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%%C H A P T E R X V I
\settitle{Prejudice in the Interview Material}{T.\ W.\ Adorno}
{Chapter XVI from {\em The Authoritarian Personality}\\
(1950)}

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\subsection*{A. Introduction}

Our study grew out of specific investigations into anti-Semitism.
As our work advanced, however, the emphasis gradually shifted. We
came to regard it as our main task not to analyze anti-Semitism or
any other anti-minority prejudice as a socio-psychological phenomenon
{\em per se},\footnote{{\em per se}: by or in itself or themselves; intrinsically.} 
but rather to examine the relation of anti-minority
prejudice to broader ideological and characterological patterns.
Thus anti-Semitism gradually all but disappeared as a topic of our
questionnaire and in our interview schedule it was only one among
many topics which had to be covered.

Another investigation, carried through parallel to our research and
partly by the same staff members of the Institute of Social Research,
i.e., the study on anti-Semitism within labor (57b), concentrated
on the question of anti-Semitism, but at the same time was concerned
with socio-psychological issues akin to those presented in the present
volume. While the bulk of the material to be discussed in this
chapter is taken from the section on prejudice of the Berkeley
interviews, an attempt was made to utilize, at least in a supplementary
form, some of the ideas of the Labor Study as hypotheses for further
investigation. This was done as a part of the work carried out in
Los Angeles.  In collaboration with J.\ F.\ Brown and F.\ Pollock
we drew up an additional section of the interview schedule devoted
to specific questions about Jews.  These questions were derived for
the most part from the material gathered through the ``screened
interviews" of the Labor Study. The aim of this new section of the
interview schedule was to see if it was possible to establish certain
differential patterns within the general structure of prejudice.

The list of questions follows. Not all of these questions were put
to every subject, nor was the exact wording of the questions always
the same, but most of the ground marked off by the questions was
covered in each case.
%%6o6	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY 

\bigskip
\centerline{\em List of Questions Pertaining to Jews}
\begin{Itemize}
\item
Do you think there is a Jewish problem? If yes, in what sense? Do you care 
about it?
\item
Have you had any experience with Jews? What kind? Do you remember 
names of persons involved and other specific data?
\item If not, on what is your opinion based?
\item
Did you {\em have} any contrary experiences (or hear about such experiences) 
with Jewish individuals?
\item If you had --- would it change your opinion? If not, why not?
\item Can you tell a Jew from other people? How?
\item What do you know about the Jewish religion?
\item
Are there Christians that are as bad as Jews? Is their percentage as high or 
higher than the percentage of bad Jews?
\item How do Jews behave at work? What about the alleged Jewish industriousness?
\item
Is it true that the Jews have an undue influence in movies, radio, literature, 
and universities?
\item
If yes --- what is particularly bad about it? What should be done about it?
\item
Is it true that the Jews have an undue influence in business, politics, labor, 
etc.?
\item If yes --- what kind of an influence? Should something be done to curb it?
\item What did the Nazis do to the German Jews? What do you think about it? 
\item Is there such a problem here? What would you do to solve it?
\item
What do you blame them most for? Are they: aggressive, bad-mannered; 
controlling the banks; black marketeers; cheating; Christ killers; 
clannish; Communists; corrupting; dirty; draft dodgers; exploiters; hiding 
their identity; too intellectual; Internationalists; overcrowding many 
jobs; lazy; controlling movies; money-minded; noisy; overassimilative; 
overbearing; oversexed; looking for privileges; quarrelsome; running the 
country; too smart; spoiling nice neighborhoods; owning too many 
stores; undisciplined; unethical against Gentiles; upstarts; shunning hard 
manual labor; forming a world conspiracy?
\item Do you favor social discrimination or special legislation?
\item Shall a Jew be treated as an individual or as a member of a group? 
\item How do your suggestions go along with constitutional rights?
\item Do you object to personal contacts with individual Jews?
\item Do you consider Jews more as a nuisance or more as a menace? 
\item Could you imagine yourself marrying a Jew?
\item Do you like to discuss the Jewish issue?
\item What would you do if you were a Jew?
\item Can a Jew ever become a real American?
\end{Itemize}

The additional interview material taught us more about prevailing
overt patterns of anti-Semitism than about its inner dynamics. It
is probably fair to say that the detailed questions proved most
helpful in understanding the phenomena of psychological {\em conflict}
in prejudicethe problems characterized in Chapter V\footnote{Chapter
V: The Measurement of Implicit Antidemocratic Trends in {\em The
Authoritarian Personality}}
as
``pseudo-democratism." Another significant observation has to do
with the reactions of our interviewees to the list of ``bad Jewish
traits" presented to them. Most answers to this list read
``all-inclusive,"
%%PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	607
that is to say, very little differentiation takes place. The
prejudiced subjects tend to subscribe to any reproach against the
Jews, provided they do not have to produce these objections themselves
but rather find them pre-established, as if they were commonly
accepted. This observation could be interpreted in different ways.
Either it may be indicative of the ``inner consistency" of anti-Semitic
ideology, or it may testify to the mental rigidity of our high
scorers, and this apart from the fact that the method of multiple
choice may itself make for automatic reactions. Although our
questionnaire studies gave evidence of marked consistency within
anti-Semitic ideology, it would hardly be enough to account for the
all-inclusiveness of the present responses. It seems that one must
think in terms of automatization,\footnote{{\em automatization}: the
act of making things automatic or habitual.} 
though it is impossible to say
conclusively whether this is due to the ``high" mentality or to the
shortcomings of our procedure. In all probability, the presentation
of extreme anti-Semitic statements as if they were no longer
disreputable but rather something which can be sensibly discussed,
works as a kind of antidote for the superego\footnote{{\em superego}:
the part of a person's mind that acts as a self-critical conscience,
reflecting social standards learned from parents and teachers.}
and may stimulate
imitation even in cases where the individual's ``own" reactions would
be less violent. This consideration may throw some light upon the
phenomenon of the whole German people tolerating the most extreme
anti-Semitic measures, although it is highly to be doubted that the
individuals themselves were more anti-Semitic than our high-scoring
subjects. A pragmatic inference to be drawn from this hypothesis
would be that, in so far as possible, pseudorational discussions
of anti-Semitism should be avoided. One might refute factual
anti-Semitic statements or explain the dynamics responsible for
anti-Semitism, but he should not enter the sphere of the ``Jewish
problem." As things stand now, the acknowledgment of a ``Jewish
problem," after the European genocide, suggests, however subtly,
that there might have been some justification for what the Nazis
did.

The whole material on ideology has been taken from 63 Los Angeles
interviews in addition to the pertinent sections of those gathered
in Berkeley (see Chapter IX\footnote{Chapter IX: 
Comprehensive Scores and Summary of Interview Results
in {\em The Authoritarian Personality}}).

It should be stressed that once again the {\em subjective} aspect is in
the foreground. The selection of our sample excluded an investigation
into the role played by the ``object" --- that is to say, the Jews
--- in the formation of prejudice. We do not deny that the object
plays a role, but we devote our attention to the forms of reaction
directed towards the Jew, not to the basis of these reactions within
the ``object." This is due to a hypothesis with which we started and
which has been given strong support in Chapter III,\footnote{Chapter
III: The Study of Anti-Semitic Ideology
in {\em The
Authoritarian Personality}}
namely, that
anti-Semitic prejudice has little to do with the qualities of those
against whom it is directed. Our interest is centered in the
high-scoring subjects.  

In organizing the present chapter, we start with the general
assumption that the --- largely unconscious --- hostility resulting
from frustration and repression and socially diverted from its true
object, {\em needs} a substitute object
%6o8	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
through which it may obtain a realistic aspect and thus dodge, as
it were, more radical manifestations of a blocking of the subject's
relationship to reality, e.g., psychosis. This ``object" of unconscious
destructiveness, far from being a superficial ``scapegoat," must
have certain characteristics in order to fulfill its role. It must
be tangible enough; and yet not {\em too} tangible lest it be
exploded by its own realism.  It must have a sufficient historical
backing and appear as an indisputable element of tradition. It must
be defined in rigid and well-known stereotypes. Finally, the object
must possess features, or at least be capable of being perceived
and interpreted in terms of features, which harmonize with the
destructive tendencies of the prejudiced subject. Some of these
features, such as ``clannishness" aid rationalization; others, such
as the expression of weakness or masochism, provide psychologically
adequate stimuli for destructiveness. There can be hardly any doubt
that all these requirements are fulfilled by the phenomenon of the
Jew. This is not to say that Jews {\em must} draw hatred upon themselves,
or that there is an absolute historical necessity which makes them,
rather than others, the ideal target of social aggressiveness.
Suffice it to say that they {\em can} perform this function in the
psychological households of many people. The problem of the
``uniqueness" of the Jewish phenomenon and hence of anti-Semitism
could be approached only by recourse to a theory which is beyond
the scope of this study. Such a theory would neither enumerate a
diversity of ``factors" nor single out a specific one as ``the" cause
but rather develop a unified framework within which all the ``elements"
are linked together consistently.  This would amount to nothing
less than a theory of modern society as a whole.

We shall first give some evidence of the ``functional" character of
anti-Semitism, that is to say, its relative independence of the
object. Then we shall point out the problem of {\em cui
bono}\footnote{{\em cui bono}: Who stands, or stood, to gain (from a
crime, and so might have been responsible for it)? (Latin)}:
anti-Semitism as a device for effortless ``orientation" in a cold,
alienated, and largely ununderstandable world.  As a parallel to
our analysis of political and economic ideologies, it will be shown
that this ``orientation" is achieved by stereotypy\footnote{{\em
stereotypy}: The persistent repetition of an act, 
for no obvious purpose.}. 
The gap between this
stereotypy on the one hand and real experience and the still-accepted
standards of democracy on the other, leads to a {\em conflict}
situation, something which is clearly set forth in a number of our
interviews. We then take what appears to be the resolution of this
conflict: the underlying anti-Semitism of our cultural climate,
keyed to the prejudiced person's own conscious or preconscious
wishes, proves in the more extreme cases to be stronger than either
conscience or official democratic values. This leads up to the
evidence of the destructive character of anti-Semitic reactions.
As remnants of the conflict, there remain traces of sympathy for,
or rather ``appreciation" of, certain Jewish traits which, however,
when viewed more closely, also show negative implications.

Some more specific observations about the structure of anti-Jewish
prejudice will be added. Their focal point is the differentiation
of anti-Semitism
%PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	609
according to the subject's own social identifications. This survey
of anti-Semitic features and dynamics will then be supplemented by
a few remarks on the attitudes of low-scoring subjects. Finally,
we shall offer some evidence of the broader social significance of
anti-Semitism: its intrinsic denial of the principles of American
democracy.

\subsection*{B. The ``Functional" Character of Anti-Semitism}

The psychological dynamisms that ``call for" the anti-Semitic outlet
--- most essentially, we believe, the ambivalence of authoritarian
and rebellious trends --- have been analyzed in detail in other
sections of this book.  Here we limit ourselves to some extreme but
concrete evidence of the fact that anti-Semitism is not so much
dependent upon the nature of the object as upon the subject's own
psychological wants and needs.

There are a number of cases in which the ``functional" character of
prejudice is obvious. Here we find subjects who are prejudiced {\em per
se}, but with whom it is relatively accidental against what group
their prejudice is directed.  We content ourselves with two examples.
{\em 5051} is a generally high-scoring man, one of a few Boy Scout leaders.
He has strong, though unconscious, fascist leanings. Although
anti-Semitic, he tries to mitigate his bias by certain semirational
qualifications. Here, the following statement occurs:


\begin{Quote}
``Sometimes we hear that the average Jew is smarter in business than
the average white man. I do not believe this. I would hate to believe
it. What the Jews should learn is to educate their bad individuals
to be more cooperative and agreeable.  Actually there is more
underhandedness amongst Armenians than there is amongst Jews, but
the Armenians aren't nearly as conspicuous and noisy. Mind you, I
have known some Jews whom I consider my equal in every way and I
like very much."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
This is somewhat reminiscent of Poe's famous story about the double
murder in the Rue Morgue where the savage cries of an orangutan
are mistaken by bystanders as words of all kinds of different foreign
languages, to wit, languages particularly strange to each of the
listeners who happen to be foreigners themselves. The primary hostile
reaction is directed against foreigners {\em per se},
who are perceived
as ``uncanny." This infantile fear of the strange is only subsequently
``filled up" with the imagery of a specific group, stereotyped and
handy for this purpose. The Jews are favorite stand-ins for the
child's ``bad man." The transference of unconscious fear to the
particular object, however, the latter being of a secondary nature
only, always maintains an aspect of accidentalness. Thus, as soon
as other factors interfere, the aggression may be deflected, at
least in part, from the Jews and to another group, preferably one
of still greater social distance. Pseudodemocratic ideology and the
professed desire to promote militantly what he conceives to be
American ideals are marked in our Boy Scout leader, {\em 5051}, and he
considers himself not conservative but ``predominantly liberal";
hence he tempers his anti-Semitism and anti-Negroism by referring
to a third group. He summons
%610	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
the Armenians in order to prove that he is not ``prejudiced," but
at the same time his formulation is such that the usual anti-Semitic
stereotypes can easily be maintained. Even his
exoneration\footnote{{\em exoneration}: the act of absolving (someone)
from blame for  a fault or wrongdoing, esp.\ after due consideration
of the case.}
of the
Jews with regard to their supposed ``smartness" is actually a device
for the glorification of the ingroup: he hates to think that ``we
are less smart than they." While anti-Semitism is functional with
regard to the object choice on a more superficial level, its deeper
determinants still seem to be much more rigid.

An extreme case of what might be called ``mobile" prejudice is {\em
M1225a},
of the Maritime School group. Though his questionnaire scores are
only medium, the interview shows strong traces of a ``manipulative"
anti-Semite.  The beginning of the minorities section of his interview
is as follows:


\begin{Quote}
(What do you think of the race-minority problem?) ``I definitely
think there is a problem. I'd probably be prejudiced there. Like
the Negro situation. They could act more human \ldots\ It would be
less of a problem."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
His aggression is absorbed by the Negroes, in the ``idiosyncratic"
manner that can otherwise be observed among extreme anti-Semites,
all of whose aggression appears to be directed against Jews.


\begin{Quote}
``I wouldn't sail on a ship if I had to sail with a Negro. To me,
they have an offensive smell. Course, the Chinese say we smell like
sheep." 
\end{Quote}


\noindent
It may be mentioned that a subject of the Labor Study, a
Negro woman, complained about the smell of the Jews. The present
subject concentrates on the Negroes, exonerating the Jews, though
in an equivocal way: 


\begin{Quote}
(What about the Jewish problem?) ``I don't believe there is much of
a problem there. They're too smart to have a problem. Well, they
are good business men.  (Too much influence?) I believe they have
a lot of influence. (In what areas?) Well, motion picture industry.
(Do they abuse it?) Well, the thing you hear an awful lot about is
help the Jews, help the Jews. But you never hear anything about
helping other races or nationalities. (Do they abuse their influence
in the movies?) If they do, they do it in such a way that it is not
offensive."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
Here again, anti-Semitic stereotypy is maintained descriptively
whereas the shift of actual hatred to the Negroes --- which cannot
be accounted for by the course of the interview --- affects the
superimposed value judgments. The twist with regard to the term
``problem" should be noted. By denying the existence of a ``Jewish
problem," he consciously takes sides with the unbiased. By interpreting
the word, however, as meaning ``having difficulties," and emphasizing
that the Jews are ``too smart to {\em have} a problem," he expresses
unwittingly his own rejection. In accordance with his ``smartness"
theory, his pro-Jewish statements have a rationalistic ring clearly
indicative of the subject's ambivalence: all race hatred is ``envy"
but he leaves little doubt that in his mind there is some reason
for this envy, e.g., his acceptance of the myth that the Jews
controlled German industry.

This interview points to a way in which our picture of ethnocentrism may
%PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	61I
be differentiated. Although the correlation between anti-Semitism
and anti-Negroism is undoubtedly high, a fact which stands out in
our interviews as well as in our questionnaire studies (cf.\ Chapter
IV\footnote{Chapter IV: The Study of Ethonocentric Ideology
in {\em The Authoritarian Personality}}), 
this is not to say that prejudice is a single compact mass.
Readiness to accept statements hostile to minority groups may well
be conceived as a more or less unitary\footnote{{\em unitary}: uniform.}
trait, but when, in the
interview situation, subjects are allowed to express themselves
spontaneously it is not uncommon for one minority more than the
others to appear, for the moment at least, as an object of special
hatred. This phenomenon may be elucidated\footnote{{\em elucidate}:
make (something) clear; explain; clarify.}
by reference to persecution
mania which, as has been pointed out frequently, has many structural
features in common with anti-Semitism. While the paranoid is beset
by an over-all hatred, he nevertheless tends to ``pick" his enemy,
to molest certain individuals who draw his attention upon themselves:
he falls, as it were, negatively in love. Something similar may
hold good for the potentially fascist character. As soon as he has
achieved a specific and concrete counter-cathexis,\footnote{{\em
cathexis}: the concentration of mental energy on one particular
person, idea, or object (esp.\ to an unhealthy degree).} 
which is indispensable
to his fabrication of a social pseudoreality, he may ``canalize" his
otherwise free-floating aggressiveness and then leave alone other
potential objects of persecution. Naturally, these processes come
to the fore in the dialectics of the interview rather than in the
scales, which hardly allow the subject freely to ``express" himself.

It may be added that subjects in our sample find numerous other
substitutes for the Jew, such as the Mexicans and the Greeks. The
latter, like the Armenians, are liberally endowed with traits
otherwise associated with the imagery of the Jew.

One more aspect of the ``functional" character of anti-Semitism
should be mentioned. We encountered quite frequently members of
other minority groups, with strong ``conformist" tendencies, who
were outspokenly anti-Semitic. Hardly any traces of solidarity among
the different outgroups could be found. The pattern is rather one
of ``shifting the onus" of defamation of other groups in order to
put one's own social status in a better light. An example is {\em
5023}, a ``psychoneurotic with anxiety state," Mexican by birth:


\begin{Quote}
Being an American of Mexican ancestry, he identifies with the white
race and feels ``we are superior people." He particularly dislikes
the Negroes and completely dislikes Jews. He feels that they are
all alike and wants as little as possible to do with them. Full of
contradiction as this subject is, it is not surprising to find that
he would marry a Jewess if he really loved her. On the other hand
he would control both Negroes and Jews and ``keep them in their
place."
\end{Quote}

{\em 5068} is regarded by the interviewer as representing a ``pattern
probably quite frequent in second-generation Americans who describe
themselves as Italian-Americans." His prejudice is of the
politico-fascist brand, distinctly colored by paranoid fantasies:


\begin{Quote}
He is of pure Italian extraction and naturalized here at the time of 
the first World
%612	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
War. He is very proud of this extraction and for a long time in the
early days of Mussolini was active in Italian-American organizations.
He still feels that the war against Italy was very unfortunate.
Concerning the other minorities he is quite prejudiced. The Mexicans
he feels are enough like the Italians so that if they were educated
enough it would be all right. At the present time, however, he feels
that they need much education. He believes that the California
Japanese were more than correctly handled and that those about whom
there is no question should be gradually allowed back. He described
the Negro situation as a tough one. He believes there should be
definite laws particularly with regard to racial intermarriage and
that the color line should also be drawn ``regarding where people
can live." ``Despite what they say, the Southern Negroes are really
the happiest ones." ``The trouble with Jews is that they are all
Communists and for this reason dangerous." His own relations with
them have only been fair. In his business relations he says they
are ``chiselers" and ``stick together." Concerning a solution to this
problem, he says, ``The Jews should actually educate their own. The
way the Jews stick together shows that they actually have more
prejudice against the Gentiles than the Gentiles have against them."
He illustrates this with a long story which I was not able to get
in detail about some acquaintance of his who married into a Jewish
family and was not allowed to eat off the same dishes with them.
\end{Quote}

We may mention, furthermore, {\em 5052}, an anti-Semitic man of Spanish-Negro
descent, with strong homosexual tendencies. He is a nightclub
entertainer, and the interviewer summarizes his impression in the
statement that this man wants to say, ``I am not a Negro, I am an
entertainer." Here the element of social identification in an outcast
is clearly responsible for his prejudice.

Finally, reference should be made to a curiosity, the interview of
a Turk, otherwise not evaluated because of his somewhat subnormal
intelligence. He indulged in violent anti-Semitic diatribes until
it came out near the end of the interview that he was Jewish himself.
The whole complex of anti-Semitism among minority groups, and among
Jews themselves, offers serious problems and deserves a study of
its own. Even the casual observations provided by our sample suffice
to corroborate the suspicion that those who suffer from social
pressure may frequently tend to transfer this pressure onto others
rather than to join hands with their fellow victims.

\subsection*{C. The Imaginary Foe}

Our examples of the ``functional" character of anti-Semitism, and
of the relative ease by which prejudice can be switched from one
object to another, point in one direction: the hypothesis that
prejudice, according to its intrinsic content, is but superficially,
if at all, related to the specific nature of its object. We shall
now give more direct support for this hypothesis, the relation of
which to clinical categories such as stereotypy, incapacity to have
``experience," projectivity, and power fantasies is not far to seek.
This support is supplied by statements which are either plainly
self-contradictory or incompatible with facts and of a manifestly
imaginary character. Since the
%PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	613
usual ``self-contradictions" of the anti-Semite can, however,
frequently be explained on the basis that they involve different
layers of reality and different psychological urges which are still
reconcilable in the over-all {\em ``Weltanschauung"}\footnote{{\em
Weltanschauung}: (German.) A particular philosophy or view of life; the
worldview of an individual or group.} 
of the anti-Semite,
we concern ourselves here mainly with evidence of imaginary constructs.
The fantasies with which we shall deal are so well known from
everyday life that their significance for the structure of anti-Semitism
can be taken for granted. They are merely highlighted by our research.
One might say that these fantasies occur whenever stereotypes ``run
wild," that is to say, make themselves completely independent from
interaction with reality. When these ``emancipated" stereotypes are
forcibly brought back into relation with reality, blatant distortions
appear. The content of the examples of stereotyped fantasy which
we collected has to do predominantly with ideas of excessive power
attributed to the chosen foe. The disproportion between the relative
social weakness of the object and its supposed sinister omnipotence
is by itself evidence that the projective mechanism is at work.

We shall first give some examples of omnipotence fantasies projected
upon a whole outgroup abstractly, as it were, and then show how the
application of such ideas to factual experience comes close to
paranoid delusion.

{\em 5054}, a middle-aged woman with fairly high scores on all the scales,
who is greatly concerned with herself and characterized by a
``domineering" manner, claims that she has always tried ``to see the
other side" and even to ``fight prejudice on every side." She derives
her feelings of tolerance from the contrast with her husband whom
she characterized as extremely anti-Jewish (he hates all Jews and
makes no exceptions) whereas she is willing to make exceptions. Her
actual attitude is described as follows:


\begin{Quote}
She would not subscribe to a ``racist theory," but does not think
that the Jews will change much, but rather that they will tend to
become ``more aggressive." She also believes that ``they will eventually
run the country, whether we like it or not."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The usual stereotype of undue Jewish influence in politics and
economy is inflated to the assertion of threatening over-all
domination. It is easy to guess that the countermeasures which such
subjects have in mind are no less totalitarian than their persecution
ideas, even if they do not dare to say so in so many words.

Similar is case {\em 5061a}, chosen as a mixed case (she is high-middle
on E, but low on F and PEC), but actually, as proved by the interview,
markedly ethnocentric. In her statement, the vividness of the
fantasies about the almighty Jew seems to be equaled by the intensity
of her vindictiveness.


\begin{Quote}
``My relations with the Jews have been anything but pleasant." When
asked to be more specific it was impossible for her to name individual
incidents. She described them, however, as ``pushing everybody about,
aggressive, clannish, money-minded. \ldots\ The
%614	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
Jews are practically taking over the country. They are getting into
everything. It is not that they are smarter, but they work so hard
to get control.  They are all alike." When asked if she did not
feel that there were variations in the Jewish temperament as in any
other, she said, ``No, I don't think so. I think there is something
that makes them all stick together and try to hold on to everything.
I have Jewish friends and I have tried not to treat them antagonistically,
but sooner or later they have also turned out to be aggressive and
obnoxious. \ldots\ I think the percentage of very bad Jews is very
much greater than the percentage of bad Gentiles. \ldots\ My husband
feels exactly the same way on this whole problem. As a matter of
fact, I don't go as far as he does. He didn't like many things about
Hitler, but he did feel that Hitler did a good job on the Jews. He
feels that we will come in this country to a place where we have
to do something about it."
\end{Quote}

Sometimes the projective aspect of the fantasies of Jewish domination
comes into the open. Those whose half-conscious wishes culminate
in the idea of the abolition of democracy and the rule of the strong,
call those anti-democratic whose only hope lies in the maintenance
of democratic rights.  {\em 5018} is a 32-year-old ex-marine gunnery
sergeant who scores high on all the scales. He is suspected by the
interviewer of being ``somewhat paranoid." He knows ``one cannot
consider Jews a race, but they are all alike. They have too much
power but I guess it's really our fault." This is followed up by
the statement:


\begin{Quote}
He would handle the Jews by outlawing them from business domination.
He thinks that all others who feel the same could get into business
and compete with them and perhaps overcome them, but adds, ``it would
be better to ship them to Palestine and let them gyp one another.
I have had some experiences with them and a few were good soldiers
but not very many." The respondent went on to imply that lax
democratic methods cannot solve the problem because ``they won't
cooperate in a democracy."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The implicitly antidemocratic feelings of this subject are evidenced
by his speaking derogatorily about lax democratic methods: his
blaming the Jews for lack of democratic cooperation is manifestly
a rationalization.  

One more aspect of unrealistic imagery of the Jew should at least
be mentioned. It is the contention that the Jews ``are everywhere."
Omnipresence sometimes displaces omnipotence, perhaps because no
actual ``Jewish rule" can be pretended to exist, so that the
image-ridden subject has to seek a different outlet for his power
fantasy in ideas of dangerous, mysterious ubiquity\footnote{{\em
ubiquitous}: present, appearing, or found everywhere.}. 
This is fused
with another psychological element. To the highly prejudiced subject
the idea of the total right of the ingroup, and of its tolerating
nothing which does not strictly ``belong," is all-pervasive. This
is projected upon the Jews. Whereas the high scorer apparently
cannot stand any ``intruder" --- ultimately nothing that is not
strictly like himself --- he sees this totality of presence in those
whom he hates and whom he feels justified in exterminating because
one otherwise ``could not get rid of them." The
%%PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	615
following example shows the idea of Jewish omnipresence applied to
personal experience, thus revealing its proximity to delusion.

{\em 6070}, a 40-year-old woman, is high-middle on the E scale and
particularly vehement about the Jews:


\begin{Quote}
``I don't like Jews. The Jew is always crying. They are taking our
country over from us. They are aggressive. They suffer from every
lust. Last summer I met the famous musician X, and before I really
knew him he wanted me to sign an affidavit to help bring his family
into this country. Finally I had to flatly refuse and told him I
want no more Jews here. Roosevelt started bringing the Jews into
the government, and that is the chief cause of our difficulties
today. The Jews arranged it so they were discriminated for in the
draft. I favor a legislative discrimination against the Jews along
American, not Hitler lines. Everybody knows that the Jews are back
of the Communists. This X person almost drove me nuts. I had made
the mistake of inviting him to be my guest at my beach club. He
arrived with ten other Jews who were uninvited. They always cause
trouble. If one gets in a place, he brings two more and those two
bring two more."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
This quotation is remarkable for more reasons than that it exemplifies
the ``Jews are everywhere" complex. It is the expression of Jewish
{\em weakness} --- that they are ``always crying" --- which is perverted
into ubiquity. The refugee, forced to leave his country, appears
as he who {\em wants} to intrude and to expand over the whole earth, and
it is hardly too far-fetched to assume that this imagery is at least
partly derived from the fact of persecution itself.  Moreover, the
quotation gives evidence of a certain ambivalence of the extreme
anti-Semite which points in the direction of ``negatively falling
in love." This woman had {\em invited} the celebrity to her club, doubtless
attracted by his fame, but used the contact, once it had been
established, merely in order to personalize her aggressiveness.

Another example of the merging of semipsychotic idiosyncrasies and
wild anti-Jewish imagery is the 26-year-old woman, {\em 5004}. She scores
high on the F scale and high-middle on E and PEC. Asked about Jewish
religion, she produces an answer which partakes of the age-old image
of ``uncanniness." ``I know very little, but I would be afraid to go
into a synagogue." This has to be evaluated in relation to her
statement about Nazi atrocities:


\begin{Quote}
``I am not particularly sorry because of what the Germans did to the
Jews. I feel Jews would do the same type of thing to me."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The persecution fantasy of what the Jews {\em might} do to her, is used,
in authentic paranoid style, as a justification of the genocide
committed by the Nazis.

Our last two examples refer to the distortions that occur when
experience is viewed through the lens of congealed stereotypy. {\em
M732c}
of the Veterans Group, who scores generally high on the scales,
shows this pattern of distorted experience with regard to both
Negroes and Jews. As to the former:
%616	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY


\begin{Quote}
``You never see a Negro driving (an ordinary car of which subject
mentions a number of examples) but only a Cadillac or a Packard.
\ldots\ They always dress gaudy. They have that tendency to show
off. \ldots\ Since the Negro has that feeling that he isn't up to
par, he's always trying to show off. \ldots\ Even though he can't
afford it, he will buy an expensive car just to make a show. \ldots"
Subject mentions that the brightest girl in a class at subject's
school happens to be a Negro and he explains her outstandingness
in the class in terms of Negro overcompensation for what he seems
to be implying is her inherent inferiority.
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The assertion about the Negro's Cadillac speaks for itself. As to
the story about the student, it indicates in personalized terms the
aspect of inescapability inherent in hostile stereotypy. To the
prejudiced, the Negro is ``dull"; if he meets, however, one of
outstanding achievement, it is supposed to be mere overcompensation,
the exception that proves the rule. No matter what the Negro is or
does, he is condemned.

As to the ``Jewish problem":


\begin{Quote}
``As far as being good and shrewd businessmen, that's about all I
have to say about {\em them}. They're {\em white} people, that's one thing.
\ldots\ Of course, they have the Jewish instinct, whatever that is.
\ldots\ I've heard they have a business nose. \ldots\ I imagine the
Jewish people are more 
{\em obsequious}\footnote{{\em obsequious}: obedient or attentive to
an excessive or servile degree.}. \ldots\ For example, {\em somehow} a
Jewish barber will entice you to come to {\em his} chair." Subject
elaborates here a definite fantasy of some mysterious influence by
Jews. \ldots\ ``They're mighty shrewd businessmen, and you don't
have much chance" (competing with Jews).
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The story about the barber seems to be a retrogression towards early
infantile, magical patterns of thinking.

{\em F359}, a 48-year-old accountant in a government department, is,
according to the interviewer, a cultured and educated woman. This,
however, does not keep her from paranoid story-telling as soon as
the critical area of race relations, which serves as a kind of
free-for-all, is entered. (She is in the high quartile on E, though
low on both F and PEC.) Her distortions refer both to Negroes and
to Jews:


\begin{Quote}
Subject considers this a very serious problem and she thinks that
it is going to get worse. The Negroes are going to get worse. She
experienced a riot in Washington; there was shooting; street-car
windows were broken, and when a white would get into the Negro
section of the car, the shooting would start. The white man would
have to lie on the floor. She did not dare to go out at night. One
day the Negroes were having a procession and some of them started
pushing her off the sidewalk.  When she asked them not to push,
they looked so insolent that she thought they would start a riot,
and her companion said, ``Let's get out of here or we will start a
riot." A friend of hers told her that she had asked her maid to
work on a Thursday, but the maid had refused because she said it
was ``push and shove" day --- the day they shoved the whites off the
sidewalk. Another friend of hers in Los Angeles told her not to let
her maid use her vacuum cleaner because they tamper with it in such
a way as to cause it to tear your rugs. One day she caught the maid
using a file on her vacuum cleaner and asked her what she was doing.
The maid replied, ``Oh, I'm just trying to fix this thing." They
just want to get revenge on whites.  One cannot give them equal
rights yet, they are not ready for it; we will have to
%%PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	617
educate them first. Subject would not want to sit next to a Negro
in a theatre or restaurant. She cited the case of a drugstore man
who addressed a Negro janitor, a cleaner, as ``Mr." You just can't
do that to them or they will say, ``Ah'm as good as white folks."
(Outcome?) ``I think there will be trouble." She expects riots and
bloodshed.

\hskip 1em
( Jews?) ``Well, they are to blame too, I think. They just cannot
do business straight, they have to be underhanded --- truth has no
meaning for them in business." (What has been your personal
experience?) She cited the case of a friend who is interested in
photography and bought some second-hand cameras from pawn shops.
One day when he was in one, a woman came in with a set of false
teeth. She was told that they were not worth anything (there was
some gold in them). Finally, the Jew gave her a few dollars for
them. As soon as she had gone out, he turned to the man and said,
``She didn't know it, but see that platinum under here?" In other
words the teeth were worth many times what he gave for them. Subject's
friend did not get gypped because he knew them and called their
bluff.
\end{Quote}

It is often advocated as the best means of improving intercultural
relations that as many personal contacts as possible be established
between the different groups. While the value of such contacts in
some cases of anti-Semitism is to be acknowledged, the material
presented in this section argues for certain qualifications, at
least in the case of the more extreme patterns of prejudice. There
is no simple gap between experience and stereotypy. Stereotypy is
a device for looking at things comfortably; since, however, it feeds
on deep-lying unconscious sources, the distortions which occur are
not to be corrected merely by taking a {\em real} look. Rather,
experience itself is predetermined by stereotypy. The persons whose
interviews on minority issues have just been discussed share one
decisive trait. Even if brought together with minority group members
as different from the stereotype as possible, they will perceive
them through the glasses of stereotypy, and will hold against them
whatever they are and do. Since this tendency is by no means confined
to people who are actually ``cranky" (rather, the whole complex of
the Jew is a kind of recognized red-light district of legitimatized
psychotic distortions), this inaccessibility to experience may not
be limited to people of the kind discussed here, but may well operate
in much milder cases. This should be taken into account by any
well-planned policy of defense.  Optimism with regard to the hygienic
effects of personal contacts should be discarded. One cannot ``correct"
stereotypy by experience; he has to reconstitute the capacity for
{\em having} experiences in order to prevent the growth of ideas
which are malignant in the most literal, clinical sense.

%% Arun
\subsection*{D. Anti-Semitism For What?}

It is a basic hypothesis of psychoanalysis that symptoms ``make
sense" in so far as they fulfill a specific function within the
individual's psychological economy --- that they are to be regarded,
as a rule, as vicarious wish-fulfillments of, or as defenses against,
repressed urges. Our previous discussion
%% 618	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
has shown the irrational aspect of anti-Semitic attitudes and
opinions.  Since their content is irreconcilable with reality, we
are certainly entitled to call them symptoms. But they are symptoms
which can hardly be explained by the mechanisms of
neurosis\footnote{{\em neurosis}: a relatively mild mental illness
that is not caused by organic disease, involving symptoms of stress
(depression, anxiety, obsessive behavior, hypochondria) but not a
radical loss of touch with reality.}; 
and
at the same time, the anti-Semitic individual as such, the potentially
fascist character, is certainly not a psychotic{{\em psychosis}: a
severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired
that contact is lost with external reality.}. 
The ultimate
theoretical explanation of an entirely irrational symptom which
nevertheless does not appear to affect the ``normality" of those who
show the symptom is beyond the scope of the present research.
However, we feel justified in asking the question: {\em cui bono}? What
purposes within the lives of our subjects are served by anti-Semitic
ways of thinking? A final answer could be provided only by going
back to the primary causes for the establishment and freezing of
stereotypes. An approach to such an answer has been set forth in
earlier chapters. Here, we limit ourselves to a level closer to the
surface of the ego and ask: what does anti-Semitism ``give" to the
subject within the concrete configurations of his adult experience?

Some of the functions of prejudice may doubtless be called rational.
One does not need to conjure up deeper motivations in order to
understand the attitude of the farmer who wants to get hold of the
property of his Japanese neighbor. One may also call rational the
attitude of those who aim at a fascist dictatorship and accept
prejudice as part of an over-all platform, though in this case the
question of rationality becomes complicated, since neither the goal
of such a dictatorship seems to be rational in terms of the
individual's interest, nor can the wholesale automatized acceptance
of a ready-made formula be called rational either. What we are
interested in, for the moment, however, is a problem of a somewhat
different order. What good does accrue to the actual adjustment of
otherwise ``sensible" persons when they subscribe to ideas which
have no basis in reality and which we ordinarily associate with
maladjustment?

In order to provide a provisional answer to this question, we may
anticipate one of the conclusions from our consideration of the
political and economic sections of the interview 
(Chapter XVII\footnote{%
Chapter XVII: (add name of chapter here)
in {\em The Authoritarian Personality}}):
the all-pervasive ignorance and confusion of our subjects when it
comes to social matters beyond the range of their most immediate
experience. The objectification of social processes, their obedience
to intrinsic supra-individual laws, seems to result in an intellectual
alienation of the individual from society. This alienation is
experienced by the individual as disorientation, with concomitant
fear and uncertainty. As will be seen, political stereotypy and
personalization can be understood as devices for overcoming this
uncomfortable state of affairs.  Images of the politician and of
the bureaucrat can be understood as signposts of orientation and
as projections of the fears created by disorientation. Similar
functions seem to be performed by the ``irrational" imagery of the
Jew. He is, for the highly prejudiced subject, extremely stereotyped;
at the same time, he is more personalized than any other bogey in
so far as he is not defined 
%PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL 619 
by a profession or by his role in social life, but by his human
existence as such. For these reasons, as well as for historical
ones, he is much better qualified for the psychological function
of the ``bad man" than the bureaucrats or politicians, who, incidentally,
are often but handy substitutes for the real object of hatred, the
Jew.  The latter's alienness seems to provide the handiest formula
for dealing with the alienation of society. Charging the Jews with
all existing evils seems to penetrate the darkness of reality like
a searchlight and to allow for quick and all-comprising orientation.
The less anti-Jewish imagery is related to actual experience and
the more it is kept ``pure," as it were, from contamination by
reality, the less it seems to be exposed to disturbance by the
dialectics of experience, which it keeps away through its own
rigidity. It is the Great Panacea\footnote{{\em panacea}: a solution
or remedy for all difficulties or diseases.}, 
providing at once intellectual
equilibrium, countercathexis, and a canalization of wishes for a
``change."

Anti-Semitic writers and agitators from Chamberlain\footnote{%
Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855--1927): British writer whose book
{\em The Foundations of the 19th Century} strongly influenced the
racial theories of the Nazi party.}
to Rosenberg\footnote{Alfred Rosenberg (1893--1946): Main author of
key Nazi ideological creeds, including its racial theory, persecution
of the Jews.} 
and Hitler have always maintained that the existence of the Jews
is the {\em key} to everything. By talking with individuals of fascist
leanings, one can learn the psychological implications of this ``key"
idea. Their more-or-less cryptic hints frequently reveal a kind of
sinister pride; they speak as if they were ``in the know" and had
solved a riddle otherwise unsolved by mankind (no matter how often
their solution has been already expressed). They raise literally
or figuratively their forefinger, sometimes with a smile of superior
indulgence; they know the answer for everything and present to their
partners in discussion the absolute security of those who have cut
off the contacts by which any modification of their formula may
occur. Probably it is this delusion-like security which casts its
spell over those who feel insecure. By his very ignorance or confusion
or semi-erudition the anti-Semite can often conquer the position
of a profound wizard. The more primitive his drastic formulae are,
due to their stereotypy, the more appealing they are at the same
time, since they reduce the complicated to the elementary, no matter
how the logic of this reduction may work. The superiority thus
gained does not remain on the intellectual level. Since the clich\'e
regularly makes the outgroup bad and the ingroup good, the anti-Semitic
pattern of orientation offers emotional, narcissistic\footnote{{\em
narcissism}: self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish the
self from external objects, either in very young babies or as a
feature of mental disorder.}
gratifications
which tend to break down the barriers of rational self-criticism.

It is these psychological instruments upon which fascist agitators
play incessantly. They would hardly do so if there were no
susceptibility for spurious\footnote{{\em spurious}: (of a line of
reasoning) apparently but not actually valid.}
orientation among their listeners and
readers. Here we are concerned only with the evidence for such
susceptibility among people who are by no means overt fascist
followers. We limit ourselves to three nerve points of the
pseudocognitive lure of anti-Semitism: the idea that the Jews are
a ``problem," the assertion that they are all alike, and the claim
that Jews can be recognized as such without exception.

The contention that the Jews, or the Negroes, are a ``problem" is 
regularly
%% 621	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
found in our interviews with prejudiced subjects. We may quote one
example picked at random and then briefly discuss the theoretical
implications of the ``problem" idea.

The prelaw student, {\em 105}, when asked, ``What about other groups?" states:


\begin{Quote}
``Well, the Jews are a ticklish problem --- not the whole race; there
are both good and bad. But there are more bad than good."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The term ``problem" is taken over from the sphere of science and is
used to give the impression of searching, responsible deliberation.
By referring to a problem, one implicitly claims personal aloofness
from the matter in question --- a kind of detachment and higher
objectivity. This, of course, is an excellent rationalization for
prejudice. It serves to give the impression that one's attitudes
are not motivated subjectively but have resulted from hard thinking
and mature experience. The subject who makes use of this device
maintains a discursive attitude in the interview; he qualifies,
quasi-empirically\footnote{{\em empirical}: based on, concerned with,
or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure
logic.}, 
what he has to say, and is ready to admit
exceptions. Yet these qualifications and exceptions only scratch
the surface. As soon as the existence of a ``Jewish problem" is
admitted, anti-Semitism has won its first surreptitious victory.
This is made possible by the equivocal\footnote{{\em equivocal}: open
to more than one interpretation; ambiguous.}
nature of the term itself;
it can be both a neutral issue of analysis and, as indicated by the
everyday use of the term ``problematic" for a dubious character, a
negative entity. There is no doubt that the relations between Jews
and non-Jews do present a problem in the objective sense of the
term, but when ``the Jewish problem" is referred to, the emphasis
is subtly shifted. While the veneer of objectivity is maintained,
the implication is that the {\em Jews} are the problem, a problem, that
is, to the rest of society. It is but one step from this position
to the implicit notion that this problem has to be dealt with
according to its own special requirements, i.e., the problematic
nature of the Jews, and that this will naturally lead outside the
bounds of democratic procedure. Moreover, the ``problem" calls for
a {\em solution}. As soon as the Jews themselves are stamped as this
problem, they are transformed into objects, not only to ``judges"
of superior insight but also to the perpetrators of {\em an action}; far
from being regarded as subjects, they are treated as terms of a
mathematical equation. To call for a ``solution of the Jewish problem"
results in their being reduced to ``material" for manipulation.

It should be added that the ``problem" idea, which made deep inroads
into public opinion through Nazi propaganda and the Nazi example,
is also to be found in the interviews of low-scoring subjects. Here,
however, it assumes regularly the aspect of a {\em protest}. Unprejudiced
subjects try to restore the objective, ``sociological" meaning of
the term, generally insisting on the fact that the so-called ``Jewish
problem" is actually the problem of the non-Jews. However, the very
use of the term may be partially indicative, even with unprejudiced
persons, of a certain ambivalence or at least indifference, as in
the case of {\em 5047}, who scored low on the E scale but high on F and
PEC.


\begin{Quote}
``Yes, I think there is a so-called Jewish problem and a Negro
problem, but essentially
%%PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	62I
I believe that it is really a majority problem." He felt that there
was a need for more education of the ignorant masses and for improving
economic conditions so that there would not be a necessity for
seeking a scapegoat. Generally, his understanding of the problems
seemed to be quite sound, and he expressed disagreement with
anti-Semitism and discrimination against Negroes. However, the
manner in which he approached the matter and his tendency to treat
it as a purely academic problem seemed to indicate that he was not
thoroughly convinced of his statements and was merely using verbal
clich\'es.
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The term ``problem" itself seems to suggest a too na\"ive idea of
common sense justice, following the pattern of democratic compromise
in areas where decisions should be made only according to the merits
of the case. The man who speaks about the ``problem" is easily tempted
to say that there are two sides to every problem, with the comfortable
consequence that the Jews {\em must} have done something wrong, if they
were exterminated. This pattern of conformist ``sensibleness" lends
itself very easily to the defense of various kinds of irrationality.

The statement that the Jews are all alike not only dispenses with
all disturbing factors but also, by its sweep, gives to the judge
the grandiose air of a person who sees the whole without allowing
himself to be deflected by petty details --- an intellectual leader.
At the same time, the ``all alike" idea rationalizes the glance at
the individual case as a mere specimen of some generality which can
be taken care of by general measures which are the more radical,
since they call for no exceptions. We give but one example of a
case where traces of ``knowing better" still survive although the
``all alike" idea leads up to the wildest fantasies. {\em F116} is middle
on the E scale, but when the question of the Jews is raised:


\begin{Quote}
(Jews?) ``Now this is where I really do have strong feeling. I am
not very proud of it. I don't think it is good to be so prejudiced
but I can't help it. (What do you dislike about Jews?) Everything.
I can't say one good thing for them. (Are there any exceptions?)
No, I have never met one single one that was an exception. I used
to hope I would. It isn't pleasant to feel the way I do. I would
be just as nice and civil as I could, but it would end the same
way. They cheat, take advantage. (Is it possible that you know some
Jewish people and like them without knowing they are Jews?) Oh no,
I don't think any Jew can hide it. I always know them. (How do they
look?) Attractive. Very well dressed. And as though they knew exactly
what they wanted. (How well have you known Jews?) Well, I never
knew any in childhood. In fact, I never knew one until we moved to
San Francisco, 10 years ago.  He was our landlord. It was terrible.
I had a lovely home in Denver and I hated to leave. And here I was
stuck in an ugly apartment and he did everything to make it worse.
If the rent was due on Sunday, he was there bright and early. After
that I knew lots of them. I had Jewish bosses. There are Jews in
the bank. They are everywhere --- always in the money. My next-door
neighbor is a Jew. I decided to be civil. After all, I can't move
now and I might as well be neighborly. They borrow our lawn mower.
They {\em say} it is because you can't buy one during the war. But of
course lawn mowers cost money. We had a party last week and they
called the police. I called her the next day because I suspected
them. She said she did it so I asked if she didn't think she should
have called me first. She said a man was singing in the yard and
woke her baby and she got so upset she called the police. I asked her
%%622	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
if she realized that her baby screamed for 3 months after she brought
him home from the hospital. Ever since then she has been just
grovelling and I hate that even worse."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
``Knowing better" is mentioned not infrequently by high scorers:
they realize they ``should" not think that way, but stick to their
prejudice under a kind of compulsion which is apparently stronger
than the moral and rational counteragencies available to them. In
addition to this phenomenon, there is hardly any aspect of the
anti-Semitic syndrome discussed in this chapter which could not be
illustrated by this quotation from a truly ``all-out," totalitarian
anti-Semite. She omits nothing. Her insatiability is indicative of
the tremendous libidinous\footnote{{\em libidinous}: showing excessive
sexual drive; lustful. From {\em libido}: (From Psychoanalysis) the
energy of the sexual drive as a component of the life instinct.}
energy she has invested in her Jewish
complex. Acting out her anti-Semitism obviously works with her as
a wish-fulfillment, both with regard to aggressiveness and with
regard to the desire for intellectual superiority as indicated by
her cooperation in the present study ``in the interests of science."
Her personal attitude partakes of that sinister contempt shown by
those who feel themselves to be ``in the know" with respect to all
kinds of dark secrets.

Her most characteristic attitude is one of pessimism --- she dismisses
many matters with a downward glance, a shrug of the shoulders, and
a sigh.

The idea of the ``Jew spotter" was introduced in the Labor Study,
where it proved to be the most discriminating item. We used it only
in a supplementary way, in work with the Los Angeles sample, but
there can be no doubt that people who are extreme on A--S will
regularly allege that they can recognize Jews at once. This is the
most drastic expression of the ``orientation" mechanism which we
have seen to be so essential a feature of the prejudiced outlook.
At the same time, it can frequently be observed that the actual
variety of Jews, which could hardly escape notice, leads to a high
amount of vagueness with regard to the criteria according to which
Jews might be spotted; this vagueness does not, however, interfere
with the definiteness of the spotter's claim. One example for this
configuration will suffice. It is interesting because of the strange
mixture of fantasy and real observation.

{\em 5039}, a 27-year-old student at the University of Southern California
and a war veteran, who scores high on E:


\begin{Quote}
``Yes, I think I can \ldots\ of course, you can't always, I know.
But usually they have different features: larger nose, and I think
differently shaped faces, more narrow, and different mannerisms.
\ldots\ But mainly they talk too much and they have different
attitudes.  Almost always they will counter a question with another
question (gives examples from school); they are freer with criticism;
tend to talk in big terms and generally more aggressive --- at least
I notice that immediately. \ldots "
\end{Quote}

\subsection*{E. Two Kinds of Jews}

The stereotypes just discussed have been interpreted as means for
pseudo-orientation in an estranged world, and at the same time as
devices for ``mastering"
%% PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	623
this world by being able completely to pigeonhole its negative
aspects.  The ``problematizing" attitude puts the resentful person
in the position of one who is rationally discriminating; the assertion
that all the Jews are alike transposes the ``problem" into the realm
of systematic and complete knowledge, without a ``loophole," as it
were; the pretension of being able unfailingly to recognize Jews
raises the claim that the subject is actually the judge in matters
where the judgment is supposed to have been pronounced once and for
all. In addition, there is another stereotype of ``orientation" which
deserves closer attention because it shows most clearly the
``topographical"\footnote{{\em topographical}: relating to or
representing the physical distribution of parts or features on the
surface of or within an organ or organism.} 
function and because it crops up spontaneously with
great frequency in the interview material. It is even more indicative
of the ``pseudorational" element in anti-Semitic prejudice than is
the manner of speaking about the ``Jewish problem." We refer to the
standard division of Jews into two groups, the good ones and the
bad ones, a division frequently expressed in terms of the ``white"
Jews and the ``kikes." It may be objected that this division cannot
be taken as an index of subjective attitudes, since it has its basis
in the object itself, namely, the different degrees of Jewish
assimilation. We shall be able to demonstrate that this objection
does not hold true and that we have to cope with an attitudinal
pattern largely independent of the structure of the minority group
to which it is applied.

It has been established in previous chapters that the mentality of
the prejudiced subject is characterized by thinking in terms of
rigidly contrasting ingroups and outgroups. In the stereotype here
under consideration, this dichotomy is projected upon the outgroups
themselves, or at least upon one particular outgroup. This is partly
due no doubt to the automatization of black and white thinking which
tends to ``cut in two" whatever is being considered. It is also due
to the desire to maintain an air of objectivity while expressing
one's hostilities, and perhaps even to a mental reservation of the
prejudiced person who does not want to deliver himself completely
to ways of thinking which he still regards as ``forbidden." The ``two
kinds" stereotype thus has to be viewed as a compromise between
antagonistic tendencies within the prejudiced person himself. This
would lead to the supposition that people who make this division
are rarely {\em extreme} high scorers; a supposition which seems to be
largely borne out by our data. In terms of our ``orientation" theory
we should expect that the ``two kinds" idea serves as a makeshift
for bridging the gap between general stereotypy and personal
experience.  Thus, the ``good" outgroup members would be those whom
the subject personally knows, whereas the ``bad" ones would be those
at a greater social distance --- a distinction obviously related
to the differences between assimilated and non-assimilated sectors
of the outgroup. This again is at least partly corroborated, though
it will be seen that the ``two kinds" idea is in many respects so
vague and abstract that it does not even coincide with the division
between the known and the unknown. As a device for overcoming
stereotypy
%% 624	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
the ``two kinds" concept is spurious because it is thoroughly
stereotyped itself.

{\em 5007}, who scores high on all the scales, comments as follows:


\begin{Quote}
``Most of the Jews I have known have been white Jews, and they are
very charming people. Jews are aggressive, clannish, overcrowd nice
neighborhoods, and are money-minded. At least the `non-white Jews.'
My experiences have been of two sorts. Some Jews are amongst the
most charming and educated people I know. Other experiences have
been less friendly. On the whole, I think Jews in the professions
are all right, but in commerce they seem to be quite objectionable."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
Here it can be seen clearly how the over-all stereotypy, as suggested
by the list of ``objectionable Jewish traits," struggles with the
stereotype of a dichotomy, which in this case represents the more
humanitarian trend. It is conceived in terms of acquaintances 
vs.\ others, but this is complicated by a second division, that between
``professional" Jews (supposedly of higher education and morality)
and ``business" Jews, who are charged with being ruthless money-makers
and cheats.

This, however, is not the classical form of the ``two kinds" idea.
The latter is expressed, rather, by the above-mentioned Boy Scout
leader, {\em 5051}, the man who brings the Armenians into play:


\begin{Quote}
``Now take the Jews. There are good and bad amongst all races. We
know that, and we know that Jews are a religion, not a race; but
the trouble is that there are two types of Jews. There are the white
Jews and the kikes. My pet theory is that the white Jews hate the
kikes just as much as we do. I even knew a good Jew who ran a store
and threw some kikes out, calling them kikes and saying he didn't
want their business."
\end{Quote}

Research on anti-Semitism among Jews would probably corroborate
this ``pet" idea. In Germany at least, the
``autochthonous"\footnote{{\em autochthonous}: indigenous rather than
descended from migrants or colonists. (Said of an inhabitant of a
place.)} 
Jews used
to discriminate heavily against refugees and immigrants from the
East and often enough comforted themselves with the idea that the
Nazi policies were directed merely against the ``{\em
Ostjuden\footnote{{\em Ostjuden}: East-jews (German).}}."
Distinctions
of this sort seem to promote gradual persecution of Jews, group by
group, with the aid of the smooth rationalization that only those
are to be excluded who do not belong anyway.  It is a structural
element of anti-Semitic persecution that it starts with limited
objectives, but goes on and on without being stopped. It is through
this structure that the ``two kinds" stereotype assumes its sinister
aspect. The division between ``whites" and ``kikes," arbitrary and
unjust in itself, invariably turns against the so-called ``whites"
who become the ``kikes" of tomorrow.

Evidence of the independence of the division from its object is
offered by the all-around high scorer, {\em M1229m}, of the Maritime
School group, who divides the Jews in a manner employed by other
Southerners with regard to the Negroes. Here a certain break between
general race prejudice and a relative freedom of more personal
attitudes and experiences seems to exist.
%%PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	625


\begin{Quote}
(Jewish problem?) ``Not a terrific problem. I get along with them.
Jews in the South are different from those in the North. Not so
grasping in the South. (Daughter marrying a Jew?) O.K.; no problem.
Large number of Jewish families in Galveston. No prejudice against
Jews in Texas."
\end{Quote}

This making of private exceptions is sometimes, as by the mildly 
anti-Semitic radio writer {\em 5003}, expressed as follows:

``He doesn't know about Jews. `Some of my best friends are Jews.' "
In spite of the innumerable jokes, both European and American, about
the ``some of my best friends" clich\'e, it survives tenaciously.
Apparently it combines felicitously the merits of ``human interest"
--- supposedly personal experience --- with a bow to the superego
which does not seriously impede the underlying hostility.

Occasionally the concessions made to personal acquaintances are
explained by the interspersion of racial theories, and thus a mildly
paranoid touch is added. An example is the generally ``high" woman,
{\em F109}:


\begin{Quote}
Father Scotch-Irish, mother English-Irish. Subject is not identified
with any of these. ``I have an age-old feeling against Jews, some
against Negroes. Jews stick together, are out for money; they gyp
you. Jews are in big businesses. It seems they will be running the
country before long. I know some people of Jewish descent who are
very nice, but they're not full-blooded Jews. Jews have large noses,
are slight in stature, little sly Jews. The women have dark hair,
dark eyes, are sort of loud."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
This girl student, by the way, to whom the ``education" idea is
all-important, is among those who show traces of bad conscience.


\begin{Quote}
Subject knows she's prejudiced; she thinks she needs educating too,
by working with people of different races.
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The intrinsic weakness of the ``best friend" idea, which simulates
human experience without truly expressing it, comes into the open
in the following quotation, where the line between the friend and
the ``kikes" is drawn in such a way that even the ``friend" is not
fully admitted.


\begin{Quote}
(Jews?) ``There are Jews and Jews. I have a very good girl friend
who is a Jew --- never enters into our relationship except that she
is in a Jewish sorority. (Would you want her in your sorority?)
Well \ldots\ (pause) \ldots\ I don't think I'd have any objections. (Would
you let in all Jewish girls?) No. One Jew is alright but you get a
whole mob and \ldots ! (What happens?) They get into anything and
they'll control it --- they'll group together for their own interests
--- the kike Jew is as dishonest as they come. Find them on Fillmore
Street in San Francisco. I have had no experience with kike Jews.
I think that's created in my family. Father feels strongly against
them --- I don't know why. (Nazis?) That's unnecessary --- they
have a right to exist --- no reason for excluding them as long as
they don't try to overstep the rights of others. I knew a lot of
Jews in high school. They kept pretty much to themselves. Don't
think I'm echoing. I would like Jews as long as they don't reflect
typical Jewish qualities. Typical Jewish nose, mouth, voice. The
presence of a
%626	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
Jew creates feelings of tension. Squeaky voice, long, pointed nose.
Couldn't name anti-Semitic groups in this country but think they
exist."
\end{Quote}

Particular attention should be called to the statement of this girl,
described by the interviewer as being ``tight all over," that the
presence of a Jew creates feelings of tension. There is reason to
believe that this is a common experience. It would hardly suffice
to attribute this uneasiness solely to repressed guilt feelings,
or to the effect of some ``strangeness" as such. At least the concrete
aspects of this strangeness in social contacts needs further
elucidation. We venture the hypothesis that it is due to a certain
discomfort and uneasiness on the Jew's own part in non-Jewish
company, and on a certain antagonism of the Jews, deeply rooted in
history, against ``genial" conviviality and harmless abandonment of
oneself in order to enjoy the moment. Since this may be one concrete
factor making for anti-Semitism, independent of traditional stereotypy,
this whole complex should be followed up most carefully in future
research.

As to the evidence for our assertion that the ``two kinds" idea is
not object-bound but rather a structural psychological pattern, we
limit ourselves to two examples. The student nurse, {\em 5013}, whose
scale scores are generally high:


\begin{Quote}
Feels towards the Japanese and the Mexicans and Negroes very much
as she does toward the Jews. In all cases she holds to a sort of
bifurcation\footnote{{\em bifurcation}: the division of something into
two branches or parts.}
theory, that is, that there are good Japanese and that
they should be allowed to return to California, but there are bad
ones and they should not. The Mexicans also fall into two groups,
as do the Negroes. When it is pointed out to her that people of her
own extraction probably also fall into good and bad groups, she
admits this but feels that the line between the good and the bad
is not as great in her case. She feels that the Negro problem is
probably of greater importance than the other minorities but says
that she speaks at the hospital to the colored nurses and doctors.
At this point she related a long anecdote about taking care of a
female Negro patient who had told her that the Negroes had brought
their problems on themselves by aspiring to equality with the whites.
She feels that this was a very wise Negress and agrees with her.
\end{Quote}

In the case of Southerners, the ``two kinds" idea is frequently
applied to the Negroes, those in the South being praised, and those
who went away being denounced for demanding an equality to which
they were not entitled. In so far as the Southern ``white man's
nigger" is more subservient and a better object of exploitation in
the eyes of these subjects, this attitude, with its patriarchal and
feudalistic rationalizations, can be called semi-realistic. But the
construct of ``two kinds of Negroes" often results in quite a different
connotation, as in the case of {\em F340a}. She is high on F and PEC and
middle on E.


\begin{Quote}
``The Negroes are getting so arrogant now, they come to the employment
office and say they don't like this kind of a job and that kind of
a job. However, there are some who are employed at the employment
office and they are very nice and intelligent. There are nice ones
and bad ones among us. The Negroes who have
%% PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	627
always lived in Oakland are all right; they don't know what to do
with all those who are coming in from the South either. They all
carry knives; if you do something they don't like, they `will get
even with you, they will slice you up.' "
\end{Quote}


\noindent
Here, the ``two kinds" idea results in plain persecution fantasies. 

\subsection*{F. The Anti-Semite's Dilemma}

If anti-Semitism is a ``symptom" which fulfills an ``economic" function
within the subject's psychology, one is led to postulate that this
symptom is not simply ``there," as a mere expression of what the
subject happens to be, but that it is the outcome of a conflict.
It owes its very irrationality to psychological dynamics which force
the individual, at least in certain areas, to abandon the reality
principle\footnote{{\em reality principle}: (Psychoanalysis) the ego's
control of the pleasure-seeking activity of the id in order to meet
the demands of the external world.}. 
The conception of prejudice as a symptom resulting from
a conflict has been elucidated in earlier chapters. Here, we are
concerned not so much with the clinical evidence of conflict
determinants as with the traces of conflict within the phenomenon
of anti-Semitism itself.  Some evidence bearing on this point has
already been presented in the last sections. The ``problem" idea as
well as the dichotomy applied to the outgroup represent a kind of
compromise between underlying urges and hostile stereotypes on the
one hand, and the demands of conscience and the weight of concrete
experience on the other. The subject who ``discusses" the Jews usually
wants to maintain some sense of proportion, at least formally, even
though the content of his rational considerations is spurious and
his supposed insight itself is warped by the very same instinctual
urges which it is called upon to check.

The standard form under which conflict appears in statements of
high-scoring subjects is, as indicated above, ``I shouldn't, but\ldots "
This formula is the result of a remarkable displacement. It
has been pointed out that the anti-Semite is torn between negative
stereotypy and personal experiences which contradict this 
stereotypy.\footnote{%
The most drastic evidence for this hypothesis is, of course, the
habit of differentiating between those Jews with whom the subject
is acquainted, and who are ``good," and the rest of them, who are
the ``kikes." In certain cases this contradiction is both concretized
and cleared up etiologically\footnote{%
{\em etiology}: the investigation or attribution of the cause or
reason for something, often expresseed in terms of historical or
mythical explanation.}. 
We refer here to case {\em 5057}, discussed
in detail in Chapter XIX, (Arun: Add chapter title here)
where the subject's bias is practically
explained by himself as the outcome of resentment aroused by a
childhood experience with a Jewish delicatessen man. (Footnote by
Adorno)}
As soon as the subject reflects, however, upon his own attitude,
the relation between stereotypy and experience appears in reverse.
He regards tolerance as the general law, as the stereotype as it
were, and personalizes his own stereotyped hostility, presenting
it as the inescapable result either of experience or of idiosyncrasies
which are stronger than he is himself. This can be accounted for
partly by the officially prevailing democratic ideology which stamps
prejudice as something wrong. It has also to be considered that the
superego, being constituted as the psychological agency of society
within the individual, regularly assumes an aspect of universality
which easily appears to the subject, driven by wishes for
%% 628	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
instinctual gratification, as ``rigid law." This, however, hardly
tells the whole story. The discrepancy between experience and
stereotype is put into the service of the prejudiced attitude. The
prejudiced subject is dimly aware that the content of the stereotype
is imaginary and that his own experience represents truth. Yet, for
deeper psychological reasons, he wants to stick to the stereotype.
This he achieves by transforming the latter into an expression of
his personality and the antistereotypical elements into an abstract
obligation. This displacement is enhanced by his innermost conviction
that the supposed stereotypes of tolerance are not so strong socially
as he pretends. He realizes that while he appears to rebel against
the slogans of democracy and equality, for reasons that are strictly
personal, he is actually backed by powerful social trends. And yet
he will claim, at the same time, that he acts as a sincere and
independent person who does not care what others think. Moreover,
he relies on the idea that one's own feelings are always stronger
than conventions, that he simply has to follow them, and that his
prejudice is a kind of fatality which cannot be changed. This seems
to be a common pattern by which the anti-Semite's conflict situation
is rationalized in a way favorable to prejudice.

This pattern manifests itself objectively in a characteristic
contradiction: that between general pretensions of being unbiased,
and prejudiced statements as soon as specific issues are raised.
{\em 5056}, a 29-year-old housewife, with high scores on all the scales,


\begin{Quote}
Stated that she and her husband have no particular dislike for {\em
any}
group of people. (This statement is interesting when contrasted
with her very high E-score, and with the statements which follow.)
``The Negro, however, should be kept with his own people. I would
not want my niece marrying a Negro, and I would not want Negro
neighbors." To subject there is quite a Negro problem --- ``it is
probably the most important minority problem." She prefers ``the way
things are in the South; the Negroes seem so happy down there.
Actually, they should have a separate state. This doesn't mean that
we should snub them. The separate state would be very good, because,
although we should govern them, they could run it themselves."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The underlying conflict could not be expressed more authentically
than in the contradiction contained in the last statement. The
subject tries to display an unbiased attitude toward Jews:


\begin{Quote}
It is interesting to note that she objected rather strongly to
discussing the Jews and the Negroes in the same context and protested
when they were presented contiguously in the interview. ``I would
just as soon have Jews around --- in fact, I have some Jewish
friends. Some are overbearing, but then some Gentiles are overbearing
too."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
But as soon as it comes to her ``personal" attitude, she falls for
the stereotype and resolves the conflict by an aloofness which
amounts for all practical purposes to an endorsement of anti-Semitism:

%% PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	629


\begin{Quote}
When asked about Jewish traits, she first mentioned ``the Jewish
nose." In addition, she believes Jews have a certain set of personality
traits all their own, which will never change. ``They want to argue
all the time; some are greedy (though some aren't, in fact, some
are generous); they talk with their hands and are dramatic in their
speech." She believes the dislike of the Jews is increasing, to
which trend she objects. ``Think we're being selfish when we act
that way, just as we accuse the Jews of being." She doesn't like
to hear attacks on the Jews, but she wouldn't defend them by argument.
This seems to be both a function of her dislike for argumentation
as well as a certain attitude of non-involvement in or detachment
from the whole question of anti-Semitism.
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The subjective mirroring of the conflict between stereotype and
experience in reverse, resulting in rigidity of the supposed
experience, is clearly exemplified in the statements of {\em M1230a}, a
middle scorer of the Maritime School group:


\begin{Quote}
(What do you think of the problem of racial minorities?) ``Well, for
the foreigners coming in, it's quite a question. This is supposed
to be a melting pot. But shouldn't let too many of them in. \ldots\
And then the Negro problem. \ldots\ I try to be liberal, but I was
raised in a Jim Crow\footnote{{\em Jim Crow}: the former practice of
segregating black people in the US; apartheid.}
state. \ldots\ I don't think I would ever fall
in with giving the Negroes equal rights in every way. \ldots\ And
yet, foreigners, you have a natural dislike for them. Yet, all of
us were once foreigners. \ldots "
\end{Quote}

The anti-Semite's dilemma may be epitomized by quoting verbatim the
following statements of the girl student {\em 5005}, who is high on both
the E and F scales, but low on PEC.


\begin{Quote}
``I don't think there should be a Jewish problem. People should not
be discriminated against, but judged on their individual merits. I
don't like it to be called a problem. Certainly I'm against prejudice.
Jews are aggressive, bad-mannered, clannish, intellectual, clean,
overcrowd neighborhoods, noisy, and oversexed. I will admit that
my opinion is not based on much contact, however; I hear these
things all the time. There are very few Jewish students in my school,
and I have already referred to my good contact with the one girl."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
Here the contradiction between judgment and experience is so striking
that the existence of prejudice can be accounted for only by strong
psychological urges.

\subsection*{G. Prosecutor As Judge}

In terms of ideology, the anti-Semite's conflict is between the
current, culturally ``approved" stereotypes of prejudice and the
officially prevailing standards of democracy and human equality.
Viewed psychologically, the conflict is between certain foreconscious
or repressed id\footnote{{\em id}: (Psychoanalysis) the part of the
mind in which innate instinctive impulses and primary processes are
manifest. {\sc ORIGIN} 1920s: from Latin, literally `that,'
translating German {\em es} (meaning `it').  The term was first used
in this sense by Frued, following use in a similar sense by his
contemporary, Georg Groddeck.} 
tendencies on the one hand and the superego, or its
more or less externalized, conventional substitute, on the other.
It is hard to predict or even to explain satisfactorily, on the
basis of our data, which way this conflict will be decided in each
individual case, though we may hypothesize that as soon as prejudice
in any amount is allowed to enter a person's manifest ways of
thinking, the scales weigh
%% 63o	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
heavily in favor of an ever-increasing expansion of his prejudice.
We are furthermore entitled to expect this result of the conflict
in all cases where the potentially fascist personality syndrome is
established. If the conflict within the individual has been decided
{\em against} the Jews, the decision itself is almost without exception
rationalized moralistically. It is as if the internal powers of
prejudice, after the defeat of the countertendencies, would consummate
their victory by taking the opposing energies, which they have
defeated, into their own service. The superego becomes the spokesman
of the id, as it were --- a dynamic configuration, incidentally,
which is not altogether new to psychoanalysis. We might call the
urges expressing themselves in anti-Semitism the prosecutor, and
conscience the judge, within the personality, and say that the two
are fused. The Jews have to face, in the prejudiced personality,
the parody of a trial. This is part of the psychological explanation
of why the chances of the Jews making a successful defense against
the prejudiced personality are so slim. It may be noted that the
judiciary practice in Nazi Germany followed exactly the same pattern,
that the Jews were never given a chance, in the Third Reich, to
speak for their own cause, either in private law suits or collectively.
It will be seen that the expropriation of the superego by the fascist
character, with underlying unconscious guilt feelings which must
be violently silenced at any price, contributes decisively to the
transformation of ``cultural discrimination" into an insatiably
hostile attitude feeding upon destructive urges.

There is a clear index of the conquest of the superego by anti-Semitic
ideology: the assertion that the responsibility for everything the
Jews have to suffer, and more particularly, for the genocide committed
by the Nazis, rests with the victims rather than with their
persecutors. The anti-Semite avails himself of a clich\'e which seems
to make this idea acceptable once and for all: that the Jews ``brought
it on themselves" no matter what ``it" may be. {\em M107}, the young man
who marked every question on the questionnaire scale either +3 or
--3 but averaged high on all three scales, is a good example of this
pattern of rationalization, following the dubious logic of ``where
there is smoke there must be fire":


\begin{Quote}
``I never understood why Hitler was so brutal toward them. There
must have been some reason for it, something to provoke it. Some
say he had to show his authority, but I doubt it. I suspect the
Jews contributed a great deal to it."
\end{Quote}

How the moralistic construct of Jewish responsibility leads to a
complete reversal between victim and murderer is strikingly
demonstrated by one subject, {\em 5064}, another one of the Los Angeles
Boy Scout leaders and a butcher by trade. He scores high on both
the E and F scale although lower on PEC. While still officially
condemning the German atrocities, he makes a surprising suggestion:


\begin{Quote}
``No American can approve of what the Nazis did to the Jews. I really 
hope that
%%PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	631
the Jews will do something about it before we come to any such
position here. The solution is in the education, particularly of
the minority."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
This type of mental perversion seems to utilize an idea taken from
the stock of traditional liberalistic wisdom: God helps those who
help themselves.  The Jews are in jeopardy, therefore it is up to
the Jews. In a cultural climate where success has come to be a major
measuring rod for any value, the precarious situation of the Jews
works as an argument against them. The affinity of this attitude
and the ``no pity for the poor" theme, to be discussed in the chapter
on politics, can hardly be overlooked. The same line of thought
occurs in the interview of another Boy Scout leader, the Austrian-born
and somewhat over-Americanized 55-year-old {\em 5044}, who is consistently
high on all scales:


\begin{Quote}
``The Jews should take the lead rather than the Gentiles. After all,
the Jews are the ones who may get into serious trouble. They shouldn't
walk on other people's feet."
\end{Quote}

While the Jews ``bring it upon themselves," the Nazis' extermination
policy is either justified or regarded as a Jewish exaggeration
itself, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. The high-scoring
man, {\em M359}, departmental manager for a leather company, is one of
those who have ``a large number of very close Jewish friends." Despite
this he is high on both the E and PEC scales, although lower on F.
Nor does it prevent the following interview episode:


\begin{Quote}
(Nazi treatment?) ``Unable to convince myself that the treatment was
limited to Jews. This seems to me to be Jewish propaganda to solicit
sympathy and help by overemphasizing their hardships, though I have
no sympathy for the Nazi's treatment of {\em peoples}."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The mercilessness accompanying the semi-apologetic attitude towards
the Nazis can be seen in this subject's pseudorational statements
on Palestine: while apparently wishing to ``give the Jews a chance,"
he simultaneously excludes any prospects of success by referring
to the Jews' supposedly unchangeably bad nature:


\begin{Quote}
(Solution?) ``Sending them to Palestine is silly because it's not
big enough. A good idea to have a country of their own, but big
enough so that they can go ahead with their daily pursuits in a
normal way, but the Jews would not be happy. They are only happy
to have others work for them."
\end{Quote}

The explanatory idea that the ``Jews brought it upon themselves" is
used as a rationalization for destructive wishes which otherwise
would not be allowed to pass the censorship of the ego. In some
cases this is disguised as a statement of fact; e.g., by {\em 5012}, a
21-year-old discharged naval petty officer, who scores high on all
scales:


\begin{Quote}
``I don't want anything to do with them. They are a nuisance, but
not a menace.  They will get whatever they deserve as a result of
their behavior."
\end{Quote}

%%63 2	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY


\noindent
The high-scoring woman {\em F103}, however, who used to be a social welfare
student but has changed to decorative art, lets the cat out of the
bag:


\begin{Quote}
``I don't blame the Nazis at all for what they did to the Jews. That
sounds terrible, I know, but if the Jews acted the way they do here,
I don't blame them. I've never had any bad personal experiences
with Jews, it's just the way they act. Don't help your fellow man;
that's their creed."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
Here the interrelation between death-wish\footnote{{\em death
instinct}: (Psychoanalysis) an innate desire for self-annihilation,
thought to be manifest in the conservative and regressive tendency of
the psyche to reduce tension. Compare with {\sc Life Instinct.}}
and moralistic rationalization
becomes truly terrifying. Particularly noteworthy is the subject's
underscoring of her own irrationality, in spite of her rationalization
concerning the Jews' innate badness. Her confession that she never
had any bad experiences with Jews high-lights an important aspect
of the whole phenomenon of anti-Semitic extremism. It is the fantastic
disproportion between the Jewish ``guilt" --- even as conceived by
the anti-Semite himself --- and the judgment that is pronounced.
In previous sections, the role played by the theme of ``exchange"
in the mentality of the prejudiced person has been discussed.
Frequently our high-scoring subjects complain that they never get
their full share, that they are being exploited by everybody. This
sense of victimization goes hand in hand with very strong underlying
possessive and appropriative desires.  Accordingly, when the subjects
speak about the ``justice" to be meted out to the Jews they express
their own desire for an unjust state of affairs in which the exchange
of equivalents has been replaced by distribution according to
unmediated and irrational power relationships. This is expressed
negatively towards the Jews: they should get {\em more} punishment
--- infinitely more --- than they ``deserve." Ordinarily, it would
never occur even to a very aggressive person that somebody who is
bad-mannered or even a cheat should be punished by death.  Where
the Jews are concerned, however, the transition from accusations
which are not only flimsy but unsubstantial even if they were true,
to suggestions of the severest kinds of treatment seems to work
quite smoothly.  This is indicative of one of the most pernicious
features of the potentially fascist character.

The logical property of stereotypes, that is, their all-comprehensiveness
which allows for no deviations, is not only well adapted to meet
certain requirements of the prejudiced outlook; it is, by itself,
an expression of a psychological trait which probably could be fully
understood only in connection with the theory of paranoia and the
paranoid ``system" which always tends to include everything, to
tolerate nothing which cannot be identified by the subject's formula.
The extremely prejudiced person tends toward ``psychological
totalitarianism," something which seems to be almost a microcosmic
image of the totalitarian state at which he aims. Nothing can be
left untouched, as it were; everything must be made ``equal" to the
ego-ideal\footnote{{\em ego-ideal}: (Psychoanalysis) (in Freudian
theory) the part of the mind that imposes on itself concepts of ideal
behaviour developed from parental and social standards.} 
of a rigidly conceived and hypostatized\footnote{{\em hypostatized}:
treat or represent (something abstract) as a concrete reality.}
ingroup. The
outgroup, the chosen foe, represents an eternal challenge. As long
as anything different survives, the
%%PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	633
fascist character feels threatened, no matter how weak the other
being may be. It is as if the anti-Semite could not sleep quietly
until he has transformed the whole world into the very same paranoid
system by which he is beset: the Nazis went far beyond their official
anti-Semitic program. This mechanism makes for the complete
disproportion between ``guilt" and punishment. The extreme anti-Semite
simply cannot stop. By a logic of his own, which is of an archaic
nature, much closer to associational transitions than to discursive
inferences, he reaches, after having started from relatively mild
accusations, the wildest conclusions, tantamount in the last analysis
to the pronouncement of death sentences against those whom he
literally ``cannot stand." This mechanism was encountered in the
``screened" interviews of the Labor Study where subjects frequently
``talked themselves into anti-Semitism." Our interview schedule,
more strictly standardized, prevented us from catching the latter
phenomenon. Yet we have striking testimony of the disproportion
between guilt and punishment in some of our cases. It is here that
the ``expropriation" of the superego by the anti-Semite's punitive
moralism obtains its full significance. This removes the last
obstacle to psychological totalitarianism.  There are no inhibitions
left by which the associational crescendo of destructive ideas could
be checked. Hatred is reproduced and enhanced in an almost automatized,
compulsive manner which is both utterly detached from the reality
of the object and completely alien to the ego. It may be added that,
viewed sociologically, the disproportion between guilt and punishment
shows that to the extreme anti-Semite the whole idea of rational
law has become a sham even though he dwells on orderliness and
legalitarian niceties. He is ready to sacrifice his own ideology
of equivalents as soon as he has the power to get the major share
for himself. Psychologically, the idea of eternal Jewish guilt can
be understood as a projection of the prejudiced person's own repressed
guilt feelings; ideologically, it is a mere
epiphenomenon\footnote{{\em epiphenomenon}: a secondary effect or
byproduct that arises from but does not causally influence a process.}, 
a
rationalization in the strictest sense. In the extreme case, the
psychological focal point is the wish to kill the object of his
hatred. It is only afterwards that he looks for reasons why the
Jews ``must" be killed, and these reasons can never suffice fully
to justify his extermination fantasies.  This, however, does not
``cure" the anti-Semite, once he has succeeded in expropriating his
conscience. The disproportion between the guilt and the punishment
induces him, rather, to pursue his hatred beyond any limits and
thus to prove to himself and to others that he {\em must} be right. This
is the ultimate function of ideas such as ``the Jews brought it upon
themselves" or the more generalized formula ``there must be something
to it." The extreme anti-Semite silences the remnants of his own
conscience by the extremeness of his attitude. He seems to terrorize
himself even while he terrorizes others.

The sham trial of rationalizations put on by the prejudiced person
sometimes makes for a kind of defense of the Jews. But this
psychological defense is all too reminiscent of the technique of
the Nazi courts. It is permitted only
%% 634	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
in order to satisfy the formalized and hollow wish for legality,
the empty shell of expropriated conscience. The defense must always
remain impotent.  Whatever good is said about the Jews sounds like
an ironical or hypocritical variation of standard blames. Thus,
reference is frequently made to the mythical ``good family life" of
the Jews, a comment which, however thinly, veils the accusation of
conspiratorial clannishness; and this is accompanied by insincere
protestations of envy of these Jewish qualities, the implication
being that the anti-Semitic subject gets the worst deal in life
because his noble nature prevents him from the practice of connivance.
Still another type of mock-defense can be observed in our interviews.
It is the assertion that the Jews are so clever; that they are
``smarter" than the Gentiles, and that one has to admire them on
this account. The mechanism at work here involves a double set of
values which makes itself felt throughout contemporary culture. On
the one hand, there are the ``ideals" of magnanimity, unselfishness,
justice, and love to which one has to pay lip service. On the other
hand, there are the standards of achievement, success, and status
which one has to follow in one's actual life. This double set of
values is applied to the Jews in reverse, as it were. They are
praised for their supposed or actual living up to the standards
which the anti-Semite himself actually follows and simultaneously,
they are condemned for their violation of the very same moral code
of which he has successfully rid himself. The phraseology of
conscience is used in order to take back the moral credit given to
the chosen foe in order to appease one's own conscience. Even the
praise apportioned to the Jews is used as supporting evidence for
their pre-established guilt.

The point being developed here, as well as other features of the
prejudiced mentality, is illustrated by the following description
of {\em 5039}, a 27-year-old veteran student, high on E and middle on the
other scales, who is described by the interviewer as a ``rather
egocentric person."


\begin{Quote}
In rebelling against his father's teachings, he has dissociated
himself from the church, but nevertheless strongly identifies himself
as a Gentile in contrast to the Jews. He explained this on the basis
of having grown up in a neighborhood \ldots\  where he was the only
Gentile in a Jewish community and where he was made to feel that
he was an ``outsider." He feels that there is a basic conflict in
the religious teachings and upbringing of Christians as against
Jews, which is largely responsible for the incompatibility of the
two groups. He stated that the Christian religion stresses the
pacifistic teaching of ``turning the other cheek," thus causing youth
to become ``maladjusted and submissive," whereas the Jewish religion
spurs youth to achievement and aggression, on the basis that ``your
fathers have suffered, therefore it is now up to you to prove
yourself." Therefore, he feels that a truly religious Christian is
bound to be ``outdone" by ambitious and aggressive Jews. \ldots\ He
did not seem aware that he was generalizing from his own particular
experience and environment.
\end{Quote}


\noindent
That the objectivity of these reflections about the supposedly
realistic education instigated by Judaism is a mere fake and actually
serves as a pretext for
%% PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	635
boundless hostility is shown by this subject's answer to the specific
question referring to Hitler's atrocities:


\begin{Quote}
``Well, if I had been in Germany, I think I would have done the 
same. \ldots\ I suppose I could have been a Nazi. \ldots\ I think 
discipline is a good thing. \ldots "
\end{Quote}

Whereas this subject's statements on Jewish smartness are overtly
hostile, and limited to the imagined disadvantages of Gentiles in
competition with Jews, the smartness idea is sometimes expressed
with an air of mock humbleness. An example is afforded by the
high-scoring man {\em M104}, a former engineering student who has changed
to law:


\begin{Quote}
He said ``you hear that our country is run by Jewish capitalists,
that Jewish capitalists wield all the power here. If this is true,
it means that our own people aren't smart enough. If our people
know the way the Jews are, and can't do the same thing, more power
to the Jews. If they know how the Jews work, they should be able
to do it just as well." He doesn't ``want to admit that the others
aren't as smart as the Jews, and that's what it would mean if this
country is run by Jewish capitalists. If they're smarter than we
are, let them run it."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
But the magnanimous ending of the quotation has sinister implications.
A tiny shift of emphasis suffices to transform it into the idea
that the Jews, because of their sinister cleverness, run the country,
that we have to get rid of them and that, since Jewish smartness
makes constitutional procedures ineffective, this can be done only
by violent means. That the idea of Jewish omnipotence through
smartness is a mere projection becomes nowhere clearer than in the
case of the consistently high-scoring woman {\em F105}. She is crippled
as a result of infantile paralysis in early childhood. She consummates
the idea of Jewish smartness --- of the Jews ``taking over the
business affairs of the nation" --- by the expectation of a bloody
uprising of the Jews which is but a superficially veiled projection
of her own wish for anti-Jewish pogroms:


\begin{Quote}
``The white people have decided that we're the thing --- the white
vs.\ black and yellow. I think there's going to be a Jewish uprising
after the war. I'm not against the Jews. Those I've had contact
with were very nice. Of course, I've seen some I didn't like, too.
(What didn't you like about them?) They're loud and they seem to
like attention. They're always trying to be at the top of something.
I've heard stories about how they'll stab friends in the back, etc.,
but I have still to see to believe. (Uprising?) I think there will
be bloodshed over it in this country. (Do you think it will be
justified?) There's no doubt that they're taking over the business
affairs of the nation. I don't think it's right that refugees should
be taken care of the way they are. I think they should take care
of their own problems."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
It is noteworthy that when coming into the open with the ``bloodshed"
idea, this subject does not state clearly whose blood is going to
be spilled. While putting the blame for the riots she wishes for
upon nonexistent Jewish rioters, she leaves it open that it will
be the Jews, after all, who are going to be killed. There may be
more to this, however. To extreme anti-Semites the idea of bloodshed
seems to become independent, an end in itself as it were.
%% 636	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
On the deepest level, they do not differentiate so very strictly
between subject and object. The underlying destructive urge pertains
both to the enemy and to oneself. Destructiveness is truly
``totalitarian."

As a summary of the structure of anti-Semitic extremism dealt with
in this section, we present in some detail the comments on the Jews
of the only interviewee who openly endorses the idea of genocide.
This is {\em 5006}, a dentistry student and contractor who scores high
throughout the questionnaire. He suffers from color-blindness and
from psychogenic\footnote{{\em psychogenic}: having a psychological
origin or cause rather than a physical one.} 
sexual impotence, determined, according to the
interviewer, by a severe Oedipus complex\footnote{{\em Oedipus
complex}: (in Freudian theory) the complex of emotions aroused in a
young child, typically around the age of four, by an unconscious sexual
desire for the parent of the opposite sex and a wish to exclude the
parent of the same sex.}. 
His radical wishes for
the extermination of the Jews are probably conditioned by severe,
early childhood traumata: projections of his own castration
fear\footnote{{\em castration fear (or ``complex")}: (in Freudian
theory) an unconscious anxiety arising during spychosexual
development, represented in males as a fear that the penis will be
removed by the father in response to sexual interest in the mother,
and in females as a compulsion to demonstrate that they have an
adequate symbolic equivalent of the penis, whose absence is blamed on
the mother.}.
His exaggerated ingroup identification seems to be
concomitant\footnote{{\em concomitant}: a phenomenon that naturally
accompanies or follows something.} 
with
an underlying feeling of weakness: he simply does not wish to become
acquainted with what is different, apparently because he deems it
dangerous.


\begin{Quote}
He is a native-born American, and his grandfather was brought to
this country at four. He has never been out of America, nor does
he want to go out. Once he went to Tijuana and ``that was enough."
He has great pride in being an American.
\end{Quote}


\noindent
To him, the minorities are characterized, above all, by their
potential strength: ``The trouble with the Jews is that they are too
strong." The strength of the outgroups is expressed in symbols of
potency --- fertility and money:


\begin{Quote}
``Of course, there is a problem. The Negroes produce so rapidly that
they will populate the world, while the Jews get all of the money."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
As to the basis of his anti-Semitism, he has the following to say:


\begin{Quote}
``I have never had any good experiences with them." (This is qualified
in a second interview where he remembers, as a college athlete,
being taken on a private yacht to Catalina by Jews who were ``very
nice.") They have invariably attempted to cheat him and his family
in business and are in every way inconsiderate. He tells a long
story which I was not able to get verbatim about buying a fur coat
as a Christmas present for his mother, at which time the Jewish
salesman misread the price tag, quoting a price \$100 cheaper than
it actually was. They closed the sale and he insisted on taking the
coat after the salesman's error had been noticed. This gave him
considerable satisfaction, and he said, ``That was a case where I
out-Jewed a Jew."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
His references to bad experiences are quite vague except in the
case where he ``out-Jewed the Jew" --- another indication of the
projective character of the ``smartness" theme. The qualification
in favor of the rich Jewish yacht owner shows the complication of
anti-Semitism through class consciousness, particularly in cases
of such strong upward social mobility as that found in this subject.
It took even the Nazis some time to convince themselves, their
followers, and the wealthiest Jewish groups that the latter should
share the fate of poor cattle dealers and immigrants from Eastern
Europe.

%% PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW -MATERIAL	637

The tenets of individualism are altered by this subject as follows:


\begin{Quote}
``They should be treated, I suppose, like individuals; but after
all, they are all alike."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
Of course, ``everyone can tell a Jew." The distinction between 
in- and out-group obtains an almost metaphysical weight: even the
imaginary possibility of the disappearance of the dichotomy is
excluded:


\begin{Quote}
``I couldn't be a Jew."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
As to the relation between guilt and punishment and its outcome,
he finds a formula which cannot be surpassed:


\begin{Quote}
``I think what Hitler did to the Jews was all right. When I was
having trouble with a competing contractor, I often thought, I wish
Hitler would come here. No, I don't favor discrimination by
legislation. I think the time will come when we will have to kill
the bastards."
\end{Quote}

\columnbreak
\subsection*{H. The Misfit Bourgeois}

Our analysis has led us to the extreme consequence of anti-Semitism,
the overt wish for the extermination of the Jews. The extremist's
superego has been transformed into an extrapunitive\footnote{{\em
punitive}: inflicting or intended as punishment.} 
agency of
unbridled aggression. We have seen that this consequence consummates
the intrinsic irrationality of anti-Semitism by establishing a
complete disproportion between the ``guilt" and the punishment of
the chosen victim. Anti-Semitism, however, does not exhaust itself
in the old formula by which it is characterized in Lessing's {\em Nathan
der Weise},\footnote{Gotthod Ephraim Lessing (1729--1781): prominent
German writer of the Enlightenment era. {\em Nathan der Weise} (Nathan
the Wise) is cited as the first ideological idea drama.}
``{\em tut nichts, der Jude wird verbrannt}" --- the Jew is
going to be burnt anyway, no matter how things are, or what could
be said in his favor. Irrational and merciless wholesale condemnation
is kept alive by the maintenance of a small number of highly
stereotyped reproaches of the Jews which, while largely irrational
themselves, give a mock semblance of justification to the death
sentence. By constructing the nature of the Jew as unalterably bad,
as innately corrupt, any possibility of change and reconciliation
seems to be excluded. The more invariant the negative qualities of
the Jew appear to be, the more they tend to leave open only one way
of ``solution": the eradication of those who cannot improve. This
pattern of {\em quasi-natural} incorrigibility\footnote{{\em
incorrigible}: (of a person or their tendencies) not able to be
corrected, improved, or reformed.} 
is much more important to
anti-Semites than is the content of the standard reproaches themselves,
the latter being frequently quite harmless and essentially incompatible
with the inferences to which they lead those who hate. While these
reproaches are so widespread and well known that further evidence
of their frequency and intensity is unnecessary, it is worthwhile
to follow up some of their aspects which came out clearly in our
interviews and which seem to throw some additional light on the
phenomena concerned.

It is profitable to examine these reproaches from a sociological
point of
%% 638	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
view. Our sample, in contrast to that of the Labor Study, was
predominantly middle class. The San Quentin Group is the only
striking exception, but its qualification of 
{\em Lumpenproletariat}\footnote{{\em Lumpenproletariat}: the
unorganized and unpolitical lower orders of society who are not
interested in revolutionary advancement. (Marxist terminology)}
as well as the prison situation, with its intrinsic emphasis on
``official" moral values, makes it impossible to compare this group
with the rest of the sample in terms of working-class identification.
This identification is usually not very strong even among workers
in this country. The general middle-class character of our sample
colors the specific nature of the decisive accusations made against
the Jews. If our basic hypothesis concerning the largely projective
character of anti-Semitism is correct, the Jews are blamed, in
social terms, for those properties which by their existence,
sociologically ambiguous though it may be, impinge on sensitive
spots in the class identification of the different prejudiced groups.
To the true proletarian, the Jew is primarily the bourgeois. The
working-man is likely to perceive the Jew, above all, as an agent
of the economic sphere of the middle-man, as the executor of
capitalist tendencies. The Jew is he who ``presents the bill."

To the anti-Semitic members of the middle classes, the imagery of
the Jew seems to have a somewhat different structure. The middle
classes themselves experience to a certain degree the same threats
to the economic basis of their existence which hang over the heads
of the Jews. They are themselves on the defensive and struggle
desperately for the maintenance of their status. Hence, they
accentuate just the opposite of what workingmen are likely to
complain about, namely, that the Jews are not real bourgeois, that
they do not really ``belong." By building up an image of the Jew out
of traits which signify his failures in middle-class identification,
the middle-class member is able subjectively to enhance the social
status of his ingroup which is endangered by processes having nothing
to do with ingroup-outgroup relations. To the middle-class anti-Semite,
the Jew is likely to be regarded as the {\em misfit} bourgeois, as it
were, he who did not succeed in living up to the standards of today's
American civilization and who is a kind of obsolete and uncomfortable
remnant of the past. The term ``misfit" is actually applied to the
Jew by some of our prejudiced subjects. The less the Jew qualifies
as a legitimate member of the middle classes, the more easily can
he be excluded from a group which, in the wake of monopolization,
tends toward the {\em numerus clausus}\footnote{{\em  numerus clausus}:
a fixed maximum number of entrants admissible to an academic
institution.}
anyway. If the usurper complex (to
be discussed in the section on politics and economics) really belongs
to an over-all pattern, the Jew functions, for the potentially
fascist mentality, as the usurper {\em par excellence}\footnote{{\em
par excellence}: better or more than all others of the same kind.}. 
He is the peddler,
impudently disguised as a respectable citizen and businessman.

The most characteristic anti-Jewish remarks appearing in our
interviews fall within this frame of thinking, although motifs of
a more ``proletarian" anti-Semitism, such as the idea of the Jewish
exploiter or of the Jews dodging hard manual labor, are not lacking.
The division between proletarian and
%% PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	639
middle-class anti-Semitism should not be exaggerated. The traits
ascribed to Jews by working men have often the aspect of the ``misfit
bourgeois" too.  What appear to the worker as symptoms of capitalist
exploitiveness can easily be transformed by the middle classes into
the reproach of dishonesty, a flagrant violation of bourgeois ethics,
one of the main tenets of which is, after all, the praise of good
honest labor. The stereotypes here in question transcend the frontiers
of the classes; it is only their function that changes, and hence
the difference in emphasis.

The construct of the ``misfit bourgeois" can easily be articulated
according to three major groups of motifs: first, that of Jewish
weakness and its psychological correlates, second, the middle-class
identification of the Jews as an overcompensation that has essentially
failed, third, the intrinsic disloyalty of the Jews to the class
with which they vainly attempt to identify themselves, a disloyalty
which is viewed as an expression of their abortive identification
and of their nature as an objectionable, isolated, and ``clannish"
ingroup. The first two of these objections may have some basis in
reality. There is considerable evidence (e.g., the recent studies
by Anton Lourie,\footnote{Lourie, Anton. ``The Jew as a Psychological
Type." in {\em American Imago}, VI (June, 1949), xi8--55.})
of Jewish masochism and its basis in religious
psychology. The third objection seems to be predominantly projective
and one of the major rationalizations of the wish to ``get rid of
the whole bunch."

The idea of Jewish weakness is epitomized by {\em F114}, a woman
consistently high on all scales, who is a surgical nurse of partly
Jewish descent:


\begin{Quote}
``I have a cousin who was in love with me and wanted to marry me.
He was more Jewish than I. I loved him, but wouldn't marry him. I
told him why --- because he's Jewish. He is now married to a Gentile
with two children. He's more anti-Semitic than I. That's true of
so many Jews --- like they were lame or hunchback. They hate it or
resent it."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
It is perhaps characteristic that such overt statements on Jewish
weakness are made frequently either by persons who are themselves
being identified with the Jews or --- with a more positive accent
--- by low-scoring subjects. The prejudiced individual, whose hatred
is stimulated by weakness, rather tends to stress, on the surface,
the strength of the Jews who ``wield undue influence" and ``own
everything." An example of the low-scorer's attitude towards Jewish
weakness is the statement of {\em 5055}, an otherwise thoroughly liberal
man of 73 years who scored low on all the scales. He feels


\begin{Quote}

\noindent
``that this protective philosophy of the Jews has led to a situation
where they do stimulate antagonism in other people."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
In cases of extreme low scorers the awareness of Jewish weakness
sometimes leads to identification: they assume the role of Jews
themselves, consciously in order to antagonize anti-Semitic
acquaintances, unconsciously, possibly, in order to atone for
anti-Semitism by at least figuratively suffering the same
%% 640	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
humiliations under which they know the Jews live. Here belongs the
case of a 20-year-old, somewhat neurotic interior decorator, {\em 5028},
who is in open rebellion against his father but strongly attached
to his mother:


\begin{Quote}
The subject and his sister are alike in that they both admire Jewish
people. He told of jokes that they had played upon some of their
father's relatives who are extremely anti-Semitic by pretending
that a great-grandfather on the maternal side was Jewish. The subject
explained that many persons in his mother's family ``look a little
Jewish because they have long noses." The paternal cousin to whom
they were talking ``almost committed suicide" at the thought. The
subject volunteered the comment that perhaps one reason he likes
Jews is that he ``has never known any who were objectionable."
\end{Quote}

To the prejudiced person, the imagery of Jewish weakness, combined
as it is with the rationalization of strength, sometimes strikes a
peculiar note, remarkable because of its close harmony with one of
the standard themes of American fascist agitators. It is the image
of the Jewish refugee who is depicted simultaneously as strong (``He
takes the jobs away from our American boys") and as weak (``He is a
dirty outcast"). There is reason enough to believe that the second
motive is the decisive one. The high-scoring man {\em M105} makes the
following statement:


\begin{Quote}
``A lot of Jewish immigrants are coming to this country. They get a
soft life, and they take over. You can't deal with one, and a lot
of them are awful dirty, though they have money."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
Aggressiveness against the refugees comes to the fore even in cases
which are otherwise, according to the interviewer, only mildly
anti-Semitic. {\em 5036} is a jazz musician, at the present time drawing
unemployment insurance. He is high on E and F, although lower on
PEC.


\begin{Quote}
Although he denies any outgroup antagonisms, many of these are
implicit and at the surface level. He is most vehement in his belief
that refugees should not assume citizenship and should be sent home
when time and conditions permit it.
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The psychological determination of this subject's hatred of the refugee 
competitors can be inferred the more safely since he acknowledges that


\begin{Quote}
``There is no doubt that the Jews are talented in music." 
\end{Quote}


\noindent
He sets against this only the vague standard accusation:


\begin{Quote}

\noindent
``but they are so clannish and aggressive and loud that sometimes I
can't stand them." On several occasions he claims that the
aggressiveness and selfish demands of Jews within smaller bands he
had tried to organize caused their failure. ``These Jews would never
really get a feeling of pride in the organization. They would always
leave you the minute they had a better offer; and in trying to meet
offers they had, I went broke twice." On the other hand, he says
some Jews are undoubtedly outstandingly cultured people.
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The refugees, as those who are objectively weak, are regularly blamed for
%% PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	641
having a domineering attitude and a drive for power. While there
may be some basis for the objection of aggressiveness in certain
institutionalized Jewish reaction formations, such as the Jewish
habit of ``pleading," this stereotype helps at the same time to
alleviate the anti-Semite's discomfort about violating the principle
of democratic asylum: it is not he but the fugitives who are supposed
to disregard the rules of hospitality. {\em 5043}, a middle-aged housewife
with extremely high scores on all the scales, alleges that the Jews


\begin{Quote} 

\noindent
are loud and often aggressive. (Here she gave an example of women
at the market who push themselves forward.) She specifically
distinguishes between ``refugees" and other Jews and feels that the
``type we have been getting in the neighborhood lately" is definitely
clannish, unintelligent, and generally undesirable.
\end{Quote}

The stereotype of Jewish aggressiveness shows a characteristic of
anti-Semitic thinking which deserves closer investigation. It is
the mixing, in allegations against the Jews, of crudely physical
acts of aggression with hypotheses of a more psychological nature.
Just as the idea of ``Jewish blood" ranges from the fear of ``pollution
of the race," where the term blood is used only figuratively, to
the hysteria of bodily ``poisoning" inflicted by Jewish blood donors,
the imagery of aggressiveness ranges from the Jews using their
elbows when standing in a queue to their allegedly ruthless business
practices.  This suggests the retrogressive, ``mythological" feature
of some anti-Semitism. Mental dispositions are translated into
physical reality both in order to soothe the fear of the incomprehensible
``alien mentality" and to add a sense of the real to that which is
actually only projective. This retranslation probably throws some
light on the over-all insistence of the anti-Semite on Jewish
physical traits.

{\em 5067} ``is a portly, rather maternal-looking woman who looks all of her 
forty-eight years." She was chosen as a mixed case with high E and PEC. 
She does not differentiate at all between the physical and the psychological 
aspect of Jewish ``aggressiveness":


\begin{Quote}
``I do not like their coercive aggression in business. They are not
only aggressive, but they should also be segregated. They are always
pushing people aside. I noticed nearly every time when there was
pushing in the innumerable lines we had to wait in during the war,
it was a Jew who started the pushing. I feel a real revulsion towards
Jews."
\end{Quote}

In other cases, the idea of aggressiveness is used in the exclusively
social sense of ``intrusiveness." Sometimes one gets a glimpse into
the mechanism behind this standard reproach. It probably has to do
with the all-pervasive feeling of social isolation, which is
overcompensated for in innumerable middle-class ``social activities."
Against this background of emotion the Jews, as the classic agents
of circulation, are perceived and probably envied as those who are
not isolated, but have ``contacts" everywhere. This idea is closely
associated with that of clannishness, which also implies the imagery
%% 642	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
of some kind of togetherness from which the members of the real
ingroup pretend to be excluded. The aforementioned {\em F105} finds the
formula:


\begin{Quote}
``They seem to know everybody; they pull strings; they are like a
clan, more united than any race. They have friends everywhere who
can do the right thing."
\end{Quote}

Finally, it should be mentioned that there is some evidence in our
material that the basis of the stereotype ``aggressiveness" lies in
repressed sexuality.  The Jews are supposed to be unencumbered by
the standards of Puritan morality, and the more strictly one adheres
oneself to these standards, the more eagerly are the supposed sex
habits of the Jews depicted as sordid. What goes uncensored in the
case of Jewish ``rich food" becomes intolerable in the sphere of
supposedly uninhibited and therefore repulsive sensuality.  Some
insight into this matter is afforded by the 42-year-old woman, {\em
F118},
a public health nurse --- a person, incidentally, whose outgroup
hatred is focused on organized labor rather than on minorities and
whose score on A--S is middle, while she scores high on PEC and F.


\begin{Quote}
She could not imagine herself marrying a Jew. She then proceeded
to relate that actually she once had an opportunity to marry a Jew.
One time, when she returned home for the summer after being in New
York for a while, she met a very intelligent lawyer who worked in
the same office as her brother. He was very well-educated and knew
languages. She had dates with him and saw quite a lot of him for
three weeks, until one day he said to her, ``There is one thing I
want to tell you about myself. You have never met my family and I
had not intended that you should meet them. However, there is one
thing that I want to ask you, and that is whether you would object
to marrying a Jew?`` She said that it was as if she had been struck
a great blow. He did not look Jewish, his name was not Jewish, and
he even sang in the choir of her church, so that she never suspected
that he was Jewish. She just sat there without saying a word ---
and that was his answer. She then went on to add that it was very
bad for him, because all the girls staying in her boarding house
then found out that he was Jewish and it also became known at his
place of work and made things bad for him there. Subject saw him
again ten years later and felt that he did look more Jewish, but
added that that was perhaps because she now knew that he was Jewish.
The thing that is most impossible to her in the idea of marrying a
Jew is the thought of bearing {\em Jewish children}.
\end{Quote}


\noindent
It is noteworthy that the resistance of this woman was brought about
only by her knowledge of the man's Jewish descent, not by any of
his own characteristics. It is hardly going too far to assume that
the stereotype has re-enacted old childhood taboos against sexuality
and that it was only afterwards that these were turned against the
Jew as an individual. Primary attraction is the basis for subsequent
repulsion.

The close relations of the ubiquitous idea of clannishness to the
reproach of aggressiveness has become obvious in previous examples.
Suffice it to say here that clannishness appears as the justification
for excluding the aggressive ``intruder": he always ``remains a Jew"
and wants to cheat those by whom he wishes to be accepted. At the
same time, the idea of clannishness consummates
%% PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	643
the imagery of Jewish togetherness, of a warm, family-like, archaic
and very ``ingroup-like" texture of the outgroup which seems to be
denied to those who are thoroughly formed by American civilization
and obey the rules of technological rationality.

The underlying attractiveness of the Jewish ``clan" is accentuated
by the statement of {\em M102}, a subject scoring high on all scales:


\begin{Quote}
``The Jewish kids I knew in high school were the sons and daughters
of the prominent Jewish businessmen, and they were very clannish.
It's hard to say what ought to be done about it. It doesn't seem
to bother them what people think. That is a natural characteristic.
It doesn't do any good to try to exclude them from business because
some of them are the smartest businessmen we have. Most of them are
out of Germany by now, and I suppose they'll get back. Some are
very crafty about sticking together and getting ahead in business,
getting capital. People in Germany will feel the need of Jewish
businessmen and they will pool their capital and make a start there.
(What about Jewish women?) Some of them are very attractive, and
some are very clannish. They are dominated by the men; it's all in
their creed."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The more patriarchal structure of the Jewish family, whether it be
real or imagined, seems to work as an element of sexual attraction.
Jewish women are supposed ``to do everything for men" --- just what
the Gentile American girl is expected not to do. At the same time,
however, the idea of sexual fulfillment tends to diminish, in
American culture, the social value of the women who offer this
fulfillment. Here again, the praise of one Jewish quality is prone
to tilt over into its opposite.

How the idea of clannishness can sometimes obtain features of an
obsession laden with violent resentment is shown in the case of
{\em F113}, a young woman who is high on the E scale but somewhat lower
on F and PEC. She is an attractive, somewhat neurotic girl of 26,
a subject from the Extension Class group. She resents both Jewish
names and those who dared to change them. When speaking about Jewish
acquaintances, she makes a point of their owning ``a chain of burlesque
houses," being rich as well as somewhat disreputable. In her statement
about Jewish family life, it is remarkable how closely some
observations which have a ring of truth are knit together with
somewhat paranoid ideas about the selfishness determining the Jewish
behavior in question and with a harsh evaluation of it as a ``guilt":


\begin{Quote}
``The worst experience with them I had was when I was overseas
operator in Hawaii a couple of years ago. I had to monitor all the
calls that went to New York so I listened to just thousands of
conversations. And ninety percent of them were rich Jews calling
up their families. That is the only really good thing I can say for
them --- their devotion to their families. But all purely selfish.
The money they spent --- and the time --- on just purely selfish
calls. (Business calls?) Well I worked mostly at night. But the
other girls said it was the same people making business calls during
the day. (How did you know they were Jews?) Their voices and the
things they said. Selfish. (Could there have been Jews you didn't
recognize?) I don't think so. You get so you always know a Jewish
voice."
\end{Quote}

%% 644	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

\subsection*{I. Observations On Low-Scoring Subjects}

Throughout this chapter, we have concentrated on the phenomena of
anti-Semitism and their structural interconnections. We have abstained
from a detailed discussion of the minority attitudes of the
non-anti-Semite and of the anti-anti-Semite. Obviously, it is more
difficult and less promising to analyze the absence of highly
specific opinions and attitudes than it is to deal with their
existence. We have been able, it seems, in the study as a whole to
draw a fairly complete picture of the low scorers, ranging from
surface ideology to characterological determinants. Their general
tendency to be disinterested in so-called racial questions, however,
limits the supply of pertinent information.  Moreover, the pragmatic
aspect of our study naturally requires a closer scrutiny of the
danger zone than of areas which can be discounted as a potential
for fascism. By and large, the attitudes of the high scorers suffice
to define, {\em e contrario},\footnote{{\em  e contrario}: out of
contrary (Italian).} the attitudes of the ``lows" which are, in
many respects, set polemically against the anti-Semitic imagery
prevailing in our cultural climate.

Yet a number of observations concerning the low scorers may be
allowed, not only in order to round out the picture, but also because
the low scorers, in their responses to questions about minorities,
go beyond a simple negation of the prejudiced person's opinions and
attitudes, and throw some additional light upon the nonfascist
character.

An over-all characteristic of the low scorer's attitude towards
Jews is emphatic rationality. This has a double aspect. On the one
%%% arun: find "intraceptiveness" --- introspectiveness?
hand, the general tendency towards introspectiveness so characteristic
of low scorers expresses itself specifically in the racial area
through self-reflection: anti-Semitism presents itself to the low
scorers as the problem of the anti-Semite, not of the Jew. On the
other hand, racial problems and minority traits are viewed within
historical and sociological perspective and thus seen to be open
to rational insight and change, instead of being hypostatized in a
rigidly irrational manner.

An example of self-reflection in racial matters is {\em M910}, a
student-minister, consistently low on all scales, who has strong
intellectual leanings and, like most low scorers, a tendency toward
hesitation, doubt, and qualifications of his own opinions. He traces
back prejudice, in a plain-spoken though somewhat primitive manner,
to the difficulties of the minority haters, not to the object of
their hatred:


\begin{Quote}
(What do you feel are the causes of prejudice?) ``Probably the largest
reason is the insecurity or fear of insecurity that the person has
himself. The people in my community who have talked loudest about
the Japs are the ones who have since taken over (the properties
left by the Japanese) \ldots\  and they're afraid they'll come back
\ldots\ and they're afraid of them as competitors because they work
harder. \ldots\ (You feel it's mainly an economic conflict?) Well,
it isn't altogether economic,
%% PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	645
and I don't think it will be solved on an economic basis. \ldots\ All
people have some kind of insecurity. It may be pretty well concealed,
and they may not know what it is, and it may not have anything to
do with the Japanese, but they'll take it out on them. People are
funny (laughs) and are cruel. (What ought to be done to combat
prejudice?) I think one thing that could be done --- kinda
regimentation, is to get the facts, it would help, though it wouldn't
solve the problem \ldots\ e.g., that there is no necessity for
separating Negro and white blood in blood banks, and there are a
lot of people who think that the Japanese are a treacherous race,
and that it's transmitted through heredity. \ldots\ Of course, a lot
of it is irrational."
\end{Quote}

As to the emphasis on dynamic factors versus supposedly innate
qualities, the most striking illustration is provided by {\em M203}, a
thoroughly liberal teacher, head of the English department in a
junior college. He, too, is low on all scales. His whole philosophy
is positivistic,\footnote{{\em positivistic}: A philosophical system
that holds that every rationally justifiable assertion can be
scientifically verified or is capable of logical or mathematical
proof, and that therefore rejects metaphysics and theism.}
with a strong interest in semantics, though he
does not ``think they should make a panacea out of semantics." His
general outlook on minority problems is summarized by his statement
on the Japanese:


\begin{Quote}
``If the Germans were changed in one generation by the Nazis, then
the Japanese can be changed in a democratic way in one or two
generations. Anybody can become anything under the proper conditions."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
Consequently, when discussing anti-Semitism, he chooses as an
explanation a historical element, the maliciously superimposed
Jewish names. The arbitrariness of the selection of this specific
factor can probably be accounted for by the inter\-viewee's semanticist
hobby:


\begin{Quote}
``Anti-Semitism is a little different. Semites are not so easily
identified. I guess their name is about the main thing. For instance,
from your name I guess you're Jewish though I wouldn't know to look
at you. Are you?" (Yes.) (Subject is quite open about these things.
The only sign of inhibition was that it was hard for him to use the
word ``Jew" as he preferred the word ``Semite" at first, but later
he used the word ``Jew" also.)
\end{Quote}


\noindent
This subject's readiness to discuss the interviewer's Jewishness
is significant.  To him, the word Jew is not a magic word, nor is
being Jewish a disgrace: thus he does not feel inhibited about
mentioning it in relation to the person with whom he is talking.
It is hard to imagine that a high scorer would casually discuss the
origins of an interviewer except on occasions when he feels on the
defensive and wants to hurt the other fellow: ``You are a Jew yourself,
aren't you?"

The rationality of the unprejudiced subjects expresses itself, above
all, in their rejection of anti-minority stereotypes. Frequently,
this rejection is of a conscious, articulate nature: they take the
concept of individuality seriously.  We refer again to {\em M910}. His
utterance shows a definite sense of proportion even in his rejection
of stereotypy: he does not deny the existence of physical racial
characteristics, but regards them as nonessential:


\begin{Quote}
``Well, I wouldn't be tricked into making a statement about any 
people as a
%%646	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
group. The Japanese I've known I've liked very well. I know there
are some Japanese who aren't so nice. \ldots\ We had a Japanese girl
stand up with us at the altar and a Chinese girl too \ldots\ in 1942
when there was some pretty tense feeling. (Do you feel that any
racial group has certain distinguishing characteristics?) No, not
at all.  Of course you have biological characteristics, the height
of the bridge of the nose or pigmentation."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
A similar line is followed in the Los Angeles interview {\em 5030}, of a
33-year-old Stanford graduate who served for four years in the navy,
finally becoming a Lieutenant Commander. His scores on all scales
are low. He is judged by the interviewer to be an extremely astute,
successful individual:


\begin{Quote}
``The Negroes, Jews, and all minority groups are having a very
difficult time. I think many people dislike them because of their
physical characteristics. They are really in a very bad spot. Such
things as the FEPC\footnote{Fair Employment Practices Committee:
Signed by President Roosevelt on June 25, 1941, banning racial
discrimination in any defense industry receiving federal contracts.} 
help a lot and I favor both state and national
laws concerning this issue. So many people are not willing to admit
that many Negroes are intelligent, superior, and capable individuals.
Their environment has held them back as a race. I have had both
good and bad experiences with members of these groups but have never
considered the people as belonging to a certain race or religion.
I always take them for what they are worth as individuals.  Yesterday
I had a nice experience. There is a girl in one of my classes who
is part Negro. She is a very superior and capable individual and I
am sure the most intelligent member of the class. I have often
thought I would like to visit with her but a suitable opportunity
has never presented itself. Yesterday I, after much hesitation and
fumbling, invited her to have a cup of coffee with me. Her acceptance
was much more gracious than my invitation and we had a nice visit.
I think the reason for my hesitation was simply a fear of what other
people might think. I once had a Jewish roommate and he was the
best roommate I have ever had."
\end{Quote}

An extreme example of fully conscious anti-stereotypy is {\em 5046}, an
executive secretary in the movie industry, in her late thirties,
actively engaged in the labor movement. Her questionnaire scores
are low for all scales. If some of her formulations suggest a ``ticket
low,"\footnote{%
See the ``rigid low scorer" in Chapter XIX of {\em The Authoritarian
Personality}. (Note by Adorno)}
it should be kept in mind that her rejection of stereotypy
even prevents her from building up automatically a pro-Jewish
stereotype. She is no ``Jew lover," but seems truly to appraise
people as individuals. As a matter of fact, she has just severed a
relationship with a Jewish man:


\begin{Quote}
When the interviewer began questioning subject on the Jewish problem,
it became apparent immediately that she ``knew all the answers." She
stated: ``Yes, there is a problem \ldots\ but I don't think we should
call it a Jewish problem; it really is a Christian problem \ldots\
question of educating the Gentiles who practice anti-Semitism."
When given the check list, she laughed and said: ``Of course, one
can't generalize \ldots\ these are the stereotypes used by the
anti-Semites to blame the Jews for certain faults \ldots\ I don't
think one should label any group like this \ldots\ it is dangerous,
especially in regard to the Jews, because one has to evaluate the
individual on his or her own merits." None of the other questions
brought out even a trace of anti-Semitism, and throughout, her
answers indicated a consistent, almost
%%PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	647
militant stand {\em against} anti-Semitism. She feels that anti-Semitism
is one of the most dangerous trends in this country and feels that
the only solution must be sought through widespread education along
liberal lines and through extensive intermarriage. She feels rather
optimistic about the process of assimilation, although she is quite
alarmed about the increase of anti-Semitism during recent years.
Hitler's race theory and persecution of the Jews should be combatted
on every front, in whatever form it may appear. She stated: ``I have
also known some Jewish people whom I decidedly did not like, and
some of them were quite aggressive, but I would never generalize
that therefore `all Jews' were aggressive \ldots\ if only we could
make people see that {\em some} people are aggressive for certain reasons,
usually because of insecurity, and Jews are not aggressive because
they are Jews."
\end{Quote}

As pointed out in great detail in the chapters on the personality
aspects of the interview material, the low scorers' rationality,
their rejection of projective imagery and automatized judgment,
does not involve as a rule emotional coldness and detachment.
Although they are more rational than the ``highs" in so far as their
judgment seems to be less determined by repressed unconscious factors, 
they are simultaneously less blocked in positive 
cathexes\footnote{{\em cathexes}: The concentration or accumulation of
mental energy in a particular channel.} and in
the expression of them. This refers not only to their general
psychological make-up but also to their specific minority attitudes.
The prejudiced person discusses the Jews as an ``object" while he
actually hates; the unprejudiced person displays sympathy even when
he pretends simply to judge objectively. The link between this
sympathy and rationality is the idea of {\em justice}, which has come to
work, in certain people, spontaneously, almost as if it were
instinctual. To the low scorer, racial discrimination violates the
basic principle of the equality of all men. In the name of human
rights he tends to identify himself with those who are discriminated
against and who thus appeal to his own spontaneous feeling of
solidarity with the oppressed.

Here are a few examples of this specific configuration. {\em M113}, a
``religious low scorer" whose F scale shows higher trends and whose
PEC scale was still higher:


\begin{Quote} 
(Minority problem?) ``In a speech the other day in Public Speaking
I said that democracy is mainly respect for minority groups." (Vague,
little verbalized ideas.) ``They have gotten a dirty deal, as most
minorities do."
\end{Quote}

Similarly, in {\em M320}, a consistently low-scoring student of landscape 
architecture, protest
against unfairness works as a ``rationalization" for emotional 
identification which otherwise might not be allowed to come into the open.


\begin{Quote}
``I'm very much pro-Negro, myself. I think I'm in favor of almost
any minority that's discriminated against unfairly. \ldots\ (What
about the Jewish problem?) I don't see why it should be a problem
at all. I think that in Europe the Jews should be allowed to live
and have their businesses, etc., the same as anyone else."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
Or the young woman {\em F129}, also low on all scales, a somewhat high-strung
person who, according to the interviewer, is moved by any disturbing
subject --- including race prejudice --- to tears and flushes:

%% 648	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY


\begin{Quote}
(And how do you feel about Jews?) ``Why, I don't feel any way about
them except upset at the way they are treated. There are good and
bad in all races but I am inclined to be even more tolerant about
the shortcomings of people who are always persecuted and criticized.
(Could you have married a Jew?) Why of course, if I had fallen in
love with one. (Why do you think Jews are persecuted?) I don't know
except some people have to hate."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
There are indications that the low scorers' affect-laden sense of
justice is not a mere surface ideology, or a means of narcissistic
gratification in one's own humanitarianism, but that it has a real
basis within the personality and is only presented afterwards, as
it were, in theoretical terms. The sympathy for the underdog leads
towards action, towards attempts to correct in concrete, individual
situations what is felt to be general unfairness. A pertinent case
was {\em 5030} (see p.\ 646). We give one further illustration: {\em
F126}, who
is low on E and PEC and only slightly higher on F. She is a
good-looking young woman, ``very articulate and whimsical, with
much charm and humor." She studies journalism and says that her
real desire is to do ``creative writing":


\begin{Quote}
``I remember when I was in junior high, there was only one Jewish
boy in our class. We were always having parties and affairs and he
was left out. At first I didn't even understand why. He was a very
nice boy, smart, and good-looking. But they left him out because
he was a Jew. Well, I made it my business to be his special friend,
not only invited him to my parties, but paid particular attention
to him.  That was one time it was really good to be one of the
leading kids. The others began to treat him the same way, and he
was just one of the crowd from then on. I never have been able to
stand to see anyone be mean to anyone else. The same at the shipyards.
I always made it a point to get acquainted with Negroes and Jews.
They talked frankly with me, too, and I certainly found out what
some of their problems are. Whenever I could, I would bring it into
a story, too. Not directly about race prejudice, but nice stories
about Negroes for instance. People have so many wrong ideas. I
sometimes think it is just hopeless."
\end{Quote}

The general attitude of the low scorers towards the Jews profoundly
affects their evaluation of so-called Jewish traits. It has been
said above (pp.\ 612 ff.) that high scorers perceive the Jew altogether
differently: their psychological make-up functions as a frame of
reference even for their supposedly ``immediate," everyday experiences.
Something similar applies, in reverse, to the unprejudiced. Yet the
diffuseness and inarticulateness of the objective ``Jewish traits,"
complex as they are, is reflected by the low scorers' attitude no
less than by the various projections of the high scorers. There is
universal sympathy among the unprejudiced subjects, but no unanimity.
Sometimes they try to {\em explain} Jewish traits; sometimes they simply
deny their existence; sometimes they take an emphatically positive,
admiring stand towards those traits.

The explanatory method is applied to the most widespread idea of a
Jewish trait, that of clannishness, by {\em M202}, a 35-year-old construction
engineer, with the lowest possible score on E, but with certain
deviations from the usual
%%PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	649
picture of the low scorer with regard to PEC and also to F --- a
person who, according to the interviewer, ``is conservative but not
fascist."


\begin{Quote} 
In response to a question about how he would characterize the Jews,
subject replied that they were a close-knit family with certain
inborn characteristics like any other racial group. For instance,
the Germans ``must always be right," the English --- here the
interviewer interrupted, pointing out that she wished to know what
he thought of the Jews. He replied that the Jews had not been
accepted in a certain society and that this had led to their becoming
a very close-knit family. The reason for this is that they have
certain characteristics. On being asked to be more specific, his
reply was they have a tendency to sharp dealing. Of course he doesn't
blame them because he would probably do the same if he had the
chance and if he were smart enough.
\end{Quote}


\noindent
In this case, the wish to ``explain," frequently an instrument for
rationalizations, seems to mediate between broad-mindedness on the
one hand and powerful anti-minority stereotypes, which are still
there below the surface, on the other. As a matter of fact, the
pro-Jewish apologies of the subject are followed by a rather
unfriendly story about a supposed conspiracy among three Jewish
bidders for a vast quantity of scrap-iron. The guess that the
explanatory attitude may sometimes cover up ambivalence seems to
be corroborated by {\em M310}, an assistant manager for an advertising
agency, who scored low on all scales. Nevertheless, his theorizing
presupposes the acceptance of the stereotype of Jewish money-mindedness:


\begin{Quote}
(Characteristic Jewish traits?) ``Well, I think it is true that Jews,
as a group, are more concerned with money. \ldots\ Perhaps because
persecuted for so long. \ldots\  It's some small security in a money
economy, that is, a money culture. Some security to be able to
defend themselves with money. I also think they are better than
average Gentiles at making money because forced to be usurers during
the Middle Ages, etc."
\end{Quote}

Subjects whose scores are at the lowest extreme often tend simply
to {\em deny} the existence of any Jewish traits, sometimes with a violence
that seems to be due more to the impact of their own conscience
than to an objective appraisal of the minority members. Here
``neurotic" traits, which are often found in extremely unprejudiced
subjects, may easily enter the picture. The vehicle by which they
try to argue away Jewish traits is insight into the mechanisms of
projectivity and stereotypy, i.e., into the subjective factors
making for anti-Semitism.

{\em M112}, a ``quiet, reserved, well-mannered sophomore of 18 years,"
whose scale scores are all low, simply subscribes to the ``envy"
theory:


\begin{Quote}
(Jews?) ``Not an educational problem in this case. People just
prejudiced. Want to keep them out of good positions, etc. People
make up wild stories, like that the Jews have too much money, control
the country, etc.; it's just to keep them back.  (Your contacts?)
No Negroes in my school. Jews were like anyone else. I'd never know
they were Jewish if they hadn't told me."
\end{Quote}

%% 650	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

{\em 5041} (whose scale scores are all low), a 59-year-old housewife who
had studied to be a professional pianist, combines the denial of
Jewish traits with reference to bygone ages and with the rejection
of resentful generalizations:


\begin{Quote}
``I think there is a Jewish problem --- but I don't think that they are
different \ldots\  not that there is anything inherent in them that
they should be set apart or treated differently. \ldots\ There are
historical reasons for their persecution \ldots\ it is not their
fault. Well, you can't apply any of these traits to the Jews as a
group. Jews are not a race. \ldots\ These terms might apply to some
individuals, to Christians as well as Jews \ldots\ you have some
aggressive people, but they are not aggressive because they are
Jewish \ldots\ it's usually something that the other person does not
like \ldots\ say they appear to be more intellectual and some succeed,
outdoing others, this causes resentment, and then they are called
aggressive. \ldots "
\end{Quote}

An extreme of denial is achieved by the ``easy-going" low scorer,
{\em M1206a}, of the Maritime School Group, who ``is a highly introspective
person and shows much inhibition against rejecting another person
or group, even on the basis of principles founded in reality." His
scores on all the scales are low:


\begin{Quote}
(Most characteristic traits of Negroes?) ``Well, I don't think there
is such a thing. They have the same traits the white men have. \ldots\
I don't believe any nationality has any characteristics. \ldots "
\end{Quote}


\noindent
Sometimes the intense emotions behind the denial of Jewish traits
find a somewhat irrational expression. {\em F125} (low on E and F, but
high on PEC) is a student who would like to become a drama teacher
and who finds ``the movies very stereotyped." Her indignation was
stirred up by our own study.


\begin{Quote}
``I was mad at some questions in your questionnaire, especially about
the Jewish atmosphere. The Irish people and other national groups
give an atmosphere to the place in which they live, but only the
Jewish atmosphere is stamped as something bad. I don't find that
the ways of living of the Jews are different at all."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
If the prejudiced subjects, for reasons of general conformity and
in order to obtain ``social confirmation," frequently stress that
practically everybody is anti-Semitic, some low scorers go so far
as not only to deny the existence of Jewish traits, but even of
anti-Semitism. A case in point is the somewhat muddle-headed {\em
M115},
characterized as a typical conventional and conservative fraternity
man who, however, is within the low quartile on the F scale though
in the middle quartile on E and in the high quartile on PEC:


\begin{Quote}
(What about the Jewish problem?) ``There's not much persecution now
in the United States. There shouldn't be any. The only reason for
persecuting the Jew is that he is smarter than the next guy, as far
as I can see."
\end{Quote}

As to the appreciation of the specific qualities of Jews and of
other minorities, we content ourselves with two examples which may
throw light on significant areas. {\em F128}, a 17-year-old girl, is low
on F and PEC but slightly
%% PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	651
higher on E. She is studying social work and is interested in child
welfare, but not ``in any kind of a career":


\begin{Quote}
``I guess I have had a better education than many people. We have
entertained Negroes in our home as long as I can remember. I have
known all sorts of people --- lots of them very eccentric people
--- in music and art groups. The first good friends I ever had were
Jewish boys and girls. I don't know why some people hate Negroes
and Jews. With Jewish people perhaps they are a little afraid,
because lots of Jews are smarter than other people."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The interesting element of this statement is contained in the word
``eccentric." It refers to what is ``different," to what is branded
as slightly abnormal by standards of conformity, but which expresses
individualization, the development of human traits which have not
been preformed, as it were, by the social machinery of contemporary
civilization. To this subject, the very ``alienness" of minorities
with respect to the rigid patterns of the highly organized mass
society of today, represents the human, which she otherwise might
feel to be lacking among the ``right people." The Jewish ``failure"
to become completely absorbed by the American cultural climate
presents itself to this subject as a merit, as a triumph of autonomy
and resistance against the leveling impact of the ``melting pot."

{\em 5050}, a radio news commentator with progressive political affiliations,
who is low on all three scales, denies the existence of Jewish
traits but emphasizes a point rarely acknowledged: the patience of
the minorities in the face of persecution. His praise of this
attitude actually contains a critical element which may, by the
implication of cowardice, be indicative of some hidden hostility.
He blames the minorities for political reasons because they do not
take a more energetic stand against American reaction:


\begin{Quote}
He tries at all times to show that there are no so-called ``Jewish
traits," and that people such as described by Budd Schulberg in
``What Makes Sammy Run" can and do occur quite as frequently among
Gentiles. Then he usually points to a man like Rankin or Bilbo as
an example of an obnoxious ``Gentile." ``I admire both the Negro and
the Jewish people for their great patience in swallowing discrimination
\ldots\ if I were in their shoes, I would start a really militant
fight against the oppressors." He still feels that too many Jews
and Negroes are too apathetic and rather let the other fellow do
the fighting. \ldots\ he feels that had the Jews been more alert,
Hitler might have been stopped, or at least prevented from perpetrating
the extreme atrocities. Again and again he stated that all forms
of discrimination can and must be wiped out by {\em direct political
action}.
\end{Quote}

One last characteristic of the unprejudiced attitude toward minority
questions should be mentioned: the absence of fatalism. Not only
do unprejudiced subjects, in the realm of their conscious convictions,
appear to be set against ideas such as those of the inevitability
of human badness or the perennial nature of any character traits,
but on a deeper level, as suggested in Chapter X, 
they
appear to be relatively free of destructive
%% 652	THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
urges and punitive fantasies. They look at things in a historical
and sociological way rather than hypostatizing the existent as
something ultimately given.  This point of view expresses itself
also in their concept of the future relationships between majority
and minority. {\em 5008}, low on E, in the middle quartile on F, and high
on PEC, is a middle-aged woman who worked as a ghost writer, then
as a literary agent, and is now employed as secretary to a radio
show. In keeping with the low scorers' rejection of stereotypy, she
sees the solution of the problem of anti-Semitism, however na\"ively,
in the establishment of personal contacts.


\begin{Quote}
She holds nothing but good wishes for the intelligent immigrants
and refugees who have come here recently, but feels that many of
them have been undesirable.  Concerning Negroes she reports that
as a Republican she believes their position should be very much
bettered, but says this is a difficult problem. Concerning Jews she
says, ``Before I went to work, I probably had a slight anti-Jewish
feeling," but in several positions she has worked with and for Jews,
and found them very charming, intelligent, and interesting people.
She thinks the racial problem most in need of solution is that of
anti-Semitism, and feels that if more ``anti-Semites would mingle
with Jews the way I have" it could be avoided. She believes in the
FEPC and thinks that socioeconomic discrimination should be outlawed.
When it was pointed out that this is a more New Deal type of political
notion, she simply said, ``Well, it can't all be bad."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
This attitude, which stresses human spontaneity and freedom of
action rather than rigid, authoritarian laws of nature, does not,
however, lead toward ``official optimism." The unprejudiced subjects'
sensitivity to the suffering of human beings, their compassion,
makes them keenly aware of the dangers of racial persecution. It
is the high scorer who would say, ``It can't happen here," thus
apparently detaching himself from the ``objective" course of history
with which he actually identifies himself; the low scorer knows
that it could happen, but wants to do something about it.

{\em 5058}, low on all three scales, is a 29-year-old veteran of upper
middle-class background whose main identification lies with ``liberals"
and ``intellectuals."


\begin{Quote}
He is very concerned about the problem of minority groups in this
country. ``I do a lot of talking about it --- hoping to reduce
prejudice and to encourage tolerance.  In fact, I feel so concerned
about this thing I would almost be willing to set myself up in
Pershing Square. I tried to do a little crusading in the Navy but
without much success." Subject is very pessimistic about the
possibility of a solution to the ``minority problem" which seems to
stem largely from his failure to modify the opinions of the people
with whom he has argued. He feels that dislike of the Jews is
increasing because he has heard more talk against them lately. ``Of
course that might be because I am exposed to it more lately, both
while I was in the Navy and in my present job." He does not feel
that the Jews have too much influence in this country, nor does he
believe that the Jews are a political force in America. He is certain
that they did their part in the war effort. When asked about
``basically Jewish traits," he was not able to respond since to him
this term means practically nothing. ``Jews are all so different
from each other that we cannot speak of there being something
`basically Jewish' about them."
\end{Quote}

%% PREJUDICE IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL	653

\columnbreak
\subsection*{J. Conclusion}

It has often been said that anti-Semitism works as the spearhead
of anti-democratic forces. The phrase sounds a bit hackneyed and
apologetic: the minority most immediately threatened seems to make
an all-too-eager attempt to enlist the support of the majority by
claiming that it is the latter's interest and not their own which
really finds itself in jeopardy today. Looking back, however, at
the material surveyed in this, and other, chapters, it has to be
recognized that a link between anti-Semitism and antidemocratic
feeling exists. True, those who wish to exterminate the Jews do
not, as is sometimes claimed, wish to exterminate afterwards the
Irish or the Protestants. But the limitation of human rights which
is consummated in their idea of a special treatment of the Jews,
not only logically implies the ultimate abolition of the democratic
form of government and, hence, of the legal protection of the
individual, but it is frequently associated quite consciously, by
high-scoring interviewees, with overt antidemocratic ideas. We
conclude this chapter with two examples of what appear to be the
inescapable antidemocratic consequences of anti-Semitism. {\em M106}, a
man high on the E, F, and PEC scales, still pretends to be democratic;
but it is not difficult to infer what is in the back of his mind:


\begin{Quote}
``Hitler's plan --- well, Hitler carried things just a little too
far. There was some justification --- some are bad, but not all.
But Hitler went on the idea that a rotten apple in the barrel will
spoil all the rest of them." He doesn't approve of ruthless
persecution. ``If Hitler had handled the Jews as a minority group,
had segregated them and set certain standards for them to live by,
there would be less trouble for Hitler now. (Same problem in this
country now?) Same problem, but it's handled much better because
we're a democratic country."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
While the suggestion that a minority be segregated is incompatible
with the basic concepts of the same ``democratic country" of which
the subject professes to be proud, the metaphor of the rotten apple
in the barrel conjures up the imagery of ``evil germs" which is
associated with appalling regularity with the dream of an effective
germicide.

Perversion of a so-called democrat is manifested in {\em 5019}, another
man whose scale scores are all high. He is a 20-year-old laborer,
characterized above all, by his blind, authoritarian acceptance of
his humble position in life.  At the same time, he ``dislikes timid
people" and has ``great admiration for real leaders":


\begin{Quote}
Respondent believes that the ``laws of democracy should favor white,
Gentile people," yet he ``would not openly persecute Jews in the way
the Hitler program treated them."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
The reservation of the second sentence is disavowed by the momentum of 
the convictions expressed in the first one.

\end{multicols}

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%% \settitle{Politics and Economics in the Interview Material}
%% {T.\ W.\ Adorno}{Chapter XVII of {\em The Authoritarian Personality}}
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\newtitle{Politics and Economics in the Interview Material}{XVII}

\begin{multicols}{2}

\subsection*{A. Introduction}

The questionnaire findings on political and economic ideology have
been analyzed in Chapter V. It is now our task to study the interview
material referring to the same topics. The purpose is, first of
all, to concretize our insight into these ideologies. If we
investigated, in Chapter V, into the responses of our subjects to
a number of set, standardized political and economic ideas and
slogans with which they are daily confronted, we shall now try to
form a picture of ``what they really think" --- with the qualification
that we shall also have to find out whether we are entitled to
expect autonomous and spontaneous opinions from the majority of
them. It is obvious that the answer to such problems, unless they
should be made the very center of research, can be given only in a
less rigorous way than was the case with the quantitative analysis
of questionnaire responses, and that the results are of a more
tentative nature. Their convincing power lies more in the consistency
of specific interpretations with facts previously established than
in any indisputable ``proof" that one or the other of the ideological
mechanisms under review prevail within a majority of subjects or
within certain groups.

Again, our interpretations of ideology will go below the realm of
surface opinion, and will be related to the psychological results
of our study. It is not our aim merely to add some padding to our
figures. As stated in the Introductory Remarks to this part, we
would rather gain insight into the links between ideological opinions
and psychological determinants. We do not pretend that psychology
is the cause and ideology the effect. But we try to interrelate
both as intimately as possible, guided by the assumption that
ideological irrationalities just as other irrationalities of overt
human behavior are concomitant with unconscious psychological
conflicts. We combed through the interview material with particular
attention to such irrationalities
%% %% %% 654 POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    655
and to statements revealing something about the dynamics of
personality. The establishment of plausible configurations involving
both dynamic motivation and ideological rationalization seems to
us the foremost means of achieving that consistency on which the
evidence of the discussions to follow largely depends. The data
discussed so far permit at least the assumption that personality
could be regarded as {\em one} determinant of ideology.

Yet it is just the area with which we are now concerned that most
strongly forbids any simple reduction to terms of personality. Our
construct of the ``potentially fascist character" was largely based
on the division between high and low scorers. Whereas this division
retains its value for numerous topics of political and economic
ideology and can be substantiated, on a deeper level, probably for
{\em all} ideological issues, there appears to be at work another determinant
which, in numerous issues, blurs the distinction between high and
low scorers and refuses to be stated unequivocally in terms of
personality. This determinant may be called our general cultural
climate, and particularly the ideological influence upon the people
of most media for molding public opinion. If our cultural climate
has been standardized under the impact of social control and
technological concentration to an extent never known before, we may
expect that the thinking habits of individuals reflect this
standardization as well as the dynamics of their own personalities.
These personalities may, indeed, be the product of this very same
standardization to a much higher degree than a na\"ive observer is
led to believe. In other words, we have to expect a kind of ideological
``over-all pattern" in our interviewees which, though by no means
indifferent to the dichotomy of high and low scorers, transcends
its boundaries. Our data afford ample evidence that such an ideological
over-all pattern exists in fact.


It is a major question for this chapter whether this over-all
ideological pattern, perhaps even more than the specific susceptibility
of our high scorers to fascist propaganda, does not entail the
danger of a large-scale following of anti-democratic movements if
they should get under way with powerful support.


The importance of this diagnosis, if it should be corroborated
sufficiently by our data, is self-evident, its most immediate
implication being that the fight against such a general potential
cannot be carried through only educationally on a purely psychological
level, but that it requires at the same time decisive changes of
that cultural climate which makes for the over-all pattern.
Methodologically, the importance of this aspect of our study lies
in the fact that it relativizes, somewhat, the distinction between
high vs. low scorers; this distinction, if taken as absolute, may
easily lead to a ``psychologizing" bias that would neglect the
objective, supra-individual social forces operating in our society.


The introduction of the concept of an over-all pattern just in this
ideological


%% 656     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY


ideological area may appear paradoxical at first glance. Since most
political and economic issues are overt and relatively simple with
reference to the blunt division between progressivism and reactionism,
one should expect the difference to be particularly marked here.
This, however, is not borne out by the facts. It is hard to escape
the impression that there is much more actual similarity between
high and low scorers in the political and economic section of the
interviews than in more remote and complicated regions. To be sure,
there are some topics which are as clearly discriminatory as some
of the more extreme anti-Semitic ideas discussed in the preceding
chapter. One hardly needs any research in order to establish that
high scorers tend to be anti- and low scorers pro-Roosevelt, that
high scorers more often want a ``strong" foreign policy and low
scorers favor reconciliation, that high scorers indignantly reject
communism and low scorers tend to discuss it on a more discursive
plane. However, there is a large number of what might be called
more formal constituents of political ideology which seem to permeate
the whole pattern while, by their own momentum, making for reactionary
and potentially fascist persuasions. Here belong, as will be discussed
in detail, general ignorance and confusion in political matters,
the habits of ``ticket thinking" and ``personalization," resentment
of unions, of government interference in business, of income
limitations, and a number of other trends.


The existence of such an over-all pattern in politics need not be
surprising, when the whole context of our study is considered. As
a matter of fact, the problem itself is derived from our quantitative
findings. After we once administered the PEC scale, no close
relation between politics and anti-Semitism could be expected.
Chapter V offered the evidence that the correlation of PEC with
either anti-Semitism or ethnocentrism was never very high. There
were some subjects high on PEC but low on E, others high on E but
middle or low on PEC. This means that in this area particularly we
cannot speak in categorical terms of high vs. low scorers. We shall
see if this is borne out by a consideration of the interviews: both
what the weakening of our basic distinction means qualitatively and
whether and how we still can differentiate successfully in this
area.


If a trend that differentiates statistically between high and low
scorers on E --- the ``highs" being higher on it --- appears very commonly
in the interviews of all subjects, then we must conclude that it
is a trend in culture itself. In this chapter we shall be particularly
concerned with these outstanding features. The evidence that they
are potentially fascistic is the fact that they ``go" statistically,
psychologically, and in every other respect with high scale scores;
if they also occur with considerable frequency in interviews of low
scorers it must be because we are living in potentially fascist
times.


If a subject is low on {\em all} scales, but still shows trends which
look potentially fascist, then one might say that the scales and
other techniques do not cover


%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    657


everything, that the potential fascism of the trend is hypothetical
as far as the statistical evidence goes, and that one might perform
an empirical study to see if it really does go with what we know
of the subject. We expect our discussion at least to shed some light
on this methodological problem.


As far as the differentiation between high and low scorers goes,
it is obvious that an over-all pattern would necessitate more
differentiated characterizations than those previously employed.
This can be hinted at only occasionally throughout this chapter.
Sometimes high and low scorers are similar in what they say in
politico-economic terms, but different in some more subtle way;
just as sometimes they are superficially different but similar with
respect to underlying trends.


Political and economic facts are subject to rapid change. This holds
particularly true for the last few years. When our material was
gathered, mainly throughout 1945, Russia was an ally; today, the
tension between this country and the Soviet Union overshadows all
other issues. Such changes make a valid interpretation of political
ideology difficult and precarious. Thus, it might well be that
anti-Russian sentiments, which were in 1945 part and parcel of a
general pattern of reactionism, largely conditioned subjectively,
would be of a much more ``realistic" nature today, or at least they
would fall to a greater extent within the ``over-all pattern," being
less differentiating {\em per se} between high and low scorers. Moreover,
in all probability the typical high scorer has become even more
articulate with regard to Russia. It is hard to imagine that Mack
would still stick to his statement that ``Joe" Stalin was all right.
Our interpretation, of course, had to stick to the situation of
1945 in order to give an adequate picture of the relationship between
ideology and personality factors. However, it should be emphasized
that the PEC scale as well as its follow-up in the interviews depends
to a much higher degree on external events than do the other scales.
This is why we never expected that the correlations of PEC with E
and F would be very high, and it is quite possible that under the
new political circumstances the direction of some of the more
superficial relationships might have changed. Ideology is so sensitive
to political dynamics that even some interpretations formulated
comparatively lately, when the bulk of the chapter had been written,
should be qualified at publication time. Yet we may claim that the
general trend of events has been entirely in accord with the general
formulations reached in the discussion to follow.


With regard to the organization of the chapter we shall deal first
with the more formal constituents of p political and economic
ideology and later with a number of specific political es. The
problem of cultural over-all pattern vs. psychological differentiation
occurs in both sections, though the presuppositions of the over-all
pattern belong mainly to the first one.


%% 658     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY


\subsection*{B. Formal Constituents Of Political Thinking}


\subsubsection*{1. Ignorance And Confusion\footnote{%
After completion of the study, the writer of this chapter
became acquainted with the pertinent article by R. H. Gundlach
(46).}}

The evaluation of the political statements contained in our interview
material has to be considered in relation to the widespread ignorance
and confusion of our subjects in political matters, a phenomenon
which might well surpass what even a skeptical observer should have
anticipated. If people do not know what they are talking about, the
concept of ``opinion," which is basic to any approach to ideology,
loses much of its meaning. This does not imply that the material
becomes insignificant but rather that it cannot be interpreted in
factual categories but must be related to the socio-psychological
structure of the subject being investigated. In other words, the
material itself calls for that personality analysis which marks the
general strategy of our research. It is in the light of this analysis
that the ideology of our subjects is now to be re-evaluated.

While ignorance and confusion marks the political statements of
both high and low scorers, it is, nevertheless, by no means ``neutral"
with regard to the problem of susceptibility to fascist propaganda.
Our general impression is that ignorance and confusion is more
widespread among high than among low scorers. This would be consistent
with our previous observations on the general ``anti-intellectual"
attitude of high scorers. In addition, the official optimism of the
high scorer tends to exclude that kind of critical analysis of
existent conditions on which rational political judgment depends.
A man who is prone to identify himself {\em a priori} with the world as
it is has little incentive to penetrate it intellectually and to
distinguish between essence and surface. The ``practical" bias of
the high scorers, their emotional detachment from everything that
is beyond their well defined range of action, is another factor
contributing to their disinterestedness in, and lack of, political
knowledge. However this may be, there is reason to believe that
ignorance itself works in favor of general reactionary trends. This
belief, based on consistent observations particularly in backward
rural areas everywhere, has been epitomized by the old German
social-democratic adage that anti-Semitism is the ``socialism of the
dolt." All modern fascist movements, including the practices of
contemporary American demagogues, have aimed at the ignorant; they
have consciously manipulated the facts in a way that could lead to
success only with those who were not acquainted with the facts.
Ignorance with respect to the complexities of contemporary society
makes for a state of general uncertainty and anxiety, which is the
ideal breeding ground for the modern type of reactionary mass
movement. Such movements are always
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    659
``populist" and maliciously anti-intellectual. It is not accidental
that fascism has never evolved any consistent social theory, but
has persistently denounced theoretical thinking and knowledge as
``alienation from the grass-roots." The existence of such ignorance
and confusion as we find in the interviews of subjects, particularly
when we consider the relatively high educational level which they
as a group represent, has to be regarded as ominous, no matter
whether the subjects in question score high or low on our scales.
The configuration of technical skill and the ``realism" of ``looking
after oneself" on the one hand, and of the stubborn refusal
intellectually to penetrate reality on the other, is the very climate
in which fascist movements can prosper. Where this outlook prevails,
a critical situation may easily lead to the general acceptance of
formulae which are today still regarded as prerogatives of the
``lunatic fringe."


Sometimes ignorance is explicitly commented upon by our interviewers.
But even if we do not regard their impression as sufficient proof,
there is evidence enough within the material, be it that the
statements betray a striking lack of information, be it that the
interviewee confesses his disinterestedness in politics or his lack
of knowledge. The latter attitude, incidentally, is particularly
frequent with women, and often it is accompanied by self-accusing
statements.


It is hard to distinguish between simple ignorance and confusedness,
that is to say, between the state of simply not knowing the facts,
and the state which exists when people without sufficient intellectual
training grow muddle-headed under the incessant attack of all kinds
of mass communication and propaganda and do not know what to make
of the facts they have. It seems as if confusion were the effect
of ignorance: as if those who do not know but feel somehow obliged
to have political opinions, because of some vague idea about the
requirements of democracy, help themselves with scurrilous ways of
thinking and sometimes with forthright bluff.


The few quotations to follow are picked at random as illustrations
of a phenomenon which is well-nigh universal, but for the very few
exceptional cases of people who take a conscious and explicit
interest in politics.


An example of ignorance, covered up by pompous phraseology, is the
following statement by {\em M117}, a low-scoring man from the
University Extension Group. He is a semi-educated sailor with
high-school background and widely read, but generally muddle-headed.


\begin{Quote}
(American political scene?) ``We have a good basis for our political
system. The majority of people are not interested or equipped enough
to understand politics, so that the biggest proportion of U. S.
politics is governed by the capitalistic system."
\end{Quote}


\noindent
To this man, the existence or nonexistence of capitalism in this
country is simply a matter of ``education."


%% 660     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY


A ``bluffer" is the veteran {\em M732c}, a high-scoring man with
high-school education, who always starts with sentences which sound
up-to-date but rarely finishes them:


\begin{Quote}
(What does he think of political trends today?) ``I would say that
now we're in a very sad case. Worse off than two years ago --- well, the
situation with Russia in Iran --- and these strikes that are coming
on --- quite a deal of good statesmanship to fix the world up\ldots ."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
The subject's statements abound with qualifications and evasions:

\begin{Quote}
``I feel somehow that they (i.e., the unions) are progressing in a
way but in other ways they are not. I think all things will work
out for the best. But I really think they should not go into politics.
\ldots\ I am not very well versed on\ldots "
\end{Quote}
\noindent
Asked about the most dangerous threats to present form of government:
\begin{Quote}
``Well, let's see \ldots\ well, we might have another war in the 
USA. Since the US itself is a huge melting pot\ldots\ . I imagine
in the US there are a lot of people who hated to see Hitler die
and are pro-German --- and maybe one of these little groups
will\ldots\  catch on."
\end{Quote}

A San Quentin prisoner,{\em M621A}, who scores low on the E and PEC
scales and middle on F, regards Russia as the most dangerous threat.
When asked what ought to be done, he answers:

\begin{Quote}
``Well, people should limit political parties to at least two groups
and not have all these socialists and communists, etc. (What to do
with socialists and communists?) Well, they could still believe in
their own ideal \ldots\ let them have a voice in the election but
should not be allowed to have any power. (You mean they should not
be allowed to put up any candidates?) No, unless they get a majority."
\end{Quote}

One of the most extreme examples is the high-scoring woman {\em
F121}, who was never good at school work and apparently had very
little general education.

\begin{Quote}
Not interested, not informed. Thinks Roosevelt has been good and
should see us through the war. Otherwise has no opinions. She had
written on the side of the questionnaire, asking about political
parties: ``Don't know these parties."
\end{Quote}

Again, {\em 5016}, a housewife, graduated from high school, high on F and
E but middle on PEC, referred to by the interviewer as ``being of
moderately high intelligence," says

\begin{Quote}
``I hear that communists and socialists are both bad."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
By contrast, {\em 5052}, the Spanish-Negro entertainer, high on F and
PEC, middle on E, has an opinion of his own on communism and
apparently some sympathy with communists, but his opinion is no
less startling:


\begin{Quote}
``All of the people in the entertainment world who are communists
are good guys."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
On further questioning it comes out that according to his opinion
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    661
\begin{Quote}
Communism seems to be a sort of social club which holds meetings
and raises money for worthy causes.
\end{Quote}

Somewhat exceptional is the statement of the moderately low-scoring
call-house girl, {\em 5035}, who, before she chose the profession of
prostitute, was a graduate of the University of California. She is
strongly interested in union activities and actually lost her former
job as a dancing teacher because of such activities, but refused
on the questionnaire to mark any questions with regard to political
groups, for which she gives the following explanation:

\begin{Quote}
``I am very confused about politics because I talk about them a great
deal with our clients here and they all have different opinions.
It was a struggle for me to get through economics in college."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
In practical issues, however, her views are very liberal and even
radical.

The self-accusing attitude of women with regard to political matters
seems to be most common among medium and low scorers; this is
consistent with the latter's general introspective and self-critical
attitude.

An example is the 17-year-old student of social work, {\em F128},
who is middle on E and F but high on PEC:

\begin{Quote}
``I am a little ashamed about this subject. I hate to be ignorant
about anything but frankly, I don't know anything about politics.
I am for Roosevelt, of course, but I don't think I have developed
any ideas of my own. Mother and Jim talk about things, but it is
mostly social work shop. I intend to read a lot and think a lot
about things because I believe all intelligent people should have
ideas."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
Interesting also is the low scorer, {\em F517}, a 20-year-old
freshman student majoring in music, who accuses herself of ignorance
and dependence, though her general attitude, particularly with
regard to minority questions, shows that she is rather articulate
and outspoken and that she differs from her parents.


\begin{Quote}
``I don't know much about it. I'm quite dependent --- I get my opinions
from my father. He is a die-hard Republican. He did not like Roosevelt
but I think he did some good things (such as making things better
for the poor people)."
\end{Quote}

It would go beyond the scope of the present study to attempt a full
explanation of political ignorance so strikingly in contrast to the
level of information in many other matters and to the highly rational
way in which most of our subjects decide about the means and ends
of their own lives. The ultimate reason for this ignorance might
well be the opaqueness of the social, economic, and political
situation to all those who are not in full command of all the
resources of stored knowledge and theoretical thinking. In its
present phase, our social system tends objectively and automatically
to produce ``curtains" which make it impossible for the na\"ive person
really to see what it is all about. These objective conditions are
enhanced by powerful economic and social forces which, purposely
or automatically, keep the people ignorant. The very fact that our
social system is on the defense, as it were, that
%% 662     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
capitalism, instead of expanding the old way and opening up innumerable
opportunities to the people, has to maintain itself somewhat
precariously and to block critical insights which were regarded as
``progressive" one hundred years ago but are viewed as potentially
dangerous today, makes for a one-sided presentation of the facts,
for manipulated information, and for certain shifts of emphasis
which tend to check the universal enlightenment otherwise furthered
by the technological development of communications. Once again, as
in the era of the transition from feudalism to middle-class society,
knowing too much has assumed a subversive touch, as it were. This
tendency is met halfway by the ``authoritarian" frame of mind of
large sections of the population. The transformation of our social
system from something dynamic into something conservative, a {\em status
quo}, struggling for its perpetuation, is reflected by the attitudes
and opinions of all those who, for reasons of vested interests or
psychological conditions, identify themselves with the existing
setup. In order not to undermine their own pattern of identification,
they unconsciously do not {\em want} to know too much and are ready to
accept superficial or distorted information as long as it confirms
the world in which they want to go on living. It would be erroneous
to ascribe the general state of ignorance and confusion in political
matters to natural stupidity or to the mythological ``immaturity"
of the people. Stupidity may be due to psychological repressions
more than to a basic lack of the capacity for thinking. Only in
this way, it seems, can the low level of political intelligence
even among our college sample be understood. They find it difficult
to think and even to learn because they are afraid they might think
the wrong thoughts or learn the wrong things. It may be added that
this fear, probably often due to the father's refusal to tell the
child more than he is supposedly capable of understanding, is
continuously reinforced by an educational system which tends to
discourage anything supposedly ``speculative," or which cannot be
corroborated by surface findings, and stated in terms of ``facts and
figures."

The discrepancy brought about by the absence of political training
and the abundance of political news with which the population is
flooded and which actually or fictitiously presupposes such training,
is only one among many aspects of this general condition. With
reference to the specific focus of our research, two aspects of
political ignorance may be emphasized. One is that being ``intelligent"
today means largely to look after one's self, to take care of one's
advantages whereas, to use Veblen's words, ``idle curiosity" is
discouraged. Since the pertinence of economic and political matters
to private existence, however, is largely obscured to the population
even now, they do not bother about things which apparently have
little bearing on their fate and upon which they have, as they are
dimly aware, not too much influence.

The second aspect of ignorance which has to be stressed here, is
of a more psychological nature. Political news and comment like all
other information poured out by the radio, the press, and the
newsreels, is generally absorbed during leisure time and falls, in
a certain way, within the framework of ``entertainment." Politics
is viewed in much the same way as sport or the movies, not as
something directly involved with one's own participation in the
process of production. Viewed within this frame of reference,
however, politics is necessarily ``disappointing." It appears to
people conditioned by an industrial culture and its specific kinds
of ``entertainment values" as drab, cold, dry --- as boring. This may
be enhanced by that undercurrent of American tradition which regards
politics somehow as a dirty business with which a respectable person
should have but little to do.  Disappointment in politics as a
leisure-time activity which pays no quick returns probably makes
for indifference, and it is quite possible that the prevailing
ignorance is due not merely to unfamiliarity with the facts but
also a kind of resistance against what is supposed to serve as a
pastime and mostly tends to be disagreeable. A pattern most often
to be observed, perhaps, among women, namely, skipping the political
sections of newspapers, where information is available, and turning
immediately to gossip columns, crime stories, the woman's page, and
so forth, may be an extreme expression of something more general.

To sum up, political ignorance would seem to be specifically
determined by the fact that political knowledge as a rule does not
primarily help to further individual aims in reality, whereas, on
the other hand, it does not help the individual to evade reality
either.

\subsubsection*{2. Ticket Thinking And Personalization In Politics}

The frame of mind concomitant with ignorance and confusion may be
called one of lack of political experience in the sense that the
whole sphere of politics and economics is ``aloof" from the subject,
that he does not reach it with concrete innervations,\footnote{{\em
innervate}: to stimulate (a nerve, muscle, or body part) to action.}
insights, and
reactions but has to contend with it in an indirect, alienated way.
Yet, politics and economics, alien as they may be from individual
life, and largely beyond the reach of individual decision and action,
decisively affect the individual's fate. In our present society,
in the era of all-comprising social organization and total war,
even the most na\"ive person becomes aware of the impact of the
politico-economic sphere. Here belongs, of course, primarily the
war situation, where literally life and death of the individual
depend on apparently far-away political dynamics. But also issues
such as the role of unionism in American economy, strikes, the
development of free enterprise toward monopolism and therewith the
question of state control, make themselves felt apparently down to
the most private and intimate realms of the individual.

This, against the background of ignorance and confusion, makes for
anxiety on the ego level that ties in only too well with childhood
anxieties. The individual has to cope with problems which he actually
does not understand, and he has to develop certain techniques of
orientation, however crude
%% 664     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
and fallacious they may be, which help him to find his way through
the dark, as it were.\footnote{%
This has been pointed out with regard to the imagery of the Jews.
See Chapter XVI, p.\ 618f. (Note by Adorno).} 
These means fulfill a dual function:
on the one hand, they provide the individual with a kind of knowledge,
or with substitutes for knowledge, which makes it possible for him
to take a stand where it is expected of him, whilst he is actually
not equipped to do so. On the other hand, by themselves they alleviate
psychologically the feeling of anxiety and uncertainty and provide
the individual with the illusion of some kind of intellectual
security, of something he can stick to even if he feels, underneath,
the inadequacy of his opinions.

The task of how to understand the ``un-understandable," paradoxical
in itself, leads toward a paradoxical solution, that is to say, the
subjects tend to employ two devices which contradict each other, a
contradiction that expresses the impasse in which many people find
themselves. These two devices are {\em stereotypy}\footnote{{\em
stereotypy}: the persistent repetition of an act for no obvious purpose.} 
and {\em personalization}.
It is easy to see that these ``devices" are repetitions of infantile
patterns. The specific interaction of stereotypy and prejudice has
been discussed in detail in the preceding chapter. It may now be
appropriate to review ideological stereotypy and its counterpart,
personalization, in a broader context, and to relate it to more
fundamental principles long established by psychology. Rigid
dichotomies, such as that between ``good and bad," ``we and the
others," ``I and the world" date back to our earliest developmental
phases. While serving as necessary constructs in order to enable
us to cope, by mental anticipation and rough organization, with an
otherwise chaotic reality, even the stereotypes of the child bear
the hallmark of stunted experience and anxiety. They point back to
the ``chaotic" nature of reality, and its clash with the omnipotence
fantasies of earliest infancy. Our stereotypes are both tools and
scars: the ``bad man" is the stereotype par excellence. At the same
time, the psychological ambiguity inherent in the use of stereotypes,
which are both necessary and constricting forces, stimulate regularly
a countertendency. We try, by a kind of ritual, to soften the
otherwise rigid, to make human, close, part of ourselves (or the
family) that which appears, because of its very alienness, threatening.
The child who is afraid of the bad man is at the same time tempted
to call every stranger ``uncle." The traumatic element in both these
attitudes continuously serves as an obstacle to the reality principle,
although both also function as means of adjustment. When transformed
into character traits, the mechanisms involved make more and more
for irrationality. The opaqueness of the present political and
economic situation for the average person provides an ideal opportunity
for retrogression to the infantile level of stereotypy and
personalization. The political rationalizations used by the uninformed
and confused are compulsive revivals of irrational mechanisms never
overcome during the
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    665
individual's growth. This seems to be one of the main links between
opinions and psychological determinants.

Once again, stereotypy helps to organize what appears to the ignorant
as chaotic: the less he is able to enter into a really cognitive
process, the more stubbornly he clings to certain patterns, belief
in which saves him the trouble of really going into the matter.

Where the rigidly compulsive nature of the stereotype cuts off the
dialectics of trial and error, stultification enters the picture.
Stereotypy becomes --- to use J.\ F.\ Brown's term ---
stereopathy.\footnote{{\em stereopathy}: persistent stereotyped
thinking.} 
This is the
case in the political area where a firm bulk of ignorance and lack
of any relation to the objective material forbids any real experience.
In addition, industrial standardization of innumerable phenomena
of modern life enhances stereotypical thinking. The more stereotyped
life itself becomes, the more the stereopath feels in the right,
sees his frame of thinking vindicated by reality. Modern mass
communications, molded after industrial production, spread a whole
system of stereotypes which, while still being fundamentally
``un-understandable" to the individual, allow him at any moment to
appear as being up to date and ``knowing all about it." Thus,
stereotyped thinking in political matters is almost inescapable.

However, the adult individual, like the child, has to pay a heavy
price for the comfort he draws from stereotypy. The stereotype,
while being a means of translating reality in a kind of multiple-choice
questionnaire where every issue is subsumed and can be decided by
a plus or minus mark, keeps the world as aloof, abstract,
``non-experienced" as it was before. Moreover, since it is above all
the alienness and coldness of political reality which causes the
individual's anxieties, these anxieties are not fully remedied by
a device which itself reflects the threatening, streamlining process
of the real social world. Thus, stereotypy calls again for its very
opposite: personalization. Here, the term assumes a very definite
meaning: the tendency to describe objective social and economic
processes, political programs, internal and external tensions in
terms of some person identified with the case in question rather
than taking the trouble to perform the impersonal intellectual
operations required by the abstractness of the social processes
themselves.

{\em Both stereotypy and personalization are inadequate to reality}. Their
interpretation may therefore be regarded as a first step in the
direction of understanding the complex of ``psychotic" thinking
which appears to be a crucial characteristic of the fascist character.
It is obvious, however, that this subjective failure to grasp reality
is not primarily and exclusively a matter of the psychological
dynamics of the individuals involved, but is in some part due to
reality itself, to the relationship or lack of relationship between
this reality and the individual. Stereotypy misses reality in so
far as it dodges the concrete and contents itself with preconceived,
rigid, and overgeneralized
%% 666     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
ideas to which the individual attributes a kind of magical omnipotence.
Conversely, personalization dodges the real abstractness, that is
to say, the ``reification" of a social reality which is determined
by property relations and in which the human beings themselves are,
as it were, mere appendages. Stereotypy and personalization are two
divergent parts of an actually non-experienced world, parts which
are not only irreconcilable with each other, but which also do not
allow for any addition which would reconstruct the picture of the
real.

\paragraph{a. {\sc Cases Of Political Ticket Thinking}.} 
We limit ourselves to describing a few cases of political stereotypy.

{\em M359} from the University Extension Testing Class is departmental
manager for a leather company. He is high on E and PEC but middle
on F. While imbued with authoritarian ideas he shows a certain
imaginativeness and general disposition to discursive argumentation
somewhat different from the typical high scorer's mentality. It is
thus the more striking to find that the political section of his
interview is completely abstract and clich\'e-like. Just because this
subject is by no means a fanatic, his statements serve well to
illustrate how ignorance is covered up by phraseology, and how the
stereotypes, borrowed from the vernacular of current newspaper
editorials, make for the acceptance of reactionary trends. In order
to give a concrete picture of how this mechanism works, his political
statements are given in full. This may also supply us with an example
of how the various topics with which we shall have to deal in detail
afterwords form a kind of ideological unit once a person is under
the sway of political semi-information:

\begin{Quote}
(Political trends?) ``I am not very happy by the outward aspect of
things, too much politics instead of a basis of equality and justice
for all men. Running of the entire country is determined by the
party in power, not very optimistic outlook. Under Roosevelt, the
people were willing to turn entire schedule of living over to the
government, wanted everything done for them. (Main problem?) No
question but the problem of placing our servicemen back into
employment, giving them a degree of happiness is a major problem.
If not handled soon, may produce a serious danger. More firm
organization of servicemen."

(What might do?) ``Boycott the politicians and establish the old-time
government that we should have had all along. (What is this?)
Government of, by, and for the people." Subject emphasizes the
moderate, average man is the serviceman. (Unions?) ``Not satisfied
with them. One characteristic is especially unsatisfactory. Theory
is wonderful and would hate to see them abolished, but too much
tendency to level all men, all standards of workmanship and effort
by equalizing pay. Other objection is not enough democratic attitude
by the membership, generally controlled by minority group." Subject
emphasizes the compulsion imposed upon men to join but not to
participate with the results of ignorant union leaders. He emphasizes
the need to raise the standards of voting by members and to require
rotation of office and high qualifications for officers. He compares
these adversely with business leaders.

(Government control?) ``There is too much tendency to level everything,
doesn't give man opportunity to excel." Subject emphasizes the
mediocrity of government
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    667
workers, pay is insufficient to attract the best caliber of men and
no incentive plans, etc.

(Threats to present government?) ``Probably most dangerous threat
to o government today, and that also applies to union organization,
and life in general is disinterest, the tendency to let the other
fellow do it on the part of great numbers of people so that things
go on the way a few selfish men determine."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
The decisive twist is achieved by jumping from the very abstract
idea ``equality and justice for all men" to the equally formalistic
condemnation of ``running the country by the party in power" --- which
happens to be the party of the New Deal. The vague clich\'e of an
all-comprising democrat serves as an instrument against any specific
democratic contents. It should not be overlooked, however, that
some of his statements on unions --- where he has some experience --- make
sense.

{\em M1225a}, a medium scorer who has been eighteen months at sea
and strongly interested in engineering, is a good example of
stereotypy in politics employed by otherwise moderate people, and
of its intimate relationship to ignorance. To this man one of the
greatest political problems today is ``the unions." Describing them,
he applies indiscriminately and without entering into the matter
three current clich\'es --- that of the social danger, that of government
interference, and that of the luxurious life of union leaders --- simply
by repeating certain formulae without caring much about their
interconnection or their consistency:

\begin{Quote}
``For one thing they have too much power. Cross between the socialistic
part of the union and the government \ldots\ seems to go to the other
extreme. Government investigation \ldots\ (subject seems rather
confused in his ideas here). The unions \ldots\  socialistic form in
there. I know, I belonged to a few unions. They get up there and
then call you brother and then drive off in a Cadillac\ldots\ . Nine
times out ten the heads of the unions don't know anything of the
trade. It's a good racket \ldots "
\end{Quote}

Most of his subsequent answers are closely in line with a general
patter of reactionism, formulated mostly in terms of ``I don't believe
in it" without discussing the issue itself. The following passages
may suffice as an illustration.

\begin{Quote}
(\$25,000 limit on salaries?) \footnote{About \$200,000 in 2005.}
``I don't believe in that."

(Most dangerous threats to present form of government?) ``I believe
it's in the government itself. Too many powers of its own."

(What ought to be done?) ``Going to have to solve a lot of other
problems first. Get goods back on the market."

(What about this conflict between Russia on the one hand and England
and this country on the other?) ``I don't particularly care for
Russia and I don't particularly care for England."
\end{Quote}

In this case, clich\'es are manifestly used in order to cover up lack
of information. It is as if each question to which he does not know
any specific answer conjures up the carry-overs of innumerable press
slogans which he repeats in order to demonstrate that he is one of
those who do not like to be
%%%
told and do like to think. Underlying is only a rigid pattern of
yeas and nays. He is aware of how a man of his general political
outlook should react to each political issue but he is not aware
of the issues themselves. He therefore supplements his plus and
minus marks by phrases which more often than not are mere gaucheries.


{\em F139} belongs to the type which is to be characterized in Chapter
XIX as
``rigid low." Her most outstanding trait is her violent hatred of
alcohol --- which suggests deeper-lying ``high" trends. Liquors are her
Jews, as it were. She regards herself as a Christian Socialist and
solves most problems not by discussing them but referring to what
the religious socialist should think.

The break between her opinions and any kind of substantial experience
is evidenced by the following statement:

\begin{Quote}
``My favorite world statesman is Litvinov.\footnote{Maxim Litvinov
(1876--1951). Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet diplomat.} 
I think the most dramatic
speech of modern times is the one he made at the Geneva Conference
when he pleaded for collective security. It has made us very happy
to see the fog of ignorance and distrust surrounding the Soviet
Union clearing away during this war. Things are not settled yet,
though. There are many fascists in this country who would fight
Roosevelt if they could."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
She has a ready-made formula for the problem of nonviolence in
international affairs:

\begin{Quote}
``Of course, I am an internationalist. Would I be a true Christian
if I weren't? And I have always been a pacifist. Wars are completely
unnecessary. This one was. That is, it could have been avoided if
the democratic people had recognized their own interest early enough
and taken the proper steps. But they did not. And now we ask
ourselves: would the interests of the people of the world be advanced
by a fascist victory? Obviously they would not. So we must support
this war completely because we are faced with a clear choice and
cannot avoid it."
\end{Quote}

She offers a clear example of the association of stereotypy and
personalization. Whereas her political persuasion should induce her
to think in objective socio-economic terms, she actually thinks in
terms of favorite people, preferably 
famous ones, of humans who are public institutions as it were --- of
``human stereotypes."

\begin{Quote}
``My second favorite world statesman is our own President although,
perhaps, I should say Mrs.\ Roosevelt. I don't think he would have
been anything without her. She really made him what he is. I believe
the Roosevelts have a very sincere interest in people and their
welfare. There is one thing that bothers me about them though ---
specially Mrs.\ Roosevelt --- that is --- liquor. She is not against
it and it seems to me she should know how much we would be improved
as a people without it."
\end{Quote}

She exhibits a significant characteristic of the low scorers'
political stereotypy: a kind of mechanical belief in the triumph
of progress, the counterpart to the high scorers' frequent references
to impending doom which is also a keynote of the above-quoted
political statements of {\em M359}.

\begin{Quote}
``All one has to do is look backward to feel optimistic. I would
not be a true Christian if I did not believe that man's progress
is upward. We are so much farther along than we were a century ago.
Social legislation that was only a dream is an accomplished fact."
\end{Quote}

\paragraph{b. {\sc Examples Of Personalization.}}
The tendency towards personalization
feeds on the American tradition of personal democracy as expressed
most strikingly by the power delegated to the executive branch of
the government by our Constitution, and also on that aspect of
traditional American liberalism which regards competition as a
contest between men, where the better man is likely to conquer.
Cause and effect seem to be somewhat reversed: whereas in market
economy the supposedly ``better man" is defined by competitive
success, people have come to think that success falls to the better
man. Consistent with this is the highly personalized character of
political propaganda, particularly in electioneering where the
objective issues at stake are mostly hidden behind the exaltation
of the individuals involved, often in categories which have but
very little to do with the functions those individuals are supposed
to fulfill. The ideal of a democracy, where the people have their
immediate say, is frequently misused under conditions of today's
mass society, as an ideology which covers up the omnipotence of
objective social tendencies and, more specifically, the control
exercised by the party machines.

The material on personalization is both abundant and monotonous. A
few examples may suffice.

The low-scoring man, {\em M116}, prefers Wallace to
Dewey\footnote{Henry A.\ Wallace (1888--1965): Vice-President of US
under Roosevelt, Progressive Party candidate for President in 1948.
Thomas E.\ Dewey (1902--1971): Governor of New York (1943--54) and
Republican party candidate for President in 1944 and 1948.} 
because

\begin{Quote}
``Wallace is the better man and I usually vote for the better man."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
Here personalization is the more striking since these two figures
are actually defined by objectively antagonistic platforms, whereas
it is more than doubtful whether the interviewee, or, for that
matter, the great majority of the American people, is in any position
to say what they are like ``as men."

The high-scoring man, {\em M102}, employs almost literally the same
expression as {\em M116}:

\begin{Quote}
``\ldots\  put down Democratic, but I never thought much about the party.
I don't vote for the party but for the best man."
\end{Quote}

Professed belief in political theories is no antidote for
personalization. {\em M117}, another ``low" man, regards himself as a
``scientific socialist" and is full of confidence in sociological
psychology. But when asked about American parties, he comes out
with the following statement:

\begin{Quote}
``I don't know about that. I'm only interested in the man and his
abilities. I don't care what party he belongs to. (What man do you
like?) F.D.R.\ is one of the greatest. I did not like him when he
was elected but I admit I was wrong. He did a marvelous job. He was
concerned with the benefit of the country. Truman is doing a good
job so far. The senators and congressmen are run-of-the-mill. Dewey
%% 670     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
is outstanding, I think; he has potentialities. He is apparently
sincere and honest and concerned with the whole country. He did a
good job as District Attorney."
\end{Quote}

More aspects of personalization will be described when our interviewees'
attitudes towards Roosevelt are under consideration. Here, we content
ourselves with suggesting two qualities which seem to play a great
role in the personalization complex and which recur regularly in
our high scorers' statements about Dewey: Honesty and Sincerity.

{\em F114}, a high-scoring woman, knows that Dewey ``is strong,
young, courageous, honest. He may have faults, but they're useful
faults. I felt he was a strong, young person." Obviously, this
statement is linked to the adulation of strength that plays so large
a role in the psychology of our high scorers (cf.\ Chapter VII). The
honesty of the former D.A.\ is derived from his much-advertised drive
against political racketeering and corruption. He is supposed to
be honest because he has exterminated, according to his propagandist
build-up, the dishonest. Honesty seems largely to be a rationalization
for vindictiveness. Speaking psychologically, the image of Dewey
is a projection of the punitive superego, or rather one of those
collective images which replace the superego in an externalized,
rigid form. The praise of his honesty, together with the repeated
emphasis on his strength and youth, fall within the ``strong man"
pattern.

{\em F117}, another high scorer, of the Professional Women group,
has a maximal score on A--S and is generally extremely conservative.
Her similarly personalized appraisal of Dewey strikes a slightly
different note but fits within the same pattern:

\begin{Quote}
She feels that Dewey knows the value of money better than Roosevelt,
because he came from a family that did not have too much.
\end{Quote}
\noindent
The punitiveness behind the praise of the honest man shows itself
in this example as hatred against comfortable living, against the
``snobbish upper class" who supposedly enjoy the things which one
has to deny to oneself. Dewey, {\em per contra}, is the symbol of one's
own frustrations and is unconsciously, i.e., sadomasochistically,
expected to perpetuate frustration. What he seems to stand for
within the minds of the high-scoring subjects is a state of affairs
in which everybody has ``learned the value of a dollar." Identification
with him is easy because as a prospective President he has the halo
of power whereas his frugality is that of the middle-class subject
herself.

Perhaps it is not accidental that infatuation with honesty is
particularly frequent among women. They see life from the consumer's
side; they do not want to be cheated, and therefore the noisy promise
of honesty has some appeal to them.

As to the differentiation between high and low scorers with regard
to personalization, an impression may tentatively be formulated
which is hard to substantiate but consistent with our clinical
findings. The element of 
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    671
personalization that counts most heavily with the low scorers seems
to be confidence, the idea that public figures are good, friendly
fathers who take care of one, or of the ``underdog." It seems to be
derived from an actual life relationship to one's parents, from
unblocked positive transference. This observation will be given
relief when the attitude of our subjects towards Roosevelt is
discussed. Conversely, the personal trait most appreciated by the
high scorer seems to be strength. Social power and control, the
ultimate focus of their identification, is translated by the
personalization mechanism into a quality inherent in certain
individuals. The symbols of the powers that be are drawn from the
imagery of a stern father to whom one ``looks up."

One last aspect of personalization may be mentioned. To know something
about a person helps one to seem ``informed" without actually going
into the matter: it is easier to talk about names than about issues,
while at the same time the names are recognized identification marks
for all current topics. Thus, spurious personalization is an ideal
behavior pattern for the semi-erudite, a device somewhere in the
middle between complete ignorance and that kind of ``knowledge" which
is being promoted by mass communication and industrialized culture.

To sum up: ever more anonymous and opaque social processes make it
increasingly difficult to integrate the limited sphere of one's
personal life experience with objective social dynamics. Social
alienation is hidden by a surface phenomenon in which the very
opposite is being stressed: personalization of political attitudes
and habits offers compensation for the dehumanization of the social
sphere which is at the bottom of most of today's grievances. As
less and less actually depends on individual spontaneity in our
political and social organization, the more people are likely to
cling to the idea that the man is everything and to seek a substitute
for their own social impotence in the supposed omnipotence of great
personalities.

\subsubsection*{3. Surface Ideology And Real Opinion}

The alienation between the political sphere and the life experience
of the individual, which the latter often tries to master by
psychologically determined intellectual makeshifts such as stereotypy
and personalization, sometimes results in a gap between what the
subject professes to think about politics and economy and what he
really thinks. His ``official" ideology conforms to what he supposes
he {\em has} to think; his real ideas are an expression of his more
immediate personal needs as well as of his psychological urges. The
``official" ideology pertains to the objectified, alienated sphere
of the political, the ``real opinion" to the subject's own sphere,
and the contradiction between the two expresses their irreconcilability.

Since this formal structure of political thinking has an immediate
bearing upon one of the key phenomena of susceptibility to fascism,
namely upon pseudo-conservatism, it may be appropriate to offer a
few examples here.

%% 672     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

{\em F116}, a prejudiced woman of the University Extension Group,
offers an example of a conflict between surface ideology and real
attitude through her
somewhat deviate pattern of scale scores: she is middle on E and F
but low on PEC. In her case, the deeper determinants are doubtless
potentially fascist as evidenced particularly by her strong racial
prejudice against both Negroes and Jews. In other political issues
the picture is highly ambivalent. Characteristically,
she classes herself as a Democrat, but voted for Willkie and then
for Dewey. She ``wasn't against Roosevelt," but her statement that
``no man is indispensable" thinly veils her underlying hostility. She

\begin{Quote}
\noindent
``knew what Hoover stood for, and I had no use for him. But that
didn't mean I had to worship Roosevelt. He was a good man, but when
I heard people weeping and wailing over his death, I was just
disgusted. As though he were indispensable."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
The amazing irregularity is an emphatically pro-Russian statement
and an outspokenly antifascist attitude in international politics:

\begin{Quote}
``Now, I am a great admirer of Russia. Perhaps I shouldn't say it
out loud, but I am. I think they are really trying to do something
for all the people. Of course there was a lot of suffering and
bloodshed but think of what they had to struggle against. My husband
really gets disturbed about this. He says I ought to go to Russia
if I like communism so much. He says that to admire communism is
to want a change and he thinks it is very wrong for me to even sound
as though I wanted any change when we have enough and are comfortable
and are getting along all right. I tell him that is very selfish
and also that some people under the Czar might have felt that way
but when the situation got so bad there was a revolution they got
wiped out too. (American Communists?) Well, I couldn't say because
I don't really know anything about them.

``I don't hold the United States blameless. I think we have lots of
faults. We talk now as though we had always hated war and tried to
stop this one. That isn't true. There were ways to stop this war
if they had wanted to. I remember when Mussolini moved on Ethiopia.
I always think of that as the real beginning of this war. And we
were not interested in stopping that. My husband doesn't like me
to criticize the United States."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
The frequent interspersion of this statement with reference to
disagreements with her husband, from whom she is ``very much different
politically" and with whom she has ``terrible arguments" leads us
to assume that her ``progressive" political views in areas apparently
not highly affect-laden by her are rationalizations of her strong
resentment of the man of whom she says ``I don't think we can live
for ourselves alone." One is tempted to hypothesize that she wants
him to get mad at her when she speaks in favor of Russia. In her
case, the broadmindedness and rationality of surface opinion seems
to be conditioned by strong underlying, repressed irrationalities:

\begin{Quote}
Interviewer did not have much success with very personal data. She
turned aside questions that came close to her deeper feelings. There
was no depth to the discussion of her husband.
\end{Quote}

\noindent
When it comes, however, to political topics which, for some reason
unexplored in the interview, really mean something to this subject,
she forgets all about her own rationality and gives vent to her
vindictiveness though with a bad conscience, as evidenced by her
previously quoted statement (Chapter XVI) that ``she is not very
proud of her anti-Semitic bias."

{\em M320}, of the University Extension Testing Class, is a low-scoring
man, hesitant, apologetic, shy, and unaggressive. He wants to become
a landscape architect. His political views are consciously liberal
and definitely non-prejudiced. He struggles to maintain his liberalism
continuously, but this is not easy for him with regard to certain
political matters, his impulses in many instances disavowing what
he states. He begins with the typical low scorer's statement:

\begin{Quote}
``I am afraid I don't have as many ideas about politics and government
as I should, but I think --- a lot of people are more liberal now than
they have been recently. Possibly some like the change that is
taking place in England --- I don't know."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
He first takes a mildly anti-strike attitude:

\begin{Quote}
``I don't know, I cannot see that, as just a straight demand, without
taking into consideration the company and its ties and all that. I
have not read much about that but \ldots\ in a large company\ldots\  
maybe they might be able to take it, all right, but in little shops
\ldots\ and if it did go through, and even if it did not have disastrous
(effects) on business closing \ldots\ price rises would make it come
out even anyway. I guess I am really not in favor of strikes but I
can see it just about\ldots\ ."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
Then he talks himself into a more definite stand against strikes,
introduced by the still democratic ``getting together" formula.

\begin{Quote}
``They ought to get together and give, maybe, a 20 per cent or 30
per cent raise, then maybe kinda split it \ldots\ and these strikes
\ldots\ just start at the wrong end \ldots\  because if the strike is
settled \ldots\ they still have to come to some sort of 
agreement \ldots\
and it's gonna be forced and men'll be driven \ldots\ I guess
human nature just is not that way but\ldots\ ."
\end{Quote}

The last statement, rather confused, actually belongs to the
high-scorer pattern concerning the inherent badness of human nature
(cf.\ Chapter VII).

After he has made this turn, he goes on with the usual high scorer's
condemnation of PAC, government control, etc., and ends up with an
ambivalent statement about minimum wage-hour legislation:

\begin{Quote}
``Well, things like that I guess if --- I guess they are necessary --- I guess
maybe I am an idealist --- I don't think there should have been a minimum
wage law because I think the employer should pay his employee a
living wage and if he cannot pay that, well, the person does not
have to work there but if the employer cannot pay that, he is not
going to stay in business\ldots\ ."
\end{Quote}

It is the general trend rather than any specific statement which
bears witness to the wish to be politically progressive and the
very definite changes of mind as soon as concrete issues are raised.
This man's ``political instincts" --- if this term is allowed --- are against
his official progressiveness. One might
%% 674     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
well infer from this observation that one can differentiate better
between political potentials by looking at deeper psychological
impulses than by looking at avowed ideology.

Something similar can be observed with the medium-scoring man {\em
M118}, of the Extension Psychology Class group, a registered Democrat.
He was middle on A--S but low on F and low-middle on E. It is the
interviewer's impression that he is potentially ``low" but that
certain personality factors prevent him from going all the way. The
exceptional aspect about him may well be explained through the
conflict between different opinional layers. In terms of ``big" and
comparatively abstract political issues, he comes out with a
``progressive" statement.

\begin{Quote}
``There is a trend toward socialism, I don't know how modified. The
conflict between labor and business will probably be mediated by
the government. The government will probably hold the balance of
power in labor-business conflicts. The emphasis now is on free
enterprise but that often results in monopoly, the big concerns
squeezing the little guys to death. There is too much of a gap
between the rich and the poor. People climb up by pushing others
down, with no regulation. For this reason, government should have
more influence, economically, whether or not it goes as far as
socialism."
\end{Quote}

The interviewer happened to ride with the subject from Berkeley to
San Francisco and continued the discussion in a more informal,
unofficial way, touching the subject matter of unionism. In this
context a classic example of the gap between official ideology and
political thinking in terms of one's own immediate interests occurred:

\begin{Quote}
He thinks the C.I.O.\ is better than the A.F.\ of L.\ and he thinks
that unions ought to extend their functions even more in political
and educational and higher management brackets, but he himself won't
join the Federal Workers Union which he would be eligible to join
because he feels they are not enough concerned with the problems
of the higher level incomes, that they are too much interested in
keeping the wages of the poorer groups above a certain minimum. He
wishes they would be concerned with promotions and upgrading and
developing good criteria by which people could be promoted.
\end{Quote}

The Canadian {\em M934}, again a ``medium" of the Public Speaking Class,
is studying to become a minister. He calls himself ``very far over
on the left wing" but qualifies this immediately by the statement:

\begin{Quote}
``\ldots\ I'm of a practical nature and I would not vote for the
socialists \ldots\ especially if I thought they would get in."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
To him, the practical is irreconcilable with socialism. The latter
is all right as an idea, as a stimulant, as it were, but heaven
forbid that it should materialize.

\begin{Quote}
``I would vote \ldots\ only to maintain socialist opposition \ldots\ to
keep the existing government from going too far to the right \ldots\  
but don't think they have the
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    675
experience to \ldots\ put their socialist program into effect \ldots\  
and I think their program has to be modified."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
He praises the British Labour Government but actually only because
it has not carried through a socialist program, an abstinence
interpreted by the interviewee as a sign of ``political experience."

\begin{Quote}
``Well \ldots\ I think they were ready for the job \ldots\ aren't trying
to change social order in one fell swoop \ldots\ I think that is an
evidence of their maturity."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
This subject wants to be endowed with the prestige of a left-wing
intellectual while at the same time, as an empirical being, he is
manifestly afraid of a concrete materialization of ideas to which
he subscribes in the abstract.

It is hardly accidental that in these cases the overt ideology is
always progressive, the real opinion of an opposite character. This
would seem to have something to do with established democracy in
this country, which makes the expression of democratic ideas the
thing to be done, while the opposite is, in a certain way, unorthodox.
There is reason to believe that the fascist potential today shows
itself largely in the maintenance of traditional ideas which may
be called either liberal or conservative, whereas the underlying
``political instinct," fed largely by unconscious forces of the
personality, is completely different. This will be elaborated in
the following section.

%%% arun
\subsubsection*{4. Pseudo-conservatism}

Our analysis of the questionnaire findings on PEC (Chapter V) has
led to a differentiation between those who are high on PEC but low
on E, and those who are high on both. This distinction was interpreted
in terms of genuine and pseudo-conservatives, the former supporting
not only capitalism in its liberal, individualistic form but also
those tenets of traditional Americanism which are definitely
anti-repressive and sincerely democratic, as indicated by an unqualified
rejection of anti-minority prejudices. Our interview material allows
us to give more relief to this construct and also to qualify it in
certain respects. Before we go into some details of the
pseudo-conservative's ideology, we should stress that our assumption
of a pseudo-conservative pattern of ideology is in agreement with
the total trend of our psychological findings. The idea is that the
potentially fascist character, in the specific sense given to this
concept through our studies, is not only on the overt level but
throughout the make-up of his personality a pseudo-conservative
rather than a genuine conservative. The psychological structure
that corresponds to pseudo-conservativm is conventionality and
authoritarian submissiveness on the ego level, with violence,
anarchic impulses, and chaotic destructiveness in the unconscious
sphere. These contradictory trends are borne out particularly in
those sections of our study where the range between the two poles
of the unconscious and the conscious is widest, above all, where
the T.A.T.\ is considered in relation to the clinical parts of the
interviews. Traits such as 
%% 676     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
authoritarian aggressiveness and vindictiveness may be regarded as
intermediary between these antagonistic trends of the prejudiced
personality. When turning to ideology which belongs in the context
of psychological determinants here under discussion, to the realm
of rationalization, it should be remembered that rationalizations
of ``forbidden" impulses, such as the drive for destruction, never
completely succeed. While rationalization emasculates those urges
which are subject to taboos, it does not make them disappear
completely but allows them to express themselves in a ``tolerable,"
modified, indirect way, conforming to the social requirements which
the ego is ready to accept. Hence even the overt ideology of
pseudo-conservative persons is by no means unambiguously conservative,
as they would have us believe, not a mere reaction-formation against
underlying rebelliousness; rather, it indirectly admits the very
same destructive tendencies which are held at bay by the individual's
rigid identification with an externalized super-ego. This break-through
of the nonconservative element is enhanced by certain supra-individual
changes in today's ideology in which traditional values, such as
the inalienable rights of each human being, are subject to a rarely
articulate but nevertheless very severe attack by ascendant forces
of crude repression, of virtual condemnation of anything that is
deemed weak. There is reason to believe that those developmental
tendencies of our society which point into the direction of some
more or less fascist, state capitalist organization bring to the
fore formerly hidden tendencies of violence and discrimination in
ideology. All fascist movements officially employ traditional ideas
and values but actually give them an entirely different, anti-humanistic
meaning. The reason that the pseudo-conservative seems to be such a
characteristically modern phenomenon is not that any new psychological
element has been added to this particular syndrome, which was
probably established during the last four centuries, but that
objective social conditions make it easier for the character structure
in question to express itself in its avowed opinions. It is one of
the unpleasant results of our studies, which has to be faced squarely,
that this process of social acceptance of pseudo-conservatism has
gone a long way --- that it has secured an indubitable mass basis. In
the opinions of a number of representative high scorers, ideas both
of political conservatism and traditional liberalism are frequently
neutralized and used as a mere cloak for repressive and ultimately
destructive wishes. The pseudo-conservative is a man who, in the
name of upholding traditional American values and institutions and
defending them against more or less fictitious dangers, consciously
or unconsciously aims at their abolition.

The pattern of pseudo-conservatism is unfolded in the interviewer's
description of {\em M109}, another high-scoring man, a semi-fascist
parole officer:

\begin{Quote}
On his questionnaire, this man writes down ``Republican" as the
political party of his preference, and then scratches it out. He
agrees with the anti-New Deal Democrats and the Willkie-type
Republicans and disagrees with the New Deal
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    677
Democrats and the traditional Republicans. This is cleared up in
his interview when he says that the party does not mean anything,
the candidate is the thing.\footnote{%
Personalization, as indicated by these sentences, has an obvious
fascist potential. It enhances the individual as against any objective
anonymous system of checks and balances, against democratic control.
Behind the adulation of the ``great man" looms, in the present
situation, the readiness to ``follow the leader." (Note by Adorno).}

Asked what is his conception of the Willkie-type Republican, he
says he thinks of the Willkie supporters as the same as the Dewey
supporters. Big business favored both Willkie and Dewey.

The score 67 on PEC is high-middle. An examination of the individual
items seems to show that he is not a true conservative in the sense
of the rugged individual. True, he agrees with most of the PEC
items, going to plus 3 on the Child-should-learn-the-value-of-the-dollar
and the Morgan and Ford items, but marking most of the others plus
1 or plus 2, but, be it noted, he does not agree that depressions
are like headaches, that businessmen are more important than artists
and professors; and he believes the government should guarantee
everybody an income, that there should be increased taxes on
corporations and wealthy individuals, and that socialized medicine
would be a good thing. He goes to plus 3 on the last item. Thus,
it appears that he favors some kind of social function on the part
of the government, but believes that the control should be in the
proper hands. This is cleared up by the interview. Before becoming
a policeman 6 1/2 years ago, this man was in the hospital insurance
business. He says he had first to battle with the
A.M.A.,\footnote{{\em A.M.A.}: American Medical Association} 
who did
not favor any kind of medical insurance; and later he thought it
wise to give up the business because state medicine was in the
offing.
\end{Quote}
\noindent
In summing up his position concerning medical insurance, he says:

\begin{Quote}
``I like the collectiveness of it, but believe private business could
do it better than the government. The doctors have butchered the
thing and the politicians would do worse. People need this sort of
thing and I like it in theory if it is run right."
\end{Quote}

Thus it becomes clear, according to the interviewer, that he has
some kind of collectivistic value system but believes that the
control should be in the hands of the group with whom he can identify
himself. This is clearly the Ford and Morgan sort of group rather
than labor unions which he opposes.

The decisive thing about this man is that he has, in spite of his
general reactionism and his all-pervasive ideas of power --- which are
evidenced by most of the other sections of the interview --- socialistic
leanings. This, however, does not refer to socialism in the sense
of nationalizing the means of production but to his outspoken though
inarticulate wish that the system of free enterprise and competition
should be replaced by a state-capitalist integration where the
economically strongest group, that is to say, heavy industry, takes
control and organizes the whole life process of society without
further interference by democratic dissension or by groups whom he
regards as being in control only on account of the process of formal
democracy, but not on the basis of the ``legitimate" real economic
power behind them.

This ``socialist," or rather, pseudo-socialist, element of
pseudo-conservatism, actually defined only by anti-liberalism, serves
as the democratic cloak for anti-democratic wishes. Formal democracy
seems to this kind of thinking to
%% 678     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
be too far away from ``the people," and the people will have their
right only if the ``inefficient" democratic processes are substituted
by some rather ill-defined strong-arm system.

{\em M651A}, another high-scoring man, a San Quentin prisoner,
convicted of
first-degree murder, is a good example of pseudo-democratism as a
particular aspect of pseudo-conservatism.

\begin{Quote}
(What do you think of political trends today?) ``We have got a
persecutor in California for governor \ldots\ don't put that in. They
call it a democracy \ldots\ democracy is the best type of government
but (inefficient)\ldots\ ."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
Subject criticizes President Roosevelt strongly, especially his
NRA.\footnote{{\em NRA}: National Recovery Adminstration.  Part of the
``New Deal" under Roosevelt.  Instituted minimum wages and maximum
weekly hours for workers.}
He mentions his father's being pushed out of a job partly
because of NRA, but he appears to be a little confused in this
reference:

\begin{Quote}
``Democracy is good when it is used right. I believe that too few
people control the money in the country. I don't believe in communism
\ldots\ but there is so many {\em little} people who never have
anything\ldots\ ."

Subject mentioned his grandmother's only receiving \$30 a month
pension\footnote{About \$250 in 2005.}  
which, he says, she cannot live on \ldots\ law ought to be
changed in that respect \ldots\ subject emphasizes the need of extending
old-age insurance to people too old to benefit by recent 
legislation.\ldots\footnote{%
This case is described in detail in Chapter XXI under the name
of ``Ronald." (Note by Adorno)}
\end{Quote}

An exceedingly serious dynamics is involved here. It cannot be
disputed that formal democracy, under the present economic system,
does not suffice to guarantee permanently, to the bulk of the
population, satisfaction of the most elementary wants and needs,
whereas at the same time the democratic form of government is
presented as if --- to use a favorite phrase of our subjects --- it were as
close to an ideal society as it could be. The resentment caused by
this contradiction is turned by those who fail to recognize its
economic roots against the form of democracy itself. Because it
does not fulfill what it promises, they regard it as a ``swindle"
and are ready to exchange it for a system which sacrifices all
claims to human dignity and justice, but of which they expect vaguely
some kind of a guarantee of their lives by better planning and
organization. Even the most extreme concept of the tradition of
American democracy is summoned by the pseudo-conservative way of
political thinking: the concept of revolution. However, it has
become emasculated. There is only a vague idea of violent change,
without any concrete reference to the people's aims involved --- moreover,
of a change which has in common with revolution only the aspect of
a sudden and violent break but otherwise looks rather like an
administrative measure. This is the spiteful, rebellious yet
intrinsically passive idea which became famous after the former
Prince of Wales visited the distressed areas of North England: the
idea that ``something should be done about it." It occurs literally
in the interview of the high-scoring woman, {\em F105}, a 37-year-old
crippled, frustrated housewife with
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL       679
strong paranoid traits. She had voted for Roosevelt every time
because ``I just decided I'd be a Democrat." Asked why, she continues
as follows:

\begin{Quote}
``I don't know. I'm just primarily against capitalism, and the
Republicans are capitalistic. The Democrats have tried to give the
working class a break. Father has voted for Thomas\footnote{Norman
Thomas, six-time candidate for President for the Socialist Party of
America.}
for years. He
thinks eventually the world will come to that. But he's never made
an issue of it. (Are your ideals a reflection of his attitude?) Oh,
it could be. I'm not conscious of it. I voted as soon as I was able
to. (What do you think will happen after the war?) Probably the
Republicans will be in again. I think the American public is a very
changing type. Probably I'll change too. The world's in such a
chaotic mess, something should be done. We're going to have to learn
to live with one another, the whole world."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
The phoniness of this subject's supposed progressiveness comes out
in the section on minorities where she proves to be a rabid
anti-Semite.

In order to guess the significance of the dull wish of this woman
for a radical change it has to be confronted with the stand another
pseudo-conservative takes, the violently anti-Semitic San Quentin
inmate, {\em M661A}, a robber. He plays, according to the interviewer,
the bored decadent satiated with ``too much experience" and derives
from this attitude a fake aristocratic ideology which serves as a
pretext for violent oppression of those whom he deems weak. He pays
``very little attention to politics, except that I think we are
headed for communism, and I am thumbs down on it." Asked why, he
comes forward with the following confession:

\begin{Quote}
``For one thing, I have never forgiven the Russians for the revolution.
\ldots\ I consider them murders and not assassinations and I haven't
forgiven Russia any more than I have forgiven France for her
revolution, or Mexico \ldots\ in other words, I still believe in the
Old Order and I believe we were happiest under Hoover and should
have kept him. I think I would have had more money under him too
and I don't believe in inheritance taxes. If I earn \$100,000 by
the sweat of my brow,\footnote{About \$800,000 in 2005.} 
I ought to be able to leave it to whomever I
please. I guess I really don't believe that all men are created
free and equal."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
While he still accepts the traditional critique of government
interference in the name of rugged individualism, he would favor
such government control if it were exercised by the strong. Here
the criminal is in complete agreement with the aforementioned 
(p.\  676) parole officer, {\em M109}:

\begin{Quote}
(What about government controls over business?) ``I half-approve. I
certainly think that somebody should be over\ldots\ . I believe in
government control because it makes it less of --- I really don't believe
in democracy; if we know somebody's at the helm, we can't have
revolutions and things. But I have never read much on politics and
I don't think I have a right to say much."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
That the idea of the ``right people" is actually behind {\em M661A's}
political philosophy is shown by his explanation of why he objects
to all revolutions:

\begin{Quote}
``They overthrow the established order \ldots\ and they are always
made by people who never had anything \ldots\  I've never seen a communist
who came from the right strata of society \ldots\  I did read George
Bernard Shaw's (book on socialism)."\footnote{Bernard Shaw {\em The
Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism}.}
\end{Quote}
%% 68o     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

One may differentiate between two kinds of pseudo-conservatives:
those who profess to believe in democracy and are actually
anti-democratic, and those who call themselves conservative while
surreptitiously indulging in subversive wishes. This differentiation,
however, is somewhat rationalistic. It does not amount to much,
either in terms of psychological motivations or of actual political
decision. It seems to pertain merely to thin rationalizations: the
core of the phenomenon is both times identical. The just-quoted
{\em 661A} belongs to the pseudo-conservative group in the narrower
sense and so does {\em M105}, a prelaw student high on all scales,
who stresses his conservative background while admitting overt
fascist leanings:

\begin{Quote}
``Naturally, I get my Republican sentiments from my parents. But
recently I have read more for myself, and I agree with them\ldots\ .
We are a conservative family. We hate anything to do with socialism.
My father regretted that he voted for F.D.R.\ in 1932. Father wrote
to Senator Reynolds of South Carolina about the Nationalist
Party.\footnote{Senator Bob Reynolds (1884--1963) outspoken defender
of fascism. Senator from 1932--44.}
It's not America First, it's not really isolationist, but we believe
that our country is being sold down the river."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
The overt link between father-fixation as discussed in the clinical
chapters (Part II) and authoritarian persuasions in politics should
be stressed. He uses a phrase familiar with fascists when they were
faced with the defeat of Germany and the German system and yet
somehow wished to cling to their negative Utopia.

\begin{Quote}
``America is fighting the war but we will lose the peace if we win
the war. I can't see what I can possibly get out of it."
\end{Quote}

Conversely, a striking example of pseudo-democratism in the narrower
sense is offered at the beginning of the political section of the
interview of the high-scoring man {\em M108}, a strongly fascistic
student of insect toxicology, discussed in the chapter on typology
as representative of the extreme ``manipulative" syndrome. He is
against Roosevelt, against the New Deal, and against practically
any social humanitarian idea. At the next moment, however, he says
he did feel that he was ``somewhat of a socialist."

This is literally the pattern by which the German Nazis denounced
the Weimar Republic in the name of authority unchecked by democratic
control, exalted the sacredness of private property, and simultaneously
inserted the word socialist into the vernacular of their own party.
It is obvious that this kind of ``socialism," which actually amounts
merely to the curtailment of individual liberties in the name of
some ill-defined collectivity, blends very well with the desire for
authoritarian control as expressed by those who style themselves
as conservatives. Here the overt incompatibility between private
interests (what he ``gets out of it") and objective political logic
(the certainty of an Allied victory) is by hook and crook put into
the service of pro-fascist postwar defeatism. No matter how it goes,
democracy must lose. Psychologically, the destructive ``impending
doom" pattern is involved.

%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    681

This defeatism is characteristic of another trait of pseudo-conservative
political philosophy: sympathy with the fascist enemy, Hitler's
Germany. This is easily rationalized as humane magnanimity and even
as the democratic wish to give everybody a fair deal. It is the
fifth-column mentality on which Hitlerian propaganda in democratic
countries drew heavily before the war and which has by no means
been uprooted.

{\em M106}, a college student high on all scales, fairly rational
in many respects, seems at first sight to be critical of Germany.
By tracing grandiloquently the sources of German fascism to supposedly
profound historical roots, largely invented themselves by fascist
propaganda, however, he slips into an apologetic attitude:

\begin{Quote}
``German people have always been aggressive, have loved parades,
have always had a big army. They received an unfair peace after the
last war. The treaty of Versailles was obviously unfair to them,
and because they were hard up, they were willing to listen to a
young man like Hitler when he came along. If there had been a better
peace, there'd be no trouble now. Hitler came along with promises,
and people were willing to go for him. They had huge unemployment,
inflation, and so on."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
The legend of the ``unjust" treaty of Versailles must feed on
tremendous psychological resources --- unconscious guilt feelings against
the established symbol of prowess --- in non-German countries: otherwise
it could not have survived the Hitlerian war. That this subject's
explanations of Hitler really mean sympathy is evidenced by a
subsequent statement on Hitler's policy of exterminating the Jews,
already quoted in Chapter XVI:

\begin{Quote}
``Well, Hitler, carried things just a little too far. There was some
justification --- some are bad, but not all. But Hitler went on the idea
that a rotten apple in the barrel will spoil all the rest of them."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
Still, even this subject clings to the democratic cloak and refrains
from overt fascism. Asked about the Jews in this country he answers:

\begin{Quote}
``Same problem but it's handled much better, because we're a democratic
country."
\end{Quote}

While pseudo-conservatism is, of course, predominantly a trait of
high scorers, it is by no means lacking among low scorers. This
pertains particularly to the apologetic attitude toward the Nazis.
Thus, {\em F133}, a woman low on prejudice though high on F, a young
student of mathematics, calls herself ``rather conservative." Her
``official" ideology is set against bigotry. But referring to her
Irish descent, she resents the English and this leads her to
pro-German statements which, in harmony with her F score, more than
merely hint at underlying fascist leanings:

\begin{Quote}
``I am prejudiced against England. England gave a dirty deal to the
Irish people. England says the Nazis are black and Russia is white,
but I think England is black. She goes around conquering people and
is not just at all; and I am opposed to
%% 682     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
Russia. It is true that they took up the cause of the people, but
on the whole they are not right, and their type of government is
inferior to ours. (What about the Nazis?) The Germans lost everything;
they just got hopeless. I don't believe in dividing Germany just
in order to make Russia and England richer. It isn't true that
Germany started the war --- for war two people are necessary. It is not
fair to put all the burden on one nation. The Germans will only
feel more persecuted and fight more. One should leave the Germans
to themselves. There is much too much emphasis on how cruel the
Nazis are. The Germans did not have a just peace. We can't put our
own Nazi regime in to run the Germans. The Russians will cause the
next war. The devastation in Germany has been just too great. I am
pessimistic because people believe that everybody is bad who is
down, and those are good who are strong, and the strong ones cut
in pieces the one who is down, and they are just
practical and not just."
\end{Quote}

The decisive shift occurs when the subject, after demanding ``fairness"
with regard to the problem of war guilt, protests against ``too much
emphasis" on Nazi atrocities.

\paragraph{\sc Excursus On The Meaning Of Pseudo-conservatism.}
The introduction of
the term pseudo-conservative which may often be replaced by pseudo-liberal
and even pseudo-progressive, necessitates a brief theoretical
discussion of what is ``pseudo" about the subjects in question and
whether and to what extent the notion of genuine political ideologies
can be upheld. All these terms have to be handled with the utmost
caution and should never be hypostatized.\footnote{{\em hypostatize}:
treat or represent (something abstract) as a concrete reality.}
The distinction between
pseudo and genuine political ideologies has been introduced mainly
in order to avoid the pitfall of oversimplification, of identifying
the prejudiced person, and the prospective fascist in general, with
``reactionism." It has been established beyond any doubt that fascism
in terms of efficient organization and technological achievement
has many ``progressive" features. Moreover, it has been recognized
long before our study that the general idea of ``preserving the
American way of living," as soon as it assumes the features of
vigilantism, hides violently aggressive and destructive tendencies
which pertain both to overt political manifestations and to character
traits. However, it has to be emphasized that the idea of the
genuineness of an attitude or of behavior set against its ``overplaying,"
is somehow as problematic as that of, say, normality. Whether a
person is a genuine or a pseudo-conservative in overt political terms
can be decided only in critical situations when he has to decide
on his actions. As far as the distinction pertains to psychological
determinants, it has to be relativized. Since all our psychological
urges are permeated by identifications of all levels and types, it
is impossible ever completely to sever the ``genuine" from what is
``imitation." It would be obviously nonsensical to call ungenuine
those traits of a person which are based on the identification with
his father. The idea of an absolute individual {\em per se}, completely
identical with itself and with nothing else, is an empty abstraction.
There is no psychological borderline between the genuine and the
``assumed." Nor can the relation between the two ever
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    683
be regarded as a static one. Today's pseudo-conservative may become
the genuine conservative of tomorrow.

In the light of these considerations, it will be of some methodological
importance to formulate the distinction between ``genuine" and
``pseudo" with care. The simplest procedure, of course, would be to
define both concepts operationally in terms of cluster relationships
of the questionnaire and also of the interviews. One would have to
call roughly pseudo-conservative those who show blatant contradictions
between their acceptance of all kinds of conventional and traditional
values --- by no means only in the political sphere --- and their simultaneous
acceptance of the more destructive clusters of the F scale, such
as cynicism, punitiveness, and violent anti-Semitism. Yet, this
procedure is somewhat arbitrary and mechanical. At its best, it
would define the terms but never help to understand their implicit
etiology.\footnote{{\em etiology}: the cause, or set of causes, or
manner of causation of a disease or condition.}
It would be more satisfactory to base the distinction on
a psychological hypothesis that makes sense. An hypothesis that
might serve is one that takes as its point of departure the
differentiation between {\em successful or unsuccessful
identification}.
This would imply that the ``genuine" conservative characters would
be those who essentially or at least temporarily succeeded in their
identification with authoritarian patterns without considerable
carry-overs of their emotional conflicts --- without strong ambivalence
and destructive counter-tendencies. Conversely, the ``pseudo" traits
are characteristic of those whose authoritarian identification
succeeded only on a superficial level. They are forced to overdo
it continuously in order to convince themselves and the others that
they belong, to quote the revolution-hater of San Quentin, to the
right strata of society. The stubborn energy which they employ in
order to accept conformist values constantly threatens to shatter
these values themselves, to make them turn into their opposite,
just as their ``fanatical" eagerness to defend God and Country makes
them join lunatic fringe rackets and sympathize with the enemies
of their country.

Even this distinction, however, can claim only limited validity and
is subject to psychological dynamics. We know from Freud that the
identification with the father is always of a precarious nature and
even in the ```genuine" cases, where it seems to be well established,
it may break down under the impact of a situation which substitutes
the paternal superego by collectivized authority of the fascist
brand.

Yet, with all these qualifications, the distinction still can claim
some justification under present conditions. It may be permissible
to contrast the pseudo-conservatives so far discussed with a ``genuine"
conservative taken from the Los Angeles sample which, as pointed
out in Chapter I, included --- in contrast to the Berkeley sample --- a number
of actual or self-styled members of the upper class.

{\em F5008} is low on E, middle on F, and high on PEC. She is a
woman of old American stock, a direct descendant of Jefferson. She
is apparently free of
%% 684     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
any vindictive sense of her social status and lays no emphasis on
her good family or on her being a real member of the ``right strata
of society." She is definitely non-prejudiced. Her T.A.T.\ shows
traits of a somewhat neurotic overoptimism which may or may not be
a product of reaction-formation. One might venture that the ``genuine"
conservatives who still survive and whose number is probably
shrinking, may develop an increasingly bad conscience because they
become aware of the rapid development of important conservative
layers of American society into the direction of labor baiting and
race hatred. The more this tendency increases, the more the ``genuine"
conservative seems to feel compelled to profess democratic ideals,
even if they are somewhat incompatible with his own upbringing and
psychological patterns. If this observation could be generalized,
it would imply that the ``genuine" conservatives are more and more
driven into the liberal camp by today's social dynamics. This may
help to explain why it is so hard to find any striking examples for
genuine conservatism among high scorers.

If our assumption is correct, that pseudo-conservatism is based --- as
far as its psychological aspect is concerned --- on incomplete identification,
it becomes understandable why it is linked to a trait which also
plays a considerable role within the pattern of conventionality:
identification with higher social groups. The identification that
failed is probably in most cases that with the father. Those people
in whom this failure does not result in any real antagonism to
authority, who accept the authoritarian pattern without, however,
internalizing it, are likely to be those who identify themselves
sociologically with higher social groups. This would be in harmony
with the fact that the fascist movement in Germany drew heavily on
frustrated middle-class people of all kinds: of those who had lost
their economic basis without being ready to admit their being {\em
d\'eclass\'e}; of those who did not see any chances for themselves
but the shortcut of joining a powerful movement which promised them
jobs and ultimately a successful war. This socioeconomic aspect of
pseudo-conservatism is often hard to distinguish from the psychological
one. To the prospective fascist his social identification is as
precarious as that with the father. At the social root of this
phenomenon is probably the fact that to rise by the means of ``normal"
economic competition becomes increasingly difficult, so that people
who want to ``make it" --- which leads back to the psychological
situation --- are
forced to seek other ways in order to be admitted into the ruling
group. They must look for a kind of ``co-optation," somewhat after
the fashion of those who want to be admitted to a smart club.
Snobbery, so violently denounced by the fascist, probably for reasons
of projection, has been democratized and is part and parcel of their
own mental make-up: who wants to make a ``career" must really rely
on ``pull and climbing" rather than on individual merit in business
or the professions. Identification with higher groups is the
presupposition for climbing, or at least appears so to the outsider,
whereas the ``genuine" conservative group is utterly 
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    685
allergic to it. However, the man who often, in accordance with the
old Horatio Alger ideology, maintains his own ``upward social mobility"
draws from it at least some narcissistic gratifications and
felicitously anticipates internally a status which he ultimately
hopes to attain in reality.

Here two examples of high scorers may be quoted, both again taken
from the Los Angeles group.

{\em 5006}, an extreme high scorer on all scales, one of the few of our
interviewees who actually admitted that they want to kill the Jews
(see his interview in Chapter XVI, p.\ 636), is the grandson of a
dentist, whereas his father failed to become one, and he hopes
fervently to regain the grandfather's social status. As to the
problem of failure in identification, it is significant in this
case that the image of the father is replaced by that of the
grandfather --- just as the idea of ``having seen better times," of a
good family background clouded over by recent economic developments,
played a large role with the pre-fascist, post-inflation generation
in Germany.

{\em 5013}, who is also extremely high on all scales, describes her father
as a doctor, whereas he is actually a chiropractor --- a habit which
seems to be largely shared by the chiropractors themselves. If the
German example teaches anything and if our concept of semi-erudition
proves to be correct, one may expect that nonacademic ``scientists"
and ``doctors" are strongly attracted by the fascist
platform.\footnote{%
The role played by shady pseudo-medicine in Nazi Germany is
sociologically linked to the ascendence of {\em d\'eclass\'e}
intellectuals under National Socialism, psychologically to the
paranoid twist of Nazi ideology as well as of the personalities of
many leaders. There is a direct interconnection between the doctrine
of ``purity of blood" and the glorification of sundry purifiers of
the body. The first academic chair created by Hitler was one for
``natural healing." His own physician was a quack, Himmler's a
chiropractor, and Rudolf Hess encouraged all kinds of superstitious
approaches to medicine. It should be noted that analogous tendencies
make themselves felt in the American ``lunatic fringe." One of our
native crackpot agitators combines Jew-baiting with a ``health food"
campaign, directed against the {\em delikatessen} which are not
only denounced as being Jewish but also as unwholesome. The imagery
of Jewish food throughout the fascist ideology deserves careful
examination. (Note by Adorno)}

\subsubsection*{5. The Usurpation Complex}

The goal toward which the pseudo-conservative mentality strives --- diffusedly
and semi-consciously --- is to establish a dictatorship of the economically
strongest group. This is to be achieved by means of a mass movement,
one which promises security and privileges to the so-called ``little
man" (that is to say, worried members of the middle and lower middle
class who still cling to their status and their supposed independence),
if they join with the right people at the right time. This wish
appears throughout pseudo-conservative ideology in mirrored reflection.
Government by representation is accused of perverting democracy.
Roosevelt and the New Deal particularly are said to have usurped
power and to have entrenched themselves dictatorially. Thus
%% 686     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
pseudo-conservatives accuse the progressives of the very thing which
they would like to do, and they utilize their indictment as a pretext
for ``throwing the rascals out." They call for a defense of democracy
against its ``abuses" and would, through attacking the ``abuses,"
ultimately abolish democracy altogether. Pseudo-conservative ideology
harmonizes completely with psychological projectivity.

One may well ask why people so concerned with power, if they really
see the Roosevelt policy as a strong-armed dictatorship, do not
endorse it and feel happy about it. The reasons, it would seem, are
several. First, the social types representative of pseudo-conservatism
are not or do not regard themselves as beneficiaries of the New
Deal. It appears to them as a government for the unemployed and for
labor; and even if they themselves received some benefits from 
WPA\footnote{{\em WPA}: Works Progress Administration (1935--40).
Largest New Deal agency, employing millions of people and affecting
every locality.}
or the closed shop, they are resentful about it because this
demonstrates to them what they are least willing to admit: that
their belonging to the middle classes has lost its economic foundation.
Second, to them, the Roosevelt administration never was really
strong enough. They sense very well the degree to which the New
Deal was handicapped by the Supreme Court and by Congress; they
know or have an inkling of the concessions Roosevelt had to make ---
he had to give conspicuous jobs to several men opposed to his
political line, e.g., Jesse Jones\footnote{Jesse Jones, US Secretary
of Commerce (1940--45)}; 
they cry ``dictator" because they
realize that the New Deal was no dictatorship at all and that it
did not fit within the authoritarian pattern of their over-all
ideology. Thirdly, their idea of the strong man, no matter in what
glowing personalized terms it may be expressed, is colored by an
image of real strength: the backing of the most powerful industrial
groups. To them, progressives in the government are real usurpers,
not so much because they have acquired by shrewd and illegal
manipulation rights incompatible with American democracy, but rather
because they assume a power position which should be reserved for
the ``right people." Pseudo-conservatives have an underlying sense
of ``legitimacy": legitimate rulers are those who are actually in
command of the machinery of production --- not those who owe their
ephemeral power to formal political processes. This last motif,
which also plays a heavy role in the prehistory of German fascism,
is to be taken the more seriously because it does not altogether
contradict social reality. As long as democracy is really a formal
system of political government which made, under Roosevelt, certain
inroads into economic fields but never touched upon the economic
fundamentals, it is true that the life of the people depends on the
economic organization of the country and, in the last analysis, on
those who control American industry, more than on the chosen
representatives of the people. Pseudo-conservatives sense an element
of untruth in the idea of ``their" democratic government, and realize
that they do not really determine their fate as social beings by
going to the polls. Resentment of this state of affairs, however,
is not directed against the dangerous contradiction between economic
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    687
inequality and formal political equality but against the democratic
form as such. Instead of trying to give to this form its adequate
content, they want to do away with the form of democracy itself and
to bring about the direct control of those whom they deem the most
powerful anyway.

This background of the dictatorship idea, that democracy is no
reality under prevailing conditions, may be evidenced by two
quotations from medium-scoring men. {\em M1223h} follows up his
statement that the Democrats are going communistic and that the
unions should be curbed, by the statement, ``The people aren't running
the country."

{\em M1225a} speaks cautiously about democracy: ``It's supposed to
be a government of the people by representation."

Asked whether we had it in this country he answers bluntly: No, but
qualifies this immediately with the statement --- a pretty standardized
one --- ``We have as close to it as there is."

Similarly, {\em M1223h} qualifies his critique by the contention
that ``America is still fairly democratic but going away from democracy
too fast."

The contradictory utterances of these two men, apart from wishful
thinking, indicate that they are perturbed by the antagonism between
formal political democracy and actual social control. They just
reach the point where they see this antagonism. They did not dare,
however, to explain it but rather retract their own opinions in
order not to become ``unrealistic." Conformism works as a brake on
their political thinking.

A few examples of the usurpation fantasy proper follow.

{\em M208}, who obtained a middle score on E and F and a high score on
PEC, insists, according to his interviewer,

\begin{Quote}
that President Roosevelt lost the popular vote by several thousand
votes, according to counts he and his father made following the
news reports over the radio, implying that the official count had
been incorrect.
\end{Quote}
\noindent
While this man is for ``initiative and competition, against government
bungling and inefficiencies," he has boundless confidence in social
control exercised by the proper organization:
\begin{Quote}
``The best organizations for a citizen to belong to in order to
influence the conditions in his community are local Chambers of
Commerce. By improving your city, you make it attractive and create
wealth." He said the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce was something
he belonged to and his organization would send out postcards very
soon to every single individual in the city in a huge membership
drive.
\end{Quote}

{\em M656}, a high-scoring prison inmate (grand theft and forgery), was
interviewed shortly after President Roosevelt's death and when
asked what he regarded as the greatest danger facing this country,
said

\begin{Quote}
``the government we just had, the one that brought on the war, the
Nazi-dictatorship."
\end{Quote}

%% 688     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

The high-scoring man {\em M108}, the aforementioned insect toxicologist,
is convinced that Roosevelt only carried out Hoover's ideas, a
statement not infrequent among prejudiced subjects who regard the
New Deal as usurpation in so far as it has ``stolen" its ideas from
its opponents. Asked further about Roosevelt, he goes on:
\begin{Quote}
``he usurped power that was necessary to do something --- he took a lot
more power than a lot\ldots\ . He has been in too long, and there
were deals on the fire that we don't know about with Churchill or
Stalin."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
In the end the usurper idea coincides with that of the conspirator
who makes ``secret deals" detrimental to his country.

The frequency and intensity of the usurper idea, together with the
fantastic nature of many of the pertinent assertions in our material
justifies our calling it a ``complex," that is to say, looking for
a widespread and stable psychological configuration on which this
idea feeds. As far as we know, no attention has been given to this
complex in psychological literature, though the frequency of
usurpation conflicts throughout occidental drama warrants the
assumption that there must be some deep-rooted basis in instinctual
dynamics for it. Suffice it to recollect that Shakespeare's most
famous tragedies: {\em Hamlet}, {\em King Lear}, {\em Macbeth}, {\em
Julius Caesar}, and
{\em Richard III} deal in one way or the other with usurpation, and that
the usurper theme runs as a red thread through the whole dramatic
work of Schiller, from Franz Moor in {\em The Robbers} to Demetrius.
On a socio-psychological level, that is to say comparatively abstractly
and superficially, an explanation is easy at hand. The existence
of power and privilege, demanding sacrifices of all those who do
not share in its advantages, provokes resentment and hurts deeply
the longing for equality and justice evolved throughout the history
of our culture. In the depth of his heart, everyone regards any
privilege as illegitimate. Yet one is forced continuously, in order
to get along in the world as it is, to adjust himself to the system
of power relationships that actually defines this world. This process
has been going on over the ages, and its results have become part
and parcel of today's personalities. This means that people have
learned to repress their resentment of privilege and to accept as
legitimate just that which is suspected of being illegitimate. But
since human sufferings from the survival of privilege have never
ceased, adjustment to it has never become complete. Hence the
prevailing attitude towards privileges is essentially ambivalent.
While it is being accepted consciously, the underlying resentment
is displaced unconsciously. This is done in such a way that a kind
of emotional compromise between our forced acceptance of the existence
of power, and resistance against it, is reached. Resentment is
shifted from the ``legitimate" representatives of power to those who
want to take it away from them, who identify themselves, in their
aims, with power but violate, at the same time, the code of existent
power relations. The ideal object of this
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    689
shift is the political usurper in whom one can denounce ``greed for
power" while at the same time taking a positive stand with regard
to established power. Still, sympathy with the usurper survives at
the bottom. It is the conflict between this sympathy and our displaced
aggressiveness which qualifies him for dramatic conflict.

There is reason to believe, however, that this line of thought does
not fully explain the usurper complex. Much more deep-lying, archaic
mechanisms seem to be involved. As a rule, the usurper complex is
linked with the problem of the family. The usurper is he who claims
to be the member of a family to which he does not belong, or at
least to pretend to rights due to another family. It may be noted
that even in the Oedipus legend, the usurper complex is involved
in so far as Oedipus believes himself to be the real child of his
foster-parents, and this error accounts for his tragic entanglement.
We venture, with all due reservation, the hypothesis that this has
something to do with an observation that can be made not infrequently:
that people are afraid of not really being the children of their
parents. This fear may be based on the dim awareness that the order
of the family, which stands for civilization in the form in which
we know it, is not identical with ``nature" that our biological
origin does not coincide with the institutional framework of marriage
and monogamy, that ``the stork brings us from the pond." We sense
that the shelter of civilization is not safe, that the house of the
family is built on shaky ground. We project our uneasiness upon the
usurper, the image of him who is not his parents' child, who becomes
psychologically a kind of ritualized, institutional ``victim" whose
annihilation is unconsciously supposed to bring us rest and security.
It may very well be that our tendency to ``look for the usurper" has
its origin in psychological resources as deep as those here suggested.

\subsubsection*{6. F.D.R.}

The usurpation complex is focused on Roosevelt, whose name evokes
the sharpest differences between high and low scorers that are to
be found in the interview material on politico-economic topics.

It hardly needs to be said that all the statements touching upon
the late president are personalized. The political issues involved
appear mainly as qualities of the man himself. He is criticized and
praised because he is this or that, not because he stands for this
or that. The most drastic accusation is that of war-monger. This
accusation often assumes the form of those conspiracy fantasies
which are so highly characteristic of the usurper complex.

The high-scoring man {\em M664c}, serving a San Quentin term of one
year for forgery and check writing, professes to have been originally
pro-Roosevelt.

\begin{Quote}
``Hell, at that (election) I was strong for Roosevelt, we had an
awful depression, one thing he'd done for that state he put that
dam there\ldots\ . We didn't need the war
%% 690     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
though. (Why did we get into it?) Started sending that iron over
to Japan and then helping England\ldots\ ."
\end{Quote}

The idea of the ``red Roosevelt" belongs to the same class of
objections and paranoid exaggerations of political antipathies.
Though much more common among subjects who score high on E and PEC,
it can sometimes be found in the statements of low scorers. Note
the remarks of {\em F140}, a young nursery school helper, rated
according to her questionnaire score as low on E but high on A--S
and PEC. She first refers to her father.

\begin{Quote}
(Is your father anti-Roosevelt?) ``Oh, sure he is. He just don't
have any use for Roosevelt. It's all communism that is what he says.
(And what do you think about it?) Oh, I don't know. I guess he's
right. He ought to know. That's all he thinks about --- politics --- politics."
\end{Quote}

Sometimes the suspicion that Roosevelt was a Russophile war-monger
is cloaked by legalistic argumentations, such as the statement that
he left the country illegally during the war.

{\em F101}, a woman who stands high on all scales, a somewhat
frustrated young college student, relates that her father is
``extremely anti-Roosevelt," and, when asked why, answers:

\begin{Quote}
``No president is supposed to leave the country without the consent
of Congress, and he goes whenever he feels like it. He is being a
little too dictatorial."
\end{Quote}

With regard to domestic politics, F359, the accountant in a government
department who was quoted before (Chapter XVI, p.\ 616), states quite
clearly and in fairly objective terms the contradiction which seems
at the hub of anti-Roosevelt sentiment:

\begin{Quote}
Subject did not like Roosevelt because of WPA. It creates a class
of lazy people who would rather get \$20 
a week\footnote{About \$160 in 2005.} 
than work. She feels
that Roosevelt did not accomplish what he set out to do --- raise the
standard of the poorer classes.
\end{Quote}

The conceptions of communist, internationalist, and war-monger are
close to another one previously mentioned --- that of the snob.
Just as the fascist agitator persistently mixes up radicals and
bankers, claiming that the latter financed the revolution and that
the former seek financial gains, the contradictory ideas of an
ultra-leftist and an exclusive person alienated from the people are
brought together by anti-Roosevelt sentiment. One may venture the
hypothesis that the ultimate content of both objections is the same:
the resentment of the frustrated middle-class person against those
who represent the idea of happiness, be it by wanting other people
--- even the ``lazy ones" --- to be happy, be it that they are
enjoying life themselves. This irrationality can be grasped better
on the level of personality than on that of ideology.


{\em M1223h}, of the Maritime School, with medium scores on E and
PEC, but high on F, does not like Roosevelt --- ``a socialite; got too
much power." 
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    691
Similarly, the high-scoring married woman {\em F117}, 37 years old,
employed in a Public Health Department,

\begin{Quote}
feels that Roosevelt does not know how to handle money; he was born
with a great deal. Now he throws it around --- ``millions here and millions
there."
\end{Quote}

This is the exact opposite of the praise of Dewey, whose more humble
origin is supposed to guarantee thriftiness. The ``democratic cloak"
of the pseudo-conservative consists, in cases like these, in the
assertion that measures taken for the benefit of the people cannot
be approved because the one who carried them out is not one of the
people and therefore, in a way, has no right to act in their behalf
--- he is a usurper. Really folksy men, one might suppose, would
rather let them starve.

The idea that the late President was too old and too ill, and that
the New Deal was decrepit plays a particular role among anti-Roosevelt
arguments. The dark forebodings about Roosevelt's death have come
true. Yet, one may suspect here a psychological element: the fear
of his death often rationalizes the wish for it. Moreover, the idea
of his supposed old age pertains to the illegitimacy complex: he
should give way to others, to the ``young generation," to fresh
blood. This is in keeping with the fact that German Nazism often
denounced the over-age of the representatives of the Weimar Republic,
and that Italian fascism heavily emphasized the idea of youth {\em per
se}. Ultimately, some light is shed on the whole complex of the
President's age and illness by our clinical findings, pertaining
to the tendency of our high scorers to praise physical health and
vigor as the outstanding quality of their parents, particularly of
the mother (pp.\ 340 ff.). This is due to the general ``externalization"
of values, the anti-intraceptiveness of the prejudiced personalities
who seem to be continuously afraid of illnesses. If there is an
interconnection between at least some syndromes of high scorers and
psychotic dispositions, one may also think of the disproportionate
role played by the concern with one's own body in many schizophrenics
--- a
phenomenon linked to the mechanisms of ``depersonalization"\footnote{%
Cf.\ Otto Fenichel (27). (Note by Adorno)}
which represents the extreme of the ``ego-alienness" of the id
characteristic of the high scoring subject. It should be remembered
once again how large a role was played by ideas such as physical
health, purity of the blood, and syphilophobia\footnote{{\em
syphilophobia}: fear of syphylis.} 
throughout fascist ideology.

{\em M104}, a high scoring young man of the Public Speaking Class,
who changed from studying engineering to law is an example:

\begin{Quote}
Subject would have voted for Dewey. The whole New Deal has become
very stagnant, old, and decrepit. He feels Roosevelt has done some
fine things, some of his experiments were about as good a cure as
you could get for the depression, but it is now time for a change
in party, a new President, younger blood.
\end{Quote}

As in most cases, the argument has, of course, a ``rational" aspect
too --- the Roosevelt government held office for a longer period than
any other
%% 692     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
one in American history. However, the complaints about ``too long"
are uttered only in the name of ``changing the guard," not in the
name of concrete progressive ideas which could be brought about by
younger people.

Resentment against old people has a psychological aspect by which
it seems to be linked to anti-Semitism. There is reason to believe
that some subjects displace their hostility against the father upon
aged persons and the notion of old age as such. Old people are, as
it were, earmarked for death. In accordance with this pattern, the
image of the Jew often bears features of the old man, thus allowing
for the discharge of repressed hostility against the father. Judaism
is regarded, not incidentally, as the religion of the father and
Christianity that of the son. The most emphatic stereotype of the
Jew, that of the inhabitant of the Eastern ghetto, bears attributes
of the old, such as the beard or worn and obsolete clothes.

Hostility for the aged has, to be sure, a sociological as well as
a psychological aspect: old people who cannot work any more are regarded
as useless and are, therefore, rejected. But this idea, like those
just discussed, has little immediate bearing upon the person of
Roosevelt; rather, they are transferred to him after aggression has
turned against him. The universally ambivalent role of the President
as a father figure thus makes itself felt.

As to those who are {\em in favor} of Roosevelt, there are two clear-cut
main motifs which are almost the reverse of those found in the
Roosevelt haters. The man ``who thinks too much of himself and assumes
dictatorial powers" is now praised as a great personality; the
leftist and initiator of the New Deal is loved as a friend of the underdog.

The ``great personality" motif appears in the statement of the
low-scoring
man, {\em M711}, an interviewer in government employment, with many
of the typical ``low" characteristics of mildness, gentleness, and
indecision.

\begin{Quote}
(Roosevelt) ``seemed to be the only man the country had produced
that seemed to have the qualifications for the assignment (of war).
\ldots\ I'd say his ability to get along with other people \ldots\ had
been pretty responsible in the unification of our country."
\end{Quote}

The young woman, {\em F726}, scores low on A--S and E, middle on F, and
high on PEC. She is studying journalism but actually is interested
in ``creative writing." She states

\begin{Quote}
that her brother-in-law can find so many things to criticize and,
of course, there are plenty. ``But I think the President is for the
underdog, and I've always been for the underdog."
\end{Quote}

The high-scoring man, {\em M102}, a student of seismology who went
to college
because he did not want to be ``lined up as just an electrician,"
praises Roosevelt's ``talent":

\begin{Quote}
``Well, if another candidate had approached Roosevelt, I'd have voted
for him. But, no other candidate approached his talent."
\end{Quote}

%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    693

{\em M106}, another high-scoring man, again characterized by upward
social mobility, is pro-Roosevelt for reasons that are just the
opposite of those given by one group of his critics for disliking
him, although he too suffers from the ``old age" complex.

\begin{Quote}
``Roosevelt has done a wonderful job but we should have a young man.
Roosevelt stabilized the nation's currency, helped on unemployment,
has handled foreign relations marvelously. He is a common man, goes
fishing, takes time for relaxation --- that's what I like. Mrs.\ Roosevelt
has been active in political and social affairs."
\end{Quote}

The explanation of the deviation of this highly prejudiced man, who
is beset by power ideas and objects to the Jews because they
supposedly strive for power, is that he himself

\begin{Quote}
``had infantile paralysis, and you appreciate what Roosevelt has
done."
\end{Quote}

The inference may be allowed that if the same man is praised by
some people as a ``common man" and by others blamed as a ``socialite,"
these judgments express subjective value scales rather than objective
facts.

The established status of a President of the United States, the
irrefutable success of Roosevelt, and, one may add, his tremendous
impact as a symbolic father figure on the unconscious, seem in more
cases than this particular one to check the usurper complex of the
pseudo-conservative and allow only for vague attacks about which
there is something half-hearted, as if they were being made with a
bad conscience.

\subsubsection*{7. Bureaucrats And Politicians}

There is no mercy, however, for those to whom Roosevelt is supposed
to have delegated power. They are usurpers, parasites, know nothing
about the people, and should, one may well assume, be replaced by
the ``right men." The wealth of statements against bureaucrats and
politicians in our interview material is tremendous. Although it
comes mostly from high scorers, it is by no means confined to them,
and may again be regarded as one of those patterns of political
ideology which spread over the well-defined border lines of right
vs.\ left.

It is beyond the scope of the present study to analyze the amount
of truth inherent in American distrust of professional politics.
Nor should it be denied that a tremendously swollen bureaucratic
apparatus, such as that which was necessitated by war conditions
and which was, to a certain extent, safe from public criticism,
develops unpleasant features, and that the machinery has an inbound
tendency to entrench itself and to perpetuate itself for its own
sake. However, as one analyzes carefully the standard criticism of
the bureaucrats and politicians, he finds very little evidence of
such observations, very few specific indictments of bureaucratic
institutions which prove them to be incompetent. It is impossible
to escape the impression that ``the bureaucrat," with the help of
some sections of the press, and some radio commentators,
%% 694     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
has become a magic word, that he functions as a scapegoat to
be blamed indiscriminately for all kinds of unsatisfactory conditions,
somewhat reminiscent of the anti-Semitic imagery of the Jew with
which that of the bureaucrat is often enough merged. At any rate,
the frequency and intensity of anti-bureaucratic and anti-politician
invectives is quite out of proportion with any possible experience.
Resentment about the ``alienation" of the political sphere as a
whole, as discussed at the beginning of this chapter, is turned
against those who represent the political sphere. The bureaucrat
is the personalization of un-understandable politics, of a depersonalized
world.

Striking examples of this general attitude of high scorers are
provided by the above-quoted political statements of Mack (p.\ 34)
and of the markedly anti-Semitic manager of a leather factory, {\em
M359} (p.\ 666 of this chapter).

Sometimes the invectives against politics terminate in tautologies:
politics is blamed for being too political.

{\em M1230a} is a young welder who wanted to study engineering. He
scores high on E but low on F and PEC.

\begin{Quote}
(What thinking of political trends today?) ``Well, they're very
disrupted. We discussed them a lot, and a lot of things we don't
like. The administration seems to be so tied up in politics\ldots\ .
Statesmanship is gone completely\ldots\ . Can't believe anything you
read in the newspapers. We read the newspapers mainly to 
laugh. \ldots "
\end{Quote}

The last passage is characteristic of the alienation from politics
which expresses itself in a complete, and by no means altogether
unjustified, distrust of the reliability of any news which has gone
through the filter of a system of communications controlled by
vested interests. This distrust, however, is shifted to the scapegoat,
the bureaucrat and the politician, usually attacked by the same
press which is this subject's laughing stock.

{\em F120}, a high-scoring woman, differentiates between Roosevelt
and the bureaucracy.\footnote{%
This observation is in accordance with experience in Nazi Germany
where all kinds of criticism and jokes about the party hierarchy
were whispered everywhere, whilst Hitler seems to have been largely
exempted from this kind of criticism. One heard frequently
the remark: The F\"uhrer does not know about these things" --- even when
concentration camps were concerned. (Note by Adorno)}

\begin{Quote}
(Roosevelt and the New Deal?) ``I admired him, in fact I voted for
him, although I did not approve of a lot of things about the New
Deal. All the bureaus. I would not have minded the spending if it
had gone to help people. But I resented all the wasted motion --- professional
people digging ditches --- and especially the expensive agencies stuffed
with do-nothings, bureaucrats."
\end{Quote}

{\em M1214b}, a medium scorer of the Maritime School, is anti-political
in a traditionalistic way, the ultimate direction of which is still
undetermined.

\begin{Quote}
``No respect for politicians: bunch of windbags. They try to sound
people out and follow along." (This is just the opposite of the
usual argument according to which
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    695
the politicians are too independent. This particular twist may
indicate the underlying awareness of the {\em weakness} of the representatives
of formal democracy.) ``They are not sincere public servants.
Roosevelt, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Bryan are exceptions. Wilson was
also sincere." Subject has no respect for Harding or Coolidge.
\end{Quote}
\noindent
Finally, an example from a low scorer. {\em M112}, asked about
politics, simply states:

\begin{Quote}
``I don't like it. We can get along without it. Don't think that
people should be just politicians. Should have an ordinary life,
just hold office at times. Not be trained for politics and nothing
else, should know what people want and do it. Not control things
for themselves or others."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
The tone of this accusation is markedly different from the phraseology
of the high scorers. This man seems really to be worried lest
bureaucracy should become reified, an end in itself, rather than
democratically expressing the wishes of the people.

The motivation of the low scorers' criticism of bureaucrats and
politicians seems largely to vary from that of the high scorers;
phenomenologically, however, it reminds so much of the latter that
one is led to fear that in a critical situation quite a few
anti-political low scorers may be caught by a fascist movement.

\subsubsection*{8. There Will Be No Utopia}

The political thinking of high scorers is consummated by the way
they approach the ultimate political problem: their attitude toward
the concept of an ``ideal society." Their opinional pattern not only
concerns the means but also the ultimate social ends.

According to the frame of mind which is being analyzed here, there
is no utopia and, one may add, there should be no utopia. One has
to be ``realistic." This notion of realism, however, does not refer
to the necessity of judging and accounting on the basis of objective,
factual insight, but rather to the postulate that one recognizes
from the very beginning the overwhelming superiority of the existent
over the individual and his intentions, that one advocates an
adjustment implying resignation with regard to any kind of basic
improvements, that one gives up anything that may be called a
day-dream, and reshapes oneself into an appendage of the social
machinery.

This is reflected by political opinion in so far as any kind of
utopian idea in politics is excluded altogether.

It must be pointed out that an anti-utopia complex seems to occur
in the interviews of low scorers even more frequently than in those
of high scorers, perhaps because the former are more ready to admit
their own worries and are less under the impact of ``official
optimism." This differentiation between the stand taken by high and
low scorers ,against utopia seems to be corroborated by the study
``Psychological Determinants of Optimism regarding the
%% 696     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
Consequences of the War" by Sanford, Conrad, and Franck (108).
Official optimism, the ``keep smiling" attitude, goes with underlying
traits of contempt for human nature, as expressed by the cynicism
cluster of the F scale, which differentiates clearly between high
and low scorers. Conversely, low scorers are much more ready to
admit negative facts in general, and particularly with regard to
themselves, on a surface level, being less spellbound by the
conventional clich\'e that ``everything is fine," but they show, on a
deeper level of their opinions, much greater confidence in the
innate potentialities of the human race. One may epitomize the
difference dynamically by stating that the high scorers deny utopia
because they ultimately do not {\em want} it to materialize, whereas
anti-utopian statements of the low scorers are derived from a
rejection of the official ideology of ``God's own country." The
latter are skeptical about utopia, because they take its realization
seriously and therefore take a critical view of the existent, even
up to the point where they acknowledge the threat exercised by the
impact of prevailing conditions against just those human potentialities
in which they trust in the depth of their hearts.

{\em M345} is a high-scoring man of the University Extension Testing Class
group. He scores high on E and PEC but low on F. When asked about
what he thinks of an ideal society, his answer reads:

\begin{Quote}
``I don't think there is such a thing without changing everything,
including the people in it. Always some people unusually wealthy,
always some unusually miserable economically."
\end{Quote}

This answer is significant in many respects. The denial of the
possibility of an ideal society is based on the assumption that
otherwise everything ought to be changed --- an idea apparently unbearable
to the subject. Rather than change everything, that is to say, to
disobey ultimate respect for the existent, the world should be left
as bad as it is. The argument that first the people should be changed
before the world can be changed belongs to the old anti-utopian
armory. It leads to a vicious circle, since, under prevailing
external conditions, no such internal change can ever be expected,
and, actually, those who speak in this way do not even admit its
possibility, but rather assume the eternal and intrinsic badness
of human nature, following the pattern of cynicism discussed in the
chapter on the F scale. Simultaneously wealth and poverty which are
obviously the products of social conditions are hypostatized by the
subject as if they were inborn, natural qualities. This both
exonerates society and helps to establish the idea of unchangeability
on which the denunciation of utopia feeds. We venture the hypothesis
that the brief statement of this subject bares a pattern of thinking
which is exceedingly widespread, but which few people would epitomize
as overtly as he does.

To the aforementioned {\em M105}, who comes as close to overt fascism
as any
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL 697 of our subjects,
the idea of natural qualities excluding an ideal society is related
immediately to the most pressing issue: the abolition of war.

\begin{Quote}
``Naturally, I like America best. The question is, is it worth while
to give up what we have in order to have world trade? The Japs make
cheap products and can undersell us. What I'm afraid of is a perpetual
lend-lease. If we do trade with other nations we should have the
cash. World trade would not prevent war. The fighting instinct is
there."
\end{Quote}

The significant fact about his statement is that the assumption of
a ``fighting instinct," which apparently is never supposed to
disappear, is related in an overrealistic manner to economic
advantages, cash, sticking to what one has, and so on. Incidentally,
this is the same man who speaks against the present war because he
``can't see what he can possibly get out of it."

Self-contradictory is a statement by the executive secretary, {\em
F340B}, a medium-scoring woman, whose personality as a whole, as
well as her ready-made political opinions, come closer to the type
of the high scorer than her questionnaire leads us to believe. In
terms of surface opinion she wants to be ``idealistic," in terms of
her specific reactions she is under the spell of ``realism," the
cult of the existent.

\begin{Quote}
``I'm not happy about our foreign policy here --- it's not definite enough,
and not idealistic enough. (What are your specific criticisms?) It
is not much of anything: seems we haven't got any foreign policy.
(What kind of foreign policy would you like to see?) I would like
to see the four freedoms,\footnote{{\em The Four Freedoms}: Goals
articulated by FDR in his State of the Union address (1941): (1)
Freedom of speech and expression; (2) Freedom of every person to
worship God in his own way; (3) Freedom from want; (4) Freedom from
fear.} 
the Atlantic Charter\footnote{{\em The Atlantic Charter}: Agreement
signed in 1941 between FDR and Churchill, with regard to post-war
relationships between nations.  Became one of the first steps towards
the formation of the United Nations.}
actually applied in
other countries. Then we also have to be realistic about it, but
we have to strive to be idealistic --- to realize the ideals eventually."
\end{Quote}

There is something pathetic about this statement. For the contention
that one has to be ``realistic" in order ultimately to realize the
ideals is certainly true. Taken {\em in abstracto}, however, and
without specific concepts as to how this could be achieved, the
truth becomes perverted into a lie, denoting only that ``it cannot
be done" while the individual still maintains the good conscience
that she would be only too happy if it were possible.

Psychologically, the anti-utopian pattern of political thinking is
related to sadomasochistic traits. They manifest themselves strikingly
in the statement of the high-scoring San Quentin inmate, {\em M622A},
who comes fairly close to the ``tough-guy" syndrome discussed in
Chapter XIX. When asked
``what is an ideal society like," he answers: ``Plenty of work for
everybody; have all the strikes stopped."

To the na\"ivet\'e of this man, who certainly belongs to the poorest
strata himself, the image of the present order has been petrified
to such an extent that he cannot even conceive of a social system
where, because of rational organization, each individual has {\em
less}
to work --- to him the ideal is that everybody {\em can} work, which does not
only include satisfaction of basic needs but also efforts which
might easily be dispensed with today. The idea that some
%% 698     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
strict order should prevail is so overpowering to him that utopia
becomes a society where no strikes are to be tolerated any more,
rather than a society where strikes would be unnecessary.

It should be mentioned that the general denial of utopianism is
sometimes reversed by the subjects whose statements we are scrutinizing
here, when they speak about the United States.

Thus, {\em M619}, a low scorer of the San Quentin group, led by the
prison situation to complete political resignation, still feels:

\begin{Quote}
``\ldots\ I think part of the reason America has become the greatest
country in the world is that because the dreams a man makes might
come true."
\end{Quote}

Of course, this is to be understood primarily as an expression of
the dream that can be measured by the dollars and cents an individual
can make, but it should not be forgotten that among the ideological
foundations of American liberalism there is also a utopian element
which, under certain conditions, may break through and overcome the
gospel of supposed realism.

Apparently, the anti-utopian somehow feels uneasy about his own
``realism," and seeks an outlet by attributing to the reality with
which he is most strongly identified, his own country, some of the
utopian qualities he otherwise disavows.

Only the low- to medium-scoring San Quentin murderer, {\em M628B},
a man who has nothing to lose in life, says bluntly:

\begin{Quote}
``This country educates people, but in the so-called American way.
\ldots\ I don't believe this is the best country. Maybe in a materialistic
way\ldots\ . I would not value my life by material things."
\end{Quote}

The undertone of this statement is, similar to {\em M619}, one of fatalistic
resignation. Even low scorers who are not anti-utopian cannot think
of utopia but in a quasi-fatalistic way: as if it were something
preconceived, fixed once
and for all; something which one has to ``look up" rather than think
and realize oneself. {\em M711}:

\begin{Quote}
(What is ideal society like?) ``That's an awfully difficult question.
Isn't it based on the four freedoms?"
\end{Quote}

\subsubsection*{9. No Pity For The Poor}

One should expect that a frame of mind which regards everything as
basically bad should at least favor, in the area of politics and
social measures, as much help for those who suffer as possible. But
the philosophy of the anti-utopian pessimists is not tinged by
Schopenhauerian\footnote{%
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788--1860). German philosopher.
He espoused a philosophical
pessimism that saw life as essentially evil, futile, and full of
suffering. However, in accordance with
Eastern thought (Hinduism and Buddhism) he saw
salvation, deliverance, or escape from suffering in aesthetic
contemplation, sympathy for others, and ascetic living.}
mercy. The general pattern we are investigating
here is characterized by an all-pervasive feature. These subjects
want no pity for the poor, neither here nor abroad. This trait seems
to be strictly confined to high scorers and to be one of the most
differentiating features in political philosophy. At this point,
the interrelatedness of some ideas measured by the PEC scale and
certain attitudes caught by the
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    699
F scale should be stressed. Abolition of the dole,\footnote{{\em The
``dole"}: welfare.} 
rejection of
state interference with the ``natural" play of supply and demand on
the labor market, the spirit of the adage ``who does not work, shall
not eat" belong to the traditional wisdom of economic rugged
individualism and are stressed by all those who regard the liberal
system as being endangered by socialism. At the same time, the ideas
involved have a tinge of punitiveness and authoritarian aggressiveness
which makes them ideal receptacles of some typical psychological
urges of the prejudiced character. Here goes, for example, the
conviction that people would not work unless subject to pressure --- a
way of reasoning closely related to vilification of human nature
and cynicism. The mechanism of projectivity is also involved: the
potentially fascist character blames the poor who need assistance
for the very same passivity and greediness which he has learnt not
to admit to his own consciousness.

Examples: The extremely high-scoring San Quentin inmate, {\em M664C},
whose F score is outstanding, shows clearly the psychological aspect
of this particular ideology. He regards as the ``major problem"
facing this country the fact that it might do something for the
starving people abroad. His statement shows also the intimate
interrelation between the ``no pity for the poor" and the fatalism
complexes.

\begin{Quote}
``Christ, we licked those other countries and now we're gonna feed
'em\ldots\ . I think we ought to let 'em starve, especially them
Japs\ldots\ . Lucky I don't have any relations killed in this war, I'd
go out and kill me some Japs\ldots\ . We're gonna have another depression
and gonna have another war too in a few years."
\end{Quote}

By contrast, {\em M658}, another high-scoring convict with certain
psychopathic traits, turn his affects against the unemployed rather
than against the Japanese:

\begin{Quote}
``I believe everybody should have an opportunity. Should not be any
unemployment. Only reason they are unemployed, they are lazy like
me."
\end{Quote}

This may be regarded as one of the most authentic examples of
sadomasochistic thinking in our interviews. He wants others to be
treated harshly because he despises himself: his punitiveness is
obviously a projection of his own guilt feelings.

Women are freer of the ``no pity for the poor" complex. They rather
over-compensate for it in terms of social welfare and charity which
is, as indicated previously, a ``high" value anyway. The following
statement may be regarded as characteristic of the woman who
humiliates him whom she pretends to help, and actually does not
help at all but just makes herself feel important.

{\em F359}, a high scorer who combines conventionality with somewhat
paranoid ideas about the Negroes:

\begin{Quote}
Subject thinks that the poorer people should be taken care of by
state or community projects. People in the community should get
together, like people, for instance, who are good at organizing
boys' clubs; or they might organize dances
%% 700     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
and hold them at one person's house one week, and at somebody else's
the next week. Everybody should contribute something; take up a
small collection. In the case of a poor section it might get the
funds from the city. One might also call on public funds for
buildings, if needed.
\end{Quote}

The attitude of indifference to the lot of the poor together with
admiration for rich and successful people sheds light on the potential
attitude of the high scorers toward the prospective victims of
fascism in a critical situation. Those who humiliate mentally those
who are downtrodden anyway, are more than likely to react the same
way when an outgroup is being ``liquidated." This attitude has, of
course, strong sociological determinants: upward social mobility,
identification with the higher class to whom they wish to belong
themselves, recognition of universal competition as a measuring rod
for what a person is worth, and the wish to keep down the potential
threat of the disinherited masses. These sociological motives,
however, are inseparably bound up with the psychological mechanisms
indicated above. The specific infantile implications may be indicated
as follows: identification with the poor is quite enticing for
children, since the world of the poor appears to them in many ways
less restricted than their own, whilst they somehow sense the
similarity between the social status of a child in an adult society
and the status of the poor in a rich man's world. This identification
is repressed at an early phase for the sake of ``upward mobility,"
and also --- even if the children are poor themselves --- for the sake of the
reality principle in general which tolerates compassion only as an
ideology or as ``charity" but not in its more spontaneous manifestations.
They project the ``punishment" they have received for their own
compassion upon the downtrodden by regarding poverty as something
the poor ``brought upon themselves." The same formula, incidentally,
plays a decisive role in anti-Semitism.

\subsubsection*{10. Education Instead Of Social Change}

The complement of the ``no pity for the poor" complex is the
overemphasis given to the education of people within the political
sections of our interviews. The frequent reference to this topic
is the more significant since it does not appear in the interview
schedule. Nobody will deny the desirability of political education.
It is hard to overlook, however, that the ideal of education often
serves as a rationalization for social privileges. People who do
not want to confess to anti-democratic leanings prefer to take the
stand that democracy would be all right if only people were educated
and more ``mature." This condition, naturally, would here and now
exclude from political activities those who, on account of their
economic situation, need most urgently a social change. This, of
course, is never stated in so many words. If, however, as once
happened, an overtly fascist man speaks in favor of the abolition
of the poll tax in the South, and wants to replace it by an
``intelligence test," there is little doubt about the ultimate
purpose. The adulation of ``education"
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    70I
occurs quite frequently among uneducated people --- perhaps because, for
some reason beyond the scope of the present study, education has
come to be a kind of a panacea in American ideology. None of our
subjects ever takes the trouble of defining to what the mysterious
``education" should refer: whether it pertains to the general
educational level or whether some special kind of political education
is envisaged and how it should be carried out.

The education complex is not confined to high or medium scorers but
seems to be more frequent with them than with low scorers. Some
examples are given.

{\em M1230A}, a high-scoring man of the Maritime School Group, states,

\begin{Quote}
(What is an ideal society like?) ``It would take generations of
breeding to bring everybody to the same educational standards \ldots\ 
though not to have such {\em great} classes \ldots\  although I think we
should always have class distinction \ldots\ some initiative to try
to improve yourself."
\end{Quote}

Here it is obvious that the education idea serves as a subtle device
by which the anti-utopian can act to prevent a change and yet appear
progressive. It is also characteristic that the stress put on a
long drawn-out educational
process is concomitant with the idea that there always {\em should} be
some class distinction.

Similarly, the Canadian {\em M934}, a medium scorer, endorses the education
idea as a ``brake," this time on the labor movement. He believes:

\begin{Quote}
``The important thing in the labor movement today is education of
the rank and file. I just don't think labor is ready to take more
influence today."
\end{Quote}

It may be noted at random that the more production processes are
standardized, the less special training is required, the more
technological progress leads toward a certain enlightenment of the
masses, the emptier the postulate of education becomes. Our subjects
stick to it in a rather fetishistic way.

For the very high-scoring woman, {\em F104}, majoring in Spanish and
interested in business, the political demarcation line between her
ingroup, the Republicans, and the Democrats coincides with that of
education.

\begin{Quote}
``The type of people I have known who are Democrats are usually
uneducated people who really don't know what is happening. The
present administration has made a mess of things."
\end{Quote}

Thus the education ideology interprets the fact that the Democratic
Party is more of a lower-class party than the Republicans.

Among low scorers the education idea is somewhat mixed up with the
traditional socialist wish for enlightenment. Frequently, there
occurs a complaint about the lethargy and the lack of political
interest of the masses --- from which, regularly, the subjects
exempt themselves. In this context we may mention again the
phraseological statement of our sailor, {\em M117}:

\begin{Quote}
``We have a good basis for our political system. The majority of
people are not
%% 702     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
interested or equipped enough to understand politics, so that the
big proportion of U.S.\ politics is governed by the capitalistic
system."
\end{Quote}

The education complex leads us back to where our analysis started,
to the ignorance and confusion which clouds the political thinking
of most of our sample. It is possible that the education complex
somehow expresses the awareness that one really does not know what
one talks about when one discusses politics --- often enough the praise
of education follows, with low scorers, self-accusations on account
of their lack of knowledge. However, the vague idea of education
takes care of the experience of ignorance rather summarily by a
slogan and reliance on an isolated factor of cultural life, thus
dispensing with the effort of political thinking. Moreover, it
serves in most cases the purpose of projecting one's own ignorance
onto others so that one may appear informed oneself.

One last observation may prove to be significant. Whereas the praise
of education is heavily accentuated by high scorers, it is at the
same time one of the most frequently heard anti-Semitic statements
that ``the Jews are all out for education" --- generally associated with
the assertion that they dodge hard manual labor. We may suspect
that there is, at the hub of the education complex, the vague
realization that this culture excludes the bulk of those whom it
embraces from real participation in its more subtle gratifications.
While the awkward talk about education expresses longing for a state
of affairs where one is no longer stunted by the requirements of
``being practical," fury about one's own educational frustration is
projected upon the chosen foe who is supposed to possess what one
has to deny to oneself.

\subsection*{C. Some Political And Economic Topics}

Our previous discussion was, in accordance with the general approach
of our study, formulated in subjective, rather than objective terms.
That is to say, we have focused our interest on the patterns of
political thinking of our interviewees, rather than on the stand
they take with regard to objective political issues. As a matter
of course our approach led also to a discussion of numerous political
topics such as, for example, the evaluation of Roosevelt, the problem
of government ``bureaucracy," attitudes taken toward ``ideal society,"
etc. No strict dichotomy between the subjective and objective
political issues could be made. What remains now to be discussed
are the attitudes of our subjects toward those political topics of
the interview schedule so far not covered, though some of them,
particularly with regard to the bureaucrat complex and the problem
of government control of business, have been touched upon.

\subsubsection*{1. Unions}

The problem of unionism was heavily emphasized in our interview
schedule because it is a very timely politico-economic topic, and
because
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    703
we expected it to be highly discriminatory. The questionnaire item,
``Labor Unions should become stronger and have more influence
generally," did indeed prove to be discriminating in the statistical
sense (D.P., 3.16 for men and 3.49 for women on Forms 40--45), but
the interview protocols offer ample warning against any such primitive
formula as low-score = pro-union, high-score = anti-union. A certain
amount of criticism of unions is universal and there is no lack of
otherwise outspoken low scorers who deviate with regard to the union
question. Unambiguously pro-union are only a small number of
politically conscious and highly articulate left-wingers. Otherwise,
there are strong reservations with respect to unions throughout our
sample. High and low scorers differ more in the way these reservations
are made than in the simple pro- vs.\ anti- dimension. A critical
attitude is taken by people who do not belong to unions, as well
as by those who are members.

Some differences between questionnaire and interview might be
expected on the basis that the questionnaire calls for more or less
forthright statements, whereas the interview allows the subjects
to elaborate their ideas in all their complexity. Here, it would
seem, the interview comes closer to the subjects' real opinion than
does the questionnaire. Since the organization of labor and the
issue of the closed shop affects the lives of most people in some
immediate way, the factor of ``alienation" and the accompanying
ignorance and confusion plays a lesser part than it does, say,
when people discuss ``all those bureaus" far away in Washington.

Thus, the critical sentiment expressed with regard to the unions
has to be taken very seriously. This criticism must not be identified
automatically with reactionism. Here more than anywhere else, there
is some basis in reality, and the complaints are, generally, much
more reasonable, show much more common sense than when it comes to
issues such as the politicians or the Jews. Labor organizations
have more or less to adapt themselves to the prevailing conditions
of an economic life ruled by huge combines, and thus they tend to
become ``monopolies." This means discomfort for innumerable persons
who in their business are faced with a power which interferes with
what they still feel to be their individual right as free competitors.
They have to yield an extra part of their profit to what labor
demands from them, over and above the price for the commodity which
they buy, the laborer's working power. This appears to them as a
mere tribute to the power of the organization. It is significant,
however, that at least the high scorers resent labor monopolies but
not their model, industrial monopolization as such. This is not
surprising. The population has much more direct contact with the
labor organizations than with the organizations of industry. People
have to negotiate with their local unions about extra pay, overtime,
wage increases, and working conditions, while Detroit, where their
car is being made and priced, is far away. Of course, deeper-lying
motives of social identification are also involved.

%% 704     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

The monopolization of labor affects also the workers themselves who
feel bossed by the huge organization upon which they exercise very
little influence as individuals and who, if they are not admitted,
feel hopelessly ``out-grouped." This nucleus of experience in the
critique of organized labor has to be recognized lest one rush to
conclusions.

The element of partial truth in the critique of labor is among the
most dangerous fascist potentials in this country. While there are
quite a few points in the critique of labor which cannot be refuted,
they are easily chosen as points of departure, in order to do away
with unions altogether, replacing them by government-controlled
corporations --- one of the main economic objectives of fascists
everywhere.  No analysis of the fascist potential is valid which
does not give account of the agglomerate of rational critique and
irrational hatred in the people's attitude toward labor. Some
characteristic reactions of our interviewees may, at least, illustrate
the problem.

We begin with examples of an attitude toward labor which is very
widespread among low scorers: the acceptance of unions with more
or less incisive qualifications. Obviously, anti-labor attitudes
among otherwise ``progressive" people are particularly important for
broader issues of prognosis.

{\em M310}, a thoroughly liberal and progressive member of the
University Extension Testing Class, speaks about the ``so-called
free enterprise system which really is monopoly." To the question
about the 30 per cent wage increase demanded by labor, he answers:

\begin{Quote}
``Well, don't like to see anybody set an arbitrary figure for any
demand. At the same time very sympathetic to wage demands. E.g.\ the
auto workers right now. On the other hand, the bakery workers in
San Francisco are striking merely for a base rate, although all of
them are making above that now: they are just thinking of the future.
\ldots\ I am for unions, but I think we should recognize that sometimes
they become selfish-interest groups\ldots\ . Disappointed in the labor
movement as a reform vehicle, their only interest is in higher wages
for their own small group, especially A.F.\ of L.\ craft unions or
monopolies."
\end{Quote}

Behind this statement looms the dim consciousness that today's labor
movement, instead of aiming at a better society, is satisfied with
securing certain advantages and privileges within the present setup.
This is just the opposite of the typical high scorer's complaint
that unions have become too political, a matter to be discussed
later.

{\em M112}, a low-scoring college sophomore, senses the danger that
cumbersome, mammoth unions might become undemocratic. He is
anti-monopoly in
the sense that he hopes to stop social trends by breaking down
highly centralized units into smaller ones.

\begin{Quote}
``I don't like large organizations. There should be local unions,
local companies, never very large. There is Kaiser, but he's not
so bad. Standard Oil is not good or I.G.\ Farben of Germany."
\end{Quote}

{\em M620}, a low-scoring convict, is typical of those who resent
the interference
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL  705
of organized labor with the functioning of the machinery of production
as a whole:

\begin{Quote}
(What do you think of political trends today?) ``Well, I believe
seriously that labor is going to have to acquire a sense of
responsibility\ldots\ . Well, to me a contract is more or less
sacred." Subject objects to strikes in general, especially to
jurisdictional strikes. (What about 30\% increase in wage demands?)
``I believe if the unions are willing to work they should have it.
But if they give no returns, completely unjustified. (What about
G.M.\ strike?) Should be settled as quickly as possible, one way
or the other\ldots\ .  I believe both labor and business sort of
ignore the little fellow.  \ldots\  I am sort of bitter about this
strike business\ldots\ . I feel labor should have more responsibility."
\end{Quote}

{\em M711}, an extreme low scorer of the Employment Service Veterans
group, mixes up the collectivistic power of unions with the threat
of fascism and makes, by projection, Hitler a pro-union man:

\begin{Quote}
(How do you feel about labor unions?) I don't know frankly on that.
In theory I'm very much in favor of labor unions. (How do you feel
about 30\% wage increase demand?) Well, I do not approve \ldots\ because
I think any wage increase demand should be made in relation to
living costs. (How do you mean that?) As a matter of fact, I just
don't think about it \ldots\ 30\% wage increase won't mean a damn thing
if living costs go up too. (What about G.M.'s labor union demand
for increased wages, with no increase in prices?) ``Yes \ldots\ but I
think wages and prices have to hit a stabilization\ldots\ ." (Interviewer
reads question \#4, stating that labor unions should become stronger,
and refers to subject's disagreeing a little with this item and
asks for elaboration.) ``Well, my disagreement on that --- I'm perhaps
thinking that labor unions becoming stronger would lead to a state
of fascism\ldots\ . After all, didn't Hider use the labor unions in his
early days, increasing labor unions and making them stronger\ldots\ . I
know we have labor unions in San Francisco which are simply little
empires. On the other hand, we have others that are working for the
general good. \ldots\  I certainly don't think they should be controlled
as some of our senators seem to want them."
\end{Quote}

{\em F340B} has been mentioned before. She is of the University
Extension Testing Class and scores middle on E, low on F, and high
on PEC. She differentiates between the positive function of unions
and their inherent evils which she describes in personalistic terms
as ``capitalistic" themselves.

\begin{Quote}
(What do you think of labor unions in general?) ``I think they are
necessary --- as an idea they are fine, but in practice --- I have had the
misfortune to meet some of the labor leaders in this area, and it
was very disillusioning to me. (In what way? ) Well, if there ever
were `capitalists,' they were every bit of it, running their
organization just like running a business --- to squeeze everything out
of it. (What do you think should be done about that?) Well, they
should not object to having their financial statements audited --- should
be more open about it. (Do you think standards should be set up
then, by the government perhaps?) Yes, I think I would rather see
a strong public opinion do it --- makes them realize they should be more
fair-minded and open."
\end{Quote}

Although no scoring has been done, the impression created by careful
%% 706     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
perusal of the whole interview material is that the attitude which
accepts unions as a necessary evil is the average one, at least
among those who are not articulately reactionary.

There is an exceedingly small number of unqualified pro-labor
statements. The two examples to follow stem from San Quentin, both,
of course, from low scorers.

{\em M628B}, a murderer:

\begin{Quote}
(What do you think of labor unions?) ``Definitely in favor of the
closed shop. I don't believe in private enterprise as in this
country. If it was what they say it is, I would be in favor of it.
\ldots\ I don't suppose the Constitution, but \ldots\ we don't live by
it\ldots\ . This story of work hard, my boy, and you'll be great one
day is fine \ldots\ but when you won't clothe and house, etc. the
masses, I'll say that's an outrage\ldots\ ."
\end{Quote}

{\em M619}, a sex criminal characterized by the psychiatrist as ``simple
schizophrenic," is not altogether uncritical of labor but believes
that the weaknesses of the unions are gradually disappearing: his
unqualified acceptance is based on a somewhat empty general idea
of progress.

\begin{Quote}
(How do you feel about labor leaders today?) ``The A.F.\ of L., I am
in favor of it very much. The C.I.O., formerly I was not in favor
of it, but as time moves on, the people seem to accept it more and
more. I'm inclined to feel the faults of its inception have been
ironed out \ldots\ of course, the unions in the beginning used pretty
high-handed methods, but perhaps the end will justify the means
they took."
\end{Quote}

One particular aspect of critical feelings toward labor should be
stressed. It is the idea that unions should not engage in politics.
Since this has nothing to do with those economic experiences with
labor at which the complaints of many people aim, it is a matter
of plain ideology, derived very probably from some belief that
according to American tradition unions offer a means of ``bargaining,"
of obtaining higher shares, and should not meddle in other issues.
The anger about wage disputes and strikes is displaced and becomes
rationalized by hasty identification of organized labor and communism.
Since unions in this country are incomparably less political and
class-conscious than anywhere else, this objection is of an entirely
different order from those previously discussed: it is truly an
expression of reactionism. However, in this area the reactionary
ideology is so strongly backed by preconceived notions that it
infiltrates easily into the opinion of people of whom it could
hardly be expected.

{\em M621A} is serving a term in San Quentin for theft. He scores
low on E and F but high on PEC.

\begin{Quote}
``I admire unions, but they shouldn't agitate. (Evidently referring
to any political activities.) They shouldn't try to get more money,
but should help people more. They should want to keep prices down
like anyone else \ldots\ unions have no business in politics."
\end{Quote}

{\em M627}, another San Quentin man, scores low on E and PEC but high on F.
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL       707
He is a psychopathic alcoholic convicted for what seems to be a
minor sex offense.

\begin{Quote}
(What about the P.A.C.\ of the C.I.O.?) ``No, politics should be let
alone. Keep politics out of any organization. I just feel that labor
and politics won't mix. (Do you think it ought to be prohibited?)
Yessir."
\end{Quote}

Finally just one example from a San Quentin high scorer, {\em M656A}, who
is by no means extreme:

\begin{Quote}
(P.A.C.?) ``Well, I don't say they should go into politics, they
should work through their representatives \ldots\ as a whole they
shouldn't enter into politics. (Why not?) If they go into politics,
they're demanding a lot on the side, where rightfully they should
take it to the lawful legislative body\ldots\ . As far as I am
concerned, politics shouldn't enter into business, and these unions
are a business."
\end{Quote}

That many statements of forthright hostility to labor can be found
in our material is not astonishing. The striking fact, however, is
that such statements occur not only among high scorers but again
also among medium and low scorers.

We again limit ourselves to a few examples which will give an idea
of the structure of unqualified anti-unionism.

{\em M202}, a construction engineer, scoring generally very low,
is nevertheless strongly identified with the entrepreneurs. His
interviewer, as was mentioned above (p.\ 649), called him ``a person
who is conservative but not fascist." His invectives against labor,
however, make this evaluation appear to be a little too optimistic.
As an interesting deviation, a full account of his anti-labor stand
should be given.

\begin{Quote}
In connection with the discussion of his work subject was asked
about his attitude toward labor unions. His response was, ``I am
hipped about unions; there you have a hole in me!" He joined a
company as a strike-breaker in 1935. He took on a job as a chemist.
At that time he was just out of California and there was a depression
on. He had no strong feeling about unions then, but just wanted a
job. However, he did feel that a man had a right to work if he
wanted to, and he had no compunction about taking another man's
job. He continued with the company after the strike was over. He
described himself as a ``company man," and, consequently, as having
the company point of view. When he works for a company he is one
hundred per cent for that company's interests, otherwise he would
not stay with them. He has two objections to unions: (1) their
policy of assuming that older men are better than younger men and
giving the better jobs to them rather than to newcomers; (2) the
closed shop. He thinks men should be allowed to ``enjoy their work."
If men know that they are going to be kept on a job even if they
don't work hard, it does not encourage them to do their best. For
example, he hired two shop stewards whom he found were no good, so
he fired them; but the union demanded that he take them back, which
he had to do, as otherwise he would have had no one to work for
him. If a man sees that the fellow next to him goes slow on the job
and yet makes the same wages, he will have no incentive to work
hard and pretty soon he, too, will slow down. The unions should not
prevent a man from working who
%% 7o8     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
does not want to join a union. The interviewer suggested that the
main purpose of the closed shop was to bargain for rates of pay.
Subject replied that if a group of men would band together to rate
themselves and ask for more pay for the skilled workers, or to work
out better means of production, that would be all right. If a company
is not willing to pay for skilled work, they don't need to work
there. By way of a summary, it may be pointed out that the subject's
objections to unions boil down to a feeling that unions not only
do not foster hard work, but even discourage it.
\end{Quote}

This case seems to be that of a man who, although politically
unbiased, became highly antagonistic to labor through concrete
experience. It should be emphasized that, in spite of his own
description of himself as a ``company man," he by no means admires
businessmen, thinks that poverty could be done away with by changes
in our social system, and favors government control in many respects.
His views may be summarized as being torn by a conflict between
very progressive general ideology and violent reactionary impulses
within the sphere of his own immediate interests --- a configuration
that may be indicative of a dangerous pattern of potentialities in
many ``liberals." It seems, however, that the inconsistency of this
subject is not so much due to psychological factors as to his
professional position. His reactionary traits are derived from his
function as a member of the technological hierarchy who has to look
out for ``efficiency" and finds that union interference tends to
lower this efficiency rather than to enhance it. Thus his attitude
is not really so inconsistent as it appears on the surface: one
might rather say that his over-all progressiveness clashes with his
technological progressiveness because the two kinds of progress
by no means harmonize objectively under the present conditions of
production.

The 22-year-old woman, {\em F316A}, is structurally similar. She
is a low scorer who turns violently anti-labor on account of some
grudges she has developed in her work as a junior chemist in an oil
development company.

\begin{Quote}
Subject feels that the present labor situation is very bad because
of all the strikes and that industry is really hamstrung. The big
unions are asking too much. (What about the union at S.?) The 
S.\ union (C.I.O.) is undemocratic because the department heads and the
junior chemists make all the decisions, then tell the members about
it at meetings, and they are not even members of the union. (You
also have a company union at S., don't you?) ``You mean the Association
of Industrial Scientists? It is not a company union (rather angrily).
That was a dirty trick of the C.I.O. --- or rather not a dirty trick but
a ruse --- to accuse it of being a company union, because then it could
not be registered with the W.P.B.\ and so could not become a bargaining
agent for the employees. They thought if they could prevent it from
being registered for one or two years that it would die. Because
it is not the bargaining agent it cannot make a contract for the
workers, it can only hint to the company what it would like. Although
the A.I.S.\ only has a chapter at S., I don't think it is company
dominated, although I have no proof. (Don't the laboratory assistants
get paid almost as much as the junior chemists?) Yes, when the
junior chemists were getting \$170 a month 
and the C.I.O.\ secured a
raise to \$180 
for the laboratory assistants, the company had to
raise the junior chemists to \$200 a
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    709
month.\footnote{\$170 = \$1,400; \$200 = \$1,600 in 2005.} 
The C.I.O.\ complains that they do all the work and yet the
junior chemists won't join. (Was not the raise a good thing?) Yes,
but I still would like to see what the A.I.S.\ could do if it were
registered: maybe it wouldn't do anything."
\end{Quote}

As to the high scorers, the key theme of their anti-labor ideology
is that of the {\em racket}. They regard the pressure exercised by organized
labor as illegitimate in a way comparable to organized crime and
conspiracy --- the latter being one of the high scorers' favorite topics
anyway. To them, whose moralism has been emphasized from time to
time in this book, the concept of the free market coincides with
the moral law, and any factors which introduce, as it were, an
extra-economic element into the business sphere are regarded by
them as irregular. Incidentally, this suspicion does not pertain
to industrial monopolies and their pricing agreements but merely
to the supposedly monopolistic structure of unions. Here again the
idea of ``legitimacy" --- of identification with the strong --- comes into
play. Industrial combines seem, according to this kind of thinking,
to be the outgrowth of a ``natural" tendency, labor organizations a
banding together of people who want to get more than their due
share.

Viewed from a purely psychological angle the idea of ``labor
racketeering" seems to be of a nature similar to the stereotype of
Jewish clannishness. It dates back to the lack of an adequately
internalized identification with paternal authority during the
Oedipus situation. It is our general assumption that the typical
high scorers, above all, fear the father and try to side with him
in order to participate in his power. The ``racketeers" are those
who by demanding too much (though the subject wants as much himself)
run the risk of arousing the father's anger --- and hence the subject's
castration anxiety. This anxiety, reflecting the subject's own guilt
feelings, is relieved by projection. Thinking in terms of in- and
outgroup, the high scorer who wants to ``outgroup" the others is
continuously prone to call them the ingroup. The more he tends
himself, on account of his pretense to ``status," to circumvent the
``normal" channels of free competition, the more he is likely to
blame those he deems weak for the very same thing. Workers become
``racketeers," criminals to him as soon as they organize. They appear
as the guilty ones after the pattern of ``peddler bites dog." Such
psychological tendencies are, of course, magnetically attracted by
any elements of reality which fit into the projective pattern. Here,
labor organizations afford a rare opportunity.

{\em M352}, a shift foreman who calls himself a ``head operator," scores
high on all scales.

\begin{Quote}
``Well, at Standard Oil, no unions recognized. I've never been a
union man. Through union there is strength, if it's run okay, but
a lot of unions of today have developed into a racket, and a source
of political influence. The C.I.O.\ Political Action Committee
particularly \ldots\ politics and unionism shouldn't become too
involved. The unions shouldn't become a political organization; and
the A.F.L.\ has
%% 710     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
developed into a racket for making money. The officers keep themselves
in positions practically until they die, with no strings on how
they use the money, and that should be controlled \ldots\ but if the
local organization can run itself in an orderly fashion, okay, if
the officers are conservative, but the minute they get too liberal,
use a strike as a first weapon instead of as a last resort\ldots\  
etc."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
Here, as in many instances, critique is directed against the largeness
of unions {\em  per se}; with the romantic idea that purely local organization,
being less institutionalized, would be better automatically.

{\em M658}, the San Quentin man quoted above, goes so far as plainly to
advocate the abolition of unions:

\begin{Quote}
(Political trends today?) ``Oh, I think we are going to be ruled by
a lot of clowns, by a lot of labor unions\ldots\ . Look at all these
working stiffs \ldots\  that don't know anything else, but how to drive
a nail \ldots\  they try to run things, because a few hundred thousands
of them get together. (What ought to be done?) Straighten them out,
show them where they belong\ldots\ . Take away their charters.
(Meaning?) Well, every union has to have a charter. Abolish them.
If necessary, abolish their meetings. (What about strikes?) That's
what I'm thinking of \ldots\ they're a detriment to the country. (How
should strikes be handled?) Refuse to re-employ them, or fine them,
I don't believe in sweat shops either, but this quittin' when you're
making \$150 
a week\footnote{About \$1,200 in 2005.} 
anyway --- kind of silly. Create inflation." (Subject
had earlier made a remark in discussing vocation and income --- which
interviewer neglected to record --- to the effect that he himself thinks
in terms of saving perhaps \$500 
or so,\footnote{About \$4,000 in  2005.}
e.g., by theatre work, and
then quitting for awhile. Note subject's highly exaggerated fantasies
of wartime wages.)
\end{Quote}

A few statements of extreme anti-unionism can be found among the
Los Angeles sample. Perhaps the 20-year-old boy, {\em 5014}, high on E
and PEC and middle on F, represents a certain kind of war veterans'
anti-unionism:

\begin{Quote}
When asked about organized labor he says: ``I am against it." He
doesn't know the difference between the A.F.L.\ and the C.I.O.\ but
he feels ``like many of the veterans, we worked for nothing while
the workers at home were on strike and making good money."
\end{Quote}

The contrast between this subject's hostility and his complete lack
of information is striking.

{\em 5031--5032} are a husband and wife in a very high income group. Both
are high on PEC, low on F, and low-middle on E. For them violent
anti-unionism is concomitant again with contempt for human nature:
they regard unionism simply as a device of the lazy ones to dodge
labor.

\begin{Quote}
Both of them are anti-labor. The husband is quite vehement about
this. Although he expects prosperity to continue he feels it will
be at the cost of a continual fight against labor's demands. He
feels that labor's demands are unreasonable and that with labor's
recent victories that ``even if one met labor's demands one certainly
does not get a day's work out of carpenters, plumbers, etc." Both
of them claim to be without prejudice with regard to various
minorities. It is interesting, however, that they did raise the
issue of the acceptance of Jewish children in the school where their
son went.
\end{Quote}

%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    71 I


{\em F5043}, an extremely high-scoring middle-aged housewife, belongs
to that school of potential fascists who find that ``everything is
a mess." She first
creates in true ``we-the-mothers" style the imagery of a desperate
crisis and then puts the blame on the labor situation.

\begin{Quote}
``I have never seen anything like this," she lamented when asked
about the labor situation. ``What have our boys been fighting for?
Why, they come back to find that they have to go without a lot of
things \ldots\ not even a place to live \ldots\ all because of the
strikes." Thus she blames labor for the present crises and resents
the growth and strength of labor unions. She also feels that there
is an irreconcilable breach between veterans and the workers and
fears internal strife. She also blames the strikers for the growing
trend of unemployment and is very pessimistic about the possibility
of full employment. However, she does not feel that there is too
much government interference and is rather vague about the role of
big business and free enterprise. In fact, she seems to harbor only
very strong anti-labor and anti-strike feelings, without any strong
convictions on other issues. ``It's just a terrible mess," she
repeated, and she does not think the layman should get his hands
dirty by ``messing with politics."
\end{Quote}

Whereas the low scorers who generally take a ``pro, but" attitude
toward unions insist on the soundness of the principle but object
that unions are ``going too far," getting more, as it were, than
their share, the typical high scorers blame them indiscriminately
for the supposedly critical social situation, for the standardization
of life ({\em 5001} and {\em 5003}), and for forthright dictatorial aims. To
the high scorers anti-unionism is no longer an expression of
dissatisfaction with concrete conditions from which they might have
suffered, but a plank in the platform of reactionism which also
automatically includes anti-Semitism, hostility toward foreign
countries, hatred of the New Deal, and all those hostile attitudes
which are integrated in the negative imagery of American society
underlying fascist and semi-fascist propaganda.

\subsubsection*{2. Business And Government}

As was to be expected, the general ideological pattern pertaining
to government interference in business is highly consistent with
that which pertains to labor. The average opinion --- if such a term,
without proper quantification, is allowed --- seems to be that a certain
degree of government control is indispensable, particularly in
wartime, but that it contradicts basically the principle of economic
liberalism. State interference still falls within the category of
the necessary evil. To the high scorers in particular the government
interference in business is just another aspect of the usurpation
complex, a matter of dictatorial arbitrariness jeopardizing the
rights of the hard-working money earners. But it should be noted
again that there is no sharp line between high and low scorers with
regard to government interference, whilst the {\em how}, the way in which
both groups express their critical attitude, differentiates.

The following examples of a partly positive attitude toward government
interference are chosen from medium and high scorers.

%% 712     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

{\em F340A}, of the Extension Testing Class, a young clerk, is
middle on E but high on F and PEC. She is interesting because of a
certain attitude of intellectual fairness expressing itself in
attempts to see also the other side of the picture: an ``anti-paranoid"
trait of the American frame of mind which, incidentally, is among
the strongest bulwarks against fascism as far as subjective factors
are concerned.

\begin{Quote}
She doesn't believe in government control of industry. Maybe it
would be all right for the government to take over transportation,
gas, electricity, and water. (Why?) Maybe they could do it cheaper;
she is not sure about that. Anyway, if there was a strike, like on
the Key System they would be holding up everything and the government
could make them go back to work. ``When the government tells you to
do something, you do it."
\end{Quote}

The quotation shows an ambiguous element in the affirmation of
government interference: whereas the latter is resented as a violation
of liberalism, it is, simultaneously, appreciated as a potential
means to keep organized labor at bay. It should be remembered that
the National Socialists always complained about the ``Welfare State"
of Weimar but later on surpassed by far any state interference ever
attempted by German socialist governments.

The high-scoring parole officer, {\em M109}, is reminiscent of {\em
F340A} in so far as his support for some kind of government
interference is authoritarian rather than favorable to any restrictions
on the anarchy of free enterprise or to rational planning for the
sake of all. (Cf.\ quotations on pp.\ 676, 679.)

Those who are outspokenly set against government controls again
comprise both low and high scorers. Here, of course, the low scorers
are particularly interesting.

The already quoted {\em M711}, an ``easy going" low scorer, is opposed to
state interference simply because he feels a fascist potential in
it, apparently unaware of the progressive function this interference
had under Roosevelt:

\begin{Quote}
(Government control?) ``I don't. There, again, that could be a road
to a fascist state eventually. Certain controls would have to be
exercised."
\end{Quote}

In spite of his leftist ideology this man shows symptoms of a
confusion which may make him the prey of pseudo-progressive slogans
of fascist propaganda: it is the same man who justifies his anti-union
attitude with the spurious assertion that Hitler was in favor of
unions.

{\em M204}, another low scorer, a young man of the Psychiatric
Clinic group, suffering from anxiety neurosis, calls himself a
socialist and feels that the New Deal was too conservative, but
states, nevertheless:

\begin{Quote}
The government should not be completely in control of everything.
Favors something like the Scandinavian system: CCF, full employment,
labor government, favors cooperatives. ``I think it will come that
way in this country. Government control can be run wrong. Instead
we should preserve individual freedom and work through education."
\end{Quote}

%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    713

To sum up: the low scorers' criticism of government interference
is based on the traditional idea of freedom, the fear of an
authoritarian abolition of democratic institutions and an individualistic
way of living. This makes for a potential resistance against any
attempts at a planned economy. There is a possibility that a good
many traditional values of American democratism and liberalism, if
na\"ively maintained within the setup of today's society, may radically
change their objective functions without the subjects even being
aware of it. In an era in which ``rugged individualism" actually has
resulted in far-reaching social control, all the ideals concomitant
with an uncritical individualistic concept of liberty may simply
serve to play into the hands of the most powerful groups.

The statements against government control of our high scorers are
of a completely different kind. To them, unionism, New Dealism,
government control are all the same, the rule of those who should
not rule. Here resentment of government interference is fused with
the ``no pity for the poor" complex.

The San Quentin ``tough guy," {\em M664b}:

\begin{Quote}
(Political trends today?) ``Well, the way it's agoing now, I think
it's a detriment to our country. (How do you mean that?) I think a
person should earn a living instead of expecting the government to
give it to him. I don't believe in this New Deal and I don't believe
in labor running the country\ldots\ . If a man can't make a profit
in his business, he'll close it down\ldots\ ."
\end{Quote}

The San Quentin murderer, {\em M651a}, who is serving a life sentence,
is set against government interference, his point of view being
that of the businessman who talks ``common sense."

\begin{Quote}
(What about government controls over business?) ``No, I believe in
free enterprise. I believe that business should be able to conduct
their own business, except during the war we had to have ceiling
prices\ldots\ . But competitive business makes low prices\ldots\ ."
\end{Quote}

It may be noted that the feeling, even of the high scorers, with
regard to government control as such, though it represents to them
the hated New Deal, does not seem to be as ``violent" as their
anti-unionism. This may be partly due to the authoritarian undercurrent
which, somehow, makes them respect, to a certain extent, any strong
government, even if it is built on lines different from their own,
partly from the rational insight into the necessity of some government
interference. Many of our interviews were conducted during or shortly
after the war, at a time when it was obvious that nothing could be
achieved without government control, and it is this fact to which
reference is frequently made, mostly as a qualification of the
rejection of government control. This, however, certainly depends
largely on the situation, and if interviews should be conducted
today, the picture would very probably be different.

%% 7 14    THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

There is one particular issue which deserves some attention in this
connection, the attitude of our subjects toward monopolism. On the
one hand, monopolies are the outgrowth of free enterprise, the
consummation of rugged individualism; on the other hand, they tend
to assume that kind of noncompetitive control which is rejected
when exercised by the government. Probably no ``public opinion"
concerning monopoly has crystallized so far, mainly because much
fewer people are aware of the anonymous and objective power of big
combines than are aware of official legal measures of the state.
However, a few examples may illustrate how the problem of
institutionalized super-business is reflected in the minds of some
of our subjects.

{\em M115}, a conventional but non-fascistic fraternity man, who
scores low on E and F but high on PEC, is set against ``this Mandan
stuff," but nevertheless, feels:

\begin{Quote}
``Big business should be controlled when it gets too large. In some
fields, like transportation, power, etc., large-scale organization
is necessary. The main thing there is to prevent monopoly, and to
have limitations on profits."
\end{Quote}

The unresolved contradiction between this man's strongly anti-socialist
and equally outspoken anti-monopoly attitudes, is in all probability
characteristic of a very large section of the population. In practice,
it amounts to an artificial ``holding up" of economic developmental
tendencies, rather than to a clear-cut economic concept. Those
layers of the European middle class which were finally enlisted by
fascism were also not infrequently set, in ideology, against the
big combines.

{\em M118}, a low-scoring man of the University Extension Testing
Class, sees the problem but is still so deeply imbued with traditional
economic concepts that he is prevented from following his logic to
its conclusions.

\begin{Quote}
``The emphasis now is on `free enterprise,' but that often results
in monopoly, the big concerns squeezing the little guys to death.
There is too much of a gap between the rich and the poor. People
climb up by pushing others down, with no regulation. For this reason,
government should have more influence economically, whether or not
it goes as far as socialism."
\end{Quote}

The same man criticizes Wallace for being ``too impractical." One
cannot escape the impression that monopolism is used as a vague
negative formula but that very few subjects are actually aware of
the impact of monopolization on their lives. The union issue, in
particular, plays a much bigger role in over-all ideology.

\subsubsection*{3. Political Issues Close To The Subjects}

It has been pointed out in the early part of this chapter that
political confusion and ignorance, and the gap between surface
ideology and concrete reactions, are partly due to the fact that
the political sphere, even today, seems to most Americans too far
away from their own experiences and their
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    715
own pressing interests. Here we go briefly into a discussion of
some political and economic topics of the interview schedule which,
for imaginary or actual reasons, are {\em closer} to the hearts of our
subjects, in order to form at least an impression on how they behave
with regard to these matters, and whether their behavior differs
markedly from that in the field of ``high politics."

First, an illustration of what may be called ``imaginary closeness."
Our interview schedule contained at least one question which was,
in the middle of its realistic surroundings, of a ``projective"
nature. It was concerned with the \$25,000 income
limit.\footnote{About \$200,000 in 2005.} 
Neither is
this question a pressing political issue nor could many of our
interviewees be expected to have any immediate personal interest
in limitations of income on such a high level. The answers to this
question, which would deserve a thorough going analysis of its own,
are indicative of an element of the American dream much more than
of political attitudes. There were exceedingly few among our subjects
who wanted to accept such an income limitation. The utmost concession
they made was the acknowledgment that one can live on this amount.
The prevailing view, however, was that, in a free country, every
person should be allowed to earn as much as he can, notwithstanding
the fact that the chance to make as much today has become largely
illusory. It is as if the American kind of utopia was still much
more that of the shoeshine boy who becomes a railroad king, than
that of a world without poverty. The dream of unrestricted happiness
has found its refuge, one might almost say its sole refuge, in the
somewhat infantile fantasy of infinite wealth to be gathered by the
individual. It goes without saying that this dream works in favor
of the {\em status quo}; that the identification of the individual with
the tycoon, in terms of the chance to become one himself, helps to
perpetuate big business control.

Among those subjects who are outspokenly in favor of the income
limit is the San Quentin check-writer, {\em M664C}, a high-scoring
man, so full of fury and envy against everything that he does not
even like the wealthy.

\begin{Quote}
(What about \$25,000 limit on salaries?) ``What the hell is that for?
That's no more than fair; hell, that's too much money anyway."
\end{Quote}

The apparent radicalism of this man can be appreciated only if one
recollects that it is he who is outraged by the idea of feeding
starving countries.

The very widespread feeling of our subjects on the \$25,000 income
limit can be summed up in the eager plea of {\em M621A}, of the San
Quentin Group, a low scorer on E and F but a high scorer on PEC.

\begin{Quote}
``They shouldn't do that. If a man has the ability, more power to
him."
\end{Quote}

The next few topics are characteristic of the aforementioned tendency
of our subjects to become more rational and ``progressive" as soon
as institutions or measures of a supposedly ``socialistic" nature,
from which the individual feels he can draw immediate benefits,
are, brought into the discussion. OPA\footnote{{\em OPA}:  Office of
Price Administration.  Set up in 1941.}
and health insurance are examples.

%% 716     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

Our interviews seem to show that OPA, also a ``bureaucratic" agency
of government interference, is very generally accepted. Here are a
few examples, picked at random:

Again {\em M621A}:

\begin{Quote}
(OPA?) ``I think it's done a very wonderful thing in this country.
May have gone too far, e.g., in the housing situation in San Diego."
(Subject thinks the OPA should have solved the housing situation.)
\end{Quote}

One of the few exceptions is the wealthy Los Angeles couple, {\em
5031} and {\em 5032}, who are ``disgusted and fed up with the New
Deal, priorities, and all this damn red tape created by OPA."

Most others are in favor of OPA, sometimes, however, with a certain
strain of punitiveness, such as the San Quentin low scorer, {\em M627}, 
already quoted:

\begin{Quote}
``Well, the OPA is doing a good job if they control this black
market."
\end{Quote}

This comes out most strongly in the interview of the San Quentin
high scorer {\em M658}, the man who wants to abolish labor unions.

\begin{Quote}
``If (the OPA) had an iron glove underneath their kid gloves, be all
right. They fine a guy \$100 --- for making \$100,000."\footnote{\$100
= \$800; \$100,000 = \$800,000 in 2005.}
\end{Quote}

The general appreciation of OPA is the more interesting since this
institution has been under constant newspaper attacks for many
years. But here the advantages, particularly with regard to the
housing situation, are so obvious that ideological invectives
apparently lose some of their impact on the population. To demand
the abolition of OPA because of the ``damn red tape" in Washington
may mean that one has no roof over one's head.

Something similar holds true of health insurance. High and low
scorers, with very few exceptions, concur in its appreciation. {\em
M656A}, a high scorer of the San Quentin Group, serving a term for
second-degree murder, after having stated that a person can live
on \$25,000 a year\footnote{About \$200,000 in 2005.} 
but should be allowed to make what he is capable
of making, and who certainly cannot be called a socialist, answers
to the question about public health insurance, ``I'm for it."

The above quoted easy-going, low-scoring man, {\em M711}, is
enthusiastic:

\begin{Quote}
``Public health insurance? Unqualifiedly yes \ldots\ important as
almost any measure of ideal society."
\end{Quote}

Finally, our attention should be directed toward an economic area
which is of the utmost importance for the formative processes of
fascism. This is taxes. It is perhaps the point at which pent-up
social fury is most freely given vent. With the high scorers, this
fury is never directed overtly against basic conditions but has
nevertheless the undertone of desired violent action. The man who
bangs his fist on the table and complains about heavy taxation is
a ``natural candidate" for totalitarian movements. Not only are taxes
associated with a supposedly spendthrift democratic government
giving away millions to idlers and bureaucrats, but it is the very
point where people feel, to put it
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    717
in the words of one of our subjects, that this world does not really
belong to the people. Here they feel immediately that they are
required to make sacrifices for which they do not get any visible
returns, just as one of our subjects complains that he cannot see
what he can get out of the war. The indirect advantages each
individual may draw from taxes paid are obscure to him. He can only
see that he has to give something without getting anything back,
and this, in itself, seems to contradict the concept of exchange
upon which the free market idea of liberalism is built. However,
the extraordinary amount of libido attached to the complex of taxes,
even in a boom period, such as the years when our subjects were
interviewed, seems to confirm the hypothesis that it draws on deeper
sources of the personality as much as on the surface resentment of
being deprived of a considerable part of one's income without visible
advantages to the individual. The rage against the rational tax
system is an explosion of the irrational hatred against the irrational
taxation of the individual by society. The Nazis knew very well how
to exploit the complex of the ``taxpayer's money." They went so far
as to grant, during the first years of their rule, a kind of tax
amnesty, publicized by Goering. When they had to resort to heavier
taxation than ever before they camouflaged it most skilfully as
charity, voluntary donations, and so forth, and collected large
amounts of money by illegal threats, rather than by official tax
legislation.

Here are a few examples of the anti-taxation complex:

The high-scoring man, {\em M105}, who is violently anti-Semitic and
associated with the ``lunatic fringe," says:

\begin{Quote}
``It is the taxpayer's money that has been put into South America;
other countries will think we are fools."
\end{Quote}

{\em M345}, a radar engineer of the Extension Testing Class, who scores
middle on E, low on F, but high on PEC, believes:

\begin{Quote}
(What about government control of business?) ``It has gotten to the
point where it is requiring too much of the citizens' tax money and
time."
\end{Quote}

Again, the taxpayer's complex is not limited to high scorers. The
low-scoring man, {\em M116}, the deviate case of a conformist, conventional
conservative definitely opposed to prejudice, strongly identified
with his father, accepts his Republican views:

\begin{Quote}
``\ldots\  also because businessmen generally don't like the taxes."
\end{Quote}

In case of a new economic crisis, where unemployment would necessitate
high taxation of people whose incomes have shrunk, this complex
would undoubtedly play an exceptionally dangerous role. The threat
is the more serious since, in such a situation, a government which
would not impose taxes would fail, while one which would take steps
in this direction would invariably
%% 718     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
antagonize the very same group from which totalitarian movements
most likely draw their support.

\subsubsection*{4. Foreign Policy And Russia}

Lack of information on the part of our subjects prevails, even more
than anywhere else, in the area of foreign politics. There are
usually rather vague and misty ideas about international conflicts,
interspersed with morsels of information on some individual topics
with which the subjects either happen to be familiar or to which
they have taken a fancy. The general mood is one of disappointment,
anxiety, and vague discontent, as symbolically epitomized by the
medium-scoring woman, {\em F340B}: ``Seems we haven't got any foreign
policy."

This may easily be a mere echo of newspaper statements frequently
made at the time of the study by columnists such as Walter Lippman
and Dorothy Thompson. Repeating them transforms the feeling of
insecurity and disorientation of many of our subjects into the
semblance of critical superiority. More than in any other political
sphere, our subjects live ``from hand to mouth" in the area of
international affairs.

There is a striking lack of a sense of proportion, of balanced
judgment, considering the importance or unimportance of topics of
foreign politics. One illustration, stemming from the ``easy going"
low scorer {\em M711}:

\begin{Quote}
(Major problems facing country?) ``Hard question to answer\ldots\  
Perhaps the main one is how we're going to fit in with the rest of
the world\ldots\ . I'm a little concerned about what we seem to be
doing in China\ldots\ . If we are a carrier of the torch of the Four
Freedoms, I think we are a little inconsistent in our maneuverings
in China and Indonesia."
\end{Quote}

This statement seems to be a ``day residue" of continuous newspaper
reading rather than the expression of autonomous thinking. Yet it
should be noted that it remains within the anti-imperialist frame
of reference of the low scorer.

The symbol of political uneasiness is the atom bomb which is dreaded
everywhere. The stand taken toward the atom bomb seems to differentiate
the high from the low scorers. As is to be expected, also for
psychological reasons, the high scorers are all out for secrecy.
Here, as elsewhere, ``they want to keep what we have."

{\em M662A}, the San Quentin ``tough guy," high on all scales:

\begin{Quote}
(Threats to present form of government?) ``Atom bomb. If these other
countries get it, they're going to use it on us and we're going to
have to look out for Russia. \ldots\ 
I'm for Russia, but \ldots\ I think sooner 
or later we're going to go to war with them."
\end{Quote}

As to the prospect of a devastating war, this man seems to take a
fatalistic view as if it were a natural catastrophe rather than
something dependent on
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    719
humans. This is in keeping with our clinical knowledge of the male
high scorers' psychological passivity (cf.\ p.\ 575).

The low scorers either want to outlaw the atom bomb or to make the
secret public:

{\em M627}, the alcoholic sex-offender, low on E and PEC but high on F:

\begin{Quote}
(Major problems facing this country?) ``Well, I think this atom bomb.
(Solution?) \ldots\ Well, it ought to be outlawed and money appropriated
to see if we can't use that power for good."
\end{Quote}

{\em F515}, the ``genuine liberal" who is to be discussed in detail in
Chapter XIX (p.\ 782), pleads for international atomic control:

\begin{Quote}
``Truman doesn't want to give away the secret of the atom bomb --- I think
he should. It's already out anyway."
\end{Quote}

Although the over-all ideology is fear of war, the high scorer's
attitude indicates that, while deeming war inevitable, they have
some underlying sympathy for war-making, such as that found in the
Los Angeles high-scoring radio writer {\em 5003} characterized as highly
neurotic:

\begin{Quote}
As for the world state, he expects anything at the present time.
``Why shouldn't we have further wars? We are animals and have animal
instincts and Darwin showed us it is the survival of the fittest.
I'd like to believe in the spiritual brotherhood of men, but it's
the strong man who wins."
\end{Quote}

This kind of phrasing, ``why shouldn't we have further wars," is
indicative of his agreement with the idea, in spite of his talk of
spiritual brotherhood. The use that is often made of the Darwinian
slogan of the survival of the fittest in order to rationalize crude
aggressiveness, may be significant of the fascist potential within
American ``naturalism," although it is supposedly linked to progressive
ideals and enlightenment.

{\em 5009}, a 32-year-old teaching principal in a small California town,
who scores high on all scales, rationalizes his belief in a forthcoming
war differently:

\begin{Quote}
He expects no warless world and thinks that the next war will be
with Russia. ``The United States has always ranged itself against
dictatorship."
\end{Quote}

While he shows the typical high scorers' attitude --- psychologically
linked to cynicism and contempt for man --- of regarding war as unavoidable,
he justifies a policy which actually may lead to war with a democratic
ideal: the stand to be taken against dictatorships.

A third aspect of subscribing to the war idea comes up in the
interview of the aforementioned {\em 5031}, a wealthy building contractor.
He feels that perhaps we had better go to war with Russia now and get
it over with.

Here the high scorer's typical cynicism, a fusion of contempt for
man, exaggerated down-to-earthness, and underlying destructiveness,
is allowed
%% 720     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
uncensored expression. Whereas in the sphere of private morale such
psychological urges are held at bay by the acceptance of more or
less conventionalized humane standards, they are let loose in the
sphere of international politics where there seems to be as little
of a collective superego as there is of a truly powerful supranational
control agency.

The all-too-ready assumption that war cannot be abolished --- which,
according to this man, could be hoped for only if military men ran
the UNO\footnote{{\em UNO}: United Nations Organization.}  --- 
is fused with the administrative, quasi-technical, idea that
one ``should get it over with" as soon as possible, that Russia
should be taken care of. War and peace become matters of technological
expediency. The political consequence of this way of thinking is
self-explanatory.

As with many other political topics, attitude toward Russia, whether
for or against, does not by itself differentiate with any sharpness
between high and low scorers. There is, first, a kind of ``pseudo-low"
attitude toward Russia. It falls in line with the general admiration
of power in high scorers and is positive only as far as Russian
military successes are concerned. It turns into hostility where
Russian strength is presented as potentially dangerous. This happens
with the San Quentin inmate {\em M621A}, who scores low on E and F
but high on PEC. He expresses his true anti-Russian feelings by
means of personalization:

\begin{Quote}
(Major problems facing country today?) ``I think Russia\ldots\ .
(Subject fears a war with Russia sooner or later over the atom
bomb.) Russia wants control of territory in China, so do the United
States and England. (What do you dislike most about Russia?) Well,
a little bit too aggressive. Of course, they've done some wonderful
things. Five year plan, educated themselves. (What good things about
Russia?) Lots of stamina to stand up under hardship. (Objections?)
I met quite a few Russians. Don't like them, because they seem to
be overbearing. (How do you mean?) They like to have their own way.
\ldots\ (Subject met the Russians he has been exposed to in Shanghai,
chiefly Russian merchants.) They really believe in `taking' you.
They are not very clean \ldots\ I didn't have any very definite ideas
before."
\end{Quote}

It may be noted how close this man's attitude toward the Russians
comes to certain anti-Semitic stereotypes. However, he has nothing
against the Jews; as a matter of fact his wife is Jewish. In this case
anti-Russianism may be a phenomenon of displacement.

However, there is also a ``genuine" low scorer's negative attitude
against Russia, based on aversion to totalitarianism. Here, the
Psychiatric Clinic 
patient {\em M204}, suffering from anxiety neurosis, a moderate
socialist and militant pacifist, with low scores on all scales,
fits in:

\begin{Quote}
He is a little skeptical about the Soviet Union, disapproving of
their totalitarian methods, but being interested in ``their interesting
experiment."
\end{Quote}

Another example is {\em M310}, a liberal of the Extension Testing
Class with an unusually low score, assistant manager for an advertising
agency, whose
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    72I
criticism touches upon formal democratism while at the same time
he is repelled by the oligarchic aspects of Russian government:

\begin{Quote}
(Your understanding of democracy?) ``Government of, for, and by the
people. Government by majority, directed to its achieving good
results for the people. May be a difference between Nazi Germany
and Soviet Russia, in that sense, may be democracy in Russia. I
don't think it necessarily takes our voting system, although I like
(democratic voting)\ldots\ . (You are critical of Soviet Russia?) I
don't like the concentration of political power in so few hands."
\end{Quote}

Sometimes this kind of critique assumes, with low scorers, the
aspect of disagreement with American communists because of their
wholesale endorsement of Russian politics.

{\em M203}, a teacher, ``liberal but not radical," with low scores
on all scales:

\begin{Quote}
``It is good to have intelligent, liberal leadership, rather than
radical leadership, which would be bad. (Example?) Well, like the
communists in this country: they are not intelligent, they are too
radical, and there is too much line which is determined by Russia.
For instance, Roosevelt was less rigid and learned more by his
mistakes."
\end{Quote}

It should be noted that this man is an outspoken anti-fascist who
finds it ``disgraceful that Bilbo\footnote{Theodore Bilbo
(1877--1947), US Senator from Mississippi 1935--47. 
Defender of segregation.} should be in Congress."

As to the pro-Russian attitude found among low scorers, it cannot
be overlooked that it has sometimes a somewhat mechanical outlook.
Here the element of stereotypy comes clearly to the fore in low
scorers. As an example {\em M713A} may serve. He is a young veteran,
studying landscape architecture, whose scores are all low.

\begin{Quote}
(How do you feel about Soviet Russia?) ``A very wonderful 
experiment\ldots\ . 
I believe that if left alone will be the greatest power in a few
years. (Disagreement with the communists' line?) Just in the matter
of approach. Their approach is a little too violent, though I can
see the reason for that\ldots\ . I think we ought to approach it a
little more gradually\ldots\ . If went into communism would just be
like the army\ldots\ . Maybe take a hundred years --- we are working
gradually toward it."
\end{Quote}

It is a question whether the idea of a gradual development is
compatible with the theory of dialectical materialism officially
accepted in Russia, or whether it is indicative of a dubious element
in the subject's appreciation of the ``wonderful experiment." It
should be noted that the idea of socialism as an ``experiment" stems
from the vernacular of middle-class ``common sense" and it tends to
replace the traditional socialist concept of class struggle with
the image of a kind of joint, unanimous venture --- as if society as a
whole, as it is today, were ready to try socialism regardless of
the influence of existing property relations. This pattern of
thinking is at least inconsistent with the very same social theory
to which our subject seems to subscribe. Anyway, he, like any of
our other subjects, goes little into matters of
%% 722     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
Marxian doctrine or of specific Russian issues, but contents himself
with rather a summary positive stand.

And then there is the idea of the ``greatest power." That this idea
is not exceptional among low scorers, in other words, that a positive
stand toward Russia may have something to do with the Russian
successes on the battle-fields and in international competition,
rather than with the system, is corroborated by the San Quentin
inmate {\em M619}, who scores low on E and F but high on PEC, the
man who does not believe in any real utopia:

\begin{Quote}
``Well, Russia is undoubtedly one of the most powerful nations in
the world today. They've risen to power in the last few years and
made more progress than any other country."
\end{Quote}

Our general impression concerning our subjects' attitude towards
Russia may be summed up as follows. To the vast majority of Americans,
the very existence of the Soviet Union constitutes a source of
continuous uneasiness. The emergence and survival of a system that
has done away with free enterprise seems to them a threat to the
basic tenets of the culture of this country, to the ``American way,"
by the mere fact that it has shattered the belief in liberal economy
and liberal political organization as a ``natural" eternal phenomenon
which excludes any other rational form of society. On the other
hand, the success of Russia, particularly her performance during
the war, appeals strongly to the American belief that values can
be tested by the outcome, by whether they ``work" --- which is a profoundly
liberalistic idea by itself. The way our subjects cope with this
inconsistency of evaluation differentiates between high and low
scorers. To the former, the Soviet Union, incompatible with their
frame of reference, should be done away with as the extreme expression
of the ``foreign," of what is also in a psychological sense ``strange,"
more than anything else. Even the fact that Russia has proved
successful in some respects is put into the service of this fantasy:
frequently, Russian power is exaggerated, with a highly ambivalent
undertone comparable to the stereotypes about ``Jewish world power."
To the low scorers Russia is rarely less ``strange" --- an attitude which
has doubtless some basis in reality. But they try to master this
sense of strangeness in a different way, by taking an objective
attitude of ``appreciation," combining understanding with detachment
and a dash of superiority. When they express more out-spoken
sympathies for the Soviet Union, they do so by implicitly translating
Russian phenomena into ideas more familiar to Americans, often by
presenting the Russian system as something more harmless and
``democratic" than it is, as a kind of pioneering venture somehow
reminiscent of our own tradition. Yet indices of a certain inner
aloofness are rarely missing. The low scorers' pro-Russian sympathies
seem to be of a somewhat indirect nature, either by rigid acceptance
of an extraneous ``ticket" or by identification based on theoretical
thinking and moral reflections rather than on an immediate
%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    723
feeling that this is ``my" cause. Their appraisal of Russia frequently
assumes an air of hesitant, benevolent expectancy --- let us see how
they will manage. This contains both an element of authentic
rationality and the potential of their swinging against Russia under
the cover of handy rationalizations if pressure of public opinion
should urge such a change.

\subsubsection*{5. Communism}

The complex, Russia, is closely associated with the complex of
communism in the minds of our subjects. This is all the more the
case since communism has ceased to be in the public mind an entirely
new form of society, based on a complete break in the economic
setup, and has become bluntly identified with the Russian government
and Russian influence on international politics. Hardly any reference
to the basic issue of nationalization of the means of production
as a part of the communist program has been found in our sample --- a
negative result which is significant enough with regard to the
historical dynamics to which the concept of communism has been
subjected during the last two decades.

Among the high scorers the only feature of the old idea that seems
to have survived is the ``bogy" of communism. The more the latter
concept is emptied of any specific content, the more it is being
transformed into a receptacle for all kinds of hostile projections,
many of them on an infantile level somehow reminiscent of the
presentation of evil forces in comic strips. Practically all features
of ``high" thinking are absorbed by this imagery. The vagueness of
the notion of communism, which makes it an unknown and inscrutable
quantity, may even contribute to the negative affects attached to
it.

Among the crudest expressions of these feelings is that of our
insect toxicologist {\em M108}, by whom the problem of communism
is stated in terms of plain ethnocentrism:

\begin{Quote}
(Why is he against communism?) ``Well, it is foreign. Socialism,
o.k.\ --- you respect a man who is a socialist but a communist comes from
a foreign country and he has no business here."
\end{Quote}

{\em F111}, who scores high on E, middle on F, and low on PEC, is
a young girl who wants to become a diplomat because she is ``mad at
England and Russia." Her idea of communism has an involuntarily
parodistic ring:

\begin{Quote}
(Political outgroups?) ``Fascists and communists. I don't like the
totalitarian ideas of the fascists, the centralization of the
communists. In Russia nothing is private, everything goes to one
man. They have violent ways of doing things."
\end{Quote}

To the mind of this woman, the idea of political dictatorship has
turned into the bogy of a kind of economic supra-individualism,
just as if Stalin claimed ownership of her typewriter.

By a similarly irrational twist another high scorer, {\em M664B},
an uneducated
%% 724     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
and unintelligent sex offender of the San Quentin group, with high
scores on all scales, simply associates communism with the danger
of war:

\begin{Quote}
``If labor keeps getting more power, we'll be like Russia. That's
what causes wars."
\end{Quote}

The complete irrationality, not to say idiocy, of the last three
examples shows what vast psychological resources fascist propaganda
can rely on when denouncing a more or less imaginary communism
without taking the trouble to discuss any real political or economic
issues.

If representatives of this attitude enter upon any argumentation
at all, it is, the last examples indicate, centered in the facile,
though not completely
spurious identification of communism and fascism which displaces
hostility against the defeated enemy upon the foe to be.

Low scorers are not immune in this respect. Thus the low-scoring
student-minister {\em M910} is of the following opinion:

\begin{Quote}
(How do you feel about Russia's government?) ``I think there is very
little difference between fascism and communism as it's {\em
practiced}
in Russia. The 1936 Constitution is a marvelous {\em document}. I think
it's five hundred years ahead of our Constitution because it
guarantees {\em social} rights instead of individual rights but when man
hasn't any rights except as a member of the Communist Party\ldots\ .
I think it's capitalistic\ldots\ . (What is the nature of your
objections to Russia?) Well, first of all, I think it was Russia
that carried the ball in entering this veto power into the UNO which
I think will be the death of the thing right now\ldots\  . Russia has
got the things right where she wants them. We think we're the leaders
but we fool ourselves\ldots\ ." (Subject objects strongly to deceitful
diplomacy.)
\end{Quote}

High scorers who make less intellectual effort simply find communism
not individualistic enough. The standard phraseology they employ
contrasts nicely with the belief in spiritual independence which
they profess. We
quote as an example {\em F106}, a high scorer of the Public Speaking
Class group, a young teacher:

\begin{Quote}
(Political outgroups?) ``Communists have some good ideas but I don't
think too much of them. They don't give the individuals enough mind
of their own."
\end{Quote}

Sometimes the identification of communism and fascism is accompanied
by paranoid twists in the Elders of Zion\footnote{{\em The Protocols
of the Elders of Zion}: A antisemetic literary forgery that purports
to describe a Jewish plot to achieve world domination.} 
style. {\em M345}, our radar
field engineer:

\begin{Quote}
(What do you think of the P.A.C.?) ``Never found any definite
information on the C.I.O.\ldots\ but \ldots\ C.I.O.\ seems the agency to
turn international, certainly has got all the earmarks, not because
of being labor union, but just because of the way they compare."
(Subject compares communism to Hitler in {\em Mein Kampf}, telling
exactly what planned to do and how, and then doing it.) ``C.I.O.\ has
followed the lines of action very similar to pronounced policies
of Comintern --- even their name, Congress for Industrial Workers; not
much faith in the communists succeeding. Their aim is tight little
control of their own group."
\end{Quote}

The mix-up of Comintern, CIO, and {\em Mein Kampf} is the appropriate
climate for panic, and subsequent violent action.

%% POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL    7 2 5

But this climate by no means prevails. There is one quite frequently
noted way of dealing with the problem of communism which safeguards
the aspects of detached objectivity while allowing for good-natured
rejection. It reminds one of the story of the boy who, when offered
some very sour dish and asked whether he liked it answered:
``Excellent --- when I'll be grown up." Communism is a good thing {\em for the
others}, particularly for ``those foreigners," from whom it has been
imported anyway. This technique is employed by both high and low
scorers. {\em 5008}, the liberal-minded Jefferson descendant:

\begin{Quote}
``The communists may be able to do something in the Soviet Union,
but they would utterly fail here."
\end{Quote}

In {\em M115}, the low-scoring fraternity man, the argument has a
noticeable taint of contempt for the have-nots. This is the man who
wants ``none of this Marxian stuff."

\begin{Quote}
``\ldots\ but in poorer countries, like in Russia, Germany, etc., it's
necessary in some modified form; but not in America. We have too
much here already, that is we are too developed already."
\end{Quote}

The subject is not struck by the idea that a collectivistic economy
might be easier in an industrially highly advanced, mature country,
rather than more difficult. To him, communism is simply identified
with enhancement of material productive powers through more efficient
organization. He seems to be afraid of overproduction as if this
concept would still make sense in an economy no longer dependent
upon the contingencies of the market.

Even the extreme low scorer {\em M1206a}, of the Maritime School
group, who believes that America will eventually become a socialistic
country,

\begin{Quote}
thinks that Russia has a wonderful system of government --- for Russia``though
I don't think we could transplant its system to this country\ldots\  
though we should watch her and get ideas to build our own country
better."
\end{Quote}

In this case the argument is mitigated by an element of thoughtfulness
which is in accordance with the stand taken by this subject with
regard to the Communist Party in this country:

\begin{Quote}
``Well, I don't know a great deal about it. I believe that if a man
wants to be a communist, that's not only his privilege, but his
duty \ldots\ to try and convince as many people as he can\ldots\ ."
Subject objects vigorously to red-baiting tactics\ldots\  . ``I think
that Russia will be the most democratic country in the world in
time\ldots\  . Joe has been a little ruthless at times, but\ldots\ ."
\end{Quote}

Sometimes the argument is fused with the idea that socialism would
not be ``practical," for purely economic reasons which are mostly
taken from the very sphere of a profit system which is supposed to
be replaced under socialism by an economic organization molded
after the needs of the population. {\em F359}, the previously (pp.\ 616,
690) quoted high-scoring accountant in a government department:

%% 726     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

\begin{Quote}
Subject thinks that communism is all right for Russia, but not for
this country, although the trend seems to be more and more that
way. She believes in private ownership of property and the private
enterprise system. She considers it more efficient. She is not so
sure about government ownership of public utilities such as water,
etc. She thinks that they probably operate better under private
ownership, that the costs are lower.
\end{Quote}

The interviews of other subjects show an unmistakably condescending
overtone of this same argument, such as {\em M107}, a medical student
who scores high on E but middle on F and PEC:

\begin{Quote}
``We can cooperate with Russia; if they want communism they have to
have it."
\end{Quote}

This type of liberal approach, of which, incidentally, the Hitler
regime profited during the whole Chamberlain era of noninterference,
is not as broad-minded as it may appear. It often hides the conviction
that there is no objective truth in politics, that every country,
as every individual, may behave as it likes and that the only thing
that counts is success. It is precisely this pragmatization of
politics which ultimately defines fascist philosophy.

Obviously, the relationship between anti-communism and fascist
potential as measured by our scales should not be oversimplified.
In some of our earlier studies the correlation between anti-Semitism
and anti-communism was very high,\footnote{Cf.\ Levinson and Sanford (71).}
but there is reason
to believe that it would not be so high today, not, at least, at
the surface level. During the last several years all the propaganda
machinery of the country has been devoted to promoting anti-communist
feeling in the sense of an irrational ``scare" and there are probably
not many people, except followers of the ``party line," who have
been able to resist the incessant ideological pressure. At the same
time, during the past two or three years it may have become more
``conventional" to be overtly opposed to anti-Semitism, if the large
number of magazine articles, books, and films with wide circulation
can be regarded as symptomatic of a trend. The underlying character
structure has little bearing on such fluctuations. If they could
be ascertained, they would demonstrate the extreme importance of
propaganda in political matters. Propaganda, when directed to the
anti-democratic potential in the people, determines to a large extent
the choice of the social objects of psychological aggressiveness.

\end{multicols}



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\newtitle{Some Aspects Of Religious Ideology
As Revealed In The Interview Material}{XVIII}

\rfoot{\em Aspects of Religious Ideology\ldots}

\begin{multicols}{2}

\subsection*{A. Introduction}

The relationship between prejudice and religion played a relatively
minor role in our research. This may be due in a large part to the
nature of our sample. It did not include any specific religious
groups nor was it drawn from geographical areas such as the Bible
Belt or cities with a heavily concentrated Irish-Catholic population
in which religious ideology has considerable social importance. If
research along the lines of the present work should be carried
through in such areas, the religious factor might easily come to
the fore to a much greater extent than in the present study.

Apart from this limitation, there is another and more fundamental
one. Religion does not play such a decisive role within the frame
of mind of most people as it once did; only rarely does it seem to
account for their social attitudes and opinions. This at least was
indicated by the present results. The quantitative relationships
obtained (Chapter VI) are not particularly striking, and although
part of the interview schedule was devoted specifically to religion,
it cannot be said that the material gathered in this part of the
interviews is very rich. On an overt level at least, religious
indifference seems to put this whole sphere of ideology somewhat
into the background; there can be no question but that it is less
affect-laden than most of the other ideological areas under
consideration and that the traditional equation between religious
``fanaticism" and fanatical prejudice no longer holds good.

Yet, there is reason enough to devote some close attention to our
data on religion, scarce though they may be. The considerable part
played by actual or former ministers in spreading fascist propaganda
and the continuous use they make of the religious medium strongly
suggest that the general trend toward religious indifference does
not constitute altogether a break between religious persuasion and
our main problem. Although religion may no longer stimulate open
fanaticism against those who do not share one's own belief,
%% 727 728     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
we are led to suspect that on a deeper, more unconscious level the
religious heritage, the carry-over of old belief and the identification
with certain denominations, still make themselves felt.

Our approach was guided by certain theoretical considerations
inherent in our general frame of reference. In order to give relief
to the focus of our observations, it is appropriate to indicate the
more fundamental of these theoretical reflections.

It was expected from the very beginning that the relations between
religious ideology and ethnocentrism would be complex. On the one
hand the Christian doctrine of universal love and the idea of
``Christian Humanism" is opposed to, prejudice. This doctrine is
doubtless one of the major historical presuppositions for the
recognition of minorities as sharing equal rights with majorities
``in the sight of God." The Christian relativization of the natural,
the extreme emphasis on the ``spirit," forbids any tendency to regard
natural characteristics such as ``racial" traits as ultimate values
or to judge man according to his descent.

On the other hand, Christianity as the religion of the ``Son" contains
an implicit antagonism against the religion of the ``Father" and its
surviving witnesses, the Jews. This antagonism, continuous since
St.\ Paul, is enhanced by the fact that the Jews, by clinging to
their own religious culture, rejected the religion of the Son and
by the fact that the New Testament puts upon them the blame for
Christ's death. It has been pointed out again and again by great
theologians, from Tertullian and Augustine to Kierkegaard, that the
acceptance of Christianity by the Christians themselves contains a
problematic and ambiguous element, engendered by the paradoxical
nature of the doctrine of God becoming man, the Infinite finite.
Unless this element is consciously put into the center of the
religious conception, it tends to promote hostility against the
outgroup. As Samuel (101) has pointed out, the ``weak" Christians
resent bitterly the openly negative attitude of the Jews toward the
religion of the Son, since they feel within themselves traces of
this negative attitude based upon the paradoxical, irrational nature
of their creed --- an attitude which they do not dare to admit and which
they must therefore put under a heavy taboo in others.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that many of the usual
rationalizations of anti-Semitism originate within Christianity or
at least have been amalgamated with Christian motives. The fight
against the Jews seems to be modeled after the fight between the
Redeemer and the Christian Devil. Joshuah Trachtenberg (119) has
given detailed evidence that the imagery of the Jew is largely a
secularization of the medieval imagery of the Devil. The fantasies
about Jewish bankers and money-lenders have their biblical archetype
in the story of Jesus driving the usurers from the Temple. The idea
of the Jewish intellectual as a sophist is in keeping with the
Christian denunciation of the Pharisee. The Jewish traitor who
betrays not only his master but
%% RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL        729
also the ingroup to which he has been admitted, is Judas. These
motifs are enhanced by more unconscious trends such as are expressed
in the idea of the crucifix and the sacrifice of blood. Although
these latter ideas have been more or less successfully replaced by
``Christian Humanism," their deeper psychological roots have still
to be reckoned with.\footnote{%
A detailed theoretical analysis of the relationship between
Christianity and anti-Semitism has been contributed by Max Horkheimer
and T.\ W.\ Adorno (53).}

In attempting to evaluate the influence of such elements of religion
upon the existence or absence of prejudice today, one has to take
into consideration the position in which Christianity presently
finds itself: it is faced with an ``indifference" which often seems
to make it altogether unimportant. The Christian religion has been
deeply affected by the process of Enlightenment and the conquest
of the scientific spirit. The ``magical" elements of Christianity
as well as the factual basis of Christian belief in biblical history
have been profoundly shaken. This, however, does not mean that
Christian religion has been abolished. Although largely emasculated
in its profoundest claims, it has maintained at least part of the
social functions acquired throughout the centuries. This means that
it has largely become {\em neutralized}. The shell of Christian doctrine,
above all its social authority and also a number of more or less
isolated elements of its content, is preserved and ``consumed" in a
haphazard way as a ``cultural good" like patriotism or traditional
art.

This neutralization of religious beliefs is strikingly exemplified
by the following statement of {\em M109}, a high-scoring Roman
Catholic who attends church regularly. He writes on his questionnaire
that he considers religion a

\begin{Quote}
\noindent
``thoroughly important part of existence, perhaps it should occupy
2 to 5 per cent of leisure time."
\end{Quote}

The relegation of religion, which was once regarded as the most
essential Sphere of life, to ``leisure," as well as the time allotment
made for it and, above all, the fact that it is subsumed under a
calculated time schedule and referred to in terms of per cent is
symbolic of the profound changes which have taken place with regard
to the prevailing attitude towards religion.

It may be assumed that such neutralized residues of Christianity
as that indicated in {\em M109's} statement are largely severed
from their basis in serious belief and substantial individual
experience. Therefore, they rarely produce individual behavior
that is different from what is to be expected from the prevailing
patterns of civilization. However, some of the formal properties
of religion, such as the rigid antithesis of good and evil, ascetic
ideals, emphasis upon unlimited effort on the part of the individual,
still exercise considerable power. Severed from their roots and
often devoid of any specific content, these formal constituents are
apt to be congealed into mere formulae. Thus, they assume an aspect
of rigidity and intolerance such as we expect to find in the
prejudiced person.




%% 730     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY


The dissolution of positive religion and its preservation in a
noncommittal ideological form are due to social processes. While
religion has been deprived of the intrinsic claim of truth, it has
been gradually transformed into ``social cement." The more this
cement is needed for the maintenance of the {\em status quo} and the more
dubious its inherent truth becomes, the more obstinately is its
authority upheld and the more its hostile, destructive and negative
features come to the fore. The transformation of religion into an
agency of social conformity makes it fall in line with most other
conformist tendencies. Adherence to Christianity under such conditions
easily lends itself to abuse; to subservience, overadjustment, and
ingroup loyalty as an ideology which covers up hatred against the
disbeliever, the dissenter, the Jew. Belonging to a denomination
assumes an air of aggressive fatality, similar to that of being
born as a member of one particular nation. Membership in any
particular religious group tends to be reduced to a fairly abstract
ingroup-outgroup relationship within the general pattern brought
out by the foregoing discussion of ethnocentrism.

These theoretical formulations are not intended as hypotheses for
which crucial tests could be provided by our research; rather, they
furnish some of the background against which the observations now
to be reported may plausibly be interpreted.

\subsection*{B. General Observations}

There is much in the interview material to support the view, suggested
by findings from the questionnaire, that the more religion becomes
conventionalized, the more it falls in line with the general outlook
of the ethnocentric individual. An illustration of this point is
afforded by the following excerpt from the interview of {\em F5054},
a woman who scored high on the ethnocentrism scale.

\begin{Quote}
The subject seems to have accepted a set of rather dogmatic moral
codes which makes her regard people, especially ``youngsters who
call themselves atheists" as falling outside the circle in which
she wants to move. She made a point of admitting (confidentially)
that one of the main reasons she was looking forward to moving away
from Westwood was that she could thereby get her youngest daughter
away from the influence of the neighbor's boy, who is an atheist
because his father tells him ``religion is a lot of hooey." She is
also distressed, because her eldest daughter ``just won't go to
church."

From the above it is evident that she is quite in agreement with
organized religion and tends to be a conformist in religious matters.
Christian ethics and its moral codes are regarded as absolutes; and
deviations are to be frowned upon or punished.
\end{Quote}

\noindent
This account suggests that there is a connection between conventional
religious rigidity and an almost complete absence of what might be
called personally "experienced" belief. The same holds for the
high-scoring man
%% RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL        73'
{\em 5057}, a person who sticks to the Church although he ``does not
believe in a personal God."

\begin{Quote}
The subject believes that most Protestant religions are very much
the same. He selected Christian Science because ``it is a quieter
religion than most." He started going to Unity Sunday school while
living with his grandparents and liked the Unity Church, which, in
his estimation, presents a mild form of Christian Science. He joined
the Christian Science Church when he married, inasmuch as his wife's
family and his wife are all Christian Scientists. ``Religion should
not be allowed to interfere with the ordinary essentials. However,
religion should restrain you from overindulgences of any kind, such
as drinking, gambling, or anything to excess."
\end{Quote}

A high-scoring young woman, {\em F103}, says ``My parents let us
make our own choice; just so we go to church." There we see the
lack of any interest in the content of religion; one goes to church
because ``it's the thing to do" and because one wants to please one's
parents. A final example is afforded by an-other prejudiced young
woman, {\em F104}, who remarks ``I have never known any people who
were not religious. I have known one fellow who was wavering, and
he was a very morbid person." The idea here seems to be that one
goes to church in order to express one's normality or at least to
be classed with normal people.

These examples help us to understand why persons or groups who ``take
religion seriously" in a more internalized sense are likely to be
opposed to ethnocentrism. What proved to be true in Germany, where
``radical" Christian movements, such as the dialectical theology of
Karl Barth, courageously opposed Nazism, seems to hold good beyond
the theological ``elite." The fact that a person really worries about
the meaning of religion as such, when he lives in a general atmosphere
of ``neutralized" religion, is indicative of a nonconformist attitude.
It may easily lead toward opposition to the ``regular fellow," for
whom it is as much ``second nature" to attend church as it is not
to admit Jews to his country club. Moreover, the stress on the
specific content of religion, rather than on the division between
those who belong and those who do not belong to the Christian faith,
necessarily accentuates the motives of love and compassion buried
under conventionalized religious patterns. The more ``human" and
concrete a person's relation to religion, the more human his approach
to those who ``do not belong" is likely to be: their sufferings
remind the religious subjectivist of the idea of martyrdom inseparably
bound up with his thinking about Christ.

To put it bluntly, the adherent of what Kierkegaard, a hundred years
ago, called ``official Christianity" is likely to be ethnocentric
although the religious organizations with which he is affiliated
may be officially opposed to it, whereas the ``radical" Christian
is prone to think and to act differently.

However, it should not be forgotten that extreme religious subjectivism,
with its one-sided emphasis on religious experience set against the
objectified
%% 7 3 2   THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
Church, may also under certain conditions fall in line with the
potentially fascist mentality. Religious subjectivism that dispenses
with any binding principles provides the spiritual climate for other
authoritative claims. Moreover, the sectarian spirit of people who
carry this outlook to an extreme sometimes results in a certain
affinity for the aggressive ingroup mood of movements generally
condemned as ``crack-pot," as well as for those underlying anarchical
trends which characterize the potentially fascistic individual.
This-aspect of religious subjectivism plays an important role in
the mentality of fascist agitators who operate in a religious
setting.\footnote{%
The interaction between revivalism, religious subjectivism, and
fascist propaganda has been analyzed in detail by T.\ W.\ Adorno (3).}

Among those who {\em reject} religion, a number of significant differences
may be noted. As our quantitative results have shown, no mechanical
identification of the non- or anti-religious person with the ``low
scorer" can be made. There are, to be sure, ``agnostic" or ``atheistic"
persons whose persuasions are part and parcel of a universally
progressive attitude which holds for minority questions. The actual
meaning of this ``progressiveness," however, may vary widely. Whereas
anti-religious progressives are definitely opposed to prejudice
under present conditions, when it comes to the question of
susceptibility to fascist propaganda, it makes all the difference
whether they are ``ticket thinkers" who subscribe wholesale to
tolerance, atheism, and what not, or whether their attitude toward
religion can be called an autonomous one based on thinking of their
own.

Moreover, it may turn out to be an important criterion of susceptibility
whether a person is opposed to religion as an ally of repression
and reaction, in which case we should expect him to be relatively
unprejudiced, or whether he adopts an attitude of cynical utilitarianism
and rejects everything that is not ``realistic" and tangible, in
which case we should expect him to be prejudiced. There also exists
a fascist type of irreligious person who has become completely
cynical after having been disillusioned with regard to religion,
and who talks about the laws of nature, survival of the fittest and
the rights of the strong. The true candidates of neo-paganism of
the fascist extreme are recruited from the ranks of these people.
A good example is the high-scoring man {\em 5064}, the Boy Scout leader,
discussed in Chapter XVI. Asked about religion, he confesses to
``worshiping nature." He exalts athletics and camp collectivity,
probably on the basis of latent homosexuality. He is the clearest
example we have of the syndrome involving pagan pantheism, belief
in ``power," the idea of collective leadership, and a generally
ethnocentric and pseudo-conservative ideology.

It is against the background of these general observations on the
structure of the relationship between religion and modern prejudice
that the following, more specific observations may be understood.

%% RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL        733

\subsection*{C.  Specific Issues}

\subsubsection*{1. The Function Of Religion In High And Low Scorers}

Evidence in support of our hypothesis concerning ``neutralized"
religion is offered by a trait which seems to occur rather frequently
in our interview material. It is the disposition to view religion
as a means instead of an end. Religion is accepted, not because of
its objective truth, but on account of its value in realizing goals
that might also be achieved by other means. This attitude falls in
line with the general tendency toward subordination and renunciation
of one's own judgment so characteristic of the mentality of those
who follow fascist movements. Acceptance of an ideology is not based
upon understanding of or belief in its content but rather upon what
immediate use can be made of it, or upon arbitrary decisions. Here
lies one of the roots of the stubborn, conscious, and manipulative
irrationalism of the Nazis, as it was summed up by Hitler's saying:
``{\em Man kann nur f\"ur eine Idee sterben, die man nicht versteht}."
(One can die only for an idea which one does not understand.) This
is by its intrinsic logic tantamount to contempt for truth {\em per se}.
One selects a ``{\em Weltanschauung}" after the pattern of choosing a
particularly well advertised commodity, rather than for its real
quality. This attitude, applied to religion, must necessarily produce
ambivalence, for religion claims to express {\em absolute} truth. If it
is accepted for some other reason alone, this claim is implicitly
denied and thereby religion itself rejected, even while being
accepted. Thus, rigid confirmation of religious values on account
of their ``usefulness" works against them by necessity.

Subordination of religion to extrinsic aims is common in both high
and low scorers; by itself, it does not appear to differentiate
between them. It seems, however, that prejudiced and unprejudiced
subjects do differ with respect to the kinds of goals that are
emphasized and the ways in which religion is utilized in their
service.

High scorers, more often than low scorers, seem to make use of
religious ideas in order to gain some immediate practical advantage
or to aid in the manipulation of other people. An example of the
way in which formalized religion is adhered to as a means for
maintaining social status and social relationships is afforded by
the highly prejudiced young woman, {\em F201}, who is very frankly
interested in ``a stable society" in which class lines are clearly
drawn.

\begin{Quote}
``I was brought up in the Episcopalian Church through going to a
school for girls. It's nice. My friends go. It's more of a philosophy
(than Christian Science); it raises your standards. The philosophy
of the Episcopalian Church follows the pattern of all Protestant
churches. It takes in the upper classes and gives them a religion
or makes it a little nearer."
\end{Quote}

%% 734     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

Ethnocentric subjects frequently think of religion as a practical
aid in the mental hygiene of the individual. The statement of {\em
F109} is characteristic.

\begin{Quote}
``I don't understand religion. It's like a fairy tale to me. I don't
know if I believe in God. There must be one but it is hard to believe
it. Religion gives you something to hold on to, to base your life
on."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
If religion only serves the need for something ``to hold on to,"
this need may also be served by anything which provides the individual
with absolute authority, such as the fascist state. There is a
strong probability that fascism played exactly the same role with
German womanhood which was formally exercised by their belief in
positive religion. Psychologically, fascist hierarchies may function
largely as secularizations and substitutes of ecclesiastical ones.
It is not accidental that Nazism arose in Southern Germany with its
strong Roman-Catholic tradition.

{\em M118}, a moderately high scorer, shows clearly the element of
arbitrariness in his religious belief, mixed up with pseudo-scientific
statements which take the stamina out of this belief.

\begin{Quote}
``I am willing to believe in the existence of a God. Something I
can't explain anyway. Was it Darwin who said the world started
with whirling gas? Well, who created that? Where did the start of
it come from? That of course has little to do with church ritual."
(He has stated just before that the church ``is pretty important.")
\end{Quote}

\noindent
There is no logical interconnection between this reasoning and the
subject's adherence to positive Christianity. Consequently the
continuation of the passage reveals by its sophistry the aspect of
insincerity in conventionalized religion which leads easily to
malicious contempt for the values one officially subscribes to.
{\em M118} goes on to say:

\begin{Quote}
``I believe in the power of prayer even if it's just in the satisfaction
of the individual performing it. I don't know if there is any direct
communication but it helps the individual, so I'm for it. It's also
a chance for introspection; to stop and look at yourself."\footnote{This 
attitude, that of a homespun psychologist as it were,
can also be found in low scorers. The characteristic configuration
to be found in high scorers, however, seems to be the unresolved
contradiction between a critical attitude toward religion as an
objectivity and a positive attitude toward it for purely subjective
reasons. It is characteristic of the prejudiced mentality as a whole
that he stops thinking at certain contradictions and leaves them
as they are, which implies both intellectual defeatism and authoritarian
submissiveness. This mechanism of arbitrarily giving up processes
by command of the ego, as it were, is often misinterpreted as
``stupidity."}
\end{Quote}

The approach to religion for extraneous reasons is probably not so
much an expression of the subject's own wants and needs as an
expression of his opinion that religion is good for others, helps
to keep them content, in short, can be used for manipulative purposes.
Recommending religion to others makes it easier for a person to be
``in favor" of it without any actual identification with it. The
cynicism of the central European administrators of the
%%RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL        735
nineteenth century who taught that religion is a good medicine for
the masses, seems to have been to a certain extent democratized.
Numerous members of the masses themselves proclaim that religion
is good for the masses, whereas they make for themselves, as
individuals, a kind of mental reservation. There is a strong
similarity between these appreciations of religion and a trait which
played a large role in Nazi Germany. There, innumerable persons
exempted themselves privately from the ruling ideology and talked
about ``they" when discussing the Party. The fascist-minded personality,
it seems, can manage his life only by splitting his own ego into
several agencies, some of which fall in line with the official
doctrine, whilst others, heirs to the old superego, protect him
from mental unbalance and allow him to maintain himself as an
individual. Splits of this kind become manifest in the uncontrolled
associations of uneducated and na\"ive persons, such as the
rather medium-scoring man {\em M629}, who is serving a life sentence in San
Quentin prison. He makes the extraordinary statement:

\begin{Quote}
``I believe, personally, I have a religion that hasn't been defined
so far as I know in any books yet. I believe that religion has a
value for people who believe in it. I think it's used as an escape
mechanism by those who use it."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
The illogical way in which this man has made a sedative of religion
can be accounted for without much psychological interpretation by
the fact that he spent nineteen months in condemned row.

More sophisticated persons sometimes have to deal with the same
conflict. An example is the moderately high woman, {\em 5059}, who rejects
atheism because ``an atheistic funeral was so cold." She simply
denies any contradictions between science and religion, calling the
idea of a contradiction a ``malevolent invention," thus apparently
projecting her own uneasiness about this conflict upon those who
speak it out. This is similar to the mentality of the Nazi who puts
the blame for social defects on the critique of our social order.

It must now be pointed out that low scorers also often accept
religion, not because of any intrinsic truth that it may hold for
them, but because it may serve as a means for furthering human aims.
An example of such practical religion is the following excerpt from
the interview with a woman student of
journalism, {\em F126}, who obtained extremely low scores on both
the A--S and the E scales.

\begin{Quote}
Family were moderate church-goers. She rarely goes now. However,
she has much respect for religion and seems to feel that it might
be developed into something that would give people that faith and
understanding for each other that is lacking. ``I don't know what
else could give people something to hold onto, some purpose in life.
They seem to need something to believe in. Some of us seem to have
a love for people without that, but not very many."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
In one sense this way of looking at religion has something in common
with the externalized attitudes described above. However, it is our
impression that
%%736     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
when the practical approach to religion appears in the thinking of
the low scorer its content, or its context, can usually be distinguished
from what is found in the thinking of the high scorer. Thus, although
the young woman just quoted believes that religion is good for
people, gives them ``something to hold onto," she seems to mean that
they need it at least for a humane and ideal purpose, that is, so
that they may have more ``understanding for each other," not simply
in order to get along better or to function more efficiently. Low
as well as high scorers are likely to consider that religion
contributes to the mental hygiene of the individual; but whereas
the high scorers characteristically indicate that it is good for
other people because they are chronically weak, and possibly good
for themselves in times of acute external stress (``fox-hole religion"),
the low scorers are more likely to think of religion in internalized
terms, as a means for reducing hatred, resolving inner conflicts,
relieving anxiety, and the like. Practically never do we encounter
a low scorer who conceives of religion primarily in terms of external
practical utility --- as an aid to success, to status and power, or to
a sense of being in accord with conventional values.

\subsubsection*{2. Belief In God, Disbelief In Immortality}

The neutralization of religion is accompanied by its dissection.
Just as emphasis on the practical uses of religion tends to sever
religious truth from religious authority, so the specific contents
of religion are continually submitted to a process of selection and
adaptation. The interview material suggests that the tendency to
believe selectively in religion is a distinguishing feature of our
prejudiced subjects. A fairly common phenomenon among them is belief
in God accompanied by disbelief in immortality. Two examples follow.
In the case of {\em 5009}, a devout Baptist, the interviewer reports:

\begin{Quote}
sincerely feels deeply religious, believes in God, but has, as an
educated man, occasional doubts concerning the life after death.
\end{Quote}
\noindent
And in the case of {\em 5002}:

\begin{Quote}
still is a ``Christian," believes in God, would like to believe in
life after death, but has doubts and thinks that a sincere religious
revival or a new religious myth would be a good thing for the world.
\end{Quote}

Particularly common are statements to the effect that interviewees
regard themselves as religious, as followers of the church, but
disagree with ``some of its teachings," which sometimes refers to
miracles, sometimes to immortality. This outlook seems corroborative
of an underlying pattern of considerable significance the elements
of which have been established in our psychological analyses. The
abstract idea of God is accepted as an expansion of the father idea,
whereas general destructiveness makes itself felt in a reaction
against the hope for the individual expressed by the dogma of
immortality. Subjects with this point of view want a God to exist
as the absolute authority
%% RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL        737
to which they can bow, but they wish the individual to perish
completely.

The concept of God underlying this way of thinking is that of the
absolute essence of punitiveness. It is therefore not astonishing
that religious leanings of this particular brand are frequent in
the high scorers among our group of prison inmates (cf.\ Chapter
XXI).

{\em M627}, who is serving a life sentence for rape, is ``having trouble
with religion" and does not believe that ``there should be a set way
of worship." But he believes, in spite of an undertone of religious
rebelliousness,

\begin{Quote}
``that every man should have his own way of worship as long as he
believes in a power greater than himself."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
This power has the form of external authority, but remains completely
abstract, nothing but the projective concept of power as such.

\begin{Quote}
``Well, I have heard so many fellows talk about the powers they
believed in \ldots\ and I tried to recognize the power in myself and
just couldn't \ldots\ read all kinds of religious books \ldots\ but
still kind of foggy."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
The same line of thought is expressed by {\em M656A}, who is serving
a term for forgery, ``Robert" in Chapter XXI.

\begin{Quote}
"Well, I'm not a man to discuss religion a great deal, because I
don't know a lot about it. I believe in the Bible, I believe there
is someone a lot bigger and stronger than anyone on this earth \ldots\
I don't attend church often but \ldots\  try to live the right
way."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
For this man all specific religious content is negligible compared
with the idea of power and the closely related rigid, moralistic
stereotypes of good and bad:

\begin{Quote}
``The Catholic religion, for example, is just as good as the one I
believe in. They all are patterned after the same type of living,
right or wrong. I'm the type of person that doesn't believe in any
particular denomination."
\end{Quote}

This ``abstract authoritarianism" in religious matters easily turns
into cynicism and overt contempt for what one professes to believe.
{\em M664C}, asked about his religious views, answers:

\begin{Quote}
"Oh, I don't pay much attention \ldots\  I believe in God and all that
stuff but that is about all."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
The choice of the word ``stuff" refutes the statement in which it
occurs. One
effect of neutralization in such cases is that little is left of
God but the object of swearing.

The nihilistic aspect of the configuration here under consideration
is clearly indicated in the case of the murderer {\em M651}.

\begin{Quote}
``The part I like about it is the fact that it makes other people
happy, though it doesn't concern me, and you see so much
hypocrisy\ldots "
\end{Quote}

%% 738     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
\noindent
Asked what is most important in religion, he says:

\begin{Quote}
``Belief, I think that belief is everything. That is the thing that
holds you together."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
When this is pursued by the interviewer who wants to find out
something about the subject's own religious feelings, he answers:

\begin{Quote}
"\ldots\ I believe when you die you are through\ldots\  Life is short
and eternity is forever. How could God send you to Hell for eternity,
just on the basis of a short lifetime's record \ldots\  it doesn't
seem to be either merciful or just."
\end{Quote}

This material is indicative of relationships among abstract belief
in power, rejection of the more concrete and personal aspects of
religion, particularly the idea of an eternal life, and thinly
veiled impulses toward violence. As this violence is taboo within
the individual, particularly in situations such as a prison, it is
projected upon a Deity. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that
an entirely abstract idea of the almighty Deity, as it prevailed
during the eighteenth century, could be reconciled much more easily
with the ``scientific spirit" than could the doctrine of an immortal
soul, with its ``magical" connotations. The process of demythification
liquidates traces of animism earlier and more radically than it
does the philosophical idea of the Absolute.

It may be noted, however, that just the opposite tendency can be
observed among addicts of astrology and spiritualism. They often
believe in the immortality of the soul, but strongly deny the
existence of God, because of some kind of pantheism which ultimately
results in exaltation of nature. Thus, case {\em M651}, not quite
consistently with his previous confession of religiousness for
extraneous reasons, comes out with the statement that he:

\begin{Quote}
believes in astrology because he doesn't believe in God.
\end{Quote}

There is reason to believe that the ultimate consequence of this
attitude is sinister.

\subsubsection*{3. The Irreligious Low Scorer}

The difference between irreligious and religious low scorers may
correspond to a difference between rational and emotional determinants
of freedom from prejudice. Subject {\em M203} is characteristic of
the former. He may be regarded as a genuine liberal with a somewhat
abstract, rationalistic mentality. His anti-religious attitude is
based not so much on political persuasions as on a general positivistic
outlook. He rejects religion for ``logical reasons" but differentiates
between ``Christian ethics," which he regards as falling in line
with his progressive views, and ``organized religion." Originally,
his anti-religious attitude may have been derived from anticonventional
rebellion: ``I went to church because I was expected to."

This rebellion is somewhat vaguely rationalized as being of a purely
logical nature, perhaps on account of some unconscious guilt feelings.
(He is unemotional
%% RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL        739
emotional and apathetic in a way suggesting neurotic traits, possibly
a disturbance in his relation to objects.) His rational critique
of religion is formulated as follows:

\begin{Quote}
``But I was always pretty skeptical of it; I thought it kind of
phony, narrow, bigotted and snobbish, hypocritical \ldots\  unsemantic,
you might say. It violates the whole Christian ethics."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
Religion is here experienced both as a humanizing factor (Christian
ethics) and as a repressing agency. There can be no doubt that this
ambiguity has its basis in the double function of religion itself
throughout history and it should, therefore, not be attributed
solely to subjective factors.

The term hypocritical, used by {\em M203}, occurs very frequently
in the interviews of low scorers, and sometimes in those of high
scorers, usually with reference to the organization of the church
in contrast to ``genuine" religious values. This expresses the
historical emancipation of subjective religious experience from
institutionalized religion. The hatred of the hypocrite, however,
may work in two ways, either as a force toward enlightenment or as
a rationalization of cynicism and contempt for man. It seems that
the use of the term hypocrite, like that of the term ``snob" obtains
more and more the connotation of envy and resentment. It denounces
those who ``regard themselves as something better" in order to
glorify the average and to establish something plain and supposedly
natural as the norm.\footnote{Cf.\ the section on F.D.R.\ in Chapter
XVII. (Note by Adorno)}
The struggle against the lie is
often a mere pretext for coming into the open with destructive
motives rationalized by the supposed ``hypocrisy" and ``uppishness"
of others.

This phenomenon can be understood against the background of
democratized culture. The critique of religion as ``hypocritical,"
a critique which in Europe was either confined to small intellectual
layers or countered by metaphysical philosophy, is in this country
as widespread as Christian religion itself. Part of the ambivalence
toward religion can be accounted for by the simultaneous ubiquity
of both the Christian heritage and the ``spirit of science." This
double cultural ubiquity may favor an inconsistent attitude toward
religion without necessarily involving the individual's psychological
make-up.

The fact that America, for all its interest in science, is still
close to a religious climate may help to explain a more general
trait of irreligious low scorers: their actual or fictitious
``negative" conversion. Thus, for example, {\em 5028} and {\em 5058}, like
{\em M203}, report that they ``broke away" from religion. In American
culture one is rarely ``born" as an irreligious person: one becomes
irreligious through conflicts of childhood or adolescence, and
these dynamics favor nonconformist sympathies which, in turn, go
with opposition to prejudice.

That a subject is consciously irreligious under the prevailing
cultural conditions suggests the existence of a certain strength
of the ego. An example is
%% 740     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
{\em M202}, our ``conservative but not fascist" person (see pp.\ 649,
707), who scores extremely low on the E scale.

\begin{Quote}
As a child subject was very religious. He went to church with his
family every Sunday and he would ``fall on my knees in the street"
to pray for something. At the age of 19 he changed. He became
disgusted by the gossip in church. They would tell him things about
someone that were ``none of their damned business." Also these people
would come and testify in church and do bad things again. He could
not understand this inconsistency in their actions.
\end{Quote}
\noindent
In this case the anti-religious attitude, as far as it goes, is
overtly derived from resentment against outside interference with
individual liberty and this, be it noted, is hardly less an element
in American ideology than is Christianity itself. Here, as in many
other respects, individual, psychological ambivalence toward religion
on the part of the subject reflects objective antagonism in our
culture.

{\em M310}, a genuine liberal, offers another example of the
rebellious feature
in irreligiousness. The subject, who rejects Christian tradition
altogether, is the child of religious parents. He admits no open
conflict with them, although relations with them were apparently
very cool. In all probability he displaced his rebellion against
the family upon their religion, thus avoiding the trouble of
undergoing difficulties of a more personal kind. Often enough,
strong ideological attachments or oppositions can be understood as
such displacements of family conflicts, a device which allows the
individual to express his hostilities on a level of rationalization
and so dispense with the necessity of deep emotional entanglements --- and
which also allows the youngster to remain within the family shelter.
It may also be in some respects more gratifying to attack the
infinite father than to attack the finite one. It should be emphasized,
however, that the term rationalization does not imply, here or
elsewhere, the allegation {\em untrue}. Rationalization is a psychological
aspect of thinking which by itself decides neither truth nor untruth.
A decision on this matter depends entirely on the objective merits
of the idea in which the process of rationalization terminates.

In contrast to those irreligious low scorers who underwent a
``negative" conversion are {\em easy-going} low scorers such as {\em M711}. 
His negative
attitude toward religion is marked not so much by opposition as by
an indifference that involves the element of a somewhat humorous
self-reflection. This subject professes rather frankly a certain
confusion in religious matters but in a way which suggests that his
apparent weakness is allowed to manifest itself on the basis of
some considerable underlying strength of character. With people
like him it is as if they could afford to profess intellectual
inconsistencies because they find more security in their own character
structure and in the depth of their experience than in clear-cut,
well-organized, highly rationalized convictions. When asked about
his attitude toward religion, he answers:

%% RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL        741

\begin{Quote}
``I don't really have any (laughs). More or less an absence of views.
On organized religion I suppose I am confused (laughs) if anything."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
He does not need to reject religion because he is not under its
spell; there are no traces of ambivalence, and therefore no signs
of hatred, but rather a kind of humane and detached understanding.
The religious idea he accepts is tolerance, in a characteristically
nonconventional way demonstrated by his choice of negative expressions
rather than high sounding ``ideals." ``I think I became aware of
intolerance." But he does not use this awareness for ego enhancement
but is rather inclined to attribute his religious emancipation to
external accidental factors:

\begin{Quote}
``If I'd stayed in Denver, I'd probably attended a church. I don't
know. I don't think of it; I don't feel the need of organized
religion particularly."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
Interesting is this subject's discussion of prayer. He admits the
psychological efficacy of prayer, but is aware that this ``therapeutic"
aspect of religion is incompatible with the idea of religion itself.
He regards prayer as a kind of autosuggestion, which could ``accomplish
results" but ``I certainly don't see there is anyone on the receiving
end."

This subject makes the bizarre but strangely profound statement:

\begin{Quote}
``My religious curiosity did not last very long. Probably took up
photography (laughs) about that time."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
Only an interpretation making full use of psychoanalytic categories
would do justice to this sentence. The link between his early
interest in religion and the later one in photography is apparently
curiosity, the desire to ``see" things --- a sublimation of voyeurism.
It is as if photography in a somewhat infantile way would fulfill
the wish for ``imagery" which underlies certain trends in religion
and is at the same time put under a heavy taboo by both Judaism and
Protestantism. This may be corroborated by the fact that the subject
during his religious phase was attracted by theosophy, by religious
ways of thinking which promised to ``lift the curtain."

It should be noted that this subject's attitude toward atheism is
no more ``radical" than is his opposition to religion.\footnote{%
The ``easy-going" low scorer is rarely radical in any respect.
This, however, does not make him a middle-of-the-roader. He is
persistently aware of the nonidentity between concept and reality.
He is fundamentally nontotalitarian. This is behind his specific
idea of tolerance.}
He says:

\begin{Quote}
``Well, I don't think any more about atheists than anything else.
As a matter of fact I talked with several people who profess to be
atheists and they don't even seem to agree. Perhaps I am an atheist
(laughs) \ldots\  you get into semantics, really. Professional atheists
\ldots\  just impress me as doing it because it seems to be a stunt.
Don Quixote battling windmills."
\end{Quote}
\noindent
This may be indicative of the easy-going person's suspicion of the
``ticket,"
%% 742     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
his awareness of the tendency of any rigid formula to degenerate
into a mere piece of propaganda.\footnote{%
More material on this subject is presented in Chapter XIX. (Note by
Adorno)}

Incidentally, the subject senses clearly what was formulated one
hundred years ago in Baudelaire's Diary: that atheism becomes obsolescent
in a world the objective spirit of which is essentially areligious.
The meaning of atheism undergoes historical changes. What was one
of the decisive impulses of the eighteenth century Enlightenment
may function today as a manifestation of provincial sectarianism
or even as a paranoid system. Half-mad Nazis such as Mathilde
Ludendorff fought, besides the Jews and the Free Masons, the
Roman-Catholics as an {\em ultra-montan} conspiracy directed against
Germany, transforming the tradition of Bismarck's {\em Kulturkampf}
into a pattern of persecution mania.

\subsubsection*{4. Religious Low Scorers}

A clear-cut example of a religious low scorer is the somewhat sketchy
interview of {\em F132}, a young woman brought up in India where her
parents are missionaries. Her combining positive Christianity with
an outspoken concrete idea of tolerance (``equality for everyone")
is derived from ``life experience with the Indians." She is passionate
in matters of racial understanding. However, her church affiliations
make it impossible for her to draw the political consequences from
her tolerance idea:

\begin{Quote}
``I don't like Ghandi. I don't like radical people. He is a radical.
He has done much to upset and disunite the country."
\end{Quote}

Her association with the church involves an element of that religious
conventionalism which is usually associated with ethnocentrism. In
spite of her closeness to the church and to theological doctrine,
her religious outlook has a practical coloring.

\begin{Quote}
``It (religion) means a great deal. It makes a person happier --- more
satisfied. Gives them peace of mind. You know where you stand and
have something to work for --- and example to follow. Hope for an afterlife.
Yes, I believe in immortality."\footnote{%
It would be a tempting task to analyze the change of meaning
undergone by the word ``belief." It illustrates most clearly religious
neutralization. Formerly the idea of belief was emphatically related
to the religious dogma. Today it is applied to practically everything
which a subject feels the right to have as his own, as his ``opinion"
(for everybody is entitled to have opinion) without subjecting it
to any criteria of objective truth. The secularization of ``believing"
is accompanied by arbitrariness of that which one believes: it is
molded after the preferences for one or the other commodity and
has little relation to the idea of truth. (``I don't believe in
parking," said a conventional high-scoring girl in her interview.)
This use of belief is almost an equivalent of the hackneyed, ``I
like it," which is about to lose any meaning. (Cf.\ the statement
of Mack, given in Chapter II, ``I like the history and sayings of
Christ.")}
\end{Quote}
\noindent
This girl is probably atypical in many ways because of her colonial
upbringing as well as because of the mixture of ``official" religiosity
and more spontaneous
%% RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY IN INTERVIEW MATERIAL        743
religious humanism. Her particular attitude is probably due, on the
surface level at least, to her insight into ingroup-outgroup problems.
However, this example seems to offer some support for the hypothesis
that only fully conscious, very articulate, unconventional Christians
are likely to be free of ethnocentrism. At any rate, the rareness
of religious low scorers in our sample is significant. As indicated
above, the composition of the sample itself may be responsible for
this. However, this rarity suggests something more fundamental. The
tendency of our society to become split into ``progressive" and
``{\em status quo}" camps may be accompanied by a tendency of all persons
who cling to religion, as a part of the {\em status quo}, also to assume
other features of the {\em status quo} ideology which are associated with
the ethnocentric outlook. Whether this is true or whether religion
can produce effective trends in opposition to prejudice, could be
elucidated only after much extensive research.

\end{multicols}




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\newtitle{Types And Syndromes}{XIX}

\begin{multicols}{2}

\subsection*{A. The Approach}

Hardly any concept in contemporary American psychology has been so
thoroughly criticized as that of typology. Since ``any doctrine of
types is a halfway approach to the problem of individuality, and
nothing more," (9) any such doctrine is subject to devastating
attacks from both extremes: because it never catches the unique,
and because its generalizations are not statistically valid and do
not even afford productive heuristic tools. From the viewpoint of
general dynamic theory of personality, it is objected that typologies
tend towards pigeonholing and transform highly flexible traits into
static, quasi-biological characteristics while neglecting, above
all, the impact of historical and social factors. Statistically,
the insufficiency of twofold typologies is particularly emphasized.
As to the heuristic value of typologies, their overlapping, and the
necessity of constructing ``mixed types" which practically disavow
the original constructs, is pointed out. At the hub of all these
arguments is aversion against the application of rigid concepts to
the supposedly fluid reality of psychological life.

The development of modern psychological typologies, as contrasted,
for example, with the old scheme of ``temperaments," has its origin
in psychiatry, in the therapeutic need for a classification of
mental diseases as a means of facilitating diagnosis and prognosis.
Kraepelin and Lombroso are the fathers of psychiatric typology.
Since the clear-cut division of mental diseases has in the meantime
completely broken down, the basis of typological classifications
of the ``normal," derived from the former, seems to vanish. It is
stigmatized as a remnant of the ``taxonomic phase of behavior theory"
the formulation of which ``tended to remain descriptive, static and
sterile" (80). If not even the mentally diseased, whose psychological
dynamics are largely replaced by rigid patterns, can be sensibly
divided according to types, how, then, is there any chance of success
for procedures such as the famous one of Kretschmer, the {\em raison
d'\^etre} of which was the standard classification of manic-depression
and dementia praecox?

%% %% 744TYPES AND SYNDROMES  745

The present state of the discussion on typology is summed up by
Anne Anastasi (11) as follows:


\begin{Quote}
``Type theories have been most commonly criticized because of their
attempt to classify individuals into sharply divided categories
\ldots\ Such a procedure implies a multi-modal distribution of traits.
The introverts, for example, would be expected to cluster at one
end of the scale, the extroverts at the other end, and the point
of demarcation between them should be clearly apparent. Actual
measurement, however, reveals a unimodal distribution 
of all traits, which closely resembles the bell-shaped normal curve.

``Similarly, it is often difficult to classify a given individual
definitely into one type or the other. The typologists, when
confronted with this difficulty, have frequently proposed intermediate
or `mixed' types to bridge the gap between the extremes. Thus Jung
suggested an ambivert type which manifests neither introvert nor
extrovert tendencies to a predominant degree. Observation seems to
show, however, that the ambivert category is the largest, and the
decided introverts and extroverts are relatively rare. The reader
is referred, for example, to the distribution curve obtained by
Heidbreder with an introversion questionnaire administered to zoo
college students\ldots\  . It will be recalled that the majority of
scores were intermediate and that as the extremes of either
introversion or extroversion were approached, the number of cases
became progressively smaller. The curve, too, showed no sharp breaks,
but only a continuous gradation from the mean to the two extremes.
As was indicated in Chapter II, the same may be said of all other
measurable traits of the individual, whether social, emotional,
intellectual, or physical.

``It is apparent, then, that insofar as type theories imply the
classification of individuals into clear-cut classes, they are
untenable in the face of a mass of indisputable data. Such an
assumption, however, is not necessarily inherent in all systems of
human typology. It is more characteristic of the popular versions
and adaptations of type theories than of the original concepts. To
be sure, type psychologists have often attempted to categorize
individuals, but this was not an indispensable part of
their theories; their concepts have occasionally been sufficiently
modified to admit of a normal distribution of traits."
\end{Quote}

In spite of such concessions to more satisfactory categorizations,
the ``nominalistic" exclusion of typological classifications has
triumphed to such a degree that it is almost tantamount to a taboo,
no matter how urgent the scientific and pragmatic need for such
classifications may be. It should be noted that this taboo is closely
related to the notion, still taught by numerous academic psychiatrists,
that mental diseases are essentially inexplicable. If one would
assume, for the argument's sake, that psychoanalytic theory has
really succeeded in establishing a number of dynamic schemata of
psychoses, by which the latter become ``meaningful" within the
psychological life of the individual in spite of all their irrationality
and the disintegration of the
psychotic personality, the problem of typology would be completely
redefined.

It cannot be doubted that the critique of psychological types
expresses a truly humane impulse, directed against that kind of
subsumption of individuals under pre-established classes which has
been consummated in Nazi
%% 746     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
Germany, where the labeling of live human beings, independently of
their specific qualities, resulted in decisions about their life
and death. It is this motive which has been stressed particularly
by Allport (9); and Boder has demonstrated in great detail in his
study of ``Nazi Science" the interconnections of psychological {\em pro
et contra} schemes, the repressive function of categories such as
Jaensch's ``{\em Gegentypus}" and the arbitrary manipulation of empirical
findings (47). Thus, enquiries devoted to the study of prejudice
have to be particularly cautious when the issue of typology comes
up. To express it pointedly, the rigidity of constructing types is
itself indicative of that ``stereopathic"\footnote{{\em stereopathy}:
Persistent stereotyped thinking.}
mentality which belongs
to the basic constituents of the potentially fascist character. We
need only to refer, in this connection, to our high scorer of Irish
descent who attributes his personal traits unhesitatingly to his
national extraction. Jaensch's ``anti-type," for example, is an
almost classic case of the mechanism of projection, the effectiveness
of which in the make-up of our high scorers has been established,
and which in Jaensch's has wormed its way into the very same science
whose task it would be to account for this mechanism. The essentially
undynamic, ``antisociological," and {\em quasi}-biological nature of
classifications of the Jaensch brand is directly opposed to the
theory of our work as well as to its empirical results.\footnote{%
It should be remembered that Jaensch's anti-type is defined by
synaesthesia, that is to say, the supposed or actual tendency of
certain people ``to have color experiences when listening to a tone,
or to music in general, and to have tone experiences when looking
at colors or pictures" (Boder, in (47), p.\ 15). This tendency is
interpreted by Jaensch as a symptom of degeneracy. It may well be
assumed that this interpretation is based on historical reminiscence
rather than on any factual psychological findings. For the cult of
synaesthesia played a large role within the lyrical poetry of the
same French authors who introduced the concept of {\em d\'ecadence},
particularly Baudelaire. It can be noted, however, that synaesthetic
imagery fulfills a specific function in their works. By clouding
the division between different realms of sense perception, they
simultaneously try to efface the rigid classification of different
kinds of objects, as it is brought about under the practical
requirements of industrial civilization. They rebel against
reification.\footnote{{\em reification}: To regard or treat (an
abstraction) as if it had concrete or material existence.} 
It is highly characteristic that an entirely administrative
ideology chooses as its archfoe an attitude which is, above all,
rebellion against stereotypy. The Nazi cannot stand anything which
does not fit into his scheme and even less anything which does not
recognize his own reified, ``stereopathic" way of looking at things.}

Yet all these objections do not dispose altogether of the problem
of typology. Not all typologies are devices for dividing the world
into sheep and buck, but some of them reflect certain experiences
which, though hard to systematize, have, to put it as loosely as
possible, hit upon something. Here one has to think primarily of
Kretschmer, Jung, and Freud. It should be particularly emphasized
that Freud, whose general emphasis on psychological dynamics puts
him above the suspicion of any simple ``biologism" and stereotypical
thinking, published as late as 1931 (39) a rather categorical
typology without bothering much about the methodological difficulties
of which he must have been aware very well, and even, with apparent
na\"ivet\'e, constructing ``mixed" types out of the basic ones. Freud
was too much led by concrete
%% TYPES AND SYNDROMES     747
insights into the matters themselves, had too intimate a relationship
to his scientific objects, to waste his energy on the kind of
methodological reflections which may well turn out to be acts of
sabotage of organized science against productive thinking. This is
not to say that his typology has to be accepted as it stands. Not
only can it be criticized by the usual anti-typological arguments
to which reference was made at the beginning of this chapter; as
Otto Fenichel has pointed out, it is also problematic from the
viewpoint of orthodox psychoanalytic theory. What counts, however,
is that Freud found such a classification worthwhile. One has only
to look at the relatively easy and convincing integration of different
kinds of twofold typologies in Donald W.\ MacKinnon's {\em Structure of
Personality} (in 55) to gain the impression that typologies are not
altogether arbitrary, do not necessarily do violence to the
manifoldness of the human, but have some basis in the structure of
psychological reality.

The reason for the persistent plausibility of the typological
approach, however, is not a static biological one, but just the
opposite: dynamic and social. The fact that human society has been
up to now divided into classes affects more than the external
relations of men. The marks of social repression are left within
the individual soul. The French sociologist Durkheim in particular
has shown how and to what extent hierarchical social orders permeate
the individual's thinking, attitudes, and behavior. People form
psychological ``classes," inasmuch as they are stamped by variegated
social processes. This in all probability holds good for our own
standardized mass culture to even higher a degree than for previous
periods. The relative rigidity of our high scorers, and of some of
our low scorers, reflects psychologically the increasing rigidity
according to which our society falls into two more or less crude
opposing camps. Individualism, opposed to inhuman pigeonholing, may
ultimately become a mere ideological veil in a society which actually
is inhuman and whose intrinsic tendency towards the ``subsumption"
of everything shows itself by the classification of people themselves.
In other words, the critique of typology should not neglect the
fact that large numbers of people are no longer, or rather never
were, ``individuals" in the sense of traditional nineteenth-century
philosophy. Ticket thinking is possible only because the actual
existence of those who indulge in it is largely determined by
``tickets," standardized, opaque, and overpowering social processes
which leave to the ``individual" but little freedom for action and
true individuation. Thus the problem of typology is put on a different
basis. There is reason to look for psychological types because the
world in which we live is typed and ``produces" different ``types"
of persons. Only by identifying stereotypical traits in modern
humans, and not by denying their existence, can the pernicious
tendency towards all-pervasive classification and subsumption be
challenged.

The construction of psychological types does not merely imply an
arbitrary, compulsive attempt to bring some ``order" into the confusing
diversity
%% 748     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
of human personality. It represents a means of ``conceptualizing"
this diversity, according to its own structure, of achieving closer
understanding. The radical renunciation of all generalizations
beyond those pertaining to the most obvious findings would not
result in true empathy into human individuals but rather in an
opaque, dull description of psychological ``facts": every step which
goes beyond the factual and aims at psychological meaning --- as it has
been defined in Freud's basic statement that all our experiences
are meaningful (``{\em dass alle unsere Erlebnisse einen Sinn
haben}") --- inevitably involves generalizations transcending the
supposedly unique ``case," and it happens that these generalizations
more frequently than not imply the existence of certain regularly
recurring {\em nuclei} or syndromes which come rather close to the idea
of ``types." Ideas such as those of orality, or of the compulsive
character, though apparently derived from highly individualized
studies, make sense only if they are accompanied by the implicit
assumption that the structures thus named, and discovered within
the individual dynamics of an individual, pertain to such basic
constellations that they may be expected to be representative, no
matter how ``unique" the observations upon which they are based may
be. Since there is a typological element inherent in any kind of
psychological theory, it would be spurious to exclude typology {\em per
se}. Methodological ``purity" in this respect would be tantamount to
renouncing the conceptual medium or any theoretical penetration of
the given material, and would result in an irrationality as complete
as the arbitrary subsumptiveness of the ``pigeonholing" schools.

Within the context of our study, another reflection of an entirely
different nature points in the same direction. It is a pragmatic
one: the necessity that science provide weapons against the potential
threat of the fascist mentality. It is an open question whether and
to what extent the fascist danger really can be fought with
psychological weapons. Psychological ``treatment" of prejudiced
persons is problematic because of their large number as well as
because they are by no means ``ill," in the usual sense, and, as we
have seen, at least on the surface level are often even better
``adjusted" than the non-prejudiced ones. Since, however, modern
fascism is inconceivable without a mass basis, the inner complexion
of its prospective followers still maintains its crucial significance,
and no defense which does not take into account the subjective phase
of the problem would be truly ``realistic." It is obvious that
psychological countermeasures, in view of the extent of the fascist
potential among modern masses, are promising only if they are
differentiated in such a way that they are adapted to specific
groups. An over-all defense would move on a level of such vague
generalities that it would in all probability fall flat. It may be
regarded as one of the practical results of our study that such a
differentiation has at least to be {\em also} one which follows psychological
lines, since certain basic variables of the fascist character persist
relatively independently of marked social differentiations. There
is no psychological defense against prejudice which is not oriented
toward certain psychological ``types."

%% TYPES AND SYNDROMES     749

We would make a fetish of the methodological critique of typology
and jeopardize each attempt of coming psychologically to grips with
prejudiced persons if a number of very drastic and extreme
differences --- such as the one between the psychological make-up of a
conventional anti-Semite and a sadomasochistic ``tough guy" --- were
excluded simply because none of these types is ever represented in
classic purity by a single individual.

The possibility of constructing largely different sets of psychological
types has been widely recognized. As the result of the previous
discussions, we base our own attempt on the three following major
criteria:

\paragraph{a.}
We do not want to classify human beings by types which divide
them neatly statistically, nor by ideal types in the usual sense
which have to be supplemented by ``mixtures." Our types are justified
only if we succeed in organizing, under the name of each type, a
number of traits and dispositions, in bringing them into a context
which shows some unity of meaning in those traits. We regard those
types as being scientifically most productive which integrate traits,
otherwise dispersed, into meaningful continuities and bring to the
fore the interconnection of elements which belong together according
to their inherent ``logic," in terms of psychological understanding
of underlying dynamics. No mere additive or mechanical subsumption
of traits under the same type should be permitted. A major criterion
for this postulate would be that, confronted with ``genuine" types,
even so-called deviations would no longer appear as accidental but
would be recognizable as meaningful, in a structural sense. Speaking
genetically, the consistency of meaning of each type would suggest
that as many traits as possible can be deduced from certain basic
forms of underlying psychological conflicts, and their resolutions.

\paragraph{b.} Our typology has to be a {\em critical} typology in the sense that it
comprehends the typification of men itself as a social function.
The more rigid a type, the more deeply does he show the hallmarks
of social rubber stamps. This is in accordance with the characterization
of our high scorers by traits such as rigidity and stereotypical
thinking. Here lies the ultimate principle of our whole typology.
Its major dichotomy lies in the question of whether a person is
standardized himself and thinks in a standardized way, or whether
he is truly ``individualized" and opposes standardization in the
sphere of human experience. The individual types will be specific
configurations within this general division. The latter differentiates
{\em prima facie} between high and low scorers. At closer view, however,
it also affects the low scorers themselves: the more they are
``typified" themselves, the more they express unwittingly the fascist
potential within themselves.\footnote{%
It should be stressed that two concepts of types have to be
distinguished. On the one hand, there are those who are types in
the proper sense, typified persons, individuals who are largely
reflecting set patterns and social mechanisms, and on the other
hand, persons who can be called types only in a formal-logical sense
and who often may be characterized just by the {\em absence} of standard
qualities. It is essential to distinguish the real, ``genuine" type
structure of a person and his merely belonging to a logical class
by which he is defined from outside, as it were.}

%% 750     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

\paragraph{c.}
The types must be constructed in such a way that they may become
productive pragmatically, that is to say, that they can be translated
into relatively drastic defense patterns which are organized in
such a way that differences of a more individual nature play but a
minor role. This makes for a certain conscious ``superficiality" of
typification, comparable to the situation in a sanatorium where no
therapy could ever be initiated if one did not divide the patients
into manic-depressives, schizophrenics, paranoiacs, and so forth,
though one is fully aware of the fact that these distinctions are
likely to vanish the deeper one goes. In this connection, however,
the hypothesis may be allowed that if one could only succeed in
going deep {\em enough}, at the end of the differentiation just the more
universal ``crude" structure would reappear: some basic libidinous
constellations. An analogy from the history of the arts may be
permitted. The traditional, crude distinction between Romanesque
and Gothic style was based on the characteristic of round and pointed
arches. It became apparent that this division was insufficient;
that both traits were overlapping and that there were much deeper-lying
contrasts of construction between the two styles. This, however,
led to such complicated definitions that it proved impossible to
state in their terms whether a given building was Romanesque or
Gothic in character though its structural totality rarely left any
doubt to the observer to which epoch it belonged. Thus it ultimately
became necessary to resume the primitive and na\"ive classification.
Something similar may be advisable in the case of our problem. An
apparently superficial question such as ``What kind of people do you
find among the prejudiced?" may easily do more justice to typological
requirements than the attempt to define types at first sight by,
say, different fixations at pregenital or genital developmental
phases and the like. This indispensable simplification can probably
be achieved by the integration of {\em sociological} criteria into the
psychological constructs. Such sociological criteria may refer to
the group memberships and identifications of our subjects as well
as to social aims, attitudes, and patterns of behavior. The task
of relating psychological type criteria to sociological ones is
facilitated because it has been established in the course of our
study that a number of ``clinical" categories (such as the adulation
of a punitive father) are intimately related to social attitudes
(such as belief in authority for authority's sake). Hence, we may
well ``translate" for the hypothetical purposes of a typology a
number of our basic psychological concepts into sociological ones
most closely akin to them.

These considerations have to be supplemented by a requirement
prescribed by the nature of our study. Our typology, or rather,
scheme of syndromes, has to be organized in such a way that it fits
as ``naturally" as possible our empirical data. It should be borne
in mind that our material does not exist in an empty space, as it
were, but that it is structurally predetermined by our tools,
particularly the questionnaire and the interview schedule. Since
%% TYPES AND SYNDROMES     751
our hypotheses were formulated according to psychoanalytic theory,
the orientation of our syndromes toward psychoanalytic concepts is
reinforced. Of course, the limitations of such an attempt are narrow
since we did not ``analyze" any of our subjects. Our characterization
of syndromes has to concentrate on traits that have proved to be
psychoanalytically significant rather than on the ultimate dynamic
patterns of depth psychology.

In order to place the following typological draft into its proper
perspective, it should be recalled that we have pointed out in the
chapter on the F scale that all the clusters of which this scale
is made up belong to one single, ``over-all" syndrome. It is one of
the outstanding findings of the study that ``highness" is essentially
{\em one} syndrome, distinguishable from a variety of ``low" syndromes.
There exists something like ``the" potentially fascist character,
which is by itself a ``structural unit." In other words, traits such
as conventionality, authoritarian submissiveness and aggressiveness,
projectivity, manipulativeness, etc., regularly go together. Hence,
the ``subsyndromes" which we outline here are not intended to {\em
isolate}
any of these traits. They are all to be understood within the general
frame of reference of the high scorer. What differentiates them is
the emphasis on one or another of the features or dynamics selected
for characterization, not their exclusiveness. However, it seems
to us that the differential profiles arising within the over-all
structure can readily be distinguished. At the same time, their
interconnection by the over-all potentially fascist structure is
of such a nature that they are ``dynamic" in the sense that transitions
from one to the other could easily be worked out by analyzing the
increase or decrease of some of the specific factors. Such a dynamic
interpretation of them could achieve more adequately --- that is to say,
with a better understanding of the underlying processes --- what is
usually done in a haphazard way by the ``mixed types" of static
typologies. However, theory and empirical substantiation of these
dynamic relations among the syndromes could not be touched upon
within the present research.

The principle according to which the syndromes are organized is
their ``type-being" in the sense of rigidity, lack of
cathexis,\footnote{{\em cathexis}: the concentration of mental energy
on one particular person, idea, or object (esp.\ to an unhealthy
degree).}
stereopathy. This does not necessarily imply, however, that the
order of our syndromes represents a more dynamic ``scale of measurement."
It pertains to potentialities, and accessibility to countermeasures,
but not to overt prejudice --- basically to the problem of ``over-all
highness" vs. ``lowness." It will be seen, for example, that the
case illustrating the psychologically relatively harmless syndrome
at the bottom of our scheme is extremely high in terms of overt
anti-minority prejudice.

Pragmatic requirements as well as the idea that the high scorers
are generally more ``typed" than the low scorers seem to focus our
interest on the prejudiced person. Yet, we deem it necessary also
to construct syndromes of low scorers. The general direction of our
research leads us to stress, with
%% 752     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
a certain one-sidedness, psychological determinants. This, however,
should never make us forget that prejudice is by no means an entirely
psychological, ``subjective" phenomenon. It has to be remembered
what we pointed out in Chapter XVII: that ``high" ideology and
mentality are largely fomented by the objective spirit of our
society. Whereas different individuals react differently, according
to their psychological make-up, to the ubiquitous\footnote{{\em
ubiquitous}:  present, appearing, or found everywhere.}
cultural stimuli
of prejudice, the objective element of prejudice cannot be neglected
if we want to understand the attitudes of individuals or psychological
groups. It is therefore not sufficient to ask, ``Why is this or that
individual ethnocentric?" but rather: ``Why does he react positively
to the omnipresent stimuli, to which this other man reacts negatively?"
The potentially fascist character has to be regarded as a product
of interaction between the cultural climate of prejudice and the
``psychological" responses to this climate. The former consists not
only of crude outside factors, such as economic and social conditions,
but of opinions, ideas, attitudes, and behavior which appear to be
the individual's but which have originated neither in his autonomous
thinking nor in his self-sufficient psychological development but
are due to his belonging to our culture. These objective patterns
are so pervasive in their influence that it is just as much of a
problem to explain why an individual resists them as it is to explain
why they are accepted. In other words, the low scorers present just
as much of a psychological problem as do the high scorers, and only
by understanding them can we obtain a picture of the objective
momentum of prejudice. Thus the construction of ``low" syndromes
becomes imperative. Naturally, they have been chosen in such a way
as to fit as well as possible with our general principles of
organization. Yet it should not come as a surprise that they are
more loosely interconnected than the ``high" ones.

The syndromes to be discussed have been developed gradually. They
go back to a typology of anti-Semites worked out and published by
the Institute of Social Research (57). This scheme was modified and
extended to the low scorers during the present research. In its new
form, which emphasized the more psychological aspects, it was applied
particularly to the Los Angeles sample; the interviewers here tried
as far as possible to ascertain the relation between their case
findings and the hypothetical types. The syndromes which are presented
here are the result of the modifications which this draft underwent
on the basis of our empirical findings, and of continuous theoretical
critique. Still, they have to be regarded as tentative, as an
intermediate step between theory and empirical data. For further
research, they need redefinition in terms of quantifiable criteria.
The justification of presenting them now lies in the fact that they
may serve as guides for this future research. Each syndrome is
illustrated by a profile of one characteristic case, mainly on the
basis of the interview protocol of each person selected.

%% TYPES AND SYNDROMES     753

\subsection*{B.  Syndromes Found Among High Scorers}

A rough characterization of the several types may precede their
detailed presentation. {\em Surface Resentment} can easily be recognized
in terms of justified or unjustified social anxieties; our construct
does not say anything about the psychological fixations or defense
mechanisms underlying the pattern of opinion. With the {\em
Conventional}
pattern, of course, acceptance of conventional values is outstanding.
The superego was never firmly established and the individual is
largely under the sway of its external representatives. The most
obvious underlying motive is the fear of ``being different." The
{\em Authoritarian} type is governed by the superego and has continuously
to contend with strong and highly ambivalent id tendencies. He is
driven by the fear of being weak. In the {\em Tough Guy} the repressed
id tendencies gain the upper hand, but in a stunted and destructive
form. Both the {\em Crank} and the {\em Manipulative} 
types seem to have resolved
the Oedipus complex through a narcissistic withdrawal into their
inner selves. Their relation to the outer world, however, varies.
The cranks have largely replaced outward reality by an imaginary
inner world; concomitantly, their main characteristic is projectivity
and their main fear is that the inner world will be ``contaminated"
by contact with dreaded reality: they are beset by heavy taboos,
in Freud's language by the ``{\em d\'elire de
toucher}."\footnote{delirium of (or ``against") touching (French)} 
The manipulative
individual avoids the danger of psychosis by reducing outer reality
to a mere object of action: thus he is incapable of any positive
cathexis. He is even more compulsive than the authoritarian, and
his compulsiveness seems to be completely ego-alien: he did not
achieve the transformation of an externally coercive power into a
superego. Complete rejection of any urge to love is his most
outstanding defense.

In our sample, the conventional and the authoritarian types seem
to be by far the most frequent.

\subsubsection*{1. Surface Resentment}

The phenomenon to be discussed here is not on the same logical level
as the various ``types" of high and low scorers characterized
afterwords. As a matter of fact, it is not in and of itself a
psychological ``type," but rather a condensation of the more rational,
either conscious or preconscious, manifestations of prejudice, in
so far as they can be distinguished from more deep-lying, unconscious
aspects. We may say that there are a number of people who ``belong
together" in terms of more or less rational motivations, whereas
the remainder of our ``high" syndromes are characterized by the
relative absence or spuriousness of rational motivation which, in
their case, has to be recognized as a mere ``rationalization." This
does not mean, however, that those high scorers whose prejudiced
statements show a certain rationality
%% 754     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
{\em per se} are exempt from the psychological mechanisms of the fascist
character. Thus the example we offer is high not only on the F scale
but on all scales: she has the {\em generality} of prejudiced outlook
which we have taken as evidence that underlying personality trends
were the ultimate determinants. Still, we feel that the phenomenon
of ``Surface Resentment," though generally nourished by deeper
instinctual sources, should not be entirely neglected in our
discussion since it represents a sociological aspect of our problem
which might be underestimated in its importance for the fascist
potential if we concentrate entirely on psychological description
and etiology.\footnote{{\em etiology}: the study of causes or
origins.}

We refer here to people who accept stereotypes of prejudice from
outside, as ready-made formulae, as it were, in order to rationalize
and --- psychologically or actually --- overcome overt difficulties of their
own existence. While their personalities are unquestionably those
of high scorers, the stereotype of prejudice as such does not appear
to be too much libidinized, and it generally maintains a certain
rational or pseudo-rational level. There is no complete break between
their experience and their prejudice: both are often explicitly
contrasted one with the other. These subjects are able to present
relatively sensible reasons for their prejudice, and are accessible
to rational argumentation. Here belongs the discontented, grumbling
family father who is happy if somebody else can be blamed for his
own economic failures, and even happier if he can derive material
advantages from anti-minority discrimination, or the actually or
potentially ``vanquished competitors," such as small retailers,
economically endangered by chain stores, which they suppose to be
owned by Jews. We may also think of anti-Semitic Negroes in Harlem
who have to pay excessive rents to Jewish collectors. But these
people are spread over all those sectors of economic life where one
has to feel the pinch of the process of concentration without seeing
through its mechanism, while at the same time still maintaining
one's economic function.

{\em 5043}, a housewife with extremely high scores on the scales who
``had
often been heard discussing the Jews in the neighborhood," but is
``a very friendly, middle-aged" person who ``enjoys harmless gossip,"
expressed high respect for science and takes a serious though
somewhat repressed interest in painting. She ``has fears about
economic competition from zootsuiters" and ``the interview revealed
that similar attitudes are strongly held about Negroes." She ``has
experienced quite a severe comedown in terms of status and economic
security since her youth. Her father was an extremely wealthy ranch
owner."


\begin{Quote}
Although her husband was making a good living as a stock broker
when she married him in 1927, the stockmarket crash and the ensuing
depression made it necessary for her to grapple with economic
problems, and finally it even became necessary for them to move in
with her wealthy mother-in-law. This situation has caused some
friction while at the same time relieving her of a great deal of
responsibility. In general, the subject seems to identify herself
with the upper middle-class,
%% TYPES AND SYNDROMES     755
thus striking a balance between her upper-class background and her
present precarious middle-class position. Although she does not
admit this into her ego, the loss of money and status must have
been very painful to her; and her strong prejudice against Jews
infiltrating the neighborhood may be directly related to her fear
of sinking ``lower" on the economic scale.
\end{Quote}

\noindent
The consistently high scores of this subject are explained by the
interviewer on the basis of a ``generally uncritical attitude" (she
always ``agrees very much" on the questionnaire) rather than by an
active, fascist bias, which does not come out in the interview.
Characteristic is the relative absence of serious family conflicts.


\begin{Quote}
She was never severely disciplined; on the contrary, both parents
tended to give in to her wishes and she was ostensibly their favorite.
\ldots\  There was never any serious friction and, continuing through
the present, the relationship among the siblings and the family in
general is still very close.
\end{Quote}

The reason why she was chosen as a representative of ``Surface
Resentment" is her attitude in race questions. She ``shows a very
strong prejudice towards all minority groups" and ``regards the Jews
as a problem," her stereotypes following ``pretty much the traditional
pattern" which she has taken over mechanically from outside. But
``she does not feel


\begin{Quote}
that {\em all} Jews necessarily exhibit all the characteristics. Also she
does not believe that they can be distinguished by looks or any
special characteristics, except that they are loud and often
aggressive.
\end{Quote}

\noindent
The last quotation shows that she does not regard those features
of the Jews which she incriminates as inborn and natural. Neither
rigid projection nor destructive punitiveness is involved:

\begin{Quote}
With regard to the Jews she feels that assimilation and education
will eventually solve the problem.
\end{Quote}

\noindent
Her aggressiveness is evidently directed against those who might,
as she fears, ``take something away from her," either economically
or in status, but the Jews are no ``countertype."

\begin{Quote}
Hostility is openly expressed toward the Jews who have been moving
into the neighborhood as well as toward those Jews who she believes
``run the movies." She seems to fear the extension of their influence
and strongly resents the ``infiltration" of Jews from Europe.
\end{Quote}

\noindent
She also expresses the above-mentioned differentiation between
``outside" stereotypy and concrete experiences, thus keeping the
door open for a mitigation of her prejudice, though, according to
the interviewer, if a fascist wave should arise, ``it seems likely
that she would display more hostility and quite possibly accept
fascist ideology":

\begin{Quote}
Experiences with Jews have been limited to more or less impersonal
contacts with only one or two closer acquaintances, whom she describes
as ``fine people."
\end{Quote}

%% 756     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

It may be added that if there is any truth in the popular ``scapegoat
theory" of anti-Semitism, it applies to people of her kind. Their
``blind spots" are at least partly to be attributed to the narrow,
``petty bourgeois" limitations of experience and explanation on which
they have to draw. They see the Jew as the executor of tendencies
actually inherent in the total economic process, and they put the
blame upon him. It is a postulate necessary for the equilibrium of
their ego that they must find some ``guilt" responsible for their
precarious social situation: otherwise the just order of the world
would be disturbed. In all probability, they primarily seek this
guilt within themselves and regard themselves, preconsciously, as
``failures." The Jews relieve them superficially of this guilt
feeling. Anti-Semitism offers them the gratification of being ``good"
and blameless and of putting the {\em onus} on some visible and highly
personalized entity. This mechanism has been institutionalized.
Persons such as our case {\em 5043} probably never had negative experiences
with Jews, but simply adopt the externally pronounced judgment
because of the benefit they draw from it.

\subsubsection*{2. The ``Conventional" Syndrome}

This syndrome represents stereotypy which comes from outside, but
which has been integrated within the personality as part and parcel
of a general conformity. In women there is special emphasis on
neatness and femininity, in men upon being a ``regular" he-man.
Acceptance of prevailing standards is more important than is
discontent. Thinking in terms of ingroup and outgroup prevails.
Prejudice apparently does not fulfill a decisive function within
the psychological household of the individuals, but is only a means
of facile identification with the group to which they belong or to
which they wish to belong. They are prejudiced in the specific sense
of the term: taking over current judgments of others without having
looked into the matter themselves. Their prejudice is a ``matter of
course," possibly ``preconscious," and not even known to the subjects
themselves. It may become articulate only under certain conditions.
There is a certain antagonism between prejudice and experience;
their prejudice is not ``rational" inasmuch as it is little related
to their own worries but at the same time, at least on the surface,
it is not particularly outspoken, on account of a characteristic
absence of {\em violent} impulses, due to wholesale acceptance of the
values of civilization and ``decency." Although this syndrome includes
the ``well-bred anti-Semite," it is by no means confined to upper
social strata.

An illustration of the latter contention, and of the syndrome as a
whole, is {\em 5057}, a 30-year-old welder, ``extremely charming in manner,"
whose case is summarized by the interviewer as follows:


\begin{Quote}
He presents a personality and attitudinal configuration encountered
rather frequently among skilled workers, and is neither vicious nor
exploitive, but instead
%% TYPES AND SYNDROMES     757
merely reflects the prejudices of his own ingroup in the fashion
of the ``Conventional" anti-Semite.
\end{Quote}

\noindent
His acceptance of his own situation as well as his underlying concern
with status is evidenced by the description of his occupational
attitude:


\begin{Quote}
The subject likes his work very much. He expressed absolutely no
reservations about his present job. It was clear from the outset
that he sees himself as a skilled craftsman, and finds in welding
a chance for creative and constructive activity. He did say that
one limitation is that welding is certainly not a ``white-collar"
job; it is physically dirty and carries with it some hazards. His
satisfaction with his present work is further corroborated by his
questionnaire statement that if he were not restricted in any way
his occupation would be in the same line of work, perhaps on the
slightly higher level of welding engineer.
\end{Quote}

\noindent
His professional outlook is optimistic in a realistic way, with no
indications of insecurity. His conventionalism is set against
``extremes" in every respect: thus he

\begin{Quote}
selected Christian Science because ``it is a quieter religion than
most \ldots\  religion should restrain you from overindulgences of any
kind, such as drinking, gambling, or anything to excess." \ldots\  He
has not broken away from his grandparents' teachings and hasn't
ever questioned his religious beliefs.
\end{Quote}

\noindent
Most characteristic of the subject's over-all attitude are the
following data from his questionnaire:

\begin{Quote}
Replying to the projective question, ``What moods or feelings are
the most unpleasant or disturbing to you?" the subject mentioned
``disorder in my home or surroundings" and ``the destruction of
property." The impulse which he finds hard to control is ``telling
people what is wrong with them." In answering the question, ``What
might drive a person nuts?" he said, ``Worry --- A person should be able
to control their mind as well as their body."
\end{Quote}

With regard to ethnocentrism he is, in spite of his general
moderateness and seeming ``broad-mindedness," in the high quartile.
The specific color of his anti-minority attitude is provided by his
special emphasis upon the ingroup-outgroup dichotomy: he does not
have, or does not like to have, ``contacts" with the outgroup, and
at the same time he projects upon them his own ingroup pattern and
emphasizes their ``clannishness." His hostility is mitigated by his
general conformity and his expressed value for ``our form of
government." However, a certain rigidity of his conventional pattern
is discernible in his belief in the unchangeability of the traits
of the outgroup. When he experiences individuals who deviate from
the pattern, he feels uneasy and seems to enter a conflict situation
which tends to reinforce his hostility rather than to mitigate it.
His most intense prejudice is directed against the Negroes, apparently
because here the demarcation line between in- and outgroup is most
drastic.

%% 758     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

Concerning other minorities his remarks are as follows:

\begin{Quote}
The biggest minority problem right now, according to the subject,
is that of the Japanese-Americans ``because they are coming back."
Subject feels they should be ``restricted in some way and their
parents deported." As for their traits: ``I have had no personal
contact with them except in school where they always seemed to be
good students. I have no personal dislike for them."

When questioned as to the ``Jewish problem" subject commented, ``They
certainly stick together. They support each other a lot more than
the Protestants do." He thinks they should not be persecuted just
because they are Jewish. ``A Jew has just as much right to freedom
in the United States as anyone else." This was followed by the
statement: ``I hate to see an excessive amount of them coming in
from other countries. I favor complete exclusion of Jewish immigrants."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
His rejection of the Jews is primarily based on their difference
from the subject's conventional ingroup ideal, and the Jews themselves
are differentiated according to degrees of assimilation:

\begin{Quote}
Subject can recognize a Jew by the ``kinkiness" of his hair, his
heavy features, his thick nose, and sometimes by his thick lips.
As for Jewish ``traits," the subject remarked that there are ``different
types of Jews just as there are different types of Gentiles." He
spoke of the ``kikey type, like those at Ocean Park," and the ``higher
type, like those in Beverly Hills."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
As to the relation between stereotypy and experience,

\begin{Quote}
``What contacts I have had have all been on the good side. When I
was running the gas station in Beverly Hills I had to deal quite a
bit with them, but I cannot remember any unfortunate experiences
with them. All the experiences were rather pleasant in fact." At
this point, the subject recounted an experience with a Jewish
delicatessen owner in Ocean Park. At the time the subject was 8--10
years old. He was selling magazines in this area, and went into the
store to try to sell a magazine to the owner. While waiting to get
the owner's attention he spied a wonderful-looking coffee cake and
wished that he could have it. The man bought the magazine and noticed
the longing look on the boy's face. Apparently thinking that the
boy did not have enough money to buy it, he took it out of the case,
put it in a bag, and gave it to the boy. From the respondent's
account of this incident, it was apparent that this gesture was
both humiliating and gratifying at the same time. He recalls how
embarrassed he was that the man should think that he was ``poor and
hungry."

Subject believes that there are some ``good" Jews as well as ``bad"
Jews --- just as there are ``good" and ``bad" Gentiles. However, ``Jews as
a whole will never change, because they stick together close and
hold to their religious ideals. They could improve the opinion that
people have of them, nevertheless, by not being so greedy." \ldots\ Would
permit those Jews already here to remain, though he adds, ``Jews
should be allowed to return to Palestine, of course." Further, ``I
would not be sorry to see them go." With respect to the educational
quota system the subject expressed his approval, though he suggested
the alternative of having ``separate schools established for the
Jews."
\end{Quote}

%% TYPES AND SYNDROMES     759 

\subsubsection*{3.  The ``Authoritarian" Syndrome}

This syndrome comes closest to the over-all picture of the high
scorer as it stands out throughout our study. It follows the ``classic"
psychoanalytic pattern involving a sadomasochistic resolution of
the Oedipus complex, and it has been pointed out by Erich Fromm
under the title of the ``sadomasochistic" character (56). According
to Max Horkheimer's theory in the collective work of which he wrote
the socio-psychological part, external social repression is concomitant
with the internal repression of impulses. In order to achieve
``internalization" of social control which never gives as much to
the individual as it takes, the latter's attitude towards authority
and its psychological agency, the superego, assumes an irrational
aspect. The subject achieves his own social adjustment only by
taking pleasure in obedience and subordination. This brings into
play the sadomasochistic impulse structure both as a condition and
as a result of social adjustment. In our form of society, sadistic
as well as masochistic tendencies actually find gratification. The
pattern for the translation of such gratifications into character
traits is a specific resolution of the Oedipus complex which defines
the formation of the syndrome here in question. Love for the mother,
in its primary form, comes under a severe taboo. The resulting
hatred against the father is transformed by reaction-formation into
love. This transformation leads to a particular kind of superego.
The transformation of hatred into love, the most difficult task an
individual has to perform in his early development, never succeeds
completely. In the psychodynamics of the ``authoritarian character,"
part of the preceding aggressiveness is absorbed and turned into
masochism, while another part is left over as sadism, which seeks
an outlet in those with whom the subject does not identify himself:
ultimately the outgroup. The Jew frequently becomes a substitute
for the hated father, often assuming, on a fantasy level, the very
same qualities against which the subject revolted in the father,
such as being practical, cold, domineering, and even a sexual rival.
Ambivalence is all-pervasive, being evidenced mainly by the
simultaneity of blind belief in authority and readiness to attack
those who are deemed weak and who are socially acceptable as
``victims." Stereotypy, in this syndrome, is not only a means of
social identification, but has a truly ``economic" function in the
subject's own psychology: it helps to canalize his libidinous energy
according to the demands of his overstrict superego. Thus stereotypy
itself tends to become heavily libidinized and plays a large role
in the subject's inner household. He develops deep ``compulsive"
character traits, partly by retrogression to the anal-sadistic phase
of development. Sociologically, this syndrome used to be, in Europe,
highly characteristic of the lower middle-class. In this country,
we may expect it
%% 760     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
among people whose actual status differs from that to which they
aspire. This is in marked contrast to the social contentment and
lack of conflict that is more characteristic of the ``Conventional"
syndrome, with which the ``Authoritarian" one shares the conformist
aspect.

Interview {\em M352} begins as follows:


\begin{Quote}
(Satisfaction?) ``Well, I'm the head operator --- shift foreman --- rotating
schedules. \ldots\
(Subject emphasizes ``head" position) --- small 
department --- 5 in department --- 5 in a shift --- I get personal 
satisfaction \ldots\  that I have 5 people working for me, 
who come to me for advice in handling the production that we make, 
and that the ultimate decision \ldots\  is mine, 
and in the fact that in the ultimate decision, 
I should be {\em right} --- and am usually, 
and the knowledge that I am correct gives me personal satisfaction. 
The fact that I earn a living doesn't give me any personal satisfaction. 
It's these things that I have mentioned \ldots\  knowing that 
I am pleasing someone else also gives me satisfaction."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
The denial of material gratifications, indicative of a restrictive
superego, is no less characteristic than the twofold pleasure in
being obeyed and giving pleasure to the boss.

His upward social mobility is expressed in terms of overt identification
with those who are higher in the hierarchy of authority:


\begin{Quote}
(What would more money make possible?) ``Would raise our standard,
auto-mobile; move into better residential section; associations
with business and fraternal, etc., would be raised \ldots\  to those
in a bracket higher, except for a few staunch friends which you
keep always; and naturally, associate with people on a higher
level --- with more education and more experience. After you get there,
and associate with those people \ldots\  that fires you on to the next
step higher\ldots\  ."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
His religious belief has something compulsive and highly punitive:

\begin{Quote}
``My belief is that, just according to the Bible, there is a God --- the
world has gone along and needed a Savior, and there was one born-lived,
died, risen again, and will come back some time; and the person who
has lived according to Christianity will live forever --- those who have
not will perish at that time."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
This overt rigidity of conscience, however, shows strong traces of
ambivalence: what is forbidden may be acceptable if it does not
lead to social conflict. The over-rigid superego is not really
integrated, but remains external.

\begin{Quote}
``Adultery, as long as never found out, is o.k. --- if found out, then
it's wrong --- since some of the most respected people do it, it must
be all right."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
The subject's concept of God is plainly identical with such an
externalized superego or, to use Freud's original term, with the
``ego ideal," with all the traits of a strong, but ``helpful" father:

\begin{Quote}
``Well, when it comes down to the fundamentals, everybody has an
idea of some sort: may not call Him God, but an ideal that they
live up to and strive to be like. \ldots\
Heathens or anybody else has some sort of religion, 
but it is something that they put their faith 
in that can do things for them --- can help them."
\end{Quote}

%% TYPES AND SYNDROMES     761
\noindent
The genetic relation between the ``Authoritarian" syndrome and the
sadomasochistic resolution of the Oedipus complex is borne out by
some statements of the subject about his own childhood:

\begin{Quote}
``Well, my father was a very strict man. He wasn't religious, but
strict in raising the youngsters. His word was law, and whenever
he was disobeyed, there was punishment. When I was 12, my father
beat me practically every day for getting into the tool chest in
the back yard and not putting everything away \ldots\  finally he
explained that those things cost money, and I must learn to put it
back." \ldots\ (Subject explains that his carelessness led to a beating
every day, as promised by the father, and finally after several
weeks, he simply quit using the tools altogether, because ``I just
couldn't get 'em all back") \ldots\  ``But, you know, I never hold that
against my father --- I had it coming. He laid the law down, and if I
broke it, there was punishment, but never in uncontrolled anger.
My father was a good man --- no doubt about that. Always interested in
boys' activities.

``My father was a great fraternal man; was out practically every
night. Took an active part always on committees --- a good mixer, everybody
liked him \ldots\  a good provider. We always had everything we needed,
but no unnecessary luxuries \ldots\ no whims provided for\ldots\  Father
felt they were luxuries that probably --- felt they were unnecessary
\ldots\ Yes, rather austere\ldots\  (Which parent closest to?) I think
my father. Although he beat the life out of me, I could talk to him
about anything." \ldots\  (Subject emphasizes that his father always
gave everyone, including himself, a square deal.)
\end{Quote}

\noindent
The subject has been ``broken" by the father: he has been overadjusted.
It is exactly this aspect which bears the main emphasis in his
anti-Semitism. He who admires brute force blames the Jews for their
recklessness in practical matters.

\begin{Quote}
``The Jews seem to be taking advantage of the present-day situation,
I think. Now, they want to --- they're bringing these Jews in from Europe,
and they seem to click together, somehow, and they seem to be able
to corner capital. They're a peculiar people --- no conscience about
anything except money." (Subject apparently meant, here, no conscience
about money, although maybe about other things.) ``If you stand in
the way of their making money, they'll brush you aside."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
Rigidity of the image of the Jew, visible already in the ``Conventional"
syndrome, tends to become absolute and highly vindictive:

\begin{Quote}
``To me a Jew is just like a foreigner in the same class assay, oh,
I was gonna say a Filipino. You would be pointed out \ldots\ they
observe all these different religious days that's completely foreign
to me --- and they stick to it --- they don't completely Americanize\ldots\ 
(What if there were less prejudice against them? ) I don't know --- I
can't help but feel that a Jew is meant to be just the way he is --- no
change possible --- a sort of instinct that will never lose --- stay Jewish
right straight through. (What ought to be done?) They have the
ability to get control --- now, how we're gonna stop 'em \ldots\  probably
have to pass some regulation prohibiting them."
\end{Quote}

\noindent
Again the idea of authority is the focal point: the Jews appear
dangerous to him as usurpers of ``control."

One last feature of the ``Authoritarian" syndrome should be mentioned.  It
%% 762     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
is the psychological equivalent of the ``no-pity-for-the-poor"
ideology discussed in Chapter XVII. The identification of the
``authoritarian" character with strength is concomitant with rejection
of everything that is ``down." Even where social conditions have to
be recognized as the reason for the depressed situation of a group,
a twist is applied in order to transform this situation into some
kind of well-deserved punishment. This is accompanied by moralistic
invectives indicative of strict repression of several desires:

\begin{Quote}
He went on to emphasize that you should segregate Negroes and whites,
that by all means give equal opportunities and everything instead
of ``evading the problem" as he called it. He refers to high prevalence
of venereal disease among Negroes, which he blames on their low
morals and, under further questioning by the interviewer, he finally
attributes it to ``congested conditions of living" and tries very
hard to explain what he means. This leads to a lack of modesty and
respect for privacy --- everybody's thrown together --- ``lose the distance
that is supposed to be between people," etc., etc.
\end{Quote}

\noindent
The emphasis on ``distance," the fear of ``close physical contacts"
may be interpreted as corroborative of our thesis that, for this
syndrome, the ingroup--outgroup dichotomy absorbs large quantities
of psychological energy. Identification with the familial structure
and ultimately with the whole ingroup becomes, to this kind of
individual, one of the main mechanisms by which they can impose
authoritarian discipline upon themselves and avoid "breaking away" --- a
temptation nourished continuously by their underlying ambivalence.

\subsubsection*{4. The Rebel And The Psychopath}

The resolution of the Oedipus complex characteristic of the
``Authoritarian" syndrome is not the only one that makes for a ``high"
character structure. Instead of identification with parental
authority, ``insurrection" may take place. This, of course, may in
certain cases liquidate the sadomasochistic tendencies. However,
insurrection may also occur in such a way that the authoritarian
character structure is not basically affected (56).\footnote{%
Cf.\ also in this connection Erikson, E.\ H., {\em Hitler's Imagery and
German Youth} (25).}
Thus, the hated
paternal authority may be abolished only to be replaced by another
one --- a process facilitated by the ``externalized" superego structure
concomitant with the over-all picture of the high scorer. Or
masochistic transference to authority may be kept down on the
unconscious level while resistance takes place on the manifest
level. This may lead to an irrational and blind hatred of all
authority, with strong destructive connotations, accompanied by a
secret readiness to ``capitulate" and to join hands with the ``hated"
strong. It is exceedingly difficult to distinguish such an attitude
from a truly non-authoritarian one and it may be well-nigh impossible
to achieve such a differentiation on a purely psychological level:
here as much as anywhere else it is the socio-political behavior
that counts, determining whether a person is
%% TYPES AND SYNDROMES        763
truly independent or merely replaces his dependency by negative
transference.

The latter case, when it is combined with an urge to take
pseudo-revolutionary actions against those whom the individual
ultimately deems to be weak, is that of the ``Rebel." This syndrome
played a large role in Nazi Germany: the late Captain Roehm, who
called himself a "{\em Hochverr\"ater}" in his autobiography, is a
perfect example. Here we expect to find the
``Condottiere"\footnote{{\em Condottiere}: mercenary leaders employed
by Italian city-states from the late Middle Ages until the
mid-sixteenth century.}
which was
included in the typology drafted by the Institute of Social Research
in 1939, and described as follows:


\begin{Quote}
This type has arisen with the increased insecurity of post-war
existence. He is convinced that what matters is not life but chance.
He is nihilistic, not out of a ``drive for destruction" but because
he is indifferent to individual existence. One of the reservoirs
out of which this type arises is the modern unemployed. He differs
from former unemployed in that his contact with the sphere of
production is sporadic, if any. Individuals belonging to this
category can no longer expect to be regularly absorbed by the labor
process. From their youth they have been ready to act wherever they
could grab something. They are inclined to hate the Jew partly
because of his cautiousness and physical inefficacy, partly because,
being themselves unemployed, they are economically uprooted,
unusually susceptible to any propaganda, and ready to follow any
leader. The other reservoir, at the opposite pole of society, is
the group belonging to the dangerous professions, colonial adventurers,
racing motorists, airplane aces. They are the born leaders of the
former group. Their ideal, actually an heroic one, is all the more
sensitive to the ``destructive," critical intellect of the Jews
because they themselves are not quite convinced of their ideal in
the depths of their hearts, but have developed it as a rationalization
of their dangerous way of living (57, p.\ 135).
\end{Quote}

\noindent
Symptomatically, this syndrome is characterized, above all, by a
penchant for ``tolerated excesses" of all kinds, from heavy drinking
and overt homosexuality under the cloak of enthusiasm for ``youth"
to proneness to acts of violence in the sense of ``{\em
Putsch}."\footnote{{\em putsch}: A secretly planned and suddenly
executed attempt to overthrow a government.} 
Subjects
of this type do not have as much rigidity as do those who exhibit
the orthodox ``Authoritarian" syndrome.

The extreme representative of this syndrome is the ``Tough Guy," in
psychiatric terminology the ``Psychopath." Here, the superego seems
to have been completely crippled through the outcome of the Oedipus
conflict, by means of a retrogression to the omnipotence fantasy
of very early in-fancy. These individuals are the most ``infantile"
of all: they have thoroughly failed to ``develop," have not been
molded at all by civilization. They are ``asocial." Destructive
urges come to the fore in an overt, non-rationalized way. Bodily
strength and toughness --- also in the sense of being able to ``take
it" --- are decisive. The borderline between them and the criminal is
fluid. Their indulgence in persecution is crudely sadistic, directed
against any helpless victim; it is unspecific and hardly colored
by ``prejudice." Here go the hoodlums and rowdies, plug-uglies,
torturers, and all those who do the ``dirty work" of a fascist
movement.


%% 764     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY


Robert M.\ Lindner's extensive case study, {\em Rebel Without a Cause}
(74), offers a description and dynamic interpretation of the ``Tough
Guy" which establish the affinity of this type to the ``Rebel" as
well as to the ``Authoritarian" character. According to Lindner:


\begin{Quote}
The psychopath is not only a criminal; he is the embryonic
Storm-Trooper; he is the disinherited, betrayed antagonist whose
aggressions can be mobilized on the instant at which the properly-aimed
and frustration-evoking formula is communicated by that leader under
whose tinseled aegis license becomes law, secret and primitive
desires become virtuous ambitions readily attained, and compulsive
behavior formerly deemed punishable becomes the order of the day.
\end{Quote}

\noindent
The psychopath is described as a ``rebel, a religious disobeyer of
prevailing codes and standards" whose main characteristic is that
he cannot wait, ``cannot delay the pleasures of gratification" --- an
inability suggesting that, together with the failure to build up a
superego, the formation of the ego has been crippled, in spite of
the bridled ``egotism" of such persons. As to the masochistic
component, the following passage from Lindner may be quoted:

\begin{Quote}
That the psychopath is burdened with guilt and literally seeks
punishment has been observed by the author in countless cases. The
clue to this strange situation lies, as one would suspect, in the
Oedipus situation. Deprived of an avenue to satisfactory post-Oedipal
adjustment and continuously beset by the consequent incest and
parricidal fantasies, the mergent guilt can be assuaged only through
expiation. ``I have sinned against my father and I must be punished"
is the unverbalized theme of psychopathic conduct: and for this
reason they very often commit crimes free from acquisitional motives,
marry prostitutes or, in the case of women, apportion their charms
occupationally in an attempt at self-castigation. That such activities
constitute a species of ``neurotic gain" is also to be considered.
The fact of punishment sought, received and accepted does not
complete the tale: there is in addition a narcissistic ``yield" which
derives directly from the punitive act and mediates the original
need. This is naturally on a subliminal level of apprehension,
unreportable directly but always noticeable.
\end{Quote}

Examples of the rebel-psychopath are to be found in our San Quentin
sample. We think mainly of the psychopath, {\em Floyd}, our {\em M658}, and the
``Tough Guy," {\em Eugene}, our {\em M662A}, dealt with extensively in
Chapter XXI. If the traits under consideration here do not appear
so vividly there, it should be borne in mind that the guiding
interest of the San Quentin study was defined by our over-all
variables rather than by psychological subgroups among the high and
low scorers. Moreover, it has to be kept in mind that the prison
situation works as a heavy check on the expression of the decisive
traits of the psychopath who, after all, is not a psychotic and
behaves, in a certain sense, quite ``realistically." In addition,
his completely living ``for the moment," his lack of ego identity
enables him to adapt himself successfully to a given situation:
when talking to an interviewer, he is likely not to display directly
the attitudes indicative of his ``toughness." Rather, the latter
have
%% TYPES AND SYNDROMES     765
to be inferred indirectly, particularly from certain speaking habits,
such as the frequency of references to bodily violence. It is with
an eye to such indices that the statements of those two San Quentin
interviewees should be read. Neither the widespread existence of
the ``Tough Guy" syndrome, particularly in marginal spheres of
society, nor its importance for some of the most sinister aspects
of the fascist potential can be doubted.

\subsubsection*{5. The Crank}

In so far as the introjection of paternal discipline in the
``Authoritarian" syndrome means continuous repression of the id,
this syndrome can be characterized by frustration in the widest
sense of the term. However, there seems to be a pattern in which
frustration plays a much more specific role. This pattern is found
in those people who did not succeed in adjusting themselves to the
world, in accepting the ``reality principle" --- who failed, as it were,
to strike a balance between renunciations and gratifications, and
whose whole inner life is determined by the denials imposed upon
them from outside, not only during childhood but also during their
adult life. These people are driven into {\em isolation}. They have to
build up a spurious inner world, often approaching delusion,
emphatically set against outer reality. They can exist only by
self-aggrandizement, coupled with violent rejection of the external
world. Their ``soul" becomes their dearest possession. At the same
time, they are highly projective and suspicious. An affinity to
psychosis cannot be overlooked: they are ``paranoid." To them,
prejudice is all-important: it is a means to escape acute mental
diseases by collectivization, and by building up a pseudo-reality
against which their aggressiveness can be directed without any {\em
overt}
violation of the ``reality principle." Stereotypy is decisive: it
works as a kind of social corroboration of their projective formulae,
and is therefore institutionalized to a degree often approaching
religious beliefs. The pattern is found in women and old men whose
isolation is socially reinforced by their virtual exclusion from
the economic process of production. Here belong organized war
mothers, ham-an'-eggers, and regular followers of agitators even
in periods when racist propaganda is at a low ebb. The often-abused
term ``lunatic fringe" has a certain validity with regard to them:
their compulsiveness has reached the stage of fanaticism. In order
to confirm to each other their pseudoreality, they are likely to
form sects, often with some panacea of ``nature," which corresponds
to their projective notion of the Jew as eternally bad and spoiling
the purity of the natural. Ideas of conspiracy play a large role:
they do not hesitate to attribute to the Jews a quest for world
domination, and they are likely to swear by the Elders of Zion. A
significant social trait is semi-erudition, a magical belief in
science which makes them the ideal followers of racial theory. They
can hardly be expected above a certain educational level, but also
rarely among workers. {\em F124}
%% 766     THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY


\begin{Quote}
is a woman over 50 years of age, tall, heavily built, with sharp
features, prominent gray-blue eyes, a pointed nose, thin lips,
straight mouth line. She had a bearing which was meant to be
impressive.
\end{Quote}

\noindent
This ``impressiveness" actually implies a pathological sense of inner
superiority, as if she belonged to a secret order, at the same time
being surrounded by people whose names she does not want to mention,
since otherwise she might divulge too vulgar or dangerous implications:

\begin{Quote}
She doesn't care for her fellow-workers. Some have all the degrees
but no common sense. She wouldn't like to mention names, but she'd
like to tell me what goes on. Some just spend their time gossiping
together. She doesn't believe she could do more than just speak to
her fellow-workers. Very scornful of them, feels superior and aloof.
\ldots\  They don't know her at all --- no indeed --- 
implies she's a very special
somebody and could reveal her gifts to them but doesn't.
\end{Quote}

\noindent
Her interest in internal and as far as possible external status is
strongly colored by an overemphasis on ``connections," which suggests
``ideas of