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from the what-y'all-love-social-sciences dept.
It's 2017. Why are there still Nazis?
It's a question many observers are asking after hundreds of white supremacists, many displaying swastikas and Confederate battle flags and shouting racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-communist slogans, took to the streets of Charlottesville, Va., this weekend, provoking violence that claimed the life of one counter-protester and resulted in multiple injuries.
The continued existence of people who hold openly white supremacist ideologies more than seven decades after the fall of the Third Reich can be explained, in part, through a social theory developed in the early 1990s. Social dominance theory seeks to explain how hierarchy-enhancing ideologies do not just drive social inequality, but are also a result of it. It suggests that a single personality trait, called social dominance orientation (SDO), strongly predicts a person's political and social views, from foreign policy and criminal justice to civil rights and the environment. What's more, it offers insight into how ideologies such as racism, sexism, and xenophobia tend to arise from the unequal distribution of a society's resources.
"Social dominance theory provides a yardstick for measuring social and political ideologies," says Felicia Pratto, who developed the theory with fellow psychologist Jim Sidanius. "SDO is one way – not the only one – to try to figure out what those ideologies are 'about.'"
You too can take the Social Dominance Orientation quiz to determine your nazi quotient.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @11:34PM (2 children)
Because it's a thing, and people like things. Also, there is a large pool of potential entrants who are free to reproduce. This is key. For example, there are extinct tribes because by definition you can only be a member if you are born a member, and the demographics were shrinking. OTOH, the pool of "aryans" is large and stable in population. Being free to reproduce is important because they can pass ideas on to their children. Contrast this with Shakers--not reproducing, and there are only two old ones left according to a quick googling I just did.
Simply being a thing isn't enough. You've got to have awareness and marketing. I could invent "Scallopurian" right now. There. I'm the first Scallopurian. Anybody else want to join? It's easy. Just declare that you are one. That's not enough though. It has to have marketing. Few people will read this. It has no flag, no history of evil, good, or neutral and thus nobody has any particular affinity for it. I could write a whole book about it, and if I were unscrupulous I could even found an organization and get some traction with celebrities... and... I won't do that; because I'm not a douche. If I were though, and it all fell into place, it could be a thing.
People would join up, even if it sucked.
Because it would be a thing.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday September 17 2017, @01:58AM
Pastafarians, scientologists, before them, Mormons, it goes on and on and on. To bad the Moonies seem to have dried up and blown away. They were as harmless as the limp noodle people.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday September 17 2017, @04:01AM
I am intrigued. Do you have a newsletter?