On Wed, 11 Jan 2006 15:56:56 -0500 Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu>
writes:
> Jim:
>
> > Perhaps Wojtek's point is that Stalin had no problems
> > dispatching such people whenever it suited him.
> > A case of these folk getting what they deserved for having
> > given Uncle Joe such unswerving devotion in the first place.
>
>
> I'd take an issue with "unswerving" - "svervable" would be a better
> word
> choice here.
>
> There is a certain kind of homo sapiens that thrives by serving as
> an attack
> dog for the powers that be or "the cause" - e.g. an inquisitionis in
> the
> middle ages (as for example portrayed in the novel _In the name of
> the rose_
> ), the pogromschiki in Russia, the youth brigades in x- Soviet block
> countries, Red Guards in China, college Republicans in the US, Lou
> Proyect
> etc.
Not our Uncle Lou? As I recall he bailed out of the SWP because he disagreed with the "turn to industry" line, in which party members were all supposed to take blue collar industrial jobs.
> Their chief characteristics are extreme zeal in supporting the
> existing power system and acting as self-appointed defender of that
> system
> by prosecuting any perceived threat to it.
Well, that's not our Uncle Lou either.
> Think of them as Senator
> McCarthy but on the rank-and-file level. I think it goes beyond
> influence
> of political environment - it is more of a character or menatl flaw
> of a
> sort.
It seems to me that you are describing the so-called "authoritarian personality," which was detailed by a number of psychoanalytically- oriented writers such as Reich, Fromm, most famously - Adorno, and also Lipset etc. Those kind of people would tend to such up to whatever they perceive the strong powers to be, like those Germans who back in the early 1930s were able to switch their support from the KPD to Hitler with the greatest of ease.
>
> Wojtek
>
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