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Isabelle Williams's avatar

Authoritarian? You mean like when the governor of my state closed schools for TWO YEARS? Like when the federal government required toddlers in Head Start programs to wear masks for 3 years?

Authoritarian? Do you mean like when we were under some sort of health emergency for years also ( both here and in Europe) even after the covid virus had either mutated, or always been, nothing more than a bad flu for most people. ( If you disagree, tell me, how dangerous is covid today, because its still circulating btw!).

Authoritarian? Do you mean like forcing pregnant women to either get the covid vaccine or lose their jobs in healthcare? ( this policy was approved by governments in democrat run states).....

And speaking of conspiracies and your uncle... Do you mean conspiracies like that the covid virus was due to a lab leak? That was a racist and far right conspiracy according to the mainstream media..until it wasn't.

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Leigh Horne's avatar

An honest question or two from someone who's wondered about authoritarians and authoritarianism for quite a while. First, are the people who are eager to follow an authoritarian also 'authoritarians,' or are these two differing classes of people. Your uncle, for example, seems to be a person more eager to protect those he loves and identifies with from harm, than to bend the knee, per se. While authoritarian figures seem bent on acquiring and wielding power over others to prop themselves up. While it's true that both types of people have anxiety at their core, in the first case it's fear of losing those close to them, as well as losing the role of protector and provider. In the second case, it's anxiety about not being 'better,' stronger, richer, etc., than other people. If this is true, then any analysis had best make the distinction clear. Personally, while my experience as a person and a therapist has suggested, people who value sameness and security and the roles that a society which also values those things are a large part of the population, but people with a great drive to lord it over others, no matter how much change ensues in the process, are relatively rare. And I believe that you can find people like them under character disorders in the DSM V. Look especially at conduct disorders, anti-social personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorders--maybe with some aspects of paranoid personality disorder thrown in.

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