Suchergebnisse

The prospect of the social backsliding of middle-class groups in western countries has not benefited the left but fueled right-wing populism. This article examines mediating and moderating factors between economic threat and political choices. The shift of liberals toward conservatism and the activation of passive authoritarians explain sudden changes more than dispositional factors. Attachment to groups under stress activates coalitional mindsets, and coalitional competition for scarce resources matches the conservative propensity to detect threats from outgroups. Risk-averse right-wing authoritarians should recoil from social-dominance oriented risk-takers but they follow winners despite their mutual differences concerning family values. Authoritarian aggression unites RWA and SDO, but politically passive right-wing authoritarians can also follow their economic interests, when these are not entangled with cultural values. Right-wing populists have been able to compensate economic insecurity with epistemic security. Identity politics supports the coherence of right-wing populist parties but divides leftist/liberal groups due to intersectional competition for victimhood.

New public management (NPM) has fitted public services into quasimarket models and introduced punishments and rewards to produce better services with lesser staff. Instead of having freed energies and creativity of the employees formerly shackled by their bureaucratic turfs, NPM reforms have bound energies into theatrical audit performances at the cost of work and killed creativity in centralizing resources and hollowing out the professional autonomy. Neglecting basic work has affected the sense of self-efficacy of the employees, thus thwarting the main reward of public calling. It cannot be compensated by money (and more money is not available). Fundamental deprivation of the legitimacy of public employees and the inability of the result and quality measurements to cover the contents of their work have traumatized many most-committed employees and driven others toward a Soviet-type double standard. Mutual trust is undermined and Western societies are sliding toward the failed states of Third World in lacking predictability. This tendency may be stopped and win–win situation between public employers, employees, and clients created, if employees could concentrate on the contents of their work (producing happiness) instead of changing organizations and defending themselves by numbers (producing malignant stress).

Der Markt homogenisiert alles für den Tausch und bewertet auch Menschen in Zahlen. Der Verlust an Anerkennung für jede Eigenart spitzt die Konkurrenz um Selbstwert zu. Terrorismus ist ein reflexartiger Abwehrmechanismus gegen die narzisstischen Beleidigungen, die durch die Konfrontation mit individuellen Bedürfnissen und Genüssen anderer projektiv und identifizierend verursacht werden. Die Selbstmordattentäter versuchen, sowohl das beneidenswerte Leben außerhalb ihrer symbiotischen Wertgemeinschaften als auch das neidende und deswegen verachtungswürdige und zu bestrafende Kind in ihnen selbst zu vernichten. Im Tode töten sie den bösen Vater, erreichen die Verbindung mit dem guten, göttlichen Vater und verschmelzen endlich im Paradies mit der unbegrenzt verfügbaren Mutter. Der Kampf gegen den Terrorismus wirft damit die Frage auf, wie die Dependenzbedürfnisse und das Verlangen nach dem absoluten Selbstwert in Geborgenheit befriedigt werden können, ohne die Vorteile der Moderne zu verlieren und die eigene Gemeinwohlauffassung anderen aufzunötigen. (ICE2)