Meanwhile, 44 percent backed the American tradition of competing branches of government as a model, if sometimes “frustrating,” system.

Why would people want to live under an authoritarian’s thumb? It’s rooted, experts say, in a psychological need for security—real or perceived—and a desire for conformity, a goal that becomes even more acute as the country undergoes dramatic demographic and social changes. People also like to obey a strong leader who will protect the group—especially if it is the “right” group whose interests will be protected. Recall the Trump supporter who, during the 2019 government shutdown, complained, “He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”

  • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    From this and other polls it really does seem that most countries would be immeasurably improved if a good third of the population were to spontaneously combust.

    • SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Bad news: the 1/3 authoritarian segment of society seems to be a human trait. Culture determines how the trait is expressed.

      So fire them into the sun but statistically the hierarchically-minded, active-amygdala, contrarian and cruel segments of the genome will just always be there.

      This is probably the primary challenge of the human condition: graduating from a troupe species with ling-refined tribal techniques for handling the problem individuals, to a noöspheric global species successfully coping with with emergent problems due to mass “civilizational” effects.

      • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        True, although it might buy us time to get some shit fixed before they repopulate and start complaining about how things have improved.