Technocracy and Authoritarianism

Theodore Adorno figures to have been averse to Technocracy. That's why Skip Sievert did not take up Messenger's cue to discuss Adorno's quotation in The Boonyaratglin Solution:

If voting could change the system, it would be illegal.

Adorno wrote that the concept of reason was transformed into an irrational force by the Enlightenment. As a consequence, reason came to dominate not only nature, but also humanity itself. It is this rationalization of humanity that was identified as the primary cause of fascism and other totalitarian regimes. Consequently, Adorno did not consider rationalism a path towards human emancipation. For that, he looked toward the arts.

Adorno, along with other major Frankfurt School theorists such as Horkheimer and Marcuse, argued that advanced capitalism was able to contain or liquidate the forces that would bring about its collapse and that the revolutionary moment, when it would have been possible to transform it into socialism, had passed. Adorno argued that capitalism had become more entrenched through its attack on the objective basis of revolutionary consciousness and through liquidation of the individualism that had been the basis of critical consciousness.

In the Authoritarian Personality, Adorno predicted one's potential for fascist and antidemocratic leanings and behaviors. These qualities are assessed by a coherent system--the "structure of personality"--which arises out of characteristic experiences in early childhood and the pattern of internal, psychic processing. Hishe development of a measure for fascist tendencies known as the F-scale that is still in use today

Adorno explained the onset of fascist and antidemocratic attitudes from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, and thereby to make a scientific contribution in the struggle against fascism.

• Conventionalism -- the tendency to accept and obey social conventions and the rules of authority figures; adherence to the traditional and accepted
• Authoritarian Submission -- submission to authorities and authority figures
• Authoritarian Aggression -- an aggressive attitude towards individuals or groups disliked by authorities; particularly those who threaten traditional values
• Anti-Intraception -- rejection of the subjective, imaginative and aesthetic
• Substitution and Stereotypy -- superstition, cliché, categorization and fatalistic determinism
• Power and Toughness -- identification with those in power, excessive emphasis on socially advocated ego qualities
• Destructiveness and Cynicism -- general hostility, putting others down
• Projectivity -- the tendency to believe in the existence of evil in the world and to project unconscious emotional impulses outward
• Sex -- exaggerated concerns with respect to sexual activity
  

All of these tendencies are evident in Sievert's statements on this site. That is why Skip did not want to take the discussion on: he was afraid of disclosing his F-factors.