It feels like most people have a moral intuition along the lines of "you should let people do what they want, unless they're hurting other people". We follow this guideline, and we expect other people to follow it. I'll call this the permissiveness principle, that behaviour should be permitted by default. When someone violates the permissiveness principle, we might call them a fascist, someone who exercises control for the sake of control.
On Authority
A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned. This summary mode of procedure is being abused to such an extent that it has become necessary to look into the matter somewhat more closely.
The Psychology of Normative Cognition
From an early age, humans exhibit a tendency to identify, adopt, andenforce the norms of their local communities. Norms are the socialrules that mark out what is appropriate, allowed, required, orforbidden in different situations for various community members. Theserules are informal in the sense that although they are sometimesrepresented in formal laws, like the rule governing which side of theroad to drive on, they need not be explicitly codified to effectivelyinfluence behavior. There are rules that forbid theft or the breakingof promises, but also rules that govern how close it is appropriate tostand to someone while talking to them, or how loud one should talkduring the conversation. Thus understood, norms regulate a wide rangeof activity. They exhibit cultural variability in their prescriptionsand proscriptions, but the presence of norms in general appears to beculturally universal. Some norms exhibit characteristics that areoften associated with morality, such as a rule that applies toeveryone and prohibits causing unnecessary harm. Other norms applyonly to certain people, such as those that delimit appropriateclothing for members of different genders, or those concerning theexpectations and responsibilities ascribed to individuals who occupypositions of leadership. The norms that prevail in a community can bemore or less fair, reasonable, or impartial, and can be subject tocritique and change.
New Acquisitions: 1933 and the Definition of Fascism
Today we’re going to look at definitions of fascism and ask the question – you may have guessed – if Donald Trump is running for President as a fascist. Worry not, this isn’…
The Authoritarian Personality
This hugely influential study on the psychology of authoritarianism was written in answer to Hitler’s Germany—and now rings more relevant than ever as fascism and anti-Semitism sweep across America.What makes a fascist? Are there character traits that make someone more likely to vote for the far right? The Authoritarian Personality is not only one of the most significant works of social psychology ever written, it also marks a milestone in the development of Adorno’s thought, showing him grappling with the problem of fascism and the reasons for Europe’s turn to reaction. Over half a century later, and with the rise of right-wing populism and the reemergence of the far-right in recent years, this hugely influential study remains as insightful and relevant as ever.This new edition includes an introduction by Frankfurt School scholar Peter E. Gordon and contains the first-ever publication of Adorno’s subsequent critical notes on the project.“Adorno and his colleagues could easily have been describing Alex Jones’s paranoid InfoWars rants or the racist views expressed by many Trump supporters.” —New York Times
Why Fascist Is the Term That Best Describes Donald Trump
In trying to explain Donald Trump, I looked to George Wallace, who played a similar role in American politics through the 1960s. But there were other...
Social Norms
Social norms, the informal rules that govern behavior in groups andsocieties, have been extensively studied in the social sciences.Anthropologists have described how social norms function in differentcultures (Geertz 1973), sociologists have focused on their socialfunctions and how they motivate people to act (Durkheim 1895 [1982],1950 [1957]; Parsons 1937; Parsons & Shils 1951; James Coleman1990; Hechter & Opp 2001), and economists have explored howadherence to norms influences market behavior (Akerlof 1976; Young1998a). More recently, also legal scholars have touted social norms asefficient alternatives to legal rules, as they may internalizenegative externalities and provide signaling mechanisms at little orno cost (Ellickson 1991; Posner 2000).
What do incels, fascists and terrorists have in common? Violent misogyny | Jason Wilson
Many accounts of incel subculture have treated it as a sharp deviation from the norm. It’s not
You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism
Authoritarians and tech CEOs now share the same goal: to keep us locked in an eternal doomscroll instead of organizing against them, Janus Rose writes.
Norms: An Integrated Framework
Norms are a foundational concept in sociology. Following a period of skepticism about norms as overly deterministic and as paying too little attention to social conflict, inequalities, and agency, the past 20 years have seen a proliferation of norms research across the social sciences. Here we focus on the burgeoning research in sociology to answer questions about where norms come from, why people enforce them, and how they are applied. To do so, we rely on three key theoretical approaches in the literature—consequentialist, relational, and agentic. As we apply these approaches, we explore their implications for what are arguably the two most fundamental issues in sociology—social order and inequality. We conclude by synthesizing and building on existing norms research to produce an integrated theoretical framework that can shed light on aspects of norms that are currently not well understood—in particular, their change and erosion.
Here's a PDF Version of the CIA Guide to Sabotaging Fascism
A 404 Media reader made a PDF version of the World War II-era manual that's going viral right now.
Understanding How Propaganda Works Helps Fight Fascism
In order to effectively fight fascism, it is essential to understand how propaganda, a key tool of fascist groups, works.
Anti-Fascist Economics by Isabella Weber: 9798217154432 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
As inequality, inflation, and overwhelming corporate power threaten democracy, a rising-star economist asks what it would mean to create an anti-fascist economics that guarantees dignity for all....
Mis-Nudging Morality
Morals constrain self-serving behavior. Yet, self-regulation failures in the face of monetary temptation are common at the workplace. To limit such failures, organizations can design environments that limit the temptation to behave self-servingly, nudging workers to uphold their morals. In a series of experiments where participants may be tempted to take excessive pay after exerting effort, we study whether a simple intervention—asking individuals to state the wage they believe should be paid ex ante, before facing the temptation to take excessive compensation—prevents self-serving behavior. In contrast to lay beliefs and the predictions from prior work, we find that such an intervention is not effective, leading to self-serving behavior. However, a more realistic elicitation procedure of the appropriate wage mitigates this effect. These findings contribute to work on the malleability of moral behavior showing that simple interventions thought to effectively mitigate self-serving behavior can prompt individuals to stretch their moral boundaries. They also stress the importance of properly testing interventions that might seem intuitive. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: Financial support from the Israel Science Foundation [Grant 766/19] is gratefully acknowledged. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4344 .
Moral Imperialism versus Class Solidarity
Individualism and imperialism define ruling class morality. Solidarity is the left's only answer.
