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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: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Saturday September 16 2017, @11:47PM (8 children)
There are still real Nazis? They must be around 100+ years old or something then. Are these the once that hid in their secret base in Antarctica or the once that have a secret base on the back side of the moon? I'm quite curios to know, I really am.
Those 8 question in the quiz ... They are so vague and general they could be used and applied for almost anything.
1. An ideal society requires some groups to be on top and others to be on the bottom.
2. Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups.
3. No one group should dominate in society
4. Groups at the bottom are just as deserving as groups at the top.
5. Group equality should not be our primary goal.
6. It is unjust to try to make groups equal.
7. We should do what we can to equalize conditions for different groups.
8. We should work to give all groups an equal chance to succeed.
SIEG H .... oh wait ... None of the questions actually ask if I believe in white supremacy, Nazi ideology or anything that have to do with Nazism at all. But I guess since I'm white and Male I should just embrace my inner Nazism and go with it ...
(Score: 2) by tfried on Sunday September 17 2017, @05:57AM (6 children)
You may want to ponder that sentence, again, perhaps reading up on any terms that you do not have a strong grip on. Makes sense, now?
There are certainly more direct ways of assessing whether / to what degree somebody actually is a Nazi. But the whole point is to connect that specific ideology to
a) more general "orientations"
b) situational context
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday September 17 2017, @01:22PM (5 children)
Did you just get triggered or what didn't you understand? The questions are to general, they don't provide enough context or information so they can't act as a proper backup for their initial statement or claim. They don't give us any information about the groups, it could literally be almost anything -- serial rapists vs little old ladies, unemployed bums vs doctors, black vs white, urban vs country etc. Are they equally worthy? Down to the inch? They don't give context. They have very open ended questions without proper definitions given so it could be almost anything and everything making this more or less completely worthless as a predictor for anything. It just doesn't offer any kind of insights. Given enough open ended questions and variables you can predict or correlate almost anything. Which is probably what they want, since if you ask open questions, you get open answers that can without any problems be used to fit what ever preconceived ideas you might have had to begin with. For this to have any kind of meaning you need definitions of groups, equality, power, high-status, low-status etc. These are not universal, nor are they given here.
Q1. This is how human society has always worked. Hierarchical society works, flat societies does not.
Q2. This is almost like a trick question to Q1. But Inferior how and based on what? Status? Education? Needs? Being at the bottom doesn't necessarily make you inferior in every way -- it could just indicate that you are below. You could still be equal in other aspects.
Q3. Given Q1 this is sort of given already. If one wants to rule by force, or be at the top of society there will be domination. Interestingly most power structures depend on the highest level dominating and playing out groups on the levels below it against each other so that they can't become a threat to the their level or gain enough power to challenge them.
Q4. Deserving in what way and of what? What if your society is a Meritocracy? Are people that do nothing going to be worth the same as people that do something that is actually needed?
Q5-Q8. What is equality? How equal should they be? Down to the inch? If two groups are equal are they then not in fact the same group? This would then be the desire to make everyone the same. A groupless, or ONE group, society. A recipe for failure. What if one group is just clearly better then another group, the others can't be brought up to their level for some reason. Should we then lower the first group down to their level in the name of equality? So it's pretty much a race to the bottom or smallest common denominator. Do what we can, what if we can't or don't want to do anything? Under which conditions? Are everyone equal, or equally suitable for everything? Can they even do everything? Clearly there are differences between groups and people.
So what is it that you believe that I do not understand? The article and the questions are making bold claims that these questions just can't back up. They are to vague and general to have any actual value, there is just to much wiggle-room. None of the questions given are even trying to determine my status, high or low, or which group I would belong to. Was one to think about right-wing-extremism in general the people associated with it are usually not members of any high-status groups, unless you believe that being male and white makes you high status in our modern society. It doesn't. Most high status people wouldn't wanna be caught dead at an event like Charlottesville. Not to mention that Conservatism doesn't equal Nazism. If you make that comparison you are somewhat deluded and mistaken.
(Score: 2) by tfried on Sunday September 17 2017, @06:51PM (4 children)
Some of these questions are somewhat vague, but don't pretend you did not understand what they were getting at: An issue on which there are quite simply different views. There's eight questions, so if you really misunderstand one or two of them, or think of an unusual example where your general world view does not apply, then that will simply be averaged out. Dig up the numbers yourself, if you like, but the scale has been shown to be reasonably consistent (i.e. same persons gives similar answers on re-test, on one half of the questions compared to the others, etc.), and they have been shown to correlate to various other concepts, so it has been demonstrated that it does in fact measure something. If you have reason to argue that it measures something other than what it is labelled, then say so. Saying it's just noise does not work.
Given your further explanations, it is rather obvious that you score medium to high on that scale. That does not make you a bad person or even a Nazi, but it is not the same as my score, for instance. There are different views on the best balance of equality and hierarchy in a society. Arguing which balance is "objectively" better (on whatever count) is not the point, here. Also, translating from a certain score on the scale to a very specific society is going to be difficult. But still higher scores reflect a different view on the world than lower scores.
True, and that is just one of the reasons why this "test" cannot diagnose a Nazi. But again, why would it, there are more direct questions for that. I can see why you would be triggered with csmonitor basically selling this as an "are you a Nazi"-test, while that is in fact not what it is. Now I am in the comfy position of scoring low on the scale, so I'm not under suspicion of being a Nazi. But then, the downside to that is that I'm always at danger of being stamped a Communist. If nothing else, you will probably admit that this isn't a label that you get confronted with, too often?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @01:36AM (3 children)
It was like the first time I was asked "does your mom know you are stupid?" It takes a second to figure out the question itself is trick the first time. I went through four of these just to see if they were all like that. Answering the question means you are ignorant, naive, or stupid (ie someone to be manipulated). Some people never get that, which is what this tests for I guess?
(Score: 2) by tfried on Monday September 18 2017, @06:15AM (2 children)
Hm, you seriously think a trick question could serve a purpose in a paper-and-pencil/online test? A forced choice one, too? Care to explain the algorithm for that?
Look, TFA is very much to blame for Godwin-ing the whole thing from the start. But that questionnaire still measures something. And for all I can see some folks, here, are actually surprised to find out their view on equality / hierarchy is not universally shared. Isn't that a start?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @12:11PM (1 child)
Psychology questionnaires often use misdirection so you do not guess the true purpose of the questions. In fact I would say the majority of them are like this. Have you never taken psych 101 where they make you be a subject for 3 "studies" to pass?
(Score: 2) by tfried on Monday September 18 2017, @01:29PM
I took enough psychology classes (and played lab rat to more than enough studies) to be able to google "social dominance orientation", and find out it is a well-established concept backed by some well-published scales (heck, you can even read up on it on wikipedia) designed to measure: social dominance orientation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @02:41PM
You don't need to be white to be a Nazi. Look at Mugabe and their movement in Zimbabwe.
Also congrats, you are a Nazi, or at very least racist/bigot. Maybe you should realize a few things
1. we have one stinking planet
2. we are all human
3. differences between different "groups" are smaller than differences within these "groups" -- it almost doesn't matter how you define the group.
4. and now, we are rapidly approaching one culture world.
It is self-harm on societal level to treat others as "different".
Not sure about leftist. More centrist. But then again, centrist is the enemy of the Nazis and the Commies. Both want to divide society into groups which results in chaos and war. Perfect examples would be Syria, Libya, Afghanistan. And these days, Hungary, Russia and now US.
Anyway, in the "good old days" all the women were the underclass too. And white men without land were underclass before that. And every fucking step of the way to have equal rights for everyone, there were idiots in these underclasses that were arguing against it. Every fucking step of the way. So it is not surprising that bigots remain. And will continue to remain and continue to try to destroy the society they live in because of their god-complex.
Zimbabwe, prime example. Today's Israel, another example. You don't need to be white to be a Nazi, a racist, or a bigot.