Charisma: Now You’ve Got It, Now You Don’t

From bottom to top:

Last 10 years of modernity - as said last night, you are obviously not high RWA. A very high RWA person might agree the last decade has not been an amazing success, but would not limit themselves to that perception, and instead might claim things took a wrong turn with the Enlightenment[1], and people who behave as they ought not deserve lashing[2].

Also, the author has been using the RWA scale since the 1970s, the main primary papers he recommends are from (p.6) the 1990s, and most of the examples he gives in what I have reread are from the younger Bush period. So I doubt he's talking about 1997 and especially not anything more recent than 2010.

(Finally, I haven't a clue if you mean something specific by mentioning this decade? Over here, not much has happened in the last ten years, the last notable event before the pandemic having been the 2008 financial crisis.)

Dehumanisation — IIRC, the author doesn't dehumanise high RWA groups (otherwise he might be advocating pushing them out of helicopters instead of simply giving them the opportunity to meet, or even engage in shared tasks with, the Other.) If you could point out a dehumanising passage in the book please do.

Other bullshit in questions - see the footnote (p.39) discussing question 16:

    “God’s laws about abortion, pornography, and marriage must be strictly followed before it is too late, and those who break them must be strongly punished.”

the operative parts of this question are neither abortion, nor pornography, nor marriage, but strictly followed, too late, and strongly punished.

Definitions - I was also alive last century[3] and believe the m-w definition is fine for its purpose, but although it shares a strong correlation, it's not the RWA[2] definition the book uses (which, the author takes pains to point out, can, and has in the ex-FSU case, applied mutatis mutandi to politically left wing authoritarian followers[4]).

Another last-century example, beyond the cousin posts: high RWA 1990s beliefs led to Srebrenica.

Normal human attitude - It's easy to argue that "Burn the Heretic!" has been normal for much of the last 6'000 years and probably tens of thousands, but I think in the west[5] it started going out of style after the wars of religion[6]. For some pre-1997 evidence, consult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Conventions_of_1899_and_...

[1] among the behaviours he found correlating with high RWA was acceptance of the notion (p.19) that the US Bill of Rights leads to immorality so it should be repealed.

Although this specific example comes from the fictional Ignatius J. Reilly, the idea is seriously presented in Evola's Cavalcare la tigre. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24785596

[2] (p.52) "Since followers do virtually all of the assaulting and killing in authoritarian systems--the leaders see to this most carefully--we are dealing with very serious matters here. Anyone who follows orders can become a murderer for an authoritarian regime. But authoritarian followers find it easier to bully, harass, punish, maim, torture, “eliminate,” “liquidate,” and “exterminate” their victims than most people do."

[3] although I am in an area that's historically been so strongly catholic (our idea of a cocktail party is centred on bread and wine) that people here are far more interested in following the Golden Rule than in making a tribe of their religion (our muslims also enjoy these same cocktail parties). YMMV.

[4] as a literary left wing example, the dogs in Animal Farm are a high RWA group, being content to be servile to the pigs as long as they get to be arrogant to all the other animals.

[5] pace twentieth century literal exceptions, and under the caveat: only between "us" westerners

[6] which did more to determine who was left than who had been right.

I agree that online virtual bullying mobs[1] are only a few steps[2] away from offline physical lynching mobs. Compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24798617 for my thoughts on how to filter for authoritarian followers of whatever political persuasion.

How can "would score high" and "accepting of divergences from their beliefs" not be disjoint?

As far as I can tell, the author is not advocating to "cure" people for not voting his way, he's advocating to "cure" people who are tempted to use the bullet box instead of the ballot box[3] to make him live their way. I'm pretty sure classical liberals, being live and let live, would score very low on this test.

Thanks for reassuring me about Dreher and Evola[4], I was introduced to them via HN, so I have no idea how widespread their thought may be offline. Agree that Toole was writing a parody version of the question of political or theoretic lives which was treated in a serious manner by Boethius in Consolation of Philosophy and Hesse in The Glass Bead Game. I wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Talc (a substance useful when changing diapers?) didn't also have elements of self mockery.

[1] did I forget to mention that apparently former CPSU members scored highly on RWA? Examples of questions I think left wing authoritarian followers might score highly on in the current context: 1, 5, 7, 17, 19, 22. Maybe for the current times the author, who notes in the first chapter that in the early twenty-first century the times of quoting Chairman Mao were long over, ought to ask about the appropriate use of Madame Guillotine?

[2] In the context of online cancellation mobs, moving from "harassment" through "punish", "maim", and "torture", on to "liquidate". To me it seems the easiest way to address mob cancellation is to only allow termination for cause, but even that wouldn't have saved the NYT editor (who had published Cotton's OpEd sight unseen).

[3] bullet box metaphor lifted from an FBI indictment. For my sanity, I should stop reading those things. (but they're horribly fascinating: over here people bring rifles to the range, not to demos.)

[4] I get Ubuntu from Evola because he's always rabbiting on about the atomisation of modernity. I'm not sure quite what he's for, as he seems to take it for granted his readers already do, but given the expressed love of hierarchy, I think he's big on social relations:

    Left wing ubuntu: symmetric, transitive, and reflexive 
    Right wing ubuntu: antisymmetric, transitive, and reflexive

not to mention keeping relations up not only with those alive today but also with those of our Tradition.

Going bald pretty much did the same for me haha. It's very interesting, and disturbing, how differently people treat traditionally attractive people and unattractive/less people.

(a) which question has anything to do with sexual dimorphism?

(b) someone who is always clothed in company themselves but doesn't mind if others are sky-clad in private gatherings (such as a classical liberal, an economic conservative, or a normal republican) would answer +4 to:

    8.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with nudist camps.

Given that I believe private nudity is legal in the US[1], why should anyone respond otherwise, unless unaccepting of divergence from their beliefs?

(As for Nazis, what references do you have? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badge#... shows the stereotypical pink triangles. For nudity, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikörperkultur is a general german thing, not particularly Nazi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives#SA_le... was 1934.)

[1] based on my twentieth century experiences in US hot tubs and springs.

Q. how many californians does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A. (rot13) Abar, pnyvsbeavnaf fperj va ubg ghof.

I'm not joking. For instance, gambling[1] is something I don't do, but I would +4 the hypothetical question:

    8': There is absolutely nothing wrong with casinos.

Indeed, my wife and I used to eat at the casino, because their kitchen was open late. If I had more reservations, say related to addiction potential[2], maybe I'd only +1 it, but I wouldn't give it a high negative score, which would be necessary to score an overall high RWA.

I don't smoke[3] either but (enclosed public smoking being illegal here) I would also agree with the hypothetical:

    8'': There is absolutely nothing wrong with smoking clubs.

I also won't join them, but don't mind if traditional christian people meet and do traditional christian things together[4], so I would also agree with the hypothetical:

    8''': There is absolutely nothing wrong with cathedrals[5].

All these things diverge from my beliefs, but I accept others have their own beliefs[6]. Why should I not?

"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor."

Na du deting to du xeta, fo mang kapawu to. (...to your shipmate)

[1] beyond the undiversifiable risks any capitalist runs

[2] ID is required in our casinos, so I wouldn't be surprised if problem gamblers were 86ed.

[3] except on those rare occasions when either my pyromania gets out of hand or my campfire skills are weak

[4] although St Benedict makes it sounds like traditional christian people are a bunch of super-commies who gave up personal as well as private property. Consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananias_and_Sapphira#Story_sum...

[5] My local one, from the seventh century, has chapels for both St Barbara and St George, two of my favourite christian saints.

[6] "il faut de tout pour faire un monde" (the world is diverse) Desh fosho kowlting fo du da belek.

Bonus clip (casino): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swvzItnFtCw