Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: I'm still waiting

The GUT of politics
Robert — (archived)

This is about as close as you can get to science in the study of politics. You know you've found a strong theory when it has broad explanatory power, and connects the dots and resolves apparent paradoxes.

Like the one about the different way that authoritarian conservatives and more liberal people (a.k.a. the mainstream) view the concepts of freedom and democracy. George Lakoff wrote an entire book, "Whose Freedom?", just to highlight the difference, but he never got as far as explaining it.

I think I see it after reading Dean's book. I used to assume that everyone viewed democracy as I do, as a mechanism for liberating the individual and limiting the power of Auhority over the individual. Yet to an authoritarian conservative, democracy's greatest strength comes from its validation of the legitimacy of Authority, and the way that (in their view) it should make Authority even more powerful by concentrating the power that people (in their view) surrender to Authority through democracy. Democracy is the orderly and voluntary submission to Authority, in the AC view, not the rejection of it, the way I and many others view it. That's why authoritarian conservatives are perpetually outraged that people don't become instantly obedient after an election that brings them to power, and persist in criticizing Authority and in general refusing to show it the "proper" respect. Authoritarian conservatives do indeed believe that America is a democracy only on election day, and should be an authoritarian regime in between.

Authoritarian conservatives have occasionally held power in America before, but so far it hasn't lasted long. It's interesting to note that at the start of FDR's Presidency in 1932, there was a widespread assumption that FDR would assume dictatorial powers to address the crisis of the Depression, and widespread approval of the notion. In hard times people are prone to welcome a strong authority figure taking charge. But FDR rejected the seductively easy path of dictatorship, and took the more difficult path of working within the Constitution (albeit pushing Congress and the Supreme Court to the limit), and saved both the country and America.

Dictatorship isn't inevitable when authoritarian conservatism rears its ugly head. But we don't dare ignore it.

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