Authoritarianism

About

Authoritarianism is behavior which adheres to the authoritarian ideal, i.e. that maintaining a leader's authority is more important than any other consideration.

More Information

• authoritarian: a personality type
• conservatism: a social identity often adopted by authoritarians
• right wing: political expression of authoritarianism

Books

• The Authoritarians is an introduction to the science on authoritarianism, written for a lay audience

Links

Reference

• Wikipedia
• Conservapedia: stub article
• RationalWiki
• SourceWatch no equivalent page; see search

News

• 2020-10-13 [L..T] Updating Authoritarian Nightmare «We finished editing the text of Authoritarian Nightmare on June 26, 2020 and sent the manuscript off to the typesetter. Since then four books about President Trump have shot to the top of the bestsellers lists that provide information unavailable when I tried to develop a psychological understanding of the man: Mary L. Trump's book about her family, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man; John R. Bolton's extensive account of his service as National Security Advisor from April 2018 to September 2019, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir; Bob Woodward's Rage, reporting his extensive conversations with the president and his advisors during 2019 and 2020; and Michael Cohen's Disloyal, which details the author’s service as Trump's "fixer" from 2007 to 2018.»
• 2017-02-10 [L..T] The Madness of King Donald «But all the traditional political fibbers nonetheless paid some deference to the truth – even as they were dodging it. They acknowledged a shared reality and bowed to it. They acknowledged the need for a common set of facts in order for a liberal democracy to function at all. Trump's lies are different. They are direct refutations of reality – and their propagation and repetition is about enforcing his power rather than wriggling out of a political conundrum. They are attacks on the very possibility of a reasoned discourse, the kind of bald-faced lies that authoritarians issue as a way to test loyalty and force their subjects into submission.»
• 2014-06-10 [L..T] Cult of Compliance: Attacking the Breasts of Female Protestors "One of my questions about what I term the cult of compliance is the extent to which it is a product of our historical moment or an indelible aspect of the relationship between the state and its subjects. I'm an optimist, I want to believe that we can improve, that we can make things better. I'm also an historian, though, so it's hard to ignore this kind of evidence as coming out of a fundamental place in the structures of our society in its reactions to protesters in general and women specifically."
• 2014-06-03 [L..T] Alabama Bible school puts Hitler quote on billboard to encourage youth indoctrination "A Christian ministry in Alabama said this week that it would remove a billboard with a quote by Adolf Hitler that it had used to promote its work with children."
• 2014-04-23 [L..T] Russia Orders Bloggers To 'Register'; Outlaws Anonymous Blogging, Continues Clampdown On Social Media "As we've reported, Russia has been steadily trying to bring the Internet under control with ever-more stringent measures. After tackling general Web sites through powers that allow them to be blocked more easily, it now seems to be the turn of the bloggers..."