Authoritarian leaders

We referred to NF Dixon’s classic book, On
the Psychology of Military Incompetence, and its distinction between the
autocrat and the authoritarian. How further did he distinguish between these
two types? Firstly, the autocrat is somebody who may well be strict and a
disciplinarian, but this is not a result of emotional disturbance. Dixon expresses the difference
as: the autocrat exercises tight control when the situation demands it; the authoritarian
is himself tightly controlled, no matter what the external situation.

 In the short term how do we spot the difference, then, between someone who
is obsessively disturbed, and one who is not? Dixon supplies the behavioural
characteristics of the authoritarian personality:

 conventional – usually rigid adherence to
middle-class values

 submissive – to the idealised moral authority
of the group with which s/he identifies self, and to higher authority

 aggressive – towards those who violate
conventional values

 anti-intraceptive – opposes the subjective, the
imaginative, the tender-minded

 stereotypy – disposition to stereotype and
think in rigid categories

 power – preoccupation with 'strong'
leadership, exaggerated assertions of toughness

 cynical – frequent vilification of others

 projectivity – the projection outwards of
unconscious emotional impulses, so that the world is constantly interpreted as
being a dangerous place

 'puritanical'
prurience –
exaggerated concern with sexual 'goings-on'

 Obviously, authoritarianism is a complex phenomenon that doesn't simply
exist, or not – there will be a sliding scale of its potency.

 One critical observation Dixon makes is the association of moral
conformity with a lack of compassion. Unsurprisingly, he also links this lack
of compassion to being uncreative and having a closed mind. This last point
reminds us that although there are nine characteristics, yet one is struck by
how interrelated they all seem.