Talk:Authoritarianism

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It's a stab. Or a stub. But it's a start! Help will always, of course, be appreciated... summa you peeps is smarter or better knowledged than is me, so I anticipate this article's greatness far beyond what I conceived. human^{be in} 20:44, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

I recall something coming up way back when I was looking at Canadian obscenity law, the idea of the "community standards" test, which basically asks society at large not what they would tolerate seeing, but what they would tolerate someone else seeing. Which of course was much stricter. --Kels 20:42, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

I remember a similar poll in the US. It turned out that most people thought their neighbors were more into porn than they were, or something like that. Sorry, it's been a long time... human^{be in} 20:45, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

People tend to be busybodies, it seems, and will quite happily prevent others from seeing things they personally don't have a problem with. --Kels 20:47, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

Anyone wanna see my porn? --Jtl, subject-matter expert.

Pervert! --Kels 21:19, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

I remember what it was now. It was a poll about sex and violence on television. It seemed that "most" people thought there should be less violence, but thought that "other people" wanted it; likewise they wanted (or were ok with) more sex on TV, but thought that other people disapproved. And interesting conflict between what people in general think and what they think people in general think. human^{be in} 12:00, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

If it's helpful, check out my blog. There are two pieces there that relate to authoritarianism. There is some great writing out there.--PalMD^{-yada yada} 22:51, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

I reverted an edit by an anon IP that altered the spelling of "unquestionable" and deleted a paragraph with no explanation. human^{be in} 22:26, 19 June 2007 (CDT)

[edit] the last thing "we" care about are "rules"

This is from the article. Don't you feel this is a little overstated? I mean we do have standards, we try to keep to them, and we block those who ignore them. So we obviously care a bit. Or have I misunderstood your point?--Bob_M (talk) 05:16, 20 June 2007 (CDT)

Feel free to edit it if you want - but I was playing off the fact that we developed "guidelines", not rules, and have "community standards" - as such, there is flexibility, and not the authoritarian flexibility to come down hard, but the anarchic flexibility to be opne to new things, things we didn;t think of, etc. I think the "strict adherence" part and the rules being in quotes was meant to imply two ways auth. types love rules - 1, to enforce them or see them enforced on others, and 2, to play off them, to exploit loopholes. Our guidelined have no loopholes, since they aren't strict "rules".

But anyway, as I said, feel free to rewrite if you think you can either say it better or say something different that makes more sense. Thanks for bringing it up here, though! human^{be in} 20:21, 20 June 2007 (CDT)

OK I made a change which seems a bit less radical.--Bob_M (talk) 12:14, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

Yes, I saw it, it's much better now. Thanks! human^{be in} 12:20, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

Anyone want to expand it into a longer article on Authoritarianism in general? I'm tired today, so im trolling for others to do my work User:PalMD

Perhaps AKJ can be conned into paraphrasing some of his blog work here? human^{be in} 12:26, 21 June 2007 (CDT)

[edit] Authoritarianism Not Incompatible with Reason

"It is this honoring of power over reason that makes an authoritarian."

This statement is not true. One can have an authoritarian or authoritative outlook based on reason. In fact reason's adherence to objective principles backs this authoritative quality up. A statement that exists is either true or false with absoluteness (ie. authority).

As such it is very easy to see who one could be authoritative and a very strong adherent to authority in political matters based on reason rather than in opposition to reason. Randian and Straussian Neoconservative intellectuals come to mind here in regards to individuals who promote authority and authoritativeness based on reason.

Johanan Raatz