[Grovenet] The Problem with Electing Authoritarian Conservatives

[Kristy Gravlin]

It's not my habit, as you've probably noticed, to respond to discussions
like this one. (Tho I do read them and think about them. And I thank those
who do write.) But....


On 11/6/08 11:24 AM, "Walt Wentz" <waltw at teleport.com> wrote:

> Interesting stuff-- but one wonders, where does the authoritarian
> streak ultimately come from? Yes, absolutist family upbringing does
> produce absolutist children, as Lakoff pointed out in "Don't Think of
> an Elephant," but what of those people who rebel against narrow
> family strictures and grow up open-minded, or those from open-minded
> and tolerant families who retreat into absolutism?
I wonder if they retreat because the other world is just too much to think
about. Certainly not all would be described so...but I've seen some that
I suspect that is what's happening.

And first, you have to know it is out there. (I am amazed what I did not
know was "a choice" (in whatever way) when I was a kid. And not because my
parents were "absolutists"...I don't think they knew it was out there
either. We were just small-town farmers. Today they would know a lot more
about the world because of communications. I cannot fathom how that would
have changed their lives, or mine.

Children come to us with pretty defined personalities...witness that a
family with more than one child gets different "results" from each one,
despite the similarities of their rearing.

And some have a persuasive personality enter their realm...in other words,
there are lots of reasons.

> Barring inborn 
> impulses, shouldn't exposure to the wider, more varied world slowly
> erode the authoritarian percentage of the population, despite the
> most desperate efforts of intolerant parents, xenophobic churches and
> authoritarian leaders?
Perhaps the word desperate is of import.  If they are desperate enough....?

Good topic to think about today, or this week... Thanks.
Kristy