I'll get to this with the question which begins: 'Is there something about human psychology...?', remaining as simple and/or elegant as the topic permits. The answer is: yes. there are several 'somethings' about human psychology. Authoritarian leaders (and those who would be such), play on such human frailties as: fear; uncertainty; intolerance; and inability to think for one's self---recall that bicameral mind, of which Julian Jaynes wrote, last century. Many of us never heard of Jaynes, but those who have still entertain the notion that he was on to something. Weakness of mind, in all of its forms, causes people to be susceptible to authoritarians and their ilk. Envy is also culpable when the have-nots see others who appear to have more, on one or more levels. We all want our societies to excel, and authoritarians are good at selling snake oil and short-cuts. People are, in the last analysis, gullible---not all, mind you, but at least a charming plurality. There would likely be some mathematical formula for this, if anyone cared to explore it---maybe someone has, I do not know. Finally, people are predictable when it comes to leaders and leadership: that which is too good to be true achieves approval, in spite of itself. You don't have to take my word for this: examine the evidence and think for yourself.

The best tools to resist authority are easy to find. You just have to find what's not taught in any public school anywhere. What's that? Lists of common fallacies. You dont have to teach children what's a lie and what isnt. You just have to teach them how to recognize a lie.

1984 was a history book, not a prophecy

Oh sure, maybe they need to be taught how to be innanely literal and have their minds funneled into our perfect little avenue of controlled self serving biased lies while completely forgetting (yet again) to teach them about fallacies?

Or maybe thats just sarcasm?

You sure you ever read it?

"Anyone's spirit can be broken with love" ~ The Other Mother ("Coroline").

Was Animal Farm a "fiction?"

Everything ever written was a fiction.

I just posted this to the blog as well. I'm not sure I can offer much more.

Authoritarianism is an -ism like all others, and I can't separate it from facts on the ground, history, or economy. Some situations call for this -ism, some call for its abolition. Sometimes it is best to leave authoritarian leaders to their worlds, and most of the time to leave authority to its path leads back to our own door.

This show took place in the Trump presidency, to which it references and alludes. Now we face an Olympics in China to which they sold no tickets, and ratings in the West, at least, were poor at best. Now we face the loss of Ukraine to the democratic world, and now the message of the show is much harsher than three years ago.

There is no way to deal with the forces at work in our world other than to gird the consequences of dealing with dictators. There will be a great deal of suffering to right this ship, and it's not human nature to choose suffering over scapegoating. We have too strong an us/them model for dealing with authoritarian regimes in real-time.

Technology and economics might address what politics and philosophy cannot, but not without some sacrifice. We have to find fellowship with the citizens of authoritarian regimes. We need to share learning and technology that allows them to liberate their lives. Allowing Russia and China to own social media, steal technology and wantonly threaten Europe (Ukraine and others) and Southeast Asia (Taiwan and others) will limit us in short order if we don’t take action to stop it now. We need to push technology to everyone and eliminate poverty without scapegoating a them that sooner or later will be an us if we don't push now and with unanimity.

It is more than coincidental, I think, that egregious motives and behaviors reflect similar allure(s). This post expounds upon authoritarianism and those who pursue and embrace such power. An article received from a source this morning talks about faculty at a prestigious university supporting a colleague accused of sexual harassment: the exercise of a different kind of power. That being what it is, power is power, no matter the stripe. Motive tends to make people resistant to those 'better angels of our nature'. Power polishes the ego. There was a sizable number of persons attached to the defense of the man mentioned in this comment. Common knowledge and experience show he will likely be cleared---correctly, or not.

First it's important to distinguish between authority and authoritarianism. There are two kinds of authority: justified, as for example a geologist would have over the study of rocks, and unjustified, as for instance someone might claim to have over how someone should dress or wear their hair. But "authoritarianism" refers to only one kind thing: a general recourse in the treatment of any social issue or problem to some kind of authority over its constituents, whether as a genuine belief in its existence or as a manufactured claim for particular purposes. As most claims of authority in social contexts are usually unjustified, they tend to be found at the manufactured end of the scale; and because inventions are rarely produced without some specific reason or need that they fulfill, the supposition can safely be made that almost all authoritarianism is reactionary in character.

It makes sense then to inquire about the causes of this kind of reaction. On what is the reaction based, and what is the means used to achieve it? To borrow a distinction made by another participant some time ago, there must be a substantial cause for its reason for being produced, and an accidental cause of its occasional and opportune form. If prior conditions of non-equitable production surplus-distribution, that is, a basic distinction between upper and lower social classes, can be presumed, then authoritarian reaction can only occur in the upper. The reason for this consists in the fear that the lower classes under conditions of sufficient organization will usurp the superior position enjoyed by the upper; which can not be an abstract fear, as Aristotle pointed out in book II of the Rhetoric, as nothing inspires genuine and concrete fear so much as the knowledge that someone to whom one has in the past done a great wrong has attained in the present enough power to do the same wrong to them. A strong centralized state is accordingly seen as needed to protect the socially privileged from being deposed by those they've oppressed. Fear, then, constitutes the substantial cause of authoritarian reaction.

And what then about the means of achieving this? What is the accidental and occasional form or forms by which elite reaction can be said to be successful? The most common is clearly what is called "populism", the exploitation of traditional animosity between distinct groups of the same class. Customary hatreds, suspicions, prejudices, can all be exploited for the purpose of diffusing social organization. Because these are produced by very different substantial causes, however, they should not be considered as characteristics of authoritarianism itself.

So this to my mind is a fair description of what authoritarianism is: an elite reaction based on fear of revolution; and the means by which it's typically achieved: exploitation of customary and supplied hatreds.