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A review by davehershey
The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer
3.0
Authoritarian followers are people who submits, bows to and leaps to follow authoritarian leaders. The first few chapters of this book focus on painting a picture of who these followers are. Among other things they are very religious, prejudiced, and often hold completely contradictory views on things at the same time. All it takes is a dominant, authoritarian leader, to whip them into shape. Often, perhaps surprisingly (perhaps not), the leader pretends to have the same values as the followers (for example, pretends to be religious) to gain their support.
This book is extremely thought provoking, if for no other reason than it was usually evangelical/fundamentalist Christians (which I do not think the author does a good enough job differentiating between) who fit the profile of authoritarian followers. There were many times when he would give descriptions, based on studies and surveys, of these people and my first reaction was that such descriptions were in no way like Jesus. For example, Jesus teaches to love our enemies (which authoritarian followers will say is true), but they are very quick to hate, persecute, and remove the freedoms of those different from them.
So as a Christian I found this book very interesting because I can see many people like this. At the same time, and I credit the author for emphasizing this near the end of the book, we all have authoritarian tendencies. It would be easy to simply say the problem is someone else. Yet I do not think the author took it far enough. He wrote this book during the Bush years and consistently shows how the Bush government and its supporters fit the authoritarian mold. But now with Obama and his supporters in power, I wonder if they do not fit it too? Just as Bush's most vociferous supporters continued to defend him even when the evidence showed he was wrong or lying (think the lack of WMD in Iraq), when the time comes that Obama has clearly lied or failed, will his supporters continue to support him in the face of evidence?
Also, on some level, all of us have to trust authorities for many things. If I believe his findings in this book, I am believing an authority (the author is a psychology prof after all), and not really thinking for myself. That rings true for many of the issues. For example, how many people believe evolution or reject it because of authorities in their lives? How many have actually studied the scientific evidence? No one can study everything.
Overall this was an extremely thought-provoking book. It is a relatively fast-paced read, though there were some portions where the author was not as clear as he could have been. And it can be found free online, so I encourage anyone to check it out. After reading it you definitely have a new understanding of leaders and followers, of politics, of "us vs. them" mentality. Being aware of these things helps us to avoid getting caught up in the mentality of the mob.
This book is extremely thought provoking, if for no other reason than it was usually evangelical/fundamentalist Christians (which I do not think the author does a good enough job differentiating between) who fit the profile of authoritarian followers. There were many times when he would give descriptions, based on studies and surveys, of these people and my first reaction was that such descriptions were in no way like Jesus. For example, Jesus teaches to love our enemies (which authoritarian followers will say is true), but they are very quick to hate, persecute, and remove the freedoms of those different from them.
So as a Christian I found this book very interesting because I can see many people like this. At the same time, and I credit the author for emphasizing this near the end of the book, we all have authoritarian tendencies. It would be easy to simply say the problem is someone else. Yet I do not think the author took it far enough. He wrote this book during the Bush years and consistently shows how the Bush government and its supporters fit the authoritarian mold. But now with Obama and his supporters in power, I wonder if they do not fit it too? Just as Bush's most vociferous supporters continued to defend him even when the evidence showed he was wrong or lying (think the lack of WMD in Iraq), when the time comes that Obama has clearly lied or failed, will his supporters continue to support him in the face of evidence?
Also, on some level, all of us have to trust authorities for many things. If I believe his findings in this book, I am believing an authority (the author is a psychology prof after all), and not really thinking for myself. That rings true for many of the issues. For example, how many people believe evolution or reject it because of authorities in their lives? How many have actually studied the scientific evidence? No one can study everything.
Overall this was an extremely thought-provoking book. It is a relatively fast-paced read, though there were some portions where the author was not as clear as he could have been. And it can be found free online, so I encourage anyone to check it out. After reading it you definitely have a new understanding of leaders and followers, of politics, of "us vs. them" mentality. Being aware of these things helps us to avoid getting caught up in the mentality of the mob.