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May. 10th, 2018 03:55 amThis is a good Psychology Today article about "the authoritarian personality," which I would like to see studied more.
My own family's not authoritarian (there were and are plenty of other issues), and I've never had real-life friends who are either. I have been personally subjected to authoritarians repeatedly online, however, where they seem to rule nearly everywhere. Winterfox/RequiresHate/B.S. infesting the vast majority of my fandoms is the prime example, but now her kind of thinking and language has spread far beyond fandom.
Also, while I was on opiates and recovering from them, my brain wasn't working too well. Now that I'm finally and entirely free (I think), I look at some of the people I followed and admired while I was on them and am appalled. I do believe that some of those people have changed since I liked them, but that may be because of a need to salve my pride.
I'm feeling pretty pessimistic about people raised as authoritarians being able to overcome that way of thinking. It can happen, but it seems like the odds are around one in twenty at best. They replace the trappings of their beliefs for new ones all the time, but they very rarely actually change. The need for strict hierarchy, for absolute truth, and above all for hatred to guide them, almost always stays in their cores.
I guess it's like anything else -- you have to admit you need to change before you've got a chance at it. And authoritarians protect themselves from that admission harder than anyone else.
My own family's not authoritarian (there were and are plenty of other issues), and I've never had real-life friends who are either. I have been personally subjected to authoritarians repeatedly online, however, where they seem to rule nearly everywhere. Winterfox/RequiresHate/B.S. infesting the vast majority of my fandoms is the prime example, but now her kind of thinking and language has spread far beyond fandom.
Also, while I was on opiates and recovering from them, my brain wasn't working too well. Now that I'm finally and entirely free (I think), I look at some of the people I followed and admired while I was on them and am appalled. I do believe that some of those people have changed since I liked them, but that may be because of a need to salve my pride.
I'm feeling pretty pessimistic about people raised as authoritarians being able to overcome that way of thinking. It can happen, but it seems like the odds are around one in twenty at best. They replace the trappings of their beliefs for new ones all the time, but they very rarely actually change. The need for strict hierarchy, for absolute truth, and above all for hatred to guide them, almost always stays in their cores.
I guess it's like anything else -- you have to admit you need to change before you've got a chance at it. And authoritarians protect themselves from that admission harder than anyone else.
