AEI psychiatrist Sally Satel, explores the question of 'Authoritarians on the Left'. (Revised)
Political Observer comments.
Headline: The Experts Somehow Overlooked Authoritarians on the Left
Sub-headline: Many psychologists wrongly assumed that coercive attitudes exist only among conservatives.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/psychological-dimensions-left-wing-authoritarianism/620185/
Sally Satel is a psychiatrist, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and the co-author of Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience. She is a visiting professor at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.
Why would an AEI hireling look to the ‘Left’ as the bearer of authoritarianism? Its a matter of politics. She does mention Adorno, whose work was touchstone for the Left’s anti-authoritarianism:
In the 1950 book The Authoritarian Personality, an inquiry into the psychological makeup of people strongly drawn to autocratic rule and repressive politics, the German-born scholar Theodor W. Adorno and three other psychologists measured people along dimensions such as conformity to societal norms, rigid thinking, and sexual repression. And they concluded that “the authoritarian type of human”— the kind of person whose enthusiastic support allows someone like Hitler to exercise power—was found only among conservatives. In the mid-1990s, the influential Canadian psychologist Bob Altemeyer described left-wing authoritarianism as “the Loch Ness Monster of political psychology—an occasional shadow, but no monster. ” Subsequently, other psychologists reached the same conclusion.
For the record of Adorno’s intellectual, political, psychological trajectory, I offer two sources:
Theodor W. Adorno: One Last Genius by Detlev Claussen
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674057135
And :
The Melancholy Science: An Introduction to the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno by Gillian Rose
https://www.versobooks.com/books/1555-the-melancholy-science
Here is the answer to the above ‘why’ :
But one reason left-wing authoritarianism barely shows up in social-psychology research is that most academic experts in the field are based at institutions where prevailing attitudes are far to the left of society as a whole. Scholars who personally support the left’s social vision—such as redistributing income, countering racism, and more—may simply be slow to identify authoritarianism among people with similar goals.
One doesn’t need to believe that left-wing authoritarians are as numerous or as threatening as their right-wing counterparts to grasp that both phenomena are a problem. While liberals—both inside and outside of academia—may derive some comfort from believing that left-wing authoritarianism doesn’t exist, that fiction ignores a significant source of instability and polarization in our politics and society.
There is a demonstrable political propinquity between AEI’s Sally Satel, and the ‘Liberal Magazine’ The Atlantic: a war on the ‘Left’, as the enemy of the alliance between the Neo-Liberals, in their various iterations, and the Neo-Cons, that now defines respectable bourgeoise Centrism. In the aftermath of the complete economic collapse of 2008, the exacerbating factors of Trump and Trumpism and the crippling Pandemic- what is the catch phrase? ‘the perfect storm’ bullshit?
Sally Satel does offer insights into certain preconceptions, wedded to a lack of critical standards of social-psychology research. This may or may not be true. The battleground is now between Right and Left social-psychology research? Should the reader look to the ‘Bell Curve’, as not just the harbinger of such a split, but its reality? This is conjecture, but the Reader can’t ignore the fact that her essay is rendered null by the blatant hysterical politics of her intervention !
But one reason left-wing authoritarianism barely shows up in social-psychology research is that most academic experts in the field are based at institutions where prevailing attitudes are far to the left of society as a whole. Scholars who personally support the left’s social vision—such as redistributing income, countering racism, and more—may simply be slow to identify authoritarianism among people with similar goals.
I have italicized, a key sentence in the first, of the two quoted of paragraphs of the essay :
…
That psychologists have been slow to acknowledge the existence of left-wing authoritarians at all is “puzzling,” Costello and his colleagues write. But here, I would argue, is where the pronounced leftward orientation of researchers in social psychology comes in. “Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years,” according to a comprehensive 2014 review. Universities have long tilted to the left, but that tendency has deepened as education has become ever more highly correlated with political ideology. Whatever its origin, this political imbalance makes truth-seeking harder. Studies have repeatedly shown that investigators’ sociopolitical views influence the questions they ask. What’s more, ideologically concordant reviewers are more likely to rate abstracts and papers highly if the findings comport with their own beliefs, all else being equal.
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The other virtue of the Costello team’s work is its status as a sobering demonstration of how social psychology’s dominant ideological orientation has constrained the scope of inquiry. “The dominant view of RWA as the ‘gold standard’ of authoritarianism writ large is not merely an influential theoretical framework or a historical quirk,” the authors write. “It limits the questions we ask as scientists [and] the types of theories we use to interpret our results.” For many years, what was perfectly obvious to many outside the field—that extremist mindsets exist on both ends of the political spectrum—was at best downplayed by the majority of social psychologists. An ideological monoculture within the discipline has damaged our collective understanding of political psychology—and, by extension, American politics.
Political Observer
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Added September 26, 2021:
A way of thinking about what Sally Satel represents, in terms of politics, is to recall the career of Ernest van den Haag:
…
a Dutch-born American sociologist, social critic, and author. He was John M. Olin Professor of Jurisprudence and Public Policy at Fordham University. He was best known for his contributions to National Review.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_van_den_Haag
And consider this obituary from the Kirk Center :
https://kirkcenter.org/essays/ernest-van-den-haag-19142002/
Mr. van den Haag was a Conservative and contributor to the National Review. Just as Sally Satel is a member of AEI, the opening paragraph of its reason to be:
AEI’s Organization an Purposes
The American Enterprise Institute is a public policy think tank dedicated to defending human dignity, expanding human potential, and building a freer and safer world. The work of our scholars and staff advances ideas rooted in our belief in democracy, free enterprise, American strength and global leadership, solidarity with those at the periphery of our society, and a pluralistic, entrepreneurial culture.
https://www.aei.org/about/aeis-organization-and-purposes/
Here are the key parts of the ‘statement of principals’ shorn of its self-serving chatter about ‘human dignity’: ‘free enterprise, American strength and global leadership, … ‘a pluralistic, entrepreneurial culture.’
AEI hews to the Trinity of Hayek/Mises/Friedman. The Cult of The Free Market, and its ‘principals’ and practices, crashed and destroyed both the Middle and Working classes in 2008, exacerbated by The Pandemic. Sally Satel is just another advocate/apologists for - what can a psychiatrist offer ? except for a misbegotten/maladroit exercise in argument from authority?
Political Observer