I posted some links in Lab Tools regarding fundamentalism and authoritarianism. http://fffoundation.freeforums.org/viewtopic.php?t=167 I'd like to see what everyone thinks about them. Do you feel that fundamentalism is entwined with authoritarianism? I certainly feel that the authors of these sites have made a valid point.

Ex-COG, I've spent most of the day reading that book--I'm nowhere near through it yet. First I did some research on the author. He seems to be a real professor in a real university. I always find it important to know what credentials a person brings to a situation. Even though he writes with a very casual tone in this book, he seems to be a real psychologist. Also, he has some books published by university presses, so he must be a real scholar respected by his peers. I think he chose to publish this book for free on the internet to make the information available to the average person. For people interested in more scholarly research and technical information, he provides footnotes with references to his more scholarly works.

Anyway, he brings a lot of insight to issues I've struggled with all my life. Never again will fundamentalists or other religionists have the power to intimidate me with their absolute knowledge of God, hell, and "what's good for me." I have always trusted that the quality of the intellectual processes that go into conclusions determine the quality of the conclusions. When I seek to find out by what processes fundamentalists know the things they know they will attack me before they answer will my questions. That has left me with the message that I must be missing the obvious. What Altemeyer is showing me is that the processes that go into the conclusions reached by fundamentalists is seriously flawed, and not on one level only. Here are some main points from the first few chapters:

1. They gain support for their beliefs by talking with like-minded people.
2. Evidence means nothing if it disagrees with their beliefs.
3. Their beliefs are handed to them by a trusted authority.

A big thing he mentions repeatedly is the inconsistent beliefs they can tolerate side by side. For example, in the case of finding a romantic partner, they can hold Birds of a feather flock together along side with Opposites attract.

Just now I took a look at those blog entries/articles. They looked so educational, with solid research behind them, that I posted a link on the Index of Sources to the post. That's the first time I did that but I didn't know how to improve over what you had organized. Great organization for ease of finding info is one of my goals. Thanks for doing a great job!

One aspect of studying the fundamentalist/authoritarian connection is in learning to recognize what authoritarian aspects reside within myself. I had read some on authoritarianism in my early 20's, mainly Adorno's The Authoritarian Personality. But all of this fell by the wayside as I came under the sway of evangelical writings. Only after years as a Christian, observing fellow believers and questioning the reasoning behind so much going on in Christianity, did I yank myself out of that mindset. It was almost like reclaiming my brain. And when I found these sources, the memory of what I had learned about authoritarianism came flooding back. I felt angry with myself, thinking that I should have recognized what was happening to me. Perhaps all of us can have times in our lives where we are susceptible to becoming an authoritarian follower. Accepting this, and learning to recognize the warning signs that I may be slipping into "following mode" may be the key to staying free from falling back into the fundamentalist grip.

You have a point. I was born into it. I think if I had been able to retain the independence I felt at age five--or even at age fourteen--until I was an adult, I might have broken with tradition several decades earlier. Most of my people didn't come of age until age 21. In looking back I marvel at how thoroughly I was "beaten into submission" in the time between ages fourteen and 21. The biggest thing I struggled with for the next twenty years (after coming of age) was making my mind small enough to fit the life I was supposed to live. I tried every last home remedy the community had to offer. Absolutely nothing worked. I went back to school. Every year I find new levels of reading comprehension developing, or new learning skills developing. It is as though new areas of my brain are opening up.

I think how extremely ironic. Jesus said not to bury one's talent. In fact, the man who carefully put away his talent so as not to anger his master was severely punished for not using it. Yet when I finally use the intellectual talent that I was born with the fundies punish me as though I were committing some gross sin...Okay, just now I looked at the thread topic again. I guess an independent thinker destroys the authoritarian person's paradise simply by existing. What they refuse to acknowledge is that were it not for us independent thinkers these right wing authoritarians would not have the paradises they live in. They would still be living in caves.

Originally written as part of this post on exC.

It's only in the last month or two that I got comfortable with the idea that some people put more trust in authority than in their own deductive skills. This had a lot to do with an online book I read called The Authoritarians. Ex-COG referred it on my forums, and we discussed it here; note, these are two different threads.

The book is written conversational style but I did some research on the author. He seems to be a real professor in a real university. I always find it important to know what credentials a person brings to a situation. Even though he writes with a very casual tone in this book, he seems to be a real psychologist. Also, he has some books published by university presses, so he must be a real scholar respected by his peers. I think he chose to publish this book for free on the internet to make the information available to the average person. For people interested in more scholarly research and technical information, he provides footnotes with references to his more scholarly works.

His explanation just makes sense. It fits the inner workings of the fundamentalist community life as I have seen and lived it from the under-dog perspective. I have also seen and experienced enough of the "top-dog" perspective or "comfortable happy life" to know he's realistic from that perspective, too. I am coming to the conclusion that the masses do feel most comfortable trusting authority, and possibly that works best for social order. I really don't know.

I think if everyone was a creative and original thinker like me, we would still have good social order because I stick to the system for stuff that concerns other people. There's the social contract thing where it's just nice to know who's going to be doing what and when and where as in predictability. For this we need social leaders as in government and we need laws and law enforcement. And with this system in place, the mindless masses can easily get away with just doing as they are told.

In the Authoritarians he shows that there are enough leaders to keep the masses on track. He has some amazing explanations for the really charismatic leaders, too--the ones whom people serve willingly even when the costs of doing so are significant.