The norm-deviation tolerance test for authoritarianism

On everyday dogmatism, knowledge and power

If you think about it, you know perfectly well what you’re allowed to say.

You know what most people will nod in agreement with, and what, on the other hand, will amount to a social transgression if it’s spoken out loud.

Of course, in every society, there will be certain things that are not only part of the consensus, but that you just can’t say without committing some kind of faux pas.

All groups will have certain boundaries for acceptable discourse, and there will be fundamental positions, narratives or factual claims they for various reasons really don’t like having questioned. This goes for the average individual as well, who is hard-wired to avoid cognitive dissonance in relation to his fundamental beliefs and the basic principles of the worldview he lives by, especially in times of pronounced uncertainty.

Dunce cap.

There’s nothing particularly strange about this, as long as it’s kept within reasonable limits.

But when such a set of socially acceptable positions and mandated answers expands enough, in the group and in the society alike, you eventually get to a point where power over the discursive environment pushes aside the legitimate search for truth. This state of affairs is undesirable for many reasons, but not least since it limits the group’s or the society’s abilities to effectively respond to challenges and threats in a dynamic environment.

In such a situation, the scope of those positions, ideas and opinions you can’t deviate from can get so broad and so detailed that it encompasses the major part of an entire worldview. It then covers almost everything within the field of human experience, from child-rearing and medicine to politics and religion, with the effect that the space for rational reflection, dissent and discovery almost vanishes.

You see this in cults as well as in authoritarian political systems.

Authoritarianism and the framework of norms

In a sense, the most important hallmark of authoritarian institutional structues is nothing less than a situation where the level and scope of socially mandated ideas and associated behaviours meaningfully limit the freedom necessary for the healthy self-determination, agency and psychic integrity of the individual (which if they get widespread also stymies many adaptive processes within the broader society).

Something like this basic conception can be seen throughout almost all contemporary analyses of the subject. In Madness and Civilization, Foucault specifically argues that authoritarian structures differ from merely repressive ones in that they also involve the management of perceptions and ideas (1961), and key to Goffman’s concept of the total institution is an overarching and unquestioned “language of explanation” that shapes behavioural patterns and renders them meaningful (Goffman, E. Asylums: Essays on the Condition of the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, 1961, p. 67-68).

And in parenthesis, the intensity of these cognitive and discursive mechanisms for producing the socially required behaviour is then proportional to the injurious outcomes, to stress and to trauma, an early exploration of which is not least found in Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents (1929). This relates to the effects on the individual of a disrupted “internal locus of control” and our basic need for a certain level of agency. All the same, an important thing to note is that the authoritarian organizational structure as well as the “authoritarian personality” are most reasonably understood as a kind of defense mechanisms, as societal and individual adaptations to stress and trauma. You could compare them to inflammation, which serves a clear and limited purpose, yet which becomes destructive when rampant or persistent.

Anyway, my humble proposal today is then that these “everyday dogmas” of the authoritarian social structure is something quantifiable (or near-enough so), and by taking a closer look at them, we can with relative ease devise a kind of litmus-test for a society or group’s overall level of authoritarianism.

The norm-deviation tolerance test

First, you need a basic overview of how people in the group or society generally view themselves and the world around them. What are the normative perspectives here?

You’ll then find that there’s a core set of narratives, ideas or factual claims that are more or less considered to be certain knowledge. Beyond that, there will be a (likely) broader set of positions that make up the generally accepted, yet less certain, points of view. And finally, there will be a periphery of positions that are more or less up for grabs, and around which most opinions and perspectives are tolerated (as long as they do not also interfere with the previous two levels too much).

All of this is quite normal for any society, group, tradition of knowledge or scientific paradigm.

So how can we tell when we’re moving into authoritarian territory, and power dynamics start to significantly impact on the free exchange of ideas?

With the above in mind, there are three relatively simple questions that can be helpful in this regard.

1. How extensive is the core set of positions that is taken to be certain?

First of all, we may ask what the scope is of that normative core set of “narratives, ideas or factual claims” that is considered to be unassailable knowledge. Is it relatively narrow, or does it extend broadly, beyond structurally important metanarratives or values, and reach into everyday life and the normal experiences of the human being? One example of the latter would be Goffman’s observations from the mid 20th century asylum, where narratives of scientific certainty were taken to determine the exact timing of meals, how to arrange and decorate the interior milieu, how many minutes an individual was to be allowed to sleep and so forth.

2. What is the warrant for this core set of positions?

It’s important to note that an extensive set of positions taken to be certain isn’t always an expression of authoritarianism - they may be held for entirely epistemically valid reasons. An extensive set of positions taken to be certain knowledge might for instance be an aspect of a productive research programme that has amassed an impressive set of conclusions using appropriate evidence.

The important matter is then whether the warrant for these conclusions is based in authority or epistemically appropriate evidence. But even so, if these positions cannot be questioned without the risk of social transgression, irregardless of their warrant, we’re dealing with matters of power rather than knowledge, which leads us to the third question:

3. What happens when you commit a transgression?

This is probably the most telling factor involved. If you deviate from the cognitive norms; if you question the positions taken to be certain or the consensus among the broader set of generally accepted points of view, what happens then?

Will you face a rational response of evidence and arguments open to the critical examination of the matter at hand, or is the response rather one of thinly-veiled fallacies combined with some form of punitive measures such as social domination or ostracization?

If the individual or group you’re facing is attempting to punish you for the perceived transgression, either for themselves, or as representatives of a larger power structure, you’re dealing with an immediately authoritarian response whose intensity you can then measure.

And if you know the scope of the positions, the questioning or transgression of which elicits a certain level of aggression or punitive measures, then you also know how extensive the “authoritarian sphere” is. In other words, while it might be acceptable to have a certain narrow set of unassailable positions, the transgression of which generates an intensely hostile response, it’s starting to become a problem when you get socially ostracized for condiment choices.

Anyway, put this together however you want, tally the score and stick whatever labels you like on the possible outcomes. The important question is whether the discursive conditions in your group or society meaningfully limits your freedom; the freedom necessary for the healthy self-dermination, agency and psychic integrity of yourself as a human being.

These are crucial matters in a situation where mainstream society seems to increasingly be taking on authoritarian characteristics. This also filters down into groups within society, including those of dissidents. Authoritarianism as a defense mechanism arguably seems to breed more of the same when everyone circles their wagons in uncertain times.

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We'll make you feel the Jim Jones vibe
As if to drink their poison
Somehow better than what we become

By vaporizing any of this wishful unsafe trip
Catch the very essence draining
On this slowly sinking ship

Moving on towards horizons
What's conceived will never be
I'm thinking of saying anything

And clinging