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August 30th, 2016

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Authoritarian Sociopathy by Davi Barker

https://dailyanarchist.com/2013/08/23/authoritarian-sociopathy/

August 23rd, 2013 

 

Many anarchists and libertarians eagerly study the psychology of tyrants in an effort to know their enemy in the battlefield of politics. Getting into the minds of our enemy is regarded as a strategy, a means to our political ends… which is an end to political means. However, I would suggest that the mind of our enemy is the battlefield itself, and politics is merely one of many strategies. We cannot fight the State with votes, or with cameras, or even with rifles, because factually the State only exists in the mind.

Our common definition for the State is a "monopoly on violence." This was originally coined by German political philosopher Max Weber, affirmed by Austrian economist Murray Rothbard in his book Anatomy of the State, and even echoed by authoritarian sociopath Barack Obama while campaigning in 2007. This definition is seldom disputed, even by the agents of the State. However, as surely as a pickpocket can knife you in the ribs, the State does not factually enjoy a monopoly on violence. The missing component is an often overlooked, but all important adjective: legitimate. The State is a monopoly on legitimate violence, and legitimacy is the only thing distinguishing a tax collector from a pickpocket, a police officer from a vigilante, or a soldier from a paid murderer. Legitimacy is an illusion in the mind without which the State does not even exist.

This illusion not only exists in the minds of the authoritarians, it exists in the minds of every subject who accepts their oppression. And every place that this illusion finds safe harbor is a trench in the field of battle. If we want to attack the State, we must attack the mind of the Statists. For that reason, the psychology of obedience and authority is not merely a tool in the activists utility belt, it is a topographical map of the battle field itself. So let's take a look.

Power and Obedience

We've all heard of the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. I've written about them before. So as not to waste your time, I'll summarize very briefly.

In the Milgram Experiment participants were divided into "teachers" and "learners" and placed in separate rooms. "Teachers" were instructed to read questions to the "learners" and if they answered incorrectly to administer an elecro-shock of ever increasing voltage. The "teachers" were unaware that electro-shocks were fake. After a few volts the "learner" began to object, to complain of a heart condition, and ultimately go silent. If the "teacher" asked to stop he was told by the experimenter," "the experiment requires that you continue." 65% administered the experiment's maximum massive 450-volt shock. The vast majority were willing to administer a lethal jolt of electricity to a complete stranger based upon nothing but the verbal prodding of an authority figure.

In the Stanford Prison Experiment participants were screened for mental health and randomly assigned as "prisoner" or "guard" to live in a two week long prison simulation. Guards were given uniforms, mirrored glasses, and wooden batons. Prisoners were dressed in smocks and addressed only by their prison numbers. Guards were instructed only to keep a fixed schedule, and that they could not physically harm prisoners. The experiment was halted after only six days because guards began to display cruel, even sadistic behavior including spraying prisoners with fire extinguishers, depriving them of bedding or restroom privileges, forcing them to go nude and locking them in "solitary confinement" in a dark closet. After an initial revolt, and a brief hunger strike, prisoners developed submissive attitudes, accepting physical abuse, and readily following orders inflict punishments on each other. They even engaged in horizontal discipline to keep each other in line. Both prisoners and guards fully internalized their fictional identities.

Ethical concerns raised by these experiments has made it almost impossible to study the authoritarian sociopathy in any meaningful way. Still, there have been some more recent studies that flesh out the findings of these classic experiments. Because of the new ethical guidelines the more recent experiments are not as dramatic, but the implications of their results are no less startling.

Power and Deception

Dana Carney is a professor at Columbia University. She conducted an experiment to discover if "leaders" and "subordinates" experience the same physiological stress while lying. She found that power not only makes lying easier, but pleasurable.

Participants filled out a personality test that identified them as "leaders" or "subordinates." In reality the selection was random, but the fake test created an air of legitimacy to their assignment. Leaders were placed in a large executive office and given an hour of busy work. Subordinates were placed in a small windowless cubical and given an hour of busy work. Then they engaged in a 10 minute mock negotiation over pay.

Afterwards half the participants were given $100 and told they could keep it if they lied and convinced the lead experimenter that they didn't have it. The experimenter did not know who had the money.

For most people lying elicits negative emotions, cognitive impairment, physiological stress, and nonverbal behavioral cues, which can all be measured. Video of the interviews was reviewed to identify behavioral cues. Saliva samples were tested for increases in the stress hormone cortisol. Tests of reaction time were conducted on the computer to demonstrate cognitive impairment. And a mood survey assessed participants' emotional states during the experiment.

By every measure "subordinates" exhibited all the indicators of deception, but liars in the "leader" class exhibited the exact opposite. By every measure "leaders" were indistinguishable from truth-tellers. In fact, they enjoyed reduced stress levels, increased cognitive function and reported positive emotions. Only "subordinates" reported feeling bad about lying.

Professor Carney concludes, "Power will lead to increases in intensity and frequency of lying."

Lying comes easier, and is inherently more pleasurable, to those in power, even fake authority. In other words, power rewards dishonesty with pleasure.

Power and Compassion

Psychologist Gerben A. Van Kleef from the University of Amsterdam conducted an experiment to identify how power influences emotional reactions to the suffering of others. Participants filled out a questionnaire about their own sense of power in their actual lives and were identified as "high-power" and "lower-power" individuals. Then they were randomly paired off to take turns sharing personal stories of great pain, or emotional suffering.

During the exchange the stress levels of both participants was measured by electrocardiogram (ECG) machines, and afterward they filled out a second questionnaire describing their own emotional experience, and what they perceived of their partner's emotional experienced.

You guessed it. Increased stress in the story teller correlated with increased stress in listener for low-power subjects, but not for high-power subjects. In other words, low-power individuals experienced the suffering of others, but high-power individuals experienced greater detachment. After the experiment high-power listeners self-reported being unmotivated to empathize with their partner. In other words, they saw the emotions of others, but they just didn't care. After the experiment, researchers inquired about whether participants would like to stay in touch with their partners. As you might expect, the low-power subjects liked the idea, but the high-power subjects didn't.

Power and Hypocrisy

It has become almost a cliche that the most outspoken anti-gay politicians are in fact closet homosexuals themselves, and the champions of "traditional family values" are engaged in extramarital affairs. Nothing is more common than the fiscal conservative who demands ridiculous luxuries at the taxpayer's expense, or the anti-war progressive who takes campaign donations from the military industrial complex. Well, now it seems there's some science behind the hypocrisy of those in power.

Joris Lammers, from Tilburg University, and Adam Galinsky of Kellogg School of Management conducted a battery of five experiments to test how power influences a person's moral standards, specifically whether they were likely to behave immorally while espousing intolerance for the behavior of others. In each of five experiments the results were about what you'd expect. Powerful people judge others more harshly but cheat more themselves. But in the last experiment they distinguished between legitimate power and illegitimate power and got the opposite results.

In the first experiment subjects were randomly assigned to as "high-power" or "low-power." To induce these feelings "high-power" subjects were asked to recall an experience where they felt powerful, and "low-power" subjects were asked to recall an experience where they felt powerless. They were asked to rate how immoral they considered cheating, and then they were given an opportunity to cheat at dice. The high-power subjects considered cheating a higher moral infraction than low-power subjects, but were also more likely to cheat themselves.

In the second experiment participants conducted a mock-government. Half were randomly assigned as "high-power" roles which gave orders to the half randomly given "low-power" roles. Then each group was asked about minor traffic violations, such as speeding, or rolling through stop signs. As expected, high-power subjects were more likely to to bend the rules themselves, but less likely to afford other drivers the same leniency.

In the third experiment participants were divided as in the first experiment, by recalling a personal experience. Each group was asked about their feelings about minor common tax evasions, such as not declaring freelance income. As expected, high-power subjects were more willing to bend the rules themselves, but less likely to afford others the same leniency.

In the fourth experiment participants were asked to complete a series of word puzzles. Half the participants were randomly given puzzles containing high-power words, and the other half were given puzzles containing low power words. Then all participants were asked what they'd do if they found an abandoned bike on the side of the road. As in all experiments, even with such an insignificant power disparity, those in the high-power group were more likely to say they would keep the bike, but also that others had an obligation to seek out the rightful owner, or turn the bike over to the police.

The fifth and final experiment yielded, by far, the most interesting results. The feeling of power was induced the same as the first and third experiment, where participants describe their own experience of power in their life, with one important distinction. This time the "high-power" class was divided in two. One group was asked to describe an experience of legitimate power, and the other was asked to describe an experience of illegitimate power.

The legitimate high-power group showed the same hypocrisy as in the previous four experiments. But those who viewed their power as illegitimate actually gave the opposite results. Researchers dubbed it "hypercrisy." They were harsher about their own transgressions, and more lenient toward others. This discovery could be the silver bullet we've been looking for. The researchers speculate that the vicious cycle of power and hypocrisy could be broken by attacking the legitimacy of power, rather than the power itself. As they write in their conclusion:

"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 self enrichment by the powerful is by tainting their reputation, for example by gossiping. If the powerful sense that their unrestrained self enrichment 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."

Those in power are more likely to lie, cheat and steal while also being harsher in their judgments of others for doing these things. They feel less compassion for the suffering of others, and are even capable of the torture and murder of innocent people. What's perhaps most disturbing is that we have seen that the problem is not that sociopaths are drawn to positions of authority, but that positions of authority draw out the sociopath in everyone. But this final experiment offers some hope that authoritarian sociopathy can not only be stopped, but driven into reverse, not by violence or revolution, but simply by undermining their legitimacy. But how?

Reclaiming Lost Ground

Those who attack the legitimacy of the authority by trumpeting the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment have likely never heard of these  other experiments because they're just less dramatic. Without the shock value the research just doesn't impact the culture. Changes to the ethical guidelines have essentially neutered research on authoritarian sociopathy. It has been relegated to the water cooler banter of academics.

If the illegitimate ethical guidelines of legacy institutions hamstring meaningful research on authoritarian sociopathy then it is time for us to cast off such restrictions, and devise our own guidelines consistent with our own ethics. If court professors will not spread their findings beyond their classrooms and peer reviewed journals then it is time to conduct our own renegade psychological experiments, to show the world beyond doubt that power corrupts absolutely.

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THE LEGITIMACY OF GOVERNMENT by Ernest Hancock (from 1994)

http://www.mind-trek.com/articles/t14a.htm

by Ernest Hancock - Second Amendment is For Everyone (SAFE), 4700 N. Central #201, Phoenix, AZ 85012 - Tel: (602) 375-0060 or (602) 248-8425; Fax: (602) 265-1811.

A discussion rages on at high speed with great passion here in Arizona regarding the "social contract" we're all supposed to be forced into. While the discussion continues, I was compelled to share this article with you all due to the impact it had on my ability to understand the issue and how I might share it with others.

Mark F Writes
What are you proposing? Anarchy? Government has a legitimate role of protecting your life, rights and property. Its existence may cost money. Whether it is a direct or apportioned tax to cover that existence is another argument, but even if government were doing all it should do - you still have jurisdiction issues which may not be consensual.

The only option which would be available in that case would be sudden war by the government against you due to your unwillingness to clear up a minor problem. It could only be war because we're not under the jurisdiction of the government's legitimate role of clearing up such issues in the name of protecting life, rights and property.

I'm really not familar with any time in our history that things worked like this, and I always conclude that Anarchist Libertarians wish to go beyond our origins to something else. Maybe I misunderstand.

Ernest Hancock
Speaking for me, you're correct. I wish to go beyond your origins to something else. Colonial-era slogans aside, let's see what those political origins actually are. You're recommending that people not abandon the instutition called government, on the grounds that this might entail confusion over jurisdiction, and possibly even violence - a small but "sudden war by the government against" me in the event that I couldn't get along with my neighbors.

But when referring to even the recent past, we find that government is by far history's greatest peril.

Confusion over jurisdiction: Find me a year that goes by without men being sent to die in a border dispute. Know anybody who went to Grenada? Know anybody who went to the Gulf? Know anybody who's going to go to Bosnia? Know anybody who went to the European Theater?

I can point to a hundred and fifty million political dead this century alone. You can point to a hypothesis about confusion over jurisdiction in the case of a burglary.

A time in history that things worked like this? Guilty. There's conjecture about ancient Iceland and more conjecture about the American West, but nothing all that convincing, even to me. I'm not convinced there'll be a 300 Mhz desktop computer, either; I'll believe it when I see it.

Here's what we do know, though: All States nova. All tribes disperse. There is no historical precedent for a permanent State, or a stable one. Of the extant States today, the exceedingly young USA may be the oldest, which says nothing good about the advance of the science of statism.

When States nova, which they invariably do, they usually do a very bloody job of it. I've never seen a war. I've never seen a mass grave. I've never seen corpses accumulating in piles. I hope I never do. Above all, I see no reason to manufacture rationalizations for the institution that never fails to accompany wholesale slaughter. Without a government, Mark, the worst you can do is a riot.

Mark F
Government has a legitimate role of protecting your life, rights and property.

Ernest Hancock
Hence, the elaborate theories about something called a "social contract." The difference between a contract and a social contract, of course, is that the former is consented to by both parties while the latter is imagined by one but binding upon another.

(Ain't it strange how we've learned to look for hokum wherever a derivative of The S Word comes up? Social Democrat. Social Justice. Social Contract. National Socialist Party. The world is filled with strange coincidences.)

If government is legitimate, merely tell me whence it derives its legitimacy.

Social contract is currently fashionable, in the ebb and flow of on-line political debate. This is a contract I never signed, that I've never seen, that has no terms, that is binding upon me but not upon the other party, that can be dispensed with at will by the government but must submitted to by me upon pain of incarceration, whose terms may change on-the-fly or even retroactively, from which there is no escape clause, which is binding in perpetuity, which binds my ancestors and descendants, which requires fealty but guarantees no consideration.

And it's bullshit on its face. But that's not the interesting thing. There are a thousand intricate dodges designed to cover the ass of statism, and refuting one of the lot isn't that fun or that illuminating, at least if you've been working these boards for a while. There will always be another transparent cloak for the Emperor to wear.

What's interesting is that there are a thousand cloaks, but there aren't a thousand-and-one. Here's the thousand-and-first, and you'll never hear it from a statist:

Because they have guns and if you don't obey, they'll shoot you. [emphasis added]

I'll come clean. I'm not writing to Mark Fuller. I have no hope of showing him anything, because I think he's determined not to be shown. But for those who aren't solely concerned with building dungeons out of cards, this is useful.

Statism can't be justified. I can give you a list of minds bigger than mine who wanted it so badly they were willing to torque their own brains, and a longer list of folks who didn't know any better. Fuller's own Locke, and Rousseau. And Blackstone. They had a common ancestor, Hugo de Groot. Back to Aristotle and all the way to Thales, forward to Rand, and even to Nozick, Jefferson, Madison, Marx, Mill. All of you have read some, and some of you have undoubtedly read more than I.

None of them said it, because all of them are beehive-busy trying to find another reason for this: "If you don't obey, we'll shoot you." That's not legitimacy, so they had to find another way. Social contract. Consent of the governed (probably the most opaque self-contradiction of the millenium). Will of the majority. Threat of descendence into chaos. Greatest good for the greatest number. Progress. Good of the Motherland. Throwing off dominion of the ZOG. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

If government is legitimate, merely tell me whence it derives its legitimacy. Why does it need so many different justifications?

If government is legitimate, why does it need guns?

Mathematicians don't need guns. We think they're legitimate. Physicists don't need guns. Biologists don't need guns. Musicians don't need guns. Tool and die makers don't need guns. Copy editors don't need guns.

Government needs guns because it isn't legitimate. It cannot persuade you, and it cannot base its appeals in reason, because there cannot be a basis in reason for an appeal to dumb savagery.

I don't care whether it claims to be instituted by my consent, or for the sake of my welfare, or as the product of some non-evident contract, or in response to the prospect of mass starvation, or for the protection of life and liberty and property. None of that matters. It cannot be justified in reason. It has not been justified in reason in four thousand years, despite all the effort of all the courts of all the despots of all the centuries. And the hand-waving of your next encounter with yet another electronic acolyte in the cult of the State will prove this yet again:

Government is not legitimate. You can tell by the effort people must go to to make up rationalizations for it.

Now, here's the dirty little secret. I said, all their rationalizations are a veneer, all their happy-babble is cover for what's really going on: "If you don't submit, we'll shoot you." [emphasis added] That's true, but to any proposition there is a converse.

The converse to the proposition in question is this: If they could compel you, they'd have no need to convince you. [emphasis added]

[Frederick Mann: This is one of the central aspects of discovering that you are inherently free, free by nature. Through your ability to make decisions, you control the energy that animates your mind and body. The terrocrats (terrorist bureaucrats) really cannot control or compel anyone. So they have to brainwash people, program them like robots, to believe and obey. Above all, they must brainwash their victims into believing in the "legitimacy" of the terrocrat system.]

If dumb savagery were all it took, statists would have it made. They could simply announce, "do it our way or we'll smoke you. We have an army." And that would be that. We'd be wandering around in loincloths carrying digging sticks.

But they don't say that. Governments throughout human history have employed a procession of yes-men long enough to circle the moon. A plethora of Prime Ministers, a rick of Rasputins, a cord of courtesans. Why bother with all that, when all it takes is weaponry? If militaries were enough, we've have had no emperors and no Presidents - and if simple brutality were enough, we'd have no militaries. Write this in your notebooks:

They do not seek dominion.
They seek legitimacy.

[Frederick Mann: In my opinion, they seek both dominion and legitimacy. But their dominion is largely based on perceived legitimacy. Undermining their legitimacy is one of the most powerful strategies for removing their dominion.]

Why does the Ayatollah seek to have Salman Rushdie murdered? Not to keep his subjects from the prose - he could ban the book easily enough. It is because Rushdie threatens the Ayatollah's legitimacy, even in the eyes of people the Ayatollah has never met and never will.

Why does Bill Clinton seek to stifle dissent by branding it right-wing hate-speech? Not because he fears overthrow, or even being denied a second term. In the unlikely event he has a second term, we all know he'll be even more likely to repress contrarian speech, not less. This is because he seeks legitimacy, seeks it above all things.

Mark F constructs his tortured case for social contract for a reason, and that reason is not ignoble. He wants to be right. He wants to persuade you. The Ayatollah and Bill Clinton want to persuade you. They wish to find a basis in reason because, above all things, they want to be right.

This is what spin control is about: Pretending to be right. This is what posturing is about. If force of arms were adequate, there'd be no need to waste time on spin-control, but think about it: the world's most repressive regimes were those with the most insistent "education" programs. Witness the Soviets, witness China, witness Cambodia, witness medieval Spain.

They want legitimacy, crave it desperately. So do you. So do I.

And we all seek legitimacy in the common ground that is reason. If we seek this, we cannot start with a justification or a conclusion to which the argument must be torqued to match.

Mark F
If there is not a supreme law to protect the life, rights and property of individuals (through delegated powers) then you have individuals doing what they please with impunity, as in a state of nature.

Ernest Hancock
There's only one state of nature, the only one that ever was. And in this state, people can go wandering around doing whatever they want. With impunity! This is the nature of the human organism: we are each exclusively self-controlled. [emphasis added]

[Frederick Mann: Again, this is the essence of discovering that you are free. You exclusively control yourself - whether you realize it or not. Nobody else can control you. However, if you're like most people, you've been brainwashed to believe that the "government system" controls you and the only way to escape this "control" is to change or remove the "system."]

Mark F regards this with such revulsion that he considers the mere prospect of it to be a horror, and it certainly will wreck the web of the spider spinning social contracts. In the face of a fact obvious to any observer - that each of us is intrinsically free to do as he wills - he prefers to wax about a contract that each of us knows damn good and well doesn't exist and never did. That which is obvious and evident and verifiable is to be ignored, dismissed as nonsense. That which is ludicrous is to be cultivated as "supreme law."

[Frederick Mann: In my experience, it's obvious to fewer than one in a thousand individuals that they are intrinsically free to do as they will.]

But freedom is unavoidable. Discretion is the nature of organisms; we are individuals by the very way we are made. We are exclusively self-motivated; we have no other way of operating. We can be coerced, but we cannot be enslaved. This is evident, and it is irrefutable. And this is the basis for a rational conversation about human affairs.

[Frederick Mann: Humans allow themselves to become enslaved by buying into irrational statist ideas, superstitions, lies, concepts, terms (words), definitions, and arguments.]

This is the observation that is the basis for a legitimate argument about legitimacy. When people persist in basing arguments for a "civilized" state in the imaginary, while they persist in gaping at reality itself as too monstrous to be contemplated - is it any wonder that the streets of "civilizations" never fail to run red with blood?

Frederick Mann's Comments
In a fund-raising letter to their members, the National Rifle Association (NRA) used the term "jackbooted thugs." George Bush resigned his NRA membership. Bill Clinton repeatedly denounced the NRA for using this term. Why? What do these terrocrats fear most?

Answer: The loss of their legitimacy. Terms like "jackbooted thug" destroy their legitimacy. This is the major reason why we use terms like "terrocrat." (Interestingly, The Arizona Republic used the terms "law-abusement officer" and "law-abusement agent" in an editorial on September 18, 1995!)

Using such terms and persuading others to use them is phenomenally powerful because it destroys legitimacy.

Hour 2

Hour 2 FreedomsPhoenix HeadlineNews

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Hour 2

2016-08-30 Hour 2 Davi Barker; Freedom's Phoenix Headline News from Ernest Hancock on Vimeo.

Ernest and Davi Barker go over the headline news on Freedom's Phoenix

Hour 3

Hour 3 - Michael Fielding (Activist; Author) talks about his book, "The Sailboat Diaries", a book written over the course of his journey of expatriation from the USA

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Hour 3

2016-08-30 Hour 3 Michael Fielding from Ernest Hancock on Vimeo.

Michael Fielding

Webpages:

https://twitter.com/SailboatDiaries

SailboatDiaries.Com

http://freeacad.com/

Author of The Sailboat Diaries, the story of how I left America on a sailboat named Sovereignty to assert my freedom. Free audiobook at http://sailboatdiaries.com

The Sailboat Diaries is a compilation of adventure stories and philosophical musings written over the course of my sailing voyage from Texas to the Caribbean and back.

In this book, we'll explore the foundations of rational thought, the discontinuity of self, perspectives on ethics, the meaning of freedom, tools for overcoming cognitive biases, the nature of property, the benefits of informal learning, and strategies for asserting sovereignty.

Author website

http://freeacad.com