This week, I feel a strong need to return once again to some serious reflections about authoritarianism in very contemporary form.

Authoritarianism is a form of government in which all power rests with a single leader or a small ruling group. They feel no accountability to anyone but themselves.

Authoritarianism has always bothered me because it uses and abuses people. It destroys human freedom to think, act, and live. It manipulates people, puts problematic people in detention camps, and often simply destroys the “undesirables.”

The historical Jesus stressed that human greatness is based on compassion and service. His life story and teachings were used to motivate and guide people, to heal, support, and call to conversion. Some self-proclaimed “Christian leaders” today still do not understand Jesus and Jesus’ message. In fact, they oppose it.

In contemporary political and religious life, we are confronted with the creeping virus of authoritarianism that seeks to dominate and control – and often displace and destroy. A very unhealthy kind of leadership. Honesty and integrity are replaced by self-promoting deceit and dishonesty. And authoritarians make big money in the process.

Some symptoms of contemporary authoritarianism:

1. Ongoing efforts to intimidate and discredit the media. The distinction between information and misinformation disappears.

2. Genuine truth becomes fake news….and the actual fake news becomes the to-be-accepted real news. As George Orwell (1903-1950) predicted years ago: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

3. Police surveillance and violence against ideological “enemies” is accepted as a contemporary and necessary public safety necessity. Today it is growing increasingly powerful.

4. Foreigners are arrested, families are torn apart, and children and adults are incarcerated for indefinite amounts of time in military camps. Some “undesirables” are simply eliminated.

5. Authoritarian followers justify their behavior with the scapegoat mechanism, introduced by René Girard (1923-2015) the French historian, and philosopher of social science. He spent most of his career at Stanford University. In 1972, he published Violence and the Sacred, a work that explained the scapegoat mechanism and fundamentally changed the study of collective violence. Girard wrote that when a group is in crisis, when tensions are rising and the group is at risk of tearing itself apart, the group converges on a single individual or minority group to place blame. All of the group’s anxiety, guilt, shame, and aggression are projected onto this target. The target is then punished, expelled, or destroyed. And the act of collective punishment temporarily restores order and unity to the group. Right now, we see the scapegoat mechanism being used against Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Authoritarian Followers

Authoritarian “leaders” can only succeed because authoritarian followers applaud and support them. Much more so than the average person, authoritarian followers go through life with impaired thinking. Their reasoning is often sloppy and based on prejudiced beliefs and a fierce dogmatism, that rejects evidence and logic.

So, what does one do?

• We must first of all acknowledge that authoritarian followers are extremely resistant to change. The more one learns about authoritarianism, the more one realizes how difficult it will be to reach people who are so ferociously aggressive and fiercely defensive.
• We need to educate and promote a balanced education which hands on authentic information, tells people where to find correct information, and gives people the skills to be well-informed critical thinkers.
• Our Christian communities, more than ever, must become, compassionate and supportive gatherings of multicultural, multi-ethnic, and all-gender, brothers and sisters.
• We need to courageously speak out and we need to help other people courageously speak out. If something is wrong or something untrue, people need to strongly and clearly state that it is wrong or untrue.
• Those who courageously speak out need the strong support of friends gathered around them. Going alone is increasingly difficult if not impossible in our cyber-linked world.
• We need to be on guard, as well, that we do not become promoters of polarization and vicious partisanship. We need to learn how to work together for the common good. As Jesus says in Matthew (chapter 12): “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.”

 

Jack

 

Dr. John A. Dick – Historical Theologian

Email: jadleuven@gmail.com