Moral inversion and the rise of authoritarian sympathy Ideologies that claim to be anti-oppressive, like antizionism and far-left progressivism, say they fight for the oppressed and against the violation of universal human rights. We put these claims to the test, by asking 1270 Americans to assess the human rights records of democracies and authoritarian regimes, and take a battery of psychological tests. The results were striking. Study link and highlights in

We found a cluster of associations, all correlated with each other, that predicted moral inversion: "a pattern in which the perceived human-rights standing of Western democratic states declines relative to that of authoritarian regimes" The cluster included antizionism, generic antisemitism, endorsement of both antisemitic Soviet imagery and Hitler quotes (taken directly from Mein Kampf) directed against Israel, and left-wing "progressive" authoritarianism. The same pattern appears over and over - green lines (ratings of democracies) decrease and red lines (ratings of authoritarian regimes) increase as scores go up for each variable in the cluster. At the high end of each variable, Israel is viewed as worse than North Korea!

Given the centrality of Israel in these plots, we investigated the relationship between antizionism and generic antisemitism further. We performed the largest-scale measurement in the world (N = 8457) of the validated Generalized Antisemitism scale, which measures both, and plotted them against each other. The take-away: Antizionism and generic antisemitism are strongly correlated (by social psychology standards) BUT they are not identical. The key asymmetry: Despite the correlation, many antizionists claim not to hold antisemitic views (red square), but the reverse is not true (green square). This is what lets antizionism avoid social taboos against generic antisemitism. But our data reveals the ideological company antizionism keeps - it predicts moral inversion, generic antisemitism, endorsement of Soviet / Nazi propaganda, and remains guilty by association. The fact that it can exist outside specific traditional taboos makes it more dangerous.

We conclude that ideologies like antizionism that claim to be anti-oppressive are anything but. Instead, they co-opt the language of justice and liberation to advance ends that are clearly at odds with universal human dignity.

This research was done with the Network Contagion Research Institute @Network Contagion Research Institute. Thank you to co-authors and contributors including @The Dark Fiddling Pirate Jussim @Sonia @Pamela Paresky 🟦 (Habits of a Free Mind) @Izabella Tabarovsky @Adam Louis-Klein @Judea Pearl @Rev. Johnnie Moore ن @Alice Wairimu Nderitu Joel & Danit! And last but not least, the link to the study: https://networkcontagion.us/reports/moral-inversion-and-the-rise-of-authoritarian-sympathy/…