(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The psychology of authoritarianism as it impacts us, and how to dismantle it: first of a series [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-14 By way of an introduction, both to me as a newish Kos member, and to the first of what I plan to be a series of writings on a general theme: I’m a practicing therapist who’s also had a strong interest in the relatively under-appreciated but imo urgently important field of political psychology. For obvious reasons, it’s been of particular interest these past nine years or so. I’ve decided to use my Kos diary to talk about the work of various authors in the field, classic and recent, as well as some of my own thoughts and experiences. There’s a thesis here, of a sort, which I’m not the only one to have named, or at least parts of it; but still isn’t talked about as widely or in as much depth in political circles as it could be. The gist: Authoritarianism in nations operates in basically the same way as do cults. Cults can come in all flavors of political ideology, at least on paper. They also, of course, don’t have to be politically oriented at all, as such. Religious cults are the most well known, of course A cult, in fact, can be as small as two people, in which relationship one is a narcissistic abuser. And narcissistic abuse, a topic which has been widely addressed in recent years in popular psychology, is the key to understanding how authoritarian systems, from cults to dictatorships, actually operate. Why it matters: Among other reasons, because—I am using this phrase in a way that’s somewhat different to its original meaning, I think, but anyway—“the personal is political.” I think it’s important for as many ordinary citizens as possible who lean toward small-d democracy to get a better, more granular understanding of how an authoritarian system actually operates, from first accruing power to maintaining it. And I think that not only can we examine how this is playing out on the national stage and in its leading figures, but also how to better understand what might be driving the many people who seem to be in its thrall. Most of all, how being in relationship with the authoritarian impacts all of us. This can apply to the authoritarian/narcissistic abuser (I’m going to use these terms fairly interchangeably, at least for the moment) in our own personal lives, and also to the impact on all of us of being subject to unwanted authoritarianism from the people who make the laws and seem to command the zeitgeist. There’s a lot of material out there on how to extricate oneself from a narcissistic relationship on an interpersonal level, as well as how to recover from one, and most of all, how to learn to spot and ultimately refuse being sucked into that or another one again. These skills are immensely helpful, and it’s turning out to be one of the more common themes in my own practice. It is, in the end, about empowerment. It’s about resisting and then rejecting the frankly bewildering amounts of pressure to remain an object of the authoritarian, rather than a fully individuated, three-dimensional human subject in one’s own right. What I don’t have as clear a bead on is how this understanding and these skills scale up, or collectively. Particularly in the context of a system from which there is no obvious escape to a wider, freer culture outside of the autocratic bubble of a narcissistic family of origin, or abusive relationship or workplace, or even an actual cult. I expect that this part will be bringing in the areas I’m less familiar with, namely actual political organization, particularly in the face of an overtly autocratic system. which I think we’re collectively still grappling with. I’m looking forward to learning from commenters here as well as elsewhere on these boards. To conclude, for now, a quick look at the Vox article from which I ganked the image on this diary: www.vox.com/… Note that the article was published in March of 2016. Still very worth a read, perhaps even more so than when it first came out. I think I’m going to stop here, as this has already gotten quite long, but I’d be happy to discuss the content of the article as well as anything else mentioned here in the comments. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/14/2246773/-The-psychology-of-authoritarianism-in-the-current-zeitgeist-and-how-to-change-it-first-of-a-series?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/