So why have I spoken of all this so far? A
large part of it is the media machines that are currently out there and that high-RWAs embrace and the fuel they use...fear. Politicians, news, and social media prey on the authoritarian follower's mindset by building on fear/hate of what is different or threats to their social order. It
creates echo chambers so that they are in a continuous
state of fight or flight, but mostly fight. It is emboldening these authoritarian
leaders to say they have a plan and like-minded people had better listen
and obey them because (fill in the blank) is a scourge to those same like-minded people. Those authoritarian leaders demand someone does something about it because this scourge is evil and sub-human.
During World War two, the
Reserve Police battalion 101 was formed from German people from Hamburg and under control of the SS. Already indoctrinated to obey "rightful authority" of the Nazi party, their first activities were to guard Polish peoples and expel Polish people from their homes for "resettlement actions" around Poznan and Lodz. This was done to make room for German colonists. This escalated to small mass killings, then more mass killings, then large killings like 33,000 Jewish persons at Babi Yar, Ukraine, over two days. Also horrible were the mass killings of persons were at three concentration camps by a group of less than 500 men of this unit over one day to the total of 43,000 people. At the start of these mass killings, there were persons of various ranks who refused to shoot unarmed civilians, and they were removed from the firing lines but enough were left to continue to slaughter. There is a strong need amongst people to belong to a group, to not make waves, that powerfully affect all people to do awful things. This is particularly true of authoritarian leaders, the initial rush of authoritarian followers, and the meek who go with the mob.
In July of 1961, the
Milgram experiment was conducted. It involved men aged 20 to 50 of various education and employment backgrounds for the role of teacher and learner. They were told that the teacher was to ask questions to a another study participant, the learner, and if the learner answered wrong, for the teacher to give them an electric shock. Subsequent wrong answers would be responded to by a larger electric shock, from 15 to 450 volts. The participants were also told of the danger zone of voltage for people. Payment would occur for their participation regardless of the outcome of the experiment. The role of teacher and learner was to be determined randomly. The only other person in the evaluating room was a man in a lab coat known as the evaluator. Once the experiment began and the questions answered wrong, the learner would yell in pain louder and louder as the electric charge was given. Towards the upper levels the learner would ask for the shocks to stop. If the teacher refused to administer the shock, the experimenter would declare "Please continue" or "Please go on". Further refusal would have escalating responses of "The experiment requires that you continue", "It is absolutely essential that you continue", and "You have no other choice. You must go on". If the teacher pressed the button to activate 450 volts three times or they refused after the fourth prompt, the experiment would stop. The interesting thing about the experiment was that the learner was not a volunteer but part of the experimenting group, both papers to pick who was the teacher or learner had teacher on both of them, and the device to shock didn't produce voltage. Disappointingly all teachers gave 300 volt "shocks" or more and 63% went up to 450 volts. before the experiment, and in subsequent experiments, only zero to 3 percent of subjects thought that they would inflict maximum voltage. All participants in the original study stopped at least once during the experiment and would have to be prodded by the experimenter. This shows the power of an authority figure, high RWA or not.
So what can we simple humans do against things and people like I have discussed. Well, in the short term we can:
-Reduce fear because fear induces hate and therefore aggression;
-Reduce self-righteousness and promote
costly grace over cheap grace. This encourages continual following of your religion's scripture rather than being one and done after you first step into your religious worship location's door or because, for example, your authoritarian charismatic religious leader tells you that for 10% or more of your paycheck, you will be saved. Being good takes continual effort to make it a habit and should be applied by everyone, religious or not;
-Reduce ethnocentrism by promoting the fact that we are all human beings first, then members of the overall religious framework that is followed, then of the sub-section, then of the sub-denomination, etc. This reduces the us and them mentality;
-Teach people not to trust authorities automatically but be skeptical. Not all authorities are bad but just knowing that they sometimes can limits blind trust;
-Have people read the links at the end but realize that high-RWAs will think it is about people who are not them; and
-Show authoritarian followers that they are being played for fools, which will likely not work because they have invested so much already.
Some long term solutions are tough as there is no special one shot cure. Try thinking about these though:
-Play on the desire for all beings to be normal, even high-RWAs. They do not want to be extreme but they have made their extreme their normal. Since we are all open to like minded people, find common ground and start on that. This will lead into them wanting to belong when they find out that others, whom are not like them, want many of the same things;
-Exposure to visible minorities, because the world is diverse and authoritarians promote fear of the "other". By making the "other" another human being it reduces that fear and encourages doubt in the fear mongering authoritarian;
-Higher education reduces a high RWA score by 15-20%, so it is no surprise that many authoritarians want to cripple or destroy the public school systems;
-Make laws to protect everyone and make it enforceable. The majority of high RWAs will follow laws they do not like;
-Oppose what is not right for everyone. Defiant role models inspire defiant followers and lack of opposition inspires bullies to grab for more power as long as they feel threatened. generally people will not acknowledge something is wrong because they think everyone knows it is wrong. It starts with one voice, one heart, one song;
-Engage in non-violent protest because if it is a violent one, high RWAs will see it as breaking the law and insulate themselves from the goal of the protest. Just look at the skewed angles far-right news organizations and talking heads used when speaking about Black Lives Matter protests, as they focus on the extremely small amount of violent incidents to paint the whole movement;
-Vote. In all levels of government, vote. Do research on the candidates and issues. Talk about them with others. The more people vote, the more accurate and reflective of the populace our representatives are. High RWAs are energized to vote out of fear and in recent years are more represented in government because most others do not feel their vote counts. It does when most of the population votes;
-When child rearing use authoritative not authoritarian methods; and
-Increase civic and debate classes in high schools. We need to better understand the history of laws and what our current laws are now. We also need the ability to converse about topics responsibly and rationally, not emotionally.
Wrapping up, there is a fear I have that democratic institutions are descending into authoritative rule with a thin façade that it is by the will of the people. It is not as it is increasing being made up of fearful and hateful high-RWAs who are being force fed more fear and hate by their leaders. With effort, we can make our institutions reflect the populace it serves and not that of select zealots.
