The “Subjective Factor” in Critical Theory Ruthless Criticism

Translated from MSZ 9-1988

The “Subjective Factor” in Critical Theory

The “Authoritarian Personality” –
Any clarity about the reasons people “went along with it”?

With their investigations into the “authoritarian personality,” critical theorists such as Adorno and Horkheimer sought to explain how it was possible that political leaders (especially Hitler), despite everything they did for the benefit of the German economy and national greatness, had a compliant population at their disposal. Today, the “authoritarian personality” is a buzzword that is considered both sufficient and appropriate to answer the question repeatedly raised by critical sociologists and psychologists as to why people “went along with it.”

The fact that there is a conflict between the concerns of the political rulers and the interests of those who are subject to the nation’s authorities, and that it doesn’t benefit the majority of people to do their duty for the accumulation of private wealth and displays of state power, is taken as self-evident when asking about the reason people participate. This question would never come up in connection with those who benefit from the social conditions because the fact that they benefit from them already answers the question as to why they do what they do. They are, after all, not participants, but decision-makers.

It’s strange, however, that the Frankfurt theorists of the subject consider an explanation of the interests for which the state power enlists its people, and the means it has available to compel them to serve capitalist property, that is, an examination of the capitalist economy and its political rule, to be an insufficient, if not misguided, “approach” when it comes to clarifying the reasons that motivate people to participate. As if explaining the “objective constraints” that are organized in a capitalist society were synonymous with a declaration of the necessity of submitting to them, they criticize Marxism for neglecting the subjective factor and thinking of people as completely econonically determined. In contrast, they consider it appropriate to take into account the autonomy of the “subjective factor” by examining it by itself as the cause of their compliance.

The subjective factor: a conditional mechanism of action

Erich Fromm, for example, argues that to explain the successful functioning of state power, one must look into the psyche of the masses:

“His [Freud’s] theory offers an important contribution in answering the question of how it is possible that the ruling power in a society is actually as effective as history shows us. External force and power, which embody the controlling authorities in each society, play an indispensable part in the realization of group obedience and submission to authority. On the other hand, however, it is clear that this external compulsion does not only have a direct effect, but rather that when the masses submit to the demands and prohibitions of the authorities, they do so not only out of simple fear of physical violence and coercion. Certainly, however, even this situation can also arise temporarily and as an exception. Submissiveness based only on fear of real coercion would require an apparatus the size of which would in the long run be too costly; the quality of the work done by those acting only out of external fear would be paralyzed in a way that is at the very least incompatible with production in modern society, and moreover, this submissiveness would also create an instability and unrest in social relations which would likewise be incompatible with the demands of production in the long run. It seems that when external force determines the obedience of the group, it must also change the quality of each individual psyche. The difficulty that hereby arises is partially resolved by the formation of the super-ego. The external force is transformed by the super-ego in such a way that it changes from an external into an internal force. As representatives of external force, the authorities become internalized, and the individual acts on their commands and prohibitions no longer solely out of fear of external punishment, but rather out of fear of the psychic entity erected within.” (Erich Fromm: Studies on Authority and the Family. Sociopsychological Dimensions, p. 15)

The absurdity of this “derivation” already begins with how Fromm raises the question of the success of civic obedience: how is it even possible for a ruling power to be effective in a society? This way of posing the question is merely a fabrication and therefore can’t be answered rationally. That is, if one leaves everything out, what it is in each case that makes the ruling force the determining social power – the purposes for which it organizes social cohesion; the criteria for success it is committed to; and the means by which it determines the everyday ways of life of its subjects – then nothing remains but the absurd abstraction of “power,” which has no content or purpose other than forcing the masses to obey. Nor is Mr. Fromm interested in the benefits and calculations of those at the other pole of the modern relationship of rule who do their civic duty as workers or unemployed people, taxpayers or voters, parental gaurdians or newspaper readers – all these quite different activities of the “participants” are contorted under the abstraction of “submission,” as if the “masses” were occupied all day long with nothing but obedience. And so it becomes a big mystery how such a relationship, without any content, can succeed at all: how can the political power, without its means of economic extortion, maintain itself as such? And how do the “masses” manage to satisfy the alleged demand for pure submission that is made of them? The first answer which is given to this solely fictional problem, to the merely formal opposition of power and subject – that the relationship of rule is secured exclusively through the use of physical force – is, of course, rejected by Fromm himself as insufficient. And, interestingly, he does so with an argument that, if taken seriously, would throw out his entire fabrication: if the police baton is ruled out as a sufficient means for maintaining order because the efforts involved would be too “costly” and constant fear would paralyze the “quality of work performance,” then this at least provides a material criterion which indicates that the modern state is by no means concerned solely with a successfully docile population in a formal sense, but rather with the accumulation of wealth in the form of money and the appropriation of as much labor from people as possible. From there, it would not be difficult to conclude that the fundamental means of capitalist state power for securing the desired services of its subjects is the forcibly established exclusion of the majority from the means of reproduction, monitored by the police and the judiciary, which compels them to serve other people’s property – and in fact makes it unnecessary to drive each individual to work with a truncheon.

The psychological theorist, of course, prefers to continue acting as if the question of how compliance is coerced in capitalist society is a completely open matter.

On the other hand, he has practical civic loyalty in mind and the argument at hand that only “external” force can be ruled out as a lever for this. So, according to his razor-sharp conclusion, this can only work if force is not external to the masses, but instead internal. However, this is a false conclusion in every respect:

The result of this whole “derivation” is that the question of why someone submits to force and the subjective methods by which he accommodates himself to it if he wants to seek his luck in the officially dictated living conditions is simply replaced by the unfounded assumption of a psychological mechanism that ensures submission automatically results from the existence of rule.

The individual, the so-called subjective factor, whom critical theory sought to rescue from the alleged economic determinism of Marxism, does not appear in critical theory as a subject who takes a position toward the demands of rule, but as a mere object. As soon as this subjective factor is confronted with the commands and prohibitions of an authority, a psychological “transformation process” takes place within him which transforms demands which are adverse to the subject into a form compatible with the subject. Thus, equipped with an internal control apparatus beyond his conscious control, the beleaguered subject fits in perfectly with even the harshest forms of rule.

The denial that obedience always means willing approval of a rule declared to be an authority, and the complete separation of this subjective achievement from any will and consciousness through the invention of a psychological entity that relieves the subject of the “work” of submission, has yet another consequence: the calculations the participants make in order to cope with “their” rule despite the harms they suffer are not worthy of acknowledgement, let alone criticism, by the subject-charitable theorist. No wonder: if consciousness is not even discussed, then false consciousness is even less likely to be.

Subservience – a characteristic of the subject

Horkheimer presents another variation on the discussion of subjects causing their own subjugation:

“... the way in which men act at a given point in time can not be explained solely by economic events which have transpired in the immediate past. It is rather the case that particular groups react according to the special character of their members and that this character has been formed in the course of earlier no less than of present social development. Such a character arises under the influence of all social institutions taken together, and these function in typical ways for each social stratum....To understand why a society functions in a certain way, why it is stable or dissolves, demands therefore a knowledge of the contemporary psychic make-up of men in various social groups. This in turn requires a knowledge of how their character has been formed in interaction with all the shaping cultural forces of the time.” (I, p. 54)

Horkheimer makes a pretty clumsy argument to reject the explanation of people’s actions “by economic events” as insufficient: they are only responsible for the immediately past! That’s an interesting feature of the economy: it’s only of short duration! In any case, with this idiocy, Horkheimer immediately abandons any explanation in favor of an argument that already from its catchphrase guarantees duration and stability: it is the type of personality that makes people act as they do – depending on their membership in a group (which they probably come to by sheer chance!). So: if someone belongs to the group of wage workers, they do not go to work every day because they are dependent on their wages – that would be an explanation arisong solely out of the moment?! Rather, it is because their typical (wage worker) character makes them “act” in this way.

Horkheimer also refrains from even mentioning what people will actually let themselves be subjected to, replacing any investigation into the reasons for this with the assertion that it is simply in people’s nature to react exactly as they are required to. He does not explain their submissive character, but rather justifies their submissiveness on the basis of their character. In plain language: People are simply like that, so they always conform exactly to what is demanded of them!

And how does that happen? Horkheimer’s answer: Society somehow causes the “subjective factor” to fit in with it. In doing so, he has constructed a grandiose, empty circle: Society functions because individuals fit in it. And individuals fit in it because society causes them to do so. Society is determined by nothing more than by its function of calling forth individuals who fit into it.

The irony here is that once again the attempt to acknowledge the subjective side of the success of capitalist rule ends up constructing a human characteristic that consists exclusively of conforming to the force to which one is subjected. Even for Horkheimer, the subjective factor is nothing more than a stamp of the society – and that is supposed to constitute its autonomous significance! It is precisely critical theory that, by discussing it as a condition of possibility for the functioning of rule, gives people the disposition to be exactly the way the ruling authorities demand. And its method of proving this disposition is as simplistic as it is tautological: from people’s practical submissiveness, it concludes that there must be a tendency toward submissiveness, however it may arise. And conversely, the proof of this tendency is again that they are submissive. They go along with things because they just go along with things. The existence of submissiveness thus becomes proof of its inevitable necessity.

Obedience as a natural law of the will

Critical theory is dedicated to the task of theoretically constructing the nature of submission, and this cannot be done without contradictions. It is contradictory, on the one hand, to ask why people tolerate exploitation, war, and violence, which implies that this is by no means a matter of course and certainly not a necessity, and, on the other hand, to try to answer this question with the inner determinism of human behavior. This leads to the following kind of absurdities:

“The decisive factor in the relationship of the ego to the super-ego, as well as the individual to authority, is their emotional character. Man wants to feel loved by his super-ego as well as by authority, he fears their enmity and gratifies his self-love when he pleases his super-ego or the authorities with whom he identifies. With the help of these emotional forces, he succeeds in suppressing socially unacceptable, in particular dangerous, impulses and wishes.” (I, p.25)

Fromm no longer wants to distinguish between the authority that the state asserts by virtue of its power and his own fiction of a “super-ego” that determines the “ego.” On the one hand, he conceives of the individual who is at the mercy of some authority as a mere object, a plaything of emotional forces, impulses, and drives. At the same time, he is supposed to be the exact opposite: he sees through the world and himself perfectly and coolly calculates the best way to suppress dangerous inclinations against the authorities.

The idea is that the individual wants to be loved by the very authority figures he fears and “actually” wants to rebel against, and therefore identifies with them. And as a result of this magnificent achievement, he also loves himself. The brilliant formula for this monster: simply love whatever causes you trouble, then you don’t need to hate it!

With the talk of emotional forces and drives that are supposed to be decisive for the respective behavior, a certain theoretical advance has been made. This engenders the idea that the physical nature (“impulses,” “force”) of the individual compels him to bend his will to external authorities. In this way, the explanation of people’s submissiveness as a result of their conformity to society is supplemented by the assertion that there is such a thing as a law of nature which compels the individual to submit wholeheartedly to any authority for the sake of self-preservation.

Critical theorists develop this contradiction of a nature-determined will to submission into an image of humanity. They fill the drive that is supposed to cause the conduct of the masses with content, and in fact in accordance with their idea that the humans subjected to rule must be constructed in accordance with the relations of rule so that thet can maintain themselves. The “drive structure” that is supposedly relevant to the authoritarian personality is called “sadomasochistic.” It is pointless to delve into the subsequent explanations that sadomasochism is in turn caused by early childhood sexuality, etc. All of this merely illustrates the idea that humans cannot help but want what they must, precisely because of their drives.

In any case, this asserts the absurdity that people are really keen on what causes them trouble. They long for authority figures because of the power they have over them. The exercise of pure force – against others (sadism) or oneself (masochism) – is supposed to give them satisfaction and pleasure, so that in the end the force that the authorities are endowed with has the purpose of satisfying the sadomasochistic character of the subjects!

Given how the “instinctual structure” of the masses is characterized, however, it is no longer clear why their contradictory “forces” should be focused on the means of “satisfying” them that are prescribed by a modern capitalist state power. Why wouldn’t the sadomasochists make things easier for themselves and set up a society in which “kowtowing” and “getting kicked” is all that remains? The entire monetary economy with all its trappings, including the stock market and the state apparatus with its police and military, is far too cumbersome for the mere exercise and acceptance of violence! People are far too busy with other things and are merely unnecessarily distracted from their naked sadomasochism.

But this theory obviously shouldn’t be taken too seriously. It’s merely meant to provide an image for the claim that if the opposition between ruler and subject goes smoothly, this opposition cannot be the true content of the relationship between ruler and subject. Then, according to the fallacy of this theory, it is precisely through the damages that the state inflicts on the masses of its citizens that deeper, hidden needs (drives) are somehow satisfied. That’s how the caricature comes about of a subject who only does what he does because he gets satisfaction from force being used against himself and others. In other words, the masses are gathered together in the exact way that meets their need.

It’s not people who are perverse, but the society …

This racist intellectual construct about a drive structure that supposedly predestines people to be subjects presents itself as, of all things, critical. This is because critical theory naturally rejects the claim that this determination is inherent in human nature. It’s not nature, but society that is responsible for this perverse subservient character. But, for one thing, this addition does not change the defined inner relationship of correspondence between victim and ruler: no matter how and by whom it is brought about, subservience clings to people like a natural characteristic that is beyond their will – that is, a social one. Secondly, this materialistic underpinning to a psychological character analysis results in an irresolvable circle: the society repeatedly produces exactly the character it needs as the “glue” that holds it together. There is then no escape from this “negative totality”: the authoritarian society not only suppresses, but also creates the individuals who accept it and even feel at home in it.

“In authoritarian society, the sadomasochistic character structure is generated by the economic structure, which necessitates the authoritarian hierarchy. In the authoritarian state, as in bourgeois society in general, the lower the individual stands in the hierarchy, the more his life is subject to chance. The relative opacity of social, and thereby individual, life creates a nearly hopeless dependency to which the individual adapts by developing a sadomasochistic character structure.” (I, p.43)

Fromm doesn’t know anything about the “economic structure” of bourgeois society, which he cites as the cause of the “sadomasochistic character.” He does not even specify an economic principle according to which people in bourgeois society are sorted. Moreover, he wants to have discovered a job ladder whose absurd determining principle is supposed to exist in that people are less and less determined by it – ironically, “the lower they stand in the hierarchy.” This is a nonsensical determination that makes one wonder whether Fromm really doesn’t know that it is precisely on the “lower levels” that the alternatives prescribed to bourgeois individuals become very clear: high-performance work at a wage that compels one to engage in a series of very narrowly defined balancing acts or unemployment with fairly precisely defined existential hardships. To call this being handed over to “chance” is quite strange, especially since the criterion by which capitalists hire and fire shouldn’t be unknown to anyone familiar with the “economic structure”: that work is only paid for if it is worthwhile for profit.

The little trick that Mr. Psycho-economist plays here is that he presents a false psychological interpretation of the existential threat faced by those “at the bottom” or “at the very bottom” of capitalism, that is, he quotes the interpretation that one is at the mercy of anonymous forces (= “fate”) and in one’s distress doesn’t know what to do, as an objective judgment, indeed as the characteristic feature of the capitalist hierarchy: it is characterized by opacity! To maintain the fundamental impossibility of being able to see through a thing to be a characteristic of any thing is, however, a contradiction in terms: if this were really true, then Mr. Fromm could not proclaim this characteristic as the result of his famous insight! And he attaches great importance to this: that he already knows what is going on in bourgeois society. And what does he know? That the masses – because of the “economic structure” – cannot comprehend it! That is supposed to be the insight into bourgeois mechanisms that the good man has and the masses lack. So be it.

In any case, Fromm believes that the masses “adapt.” But to what, exactly, if they don’t even know what’s what? “Adaptation” always presupposes an awareness of the conflict between one’s own interests and those of others who one calculates will still better serve one’s own interests than if the supposed conflict were to be played out. It therefore also implies an awareness of the dependency in which one finds oneself, namely that the “powers” to which one submits have material means at their disposal with which they determine the course of one’s life. So it is not a lack of insight that creates a “nearly hopeless” dependence! If that were the case, then it would suffice for critical theorists to make the insight they claim to have available to the masses. Then this tiresome dependence would be over.

Of course, nothing could be further from the minds of Fromm and his ilk. They are so keen on constructing a completely empty and unconscious awareness of dependence that they justify even the most absurd interpretations of the impositions that the bourgeois world places on its subjects, declaring them to be the objectivity of bourgeois conditions themselves, which can no longer be criticized:

“The more conflicted the contradictions within society grow and the more unsolvable they become, the more blinding and uncontrolled social forces are, the more catastrophes like war and unemployment overshadow the life of the individual as unavoidable forces of fate, then the stronger and more universal the sadomasochistic drive structure, and thus the authoritarian character structure, become. And, the more surrendering to fate becomes the supreme virtue as well as pleasure. This pleasure makes it possible at all for people to endure such a life gladly and willingly, and masochism proves itself to be one of the most important psychic conditions for the functioning of society, a main element of the cement that continues to hold it together.” (I, 46)

Does the critical theorist really consider the characterization of unemployment and war as “catastrophes” and “unavoidable” strokes of fate to be accurate descriptions of these “events,” which are commonplace in bourgeois society? Or does he merely want to characterize the submissive perspective that ordinary citizens adopt when they define themselves as affected and regard the sacrifices demanded by unemployment and war as a “life situation” that one simply has to make the best of? It is difficult to decide what Fromm himself knows and what he doesn’t – in any case, he doesn’t want to distinguish here between the stupidest ideologies and the banal truths about bourgeois society. It would never even occur to him to criticize the subservient belief in fate he cites by pointing out that unemployment is by no means the result of “uncontrolled social forces,” but rather is due to the state-protected calculations of capitalist entrepreneurs who compete with each other by employing or not employing wage workers; and that wars also do not arise from “blind” forces, but from the competition between national sovereigns, each of which regards the other’s supreme power as an obstacle to its “legitimate” national interests.

One thing is certain: the ideology, which is not even specifically bourgeois, of the reign of dark forces, which the bourgeois lowly creature is completely at the mercy of, suits his social natural law of subjectivity so well that he immediately declares it to be the social reality that is decisive for the “subjective factor.” Capitalist society must already be a bit of a “fate” in order for it to play its role as an independent variable in Fromm's “law,” according to which the dependent variable, “character structure,” functions all the more reliably the worse its bearer is treated.

Apart from the question of how “surrendering” to “fate” is supposed to be quantitatively increased (“the more ... the more”), and that virtue and pleasure also denote two rather contradictory subjective positions, Fromm has of course not said a word here to explain how capitalist society produces “sado-masochism.” And why should he, if no particular position on unemployment and war follows from it at all?! Conversely: His conclusion that the bourgeois individual’s pleasure in suffering increases with the unreasonable demands imposed on him – so that in the end every new “catastrophe” that “befalls” the little man becomes a special service to his emotional life – already presupposes the monstrous character who always ardently desires exactly what is being done to him. Once again, the process of analogical reasoning is used to define the individual and society in such a way that they fit together seamlessly.

The critical theory of the subject – a single anti-critique

The theoretical maxim that one must focus on the subjective factor in order to explain why the political power of capitalism can so successfully exploit its human resources holds in its starting point a quite formal contrast between those who wield economic and political power and those who must bow to it. However, the fact that this contrast is understood merely in formal terms, namely as a pure relationship of domination, is at the same time the completely wrong starting point for this theory. It refuses to acknowledge the content of economic power in capitalism and the political purposes of the democratic monopoly on violence, and thus also refuses to acknowledge the reasons that motivate the rest of the population to pursue their interests under the conditions imposed on them and to accept all kinds of damage in the process. Instead, it constructs a puzzle about how it can happen that someone freely enters into relationships that run counter to his interests. The conclusion that free will cannot in fact be the reason for this, but rather that there must be corresponding material means of coercion that dictate the ways in which free will can be exercised, is avoided in favor of the fallacy that what does not happen out of one’s own free will cannot happen at all with will and consciousness. This ploy then invents an entity acting within the subject that determines his will to submit.

This, of course, not only denies the specificity of the bourgeois relationship between ruler and subject, which expressly recognizes free will and consists in exploiting the interests of the exploited for services that sacrifice their well-being. It also denies the will itself, on both sides of the power relationship: The fact that bourgeois rule is not in fact an “arbitrary rule” that orients itself according to the preferences of the ruling figures is immediately twisted so that it is declared to be an “anonymous” power, as if the lie of “objective constraints,” to which even those who establish them are subject, were actually true. And the actual achievement of modern civic participants, which consists in the self-confident recognition of the decisive interests of business and power as “objective constraints” under which one must make one’s fortune, is twisted as if modern citizens were subjects who have no will and would be completely lost without leadership and authority.

Moreover, the antagonism maintained at the beginning which provoked all the astonishment about “participation” is completely resolved. The antagonism between rulers and subjects becomes merely the foreground of a background, but an all the more effective relationship of correspondence. According to this logic: because people cannot want an antagonism against themselves, it cannot truly be an antagonism, but rather the social conditions somehow must already correspond to the people, however much they may be mistreated. The correspondence is conveniently relocated to the human interior where no one can look anyway.

The only “argument” that these friends of the subject offer for the correspondence relationship, and they do so constantly, consists in pointing out the fact that the relationship of rule is successful, the fact that people practically comply with the requirements of economics and politics, and are also in favor of the whole thing. But that is not an argument at all, but at best a fact that was initially found to require explanation. The fact that things are this way is no proof that things couldn’t be any other way. And the fact that people participate in something that only very conditionally serves their interests is also no proof that they find any deeper satisfaction in participating.

The critical theory of the “authoritarian personality” is nothing but anti-criticism. It seeks to prove the impossibility of a practical termination of allegiance to a state that is responsible for plenty of poverty and violence here and elsewhere. All that this is meant to prove: “Look here, it’s fine for the people!”

And all this out of a feigned partisanship for the lordly subject who is simply the way he is, and from whom one naturally distinguishes oneself as elite by, e.g., knowing the “mechanisms” that predispose the “masses” to compliance.

The adherents of this theory would, of course, never dream of practical opposition to any of the goals pursued by the state and capital. Their entire theory consists of searching for inescapable reasons for submission. They of course pride themselves on knowing all sorts of good and better necessities for the capitalist system: for the market economy, the monopoly on violence, and, not least, the defense of the nation. But what participant doesn’t believe that his reasons are always better than those of the other participants?

Addendum 1

The authoritarian personality needs anti-Semitism

The studies conducted by Adorno and others on “authority and prejudice” under the title “The Authoritarian Personality” are thoroughly guided by a theoretical prejudice:

“Here [referring to anti-Semitic statements] the contradiction between judgment and experience is so striking that the existence of prejudice can be accounted for only by strong psychological urges.” (II, p. 629)

This is a prejudice on Adorno’s part insofar as, by pointing to a contradiction between judgment and experience, he deems any further examination of anti-Semitic judgments, and certainly any criticism of them, to be superfluous. Simply because he does not want to explain the standpoint on the nation’s economy and politics which led to Jews being condemned as un-German, unpatriotic, parasites, etc., Adorno, with his “conclusion” about “psychological impulses,” immediately denies that these are judgments worthy of discussion at all: What is caused by “urges” is, after all, an inevitable, quasi-natural reaction! It is true that anti-Semitism does not come from experiences with actual Jews. But this only means that the relevant judgments and condemnations come from a different standpoint than that of explaining one’s experiences. What that is can only be determined by an engagement with the judgments made in the process. But Adorno rejects this. Thus, critical theory deliberately misses the peculiarity of national thinking. Anyone who, regardless of what workers, students, small business owners, politicians, or financial magnates have to do and allow, asserts that their identity consists in being German or un-German, ultimately applies an interpretation of their actions that distinguishes between their very contrasting characters in terms of their national identity. Those who make such judgments can’t and won’t let themselves be measured by whether they correspond to any “experience.” Conversely, such a person has defined being Jewish as the criterion under which all Germans of Jewish descent appear to him to be suspicious in princple because they are alien to the people, and therefore arbitrarily fabricates “evidence” for this finding, which he claims is based on his “experience.”

Adorno was well aware that anti-Semitism was a political standpoint, a state program that deemed it necessary to sort the body politic internally in order to restore the German nation to its supposed rightful greatness. By deciding to interpret this program as the effect of psychological impulses, however, he bluntly declares that anti-Semitism, for those who had to take responsibility for this ambitious state program, was virtually an indispensable means of coping with themselves. Thanks to this decision to consider only the human psyche as the cause of anti-Semitism, there is no longer any need to talk about anti-Semitism itself. Whatever it may be, according to Adorno, it is somehow functional for the psyche. He arranges this accordingly.

“... the – largely unconscious – hostility resulting from frustration and repression and socially diverted from its true object, needs a substitute object 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 … . 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 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. … Anti-Semitism as a device for effortless ‘orientation’ in a cold, alienated, and largely ununderstandable world.” (II, p. 608)

There is no such thing as an “unconscious hostility” that has yet to find its “object.” What is that supposed to be, a hostility that one knows nothing about and is “against” nothing whatsoever? A drive with no content, as Adorno apparently imagines this “hostility” to be, cannot be diverted from any “actual object” to a “substitute object.” If it is indeed a drive, then it is incapable of making such distinctions. Either the drive is directed at a specific “object,” in which case it cannot be diverted – as the name “drive” suggests. Or it is completely indeterminate, directed at nothing, in which case there is no difference between a “real” and an unreal “substitute object.” In that case, any object will fit the drive. And how could such a “driven” “subject,” who is said to lack any contact with reality, fall for the Jews as his enemies? For someone who needs something to give his imaginary drive for hostility an object, any professor, police officer, dog, or cat will do.

This logical nonsense stems from the decision to relocate the existing anti-Semitism into the psyche, in order to then conjure it back up again as their desire – since, as is known, no one can look inside the psyche anyway. Adorno does not have a single argument to support his claim that the Jews fit perfectly into the “psychic household.” How could he? The fact that the Jews were persecuted is sufficient proof for him to conclude that this “object” must have suited the people. In this way, he gives this fact the appearance of necessity: the people needed anti-Semitism. Indeed, he himself denies that the Jews necessarily had to be the “target of attack.” But here, too, the fact that they were is “sufficient” for him to “conclude” that there must have been something about them that made them suitable for this purpose.

As for the “orientation” that the Jews, as targets of attack, were supposed to have offered people in their cold, alienated, and incomprehensible world, this idea only documents what made sense to Adorno as the people’s happiness. Nothing seems more self-evident to him than the fact that people need “orientation,” intellectual leadership, something to guide them. He conceives of humanity as nothing more than a subject whose essential sustenance consists of someone telling them what to do. And the idea that people’s need for warmth, human connection, and clarity was satisfied precisely by creating a militant national community and the associated definition of an enemy who is proclaimed fair game – this only makes sense to someone who is convinced from the outset that everything state leaders do to their people must correspond to the innermost needs of the “masses” if it is to be effective. It never occurs to Adorno & Co. that participants in a state program which intends the resurgence of the nation for them and other victims might be guilty of a contradiction that is very damaging to them and therefore perhaps worthy of criticism. Their theory offers a single excuse for the participants who, completely at the mercy of their instincts, may have satisfied their understandable need for “orientation” with the wrong “object,” but at least satisfied it nonetheless; so that one cannot hold it against them, because they were denied another “orientation” that was more in line with democratic tastes. At the same time, this theory expresses its heartfelt contempt and accusation of the participants. Who or what kind of people would be satisfied with “substitute objects” and be determined by their instincts? Certainly not Adorno!

So such things must happen to pretty messed-up individuals, authoritarian characters, weak egos and the like. They can't help it. Whether an excuse or a justification – in any case, a certain affinity with the interpretative framework of racist theory can’t be overlooked. After all, an entire program of domination, for which the available human material was squandered in abundance, is derived from the supposedly innermost spiritual needs of that very human material. Which shows that theoretical racism is possible even without resorting to genes.

Addendum 2

The Jew as scapegoat

“That is why people shout: ‘Stop thief!’ and point at the Jew. He is indeed the scapegoat, not only for individual maneuvers and machinations bur in the wider sense that the economic injustice of the whole class is attributed to him.” (III, p. 142)

This idea that, in order to prevent a possible uprising by the German working class against their rulers and exploiters, the Jews were cunningly pulled out of the hat as scapegoats onto whom “economic injustice” could simply be blamed, is popular but not particularly logical.

Hitler certainly declared the Jews to be enemies of the German people and had them treated accordingly. However, the idea that the extermination of the Jews was in fact a maneuver to distract a “whole class” from their “real” interests cannot be true.

The scapegoat theory is based, on the one hand, on the assumption that the working class had reflected on its economic situation, was aware of the causes of its perpetually meager livelihood, and was also prepared to draw practical conclusions from this that would have endangered the state. At the same time, however, it is said to have allowed itself to be “distracted” from this plan simply by being shown a scapegoat. This in turn implies that the same working class would have accepted in good faith exactly the same rule that it had previously blamed for its miserable situation, believing it to be completely innocent of “economic injustice” and deserving of complete trust.

This kind of nationalistic blind trust is hard to reconcile with the whole idea that the working class was ready to fight against its exploiters.

Furthermore, the working class is supposed to have believed out of the blue that people who were distributed across the social hierarchy in Germany’s economic life in exactly the same way as Germans of the “Aryan race” were to blame for their own economic situation precisely because of a racial characteristic attributed to them. In this way, knowledge of the reasons for their own economic misery is supposed to be perfectly compatible with a willingness to accept any nationalist interpretation of their misery.

And finally, people who were interested in improving their material situation were supposedly suddenly satisfied with being presented some culprit whose persecution, as is well known, didn’t make anyone richer.

Conclusion: The scapegoat theory is completely worthless. Workers who are genuinely concerned with their material well-being will not accept a national program that requires work and military service of them. No scapegoat can help in this case. Clearly, there were far too few such workers in 1933.

Conversely, the incitement against Jews, foreigners, and communists only finds fertile ground among decent Germans. That is, among people who equate their success with the success of the nation, who see a lack of willingness in others to sacrifice for the greater good, and who therefore condone state terror against anyone identified with a disruption of the successful relationship between the state and the people. A “scapegoat” trick is unnecessary here. And even if such a trick were necessary, it wouldn’t even work.

Addendum 3

Society is simply incomprehensible to the common people

“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.” (II, p. 661)

Now rhat’s a thought that enriches the world immensely with knowledge! Critical theory claims to have discovered the “ignorance” of the masses as the reason for the current “social, political, and economic situation.” And what don’t “all those” people know? The knowledgeable gentlemen do not say. Instead, they offer a reason for their ignorance: the “situation” – society, politics, economy be damned – essentially consists of making itself “opaque” so that “all those” people can’t possibly know anything, which is why the “situation” can’t be any different... And why is “opacity” specific to “all those” people? Because they simply don't have access to the “entire stock of knowledge.” But our brilliant theorists have surely stored this wonderful stock away, haven’t they? Couldn’t they open their storehouse and …

But wait! Then this tragically beautiful circle would possibly come to an end, and our critical theorists would be complicit – with “all those”.people ...

Literature:

I. Erich Fromm, “Studies on Authority and the Family.” Translation by Susan Kassouf. Eric Fromm Stiftung.

II. Theodor W. Adorno, “Ch. XVI: Prejudice in the interview material.” In: Studies in Prejudice, Edited by M. Horkheimer and S.H. Flowerman, New York, 1949.

III. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford University Press, 2002.