Via Rational Review News, here’s part IV of Devi Barker’s provocative series on authoritarian sociopathy. All four installments have been good, but this is both the best and the scariest.
If the studies Barker cites tell the truth, then the truth is that most people who receive even a hint that they might be powerful a) demand higher standards for other people’s behavior and b) think they’re entitled to be given a pass on their own immoral or illegal acts.
It apparently takes very little to put the average Jill or Joe into that mindset. (Likewise, it doesn’t take much to put Joe or Jill into a subservient mode, but that’s another story.)
However — and I’m about to give away the whole point of the exercise here, so you might want to read the original before reading the spoiler — there’s one instance in which the “punishment for thee, privilege for me” mindset of power falls apart. If the powerful person believes that his or her authority is not legitimate, then a sort of “anti-hypocrisy” ensues. The person becomes more judgmental of his or her own actions.
The researchers who conducted the cited studies conclude:
A question that lies at the heart of the social sciences is how this status-quo (power inequality) is defended and how the powerless come to accept their disadvantaged position. The typical answer is that the state and its rules, regulations, and monopoly on violence coerce the powerless to do so. But this cannot be the whole answer…
Our last experiment found that the spiral of inequality can be broken, if the illegitimacy of the power-distribution is revealed. One way to undermine the legitimacy of authority is open revolt, but a more subtle way in which the powerless might curb selfenrichment by the powerful is by tainting their reputation, for example by gossiping. If the powerful sense that their unrestrained selfenrichment leads to gossiping, derision, and the undermining of their reputation as conscientious leaders, then they may be inspired to bring their behavior back to their espoused standards. If they fail to do so, they may quickly lose their authority, reputation, and— eventually—their power.
In other words, laugh at, mock, and question every assumption of the bastards. Or creatively disregard them.
Of course, these studies were done on presumably “normal” people, not on the hardcore sociopaths who populate politics. And we’ve already seen that, when questioned or “threatened” (and they often consider those one in the same), the Boehners, Clyburns, and Kings of the world simply wrap themselves in more deeply purple cloaks of their own grandeur, which makes them even worse than they were before “We the Unwashed” bothered them.
But in the long run, such cloaks may be no more substantial than the emperor’s new clothes.
I can only hope there is still time for all that. 🙁
Sounds like our Joel hit the nail on the head with his Ultimate Answer being a belly laugh, not a bullet.
http://theultimateanswertokings.blogspot.com/
I’m not so sure.
The nature of power demands that the more powerful maintain its control over the less powerful — otherwise there IS no power. Thus it becomes necessary to clamp down ever harder on those who challenge, question, or ridicule. Like an addiction, the more they get, the more they want; and to stop at some point is to admit defeat at the hands of the very thing (people) that feeds you.
Until “the powers that be” have truly fallen as a result of their own ineptitude, I think they will always be striving to stay in control of their “underlings” — and using increasingly-lethal weapons to do it.