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Writer's pictureScott Robinson

The People Who Long to Be Led



There are those who want to live in a society where no one person is absolutely in charge – no monarch, no dictator, no master – and prefer that every member of society have a voice, and that a system of government, with the rule of law at its center, be the object of their loyalty.

And there are those who want to live in a society where the opposite is true – where one person is in charge, one person decides the law and whose voice alone matters – one person who is the government, and the object of their loyalty.

Every existing society is composed of both types of people. Neither type fully understands the other.

The difference between them is not ideological. It is not ‘partisan’. It is not, strictly speaking, even really a matter of choice.

It is largely (though not entirely) to do with how their brains are built.

Here’s what makes an Authoritarian Follower, in the tiniest-possible nutshell:


  • The Authoritarian Follower is very likely to have a larger-than-average amygdala, the part of the brain where Fight-or-Flight resides;

  • The Authoritarian Follower is very likely to have a smaller-than-average anterior cingulate cortex, where error detection, conflict resolution and social evaluation occur;

  • The Authoritarian Follower therefore tends to be more fearful, more prone to aggression, and less likely to process conflict, see their own errors or fully understand others;

  • ...so the only way they can feel truly safe is to seek out a strong, dominant person who they believe will do it for them.


There! Wasn’t that simple?

Is this all there is to it? Of course not. Nothing is really that simple. But this is enough for us to begin to understand that those who don’t see it as we do are not inexplicable; there are reasons why we all see the world, and others, so differently.

It’s put more elegantly by Erich Fromm, the ‘working man’s philosopher.’ In his masterpiece Escape from Freedom, he wrote

“The function of an Authoritarian ideology and practice can be compared to the function of neurotic symptoms. Such symptoms result from unbearable psychological conditions, and at the same time, offer a solution that makes life possible; yet they are not a solution that leads to happiness or growth of personality. They leave unchanged the conditions that necessitate the neurotic solution.”

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