In Chris Mooney’s book “The Republican Brain” he makes a good case based on recent studies for why we should think of the totalitarianism of the former USSR as a right wing phenomenon. [...] Conservative personalities then acclimate themselves to the resulting bureaucracy and seek to freeze it in place. Then, being authoritarians, they accumulate power and use it as authoritarians always do.
It’d be hard for me to overstate my skepticism for the genre of popular political science books charging that their authors’ enemies are innately evil. I haven’t read Mooney’s book, though I have read quite a few articles with a similar thesis; if you’re presenting his analysis accurately, though, it seems pretty tortured.
Mao was central to his revolution from its inception, and if you’ve read anything of his it’s obvious that he was a true believer. The democides he’s been charged with may have worked as consolidations of power, but they certainly weren’t attempts to minimize social or political change; indeed, most of the deaths during the Great Leap Forward can be laid at the feet of novel but poorly implemented agricultural organization. (This may also be true for the Holodomor and other instances of mass famine in the Soviet Union.) Stalin’s a more ambiguous case; many of his worst excesses do seem to have served a personal power grab, and he was a relatively minor figure within Lenin’s initial party organization, but if anything he seems too ambitious to be branded a Marxist conservative. His purges don’t fit well with a desire to safeguard the Leninist bureaucracy; on the contrary, they pretty much destroyed it. He was of course an authoritarian in the sense of seeking to maximize personal and state power, but the “Marxist conservative” label seems to fit Khrushchev and others of his generation much better.
In any case, if we’re using “liberal” and “conservative” strictly to gauge desire for social change, then by the same token we have to decouple it from authoritarianism or adherence to positions generally thought of as right-wing. Indeed, in this narrow sense Hitler, Mussolini, and others (though perhaps not Franco) might be considered liberals: fascist (in the grandparent’s sense) ideology is quite big on cultural traditionalism, but even more central is its concept of social transformation based on extreme nationalism, shared political goals, and economic corporatism. The nostalgia in its rhetoric has to be understood in that context (and, in Hitler’s case, in the context of a sense of national humiliation following WWI).
“It’d be hard for me to overstate my skepticism for the genre of popular political science books charging that their authors’ enemies are innately evil. I haven’t read Mooney’s book”
It is obvious you have not read it because he makes no such claim nor have I. In fact he ends the book with a new found respect for conservatives. Loyalty, personal responsibility, being willing to set aside one’s own desires for the good of the group are all admirable qualities. I myself do not despise conservatives in themselves. I do despise the hucksters and grifters who promote pseudoscience and conspiracy theories in order to enrich themselves. Those people find a significant percentage of the population are easily manipulated by preying on their fears and prejudices. That percentage is over represented by conservative personality types and people with that kind of temperament tend to find political conservatism more to their liking. I have met Democrats with conservative personalities but not many. Civil Rights legislation in the 60′s was passed primarily by Republicans with liberal personalities. The reactionary types were in the Democratic Party
Conservatives are not innately evil. No one is. All people are susceptible to certain cognitive biases. Some people more than others. Some other people have found they can manipulate them to their advantage. It is easy to do, you trigger the fear response, as a result one’s rational centers literally shut down and areas of the brain associated with survival are activated.
“if we’re using “liberal” and “conservative” strictly to gauge desire for social change”
No, that’s not how it is used. Conservative means “resistant to change” and Liberal means “novelty seeking”. Political conservatives need not all be authoritarians but virtually all authoritarians would self select for conservative political organizations.
“Indeed, in this narrow sense Hitler, Mussolini, and others (though perhaps not Franco) might be considered liberals”
That’s absurd. Liberalism is not defined as a desire for social change. The authoritarian or conservative mindset would also seek social change because they wish to return to what they perceive as a traditional model for society.
Conservative means “resistant to change” and Liberal means “novelty seeking”.
That may be one notion of what those words mean, but they aren’t what people mean when they discuss their political ramifications. For example, how do attitudes towards abortion and free markets fall into this setting?
Political alignments are to a large effect due to historical consequences, not due to any simple coherent philosophical positions.
No, that’s not how it is used. Conservative means “resistant to change” and Liberal means “novelty seeking”. Political conservatives need not all be authoritarians but virtually all authoritarians would self select for conservative political organizations.
Once they have power, yes. In order to seize power, they need to appeal to “novelty seeking” liberals in order to destroy the existing order, especially all those annoying checks and balances designed to keep any one person from acquiring power.
It’d be hard for me to overstate my skepticism for the genre of popular political science books charging that their authors’ enemies are innately evil. I haven’t read Mooney’s book, though I have read quite a few articles with a similar thesis; if you’re presenting his analysis accurately, though, it seems pretty tortured.
Mao was central to his revolution from its inception, and if you’ve read anything of his it’s obvious that he was a true believer. The democides he’s been charged with may have worked as consolidations of power, but they certainly weren’t attempts to minimize social or political change; indeed, most of the deaths during the Great Leap Forward can be laid at the feet of novel but poorly implemented agricultural organization. (This may also be true for the Holodomor and other instances of mass famine in the Soviet Union.) Stalin’s a more ambiguous case; many of his worst excesses do seem to have served a personal power grab, and he was a relatively minor figure within Lenin’s initial party organization, but if anything he seems too ambitious to be branded a Marxist conservative. His purges don’t fit well with a desire to safeguard the Leninist bureaucracy; on the contrary, they pretty much destroyed it. He was of course an authoritarian in the sense of seeking to maximize personal and state power, but the “Marxist conservative” label seems to fit Khrushchev and others of his generation much better.
In any case, if we’re using “liberal” and “conservative” strictly to gauge desire for social change, then by the same token we have to decouple it from authoritarianism or adherence to positions generally thought of as right-wing. Indeed, in this narrow sense Hitler, Mussolini, and others (though perhaps not Franco) might be considered liberals: fascist (in the grandparent’s sense) ideology is quite big on cultural traditionalism, but even more central is its concept of social transformation based on extreme nationalism, shared political goals, and economic corporatism. The nostalgia in its rhetoric has to be understood in that context (and, in Hitler’s case, in the context of a sense of national humiliation following WWI).
“It’d be hard for me to overstate my skepticism for the genre of popular political science books charging that their authors’ enemies are innately evil. I haven’t read Mooney’s book”
It is obvious you have not read it because he makes no such claim nor have I. In fact he ends the book with a new found respect for conservatives. Loyalty, personal responsibility, being willing to set aside one’s own desires for the good of the group are all admirable qualities. I myself do not despise conservatives in themselves. I do despise the hucksters and grifters who promote pseudoscience and conspiracy theories in order to enrich themselves. Those people find a significant percentage of the population are easily manipulated by preying on their fears and prejudices. That percentage is over represented by conservative personality types and people with that kind of temperament tend to find political conservatism more to their liking. I have met Democrats with conservative personalities but not many. Civil Rights legislation in the 60′s was passed primarily by Republicans with liberal personalities. The reactionary types were in the Democratic Party
Conservatives are not innately evil. No one is. All people are susceptible to certain cognitive biases. Some people more than others. Some other people have found they can manipulate them to their advantage. It is easy to do, you trigger the fear response, as a result one’s rational centers literally shut down and areas of the brain associated with survival are activated.
“if we’re using “liberal” and “conservative” strictly to gauge desire for social change”
No, that’s not how it is used. Conservative means “resistant to change” and Liberal means “novelty seeking”. Political conservatives need not all be authoritarians but virtually all authoritarians would self select for conservative political organizations.
“Indeed, in this narrow sense Hitler, Mussolini, and others (though perhaps not Franco) might be considered liberals”
That’s absurd. Liberalism is not defined as a desire for social change. The authoritarian or conservative mindset would also seek social change because they wish to return to what they perceive as a traditional model for society.
That may be one notion of what those words mean, but they aren’t what people mean when they discuss their political ramifications. For example, how do attitudes towards abortion and free markets fall into this setting?
Political alignments are to a large effect due to historical consequences, not due to any simple coherent philosophical positions.
Once they have power, yes. In order to seize power, they need to appeal to “novelty seeking” liberals in order to destroy the existing order, especially all those annoying checks and balances designed to keep any one person from acquiring power.