What is it about German culture that makes authoritarianism so popular?
replies(5):
At village scales, authoritarianism is given more credence by the individual because ones life boundaries are reduced to the immediate environment, which is not really sustainable without structured hierarchy.
Incidentally, this is also a factor in why American’s adopt authoritarianism so rapidly as well - spending 3 hours of ones life in a bubble, on the freeway, commuting, is extremely damaging to ones psyche. Road-rage and neighbor hatred abound in such circumstances.
The solution to authoritarianism is travel beyond ones bounds. The roots of totalitarian-authoritarianism grow deeply in the desire to be free of the ‘filth of others’ - once you expand your horizons to embrace that ‘filth of others’, through travel and cultural interaction, that ‘filth of others’ becomes ‘the flavor of others’ instead.
This is easily demonstrated: talk to a German who has never left their home town/talk to a German who regularly visits vastly different parts of the world. You will see the authoritarian in the former, but the libertarian in the latter.