My wife and I have been discussing the nature of authoritarians. She has been reading some research which concludes that "authority" is primarily something which conservatives value rather than liberals. "Authority" according to these researchers, is a conservative value. When I objected that Hillary Clinton seems at least as authoritarian as, for example, Ronald Reagan, she noted that by the researcher's definition of "conservative" Hillary Clinton would be "conservative". Red lights started going off in my head all around. The academics who are studying this issue may be adding more confusion than illumination with the way they are using their terms.
For one thing, I distinguish between classical liberalism and modern leftism. They are very different animals. One is Thomas Jefferson or Ron Paul. The other is Leon Trotsky or Bernie Sanders. Classical liberalism has a healthy skepticism toward government action and the idea that government could run our lives so much better than we could ourselves if only it was able to extract from us vast proportions of the wealth we produce and the autonomy we possess. Modern leftism accepts the premise completely.
So then classical liberalism is less authoritarian than most true conservatism. But that's not who the left is anymore. Therefore, saying "liberals" value authority less than "conservatives" does cloud the issue unless one is careful to note that few people are classically liberal anymore. Most of those who use the word are actually leftist. In the American context classical "conservatives" love some of the same values that classical liberals do, just for different reasons. The difficulty is that American politics have devolved to the point where most who call themselves liberals are more accurately described as socialists and many of those who call themselves conservative are actually closer to neo-fascism. Socialism posing as liberalism is what made "liberal" a dirty word in America and fascism posing as conservatism will do the same to "conservative".
The sad truth is that the socialist-left and the neo-fascist right are both authoritarian, they simply have differing sources of authority. Neither places much value in checks and balances, restraints, boundaries, and limits on government power. Neither cares much for what I call "the integrity of the process". When they are running things process-restraints are bad and when the other side is running things they are "good". This means that each side seeks to erode process restraints on government power when they are running things- making it that much easier for the other side to dispense with them when power shifts back.
I believe that these issues could be better sorted if we added a few more terms to the discussion. People who value "authority" are not necessarily "conservative". Many leftists are just as authoritarian. So then "authoritarian" should be its own category or spectrum just as "left-right" is. There should be an "up-down" spectrum too. Do you think people should be more free to run their own lives or should power be moved away from the individual and toward a central state? Ignoring the "up-down" spectrum is forcing the researchers to over-generalize, based on what I have heard. I might add that "establishment-anti-establishment" could be yet a third spectrum. Classical liberals would tend to be anti-establishment, but the modern left which is heavily entrenched in many institutions in this nation is itself the establishment. As it regards universities in America for example, conservatives are "anti-establishment" and leftists are the establishment.
The biggest difference between today's left and right is not whether they value authority but rather from where they draw their source of authority. For the right it comes from their religious traditions, or their national or cultural traditions. That is, the way we have done things in the past is the way they should be done going forward. When this involves who is running things, I suppose you could say it is "conservative" to say that "who ever has been running things should keep running them", but I regard that as an "establishment" position which is to be distinguished from a "conservative" one. Establishment people are more correlated to valuing authority than conservative people are, IMHO.
The biggest difference between today's left and right is not whether they value authority but rather from where they draw their source of authority. For the right it comes from their religious traditions, or their national or cultural traditions. That is, the way we have done things in the past is the way they should be done going forward. When this involves who is running things, I suppose you could say it is "conservative" to say that "who ever has been running things should keep running them", but I regard that as an "establishment" position which is to be distinguished from a "conservative" one. Establishment people are more correlated to valuing authority than conservative people are, IMHO.
The left can value authority just as much, but they do not reach into the past to find their authorities, but the present. Barack Obama was hailed as almost a political Messiah promising "hope and change". Leftists trusted him as a source of authority more than the founding fathers for example. Yes, much of the right is elevating Donald Trump to the role of a political Messiah to an equally unhealthy level, but what he promised to do was "Make America Great Again." Do you see what the difference is? It isn't that one side values authority and the other does not. It is that one side looks to the past for authority and the other side the present. To Obama supporters, the past was something that needed to be changed into something else. To Trump supporters, the good things about the past needed to be restored.
"Science" is another source of authority for the left. And of course when government funds most science then this is simply an indirect way of valuing the powers-that-be in government as a source of authority. I have seen on numerous occasions leftists try to seal themselves off from debate by citing leftist academic "authorities" and saying that the only qualified voice has spoken and that therefore they don't need to address any arguments which say otherwise, no matter how well-reasoned.
For a more in-depth look at the problem see my article on "Mis-education and Mental Illness". But as regards our discussion here the bottom line is that, yes, leftists are often highly authoritarian. They simply put their faith in the government, or in "science" or "education". The latter of which too often means "indoctrination" with ideas they cannot defend using fact, logic or reason. But then they don't feel a need to do that. They trust what their chosen authorities tell them, just as the right does. I see the coming "authority" of the left as the collective itself. That is, they will claim that the mass of humanity says that "X" is true and the way things should be and therefore it is. The elevating of the present and devaluing the past is leading to self-referential, self-justifying "truth"- and no contrary logic, reasoning, dissent, or challenge need be tolerated. Ironically, though they call themselves "progressives" their tendency to view dissent as some sort of societal disease to be stamped out will be the end of human progress, for dissent is the beginning of all human progress.
Now this article has been mostly about how things have been seen incorrectly. I do wish to point out to you that I have authored two books on political theory, (click on the pics below for more detail) which go beyond defining the problem and spell out what ought to be done instead. The red one is available for no charge for those of you with Kindle Unlimited.
Regards,
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