The other day Glenn Greenwald noted that Professor Robert Altemeyer, the social scientist John Dean consulted for his book, Conservatives Without Conscience, has written a book for laymen that discusses the research he's taken part in for more than 4 decades. Now, not only has he put together this great book, he's making it available on the web for everyone to read.
In his intro, he talks about why he felt it was important to provide this information to a very broad audience for free. As he notes, much of the study on authoritarianism has concentrated on the authoritarian followers, but not too many people have done much to understand what makes the authoritarian leaders tick. And he thinks it is crucial that our country understand these people and use the evidence and our knowledge of how they act to prevent their insiduous takeover of our country.
The book will be published on the web in 8 sections consisting of an intro and seven chapters:
- Who Are the Authoritarian Followers?
- The Roots of Authoritarian Aggression, and Authoritarianism Itself
- How Authoritarian Followers Think
- Authoritarian Followers and Religious Fundamentalism
- Authoritarian Leaders
- Authoritarianism and Politics
- What's To Be Done?
Here's the link to the intro (pdf) which he closes with the following:
Chapter 1 of this book, "Who Are the Authoritarian Followers?" will appear on this website on January 15, 2007. A chapter a week will be added thereafter, until all seven chapters are present. They will then remain here for at least a year.
Chapter 1 (pdf) is now available on the web.
Chapter 2 (pdf)
Chapter 3 (pdf)
Chapter 4 (pdf)
Chapter 5 (pdf)
Chapter 6 (pdf)
Chapter 7 (pdf)
What a great gift for us all. It is my profound belief that understanding what makes people tick is one of the crucial things we must know if we are to ever save humanity from the scourge of global warming and this work will provide an essential piece of that puzzle.