Free Kiwis Podcast

Last week I appeared on the Free Kiwis podcast, hosted by Dr James Kierstead and Dr Michael Johnston. The podcast focusses on free speech in the New Zealand context, but often—as with my episode—free speech does not actually come up as significant topic of discussion. It is a place for academics and others to discuss culture, politics, philosophy, very often from a heterodox point of view.

Being an introverted PhD candidate riddled with imposter syndrome I was actually quite nervous, but I think the discussion went well. Below I provide sources and comments of articles/ideas discussed in the podcast.

Affective Polarization

First, we discussed affective polarization.

Below you can see one figure of a trend I described, in which there has been a steady decline in warmth towards the out-group since about the 70s (in the US), while in-group affect remained stable.

We also discussed the early debate around the extent or existence of polarization. Initially, there was debate because researchers were primarily measuring ideological polarization. Abramowitz and Saunders insisted mass polarization was occurring:

While Fiorina et al disagreed:

But when polarization was measured using affective indicators, the picture became much clearer:

US citizens were more affectively polarized than ever, despite largely remaining centrists with more cross-cutting beliefs than they thought. This was termed “uncivil agreement”:

This affective polarization has many negative effects, with prejudice based on partisanship often exceeding that based on race or gender:

Authoritarianism

We also discussed the biased history and nature of authoritarianism research. I mention this article which I highly recommend. It first outlines many of the issues with authoritarianism research, before showing how these biases are replicated in the breathless and histrionic Christian nationalism research.

I provided an accessible review of this paper here:

And below I provide a list of resources on left wing authoritarianism and the debate around its existence and attempts to measure it, and its associations with dark triad and other traits:

Conway, L. G., Houck, S. C., Gornick, L. J., & Repke, M. A. (2018). Finding the Loch Ness Monster: Left-Wing Authoritarianism in the United States: Left-Wing Authoritarianism in the United States. Political Psychology, 39(5), 1049–1067. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12470

Conway, L. G., McFarland, J. D., Costello, T. H., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2021). The curious case of left‐wing authoritarianism: When authoritarian persons meet anti‐authoritarian norms. Journal of Theoretical Social Psychology, 5(4), 423–442. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts5.108

Conway, L. G., Zubrod, A., & Leslie, J. D. (2022). Constructing a Four-Item Left-Wing Authoritarianism Scale [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/x7gp9

Costello, T. H., Bowes, S. M., Stevens, S. T., Waldman, I. D., Tasimi, A., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2022). Clarifying the structure and nature of left-wing authoritarianism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 122(1), 135–170. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000341

Costello, T. H., & Patrick, C. (2022). Development and Initial Validation of Two Brief Measures of Left-wing Authoritarianism: A Machine Learning Approach. Journal of Personality Assessment, 105(2), 187–202. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2022.2081809

de Regt, S., Mortelmans, D., & Smits, T. (2011). Left-wing authoritarianism is not a myth, but a worrisome reality. Evidence from 13 Eastern European countries. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 44(4), 299–308. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2011.10.006

Krispenz, A., & Bertrams, A. (2023). Understanding left-wing authoritarianism: Relations to the dark personality traits, altruism, and social justice commitment. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04463-x

Krispenz, A., Hautle, L., Schmid, B. M., & Bertrams, A. (2024). Shining the light on left-wing authoritarianism in austria, germany, and switzerland. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/8756d

Identity Satiation and Therapy Culture

We also discussed my article on how one experiences “inhibition” or “satiation” and “ironic uncertainty” from repeatedly triggering concepts, compulsively checking, and perseveratively introspecting.

This aligns with others like Abigail Shrier, Jonathan Haidt, Ivan Illich, etc., who assert that widespread therapy culture constitutes a “universal intervention” rather than a targeted one. And it comes with many downsides and harmful iatrogenic effects.

The therapeutic worldview insists that introspecting, labelling, engaging with, and understanding all of ones negative thoughts and feelings is the best way to deal with them. Similar ideas are pushed when it comes to identity, self-perception, and self-understanding. I and others assert that this actually results in paradoxical uncertainty, derealization and depersonalization, and the kind of bodily integrity and identity congruence issues we now see widespread throughout our therapeutic society.

Hunting

I also discussed my initial attempts at veganism, and my current hunting and meat eating.

See a twitter thread I wrote with some beautiful pictures from the NZ backcountry here:

I also discussed how hunting can serve as a cure for postmodern disenchantment and alienation from nature. As discussed in these articles:

Full Podcast

The full podcast can be seen below on youtube, or listened to anywhere you get podcasts.

If you enjoy my work and are inclined to do so, please buy me a a coffee!

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