Oedipal Monsters: The Family and Authoritarianism Today

This paper offers a brief psychosocial reflection on the relationship between authoritarianism and the family today. Taking as its starting point populist authoritarianism’s attachment to the family, the piece explores the relationship between the family form, gender polarity and authoritarian tendencies, drawing on the work of Robyn Marasco and Jessica Benjamin. Arguing that there is an intimate relationship between these phenomena, it then briefly hypothesises a connection between the rise of authoritarian tendencies and the return of gender traditionalism under neoliberalism. Ultimately, it suggests that authoritarian tendencies are, at least in part, ‘oedipal monsters,’ which can only be challenged through a rearticulation of symbolic and social relations beyond the terms of paternal law.