To keep it short the reason why some people are ok with authoritarianism is because most structures that we deal with on a daily basis are authoritarian.
Here is evidence that shows a significant amount of people are ok with authoritarianism:
This should be concerning.
And the thing is that it makes sense once you look at what are the most common systems that people interact with the most.
A clear example would be the Boss-Worker relationship. The boss creates a set of objectives/tasks for the worker and the worker sees them out. Rarely does the worker get the chance to set the higher level direction of what they are supposed to be doing with their time leaving them obedient to the boss and their demands.
Another example would be some Parent-Child relationships. Some parents treat their children as people that should show absolute respect towards them just because they are the parents not because they have something that is of value to the child (experience).
Even in the places where we do make democratic decisions those are usually made in ways that are supposed to be supplemental to authoritative decision making. An example would be how we don’t vote on decisions but instead how we vote on others to make decisions for us.
Once you add up all the experiences that someone has throughout their whole life you will see that most of them come into direct contact with authoritarian systems which means it makes that kind of way of thinking familiar and therefore acceptable.
Unlike democracy which is an abstract concept and something we only really experience from time to time.
If we want people to actually stop thinking authoritarianism is ok then we as a society are gonna have to stop using these kinds of systems / ways of thinking in our daily lives.
Unfortunately, this is one case where the answer really is “human nature”, though that nature may be influenced by experience.
Psychological research into authoritarian personalities shows some people really do have psychological needs (or at least desires) that are met by stupid ass authoritarian power structures. It’s not even, as you may be tempted to suggest, something like desiring power or wanting their team to win over the “enemy”.
If no enemy exists they will create one, they need it. If no hierarchical power structure exists they will create one, and not only so they can be at the top. There are authoritarian followers, too, who will create power structures so they can be at the bottom. (Or at least not at the top, they tend to need people who are below them as much as they need people who are above them.)
But authoritarian personalities tend to want this kind of thing to happen for its own sake and not because of any particular outcome. The authoritarianism is the goal itself. Psychological studies have shown these people will support (or at least not strongly oppose) oppression of while groups of people even when they are a part of the group in question. That is: they’d rather this stuff happen than not, even if it’s happening to them personally.
A good write-up on this aimed at non psychologists is The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer: https://theauthoritarians.org/
Written for the Bush era, sadly still relevant today.
What I’m arguing is that it isn’t an inherent part of human nature but instead it is something that is culturally ingrained in most people.
Therefore even if we did dismantle the system people would still have those preconceptions about how society should work and therefore they will rebuild this same systems.
There was a book that I read sometime ago that detailed a group of people that travelled to a remote island to try and start a new society from scratch. Almost immediately people began to reimplement the same structures that they grew up in.
So, the psychology research disagrees. While there IS a cultural/social component, there does seem to be a difference in people’s disposition.
The big evidence there can be change is the Milgram experiment, where people who had first hand experience with the Holocaust immediately saw what was going on and refused to take part. That was an aberration, though. People aren’t being forced to confront things on that scale in that way anymore, and even then it didn’t work on everyone.
Ok then I guess I need to read more about the psychology behind that then. But yeah we do need to find ways to make people less susceptible to authoritarianism.
Another good book about this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Authoritarian_Personality