Congratulations, Jody. You're staring to sound like a skeptic!

Although I have the greatest respect for Robert's intellect and skill with the language, I think in this case he is making a classic error I call linguistic stretch.

The English language is highly complex, with an extremely well developed ability to generate similes, metaphors, comparisons, contrasts and other rhetorical tricks. To put it simply and rather crudely, it's easy to bullshit in English, because if you know how to use the language skillfully you can find a persuasive combination of words that mislead the listener. We tend to confuse the word with its referent, and soon start extending manipulations appropriate to the word
to the reality it refers to. In other words, if it is elegantly phrased and grammatically correct, it sounds true.

I'm sure you can do this to a certain extent in any language, but I know for a fact it's a lot easier to do it in English than in Spanish. Robert's first paragraph in "the fear factor";

"Makes perfect sense. A predisposition toward fear makes a person vulnerable to authoritarian conservative pitches: "I'm strong, I'll protect you (all you have to do is give up your civil liberties and learn perfect obedience)."

seems perfectly reasonable in English, but translating it into Spanish (Incidentally, I relied on Babelfish for help to minimize my own bias in the translation). The result says the same thing, but to a Spanish speaker it sounds like a collosal stretch: "Why would fear make anyone want to do that? It makes no sense." Or as it might be commented on colloquially; "Como hablan mierda estos Americanos." The translation follows:

"Es perfectamente claro. Una predisposición asi al miedo hace a uno receptivo al mensaje conservador autoritario: " Soy fuerte, yo te protejo, (todo lo que usted tiene que hacer es rendir sus libertades civiles y aprender obediencia perfecta) ".

I hope "z" gets to comment on this post, because I realize the highly subjective nature of my conclusions here, and I would like another Spanish speaker to comment on my remarks as a reality check.

To sum up, I just wish to point out what we probably all know already: that an articulate analysis in English of an issue can be much more persuasive than it may deserve to be, and that English, (and I suspect German) is particularly vulnerable to this criticism. I further suspect this is why traditional psychoanalysis and psychology originated in Germany and is widely practiced in the English speaking countries, as well as influential in other aspects of the culture, while it has had relatively little influence in the Spanish speaking world.