[Authoritarianism] is a psychology at once absolutist and schizophrenic. That is why health insurance and restrictions on carrying loaded weapons in public are intolerable tyrannies, while all-encompassing surveillance, life in prison for growing marijuana, or assassination without judicial process are praiseworthy. Paradoxically, the authoritarian personality embodies anarchic rebellion and craven submission at the same time. It is, as Richard Hofstadter said, a disordered relationship to authority, "characterized by an inability to find other modes for human relationship than those of more or less complete domination or submission."...
The seductive power of authoritarianism is particularly strong during times of economic and social stress. Seemingly, the reptilian brain becomes dominant in a crisis; for every government that instituted a New Deal or something like it in the wake of the Great Depression, a half dozen fell into fascism, military rule or some other authoritarian form of "national unity."...
The virus of authoritarianism is a flight from reason, a goose-stepping reflex and a search for simplistic, usually conspiratorial, explanations for complex events. It is no wonder this mindset esteems institutions that are based on hierarchy and various forms of coercion, regardless of those institutions' success or failure. That this mindset derides institutions of self-government and enlightenment and fails to see its own responsibility for those institutions' serious shortcomings is equally significant and bears watching.Truthout | Op-Ed
The Authoritarian Seduction
Mike Lofgren
