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Since the end of World War II, the possibility of fascism and totalitarianism as a global threat continues to proliferate in American art and literature to the point that many individuals paradoxically desire the very things that seek to control them. Postmodern literature often portrays fascism and totalitarianism as it exists under contemporary capitalist systems as a multiplicity of discreet machines operating within objects of desire. These objects are complicated by the 24-hour news cycle and the popularity of solitary, on-demand entertainment that in turn mediates the desires and fears of a population through strict control of information. This thesis examines works by George Saunders, Don DeLillo, and David Foster Wallace through a post-structural lens and seeks to explore the moments in these novels where desire and fascism intersect to create an endless, self-replicating form of control that is often too discreet to notice.

In this inquiry, the attempt is made first to see Mexico through the eyes of Octavio Paz, who in his essay, The Other Mexico: Critique of the Pyramid, considers the development of modern Mexico from a cultural, historical and political perspective and secondly to interface a universal archetype with the Mexican experience. Regarding the first endeavor, it is Paz’s intention to bring his nation to a better understanding of its own peculiar dilemmas and to indicate changes of attitudes essential for salutary future progress. It is true that as Mexico’s renowned poet, essayist, playwright, editor and diplomat, Paz treats the nation’s central and critical problems from his role as an intellectual. A few reflections on this role will be helpful.

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Motivated by recent claims from youth that older generations are jeopardizing their future, the purpose of this thesis is to study potential explanations for the variation of intergenerational blame attribution among Swedish youth. Ordinary least squares regression analysis is conducted on survey data, especially focused on young participants, to test several hypotheses about how perceived economic threats and one’s value orientation can impact young people’s motivation to blame elderly generations for economic difficulties. The thesis does not find statistical support that one’s birth cohort - used as a proxy for childhood socialization during different economic conditions - moderates the effect of perceived threat on intergenerational blame attribution. However, when a person’s value orientation is explicitly measured in a regression model, the findings indicate that characteristics acquired earlier in life can alter a person’s reaction to presently perceived threats. The result shows that authoritarians are more prone to attribute blame towards older generations as a matter of habit, but also that libertarians are susceptible to changing their attitudes to liken authoritarians given a tangible threat. Furthermore, the study provides empirical evidence suggesting that libertarians and authoritarians react to perceived economic threats differently. These findings are evaluated in relation to measuring perceived threat in a survey context and the linear interaction effect assumption in multiplicative linear models.

This research aims to answer a simple question: Why are some individuals, and some states, more willing to extend protections to same-sex couples than are others? Drawing from the literature, I perform a battery of quantitative tests on variables most commonly associated with gay rights and gay marriage policy development: liberalism, education, age, religiosity, authoritarianism, tolerance, urbanization, and moral traditionalism. While I find that all of these variables have a relationship with gay rights and gay marriage opinion, I argue that those associated with religiosity have the strongest pull. However, religiosity does not act alone; moral traditionalism, age, and ideology play particularly robust roles as well. In conclusion, I contend that the data show a strong likelihood for the continued liberalization of gay rights and gay marriage policy into the foreseeable future.

Despite the existence of multiple scales designed to measure authoritarianism as a personality trait, current research disagrees as to whether current measures reliably measure all three dimensions of authoritarianism: submission, aggression, and traditionalism. This study focused on the development of a new scale in response to methodological and validity concerns of previously-used measures. This new scale was found to be a reliable measure of authoritarian belief in two subsequent studies of college-aged adults. Factor analysis of responses to the items of the new measure also provided evidence of the multidimensionality of authoritarianism as a construct. Further, significant correlations were found between the Graham and Haidt’s Moral Foundations model and the dimensions of authoritarianism as measured by this scale. Analysis also revealed a significant relationship between authoritarianism and measures of social hierarchical belief, as well as salient political variables. These findings reaffirm current theoretical belief in the tridimensional model of authoritarianism and provide a new, reliable measure of the authoritarian personality. This has implications for the creation of a more productive dialogue between politically-divided groups, though further research is needed on the exact nature of authoritarianism itself.

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[pt] Essa dissertação tem por objetivo discutir os componentes autoritários de nossa formação histórica, tanto a gênese quanto a manutenção de práticas autoritárias no Estado brasileiro, bem como em diversas instituições. Observando a ampla utilização, durante o primeiro governo Vargas, do recurso retórico à segurança nacional para mobilizar os braços repressivos do Estado contra determinados grupos sociais, o objetivo central passa a ser o de discutir os elementos que compõem certa acepção autoritária do conceito de segurança nacional. / [en] This dissertation aims to discuss the authoritarian components of our historical formation, both the genesis and the maintenance of authoritarian practices in the Brazilian State, as well as in several institutions. Noting the widespread use of the rhetoric of national security during the first Vargas administration to mobilize the repressive arms of the state against certain social groups, the central objective is to discuss the elements that make up a certain authoritarian meaning of the concept of national security.