Divided America: The Authoritarian Personality
"The Authoritarian Personality," the massive study published in 1950, provides surprisingly current insights into the MAGA movement. Part 3 of a series.
We learn, Hegel wrote, then we forget, and we need to learn again. We could also say that we are naïve, we are shocked out of our naivete, we lapse back into a slightly transformed innocence, and then we need to be shocked again. Before I read The Authoritarian Personality, I had already been shocked out of my naiveté about race and anti-Semitism through reading literature and history and by coming of age in the South. I am old enough to remember “Whites Only” bathrooms and water fountains. Yet, The Authoritarian Personality shocked me, especially quotes from interviews with average Americans, conducted just a few years after the end of World War II, after our country had united to defeat Hitler and other totalitarian powers, after the world had been shocked by news of the Holocaust. I was not naïve enough to think that Americans would not still hold a range of prejudices, including anti-Semitism, but I thought Americans, in the wake of World War II, would be guarded about expressing those views, even when they are promised anonymity. I was wrong.
Here is one of the quotes that shocked me. One of the subjects, a forty-year-old woman, said: “I don’t like Jews. The Jews are always crying. They are taking our country over from us. They are aggressive. They suffer from every lust.” Another subject, a twenty-six-year-old woman, said: “I am not particularly sorry because of what the Germans did to the Jews. I feel Jews would do the same type of thing to me.” Several of the subjects said that Hitler had the right idea; he just went too far. Really, too far? How can you dial back genocide?
While these statements are shocking, the ultimate shock of the study is that these people, whom the researchers considered to have authoritarian personalities, are not so different from some of the people who express tolerance and acceptance, views more comfortable to most of us. And, even more disturbing, the researchers often express concern that the “good” people are not necessarily good in a stable way. Even they—the good people—might fall under the influence of a “strong” leader.
While The Authoritarian Personality, published in 1950, is often attributed to Theodor Adorno as if he were the sole author, it actually emerged from an extended collaboration between Adorno, already famous for his work with the Frankfurt School, and a team of experimental psychologists from the University of California at Berkeley, primarily Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sandford. As an attempt to acknowledge the entire team of researchers, I will refer to it as the Berkeley study.
In his essay on Hitler’s childhood, Erikson theorized about German family structure seeding Nazism. “The Legend of Hitler’s Childhood” is, in effect, a hypothetical case study, which Erikson supplements, in other chapters of Childhood and Society, with actual case studies from his clinical experience, anthropological studies of Native American tribes, and his model of human development. Adorno and the Berkeley psychologists, in contrast, studied anti-Semitism and totalitarian thought in over two-thousand Americans. They developed and administered a survey and conducted detailed interviews with a broad range of subjects, including mental patients and prisoners. Erikson’s essay, in the English translation of the 1960 revised version, run 32 pages; The Authoritarian Personality, in its current edition, runs 976 pages with 77 pages of frontmatter. It is unlikely that a study like this will be repeated, partially because of its scope and partially because an Institutional Review Board would be unlikely to approve the inclusion of mental patients and prisoners, maybe not even approve many of the interview questions.
While very different in methodology, the Erikson essay and the Berkeley study align to a remarkable degree. They identify a similar family structure (they both describe it as Oedipal) thwarting development and producing people (I am intentionally not using the term “individuals”) who are more susceptible to strong leaders, anti-Semitism, and even totalitarianism. The Berkeley study provides much more depth and is supported by detailed empirical data.
So much data that is not easy to summarize. In the current edition, Peter E. Gordon’s introduction, written after Trump became president, hits many of the important points; he also updates the findings and provides important insights. Here is his summary of the study’s key findings: “The psyche of a fascist is ‘authoritarian’ in the sense that it attaches itself to figures of strength and disdains those it deems weak. It tends toward conventionalism, rigidity, and stereotypical thinking; it insists on a stark contrast between the in-group and out-group, and it jealously patrols the boundaries between them. It is prone to obsession over rumors of immorality and conspiracy, and it represses with self-loathing the sexual licentiousness it projects onto others.” Even though the Berkeley study investigated Americans over seventy years ago, this description fits not only Trump but also the MAGA collective. In his introduction, Gordon also provides a warning: “Fascism is not mysterious, and it is not something otherworldly or rare; it is the modern symptom of a psychopathology that is astonishingly widespread and threatens modern society from within.”
This comment provides an important frame for reading the study. We might want to think of Nazi Germany as a historical outlier. In her last commencement speech as first lady, referring to the rise of Trump, Michele Obama said, “This is not who we are.” Trump, the MAGA collective, and recent totalitarian movements around the world make that statement implausible. Gordon’s frame for the Berkeley study says that this is who a large segment of us are and we should not expect that to change in the near future.
Rather than seeing totalitarian thinking as a historical aberration, it is better that we view it as the default. If we read the Berkeley study closely, we will realize that raising children to be the kind of individual (here, I am intentionally using the word individual) who can participate in democracy and practice democratic thinking is difficult. It takes conscious effort. We need to learn how to be better parents and mentors, just as we need to continually strive toward the aspirational goals embedded in the Declaration of Independence and our constitution—equality, justice, and freedom. So too we need to strive to heal our trauma, develop empathy, and learn to reflect on an unfinished self. We need to do a better job of raising our children. And we need to accept that we will never completely defeat totalitarianism. Totalitarian thinking is easy; we fall into it. Democratic thinking is hard; we must rise into it.
The case studies in the Berkeley study provide a portal to understanding the massive and complex data. While case studies are limited by being a sample of one, we can extrapolate from those in the Berkeley study because they are validated by survey data and interviews. It is with the case studies that we begin to understand how the study’s data might coalesce in a single paradigmatic example.
In chapter 20, R. Nevitt Sanford presents two case studies: Mack, who scores high on the Fascist Scale (F-Scale) of the survey, and Larry, who scores low on that scale. Mack’s family is like the German family of the 1930s, as described by Erikson. His father is brooding, distant, stern, even abusive, yet he also has a rigid moral code. In the interview, Mac is willing to comment on his father’s faults, which Sanford describes as “authoritarian traits,” but he always adds a compensatory trait to cancel out or minimize the faults. Mack would say, “I had to shift for myself a lot,” and then add, “He never denied me anything I needed.” The father’s love, in other words, is erratic and highly conditional, and Mac’s feelings for him are conflicted. Sanford writes: “With the father in the position of both disciplinarian and love object, it would have been necessary for Mack to submit to the discipline in order not to lose the love.” One of the most difficult aspects to understand about the authoritarian personality is the obvious contradictions in beliefs and values. This goes back to their childhood. The self of the authoritarian personality, in short, is poorly integrated.
The case study helps us to realize that Mack’s entire childhood was a life of contradictions. He felt resentment toward his stern and distant father, but the father is also “too strong and dangerous” to rebel against, even in the thoughts of the grown man. Mack must suppress his resentment and live with intense anger, which he struggles to control: “He is afraid he might become angry and release forces which, though not familiar to him, are vaguely imagined to be primitive and chaotic and largely provoke disastrous retaliation.” One can imagine that Mack never felt safe in his home, and he never felt nurtured, even by his mother, who was submissive to the father. As a result, he was not able to develop an integrated personality. Maturing is a project of building an integrated self. If children feel a wide array of emotions, especially anger, that cannot be expressed, how could they grow to be anything but a bundle of contradictions?
As part of Mack’s case study, Sanford presents a chart that has “fear of weakness” in its center and lines radiating in all directions to tie this core trait to other features of Mack’s personality and beliefs. In my re-interpretation of the Berkeley study’s data, which readers can do because the data presented is so rich, I would revise “fear of weakness” to a slightly broader “fear of change.” (Remember my comment in an earlier post about the trope of transformation being absent from Trump’s speeches.) In a column to the side, Sanford lists traits that make Mack more likely to follow a strong leader uncritically.
As I list the traits, I will relate them to a fear of change. I will basically be speaking for Mack’s unconscious: “cynicism” (the beliefs of others might change me), “hostility to ‘power-seeking’ outgroups” (they are seeking power to change me), “self-pity” (I am a victim to the power of others), “assertions of strength and independence” (I need to convince them I am too strong to be changed), “glorification of powerful ingroup figures” (we are too strong for them to change us), “anti-intraception” (I reject anything that might force me to change, especially reflection and therapy), “concealment of ‘softness’” (I fear I am weak but admitting this would make me too vulnerable), “strivings for power and status” (I need to rise above the influence of others), “rejection of ‘weak’ outgroups” (I am not weak and susceptible to change like they are), there are “‘two kinds’ of women” (there are clear gender roles that must be maintained), “moralistic sex attitudes” (there is a clear and long-standing code of how men and women relate), “rationalized dependence” (I support a strong leader, but this does not mean I am weak), and “rejection of materialism” (“I am separate even from my possessions, which do not control me”). Even though Mack scans the horizon for threats that might disrupt the delicate balance of his inner life, he and those who come from similar families are never completely successful in protecting themselves. Their outer lives are often as chaotic as their inner lives. (Trump himself seems to swim in an ocean of chaos even as he says that he is the only one who can fix problems. He seems incapable of fixing his own life.) A sense of inner equilibrium is restored by projecting self-loathing onto some outgroup, which is perceived as being weak, or by releasing suppressed anger in words or acts.
Certainly, in the over seventy years since the Berkeley study was published, the United States has undergone dramatic changes. Some of the traits that Sanford lists are less salient, like “moralistic sex attitudes.” The airing of Access Hollywood tapes or Trump’s affair with a porn star seemed to have had little impact on his 2016 or his 2020 campaigns. Nonetheless, the study clearly demonstrates how a hierarchical family structure with an abusive father and submissive mother can compromise the maturation of children, leaving them with a chaotic inner life of intense, conflicting emotions, what could be called the authoritarian personality. Those who were not raised in this kind of family might wonder why these people would construct an entire worldview to prevent change, that is, to prevent healing themselves. The simple answer is that their life, chaotic as might be, is what they know. It is familiar and comfortable, and change is horrifying because they don’t have the resources to handle it. Think of how Trump, after his loss in the 2020 election, reportedly had an assistant ride with him in his golf cart so that she could read comment after comment from an iPad that praised Trump. It must be exhausting to maintain a fragile sense of self, but moving toward change does not seem like a positive transformation. It seems like a complete disintegration of identity.
Once we realize this, it is easier to understand why Trump and his followers have an apocalyptic vision of the future. If Trump and his supporters have a fear of change, it is also easier to understand why they want to “Make American Great Again.” They want an America that, in some vague past, was stable with clear expectations and traditional values. Of course, that American never existed. Even the Puritans couldn’t create a perfectly pure society. We can also understand a string of fears, which might seem at first glance unrelated, but that all express some concern about forces that might bring about change. Immigration is clearly a threat to the existing order and even the “whiteness” of American. That is not surprising. But, with insights from the Berkeley study, even some of the oddest moments of Trump speeches start to fit into a pattern, such as his repeated comments about how toilets don’t flush worth a damn. We have to flush two or three times, he says, and we didn’t have to do this in the past. This is the fault of political elites (a vague outgroup) who are promoting rather abstract ideas (we need to conserve water and protect the environment) that would restrict businesses (palpable to many Americans) and change even the most private aspects of our lives. Why can’t “they” allow “us” to have a traditional bowel movement?
The fear of change also explains why core MAGAs are so entrenched and why what liberals consider to be rational arguments, which often amount to pointing out obvious contradictions, is so ineffective. MAGAs find security by associating with Trump—a strong leader, a father that remains beyond their touch. Just as they could not criticize their father without fear of losing his love or inciting his violence, they cannot consciously acknowledge faults in Trump.
If, however, we step out of our own conception of what constitutes a rational argument, we might imagine how the MAGA collective thinks. Maybe, feels is more appropriate. In my imagining, I might make their position seem more rational than it is. Here is what I suspect is going on in the MAGA mind: Empathizing with others, those unlike me and my ingroup, will almost certainly lead to change. Reflecting on my beliefs to sort out contradictions or question my values will mean that my thoughts are beyond my control. I must seek the kind of clear and stable morality by losing myself in institutions, like a fundamentalist church. Anyone who is not in my circumscribed world is evil. Trump and the MAGA collective have spent a lifetime constructing an exterior life that maintains the structure of their family of origin. A few carefully constructed logical arguments, a few historical facts, or a few summaries of science studies presented by an earnest liberal humanist will not easily penetrate this world, much less dampen the MAGA’s support of Trump.
If this makes the move toward totalitarianism seem inevitable, we should recognize that the structure of rigid, hierarchical, abusive family is fragile, as the Berkeley study points out with the second case study in chapter 20—Larry, who scored low on the F-Scale. Interestingly, Larry also had a strict and abusive father. However, he had a mother who was strong enough to demand that the father change. At one point, she even takes the children and leaves the father. This crack in the structure of the family appears to have been enough for the children to reach a higher level of maturation or integration. Just as other factors can lead to totalitarian thinking, such as other forms of social or physical trauma, it is possible to find a different path out of totalitarianism. A slight disruption in the rigid family structure or an intervention can open horizons. The father might quit drinking. The mother, with support of friends, might leave the father. The children might find a mentor—a teacher, minister, counselor, or neighbor. A change might even begin after a simple act of kindness.
From the case study of Larry, we should also make a few additional points that blur what might seem to be a stark contrast between dysfunctional families and healthy families, which seems to suggest that MAGAs are psychologically abnormal and non-MAGAs are normal. Even though Larry scored low on the F-Scale, he was still harmed by his abusive father. He has some distance from the father but has still not developed a highly integrated self, and Sanford expresses concern that his democratic values may not be firm. Clearly, members of both the far right and the far left, who seem so rigid in their beliefs, often flip their views without a discernable cause. We cannot save democracy through preaching democratic values, although this is important. In the long run, we must encourage the development of individuals who understand and live those values. This is what Walt Whitman advised in Democratic Vistas, published in 1871.
Before leaving the Berkeley study, I want to comment on my initial reaction to reading comments that the subjects made during interviews. In chapter 2, Sanford wrote: “Since we do not have fascism and since overt antidemocratic actions are officially frowned upon, surveys of what people actually do at the present time are likely to underestimate the danger.” Sandord was commenting on what we might call common decency or politeness, which existed in America even before political correctness. I also came to the study with the expectation that, a few years after a war against Hitler and amidst the horrifying revelations of the brutality of concentration camps, Americans would be especially guarded about expressing support for Hitler or making blatant anti-Semitic comments. But many of the subjects said that Hitler had the right idea; he just “went too far.”
This thinking is hard to understand, even after finishing The Authoritative Personality. The subjects openly expressed their disgust with Jews, Blacks, and even the Irish. Political correctness, which began with the Civil Rights movement in the decades after the publication of The Authoritarian Personality, has muted the open expression of anti-Semitic and racist comments in public forums. The Civil Rights, Feminist, Gay Rights movements have also created a more multicultural and pluralistic nation, but clearly a significant segment of the American population still harbors prejudice, which may be even more intense as many whites fear the browning of America. Now, any expression of these feelings, except in isolated communities, must be qualified with statements like, “I am not prejudice, but . . .” For decades, the only unfiltered outlet for this bottled-up rage has been hatred toward liberals, and this seems to be far less satisfying than projecting inner emotional turmoil onto a minority group. This rage has been seeking a release. Trump’s rants against political correctness gave his followers permission to release their inner thoughts.
In the next post, I will discuss Adorno’s explanation of how prejudice works in more detail.