The absence of conflict in normal people masks authority’s prior suppression of instinct

Evidence

Another syndrome found among high scorers was the “conventional,” which most closely approximated a conflict-free internalization of parental and social norms. It was this latter type that seemed most congenial to a patriarchal family structure in which paternal authority was still relatively intact. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 749 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

It is rather for philosophy to seek, in the opposition of feeling and understanding, their – precisely moral – unity. Intelligence, in asserting its power of judgement, opposes anything given in advance, by at the same time expressing it. The very judgement that excludes instinctual impulses compensates them by a moment of counter-pressure against the force exerted by society. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 219 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The prejudiced personality, which like Adorno et al. (1950) he also referred to as the “authoritarian personality,” was someone for whom prejudice was psychologically functional and a direct response to deep-rooted underlying needs in the personality. At the core of this prejudiced personality were a set of traits Allport summed up as “ego weakness” – insecurity, fearfulness, anxiety and an inability to cope effectively with one’s own inner tensions, conflicts, and anxieties, or with uncertainty, threat, change, and ambiguity in the external world. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2429 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Modern administration abolishes the reflective hesitation that once mediated individual and general.; Intelligent judgement compensates excluded instincts by resisting social force — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 219; Apparent inner conflict often masks attempts to match local norms — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1937 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Conventional-authoritarian types internalize norms without conflict #contradicts (0.88) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 749
• Intelligent judgement compensates excluded instincts by resisting social force #complicates (0.82) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 219
• Authoritarian prejudice springs from ego weakness and unresolved inner conflict #expands (0.80) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2429
• Apparent inner conflict often masks attempts to match local norms #qualifies (0.78) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1937