While it is critical to gain an understanding of the authoritarian personality, we must also perceive the forces that spawned these people, and the systems they create. While destructive, authoritarian behavior does not exist in isolation.

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Introduction

We can't have power addicts running the world and not expect consequences.

It is useful to remember that there is little room for individuality in the control model, as individuality can be unpredictable and threatening to the established order. Rather, what is useful for this model are people who are insecure, driven by shame and fear, and dependent on external approval for self-worth.

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All the installments of these essays weave between both the micro-and macro-levels. My goal is to deal with the broad underlying thought-forms that reveal themselves both in our individual psyches and in the social institutions of our society.

Part 1 - Offers a description of paradigms or "reality tunnels" and the ways these can distort our deepest awareness. How do we get healthy when our systems are sick?

Paradigms are mental models that tend to shape everything we think, feel and do. Thus, Thomas Kuhn, who popularized the concept of paradigms in science, illuminated the way scientists perceive and interpret experiences is shaped by their internal structure of beliefs and concepts. Yet, this process extends to all of us.

Like a complex tapestry, a paradigm has many threads; across our many cultures, the overall pattern has to do with control. In this worldview, top-down control is necessary for social order. If the system does not control us, our culture will fall into chaos. This is our map of reality. Consciously or not, we use this blueprint to build our worlds.

Part 2 - Deals with the consequences of our now-defunct dominator paradigm. The domination paradigm generally generates suffering, while the partnership paradigm, historically and culturally helps us to thrive.

When there are problems, we need to move beyond individual events and trace the sources back to the prevailing paradigm. It is useful to be clear that paradigms aren't monsters. Their power comes from our shared commitment to them. As we begin to step out of them, individually and en-mass, the movers and shakers are powerless to prevent a paradigm shift.

This section includes intimations of a new paradigm - a "turning of the tide."

Part 3 - (which is now archived) emphasizes the importance of identifying paradigms clearly, and the willingness to undergo the rigors of transforming our consciousness. Who and what is controlling whom?

This section deals with additional destructive consequences of our current paradigm, the evolutionary progression of paradigms (both in our psyches and culturally) and begins to suggest positive directions for the future.

Part 4 - Deals with the fragmentation aspect of our current paradigm. As Peter Senge states, that we must train ourselves to look beyond personalities and immediate events into the underlying structures which shape individual actions.

Utilizing systems thinking we realize that, if we can't be honest with our "superiors," the creative options within a system are narrowed by the system's insistence on who can say what to whom. Thus, authoritarian systems frequently cut themselves off from vital information that would help them to thrive - fragmenting the wholeness that is possible.

We explore General Systems Theory (GST) and a way of encountering reality by seeing wholes as well as parts.

Part 5 - Addresses the insidious role of shame in the Control/Domination paradigm. There are innumerable institutionalized policies and practices (in schools, professions, the family, religions, and government) that give us the message that we are unacceptable as we are. Such social systems blast our inner self-worth, negate our spirituality and creativity, and penalize those who put inner-directedness first.

There are methods for illuminating, reducing and eliminating shame, which any of us can learn and employ. For this to be successful, we need a spirit of questioning and rebellion.

Part 6 - The current essay focuses on authoritarianism, democracy, the authoritarian personality. How do we get healthy when our systems are sick?

The Social Order

The Dominator Paradigm has created a personality type that is easily recognizable.

However, before we examine this character- type in some depth we will benefit from pulling back to contemplate the larger society. The overriding issue is power and how it is used and/or misused.

It is useful to remember that there is little room for individuality in the control model, as individuality can be unpredictable and threatening to the established order. Rather, what is useful to this model are people who are insecure, driven by shame and fear, and dependent on external approval for self-worth. Yet, the more power-over systems zap our inner lives, the less social order we will have.

A Dream Deferred by Philip Slater draws our attention to the political implications of both the democratic and authoritarian "mega-cultures" (i.e., world-wide assumptions underlying multiple cultures).

Democracy and Authoritarianism

Much of the resistance to democracy, Slater points out, is due to its open-endedness:

"We all know where authoritarianism leads: to the same comfortable and miserable dead end. But none of us know where democracy will lead if allowed to develop to its fullest. It is always evolving - limited only by our lack of commitment to it."

As a worldview, true democracy is focused - not on "enemies" - but on the resolution of conflict. It is integrative - seeking to accommodate the needs of all participants in the community.

Slater continues,

"Complexity can be stressful, but - approached with an open, experimental spirit, without a demand for rigid control - it can also be exhilarating. If democracy is confusing, it is also innovative; if it seems chaotic, it is also full of opportunities; democracy is not a matter of majority rule or representative government. The essence of democracy is creating."

The Dominator Model Passes Away

The obverse of Slater's observations is articulated by Daniel Goleman (Vital Lies, Simple Truths), who states that, whether we look at a single organization or an authoritarian culture (exhibiting totalitarian, and possibly fascistic, trends), the identical principles seem to apply.

Goleman writes:

"Questions that can't - or won't be asked are a sure sign of a lacuna. The creation of blind spots is a key [tool] of repressive regimes, allowing them to obliterate information that threatens their official line. In doing so, they define one frame for events as valid, any other as subversive and still other events [as] beyond the permissible bounds for attention"

"Lacunas can bury 'dangerous' ideas. A totalitarian state, like the totalitarian self, finds its official version of reality too fragile to withstand an unbridled flow of ideas. For totalitarian authority to assert control it must choke off alternative views and facts.

"Censorship - an essential tool of political control - is the social equivalent of a defense mechanism. It is easier to go along with the silent agreements that keep unpleasant facts quiet and make it hard to rock the boat. But societies can be sunk by the weight of buried ugliness.The beauty of whistle blowers and watchdogs is that they act as a counterbalance to the inertial pull of collective denial."

Riane Eisler has called the alternative to the domination model of cultures and social relationships - the "partnership model". The partnership model involves a "power-with" others orientation: ways of relating to others which are linking, synergistic, and which seek to foster mutually empowering relationships.

Eisler (The Chalice and the Blade) believes that the following to be a stark reality: patriarchy [which she defines as a social system ruled through force or threat of force by men], and its cousin - authoritarianism - cannot meet today's central human tasks - the survival of our species and the development of our unique potentials. She argues that it cannot meet this requirement precisely because of its "inbuilt emphasis on the technologies of destruction [and] its dependence on violence for social control."

We seem to have taken birth in a time that involves a cutting edge - where an old paradigm is fading and new one is just beginning to emerge.

Although paradigms evolve, one moving into another, we can definitely choose to play a part in creating a life-enhancing worldview and allowing the prior worldview fade into the background. Yet, many people are wedded to the old (and known) way of perceiving and acting.

Thus, paradigms can be very difficult to dislodge. This requires enough people waking up to the destructive and barren consequences of the old paradigms. Some of us perceive that our current paradigm is oriented toward death and experience an urgency to do our part in affecting change.

It is important for us to become conscious of the specific aspects of paradigms that are at work - guiding our thinking, relationships and the society-at-large.

Each form of social order, as Duane Elgin has articulated, has been marked by a "perceptual paradigm." Robert Anton Wilson, following Timothy Leary, has labeled this our "reality tunnel."

Jean Gebser has called the full emergence of our next paradigm as the Integral (Structures of Consciousness by Georg Feurestein).

Creating space for the emergence of a new paradigms requires learning, action, and also faith the evolutionary process. To date, we as a species, have flowed from being hunter-gatherers to farming to city-states, to feudalism, to capitalism, and presently our technological society, which is rapidly moving toward an emphasis on communicative culture and beyond. Each social form is reflective of a certain kind of psychological reality, which limits what we can perceive.

Suggesting that this movement is already underway, a partnership model in business is beginning to grow side by side with more traditional military-based models of rigid top-down chains of command. A growing number of successful organizations are engaged in courageous efforts to make their values explicit - to "walk their talk." This is occurring due to a growing perception that authoritarian structures are simply inefficient in an era of rapid technological and economic change.

The command-and-control relationship between managers and employees generates institutional blindness that blocks, frustrates, and reduces the speed, extent, and effectiveness of change. Ineffectiveness and bloated hierarchies are protected by managers and other members committed to the hierarchy, who hold obsolete systems in place.

In organizations it is rare that we take time to reflect on our philosophy of management or consciously try to improve the values, ethics and integrity that lend meaning to our work lives. Yet without philosophical questioning, psychological self-examination, and ethical reflection, we easily slip into rationalizing our actions and justifying everything we have done, from minor ethical lapses to outright evil.

Above all, we need a long-term perspective - and simultaneously the scientific view called "punctuated equilibrium" - which asserts that evolution occurs primarily through short bursts of intense speciation, followed by lengthy periods of stasis or equilibrium. The model postulates that nearly 99% of a species' time on earth is spent in stasis, and change happens very quickly.

We might equate this process of sudden jumps in personal and group awareness, as well as social institutions, with the term, "quantum leap."

The evolutionary aspect of this process was described by Mumford:

"Yet if mankind abstains from self-extermination and actually begins to move toward the fabrication of a world culture, the separate contributions to this process, many already in existence, will carry with them an air of quiet inevitability. It is the formal details that are so difficult to imagine in advance.

"At the moment of ripeness, the unseen will be visible, the unthinkable thought, the unactable enacted; and by the same token, obstacles that seem insurmountable will crumble away.

"This experience has many parallels in human history. Suddenly, at what seems the peak of their efficiency and power, dominant institutions lose their hold on their most devout supporters or their most favored beneficiaries" while at the same time millions of people who seemingly conformed with docility to these institutions throw them off like a dirty garment. In such a situation, ideas that were hardly more than shadows a moment before, become solid landmarks on a well-paved road" (The Transformations of Man)

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The dominator model inevitably entails - either overtly or covertly - dividing and ranking the world into "either/or frames." This, as Slater has noted, "make[s] it difficult to see beyond these dualities to the totality that embraces them." Slater goes on to say that,

"The authoritarian universe is permanently and unalterably split into warring elements - good vs. evil, black vs. white, higher vs. lower - a world founded on irreconcilable strife. Authoritarians also have trouble seeing more than two sides of anything. The range and variety of opinion on any issue must somehow be squeezed into the corset of paired opposition."

Slater observes that these days our approach to important social issues often reflects this militaristic approach to life: we fight disease rather than healing people; declare war on drugs and poverty, rather than address their causes; seek to conquer inflation or wipe out pollution. Attacking and/or "overcoming" what is "wrong, "or "bad" (and "winning" this conflict) is implicit in such a worldview.

We can see that the ambiguities and uncertainties of globalization has - in numerous nations and subgroups - has actually strengthened trends toward isolationism, xenophobia, scapegoating, as well as a retreat into simplistic, authoritarian, and demagogic "solutions."

The old paradigm simply does not appear to be sustainable. Many of today's most perceptive thinkers see massive chaos in our near future: that within the next 40 years the collapse of social structures and the natural environmental will be imminent. If an extensive breakdown occurs, we can expect that populations will be clamoring for "strong leaders" and authoritarian policies. We may be in for a world of corporate (and possibly fascistic) feudalism.

Clearly, we need to wake up.

The Authoritarian Personality

In such a climate, authoritarian personalities will thrive. What do we know about these character types?

Adorno's (et. al.) two volume work, entitled The Authoritarian Personality, was published in 1950 and has provided much valuable data in this regard - so much so that 40 years later, (although flawed in certain respects) - it is still regarded as a seminal, landmark achievement.

More recently others (Altemeyer, Dyer, Milburn) have contributed to this fund of knowledge. Dyer has summarized a number of these key characteristics regarding this character style/disorder:

1) INTOLERANCE OF AMBIGUITY:

The typical authoritarian experiences a strong need to have things spelled out specifically. Unless there is a yes or no answer to every question, no matter how complex, they show signs of anxiety. As a result, the authoritarian has little tolerance for people who are working in intrinsically ambiguous areas - philosophers, artists, social or political leaders. It might be said that authoritarians feel compelled to insist that every piece of language they hear or read mean "just one thing" which is clear and readily identifiable.

2) DICHOTOMOUS THINKING:

Authoritarians exhibit a compulsion to divide everything and everyone into mutually exclusive groups - good/bad, right/wrong, friend/enemy - without taking into account the subtleties, qualifications or even downright mistakes that may be involved. Dichotomous thinking can be considered an outgrowth of intolerance of ambiguity; it is a sort of rush to judgment which serves to provide an immediate (but illusory, and generally false) sense of certainty.

3) RIGIDITY OF THOUGHT:

The rigidity in the way an authoritarian perceives the world and himself is often exhibited as a generalized unwillingness to consider perspectives that conflict with his (or her) own preconceived ideas. Faced with such a situation,

""the last thing [such a person] will do is to listen, evaluate, and be prepared to change his position if it seems warranted. It is virtually impossible for him ever to [sincerely] admit having been wrong or having learned anything from anyone [with views different from himself]"You will never hear [him or her] say [and mean]: 'Well, you have a point there.'"

Dyer goes on to say that - with true authoritarians - rational discussion [regarding emotionally-laden-issues]""is never a cooperative effort to reach agreement, beginning with mutual respect on each side. The most frustrating thing about [pure] authoritarians is their inaccessibility: most of the time, there is literally no way to reach them."

4) ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM:

Dyer states that authoritarians often display a mistrust of "intellectuals," particularly people who make their living as thinkers, but he adds this caveat:

"Today of course, there is no lack of authoritarians in academic fields; however, these people tend to be devoted followers of some 'school of thought,' and more often than not are notable only for blindly following what some 'great man' has taught."

5) ANTI-INTROSPECTION

Authoritarians tend to resist looking into their own motivations. Dyer observes that one of the things such a person seems most afraid of - is admitting (to others or to themselves) that they have not always been "right." Authoritarians reject looking inward because they have come to rely so strongly on external support systems to convince themselves of their own value - and the "rightness" of their position.

6) PARANOIA

Authoritarians' basic distrust of themselves tends to make them suspicious about every human encounter, projecting their distrust outward. Because they find it so difficult to admit that they, themselves, are responsible (at least in part) for creating many of the problems they complain about, they feel compelled to blame someone else.

As Dyer notes - "even to [be able to] support the relatively mild paranoia of the majority of authoritarians it is necessary for them to imagine a multitude of enemies out there. (Yet these same individuals seldom allow themselves to be moved to greater sympathy or support for others who really are being persecuted). Their paranoid picture of the world [usually] simply leads such people to withdraw into ever-tightening spirals of paranoia."

7) ANTI-WEAKNESS

Authoritarians tend not to support help for the weak because they equate weakness with evil; so, the outcasts of society are responsible for their own situations. It is their own fault if they did not "make it to the center of the herd." Another implication of this view is that "winning" is all that really matters: if you are weak, or part of a "weak team" you should be feel ashamed.

8) POWER WORSHIP

The other side of the anti-weakness coin is the authoritarian's typical worship of power, no matter how the power is being used.

9) ETHNOCENTRISM

because it is most capable of leading to violence, this trait has been considered both one of the most common and most dangerous of all the typical authoritarian qualities.

Ethnocentrism in general, and racism in particular are, in turn, connected with the phenomenon of anti-minority thinking and behavior.

Dyer points out that such a set of attitudes promotes alienation between all kinds of "minorities" and "majorities." He goes on to argue that, more recently, focus on being part of a "great majority" has replaced allegiance to a specific ethnic group; this trait, he notes, fits with the "authoritarian knack for covering up the fact that they are not flawless."

10) CONFORMITY and SUBMISSIVENESS

In contrast to the image they often portray, such people are strong, independent and autonomous, authoritarian people tend to be governed by opinions and social forces outside of themselves; generally, they are quite weak when it comes to relying on their own judgments, instincts, independent sets of values, etc. They find it much easier and more comforting to adjust to imposed standards than to look inward for the keys to guiding their own lives. As Adorno has said, "Conformity is one of the major expressions of lack of an internal focus."

It seems natural for such people to be submissive to established authority and conventional modes of behavior. And we can see here, the way in which a person with a strong authoritarian inclination will inevitably be quite suggestible and gullible, particularly to propaganda and hype.

This vulnerability can be contrasted with the relative resiliency of more autonomous individuals who are willing to challenge authority, and who see no reason to accept things as they are - simply because an authority figure or institution decrees it should be so.

The double standard which is implicit in the authoritarian stance is particularly evident in the way such people think of the parent /child relationship (which can be considered as a model for their approach to all relationships). The concept of the parent as absolute authority is sacrosanct. The authority of the parent is seen as a one-way street, in which the parent deserves respect, simply for being an authority figure.

Embedded within this conceptualization is the idea that authority itself must be unchallengeable - because a challenge to any authority is seen as a threat to all order, and authority. So, as might be expected, parents who act in an authoritarian fashion toward their children may act in a submissive fashion toward their own parents. It would be fair to say, then, that for such people the game they are most comfortable playing is that of "follow the leader."

(Milburn, The Politics of Denial) offered a specific formulation regarding a likely origin point for the authoritarian personality. His theory suggests that rigid, punitive parents, by definition, cannot tolerate any expression of a child's powerful, spontaneous, and natural sexual and aggressive impulses; in fact, parents responded to them with an exaggerated punitiveness; and this parental reaction leaves the child no alternative but to repress those impulses - that is, to ban them from consciousness.

However, our knowledge of the psyche tells us that emotions banished into the mind's basement remain disturbing and tumultuous, whether or not "the owner of the house" is aware of their existence. Repression alone, as a defense against feelings, is rarely completely successful. To guard against the anxiety that these emotions might break through into conscious awareness - additional defenses must be erected - much as one might pile larger and heavier pieces of furniture against a door to keep out an insistent intruder.

It is understandable that a child will respond to his parents' excessively punitive reactions with feelings of rage. But this very emotion is one the child dares not allow himself to acknowledge - or at least must not connect with his parents' behavior. This is not unusual, for we can recall that a child, who is completely dependent on his parents, will, if forced to submit to abuse, deny parental abusiveness and continue to idealize them.

The beginnings of the formation of the authoritarian character style can be found in these humble and poignant origins. Since unresolved feelings do not simply go away - with the passage of time and physical maturation, the original sexual and aggressive emotions (and especially those feelings that arose following parents' suppression of those emotions) - far from becoming extinct, grow into a major determining force of adult outlooks and beliefs.

Aspects of themselves that the individual "disowned" so long ago are transformed into a more acceptable form: they are "projected onto" (unconsciously attributed to) others - commonly members of a despised outgroup.

As Milburn points out:

"The beauty of projection lies in its psychic economy; once one has projected one's own "bad" impulses onto women, Jews, or African Americans, it is only reasonable to take out one's rage against them.

"After all, they are the ones who are oversexed, aggressive, sneaky, and so on. Individuals of this personality type, in addition to venting their anger on minority groups, find their own children perfect targets for displacement, and [often] treat their children the same way their parents treated them."

Donald Trump and other authoritarian leaders and their followers exemplify many of these traits. It is clear that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Erdogan and many others have evoked massive suffering.

It behooves us, therefore, to become knowledgeable about both these character disorders who seek power, and the social forces that feed them. It is also imperative that we teach our children (at age-appropriate levels) how to recognize such people. We certainly need to educate the public. Finally, we need to become clear re- how best to deal these personality types, who are known for being deceptive, persuasive, crave power, and are in the short-term, shrewd.

Such people exemplify the dominator paradigm and simultaneously create fragmentation and belligerence in the realms they rule. Their approach to governance commonly champions scapegoating and is dependent on pitting one group against another. Leaders' own combative attitudes easily infuse and energize the militance of their followers.

Our future rests on understanding and effectively dealing with authoritarians.

(Article changed on Sep 25, 2022 at 11:10 AM EDT)

Authors Bio:

I work as a psychotherapist with an emphasis on transformational learning - a blend of psychoanalytic and transpersonal approaches, and am the author of Self Actualization and Unselfish Love and co-author of Families Helping Families: Living with Schizophrenia, as well as Mental Illness as an Opportunity for Transformation. My interests and life have taken parallel courses, which together have woven a complex tapestry: spirituality and meditation on the one hand, and political psychology on the other. I have studied and practiced with Ram Dass, Jack Kornfield, Mata Amritanandamayi and Gurumayi Chidvilasanda, and continue a daily practice of meditation. My early political education began with the writings of the founding fathers. Over time this led to involvement in the anti-Vietnam war and anti-nuclear movements. I was interested in the powerful molding of prevailing political and economic dynamics by what C. Wright Mills called the military-industrial complex. In time I have come to the conclusion that, despite various interest groups' attempts to minimize or trivialize the concept, the deep state is a reality - decisively and covertly shaping events on both the domestic and international fronts. I am interested in an exceptionally promising alternative source of energy that has yet to see the light of day. I see the current period as a precarious form of initiation rite into the beginning of adulthood for our species, and hope to do whatever I can to help us reach this goal. Meanwhile, I seek daily to recall the reality that the same awareness (the Ever-Present-Origin) looks out through all of our eyes, and actualize this in my relationship with other beings.