In a posting from August 2006, I provided a table on the traits of the authoritarian personalities: Leaders and Followers. This same table was reposted in a December 2010 posting about the Tea Party. In January 2009, my posting included a table comparing the conservative and progressive worldviews based on factors defined in the writings of George Lakoff.
These postings summarize the two visions of America we are facing today: American Democracy and American Authoritarianism.
This posting adds to this comparison of the two visions for America. The first table below is based on a recent article by George Lakoff. The second table is based on the book Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism by Professor Henry Giroux.
| The Fading American Dream | The Growing Authoritarian Nightmare |
|---|---|
| Public – People, acting together to provide a complex infrastructure we all depend on | Private – Corporations providing return only to shareholders |
| Care for fellow citizens (we) | You’re on your own (me) |
| Building and improving national infrastructure for the common good | Building your own infrastructure and charge others to use it |
| Pay taxes based on use of national infrastructure to keep it functional | Pay taxes in inverse proportion to my wealth |
| A government which protects and empowers citizens to provide an equal opportunity for success | A government run by corporations through privateering and lobbying |
| Public spaces created to promote critical thinking and long-term investing | Many public spaces converted to private spaces to promote consumption and near-term self-gratification |
| Mutual caring and trust of our constitution based government | Greed and distrust of our constitution based government |
| Quality education for all to enable equal opportunity for success | Quality education only for the wealthy |
| Voting for citizens of all makes and models | Voting for some with certain qualifications |
| Checks and balances against any realized or potential abuse of power | Checks and balances based on religious beliefs and none for the free market |
| We are successful based on innate talent and things beyond our control (systemic causation) | We are all totally self-made. There are no external factors affecting success |
| We care for ourselves and, through our government, others affected by circumstances beyond their control | I am only responsible for myself and don’t need the government |
| Government caring for those with the least on behalf of the rest of us | Privatized government by corporations caring for the wealthy among us |
| America for all citizens | American only for “real” Americans |
| An America based on empathy for our fellow citizens | An America based on fear of those not like me |
| We have a revenue problem due to three decades of tax cuts | We have a spending problem because we want to destroy the government |
| Health care is a public matter | Health care is a corporate/profit matter |
| Americans deserve real wage growth based on their productivity gains | CEO bonuses and dividends for stockholders are taken from worker productivity gains |
| Our Social Security and Medicare are bought and paid for by American workers | Your “entitlements” are bankrupting the country |
| Of the people, by the people, for the people | Of the Multinational Corp, by the Multinational Corp, for the Multinational Corp |
| Standardized medical care for all with a 3 percent administration fee | Thousands of private insurers limiting medical care with a 10 percent or higher administration cost plus an additional corporate tax called profit |
| Provide boots with bootstraps where needed – equal opportunity | Expect those without boots to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps |
| Democracy is public | Corporatocracy is private |
The following is based on the book Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism by Professor Henry Giroux.
| The Fading American Dream | The Growing Authoritarian Nightmare | |
|---|---|---|
| More teachers to educate all youth | More prison guards for youth of the poor | |
| Health care for all with 3% overhead costs | Health care for some with 15% overhead costs | |
| Citizen driven and accountable to the voters | Market driven and accountable to shareholders | |
| Critical thinking required | Beliefs trump facts | |
| Widespread acceptance of diversity | Increased use of racist dog whistles | |
| Public officials held accountable by a free press | Widespread acceptance and propagation of lying and deceit for profit | |
| A nation for all citizens | A nation for those who see “other” Americans as the enemy and disposable | |
| Language, literacy, and hope on the side of justice | Willful ignorance and widespread injustice on the side of hate | |
| Language and critical thought for holding the government, military, corporations, and other power centers accountable | Language and mind numbing media for producing social amnesia and coma-inducing ignorance | |
| A culture of empathy for all Americans | A culture of cruelty for Americans not like me | |
| National powers bestowed on the federal government to uphold a society based on the obligations of citizenship, compassion and collective security | National powers transferred to ultra rich and mega corporations to uphold a totally deregulated, privatized, and commodified society | |
| Freedom defined in terms of responsibility for others, moral decency, and the common good – freedom from abuse | Freedom defined in terms of individualism and self-interest – freedom from constraint | |
| Compassionate and politically active citizens, who are critical thinkers, are required | Only selfish consumers, who can be easily scared by lies, are required and those who can’t consume will be imprisoned or left to die. | |
| Ethical considerations are critical to life and death situations | Life and death situations are a matter of cost/benefit analysis and profit | |
| Torture was illegal and prosecuted | Torture legalized and used against children. | |
| Citizens are obliged to listen, respect the views of others, and engage in a literate exchange on the issues – a culture of questioning and informed argument | Citizens engaged in unbridled intolerance, seething private fears, unchecked anger, and a decoupling of reason from freedom – a culture of shouting and unsubstantiated opinion | |
| A society able to translate privately suffered misery into genuine public debate, social concerns, and collective actions. | A society that watches others suffer for entertainment, blames them for their suffering with no understanding of systemic causation, and indulges in individual actions of self-interest. | |
| A publicly, well funded, education infrastructure which teaches critical thinking for use throughout a large variety of public spaces for the sake of maintaining democracy | A private, well funded, re-education infrastructure which entertains and teaches consumerism in a variety of privatized spaces for the sake of replacing democracy with a plutocracy | |
| Critical thought, nurtured in a variety of public spaces, to promote democratic principles, responsible government, and the translation of private suffering into social concerns and collective remedial action | Mob rule, financed by corporate wealth and stoked by political fear mongering, to promote marketplace fundamentalism, privatization of many public spaces, and elimination of the social state and collective action | |
| Public spheres nurtured and maintained to promote dialog, debate, and arguments with supporting evidence | Private spheres grown out of a national entertainment pedagogy to infantilize almost everything it touches, while offering opinions that utterly disregard evidence, truth, and civility | |
| Public values and public good viewed as a legacy that needs to be reclaimed, re-imagined, and renewed continuously | Public values and public good put on display like a museum piece that is worth viewing but not worth struggling over | |
| Public schools for all that value youth, and provide protection, empowerment, equity, and hope. Broadly based schools that prepare young people to be knowledgeable, compassionate, and critically engaged citizens | Public schools for the poor that have become military fortresses, ready to mete out injustice and humiliation in a zero tolerance atmosphere. Market based schools based on factories and prisons | |
| Sufficient school taxes are invested in teachers, social workers, health workers, teachers aides, and safe travel to and from school | Fewer school taxes are diverted from education to metal detectors, surveillance cameras and recording equipment, security guards, high security fences and armed police with dogs roaming the halls. | |
| A society which supports all young people as necessary for democracy | A society which sees the youth of the poor as disposable and in need of punishment | |
| A social safety net provided boots to those in need so they could pull themselves up by their boot straps – a society of shared responsibilities. | The social safety net is replaced with prisons, an expanded criminal justice system, and the erosion of civil liberties – a society of shared fears and state sanctioned torture. | |
| A society based on a culture of mutual respect and caring for others – the common good. | A society based on a culture of war, military metaphysics, and national security – the individual good | |
| All young people are seen as an asset – a symbol of long term commitment for the common good | Poor young people are seen as a liability and trouble that needs to be contained – a drain on the empire of consumption | |
| A post WWII society worried about the military-industrial complex | A post Greatest Generation society promoting a fundamentalist free-market and the academic-military-industrial-prison complex |
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When I read above: "More prison guards for youth of the poor" it reminded me of a comment I heard once on mainstream media(and I'm sure it's a repeated, strongly held sentiment), that "we need more cops." I disagree when I hear people say things like that, or we need more prisons, or more guards. Such thinking has become a mindset of fearful, angry who see an "Us against Them" everywhere. A better society is one where fewer cops, prisons, and guards are needed. A society where artificial barriers to success are not constructed overwhelming in the favor of those born into wealth, a society where every person has an equal opportunity to make the most of his or her potential. Great post.