Jennifer Evans in The Globe and Mail on the assassination of Charlie Kirk

History professor Jennifer Evans and Josh Greenberg, professor of communication and associate dean in the Faculty of Public and Global Affairs, have published an article in the Globe and Mail following the shooting death of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk. A short excerpt is below, with the full article, “The assassination of Charlie Kirk has revealed the authoritarian inside all of us” available online:

“The assassination of Charlie Kirk has sparked a wave of reactions – grief, outrage, disbelief and, disturbingly, joy. There were memes mocking his death, ghoulish hashtags, and gleeful stories and reels. Within minutes of it happening, video coverage captured from different angles was uploaded to various platforms and reproduced endlessly, saturating our social media feeds. For many, his murder was not an escalation of political violence. It was a moment of catharsis, a symbolic triumph over a man whose views they vehemently opposed.

What does it mean when violence becomes a source of pleasure, something in which we delight? What does this say about us and our increasingly fragile democratic culture?

To make sense of this question, we might look to Theodor Adorno, the Jewish German philosopher and social theorist who fled Nazi Germany and spent his life warning against the psychological and cultural conditions that give rise to authoritarianism. In his seminal work The Authoritarian Personality, Mr. Adorno and his colleagues explored how certain personality traits – rigid thinking, submission to authority, aggression toward out-groups, and hostility toward introspection and nuance – make individuals susceptible to fascist ideologies. These traits, they argued, are not confined to the far right or overtly authoritarian regimes. They are latent in modern capitalist societies, shaped by upbringing, cultural norms and the pressures of conformity.

Authoritarianism is not just a political structure – it is a psychological disposition. And crucially, it is not limited to those on the fringes who wear its symbols or chant its slogans. It can manifest in the righteous, the progressive, the well-intended. It can emerge in moments of moral clarity, when the line between justice and vengeance blurs.

The exuberance over Mr. Kirk’s murder is a case in point. Many people expressing joy see themselves as opponents of authoritarianism. They abhor the violence, bigotry and inequality at the heart of America’s democratic backslide. Yet in their delight, we see the very traits Mr. Adorno warned us about: the dehumanization of the other, emotional reactivity, and the collapse of critical thought. The enemy is no longer a person with deeply flawed ideas – they are a symbol to be destroyed, a target for mockery, a corpse to be danced upon.”