Talk:Authoritarianism/Archive1

Stab or stub
It's a stab. Or a stub. But it's a start! Help will always, of course, be appreciated... summa you peeps is smarter or better knowledged than is me, so I anticipate this article's greatness far beyond what I conceived. human be in 20:44, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

I recall something coming up way back when I was looking at Canadian obscenity law, the idea of the "community standards" test, which basically asks society at large not what they would tolerate seeing, but what they would tolerate someone else seeing. Which of course was much stricter. --Kels 20:42, 2 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I remember a similar poll in the US. It turned out that most people thought their neighbors were more into porn than they were, or something like that.  Sorry, it's been a long time... human be in 20:45, 2 June 2007 (CDT)
 * People tend to be busybodies, it seems, and will quite happily prevent others from seeing things they personally don't have a problem with. --Kels 20:47, 2 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Anyone wanna see my porn? --Jtl, subject-matter expert.
 * Pervert! --Kels 21:19, 2 June 2007 (CDT)
 * I remember what it was now. It was a poll about sex and violence on television.  It seemed that "most" people thought there should be less violence, but thought that "other people" wanted it; likewise they wanted (or were ok with) more sex on TV, but thought that other people disapproved.  And interesting conflict between what people in general think and what they think people in general think. human be in 12:00, 3 June 2007 (CDT)
 * If it's helpful, check out my blog. There are two pieces there that relate to authoritarianism. There is some great writing out there.--PalMD-yada yada 22:51, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

I reverted an edit by an anon IP that altered the spelling of "unquestionable" and deleted a paragraph with no explanation. human be in 22:26, 19 June 2007 (CDT)

the last thing "we" care about are "rules"
This is from the article. Don't you feel this is a little overstated? I mean we do have standards, we try to keep to them, and we block those who ignore them. So we obviously care a bit. Or have I misunderstood your point?--Bob_M (talk) 05:16, 20 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Feel free to edit it if you want - but I was playing off the fact that we developed "guidelines", not rules, and have "community standards" - as such, there is flexibility, and not the authoritarian flexibility to come down hard, but the anarchic flexibility to be opne to new things, things we didn;t think of, etc. I think the "strict adherence" part and the rules being in quotes was meant to imply two ways auth. types love rules - 1, to enforce them or see them enforced on others, and 2, to play off them, to exploit loopholes.  Our guidelined have no loopholes, since they aren't strict "rules".


 * But anyway, as I said, feel free to rewrite if you think you can either say it better or say something different that makes more sense. Thanks for bringing it up here, though! human be in 20:21, 20 June 2007 (CDT)
 * OK I made a change which seems a bit less radical.--Bob_M (talk) 12:14, 21 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Yes, I saw it, it's much better now. Thanks! human be in 12:20, 21 June 2007 (CDT)
 * Anyone want to expand it into a longer article on Authoritarianism in general? I'm tired today, so im trolling for others to do my work User:PalMD

Perhaps AKJ can be conned into paraphrasing some of his blog work here? human be in 12:26, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

Authoritarianism Not Incompatible with Reason
"It is this honoring of power over reason that makes an authoritarian."

This statement is not true. One can have an authoritarian or authoritative outlook based on reason. In fact reason's adherence to objective principles backs this authoritative quality up. A statement that exists is either true or false with absoluteness (ie. authority).

As such it is very easy to see who one could be authoritative and a very strong adherent to authority in political matters based on reason rather than in opposition to reason. Randian and Straussian Neoconservative intellectuals come to mind here in regards to individuals who promote authority and authoritativeness based on reason.


 * rational wiki is a series of sarcastic jokes with references. please understand that NO political view is given anything close to fair treatment. please see Wikipedia for something close to an actual explanation on anything. --24.0.249.160 (talk) 01:30, 8 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Nobody's claiming RationalWiki is neutral. In fact, that's Wikipedia's job. (I'm referring both to being neutral and explaining anything.) --GastonRabbit (talk) 01:38, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Authoritarianism is bad because they make up rules
That is just wrong. --85.76.109.136 (talk) 11:52, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * What say you now ? 17:51, 24 June 2018 (UTC) C ® ackeЯ

US right-wing politicians and their followers tending to be more authoritarian
That's a pretty sweeping statement. What about all the Tea Party railing against Big Government? 13:01, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
 * It certainly is, I admit that. But I assure you I'm not making it up. For a quick illustration, take a look at this diagram from p201 of the book. Democrat politicians have scores mostly between 70 and 110 with a bunch of outliers on both sides. Republicans are more tightly packed from 105 to 130. (Higher value being more authoritarian.)
 * The book chapter obviously goes deeper than that, and Altemeyer's site has some more comments about the 2008 elections and the Tea Party specifically. I don't feel up to having the whole argument myself here, but I hope people will look through these things before removing the text. --Not (talk) 13:23, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Altemeyer's views are covered by the article on him, which is linked in the External links together with his book. Hiding them under "research shows" is a bit misleading.--ZooGuard (talk) 13:26, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yikes, my mistake. But his views are based on many years of research and he seems credible enough (can't find any major criticism of him, including on the RationalWiki page you mention). --Not (talk) 13:33, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Considering that many if not most teabaggers are pro-war, pro-torture, anti-gay, anti-women, etc. and by "Big Government" they really mean "programs to help poor people" - yes, I would say that the Tea Party is authoritarian.--Filby (talk) 10:20, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Left Wingers in America are highly authoritarian. They want to put a gun to your head and tell you it's not a gun, but rather it's "progress". The authoritarians on this site will not even allow mention of this on the actual page, they will censor you if you try. Liberalism is highly aggressive and violent, liberals just want to lie to themselves and refuse to cop to their own aggression.StopTheViolence (talk) 04:42, 31 August 2013 (UTC)StopTheViolence

They themselves typify the authoritarian characteristics described on this page, they will say things like for instance, that taxes are not taken by threat of violence. Especially look at this HIGHLY IRRATIONAL STATEMENT: "Although many libertarians and anarchists have attempted to equate the two, statism and authoritarianism are not the same thing; although most authoritarians (especially of the right-wing type) are statists, so are quite a lot of people who believe one of the functions of government is to enforce civil rights."

The first part of the statement is a pure argument by assertion(logical fallacy):

"Although many libertarians and anarchists have attempted to equate the two, statism and authoritarianism are not the same thing"

How is statism not authoritarianism, how can you have a "state" without someone in power telling you what to do? How can you advocate for a "state" while not advocating to have someone in power telling you what to do? http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_by_assertion And then this statement is a fallacious non-sequitor: "although most authoritarians (especially of the right-wing type) are statists, so are quite a lot of people who believe one of the functions of government is to enforce civil rights."

What does this have to do with the first part? It is an illogical, irrational fallacious non-sequitor. "so are quite a lot of people who believe one of the functions of government is to enforce civil rights." does not form a logical argument in support of the premise. The whole statement is irrational. Why does this site allow these kinds of illogic if it is trying to promote rationalism? StopTheViolence (talk) 04:52, 31 August 2013 (UTC)StopTheViolence

To be fair, some libertarians do have a point. Authoritarian government can be used for conservatives in liberal clothing, especially women, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, and other demographics that have been historically prejudiced against who hide behind feminism, multiculturalism, etc. If you remove the issues of abortion, gay marriage, affirmative action, etc. from the table, you can often find many historically prejudiced demographics who are anti-intellectually stuck in their ways, and insist on ruggedly individualist work ethic in conforming to norms for the sake of practically normal folk community common sense. You'll often see this hide behind libertine, hedonist, nihilist, emotivist, relativism that denies objective morality and objective reason in order to disrespect how individuals deserve to be treated with respect based on who they are on the inside that counts. Instead, those conservatives in liberal clothing will confuse the consolidated nature of traditional egomaniacal monarchic tyranny with individuality, so they'll still discriminate against individuals who are different, especially if they're non-racist, non-sexist, and haven't benefited from privilege, but simply belong to the same demographics as those who are racist, sexist, and have benefited from privilege. It's basically counter-stereotyping against those who didn't stereotype in the first place. Let's not forget that conservatism is an ideology, not an issue. Regardless of context, it can be related with by anyone. --Nolidor (talk) 03:45, 12 June 2014 (UTC)