Still recommended reading: http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians... The key takeaway isn't so much that the left/right spectrum is a horse shoe, but that in fact there are (at least) two independent axes, and authoritarian attitudes don't necessarily correspond neatly to left/right distinctions. Although the book spends a lot of time looking at authoritarians on the far right, there's an interesting and useful coda about left wing authoritarians. I've found it much more useful to ignore the traditional spectrum and look instead at the degree of scorn, hatred,…
Where have you heard this about Chinese culture in particular? I’ve only heard of such a trait in reading Robert Altemeyer’s book The Authoritarians, where it is described as a common trait of right wing authoritarians, who appear to not be very good about comparing the various ideas they have together to see if they are contradictory. Altemeyer describes it as the result of an upbringing that emphasizes loyalty and submission and that posits that truth is something that comes from an authority figure, rather than something that can be derived from available facts for oneself. But I think…
It's also mentioned in "the authoritarians" (search for the book and the short-form essay) - roughly half the population is driven by intellectual curiosity about all kinds of things and don't always agree on much - they just want freedom to be individuals. The other half is driven by fear, disgust, paranoia, etc.. That second group is much easier to trigger / convince - just play on their fears about their kids, their friends, their church ("will ban Bibles and churches"), etc.. (I was raised in this kind of environment). Authoritarians WANT a "strong leader" to tell them what to think,…
I can't point you to a book written by a soldier, but you might be able to find some conclusions by reading "The Authoritarians" by Bob Altemeyer[0], which studies, as you say, why people defend/enforce the power of evil people. [0] https://www.theauthoritarians.org/options-for-getting-the-bo...
I mean all along. Obviously this doesn't apply to every Trump supporter, but there's a large core that inherently thinks this way. What's new is that Trump has leaned into this mindset much more than his predecessors, and he's much more obviously immoral by "normal" (i.e. something along the lines of what you and I probably think) standards. Bob Altemeyer explains this mindset much better than I could in his book The Authoritarians: https://theauthoritarians.org
Luigi Rossolo's The Art of Noise, a 1913 futurist manifesto that talks about how people adapt to technology, and that defines their aesthetic sensibilities (and predicts electronic/industrial music). http://www.artype.de/Sammlung/pdf/russolo_noise.pdf Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians has gotten multiple re-readings (it's a short book/very long essay, but is published free online) and has given me great insight into the attitudes behind the right-wing populists currently dominating politics in the West: https://theauthoritarians.org/
"Right Wing Authitarian" is a term defined by Bob Altemeyer. It does not map exactly to the left/right usually associated with politics. It is intended to refer to the authoritarian personality type, regardless of their political positions. His book on the subject ("The Authoritarians") is incredible, and has a lot to say about the rise in authoritarianism that has been slowly creeping into today's politics. https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism
As I mentioned, the exact reasons why people value hierarchies are IMHO not known. But people do value them, although differently. I recommend looking at the book The Authoritarians from Bob Altemeyer, which outlines the mindset of people who are Trump supporters. There is also some research into universal values like Jonathan Haidt does, which shows that liberals value hierarchy less than conservatives. So people in fact do have somewhat different value systems. Also, there was a fascinating story from Robert Sapolsky, which showed that in baboons, lack of strict hierarchy can actually…
Of interest I suppose in the context of your comment. Bob Altemeyer's - The Authoritarians: https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
This is pretty much the premise of Bob Altemeyer's work: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Altemeyer His book The Authoritarians is the one that most elaborates on it, so works that cite or respond to it would probably be exactly what you're looking for.