Conservatives Without Conscience

by John W. Dean

  When I hear Rush Limbaugh, Jesse Helms, or Pat Buchanan say that liberals favor guaranteeing equal rights for homosexuals, I say to myself, “Actually, Low RWAs do, and it connects to much else in their thinking.” And when I hear Gary Trudeau, Edward Kennedy, and Barbara Jordan say that the conservatives oppose abortion and favor the death penalty, I say to myself, “Actually, if you understand that it’s High RWAs who do these things, you’ll realize why and a lot, lot more.” When people are “conservatives”—politically, religiously, economically—the odds are pretty good that they are High RWAs. That is not an opinion, but a scientifically established fact.[18]

  A recent study employing the RWA scale, conducted by another researcher, showed it to be quite prescient in predicting voting patterns for Republican candidates in the 1996 and 2000 elections.[19] While the right-wing authoritarian scale does not measure either conservatism or Republican party identification, this recent research again confirms Altemeyer’s findings that those who score high on the scale are, more than likely, both.

  Early in our exchanges on authoritarians Altemeyer related, “The biggest thing that has happened recently has been the discovery that there are two, not one, authoritarian personalities.” He explained that the Berkeley group’s research, like that of other social scientists and his own, focused on “authoritarian followers, persons who submit too fast, too long to established authorities.” (Emphasis added.) These people are RWAs. More recently social psychologists have “developed a measure to identify authoritarian leaders, persons who want to be submitted to.” (Emphasis added.) These individuals, because of their social dominance orientation (SDO), are take-charge types. Not unaware of my background at the Nixon White House—since Watergate was one of several events he had examined that demonstrated “that many citizens in a democracy will support high-handed, repressive, and anti-democratic policies” that obviously were not envisioned by the nation’s founders—Altemeyer suggested that I was no doubt personally familiar with these types of personalities. After learning more about them, I found he was correct, and, in addition, I have discovered them in my recent studies of the Bush White House and Washington political culture. And all of them are hard-right conservatives.

  Working my way through Altemeyer’s books and journal articles, along with the writings of others in the field, I began to understand the particular categories within the authoritarian personality classifications. First there are the followers, the right-wing authoritarians. Then there are the leaders, the social dominators. And finally, there are those who uniquely combine the worst personality traits of both types and appear to be best positioned to become leaders of right-wing movements and undertakings, a group Altemeyer describes as “scary.” While many conservatives seem willing to set aside their consciences, it is not clear this last group possesses a conscience. But let us move forward one step at a time, first examining the nature of each of these authoritarian personalities.

  Right-Wing Authoritarians: The Followers

  Altemeyer characterizes right-wing authoritarians as “especially submissive to established authority”; as showing “general aggressiveness” toward others when such behavior “is perceived to be sanctioned” by established authorities; and as highly compliant with “social conventions” endorsed by society and established authorities. All these attitudes must be present in significant if varying degrees if an individual is to fall within Altemeyer’s well-honed definition. Both men and women may score high on the RWA scale. These three elements of the right-wing authoritarian personality, while not elusive, still call for a little further explanation.

  SUBMISSIVE TO AUTHORITY

  By “submissive,” Altemeyer means these people accept almost without question the statements and actions of established authorities, and they comply with such instructions without further ado. “Authorities” include parents (throughout childhood), religious officials, government officials (police, judges, legislators, heads of government), military superiors, and, depending on the situation, other people like “bus drivers, lifeguards, employers, psychology experimenters and countless others.” High-scoring right-wing authoritarians are intolerant of criticism of their authorities, because they believe the authority is unassailably correct. Rather than feeling vulnerable in the presence of powerful authorities, they feel safer. For example, they are not troubled by government surveillance of citizens because they think only wrongdoers need to be concerned by such intrusions. Still, their submission to authority is not blind or automatic; these authoritarians believe there are proper and improper authorities (good judges and bad judges, good presidents and bad presidents), and their decision to submit is shaped by whether a particular authority is compatible with their views.

  AGGRESSIVE SUPPORT OF AUTHORITY

  Authoritarian aggression, according to Altemeyer, is “a predisposition to cause harm to” others when such behavior is believed to be sanctioned by an authority. This harm can be physical, psychological, financial, and social, or “some other negative state which people would usually avoid.” When the public tolerates right-wing authoritarian aggression, it too may be considered aggressive in its tacit approval of such conduct. An aggressive predisposition does not always result in aggressive action, however, since fear of retaliation or even social pressure may prevent it. Authoritarians are inclined to control the behavior of others, particularly children and criminals, through punishment. They have little tolerance for leniency by courts in “coddling” criminals. Targets of right-wing authoritarian aggression are typically people perceived as being unconventional, like homosexuals. Research finds that authoritarian aggression is fueled by fear and encouraged by remarkable self-righteousness, which frees aggressive impulses.

  CONVENTIONALITY

  Right-wing authoritarians accept and follow the traditional norms of society. In religious matters they tend to be fundamentalist. Because authorities have already determined what is right and wrong, they reject moral relativism. Religion influences their attitudes toward sex—other than for reproduction it is considered sinful, if not perverse. They embrace the ideal of the traditional family, with the woman serving as child rearer and subservient wife. They are “straight and narrow” in their dress and behavior, and believe themselves the country’s true patriots.

  Altemeyer’s data provides additional information about the dispositions of right-wing authoritarians. Here are a few examples that provide further perspective. These have not been deliberately isolated as negative characteristics; rather, they are traits that authoritarians believe to be positive.

  They travel in tight circles of like-minded people.

  Their thinking is more likely based on what authorities have told them rather than on their own critical judgment, which results in their beliefs being filled with inconsistencies.

  They harbor numerous double standards and hypocrisies.

  They are hostile toward so many minorities they seem to be equal-opportunity bigots, yet they are generally unaware of their prejudices.

  They see the world as a dangerous place, with society teetering on the brink of self-destruction from evil and violence, and when their fear conflates with their self-righteousness, they appoint themselves guardians of public morality, or God’s Designated Hitters.

  They think of themselves as far more moral and upstanding than others—a self-deception aided by their religiosity (many are “born again”) and their ability to “evaporate guilt” (such as by going to confession).

  It is authoritarian followers who filled churches across the United States on “Justice Sunday” to lobby for right-wing judges in federal courts; who can be seen on C-Span seated at dinner tables, after paying ten times the cost of their meals, to listen to Bill Frist or Karl Rove give a speech at the Federalist Society; who are the well-scrubbed young people who join college Republican clubs, whose parents or grandparents are delegates at GOP presidential conventions. By and large these Americans have never been troubled by the execution of a
prisoner, and there has never been a war in which the United States engaged that they did not support. If they work inside the Beltway, you can recognize them by the American flag pins on their suit lapels or dresses, and you can be relatively certain they are carrying a copy of the U.S. Constitution in their pocket or pocketbook. According to Bob Altemeyer,

  Authoritarian followers, in all probability, trusted President Bush’s justifications for invading Iraq—when all those who had been in Iraq searching for weapons of mass destruction said there was no evidence they existed. The High RWAs were likely the Americans who told pollsters they believed such weapons had been found after the invasion, when none had been found. They were probably the ones who accepted without pause the administration’s revised claim that the war had been necessary to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Because of their high levels of dogmatism, most of them will probably never realize that this war was unjustified, an enormous error with horrendous costs. They will find someone else to blame for the war’s costs other than themselves and the leaders they follow. Many of them would attack France, Massachusetts, or the moon if the president said it was necessary “for freedom.” And authoritarian followers formed the rock core of the millions who marched to the polls in November 2004, often at the instruction of their church, and reelected George Bush.

  Social Dominance Orientation and “Double Highs”: The Leaders

  While the term “social dominance orientation” (SDO) may sound like academic jargon, it is highly descriptive of the personalities of many who run social and political situations and organizations—the leaders who insist on running the show. The word “social,” of course, refers to the general organization of society; “dominance” relates to control or command over other people; and “orientation,” as used here, means their inclination or disposition. These are people who seize every opportunity to lead, and who enjoy having power over others.

  Altemeyer explained that his “RWA scale has never been a good measure of authoritarian dominance; it was constructed more to capture the psychology of the submissive crowd.”[20] It was Felicia Pratto of the University of Connecticut and Jim Sidanius of the University of California, Los Angeles, who developed social dominance theory, and a social dominance orientation scale. Building on their work, Altemeyer cross tested for other traits as well, research that revealed the so-called Double Highs, those few who score high on both the RWA and SDO scales. First, a look at the social dominators.

  For a half century, the study of authoritarian personalities focused primarily on followers, on understanding how such large numbers of people were taken in by Hitler and Mussolini. It was only a decade ago, and largely by accident that social dominance orientation theory was discovered to be such a powerful tool to study authoritarian leaders. According to the Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, the SDO scale measures not only dominance but economic conservatism and another hallmark of the ideology, belief in inequality.[21] The social dominance scale focuses on questions relating to equality. For example, it seeks agreement or disagreement with statements like the following: “Some people are just more worthy than others”; “this country would be better off if we cared less about how equal all people were”; “to get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on others”; and “all humans should be treated equally.” The SDO scale even asked to what extent people being tested agreed or disagreed with the very concept of equality. Social dominance orientation suggests an underlying personality that is “characterized by…traits of being hard, tough, ruthless, and unfeeling toward others, as opposed to compassionate, generous, caring, and altruistic.” (For a complete sample of the SDO survey see Appendix C.)

  A person with a social dominator/leader personality has a worldview that is related to but different from that of a right-wing authoritarian/follower. Authoritarian leaders see the world as a competitive jungle in which the fittest survive; authoritarian followers see the world as dangerous and threatening.[22] Men are more typically social dominator types. Testing shows that social dominators believe equality is “a sucker word in which only fools believe.” Dominators see themselves as realists, maintaining that “complete equality is probably impossible; that natural forces inevitably govern the worth of individuals; and that people should have to earn their place in society.”[23] Employing other tests on social dominators, Altemeyer found that

  [h]igh SDOs tend to agree with statements such as, “Do you enjoy having the power to hurt people when they anger or disappoint you?” “If you have power in a situation, you should use it however you have to, to get your way,” and “I will do my best to destroy anyone who deliberately blocks my plans and goals”; while disagreeing with “It is much better to be loved than feared,” and “Would it bother you if other people thought you were mean and pitiless?”

  Equality, Altemeyer explained, “is antithetical to dominance, and social dominators want to dominate.”[24] In an e-mail, he added that one of the more telling findings regarding social dominators is their responses to his equality scale, which reveal that their typical arguments against greater equality are a cover for much baser, selfish motivations.

  Dominators are prepared to “proceed with relatively little moral restraint,” for they agree with statements like “There really is no such thing as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’; it all boils down to what you can get away with,” and “basically, people are objects to be quietly and coolly manipulated for your own benefit.” They disagree with statements like “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and never do anything unfair to someone else,” and “Since so many members of minority groups end up in our jails, we should take strong steps to make sure prejudice plays no role in their treatment by the legal system.”[25] Other social scientists have similarly found that high-scoring social dominators are “potentially ruthless in their pursuit or maintenance of their desires” and they do not believe that their “actions should never cause harm to others.” And dominators believe “that the end does justify the means.”[26] Today it is recognized that such authoritarian dominators are attracted to “status-inequality-enforcing occupations,” like prosecuting attorney or a job in law enforcement, and that they are “over-represented in positions of political power.”[27]

  In his description of social dominators, Altemeyer poses a rhetorical question: “Do you know such people: relatively intimidating, unsympathetic, untrusting and untrustworthy, vengeful, manipulative, and amoral?” While Altemeyer admits that it may seem “unsympathetic to describe those who score highly on the Social Dominance Orientation scale” in this manner, such terms have been used by these individuals to describe themselves. Empirical data bears out such qualities as “relatively power hungry, domineering, mean, Machiavellian and amoral, and hold[ing] ‘conservative’ economical and political outlooks.”[28] These people know exactly where they want to stand. Experiments reveal that right-wing authoritarian followers are particularly likely to trust someone who tells them what they want to hear, for this is how many of them validate their beliefs. Social dominators, on the other hand, typically know exactly what song they want to sing to followers.

  Unfortunately, there are people who, when given tests for social dominance and right-wing authoritarianism, score high on both. Altemeyer calls them “Double Highs.” These dominating authoritarian leaders are the individuals whom Altemeyer refers to with good reason as “particularly scary.”

  The Double High Authoritarians

  Social dominators whom tests show to be Double Highs seem full of contradictions. They score high as both leaders and as followers, an apparent anomaly that Altemeyer accounts for by explaining that Double Highs respond to questions relating to submission not by considering how they submit to others, but about how others submit to them. They inevitably see the world with themselves in charge.

  Altemeyer provided a number of examples of Double High behavior. Ordinary social dominators and ordinary authoritarian followers both tend to be highly prejudiced agai
nst ethnic and racial minorities. Double Highs, however, possess “extra-extra unfair” natures, and they can be ranked as the most racially prejudiced of all groups. It seems that two authoritarian streams converge in them to produce a river of hostility, particularly regarding rights for homosexuals and women. Another example of their prejudice has to do with religion. Typical social dominators are not particularly religious, but Double Highs resemble right-wing authoritarians in their strong religious backgrounds. Like right-wing authoritarians, Double Highs tend to be Christian fundamentalists.[29] But Double Highs generally do not attend church out of any sense of religious commitment, because religion provides no moral compass for them. “They may think of themselves as being religious and they go to church more than most people do, but they believe in lying, cheating, and manipulating much more than the rest of the congregation does,” Altemeyer’s research shows. They agree with statements like “The best reason for belonging to a church is to project a good image and have contact with some of the important people in your community.”[30] They also reveal their parochialism by agreeing with statements like “If it were possible, I’d rather have a job where I worked with people with the same religious views I have, rather than with people with different views”; “all people may be entitled to their own religious beliefs, but I don’t want to associate with people whose views are quite different from my own”; and “non-Christian religions have a lot of weird beliefs and pagan ways that Christians should avoid having any contact with.”[31]

  Double Highs are also dogmatic. While an average social dominator does not typically embrace “grand philosophies or creeds,” Double Highs do. Altemeyer ran a Global Change Game[*] simulation with fifty-five university students, all of whom scored high as right-wing authoritarian followers, and seven of whom also scored high on social dominance. As their profiles suggested, the seven Double Highs either directly or indirectly took charge, and the others followed. During the two-session simulation, Double Highs engaged in nuclear blackmail, made themselves wealthy by dubious means, provoked a worldwide crisis by destroying the ozone layer, allowed 1.9 billion people to die of starvation and disease, and sent the poor regions of the world “down the tubes.” Simulations, and students, of course, are a long way from reality, yet their performance further suggests the potentially dangerous natures of Double Highs.[32]