There is a fundamental episto-psychological disjunction between, what Prof. Altemeyer labels, Right-Wing Authoritarians (RWA) and the rest of the political spectrum. One of these differences is a RWA tends to wait for an authority to tell them what to do and what to think. The 'text' from an authority, then, is validated directly from the fact the 'speaker' is in a position of power. What a RWA does not do is question the ethos - if I grasp the concept correctly - of the speaker.
A conclusion of Communication Theory [no cite] is communication, per se, can only take place between equals. Given this, one can go further and state communication is the passing of messages between equals. Implying, of course, communication does not occur between a RWA and an 'Other.'
This would seem to be a closed loop forbidding, in some sense, persuasion unless one can destroy, in some sense, a Social Dominant's [Altemeyer] position in the social/political heirarchy.
Any comment you would care to make would be greatly appreciated.
[There's a second part to this which I will raise when you discuss logos. Aren't you thrilled! ;-)]
That's an excellent insight, AT. I'd say hardcore RWAs are a pretty small group, though. From having been raised around a bunch of them, I'd somewhat disagree with this:
What a RWA does not do is question the ethos - if I grasp the concept correctly - of the speaker.
I'm not so sure that they don't question ethos, so much as their standards of what makes a person good or bad are entirely different. One example may be character traits -- if someone displayed a cruel streak (say, willing to excuse or condone torture), we might think of that as him having a bad character, we wouldn't want it to happen to anyone and realize also that someone like that wouldn't care if it was done to us.
I'd say the RWA personality doesn't care about that, they care about the power dynamic -- is the leader serving the group. The main quality is then strength and the main virtue, loyalty. In that dynamic, cruelty might even be a plus, used against the other. The way to destroy such leaders is to expose them as disloyal to the group they're supposedly in charge of -- inconsistency or what we would think of as bad traits don't matter. Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
The way to destroy such leaders is to expose them as disloyal to the group they're supposedly in charge of -- inconsistency or what we would think of as bad traits don't matter.
And thank you for that insight.
Suddenly a reason behind the rantings of various, pestiferous, talk-radio hosts becomes crystal clear.
