More on a liking for order

I have said something about this quite recently.  An abiding theme in social psychology is that conservatives suffer from personality defects.  But proving that claim has been kinda difficult. The fact that conservatives are regularly found to be happier than Leftists is a bitch.  Think of all the fault you could find with conservatives if they were more miserable!  You could definitely say they were "maladjusted" then.

So Leftist psychologists have to scratch around a fair bit to find what is wrong with conservatives.  The best they can do is to say that conservatives are said to be less "open" and more "intolerant of ambiguity", for instance. An easy conservative retort would be that conservatives are less scatterbrained and like order more.  You just give the same behaviour a different label.

But that retort doesn't disturb Leftists much.  They are quite happy to find fault with a desire for order. It is "rigid" etc. to them.  So I was rather amused to read an interview given by the daughter of Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss, the Nazi commander of  Auschwitz concentration camp, where over a million of humanity's best and brightest were killed.  The daughter is now an old lady but had fond memories of her father and, along the way, described something about his personality.  See below:

"Her father had an obsession with order, something she inherited, and she also talked of a strict upbringing.

'If I see a picture hung wrong on the wall, I have to get up and straighten it. I get high blood pressure,' she said, adding that she also has a need to force her obsession with order on to others.

'Dad was strict when it came to etiquette,' says Ingebrigitt.

'At the dining table, the children were allowed to speak only if they were asked. But he was never angry."

SOURCE

But as a prominent Nazi, Höss was a Leftist.  If you doubt the Leftist nature of Nazism, just start reading this assembly of historical facts.  You won't read for long before you accept that reality.  So once again we see that good ol' Leftist projection at work  -- ascribing to others what is really true of themselves.  It is Leftists who are rigid and intolerant of ambiguity -- as we see in their intolerance of debate and reliance on authority whenever global warming comes up for discussion.

So the Nazis too were socialists who definitely liked order.  You actually had only to watch Triumph des Willens by Leni Riefenstahl to see that, even if you don't understand German.  Just think of all those cool Nazi uniforms! (If I may be a little sarcastic).

There is of course nothing wrong with a desire for order.  Life would be impossible without it.  It is when it becomes an obsession that it is dubious. It clearly was something of an obsession for Höss.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).