by Sara Robinson
In a few days, I'm going to talk a bit about the way our collapsing educational system created fertile conditions for the bumper crop of authoritarians we've been seeing in recent years.
But this just sort of says it all.
By the way: this is the same metro area that's also trying to position itself for a 2018 Winter Olympics bid.
As a former Olympics reporter, I gotta say: it's damned hard to picture an Olympiad that's not wrapped from top to bottom in acres of international flags. According to the article, though, even flying the Olympic rings for three weeks would probably be illegal under the current law.
I wonder if anyone's told the IOC site selection committee about this yet?
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Back to the Back of the Bus
by Sara Robinson
The biggest shock of the new millennium is this:
The battles we thought were won long ago are still with us.
Who ever thought we'd be seeing stories like this again in our lifetimes?
The biggest shock of the new millennium is this:
The battles we thought were won long ago are still with us.
Who ever thought we'd be seeing stories like this again in our lifetimes?
Friday, August 25, 2006
Tunnels and Bridges, Part I: Divide and Conquer
by Sara Robinson
America's founders understood all too well that would-be authoritarians would always be among us; and that holding on to our democracy would involve a constant struggle against their ongoing efforts to control us. That's what Ben Franklin was talking about when he said that we have "a republic -- if you can keep it." And what Tom Jefferson was alluding to when he told us that "the tree of liberty must be watered occasionally with the blood of tyrants and patriots." They knew that democracies are not established once, but re-created continuously as each generation reasserts its freedom against fresh generations of would-be rulers. It's an ongoing conversation about liberty, equality, and power that's re-negotiated – sometimes more peacefully, sometimes less -- every day.
They also knew that our homegrown wannabe kings and dictators have momentum on their side. High-social-dominance (SDO) authoritarian leaders are always among us, always pushing, always scheming, always looking for their next chance. There is no opportunity to take control, legally or illegally, that they won't fail to exploit, as long as the gains promise to outweigh the costs. As Edmund Burke did not say (but usually gets the attribution for anyway): all that's required for them to succeed in this endless quest for power is for the rest of us to do nothing.
Unfortunately, the ease and confidence of living in a prosperous society under a strong Constitution makes kicking back and doing nothing a very easy, attractive option. You can be blithely oblivious to these guys for years -- until the day comes when you've got a fundamentalist school board trying to teach your kids young-earth creationism; or militia guys jackbooting up Main Street at noon and performing blitz redecorating on the local synagogue at midnight; or a born-again president trying to bring on Armageddon for the profit of the oil companies and the acclaim of his Rapture-minded followers. On that day, we're jolted out of our reverie. Where did all these wackadoodles come from? Of course, they came from us -- because we didn't take seriously the threat they pose to the continued existence of our democracy, or our constant obligation to keep an eye out for the authoritarians in our midst, and take steps to prevent them from amassing followers and power in the first place.
In this next extension of the "Cracks In The Wall" series, I'd like to expand on the strategies outlined in Part III, and show how they might be applied in larger spheres – at the community and national level. What works to bring individuals back from right-wing fantasyland may also work to open large tunnels in the Wall, and build bridges over which the softer core of followers can make a safe return to the reality-based world.
An Authoritarian Taxonomy
Our discussion so far has looked at three different classes of authoritarians. I'd like to start with a quick review of these three groups, and the things that motivate them.
First, there are the high-social-dominance leaders, whose primary goal is to amass and expand their social dominance over others. To this end, they are dominating, overtly or covertly opposed to equality, focused on power to the exclusion of other concerns, and usually quite amoral. Rules don't apply to these guys (and they are almost always guys); they'll do whatever they think they can get away with to get what they want. Since it's extremely rare for someone with a high social dominance orientation (SDO) to ever really change, our only option is to isolate them.
Second, there are committed “hard-core” right-wing authoritarian (RWA) followers. These people were usually raised in authoritarian homes, or have spent so many adult years in the system that there's not a lot of hope that they'll ever be capable of operating outside of it. Some of these people do leave, eventually; but these are flukes at best. Generally, it's best not expect that they'll have too much interest in moving to our side of the wall.
Then, there's the third and largest group: “soft-core” RWA followers who probably came to authoritarianism during an episode of major life stress, or were seduced into it with heavy propaganda from friends and right-wing media. This group may form as much as half of the current authoritarian voter pool in America. These people usually weren't always authoritarians; and they're the ones we have the greatest hope of bringing back around to a full embrace of democratic principles.
Effective bridge-building begins with being clear about which of these three groups you're addressing, because the strategies and messages are very different for each.
Leaders: Identify and Isolate
My experience has been that we non-authoritarians -- especially more progressive ones -- tend to discount the central role leaders in authoritarian organizations. Generally (and especially compared to RWAs), we don't pay a lot of heed to authority in our lives. When we do encounter it, we take its measure, reckon its limits, and give it only the required level of credence and respect.
This loose approach to authority can lead us to underestimate the overweening power authoritarian leaders exercise within their organizations. If we're going to be effective, we need to understand their importance, develop radar that picks out these high-SDO personalities quickly and accurately, and understands the subtleties of how they're operating. Books like Dean's are a great basic education.
Get Out Your Shovel -- Once the leaders are identified, they need to be isolated. The best way to do this is to discredit them in the eyes of both the public and their followers. For that, you need dirt.
Fortunately, these guys seem to move more dirt than the Mississippi. The tediously predictable amorality of high-SDO authoritarian leaders means they've got piles of bones buried in their back yards -- many of which can be dug up with surprisingly little effort, especially in these days of electronic public records and global Web access.
Faithful Orcinus readers have seen this in action, as Dave regularly dredges up all kinds of pungent dirt on extremist leaders in various movements. Part of this is that, as an old reporter in the field, he's got a long memory and a tracker's knowledge of the terrain, and thus knows exactly where to pitch his shovel. But another part is that there's so much dirt that you don't always have to be skilled or lucky to find it. They really don't care about which laws get broken, where the money went, or who got hurt by their actions. Their future destruction can usually be found -- quite readily -- in their pasts. If you're even halfway lucky, you may even find a disillusioned and betrayed former follower or two who, for the price of a beer, would love to get a few fascinating stories off their chests. If you're looking for a trail, just follow the line of burned bridges behind them.
Once the leader's history of spousal assault is on the front page, or he's frog-marched into court on fraud charges, the followers evaporate like seawater on a hot day. Note that this applies to right-wing leaders at all levels: it's how scores of communities have put a stop to small racist thug groups; over time, it's also the way the entire Bush Administration is slowly being discredited.
Sandbox 101 -- Another way to isolate high-SDO leaders is to leverage their propensity for schism. If the movement has multiple leaders, look for the tension between them – and leverage it.
The greatest miracle of the Republican rise over the past three decades is the extraordinarily high level of cooperation the movement was able to get from so many high-SDO leaders. Most authoritarian leaders (literally) flunked Sandbox 101 in preschool: they don't like to share, and they only cooperate when the shared goals are compelling. Alliances between them only last as long as all parties are convinced that there's personal power to be gained by staying. As soon as that equation changes, they're instantly out shopping for a better deal.
The conservative takeover succeeded because of the sweeping scale of the goal: national, if not global domination. That's perhaps the only goal high-SDOs would regard as worth putting in a long-term cooperative effort for. Everyone involved understood the stakes -- and knew that they'd only get there if they set aside personal issues and stuck together for as long as it took. But, once the goal is within reach and it's time to discuss divvying up the spoils….ahh, that's when everyone's individual motives shoot back to the foreground -- and the follies really begin.
In most authoritarian groups, whether religious or political, schisms are so frequent as to be almost comic. Jealousy between leaders runs high, egos are prickly, tempers volatile, emotional intelligence not much in evidence. The more followers they get, the less stable alliances become. This internal instability is predictable -- and exploitable, in the hands of a smart opposition. (According to one experienced activist, if you've got good dirt on one leader, make sure it first gets into the hands of his most ambitious co-consipirator – then sit back and watch the fun begin.)
All we need to do is stick together better than they do. For some of us, that's not always easy; but victory belongs to the last team standing. Sometimes, with these guys, it's just a matter of waiting for their own hubris to finish the job for you.
Hard-Core Followers: Meet The New Boss
The inner circle of right-wing authoritarian (RWA) followers backing these leaders won't be impressed by your dirtpile, unless their guilt-evaporation mechanisms are totally on the fritz. If their leader has an incest conviction in his past, yeah, you may get their attention. Otherwise (as we've seen), they're already primed to forgive. It's a mistake to count on their outrage.
Once their leaders have been isolated and discredited, though, the hard-core followers usually just fade away quietly into the woodwork. However, be sure you get their names before they go: the odds are good that you'll see them again, years later, emerging under the banner of another charismatic leader. Longtime Orcinus readers are familiar with the ways in which militia leaders, for example, pop up over and over in different guises, different groups, and different areas of the country. Same old faces, same old story. They can't help themselves; they're just wired this way.
This is the group most likely to commit political violence. As these followers move away from their discredited leaders, it's especially important that strong community voices make it absolutely clear that aggression will not be tolerated -- and will be prosecuted, either in the court of law or the court of public opinion. In particular, they need to be told in no uncertain terms that, in the larger community, there is no such a thing as a righteous or acceptable violent act. We know who they are; we regard them as troublemakers; and they will not enjoy our support or mercy if they continue to create problems within our community.
Soft-Core Followers: Back Toward the Mainstream
Unlike the hard core, the softer core of followers is far more likely to be sensitive to public embarrassment. In fact, being caught in fealty to a real low-life scoundrel can feel a lot like a betrayal to them. Their leader has exposed them to the jeers of their peers, and made them look personally ridiculous. For people who believe in their deepest hearts that they are more moral and righteous than others, the public and humiliating loss of moral authority within the community can lead to a moment of re-direction.
During that shift, many of them will be looking for stronger, more stable authority to lean on. Remember that RWA followers respond to legitimate authority -- and for most of the soft-care, that usually still includes the cops, courts, and clergy. It's critical to have these authorities standing by to provide the rules and structure these followers crave, and who can model constructive behavior.
We see this in small-town fundamentalist churches caught in pastor scandals. When the church disintegrates, some members move to other churches; but there's always a solid percentage that loses faith entirely. On a national scale, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly have been losing listeners quarter over quarter since the news broke on their hillbilly heroin convictions and misplaced falafels, respectively. In all these cases, the followers who left were the ones “on the bubble,” with the strongest ties to the reality-based world. These are precisely the people we are most likely to welcome back over the Wall.
Looking at these three types in groups, and applying some of the lessons discussed earlier in the series, points us in some potentially useful directions when it comes to dealing with authoritarians at the local, regional, and national level. We'll look at some of those directions starting in the next part of this series.
America's founders understood all too well that would-be authoritarians would always be among us; and that holding on to our democracy would involve a constant struggle against their ongoing efforts to control us. That's what Ben Franklin was talking about when he said that we have "a republic -- if you can keep it." And what Tom Jefferson was alluding to when he told us that "the tree of liberty must be watered occasionally with the blood of tyrants and patriots." They knew that democracies are not established once, but re-created continuously as each generation reasserts its freedom against fresh generations of would-be rulers. It's an ongoing conversation about liberty, equality, and power that's re-negotiated – sometimes more peacefully, sometimes less -- every day.
They also knew that our homegrown wannabe kings and dictators have momentum on their side. High-social-dominance (SDO) authoritarian leaders are always among us, always pushing, always scheming, always looking for their next chance. There is no opportunity to take control, legally or illegally, that they won't fail to exploit, as long as the gains promise to outweigh the costs. As Edmund Burke did not say (but usually gets the attribution for anyway): all that's required for them to succeed in this endless quest for power is for the rest of us to do nothing.
Unfortunately, the ease and confidence of living in a prosperous society under a strong Constitution makes kicking back and doing nothing a very easy, attractive option. You can be blithely oblivious to these guys for years -- until the day comes when you've got a fundamentalist school board trying to teach your kids young-earth creationism; or militia guys jackbooting up Main Street at noon and performing blitz redecorating on the local synagogue at midnight; or a born-again president trying to bring on Armageddon for the profit of the oil companies and the acclaim of his Rapture-minded followers. On that day, we're jolted out of our reverie. Where did all these wackadoodles come from? Of course, they came from us -- because we didn't take seriously the threat they pose to the continued existence of our democracy, or our constant obligation to keep an eye out for the authoritarians in our midst, and take steps to prevent them from amassing followers and power in the first place.
In this next extension of the "Cracks In The Wall" series, I'd like to expand on the strategies outlined in Part III, and show how they might be applied in larger spheres – at the community and national level. What works to bring individuals back from right-wing fantasyland may also work to open large tunnels in the Wall, and build bridges over which the softer core of followers can make a safe return to the reality-based world.
An Authoritarian Taxonomy
Our discussion so far has looked at three different classes of authoritarians. I'd like to start with a quick review of these three groups, and the things that motivate them.
First, there are the high-social-dominance leaders, whose primary goal is to amass and expand their social dominance over others. To this end, they are dominating, overtly or covertly opposed to equality, focused on power to the exclusion of other concerns, and usually quite amoral. Rules don't apply to these guys (and they are almost always guys); they'll do whatever they think they can get away with to get what they want. Since it's extremely rare for someone with a high social dominance orientation (SDO) to ever really change, our only option is to isolate them.
Second, there are committed “hard-core” right-wing authoritarian (RWA) followers. These people were usually raised in authoritarian homes, or have spent so many adult years in the system that there's not a lot of hope that they'll ever be capable of operating outside of it. Some of these people do leave, eventually; but these are flukes at best. Generally, it's best not expect that they'll have too much interest in moving to our side of the wall.
Then, there's the third and largest group: “soft-core” RWA followers who probably came to authoritarianism during an episode of major life stress, or were seduced into it with heavy propaganda from friends and right-wing media. This group may form as much as half of the current authoritarian voter pool in America. These people usually weren't always authoritarians; and they're the ones we have the greatest hope of bringing back around to a full embrace of democratic principles.
Effective bridge-building begins with being clear about which of these three groups you're addressing, because the strategies and messages are very different for each.
Leaders: Identify and Isolate
My experience has been that we non-authoritarians -- especially more progressive ones -- tend to discount the central role leaders in authoritarian organizations. Generally (and especially compared to RWAs), we don't pay a lot of heed to authority in our lives. When we do encounter it, we take its measure, reckon its limits, and give it only the required level of credence and respect.
This loose approach to authority can lead us to underestimate the overweening power authoritarian leaders exercise within their organizations. If we're going to be effective, we need to understand their importance, develop radar that picks out these high-SDO personalities quickly and accurately, and understands the subtleties of how they're operating. Books like Dean's are a great basic education.
Get Out Your Shovel -- Once the leaders are identified, they need to be isolated. The best way to do this is to discredit them in the eyes of both the public and their followers. For that, you need dirt.
Fortunately, these guys seem to move more dirt than the Mississippi. The tediously predictable amorality of high-SDO authoritarian leaders means they've got piles of bones buried in their back yards -- many of which can be dug up with surprisingly little effort, especially in these days of electronic public records and global Web access.
Faithful Orcinus readers have seen this in action, as Dave regularly dredges up all kinds of pungent dirt on extremist leaders in various movements. Part of this is that, as an old reporter in the field, he's got a long memory and a tracker's knowledge of the terrain, and thus knows exactly where to pitch his shovel. But another part is that there's so much dirt that you don't always have to be skilled or lucky to find it. They really don't care about which laws get broken, where the money went, or who got hurt by their actions. Their future destruction can usually be found -- quite readily -- in their pasts. If you're even halfway lucky, you may even find a disillusioned and betrayed former follower or two who, for the price of a beer, would love to get a few fascinating stories off their chests. If you're looking for a trail, just follow the line of burned bridges behind them.
Once the leader's history of spousal assault is on the front page, or he's frog-marched into court on fraud charges, the followers evaporate like seawater on a hot day. Note that this applies to right-wing leaders at all levels: it's how scores of communities have put a stop to small racist thug groups; over time, it's also the way the entire Bush Administration is slowly being discredited.
Sandbox 101 -- Another way to isolate high-SDO leaders is to leverage their propensity for schism. If the movement has multiple leaders, look for the tension between them – and leverage it.
The greatest miracle of the Republican rise over the past three decades is the extraordinarily high level of cooperation the movement was able to get from so many high-SDO leaders. Most authoritarian leaders (literally) flunked Sandbox 101 in preschool: they don't like to share, and they only cooperate when the shared goals are compelling. Alliances between them only last as long as all parties are convinced that there's personal power to be gained by staying. As soon as that equation changes, they're instantly out shopping for a better deal.
The conservative takeover succeeded because of the sweeping scale of the goal: national, if not global domination. That's perhaps the only goal high-SDOs would regard as worth putting in a long-term cooperative effort for. Everyone involved understood the stakes -- and knew that they'd only get there if they set aside personal issues and stuck together for as long as it took. But, once the goal is within reach and it's time to discuss divvying up the spoils….ahh, that's when everyone's individual motives shoot back to the foreground -- and the follies really begin.
In most authoritarian groups, whether religious or political, schisms are so frequent as to be almost comic. Jealousy between leaders runs high, egos are prickly, tempers volatile, emotional intelligence not much in evidence. The more followers they get, the less stable alliances become. This internal instability is predictable -- and exploitable, in the hands of a smart opposition. (According to one experienced activist, if you've got good dirt on one leader, make sure it first gets into the hands of his most ambitious co-consipirator – then sit back and watch the fun begin.)
All we need to do is stick together better than they do. For some of us, that's not always easy; but victory belongs to the last team standing. Sometimes, with these guys, it's just a matter of waiting for their own hubris to finish the job for you.
Hard-Core Followers: Meet The New Boss
The inner circle of right-wing authoritarian (RWA) followers backing these leaders won't be impressed by your dirtpile, unless their guilt-evaporation mechanisms are totally on the fritz. If their leader has an incest conviction in his past, yeah, you may get their attention. Otherwise (as we've seen), they're already primed to forgive. It's a mistake to count on their outrage.
Once their leaders have been isolated and discredited, though, the hard-core followers usually just fade away quietly into the woodwork. However, be sure you get their names before they go: the odds are good that you'll see them again, years later, emerging under the banner of another charismatic leader. Longtime Orcinus readers are familiar with the ways in which militia leaders, for example, pop up over and over in different guises, different groups, and different areas of the country. Same old faces, same old story. They can't help themselves; they're just wired this way.
This is the group most likely to commit political violence. As these followers move away from their discredited leaders, it's especially important that strong community voices make it absolutely clear that aggression will not be tolerated -- and will be prosecuted, either in the court of law or the court of public opinion. In particular, they need to be told in no uncertain terms that, in the larger community, there is no such a thing as a righteous or acceptable violent act. We know who they are; we regard them as troublemakers; and they will not enjoy our support or mercy if they continue to create problems within our community.
Soft-Core Followers: Back Toward the Mainstream
Unlike the hard core, the softer core of followers is far more likely to be sensitive to public embarrassment. In fact, being caught in fealty to a real low-life scoundrel can feel a lot like a betrayal to them. Their leader has exposed them to the jeers of their peers, and made them look personally ridiculous. For people who believe in their deepest hearts that they are more moral and righteous than others, the public and humiliating loss of moral authority within the community can lead to a moment of re-direction.
During that shift, many of them will be looking for stronger, more stable authority to lean on. Remember that RWA followers respond to legitimate authority -- and for most of the soft-care, that usually still includes the cops, courts, and clergy. It's critical to have these authorities standing by to provide the rules and structure these followers crave, and who can model constructive behavior.
We see this in small-town fundamentalist churches caught in pastor scandals. When the church disintegrates, some members move to other churches; but there's always a solid percentage that loses faith entirely. On a national scale, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly have been losing listeners quarter over quarter since the news broke on their hillbilly heroin convictions and misplaced falafels, respectively. In all these cases, the followers who left were the ones “on the bubble,” with the strongest ties to the reality-based world. These are precisely the people we are most likely to welcome back over the Wall.
Looking at these three types in groups, and applying some of the lessons discussed earlier in the series, points us in some potentially useful directions when it comes to dealing with authoritarians at the local, regional, and national level. We'll look at some of those directions starting in the next part of this series.
Cracks In The Wall: The Segue
by Sara Robinson
I've been working on the intended Part IV of the "Cracks In The Wall" series for over a week now. It has turned into a monster -- a thing of its own, with an intention of its own, which seems to be to become a series of its own. I've decided to stop fighting it, and let that happen. It was either that, or let the damn thing eat me.
So here we go. "Tunnels and Bridges -- Part I" will be up within the next hour or two. It's a broad look at some of the leverage points that will help us court and keep returning authoritarian followers, coming at the problem from a wide range of angles and drawing on the lessons learned in "Cracks In The Wall."
I hope you'll find it an interesting way to while away this last week until Dave gets back again.
I've been working on the intended Part IV of the "Cracks In The Wall" series for over a week now. It has turned into a monster -- a thing of its own, with an intention of its own, which seems to be to become a series of its own. I've decided to stop fighting it, and let that happen. It was either that, or let the damn thing eat me.
So here we go. "Tunnels and Bridges -- Part I" will be up within the next hour or two. It's a broad look at some of the leverage points that will help us court and keep returning authoritarian followers, coming at the problem from a wide range of angles and drawing on the lessons learned in "Cracks In The Wall."
I hope you'll find it an interesting way to while away this last week until Dave gets back again.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
That missing calf
Sunday before last, while kayaking with my sister and my daughter along the western coast of San Juan Island, we encountered the combined J and K pods of the southern resident killer whales that ply those waters in the summer. (Some of the photos and sounds from that encounter are included in the little home movie I recently made.)
The most notable member of the pods was a young calf traveling with the K pod that was extraordinarily playful, particularly in the repeated breaches it performed in close proximity to a number of kayakers. (You can see it surfacing alongside the adult female on the right in the above photo.)
It breached twice about ten feet behind our kayak, too quickly for me to swing the camera around, but still giving Fiona her chief thrill of the trip. We then watched it perform four breaches in succession in front of a cluster of kayaks about 300 yards past us, including a number of google-eyed youngsters, so closely that it splashed them.
Two days later, on a trip into Roche Harbor, we read the front-page headline and photo in the Seattle Times: "Newborn orca has disappeared". Naturally, we were concerned that the calf we had just seen might be dead.
Then we read the story and discovered that it was all about merely this:
- Researchers at the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island were elated Sunday to see a newborn orca calf swimming with K pod in Haro Strait, between San Juan Island and Vancouver Island.
But Monday, researchers observed the K pod for hours and did not see the baby. Then Tuesday, none of the members of the pod were seen.
It is possible the calf is dead. About 40 percent of all orca calves do not survive their first year.
The baby could also be alive, but stranded by its family. "Then what do we do?" said Kelley Balcomb-Bartok of the Center for Whale Research.
Researchers at the center will continue to search for the calf.
Well, the problem with all this is that when the whales were sighted Monday, they were in serious transit mode, steaming southward at a heavy pace and fairly spread out, obviously headed out of Puget Sound and into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the open Pacific. They do this periodically in the summer, especially between runs of salmon, and can disappear for nearly a week at a time (they did not reappear until Saturday).
The lack of a sighting for the calf did not necessarily mean anything; individuals often can be hard to spot in a single sighting, especially when they're spread out and moving steadily, as they were in this case. Disappearances are usually only confirmed after multiple sightings of the family group.
It all seemed like, perhaps, much ado about nothing. And sure enough, when the K pod returned Sunday, little K-41 was among them after all:
- "The lost was found," said Ken Balcomb, veteran orca researcher at the Friday Harbor center. "It wasn't with its mom that day," he added of reports last week that the calf was missing and perhaps dead.
The state's three resident orca pods -- dubbed J, K and L -- were declared an endangered species last year, and the disappearance of the newborn that had boosted the population to 90 for the first time this century was painful news.
The calf -- whose orange newborn coat made it stand out among its black-and-white family -- was first spotted Aug. 13 in Haro Strait, on the west side of the San Juans, where the orcas congregate over the summer to chase salmon. But then it was not seen for days.
"J, K and L pods have been pretty much together this (past) week when they've been seen," Balcomb said. "He didn't show up with any other pod."
There were a couple of possible sightings, but no documentation until Sunday.
"We have to go by a picture to be sure," he said.
"He's an adventurous little guy," an exuberant Balcomb said. "But he was there today, nice and tight" with the other orcas.
"He's moving around," the researcher added. "He'll surface way ahead of Mom. Very unusual for that small of a baby."
It's worth noting that, since K-41 is this young, it is unlikely to have been the calf that was breaching around us; they typically are not that active until later in their development.
Each of them, however, is specially precious because of the southern residents' endangered status; they represent the pods' fragile hopes for surviving into the next century. If one of them disappears, those hopes dwindle exponentially.
Still, this feels like a classic case of overreporting. While the calf's appearance and then non-appearance was certainly noteworthy, this wasn't a real story until its disappearance was officially confirmed.
Both the Times and the P-I have been significantly stepping up their coverage of killer whales this spring and summer, and for the most part, that's something of a welcome change. The state of the southern residents has been, if anything, underreported here in recent years, so the change in news judgment is long overdue (though one has to suspect that the likelihood orca pictures also sell lots of papers may be part of the shift).
But credibility, bred by perspective and informed restraint, is always an essential part of effective coverage. Misplayed stories like this, by fostering a "boy who cried wolf" effect, tend to undermine public awareness of the very real problems these orcas face.
The new blog-inspired hit
Coming soon to theaters of transportation near you, courtesy of the right-wing blogosphere ...
Starring, of course, Michelle Malkin, as FBI agent Nellie MacFlynn, the tough-talking terrorist hunter who knows a threat when she sees one ...
Featuring the immortal line:
"I want these motherfucking Muslims off this motherfucking plane!!!"
Audience participation encouraged.
Coming soon to airports everywhere.
UPDATE: Via TBogg, right-wing bloggers are promoting exactly this concept. Seems LaShawn Barber wants the Samuel L. Jackson role.
Muslims on a Plane!
Starring, of course, Michelle Malkin, as FBI agent Nellie MacFlynn, the tough-talking terrorist hunter who knows a threat when she sees one ...
Featuring the immortal line:
"I want these motherfucking Muslims off this motherfucking plane!!!"
Audience participation encouraged.
Coming soon to airports everywhere.
UPDATE: Via TBogg, right-wing bloggers are promoting exactly this concept. Seems LaShawn Barber wants the Samuel L. Jackson role.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Terror and hate
May we have a round of applause, please, for the marvelous job Sara Robinson has done filling in here for the past week and a half? I'm especially taken with her series on "Cracks in the Wall," carries some of the discussion begun here -- identifying the pathology of the discrete conservative movement -- to its next logical step, to wit: How do we confront it effectively?
But I also took special note of her most recent post on racial profiling, particularly since vigilante-style racism driven by such profiling is now apparently in vogue among the right-wing set.
Of course, a "defense" of racial profiling was also ostensibly what Michelle Malkin's fraudulent history of the Japanese American internment was all about, too. As we saw then, holding up the internment episode as an example of racial profiling actually demonstrates, in stark fashion, what a monumental failure it actually is:
When you look at the actual historical results of racial profiling, the conclusion by Canadian security officials that racial profiling is "fundamentally stupid" is really inescapable.
This is especially the case when you consider the chief strike against it, even beyond its sheer inefficacy: As a method of weeding out terrorists, it creates automatic blind spots that create more opportunities for terrorists to succeed. Once ethnic profiling is instituted, it becomes a much easier matter for terrorists to game the system. Not only is it grotesquely ineffective, it actually increases our vulnerability.
Terrorists -- the successful ones, anyway -- are smart. Once authorities begin profiling as a means of assessing security threats, they will respond by producing operatives who do not fit the profile. If Arabs and Muslims are the profile target, it is a relatively simple matter for them to identify, recruit, and employ operatives who are neither Arab nor Muslim.
When it comes to recognizing this aspect of the problem, most of the attention (particularly from the Malkin/LGF side of the blogosphere) has been on "white Muslims," whose presence in Al Qaeda cells has been recognized for some time. Somehow, it fails to cross their consciousnesses that their existence militates against racial profiling.
More to the point, there's another potential source of operatives who do not fit the profile: white supremacists.
After all, various neo-Nazis have at various times proclaimed their affinity with, and admiration for, the 9/11 terror attacks. They have also expressed at other times a wish to form alliances with Muslim terrorists, because their ends are so similar. Those coalitions have never, as far as we know, actually been formed, but racial profiling could provide Islamic radicals with even more incentive to do so.
Consider, for instance, the way that certain factions of white supremacists have been making overtures to Muslim radicals, most recently in Canada, as described in a Macleans piece by Nancy MacDonald:
Baker has been stepping up his visibility on the Muslim speaking circuit, and it's classic right-wing fearmongering, complete with anti-Semitic conspiracies:
I recently picked up a copy of George Michael's The Enemy of My Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right, in no small part because the possibility of this convergence has always underscored my ongoing thesis regarding the nature of terrorism, both domestic and international, as arising from nearly identical wellsprings (namely, extreme alienation from modern society).
Michael's book is provocative, but when all is said and done, it's abundantly clear that the convergence described in the title is mostly, to date, a potentiality and not a reality -- and I think Michael would agree with this assessment. There is a thorough analysis of David Duke's international recruitment work, particularly in the Muslim world. But so far there is little if any evidence of any operational convergence between far-right terrorists and Islamist radicals.
MacDonald interviewed Michael for the Macleans piece, and what he said was noteworthy:
The possibility that Al Qaeda cells in Canada were recruiting white operatives in Canada arose during the recent spate of terror arrests there. White supremacists offer a special advantage: they can blend in, and they can be used somewhat disposably.
It's also worth remembering that there's a historical precedent for this: In the early 1940s, during the runup to the outbreak of war, Japan's diplomatic offices became centers of espionage activity, coordinating intelligence gathering and helping build a stateside network of spies. Many of these were Japanese nationals operating under diplomatic cover; but they also actively recruited a network of domestic spies.
This recruitment plan was uncovered in the so-called "MAGIC" decrypts -- diplomatic cables intercepted and decoded by American intelligence agencies -- which are often touted by revisionists like Malkin, rather groundlessly, as evidence of the propriety of the decision to evacuate and incarcerate Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast.
One of the "MAGIC" decrypts often cited by these revisionists actually prioritizes the recruitment effort by the Japanese agencies involved in a telling fashion: Highest on its list are African Americans; next come white supremacists, particularly William Dudley Pelley's Silvershirts. At the bottom of the list are Japanese Americans, who were in fact widely mistrusted as "traitors" by the militarists in Tokyo.
Pelley's white supremacists, in fact, had a special relationship with Tokyo. According to Tetsuden Kashima, in his definitive text Judgment without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment during World War II, other "MAGIC" decrypts revealed even more extensive activity:
Pelley and the Silvershirts, as I've explored in a broader context, represent a long historical strain in the fabric of the American right, particularly in their melding of religious fervor and racial hatredunder the rubric of politics, one that remains very much with us today.
The reality is, of course, that far-right extremists have always been, at heart, profoundly anti-American and deliberately opposed to democracy and equality -- genuinely traitors in our midst. It was true during World War II, and it remains true now.
Any kind of profiling that ignores their presence is innately useless.
But I also took special note of her most recent post on racial profiling, particularly since vigilante-style racism driven by such profiling is now apparently in vogue among the right-wing set.
Of course, a "defense" of racial profiling was also ostensibly what Michelle Malkin's fraudulent history of the Japanese American internment was all about, too. As we saw then, holding up the internment episode as an example of racial profiling actually demonstrates, in stark fashion, what a monumental failure it actually is:
- [E]ven beyond its transparent unjustness, the damage to the integrity of the Constitution, and the dangerous precedents it set, the internment of the Japanese-Americans was an unfathomable waste. It demonstrably undermined the war effort, and proved not to be worth a penny of the billions of taxpayer dollars it wasted.
In addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars the actual enterprise itself cost -- rounding up 120,000 people by rail car and shipping them first to “assembly centers”; building ten “relocation centers” in remote locales, and then shipping the evacuees into them; maintaining and administering the centers for another three years, which included overseeing programs to help internees find work outside the camps; feeding the entire population of internees during this time; and then helping them to relocate near their former homes once the camps closed -- there were millions more in initial reparations costs, and then hundreds of millions more in the later reparations approved by Congress in the 1980s
At the same time, the Japanese population on the Pacific Coast actually was responsible for the production of nearly half of all the fresh produce that was grown for consumption on the Coast (the Japanese also shipped out a great deal of produce to the Midwest and East). Indeed, Nikkei farms held virtual monopolies in a number of crops, including peas, green beans and strawberries, and a nearly 80 percent of the lettuce market.
When these farmers were rounded up and interned, a handful of enterprising whites decided to try running their farms with the hope of making a killing from the crops. But labor was so short that not one of these enterprises lasted beyond about five weeks, and none of them had a successful harvest. Nearly all of these farms lay fallow for the next four years. This major loss of production of fresh vegetables clearly harmed the national war effort, and played an important role in triggering the rationing that came during the war years.
When you look at the actual historical results of racial profiling, the conclusion by Canadian security officials that racial profiling is "fundamentally stupid" is really inescapable.
This is especially the case when you consider the chief strike against it, even beyond its sheer inefficacy: As a method of weeding out terrorists, it creates automatic blind spots that create more opportunities for terrorists to succeed. Once ethnic profiling is instituted, it becomes a much easier matter for terrorists to game the system. Not only is it grotesquely ineffective, it actually increases our vulnerability.
Terrorists -- the successful ones, anyway -- are smart. Once authorities begin profiling as a means of assessing security threats, they will respond by producing operatives who do not fit the profile. If Arabs and Muslims are the profile target, it is a relatively simple matter for them to identify, recruit, and employ operatives who are neither Arab nor Muslim.
When it comes to recognizing this aspect of the problem, most of the attention (particularly from the Malkin/LGF side of the blogosphere) has been on "white Muslims," whose presence in Al Qaeda cells has been recognized for some time. Somehow, it fails to cross their consciousnesses that their existence militates against racial profiling.
More to the point, there's another potential source of operatives who do not fit the profile: white supremacists.
After all, various neo-Nazis have at various times proclaimed their affinity with, and admiration for, the 9/11 terror attacks. They have also expressed at other times a wish to form alliances with Muslim terrorists, because their ends are so similar. Those coalitions have never, as far as we know, actually been formed, but racial profiling could provide Islamic radicals with even more incentive to do so.
Consider, for instance, the way that certain factions of white supremacists have been making overtures to Muslim radicals, most recently in Canada, as described in a Macleans piece by Nancy MacDonald:
- Ontario MPP Kathleen Wynne's invitation to speak at the conference "Christians-Muslims Relationships in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective" came from a constituent she knew well. The event, hosted by the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, sounded promising. "I'm very interested in interfaith dialogue, between Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jews, all of us," says Wynne. She agreed to participate. Official invitations were sent out, with Wynne's name as well as that of keynote speaker William Baker. Then Wynne got a call tipping her off about Baker. He had written the anti-Israel book Theft of a Nation, and once chaired the U.S. Populist Party, which nominated former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke as its candidate in the 1988 presidential race. An occasional lecturer at the Crystal Cathedral -- the California mega-church from which televangelist Robert Schuller broadcasts the Hour of Power -- Baker resigned in 2002 after his neo-Nazi ties were publicized.
Wynne acted quickly. She refused to share the stage with Baker. He was dropped from the conference, to be held on July 16. Another Toronto event at which Baker was to speak this month -- the 18th Annual Islamic Dawah Conference -- appeared to follow suit.
Baker has been stepping up his visibility on the Muslim speaking circuit, and it's classic right-wing fearmongering, complete with anti-Semitic conspiracies:
- In Toronto, Tarek Fatah, communications director for the Muslim Canadian Congress, was first to sound the alarm about Baker within his community. Fatah had heard Baker speak at a U.S. mosque and was "appalled." "It was the whole notion that there's a conspiracy against Muslims, and Muslims should face up," he says. He counts Baker among the pretenders who "act as though they're friends of the Muslim community, but come from the Christian right and use the community to propagate their own point of view."
I recently picked up a copy of George Michael's The Enemy of My Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right, in no small part because the possibility of this convergence has always underscored my ongoing thesis regarding the nature of terrorism, both domestic and international, as arising from nearly identical wellsprings (namely, extreme alienation from modern society).
Michael's book is provocative, but when all is said and done, it's abundantly clear that the convergence described in the title is mostly, to date, a potentiality and not a reality -- and I think Michael would agree with this assessment. There is a thorough analysis of David Duke's international recruitment work, particularly in the Muslim world. But so far there is little if any evidence of any operational convergence between far-right terrorists and Islamist radicals.
MacDonald interviewed Michael for the Macleans piece, and what he said was noteworthy:
- In any case, George Michael, a professor with the University of Virginia's College at Wise who studies the convergence of militant Islam and the extreme right, sees greater cause for alarm elsewhere. Revisionist history has found an outlet in parts of the Middle East -- as have Klan proselytizers like Duke, who in 2002 presented a lecture in Bahrain on "Israeli Involvement in September 11." President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has called the Holocaust "a myth." So has Muhammad Mehdi Akef, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In March, Syrian President Bashar Assad told PBS, "If you ask many people in the region, they would say the West exaggerated the Holocaust."
Still, rhetoric aside, there's little to indicate any real operational alliances, says Mark Potok, intelligence director for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama, a watchdog that monitors organized hate. "When all is said and done, for American neo-Nazis, Muslims are, quote, 'mud people.' It's hard to get beyond that." At the end of the day, the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy. "Last night," says Kreis, "I spent two hours talking to a Palestinian, out of Canada, and yes, I'd invite him into my home." He pauses, then adds: "As long as he doesn't try to marry my daughter."
The possibility that Al Qaeda cells in Canada were recruiting white operatives in Canada arose during the recent spate of terror arrests there. White supremacists offer a special advantage: they can blend in, and they can be used somewhat disposably.
It's also worth remembering that there's a historical precedent for this: In the early 1940s, during the runup to the outbreak of war, Japan's diplomatic offices became centers of espionage activity, coordinating intelligence gathering and helping build a stateside network of spies. Many of these were Japanese nationals operating under diplomatic cover; but they also actively recruited a network of domestic spies.
This recruitment plan was uncovered in the so-called "MAGIC" decrypts -- diplomatic cables intercepted and decoded by American intelligence agencies -- which are often touted by revisionists like Malkin, rather groundlessly, as evidence of the propriety of the decision to evacuate and incarcerate Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast.
One of the "MAGIC" decrypts often cited by these revisionists actually prioritizes the recruitment effort by the Japanese agencies involved in a telling fashion: Highest on its list are African Americans; next come white supremacists, particularly William Dudley Pelley's Silvershirts. At the bottom of the list are Japanese Americans, who were in fact widely mistrusted as "traitors" by the militarists in Tokyo.
Pelley's white supremacists, in fact, had a special relationship with Tokyo. According to Tetsuden Kashima, in his definitive text Judgment without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment during World War II, other "MAGIC" decrypts revealed even more extensive activity:
- A few of these messages dealt with intelligence agents. Few Japanese names are mentioned: one is "Iwasaki," who "had been in touch with William Dudley Pelley, leader of the Silver Shirts, a fascist organization in the United States." Iwasaki was apparently an agent sent by Japan who returned home prior to December 7; he was not a permanent resident Issei.
Pelley and the Silvershirts, as I've explored in a broader context, represent a long historical strain in the fabric of the American right, particularly in their melding of religious fervor and racial hatredunder the rubric of politics, one that remains very much with us today.
The reality is, of course, that far-right extremists have always been, at heart, profoundly anti-American and deliberately opposed to democracy and equality -- genuinely traitors in our midst. It was true during World War II, and it remains true now.
Any kind of profiling that ignores their presence is innately useless.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Patriot Acts
by Sara Robinson
From the London Daily Mail:
Let's see. A frightened mob selects a couple victims, accuses them of being would-be criminals without any evidence whatsoever, forcibly robs them of the cost of transcontinental airfare, and threatens anyone (pilots and airline personnel) that questions either their verdict or their right to exact "justice."
There's only one word for this. It's vigilantism, pure and simple. It's no different than any other kind of lynch mob. And it is beneath the dignity of a civilized society.
The reasons for and righteousness of the anger on display here are under furious discussion on both the left and right sides of the blogosphere. (See The Mahablog and Glenn Greenwald for two useful perspectives.)
But there's far more at stake here than meets the eye. If these vigilante mobs are allowed to get their way on airplanes, what's to stop them from taking their show on the road? Are we going to see subway mobs assaulting brown people on train platforms to "prevent" subway bombings? Are restarauters going to find themselves under pressure from upset diners not to hire -- or seat -- certain "frightening" classes of people? Will neighborhood groups press realtors to stop selling local homes to specific ethnic groups, for fear property values will drop? Or will they, perhaps, subject "undesirable" neighbors to harassment campaigns until they're forced to move on?
This all sounds far-fetched -- until you realize that we're hardly forty years past an era when most of this was standard operating procedure in much of America. Vigilante justice, racial segregation in public accommodations, real estate redlining, and sundown towns are part of a past that we've worked hard to leave behind. It will be a disgrace to all of us if we allow a few irrational bullies on airplanes put us on the road to bringing it all back.
Greater sanity is called for. The airlines need to start by stating, unequivocally, that they trust the decisions of their security staff on the ground. And even if they can't make that statement with a clear conscience, allowing vigilante mobs to intimidate their passengers and crews isn't the way to solve it. They are, after all, the ones paying for the Big Security Show down at the gates. Every time pilots allow the vigilantes to win, they undermine public confidence in that system.
But the buck really stops with the passengers. Which means those of us who fly frequently need to sit down and have a long chat with ourselves.
We know, without question, that bully squads bent on violence believe they're acting on the tacit values of the community. That motivation is certainly at work here -- and every time the mob succeeds, that belief is validated further. We also know that vigilantism stops when the larger community steps up and says, "No. You don't represent our values."
Today, I've been trying to imagine myself in this situation. Would I have the courage to speak up in support of the flight crew and the accused? What would I say? How much danger would I be in? Could I count on the better sense of my fellow passengers, and rely on them to support me? Or would I simply become a target myself? And, if that happened, could I handle the consequences?
You never know the answers to these kinds of questions until you're standing in that moment, of course. But a little role-playing now -- thinking through the most effective choices of word and action, deciding how much I'd be willing to risk -- might come in handy somewhere down the runway. At the very least, I could see myself saying: You put them off this plane, and I'll be staying, too. And I'd invite everyone who believes in equal justice -- and who refuses to live in fear of strangers -- to pack up their stuff and march down the jetway with me.
This much I know: There are some principles worth more than any plane ticket.
From the London Daily Mail:
British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.
The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.
Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for Flight ZB 613 in the departure lounge refused to board it.
The incident fuels the row over airport security following the arrest of more than 20 people allegedly planning the suicide-bombing of transatlantic jets from the UK to America. It comes amid growing demands for passenger-profiling and selective security checks.
It also raised fears that more travellers will take the law into their own hands - effectively conducting their own 'passenger profiles'.
Let's see. A frightened mob selects a couple victims, accuses them of being would-be criminals without any evidence whatsoever, forcibly robs them of the cost of transcontinental airfare, and threatens anyone (pilots and airline personnel) that questions either their verdict or their right to exact "justice."
There's only one word for this. It's vigilantism, pure and simple. It's no different than any other kind of lynch mob. And it is beneath the dignity of a civilized society.
The reasons for and righteousness of the anger on display here are under furious discussion on both the left and right sides of the blogosphere. (See The Mahablog and Glenn Greenwald for two useful perspectives.)
But there's far more at stake here than meets the eye. If these vigilante mobs are allowed to get their way on airplanes, what's to stop them from taking their show on the road? Are we going to see subway mobs assaulting brown people on train platforms to "prevent" subway bombings? Are restarauters going to find themselves under pressure from upset diners not to hire -- or seat -- certain "frightening" classes of people? Will neighborhood groups press realtors to stop selling local homes to specific ethnic groups, for fear property values will drop? Or will they, perhaps, subject "undesirable" neighbors to harassment campaigns until they're forced to move on?
This all sounds far-fetched -- until you realize that we're hardly forty years past an era when most of this was standard operating procedure in much of America. Vigilante justice, racial segregation in public accommodations, real estate redlining, and sundown towns are part of a past that we've worked hard to leave behind. It will be a disgrace to all of us if we allow a few irrational bullies on airplanes put us on the road to bringing it all back.
Greater sanity is called for. The airlines need to start by stating, unequivocally, that they trust the decisions of their security staff on the ground. And even if they can't make that statement with a clear conscience, allowing vigilante mobs to intimidate their passengers and crews isn't the way to solve it. They are, after all, the ones paying for the Big Security Show down at the gates. Every time pilots allow the vigilantes to win, they undermine public confidence in that system.
But the buck really stops with the passengers. Which means those of us who fly frequently need to sit down and have a long chat with ourselves.
We know, without question, that bully squads bent on violence believe they're acting on the tacit values of the community. That motivation is certainly at work here -- and every time the mob succeeds, that belief is validated further. We also know that vigilantism stops when the larger community steps up and says, "No. You don't represent our values."
Today, I've been trying to imagine myself in this situation. Would I have the courage to speak up in support of the flight crew and the accused? What would I say? How much danger would I be in? Could I count on the better sense of my fellow passengers, and rely on them to support me? Or would I simply become a target myself? And, if that happened, could I handle the consequences?
You never know the answers to these kinds of questions until you're standing in that moment, of course. But a little role-playing now -- thinking through the most effective choices of word and action, deciding how much I'd be willing to risk -- might come in handy somewhere down the runway. At the very least, I could see myself saying: You put them off this plane, and I'll be staying, too. And I'd invite everyone who believes in equal justice -- and who refuses to live in fear of strangers -- to pack up their stuff and march down the jetway with me.
This much I know: There are some principles worth more than any plane ticket.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
An orca movie
Rather than write about what I've been up to this past week and a half, I thought I'd show you.
The movie I've made is really a 10-minute sound file illustrated with photos. The soundtrack is entirely orca sounds.
I've been listening to them through my hydrophone so I can get a handle on what the southern residents are trying to cope with in their native habitat, sound-wise. Killer whales' chief sensory capacity is through their echolocation -- they can only see about twenty feet underwater with their eyes, but hundreds of yards with echolocation -- and the presence of manmade sound is, after a paucity of salmon, one of the real survival issues they face. The sound interferes with their ability to hunt and to generally communicate. As you can hear, they are very social animals, and vocalize a great deal even while traveling.
One of the samples gives you an idea what they're up against: In the middle of a relatively quiet set of vocalizations, a boat motor fires up and takes off -- completely drowning out any orca sounds at all. It's worth noting that this was not a whale-watching boat -- it was just a fisherman with a 20-foot recreational boat who was watching the orcas for awhile and got bored.
As the sound samples progress, you'll note that the noise levels increase, especially as more boats began surrounding them. In the canyon walls of San Juan Island's western coast, the constant echoes just add to the general din.
Hope you enjoy. Back to our regularly scheduled political commentary later today.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Racial Profiling is "Fundamentally Stupid"
by Sara Robinson
I really do like living in a sane country. It means I get to pick up my morning paper (in this case, the Vancouver Sun), and read stuff like this:
Just to make it clear: James Judd is the Canadian version of the head of the CIA. O'Connor is one of the most esteemed judges in the country. These public officials are acutely aware of the way profiling sows deep mistrust in a diverse society. And trust, as I'm going to argue in a future post, is one of the most essential communal assets any country can have. It's the key piece of social capital that makes every other investment possible. Allowing it to be eroded by stupid, thoughtless, fear-driven policies like profiling is like giving a three-year-old a pair of scissors and telling them to have at the very fabric of your civilization.
To their credit and that of Canada, these men understand this. This is what it looks like when Canadian patriots stand on guard for the True North, strong and free. Would that more American patriots would stand up and do the same.
They might start by inviting Alex Neve and Amnesty International to speak at a few public hearings. Wouldn't that be different?
I really do like living in a sane country. It means I get to pick up my morning paper (in this case, the Vancouver Sun), and read stuff like this:
CSIS boss calls racial profiling 'fundamentally stupid'
Janice Tibbetts, CanWest News Service
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - The director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said Tuesday that the spy agency avoids racial profiling because it is "fundamentally stupid'' and does not knowingly use information gleaned under torture offshore because the practice is "morally repugnant.''
James Judd told a gathering of Canadian judges on Tuesday that he is "acutely aware'' of complaints that the agency, along with several other organizations, targets the Muslim community in fighting the war on terror. "We don't profile because it's fundamentally stupid and we don't have enough resources,'' said Judd. "From a national security perspective, we can't afford to have whole communities feel alienated.''
Rather, the agency has embarked on community outreach efforts to combat "this legend that this is how we do business,'' Judd told a panel discussion on human rights and national security.
Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International, told the panel that "when it comes to the issue profiling, there is "obviously a reality'' that has been well documented since the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.
"There is a varied landscape,'' he said. "There are a number of reports prepared by cultural and religious groups that have tried to compile and document some of the experiences that people across the country have had, be it in airports or other situations ,where they feel they have been pulled aside or questioned or have someone show up at their place without an appointment and start asking questions.''
Justice Dennis O'Connor, an Ontario judge who presided over the inquiry into Maher Arar, agreed there are "perceptions out there among some in those communities that they are unfairly targeted.
"That's not healthy for anyone,'' he said. "It's certainly not healthy for agencies that are trying to develop co-operation for those communities to help with their investigations.''
Arar, an Ottawa engineer and Canadian citizen, was detained by U.S. authorities in September 2002 during a stopover in New York on a flight from Tunisia to Canada. Suspecting him of terrorism ties, he was sent to Syria under a policy called "extraordinary rendition."
A federal inquiry into Arar's detention found he had been tortured while in Syrian custody. O'Connor's report into the affair is slated for release next month.
Judd also took aim at information obtained under torture, adding his voice to a growing international debate over whether confessions obtained under torture should be used in criminal investigations or as evidence in court. ``Like most Canadians, I find torture to be sort of morally repugnant ... and from an operational perspective it's not particularly reliable. Certainly in my own case, I'd probably admit to anything if I was tortured.''He added CSIS does "not knowingly'' use information obtained through torture.
Neve said international conventions dictate that information gleaned under torture is not admissible in court."It is less clear whether it should be used in the investigation itself and we take the position that it shouldn't. It is simply condoning torture and we can't allow that.''
Part of the difficulty with torture , he said, is the definition is not legally set so "where do you draw the line on what torture is?''
Just to make it clear: James Judd is the Canadian version of the head of the CIA. O'Connor is one of the most esteemed judges in the country. These public officials are acutely aware of the way profiling sows deep mistrust in a diverse society. And trust, as I'm going to argue in a future post, is one of the most essential communal assets any country can have. It's the key piece of social capital that makes every other investment possible. Allowing it to be eroded by stupid, thoughtless, fear-driven policies like profiling is like giving a three-year-old a pair of scissors and telling them to have at the very fabric of your civilization.
To their credit and that of Canada, these men understand this. This is what it looks like when Canadian patriots stand on guard for the True North, strong and free. Would that more American patriots would stand up and do the same.
They might start by inviting Alex Neve and Amnesty International to speak at a few public hearings. Wouldn't that be different?
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Cracks in the Wall, Part III: Escape Ladders
by Sara Robinson
Assorted polls -- usually focused around questions such as belief in evolution, strict opposition to all abortion, self-identified fundamentalism, voting patterns, and so on -- have in recent years put the number of hard-core religious and political conservatives at somewhere between a quarter and a third of American voters. Wherever the number actually falls within that range, there are certainly enough of them in the voting base to dominate our political landscape. (To put it in a historical perspective: in 1932, when Hitler was elected president of the Reichstag, the Nazi party was consistently garnering 31 to 38 percent of the German vote. That's all it takes for an organized, passionate group to take control of a country.)
I've looked in vain for hard evidence that these percentages have grown or declined in the past 30 years (and would appreciate a pointer to this kind of data if it exists). However, there's no doubt that this group carries far more clout when it comes to defining our politics, our economics, and our culture than they've had at any point in the past 80 years. Good political organizing, coupled with the fulsome noise of the Mighty Wurlitzer, have indeed added former liberal constituencies -- blue-collar workers, Catholics, and so on -- to the Republican column. Many of these former moderates were drawn into the far-right fold by targeted political messaging that played up their fears and activated (to at least some degree) the fear-and-submission response characteristic of right-wing followers, as well as expansion-oriented conservative religious groups that replaced fraying community, family, social, recreational, and personal support networks.
Which is not to say that there weren't very real reasons for increasing levels of social fear. In Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips laid out the economic fact that American middle-class prosperity peaked in 1972, and has been in decline ever since. For all but the richest, the dollars (in real terms) are fewer, and they don't go as far as they used to. In the late 70s, decades of misbegotten foreign policy in the Middle East came home to roost, shattering a sense of American invulnerability that had already been severely dented by Vietnam. By the early 80s, Reagan's promise of "morning in America" sounded forced -- but a disheartened and newly fearful middle class was eager to believe. 9/11, of course, put whole new factions of the country into a fear-induced malaise. Republican messaging since the mid-70s has kept all these threats uppermost in the American imagination, creating a climate of fear that supports authoritarian thinking even in people who should know better. And, as mentioned above, Republican hostility to any kind of investment in social capital has left these people a) enraged at the foreclosure of opportunities their parents took for granted and b) left with nowhere to turn but churches.
All these issues, and others, provided ripe openings for the disciplined organizers of the authoritarian right. It's like they've slapped stick-on hot buttons onto all of us -- and now keep pushing them for all they were worth to activate a Pavolvian fear response. ("Abortion! Faggots! Affirmative action! Brown people! Flag-burning!") There has always been -- and probably always will be -- a hard core of natural authoritarian leaders and followers in any society. But their numbers have almost certainly been swelled (my non-supportable guess is that it's been at least doubled) by tens of millions of "soft-core" authoritarians who've been shanghaied onto the authoritarian bandwagon over the past three decades.
John Dean tells us that we are not likely to change the hearts of the authoritarian leaders. And their hardest-core followers may be lost causes, too: most of them grew up with that model, have lived their entire lives by it, and in many cases have been so damaged by it that getting them to accept any other way of viewing reality is likely to be futile.
However, those two factions probably don't comprise even half of the current horde that's commandeered our country. And the rest -- the "normal folks" who got swept up in the right-wing hysteria of the past three decades -- have already demonstrated a certain fluidity: many of them have crossed the Wall once already and have at least some memory of life on the other side. Not all of them will return, of course (though it's always surprising to see which ones decide to make the jump) -- but bringing a good slice of this group back may not be as hard as we've been prone to think.
The experiences described by people who've left authoritarian religious systems point to possible ways we might convince individual authoritarians (of whatever type) to at least take a peek over onto our side of the Wall. This installment talks about some of the ways we can create the conditions that will encourage individual authoritarians to come take that look.
Save Your Breath
The angry hard-core authoritarians -- especially those raised in acutely authoritarian homes, and those with a long history of active participation in authoritarian movements -- are not likely to be interested in reality-based thinking. And people with a long history of addiction may actually do better in the highly-structured, rule-bound culture of authoritarianism -- at least, until they do the hard work of resolving their core issues. Remember the old caution about pigs and singing lessons, and be realistic about your limits.
On the other hand (and as a gross generalization), there are a few groups of people who are more likely to be open to change. Women, whose worldview tends to be more nurturant and relationship-oriented, may be more open than men to liberal points of view. Even those who've spent their entire lives in authoritarian systems get frustrated at times with their lack of power and privilege, the unfairness of the men who outrank them, and the overt bullying. In addition, women are generally less conforming than men, and more likely to reject one-size-fits-all moral systems in favor of ones they see as more just and fair.
People who are under stress without a support system -- college students, single mothers, travelers, prisoners -- are often open to anyone offering ideas for how they can increase their sense of security and connectedness. While this drives many of them straight into waiting authoritarian arms, it could just as easily become an opportunity for them to learn to trust their own inner authority instead.
Those undergoing major life transitions may be similarly receptive: the newly married, new parents, the recently relocated, career or job-changers, the newly divorced or widowed, people who've just lost a parent, and the recently retired are all in positions where the old answers are up for questioning, and the prospect of the larger world outside the wall may look very welcoming. And, of course, people undergoing major self re-creations -- emerging gays and lesbians, new immigrants, and those in the midst of large-scale socioeconomic change -- are likely to be very open to new way of strengthening their confidence, and learning to navigate their brave new worlds.
Fear Is The Mind-Killer
In talking to right-wing authoritarians (RWAs) -- in any situation -- the first and greatest challenge is to reduce the level of fear and increase the level of trust. They cannot hear or see you at all until this happens. A few thoughts on how to accomplish this:
Stand on Common Ground -- Keep the conversation focused on the things you agree on. You may find more in common than you might have imagined, especially with "classical conservatives" who are outraged by the Bush Administration's spending, foreign policy blunders, and neglect of important domestic infrastructure. (Small businesspeople, in particular, can give you a real earful.) Move away from potential areas of conflict as soon as they appear, or state your position in a non-threatening way and then move right back to the safe zone. Remember, you're trying to reduce fear, not arouse it.
Avoid Ambiguity (yourself) -- The liberal penchant for seeing life in infinite shades of grey annoys the hell out of conservatives in general, and authoritarians most particularly. It's the main reason they think we don't stand for anything. "It depends" is not an answer they find comfort in, and long explanations are seen as obfuscation, not clarification.
Yet there are things we do believe in -- fervently, and with great passion. We should not be afraid to state our moral principles, especially the ones that can be fairly articulated in near-absolutes and with a certain amount of zeal. They're impressed by zeal, and are often surprised to find that we have our own share of it. If you can unambiguously and firmly state a principle that you share with the RWA (marriage, family, and community are great topics for this kind of commonality), you'll find them warming to you quickly.
Affirm Ambiguity (in them) -- Once in a while, you'll hear the RWA start to give a long, hairsplitting answer (for, in sooth, many of their odder theories of the world have no short explanation). In these moments, they're embracing exactly the kind of ambiguity they usually go way out of their way to avoid (and criticize in us). When this happens, note it: "You're so right. This world is a pretty complicated place, and the answers aren't always easy, are they?" The key here is to create a comfortable, easy, give-and-take atmosphere in which reasonable people can reason together -- and remain friends even if they don't agree on the ultimate answer.
This isn't an experience that most RWAs are used to having, even within their own precincts. Having it with someone who can be fairly classified as the enemy can be a life-changing experience, for reasons I'll discuss further below.
Appeal to "Legitimate" Authorities -- When citing authorities, try wherever possible to refer to authorities they recognize as legitimate. RWAs have far more respect for established authority than liberals do; but, at the same time, they usually don't accept our reality-based authorities (and often hold them in total contempt). The only way around this is to support your points by finding and citing authorities they accept.
You need to get creative here. An RWA may not regard Al Gore as an acceptable authority on the environment; but Richard Nixon (who passed the Endangered Species Act, and founded the EPA) might well be.
If you must quote an authority they're likely to regard as dubious, do what you can to establish that sources' bona fides. "Did you know that Bill Moyers is a Southern Baptist minister?" It won't always work among the harder core -- Moyers isn't in the SBC now, and therefore has forfeited any authority he may have had -- but for the softer core, this at least puts a little grease on the ball. If you can't find a direct source they'll respect, at least try to find a source that's been vetted and given the Seal of Approval by someone they do trust.
For religious RWAs, there's nothing more authoritative than God's own literal words. Biblical literalists are often astonished when a knowledgeable liberal starts quoting unfamiliar passages back at them. While they've usually been inoculated by their preachers with "correct" interpretations of difficult passages, the fundie reading of the Bible is highly selective, and it's not hard to find passages they're completely unaware of. They may not like it -- but they've got no choice but to accept it, at least until their pastor can "set them straight" again. If the pastor can't do that (they're only trained to respond to the most common objections), then you've undermined the pastor's omniscient authority, and set up a pattern of questioning that may not stop until the RWA is safely on the other side of the wall. (A large subset of ex-fundamentalists started their exodus just this way.)
Keep it Literal
As I mentioned in the last post, fundies (and most other flavors of authoritarian) do not think in abstracts. While they can usually summon empathy for people in their own belief communities -- people who are very much like them -- they have a very hard time imagining themselves in the shoes of people who are different. And the greater the difference, the harder this is.
This inability to empathize makes it very easy to demonize outsiders, accuse them of all manner of vile motives and outrageous actions, and eventually move toward dehumanization and eliminationism. In turn, this can come back around to feed a very active persecution complex. The fear that results from this failure of imagination is the driving force that keeps them huddled behind that Wall.
This is why it's important to keep any critiques of ideas and people as personal and literal as possible. You need to draw a clear, bright line connecting the negative personal harm that particular RWA has sustained as the direct result of a policy, and the specific leader who implemented it. As we know all too well, there's no limit to the amount or degree of abuse a determined RWA will forgive; but making people see the concrete damage their leaders are inflicting on them personally may in time re-direct their sense of persecution, and undermine the legitimacy of their accepted authorities.
Literal, personal critiques work in a wide range of situations. They're useful in getting across the effects of bad policy, the policies of bad leaders, hypocrisies and contradictions, and inaccurate information. Any time you can frame a point in terms of, "This person/policy/action has harmed you , this much and in this way," you're more likely (though still far from certain) to get your point across. If you can't say, with proof, that "Bush did this to you, you probably won't get through.
It's important to note that positive attributes can also be presented this way. "We should do this because it's fair to minorities" cuts no ice at all with RWAs. "We should do this because it's in your own self-interest" will get you a lot farther. And don’t neglect to spell out every possible benefit, as clearly and specifically as possible. Don't assume they'll make the logical leaps to see those on their own. These are very concrete thinkers: leaping isn't their strong suit.
Sometimes, keeping communication personal and literal can even short-circuit the guilt-evaporation mechanisms Dean discussed. God may have forgiven you, or you may have just been doing what you were told and following the rules, or the person who harmed you may merit forgiveness -- but the fact remains that your actions (or a third party's) have demonstrably harmed someone who matters to you, or created problems in your own life. Absolution may clear your conscience, but it doesn't clean up the mess. Associate personal actions with their direct results, and you may stand a chance of making them realize the full brunt of their behavior.
Be an Enlightened Witness
The great psychologist Alice Miller, who did seminal work on the role child abuse plays in shaping authoritarian personalities, often discussed the importance an "enlightened witness" plays in preventing an abused child from becoming an amoral or abusive adult:
The enlightened witness not only affirms the child's better character; s/he also models a higher standard of behavior. Dave has often discussed the importance of providing a clear, positive standard of expected community behavior as the first response to hate crime or petty terrorism. The offenders must understand, in no uncertain terms, that they are not expressing the will of the community, and that their actions are considered unacceptable. As far back as Stanley Milgram's study, it's been understood that people are far less likely to misbehave -- and far more likely to rise to the expected standard -- if someone else is there upholding a higher moral standard.
RWAs are sadly accustomed to subordinating their own needs to those of their superiors; in fact, one of the struggles we often see in recovering fundies is a complete inability to even acknowledge that they have needs of their own, let alone identify them, let alone act to meet them. They simply don't know where to begin. Also, because their own authorities use guilt and shame to control them, they've seldom been allowed to see themselves as truly good and moral people.
Giving an RWA permission to recognize, give voice to, and take action to satisfy his or her own needs is a powerful act. In affirming that they are not just allowed, but entitled (in the name of fairness) to feel their own emotions, own their own goodness, indulge a few harmless appetites, enjoy themselves, assert their boundaries, or stand up and say "no" to overweening authority, you are being an enlightened witness to their true self -- something many of them have seldom if ever had. In the process, you are also giving them a direct view over the wall. Often, it's a view that they never forget, and will keep coming back to until they're persuaded to go over it for good.
This admittedly requires a strong belief in our own best liberal ideals -- most particularly, in meeting with people where they are, and dealing with them as they are. If they believe that their goodness and strength flow from the grace of God, don't quibble. At least they're focusing on their strength, instead of leading with their fear! They have a right to whatever moral context they're comfortable with. It's the core of their moral reasoning, and often of their identity.
Focus on the Family
We need to be having much more open conversations with the RWA community about our views on family. Weird as it sounds, they honestly, literally believe that we don't care about families, don't really have them ourselves, and are out to destroy theirs as well. I know, it sounds ridiculous -- but it's true.
The best writing on this I've seen comes from Unitarian writer Doug Muder, who has taken George Lakoff's model of "strict father" versus "nurturant parent" politics one step further, and uses it to explain precisely how the right wing came to believe this preposterous notion. (Hat tip to the estimable Trefayne.) Muder asserts that, while Lakoff's right that family models are the right frame, the real dialectic is between families of "inherited obligation" versus those based on "negotiated commitment". Go read the article, then come on back. We'll be here.
Muder's thesis highlights very specifically where and why our divergent models of family lead to disagreements on everything from abortion to homosexuality (and also answers our exasperated questions about how these particular issues became such hot political potatoes in the first place). At the same time, it also points up the places in which we have strong commonalities with RWAs that they don't typically see. For example, authoritarians typically don't believe that those of us who assemble families of choice feels as committed to those families as those who are bound to their kin by blood ties and birth. And they tend to view "family" as a stage script, with set roles for mothers and fathers and grandparents. If you don't have people filling all the roles, it is, by definition, not a family.
Being aware of the way RWAs model and value their families allows us to present our own family values in ways that they can begin to understand. There is a lot of common ground here, most of which they're apparently totally unaware of. It also gives us a clear view of the ways in which progressive "negotiated commitment" families can indeed be seen as a threat to their worldview. With this understanding, we can begin to acknowledge those fears directly, address them head-on, and perhaps begin to defuse one of their biggest sources of fear and mistrust.
Make the World Bigger
Anything that gets RWAs interacting with people outside their narrow realm is a good thing. Travel, formal or informal education, community interactions with unknown and feared groups (especially those based on shared concerns, interests, and values), and activities that increase a sense of personal achievement and competence all enhance their ability to trust themselves and others, without having to rely on the rules of their system to maintain their fragile sense of safety.
If we're serious about reducing the number of authoritarians in our midst, we need to greatly increase the number and frequency of our engagements with them. As noted in Part II, are very literal thinkers, and capable of tremendous loyalty. An RWA who knows just one gay person, up close and personal, often finds that their sense of loyalty will force them to resist their leaders' generalizations of gays as evil. The more contact they have with the demonized Other, the greater the cognitive dissonance grows, and the more their accepted authorities are discredited.
We need to actively start creating ways for the authoritarians in our midst to make contact with people outside of their cocooned communities. The means and methods are many; but this is perhaps the most important work we can do. Start by committing random acts of kindness (just to mess with their assumptions, if nothing else). They need to see us as trustworthy allies, valuable contributors to their own well-being -- and perhaps, in time, friends.
Landing Zones
Finally: we need to make safe landing zones for those just arriving from the other side of the Wall.
It takes courage, time, and support to come out of an authoritarian mindset. Most RWAs are used to having people tell them what to think, where to be, what to do, and who to trust. In the reality-based world, we tend to assume that people can do this for themselves. While exiting fundies typically feel exhilarated with the freedom they feel in the first weeks after leaving; they've also got a huge new world to navigate, and acquiring the necessary skills takes time. They're often wobbly on their feet for a while until they get the hang of it.
There is the emotional work of learning to trust your own perceptions, accept your own feelings, and act on your own judgment -- something people in authoritarian systems never really learn to do. There's also the business of learning to navigate in a looser, more do-your-own-thing social structure, which can be hard for someone used to ready-made social hierarchies. There are the practical matters of telling family and friends on the other side of the Wall that you've left, and coming to terms with their reactions. There's all the work involved in sorting through all your new intellectual and moral options, and deciding for yourself which values you're going to build your new life on.
It helps tremendously to have friends and guides who understand what you're going through, and can supply guidance and hugs when it all seems overwhelming. They are far more likely to succeed if we offer them consistent (but not hovering) friendship and support -- and a bit of patience while they make their first steps into the reality-based world.
Micro to Macro
The above discussion, long as it is, is just a beginning. The more time we spend talking to soft-core authoritarian followers, the better we'll get at understanding their motivations, calming their fears, and framing our arguments in ways they can clearly understand.
However: as kum-bay-yah (and stereotypically liberal) as all this talk of "understanding" individual RWAs may be, it doesn't mean that we stop holding the authoritarians in our midst accountable for the misbehavior of their public figures and the recklessness of their policies. It doesn't mean that we stop correcting the media when it misrepresents our views, or aggressively fight for solutions that will ultimate break the cycle of right-wing authoritarianism that now dominates American politics. While the work of bringing these missing Americans back into the larger fold is gentle and slow (we may well spend a decade or more bringing the bulk of them back), the work of recovering America as we knew her requires a fierce energy that draws firm boundaries, demands an honest reckoning, and requires constant and determined assertion of our own good values.
In the fourth and final part of this series, I'll look at some of the ways authoritarians can be turned back at the community, state, and national level.
Updated for HTML and grammar corrections
Assorted polls -- usually focused around questions such as belief in evolution, strict opposition to all abortion, self-identified fundamentalism, voting patterns, and so on -- have in recent years put the number of hard-core religious and political conservatives at somewhere between a quarter and a third of American voters. Wherever the number actually falls within that range, there are certainly enough of them in the voting base to dominate our political landscape. (To put it in a historical perspective: in 1932, when Hitler was elected president of the Reichstag, the Nazi party was consistently garnering 31 to 38 percent of the German vote. That's all it takes for an organized, passionate group to take control of a country.)
I've looked in vain for hard evidence that these percentages have grown or declined in the past 30 years (and would appreciate a pointer to this kind of data if it exists). However, there's no doubt that this group carries far more clout when it comes to defining our politics, our economics, and our culture than they've had at any point in the past 80 years. Good political organizing, coupled with the fulsome noise of the Mighty Wurlitzer, have indeed added former liberal constituencies -- blue-collar workers, Catholics, and so on -- to the Republican column. Many of these former moderates were drawn into the far-right fold by targeted political messaging that played up their fears and activated (to at least some degree) the fear-and-submission response characteristic of right-wing followers, as well as expansion-oriented conservative religious groups that replaced fraying community, family, social, recreational, and personal support networks.
Which is not to say that there weren't very real reasons for increasing levels of social fear. In Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips laid out the economic fact that American middle-class prosperity peaked in 1972, and has been in decline ever since. For all but the richest, the dollars (in real terms) are fewer, and they don't go as far as they used to. In the late 70s, decades of misbegotten foreign policy in the Middle East came home to roost, shattering a sense of American invulnerability that had already been severely dented by Vietnam. By the early 80s, Reagan's promise of "morning in America" sounded forced -- but a disheartened and newly fearful middle class was eager to believe. 9/11, of course, put whole new factions of the country into a fear-induced malaise. Republican messaging since the mid-70s has kept all these threats uppermost in the American imagination, creating a climate of fear that supports authoritarian thinking even in people who should know better. And, as mentioned above, Republican hostility to any kind of investment in social capital has left these people a) enraged at the foreclosure of opportunities their parents took for granted and b) left with nowhere to turn but churches.
All these issues, and others, provided ripe openings for the disciplined organizers of the authoritarian right. It's like they've slapped stick-on hot buttons onto all of us -- and now keep pushing them for all they were worth to activate a Pavolvian fear response. ("Abortion! Faggots! Affirmative action! Brown people! Flag-burning!") There has always been -- and probably always will be -- a hard core of natural authoritarian leaders and followers in any society. But their numbers have almost certainly been swelled (my non-supportable guess is that it's been at least doubled) by tens of millions of "soft-core" authoritarians who've been shanghaied onto the authoritarian bandwagon over the past three decades.
John Dean tells us that we are not likely to change the hearts of the authoritarian leaders. And their hardest-core followers may be lost causes, too: most of them grew up with that model, have lived their entire lives by it, and in many cases have been so damaged by it that getting them to accept any other way of viewing reality is likely to be futile.
However, those two factions probably don't comprise even half of the current horde that's commandeered our country. And the rest -- the "normal folks" who got swept up in the right-wing hysteria of the past three decades -- have already demonstrated a certain fluidity: many of them have crossed the Wall once already and have at least some memory of life on the other side. Not all of them will return, of course (though it's always surprising to see which ones decide to make the jump) -- but bringing a good slice of this group back may not be as hard as we've been prone to think.
The experiences described by people who've left authoritarian religious systems point to possible ways we might convince individual authoritarians (of whatever type) to at least take a peek over onto our side of the Wall. This installment talks about some of the ways we can create the conditions that will encourage individual authoritarians to come take that look.
Save Your Breath
The angry hard-core authoritarians -- especially those raised in acutely authoritarian homes, and those with a long history of active participation in authoritarian movements -- are not likely to be interested in reality-based thinking. And people with a long history of addiction may actually do better in the highly-structured, rule-bound culture of authoritarianism -- at least, until they do the hard work of resolving their core issues. Remember the old caution about pigs and singing lessons, and be realistic about your limits.
On the other hand (and as a gross generalization), there are a few groups of people who are more likely to be open to change. Women, whose worldview tends to be more nurturant and relationship-oriented, may be more open than men to liberal points of view. Even those who've spent their entire lives in authoritarian systems get frustrated at times with their lack of power and privilege, the unfairness of the men who outrank them, and the overt bullying. In addition, women are generally less conforming than men, and more likely to reject one-size-fits-all moral systems in favor of ones they see as more just and fair.
People who are under stress without a support system -- college students, single mothers, travelers, prisoners -- are often open to anyone offering ideas for how they can increase their sense of security and connectedness. While this drives many of them straight into waiting authoritarian arms, it could just as easily become an opportunity for them to learn to trust their own inner authority instead.
Those undergoing major life transitions may be similarly receptive: the newly married, new parents, the recently relocated, career or job-changers, the newly divorced or widowed, people who've just lost a parent, and the recently retired are all in positions where the old answers are up for questioning, and the prospect of the larger world outside the wall may look very welcoming. And, of course, people undergoing major self re-creations -- emerging gays and lesbians, new immigrants, and those in the midst of large-scale socioeconomic change -- are likely to be very open to new way of strengthening their confidence, and learning to navigate their brave new worlds.
Fear Is The Mind-Killer
In talking to right-wing authoritarians (RWAs) -- in any situation -- the first and greatest challenge is to reduce the level of fear and increase the level of trust. They cannot hear or see you at all until this happens. A few thoughts on how to accomplish this:
Stand on Common Ground -- Keep the conversation focused on the things you agree on. You may find more in common than you might have imagined, especially with "classical conservatives" who are outraged by the Bush Administration's spending, foreign policy blunders, and neglect of important domestic infrastructure. (Small businesspeople, in particular, can give you a real earful.) Move away from potential areas of conflict as soon as they appear, or state your position in a non-threatening way and then move right back to the safe zone. Remember, you're trying to reduce fear, not arouse it.
Avoid Ambiguity (yourself) -- The liberal penchant for seeing life in infinite shades of grey annoys the hell out of conservatives in general, and authoritarians most particularly. It's the main reason they think we don't stand for anything. "It depends" is not an answer they find comfort in, and long explanations are seen as obfuscation, not clarification.
Yet there are things we do believe in -- fervently, and with great passion. We should not be afraid to state our moral principles, especially the ones that can be fairly articulated in near-absolutes and with a certain amount of zeal. They're impressed by zeal, and are often surprised to find that we have our own share of it. If you can unambiguously and firmly state a principle that you share with the RWA (marriage, family, and community are great topics for this kind of commonality), you'll find them warming to you quickly.
Affirm Ambiguity (in them) -- Once in a while, you'll hear the RWA start to give a long, hairsplitting answer (for, in sooth, many of their odder theories of the world have no short explanation). In these moments, they're embracing exactly the kind of ambiguity they usually go way out of their way to avoid (and criticize in us). When this happens, note it: "You're so right. This world is a pretty complicated place, and the answers aren't always easy, are they?" The key here is to create a comfortable, easy, give-and-take atmosphere in which reasonable people can reason together -- and remain friends even if they don't agree on the ultimate answer.
This isn't an experience that most RWAs are used to having, even within their own precincts. Having it with someone who can be fairly classified as the enemy can be a life-changing experience, for reasons I'll discuss further below.
Appeal to "Legitimate" Authorities -- When citing authorities, try wherever possible to refer to authorities they recognize as legitimate. RWAs have far more respect for established authority than liberals do; but, at the same time, they usually don't accept our reality-based authorities (and often hold them in total contempt). The only way around this is to support your points by finding and citing authorities they accept.
You need to get creative here. An RWA may not regard Al Gore as an acceptable authority on the environment; but Richard Nixon (who passed the Endangered Species Act, and founded the EPA) might well be.
If you must quote an authority they're likely to regard as dubious, do what you can to establish that sources' bona fides. "Did you know that Bill Moyers is a Southern Baptist minister?" It won't always work among the harder core -- Moyers isn't in the SBC now, and therefore has forfeited any authority he may have had -- but for the softer core, this at least puts a little grease on the ball. If you can't find a direct source they'll respect, at least try to find a source that's been vetted and given the Seal of Approval by someone they do trust.
For religious RWAs, there's nothing more authoritative than God's own literal words. Biblical literalists are often astonished when a knowledgeable liberal starts quoting unfamiliar passages back at them. While they've usually been inoculated by their preachers with "correct" interpretations of difficult passages, the fundie reading of the Bible is highly selective, and it's not hard to find passages they're completely unaware of. They may not like it -- but they've got no choice but to accept it, at least until their pastor can "set them straight" again. If the pastor can't do that (they're only trained to respond to the most common objections), then you've undermined the pastor's omniscient authority, and set up a pattern of questioning that may not stop until the RWA is safely on the other side of the wall. (A large subset of ex-fundamentalists started their exodus just this way.)
Keep it Literal
As I mentioned in the last post, fundies (and most other flavors of authoritarian) do not think in abstracts. While they can usually summon empathy for people in their own belief communities -- people who are very much like them -- they have a very hard time imagining themselves in the shoes of people who are different. And the greater the difference, the harder this is.
This inability to empathize makes it very easy to demonize outsiders, accuse them of all manner of vile motives and outrageous actions, and eventually move toward dehumanization and eliminationism. In turn, this can come back around to feed a very active persecution complex. The fear that results from this failure of imagination is the driving force that keeps them huddled behind that Wall.
This is why it's important to keep any critiques of ideas and people as personal and literal as possible. You need to draw a clear, bright line connecting the negative personal harm that particular RWA has sustained as the direct result of a policy, and the specific leader who implemented it. As we know all too well, there's no limit to the amount or degree of abuse a determined RWA will forgive; but making people see the concrete damage their leaders are inflicting on them personally may in time re-direct their sense of persecution, and undermine the legitimacy of their accepted authorities.
Literal, personal critiques work in a wide range of situations. They're useful in getting across the effects of bad policy, the policies of bad leaders, hypocrisies and contradictions, and inaccurate information. Any time you can frame a point in terms of, "This person/policy/action has harmed you , this much and in this way," you're more likely (though still far from certain) to get your point across. If you can't say, with proof, that "Bush did this to you, you probably won't get through.
It's important to note that positive attributes can also be presented this way. "We should do this because it's fair to minorities" cuts no ice at all with RWAs. "We should do this because it's in your own self-interest" will get you a lot farther. And don’t neglect to spell out every possible benefit, as clearly and specifically as possible. Don't assume they'll make the logical leaps to see those on their own. These are very concrete thinkers: leaping isn't their strong suit.
Sometimes, keeping communication personal and literal can even short-circuit the guilt-evaporation mechanisms Dean discussed. God may have forgiven you, or you may have just been doing what you were told and following the rules, or the person who harmed you may merit forgiveness -- but the fact remains that your actions (or a third party's) have demonstrably harmed someone who matters to you, or created problems in your own life. Absolution may clear your conscience, but it doesn't clean up the mess. Associate personal actions with their direct results, and you may stand a chance of making them realize the full brunt of their behavior.
Be an Enlightened Witness
The great psychologist Alice Miller, who did seminal work on the role child abuse plays in shaping authoritarian personalities, often discussed the importance an "enlightened witness" plays in preventing an abused child from becoming an amoral or abusive adult:
"When I began to illustrate my thesis by drawing on the examples of Hitler and Stalin, when I tried to expose the social consequences of child abuse, I encountered fierce resistance. Repeatedly I was told, "I, too, was a battered child, but that didn't make me a criminal." When I asked for details about their childhood, I was always told of a person who loved them, but was unable to protect them. Yet through his or her presence, this person gave them a notion of trust, and of love.
"I call these persons helping witnesses. Dostoyevsky, for instance, had a brutal father, but a loving mother. She wasn't strong enough to protect him from his father, but she gave him a powerful conception of love, without which his novels would have been unimaginable. Many have also been lucky enough to find enlightened and courageous witnesses, people who helped them to recognize the injustices they suffered, to give vent to their feelings of rage, pain and indignation at what happened to them. These persons never became criminals."
The enlightened witness not only affirms the child's better character; s/he also models a higher standard of behavior. Dave has often discussed the importance of providing a clear, positive standard of expected community behavior as the first response to hate crime or petty terrorism. The offenders must understand, in no uncertain terms, that they are not expressing the will of the community, and that their actions are considered unacceptable. As far back as Stanley Milgram's study, it's been understood that people are far less likely to misbehave -- and far more likely to rise to the expected standard -- if someone else is there upholding a higher moral standard.
RWAs are sadly accustomed to subordinating their own needs to those of their superiors; in fact, one of the struggles we often see in recovering fundies is a complete inability to even acknowledge that they have needs of their own, let alone identify them, let alone act to meet them. They simply don't know where to begin. Also, because their own authorities use guilt and shame to control them, they've seldom been allowed to see themselves as truly good and moral people.
Giving an RWA permission to recognize, give voice to, and take action to satisfy his or her own needs is a powerful act. In affirming that they are not just allowed, but entitled (in the name of fairness) to feel their own emotions, own their own goodness, indulge a few harmless appetites, enjoy themselves, assert their boundaries, or stand up and say "no" to overweening authority, you are being an enlightened witness to their true self -- something many of them have seldom if ever had. In the process, you are also giving them a direct view over the wall. Often, it's a view that they never forget, and will keep coming back to until they're persuaded to go over it for good.
This admittedly requires a strong belief in our own best liberal ideals -- most particularly, in meeting with people where they are, and dealing with them as they are. If they believe that their goodness and strength flow from the grace of God, don't quibble. At least they're focusing on their strength, instead of leading with their fear! They have a right to whatever moral context they're comfortable with. It's the core of their moral reasoning, and often of their identity.
Focus on the Family
We need to be having much more open conversations with the RWA community about our views on family. Weird as it sounds, they honestly, literally believe that we don't care about families, don't really have them ourselves, and are out to destroy theirs as well. I know, it sounds ridiculous -- but it's true.
The best writing on this I've seen comes from Unitarian writer Doug Muder, who has taken George Lakoff's model of "strict father" versus "nurturant parent" politics one step further, and uses it to explain precisely how the right wing came to believe this preposterous notion. (Hat tip to the estimable Trefayne.) Muder asserts that, while Lakoff's right that family models are the right frame, the real dialectic is between families of "inherited obligation" versus those based on "negotiated commitment". Go read the article, then come on back. We'll be here.
Muder's thesis highlights very specifically where and why our divergent models of family lead to disagreements on everything from abortion to homosexuality (and also answers our exasperated questions about how these particular issues became such hot political potatoes in the first place). At the same time, it also points up the places in which we have strong commonalities with RWAs that they don't typically see. For example, authoritarians typically don't believe that those of us who assemble families of choice feels as committed to those families as those who are bound to their kin by blood ties and birth. And they tend to view "family" as a stage script, with set roles for mothers and fathers and grandparents. If you don't have people filling all the roles, it is, by definition, not a family.
Being aware of the way RWAs model and value their families allows us to present our own family values in ways that they can begin to understand. There is a lot of common ground here, most of which they're apparently totally unaware of. It also gives us a clear view of the ways in which progressive "negotiated commitment" families can indeed be seen as a threat to their worldview. With this understanding, we can begin to acknowledge those fears directly, address them head-on, and perhaps begin to defuse one of their biggest sources of fear and mistrust.
Make the World Bigger
Anything that gets RWAs interacting with people outside their narrow realm is a good thing. Travel, formal or informal education, community interactions with unknown and feared groups (especially those based on shared concerns, interests, and values), and activities that increase a sense of personal achievement and competence all enhance their ability to trust themselves and others, without having to rely on the rules of their system to maintain their fragile sense of safety.
If we're serious about reducing the number of authoritarians in our midst, we need to greatly increase the number and frequency of our engagements with them. As noted in Part II, are very literal thinkers, and capable of tremendous loyalty. An RWA who knows just one gay person, up close and personal, often finds that their sense of loyalty will force them to resist their leaders' generalizations of gays as evil. The more contact they have with the demonized Other, the greater the cognitive dissonance grows, and the more their accepted authorities are discredited.
We need to actively start creating ways for the authoritarians in our midst to make contact with people outside of their cocooned communities. The means and methods are many; but this is perhaps the most important work we can do. Start by committing random acts of kindness (just to mess with their assumptions, if nothing else). They need to see us as trustworthy allies, valuable contributors to their own well-being -- and perhaps, in time, friends.
Landing Zones
Finally: we need to make safe landing zones for those just arriving from the other side of the Wall.
It takes courage, time, and support to come out of an authoritarian mindset. Most RWAs are used to having people tell them what to think, where to be, what to do, and who to trust. In the reality-based world, we tend to assume that people can do this for themselves. While exiting fundies typically feel exhilarated with the freedom they feel in the first weeks after leaving; they've also got a huge new world to navigate, and acquiring the necessary skills takes time. They're often wobbly on their feet for a while until they get the hang of it.
There is the emotional work of learning to trust your own perceptions, accept your own feelings, and act on your own judgment -- something people in authoritarian systems never really learn to do. There's also the business of learning to navigate in a looser, more do-your-own-thing social structure, which can be hard for someone used to ready-made social hierarchies. There are the practical matters of telling family and friends on the other side of the Wall that you've left, and coming to terms with their reactions. There's all the work involved in sorting through all your new intellectual and moral options, and deciding for yourself which values you're going to build your new life on.
It helps tremendously to have friends and guides who understand what you're going through, and can supply guidance and hugs when it all seems overwhelming. They are far more likely to succeed if we offer them consistent (but not hovering) friendship and support -- and a bit of patience while they make their first steps into the reality-based world.
Micro to Macro
The above discussion, long as it is, is just a beginning. The more time we spend talking to soft-core authoritarian followers, the better we'll get at understanding their motivations, calming their fears, and framing our arguments in ways they can clearly understand.
However: as kum-bay-yah (and stereotypically liberal) as all this talk of "understanding" individual RWAs may be, it doesn't mean that we stop holding the authoritarians in our midst accountable for the misbehavior of their public figures and the recklessness of their policies. It doesn't mean that we stop correcting the media when it misrepresents our views, or aggressively fight for solutions that will ultimate break the cycle of right-wing authoritarianism that now dominates American politics. While the work of bringing these missing Americans back into the larger fold is gentle and slow (we may well spend a decade or more bringing the bulk of them back), the work of recovering America as we knew her requires a fierce energy that draws firm boundaries, demands an honest reckoning, and requires constant and determined assertion of our own good values.
In the fourth and final part of this series, I'll look at some of the ways authoritarians can be turned back at the community, state, and national level.
Updated for HTML and grammar corrections
Spanking the Alpha Monkey
Well, good ol' George Allen really put his foot in it, didn't he? And here we were, just now having this talk about men with high social dominance orientation and why they make piss poor leaders. With his brilliantly arrogant and thoughtless characterization of a native-born Indo-American as a monkey, Allen's just sewed up the 2006 nomination as the poster boy for this particular social disease. (An impressive achievement it is, too, considering the number and quality of candidates in the running this year.)
Make no mistake: this was an aggressive act of social dominance, an intentional effort to humiliate and degrade a person based on his race and ethnic background, and his position on the other side of the political fence. Allen didn't appear to think twice about publicly insulting S.J. Sidarth, a native-born Indo-American traveling with Allen's campaign to tape events for his Democratic opponent. (Allen had similarly embedded one of his staffers with Jim Webb's campaign.) Sidarth was a kid with a camera -- just another part of the crew, hardly above the attention threshold of a senatorial candidate who's spending his days mingling with the rich and powerful. So what on earth inspired Allen to call him out, in the middle of his campaign speech, to the assembled crowd?
It was simply this: He thought he could get away with it. He thought that a southern Virginia crowd would be friendly to such ideas, maybe even grateful to hear a politician unafraid to speak them out loud. He believed, as militia members and perpetrators of hate crimes often do, that he was merely expressing the community's tacit values.
You have to wonder where Allen, who grew up in California, got this idea. By the mid-60s, not even George Wallace or Strom Thurmond would dare say stuff like this in front of the cameras (though we know that Nixon, among others, wasn't shy about saying it in private). They knew better. Everybody in politics, in both parties, knows better. How did George Allen fail to get the message?
Salon's Michael Scherer has a very well researched, thoughtful article up this morning (Salon Premium subscription may be required). While Allen's been acting like the word "macaca" just fell out of his mouth -- "as if he had suddenly been taken over by an evil spirit and spoken in tongues," Scherer says -- he presents the etymology of the word "macaca," (or "macaque"), a North African word for "monkey" that's long been used by Europeans in Africa as an alternative to the n-word. Scherer points out that Allen's mother was raised in Algiers and speaks five languages; she almost certainly knew the word.
Scherer lays the blame squarely on high social dominance gone wild:
Scherer goes on to lay out Allen's resume as a bully, charting a typical path that begins in a family of wealth and privilege, rough-and-tumble play with siblings, "alpha jock" status as a high school football player, and his early (and apparently continuing) affection for the Confederate cause. According to Scherer, Ryan Lizza, a reporter for The New Republic,
Another look at John Dean's list of high-SDO traits puts it all in clear relief:
Typically men
Intimidating and bullying
Faintly hedonistic
Vengeful
Pitiless
Exploitative
Manipulative
Dishonest
Cheat to win
Highly prejudiced (racist, sexist, homophobic)
Mean-spirited
Militant
Nationalistic
Tells others what they want to hear
Takes advantage of "suckers"
Specializes in creating false images to sell self
May or may not be religious
Usually politically and economically conservative/Republican
The American people, to their credit, will usually refuse to put such people in positions of power -- if they have a chance to clearly see them for what they are before it's time to pull the lever. We're fortunate that S.J. Sidarth was there with his camera to catch Allen showing us his true colors.
Make no mistake: this was an aggressive act of social dominance, an intentional effort to humiliate and degrade a person based on his race and ethnic background, and his position on the other side of the political fence. Allen didn't appear to think twice about publicly insulting S.J. Sidarth, a native-born Indo-American traveling with Allen's campaign to tape events for his Democratic opponent. (Allen had similarly embedded one of his staffers with Jim Webb's campaign.) Sidarth was a kid with a camera -- just another part of the crew, hardly above the attention threshold of a senatorial candidate who's spending his days mingling with the rich and powerful. So what on earth inspired Allen to call him out, in the middle of his campaign speech, to the assembled crowd?
It was simply this: He thought he could get away with it. He thought that a southern Virginia crowd would be friendly to such ideas, maybe even grateful to hear a politician unafraid to speak them out loud. He believed, as militia members and perpetrators of hate crimes often do, that he was merely expressing the community's tacit values.
You have to wonder where Allen, who grew up in California, got this idea. By the mid-60s, not even George Wallace or Strom Thurmond would dare say stuff like this in front of the cameras (though we know that Nixon, among others, wasn't shy about saying it in private). They knew better. Everybody in politics, in both parties, knows better. How did George Allen fail to get the message?
Salon's Michael Scherer has a very well researched, thoughtful article up this morning (Salon Premium subscription may be required). While Allen's been acting like the word "macaca" just fell out of his mouth -- "as if he had suddenly been taken over by an evil spirit and spoken in tongues," Scherer says -- he presents the etymology of the word "macaca," (or "macaque"), a North African word for "monkey" that's long been used by Europeans in Africa as an alternative to the n-word. Scherer points out that Allen's mother was raised in Algiers and speaks five languages; she almost certainly knew the word.
Scherer lays the blame squarely on high social dominance gone wild:
To understand the full import of Allen's gaffe, it is worth taking another look at the video, which will live for eternity on the Internet and in political attack ads. It is not just a matter of what Allen says, but very much a matter of how he says it. He has singled out one member of the audience, a 20-year-old volunteer whose ethnicity already distinguishes him in a former bastion of the Confederacy. Allen is smiling. He is enjoying himself. It is exceedingly difficult to see Allen as doing anything other than connecting with the crowd by attempting to humiliate another human being -- to make him feel like an outsider, like he doesn't belong, like he will never belong. "Let's give a welcome to macaca, here," the senator crows. "Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia."
The performance strongly suggests Sheriff's definition of "interpersonal domination" at work. Allen is being a bully.
Scherer goes on to lay out Allen's resume as a bully, charting a typical path that begins in a family of wealth and privilege, rough-and-tumble play with siblings, "alpha jock" status as a high school football player, and his early (and apparently continuing) affection for the Confederate cause. According to Scherer, Ryan Lizza, a reporter for The New Republic,
asked Allen about the Confederate flag pin he wore in his senior photo at a tony California high school. Allen responded by mentioning the funding he is seeking in Congress for historically black colleges. Lizza asked about Allen's initial opposition to Martin Luther King Day, the noose he once hung on a ficus tree in his law office, and Allen's support of a Confederate History and Heritage Month that did not mention slavery. Allen deflected all the questions, while hinting that he was a changed man. He said he recently went on a "civil rights pilgrimage." He cares about genocide. He recently passed an anti-lynching resolution....
This new person is the one Allen wants America to see. But it is far from clear if that is the person he is. Political scientist Larry Sabato, who remembers Allen as a tough-guy jock back when they were undergraduates at the University of Virginia, said he thinks the gaffe last week shows the real candidate. "In these unguarded moments, Allen does show his true self."
Another look at John Dean's list of high-SDO traits puts it all in clear relief:
Typically men
Intimidating and bullying
Faintly hedonistic
Vengeful
Pitiless
Exploitative
Manipulative
Dishonest
Cheat to win
Highly prejudiced (racist, sexist, homophobic)
Mean-spirited
Militant
Nationalistic
Tells others what they want to hear
Takes advantage of "suckers"
Specializes in creating false images to sell self
May or may not be religious
Usually politically and economically conservative/Republican
The American people, to their credit, will usually refuse to put such people in positions of power -- if they have a chance to clearly see them for what they are before it's time to pull the lever. We're fortunate that S.J. Sidarth was there with his camera to catch Allen showing us his true colors.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Blast From The Past
by Sara Robinson
I'm hard at work this evening putting together the third installment. But, while following up on some of the links provided by commenters, I came across a comment I dropped over two years ago at Billmon's Whiskey Bar. (The Web never forgets...even when you do.) Given how often we touch back on the role of the South in creating our modern authoritarian America, I thought I'd resurrect it....
I'm not sure I'd really doom our steadfast Southern liberals to such a fate. And it'll sure be easier on everyone if we can find a resolution that allows the country to remain intact and recover its commitment to E Pluribus Unum.
But it's something to chew on, anyway, while I retreat to my little corner and write tomorrow's piece.
I'm hard at work this evening putting together the third installment. But, while following up on some of the links provided by commenters, I came across a comment I dropped over two years ago at Billmon's Whiskey Bar. (The Web never forgets...even when you do.) Given how often we touch back on the role of the South in creating our modern authoritarian America, I thought I'd resurrect it....
It's occured to me that we might have actually been a lot farther ahead now as a nation if the South had won the Civil War. They could have gone their own way, and let the modern world pass them by...at least, for a while. Very likely, within a generation or two, they would have decided for themselves that liberal democracy might be a good idea after all, and made that transition on their own time, in their own way. By now, they probably would have been just another friendly North American country, like Canada.
But losing the war short-circuited their economic and cultural development. Rather than join the modern world, they became like an abused child who never matures beyond the developmental stage at which the abuse occured. They got stuck in their own victimization and anger, and stayed there. The ever-present opportunity to blame them damn Yankees for everything allowed them to avoid taking any responsibility for their own social progress (or lack thereof). If they were on their own as a country, there would be nobody left to blame, no "tradition" to mourn, no cherished shreds of lost glory to fetishize. Their fate would have been truly their own.
Instead, the bitterness of defeat festered, then metastasized. It got channeled into Jim Crow, fundamentalism, hyperpatriotism, and a crazy dark take-no-prisoners militancy. These are distinctively Southern cultural traits, though they've put out some long tendrils that now sprout up wherever rural Americans are in distress. Those people may be Bush's base, but their very existence is the result of a serious and long-standing pathology in our body politic. In winning the Civil War, we doomed ourselves to an eternal Culture War -- which is simply the Civil War still being fought by other means.
Maybe it's not too late. Maybe we should just jettison the South, and give it the freedom to become the country it so desperately thinks it wants to be. Leave the borders open for, say, 20 years, so that those who want to leave the South can move to the US, and those who share the ideals of the new Confederacy can freely emigrate there. If they want to reinstate Jim Crow, install the death penalty for women who seek abortions, and give civil rights only to propertied white born-again men, I think they should have that right....as well as the right to bear the full brunt of the consequences those choices will inevitably bring.
History suggests that the descent into Third World status would be sharp and fast. And this time, they'd have no one to blame but themselves. The resulting disaster would, finally, discredit their worldview as utterly and completely as the fall of the Berlin Wall spelled the end of Communism. At some point, they'd eventually decide that some of those liberal values aren't so bad after all (especially if they bring the investors back) -- and that it's finally time to join the 20th Century.
That's my current fantasy, anyway. Let them finally go through the transformation to a modern state on their own. The alternative -- which we appear to heading for -- is for them to take over the whole country, drag us all back to the place they got stuck (about 1880 or so), and force the rest of us to go through the last century all over again with them, so they can finally learn the hard historical lessons the North and West already figured out the first time around.
OK, that's my weird blue sky thesis for the week....
Posted by: Mrs. Robinson at June 11, 2004 01:48 AM
I'm not sure I'd really doom our steadfast Southern liberals to such a fate. And it'll sure be easier on everyone if we can find a resolution that allows the country to remain intact and recover its commitment to E Pluribus Unum.
But it's something to chew on, anyway, while I retreat to my little corner and write tomorrow's piece.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Cracks In The Wall, Part II: Listening to the Leavers
by Sara Robinson
Who Follows? Everyone, Sometimes
After all these decades of research and inquiry, it can be said fairly that we're starting to get a decent handle on what makes people gravitate toward authoritarianism.
Alice Miller points to abusively authoritarian child-rearing practices, which teach the child anger and fear, and train out compassion or respect. George Lakoff points out the ways in which Strict Father conservatives try to apply this same logic to government. Emmanuel Todd points out that a nation's family structures are almost always mirrored in its political structures, as well as its tendency towards imperial ambition. Several observers, including Kevin Phillips, point to the authoritarianism inherent in certain religions, and in the regions of the country they dominate; other historians have contrasted the relative levels of social hierarchy countries that were colonized by Catholic versus Protestant countries.
Felicia Pratto and Jim Sidanius, who developed social dominance theory and the SDO scale, might tell you that, for some of us, at least, such tendencies appear so early in life that it's hard to credit nurture alone. Milgrim and Zimbardo both found that while most subjects participated more or less eagerly in their experiments, there were a few who were so offended by the scenarios that they outright refused. Nurture plays a huge role; but humans under stress have gravitated toward strong-man dictatorships since the beginning of history; and we've never been too short of would-be high-SDO strong men eager to step up and oblige us.
Taken together, this chorus seems to paraphrase the Bard: some are born authoritarian, some achieve authoritarianism, and some have authoritarianism thrust upon them. Most of us fall somewhere along a wide continuum of willingness to follow authoritarian leadership. Our place on that scale is determined by the culture and religion we grew up in, how our parents treated us, our education and life experiences, and our inherited temperament. These things conspire to make a few of us desperate to follow, and a few others obstinate in their outright refusal of all authority. The vast majority of us fall somewhere in between, open to seduction only in certain circumstances.
We know something about those circumstances, too. We know, for example, that fear can transform the behavior of otherwise rational and not particularly authoritarian people. Fear creates physiological changes that impair the brain's ability to reason, and drives people to fall in behind whatever leader presents himself without asking too many questions. Like all herd animals, we are biologically driven to close ranks tightly behind the alpha in times of trouble. Resisting that impulse sometimes means fighting our own evolutionary imperatives. And, as we are now too well aware, unscrupulous leaders will not hesitate to create, manipulate, and perpetuate fear in order to activate that instinct and keep their followers at heel.
Thus, some people who've never been natural followers sometimes get caught up in authoritarian religion and politics in the wake of deep personal losses: unemployment, divorce, a death in the family, arrest, and so on. Entire populations (or, at least, a good fraction of the whole) can take the same path when faced with large collective losses. Kevin Phillips, in American Theocracy,, points out that the South's authoritarian streak (which always ran deep) grew rigid and hard after their loss in the Civil War. Karen Armstrong, in The Battle for God, points out that fundamentalist movements commonly begin in communities that perceive themselves under economic, political, or geographic siege. The way America came together under FDR after Pearl Harbor is the stuff of national legend. And the Bush Administration has exploited this tendency shamelessly in the wake of 9/11.
Cut loose from our moorings, in over our heads, we all look for something solid to hold onto. No matter how strong we are, we've all got areas where we are brittle and vulnerable. It's hard for any of us to say for sure that we'd walk away from an authoritarian leader who promised us precisely the right kind of salvation in precisely the wrong moment. This is something to bear in mind whenever we deal with authoritarian followers: they have simply responded to an impulse that exists -- at least to some degree -- in all of us.
Pushed To The Wall
For the past five years, I've been a member of a large and busy online community of former fundamentalists. Through years of discussion, we've learned a lot from each other about how and why people become fundamentalists -- and also how and why they find themselves inspired to leave authoritarian religion behind. We've noticed patterns in the various ways people are seduced into fundamentalism; and also a predictable progression in the steps they go through in the agonizing months and years after enlightenment dawns. We've also discovered that we seem to fall into readily-identifiable subgroups, and that each of these subgroups wanders down somewhat different paths and uses different techniques as they approach the wall, determinedly hoist themselves over it, and then set about coming to terms with life here on the reality-based side.
Two or three times a week, we find new members on our doorstep. Safe in the anonymity of the Internet (and often under cover of night -- these missives are typically time-stamped in the wee hours of the morning, usually posted furtively after weeks or months of lurking) we're often the first people they've ever whispered their doubts out loud to. Their introductions are often heartbreakingly miserable: "I can't believe this any more -- but my husband will leave me if he knows." "My whole family is fundie. I can't tell my parents I've stopped going to church -- it will kill them if they ever find out." "I'm a deacon at my church. If I start asking these questions, I'll lose my whole community."
These people know that the tiny flicker of enlightenment kindling in their minds is about to set their entire lives ablaze. And yet -- with a courage that I always find astonishing -- almost all of them forge ahead anyway. Some race for the wall. Others pace back and forth for months, planning their escape. A few disappear for a while, but return again a year later, having put their lives in order and ready to go at last.
We must never, ever underestimate what it costs these people to let go of the beliefs that have sustained them. Leaving the safety of the authoritarian belief system is a three-to-five year process. Externally, it always means the loss of your community; and often the loss of jobs, homes, marriages, and blood relatives as well. Internally, it requires sifting through every assumption you've ever made about how the world works, and your place within it; and demands that you finally take the very emotional and intellectual risks that the entire edifice was designed to protect you from. You have to learn, maybe for the first time, to face down fear and live with ambiguity. On the scale of relative trauma, it's right up there with a divorce after a long marriage; and it requires about the same amount and kind of grieving.
Over the years, I've talked to scores of former fundies about the moment that the light first sparked. Through their stories, I've discerned a few patterns, most of which map very neatly onto John Dean's list of traits for authoritarian followers. What follows is far from science; it's more akin to clinical experience, or a scouting report from the front on battlefield conditions. The degree to which any of this might apply to non-religious authoritarians is open for discussion -- though my reading of Altemeyer's work is that all forms of authoritarianism come from the same deep character traits, and so it seems sensible that politically-based authoritarian followers might undergo a recognizably similar process. It's a topic for discussion, anyway.
Depending on why they became fundie in the first place, the moment of exodus generally dawns in one of the following ways:
1. Betrayal by Authority
Dean notes that authoritarian followers voluntarily choose their leaders, usually on the basis of how strongly those leaders support the follower's belief system. Cultural or political leaders who don't support the belief system (for example, federal court judges, scientists, progressive celebrities) are seen as illegitimate authorities, and become targets of followers' aggression.
We've all come up against these people, and have been totally confounded with their "my leader can do no wrong" attitude. They believe outrageous lies, and forgive all manner of sins. Democratic strategists keep trying to run campaigns that will reach these people on the basis of evidence and fact -- and are perplexed to find their attempts at education totally rebuffed. George Bush may have lied us into a war, wrecked our economy, saddled our great-grandchildren with debt, savaged the poor, and alienated the entire world; but he is Our Leader, and we will always take his word over anyone else's. We do not accept you as a legitimate authority. We don't care what you have to say, because you have no standing at all in our little world.
Mere political or cultural betrayal, no matter how destructive, does not cut through this piece of the wall. The guilt-evaporation process applies to both followers and leaders: you must forgive all wrongs committed by someone inside the fold. Our leader didn't lie; he was misunderstood, his words distorted by our enemies. Besides, he would never lie to us. Besides, he is just following orders -- or God's will, which is beyond our understanding. Besides, our own forgiveness depends on our ability to forgive, and so we will -- never mind the contradictions.
And yet, even so: There is one -- and only one -- sin so heinous that it cannot be rationalized away by the authoritarian thought process. It is this: the leader's main job is to protect his abused and terrified horde from personal harm (or, for that matter, any sudden negative change to their immediate status quo). A leader who wantonly allows one of his followers to intimately experience such harm breaks that contract. It is in that moment of betrayal that some followers come to their senses, and start looking for a reckoning.
It's important to note: the betrayal must be an intensely personal breach that has a deep, immediate, life-changing impact on the individual follower. Fundies don't think in abstracts. Big national debts, epic political prevarications, and other people's suffering (even on a global scale) do not impress them. But there are plenty of authoritarian parents across the country who proudly sent a son or daughter off to war -- and later received that precious child home under cover of darkness, in a wooden box, with minimal explanation. That's the kind of personal and profound loss I'm talking about. For many of these patriotic parents, it was also the searing moment of deep betrayal that broke the spell and shoved them off in the direction of the Wall.
Among fundies, the most common perpetrators of these betrayals are parents -- particularly fathers -- and pastors. As the most intimate authorities in their followers' lives, they're at close enough range to inflict the kind of high-impact personal damage that's necessary to create the first crack. Many of the ex-fundies I know made their break in the aftermath of sexual abuse, ruinous financial treachery, public humiliation, or power grabs that threatened their marriages or children. They saw, in devastatingly vivid color, what their leaders were capable of. Their endless loyalty was shattered, because they realized it was not being returned in kind.
Such betrayals break through because they offend several of the follower characteristics Dean lists. The betrayed follower is no longer bound to submit to or give loyalty to an unworthy authority. Nor are they bound by the rules, because the authority charged with enforcing them has broken them. (While this was forgiveable in the abstract, in this case the consequences are too personal and acute to ignore.) They are brought face-to-face with the contradictions and hypocrisies in a shocking and unforgiveable way. Having felt the sting of the leader's aggression, they may realize the true cost of aggressively defending that leader -- and thus become more acutely sensitized to intolerance, bullying, and mean-spiritedness.
Perhaps most importantly: having their own boundaries so heinously violated makes them suddenly aware (as most authoritarian followers are not) that they have their own legitimate emotional, physical, and social needs; and that they deserve to have those needs respected and met. Once that self-awareness is awakened, the soon-to-be-ex fundie can be seen making a beeline for the Wall.
2. Permission from Authority
A cute twist on the above scenario is the fundie who gets subtle or overt permission from an established authority to go over to the Wall and push on it.
These authorities aren't easy to come by. Everything in authoritarian society is set up to identify heretics and preachers of false doctrine, and eject them forcefully from the community immediately upon discovery. Still, the occasional and quiet non-authoritarian can be found in positions of leadership within a fundamentalist community -- for example, young pastors from more liberal seminaries, Christian counselors with some secular psychological training, missionaries who have returned from exotic far-away places, or church-affiliated social services people whose sense of compassion has overwhelmed their fear of church leadership.
Because these people are operating under color of Established Authority, if they suggest that it's OK to ask questions, the followers will accept that as valid permission to open their minds. One recovering fundie recalls a fateful meeting with a Christian counselor: "He told me that fundamentalist Christianity was toxic," she said. Her exodus began with that brief comment. Later, she remembers finding still more affirmation: "I told my Christian college professor that I no longer believed that there was one way to spirituality, and was now pro-choice. He applauded me." Since she accepted both these men as valid religious authorities, their encouragement gave her the freedom to approach the Wall with a clearer conscience.
Such authorities are rare birds -- both because fundies don't breed many of them, and also because they quickly banish the ones they discover in their midst. But for the brief season they are allowed to operate, they can plant the seeds of open-mindedness in hundreds of willing followers, facilitate education, bypass zealotry and dogma, promote open examination of hypocrisy and contradiction, and enhance self-awareness.
3. Life Gets Bigger
Fundamentalist parents work overtime to keep their children from "the things of this world." Your average Yuppie helicopter parent is a slacker compared to these people, who obsessively vet all incoming media, homeschool, seek out Christian colleges, chaperone all "courtship" activities, and otherwise ensure that their children receive no information about the world that doesn't support their belief system.
This willful narrow-mindedness continues on into adulthood and right through life. Church members spy on each other with the enthusiasm of Stasi informants; deacons call miscreants in for disciplinary meetings to keep the faithful on the path of righteousness. One wonders if Jesus intended them to take the metaphor of shepherd and sheep quite so literally, but they do.
This anti-intellectualism appears on Dean's list in several guises: Moderate to little education, narrow-minded, intolerant, dogmatic, uncritical, inconsistent and contradictory, prone to panic. They are precisely what you'd expect from people who've had minimal exposure to the world, and hence lack the basic skills -- including flexibility, risk-taking, and spontaneity -- that most of us rely on to deal with it.
Still, the world is big and insistent, and sometimes it comes flooding through that wall of denial despite their best efforts. The most common culprit is education -- either formal, or informal -- that allows the follower to see with clarity that the outside world is not nearly so evil as they've been told. This education can take many forms -- some obvious, some not so obvious.
Many, if not most, fundie youth who end up at secular colleges soon find themselves enjoying the view from the top of the wall. This happens so reliably that most fundie parents regard secular universities as the worst nightmare this side of hell. They know they're not gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen State U.
Travel, especially outside the country, is another major eye-opener for people who have long believed that their way is the only way. We're not talking bus tours and chain hotels here -- it needs to be a style of travel that demands plenty of individual interaction with local people and their language, customs, and culture. Homestays, where the connections can become personal, are particularly potent -- which is why missionaries-gone-native feature largely on the list of permissive authorities discussed above.
Authoritarian upbringing is not designed to foster a sense of personal competence. But any kind of training that builds a creative skill -- especially one that will be valued by the secular world -- will tend to increase the follower's sense of self-worth. Even if s/he gives all the glory to God (an expected modesty among fundies), mastering one's craft imparts a sureness and independence of mind that reduces susceptibility to authoritarian logic. Knowing your stuff cold, even in one limited area, imparts confidence to call people on their bullshit in other areas.
Events that bring fundies together, one-to-one, with people from other groups in common cause can be very effective at lowering defenses. For one woman in our group, the door through the wall was an innocuous Christian women's sewing circle. She writes:
Political action plays a role here, too. On the rare occasions that authoritarians make common cause with more progressive folk -- usually on non-partisan local issues such as land use and utility management (but not schools!) -- there's an opportunity to find common ground and build a foundation of trust on it.
Placing authoritarian followers in relaxing, non-threatening situations where they can safely explore the common ground they share with others can be a liberalizing experience. Most fundies are taught to keep outsiders at a discreet arm's length. They generally won't accept invitations to visit non-believers in their homes, unless they're intending to proslytize. But meetings on neutral ground, based around shared concerns and values, can lead to individual friendships that will in time increase their general trust in outsiders -- and, more importantly, put the lie to their leaders' insistence that reality-based folk are pure evil.
For some in our group, the first glimmer was the stunning realization that "the Jews" included "my friend Rachel, who I met at the gym". "The gays" included "my kids' dance teacher". "The French" included "that darling family we met on the train last summer". And those "frivolous" women who have abortions included "my neighbor, who already had four kids and a husband with no job". Through repeated exposure, these followers' superb sense of loyalty attaches itself to someone outside the circle -- and, in very short order, their awareness of the smallness of that circle becomes too stifling to endure.
4. Resolution of Fear
Once in a while, our little cyber-halfway house takes in a befuddled spouse whose wife or husband -- heretofore a sane, decent, and resolutely secular individual -- has suddenly, without warning and for no apparent reason, pitched themselves headlong off the religious deep end. These partners are usually distraught: there's a familiar body in the house, but the person who once inhabited it has vanished. In their place is someone they have never met; can no longer have a rational conversation with; and can't imagine spending another week with, let alone their entire lives. (Too often, these terrified spouses are also afraid for their children -- and watching their retirement funds disappear into church coffers at an astonishing rate.) They're looking for advice -- anything that will bring back the beloved person they knew.
On further questioning, it almost always comes out that the wayward spouse has recently (usually within the past year) sustained a loss or trauma that simply overwhelmed every resource s/he had. Afraid, alone, and often clinically depressed, this poor soul was a sitting duck for the depredations of an authoritarian religious leader.
This is hardly news, of course: it's also why cult leaders prey on college students, travelers, the inner-city poor, single mothers, prisoners, and other people under stress and cut off from their support systems. What's important to note is that this also works (at least sometimes) in reverse: identifying and addressing the stress and restoring the support system can create the conditions for the broken self to heal, and eventually perhaps usher the return to the reality-based world.
We tell the grieving spouse to identify the initial source of the loss, and do whatever it takes to help their partner address it as directly and concretely as possible. We stress that this is a five-alarm family emergency (though they usually already know that, it helps to have it affirmed) and getting appropriate help for the underlying issue needs to be the first priority -- whether this involves professional counseling, medical treatment, or moving the spouse to another town, far away from the leader and church. We stress the importance of family and social support networks, and of taking steps to protect themselves legally in case the worst should happen.
We give this advice because we've seen it work among ourselves. Most of the adult-onset fundies in our group joined up because they were in a similar place of sheer overwhelm. Leaving was not even possible until this sense of panic and loss subsided, and the sense of personal competence (already higher in people who weren't raised in authoritarian homes) began to reassert itself. When it did, those people found that it got easier to question authority, and eventually to contemplate moving on.
And it's an ongoing battle, at least for a while. That three-to-five year transitional period is full of stress-inducing unknowns; unsurprisingly, recent ex-fundies are strongly tempted to deal with unfamiliar situations by reaching for the old familiar tools. In those cases, too, we need to look for the underlying causes of our distress, and find ways to address the fear directly rather than resort to the old superstitions. Anything that ratchets down the fear factor makes it harder for authoritarianism to get and keep its hold on people's minds.
5. Turning Points
Ironically, though, even though stress is a path into authoritarianism, it can also provide a path out. A number of our members decided to make their break during these same kinds of traumatic stress events -- especially major life transitions. The death of a parent, a move, a job loss, marriage, parenthood, mid-life crises, and widowhood have all come up as key exit points for people who left. Typically, these situations dramatically illuminated the ways in which the predictable authoritarian answers were no longer working for them. They needed more help than their leaders could offer, and decided it was time to look outside the wall for it. Or a natural breaking point occurred -- their old life was past, and they quietly resolved to reach out and see what a new one might hold. In major life transitions, everything is up for grabs -- even for authoritarian followers.
Next Steps
This report from the front is admittedly incomplete: I'm looking forward to hearing from readers about various other conditions that led them (or people they knew) towards daylight. We cannot create truly effective solutions to the problem of authoritarianism until we understand not only the situation that drive followers into that system, but also the situations that open the door for them to leave it.
In my next post, coming Monday or Tuesday, I'll build on the above observations (and any others that crop up in the comments) to draft a rough outline of specific approaches we might use to begin disarming and constructively engaging the authoritarians in our personal and political lives.
Thanks again to everybody who has posted such terrific comments. Keep 'em coming: this is a mutual-education effort, the beginning of a dialogue I hope we'll all keep having until we collectively get this figured out.
Who Follows? Everyone, Sometimes
After all these decades of research and inquiry, it can be said fairly that we're starting to get a decent handle on what makes people gravitate toward authoritarianism.
Alice Miller points to abusively authoritarian child-rearing practices, which teach the child anger and fear, and train out compassion or respect. George Lakoff points out the ways in which Strict Father conservatives try to apply this same logic to government. Emmanuel Todd points out that a nation's family structures are almost always mirrored in its political structures, as well as its tendency towards imperial ambition. Several observers, including Kevin Phillips, point to the authoritarianism inherent in certain religions, and in the regions of the country they dominate; other historians have contrasted the relative levels of social hierarchy countries that were colonized by Catholic versus Protestant countries.
Felicia Pratto and Jim Sidanius, who developed social dominance theory and the SDO scale, might tell you that, for some of us, at least, such tendencies appear so early in life that it's hard to credit nurture alone. Milgrim and Zimbardo both found that while most subjects participated more or less eagerly in their experiments, there were a few who were so offended by the scenarios that they outright refused. Nurture plays a huge role; but humans under stress have gravitated toward strong-man dictatorships since the beginning of history; and we've never been too short of would-be high-SDO strong men eager to step up and oblige us.
Taken together, this chorus seems to paraphrase the Bard: some are born authoritarian, some achieve authoritarianism, and some have authoritarianism thrust upon them. Most of us fall somewhere along a wide continuum of willingness to follow authoritarian leadership. Our place on that scale is determined by the culture and religion we grew up in, how our parents treated us, our education and life experiences, and our inherited temperament. These things conspire to make a few of us desperate to follow, and a few others obstinate in their outright refusal of all authority. The vast majority of us fall somewhere in between, open to seduction only in certain circumstances.
We know something about those circumstances, too. We know, for example, that fear can transform the behavior of otherwise rational and not particularly authoritarian people. Fear creates physiological changes that impair the brain's ability to reason, and drives people to fall in behind whatever leader presents himself without asking too many questions. Like all herd animals, we are biologically driven to close ranks tightly behind the alpha in times of trouble. Resisting that impulse sometimes means fighting our own evolutionary imperatives. And, as we are now too well aware, unscrupulous leaders will not hesitate to create, manipulate, and perpetuate fear in order to activate that instinct and keep their followers at heel.
Thus, some people who've never been natural followers sometimes get caught up in authoritarian religion and politics in the wake of deep personal losses: unemployment, divorce, a death in the family, arrest, and so on. Entire populations (or, at least, a good fraction of the whole) can take the same path when faced with large collective losses. Kevin Phillips, in American Theocracy,, points out that the South's authoritarian streak (which always ran deep) grew rigid and hard after their loss in the Civil War. Karen Armstrong, in The Battle for God, points out that fundamentalist movements commonly begin in communities that perceive themselves under economic, political, or geographic siege. The way America came together under FDR after Pearl Harbor is the stuff of national legend. And the Bush Administration has exploited this tendency shamelessly in the wake of 9/11.
Cut loose from our moorings, in over our heads, we all look for something solid to hold onto. No matter how strong we are, we've all got areas where we are brittle and vulnerable. It's hard for any of us to say for sure that we'd walk away from an authoritarian leader who promised us precisely the right kind of salvation in precisely the wrong moment. This is something to bear in mind whenever we deal with authoritarian followers: they have simply responded to an impulse that exists -- at least to some degree -- in all of us.
Pushed To The Wall
For the past five years, I've been a member of a large and busy online community of former fundamentalists. Through years of discussion, we've learned a lot from each other about how and why people become fundamentalists -- and also how and why they find themselves inspired to leave authoritarian religion behind. We've noticed patterns in the various ways people are seduced into fundamentalism; and also a predictable progression in the steps they go through in the agonizing months and years after enlightenment dawns. We've also discovered that we seem to fall into readily-identifiable subgroups, and that each of these subgroups wanders down somewhat different paths and uses different techniques as they approach the wall, determinedly hoist themselves over it, and then set about coming to terms with life here on the reality-based side.
Two or three times a week, we find new members on our doorstep. Safe in the anonymity of the Internet (and often under cover of night -- these missives are typically time-stamped in the wee hours of the morning, usually posted furtively after weeks or months of lurking) we're often the first people they've ever whispered their doubts out loud to. Their introductions are often heartbreakingly miserable: "I can't believe this any more -- but my husband will leave me if he knows." "My whole family is fundie. I can't tell my parents I've stopped going to church -- it will kill them if they ever find out." "I'm a deacon at my church. If I start asking these questions, I'll lose my whole community."
These people know that the tiny flicker of enlightenment kindling in their minds is about to set their entire lives ablaze. And yet -- with a courage that I always find astonishing -- almost all of them forge ahead anyway. Some race for the wall. Others pace back and forth for months, planning their escape. A few disappear for a while, but return again a year later, having put their lives in order and ready to go at last.
We must never, ever underestimate what it costs these people to let go of the beliefs that have sustained them. Leaving the safety of the authoritarian belief system is a three-to-five year process. Externally, it always means the loss of your community; and often the loss of jobs, homes, marriages, and blood relatives as well. Internally, it requires sifting through every assumption you've ever made about how the world works, and your place within it; and demands that you finally take the very emotional and intellectual risks that the entire edifice was designed to protect you from. You have to learn, maybe for the first time, to face down fear and live with ambiguity. On the scale of relative trauma, it's right up there with a divorce after a long marriage; and it requires about the same amount and kind of grieving.
Over the years, I've talked to scores of former fundies about the moment that the light first sparked. Through their stories, I've discerned a few patterns, most of which map very neatly onto John Dean's list of traits for authoritarian followers. What follows is far from science; it's more akin to clinical experience, or a scouting report from the front on battlefield conditions. The degree to which any of this might apply to non-religious authoritarians is open for discussion -- though my reading of Altemeyer's work is that all forms of authoritarianism come from the same deep character traits, and so it seems sensible that politically-based authoritarian followers might undergo a recognizably similar process. It's a topic for discussion, anyway.
Depending on why they became fundie in the first place, the moment of exodus generally dawns in one of the following ways:
1. Betrayal by Authority
Dean notes that authoritarian followers voluntarily choose their leaders, usually on the basis of how strongly those leaders support the follower's belief system. Cultural or political leaders who don't support the belief system (for example, federal court judges, scientists, progressive celebrities) are seen as illegitimate authorities, and become targets of followers' aggression.
We've all come up against these people, and have been totally confounded with their "my leader can do no wrong" attitude. They believe outrageous lies, and forgive all manner of sins. Democratic strategists keep trying to run campaigns that will reach these people on the basis of evidence and fact -- and are perplexed to find their attempts at education totally rebuffed. George Bush may have lied us into a war, wrecked our economy, saddled our great-grandchildren with debt, savaged the poor, and alienated the entire world; but he is Our Leader, and we will always take his word over anyone else's. We do not accept you as a legitimate authority. We don't care what you have to say, because you have no standing at all in our little world.
Mere political or cultural betrayal, no matter how destructive, does not cut through this piece of the wall. The guilt-evaporation process applies to both followers and leaders: you must forgive all wrongs committed by someone inside the fold. Our leader didn't lie; he was misunderstood, his words distorted by our enemies. Besides, he would never lie to us. Besides, he is just following orders -- or God's will, which is beyond our understanding. Besides, our own forgiveness depends on our ability to forgive, and so we will -- never mind the contradictions.
And yet, even so: There is one -- and only one -- sin so heinous that it cannot be rationalized away by the authoritarian thought process. It is this: the leader's main job is to protect his abused and terrified horde from personal harm (or, for that matter, any sudden negative change to their immediate status quo). A leader who wantonly allows one of his followers to intimately experience such harm breaks that contract. It is in that moment of betrayal that some followers come to their senses, and start looking for a reckoning.
It's important to note: the betrayal must be an intensely personal breach that has a deep, immediate, life-changing impact on the individual follower. Fundies don't think in abstracts. Big national debts, epic political prevarications, and other people's suffering (even on a global scale) do not impress them. But there are plenty of authoritarian parents across the country who proudly sent a son or daughter off to war -- and later received that precious child home under cover of darkness, in a wooden box, with minimal explanation. That's the kind of personal and profound loss I'm talking about. For many of these patriotic parents, it was also the searing moment of deep betrayal that broke the spell and shoved them off in the direction of the Wall.
Among fundies, the most common perpetrators of these betrayals are parents -- particularly fathers -- and pastors. As the most intimate authorities in their followers' lives, they're at close enough range to inflict the kind of high-impact personal damage that's necessary to create the first crack. Many of the ex-fundies I know made their break in the aftermath of sexual abuse, ruinous financial treachery, public humiliation, or power grabs that threatened their marriages or children. They saw, in devastatingly vivid color, what their leaders were capable of. Their endless loyalty was shattered, because they realized it was not being returned in kind.
Such betrayals break through because they offend several of the follower characteristics Dean lists. The betrayed follower is no longer bound to submit to or give loyalty to an unworthy authority. Nor are they bound by the rules, because the authority charged with enforcing them has broken them. (While this was forgiveable in the abstract, in this case the consequences are too personal and acute to ignore.) They are brought face-to-face with the contradictions and hypocrisies in a shocking and unforgiveable way. Having felt the sting of the leader's aggression, they may realize the true cost of aggressively defending that leader -- and thus become more acutely sensitized to intolerance, bullying, and mean-spiritedness.
Perhaps most importantly: having their own boundaries so heinously violated makes them suddenly aware (as most authoritarian followers are not) that they have their own legitimate emotional, physical, and social needs; and that they deserve to have those needs respected and met. Once that self-awareness is awakened, the soon-to-be-ex fundie can be seen making a beeline for the Wall.
2. Permission from Authority
A cute twist on the above scenario is the fundie who gets subtle or overt permission from an established authority to go over to the Wall and push on it.
These authorities aren't easy to come by. Everything in authoritarian society is set up to identify heretics and preachers of false doctrine, and eject them forcefully from the community immediately upon discovery. Still, the occasional and quiet non-authoritarian can be found in positions of leadership within a fundamentalist community -- for example, young pastors from more liberal seminaries, Christian counselors with some secular psychological training, missionaries who have returned from exotic far-away places, or church-affiliated social services people whose sense of compassion has overwhelmed their fear of church leadership.
Because these people are operating under color of Established Authority, if they suggest that it's OK to ask questions, the followers will accept that as valid permission to open their minds. One recovering fundie recalls a fateful meeting with a Christian counselor: "He told me that fundamentalist Christianity was toxic," she said. Her exodus began with that brief comment. Later, she remembers finding still more affirmation: "I told my Christian college professor that I no longer believed that there was one way to spirituality, and was now pro-choice. He applauded me." Since she accepted both these men as valid religious authorities, their encouragement gave her the freedom to approach the Wall with a clearer conscience.
Such authorities are rare birds -- both because fundies don't breed many of them, and also because they quickly banish the ones they discover in their midst. But for the brief season they are allowed to operate, they can plant the seeds of open-mindedness in hundreds of willing followers, facilitate education, bypass zealotry and dogma, promote open examination of hypocrisy and contradiction, and enhance self-awareness.
3. Life Gets Bigger
Fundamentalist parents work overtime to keep their children from "the things of this world." Your average Yuppie helicopter parent is a slacker compared to these people, who obsessively vet all incoming media, homeschool, seek out Christian colleges, chaperone all "courtship" activities, and otherwise ensure that their children receive no information about the world that doesn't support their belief system.
This willful narrow-mindedness continues on into adulthood and right through life. Church members spy on each other with the enthusiasm of Stasi informants; deacons call miscreants in for disciplinary meetings to keep the faithful on the path of righteousness. One wonders if Jesus intended them to take the metaphor of shepherd and sheep quite so literally, but they do.
This anti-intellectualism appears on Dean's list in several guises: Moderate to little education, narrow-minded, intolerant, dogmatic, uncritical, inconsistent and contradictory, prone to panic. They are precisely what you'd expect from people who've had minimal exposure to the world, and hence lack the basic skills -- including flexibility, risk-taking, and spontaneity -- that most of us rely on to deal with it.
Still, the world is big and insistent, and sometimes it comes flooding through that wall of denial despite their best efforts. The most common culprit is education -- either formal, or informal -- that allows the follower to see with clarity that the outside world is not nearly so evil as they've been told. This education can take many forms -- some obvious, some not so obvious.
Many, if not most, fundie youth who end up at secular colleges soon find themselves enjoying the view from the top of the wall. This happens so reliably that most fundie parents regard secular universities as the worst nightmare this side of hell. They know they're not gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen State U.
Travel, especially outside the country, is another major eye-opener for people who have long believed that their way is the only way. We're not talking bus tours and chain hotels here -- it needs to be a style of travel that demands plenty of individual interaction with local people and their language, customs, and culture. Homestays, where the connections can become personal, are particularly potent -- which is why missionaries-gone-native feature largely on the list of permissive authorities discussed above.
Authoritarian upbringing is not designed to foster a sense of personal competence. But any kind of training that builds a creative skill -- especially one that will be valued by the secular world -- will tend to increase the follower's sense of self-worth. Even if s/he gives all the glory to God (an expected modesty among fundies), mastering one's craft imparts a sureness and independence of mind that reduces susceptibility to authoritarian logic. Knowing your stuff cold, even in one limited area, imparts confidence to call people on their bullshit in other areas.
Events that bring fundies together, one-to-one, with people from other groups in common cause can be very effective at lowering defenses. For one woman in our group, the door through the wall was an innocuous Christian women's sewing circle. She writes:
"I got involved in a small community volunteer sewing group and was around some women from different churches…It started to open my eyes to the possibility that other people might have a good thing going too…Basically it was that they were loving, caring women just wanting to reach out and touch someone's life with their sewing ability, and they weren't some evil people on the dark side like my pastor tried to tell us in sermons about those outside our church and belief system.
"When my husband wanted me to stop going because someone had seen me going to this interfaith ministry center which they graciously let us use for the sewing meetings and the pastor thought it would look bad for me to be seen there, I realized how foolish that was. Weren't we just trying to help others regardless of our religious beliefs? I also had a good talk with the woman in charge of the group and she seemed understanding about my concerns and assured me that we weren't there to discuss religious topics so it shouldn't be a problem."
Political action plays a role here, too. On the rare occasions that authoritarians make common cause with more progressive folk -- usually on non-partisan local issues such as land use and utility management (but not schools!) -- there's an opportunity to find common ground and build a foundation of trust on it.
Placing authoritarian followers in relaxing, non-threatening situations where they can safely explore the common ground they share with others can be a liberalizing experience. Most fundies are taught to keep outsiders at a discreet arm's length. They generally won't accept invitations to visit non-believers in their homes, unless they're intending to proslytize. But meetings on neutral ground, based around shared concerns and values, can lead to individual friendships that will in time increase their general trust in outsiders -- and, more importantly, put the lie to their leaders' insistence that reality-based folk are pure evil.
For some in our group, the first glimmer was the stunning realization that "the Jews" included "my friend Rachel, who I met at the gym". "The gays" included "my kids' dance teacher". "The French" included "that darling family we met on the train last summer". And those "frivolous" women who have abortions included "my neighbor, who already had four kids and a husband with no job". Through repeated exposure, these followers' superb sense of loyalty attaches itself to someone outside the circle -- and, in very short order, their awareness of the smallness of that circle becomes too stifling to endure.
4. Resolution of Fear
Once in a while, our little cyber-halfway house takes in a befuddled spouse whose wife or husband -- heretofore a sane, decent, and resolutely secular individual -- has suddenly, without warning and for no apparent reason, pitched themselves headlong off the religious deep end. These partners are usually distraught: there's a familiar body in the house, but the person who once inhabited it has vanished. In their place is someone they have never met; can no longer have a rational conversation with; and can't imagine spending another week with, let alone their entire lives. (Too often, these terrified spouses are also afraid for their children -- and watching their retirement funds disappear into church coffers at an astonishing rate.) They're looking for advice -- anything that will bring back the beloved person they knew.
On further questioning, it almost always comes out that the wayward spouse has recently (usually within the past year) sustained a loss or trauma that simply overwhelmed every resource s/he had. Afraid, alone, and often clinically depressed, this poor soul was a sitting duck for the depredations of an authoritarian religious leader.
This is hardly news, of course: it's also why cult leaders prey on college students, travelers, the inner-city poor, single mothers, prisoners, and other people under stress and cut off from their support systems. What's important to note is that this also works (at least sometimes) in reverse: identifying and addressing the stress and restoring the support system can create the conditions for the broken self to heal, and eventually perhaps usher the return to the reality-based world.
We tell the grieving spouse to identify the initial source of the loss, and do whatever it takes to help their partner address it as directly and concretely as possible. We stress that this is a five-alarm family emergency (though they usually already know that, it helps to have it affirmed) and getting appropriate help for the underlying issue needs to be the first priority -- whether this involves professional counseling, medical treatment, or moving the spouse to another town, far away from the leader and church. We stress the importance of family and social support networks, and of taking steps to protect themselves legally in case the worst should happen.
We give this advice because we've seen it work among ourselves. Most of the adult-onset fundies in our group joined up because they were in a similar place of sheer overwhelm. Leaving was not even possible until this sense of panic and loss subsided, and the sense of personal competence (already higher in people who weren't raised in authoritarian homes) began to reassert itself. When it did, those people found that it got easier to question authority, and eventually to contemplate moving on.
And it's an ongoing battle, at least for a while. That three-to-five year transitional period is full of stress-inducing unknowns; unsurprisingly, recent ex-fundies are strongly tempted to deal with unfamiliar situations by reaching for the old familiar tools. In those cases, too, we need to look for the underlying causes of our distress, and find ways to address the fear directly rather than resort to the old superstitions. Anything that ratchets down the fear factor makes it harder for authoritarianism to get and keep its hold on people's minds.
5. Turning Points
Ironically, though, even though stress is a path into authoritarianism, it can also provide a path out. A number of our members decided to make their break during these same kinds of traumatic stress events -- especially major life transitions. The death of a parent, a move, a job loss, marriage, parenthood, mid-life crises, and widowhood have all come up as key exit points for people who left. Typically, these situations dramatically illuminated the ways in which the predictable authoritarian answers were no longer working for them. They needed more help than their leaders could offer, and decided it was time to look outside the wall for it. Or a natural breaking point occurred -- their old life was past, and they quietly resolved to reach out and see what a new one might hold. In major life transitions, everything is up for grabs -- even for authoritarian followers.
Next Steps
This report from the front is admittedly incomplete: I'm looking forward to hearing from readers about various other conditions that led them (or people they knew) towards daylight. We cannot create truly effective solutions to the problem of authoritarianism until we understand not only the situation that drive followers into that system, but also the situations that open the door for them to leave it.
In my next post, coming Monday or Tuesday, I'll build on the above observations (and any others that crop up in the comments) to draft a rough outline of specific approaches we might use to begin disarming and constructively engaging the authoritarians in our personal and political lives.
Thanks again to everybody who has posted such terrific comments. Keep 'em coming: this is a mutual-education effort, the beginning of a dialogue I hope we'll all keep having until we collectively get this figured out.
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