2016 Postmortem

Here is the link to The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer. This is an attempted popularization of his psychological survey research into authoritarian personality types.

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

He identifies two personality types: the more or less docile, passive authoritarian follower and the more or less outgoing, aggressive authoritarian leader. These two are very distinct and separate personalities, but were meant for each other. The follower type, individually a rather nice guy or gal, has a strong need to become absorbed into a group identity and to serve the group with unquestioning loyalty. The leader type tends to be a sociopath who has a strong need for power and dominance regardless what it takes to achieve it . A marriage made in heaven!

And heaven has something to do with it. In America there is a very strong correlation between the authoritarian follower personality type and fundamentalist religious ideology. This is not a necessary relationship, since the same personality dynamic can find expression in extremist left-wing, secular ideologies also. But here in America, at this time, it tends to be expressed in the phenomenon of right-wing fundamentalist political activism.

While his book is readable and is quite informative and insightful for those of us who are concerned about the RRR*, “Dr. Bob” is a bit clumsy as a popular writer. I’m sure his dry, academic stuff is much better! However, he is not that bad, and the book is free on the internet. Check it out.

*The Rabid Religious Right