this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2026
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The desire for hierarchy and order isn't an inherently bad one. A highly authoritarian individual will be the first to volunteer when someone needs to run into a burning building to save someone. They will be the first to volunteer to defend the community. They will also be the people that organize trash pickups, because littering is bad.
However, they can also be easily weaponized against others. Just like littering is against the natural order of things, and they will go out of their way to pick up litter, they can be convinced that other people are also against the natural order of things....with significantly more horrific outcomes.
I don't think this is necessarily true. A person can just as easily be motivated to do these from a sense of solidarity and mutual responsibility than a desire for hierarchies. (Ursula le Guin's The Dispossessed explores the various aspects of how a society could be built on such principles.)
I don't believe these two go together, heirarchies tend to be characterised by tension and discord.
It's actually the exact opposite! The phenomenon of Elite Panic is well established and included in disaster planning.
During an emergency, most people exhibit "spontaneous self organisation" - bucket lines, food distribution, search parties, etc. Whereas people with authority are much more likely to freak out, to fail to understand that the situation is different, to enforce detrimental rules, to feel threatened, to generally act badly.
huh?
Oh, you misunderstand. I'm talking about authoritarians. You seem to have done some reading in the past. Do some more. theauthoritarians.org
The people that form those bucket lines and search parties would, ironically, be more likely to be authoritarian in worldview, and therefore have the greatest psychological need to fix the problem.
This touches the terrain of leadership and motivation, and I'd argue that authoritarianism is accidental here. Sure, here and there leaders with authoritarian views rise (e.g. Mussolini), but also people who do not believe in it so much (e.g. Che Guevara). There have been studies about the psychology of leaders and motivators, and they seem to be driven by a lot of energy and often certainty at least in some core ideas. There are books like A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness that go as far as to suggest these traits border the unhealthy in many notorious and strong cases.