i'm starting to read it actually. I won't lie its well written and pretty interesting. here's one problem that I have off the get go though. He is obviously pandering to left wing readers as he quickly asserts the fact that there are FWA's and LWA's,.........
"But the left-wing authoritarians on my campus disappeared long ago. Similarly in America “the Weathermen” blew away in the wind. I’m sure one can find left-wing authoritarians here and there, but they hardly exist in sufficient numbers now to threaten democracy in North America. However I have found bucketfuls of right-wing authoritarians in nearly every sample I have drawn in Canada and the United States for the past three decades."
Translation: I have the opportunity to be fair and seek an honest assessment of why people view the political arena in the way that they do, but I'm not here to seek truth. I'm here to pander to my liberal lemmings so for the sake of this essay i'm going to assume that liberals who "readily submit to the established authorities in society, attacks others in their name, and is highly conventional" just simply do not exist anymore. Not a one. None. Zero zip zilch nada.
His behavior assessment is impressive and I do admit that right wingers are guilty of pretty much all of what he says but if you can't see through his obvious attempt to completely absolve his left wing audience (those are the only people who have given this man the time of day. right wingers have jobs and shit. he knows where his bread is buttered) of any of these behaviors which he so eloquently likes to attach solely to people who vote republican I just feel sorry for you. come on man. I'll see you guys tomorrow. I have a shit ton of work to do.
How does his observation change the conclusions drawn from the data? Every person has authoritarian aspects to her personality. A cross section of test subjects does not change that fact. Nor is the fact changed that the responses to the personality scale tests (and others) indicate extreme authoritarian streaks in the right wing subjects. The left wingers just don't have the same responses made by the right wingers.
You don't have to 'translate' the Bob's words. They are pretty plain. Based on the political orientation and responses / actions in the experiments, the vast bulk of right wing respondents have extreme authoritarian personalities and impulses and, as such, they are primed as tools for any sort of dictatorial type political leader. Where you see prejudice, I see an elaboration.
Does this sound like a man with prejudicial motives for the paper:
"Liberals have stereotypes about conservatives, and conservatives have stereotypes about liberals. Moderates have stereotypes about both. Anyone who has watched, or been a liberal arguing with a conservative (or vice versa) knows that personal opinion and rhetoric can be had a penny a pound. But arguing never seems to get anywhere. Whereas if you set up a fair and square experiment in which people can act nobly, fairly, and with integrity, and you find that most of one group does, and most of another group does not, that’s a fact, not an opinion. And if you keep finding the same thing experiment after experiment, and other people do too, then that’s a body of facts that demands attention.3 Some people, we have seen to our dismay, don’t care a hoot what scientific investigation reveals; but most people do. If the data were fairly gathered and we let them do the talking, we should be on a higher plane than the current, “Sez you""
The answer is most certainly, "no."
Of course Bob anticipates your objection in the footnotes:
" I have found that some people make assumptions about why I study authoritarianism that get in the way of what the data have to say. The stereotype about professors is that they are tall, thin, and liberals. I=m more liberal than I am tall and thin, that=s for sure. But I don=t think anyone who knows me well would say I am a left-winger. My wife is a liberal, and she and all her liberal friends will tell you I am definitely not one of them. Sometimes they make me leave the room. I have quite mixed feelings about abortion, labor unions, welfare and warfare. I supported the war in Afghanistan from the beginning; I disapproved of the war in Iraq from its start in March 2003.
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Communist Party, or any other political party. ...
"I hope you=ll agree that the studies were fair and square. It=s your call, of course, and everybody else=s. That=s the beauty of the scientific method. If another researcher--and there are hundreds of them--thinks I only got the results I did because of the particular way I set things up, phrased things, and so on, she can repeat my experiment her way, find out, and let everybody know what happened. It=s the wonderful way science polices and corrects itself."
That hardly sounds like a clinician with an ulterior motive to butter liberalism's bread.
