LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY 1400scale)

I just finished chapter 7 ( http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ ).

Friends, I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH how vital this book is for your reading lists.

It has convinced me that the Dominionist movement is, in fact, only a symptom of something far more dangerous and destructive; that in essence, defeating Dominionism, while a vital goal, will be only one step in a greater struggle, and that is against authoritarianism itself (particularly the high and "Double-High" social-dominance expression of it). Dominionism is merely its current face; it is dependant on authoritarianism, but authoritarianism is NOT dependent on Dominionism.

I exchanged emails with Altemeyer over the weekend, reproduced here, with his permission.

My inital correspondence:

Professor Altemeyer:

I've been working my way through your book and have found it the most illuminating, informative and disturbing thing I've ever read. Something in particular struck me, though; you wrote that "Double-Highs" gravitate towards Right-Wing social movements because they find they can advance upwards through those movements faster, but at one part (in Chapter 4, I think) you made an almost offhand comment that implies that they would do so in Left-Wing social movements also if they found it neccessary.

Which leads me to this question:

Assuming that one day the the US Govt's actions really do bring us to the brink of WWIII, but cooler heads prevail, and the Double-High neocons on the far Right attempt to save their political asses by scapegoating the dominionists for nearly causing the extinction of our species, and most RWA followers abandoned their support in response (particularly after they didn't get Raptured), is it possible that in the wake of that situation, some of the up-and-coming Double-Highs (who weren't indicted) would alter tactics, work their way into the Left, and attempt a sort of "mirror-universe" ultra-Left version hostile to religious fundamentalism?

Altemeyer's response:

Hi. Nice to meet you, and thanks for saying I've been disturbing.

Regarding your hypothetical scenario: Is it possible? Yes. Would it likely happen? I think social dominators would swim up any stream available to them in that situation. They would easily denounce their former allies. There's a fair amount of that going on now in the Bush admin, as I pointed out in Ch. 6. They could certainly try to repaint themselves as liberals. They would have a problem however, because low RWAs are a lot crabbier than high RWAs, and it would have to be a very good paint job to fool them.

That's my guess, anyway.

Altemeyer

I followed up by asking permission to post the exchange and asked him if he felt that a social backlash (facilitated by defecting Double-Highs) against fundamentalism specifically and possibly even organized religion in general was a possible outcome of such a scenario.

His reply:

I'd be very happy if you posted our exchange on that site.

Is it likely that organized religion will be scapegoated as the cause of the trouble the United States is in?

Yes and no, in my opinion. Organized religion overall is weakening in "Western" countries. It's possible some people who marginally belong to a religion might overgeneralize and say, "See what religion brings! I'm through."

But I think most people know it is the Christian fundamentalists, not Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. in general, who carried Bush into power. And there could be a backlash against them. I saw a news item the other day that such fundamentalists said in a poll that people were prejudiced against them now-which I refer to in Ch. 7. I don't think that backlash is an example of scapegoating, however.

I appreciated the exchange and thanked him for it.

IMO, that backlash would be a prime example of Dominionists reaping what they've sown, but as we've discovered here, there are fundamentalists who are NOT Dominionists, even (as Chip Berlet has pointed out) APOCALYPTIC fundamentalists who are not allied with the Religious Right and would probably want nothing to do with them, assuming they even are aware of them. Most of these individuals are harmless, decent, law-abiding people who are good citizens and DO pattern their lives after the teachings of Jesus. They simply take the Bible more literally than most.

However, assuming things get worse before they get better, these people need to be defended and protected. Otherwise they could be swallowed up and victimized for something that they were never a part of in the first place.

I'm also suggesting to the maintainers a new tag: "authoritarianism".