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A footnote about "The Authoritarian Personality" the title of a book by T. W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswick, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford.  The book is the 1950 report of one of the first studies using newly developed techniques of examining and analyzing human personality.  While hospitalized with pneumonia at Berkeley, I read that book cover to cover, but only after reading a lenghty critique of it by psychologists Richard Christie and Marie Jahoda who disagreed with much of its content.  My sense was that Adorno, et al had put puzzling social phenomena into meaningful perspective, much as Einstein had done with electromagnetism and Darwin had done with evolution.  Christie and Jahoda's criticisms were often valid, but also often missed seeing the synthesis that made so much sense.  I am still reminded of the criticisms leveled at evolution by its opponents.  My experiences with our Glen Canyon explorer subculture reflected much in that 1950 report.

On that first exploration of Glen Canyon, on foot, from the Hole-in-the-Rock area, we had problems with people relying on others for guidance.  So when I organized subsequent trips—now by raft and kayak—I stressed autonomy.  Each person should carry his or her own maps, be prepared to camp alone, if appropriate, be aware of any hazards and be prepared to meet them.  Know where we were at any time and know where the rest of the party was, too.  Also know where emergency help might possibly be found, as a last resort—there was precious little out there then.  At Hole-in-the-Rock, 1961, most of our party were capable and autonomous: one had even obtained rattlesnake antivenin, should it be needed.  But a few had that "authoritarian" urge described by Adelson, and it resulted in some terribly ineffective interaction with our environment.  Not on our float trips, I resolved.

It worked superbly.  We frequently camped at numerous locations on any single night.  On any day, some would explore and some would sit and drink in the grandeur.  Everyone generally knew where everyone else was, and I don't recall anyone wanting to explore extensively by themselves.  The small groups explored very efficiently, no one much needing to wait for the crowd.  And explored very enjoyably.  So autonomous were we that one evening, on a sandy beach scarce in rocks, each person had their own very small cooking fire and some pairs of people had found three rocks which they arranged in a line putting two fires, and two pots, in the two gaps between the three rocks.

We explored much more of Glen Canyon than would have been possible with a leader-and-follower organization.  We saw other trips organized that way, and we saw that they were virtually limited to looking into either Lake or Moqui Canyon upstream, Music Temple and possibly Hidden Passage downstream, and, usually, Rainbow Bridge.  They seemed to have time for almost nothing else. We were free to discover Dove Canyon, Little Dungeon Canyon, Cathedral in the Desert, the far reaches of False Entrance Canyon, Hermitage Ruin, Basketmaker Cave, Dangling Rope Canyon, Cornerstone Canyon, Annie's Canyon, the Klondike Bar sheep trail next to Driftwood Canyon...and this list could go on almost indefinitely.   Furthermore, no one got lost.

Authoritarian social structures are common; many people feel a strong need for that.  Those people would not be happy on our trips.  We are miserable in their preferred society.  We made such a trip through Grand Canyon with a commerical river runner, and one evening when I took out my topographic maps and asked "the leader" where we were, he answered, "You're just where we want you to be."  I could elicit no other information from him.  Although we were in superb condition, we had to creep along, in our off river explorations, at the pace of the slowest.  And in Red Rock Cavern we spent much of the day at volleyball: surrounded by one of the most fascinating canyonlands left on the face of the Earth, tempting us to explore.  We were forbidden to enter the cave near where we camped as we passed through the Redwall formation.  Evening or morning walks were out of the question.   My idea of the distance runners among us jogging a few miles up Bright Angel Creek from Phantom Ranch was met with horror.  All our movements were carefully monitored, and when Keturah easily walked up a pitch, on first attempt, which one of our overly proud professional leaders had repeatedly attempted to climb and repeatedly failed, the little civility that had sprouted among us died.  He felt humiliation where in a non-authoritarian culture he would have felt only humility.  Authoritarian cultures are culturally retarded: "The Authoritarian Personality" began as a study of the sociopathology of Nazi Germany.

Many human minds, with all their diversity and variation of skills and experiences, working, without oppression, in a network of relationships, has power that can't be realized when individuals are placed in a rank-order of authority and those "above" suppress those "below."  Here lies a clue to the successes of "free enterprise."  But also there's an "obvious," and often unobserved, way which that socio-economic system can fail, too.  One freedom that can throw a sabot into the mechanism is the freedom to maneuver others into serfdom, servitude, or subservience.  This is one observation that some of the critics of The Authoritarian Personality apparently do not "see": obvious, yet unobserved.

In one manual of mountaineering, published by the Seattle Mountaineers, a writer suggests that the first task of a mountaineering group is to select a leader.  In The Manual of Ski Mountaineering, David Brower tells us that ordinarily a mountaineering group does not need, nor does it have, a leader, for that is something to be considered only when an emergency arises.  Experiences like those we had in Glen Canyon point clearly to the correctness of Brower's insight.  Adorno, et al, give that insight solid foundations.