Sixties egalitarian communes seeded postmodern authoritarian fundamentalisms

Evidence

I devote so much attention to this issue because it seems to me characteristic of the inherent authoritarianism of many ostensibly free, egalitarian, open sixties countercultural practices and formations; authoritarianism that revealed itself most fully, perhaps, in the many communal cults, with both political and spiritual emphases, built around charismatic authoritarian male leaders. Following these leaders was always presented of course as a free choice on the part of the followers, but in fact enormous psychological and sometimes physical pressure and coercion were applied to ensure obedience, submission, conformity. The enactment of the egalitarian communal ideal of modernity in the sixties contained the seeds of one of the most characteristic formations of postmodernity: the rise of mass-movement authoritarian fundamentalisms. — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited, 543

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A dense causal claim: the enactment of egalitarian communal idealism itself breeds the authoritarian-movement form — a genuine rethinking of freedom-as-structure worth sitting with.
• SEED: Article angle: how movements that preach radical freedom structurally require coercion — from perfectionist communes to today’s online ‘safe spaces.’
• XREF: connects to: Vegas-era machismo defeated the androgynous gender-utopian sixties male ideal — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the…, 341; The New Left’s communal we was an aggregate of consenting individuals — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the…, 451; Alt-right politics inverted sixties counterculture by recasting progressive institutions as oppressive — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 451 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• The 1960s liberation movements planted the roots of later right-wing libertarianism #complicates (0.90) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 57
• Alt-right politics inverted sixties counterculture by recasting progressive institutions as oppressive #exemplifies (0.82) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 451
• Postmodernity extends modernity’s egalitarianism to subaltern others #contradicts (0.80) — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited, 506
• Fascist egalitarianism is repressive, not liberating #complicates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 199
• Fascism and Soviet communism each combined left and right trait clusters #expands (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 672