ABSTRACT

Authoritarianism is a consequence of the level of achieved learning and an inability to cognize. The authoritarian personality is simply less intelligent. An additional consideration to touch upon is the possibility that passive, conventional, narcissistic authoritarians are not quite smart enough to be active, instrumental, and unconventional. In whatever ways that an authoritarian's particular passivity and particular conventionality ought to be conceptualized, they are no doubt wrapped up with his or her unhealthy narcissism. Healthy narcissism, as developmental psychologists conceptualize it, is a personality plus where a strong sense of self leads to and allows for intimate, reciprocal relationships, empathy, individuality, and an acceptance of the requirements of freedom. The unhealthy narcissism of the authoritarian, by contrast, made up as it is of false self-confidence, a sense of emptiness and hollowness, and defensive grandiosity, leads to conventionality, submissiveness, and passivity.