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Authority is not your friend
Jan. 26th, 2008 08:59 pmThe Authoritarians, Robert Altemeyer
Robert Altemeyer is a professor of psychology at the University of Manitoba, where he has been studying the phenomenon of the authoritarian personality for several decades. He has published several books in the conventional fashion, but has posted his latest book in its entirety on the Internet. The PDF can be downloaded here.
As Altemeyer notes in his introduction,
Being rather a fervent anti-authoritarian myself, I read this in the spirit of “know thy enemy” and found it to be an interesting look at the psychology of the person who not only thinks that they know better than everyone else, but wants to make everyone else do what they think is best for them. The general observations of the authoritarian mindset weren’t particularly surprising to me, having done a fair bit on ruminating on what makes dictators (overt or covert) tick for myself, but the research was in many cases interesting and enlightening.
As so many Western democracies inch – or lurch – toward practices redolent of fascism, I think that a book like this is rather urgently required reading for those who are in any way concerned about that slip toward the political, economic and religious right.
Cops, Crime and Capitalism: The Law and Order Agenda in Canada, Todd Gordon
From “The Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti”
Lyrics by Joan Baez, based on the letters of Bartolomea Vanzetti.
Every social revolutionary knows in her gut that in the modern capitalist state (and in the modern totalitarian state, I’m an equal opportunity anti-authoritarian), the police, no matter how reassuring and comforting their presence and actions may be to the to the relatively privileged and, in North America, primarily white, middleclass, are tools of control and oppression organised and operated by governments in support of the interests of the powerful and wealthy elite and the societal structures that support that elite.
Todd Gordon has presented an interesting and valuable examination of how the relation between the police and the capitalist establishment has functioned, and continues to function, in Canada, with particular notice paid to how this works in the post-September 11 political and social environment.
Robert Altemeyer is a professor of psychology at the University of Manitoba, where he has been studying the phenomenon of the authoritarian personality for several decades. He has published several books in the conventional fashion, but has posted his latest book in its entirety on the Internet. The PDF can be downloaded here.
As Altemeyer notes in his introduction,
We know an awful lot about authoritarian followers. In one way or another, hundreds of social scientists have studied them since World War II. We have a pretty good idea of who they are, where they come from, and what makes them tick. By comparison, we know little about authoritarian leaders because we only recently started studying them. That may seem strange, but how hard is it to figure out why someone would like to have massive amounts of power?Altemayer looks beyond that rather superficial assumption about authoritarian leaders to examine, as has been done for their followers, “who they are, where they come from, and what makes them tick.”
Being rather a fervent anti-authoritarian myself, I read this in the spirit of “know thy enemy” and found it to be an interesting look at the psychology of the person who not only thinks that they know better than everyone else, but wants to make everyone else do what they think is best for them. The general observations of the authoritarian mindset weren’t particularly surprising to me, having done a fair bit on ruminating on what makes dictators (overt or covert) tick for myself, but the research was in many cases interesting and enlightening.
As so many Western democracies inch – or lurch – toward practices redolent of fascism, I think that a book like this is rather urgently required reading for those who are in any way concerned about that slip toward the political, economic and religious right.
Cops, Crime and Capitalism: The Law and Order Agenda in Canada, Todd Gordon
And now I'll tell you what's against us
An art that's lived for centuries
Go through the years and you will find
What's blackened all of history
Against us is the law
With its immensity of strength and power
Against us is the law!
Police know how to make a man
A guilty or an innocent
Against us is the power of police!
The shameless lies that men have told
Will ever more be paid in gold
Against us is the power of the gold!
Against us is racial hatred
And the simple fact that we are poor.
From “The Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti”
Lyrics by Joan Baez, based on the letters of Bartolomea Vanzetti.
Every social revolutionary knows in her gut that in the modern capitalist state (and in the modern totalitarian state, I’m an equal opportunity anti-authoritarian), the police, no matter how reassuring and comforting their presence and actions may be to the to the relatively privileged and, in North America, primarily white, middleclass, are tools of control and oppression organised and operated by governments in support of the interests of the powerful and wealthy elite and the societal structures that support that elite.
Todd Gordon has presented an interesting and valuable examination of how the relation between the police and the capitalist establishment has functioned, and continues to function, in Canada, with particular notice paid to how this works in the post-September 11 political and social environment.
