a tyrant.



> 3. 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.


-4
Individuals should control their own destinies. Granted, when we're working together (such as in a family), there needs to be a "chain of command," but only to ensure that responsibilities are clearly understood. This principle is also applicable to the workplace. When responsibilities are ill-defined or constantly changing, people get stressed out.



> 4. Gays and lesbians are just as healthy and moral as anybody else.


+1
I'd put a zero there if there was the option to do so. If the phrasing of the question is implying the notion of "sin," then we're all guilty of that.



> 5. It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people’s minds.


-4
That was the philosophy of ancient Rome and Babylon.



> 6. 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.


+4
Attending church doesn't make one virtuous. To be virtuous is a deed, not a belief.



> 7. 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 spreading bad ideas.


-4
"Tradition" is a form of idolatry. Even the Bible describes it as such. Also, what are we supposed to do when it's the people in power who are spreading bad ideas?



> 8. There is absolutely nothing wrong with nudist camps.


-4
False. It's immoral. Also, this has nothing to do with authoritarianism.



> 9. Our country needs free thinkers who have the courage to defy traditional ways, even if this upsets many people.


+4
That's exactly what Jesus did.



> 10. Our country will be destroyed someday if we do not smash the perversions eating away at our moral fiber and traditional beliefs.


+1
I'm giving this a positive point because it's true to an extent, but it's also misphrased. The so-called "progressive" social engineers are wrong for scrambling people's sense of identity, but the traditionalists who cling to tradition for its own sake are also wrong because tradition is idolatry.



> 11. Everyone should have their own lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences, even if it makes them different from everyone else.


+1
I'm giving this a positive point because it's technically true that people should be free to make their own lifestyle decisions, but at the same time, the question is obviously phrased in such a way that it's biased in favor of the social engineering agenda.



> 12. The “old-fashioned ways” and the “old-fashioned values” still show the best way to live.


-4
What, you mean like worshiping Moloch through child sacrifice? No way!



> 13. You have to admire those who challenged the law and the majority’s view by protesting for women’s abortion rights, for animal rights, or to abolish school prayer.


-3
Though I typically admire people who fight "the law" and the so-called "majority," it has to be for the right cause. Abortion is not a "right." What about the rights of the unborn? Who speaks for them? Certainly not "the law."



> 14. What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path.


+4
People need to learn to lead themselves, but at the same time, the phrasing of that sentence reminds me of Undyne (cue 'Spear of Justice' theme), so I have to give it +4. We need someone like Eisenhower - authoritative, not authoritarian - someone who values human, civil, and individual rights.



> 15. Some of the best people in our country are those who are challenging our government, criticizing religion, and ignoring the “normal way things are supposed to be done.”


+4
Absolutely. People shouldn't fear the government. Government should fear The People. Also, all mainstream religions have been infiltrated by false prophets, idolators, and in some cases, pedophiles. As for normalcy for its own sake, refer back to tradition being a form of idolatry. So-called "normalcy" is often just a code word for "tradition." Now if we're talking task-related issues, then yes, there need to be protocols in place, but that's only to ensure that the work gets done efficiently, safely, and as stress-free as possible.



> 16. 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.


+4
Is the purpose of this test to critique Christianity or fascism? Or is it drawing a parallel between the two? Don't forget that authoritarian regimes typically feature state-sponsored abortion as a social control mechanism.



> 17. There are many radical immoral people in our country today, who are trying to ruin it for their own godless purposes, whom the authorities should put out of action.


+4
It's true. There are. But they're not really "radical." Their ideas are the ones that are truly "old" (going back to the ways of Babylon as it was under the tyrant Nimrod). Plus, they _are_ the ones in authority now, so who's going to put the authorities out of action?!



> 18. 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.


+1
I'm giving this one positive point because of the way it's phrased. It doesn't acknowledge the husband's charge to honor his wife, including honoring her talents and aptitude.



> 19. Our country will be great if we honor the ways of our forefathers, do what the authorities tell us to do, and get rid of the “rotten apples” who are ruining everything.


-4
The "way of our forefathers" was to rebel against authoritarian oppression, so again, this is phrased in a way that contradicts itself.



> 20. There is no “ONE right way” to live life; everybody has to create their own way.


+4
Fact. As long as what that means is that we all have free will. That doesn't mean all behaviors should be permitted. Freedom doesn't mean freedom from consequences, otherwise there's no justice for the victims of the world.



> 21. Homosexuals and feminists should be praised for being brave enough to defy “traditional family values."


-4
This has nothing to do with authoritarianism.



> 22. This country would work a lot better if certain groups of troublemakers would just shut up and accept their group’s traditional place in society.


-4
That's not what our Founding Fathers believed. Revolution is The People's birthright! But is must be a Nationalist Revolution to ensure both Liberty and Justice for The People.


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## Judson Joist (Oct 25, 2013)

I just re-read it and now I see that "0" is an option, but I'm still sticking with my original numbers, partially because this BBS is full of BS and won't let me edit my post without having to rewrite the whole thing from scratch thanks to that pissant bot detector program.


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## Jaune (Jul 11, 2013)

62


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## Innocentia (Jun 30, 2019)

Eliane said:


> I was just wondering. You said there are two types of authoritarians. Authoritarians and social dominators. Is it possible for a person to be a social dominator without being an authoritarian personality? And what about the third category, the fundamentalists you mentioned in your first post? How do they differ from authoritarian followers? Also, I don't think all people who score highly are perfect soldiers who are blindly following orders. It is possible to actually believe in right wing authoritarian values. And lastly, I searched online about what this test measures and people said it measures authoritarian aggression, authoritarian submission and conventionality. Do you know which individual questions measure each subscale? Sorry for the many questions&#55357;&#56837;.


No problem for the "lots of questions".

1. Yeah, it is as stated here in the book: 

"Furthermore furthermore, social dominance scores and RWA scale scores correlated only weakly with each other--about .20. This “Lite” correlation has a ton of significance that we shall deal with later. But in the first instance it meant persons who scored highly on the social dominance test were seldom high RWAs, and high RWAs were almost never social dominators." The "Double Highs" are rare actually, but they thirst for power and the "flock" of authoritarians who follow them, tend make them visible enough. I bet that almost every figure of the far right, and most of the right are "Double High".

2. Here is the fundamentalist scale from the book:

____ 1. God has given humanity a complete, unfailing guide to happiness and
salvation, which must be totally followed.
____ 2. No single book of religious teachings contains all the intrinsic, fundamental
truths about life.
____ 3. The basic cause of evil in this world is Satan, who is still constantly and
ferociously fighting against God.
____ 4. It is more important to be a good person than to believe in God and the right
religion.
____ 5. There is a particular set of religious teachings in this world that are so true,
you can’t go any “deeper” because they are the basic, bedrock message that
God has given humanity.
____ 6. When you get right down to it, there are basically only two kinds of people
in the world: the Righteous, who will be rewarded by God, and the rest,
who will not.
____ 7. Scriptures may contain general truths, but they should NOT be considered
completely, literally true from beginning to end.
____ 8. To lead the best, most meaningful life, one must belong to the one,
fundamentally true religion.
____ 9. “Satan” is just the name people give to their own bad impulses. There really
is no such thing as a diabolical “Prince of Darkness” who tempts us.
____10. Whenever science and sacred scripture conflict, science is probably right.
____11. The fundamentals of God’s religion should never be tampered with, or
compromised with others’ beliefs.
____12. All of the religions in the world have flaws and wrong teachings. There is no
perfectly true, right religion.

And here are some comments on the correlations between them:

"The evidence indicates authoritarianism is more basic. The RWA scale correlates better than the Religious Fundamentalism scale does with acceptance of government injustices, hostility toward homosexuals, willingness to persecute whomever the government targets, and most other things. (The big exception naturally comes when one raises distinctly religious issues.) So the problem’s not so much that some people are fundamentalists, but that fundamentalists so definitely tend to be authoritarian followers. But as I just said, religious fundamentalism does promote authoritarianism in some ways. And you can certainly see the influence of right-wing authoritarianism in many things that religious fundamentalists do."

I take things from the books, as I don't feel that I can say anything more than what is in the book, it's a bit lazy I know, but really I don't see what I could add.

3. On your comment on high RWAs, you are kinda right, it was an overgeneralization from my part, but it's a tendency. The best example I could give is when Bob made a first test with the RWA scale to a number of people, took the high ones apart, showed them the average score to the different statements in the test, then later (so they couldn't remember every scores they saw) made them pass the test again, and suddenly they were your average RWA citizens. Two things among other explain this, hypocrisy and a clear need to be in the norm, to feel that most people back up their prejudices. The hypocrisy because they didn't had time to question themself on the prejudice they had (it was like a month or so), so they just felt out of the norm (here's the need), and thus answered like the norm, just to feel better, they didn't really believed at what they said the second time. Oh and I may be bold on my statements sometimes because of this :

"Finally, just to take this to its ludicrous extreme, I asked for reactions to a “law to eliminate right-wing authoritarians.” (I told the subjects that right-wing authoritarians are people who are so submissive to authority, so aggressive in the name of authority, and so conventional that they may pose a threat to democratic rule.) RWA scale scores did not connect as solidly with joining this posse as they had in the other cases. Surely some of the high RWAs realized that if they supported this law, they were being the very people whom the law would persecute, and the posse should therefore put itself in jail. But not all of them realized this, for authoritarian followers still favored, more than others did, a law to persecute themselves. You can almost hear the circuits clanking shut in their brains: “If the government says these people are dangerous, then they’ve got to be stopped.”

Again it's a tendency, you're right some people simply believe in right wing authoritarian values, the thing is, it's not to make this world a better place. Right wing authoritarians do not want to make this world a better place, they even say that the world is good as it is, I'm in shock, why do we have to listen to them, I want to change things, they don't, here lies their honesty, further you'll face compartimentalized minds, illogical thinking, hypocrisy and so on. I'm harsh I know, even more when you think that high RWAs are about 20% - 25% of the population on my estimation, now to smooth a bit my statement, I have to say they're never always like that, conditions have to be met. I lived for six months with high RWAs, most of the time they joked (half of the time) and critized every neighbours (when they weren't there) on seemingly grounded reasons (the other half)(which is kind of suspect, but who knows), and that was it. They look normal, they want success, money and happiness, they weren't happy by the way. They aren't aliens, you can suspect them, but until you lived one month or more with them like with any human, you can't make any conclusion, the test is just a fast way to confirm what you're looking for.

4. Eh, I could try, I, cause it's not explicited in the book: A for aggression, S for submission and C for conventionality. (I begin with the 3., cause the 1. and 2. doesn't count in the final score)

3. A S
4. C
5. S C
6. C
7. A S C
8. C
9. S C
10. A C
11. C
12. S C
13. S C
14. A S C
15. S C
16. A S C
17. A S C
18. S C
19. A S C
20. S
21. C
22. A C

Score 8 A 13 S 18 C. Mmh, I'm not surprised by the number of A, cause you need to build a context to surge aggressivness, but I suspected the test to be more on the S measure, Right-wing authoritarianism sound a lot like submission and conventionalism, but not one more than the other.

And here you go , hope it was still interesting, cause I personaly prefer sociology and political/social anthropology, and I found out that even the study interests me a lot, I don't like to go into the details of the test, I would prefer to make connection between the disciplins in this case.


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## Innocentia (Jun 30, 2019)

Judson Joist said:


> My score is -3, so that classifies me as anti-authoritarian. So much for the assumption that nationalists are inherently authoritarian. _ARISE_ and _RESIST_ Babylon!




So I count the score how it was intended and I found 82 which is average. And low scores aren't anti-authoritarian, but just not right-wing authoritarian. There may be correlation, even good ones, but it has to be proved by using another scale, which we haven't.

Secondly the scale is called right-wing authoritarianism scale, which is why some statements aren't about authoritarianism.

I feel obliged to add that some comments contradict your approval of the statement. The 19. is the best example.

"The "way of our forefathers" was to rebel against authoritarian oppression" Here you agree to "honor" the ways of our forefathers, which is part of the 19. statement. Now you may disagree with the "do what the authorities tell us to do", but you strongly agreed to the 14. "What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path." The need of a strong and determined leader (authority), true path (way of our forefather), crush evil (get rid of the "rotten apples"), the wording is different but with very strong similarities. But on one you strongly disagreed, the other you strongly agreed, remember : 

"Important: You may find that you sometimes have different reactions to different parts of a statement. For example, you might very strongly disagree (“-4") with one idea in a statement, but slightly agree (“+1") with another idea in the same item. When this happens, please combine your reactions, and write down how you feel on balance (a “-3" in this case)."

But that's not important, like every test, the score you have doesn't fit you individually.


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## Judson Joist (Oct 25, 2013)

Only cucks are submissive to their oppressors.



Innocentia said:


> "What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path."


The beloved Nazi-fighter Dwight Eisenhower was strong and _Determined._ The Resistance movements supported by the West against the Nazis during World War II and against the Soviets during the Cold War were guided by leaders who were strong and _Determined._ David, even as a teenager, was strong and _Determined_ when he faced down Goliath. The strong and _Determined_ Robert Edward Lee, after surrendering at Gettysburg (which he knew to be right), was no less strong and _Determined_ for doing so. He then went on on contribute to Reconciliation and Reconstruction. For some propagantastic reason, no one ever talks about that, perhaps because it illustrates that both the left and the right are wrong about him.

"Right makes might." ~Abraham Lincoln

"I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished." ~Robert E. Lee


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## Blazkovitz (Mar 16, 2014)

Innocentia said:


> 1. The established authorities generally turn out to be right about things, while the radicals and protestors are usually just “loud mouths” showing off their ignorance.


To generic to answer. Professional leftist activists are indeed "loud mouths", but there are other kinds of radicals and protestors. Sometimes a group might be right about one thing and wrong about another, same for authorities. We are all fallible mortals after all. I'll give it a 0.



> 2. Women should have to promise to obey their husbands when they get married.


No. I'm aromantic so I'm not into marriage, but I prefer relationships based on companionship, not obedience. -4.



> 3. 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.


We need a spiritual awakening, not a tyrant who will enforce righteousness by the sword. And such awakening will start among ordinary people. Judaism was started by a desert-dwelling nomad, not a pharaoh. Christianity was started by a poor carpenter from a backward province, not a mighty Roman aristocrat. -4.



> 4. Gays and lesbians are just as healthy and moral as anybody else.


I'd give it -1, there is something unwholesome about many of them, or at least about professional LGBT activists. They tend to be more hedonistic and narcistic than straight folk.



> 5. It is always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in government and religion than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubt in people’s minds.


No. All progress starts with creating doubt in people's minds. Uncontrolled authorities will act like the inquisitors who burned Giordano Bruno. -4.



> 6. 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.


I agree, many atheists are very good people while many Christians make up excuses to break the Ten Commandments. 4.



> 7. 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 spreading bad ideas.


Bad ideas need to be defeated by force of arguments not by argument of force, unless they are causing people to commit acts of violence. -3.



> 8. There is absolutely nothing wrong with nudist camps.


Modesty has its merits, but if they're naked in a place where noone's watching them, what could be wrong? 3.



> 9. Our country needs free thinkers who have the courage to defy traditional ways, even if this upsets many people.


Abraham, Pythagoras, Jesus, etc were free thinkers as well. All of them defied traditional ways and upset many people. And I hope I don't have to mention the scientists. 4.



> 10. Our country will be destroyed someday if we do not smash the perversions eating away at our moral fiber and traditional beliefs.


No society can survive without being moral, though I don't agree with equating morality with traditionalism. I'll give it a 2.



> 11. Everyone should have their own lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences, even if it makes them different from everyone else.


If someone doesn't harm other people, he should be tolerated even if his way of life is stupid. Drug users should be tolerated, but drug dealers shouldn't because they encourage others to destroy themselves. 3.



> 12. The “old-fashioned ways” and the “old-fashioned values” still show the best way to live.


The way of **** erectus is certainly very old, shouldn't traditionalists go back to this ideal? -4.



> 13. You have to admire those who challenged the law and the majority’s view by protesting for women’s abortion rights, for animal rights, or to abolish school prayer.


I agree, although in the West these battles have been won. There are however still places like the Middle East where it's still brave to fight for women's abortion rights, secular education, etc. 4.



> 14. What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path.


Everybody should fight evil. It's too dangerous to rely on a leader to do that. In an autocratic system, nothing can prevent the leader from becoming evil. -4.



> 15. Some of the best people in our country are those who are challenging our government, criticizing religion, and ignoring the “normal way things are supposed to be done.”


Best people are probably not visible to the media or general public. Quiet charity is better than noisy activism. -2.



> 16. 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.


How do we know these are indeed God's laws? Jesus never said anything about abortion. Some of the laws Christian traditionalists want are good (cracking down on the porn business), others not really (banning sex outside marriage). Another problem I see is that imprisoning someone for watching a porn video would mean putting him in company of murderers and burglars, and this company would demoralise him further. -3.



> 17. There are many radical, immoral people in our country today, who are trying to ruin it for their own godless purposes, whom the authorities should put out of action.


If this applies to destructive elements on both Inclusivist Left and Nationalist Right, I'm tempted to agree. Attempting to ruin the state is certainly a great crime, and both sides are guilty of it. But pluralism of opinions and free debate must be preserved, so the crackdown should apply only to most aggressive elements. 1.



> 18. 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.


It's obvious. 4.



> 19. Our country will be great if we honor the ways of our forefathers, do what the authorities tell us to do, and get rid of the “rotten apples” who are ruining everything.


Ways of which forefathers? Our Victorian ancestors would shock our pagan Germanic ancestors in many ways. Obedience to authority is not always right, remember that Hitler was an authority as well. As for rotten apples, if they mean paedophiles, rapists and drug dealers, then yes. -3.



> 20. There is no “ONE right way” to live life; everybody has to create their own way.


There is no one right way, but this doesn't mean all ways are equally good. 3.



> 21. Homosexuals and feminists should be praised for being brave enough to defy “traditional family values".


In the past and in the Third World, this is still true. In the West, not really. 1.



> 22. This country would work a lot better if certain groups of troublemakers would just shut up and accept their group’s traditional place in society.


What groups? I cannot think of any. -4.


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## Strelnikov (Jan 19, 2018)

I got 118 (high authoritarian)... so far I'm the only one 

Yes, I do have an affinity for authoritarianism, but I believe that this idea is frequently misunderstood. The point is not to suppress and oppress, the point is effectiveness.

Allow me to give some examples:

- We were overwhelmed by the amount of work and needed new employees to help us. We stated clearly in meetings that we need more people. But due to the democratic style of management... it took about 8 months for the management to finally reach the conclusion that... yes, we needed more people... This shouldn't have taken more than 1 week, but they had to debate, re-debate and ask for everyone's feelings and views... I mean... just send help and stop talking!
- I once had a question about a case I was handling... And I asked a coworker, but she had the unfortunate idea of asking some manager and that manager said: Oh, I have to ask X for approval! I just went back to my desk made the decision on my own (I have this saying: "Ok, since you won't make a decision, I will make it and my decision is as follows:... ") and just forgot about the manager... Next day, the manager comes and tells me she was in a call with some guy and he... basically told her to do what I had already done... It took her 24 hours to waste on nothing.
- I really dislike it when someone starts arguing with me at work. The time they spend asking questions would be better spent on answering my own questions, because if they do customers will get sooner what they asked for. I win, because the turnaround time goes well, they win because they are the ones in touch with customers and they will have happy satisfied customers and the customers being happy and satisfied will buy more from us... So everyone wins... This isn't about ego, it's about making everyone happy without the useless debates.

I despise people who seek to ask for all sorts of opinions and approvals and waste time in calls and debates... Reeks of weakness and fear... grow a spine! Just make a decision! Right or wrong, make it! Have the backbone to take responsibility and lead! Ask once for opinions and make the decision, stop having debates after debates and endless talks, decide and act! This applies to government as well: I elect people to make decisions, not to ask me what to do... If I wanted that I would have taken over myself. Your job in government is to decide, so decide and act, it's why I pay you for. Not to stop at every step and ask me if I'm ok with what you're doing. I don't want to waste time on telling someone what to do. That someone should already know when getting into government.

An authoritarian style would eliminate all the time-wasting and bring clarity with regard to the direction the group should pursue. This is something I really like about Elizabeth Warren in the US. Although I disagree with a lot of her views, at least I really appreciate it when she says "I have a plan" At least she knows what she wants and has the backbone to pursue it, without hesitation and weakness. Heck, I like that so much, that if I were American I'd vote for her.

As for me, I agree with Jack Welch: "Can you say yes or no? Or are you one of those people that always wants a little more data? A 'maybe' person. ... I hate those people!"


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## Innocentia (Jun 30, 2019)

Blazkovitz said:


> To generic to answer. Professional leftist activists are indeed "loud mouths", but there are other kinds of radicals and protestors. Sometimes a group might be right about one thing and wrong about another, same for authorities. We are all fallible mortals after all. I'll give it a 0.
> 
> I'd give it -1, there is something unwholesome about many of them, or at least about professional LGBT activists. They tend to be more hedonistic and narcistic than straight folk.
> 
> ...


Hi, thanks for your answer, your result is 45, which is low on the right-wing authoritarianism scale.

I quoted those sentences, cause it allows me to point out how being *not* right-wing authoritarian doesn't mean being a leftist, or an antifa or else. It basically adds another proof that scoring low on this scale doesn't mean anything else than what stated above: not being a right-wing authoritarian.

And by the way, I'm an antifa and I claim that we need feminism (and anti-white privilege activists) in north america and europa, still now and for long. And "professional" activists? It exists? I don't need to be paid to be part of the inclusive left ^^. But that's beside the point of the thread, it's to illustrate the absence of homogeneity when you score low at this scale. So no contentions with anyone  (until you're a faf XD)


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## Innocentia (Jun 30, 2019)

Strelnikov said:


> I got 118 (high authoritarian)... so far I'm the only one
> 
> Yes, I do have an affinity for authoritarianism, but I believe that this idea is frequently misunderstood. The point is not to suppress and oppress, the point is effectiveness.
> 
> ...


Sorry to say, but you're second, the person who resurrected the thread did 140  (irony everywhere)

The idea behind the test is that an authoritarian, and authoritarianism being the sets of ideas followed by an authoritarian, is someone who love a social organisation with a strong authority. Bob (the author of the test) saw more authority followers in the right and thus choose to make a right-wing authoritarian scale, the RWAS. If you answer high in the test, you're something more like (cause it's not exact) a right-wing authoritarian than just an authoritarian, you could be so much right-wing, and not that much authoritarian, and still score high, even if it's most likely a minority, cause they tend to correlate. And remember, it's a test with its limit and it's psycho-social, the results tell more about a larger scale of people than a random individual.

From this clarification, someone who want to always check with the manager might actually be high in authoritarianism, cause this person respect a lot the hierarchical organisation of the workplace, and someone who never want to involve the hierarchy might actually be not authoritarian at all, cause they doesn't want to respect the hierarchical organisation of the workplace. But it's "might", cause what you describe as authoritarian in your comment is more likely someone who want to take power when they want it, which is called, in psycho-social, a social dominator. Because a social dominator is more effective in hierchical structure, the "double highs", people who score high on the RWAS and on the social dominator scale, are really the most effective leaders, for a time... cause they tend to fuck everything up after some time (Hitler, Staline, Mao, Trump, etc.) and only high place in the hierarchy tend to maintain them in power, if they act before they got access to real power, they're often jailed, see Hitler who tried a coup d'etat.

Because authoritarianism is ambiguous, you made statement which confuse both of them, authoritarian and social dominator in the psycho-social sense, which happens seemingly everytime . So nothing wrong here, hope this helped to clarify your mind on this subject.

On a side note, I may score very low on the scale (31), but still I'm an antifa, and as such I'm not a "maybe" person, quite the yes or no, sometime just for the effect, then pouring water in my wine if needed. Cause as someone really into social sciences, I know for a fact that everything is more complex, but I always need to displace the window to the most extreme left before I can make a point, if I don't do that I may be taken for a centrist or what I would call a "maybe" person, the most ambiguous kind of people there are, and I hate ambiguity, not people, I don't hate people .

Thanks for your comment, I appreciated it a lot, as an amateur anthropologist ^^.


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## Meliodas (Nov 16, 2016)

I do however agree with a lot of the alt-right supporters of the theory when they argue that sexual selection of K style is necessary to create and sustain cohesive communities, which is why there have been strong social taboos against r style behaviour in Europe throughout the centuries. If you want to see the problems of socially codified r-style selection in action, look at the Islamic world. A few powerful men have a harem of women and the rest of the men end up with no sexual capital at all. 

This means most men have no reason to maintain the existing social structure, be inventive and grow the country's intellectual capital (because they won't have a legacy in the next generation). This as much as poverty is why so many men want to leave these countries and it is why the trains can't run on time there (assuming they are even ever built).

We ought to learn a lesson from this because many social trends in the West favor r selected behaviour.


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## Monadnock (May 27, 2017)

mimesis said:


> https://books.google.nl/books?id=Qu...mits reductionism biology reification&f=false


Can you, in your own words, explain how this book entry refutes what I've written? And also admit it was wrong of you to rely on a critic whose argument against Michael Trust is a Straw Man?


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## Meliodas (Nov 16, 2016)

Here is my moment of controversy today, tangentially related to the r-K selection subject (a C & P of mine from elsewhere). Enjoy:

Unlike in Disney's fairy tales, marriages between a prince and a princess are seldom happy and usually lead both parties taking lovers. I suspect that most of the career-driven, intimacy-avoidant women we see in America today would actually be happy as sugar mommies/cougars for a woodcutter or drug dealer, men who offer no security but can provide the sexual aggression they seem to crave. A banker, computer programmer or academic can offer money, intellect and social advancement, but will not accept a woman who is unwilling to provide them with sexual pleasure, as that is the price they will insist upon for access to their resources.

One of the unintended consequences of women entering the workforce is that men are not as sexually rewarded for their creativity and rationality. This has already lead to men with lower IQ and higher aggression/impulsivity (r-selected traits) achieving reproductive success that they didn't have even a generation ago. (Think of how rappers and athletes are glorified.) We could lose our competitive edge if this trend continue over a few generations, especially if combined with high rates of immigration from areas which have a higher proportion of genetics like this. Meanwhile, in some cultures outside the West (the Han Chinese and Ashkenazim are good examples), females sexually select for high IQ, creative, lateral thinking in males instead of physical strength, aggression and spontaneity. This strikes me as wise, because the need for manual labour and protection is much reduced by technology and inventiveness, strategy etc are going to become much more valuable traits in the years ahead. 

In other words, Revenge of the Nerds has a point. It is time to dress up in a maid costume and have babies with an autist. Our future depends upon it.

N.B. In typological terms, I am proposing that the idealized masculine and feminine oscillates over time between ST male "knight"/NF female "princess"(r) and NT male "master"/SF female "carer"(K), according to the environmental conditions. ST/NF dominated in the Middle Ages, Romantic and Victorian Eras, 1990s - present. It is associated with the Gothic, the heroic and tragic. NT/SF is less common and dominated in the Renaissance, Classical, 1960s - 70s. It is associated with the Romanesque, the comedic and analytic.


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## Innocentia (Jun 30, 2019)

So... Here we are, aren't we?

Science has at its current core the will to track any error and to report back on everything that has been done in the production of scientific knowledge. To speak frankly, we don't have other methods and institutions which can guarantee a more solid knowledge. So from now on either you back your opinion with science studies and scientific consensus, or your opinion bring nothing to the making of knowledge. This don't mean that your opinion means nothing, it means that discussing with such kind of speech isn't meant to build knowledge, but only to confort us in speculation to maintain or obtain a social recognition, which is very important by the way.

For the example at hand, the r/K theory is not used anymore, it has been replaced by the life history theory, which is also critizised. The only clear dichotomy between male and female are the gamete, the ovum and the sperm, everything else about "male" and "female" is more complicated as we cannot used a bicategorisation (if you want to speak about gender I recommend you "Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of 'Sex'" by Judith Butler) . And the MBTI paradigm is scientifically discredited. Because there have been attempt to explain social behaviour from the human species, I invite you to read social psychology, or sociology or social anthropology or political anthropology works, as they're more adapted to your question at hand. What has been said about human behaviour on the ground of biology or old personality theories means near nothing in the making of knowledge on how our society works, but could mean a lot for social recognition and exercise of power over others (always in the attempt to explain and predict the social, biology is great to explain ... well... biology).

This said, if you care about a totalitarian governement which destroy others and collapse itself like Nazi or stalinist governements, the book of Bob Altemeyer "The Authoritarians" is a great introduction in social psychology. To understand political dynamics in our societies, I invite you to read "Political Anthropology" from Georges Balandier. Pierre Bourdieu is great too, but I cannot pinpoint you a precise book for the moment, "Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste" seems great and could be a good complement to the works of Georges Balandier at first sight. There's also "We have never been modern" by Bruno Latour that I would recommend.

I would be so glad to speak about political anthropology but it would go well beyond the subject of this thread so I'll end here.

Bye bye , and wish you all the best in your research of (scientific) knowledge.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator#Criticism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_history_theory

French only sources:
"Des sexes innombrables. Le genre à l'épreuve de la biologie" by Thierry Hoquet
"Sens et puissance" Georges Balandier (There would be a translation, but I didn't found it)


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