{"id":2841,"date":"2010-06-11T23:55:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-12T06:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/?p=2841"},"modified":"2010-06-12T10:38:23","modified_gmt":"2010-06-12T17:38:23","slug":"respect-and-the-authoritarian-personality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2010\/06\/11\/respect-and-the-authoritarian-personality\/","title":{"rendered":"Respect and the authoritarian personality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aretha Franklin demanded it, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, because to get it confers authority on the person who is respected. Singing from the perspective of the blues, that is, of the oppressed, to get authority and therefore respect is a good thing.<\/p>\n

But what happens when established authorities themselves harp on demands for respect? Or when the supporters of the powerful circle the wagons and call those who are critical “disrespectful”?<\/p>\n

What happens when demands for respect are just a cover to protect the powerful from criticism?<\/p>\n

That’s a question I’ve been grappling with, here on Fantasy Island (aka Victoria BC), where it’s common coin to tell those who are critical that criticism is (a) “disrespectful” and of course (b) unwise,<\/em> because, after all, it’s a small town and we just can’t “afford” to piss anyone off.<\/p>\n

Telling someone that they’re “disrespectful” is a put-down of the first order that squashes ideas (and critique). You’re essentially telling that person that they have no right to speak: you’re being a “daddy” (or perhaps a “mommy”) who’s tutoring the ignorant in manners.<\/p>\n

That’s the way of all authoritarians, isn’t it? It’s so easy to shut people up by telling them that they’re not respectful. Add to this cop-out strategy the tendency for people to feel offended by the slightest thing, and respect becomes the currency of the realm.<\/p>\n

It would be interesting to see The Authoritarian Personality<\/a>, a (somewhat flawed) 1950 study on right-wing authoritarianism, get a rethink with an eye to our Western culture of entitlement and our prickliness about being offended.<\/p>\n

The study has been criticized (mainly because it focuses on right-wing authoritarianism), but check out the F-Scale Test<\/a> and see how many questions still resonate …even on the supposed left. Granted, none of the flaming right-wing questions would be answered in the affirmative by anyone in “proper” society these days, but it’s almost uncanny how many of the questions apply if you make slight alterations. Take the following three, for example:<\/p>\n

[2] A person who has bad manners, habits, and breeding can hardly expect to get along with decent people. [substitute: doesn’t subscribe to “our” way of thinking, doesn’t try to fit in, isn’t “one of us”…]<\/p>\n

[5] Science has its place, but there are many important things that can never be understood by the human mind.\u00a0 (and) [6] Every person should have complete faith in some supernatural power whose decisions he obeys without question.\u00a0 [group-think on eco-spiritualism \/ new ageism, anyone?]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Anyway, we live in interesting times when a politician (for example the City of Victoria’s mayor) can shut down debate by telling a perfectly reasonable critic that he is disrespectful – all the while totally avoiding the criticism that was leveled – or when a supporter of a politician is offended by a critic calling that politician “foolish,” offended to the point of accusing the critic of being “disrespectful.” Interesting – and definitely strange – times indeed.<\/p>\n

As far as I can see, the authoritarian personality is alive and well, right here in Victoria.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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Aretha Franklin demanded it, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, because to get it confers authority on the person who is respected. Singing from the perspective of the blues, that is, of the oppressed, to get authority and therefore respect is a good thing. But what happens when established authorities themselves harp on demands for respect? Or when the supporters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[678,6171,1404,1418],"tags":[3686,8092],"class_list":["post-2841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideas","category-johnson-street-bridge","category-justice","category-victoria","tag-authoritarianism","tag-respect"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2841"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2854,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions\/2854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}