Is the left as dogmatic as the right?

It is evident that we are living through moments of social and political change that are associated with the progressive left. That left that advocates for social rights, intellectual freedom and thought. An ideology that, in short, has positioned itself from its origins against the different forms of repression towards cultural particularities and thought, as well as in favor of citizen participation in the social debate and political.

All these principles and moral positions, however, need an implementation, a way to be applied in practice. And this is where the controversy and confrontation appears about not only the methods to assume the objectives but also about the goal to be achieved. For all this, a study was launched at the University of Minnesota to determine the practices and techniques used by the left to convince the population and defeat their political adversaries. The basic idea was to find out if the left is as dogmatic and contrary to the questioning of certain ideas as the right

, traditionally associated with conservatism. The final results are, to say the least, surprising.

• Related article: "What is Political Psychology?"

Politics, the new religion

Lucian Gideon Conway, associate professor of psychology at the University of Montana, cautions that political ideology is one of the most deeply rooted and influential variables in our way of thinking, although we do not realize it, "to the point of being dogmatic", aim.

Some years ago, once the Second World War (1945) had ended and the Cold War had just started (1945-1991), the the concept of war of ideas, predicting that the next battles that were going to be fought would not be so much material as ideological. Since then, propaganda has been the most useful tool to combat opposing ideas. The expenses in newspapers, televisions and programs related to political dogmatisms, are counted for millions of dollars. h

A little less than 1 year ago the Russian Revolution of 1917 was celebrated by the hand of Leninist communism. Some applaud it, others lament it and accuse the radical left of historical authoritarianism, in large part because of the way in which public opinion on the matter has been polarized. As a sign of the influence that the propaganda battle has had, it should be noted that although at the At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union had been primarily responsible for the defeat of hitler, in recent decades it is believed rather that it was the Americans who defeated the Nazis.

Conway's curiosity was piqued and, together with her psychologist colleagues, she decided to delve into the left's way of conveying arguments. For her, Many of those who were opposed to dogmatism already practiced it verbally..

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Is the left authoritarian?

Unconsciously, authoritarianism is often associated with the extreme right and fascism. There are reasons for this, given that from these positions ways of discriminating against people are legitimized starting not from their actions, but from their belonging to "fixed" categories such as race or place of residence. birth. Conway, however, believed that dogmatism is also rampant on the left. As a starting point, the team of psychologists took the model of the "Scale of the Authoritarian Right of the American Bob Altemeyer.

This method is nothing more than a survey to be able to measure the authoritarianism of a person who answers the questions. Some issues respond to the power that should be granted to the State, trust in the authorities and their laws. Phrases such as "it is always better to trust the rigor of the authorities regarding climate change and other problems related to science", to which we must respond in different ways. Agreement scales: strongly agree, strongly agree, partially agree, slightly agree, neutral, partially disagree, strongly disagree, and strongly disagree. disagreement.

This technique brings us closer to a very precise analysis given the range of possibilities to answer, especially to determine the level of ideological dogmatism. For it 600 students of progressive ideology were selected, and another 600 of liberal right-wing ideology. Both groups responded to their respective surveys of their left/right political spectrum.

Surprisingly, crossing the responses of both groups, they agreed on three variables. According to the data obtained, left-thinking individuals are just as authoritarian, dogmatic, and extremist as their right-wing colleagues. The participants questioned were located in the same political spectrum when asked about State power.

Conclusions and limitations of the study

As Conway says, this study has some limitations. The number of participants is too small to be able to draw definitive conclusions. For the team of psychologists, there are good reasons to believe that the right tends to be more dogmatic than the left, and they assure that the studies still need to be developed a little more to be able to compare the behaviors of both ideologies.

On the other hand, the research presents a bias: trust in the State and the laws does not have to be a trait of dogmatism if these effectively serve for all social groups to live well, or in times in which the threat of ultra-conservative influence due to the tendency of the latter to systematically discriminate against certain minorities.