Which Is the More Authoritarian, Conservatism or Liberalism? Let’s argue; sorry, let’s converse. But first, a word from our sponsors:
“Are you tired of false claims of panaceas that upset your ability to digest thoughts clearly? Is your political party giving you a form of mental pancreatitis? Is it preventing you from producing a lipase of reason to break down fat promises and an amylase of analysis to break sugary platitudes about a coming utopian government? Then, here’s good news. Guys and gals wearing white lab coats and protective goggles and standing by a Bunsen burner while holding their clipboards have recently discovered the secret to producing enzymes that help digest political secretions. You don’t have to live in constant frustration with a poorly functioning mental digestion. Throw away those red and blue pills you’ve been taking. They don’t work. In fact, they make your problem worse. Instead, try our new and improved proteinous amalgam, the long, complex chains composed of both blue and red links. Synthesized and tested in hermetically sealed labs inside actual human heads, Amalgamite has been shown to improve mood, break down macro-falsities, and clear the mind for rational thinking.
(Thisproductcontainsgrainsoftruthandisnotrecommendedforpeoplewithpreconceptionsorwithahistoryofsensitivitytoadmissionsofambiguity.Seeyourdoctorofphilosophybeforebeginninganyregimenofpsychotropicdrugs.ThisproducthasnotbeenapprovedbyeithertheDNCortheRNCoranyagencyappointedbytheirdulyelectedofficialsorsyncophants)”
No, there is no product called Amalgamite in case you’re wondering. But if there were, you might benefit from taking it. In fact, all of us might benefit. It would give us the ability to see commonalities embedded in our ostensible differences. Amalgamite would enhance our natural abilities to control mood and stress that stereotypical political leanings negatively affect.
You know the common belief: Conservatives are authoritarian; Liberals aren’t. I think the branding creates a chronic irritation that prevents the two sides from understanding their commonalities. Is it possible that in spite of stereotypes, conservatives and their libertarian and far-Right versions are, in fact, anti-Establishmentarian? Is it possible that liberals and their far-Left versions are Establishmentarian? To answer those two questions positively requires definitions that do not incorporate long-held assumptions that offer false dichotomies. Such definitions must also include the full amalgam of philosophical and psychological variations. The usual associations that label conservatives as authoritarian and liberals as anti-authoritarian fail the mutual exclusivity test.
There’s another problem in labeling conservatives or liberals on the basis of their authoritarian or anti-authoritarian leanings. What is meant by authority? Is it applicable to individual or group? Is it direct or subtle? And in the current mix of political apples and oranges, is the notion that liberals are free-thinkers as erroneous as the notion that conservatives are automatons? Does such a notion stem from thousands of years of the arts (painting, sculpting, writing of all kinds, and physical performances like dance) as havens for outcasts and avant-garde thinkers operating outside the boundaries of decorum?
Those who put their hopes in the power of an individual as an authority usually find that the god they chose to emulate often has tin feet and a hollow inside. Those who put their hopes in decorum discover a splintering of ideology emerging shortly after they commit their loyalty. And as for directness or subtly, consider that in some instances authority is as overt as the spoken word and as the tweeted emotion. In other instances, authority is a subtle cancel culture that derives from the tyranny of conforming masses, originating, by the way, from either Right or Left.
I realize that those last two statements are as empty as ellipsis marks, that they are incomplete thoughts in your mind. Let me elaborate: We recognize authority consciously by decision and unconsciously by years of inculcation. Unconsciously, we accept a banker in a suit sitting at a desk in a bank office with a door that reads “Vice-President of…” as an authority in finance. The homeless person on the street outside the bank appears to be incompetent in finance. Such stereotypes come from years of inculcation. Our preconceived notions incline us to accept them. We ignore, however, that “men (and women) in suits” have brought about the collapse of economies and that many who once carried the appearance of authority have been relegated after such collapses to living as sidewalk dwellers in the world of finance. We often, it seems, project authority onto some person or group on superficial bases, often on the bases of appearances and often, too, on the bases of likemindedness: Our leanings Left or Right, for example.
One need look no farther than YOU to discover the complexity and error of labeling people as conservative or liberal authoritarians. You embody the argument against the dichotomous view by your own ambivalence.
“Hey, I’m not ambivalent,” you say. “I know what I am.”
No ambivalence? Let’s run some tests, and the pandemic provides a context in 2021. Are you vaccinated? Yes. No. Do you believe in the efficacy of vaccine mandates? Yes. No. What about mask mandates? Accept and practice them, yes? Accept and practice them, no? Vaccines for the pediatric population? Yes. No. Mandates similar for inside and for outside activities and for vaccinated and unvaccinated populations? Yes. No. Should there be exemptions for people who have already had and survived COVID-19 and its Greek-letter variants? Yes. No. How do you feel about those self-proclaimed VIPs and political figures who violate their own mandates and proclamations by partying without masks and social distancing? How do you feel about making children wear masks for a full day in school?
Now, did you answer those questions in favor of mandates and compliance or in favor of individual choice? Is it puzzling to you that Liberals tend to favor mandates issued by “authorities” more than conservatives?
“Well,” you say, “it’s because conservatives are mostly ‘uneducated rednecks’ incapable of understanding that their selfishness makes them fools at best and murderers at worst. They can’t see that they spread the disease. That’s why the disease is spreading and not ending. And now, children are getting sick because the fools will not listen to the authorities like Dr. Fauci and the scientists at the CDC and FDA.”
Or, you say,
“Well,” liberals are puppets that follow what the elite and ruling classes that control the media tell them to do. They’re afraid of their own shadows. They talk about ‘science’; yet, they hypocritically violate their own recommendations, which, by the way, are often contradictory, like the no-mask, one-mask, two-masks, one-mask, no-mask advice from their ‘lead scientist’ Dr. Fauci. Conservatives want to know that science isn’t an arbitrary guessing game. Have you seen those galas and award shows with celebrities without masks walking past servers with masks?”
Or, with regard to all this, you say,
“You’re making a mountain out of a mole hill. Of course, liberals are free thinkers and conservatives are not. And of course, liberals are more rational. They understand that there are reasonable measures one can take to quash the disease, measures like getting vaccinated and wearing masks while social distancing. All conservatives want is for some authority to control the world as they have known it, preserve the status quo, so to speak. This disease thing has given both sides a chance to show their true nature: Rational liberals vs. irrational conservatives.”
But don’t both sides yield to some authority while disregarding another? Isn’t it a matter of choosing one’s preferable authority? In that regard, aren’t both sides simultaneously “authoritarian” and “anti-authoritarian”? Don’t both sides exhibit Establishmentarianism and anti-Establishmentarianism? And don’t both sides decide on the bases of both reason and emotion?
How much of your answers to the questions on vaccines and masks was based on reason? How much on emotion? Certainly, vaccines appear to protect many people from death and extended hospitalizations. There seems to be evidence for that even though the Delta variant of COVID-19 appears to infect vaccinated people. And certainly, masks, though not foolproof, block some aerosols though viruses are small enough to enter both through the masks themselves and along the gaping sides of and at the open areas exposed by improperly worn masks. And certainly, since viruses are too small to see, all such organic particles can float suspended in a room atmosphere or even on the gentle breezes at a stadium or theater venue—even on the red carpet where celebrities walk and pose for pictures. And concerning that “six-foot social distancing,” note that FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb (2017-2019) said during an interview on Face the Nation that “The six feet rule was arbitrary in and of itself…Nobody knows where it came from…Most people assume that the six feet of distances, the recommendation for keeping six feet apart, comes out of some old studies related to flu, where droplets don’t travel more than six feet.” * Do liberals follow the “six-feet rule”? Do conservatives? Do YOU?
And as a matter of feeling over reason, how much of your answers to those questions center on fear for yourself and for your loved ones? It’s a truth that children have gotten very sick from the disease and some number of them, though small, have died. But most who have gotten the disease have not died. We can say the same for the flu. As I noted in a blog entitled “282 = 282” (8/2/2021), as many children died from the flu in 2009 as died from COVID in 2020; yet, no one proposed masks and social distancing, and no one proposed vaccine mandates or school closings. And the disease is so prevalent now that it has already found its way into animal reservoirs, as all viruses appear to do. Lions and tigers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington contracted the disease in September, 2021. ** No one knows what species are destined to harbor the virus during periods of quiescence until it re-emerges in the human population. Should we put masks on all the animals that could potentially carry the disease? Should we vaccinate thousands to millions to billions of potential carriers in the general mammal and other animal populations? Maybe all the bats in the world? Certainly, the lions and tigers in Africa and India. Would you as a Liberal or Conservative be inclined to follow such advice if a noted “authority” gave it?
Have you considered these points in answering?
There is, in my opinion, an assumption among academicians that they can discern a Liberal mindset from a Conservative mindset, and I believe that assumption underlies attempts to define people by groups. Although I have done no “meta-study” of social and political psychologists and their leanings toward either liberalism or conservatism, toward either establishment or anti-establishment philosophy, I believe that research by Leor Zmigrod et al. demonstrates that such rudimentary assumptions about Left and Right underlie the general perspective.
Zmigrod, Ebert, Götz, and Rentfrow asked what the consequences of infections diseases had in socio-political settings, particularly in regard to voting patterns. *** The authors found “The link between pathogen prevalence and authoritarian psychological dispositions predicted conservative voting behavior in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and more authoritarian governance and state laws, in which one group of people imposes asymmetrical laws on others in a hierarchical structure” (from Abstract). Can you find the assumption in that statement? What I see is that although there might be a correlation between “elevated regional levels of infectious pathogens and authoritarian attitudes,” such a correlation ignores that other influences were operating, such as a poorly run campaign by Hillary Clinton, a disdain for a left-leaning media that predicted her victory, a rejection of the political decisions of the previous administration, a sense that Clinton was “more of the same,” a desire to try a different approach to economic revival and international policy, a hope that an “outsider” with business experience might effect a positive change, a promise of toughness on the international stage, and a few other influences. Was a desire for authoritarianism part of the process? It might have been, but the election in 2016 of a conservative candidate attracted many previously left-leaning voters. Were they seeking rule by an authority? The authors suggest that the Parasite Stress Theory of Sociality predicts a correlation between high levels of infections and a tendency for humans to avoid “dissimilar others” and to show “preferences for obedience and conformity.” Nothing new here: Read
But what if many of the voters were, in fact, rejecting the previous “authority” and did not, as the political and social psychologists presume, suffer from some xenophobia? What if the rejection of a policy of “open borders” had nothing or little to do with xenophobia and more to do with a reasonable or well-reasoned approach to immigration that disallowed entrance into the country by citizens from known terror states like Iran and N. Korea? Was that xenophobia?
Branding anyone as only Left or only Right or only Establishmentarian or Anti-Establishmentarian carries the same errors that all generalizations carry. That liberal state governors appear to be imposing more restrictions on their citizens than conservative governors are imposing doesn’t seem to support the distinctions between Left and Right and the tendency toward authoritarianism.
And YOU, as I mentioned above, probably embody the complexity of favoring and disfavoring authority simultaneously and sequentially. Sometimes, I’m guessing, you hold both positions, and at other times you vary your stance.
Notes:
*Shaw, Gabbi. 20 Sept. 2021. Former FDA commissioner said the 6-feet social distancing rule is ‘arbitrary’ and ‘nobody knowns where it came from’ Business insider, India. Online at https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/former-fda-commissioner-said-the-6-feet-social-distancing-rule-is-arbitrary-and-nobody-knows-where-it-came-from/articleshow/86354716.cms Accessed September 21, 2021.
**Chavez, Julio-Cesar. 17 Sept 2021. Lions, tigers recovering after COVID infection at Washington’s National Zoo. Reuters. Online at https://news.yahoo.com/lions-tigers-recovering-covid-infection-213126750.html. Accessed September 21, 2021.
***Zmigrod, Leor, Tobias Ebert, Friedrich M. Götz, and Peter Jason Rentfrow. 9 Sept 2021. The Psychological and Socio-Political Consequences of Infectious Diseases: Authoritarianism, Governance, and Nonzoonotic (Human-to-Human) Infection Transmission. Journal of Social and Political Psychology. Volume 9 (2). Abstract online at https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/7297 PDF online at https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/7297/7297.pdf Accessed September 20, 2021.
“Are you tired of false claims of panaceas that upset your ability to digest thoughts clearly? Is your political party giving you a form of mental pancreatitis? Is it preventing you from producing a lipase of reason to break down fat promises and an amylase of analysis to break sugary platitudes about a coming utopian government? Then, here’s good news. Guys and gals wearing white lab coats and protective goggles and standing by a Bunsen burner while holding their clipboards have recently discovered the secret to producing enzymes that help digest political secretions. You don’t have to live in constant frustration with a poorly functioning mental digestion. Throw away those red and blue pills you’ve been taking. They don’t work. In fact, they make your problem worse. Instead, try our new and improved proteinous amalgam, the long, complex chains composed of both blue and red links. Synthesized and tested in hermetically sealed labs inside actual human heads, Amalgamite has been shown to improve mood, break down macro-falsities, and clear the mind for rational thinking.
(Thisproductcontainsgrainsoftruthandisnotrecommendedforpeoplewithpreconceptionsorwithahistoryofsensitivitytoadmissionsofambiguity.Seeyourdoctorofphilosophybeforebeginninganyregimenofpsychotropicdrugs.ThisproducthasnotbeenapprovedbyeithertheDNCortheRNCoranyagencyappointedbytheirdulyelectedofficialsorsyncophants)”
No, there is no product called Amalgamite in case you’re wondering. But if there were, you might benefit from taking it. In fact, all of us might benefit. It would give us the ability to see commonalities embedded in our ostensible differences. Amalgamite would enhance our natural abilities to control mood and stress that stereotypical political leanings negatively affect.
You know the common belief: Conservatives are authoritarian; Liberals aren’t. I think the branding creates a chronic irritation that prevents the two sides from understanding their commonalities. Is it possible that in spite of stereotypes, conservatives and their libertarian and far-Right versions are, in fact, anti-Establishmentarian? Is it possible that liberals and their far-Left versions are Establishmentarian? To answer those two questions positively requires definitions that do not incorporate long-held assumptions that offer false dichotomies. Such definitions must also include the full amalgam of philosophical and psychological variations. The usual associations that label conservatives as authoritarian and liberals as anti-authoritarian fail the mutual exclusivity test.
There’s another problem in labeling conservatives or liberals on the basis of their authoritarian or anti-authoritarian leanings. What is meant by authority? Is it applicable to individual or group? Is it direct or subtle? And in the current mix of political apples and oranges, is the notion that liberals are free-thinkers as erroneous as the notion that conservatives are automatons? Does such a notion stem from thousands of years of the arts (painting, sculpting, writing of all kinds, and physical performances like dance) as havens for outcasts and avant-garde thinkers operating outside the boundaries of decorum?
Those who put their hopes in the power of an individual as an authority usually find that the god they chose to emulate often has tin feet and a hollow inside. Those who put their hopes in decorum discover a splintering of ideology emerging shortly after they commit their loyalty. And as for directness or subtly, consider that in some instances authority is as overt as the spoken word and as the tweeted emotion. In other instances, authority is a subtle cancel culture that derives from the tyranny of conforming masses, originating, by the way, from either Right or Left.
I realize that those last two statements are as empty as ellipsis marks, that they are incomplete thoughts in your mind. Let me elaborate: We recognize authority consciously by decision and unconsciously by years of inculcation. Unconsciously, we accept a banker in a suit sitting at a desk in a bank office with a door that reads “Vice-President of…” as an authority in finance. The homeless person on the street outside the bank appears to be incompetent in finance. Such stereotypes come from years of inculcation. Our preconceived notions incline us to accept them. We ignore, however, that “men (and women) in suits” have brought about the collapse of economies and that many who once carried the appearance of authority have been relegated after such collapses to living as sidewalk dwellers in the world of finance. We often, it seems, project authority onto some person or group on superficial bases, often on the bases of appearances and often, too, on the bases of likemindedness: Our leanings Left or Right, for example.
One need look no farther than YOU to discover the complexity and error of labeling people as conservative or liberal authoritarians. You embody the argument against the dichotomous view by your own ambivalence.
“Hey, I’m not ambivalent,” you say. “I know what I am.”
No ambivalence? Let’s run some tests, and the pandemic provides a context in 2021. Are you vaccinated? Yes. No. Do you believe in the efficacy of vaccine mandates? Yes. No. What about mask mandates? Accept and practice them, yes? Accept and practice them, no? Vaccines for the pediatric population? Yes. No. Mandates similar for inside and for outside activities and for vaccinated and unvaccinated populations? Yes. No. Should there be exemptions for people who have already had and survived COVID-19 and its Greek-letter variants? Yes. No. How do you feel about those self-proclaimed VIPs and political figures who violate their own mandates and proclamations by partying without masks and social distancing? How do you feel about making children wear masks for a full day in school?
Now, did you answer those questions in favor of mandates and compliance or in favor of individual choice? Is it puzzling to you that Liberals tend to favor mandates issued by “authorities” more than conservatives?
“Well,” you say, “it’s because conservatives are mostly ‘uneducated rednecks’ incapable of understanding that their selfishness makes them fools at best and murderers at worst. They can’t see that they spread the disease. That’s why the disease is spreading and not ending. And now, children are getting sick because the fools will not listen to the authorities like Dr. Fauci and the scientists at the CDC and FDA.”
Or, you say,
“Well,” liberals are puppets that follow what the elite and ruling classes that control the media tell them to do. They’re afraid of their own shadows. They talk about ‘science’; yet, they hypocritically violate their own recommendations, which, by the way, are often contradictory, like the no-mask, one-mask, two-masks, one-mask, no-mask advice from their ‘lead scientist’ Dr. Fauci. Conservatives want to know that science isn’t an arbitrary guessing game. Have you seen those galas and award shows with celebrities without masks walking past servers with masks?”
Or, with regard to all this, you say,
“You’re making a mountain out of a mole hill. Of course, liberals are free thinkers and conservatives are not. And of course, liberals are more rational. They understand that there are reasonable measures one can take to quash the disease, measures like getting vaccinated and wearing masks while social distancing. All conservatives want is for some authority to control the world as they have known it, preserve the status quo, so to speak. This disease thing has given both sides a chance to show their true nature: Rational liberals vs. irrational conservatives.”
But don’t both sides yield to some authority while disregarding another? Isn’t it a matter of choosing one’s preferable authority? In that regard, aren’t both sides simultaneously “authoritarian” and “anti-authoritarian”? Don’t both sides exhibit Establishmentarianism and anti-Establishmentarianism? And don’t both sides decide on the bases of both reason and emotion?
How much of your answers to the questions on vaccines and masks was based on reason? How much on emotion? Certainly, vaccines appear to protect many people from death and extended hospitalizations. There seems to be evidence for that even though the Delta variant of COVID-19 appears to infect vaccinated people. And certainly, masks, though not foolproof, block some aerosols though viruses are small enough to enter both through the masks themselves and along the gaping sides of and at the open areas exposed by improperly worn masks. And certainly, since viruses are too small to see, all such organic particles can float suspended in a room atmosphere or even on the gentle breezes at a stadium or theater venue—even on the red carpet where celebrities walk and pose for pictures. And concerning that “six-foot social distancing,” note that FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb (2017-2019) said during an interview on Face the Nation that “The six feet rule was arbitrary in and of itself…Nobody knows where it came from…Most people assume that the six feet of distances, the recommendation for keeping six feet apart, comes out of some old studies related to flu, where droplets don’t travel more than six feet.” * Do liberals follow the “six-feet rule”? Do conservatives? Do YOU?
And as a matter of feeling over reason, how much of your answers to those questions center on fear for yourself and for your loved ones? It’s a truth that children have gotten very sick from the disease and some number of them, though small, have died. But most who have gotten the disease have not died. We can say the same for the flu. As I noted in a blog entitled “282 = 282” (8/2/2021), as many children died from the flu in 2009 as died from COVID in 2020; yet, no one proposed masks and social distancing, and no one proposed vaccine mandates or school closings. And the disease is so prevalent now that it has already found its way into animal reservoirs, as all viruses appear to do. Lions and tigers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington contracted the disease in September, 2021. ** No one knows what species are destined to harbor the virus during periods of quiescence until it re-emerges in the human population. Should we put masks on all the animals that could potentially carry the disease? Should we vaccinate thousands to millions to billions of potential carriers in the general mammal and other animal populations? Maybe all the bats in the world? Certainly, the lions and tigers in Africa and India. Would you as a Liberal or Conservative be inclined to follow such advice if a noted “authority” gave it?
Have you considered these points in answering?
There is, in my opinion, an assumption among academicians that they can discern a Liberal mindset from a Conservative mindset, and I believe that assumption underlies attempts to define people by groups. Although I have done no “meta-study” of social and political psychologists and their leanings toward either liberalism or conservatism, toward either establishment or anti-establishment philosophy, I believe that research by Leor Zmigrod et al. demonstrates that such rudimentary assumptions about Left and Right underlie the general perspective.
Zmigrod, Ebert, Götz, and Rentfrow asked what the consequences of infections diseases had in socio-political settings, particularly in regard to voting patterns. *** The authors found “The link between pathogen prevalence and authoritarian psychological dispositions predicted conservative voting behavior in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and more authoritarian governance and state laws, in which one group of people imposes asymmetrical laws on others in a hierarchical structure” (from Abstract). Can you find the assumption in that statement? What I see is that although there might be a correlation between “elevated regional levels of infectious pathogens and authoritarian attitudes,” such a correlation ignores that other influences were operating, such as a poorly run campaign by Hillary Clinton, a disdain for a left-leaning media that predicted her victory, a rejection of the political decisions of the previous administration, a sense that Clinton was “more of the same,” a desire to try a different approach to economic revival and international policy, a hope that an “outsider” with business experience might effect a positive change, a promise of toughness on the international stage, and a few other influences. Was a desire for authoritarianism part of the process? It might have been, but the election in 2016 of a conservative candidate attracted many previously left-leaning voters. Were they seeking rule by an authority? The authors suggest that the Parasite Stress Theory of Sociality predicts a correlation between high levels of infections and a tendency for humans to avoid “dissimilar others” and to show “preferences for obedience and conformity.” Nothing new here: Read
But what if many of the voters were, in fact, rejecting the previous “authority” and did not, as the political and social psychologists presume, suffer from some xenophobia? What if the rejection of a policy of “open borders” had nothing or little to do with xenophobia and more to do with a reasonable or well-reasoned approach to immigration that disallowed entrance into the country by citizens from known terror states like Iran and N. Korea? Was that xenophobia?
Branding anyone as only Left or only Right or only Establishmentarian or Anti-Establishmentarian carries the same errors that all generalizations carry. That liberal state governors appear to be imposing more restrictions on their citizens than conservative governors are imposing doesn’t seem to support the distinctions between Left and Right and the tendency toward authoritarianism.
And YOU, as I mentioned above, probably embody the complexity of favoring and disfavoring authority simultaneously and sequentially. Sometimes, I’m guessing, you hold both positions, and at other times you vary your stance.
Notes:
*Shaw, Gabbi. 20 Sept. 2021. Former FDA commissioner said the 6-feet social distancing rule is ‘arbitrary’ and ‘nobody knowns where it came from’ Business insider, India. Online at https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/former-fda-commissioner-said-the-6-feet-social-distancing-rule-is-arbitrary-and-nobody-knows-where-it-came-from/articleshow/86354716.cms Accessed September 21, 2021.
**Chavez, Julio-Cesar. 17 Sept 2021. Lions, tigers recovering after COVID infection at Washington’s National Zoo. Reuters. Online at https://news.yahoo.com/lions-tigers-recovering-covid-infection-213126750.html. Accessed September 21, 2021.
***Zmigrod, Leor, Tobias Ebert, Friedrich M. Götz, and Peter Jason Rentfrow. 9 Sept 2021. The Psychological and Socio-Political Consequences of Infectious Diseases: Authoritarianism, Governance, and Nonzoonotic (Human-to-Human) Infection Transmission. Journal of Social and Political Psychology. Volume 9 (2). Abstract online at https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/7297 PDF online at https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/7297/7297.pdf Accessed September 20, 2021.
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