Rather, the fact that groups of researchers in psychology wanted to see whether there was such a thing as a dominance-, hierarchy-driven personality—and then stick a name on it—does not necessarily mean they were condemning it. Just taking note of it as a phenomenon.
Please be aware of how it all comes from the Frankfurter School, Freudo-Marxism. When someone like Adorno defines an Authoritarian Personality and actually does it to explain nazism around 1950, the amount of condemnation in it s rather huge and really obvious. Altmeyer may be different, but the “tradition”, the central point was already set and Altmeyer could only deviate with relative to that.
I mean, if you work from a biological angle, such as studying rhesus monkeys or an anthropological angle, a dominance and hierarchy driven personality is simply normal. It is also normal from the historical angle, such as describing the Roman pater familas or any random medieval lord. From all these angles, you would not put a special name on it, such as RWA or authoritarian personality, as they would be pretty normal. The angle from which it looks special, weird, unusual is precisely that one angle that also condemns it hard, namely modern, liberal, Western civilization. I think the huge connotations of condemnation really cannot be unnoticed here. Either you find it normal in which case it hardly has a name, or you condemn it.
It takes a step further towards NRx for right-wing authoritarians to remove the last vestiges of lip-service to liberally-slanted feel-good words in Western society of all persuasions (freedom, democracy, rights and so on), which most aren’t going to make. (At least not until Moldbug & co. have claimed a larger share of society as their political allies.)
I consider this fairly impossible. One thing is clear all over the political spectrum, freedom, democracy and rights and suchlike are at least preferable to modern, demotic, populist dictatorships of the Saddam type. Nobody ever came up with a serious recipe how to violate these principles in a way that it results in some kind of an nice premodern monarchy and not Saddam. From this angle, NRx is pretty much a doomed idea. It seems in the modern world you can only choose from modern systems, such as democracy or modern, demotic, populist tyranny. Anything seriously premodern would require changing the era, not the system, changing the whole culture and perhaps even technology. Within, strictly within modern alternatives, freedom, democracy and rights are preferable, thus they will continue to stay popular. And this is why any model about behavior that seems to be rather clearly opposed to it cannot help but be condemnative.
This is basically a challenge. It is probably possible to live closer to biological / anthropological norms i.e. being “dominance-positive” while still accepting the general outlines of freedom, equality and rights, but how this is possible needs to be worked out, currently it is not at all obvious.
Please be aware of how it all comes from the Frankfurter School, Freudo-Marxism. When someone like Adorno defines an Authoritarian Personality and actually does it to explain nazism around 1950, the amount of condemnation in it s rather huge and really obvious. Altmeyer may be different, but the “tradition”, the central point was already set and Altmeyer could only deviate with relative to that.
I mean, if you work from a biological angle, such as studying rhesus monkeys or an anthropological angle, a dominance and hierarchy driven personality is simply normal. It is also normal from the historical angle, such as describing the Roman pater familas or any random medieval lord. From all these angles, you would not put a special name on it, such as RWA or authoritarian personality, as they would be pretty normal. The angle from which it looks special, weird, unusual is precisely that one angle that also condemns it hard, namely modern, liberal, Western civilization. I think the huge connotations of condemnation really cannot be unnoticed here. Either you find it normal in which case it hardly has a name, or you condemn it.
I consider this fairly impossible. One thing is clear all over the political spectrum, freedom, democracy and rights and suchlike are at least preferable to modern, demotic, populist dictatorships of the Saddam type. Nobody ever came up with a serious recipe how to violate these principles in a way that it results in some kind of an nice premodern monarchy and not Saddam. From this angle, NRx is pretty much a doomed idea. It seems in the modern world you can only choose from modern systems, such as democracy or modern, demotic, populist tyranny. Anything seriously premodern would require changing the era, not the system, changing the whole culture and perhaps even technology. Within, strictly within modern alternatives, freedom, democracy and rights are preferable, thus they will continue to stay popular. And this is why any model about behavior that seems to be rather clearly opposed to it cannot help but be condemnative.
This is basically a challenge. It is probably possible to live closer to biological / anthropological norms i.e. being “dominance-positive” while still accepting the general outlines of freedom, equality and rights, but how this is possible needs to be worked out, currently it is not at all obvious.