Soziologische Schriften II

 

Theodor W. Adorno

Soziologische Schriften II © Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1975

  

The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas' Radio Addresses

 Section I: The Personal Element: Self-Characterization of the Agitator Introductory Remarks   The fascist leader characteristically indulges in loquacious statements about himself. In contrast, the liberal as well as the radical propagandist has developed a tendency to avoid any reference to his private existence for the sake of »objective« interests to which he appeals: the former in order to show his matter-of-factness and competence, the latter because his collectivistic attitude would be jeopardized if he should play up his own personality. Whereas this »impersonality« is well grounded within the objective conditions of an industrial society, it has definite weaknesses considering the orator's audience. The detachment from personal relationships involved in any objective discussion presupposes an intellectual freedom and strength which hardly exists within the masses today. Moreover, the »coldness« inherent in objective argumentation intensifies the feeling of despair, isolation, and loneliness under which virtually each individual today suffers – a feeling from which he longs to escape when listening to any kind of public oratory. This situation has been grasped by the fascists. Their talk is personal. Not only does it refer to the most immediate interests of his listeners, but also it encompasses the sphere of privacy of the speaker himself who seems to take his listeners into his confidence and to bridge the gap between person and person. There are more specific reasons for the attitude, which, though often nourished by the vanity of the leader, is well calculated and forms, in spite of its apparent »subjectivism,« part of a highly objective set of propagandistic devices. The more impersonal our order becomes, the more important personality becomes as an ideology. The more the individual is reduced to a mere cog, the more the idea of the uniqueness of the individual, his autonomy and

importance, has to be stressed as a compensation for his actual weakness. Since this cannot be done with each of the listeners individually or only in a rather general and abstract manner, it is done vicariously by the leader. It can even be said that part of the secret of totalitarian leadership is that the leader presents the image of an autonomous personality actually denied his followers. Furthermore, the self-advertising of a fascist leader is a kind of a confidence trick. Although he occasionally boasts and can bluff in decisive moments, he prefers, especially before having achieved power, to play down the theme of his irresistible strength. He dwells upon his »also being human,« that is to say, being as weak as his prospective adherents. The idea of strength and authority is not sufficient in itself to explain the appeal of fascist leadership. It is rather the idea that the weak can become strong if they surrender their own private existence to the »movement,« the »cause,« the »crusade« or whatever it may be. By referring to himself in an ambivalent way as both human and superhuman, weak and strong, close and far, the fascist leader supplies a model for the very attitude that he intends to affirm in his listeners. In addition, his confessions, actual or faked, serve to satisfy the listener's curiosity. This is a universal feature in present-day mass culture. It is catered to by the gossip columns of certain newspapers, the inside stories told to innumerable listeners over the radio, or the magazines that promise »true stories.« The structure of this curiosity has not yet been fully explored. It is due partly to the widespread feeling that one has to be »informed« in order to keep up with the conversation, partly to the feeling that the other fellow's life is rich, exciting and colorful, compared with the drudgery of one's own life. Perhaps more fundamentally, it is a function of the attitude of snooping, deep-rooted in the unconscious psychological process which longs for the gratification of catching a glimpse of one's neighbor's private life – an attitude closely akin to fascism. The leader is shrewd enough to realize that it does not make much difference how this curiosity is satisfied. Revelations about briberies or thefts supposedly committed by the foe, or discussions of his wife's illness or his financial difficulties which may even be invented are equally effective. As a practical psychologist, he knows something about ambivalence in action, even if he denounces psychoanalysis as a Jewish racket. The libido of the listener is

satisfied when he is treated as an insider; it is a secondary matter whether his curiosity is directed at positive or negative concepts. If a foe fails to pay his bills, the fact may serve as a means to denounce him as a cheat. If Martin Luther Thomas, as he actually did, states in public that he cannot pay his radio expenses, this very Statement may win him new friends. There is finally an »objective« reason for the fascist's lack of objectivity. It helps either to hide or to obscure his objective aims. In America where, unlike Germany, the idea of democracy has a great tradition and a strong emotional appeal, it would be highly impractical for any fascist leader to attack democracy itself, as the Nazi propagandists freely did. The American fascist is generally prepared to accept democracy as a cloak for his own ends. However, by plugging himself and by applying a technique of high-pressure publicity, he hopes to secure so much power as to build up a tremendous pressure group which may finally overthrow democracy in the name of democracy – the Huey Long prescription. Apart from that, it is a well known technique of fascist propaganda to promise vaguely everything to every group without bothering too much about conflicting group interests. When he speaks about himself, he accumulates confidence for his power of integration; on the other hand he must become so specific about his objective purposes that the self-contradictory features of his program do not become too blatant. Thus the personal touch is efficient camouflage. Martin Luther Thomas is thoroughly acquainted with the Hitler technique through his affiliations with Deatheradge, Henry Allen, and Mrs. Fry. He knows everything about the manipulation of his own ego for propagandist purposes and has skillfully adapted the Hitlerian technique of revelation and confession to the American scene and to the emotional needs of the group to which he addresses himself – the middle-aged and elderly, lower-middle-class people with a strong fundamentalist or sectarian religious background. The following are some examples of the way in which he talks about himself.

  »Lone wolf«   There is first of all the »lone wolf« trick. It is taken from the arsenal of Hitler, who always used to boast about the seven lonely and heroic party comrades who began the movement, and about the fact that others controlled the press, the radio – everything; and that he had nothing. Thomas slightly modifies this by specifically insisting he has no politician's money behind him. He uses innumerable times variations of the statement: »I have no sponsors, and no politicians ever put one dollar into this movement.« 1 This modification results from Thomas' playing upon the American distrust of the professional politician who is supposed to profit privately by making a racket of public matters. Since Thomas himself, like his fellow agitators, shows all the characteristics of a political racketeer, he is all the more anxious to shift the onus of such an occupation upon those from whom he claims to be detached. Fewer, he reasons, will believe him a racketeer, if he thus violently attacks racketeering. It is incidentally one of the most outstanding characteristics of fascist and anti-Semitic propagandists that they blame their victims in an almost compulsory way for exactly the things which they themselves are doing or hope to do. Counterpropaganda should consequently point out concretely that they are doing the self-same things about which they profess to be furious. There is practically no category of fascist propaganda to which this rule cannot be applied. It is this pattern through which the mechanism of psychological »projection« makes itself felt throughout fascist ideology. Apart from playing up one's own courage and integrity in order to win the confidence of those who feel that they are underdogs and alone, there is a deeper calculation implied in the »lone wolf« device. It allays the universal and ever-in-creasing fear of manipulation. This fear grows out of sales resistance and terminates in the semi-conscious belief that no word uttered in public has either objective significance or represents even the speaker's private conviction. It is thought of as propaganda in the broadest sense, serving the interest of some strong agency paying for every public statement that is made. The reason for this attitude lies, of course, in the economic centralization and monopolization of the channels of communication. The claim that »no politician's money is behind

me« amounts to the pretention that the statements one makes are spontaneous – not yet directed by monopolistic organization. However, that attitude towards manipulation and, therefore, the psychological function of this device must not be oversimplified. Under present social conditions, people are not only afraid of manipulation, but also, conversely, they long for it and for the guidance of those who they realize are strong and capable of protecting them. The hierarchical nature of our economic organization has increased the desire to be passively manipulated. Moreover, the borderline between »objective statements« and propagandistic devices begins to become more and more fluid. The more power is concentrated in the agencies and individuais who control the channels of communication, the more their propaganda amounts to »truth« insofar as it expresses true power relations. It is highly significant that in Germany the Goebbels office is called the Ministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (ministry of public enlightenment and propaganda) and thus in its very name identifies objective truth, about which one is supposed to be enlightened, with the propaganda words of the party. This ambiguity toward manipulation is to be taken into account by the propagandists who use the »lone wolf« device. They do not expect it to be taken quite seriously, and it probably never is. While they play upon public distrust of manipulation by the present powers within communications and party politics, they suggest with the »lone wolf« trick that in fact very much is behind them, namely the true powers that be, as opposed to the official title holders. In the present phase, stirring up hatred against monopolism is one of the means of promoting the final victory of totalitarianism. The listener who hears daily over a big radio station that the speaker is lonely and working on his own account, realizes that he is not backed by the openly known and established agencies of today but rather by the potential power of the integrated collectivity and the »secret kingdom to come« of which one becomes a citizen by submerging oneself in it as early as possible. Just the defamation of manipulation is the means of manipulation. People are skillfully made to believe that the initiative is with them and their model, the speaker. The more they are stripped of spontaneity, the more their supposed spontaneity is upheld as an ideology.

  »Emotional release« device   The speaker's simulation of spontaneity and non-manipulated individuality is underscored by a particular pattern of behavior which he not only exhibits but also recommends. He is consciously and emphatically emotional as part of his technique. He reiterates on many occasions that he »almost cried« when he got a contribution of fifty cents from that poor old widow. Whereas his whole personal build-up is that of the leader, he conspicuously refrains from any attitude of »dignity.« Just this abandonment of dignity is apparently one of the effective stimuli of fascist propaganda everywhere. Hitler himself was always prone to ostentatious, hysterical outbreaks, and one of his favorite phrases was »I should rather shoot myself than ...« In Thomas' speeches the »emotional release« device is derived from his religious attitude, his evangelistic, revivalistic penchant, in contrast to official Presbyterianism.   You know I thank God that I am kind of turning loose of my heart the last three years. You know for a Presbyterian who has been reared in the suppression of the outward manifestation of the heart, you know it is a great thing. Listen, Presbyterians and Episcopalians, and all those schools of stoicism: turn loose of your heart! Oh, I know how hard it is. You kind of feel like I do. You are afraid of fanaticism. 2 There is a rightful place for the expression of love for God. You needn't be a fanatic. Remember what St. Augustine said one day: »If you let your heart loose, you will toddle off to God.« Clap your hands just a little bit. Remember over yonder in the Old Testament, remember where it says that the trees have clapped their hands for joy. All nature praised the Creator! That wonderful flower as it blooms and nods in the sun, no human eye will ever see it. No animal will ever notice it. It is praising and smiling for its God. All of the earth is filled with the glory. The prophets cried the earth is filled with the glory of the Lord. My, it is wonderful to know God, isn't it? It is wonderful to know Christ. 3

  In such passages as this Thomas involuntarily reveals his true intentions. His own emotionalism serves only as a model for the behavior that he wishes his listeners to develop by imitation. He wants them to cry, to gesticulate, to give way to their feelings. They should not behave so well and be so civilized. Under the cloak of Christian ecstasy, there is the encouragement to paganism, to the orgiastic release of one's emotional drives, to regression towards inarticulate nature, which worked so successfully in Nazi

propaganda. The ultimate aim of the »emotional release« device is the encouragement and endorsement of excess and violence. As soon as the barriers against crying and self-pity are broken down, one may express unchecked one's suppressed feelings of hatred and fury as well, and the collective religious wantonness of the Holy Rollers may be consummated by the pogrom. Moreover, the more the barriers of self-control within the listeners are broken down by the orator's encouragement, the more easily they are subjected to his will rather than to their own, and to following him blindly wherever he wants them to go. It has often been pointed out that fascism feeds upon the lack of emotional gratification in an industrial society and that it grants to the people that irrational satisfaction which is denied them by today's social and economic setup. The »emotional release« device primarily corroborates this assumption. The concept ought to be qualified, however, in other respects in order to fit it with reality. First, ideology and reality must not be confused. The irrational gratifications which fascism offers are themselves planned and handled in an utterly rational way. Such manipulation results in a kind of psycho-technics, borrowed from the modern factory and applied to the population as a whole. It is an extremely pragmatic irrationality, and it is highly characteristic that this irrationality is expressly advertised by Thomas as well as by the German agitators as if it were a kind of a pill which makes life more agreeable. It is important to bear this in mind since this rational aspect of fascist irrational propaganda (as well as, for example, the »escapist« presentations of modern mass culture) is so obvious that it must produce a certain resistance against the permanent insincerity, a resistance which could be used by counterpropaganda. The latter might point out the shrewd soberness behind the drunken words. Such an attack would place the fascists in an inescapable dilemma, for fascist propaganda cannot avoid this rationalism within the sphere of emotional release. The fascist agitator has to reckon with people as they are, sober and practical, and can induce them to irrational attitudes only if he makes them appear as »sensible« according to the psychological economy of their own lives. Second, the manipulated irrational gratifications are spurious. Manipulation itself is intrinsically opposed to that »release« which it sets in motion. Moreover, fascist propaganda for its own purposes

does not touch upon the roots of emotional frustration in our society but rather encourages emotionalism by words. There is no real pleasure or joy, but only the release of the feeling of one's own unhappiness and the achievement of a retrogressive gratification out of the submergence of the self into the community. In short, the emotional release presented by fascism is a mere substitute for the fulfillment of desires. The most drastic example is Father Divine's device of applying an enthusiastic »it's wonderful« to everything – and therewith to nothing. When Thomas dwells on the marvelous weather, the beautiful Southern Californian landscape and the blossoming flowers, his trick is not unlike that of the Negro evangelist, for the beautiful things that he praises and offers as objects of unchecked emotions have little to do with the social world of his listeners, and even less to do with his own objectives. 4 One may suspect that any reference to the emotional resources of nature is part of a scheme to distract the audience from actual problems. Third, the switching on of emotionalism is not altogether a device superimposed upon the listeners. It presupposes a certain disposition within them, and so the shrewdness of a successful agitator actually consists in sensing dispositions which he can use as bait for his own purposes. A strong basis for the desire to escape the rigidity of psychological self-control must exist in the listeners themselves, and hence an adequate idea of this »basis« must be developed. It is in itself a result of the very same process of rationalization from which people want to get away. People want to »give in,« to cease to be individuals in the traditional sense of a self-sustaining and self-controlled unity, because they must. Thomas' negative references to stoicism and to the self-control required by the established denominations are not accidental. This stoicism is part of the attitude of the independent individual of the liberal era of free competition. The strength to control oneself reflects the strength to compete with others and to determine economically and thus also psychologically one's own fate. Today, when this independence begins more and more to dwindle, self-control begins to disappear too. The social forces to which each individual is subject are so tremendous that he has to yield to them not only economically by becoming an employee (rather than remaining a self-sustaining social unit), but also psychologically under the social and cultural pressure put upon him, a pressure

which he can bear only by making it his own cause. He must act in terms of adequate conformist behavior rather than in the terms of a unified, integrated personality. The individual becomes not only harder insofar as he is taught to think more and more pragmatically. He also becomes softer insofar as his resistance to the impact of the social world as a whole and industrial technology in particular becomes weaker. The more he ceases to be an ego, a »self,« the less he is capable and willing to fulfill the requirements of self-control. Hysteria is an extreme expression of a psychological configuration spreading rapidly over the whole of society. It is this particular disposition which is met by the »emotional release« device. Stoicism is derided because the individuals neither can nor will be stoical any longer, that is to say, because the final compensation for emotional self-control – an existence firmly established in itself and secure – no longer prevails. The effect of the emotional release device is not so much that it evinces the reactions to which it refers, but rather that it makes them socially acceptable and lifts an already tottering taboo so that people may have the feeling of doing the socially correct thing if they abandon their self-control. This mechanism of a »social affirmation« of attitudes which already operate within the subjects but which they still vaguely feel to be at variance with the rules that they were taught in their youth is an intrinsic element of all fascist and anti-Semitic propaganda.

  »Persecuted innocence« device   The selection of the personal qualities the speaker directly or indirectly claims to possess gains significance only with reference to some which are conspicuously absent. He stresses, for example, his personal integrity and honesty, therewith falling in line with old patterns of election propaganda. He also hints at his qualifications as a leader. But he never refers to his particular equipment for doing the rather ill-defined job upon which he embarks. He points out neither his training, his political background, his erudition nor any specific personal features by which he may qualify as a political leader. Instead he is satisfied by vaguely referring to God's call. The configuration of self-advertising and vagueness about himself has a meaning of its own. Apart from possibly calculating upon the widespread aversion to the professional politician and perhaps to any kind of expertness, a feeling based upon the deep-rooted unconscious resistance to the prevailing division of labor, Thomas uses the vagueness of his image of himself to leave room for any kind of fantasy on the part of the audience. He presents himself as a kind of empty frame which can be filled out by the most contradictory conceptions on the part of his listeners. He may be imagined by them as a benevolent and humane clergyman, or as a reckless soldier, as a high-strung, emotional human being or as a shrewd man of practical life, as a keen observer who knows all dubious inside stories and as a pure soul who calls in the wilderness. Vagueness about his own personality is a means of integration concomitant with the vagueness of his political aims. Both serve to herd together most different types of listeners who are willing to follow him the more blindly, the less exactly they know who he is and what he stands for. A certain abstractness, interspersed with petty concrete references to daily life, is characteristic of the pattern of the fascist agitator. There are, however, some few specific traits which occur again and again. First, the dwelling upon his own innocence. He is not merely an irreproachable and unselfish character, and it is just because of his higher moral qualities that he is subject to permanent persecution – to threats and conspiracies of his enemies. Thomas goes often so far as to say that he may be poisoned at any time or that his church (which, by the way, was his private property) may be

burnt. »People will write all kinds of things. They write everything against me. They write that they are going to kill me.« 5 Other West Coast fascist agitators, such as [George] A. Phelps, also imply the »persecuted innocence« device which was developed by the Nazis. The latter characteristically called their highly aggressive elite guard (from which the Gestapo members are selected) the SS, Schutzstaffel, that is to say, »protective Corps.« The »persecuted innocence« device serves a double purpose. First, it has to interpret the danger to the leader as one to all and to rationalize aggressiveness under the guise of self-defence. »Listen Christians, do you remember what he said: if they have persecuted me they will also persecute you.« 6 The most pronounced example of this trick is provided by Father [Charles Edward] Coughlin's excuse for Hitlerism in all its aspects by referring to it in terms of a »self-defense mechanism.« It is borrowed from high politics. Ever since Caesar attacked the half-savage Gauls with his highly trained army and explained his war of conquest as a consequence of absolutely necessary protective measures, military aggression has been termed defense. Fascism with its intrinsic affinity to all imperialistic behavior patterns has, for the first time, adapted this device to the purpose of home policy and even to the building up of ideologies for individual actions. There is, however, a deeper psychological implication in the mechanism. It is not expected that it will be taken completely seriously but rather as a stimulus to violence itself. In this connection, psychoanalysis has shown that the aggressive, sadistic tendencies to which Fascist propaganda appeals do not clearly differentiate between the aggressor and the victim; psychologically, both notions are to a certain extent interchangeable, since both date back to a developmental phase where the distinction between subject and object, ego and outer world, is not yet clearly established. This ambivalence is further evidenced by the large role of the concept of self-sacrifice in all fascist propaganda. In the last analysis, such an interchange-ability makes it possible to blame the prospective victim for the very same crime one wants to commit oneself. By »projection« one unconsciously makes events appear real which exist only in one's own imagination. The most blatant example of this mechanism is, of course, the German Reichstag fire. In Germany, the »persecuted innocence« device always was used with

a certain cynicism and was received as such. For example, innumerable jokes of the type »Jew peddler bites Aryan shepherd dog« were enjoyed. It is very likely that the same device is applied on the American scene in a parallel way.

  »Indefatigability« device   While referring to his own persecuted honesty, unselfishness and devotion to the great cause, Thomas rarely forgets to hint at his indefatigability. He reads hundreds of letters a day; he spends his last bit of energy; his hair was turned gray too early because of his ceaseless efforts; he sacrifices, and works, incomparably more than his followers: »Let me repeat that my work is a labor of love. I am asking you only to sacrifice with me. I don't ask you to work as hard as I work.« 7 Indefatigability, strangely enough, is also one of the main characteristics he ascribes to his foes. The Bolsheviks are never tired; they are at their subversive work day and night, undermining the structure of American society while the good folks are asleep. »Remember, the Communists never take a vacation. Remember, the devil has a revivial all of the time. You and I must work night and day simply because we have less than a half loaf.« 8 The affinity of this device to the »Germany awaken« theme lies at hand. Its psychological implications are manifold and not altogether consistent. There is, above all, the desire to »stir up,« which may be regarded as the archetype of all aggressiveness. It is one of the innermost drives of fascism to perpetuate actually and ideologically the necessity of hard work, thus obtaining a justification for »discipline« and oppression. This attitude, grounded in socioeconomic tendencies, permeates the whole fascist setup into its last psychological ramifications. Under fascism, psychologically, no one is allowed to sleep: one of the favorite tortures applied by authoritarian governments to their victims is that their sleep is interrupted hourly until their nerves completely break down. The fascist hatred of sleep – in the broadest sense of leaving anything alone – is reflected by the fascist leader's emphasis upon his being indefatigable himself, therewith setting an example for his followers. Indefatigability is a psychological expression of totalitarianism. No rest should be given, unless everything is seized, grasped, organized. And since this aim will never be reached, the ceaseless efforts of every follower are needed. 9 Yet, while indefatigability is stressed, the agitator does not actually want to evince a fully »awake,« conscious, lucid attitude in his followers. To be sure, he wants them to be active and to be ready

to do things, but only under a kind of spell. There is an element of truth in the reference to »mass hypnotism« in fascism, though this reference often underrates the highly »rational« element in fascist mass movements, the followers' hope for material gain and an improvement of their social status. However, so much may safely be said: It is the activity of the hypnotized which is expected by fascist propaganda rather than that of responsible and conscious individuals. Thus, the insistence upon indefatigability works as a kind of dope. Just because the follower is expected, in a way, to fall asleep and to act while he is asleep, he is told innumerable times that he has to be awake and that he must not sleep. The relationship between sleeping and indefatigability is highly ambivalent and the agitators feed upon this ambivalence. He who is to sleep while he is told that he has to be indefatigable and that he is indefatigable, may offer much less resistance to the will of his leader than he otherwise would. He is made to believe himself vaccinated against the very contagion that threatens him. 10

  »Messenger« device   There is one last very specific characteristic Thomas applies to himself – a characteristic which is especially noteworthy since it overtly contradicts the image of the leader, whereas in a deeper sense it is likely to be intrinsically connected with the fascist leader type. It is the idea that the speaker himself is not the savior, but only his messenger. In Thomas' speeches the »messenger« device is borrowed from the theological armory, namely, from the role of St. John the Baptist.  

»John had sense enough to know that he could not take this other place. John recognized that he had his own gift, but it was not to step into the light of the cross of Jesus. Here is a tremendous truth that you and I need to recognize and to obey. If this message that I am giving today glorifies Martin Luther Thomas or any other human being, it is bound to fail, but if this message of the great Christian American Crusade lifts up the Son of God, this movement is bound to succeed ... I do not know what your talents in life may be. It may be that you are simply to be a messenger. Now the finest place in the world is to be a messenger. Now, I am a messenger of God to the world; so are you.« 11

  We are not concerned at this point with the well calculated confusion of worldly and spiritual matters – the cross of Jesus and the Christian American Crusade. We are merely concerned with the idea of the messenger and Thomas' stressing that he is a prophet rather than a fulfiller of the hopes which he elicits. This may appear to be an accidental feature of this particular agitator which has little to do with the essence of fascist propaganda where the leader is primarily expected to play himself up. But it should not be overlooked that Hitler, during the earlier days of Nazism, employed the messenger device too, by calling himself merely the drummer (»Ich bin nur der Trommler«). The obvious reason for this device is, of course, that many fascist leaders were originally propagandists rather than actual politicians – which in itself is a significant feature of our present society where the borderline between advertizing and reality has become so fluent. However, there is a deeper psychological issue involved. Some light may be thrown upon it by an occasional reference of Thomas to his father: »My father was a very brainy man. Unfortunately his son didn't inherit any of his brains.« 12 This propagandistic, ironic humility is a thin veil for the

speaker's antagonism to his father (an antagonism which becomes apparent at other passages as well, particularly when Thomas contrasts his religious fervor to his father's supposed »agnosticism«). Hitler's Mein Kampf leaves no doubt that he, too, went through severe psychological and practical conflicts with his father. It is hardly too daring a venture to interpret the drummer or messenger device as an expression of the speaker's desire to present himself as the image of the son, of him who is not yet »the man« himself. 13 Incidentally, the emphasis upon the concept of the Son as contrasted to that of God the Father is one of the central points of Thomas' theological twists. The Agitator who wishes his followers to identify themselves with him and to imitate him presents himself not only as their superior, as the strong man, but simultaneously as just the opposite. He is as weak as they are; he is the one who needs redemption rather than he who redeems, in short, he is a son subject to paternal authority, dependent on and at the service of something bigger than himself. 14 This greater entity is, however, no longer the father. It is vague and utterly undefined, but all the stimuli point to its being the collectivity of all the »sons« gathered around the fascist organization – a collectivity the power of which is supposed to give psychological compensation for the weakness of each component individual. The image of the fascist dictator is no longer a paternalistic one. This fact reflects the decline of the family as a self-sustaining, independent, economic unit in the present phase of social development. As the father ceases to be the guarantor of the life of his family, so he ceases to represent psychologically a superior social agency. The image of Stalin still has something orientally patriarchal, in Mussolini patriarchal features are faintly hinted at, but they are totally absent in the bachelor Hitler and his collective image. Hitler himself represents much more the rebellious, neurotically weak son who succeeds just by his neurotic weakness which enables him to submerge completely with his equals in the movement. The fascist leader is supposed to gain control by »giving himself up« and surrendering himself to the collectivity. It is from the latter that he derives his authority and for which he stands in all his symbolic utterances – hence, the tendency to stress that he is not the savior himself but merely his messenger or representative. Thomas, who mainly appeals to middle-aged people of a strong Christian background, is, as a whole, more

patriarchal than the more streamlined fascist leader types. This, by the way, does not make him less dangerous, since his specific qualifications allow him to affect groups which otherwise might be very difficult to reach by propaganda. 15 Nevertheless, he cannot entirely dispense with the »son« aspect of Fascism which makes itself felt in his assurance of humility, his devotion to something greater than himself, and his being merely a forerunner of what is to come. The real psychological trick of fascism consists in the fact that the forerunner is transformed by certain unconscious mechanisms into him whom he is supposed to announce.

  »A great little man«   Apart from its far-reaching unconscious implications, the messenger device belongs to a much more general structure of fascist propaganda. It points into a constellation which is characteristic for the whole relationship between the speaker and his audience. Representing the psychological »integration« of his audience as a totality, he is both weak and strong: weak insofar as each member of the crowd is conceived as being capable of identifying himself with the leader who, therefore, must not be too superior to the follower; strong insofar as he represents the powerful collectivity which is achieved through the unification of those whom he addresses. The image that he presents of himself is that of the »great little man« with a touch of the incognito, of he who walks unrecognized in the same paths as other folks, but who finally is to be revealed as the savior. He calls for both intimate identification and adulating aloofness; hence, his picture is purposely self-contradictory. He reckons with short memories and relies rather on the divergent unconscious dispositions to which he appeals at different times, than on consistent rational convictions. There are two specific evidences of the great little man device. The first is Thomas' attitude towards money, or the way in which he speaks of his financial worries. As far as is known, Thomas had no powerful financial backing, though the role he played in the Merriam-Sinclair campaign (as well as some other factors) suggests that he was not quite without any important financial sponsors. Even if it is true, however, that he had to rely mainly on the small contributions that he received from his radio listeners, the way in which he discusses money with them is rather unusual. No consideration of dignity inhibits him from asking for money again and again; no religious scruples are in his way to prevent him from mixing up religious and financial issues in a fashion which one would expect to be revolting to any religious person. All his speeches are interspersed with whining and pointedly shameless appeals for funds; one may say that he plays the beggar. This habit was common in the period of the rise of National Socialism, particularly between 1930 and 1933, when the Party, then sometimes at odds with its sponsors, made one street collection after the other. The same technique is applied by other American

anti-Semitic agitators as well. It would be shortsighted to underestimate the psychological value of the begging attitude. People are generally ready to attribute a higher value to things for which they made financial sacrifices. Money works as a bond. But this does not sufficiently explain why the prospective leader himself, in blatant contradiction to the idea of his grandeur, plays with the aspect of being a beggar. Ambitious men, such as Thomas or Phelps, are certainly more interested in their political career than in their immediate modest financial gains, and they certainly know what they do when they reiterate their clamor for dollars and cents. A tentative explanation would be the universal feeling of insecurity of the masses in the present economic phase. No one but the very rich feels himself as the master of his economic fate any longer but rather as the object of huge blind economic forces working upon him. Everyone senses that he is somehow at the mercy of society; the spectre of the beggar looms behind the psychological imagery of each individual. The fascist agitator reckons with this disposition. By assuming a begging attitude he not only appears on equal footing with those whom he addresses. He also takes it upon himself psychologically to do the begging himself, to undergo psychologically the very same humilation of which his follower is afraid, and thus to »redeem« him symbolically of the shame of being a beggar by assuming this function vicariously and hallowing it, as it were. As far as Thomas is concerned, the begging attitude often assumes an aspect of metaphysical blackmail, not altogether unlike the »Ablaß« technique of the Roman Catholic Church at the beginning of the bourgeois age. He suggests at least indirectly that one may buy the heavenly kingdom by helping him to pay his bills.   We keep a very accurate record of every dollar that is given to this movement, and so we know every penny that comes in and exactly, my friends, where the money comes from and where the money goes. I am appealing for the spirit of God to speak to your heart right now that you have a little part in this great movement that is spreading across America. Remember that we must pay our bills, the petty bills, the stamp bills, remote control bills and radio bills and the office bills. 16

  Evidently Thomas reckons with most peoples' complicated psychological attitude towards money – a streak of bad conscience

they feel for everything they own – in his attempts to divert the »tithe of God« into his own pockets. He also appeals to the American sense of a good bargain, that everything has its definite price, that everything can be expressed in terms of its financial equivalent. This is, by the way, a line followed by commercial advertisers who expect housewives to buy their soap as the price for their »soap operas.« In Thomas this idea is combined with the indefatigability device. »I am sacrificing every ounce of brain energy that I have in this great cause. I am wondering if I could appeal to you, a few people to send in $10.« 17 Most important, however, not only does he beg for money, but he also speaks all the time about his financial difficulties and does not refrain from describing himself as someone who undertook larger financial obligations than he actually could fulfill. Therefore, he needs help from his followers who may get a tremendous gratification out of being capable of helping the great little man who has the same worries as themselves. They may even consider themselves his financial superiors. Simultaneously, his acknowledgment of a certain financial incorrectness on his part may appeal to the predatory instinct of his followers. Thomas' line of propaganda is a characteristic mixture of the pompousness of a man who has to direct big affairs and the cry of the despondent. The following quotation is characteristic of his configuration:  

I have come to a crisis in the future of this work. My financial secretary presented me yesterday with a printer's bill, contracted during the month of May, alone, of $800. I am frank to say that I had not known how much that bill had accumulated up. I find that during the month of May, we mailed out practically 100,000 copies of all of this literature. All of the printing bills and the postage bills ran during the month of May twelve hundred dollars alone. Now, I have got to come to a decision between one or two things. I have either got to make a very definite appeal to you people to aid me in materially reducing this bill, or stop at once all mailing. Undoubtedly, I will have to stop sending anything further until this bill is paid. I cannot allow this bill to accumulate. I do not think it is the will of God. I didn't know. I didn't realize that the May bill of printing, the highest in the history of the movement had accumulated so much. Of course, we thank God for it. It only indicates the extent of this movement, but it also indicates, beloved, that you and I must get down on our knees this morning and make this the special order of the day. 18

 

He alludes to his having a financial secretary, like an executive, and to his want of $800. Translated into psychological terms, this may mean: I have power rather than money. The mixture of pettiness and grandeur is not limited to money matters alone. Thomas' whole personal attitude wavers between very small, practical, down-to-earth matters, and grandiose statements which are brought together without any intermediary logical stages. The two are simply identified with each other so that even the poorest listener can feel »elevated« at once from his low status to the realm of ideas. Neither Thomas nor the listener worries about the way that leads from their limited private existence to the spheres of social and religious abstractions. It is a travesty of thought, drawn from an old theological tradition, which is now manipulated in order to profiteer on the narrow-mindedness and disillusioned soberness of the poor by translating high-sounding ideas into their imagery. Thomas' speeches are full of minor technicalities which are linked together with »this great movement« or the spreading of Christianism throughout America. In one of his speeches he gives a circumstantial description of how to reach his church, mentioning even that »officers will be on duty to aid you to and fro across the boulevard« and continues:   Be certain and come tonight. If you are a real Christian and a real American and I know there are thousands of you who are, you are going to be here and we are going to take some action tonight by the blessing of God. 19

  This technique is applied even to the concept of eternal life. It is conceived in terms of the little ma n who is afraid of all sorts of illnesses. Eternity becomes a sort of life insurance:  

Now do you know what eternal life is? It means forever and forever. It means a life that is unending. It means a life where there will be no death. It means a life where there will never be disease. It means a life where there will never be sorrow. 20

  As soon as his promises are utterly beyond realization within existing society and, hence, are free from any rational control, they become lavish like the day-dreams of the child into whom he wants to transform his listener.

 

Eternal life means that you and I and every man and woman that accepts the Son of the living God is going on, tens of thousands of years, ten million years, ten billion years, ten trillion years, and you can multiply each of these by ten. It means the ages of the ages. Isn't it worthwhile? 21

  It should be noted that Himmler, in a famous speech, predicted that the Third Reich would last from 20,000 to 30,000 years. To boast about trillions of years of life and then to ask humbly »isn't it worthwhile?« is the most perfect expression of the idea of the »great little man« that Thomas wishes to convey. He combines the ideas of trillions of years and of sound investment. He disposes of eternity and is a reliable broker. The »great little man« device, the mixture of sublimity and soberness, again is combined with the »indefatigability« device in a sentence that shows utter contempt for any sense of proportion:  

Pray that God will put it into the heart and mind of this great living audience that they have no peace night and day until they send for this vital literature that we are sending out free of charge. 22

  He psychologically established an immediate relationship between the demand for his petty pamphlets and the religious peace of the soul. Only if one is indefatigable in asking for »this vital literature« does one have a chance of getting any sleep at all.

  »Human interest«   The audience which Thomas addresses has to be imagined as consisting largely of elderly, somewhat lonesome, disappointed lower-middle-class people, particularly women. This accounts for one of his favorite personal attitudes: the »human interest« trick, the deliberate fiction of personal closeness, warmth, and intimacy. This attitude has proven its value through, for instance, the tremendous appeal of the key figures in women's serials. Thomas presents himself in a sense as the homespun philosopher, the folksy, good-natured, humble man with the golden heart who, although himself by no means living comfortably, thinks of his neighbor first, brings him comfort, and gives him some sort of help. Though the »human interest« device of Thomas is related to his specific audience, it should be noted that it can also be found among a great many American fascist agitators, such as Phelps, while it was largely absent from German Nazi propaganda. Apparently, the pressure of technology and the highly centralized business culture in this country is so tremendous that those who live under this pressure clamor for »strong dope.« Radio, of course, with its fake immediateness, bringing the distant voice into the little man's own home, is a particularly adequate medium for this device. Thomas seems to be capable of speaking with perfect ease about the most intimate matters of his own life to perfect strangers – experiences about which anyone who actually had them would be completely reticent.   God called me. He did not call me until my little mother was on her deathbed. When she called me to her side and said »before you were born into this world I dedicated you to God and I dedicated you to be a minister to the Son of God.« 23

  This experience is supposed to have brought about a complete change in his life, a kind of Augustinian conversion. »My life was immediately changed. The things that I loved from the standpoint of the flesh I immediately hated.« 24 His whole family is summoned for propaganda purposes, notwithstanding the fact that his actual family life was by no means happy. He mentions an illness of his wife and asks the community to pray for her, although he hurries to add that »she is not so very ill.« 25 When he suffers from a cough, he uses it

as a means of achieving a personal touch and appearing as »human,« while at the same time stressing his spirit of boundless sacrifice. »Now if I have to cough today, I know that you will forgive me and realize that I am laboring under a tremendous handicap.« 26 Correspondingly, he feigns an intimate interest in the family affairs of his listeners. There are always sick people, always people down the hill, always people who suffer under humiliating conditions, and he advertises his sympathy for all of them. »I trust that everybody had a good night's rest, that you are refreshed, and that you are getting ready for a great day tomorrow, as well as today.« 27 He shares in their joys no less than in their sorrows and plays upon the pride they take in junior. »Let any man or woman listening to me this morning hour who is not in reality governed by their emotions look into those blue eyes of that baby of yours.« 28 Here the trick is obvious. There are innumerable babies with blue eyes, but to most mothers these eyes appear as an intimate, specific characteristic. By referring to them, Thomas fakes his closeness to those whom he never saw, without any danger of being disavowed.

  »Good old time«   One particular form of the »human interest« trick may be called the »good old time« device. It consists of placing special emphasis on the old fashioned and the obsolete in one's actions and surroundings. The American cult of novelty is likely to produce a sort of resentment within all those who cannot participate in the latest blessings of technical civilization, whereas even to those who participate in modern technology life appears to become colder and colder by the sweep of progress. Thomas overcompensates for this feeling by emphasizing the old-fashioned and the homely as being genuine and traditional and as having a sort of patina which the novelties lack. Thus, the patina itself falls within the same advertising pattern as the novelties do – a scheme familiar from commercial advertising. In a description of Thomas' church, its lack of glamor is glamorized.  

We don't have much of a church here. We don't have any stained glass windows. We don't have a great deal of marble and brick. We just have a little old-fashioned church by this great highway. The total thing did not cost us but $3600, but folks, we love Christ out here and we are trying to serve him to the very best of our ability. If you are worn and tired of life and if you think that God does not live, why don't you come tonight ... suppose you get that old Bible of yours. That old Bible that you have loved and that has come down through the years ... perhaps it belonged to that old father of yours or mother or somebody. Go, get it, won't you? 29

  Thomas capitalizes on resentment and frustration by confirming the homeliness of those who cannot afford nice things as a morally superior way of life. In addition, the denunciation of »stained glass windows and marble,« which are here a sort of religious substitute for make-up and lipstick, fits in very well with his generally ascetic, anti-sensual, and anti-hedonist attitude, which he has in common with practically all fascist agitators in the whole world. The ideal that looms behind the »human interest« trick is that of the traditionalistic, anti-liberal poor, who, in spite of their poverty, are content with life as it is and are ready to sacrifice themselves for the maintenance of the very same conditions under which they suffer, being rewarded by the dubious pleasure of some undefined inner superiority over the rich as well as the discontented. All

Thomas' maudlin appeals aim at establishing this attitude which he regards as the most promising one to be taken by his peculiar type of listeners.   I see coming before me today a great crowd of little women with hard hands from scrubbing the floors, from going over the washtubs. I see a great host of those who have never bowed the knee to Communism in the world. I see this great host of womanhood. Many of them ... saving, praying, working that this magnificent gospel of the son of God shall continue across the world. 30

  To sum up the personal attitude that Thomas pretends to take: he stresses the personal element, the similarity between himself and the audience, and the whole sphere of interest, as a sort of emotional compensation for the cold, self-alienated life of most people and particularly of innumerable isolated individuals of the lower middle classes. The very immediateness and warmth of his approach, furthered by radio, helps him to get a firmer grip over them. The substitute for their isolation and loneliness is not solidarity, but obedience. He advocates obsolescent, quasi-precapitalistic forms of human euphoria against the streamlined conditions of today, in order to prepare for their transformation into something even more streamlined, the totalitarian leader-state. The sham individualism, preached by Thomas, only furthers the tendency to dispose of the individual by incorporating him into a collectivity, where he may feel »sheltered« but where he has no say at all.

 Fußnoten   1 May 29, 1934.   2 Hitler often spoke about his own »fanatical love for Germany.«   3 July 9, 1935.   4 Some examples: »Our father, we thank you this afternoon for this wonderful day. We thank thee for this beautiful Southern land.« (July 14, 1935) – »Good morning, everybody, everywhere. We are happy to be with you upon this beautiful day with the sunshine pouring out upon your yards.« (July 3, 1935)   5 May 22, 1935.   6 July 13, 1935.   7 May 22, 1935.   8 May 31, 1935.   9 It goes without saying that the praise of indefatigability is deeply rooted throughout middle-class society. It plays a decisive role particularly in Calvinism and Jansenism. Pascal went so far as to define Christianity in terms of indefatigability: the agony of Christ lasts until the end of the world, and no one should sleep any more. The more radical, ascetic Christian movements always emphasized this point, and it may obtain its peculiar weight within Thomas' propaganda through this »revivalist« background. The term revival itself implies hostility against anything that rests quietly. What is new about the indefatigability device in fascism is only that it has been made independent, a sort of fetish. The older bourgeois had to be indefatigable in order to secure a chance of winning the pity of the hidden God and of making a fortune for his family. The fascist is taught to be indefatigable for the sake of indefatigability itself. Self-denial, in this as in all other respects, is interpreted in terms of an end rather than a means. It is regarded as the very same

compensation which it forbids. This transformation is one of the deepest psychological changes that have taken place in our time. It would be essential for any counterpropaganda, which really gets at the hub of the problems, to point out the irrational, fetishistic, and absurd characteristics of all the »sacrifices« demanded by fascist propaganda.   10 The question how the »hypnotic« and the »rational« element work together in fascist propaganda may be answered at least tentatively. Above all, fascist propaganda cannot be entirely rational, for objective reasons. Fascism aims at the repressive maintenance of an antagonistic society – an aim which is intrinsically irrational. It is rational only with reference to the interest of single groups or individuals. The discrepancy between such interests and the irrationality of the whole makes itself keenly felt. One may well assume that the hidden awareness of the irrationality of the final goals of the »movement« produces some sort of bad conscience within each individual fascist. Here the hypnotic element comes into play. It helps to overcome that bad conscience. The fascist stops thinking, not because he is stupid and does not see his own interest, but because he does not want to acknowledge the conflict between his particular interest and that of the whole. He gives up his reasoning because it is »rationally« inconvenient to him. There is an element of spitefulness involved in his »belief.« He has to switch it on himself, again and again, in order not to lose his spurious faith. Fascist hypnotism may be characterized as being essentially self-hypnotism.   11 May 23, 1935.   12 May 29, 1935.   13 This idea, which has been developed by the Institute of Social Research for many years, has been printed out independently, and somewhat differently, in Erik Homburger Erikson's study, »Hitler's Imagery and German Youth«: »Psychologists overdo Hitler's father attributes. Hitler is the adolescent who never even aspired to become a father in any connotation, nor, for that matter, a kaiser, or a president. He does not repeat Napoleon's error. He is the Führer: a

glorified older brother, who replaces the father, taking over all his prerogatives, without over-identifying with him: he calls his father ›old while still a child‹ and reserves for himself the new position of the one who remains young in possession of supreme power. He is the unbroken adolescent who has chosen a career apart from civilian happiness and ›peace‹; a gang leader who keeps ›the boys‹ together by demanding their admiration, by creating terror, and by shrewdly involving them in crimes from which there is no way back. And he is a ruthless exploiter of parental failure.« ( Psychiatry V, 4 [November, 1942], pp. 480–481.)   14 This motive is, strangely enough, to be found at the end of Wagner's Parsifal which, as a whole, is a sort of anti-Semitic cryptogram. The last words of the opera are »Erlösung dem Erlöser.« Paternalistic authority as represented by Titurel is shown as being utterly powerless throughout the opera: Titurel has abdicated for the sake of his son Amfortas and dies for the latter's sin.   15 It may be noted that a kind of psychological »division of labor« also took place among the German fascist leaders. Hitler himself stressed, in his New Year's message of 1934, the diversity of Nazi leader types. Apart from extremely non-paternalistic and even homosexual types such as Hitler, Röhm, Schirach and Goebbels, there are more patriarchal ones, such as the »civil service« man Frick. However, the appeal of the latter group seems to have decreased considerably since the Nazis came into power.   16 May 23, 1935.   17 May 25, 1935.   18 June 4, 1935.   19 April 14, 1935.   20 May 24, 1935.   21 Ibid. The inflationary character of those figures may have

something to do with the contempt for any established money value inherent in fascism. This mixture of apparently sober figuring and fantastic expectations is utterly unthinkable for the liberalistic mentality, though it may have its precedents in American sectarianism.   22 Ibid.   23 June 7, 1935.   24 Ibid.   25 June 26, 1935.   26 June 6, 1935.   27 May 25, 1935.   28 May 29, 1935.   29 July 7, 1935.   30 July 12, 1935.  

 Section II: Thomas' Method Introductory Remarks   A survey of the method used by Thomas in handling his audience, apart from the personal element previously analysed, is important not only because his methods are common to fascist and anti-Semitic agitators whose actual doctrines widely differ, but also for a more specific reason. With Thomas as with most of his kin, the method, the »how,« is more important than the contents, the »what.« His actual interest is the manipulation of men, their transformation into adherents of his organization, and in the last analysis everything serves this purpose. The specific ideas and postulates serve merely as bait and have very little objective weight. Partly, he is too cautious to reveal his real aims. Partly, he presupposes, probably correctly, that the audience understands what he actually advocates, that is, jingoist violence, much better when he deals with political goals in a less explicit way. He obeys an old German chauvinistic rule of the thumb: Immer daran denken, nie davon reden. Partly, the goals themselves are vague and inarticulate and will have to be adapted to changing political situations, as soon as the fascist feels himself in command of power. Partly, his followers should not know too exactly what is intended, his political program, for they might discover the blatant discrepancy between their own most primitive interests and the interests which they are called upon to serve. Thus, the emphasis is shifted from the »what« to the »how.« Thomas is an advertising expert in a highly specialized field, that of the transformation of religious bigotry into political and racial hatred. He gives much more attention to his advertising techniques than to the ideas which he tries to sell. The psychological stimuli he provides, and the response mechanism on which he reckons, are carefully worked out; his platforms, on the other hand, are either vague and abstract or childish and absurd, and so one has every reason to believe that he knows very well why he devotes more attention to psychological techniques than to concrete political issues. The latter, conversely, enter the picture only on a very

down-to-earth, atheoretical level, in terms of election campaigns and scandal mongering, and hence reveal little about his final ends. In objective terms, Thomas' radio speeches are quite illogical. There is no clear-cut and transparent relationship between premises and inferences, causes and effects, data and concepts. It would be a mistake, however, to attribute this lack of discursive logic to a lack of intellectual capacity. Thomas is a shrewd man. The lack of objective logic in his statements is due to quite logical reflections about the psychology of his listeners and the best way to reach them; and some of his apparently most illogical devices are certainly the result of hard thinking and long experience, although a certain affinity between the speaker's mind and the supposed muddle-headedness of his listeners should not be discounted. As a whole, however, Thomas' radio speeches offer an excellent example for one of the basic characteristics of fascist and anti-Semitic propaganda, namely, the entirely calculated, highly rationalistic nature of its irrationalism, not only with regard to the irrational philosophy that it implies, but also to its irrational effect. Thomas' method may be adequately described as »emotional planning.« This is demonstrated first of all by the general strategy of his speeches. They fall into two totally distinct divisions, the »esoteric« and the »exoteric.« 1 The esoteric ones are those which were not broadcast, particularly those delivered in Trinity Auditorium. They were addressed to the nucleus of his followers, the people to whom he could speak his mind and whom he could whip up to the peak of emotional hatred. Here alone his anti-Semitic propaganda went unchecked, and it is these speeches which provide the key for certain passages of the radio addresses which, subject to the control of the stations and of public opinion, are soft-pedalled and avoid abusive statements in most cases. Their function is to attract people who could be incorporated into his organization and, of course, to secure money. These exoteric speeches, to the study of which we confine ourselves here, are largely to be interpreted as advertising for the non-public, esoteric activities. These exoteric speeches are carefully balanced. Whenever Thomas dared a violent political attack, he became mild and harmless in the next utterance; very often speeches which deal at least in part with political matters are followed by ones of an apparently purely religious nature. He follows, purposely or automatically, the Hitlerian »wave technique«

described by Edmond Taylor. 2 He is always cautious enough to keep open the road for retreat and could even counterbalance his anti-Semitic statements by appeals to Gentiles and Jews alike in the Coughlin manner. As a whole, his speeches may show a certain crescendo in violence and aggressiveness, due to the increasing scope of his »crusade.« This crescendo, however, is interrupted whenever he meets any difficulties with public agencies, and it would be hard to gauge it exactly. By and large, his radio speeches belong to the realm of indirect, semi-hidden, fascist and anti-Semitic propaganda and most of his techniques can be traced back to his endeavour to excite hatred and violence without committing himself. In this respect he is different from many other anti-Semitic agitators, such as [William Dudley] Pelley. However, he is shrewd enough to use even his cautious avoidance of definite commitments as a peculiar kind of threat. Here he is doubtlessly influenced by Nazi propaganda which always sounded most dangerous when it stressed the »strict legality« of its methods and ends.

  »Movement« trick   The vagueness of Thomas' statements about his political objectives cannot be shown by quotation since it is a negative aspect of his utterances. He defines his aim as something like the concern for the Holiness of God and an ensuing »regeneration« of the world. (The idea of regeneration with the implication of hatred for the »degenerate ones« is common to all anti-Semites since Gobineau and Chamberlain.) The vagueness of this aim itself, however, is shrewdly utilized. The trick consists of substituting the concept of the movement itself for the aim of the movement, an aim that is purposely left vague. The description of the »revival« that he expects has always something redundant, lacking any definite application.  

My friend, there is not but one way to get a revival and all America has got to get that revival ... all of the churches. The story of the great Welsh revival is simply this. Men became desperate for the holiness of God in the world, and they began to pray, and they began to ask God to send a revival (!), and wherever men and women went the revival was on. It was not confined to one church, one area. When men and women came into the outdoors, a great something gripped them to know God. They began to cry out to God, to save their souls. 3

  This description of older revivalist meetings may not be altogether wrong; they consisted in collective imitation, a sort of contagion of ecstasy, rather than in being overwhelmed by any concrete, specific idea. Revival is not a revival for something; it is rather an end in itself, and it is hardly accidental that Thomas describes the Welsh revival as nothing but a universal desire for a revival. This is transferred to Thomas' own political racket. The movement is conceived of as an end in itself, like the Nazis who always made a fetish of the term Bewegung without pointing out exactly where the Bewegung was going. »This great movement,« the glorification of action, of something going on, both obliterates and replaces the purpose of the movement; Thomas becomes very concrete only when dealing with matters of organization and money, or with his adversaries and the danger that is supposed to threaten, but never with regard to any positive idea. This configuration may point to some of the deepest psychological implications of the stimuli that he exhibits to his audience. He wants to evince an »against« rather than

a »for« attitude, and the gratification which he psychologically promises by his total approach is, in the last analysis, the pogrom rather than the achievement of any aim apart from such an outbreak. The movement is presented as a value per se, because it is understood that movement implies violence, oppression of the weak, and exhibition of one's own power. Since the goal is finally the subjugation of one's own followers, they should be distracted from this goal, and their ambition should be centered around the pleasure which the movement itself may yield, not around the ideas which it might possibly materialize. The shift of the emphasis from end to means is one of the axioms of the logic of fascist manipulation. The end is »that we might demonstrate to the world that there are patriots, God-fearing Christian men and women who are yet willing to give their lives for the cause of God, home and native land.« 4 These words, by association, ring like those of the Ku Klux Klan, nativism, and Chauvinism, that is to say, they bear some definite destructive connotations, but remain quite vague apart from such associations. The transformation of means into an end is blatant: »To give their lives for the cause of God« is a means and the end would be only that cause which is never stated concretely. The negative concept of sacrifice remains the last end Thomas has to offer. The means by which it is supposed to be achieved are the Christian American Crusade, its paper, the pamphlets, the money for which Thomas asks. All the weight of his propaganda is thrown in to promote the means. Propaganda is the ultimate content of this propaganda.

  »Flight-of-ideas« technique   The lack of any program or goal makes itself felt in the logical structure of Thomas' speeches. Since he has nothing to prove, since no real conclusion is ever to be reached by an analysis of given material, no actual argumentation takes place at all. Yet, Thomas is American enough to reckon with the common sense of his listeners, and he therefore upholds the form of rational thinking, corroborating his theses by examples and apparently making deductions. The inferences, however, are as spurious as the examples. The logical trick consists of the fact that he always takes for granted that his so-called »conclusions« are the pre-existing convictions of every true Christian American. While apparently proving something, he actually only wants to corroborate those common prejudices which agree with his plan. Everything is decided before the argument starts. In his confused ideas there is a sort of totalitarian order. Everything is settled. One knows what is good and bad, which powers are the powers of Christian tradition, family, and native soil, and which are those of baseness, degeneration, and world Bolshevism. No problem exists, no adversary is refuted, no thesis is rationally justified. The logical process merely consists of identification, or rather of pigeonholing. The whole set of values, including even the most doubtful ones, is regarded as pre-established, and the orator's effort is spent entirely in identifying any group, person, race, denomination, or whatever it may be, with one of the rigid concepts of his frame of reference. Even in this process of identification Thomas never takes the trouble to actually prove that any phenomenon belongs rightly to any of those pseudo-logical classes. He feeds upon the bias connected with the phenomenon and expands it by subsuming it under some high-sounding category, such as the forces of evil, the Pharisees, or the Battle of Armageddon. Argumentation has been replaced by the device, termed in the book on Coughlin by the Institute of Propaganda Analysis the »name-calling device.« [ 5 ] This is grounded not only in the weakness of fascist reasoning itself, which, from the viewpoint of its profiteers, is reasonable enough. It is rather based upon a cynical contempt for the audience's capacity to think – a contempt overtly expressed by Hitler. Thomas reckons with an audience who cannot think, that is to say, who is too weak to

maintain a continuous process of making deductions. They are supposed to live intellectually from moment to moment, as it were, and to react to isolated, logically unconnected statements, rather than to any consistent structure of thought. They know what they want and what they do not want, but they cannot detach themselves from their own immediate and atomistic reactions. It is one of the main tricks of Thomas to dignify this atomistic thinking as a kind of intellectual process. By reproducing in his speeches the vagueness of a thinking process confined to mere associations, a »monologue intérieure,« Thomas provides a good intellectual conscience for those who cannot think. He cunningly substitutes a »paranoic« scheme for a rational process. The most important device of his logic of manipulation is his technique of associational transitions. Whether he chooses this technique deliberately or whether it flows simply from orational habits, its essence is to connect different sentences, or ideas, not by any logical operation, but simply by some element which they have in common and which makes them appear connected in spite of possibly complete logical disparity. A typical argument which recurs most frequently in various forms runs as follows:  

Christ says, »by their fruits ye shall know them,« now, that is the only way that I have of testing whether a man or woman belongs to God, it is what you do. My friend, one of the best things in the world that you can do to demonstrate that you are a child of God-work on your neighbor; send for all of this vital literature. 6

  The trick is played by the double meaning of the word »neighbor« which serves as associational link. The word »neighbor« plays a definite role in Christian theological language, and the idea that »by their fruits ye shall know them« is generally interpreted as that of doing good works towards one's »neighbor.« On the other hand, the word »neighbor« has a plain realistic meaning, referring to the man next door, that is to say, the acquaintance to whom Thomas wants his follower to direct his house-to-house propaganda. The follower should send for »this vital literature« in order to »start a chain, contact your neighbors, have them contact five more people, and keep the chain going« 7 – the notorious chain-letter device, that has certain mischievous connotations in itself. The associational technique consists in bringing closely together the idea of good

works and of asking for Thomas' printed pamphlets. In reality, there is no connection between the pamphlets and theological or moral truth; by the word »neighbor« they are wedded to each other. Another example shows an even more arbitrary connection of ideas:  

You know, I see, this morning, yonder on the bleak New England shore, I see that Mayflower, and a little group of men and women, after they have spent three months upon that great uncharted sea, and here is what they are saying: listen to that historic Mayflower compact »in the name of God.« You call upon that same God that our fathers called upon, and you call upon the same God to guide us through the storms that we are now moving through, and you also remember, my friend, that the Christian American Crusade cannot possibly go another forty-eight hours unless you, through the power of the Holy Spirit shall make a real sacrificial offering. I cannot possibly go further, my friend, unless I receive during the next twenty-four to thirty-eight hours sufficient money to run this. 8

  The main link is the identical name for something real and something metaphorical. The Mayflower went through real storms; Thomas' racket goes through a financial crisis. Calling the latter a storm, he links his movement to the voyage of the Mayflower and borrows from the prestige of that established American legend. Moreover, the Pilgrim Fathers were religious. So are his followers supposed to be, and religion means sacrifice. Hence, they are called in the name of the Mayflower to send him money. A last example: »As we know Christ, we enter in, and we go out. We find pastures. Our God provides a pasture for his sheep. That is the reason this message is going out, today, for it is food for the spiritual lives.« 9 Here the associative link is completely formalistic. A central agency sends out identical material simultaneously to innumerable individuals. In the one case it is supposed to be God who spiritually nourished his children; in the other case it is Mr. Thomas who speaks over the radio. The implication of the trick is that by associative transition the message of Thomas is dressed up as a message of God in person – an idea which is helped by the theological language that he constantly employs. It should be noted that this device is closely akin to what is called the »transfer« device in the above-mentioned Coughlin analysis. But the trick implies more than the idea of borrowing prestige from something established and transferring it to something

apocryphal and even shabby. Its ultimate aim is probably not so much the selling of a false argumentation as, indeed, the complete breakdown of a logical sense within the listeners and eventually the collapse of any meaning that the idea of truth may have for them. They are trained to accept oratorical expectoration, backed by all the authority which is implied in the attitude of any speaker who addresses a mass, as a sort of command. They are to give up the element of resistance that is implied in any act of responsible thinking as such. They are to follow the leader first intellectually, and finally in person through thick and thin. We may add that this device as well as practically all the others discussed in this study are used hundreds and hundreds of times throughout Thomas' speeches so that they become a kind of a pattern and have a greater chance of being accepted, since they are employed as an established form of intellectual procedure. He has a »style of thinking,« the consistency of which throughout its repetition hides the inner inconsistency of each case.

  »Listen to your leader«   It is a truism that authoritarian propaganda does everything to establish authoritarian ideas. This, taken in isolation, however, is not a specific characteristic of fascism. Other ideologies, particularly religious and feudal-conservative ones, have always dwelt on the concept of authority. The new element in propagating authority is that anti-democratism can no longer refer to authorities which are regarded either as being guaranteed by supernatural revelation, such as the Church, or as being grounded in an omnipresent tradition, such as the »legitimistic« idea of feudal authority and, to a certain extent, even of monarchism. Modern authoritarianism has to face an issue which first came into the open in the period of French Restoration, in the writings of reactionaries, such as Bonald and de Maistre. Throughout modern society the problem is conspicuously manifested. The fascist must try to justify authoritarianism which is an inherent tendency of modern industrial organization. Yet he must face ways of thought which are essentially opposed to authority itself, and must confront those very masses which are to be subdued by authority. This task, essentially insoluble, calls for certain twists and distortions if it is to be undertaken with any chance of success. Most of the techniques of rationalistically and »democratically« defending blind authority are hackneyed and have often been exposed. Typical is the »transfer« device described in the Coughlin study of the Institute of Propaganda Analysis, [ 10 ] a device which consists of transferring the established popular authority of a faith, an idea, or a person to the thesis which the fascist wants to invest with the halo of authority. Or we may mention the equally well-known »Bandwagon« device, which aims at luring people to join one's movement by pretending that a vast number of other people already have done so. We shall not once more describe these devices which are incessantly employed by Thomas. 11 Rather, we confine ourselves to discussing some tricks which have not yet been fully recognized, and to considering the broader psychological background of modern fake authority as such. The most characteristic means of propagandistically establishing authority in a quasi-rational way, without taking resort to traditionally accepted institutions, consists of taking up an authoritarian term and making it a sort of fetish. This device has

been noted by Dr. A. Sanders 12 under the heading of »magic words.« The best example for this device is the personification of totalitarian regimes everywhere, by a Duce, a Führer, or, with Martin Luther Thomas, a leader. 13 The term leader itself is very significant in this respect. It expresses a claim of unquestioned authority, the claim that the leader should be »followed« without referring to any traditional dynastic title. Hitler's propagandistic instinct in this respect is so outspoken that he did not even assume the title of Reichspräsident after Hindenburg's death in 1934. Hitler called himself the leader of the whole of the German people. The leader is he who ought to be obeyed blindly and only for the sake of his own merits, which are supposed to be self-evident and appreciated by all. His psychological status is paradoxical: It combines irrational devotion on the part of his followers with the rationality that he is actually best equipped to do the job and that the followers should recognize him as best. Here, no doubt, the model of the military officer has been transferred to the realm of politics and emancipated from any idea of expertness and organized control. The Führer is per se the officer against whose decisions no objection is possible. The term leader expresses its emancipation by becoming absolute. Current opinion about fascism would object that the concept of the leader, taken as an absolute, is entirely irrational and in no way different from any other magical idolatry of human beings. This idea is furthered by legalistic Nazi constructions such as that of the charisma of the Führer. While the ultimate irrationality and arbitrariness of the leader idea, however, is indisputable, one would oversimplify things and therewith make them too harmless by immediately referring to this ultimate irrationality and thus dismissing the whole leader ideology as pure nonsense. Two facts are to be borne in mind. First, the concentration of economic power in certain nations has reached such a level that those who hold such power actually exercise what amounts to absolute authority within a »rational« industrial society. Second, the potential strength of the underlying population makes itself felt insofar as the authoritarian leaders are compelled to justify their usefulness in some way to those whom they command. This state of affairs leads to the paradoxical construction of the Führer as an absolute yet somehow »responsible« authority. The social conflict that stands behind this

construction and, as it were, calls for it, invests the Führer principle with an inner strength which is comparatively immune with regard to its inherent logical inconsistencies. The idolatry of the term leader itself is not simply a relapse into barbarian habits of thought, though it doubtlessly implies retrogressive elements. It is in itself the outcome of late industrial society in a way which at least may be hinted at. The intermediary between industrial rationality and magical idolatry is advertising. The technique of competition has developed a certain tendency to turn the slogans under which the commodities are sold into magical ones. Such magic of the words is promoted by incessant and omnipresent repetition which is planned rationally but blunts the conscious discrimination of the prospective customers. An important element in this process is that the customers feel the tremendous power concentrated behind the ever-repeated words and therefore display a certain psychological readiness to obey. This obedience tends to a certain extent to sever the link between the customers' own interest and the actual usefulness of the commodity. They come to attribute to the product a certain value per se, a certain fetish character. This mechanism has become so automatized throughout the buying processes of modern life that it can easily be transferred by simple advertising techniques to the political field. The mode of »selling an idea« is not essentially different from the mode of selling a soap or a soft drink. Sociopsychologically, the magical character of the word leader and therewith the charisma of the Führer is nothing but the spell of commercial slogans taken over by the agencies of immediate political power. Thomas' speeches contain a striking example of the process of severing the concept of the Führer from any rational context and making it an absolute, a fetish. It matters little who the leaders are. Leadership as such is an ideal, and a man who speaks with authority should be followed. Thomas says in one of his isolationist ventures:  

You take Harry Carr in the Los Angeles Times, today. You read what he has to say on the first page. We are living in a tremendous hour, when a great world war is immanent. It is here, he says. He speaks of the fact of China being swallowed and being taken over by Japan. He says if America so much as raises a finger in protest, it means war. If Britain so much as raises a finger in protest, it means war. He tells us that Japan by her action in taking over Northern China has served notice to the world that the Orient is through, so far as the rule of the

white man is concerned. Why does not the world listen to these men? If they won't listen to Christ and the Bible, why don't they listen to their leaders? 14

  The last passage is a very significant slip of the tongue. He implicitly admits that religious authority has passed away and silently transfers the authority to today's »leaders.« Those who hold power are regarded as rightful heirs to divine and absolute authority, precisely and only because they are »leaders,« because they hold power. This is the point where the ultimate irrationality of the leader idea becomes blatant. Counterpropaganda should dwell upon this point by elaborating that fascism justifies leadership by nothing but leadership, that admiration of power is more important in the fascist setup than anything else, particularly than its supposed nationalism (a fact that becomes very clear in the last quotation from Thomas), and finally that not only those who fulfill the deified function of the leader but also, correspondingly, the enemies, are interchangeable: the same isolationist groups for whom Thomas spoke in 1935 and who at that time took an implicitly pro-Japanese stand are those who today want the whole war effort to be shifted against Japan, now regarded as the arch enemy. In some passages Thomas shows more concretely his conception of the leader. It resembles very clearly that of the Nordic, Nazi type with poise, »Haltung.« It suggests certain virile or quasi-heroic qualities, especially the absence of mercy, through metaphors so strongly evoking the idea of archaic prowess that they contradict the idea of Christian compassion, though Thomas' image of the leader is supposed to appeal to some sort of Christian elite:  

I am looking for men who have the courage of their convictions. I am looking for women who have the courage of their convictions. I am looking for young life, young Americans, thank God, with clear eyes and clear principles. Young men, stalwart Americans, I am looking for young women who see straight and think straight, and, thank God, are willing to act straight, who are not afraid to advance their opinions, who are not afraid to say yes, I would die for the old flag of my nation, who are not unwilling to take their place in the firing line and defend by their lives, yes by their lifeblood, if necessary, this great institution. 15

  Apart from being a leader, the leader has to be a warrior, ready to fight and die. This readiness is praised as a quality in itself, independent of any specific contents for which one has to die, and is

linked up with a very general notion of »this great institution.«

  Excursus on »fait accompli« technique   It appears to us that such well-known devices as that of psychologically transferring the idea of established authority to one's own racket, or the band wagon appeal – »two million customers cannot be wrong« – as well as making into fetishes certain words, such as »leader,« are but special cases of a much broader pattern underlying all fascist propaganda, at least in this country. It may be called the »fait accompli« technique. It consists of presenting an issue as one that previously has been decided. The foregone decision is attributed either to the masses who back the speaker's stand, or to the personal and institutional authority on whose prestige he draws, or at least to a clear-cut superiority in the realm of ideas which has simply to be translated into practical, technical terms. Some obvious reasons for this technique lie at hand. On the one hand, it calls for less independence and moral courage to join the party that is already winning. This advantage counts heavily in a situation where the propagandist has to reckon with vast numbers of people who are unwilling to take any real risks, since they live under conditions which make them thoroughly dependent on the stronger ones. On the other hand, belief that the causes have already been decided tends to render any resistance psychologically a hopeless undertaking. The terrorising effect is enhanced by the fact that all fascism involves numerus clausus and elite ideas, so that those who come too late have serious reasons to fear disadvantage when the fascist regime is established. 16 They join the band wagon because they do not want to miss the bus. Of course, the »fait accompli« technique, which in many cases assumes silly and fraudulent forms, could hardly work unless it had some basis in reality as well as in the psychology of the people. As to the former, it is true that the present organization of economy actually tends to make people to a very large extent objects of processes which they often fail to understand and which are utterly beyond their control. The dwindling of economic free enterprise and initiative makes life appear to most people as something that happens to them rather than as something which they determine by their own free will. To most people their life actually is decided in advance. As soon as there appears an organization which evokes the idea of some strong backing by the powers that be, and which

promises something to its followers, great numbers may be willing to transform their vague awareness of being mere objects into adherence to such a movement. Thus they may turn the hateful idea of being thoroughly dependent into an asset, namely, into the belief that by giving up their own will they join the very institution whose victory is predetermined. The »fait accompli« technique thus touches upon one of the central mechanisms of the mass psychology of fascism: the transformation of the feeling of one's own impotence into a feeling of strength. The feeling of impotence is represented by the idea that the issue already has been decided without one's having had any say in it; but acknowledgment of this very fact, by »going over« to the established victor, mysteriously and irrationally changes the feeling of impotence into one of power. It is probably the most important task of counterpropaganda to interfere with this mechanism and to demonstrate strikingly to the masses that the mere acknowledgment of impotence, the mere giving up of oneself, by no means entails actual strength and social reward. The manipulation of this whole mechanism, by the way, is by no means limited to fascist propaganda, but is set in motion throughout modern mass culture, particularly in the cinema. A fascist propagandist utilizing this mechanism can rely on processes which to a certain extern have been already automatized. Under this viewpoint even the apparently most harmless movie comedian may unconsciously serve the most sinister purposes of domination. However, involved in that mechanism there seems to be an element which pertains to even deeper psychological processes, and which may set the stage for the more obvious effects. Here, we can hint at it only in rather general terms. We mean the widespread tendency of present society to accept and even to adore the existent – that which is anyway. The processes of enlightenment, the spirit of positivism in its broadest sense, have destroyed magical and »supernatural« ideas by confrontation with empirical reality, with that which exists. In America in particular the conviction prevails that truth is only that which can be verified be referring to facts. Throughout the modern history of the mind, the concept of the factual itself has proved to be stronger than any metaphysical entity. This historical superiority is one of many other factors. We mentioned here only the survival of magical psychological traits after the abolition of metaphysical ideas, the tremendous power over

the individual, of today's highly organized social existence, and the ultimate opaqueness and even irrationality of the existent order itself. All this has tended to invest the factual itself with that very halo against which the idea of fact was originally coined. One may go so far as to say that religion largely and unconsciously has been replaced by a very abstract yet tremendously powerful cult of the existent. That something exists is taken as a proof that it is stronger than that which does not exist, and that therefore it is better. One can hardly overrate the extent to which what may be called philosophical Darwinism has permeated every channel of modern psychology. The »fait accompli« technique exploits this disposition. By investing anything that is propagated or desired with the quality of existence, this device tends to make it an object of adoration in a sense similar to that in which half-grown boys adore motor cars or airplanes. This adoration of the existent becomes stronger, the more the existent itself is presented in terms of technical rationality and practicability. Insight into these possibilities, as will be seen later, is fully utilized by Thomas. The idea that existence is largely taken as its own justification leads back to the point of departure of our discussion of the leader device, namely, that the term leader as such, void of any justification, be it rational or traditional, is accepted and glorified. When Thomas asks the astonishingly general question »why people don't follow their leaders« the basic assumption behind his cult of the leader is not only, as we pointed out, that power authorizes the leader but probably that even the mere existence of leadership as such, warranted through history, is a sufficient legitimation for the existence of leaders. At this point fascist propaganda is profoundly interconnected with basic trends of modern cultural anthropology. It may be added that it can be fought with more than ephemeral success only if the magification [ sic ] of the existent is finally overcome at its foundation in our present setup. The irrationality of the fascist's delight in the »accomplished fact« idea in general, and in that of established leadership in particular, is but the last consequence of the common sense idea that nothing succeeds like success. The absurdity of fascism can be exploded only if the apparent reasonableness of such ideas is exploded, too. As far as Thomas is concerned, the »fait accompli« technique, apart from his crude application of the »band wagon,« the »transfer«

and similar devices, comes to the fore in the configurations of his language rather than in the contents of his arguments. His movement was, after all, too limited to allow for large scale »fait accompli« propaganda, such as the Nazis used between 1930 and 1933. Conversely, the expression of the »fait accompli« idea by mere linguistic forms rather than by disputable assertions about already achieved successes may be less subject to rational control, and therewith more effective. We mention some of the most typical and ever recurring »fait accompli« formulas of Thomas' language. He generally speaks of his »crusade« as »this movement,« »the great movement,« »this thing,« as if it were well known to his listeners. He takes it for granted, as it were, treating it as a well established institution, thus relieving himself of the necessity of ever concretely stating what it actually proposes. The threatening and sinister undertone of the term »this movement« should not be overheard. It is so awe inspiring that it cannot even be called by its name. Similarly, Thomas always refers to his pamphlets as »this vital literature.« His newspaper, the »Christian American Crusader,« is called the »official« newspaper of his movement. This has a double implication. On the one hand, it is suggested that some unauthorized people, perhaps »those sinister forces« or some competitive group, may illegitimately speak for the »crusade« whereas only his paper is the real McCoy and anything else a cheap imitation – an idea obviously borrowed from commercial advertising. On the other hand, the term »official newspaper« conveys the idea that the newspaper and the organization behind it have legitimate, and possibly even governmental authority. In other words, the final aim, the seizure of power, is psychologically hinted at as something largely accomplished. All fascist movements have a tendency to represent themselves as authority supplementary to and opposed to the actual government, as valid organizations supplementary to the still prevailing organization of society, ready to replace the latter at any given time. There is an uninterrupted chain of ideas from the »official« newspaper of a small political racket to the huge para-military organizations, to wit, the private armies of the Nazis before 1933. The American term »self-styled« or »self-appointed« authority very clearly delineates this device. It is significant, however, that it had to be characterized by a standard term. The trick to make particularistic or private undertakings appear as

public, established institutions has become an institution itself. This may well indicate how deeply rooted in modern society is the tendency towards self-appointed officialdom.

  »Unity« trick   In Germany one of the most successful Nazi slogans was that directed against the supposedly innumerable parties. Inner disunity was made responsible for the crises of the Weimar Republic, particularly for its inability to build up a sound parliamentary majority during its last years. This German device proved effective even abroad. It was said often in this country that a democracy with twenty or thirty parliamentary parties could not possibly operate. From the very beginning the whole concept was based upon a lie. Most of the supposedly pernicious parties never played any decisive role, and the number of those which were of any importance was never greater than six or seven. In this country in spite of its age-old and thoroughly established two-party system it is interesting to note that this trick and the appeal for unity as a cloak for totalitarian repressive comprehensiveness is also to be heard; Thomas uses it lavishly. The psychological appeal to unity counts heavier than the actual existence of chaos. The concept of unity itself, as used in this particular device, is void of any specific content. Unity as such is exalted as an idea. The formalism of this ideal makes it possible to put it surreptitiously into the service of the most sinister purposes. On the one hand, the disunity of American society, particularly in politics and religious life, is solemnly decried, and unity is praised as the only hope for salvation from the ever threatening anarchy. On the other hand, Thomas' own organization with all the characteristics of a party is supposed to represent such a unity, or at least to aim at it. Thomas' propaganda betrays one of the innermost features of fascism, namely, the establishment of something utterly limited and particularistic as the totality, the whole, the community. He feeds upon the ever-present feeling of every man that no true solidarity exists in this society, but he directs these feelings into the channels of very specific interests, antagonistic to such a solidarity – the interest of his racket. He specializes in denouncing jealousy and pleading for unity, but always in a way that justifies certain basic forms of disunity, particularly the prevailing differences of property and social status.   My friend, may I once again re-emphasize through the power of the Holy Ghost that there is no place for jealousy, no place for misunderstanding so far as the

Church of God is concerned. You are placed in those places, you cannot choose them. Now, everybody cannot be an officer. Everybody cannot lead the parade, so to speak, but there is just as much honor, yea, more honor to the man or woman who fills the small place in the army as the general who directs the battle. It is just as important, my friend, that God says it is just as much honor and there will be just as great reward as for those who lead things as those who join the battle. We are to be faithful in the place or the places where God has placed us. 17

  The pledge for unity is characteristically mixed up with defamation of theological controversies:  

Now, our Lord would not be a party to any jealousy. He would not be a party to encroaching upon the ministry of John. You recall that an attempt had been made by the Pharisees to drive a wedge between the disciples to get them fussing between themselves. You know, my friend, that is always one of the splendid weapons that the Devil uses whenever God takes a great work. Very often it occurs between two ministers. 18

  Thomas' attack on American denominationalism, which will be discussed later, serves as a sort of metaphor for the dream of political »integration« which is never stated quite explicitly. Sometimes the »unity« device even rings a pro-democratic and antidiscriminatory note:  

The thing that the world must see today is the everlasting, pulsating personality of Jesus Christ through God, the Holy Ghost, that is here, today, this hour, that rules every man and woman irrespective of your group, your skin color; it matters not what it may be, you and I come alike and we go alike and six feet of earth makes us alike. Whether you are a poor man or rich, Jew or Gentile, it matters not. There is one God in all, through all and over all. 19

  It is significant, however, that this ideal of equality refers only to supra-natural concepts, namely to the equality before God or before death. The belief in such entities is supposed to work as an integrative force, but the idea of realizing equality on earth is utterly alien to Thomas' propaganda.  

My friend, you know what Christianity does. Christianity breaks down all race prejudice. Christianity breaks down all class consciousness; Christianity breaks down all economic barriers. Now, I am talking about a spiritual, a spiritual thing. I do not care tonight (!), whether your skin is dark or white or brown or yellow. If you accept my Father through Jesus Christ my Lord, then you are indeed my

brother. Now, that does not mean to say that I believe in intermarriage. I do not. I believe that the black people would be better off marrying within their own. I believe the whites would be better off marrying within their race. I believe the yellow people in their race, because God has set it in our boundaries, within the scope of this earth of ours; but listen, if we can even once get Christ across to this world of ours, the whole question of war is going to be settled; the whole question of an economic war is going to be settled; the whole question of Communism in this nation is going to be settled. 20

  The more firmly the idea of ultimate unity is established as an ideology, the easier it is to maintain any kind of inequality within empirical life. The »unity« device can easily be recognized as a trick by its exclusiveness. While Thomas speaks about unity in high terms, he always presupposes the existence of certain groups, »those evil forces«: the Communists, the radicals, the sceptics, and, of course, the Jews. These groups are a priori exempted from such a unity; they merely threaten it and must be »driven away.« Not one word ever suggests even the faintest possibility of including them in this spiritual unity, be it by conversion or by any other means. They are condemned and have to stay out. Thus, the unity that he advocates is nothing but the ideal of a comprehensive organization of those who participate in his repressive interests, the »right people.«

  The »democratic cloak«   Thomas' authoritarianism like that of most American Fascist agitators differs in one important aspect from Nazi propaganda. Although some Nazis, such as Schacht, sometimes indulged in defending National Socialism as a true form of democracy, Hitler and his henchmen could openly attack democracy as such. The strength of democratic tradition in America makes this impossible. The famous saying of Huey Long's, that if there ever should be fascism in America, it would be called antifascism, goes for all of his kin. The American attack on democracy usually takes place in the name of democracy. Very often the progressive Roosevelt administration is blamed for being that very dictatorship at which the fascist aims. Thomas, as well as Coughlin, speaks as if he were opposed to all types of dictatorship. However, his critique of dictatorship shows overtones at least of admiration of their successes.  

In Europe they are actually regimented, the people, by dictatorship. A regimentation has sprung up such as the world has never known for two thousand years, since Caesar, and they are successful (!). There is hardly a nation in the world, today, with the exeption of the British Commonwealth and America, that does not, today, possess a dictatorship that is leading the people with saddle and spurs and bridle. The people of the world, today, are regimented and bound together. They are bound servants and slaves of their masters above them. Now, why is that? Now, I tell you why it is, because of the fact that there is no soul freedom. No man or woman is ever bound in, today, until they are bound outwardly, rather until they are first bound in. 21

  While this somewhat confused statement seems to complain of the rise of dictatorship, it explains it by the rather vague concept of a preceding loss of »soul freedom.« He makes dictatorship an issue of inwardness rather than of politics and economy. It is, according to Thomas, due to a negative frame of mind, antagonistic to his type of religion. That frame of mind – the Nazis would have called it »materialistic« – is supposed to be universal. Thus, by implication, the trend towards fascism is presented as being universal, too. The listener is left under the general impression that there is a compulsion in the drift toward dictatorship. It appears to be the only rescue to obey the authority of Thomas himself. Authoritarianism

yields only to authority. Yet, Thomas' persistent references to democracy, to democratic personalities, such as Jackson or Lincoln, and to the American Constitution is exceedingly significant from the point of view of counterpropaganda. He even pretends that his »great movement ... is attempting to protect and preserve our ancient liberties.« 22 This shows that the fascist agitator still has to reckon with democratic ideas as living forces and that he has a chance for success only by perverting them for his own purposes. By perverting them, however, he is always bound to hurt the very feelings which he wants to utilize. Hence, counterpropaganda should point out as concretely as possible in every case the distortions of democratic ideas which take place in the name of democracy. The proof of such distortions would be one of the most effective weapons for defending democracy. There is a definite procedure for the perpetration of such distortions, a specific twist by which psychological patterns of democracy are transformed into ideological means of fascism. This procedure is mentioned in the Coughlin study by the Institute of Propaganda Analysis under the title of the »Plain Folks Device.« 23 However, little emphasis is laid upon it and it appears in too harmless a light. 24 The »plain folks« device is closely akin to the »good old time« idea discussed in Section I. But not only the illusion of closeness, warmth, and intimacy is brought about by some pertinent oratory habits well developed in Thomas, such as addressing the listeners and their families as »folks« or exalting certain homely virtues, such as thrift. Behind the veneer of democratic equality, of being affable and not regarding oneself as something better, looms an aggressive »anti-highbrow« attitude in favor of a carefully calculated image of the common man with sound instincts and little sophistication – an attitude zealously fostered by the Nazi denunciation of the intellectual. The fact that American tradition is intrinsically bound up with democratic ideas and institutions has tended to give to some elements of democracy a quasi-magical halo, an irrational weight of their own. Whole-some as this may be in some respects, it also involves certain dangers upon which fascist propaganda may feed, just as it fed in Germany upon certain undercurrents of the idea of the immediate will of the »folks« vs. its alienated (volksfremd) expression through

government by representation. Such a danger applies particularly to the concept of majority which not only reflects American democracy but is also constantly promoted by the almost universal statistical approach to any social problem, and by the practices of advertising. Whereas in a democracy decisions are to be taken on a majority basis, majority as such is not a moral value but a formal principle of government. It tends, however, to become hypostatized in this country as an end in itself rather than as a means. Thus, certain traits of the population which are due to socially non-democratic processes, and antidemocratic in spirit, may be taken and propagated as the last word in democracy, simply because they are characteristics of the majority. This is one of the weaknesses which sometimes allow fascism to mobilize the masses for repressive aims against their actual interests. On the surface the »plain folks« device appears to be innocuous enough, and it is by no means a characteristic of fascist agitators to flatter the people as they are. One might assume that such a psychological treatment cures the little men and women of their inferiority complexes and elevates their unvoluntarily humble lives, e.g., by inferring, as Thomas does, that the humbleness is self-imposed out of Christian humility. Yet this device has most sinister implications. It reflects the fact that large sectors of the population – in fact, all those who are excluded from the privilege of education, and through manual labor, bear the burden of civilization – preserve certain traits of rudeness and even of savagery which may be called upon in any critical situation. By praising their humbleness and their folksy ways, the agitator indirectly praises this savagery which is simultaneously both repressed and generated by modern culture. Thus, he leads them to release their savagery under the name of robust, sound, plain instincts. Whenever a group is gathered under the slogan of being »just plain folks« who are opposed to the refinements and perversions of cultural life, it is ready to strike at those against whom they may be directed to strike.

  »If you only knew«   The following group of five devices pertains to Thomas' »strategy of terror.« Here he enters the sphere of the dark, mysterious and frightening, and resorts to techniques which exploit fear and its ambivalence. The terror technique is used in different degrees, from the slight innuendo of hidden evil to the threat of impending catastrophe. Each of these grades has somewhat different psychological implications. One has to distinguish, throughout Thomas' method, between the quasi-rational, surface stimuli and the underlying irrational psychological mechanisms which he sets in motion. The difference between these two aspects is particularly marked with regard to the terror device. Here the statements themselves and the emotions they first call forth are of a distinctly negative nature. Simultaneously the whole technique aims at giving or promising certain unconscious gratifications as supplementary effects of the negative statements. Since the actual result is probably an amalgam of surface reactions and deeper psychological implications, we shall try to elaborate both and to show how they are related to each other. The mildest form of terror device employed by Thomas as well as by other fascists is the »if you only knew« device, the suggestion of mysterious dangers known only to the speaker, or almost unconceivable to the normal person, or so obscene that they cannot be discussed in public. Innuendo points toward the future, to a time when the facts merely hinted at are going to be made clear, or to a final day of reckoning. Curiosity is stirred up and people are made to join the organization, or at least to read its publications, by the hope that they are going to be »let in« at some future date if they simply follow what the agitator says and writes. Mere interest in what one will hear later creates a sort of emotional tie between speaker and listener. This mechanism is used throughout advertising, and represents the harmless, surface aspect of the innuendo technique. The lure of innuendo grows with its vagueness. It allows for an unchecked play of the imagination and invites all sorts of speculation, enhanced by the fact that masses today, because they feel themselves to be objects of social processes, are anxious to learn what is going on behind the scene. At the same time they are

prone psychologically to transform the anonymous processes to which they are subject into personalistic terms of conspiracies, plots by evil powers, secret international organizations, etc. The innuendo device is based upon the neurotic curiosity prevailing within modern mass culture. Every isolated individual longs not only to know the hidden powers which his existence obeys, but even more to know the dark and sinister side of those lives in which he cannot take part. This disposition helps to transform the innuendo device into something not at all harmless. Its dangerous aspect consists, first of all, in an irrational increase of the speaker's prestige and authority. To listen to innuendo and to rely on purposely vague statements requires from the listeners a certain readiness to »believe,« since the vagueness stands in the way of a comprehensive statement of facts and a discursive treatment of their interrelation. It is exactly this attitude of blind belief which is fostered by Thomas' innuendo technique. Of course, he borrows the concept of belief from Protestant religion, which teaches the primacy of faith. But actually he promotes the idea of belief in him. Religious belief and belief in the movement are permanently confused: »God can only bless the world in proportion to that which they [ sic ] yield to Christ. To believe is necessary. Do you believe that God is blessing the Nation through this movement?« 25 Innuendo is a means of making the leader appear as heir to divine omniscience. He knows what the others do not know. He underscores this difference by never telling exactly what he does know or revealing the full extent of his knowledge. He always reserves for himself a surplus of knowledge which inspires awe and at the same time makes the public wish to participate in it. This is the decisive mechanism of the »if you only knew« device. The assertion that fascist organizations like Thomas' Crusade are rackets is to be taken very seriously. It does not refer merely to the habitual participation of criminals in such movements, nor to their violent terroristic practices. It emphasizes their sociological structure as such: they are repressive, exclusive and more or less secret ingroups. One has every reason to assume that this aspect of any fascist movement is, though unconsciously, well understood by the prospective followers. Indeed, one of the main incentives offered to them is the wish to »belong,« to become a member of a closed ingroup. This mechanism is evident in the

attraction exercised by juvenile gangs upon youth, and probably also even upon adults. The »if you only knew« device is of paramount importance with regard to this desire. Innuendo is a psychological means of making people feel that they already are members of that closed group which strives to catch them. The assumption that one understands something which is not plainly said, a winking of the eye, as it were, presupposes a kind of esoteric »intelligence« which tends to make accomplices of speaker and listener. 26 The overtone of this »intelligence« is invariably a threatening one. Psychologically, what purposely remains unsaid is not only the knowledge which is too horrible to be stated frankly but also the horrible thing which one wants to commit oneself, which is not confessed even to oneself, and yet is expressed and even sanctioned by innuendo. The »if you only know« device promises to reveal the secret to those who join the racket and pay their tithe. But it also implies the promise that they will some day participate in the night of long knives, the Utopia of the racket. Moreover, the form of innuendo is a threat to all those who are excluded from the whispering and are supposed not to know »what I mean.« This idea is often expressed by anti-Semitic leaflets which demand of their readers that the material be passed to »Gentiles only.« A typical statement of the »if you only knew« type is the following:   God has been speaking to this nation. He has been speaking a long time, but the nation would not listen. They did not hear. The preachers turned from God. Oh, I don't mean all of them, of course, but I mean, you know who I mean, a lot of people turned from God, the businessmen turned from God, God has wept all these years for America to return to hear: now, judgment has come. He has allowed radical Communism to come in. My friend, you find it everywhere. 27

  But although the foe is everywhere he does not come out into the open; he remains hidden just as the meaning of Thomas' accusation is hidden by innuendo. While Thomas, like all fascists, stresses the black-and-white dichotomy between friend and enemy, psychologically both categories change into each other. The confusion among them is likely to work as a stimulus on the ambivalent feelings of the listener.  

The Devil is a coward. He works in the corner, in the dark places and behind closed doors and walls; but Jesus, thank God, works in the light of the day. Now, I want you to note a purely dastardly political address. God always picks these evil forces and compels them to do in the very light of the day that which they desired to do in the dead of midnight. 28

  This divine action is actually what Thomas constantly promises to do himself, namely to publicly expose the evil forces. But he prefers to do it by innuendo, as it were, »behind closed doors and walls.«  

My friend, throughout the United States, today, wherever men and women are preaching the Gospel of the Son of God, and wherever they are calling attention to the imminent peril of Communism, there we find the clergy being attacked and you find forces being used to discredit the leaders. Just now, according to the newspapers of last night, you find in Southern California where a tremendous program has been put on and financed by a certain force to discredit every leading clergyman in Southern California, and where they have financed these men to attack the outstanding clergymen in Southern California. 29

  Such a statement is certainly not less dark than the corners of »those evil forces.« It may safely be assumed that the basic understanding between Thomas and his listeners, wherever he uses innuendo, refers to the Jews: they are the »certain forces.« The threat against them is emphasized by the very fact that he avoids the word »Jew« in his exoteric addresses, while mentioning Communists and radicals, and calls them only »these forces.« He implies that everyone knows who and what they are, that it is not even necessary to speak about them. They appear doomed in advance. Thus even the fact that in a democracy open anti-Semitic statements are somewhat handicapped by official public opinion is changed into an anti-Semitic tool of its own.

  »Dirty linen« device   The indispensable supplement to innuendo is actual or imaginary revelation. Thomas often made »if you only knew« promises in his radio speeches and then actually told the story in his church. Once more, the relation of the trick to commercial advertising is obvious. People are allowed to peep behind the scene, as it were, and to learn the inside story. They seem to share the privilege of the well-informed few. This idea is reminiscent of the »ingroup« aspect mentioned above. In order to grasp the deeper psychological implications of this device, one must look at the peculiar contents to which propagandistic revelations usually refer. They belong, in most cases, to the sphere of scandal-mongering and usually pertain either to graft and corruption, or to sex. One might well compare the psychological mechanism set in motion by the »dirty linen« device to a certain gesture which one can observe in many people. When they smell a bad odor, they very often do not turn away but eagerly breathe the pested air, sniff the stench and pretend to identify it while complaining of its repulsiveness. One does not have to be a psychoanalyst to suspect that these people unconsciously enjoy the bad smell. The appeal of scandal stories is very similar. Indignation about a scandal is in most cases a thin rationalization; actually the listener finds some pleasure in the story. One may well assume that the dark, forbidden things whose revelation he indignantly enjoys are the same things that he himself would love to indulge in. This mechanism has become automatized to such an extent that the gratification comes to be derived from the act of revelation as such, no matter what actually is revealed. Revelation per se is experienced as the fulfillment of a promise and obtains an almost ceremonial character which may be colored by religious memories. This accounts for one of the strangest phenomena concerned in the »dirty linen« device: the striking disproportion between the objective weight of the revealed facts, and the psychological importance they gain. The fascist-minded listener, at least, is willing to accept without examination any scandal story, even a most stupid one like the ritual murder legend. Furthermore, he generalizes cases which may happen under any political system, regarding them as

typical of democracy, especially of its »plutocratic« nature. He becomes furious about facts which at closer scrutiny appear most innocent, or belong so strictly to the sphere of private life that nobody has a moral right to interfere. Thus, a certain fur coat of the Berlin Bürgermeister, supposedly a bribe, played a tremendous role in Nazi propaganda during the last years of the Weimar Republic, although the possession of a fur coat could not possibly be regarded as an outrageous luxury. What mattered was the revelation, not the fact. Generally, the scandals which are revealed are quite unspecific and by no means characterize only those who are vilified. Thus, the Nazis made the most of certain corruption cases in which Jews – the Barmats, Kutisker, and the Sklareks – were involved. During the same period, and due to the same economic conditions, there were even bigger corruption cases on the right – the Lahusen case and the Neudeck affair which amounted to bribery of the Reichspräsident Hindenburg himself. These latter cases, however, were quickly oppressed and got little Publicity. This may partly be explained by the fact that reaction controlled most public communications during the later years of the Weimar Republic. In general, there seems to be a greater indulgence in the airing of dirty linen among reactionaries than among progressives. The shift of social problems to private responsibilities, a general mood of repressiveness which tends to blacken anyone who enjoys himself rather than proves his acquisitive efficiency, and shrewd speculation on certain instincts of the frustrated majority may account for this fact. Those who want conditions to be unchanged are always ready to put the blame for any evil upon individuals who do not comply with the accepted standards of morality. Hypocrisy is a prerogative of conformism. It is not absent from Thomas' arsenal. In his case, however, the simple motive of gratification to be obtained through spicy revelations overshadows most other considerations. Though he particularly relishes picturing the Communists as a lot of wanton criminals, it does not matter too much to him whether the scandals he divulges affect friend or foe. He occasionally describes himself as a victim of scandal stories.   I will never forget that, my first experience as a pastor in San Pedro and a situation I found myself in, when I arrived and I got into a terrific feud over a

moral issue. A scandal sheet appeared about me that was my first experience with morale ... they used a criminal who professed conversion, but he had been sent in there by these people to gather information and blacken my name and they published all the things in the world that they could think about me, but within the flight of twelve months, I found out what it was. I found that a man who was really of the underworld of this city had been paying for that. I thank God through every conflict in my life that I have gone through, my Lord and Savior has stood by me. 30

  Curiosity aroused by reference to the sheet is compensated by the scandal stories that Thomas tells about others. The most outstanding is one about a phony decree concerning the general prostitution of womanhood in Russia. In his own church, he went into juicy details, in true Streicher style. In his radio addresses, he soft-pedals the story and relies on innuendo as being perhaps even more effective than revelation:  

That contains the startling decree of Moscow concerning the making free of womanhood in Russia. Let me read just for a moment, my friend, in connection with that, the word of an outstanding woman, the wife of an American engineer, Mrs. McMurray, who came back just a few months ago. She said about Russia, ›I will never go back.‹ She said, ›sorrow and fear and hate combined with the jeering contempt for the finer things of life hang over the land of the Soviet.‹ Then she declared, ›no moral code is preserved. Men and women live together like animals. They live where and how the government directs. All labor is forced. If they do not work where the government commands, they are refused food-cards. I could not make friends. People are afraid of everyone and everything. Such is the red paradise.‹ 31

  It should be noted that this quotation, introduced by Thomas »in connection with« the supposed prostitution of womanhood in Russia, contains no specific reference to such prostitution but only a vague complaint about men and women living together »like animals.« Thus the quotation sounds like a kind of anticlimax. But emphasis is laid upon the act of revelation as such. Through the »dirty linen« device, propaganda itself becomes the purpose of propaganda.   Be certain to get your request in quickly for the new edition of the Christian American Crusader. This will contain information of the Communists' and radicals' attack upon the clergy of America. The plots of the Communists are almost impossible to believe. I am giving you the whole setup. I am giving the names as I did Sunday night. By the way, I am giving more of this next Sunday

night. 32

  »Tingling backbone« device   The »dirty linen« device is universally bound up with the tendency to terrorize listeners. When they are told that womanhood is prostituted in Russia they are made to fear that the same will happen to their wives, sisters, and daughters. Communist atrocities disclosed to them become threats of what will happen to themselves tomorrow. Here the double and almost self-contradictory character of the device is outspoken. The surface effect is that people react, out of fear, by organizing themselves to combat the threatening danger. The unconscious effect is, bluntly speaking, that they enjoy the description of atrocities because they themselves want to commit them some day. Pleasure in cruelty is closely related to pleasure in filth. Fortunately, Thomas himself was kind enough to formulate a sentence which so plainly exhibits ambivalence towards atrocity stories that our interpretation can hardly be regarded as a matter of arbitrary speculation: »You also, send for the ›Imminent Peril of Communism for This Nation,‹ and after you read that, if your backbone does not tingle, then, my friend, there is something wrong with you.« 33 The promise to make the reader's backbone tingle has sense only if the sensation in store for the reader is in some respect pleasant to him. Thomas does not even care to hide this. One aspect of propaganda through terror ought to be stressed particularly. It is generally assumed that fascist agitators promise everything to everyone. Scrutiny of Thomas' speeches at least makes the validity of this hypothesis rather doubtful. Thomas actually promises very little – mostly rewards in Eternity. Instead he terrorizes his audience by constantly pointing out all sorts of threats to them. He does not rely so much on their desire for happiness as on their fear that things may become even worse, while ceaselessly stressing that they are desperate even now. Rationally this evokes the worries of small people – the loss of their property and security. But this rational or half-rational stimulus is probably not the decisive one. The promise implied in terror propaganda is rather that of destruction as such. This leads to a certain qualification of our thesis on ambivalence. It would be perhaps too rationalistic to assume that the atrocities are necessarily those one wants to commit

against the weak, though doubtlessly this impulse plays a major role. But the masochistic component is no less developed than the sadistic one. The prospective fascist may long for the destruction of himself no less than for that of the adversaries, destruction being a substitute for his deepest and most inhibited desires. This is confirmed by the constant references of fascists to self-sacrifice, or by certain statements made by Hitler, such as the one referred to by Rauschning, that if Hitler looses a Ragnarök, a Twilight of the Gods will take place. Here the fascist's subconscious knowledge of the ultimate hopelessness of his undertakings probably comes into play. He realizes that his solution is no solution, that in the long run it is doomed. Any keen observer could notice this feeling in Nazi Germany before the war broke out. Hopelessness seeks a desperate way out. Annihilation is the psychological substitute for the millenium – a day when the difference between the ego and the others, between poor and rich, between powerful and impotent, will be submerged in one great inarticulate unity. If no hope of true solidarity is held out to the masses, they may desperately stick to this negative substitute. 34 Thomas' call to follow him as leader is terroristic. His followers are told that they should believe, without a clear distinction as to whether they are to believe in God or in Thomas. But those who do not believe are going to be punished anyway:  

Now, remember that with belief you may do it. Isn't it worth while? I say that you must do it. You must accept Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God as your personal Savior from the penalty of power of indwelling sin. Now, unless you do that, you are a lost man or a lost woman. You are not only lost in this life but your soul shall be lost in that world which is to come. I have been praying lately that God would give me the true conception of a lost soul (!) and I am not sure that I have it, this morning, and I am not sure that you have it, this morning, for if I believe this word as I should believe it, I want to tell you that I would be crying to God night and day. 35

  The prayer for the true conception of a lost soul is an involuntary hint of the gratification he gets out of the lurid. Instead of praying that the lost soul may be saved he wishes to give as vivid a picture of the »lost« as possible. The associational sequence of his ideas converts this picture into a means of terrorizing his audience. He wants them to cry to God night and day. He expects that readiness to

follow him may spring out of their fear as well as out of their masochistic pleasure in the imagery of the lost soul. It is hardly accidental that this attempt to terrorize the audience is linked up with the concept of belief. People are terrorized in order to believe, to wit, to stop thinking. Conversely, terrorized people are incapable of clear thinking and are reduced to the blind reactions of the sauve-qui-peut -pattern, an attitude particularly favorable to adherence to a leader who promises to think and act for them if only they trust in him. In order to achieve this, Thomas skillfully confuses the threat of eternal penalties with the threat of earthly unpleasantness, and makes metaphysical salvation synonymous with membership in the Christian American Crusade:   I appeal to the man who walks the streets that you remember there is coming a day, my friends, when God will compel you to give an account of the deeds that you are done in the body [ sic ]. My friend, are you an American? Are you a Christian? If you are, you will take cognizance of the situation facing America, but if you are not, you are a coward. 36

  Since a Presbyterian clergyman cannot well threaten with concentration camps he manipulates Eternity in such a way that it serves exactly the same purpose. Thus the most modern pattern of oppression by terror draws upon the oldest resource of terrorism.

  »Last hour« device   Another aspect of Thomas' terror technique ought to be stressed. It consists of the direct or indirect assertion that a catastrophe is imminent, that the situation is desperate and has reached a peak of crisis, that some change must be made immediately. »Thinking men and women across this nation are fast going to their feet, for they know that things cannot go on much longer as they are.« 37 In Thomas' propaganda every hour is the last hour. One is reminded at first sight of the common pattern of advertising: »This offer holds good only for a few days.« People are admonished to act at once, to join the movement without further delay. Behind this lies the simple consideration that people tend to forget what they do not carry out right now. Particularly, terroristic stimuli, which always carry with themselves most unpleasant connotations, are likely to be psychologically repressed fairly soon. Terroristic propaganda works only »on the spot.« This, however, scratches only the surface of the phenomenon. The reference to impending doom, and particularly to an impending world catastrophe, is much older than industrial society. It has its roots in the apocalyptic element of Christian religion. It is not accidental that Thomas, like all revivalist sectarians, often refers to the biblical battle of Armageddon, which he skillfully confuses with the activities of his group. Moreover, Thomas, in apparent contradiction to all the propagandistic devices implied by the »fait accompli« technique, often depicts his own organization as facing an immediate crisis, as being in desperate need of funds, and sometimes goes so far as to pretend that he cannot carry on forty-eight hours longer. His speeches constantly present every issue as a critical one calling for immediate action. There is a considerable gap between his passionate appeals to save the nation in the »last hour,« and the comparatively weak and accidental indices of impending doom he provides – mostly complaints about the decrease of Christian orthodoxy or a spreading of atheistic teachings in the universities. A typical example of the mixture of insignificant complaints and apocalyptic diatribes is the following:   The lack of power and faithfulness in the ministries and the worldliness of the

churches, the decrease of membership and the spirit of the Antichrist which is now spreading its great tentacles in our universities, and the undermining of our states, of our government, all point out to the certain serious crisis which at last has come upon us. 38

  »Serious crisis« has become a »magical word,« and the existence of such a crisis is stressed at any price, even through such ludicrous statements as the decrease of church membership. Thomas presumes that his followers think in terms of their own narrowest experiences, and that their interest is centered around church matters. An empty church supposedly suffices to convince them of the imminent danger of a collapse of the American nation. A tentative explanation of the irrational emphasis laid upon the idea of crisis may be the following: Thomas, like all fascists, reckons with followers who are deeply discontended and also even destitute. Their objective situation might possibly convert them into radical revolutionaries. One of the main tasks of the fascist is to prevent this and to divert revolutionary trends into their own line of thought, for their own purposes. In order to achieve this aim, the fascist agitator steals, as it were, the concept of revolution. Again, the idea of catastrophe, of the fateful moment, is the substitute. It implies radical change without, however, having any specific social contents. Nobody looks beyond the end of the world. Moreover, catastrophe is something that happens to people rather than materializing by their own free will. They are divested of their spontaneity and transformed into spectators of the great world-historical events which are going to be decided over their heads, while their own energies are absorbed by their adherence to the organization, and their love for the leader. Psychoanalysis has sometimes noted that a neurotic feeling of impotence is often expressed through a peculiar attitude towards the element of time. The less one is capable of acting on one's own account, the more one is likely to expect everything from time in abstracto: »It cannot go on like this much longer.« The »last hour« device feeds on this disposition. Time as such is made a guarantor of coming change and therefore the »follower« is rid of his own responsibility. He simply has to do what »the hour calls for.« By presenting this hour as the last hour – »Communism is not coming, it is right here« – this device is linked to the »fait accompli«

technique. Of course, the catastrophe is described throughout Thomas' speeches not as something desirable but as a danger. But this is hardly more than a rationalization. Apart from an emotional emphasis laid upon the idea of catastrophe which seems to take it for granted that this notion is not altogether unwelcome to the listeners, there is an easy transition from warning of the danger of catastrophe to advertising it. If the situation is desperate, desperate means are necessary: The answer to the »imminent danger of Communism« is the eradication of Communists, radicals, and »those evil forces,« that is, the pogrom. The idea that some change has to be made, abstract and yet with so many associations of violence and brutality, is the necessary consequence of the »last hour« device. The last hour of which the fascist warns is actually the putsch which he wants to commit himself. Purely negative punitive action substitutes for a rational policy by which things might really become better.   I believe I know some of the things you are going to do, because I know of the kind of material that is on the inside of those bodies of yours, I believe that you are going to seek the truth. I believe I know just how you are going to act. I believe that you are going to rise up in your wrath, in your indignation, in your love for the old flag, you are going to say to these forces that have taken our nation down to the very depths: thus far shalt thou go and not one step farther. Now, I believe you are going to do that. 39

  It is interesting to note that Thomas' clamor for an »awakening« 40 to the threat of the impending catastrophe is conceived in terms of »back« rather than of »forward.« The awakening of America is represented as a restoration of something long over. Moreover, it is understood as an act not of conscious self-determination, but of bowing to the authority of the father. In fact, it is just the opposite of what one should expect such an awakening to be: »Awake, America, back to your knees, back to the father of the fathers, to the place where God would have you to be.« 41 Here Thomas comes unwittingly near to one of the favorite concepts of fascist and anti-Semitic intellectuals, that nonentity, the »conservative revolution.«

  »Black hand« (Feme) device   It has been noted above that the »innuendo« technique is related to the idea of a closed, violent, strictly ruled ingroup – a racket. This relationship makes itself keenly felt in the terror propaganda of fascism. Strongly reminiscent of plain, non-political racketeering, terror is applied no less, and perhaps even more, to one's own followers than to the opponents. This technique played a very large role in Nazidom under the title of »Feme.« The most dangerous forces are supposedly those working from inside. The Fascist cannot help feeling surrounded by traitors, and so continuously threatens to exterminate them. By innuendo Thomas calls for the universal vigilance of one »crusader« against the other:  

My friend, I am never afraid of the world. I am never fearful of the attack of Satan. I know where to place the world. I know where to place those who are on the other side, but I tell you, my friend, you must be careful within. Some one will get on the inside of the church and yield himself to the Devil and attempt to kill the work of God by somebody inside the church. I have never been attacked in the years, except it has come from within. You men and women will always bear me witness of that fact. You look out for the attack within with some one very close to you, through jealousy or some other thing, that Satan will bring upon them. 42

  Often enough the fascist leader has actual reasons for such warnings. Rackets attract racketeers; criminals are prone to join all sorts of hooligan organizations and they are likely, for various reasons, to quit and go over to any other party from whom they expect more. Furthermore, the element of secrecy inherent in all kinds of fascist conspiracies breeds indiscretion and treachery. Terror, directed against the insiders, strengthens the authority which appears to be absolute only if no infringement whatsoever is tolerated, if the strictest discipline is enforced. This can be achieved only if even the slightest deviation is branded as treachery, and ruthlessly persecuted. But here, again, certain deeper-lying issues enter the picture. The »black hand« device is a complement of the »unity« trick, a means of integrating the divergent elements of a repressive and exclusive organization. Its exclusiveness can be maintained only by

vigilantism, by spying among the members who are kept in a permanent state of mutual distrust. The » Feme « threat which the fascist agitator utters against his own followers foreshadow the complete atomization of the whole population which takes place in totalitarian states. Repressive unity results in the oppression of all non-professional activities not immediately controlled by the government, or the party. Conspirators must be kept completely alienated from each other with regard to their convictions if they are to form a compact group. The fascist racket is the very parody of that »Volksgemeinschaft,« people's community, that it boasts of being. Fellow members of fascist organizations are more jealous, more suspicious, more ready to »liquidate« each other than even the most hard-boiled competitors. To point this out would be the real answer to the »human interest« trick. However, the most sinister implication of the »black hand« device pertains to one of the innermost characteristics of racketeering and fascism. Both may be defined as types of organizations from which there is no way back. The sacrifice of the individual to the collectivity discussed above means that one has to surrender totally, with soul and body, without qualification or reservation. This is expressed by the postulate of irrevocability, by oaths, blood symbolism, initiation rites, etc. The wish to »get out« of a compulsory community is the primary gesture by which the longing for freedom expresses itself. Nothing is more hideous to the fascist than this desire. He who changes his mind and who wants to »get out again,« no matter what his motives may be or how essentially decent he may be, is regarded as the arch-enemy. Hence, change of opinion as such is characterized as treachery, and put under severe punishment. As important as the organizatory effect of the »Feme« idea is the psychological one: whoever enters the organization is made to understand that there is no way out, and the character of irrevocability thus bestowed upon his decision works only as an emotional tie to the racket. The effect is by no means only fear. People tend to love that which they cannot quit – to identify themselves with even their prison walls. It is this particular disposition on which the fascist emphasis upon »Feme« persistently feeds. The most blatant example of the »black hand« device took place on June 30, 1934, with the shooting of a large number of Nazis,

some of whom may not have been conspirators at all, with due consideration to the propagandistic effect. Thomas' mentality shows perhaps unwitting traces of an attitude which finally develops into the pitiless terrorization of one's own organization. This ultimate twisting of terror toward just the »ingroup« should be stressed by counterpropaganda.

  »Let us be practical«   Hitler, following Bismarckian tradition, often speaks about Realpolitik. In his case, this simply refers to the right of the strong. However, the term has deeper implications than a mere rationalization of Machiavellian cynicism. In spite of the perennial appeal to idealism, heroism, and the spirit of sacrifice, the fascist never forgets to keep his followers aware that, essentially, he does not want the evil to disappear from the world. He aims at his own group's taking over the reins, but not at an abolition of repression itself. He derides any idea of »Utopia« and enjoys the notion that the world is not only bad, but that it shall remain essentially as bad as it is, and that it is a punishable crime to think that it could be essentially different. This device has worked with all reactionary theoreticians since Hobbes, and has followed like a shadow all the high-sounding ideologies of the modern age. In a completely deteriorated form which, however, sheds light upon the ultimate content of this idea, it recurs in Thomas. Whereas he preaches lofty religious ideals, most of them smelling of such an outdated orthodoxy that he cannot seriously expect his followers to be convinced, he also shows a passionate interest in all sorts of practical matters, of Realpolitik in the pettiest sense of the word. He displays a rationalism in calculating and organizing his group which conflicts at every point with the sturdy irrationality of his religious teachings. It is the distance of his »practical« common-sense passages from his official ideology, which demonstrates, to the subconscious at least, the impotence of those ideals themselves and their ultimate spuriousness. The ideals serve mainly to veil superficially his lust for power and his administrative manipulation, and to brand the adversaries as being morally inferior. The practical down-to-earth passages, however, show to the audience not only that their leader is a man of common sense as they think they are, but also that what actually matters to them is an organization, competitive power, and an earthly success. It is hard to say whether the blatant contradiction between high-flown phraseology and down-to-earthness is entirely conscious with Thomas, or whether it is due to his actually representing an average lower-middle-class type. But however this may be, this contradiction is not so much an obstacle to the effectiveness of his speeches as an auxiliary force in

making them effective. The less interconnected the ideal and, as he sometimes chooses to call it, his »business« are, the more distinctly the audience realizes that the ideals are ideals, but that he means business. One could not formulate the configuration between the apparently irreconcilable elements of Thomas' speeches more clearly than he himself does: »We try to be practical here. We try to preach the gospel of our Lord within all of the fervor, and the love, and the power that God gives us through the spirit.« 43 The idea of being practical refers above all to money, to the money he wants to obtain as well as to the money of his followers. God the Almighty and the printer's bill are indiscriminately lumped together:  

We have a mighty God. If we honor him, he will take care of every need. We have got to pay bills today – this radio, printer's bill, office help, telephone. Listen, get down and help us. I am not asking you to do anything that I am not doing. My family are sacrificing every possible dollar that we can, because we want to see this movement going across the United States. I find many people of many sections are listening and praying and blessing God. 44

  The idea that God takes care of every need is interpreted by Thomas even more practically: he regards God as a sort of investment consultant.  

Go and sin no more. A great many people have lost material possession. They have lost stocks and bonds and various things. I want to say to you, today, that no man or woman has ever consulted God about any investment and has listened to God, alone, and lost. If you go to God and lay it before the Lord, you have never lost a dollar, but if you have not, you fail at once. 45

  The implication, again, builds a sort of mild blackmail. To be faithful to God is as much as »being faithful with the tithes of God« 46 and the tithes of God are always liberally interpreted by Thomas as the donation to »this movement.« The patriotic ideal fares no better than the religious one. The appeal to save America is confused with the fear that the stocks may lose their value. It is strongly suggested by Thomas that the great fight against the Antichrist is a practical one, namely that it serves to safeguard one's private property, as »those evil forces« want to take away the property of the small man.

 

Ah, my friend, will you help us to meet God's little children before the Antichrist comes, before the wolves of life could possibly take them and tear them to pieces. You see, well, I am being satisfied as a whole. Why should I worry? My friend, listen, when the Antichrist takes hold of America, and he will lake hold in the very immediate near future unless you and I and millions like us are able to hold back those forces for a little while longer, that [ sic ] your stocks will be useless, that [ sic ] your home will be of no use. My dear brother, my dear sister, it is now or never. You cannot, my friend, afford not to have a part in this great Christian American program. You cannot afford to have this message of God go off this radio for the lack of your support. 47

  The practical spirit (monetary categories) is applied even to Biblical stories such as, of all things, that of Mary Magdalen sacrificing to Christ:  

There were men in that day, as well as in this day, who made a business of collecting that pure oil, a little drop of which would so odorize a room that the scent of it would last for hours. She saw what was coming. Like the woman that she was, she prepared for it. She saved up her dimes and nickels. Now, what do you suppose, even in that day, it cost her to collect that whole ..., about 300 shillings, a shilling being about 17 cents now, 300 times 17 and you will have the amount there, about $51. You multiply the purchasing power in that day with this day, perhaps a hundred times the purchasing value, and you will secure some general idea of the cost to Mary. It may well have been that Mary sacrificed, sacrificed all her possessions, indeed. It is my opinion that she did. She went and sold, she perhaps sold her house and let. ... 48

  The implications of this passage are manifold. There is, first of all, the old exegetic technique of translating Biblical stories into terms of the everyday life of the listeners in order to make it more understandable to them – hence, the dimes and nickels. But this is merely the surface. The listener is actually conveyed the idea that even the most sublime actions of the Bible are »practical,« that they can be expressed, as it were, in money, and that money is the measurement for everything, even for religious ecstasy, so that indirectly the most earthly concepts become a yardstick for the supposedly sublime ones. While apparently the magnitude of Mary's sacrifice is exalted, it is, in a deeper psychological sense, divested of its dignity and made profane by its transformation into dollars and purchasing value; and the crusader is made to realize that it is these which count, and not religion which has to be translated into them in

order to make any sense at all. One may safely assume that there are few devices employed in Thomas' technique which meet with a greater response from his audience than this poor one. Indeed, his speeches are larded with intentionally trite, mundane, practical passages of which the preceding ones are but a few examples gathered at random. One may well object that we have made more of this particular device than there is to it. It may be understood as a simple appeal to the traditional, practical sense of the Americans which cannot be reached by any ideals unless they are put immediately into »operational terms.« One may even point to homiletic traditions in American sects and in institutions such as the Salvation Army or Christian Science, where religion is transformed into something utterly pragmatic in order that it may be at all acceptable to the American people. Even if this is to be admitted, one can hardly deny that the trick of »pragmatism« in apparently idealistic issues has obtained a new meaning. Formerly, it may have been a means to the end of religious conversion and more or less genuine revivals. Today for fascist propaganda, revivals and conversions have become a means to the end that people might become practical, that is to say that they might yield any theoretical thought of their own, might become integrated into teams and organizations, and might take action in accordance with their collective interest rather than with their rational conviction. The lack of capacity for abstraction, the old compulsion to »illustrate« any concept by its most immediate application which often implies a deterioration of its true meaning, this incapacity for abstraction which is more likely to have become stronger than to have decreased under modern conditions, is used as a lever for propagandistic purposes. The ideal that becomes immediately and inconsiderately identified with some practical measure or attitude, becomes meaningless as an ideal and is reduced to a mere embellishment of the next practical step. This, however is actually what Thomas' propaganda, like that of all fascists, aims at. Conscience becomes nothing but an ideology which lends its glamour to the deeds of naked self-interest, carried out by the organization. By discrediting the ideas while they are being transformed into terms of practical, everyday life, the follower is made to understand that what matters is not the idea, not even the intentionally vague »matter for which it stands,« but in the last

analysis only the organization itself, that is to say, the power apparatus and that authority which finally decides what policy is expedient.

 Fußnoten   1 The same dichotomy pertains to Hitler's speeches. There is a large difference between his addresses to the old party members and those for the outer world. Incidentally, the distinction between speeches »for home consumption« and others has become quite universal and is almost officially recognized. The logic of manipulation cynically admits different »truths.«   2 Edmond Taylor, The Strategy of Terror: Europe's Inner Front (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1940).   3 July 10, 1935.   4 July 14, 1935.   [ 5 The Institute for Propaganda Analysis, The Fine Art of Propaganda: A Study of Father Coughlin's Speeches, eds. Alfred McClung Lee and Elizabeth Briant Lee (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1939) pp. 26–46; 95–104.]   6 May 29, 1935.   7 Ibid.   8 June 25, 1935.   9 July 5, 1935.   [ 10 Lee and Lee, The Fine Art of Propaganda. ]   11 At least a few examples for these devices may be given. Transfer. »From all indication, there is arising in this country a great crusade of Christian American Crusaders and that is we can continue another twelve months over this station and a national hookup, that this movement alone will save the United States. In the words of ex-President Hoover, yesterday, he said that, ›America has a responsibility to the world far beyond the boundaries of our own

land, so far as democracy and representative form of government is concerned and the maintaining of a religious freedom upon the part of an individual.‹ My friend, our ex-President is correct: Unless you people will guard the freedom that our forefathers have given to us ...« (July 5, 1935). The quotation from Hoover is a commonplace Statement about America's international responsibilities which any statesman might make at any time. By coupling it with an assertion that his organization will save the United States, however, Thomas makes it appear that Hoover would endorse the Christian American Crusade. Actually, of course, the agreement applies to a notion so abstract that practically everyone would concur. The authority of Herbert Hoover, who is not accidentally quoted as »ex-President,« is psychologically transferred to Thomas' group by the intermediary link of agreement with regard to some vague generalities. There is not the faintest proof that Hoover actually was in sympathy with Thomas' propaganda. Band wagon. Every letter Thomas receives is presented as an index of the avalanche-like character of his movement: »Here is one from Ohio, showing the extent of the movement that is reaching out over this station, another from Kentucky ordering quantities of the literature, another from Nebraska, another from Oklahoma and another from Oregon. Now, I just tell that in order to let you folks know the extent that this thing is going« (June 12, 1935). In one characteristic example the band wagon idea is combined with a metaphor of destructive violence: »I have in my hand about eight or ten letters. Here is one from a sister down in Compton. She says: ›I am glad that you are firing a shot heard around the United States of America‹« (June 12, 1935).   12 A. Sanders, »Social Ideas in McGuffey Readers,« Public Opinion Quarterly V, 4 (fall, 1941), pp. 579–589.   13 All three terms have exactly the same meaning. Moreover, they all have a certain bourgeois ring and carry no association of nobility. The Latin word dux fairly early was applied to feudal war lords (Herzöge) and so lost its original functional reference to one who draws others behind him. This feudal notion of a dux qua Herzog is expressed in Italian by duca. Mussolini consciously went back to the original functional meaning by calling himself not duca but Duce.

With the leader charisma becomes a profession, a kind of work that must be done. Incidentally, traces of anti-feudal authoritarianism can be found in Richard Wagner. His Rienzi calls himself, significantly enough, »tribune,« a title referring to the Roman representative of the plebs, and Lohengrin is called Schützer von Brabant, Protector of Brabant. Protector later became a Nazi title bestowed upon the notorious Heydrich. The affinity of such traits to the »messenger device« should not be overlooked.   14 June 14, 1935.   15 June 9, 1935.   16 Cf. the role played by the concept of the old »party comrades« in Germany and the scorn with which Goebbels treated those who joined the party after March 1933.   17 May 23, 1935.   18 May 25, 1935.   19 May 26, 1935.   20 April 25, 1935.   21 June 19, 1935.   22 April, 1935.   23 Lee and Lee, The Fine Art of Propaganda, pp. 92–93.   24 Cf. the assertion that it »serves well many another democratic and republican politicians both for socially desirable and undesirable purposes« (Ibid.). The purposes may sometimes be desirable but still the psychological implications of the device itself are pernicious. It establishes conformism as a moral principle and Mr. Average as a superior person simply because he is average. It is intrinsically related to the resentment against anyone who is

different and hence virtually directed against any minority group.   25 June 11, 1935.   26 This is particularly true of all kinds of anti-Semitic statements. Lewis Browne has symbolized this device by the title of his book; See What I Mean? (New York: Random House, 1943).   27 July 7, 1935.   28 July 10, 1935.   29 July 3, 1935.   30 July 1, 1935.   31 July 7, 1935.   32 July 9, 1935.   33 July 7, 1935.   34 The tendency towards general destruction is particularly marked in Germany, both because of certain traditions of the German situation in terms of world competition. The feeling of this hopelessness has never subsided under the Hitler regime. Yet this general destructiveness is by no means totally absent from the American scene. We call to mind here only the affair of Orson Welles' »Invasion from Mars,« and the success of the San Francisco picture which relishes the details of a blind natural catastrophe. This destructiveness is directed first against civilization as such. Only afterwards it is mobilized against certain groups, such as the Negroes or the Jews. (Cf. Hadley Cantril, The Invasion from Mars [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940].)   35 May 25, 1935.   36 May 26, 1935.  

37 July 14, 1935.   38 July 14, 1935.   39 June 4, 1935.   40 Cf. »indefatigability« device.   41 July 13, 1935.   42 July 13, 1935.   43 June 9, 1935.   44 May 27, 1935.   45 June 5, 1935.   46 Ibid.   47 July 5, 1935.   48 July 12, 1935.  

 Section III: The Religious Medium Introductory Remarks   Thomas' racket is religion. It provides the characteristic color of his speeches, the trademark by which he can be distinguished from competitors. As a minister, he can appear as an expert promoting the specific interests of a specific group. The basic idea of the whole framework is to appeal to people of orthodox and even bigoted religious leanings, mainly Protestant fundamentalists, and to transform their religious zeal into political partisanship and subservience. It is this transformation rather than the more or less obsolescent religious doctrines of Thomas which make it worthwhile to consider his theological manipulations. In Germany, religion played but a minor role in fascist propaganda, and it is a well known fact (though probably an overrated one in its actual importance) that fascism took a definite stand against practicing Protestants, as well as against Catholics. At any rate, the whole Nazi tradition is bound up with a certain tradition of monistic »free thinking« which in many respects is actually hostile to Christianity. Its belief in the unbridled and blind forces of nature, concomitant with the expansion of German imperialism, is the source of a decisive difference between the American and the German scene. American fascist propaganda shows a very strong affinity to certain religious movements, a fact that is testified by the major role played in fascist propaganda here by clergymen of various denominations. 1 The pragmatic value of a survey of some of the more specific characteristic aspects of Thomas' theology lies, above all, in the possibility of making clear the background of his psychological technique. Many of the »devices« so far discussed consist of secularizations of religious stimuli which he expects still to operate within his listeners. The »fait accompli« technique is reminiscent of the Protestant doctrine of predestination; the »last hour« device, of the apocalyptic mood of certain sects; the dogmatic dichotomy between »those evil forces« and »the forces of God,« of Christian dualism; the exaltation of the humble folk, of the Sermon on the

Mount, etc. Without this associational background and the considerable weight of authority carried with it, his whole propagandistic setup probably would not have been half as effective as it proved to be. It is therefore imperative to deal explicitly with the theological elements of the propaganda of Thomas and his ilk. Fascist propaganda, by »secularizing« Christian motives, perverts a great many of them into their opposite. It is this process with which we are mainly concerned here. We shall try to bring out the contradiction between the religious stimuli applied by Thomas and his ultimate aims. His true purposes are, as we shall point out, antireligious. Thomas, the shrewd mass-psychologist, knows why he talks religion: he must reckon with the existence of religious feelings within his audience. If the groups which he specifically addresses were shown unambiguously that his aims plainly contradict the Christian ideals which he professes to uphold, these religious feelings might express themselves in the opposite direction, just as they did in Germany after the Nazis had shown their hand. One qualification ought to be added. The use of religion for fascist purposes and the perversion of religion into an instrument of hate-propaganda, though providing the principal appeal, the trademark of Thomas, is by no means a unique phenomenon. Innumerable spiritual trends within our existing society point towards the establishment of some sort of totalitarian regime. There can be little doubt that every shade of prefascist ideology, be it religion or free-thinking, nationalism or pacifism, elite theories or folk ideologies, would be swallowed by the totalitarian stream which is little troubled by inconsistencies. Fascist rationality consists in the establishment of an omnipotent power system rather than in the enforcement of any »philosophy.« Thus, the importance of the dogmatic content of the religious medium as such must not be overrated. However, it is worth studying how such a concrete medium, apparently quite separate from fascist doctrine, is transformed to fit totalitarian purposes. Fascism could not possibly succeed without creeping into all the different and divergent forms of life. Thus, it has been effective in Germany with the Youth Movement and elderly homeowners, with bankrupt peasants and oversized industrial combines, with jobless, adventurous army officers and pedantic civil servants. The full comprehension of the

magnetic power of totalitarianism necessitates an understanding of each of these aspects in its actual, concrete form. One more reason for devoting attention to the religious medium of Thomas' propaganda should be mentioned. It is our assumption that the specific phenomenon of modern anti-Semitism is much more deeply rooted in Christianity than it would appear. It is true that the typical anti-Semite of our day, the highly rational, merciless, cynical, planning fascist, has as little belief in Christ as in anything else, except power. But it is no less true that the anti-Semitic ideas which form the spearhead of fascism everywhere could not possibly exercise such a strong appeal unless they had their strong sources, not only apart from, but also actually within Christian civilization. It would be difficult to exaggerate the role played by imagery of the Christ-killers, of the Pharisee, of the moneychangers in the temple, of the Jew who forfeited his salvation by denying the Lord and not accepting Baptism. In another study, we shall try to point out the ultimate theological reasons for anti-Semitism, and their place in society and history. 2 Here we shall attempt to show these motives »in operation.« A survey of Thomas' theological tricks may reveal the specific, though partly unconscious historical memories which an anti-Semitic agitator calls back to life. Long-term countermeasures should be directed against these memories, no less than against obvious propaganda. Re-education should bring to explicit consciousness the inherited theological imagery of anti-Semitism and then cope with it. Only by cognition and refutation may these clinging prejudices and also the psychological mechanisms behind their obstinate survival be rendered impotent.

  »Speaking with tongues« device   Apart from any specific theological contents, and possibly more effective propagandistically than any such contents, the religious medium makes itself felt throughout the psychological atmosphere of Thomas' speeches. This atmosphere consists, above all, of a certain unctuousness, a mixture of maudlin sentimentality and phony dignity which tends to lend its own aura to every sentence that he utters. Of course, this unctuousness may be attributed simply to Thomas' sermonizing attitude. It ought to be noted, however, that Hitler himself, who until recently very rarely referred to religion and then in the most general terms, has developed a similar unctuousness in speaking. The halo of »sacredness« has been emancipated from any specific religious content. It is taken over by arbitrarily chosen concepts, mostly of an animistic connotation, such as the ancestors, or the »dead of the movement.« This transfer is expressed in a general sentimentality of tone. This sentimentality, its blatant insincerity and phonyness, makes it most difficult for any intellectual to understand the effectiveness of fascist agitators. One should think, so runs the argument, that the simple people, with their feeling for the genuine, would be repulsed by tones which are reminiscent of the wolf in sheep's clothing. This assumption, however, is untrue. Anyone familiar with folk art will find, particularly among folk singers and folk actors, a very strong tendency toward exaggerated sentimentality and »false tones.« This can be accounted for in part by the people's desire for »strong colors« which, in a way, calls for overdoing things. But there is a much deeper-lying basis, namely the longing of the people for »feigning« things. It is this attitude which regards an actor primarily as a man who can »pretend« well, can disguise himself, and impersonate others. People expect a »performance« rather than the presentation of the »genuine.« They probably derive actual enjoyment from the false tones, because they regard them as indices of a »performance,« of imitations of some model, no matter whether the model itself is known to them or not. This probably can be explained by the complex of »oppressed mimesis« discussed in other sections of our project. [ 3 ] The technique of false tones is particularly evident in the records of Thomas' speeches, but it sometimes can be spotted even in the typed material. Typical are

passages such as the following which uses the tone of the Kapuzinerpredigt:  

I compare this great nation of ours, what she has been yonder through the years and what she is at the present hour and of the future and of the change which she is now undergoing, I compare her past with her present, and then I compare womanhood, the home, and the church. Great tears run down my face as I think of what my nation has been, can be. 4

  Perhaps a realization of the audience's sense of »performance« also accounts at least partly for the hundreds and hundreds of pages full of the purest nonsense which one can find in Thomas' and, it may be added, in Hitler's uncensored speeches. Here again, personal shortcomings fit marvelously with public demands. It is indeed possible that an orator like Thomas with an hysterical character structure and a complete lack of intellectual inhibitions is actually incapable of building up a logical and meaningful sequence of statements. However, it is probably just this uninhibited ability to speak without thinking, a capacity traditionally associated with certain types of salesmen and carnival barkers, which fulfills a desire of the audience. Here comes into play the ambivalent admiration of people who are repressed and psychologically »mute« for those who can speak. The Jews are blamed for being glib, but the anti-Semitic agitator and his audience long for this glibness and expect, in a way, that the anti-Semitic agitator can »speak like a Jew.« The ability to chatter is taken as proof of a mysterious gift of speech. Thus, the nonsense contained in all fascist speeches is not so much an obstacle as a stimulant in itself. It also serves to underscore the »dynamics« rather than any specific purposes of program. The dynamics of unrestrained rhetoric are perceived as an image of the dynamics of real events. Maudlin ecstacy and senseless chatter, »to speak with tongues,« points strongly in the direction of evangelism and revivalism, which we shall discuss later in other respects. It is to this tradition, genuine or artificial, that Thomas refers, and from which he borrows the pattern of his general emotional religious attitude:   Oh, brothers, let us seek the holy God and the blessings of the holy God. If we will do that, our nation will be saved. If we will do that, the church will have a mighty revival of God whereby any day the people would see the holiness of

God. 5

  He hopes that the grand days of revivalism will come back under the impact of his political »crusade«:   Is it any wonder that Communism has come in, that it takes hold of our homes? Where are the men that should be raising the banners? Where are the old leaders of the past? Why is it that we have not great evangelical revivals? When you think of the days of Alexander Moody, Billy Sunday, what has become of the evangelical fires in America? 6

  Detailed study of the literature on revivalism, such as the very revealing biography of Billy Sunday, [ 7 ] would yield a great many of the psychological devices of modern fascist propaganda, particularly those which consider the »fight against the devil« as a kind of public performance, and those which aim at a mimetic relationship between the preacher and his audience.

  »Decomposition« device (Zersetzung)   In order to modify religious contents for mundane, political purposes, they must be 'neutralized.' No matter how deeply religious bigotry is related to reactionary social trends such as anti-Semitism, the content of religion must undergo certain changes in order to be brought 'down to earth.' The modern fascist agitator reckons with religious motives only as atomized carry-overs of past religion; he assumes that any consistent belief has been shattered. He surveys the debris of traditional religion, selects what suits his purposes, and eliminates all the rest. In spite of his bigoted phraseology, he approaches religion in a thoroughly pragmatic manner. He takes no definite religious stand – a shortcoming for which he tries to compensate by claiming a position above dogmatic disputes, and by advocating religious unity. His theology is consistent only in one respect: antiliberalism. Religious antiliberalism cloaks the political antiliberalism which he dares not advocate openly, just as religious authority functions psychologically as a substitute for the political authoritarianism to come. Within the framework of general antiliberalism, however, Thomas draws upon orthodoxy – in particular, Southern fundamentalism – as well as upon evangelism and revivalism. This theological attitude is furthered by the fact that these trends have many likenesses, since both are 'positive' in contrast to enlightened religion ('modernism') in this country. Thomas' nondiscriminatory attitude and his neutralization of religious teachings go so far, however, that he does not make the slightest objection to blatant contradictions between the religious trends he exploits. He sometimes poses as a defender of the Church, appears to identify himself with certain denominations, and rallies his 'crusaders' with the battle cry: the Church is in danger. But sometimes he professes extreme religious subjectivism and goes so far as to state that the time of denominations is over – apparently with an eye to some future religious 'integration' consummated by a totalitarian state. Of fundamentalism there is left little but the authoritarian claims as such, of sectarianism nothing but a rebellious gesture of hatred against established institutions, state and Church, an attitude which paves the way for fascist organization. This neutralization defines the framework of Thomas' manipulation of Protestantism.

In accordance with Thomas' general principle of evoking an 'against' rather than a 'pro' attitude, the sectarian motive is preponderant. But since in this country sects are traditional powers themselves, and the sectarian outlook is basic for the whole religious approach, his sectarianism, too, is capable of traditionalist, orthodox pretentions. It may very well be that the vestiges of religious authority and live religious feelings on which Thomas relies are due to the essentially 'sectarian' character of religion in America, in contrast to the established churches in Germany which were more or less state institutions. American sects, being closer, as it were, to the individual's personal beliefs, emotions and traditional particularities, have a stronger hold over the individual than they do in Germany. The American idea was to choose a religion of one's own, rather than to conform to a given one. This produces a much more intimate relationship between the individual and his religious behaviour patterns, even now when the dogmatic differences between the sects play but a minor role. The organizational hold of the sect over the family, its appeal to tradition, is much stronger than in Germany, where at least the Protestant Church has been reduced for centuries to a kind of 'social function.' The fascist agitator has to reckon with the presence of sectarian substance within the individual, secularized though the form may be. An agitator cannot simply oppose this substance; he must try to lead it into the channels of his own purposes. This, however, is not too difficult. Some of the more radical sects have developed within their own womb certain traces of repressiveness and even – under the name of apocalyptic trends – destructiveness. Thus they show a more real affinity to fascism than the big European denominations ever did. Moreover, the nucleus of all fascist movements was always somewhat like a sect, with all the features of intolerance, exclusiveness, and particularism. It is this deep-rooted similarity between the political and the religious sect upon which fascist propaganda in this country feeds. This general 'sectarian' background paradoxically accounts for the virility of certain 'orthodox' stimuli. There is, for example, an ecclesiastical model for the 'desperate' situation which fascist propaganda always constructs. In Thomas, it is expressed in the complaint about the threatening disintegration of Christianity because of the spirit of rationalism. It is this negative aspect, this supposed danger of decomposition, which reveals Thomas' affinity

to fundamentalism. According to Thomas the Church, interpreted as a kind of microcosm of the nation, is in dire jeopardy. The impending triumph of the devil in Communism, the 'progressive spirit' of the established denominations, and the plots of 'those evil forces,' all make for this disintegration of the Church. The situation calls for an 'integration' in the fascist sense.   Only during the past three years, according to the official Communist reports, they have enrolled between four and five million of our young people between the age of sixteen and thirty. They are pitting the growing youth of this nation against the Christian institutions, against the Church of the nation, against the Constitution. ... Today, freedom of religion prevails everywhere; so it will be only a few years before Christianity will fall to pieces. 8

  The attack upon 'freedom' within the Church, sounding definitely antisectarian, indicates clearly what is behind Thomas' phrases when he elsewhere professes to defend the liberties granted by the Constitution. Thomas' fight against the supposed decomposition of traditional belief by religious modernism has a specific aspect. It is directed against the notion of progress and against biological materialism. Thomas apparently wanted to make friends with the fundamentalist Baptists, though his kind of propaganda suffered rebukes from official fundamentalism.   Here is a letter from the pastor of one of the Baptist churches here in California, a man that is doing an outstanding piece of work: 'I have been very much impressed with two things, the imminent peril that confronts us and, second, with your Christian stand. I will stand shoulder to shoulder to put down modernism and Communism.' I thank God for the word of this outstanding Christian minister that is back of us in our program. 9

  Thomas sympathizes with fundamentalism mainly because of its fight against the theory of evolution which represents to him the acme of subversive modernism.  

Now, listen, there was a day when we believed that the Bible was the word of God, but today, we teach evolution and organic evolution. You know some educators used to laugh at William Jennings Bryan, but I want to tell you that Bryan was a prophet. William Jennings Bryan was a Christian ... Bryan attacked Darwinism. He attacked Nietzscheism. He attacked these things that he saw were undermining this nation of ours. . ... William Jennings Bryan saw that in another

generation or two, that unless the evolutionary teaching that we simply came from the ape family, that we were only the result, my friend, of coming up through the anthropoidae, if that thing continued in this country, this nation of ours will, with her institutions, is bound to go down. 10

  It is noteworthy that Thomas attacks Darwinism not because it is untrue, but because of its supposedly bad moral effect – for purely pragmatic reasons. He conceives the religious orthodoxy which he advocates purely as a means of keeping discipline. But this leads to strange inconsistencies. As will be shown later, Thomas unconsciously falls back into animism by attributing a theological meaning to natural events such as earthquakes. Yet he consciously becomes indignant as soon as he is made aware of man's kinship with nature. Nothing irks the neo-pagan barbarians more than the idea that their ancestors might have been apes. Counterpropaganda, in analyzing the implicit philosophy of the fascists, should carefully point out their twisted relationship to nature. They adore nature as far as nature expresses domination and terror, as it is symbolized by the earthquake. They abhor nature as far as it is concomitant with the undisciplined and childlike, in other words, with everything that is not 'practical' in the sense discussed above. They favor the carnivorous, preying beast and despise the playful, harmless animal. They believe in the survival of the fittest, in natural selection, but hate the idea that their antics may be reminiscent of those of the monkey. This inconsistency is an index of the whole fascist attitude.

  »Sheep and bucks« device   Another morsel Thomas snatches from authoritarian orthodoxy is the violent condemnation of the sinner and the idea that the difference between sinner and just has been established once and for all. The sectarian, not to speak of the heretic, is always prone to think of the salvation of the sinner, either by conversion or by the mystical conception of sin itself as of the precondition of redemption. Conversely, orthodox, established religion has little use for the sinner, that is, for anyone who has not surrendered himself completely to institutionalized religion. The sinner is visualized as definitely condemned. This trend once was associated with the organizing power of the church. Thomas borrows it with his own organization in the back of his mind. His predilection for the role of infallible judge makes itself felt in the selections rather than in the nature of his theological concepts, which are without exception taken from the New Testament. Roughly speaking, all the reconciliatory features of Christian teaching, including the idea of caritas, are omitted. But there is constant stress on the negative elements, such as the idea of the evil and eternal punishment, the defamation of the intellect, and the exclusiveness of Christianity against other religions, particularly Judaism. His Biblical citations are preferably taken from the Gospel of St. John, partly because of his general apocalyptic and mystical mood, partly because that Gospel lends itself more easily to anti-Semitic maneuvers than do the synoptics. This selective technique enhances theologically the »sheep and bucks« device. This device is stressed in many analyses of fascist propaganda, such as in the above mentioned Coughlin study [ 11 ] under the title of »Name calling« and »Card stacking.« Hitler has pointed out in Mein Kampf that propaganda, in Order to be effective, must always paint the adversary as the arch enemy and one's own group as invested with everything noble and admirable. With Thomas, this device obtains a specific color by being tied up with religious dualism. He assumes that a transcendent struggle between the Kingdom of God and the realm of the Devil is taking place between the political powers of our time. He admits no intermediary processes or dialectics. This serves to brand the adversary as being »condemned« a priori, without recourse to argument. »What am I to

believe? Believe that Christ vanquished the devils.« 12 This dichotomy is applied directly to the political scene. The issue, he says, had already been decided in the New Testament. »Now folks, the battle is on. The forces of God and Americanism on one side, and the forces of darkness and Communism on the other.« 13  

The devil is coming down and working through men and institutions as never in the history of the world. Wherever you look, today, you see the dark clouds that are coming. Wherever you look, today, you see the prophetic Antichrist. At the present hour, there are millions and millions of men and women yonder in the dark land of Russia who are living under the control of the view of the Antichrist. My friend, God makes it very clear. 14

  The theological dualism is used to invest the political fight, in which Thomas is involved, with the dignity of a conflict taking place within the absolute. No proof is given that the Communists are devils or that Thomas is the partisan of God, except that he carries God's name in his mouth. He simply relies on the distinction of inand outgroup. People he »takes in« are good, and the others are sons of the Devil. Any argumentation would only weaken this mechanism. Incidentally, his whole derogatory terminology, his allusion to »those evil forces« and so forth is borrowed from the language of theological dualism. Every penny that he gets for his crusade is transfigured into »ammunition« for the battle of Armageddon. One peculiar aspect of the »sheep and bucks« device ought to be mentioned. Of course Thomas, clinging to Christian concepts, refers to the forces of God in terms of inwardness, of moral grandeur rather than of physical strength. However, in his esoteric speeches, he cannot refrain from particularly applauding some »big boy« who has pledged his support. But here occurs a twist, exemplified by the following quotation: »They were playing upon the jealousy of John, but he was a big man, not physically, but he was big from the standpoint of spirit.« 15 The notorious German Jew-baiter, Streicher, whose body is abnormally small, used exactly the same wording in interpretations of his idea of national-socialist greatness. One need not evoke an Adlerian psychology in order to find in such statements distinct traces of Organminderwertigkeit, a feeling of inferiority stemming from physical weakness. Thomas himself is quite a vigorous man, but he is a keen enough connoisseur of his

listeners to manipulate this element of their psychology.

  »Personal experience« device   The vague idea of a »conservative revolution,« discussed in Section II, is rather concretely expressed in Thomas' theological ventures. We have seen that manipulated orthodoxy corresponds to the conservative authoritarian element. The quasi-revolutionary element is expressed by the revivalist, sectarian leaning of Thomas. The non-conformism from which the American sects originally derived brought them into a certain opposition against centralized institutions such as »the Church« and »the state.« This falls well in line with fascist ideology. The combination of an apparently rebellious or radical attitude, as in the sects, with authoritarian, ascetic, and repressive tendencies, parallels a familiar structure of the fascist mentality. National Socialism in particular has taken an »anti-state« attitude, and favors such concepts as the nation, the folk, or the »party.« The state is regarded merely as an instrument for obtaining certain power positions. Thus it is deprived of any »objectivity« which might safeguard those who are to be oppressed. 16 This anti-state attitude is taken up by American fascism and becomes an »anti-government« attitude, nourished by the hostility of American reactionaries to the New Deal. Here, the old sectarian, anticentralistic spirit supplies a useful weapon for the fight. Yet if the fascists have their way, the actual result would be an enormous strengthening of the state authority – a fact that should be pointed out to all American particularists. Such a general attitude is reflected by the Nazi hostility to the big established churches. In Thomas' speeches, this antagonism often takes the form of an attack against the large institutionalized denominations, such as the Presbyterians, Methodists, and Episcopalians, against whom he upholds his »subjectivistic,« revivalist, »dynamic« concepts. He professes to stand for the living faith against institutionalized religion, just as the Nazis praise the »movement« against the State. 17 This stimulus appeals to a deeply rooted discontent with all the supposedly »objective,« impersonal institutions of our society. Their objectivity appears to the masses as being rather problematic anyway. The struggle against institutions is exemplified by the present fight against »bureaucratism.« The aim is not so much to achieve a social justice which appears to be jeopardized by institutionalism, as to call forth those violent

instincts which were held at bay by legal and institutional order, and which are now let loose in order to become instruments of the power-hunger of the dictatorial clique. It has often been pointed out that monastic orders and sects were originally heretic movements, which only afterwards became integrated into the Christian framework. One is perhaps justified in assuming that an undercurrent of paganism, of a non-Christianized, non-civilized »religion of nature« is an intrinsic element of all sectarianism, no matter how ascetic and passionately Christian it may appear on the surface. At any rate, revivalist tradition is taken over and transformed by Thomas, in such a way that the destructive and naturalistic elements of anti-institutionalism are brought to the fore. While overplaying the Christian, he actually appeals to non-Christian instincts by his opposition to established, institutionalized religion. Thus, his racketeering in religion may be justly interpreted as a step towards the liquidation of religion, an unavoidable course for any totalitarian regime. This is why his manipulation of religious themes is more than a mere obsolete device to catch backward people. Behind his home-spun theology looms the spectre of a streamlined doctrine in which politics and ideologies are bluntly integrated in the name of »God, home, and the native land.« The basis for the fascist manipulation of religious subjectivism for political, ultimately antireligious purposes is the stressing of personal experience as against any objectified doctrine. Perhaps subsidiary to this is his emphasis on the apocalyptic mood. Some quotations from Thomas may illustrate his use of these elements:   Note that Jesus Christ places his words ... not in the old Testament words, not in the words of some writer, but his words ..... Now, I know, my friend, that this is true. I know it as the result of a number of reasons. I know it because of a personal experience that I had some twenty odd years ago with this living personality that we speak of as Jesus Christ. Now, I know it. I say to you from a personal experience. I believe that thing that Jesus has said here, that is I believe his word, if I expect his word, that I have here and now as a present-tense possession, eternal life. I know that because my life was immediately changed. The things that I loved from the standpoint of the flesh, I immediately hated. In other words, there was a complete transformation of my whole life and heart. 18

  It is significant that the emphasis upon Christ's personality and the

subsequent »conversion« of the individual is brought into distinct antagonism with the Scriptures. By implication, the Old Testament is condemned as a sort of institutionalized, torpid religion. This attitude has recurred throughout Christian tradition since the Gnostics. Moreover, the appeal to immediate, personal religious experience means a weakening of rational control, as represented by coherent religious doctrines. Thomas insists upon the directness and immediacy of his personal relationship to God in order to exclude any interference from outside agencies: »God makes it very plain that no man should teach you because you have the Holy Spirit to teach you. I have insisted in my life upon being led directly by God himself.« 19 It is easy to see how sectarian religiosity can be turned into an attack upon the Church and thus, ultimately, upon any organized, objective religion. The wish to be »led directly by God himself« can easily be misused as a justification for the most arbitrary decisions of the individual – just as Hitler referred to his »inspiration« when he committed his fateful error in the Russian campaign. Thomas' appeal to personal religious experience is bound up with anti-Semitic innuendo:  

As I told you yesterday morning, membership in the Synagogue was synonymous with certain social rights of the day. Unless you belonged to the Synagogue, you were nobody. You were excluded from society as a whole. You did not have any ecclesiastical rights, no religious rights, no civil rights, and very few moral rights. Don't you see that they would exclude, and they had a monopoly upon the life and heart of the people of that day. The most devilish thing that this world knows anything about is where men have deliberately monopolized the power of God and the Gospel of God. 20

  The concept of personal conversion, as contrasted to institutionalized religion, is strengthened by the individual's belief in the imminence of a world catastrophe, of the »last days of the Church.« This is the theological, revivalist basis of the »last hour« device. Faced with the last judgment, the individual must think of God and of his own immediate relationship to God, rather than of the Church to which he belongs. As already mentioned, Thomas in this respect does not shrink from appealing to the crudest superstition – a striking symptom of the retrogression of his kind of revivalism into a sort of mythological nature religion.  

The lines of prophesy are met. ... I don't want you to become alarmed over the earthquakes we have had lately in Southern California (gives explanation of earthquakes of California as due to falls). Now, it used to be that we thought earthquakes were confined to Southern California, but we are finding across the world earthquakes, today, with a tremendous intensity and extensiveness. ... Since 1901, over a million people have been killed as a result of earthquakes alone. 21

  Here, the interconnection between Thomas' terror technique and his religious »revivalism« can be grasped easily. The two major elements of this revivalism, subjectivism and Chiliasm, tend to »weaken« the individual's resistance. The appeal to »personal experience,« as opposed to the doctrines of the Church, practically amounts to the encouragement of giving oneself up to one's emotions. 22 The idea that the world is nearing its end frightens the individual, who, in order to save his soul, is expected to be ready to do everything that he is told, without much critical thinking. Thus, the revivalist attitudes, originally conceived as an expression of religious liberty, are plainly put into the service of the fascist ideal of blind obedience.

  »Anti-institution« trick   The transformation of religious subjectivism into fascist partisanship in Thomas' propaganda does not take place in terms of politics, for he is much too cautious to touch upon anything so firmly established as the American Constitutional Rights. Instead, he concentrates on his own narrow, quasi-professional field, church affairs. One may say that his attitude towards church problems, although never quite outspoken and somewhat confused, serves as an indirect model for what he secretly wants to take place within the American nation. He conveys totalitarian articles of faith to his audience by discussing church matters with them. He leaves it up to them to translate these statements into more drastic political terms. His revivalistic antagonism towards the established denominations is the theological vehicle that allows him to build up this »model« on apparently purely religious grounds. Here, the »unity« trick triumphs. Thomas attacks »partisanship« and »disunity« under the name of denominationalism:   I believe that the day of denominations is practically a thing of the past. I mean there will be no further advancement along the lines of the denominations. I refer to Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, but listen, there is a great advancement today of a vital Christianity, and it is coming primarily as a result of the radio. 23

  The contrast between »vitality« and »denominationalism« is no less characteristic than the statement that this revitalization is due to radio, which is a centralistic technical device inseparably bound up with modern monopolization of public communications. The talk about »revitalization« corresponds to the idea that the existing religious denominations by their very institutionalization have ceased to be living forces, in other words, that the masses have lost their faith in those basic irrational doctrines of religion without which Protestantism cannot be conceived.   You know, my friend, organized religion that denies a supernatural will, will always persecute the supernatural, and so you had yonder a dead religion that denied the supernatural of God; and because they had that, they persecuted your Lord and my Lord unto death. 24

 

It is not too difficult for Thomas' listeners to interpret this religious statement in terms of the two-party system and the »supreme« idea of the nation as such. The logical sequel to such confused outbreaks would be the advocacy of strong enforcement of law against these anarchic spectres that he incessantly raises. It is a characteristically fascist twist in his propaganda, that just the opposite occurs. While deploring lawlessness, corruption, and anarchy, not only is he »antilegalistic« but he even attacks law as such. This procedure, of course, is parallel to the well-known fascist device of crying wolf whenever a central democratic government shows any signs of strength. Their talk about the dictatorship of the government is simply a pretext for introducing their own dictatorship. Thomas' attitude towards law is highly ambivalent; he complains of the existing lawlessness as well as of the existing laws, in order to prepare psychologically the ground for some sort of non-»legalistic« rule.  

Things are going wrong in this country of ours because we have forgotten God and his righteous law. We have trampled his standards of conduct and rule of judgment underfoot, and in its place we have enacted a host of human regulations. There is no dearth of law, today, my friends; this is the greatest age of legislative enactments to regulate man's conduct ever known in the history of this country. It is estimated that human government has made thirty-two million laws. There were ten thousand new laws placed on the statute books of the federal and state governments of the United States during 1924; there were thirteen thousand placed upon our statute books in 1928; fourteen thousand placed in 1930, and the last two years have multiplied these figures as a result of the New Deal which is the reign of law. But the greatest age of laws is also the greatest age of lawlessness. The criminal record shows that crime is increasing at a staggering rate. The direct cost of crime in this nation has reached fifteen billion dollars every year. 25

  The figures mentioned in this diatribe are, of course, utterly fantastic. There is neither any basis for the estimate of thirty-two million laws made by »human government« (whatever that may be), nor the slightest corroboration of the astronomical figure of the »cost of crime« in America. To operate with fantastic figures is an established Nazi habit. The apparent scientific exactitude of any set of figures silences resistance against the lies hidden behind the figures. This technique which might be called the »exactitude of

error« device is common to all fascists. Phelps, for instance, has similar fantastic figures about the influx of refugees into this country. The greatness of the figure, incidentally, acts as a psychological stimulant, suggesting a general feeling of grandeur which is easily transfered to the speaker. His stress upon instinct against reason is concomitant to his emphasis on spontaneous behavior against laws and rules. Thus he promotes a spirit of »action« against the protection granted the minority by any kind of legal order. Indirectly, the antilegalistic and anti-institutional spirit of Thomas is strongly indicated by the way in which he exalts women. To choose one example among many: when praising Martha, he points out the unconventional spirit of this practical- saint, denouncing the sphere of convention by implication. Thomas exalts thereby an attitude which within the framework of his speeches is destructive, although in its highest sense it may be truly superior to conventionality. To Thomas unconventionality means, in the last analysis, readiness to break the law.   Martha, therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him. It was unconventional for a woman to go and meet a man but Martha, bless her soul and her heart, was unconventional. She refused to abide by a foolish convention that strangled the manifestation of her love, of her devotion. 26

  Officially, Thomas defends the home and the family and violently persecutes those who supposedly wish to »legalize abortion.« Yet such statements come very close to the code of sex morals introduced by the Nazis who, while officially defending the sacred old institutions, encourage promiscuity as long as it helps to breed more Volksgenossen. Thomas' attack on law and convention does not aim at freedom, it aims at the individual's subjection, not to any independent legal or moral standards, but to the immediate dictation of those in command, who can easily dispense with any objective regulative ideas. He extols Martha's love in order to cloak the idea of obedience to commands. Such obedience would actually entail nothing but hatred.

  »Anti-Pharisees« device   Revivalist religious subjectivism glorifies the »spirit.« Yet this exaltation of the spirit should not be taken too seriously. It is considerably softened by a twist closely related to Thomas' intermittant attacks on the established churches: his denunciation of the Pharisees as the personification of religious institutionalism and faith in the »letter.« The denunciation of the Pharisees transfers hatred of law and institution to hatred of the intellect and the intellectuals, and of the Jews, with whom he indirectly identifies the Pharisees. He very cautiously avoids explaining concretely what he means by spirit, but he certainly implies a general enthusiasm and willingness to do things rather than any specific capacity of the mind. The Biblical preference for those who are weak in spirit, expressed in Jesus' fight against the proud Pharisees, is exploited for his own ends. There are unending invectives of this type:  

My friend, this age has rejected the teaching of Jesus. Now, the Church, the organized Church, has rejected the teaching of Jesus. The Church that has adopted the teaching yonder of the hierarchy of Israel, they have gone back to the intellect. Now, you know, all you ought to know, that men by searching cannot find out God. Your little puny intellect will not be able to find out the ministry of God. 27

  Or:  

I call your attention to the fact that Jesus never revealed his personality and his truth to men and women whose spirit was not right, and will you think that out with me for a moment? To whom did he reveal the mighty truths? ... Jesus revealed himself to that woman because the woman was simple enough to believe the stories that Jesus was telling the world. 28

  The Christian idea is that truth must be all-embracing, must reach even the downtrodden. Thomas perverts it into the idea of appealing to those »simple enough to believe the stories,« because they are the least capable of offering any resistance to untruth. This perversion, of course, has taken place throughout the history of Christianity, but only today when fascism adapts Christianity to its pragmatic purposes, has it been expressed so frankly and cynically. In this respect, Thomas has a keen understanding of his affinity for his namesake, Martin Luther, whom he praises for having been,

like St. Augustine, »just an obscure man« who would never have been chosen by »a group of intellectual leaders.« 29 In fact, the defamation of the intellect is derived from the Augustinian and Lutheran tradition and is averse to Calvinism. It is hardly accidental that Thomas tends to side with Luther rather than with Calvin. The Pharisees are particularly suitable objects for Thomas' intellect-baiting because they combine intellectual erudition and status as representatives of established religion. Moreover, their hostility to Christ makes it easy for Thomas to designate them as the vanguard of the Antichrist. The stimulus involved here is a resentment against the intellect. Those who must suffer, and have neither the strength nor the will to change their situation on their own impetus, always have a tendency to hate those who point out the negative aspects of the situation, that is, the intellectuals, rather than those who are responsible for their sufferings. This hostility is made the more intense by the fact that intellectuals are exempt from hard labor, without being in possession of actual commanding power. Therefore, they excite envy, without simultaneously calling forth deference. With Thomas' particular audience, anti-intellectualism has a particularly good chance of success. The Sermon on the Mount is transformed into an ideology for those who, while resenting their own hampered mentality, spitefully cling to and exalt this mentality. This spitefulness is turned against the outsider, thus preparing the way for anti-Semitism. For the Jews are theologically close to Christianity without having submitted to it.   Now, you people, you see that Jesus Christ was a good man, that he was a chief rabbi of his day, that he was a great leader, but you refuse to acknowledge that he was God in human flesh. Remember that he cannot lie. Remember that the integrity of the Scriptures either stand or fall upon the evidence that is presented (»that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father«). My friend, you cannot approach God except through Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I know that is pretty hard on some of you people that have been taught otherwise. There is no way by which any man or woman may be saved except through Jesus Christ, and unless you honor the Son, you cannot honor the Father. 30

  Since the main difference between Christianity and Judaism concerns the recognition of the Son, this speech is, by implication, directed against the Jews. Incidentally, the »messenger« device is

furthered by this particular theological doctrine. Of course, the stressing of this difference would not in itself be anti-Semitic. It becomes so in view of the fact that Thomas makes very few positive references to the relationship between the Old and the New Testaments. The idea that Christ did not come to dissolve, but to fulfill the law, that is, the Old Testament, is played down by Thomas. To him – and here he is certainly no fundamentalist – the New Testament is rather the denial of the Old:   There cannot be any immortality of the human soul according to the standard of the New Testament, according to the word of the living God, apart from the revelation and the work that Jesus Christ of Nazareth accomplished upon Calvary cross and from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathia. 31

  Instead of acknowledging the Old Testament, Thomas denounces it indirectly by putting a particular onus upon those who are »close« to Christianity without actually subscribing to it. Thus, by inference, he denounces the Jews.  

Satan always attempts to reach the children of God by some member to that child of God. Satan knows that it is useless to make a direct attack upon the work of the living God, but he always attempts to reach that individual by someone that is close to that man or woman. Now, that was true of Judeah. You remember in the fourth chapter of Matthew, where it says that »Jesus vanquished the devil.« If you turn over to the book of Luke, you will find yonder in the hour when the Last Supper was being held, Satan came and entered into Judas Iscariot. He said, I cannot reach him directly, but I must ask the death of Jesus Christ through someone that is close to him. 32

  This whole passage, particularly the associational link between the words Judeah, Judas, Jews, points in the direction of the whole »anti-Pharisees« device by its identification of the Jews with the Christ-killer.

  Religious trickery in operation   It is our basic thesis that religion, while being used as a net to ensnare a certain group of the population, is also transformed into a technique of political manipulation. Thomas contends in one passage that »Satan has not the power, today, over the Christian, for he has met his Waterloo at Calvary.« 33 This figure of speech, subordinating religious salvation to an earthy event, is symbolic of Thomas' treatment of religion. One may say that he transforms Calvary into an eternal Waterloo, so that his religion deteriorates into a system of metaphors for mundane »battles,« for political violence. His sophistic art of interpreting the Bible for the sake of ideas which are essentially incompatible with the spirit of Christianity often amounts to caricature. The complete cynicism with which he handles Biblical stories shows that he is actually concerned only with the residues of religious prestige and authority. He has no interest whatsoever in the concrete substance of religion. It goes without saying that the subordination of religious ideas and religious language to political ends deeply affects the religious ideas themselves. Calvary, by being called a Waterloo, loses that quality of uniqueness which constitutes the faith in the crucifixion as the act of redemption. The very metaphor, apart from any further dogmatic consequences, must have a ring of impiety to any Christian. It is essential to point out those Christians whom fascist propaganda intends to reach, that fascist manipulation of the dogma is intrinsically blasphemous. The blasphemous element becomes even more blatant with regard to the contents of the Biblical stories Thomas uses. For example, the supernatural meaning of the Biblical concept of »feeding the people« is perverted into an expression of a merciless and hard-boiled attitude in earthly matters.   Our Lord, Jesus Christ, is not a bread-king. He is not feeding people for the sake of feeding them. »Whatsoever you do in word and in deed, do all to the glory of God.« You know, my friend, that you and I make a tremendous mistake, and we do that person more harm than good when we confer upon that individual something he does not need. It does not matter what it is, whether it is the dole, whether it is free money, and we do for that individual that which that individual can do for himself. You rob that individual of the blessing of life. You rob that individual of the joy of working. We have got to end our present situation ... in

some way, manner, or form. If we do not, we will continue to pauperize millions of people in this country of ours. 34

  Likewise, the idea that Jesus is the bread of life is perverted into a denunciation of other sources of the spirit, namely, autonomous thought in general and ideas of reform in particular. Characteristically, however, Thomas, while attacking enlightenment, does not dare to attack technology at the same time, for the latter is a presupposition and a living element of his own propaganda technique.  

My, I wish we could recall America to know this today [ sic ]. Many people are running to this thing and to that thing, running to this quack and to that quack, and they are getting nowhere. Here is the true bread of life. I am sure that your soul knows that. How many people throughout the world are trying to find truth, the true aims in life besides Jesus Christ. Attend to God. Apart from him, you cannot get great truth. I would to God, that we would get this great truth. Don't you wish that education would get back. I thank God, that we have a mighty God. Thank God for the printing press. Thank God for the newspaper. Thank God today, and take courage, for our God is still on his throne, and I believe that we are firing a shot that will be heard around the world. 35

  The confusion of these sentences faithfully reflects the entanglement of ideas of a bigot running berserk. He advocates both the »good old times« and the radio which gives him the opportunity to speak. Faith, to Thomas, is not only a substitute for changing the world; it is the medicine to counteract any change at all. Moreover, all change is automatically pigeonholed by Thomas as Communism.  

Can you not see that unless we exalt the holiness of our God, that unless we proclaim the justice of God in this world of ours, unless we proclaim the fact of a heaven and of a hell, unless we proclaim the fact that without the remission, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. Cannot you see that only Christ and God are dominant and that revolution will ultimately take this nation of ours. 36

  The transformation of Christian doctrines into slogans of political violence could not be cruder than in this passage. The idea of the Sacrament, the »shedding of blood« of Christ, is straightforwardly interpreted in terms of »shedding of blood« in general, with an eye to a political upheaval. The actual shedding of blood is advocated as necessary because the world has supposedly been redeemed by the

shedding of Christ's blood. Murder is invested with the halo of a Sacrament. Thus the last remainder of the sacrificed Christ is virtually »Judenblut muß fließen.« The crucifixion is degraded into a symbol of the pogrom. There are strong reasons for believing that this absurd transformation plays a greater role in traditional Christian imagery than appears on the surface.

  »Faith of our fathers« device   The most effective link between Thomas' theology and his politics is the idea of the »faith of our fathers.« This idea may be called essentially anti-Christian. The claim of Christianity is a claim to truth and not to traditional acceptance, so that he who believes only because his forefathers have believed is actually not a believer at all. Incidentally, the idea of the forefathers carries overtones of an ancestor worship and a mythological religion of nature which contradict the very essence of Christianity. Yet this »naturalistic« element of Christianity can be found throughout Protestantism (where it substitutes for the Catholic concept of the living Church). Even the most subjectivistic Lutheran thinkers, such as Kierkegaard, have made use of this idea. Paternalistic authority always functions to keep at bay those whose belief in the truth of the Christian dogma itself is shattered. This device enforces Christianity by worldly, extraneous means, in the last analysis, by the controls of the patriarchal family. At the same time, it sounds highly respectable, humble, and pious. This appeal is the backbone of Thomas' orthodoxy, opening the road for an interpretation which can easily be understood in terms of aggressive nativism.   That Book that has united the souls of millions of men and women everywhere, that old Book that our fathers and our mothers loved, that old Book that they have revered and cared for, and that we, today, this generation now living, we too are perusing the old Book, so as we look into its sacred pages, this afternoon, bring unto us the memories of the past and the hope of the future and prepare us for that heaven whither our fathers and our mothers have traveled all of these long years. 37

  The next stage is the ambiguous definition of America as a »Christian nation« by which Thomas refers to a supposed decision of the Supreme Court which pronounced such a definition. Thomas strongly implies the exclusion of the Jews from the American community.  

Listen, America began as a Christian nation. Whatever has developed in this nation of ours in the way of progress is the result of Americanism, and when you speak of America, you have got to speak of Christianity because they are both commensurate. 38

 

And here Thomas utters the call for the »right sort of people« – evidently the same characters who paved the way for Nazism in Germany:  

I call upon you teachers, this afternoon, to remember that you hold in your hand the future of America. »As the Twig is bent, so cometh a tree, and as the tree falleth, so it will lie.« We need teachers to teach the great principle of life. We need to declare the great truth of God. We need judges upon our benches who will remember the landmarks of their fathers are still here. 39

  It is hardly necessary to point out that these teachers and judges are expected to be severe. The traditionalistic stimulus in Thomas is so strong that in spite of his supposed hatred for denominations and conventions, he maintains that »the only way to worship God is to go a place dedicated to worship.« 40 Such a statement, which is in accordance with Roman Catholic teaching rather than with the Protestant doctrine of »universal priesthood« (Allgemeines Priestertum), is another index of Thomas' use of Christianity as a mere analogy for his worldly authoritarianism. It is but one step from worship of the »fathers« and a »Christian« America to arrogant patriotism: »We are dependent upon our God and those who believe in this country and in this Bible and in your family and in your flag and in these freedom-loving institutions that have been handed down to us.« 41 Thomas' ultimate desire for a military pattern, for an authoritarian organization is hardly disguised in a »hymn« which his boys sing.   Where are the boys of the old brigade, Who fought with us side by side Shoulder by shoulder And blade to blade. They fought till they fell and died Who so ready and undismayed Who so merry and true. Where are the boys of the old brigade And where is the land we knew? It was steadily shoulder to shoulder, And steadily blade to blade Ready in song Marching along

Were the boys of the old brigade.   Praise be their memory wherever they are; They were the comrades we shall ever love. 42   While, on the surface, military symbolism is used in order to illustrate religious ideals, religion itself for Thomas functions as the symbol of fascism. The Christian American Crusade promises both revivalism and orthodox Christianity. Their common denominator in propaganda is fascist organization.

 Fußnoten   1 Such as, for instance, [Gerald B.] Winrod, Coughlin, Jeffers, and Hubbard.   2 Cf. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, »Elemente des Antisemitismus,« Dialektik der Aufklärung (Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1947), pp. 199–244 [GS 3, s. S. 192ff.].   [ 3 Cf. Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialektik der Aufklärung, passim.]   4 June 27, 1935.   5 July 10, 1935.   6 July 2, 1935.   [ 7 William Thomas Ellis, Billy Sunday: The Man and His Message (Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1936).]   8 July 3, 1935.   9 May 25, 1935.   10 May 26, 1935.   [ 11 Lee and Lee, The Fine Art of Propaganda, pp. 26–46; 95–104.]   12 June 1, 1935.   13 June 12, 1935.   14 June 28, 1935.   15 May 23, 1935.   16 Cf. Franz Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1942),

passim, e.g.: »In the new (Nazi) theory, the state has no monopoly of political decisions. Schmitt concludes that the state no longer determines the political element but is determined by it, that is, by the party« (p. 66). Neumann goes as far as to deny that the German political System is at all a »state« (pp. 467–470).   17 Cf. »Movement« trick [above, pp. 41–42].   18 June 7, 1935.   19 June 18, 1935.   20 July 2, 1935.   21 June 13, 1935.   22 Cf. »Emotional release« device [above, pp. 16–20].   23 April 25, 1935.   24 June 29, 1935.   25 April 21, 1935.   26 July 9, 1935.   27 June 20, 1935.   28 July 3, 1935.   29 May 31, 1935.   30 June 6, 1935.   31 June 7, 1935.   32 July 13, 1935.   33 May 24, 1935.

  34 June 12, 1935.   35 June 13, 1935.   36 July 13, 1935.   37 June 23, 1935.   38 May 26, 1935.   39 June 2, 1935.   40 July 6, 1935.   41 June 16, 1935.   42 July 7, 1935.  

 Section IV: Ideological Bait Introductory Remarks   As it has been pointed out, the concrete political content of Thomas' speeches plays but a minor role compared with his method. His psychological »softening up« of his listeners in the fascist sense does not develop any coherent political program or any coherent critique of existing social and political conditions. His whole attitude is thoroughly »atheoretical.« This is due partly to his contempt for the intellectual capacity of his audience, partly to the idea of »being practical,« and partly, perhaps, to the actual absence of a clear-cut program in Thomas' mind. Like most of today's fascist agitators, he is essentially guided by a keen sense of imitation of the famous and successful models of modern authoritarianism, rather than by political or sociological reflections. This atheoretical attitude has been noted since the early days of the Mussolini regime. It may have a deep basis in the pattern of authoritarianism itself. It cannot be simply explained by the cynical, relativistic contempt for truth and for its expression in theory, shown by the uninhibited power-politician. It is rather due to theory in itself, no matter what its contents may be. The very fact of consequent, coherent and consistent thinking carries a certain weight of its own, a certain »objectivity,« even if it starts from the most arbitrary presumptions. This objectivity makes theory a problematic tool in the eyes of the fascist, for the reason that thinking per se refuses to become completely a tool. Theory as such, the pursuit of autonomous logical processes, offers a certain guarantee to those at whom the fascist wants to strike – it allows them, as it were, to be heard. Hence, theory is essentially taboo to the fascist. His realm is that of unrelated, opaque, isolated facts, or rather, images of facts. The more they are presented as isolated, the more some selected favorite topics draw the whole attention of both the agitator and the listeners, the better for the fascist. He may, with good chance of success, simultaneously but atheoretically, hit at both the Jewish banker and the Jewish radical. If he would try theoretically to explain the

interconnection between the notions, he would meet the greatest difficulties. He would be forced to take resort to the most unconvincing constructs – something which happens often enough with fascist propaganda. Thomas, however, tries to dodge this danger as far as possible, and to stick to some few well-tested and thoroughly popular tunes. This may partly explain the scarcity of motives not only in Thomas but in most of his type. It requires special countermeasures, such as »relating« the isolated topics in order to explode them, concentrating the arguments on the danger spots, or perhaps, conversely, bringing to the fore those facts and structures which are omitted in the fascist argument. Whatever Thomas does is in order to hit at certain »nerve points« of political controversy, which are particularly touchy and from the manipulation of which he hopes to get quick emotional returns. The political topics he chooses are those which he expects to be most important psychologically, that is to say, those which are most heavily laden with effects. These are Communism, the Administration and in particular its unemployment policy, the Jews, and certain aspects of foreign policy.

  Imagery of Communism   It has been stated over and over again that the attack on the danger of Communism and radicalism is one of the fundamentals of fascist propaganda. This line of attack has proved most effective in Hitler's case. Naturally all the paraphernalia of »red-baiting« are to be found in Thomas' speeches. For example, he employs the device of denouncing anyone as a Communist who disagrees with his own ideas. This is mainly achieved by the use of the term »radical,« which in fact can mean anyone who follows a progressive line, but which has a connotation of revolutionary subversiveness, highly useful for Thomas' propaganda. The anti-Communist arguments common to fascists all point in one direction, namely, that Communism is an immediate danger, that the traditional institutions of property, family, and religion must be defended by immediate counteraction. One thing, however, is remarkable. Thomas never deals with Communism as it actually is. He attacks neither the doctrines of dialectical materialism, of which he apparently knows nothing, nor the practical policy of the Communist party, nor the real conditions in Russia. He never touches upon fundamental questions, such as whether a classless society is possible under contemporary conditions, or whether the lot of the masses has improved in Russia. The ideals crystalized by Marxian theory are never scrutinized. Instead, he builds up the imagery of Communism as a »bogy,« which exists only to terrify people with the vision of their immediate destruction. He does not attack the Marxian system, except in vaguest generalizations concerning such matters as materialism. But he tells atrocity stories of an utterly fantastic nature, similar to the »Protocols of the Elders of Zion.« He fights against windmills or, if one prefers the term, he builds up a paranoic system which he later attacks. This mechanism is of particular importance, since it shows the deep-rooted tendency in fascism to attack images rather than the reality they may represent. The foes of fascism are largely of a fictitious nature for two reasons. On the one hand, the reality of groups such as the Communists or the Jews would probably not provide sufficient objects of hatred. If Thomas were to discuss Communist theory as it really is, the effect might well be that his listeners would become positively interested in the theory. On the other hand, he consciously

or unconsciously reckons with a »paranoic« attitude among his listeners, a kind of persecution mania which craves the confirmation of its bogies. Knowing that he can get hold of his followers only by satisfying this craving, he cuts his imagery to fit their psychological desires. The general scheme of this imagery is the characterization of Communism as a conspiracy. This concept being a mirrored reflection of the conspiratorial character of his own racket. We lay particular emphasis on this aspect since it is not only the pattern of red-baiting but also, to an even higher degree, of anti-Semitism. The unrecognizable and nauseating caricatures contained in the »Stürmer« are characteristic of the whole fascist approach. The psychological attack is directed not so much against the Jews as they actually are, as against a mythical picture of the Jews, an amalgam of observations, remnants of an archaic imagery, and projections of psychological drives. In olden times, a magic picture was destroyed in order to kill the man it represented. Today we may almost say that the converse is true – the Jews themselves are destroyed in order to harm the image. Therefore, it may often be not so appropriate to defend the Jews against objections which finally aim at a fetish, as to point out the fetishistic nature of the fascist concept of »The Jew.« It is important to show the elements of this fetish and their relative independence of reality, to examine its psychological function, etc. Only thus may this image be dissolved effectively. It will remain largely impervious to any defense of the actual Jews 1 since anti-Semitism is based less upon Jewish peculiarities than upon the mentality of the anti-Semite. The transformation of Communism into a sinister conspiracy is achieved by passages such as the following:   I wonder if you people know that Stalin, Joseph Stalin, last year, now get it, last year, he published a plan for the destruction of the United States of America. This information was passed on to all of the Communist destruction organizers and secretaries. 2 Now read it. And then review in your mind what has taken place and what is increasingly taking place all over this nation. You note the action of certain Congressmen. You note the action of certain Senators. You note the action of certain leaders in our country. Then, you decide for yourself the seriousness of the hour. Here are the Devil's suggestions: Now, I am going to give them to you as far as I can during the next few minutes. (This passage is evidently an appetizer, indicating that he expects his listeners to get quite a kick out of what he is going to reveal to them.) He (Stalin) says in the realm of religion: »By philosophy and mysticism, by the development of liberal cults and

by the furtherance of atheism, we must destroy all Christian creeds.« 3

  The pure nonsense of this quotation fits well with the fantastic allegations by which it is preceded. As far as Marxian theory is concerned, Thomas copes with it in a simple way:  

Listen, my friend, what may we expect when we teach our children that man has no soul, when we teach them such doctrines as Karl Marx's Manifesto. This has prepared the world for the final teaching of Communism, my friends, we are going into hell in this country of ours. We have allowed this teaching, this terrible teaching to saturate this country of ours. It has saturated the whole home (!), it has saturated the school. We have allowed our curriculum to be based upon this hypothesis that man has no soul and that by organic evolution, by some way or another man came and all life came upon the earth. ... We must turn quickly from this teaching or we are lost ... that is teaching the foundation stones of Communism. 4

  It is significant that in describing Communist teachings neither the concept of class struggle nor of capitalistic economy is even mentioned. The emphasis is laid upon biological theories which never played any decisive role in Marxian theory, or upon wholly imaginative attributions to Marx.

  »Communists and bankers« device   Thomas' most important horror story refers to supposed plots intended to produce financial crises and bankruptcy. When he discusses the Communist attitude towards property, he does not bring in the concept of socialization, but only that of a manipulation by which people lose all their possessions. The typical fascist identification of the »Communist conspiracy« with the »bankers' conspiracy« is useful primarily for the sake of anti-Semitism.  

A few years ago men met. Let me give you the plan and the program. Listen to what they say: »We have opened the arenas in different states where revolts are now occuring, and disorder and bankruptcy will shortly appear everywhere.« That was just prior to 1929, that we saw this thing approaching the U.S. My friend, nation after nation is collapsing. We saw the collapse of nation after nation. We saw the capitals of the world, my friend, in a turmoil. Now, we have seen it occur in these United States of ours. »Disorders and bankruptcy will appear shortly everywhere.« Listen to what they say. »We will present ourselves in the guise of saviors of the workers from oppression when we suggest that they enter our army of socialists, anarchists and Communists to whom we always extend our hand under the guise of the rule of brotherhood.« (Although Thomas dresses up such statements as quotations, he never gives any exact references. It is most likely that he quotes from fascist papers or pamphlets, for nothing is more ridiculous than the picture of a supposedly official Communist linking »socialists, anarchists, and Communists.«) Is not that the thing that they had done for our nation? Is not that what caused the collapse of bank after bank and bank after bank until, my friend, it has been estimated that thousands of banks have failed in these United Sates. 5

  Marxian theory explains the crisis as being caused by the instrinsic laws of capitalistic production. Fascism hits back by attributing the crisis to Communist manipulation. But fascism does not take the trouble to point out how these devilish schemes could work, or how the Communists could possibly control the economic life of America, as long as the capitalistic system prevails. The only possible explanation left to his audience, though not expressly stated, is that a certain group of capitalists, to wit the financiers, are conspiring with the Communists. This device has several advantages. First of all, it serves to discredit Communism which appears no longer as a comprehensive social system, but rather as the opposite, a shrewd trick for profiteering rackets. Conversely, it accuses one particular selected capitalist group, that of

»non-productive capital,« of undermining the principle of private property which the bankers, as businessmen are supposed to represent. The obvious objection, that no capitalist group would plot against the system from which its own profit is derived, should strike everyone exposed to such propaganda. The absurdity of this device does not prevent its recurrence throughout fascist propaganda – in one of his esoteric speeches, for instance, Thomas warms up the old story that some international Jewish bankers financed the Bolshevik revolution. Obviously, this formula must have some very powerful irrational, psychological backing. It is certainly the easiest way to combine hatred of the Jews as capitalists with their denunciation as subversive radicals. Many people distrust bankers because transactions on the stock exchange, particularly sudden booms and slumps, used to be largely incomprehensible to them. Since they often had to suffer under such moves, they tended to personify the anonymous reasons for financial losses and to blame acquisitive, plotting groups. Formerly the operations of the stock exchange actually had a largely »irrational,« unplanned character, which they partly lost in the era of economic concentration. Yet, the attitude against the financier has become habitual and assumes a threatening aspect, in an epoch when »finance capital« appears to lose much of the power which it may have held during the nineteenth century. One may even go so far as to presume that modern hatred against the banker is actually caused by the feeling that he is no longer the power he used to be, and that he can be easily done away with. Imagery of the banker's omnipotence rationalizes the dawning feeling of his impotence. As for the Communists, the idea that they are conspirators and criminals is grounded in their hostility to the whole capitalist system. This attitude forces upon the Communists certain restrictions in formulating their aims and tactics, and thus makes them appear »mysterious« in the eyes of many. Since the fight against »non-productive« capital is one of the most effective stimuli of anti-Semitism, it will be necessary to cope with this question explicitly in other parts of our project. Here we confine ourselves to two observations. First, the finance capitalist draws hatred upon himself because he appears to enjoy life and luxury without holding, as the industrialist does, any actual commanding power. Second, the »intermediary,« the middleman –

of whom the »omnipotent banker« is but an enlarged symbol – is the person who makes the underlying population pay for economic processes which actually take place within the sphere of production. The intermediary has the function of a psychological and economic scapegoat, a function zealously kept alive by certain economic interests. It goes without saying that these hypotheses can be proved only by a full-fledged economic critique of the entire distinction between productive and non-productive capital. At this point, they may only illustrate why the rationally »absurd« identification of banker and Communist proves to be so effective. As we pointed out, Thomas does not enter into any economic controversy. There is one point, however, where he becomes specific. It is at just this point that he distorts the actual content of Marxian teachings into its opposite. As is well known, Marxism calls for the socialization of the means of production, without proposing the idea that small personal property should be expropriated. Since Thomas' listeners do not own any considerable »means of production« and are only small owners, the idea of the socialization of industry would not be so frightening to them. Therefore, socialism must be depicted as an attempt to deprive them of the little they have, rather than as an attempt to substantially improve the standard of living of the whole population. The Communist is identified with the robber and the thief – in fact, with those looters who usually follow the wake of fascist upheavals.   The second thing the Communists expect to do (the first being, according to Thomas, the universal introduction of atheism) is to destroy all private property and inheritance. They have taken us subtly and wilyly. They say, all private property and inheritance has to be done away with. That means the nationalization of every foot of property. That means the confiscation of everything that you and I hold dear. 6

  This argument, incidentally, is probably one of the most effective in enrolling the little man into the ranks of fascism. One last device of Thomas' red-baiting ought to be mentioned. It stems from the Nazi arsenal. One line of the Horst Wessel Lied reads: »Kam'raden, die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen.« Thomas often embellishes his tirades against Communists by some hostile references to »reaction,« although this reference never carries the same emphasis as red-baiting. The reason is, on the one hand, that

the poor to whom this propaganda is addressed may become suspicious if only Communism is attacked. Hence the real point is clouded by impressing the conviction that old-fashioned reactionaries, groups who do not properly take care of the masses, are also regarded as foes. On the other hand, there is a certain, very slight, realistic basis for reactionary-baiting in fascism. This is the fascist antagonism to certain rival conservative groups with whom they often have to ally themselves, but whom they ultimately liquidate, as they did most effectively in Germany. The antireactionary window-dressing of red-baiting is expressed by Thomas in a concrete political situation:  

Take the school board as an illustration. It seems to me as though the public is going to take a whipping either way it goes. There are two tickets, one known as the security ticket, consisting of Mr. Becker, Mr. Dalton, Mrs. Clark, and Mrs. Roundsville; they have the backing of a number of the old reactionary groups. Now, I seriously question, tonight, whether that group will have the power to really clear up the school situation in this city. 7

  On another occasion, Thomas puts it in more general terms: »I want you people to pray, today, very definitely, that the forces of reaction and the forces that seek to put Christ down may not be allowed to close the radio to the people of God.« 8 Thomas wants to drive the Communists out of the United States; but in order to do this, and to prepare for violent action against them, he wants to take over at least their revolutionary concept and attitudes. He attacks reaction because he wants to act by non-legal means – by mob violence and »spontaneous action.« On the one hand, the masses whom the fascist agitator addresses are skeptical of the old ruling class, which they have been accustomed to regard as their master and exploiter. On the other hand, the old ruling class – no matter how the interest of the fascist movement may be related to its own – appears to be unfit for the brutal business of immediate oppression which is fascist government. Cultural tradition, social »status,« even snobbery bar the upper class at least to a certain extent from those attitudes by which authoritarianism rules. Hence, the ruling class is sometimes defamed by fascists as arrogant and »alien to the folk.« Apart from this superficial issue, there exist definite rivalries between the old and the new »elites« – between those who own big property and those who »protect« and, to a considerable extent,

control it by their terror apparatus. Thus »Reaktion,« the old ruling class, serves very well the propagandistic purpose of drawing upon itself radical trends of the masses without any serious danger to the authoritarian setup. For it should be noted that, in contrast to the baiting of the »Jewish banker,« fascist propaganda against »reaction« remains rather general and very rarely leads to actual conflict, except in extremely critical situations. Thomas is cautious enough to speak about the » old reactionary groups« only, leaving the door open for their acceptance into his own more up-to-date version.

  Administration- and President-baiting   There is quite a treasure of subjects at hand for government-baiting by fascist groups. Government by representation can always be depicted as »indirect,« alien to the people, cold and institutionalized. 9 Its centralistic nature always can be played up as being directed against the interest of the people, particularly those living in the more distant section. There is the bogy of »bureaucracy« which can be dug up wherever a centralized democratic government has to cope with the niceties of rational and constitutional law. Then there is always the possibility of calling such a government wasteful or corrupt. Every expenditure is likely to appear as »waste« to the little man who must pay taxes without being able to see how this money works for his immediate advantage. The mentality of the actually or supposedly overburdened taxpayer, and his inherent antagonism to centralized government are psychological assets of fascist propaganda. A feeling of injustice is involved in tax-paying under an anonymous state which takes without being capable of guaranteeing the lives of those from whom it takes. Even people with only meager direct taxes, as is probably true of Thomas' audience, may often share the taxpayer mentality through their desire to ape economic superiors. The »overburdened taxpayer« tends to become a creed of its own. The consequent resentment is directed towards the government that takes rather than towards a social system which makes taxes unavoidable. Of course, where fascism comes into power, even heavier taxes will have to be paid, but they are more effectively cloaked, at least at the beginning, as being love offerings for the immediate benefit of the fatherland and racial comrades. The reference to the idea of the folk together with terror, temporarily stops any discussion of the tax issue. The same applies to the issue of corruption. There is no doubt that there is more waste and corruption in countries where uncontrolled, domineering groups are in power, than in democratic nations. In totalitarian countries corruption cases are kept hidden, and the subject rarely comes up. The fact that democracies allow frank discussion of corruption creates the illusion that democracy is the breeding ground of corruption. Naturally, the »progressive,« pointedly democratic Roosevelt Administration is a particularly adequate target for the antigovernmental attitude of fascists,

although one should by no means think that fascist opposition is essentially bound up with the New Deal. Liberal Republicans like Wendell Willkie are now attacked in a similar way. However, fascist propaganda against the New Deal can feed upon the liberal tradition of the United States which regards any state interference in economic matters as a means of denouncing the present. Thomas hates the President and wants his audience to hate him. Yet he always speaks about »our President« and prays for him, thus professing to honor the tolerant tradition of American democracy. However, there is actually only one thing he wants the President to do: to repent. The Christian idea of repentance is transformed into a shrewd means of blackening the Chief Executive:   My friend, I speak to you in the most solemn way that it is possible to address a human being, that unless you repent, unless the President of the United States repents, unless the Supreme Court repents, unless the members of the Senate repent, etc., unless every man and woman of this nation repents, you cannot see the Kingdom of God. 10

  It may be assumed that in this passage »every man and woman« is incidental and that the real emphasis is laid upon the President who has never left any doubt of his basically liberal convictions. By innuendo the President and his Administration – or at least some »high places« – are linked up with Communism. This device, by the way, is by no means limited to fascist agitators, but is used by practically all foes of the Administration: »Why will America stand for this type of thing (an artificially organized economic crisis)? Is it possible that in high places, my friend, that encouragement has been lent to this type of thing?« 11 The title of one of his speeches puts the stigma of Communism squarely upon the shoulder of the Administration: »Is it true, as charged by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that Communism is the real aim of many of those around our President?« 12 In one of his »esoteric« speeches, Thomas goes so far as to allege that, even though the »Protocols of the Elders of Zion« have been proved to be falsifications, their inner truth is proved by the New Deal. The Administration has supposedly executed step by step all the plans laid down in those documents. Incidentally, exactly the same argument was put forward by the Nazi, Rosenberg, when he maintained the inner truth of these protocols, after their falsity had been acknowledged by a Swiss

Court. Rational refutation is psychologically powerless against such legends as that of the protocols, or such insinuations as those made against the Administration by Thomas. As soon as they cannot be maintained any longer on the objective level, they are transformed by auxiliary hypotheses, or by shifting from the level of facts to the level of »inner truth.« President-baiting is by no means new in the United States. It has recurred again and again since the days of Andrew Johnson, and historical analysis would probably reveal a permanent readiness to indict the President on the part of certain political groups. Ironically enough, the baiters of Johnson called themselves »radicals.« The thesis that the attitude of the population towards the President is ambivalent because he is a father image appears to us unspecific and simplistic. Modern monarchies such as Great Britain show few analogies to President-baiting in republics. The habit stems rather from certain issues of democracy in general, and of the American Constitution in particular. The fact that government »of the people, by the people and for the people« invests one single individual with the considerable power of the presidency is apparently paradoxical in the eyes of many people. Unconsciously at least, a strong resistance is elicited. Prima facie, the chief executive power is resented as reminiscent of monarchism, as »undemocratic.« Hence the constant readiness to invoke the system of checks and balances against the executive branch, to say that it oversteps its boundaries and craves dictatorship. Today, however, this old resistance of primitive or »folk« democracy to the idea of representation and the institution of the Presidency serves mainly to promote an utterly different ideology. What is actually resented about the President is not so much his »antidemocratic« power as the idea that this power is not »legitimate,« that his authority is not the genuine expression of today's basic power relationships. Therefore, the fascist-minded want it to be destroyed. Old memories of absolutistic legitimacy have been converted into the fascist idea once expressed by Goebbels, that only one who makes use of power deserves it, that is to say, one who exploits it for the purpose of ruthless oppression. While the President is denounced as a would-be dictator, he is actually despised because he will not, and cannot, act dictatorially, since he represents a system, and groups, which are intrinsically antidictatorial. In the last analysis, the President-baiters sense

somehow that the legal power invested in the President does not fully correspond to his actual social power – that the decisive economic forces are to be found beyond his range and, at the present time, in the other camp. Hence his constitutional rights are psychologically conceived as being »illegitimate,« compared with big ownership, which expresses the essence of business culture. Modern President-baiting is an index of the conflict between formal democracy and economic concentration, a conflict which tends to increase proportionately with the latter. The history of the French Third Republic in particular, where the official democratic regime permanently was snubbed not only by the old aristocracy but also by the most influential economic forces, is highly analogous to modern American President-baiting. In a way, hatred of the President is not altogether different from that against high finance, with which the fascist like to link him.

  »Pick up thy bed and walk« device   In addition to President-baiting and the general assumption that the Roosevelt Administration encourages atheism, Communism, and modernism, there is actually only one specific point attacked by Thomas – the unemployment policies of the New Deal. In this respect Thomas is definitely old-fashioned and appeals to groups of small property owners: He fails to recognize the gravity of the unemployment problem and the pressures in it which can be used, whereas more modern fascists, such as Phelps, try to win over the unemployed to the »movement.« It is probably this aspect of Thomas' propaganda which is largely responsible for his failure, though, on the other hand, this aspect also attracted groups which otherwise might have been hostile to his whole approach. Propagandistic exploitation of the problem of unemployment and actual fascist »integration« of the unemployed are two very different things. Thomas carefully cloaks his anti-unemployed attitude in Christian terms. Interpreting the sentence »Arise, pick up thy bed and walk« in terms of professional initiative completely alien to the Bible, Thomas says:  

God says to walk. We have killed the spirit of tens of thousands of people by dispensing charity. We are never going to solve America's problems except those people who are in actual need be given help. On a certain day, at a certain hour, at a certain minute, at a certain second, if we say every dollar is going to give you so much time and by then, by the Grace of God, if you don't want work, you don't want to eat. It is almost impossible to get a man or woman to work. We have got to stop this situation. 13

  Exactly the same device has worked in Germany. Naturally unemployed had to be fed there too, but the difference in Germany was that they had to »work« for it for a short period by doing unnecessary and futile work, and later by preparing the war of aggression. The idea that no one should be allowed to eat without working, although the work in itself may be utterly superfluous, has proved most attractive psychologically. One of the paradoxes of the present situation is that envy is concentrated upon the most unfortunate group, the unemployed, because they are conceived of as being exempted from the hardship of labor. This envy works as a tool to bring the unemployed as »soldiers of labor« under the

immediate control of the domineering group, while offering a certain gratification to the actual job-holders. Thomas' hatred against the Administration stems largely from this source. The idea of forcing the unemployed to work is occasionally presented by Thomas in the form of some phoney appeal for agrarian reform, showing his affinity to the »blood and soil« ideology.   The government should supply the means of production and furnish the individuals with ten acres of ground – or whatever they are able to do – and let them get out and by the sweat of their brows 14 earn their daily bread. There are millions of people in this country at the present hour who do not want to work. There are millions of people in this country who don't want to work and who would not accept a position if they had that opportunity. 15

  The unemployed are depicted as lazy. Thomas proclaims the need for a strong hand. By implication, a fascist regime appears to be the only chance of teaching them to work, of »integrating« them, and simultaneously of punishing them for their laziness. One should expect, prima facie, that the cynicism of such statements would alienate the masses and produce violent opposition to Thomas. Although this may have happened with some of his listeners, it would be too rationalistic to assume that it played a large role. Thomas is shrewd enough to reckon with a paradoxical longing for the strong hand among those who would have to feel its strength. They enjoy authority not only because it gives them a feeling of security, but also because they identify themselves so strongly with the power system that they are ready to undergo any hardship, as proof of the power and virility with which their own humiliation seems to incorporate them. In imperial Germany many ex-soldiers, who had suffered the most brutal treatment under Prussian militarism, later on referred to military service as the most beautiful time of their lives. Such is the attitude which Thomas calculates upon in his attack on the unemployed. There are no means of checking this phenomenon, but it would not be astonishing to discover that he enrolled a considerable number of followers from the ranks of those whom he whipped for their supposed unwillingness to work. Moreover, it is probably these same followers who are most prone to excesses against the weak.

  The Jews are coming   In Thomas' propaganda over the radio, anti-Semitism is only a sideshow. He is hampered not only by the regulations of broadcasting but also by the religious medium. In a certain way, his religious line calls for respect by the people for the Old Testament and is irreconcilable with too frank an attack upon a minority group. Yet the esoteric speeches show that Thomas is, or at least was, violently anti-Semitic. By innuendo, his anti-Semitism is also expressed in his radio addresses. Taking into consideration his vocal inflection and oratorical attitude, it can be assumed that he refers to the Jews when he speaks about »these forces« and suggests that his audience knows what he means. The weight of the anti-Semitic propaganda within Thomas' speeches is incomparably greater than the actual amount of his frank anti-Semitic statements. As we pointed out, the medium by which he indirectly introduces anti-Semitism is religion. This serves two purposes: to give the attacks on the Jews an aura of theological authority and to disguise his propaganda of hatred behind the cloak of Christian love. Palestine seems to function as a link between his theological anti-Judaism and fascist anti-Semitism. This topic seems to be fairly far-fetched. The resettlement of the Jews appears, at first sight, to be of little emotional appeal to anti-Semites. Yet the choice of this subject matter may not be altogether insignificant. One of the fundamental impulses of the anti-Semite makes itself felt in the complaint that the Jews are »there.« »They shall get out.« »They are not wanted here.« While this impulse is apparently directed only against the Jews as the »guest nation,« a favorite Nazi concept, it actually aims at the Jews being »there« at all. It is as though the anti-Semite could not tolerate them on any part of the earth. He regards them as intruders and infringers everywhere: in the theatre, where they have bought their tickets as well as the »Gentiles,« no less than in the vacation resort or in an exotic country. Their very existence is perceived by him as a threat to the potentiality of feeling »at home.« While he attacks the Jews because of their supposed striving for world domination, the anti-Semite nourishes this desire himself. The Jews are a symbol to him that he does not yet possess the whole world. Hence the reference to Jewish settlement and Jewish expansion in a particular country probably

has a definite meaning to the anti-Semitic-minded. It may inspire their fury even if the pertinent explicit statements do not involve name-calling. This may help to understand why Thomas sometimes uses confused references to the Jewish resettlement of Palestine as symbols for the coming of the day of judgement, without making it quite clear whether he favors this settlement or resents it. This attitude mirrors the Nazi ambivalence toward Zionism. The Nazis welcomed it insofar as it promised that they could get rid of the Jews. But they also regarded it as dangerous – or at least pretended to so regard it – because it apparently proved their assumption of a Jewish nationalism transcending the borders of the other nations. Behind this ambivalence looms the most deadly hatred. The Jews, according to the fascist mentality, should be allowed neither to stay where they are nor to become a separate nation. No possibility is left but extermination. The Jewish settlement in Palestine is described in a factual manner, but its very phrasing has a threatening aspect. The audience is made to shudder under the idea of the supposedly tremendous increase of Jewish power in Palestine. The Jews are depicted as extremely formidable and, therefore, dangerous. We shall accompany the following passage by a running commentary.   Now, the Jews are returning. According to the Jewish telegraphic agency, recently, more Jewish farmers had been settled in Palestine than were there 2000 years ago. It is the one bright spot, economically speaking, in all the world today. There is no depression in Palestine. (The implication is, of course, that the Jews are smart and are doing well.) The natural resources of that nation (speaking about »that nation« is one of Thomas' standard devices. While this expression can apparently be explained on purely grammatical grounds, it psychologically conveys the idea of a nation that everyone knows but will not name) are now being exploited and developed. I was reading a report not long ago concerning the chemicals deposited in the Dead Sea (conspiratory device). This chemical research engineer said that somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five billion dollars worth of vital chemicals were deposited in the Dead Sea alone. (This is shrewdly ambiguous. It is left obscure whether Thomas refers to the potential chemical value of the resources of the Dead Sea, or whether he means that the Jews have hidden poisoned gas on its ground, the intention being, that his uneducated listeners will believe the latter. The idea, of course, is completely fantastic.) On the Jordan river great hydro-electric plants are now being developed. (Here a shock is achieved by the blasphemous combining of a sacred Biblical name with a very modern technical term.) Universities are springing up. My friend, this is a certain sign that the hour of the Gentile nations is now closing. Why? Because the Gentile nations are now doing exactly the

same thing, yea, they have already done so, that the Jews did 2000 years ago that caused their Jewish expulsion from the land and caused God to reject the Jewish nation. (The sins of the Gentiles are put upon the shoulders of the Jews. The emphasis of the obscure sentence is upon the last words »to reject the Jewish nation« and this is probably all the audience's mind is capable of catching.) Now, then, they have been scattered, and for 2000 years they have been a homeless and a wandering people, wandering hither and yonder. In the meantime God has been speaking and has given the authority to the Gentile nations. Now, coincidentally with the close of the Gentile era the Jews are returning, many of them to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (This apparently positive sentence only contributes to the general confusion and atmosphere of panic. Moreover, the implication is that baptized Palestinian Jews may be saved and that the most degraded of all is the Jew who remains where he is and clings to Judaism. This passage hits ultimately at the Jews in America.) However, more of them are returning to Palestine in unbelief. But, my friend, the hour is not far away, when the armies yonder of the Gentile worlds in that great battle of Armageddon, which will come in my opinion in the close of the next great world war, the Jews shall be gathered in that land. They shall be besieged upon every hand, and they shall fall upon their faces, and in the hour of their extreme necessity, they will call upon God and God will answer from Heaven; and Jesus Christ, whom they have rejected, their elder brother, shall come with a mighty delivering power. 16

  In other words, after the big pogrom that Thomas, the Nazi, hopes for, Thomas the preacher gives them some chance of being saved. Amazingly enough, the idea that a reckoning with the Jews will take place after the second world war appeared in Thomas' speeches eight years ago. This is one of the major anti-Semitic slogans at present (1943). There is no doubt that this idea, dangerously spread among soldiers, was consciously manipulated by fascist agitators, and is quite independent of the war and the behaviour of Jews during the war. It has been warmed up artificially. The main device of Thomas' indirect anti-Semitic propaganda is to refer to some Biblical guilt of the Jews. He depends upon his audience to transfer the age-old judgment to the present:   To the South was Isaiah, a contemporary of Hosea who was preaching in the South of Judea. Both men had practically the same message. God warned the nation through the lips of his prophet that unless the nation returned to God and established justice and mercy in the land, that inevitably God always allowed them to go down as a nation and to go into captivity and to be overrun by the surrounding nations of the world. 17

  Thomas goes on to compare present-day America to Judea at the

time of the prophets. The major effect of the reiteration of the word Judea is to give the audience the idea that there exists a more immediate relationship between Judea and America, namely that the »American crisis« is due to the sons of Judea. Thomas is cautious not to make any such statement, but the »musical« setup of the whole passage with the drumming on »Jews« and »Judea« definitely works to that effect. This »musical« technique of anti-Semitic innuendo is most obvious in this statement: »Communism is nothing more or less than the synagogue of Satan that our Lord spoke about.« 18 The description of Communism as the synagogue of Satan is superficially only a Biblical metaphor; but since Jewish temples are known under the Greek name of synagogue, the association carried by the sentence is that Communism has something to do with the synagogues – in other words, that Jews and Communists are the same.

  »Problem« device   Sometimes Thomas comes into the open with frank anti-Semitic statements. Primary, of course, is insistence upon the »Jewish problem« in America. In a democracy, anti-Semitism has won its first victory when the farce of such a »problem« is allowed to go on. It is a particularly easy and dangerous victory since the term »problem« appears to be neutral and scientific. But actually this term brings about a conceptual segregation of the Jews and implies that they are going to become the object of certain special administrative measures. The »problem« device requires a special technique of pseudo-objectivity. In the very moment when Thomas becomes an outspoken anti-Semite, he professes to be a friend of the Jews. This highly significant configuration has the following appearance:  

In every nation of the world today, you have that tremendous conflict going on between the Jews with the government and the people that are represented within that nation. There is not a nation in the world today that does not have its Jewish problem, not one. I speak, tonight (!), as a friend of the Jews. I speak, tonight, as one that would take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them, but I say to you without any fear of contradiction: There is a Jewish problem on at the present hour that will not die throughout the earth. It is the precursor, it is the forerunner of that day, there, that hour when that people shall be gathered yonder in that great land, going back in unbelief; but one of these days they will cry to Jesus Christ to release them and he shall come and claim his ancient people. ... Is it not a fault of the Christians of the world that we have failed to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to that people? We are reaping what we have sown, we are reaping what we have sown. 19

  The last sentence hypocritically blames the Christians who have failed to convert the Jews, implying that the Jews are going to punish them for this failure. In reality, behind the gesture of repentance looms the Jewish danger and the Communist world plot, serving as an incitement to »defensive« action. This is achieved by a Biblical quotation that follows immediately after the last sentences: »They shall fall by the edge of the sword, and Jerusalem shall be trodden until the time of the Gentiles shall come.« 20 In this context the application of the citation is quite clear. The Jews are supposed to rule the world, until the Gentiles unite against them. Hardly less clear is the idea promoted by the following statement, where

confusion fosters panic and makes the issue against the Jews even stronger:  

»... that Jerusalem is in the hand of the Jews again, that it is the national home reestablished for the Jews. The Jews are now in the land of Palestine in answer to the prophecy of God. There are more Jews there now than any time in 2000 years of history. (This is supposed to be a threat to the Gentiles.) In 1917 it was a critical time in the history of the earth of ours. Now, strange as it may seem, do you know that when General Allenby took the city of Jerusalem in the name of King George ... from the very moment God placed it in the hands of the Zionists, from that hour other things happened. The Communists moved into Moscow exactly upon the release of Palestine. The Church began a downward movement, a loss of vitality, a loss of life. What else happened? You find the program of the Antichrist moving across the world in order to fasten the hold upon the world through all Christian homes in this world of ours.« 21

  The idea is that the Zionists, the British and the Communists were all involved in a huge conspiracy. This linking, by the way, corresponds to a line of attack taken by other fascist agitators, such as Phelps, who include the English in their Jew-baiting and Communist-baiting. In fact, the Nazi government called the British, »white Jews.« In general the identification of the Jews with the Devil (as Christ-killers) leads to an image of them as diabolical plotters throughout the history of the world. This line of attack is favored by Thomas above that of depicting them as emulators, characterless intruders, »Untermenschen,« etc. Here lies a specific difference between German and American anti-Semitism. It should be taken into consideration by counterpropaganda. German Jews, most of whom had been native for many centuries, were largely assimilated. Anti-Semitism had to attack them in their assimilated condition. Hence, it exploited the concept of assimilation itself. Jews were depicted as aiming to merge with Gentiles – to »poison« them from within. In America, where Jewish immigration on a large scale took place only since the nineteenth century, assimilation is by no means so strongly developed, and the Jewish immigrants are a much more obvious national minority. Hence, the job of anti-Semitism is easier in a way. Jews are blamed for being different. This is expressed in the prevailing idea of American anti-Semitism that the Jews are conspirators and aim at political supremacy as a definite national group. It should be noted, however, that in Thomas' anti-Semitic

armory at least one argument is utterly lacking – the idea of the Jew as a weakling. This argument probably proved to be the most dangerous of all in Germany. The Biblical splendour with which Thomas cloaks the Jews is, in spite of his antipathy, a kind of safeguard against contempt and derision. It is this reason which made Thomas comparatively innocuous in his specific campaign against the Jews. It is perhaps correct to say that those of his techniques which have nothing to do with the Jews are psychologically more dangerous as anti-Semitic weapons than his anti-Semitic invectives themselves. Remarks on Thomas' appeal to Americanism cannot be compared with the emphasis Nazi agitators put on their idea of the fatherland and the German race. Thomas' Americanism is only a somewhat feeble echo. His moderation is probably due to his adaption to the mood of his listeners. In foreign policy, he exploits pacifism in the same way as he exploits anticapitalist leanings in home policy. Militant patriotism is much less developed in a country which has undergone few foreign wars and whose predominance has remained undisputed. Hence Thomas' Americanism is of a somewhat negative nature. He speaks of the danger threatening this country and of its having become soft and decadent, much more than of its strength or its right to a dominant position in the world. His foreign policy consists of patriotic exaltation and a simultaneous resignation to the power aspirations of other countries. He favors nationalism as such. Concretely, however, he sympathizes more with German nationalism, the model for his fascist ideals, than with the foreign political aims of the American nation. This is reflected by a certain ambivalence in regard to the problem of war, which of course plays the Nazi game. In spite of his Americanism – or rather because of his fascist concept for America – Thomas is an appeaser. He uses American peace-mindedness as a force for bringing the country into the clutches of the aggressor nations. He presents a long and confused argument which terminates in a kind of justification of German rearmament.   There is absolutely no comparison of what has taken place in the world as to what is going to take place in the world. Every statesman in the world is absolutely shivering in his boots for the fear of what is coming upon the morrow. The British statesmen, every one of them, say that war cannot be postponed in Europe so very much longer. France and Germany, and Italy, and England, and

Russia, and every nation and Japan are ready. They are armed to the teeth. They are ready for the beginning of the Hell upon earth. Not that any one of the nations wants it. It is my opinion that every statesman in Europe despises war. If they know anything about it, they despise it. When anybody tells you that there is a lot of saber rattling going on in the world, men that want war, I don't believe that any sane man desires war, but in spite of the fact that they do not desire war, they are being pushed inevitably step by step, inch by inch over the abyss into another great world patricidal conflict. Why is it? Why is it that we can't stop war? Why is it that the Communists in this country preach that America shall disarm, but allow Russia to arm? Now, I don't take any stock in that type of pacifism at all, and I don't think that any man or American that has his head upon his shoulders and eyes that see, that are wide open and a brain that is thinking, takes any stock in that type of thing, but listen, why is it that we can't stop war? For the very simple thing that this world lies in the lap of the wicked ones. For the very simple reason that this world has rejected the Son of the living God. The world system is not based upon Christianity. The world system is based upon a satanic world, that desires to devour and desires to kill and desires to murder the human race. Now, the nations of the world are getting prepared. Now, you mind what I tell you. I know, when war comes again, and it will come, you know the wars have been interspaced approximately twenty years between. ... The last war, it will only be a child's play as compared to the war that is coming. Can you imagine a hundred airplanes in the stratosphere, piloted by robots with great bombs sent out two miles high, where it is utterly impossible to make a defense so far as other planes are concerned, and with the proper setting of a watch to drop two great bombs two to three miles high in the midst of a great city in the world. Why, my friends, you know what it means. It means annihilation. It means death. It means destruction. Can you imagine what the next war will be? There will be machine guns firing six thousand shots a minute. Can you imagine that? Well, now listen to me. Nobody that has any sense desires war, but there is something on the inside of the human race that is producing fear. Germany fears. That is the reason that Germany is arming. 22

  His foreign political line is definitely pro-German:  

You will note a manoeuvering going on between Italy, France, and England and that of Germany on the other side. I am happy to note that apparently a new program is gradually being evolved between, or by the British nation in their attitude toward the German people. I think that it is now well conceded in high diplomatic circles that the Germanic races, and the Anglo-Saxon races and the Scandinavian races must now all stand shoulder to shoulder against this greatest menace that has ever faced Western civilization since Genghis Khan launched his hordes of Asiatics and overran the Western world. England seems to be softening towards Germany, knowing full well that Germany stands as the only bulwark of Western civilization against the great hordes of Communists, under the leadership of the apostate people, and that unless the Germanic and English

speaking nations stand together, there is no hope of preserving the Christian religion or the Christian civilization. And if our own officials in Washington are wise, they will chart a national course that will bring Great Britain, Germany, and the Scandinavian nations into a fraternal understanding. 23

  Whereas the »apostate people,« whoever these may be, are godless, the Nazis are regarded, by hook or crook, as being religious:  

God had to allow Germany to bleed to death until the German people came to realize that there is God in Heaven and that the nation that forgets God goes down to utter defeat. My friend, Germany today has learned her lesson, and has begun to come back and realize that the religion must go out and word of God must be praised. England and America will go down. 24

  Authoritarian obedience seemingly is regarded as being religious per se. Here the preaching of religious repentance moves surreptitiously into the doctrines of a fifth columnist. It is against this background that the »supreme demand of the hour« is brought out. It should be added that Thomas uses a peculiar technique when he deals with foreign policy. Nations are treated by him as if they were subjects. Moral concepts are immediately applied to them and moral dichotomies are used to explain national political issues. This device, a concession to the incapacity of the audience to think in impersonal terms, has a sinister connotation in spite of its prophetic ring. The more the nations are treated as single subjects rather than as groups of people, and the more people are made obedient cogs within their nations, the more helplessly are they subject to the impending catastrophe which Thomas incessantly depicts. Thus they are being softened up for »integration.«   The Bible makes plain to us, my friend, the reason for the fall of the empires. There is a moral law at work among the nations, for nations are but made up of men and women. Whatever a man soweth, that shall he reap. Whatever a nation soweth, that shall it also reap. Wide, indeed, is the field of observation when we come to study this truth of the past and the present, for nations are just as surely dying and sinking, today, as they have been in the past, for every monument and every book and arch and every heap of debris, every lonely pillar becomes a pulpit from which we hear the voice of the past, preaching the great sermon of national sin and national judgment. 25

  The personification of the nation is a kind of negative totalitarian

integration. The American nation, according to Thomas, is a huge collective sinner; therefore, the nation has to repent collectively – in short, adopt a fascist order.  

God is calling the American people to return to himself. He says, I have a controversy against you, because you have departed from me, from my covenant. You have broken my ordinance. You and I, my friend, are part and parcel of a great people. Our forefathers in this nation have built a great structure, and they planted this word of the living God as the very foundation stone of their individual life, of their state life, and of their national life, and now we have broken upon difficult days. We have come to days, my friend, when we have disregarded the old landmarks of our fathers. We have become so wise. We have become so understanding. We know everything but, ah, my friends, there are some things that we don't know, and that is we have lost a knowledge of the living God out of these lives of ours. America, today, is an unhappy land. America, today, is an unhappy people. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Dominion of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, our people are in a chaotic state of evils. My friend, the reason for that is simply this. We have kicked the knowledge of our God out of our hearts and minds. We are doing a lot of sacrificing, today, sacrificing to the wrong things. We sacrifice to the God of silver and gold. We bow down to hay and stubble. The God of the belly is our God, today upon the part of many of our people. The God of pleasure has taken the place of the God of obedience; our Lord, Jesus Christ has been cast out of our churches. ... Our fathers wanted to get to a point where God could rule their lives and the lives of their children and so they came across the uncharted ocean, across these plains and prairies and mountains. They lived in sod houses. They lived in log houses. They lived in the dugouts beneath the earth. 26

  Characteristically enough, the appeal for American regeneration ends with an almost unveiled desire for a lowering of the general standard of living. This change which he expects to be brought about by totalitarian regimentation is rationalized as being God's remedy for softness and degeneration.

  Conclusion   The ultimate aim of Thomas' propaganda is authority by brutal, sadistic oppression. This is the focal point, the unifying principle that rules his theology and his politics, his psychology and his morals. Among his stimuli the concept of severe punishment in time and eternity is decisive. His descriptions of tortures are minute in detail. Obviously he wants to give his listeners a special gratification through such descriptions.  

They built a fire for him one day, and they said, Polycarp, unless you recant, unless you denounce Jesus Christ, then, indeed, you must burn. It is said that he reached his right hand into the flame and gave to the world this historical statement. »Three score and ten years have I served the Christ, and he has done me no harm but only good. Why should I renounce him now in my old age?« He refused to recant that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Polycarp, when he had ended those words in substance, walked into the flames and was burned to a crisp, and it was during the same period of time when tens of thousands of Christians were cast into prison. We are told that tens of thousands of these men, women, and children were fed to the lions, that they marched proudly with their faces turned toward God into the bloodiest arena and there kneeling down, they committed their souls to the Christ; that the lions with a bound were upon them and crunched their bones and ate their flesh. We are told in this period of time, that the fires and the water and every conceivable form of persecution was used in order to do away with Christianity; but instead of the Christians decreasing, they increased. They were driven into the holes of the earth; – and today, we have found the remains of many of them beneath the catacombs ... hidden from the soldiers, hidden from the secret police ... hidden from the spying eyes, these men and women lived and died in a triumphant faith. I call your attention here to the fact that our Lord, Jesus Christ, said that those days of tribulation will come, be thou faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. 27

  The future of America of which he warns is depicted in not altogether different terms: »One of these fine mornings you men and women will arise with no stocks and no bonds and no home and your backs will be placed against a wall with a machine gun bullet in your heart and in your head.« 28 One may well expect that the audience projects this image upon their foes and thus enjoys it. Thomas almost openly professes this ambivalence towards atrocities in one of his anti-Soviet diatribes: »I want to say that you men and women, you and I are living in the most fearful time of the history of the world. We are living also in the most gracious and most

wonderful time.« 29 This is the agitator's dream, the unification of the horrible and the wonderful, the drunkenness of an annihilation that pretends to be salvation. Fußnoten   1 A German joke, fairly popular in pro-Hitler days, expresses this idea quite appropriately: »The Jews are guilty.« – »No, the bicyclists.« – »why the bicyclists?« – »Why the Jews?« The motive behind this joke, which is by no means very »witty« but strikes at an essential point, should be followed up carefully by counterpropaganda.   2 The mentioning of »all the organizers and secretaries« is apparently the projection of a bureaucratic wish-fantasy on Thomas' part. It is he who always wants to organize, and dreams of having innumerable secretaries.   3 June 16, 1935.   4 June 10, 1935.   5 June 30, 1935.   6 April 25, 1935.   7 April 29, 1935.   8 May 24, 1935.   9 Cf. p. 98, above.   10 June 14, 1935.   11 June 30, 1935.   12 July 14, 1935.   13 June 3, 1935.

  14 Exactly the same expression is used by Luther in his book against the Jews, where he advocates subjecting them to forced labor. (Cf. Institute of Social Research, Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, ed. Max Horkheimer, IX, 1941, p. 128.)   15 June 12, 1935.   16 June 16, 1935.   17 June 2, 1935.   18 June 21, 1935.   19 June 13, 1935.   20 Ibid.   21 July 6, 1935.   22 April 27, 1935.   23 April 14, 1935.   24 April 25, 1935.   25 July 14, 1935.   26 June 9, 1935.   27 June 21, 1935.   28 July 7, 1935.   29 April 21, 1935.  

 Studies in the Authoritarian Personality From T. W. Adorno, Else Frenkel Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford, The Authoritarian Psychology , vol. 1 of Studies in Prejudice , edited by Max Horkheimer and Samuel F. Flowerman (Social Studies Series: Publication No. III). New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950.   The chapters appearing here are those written by Adorno alone or in collaboration with others.

 Chapter I  

Introduction A. The Problem The research to be reported in this volume was guided by the following major hypothesis: that the political, economic, and social convictions of an individual often form a broad and coherent pattern, as if bound together by a »mentality« or »spirit,« and that this pattern is an expression of deep-lying trends in his personality. The major concern was with the potentially fascistic individual, one whose structure is such as to render him particularly susceptible to antidemocratic propaganda. We say »potential« because we have not studied individuals who were avowedly fascistic or who belonged to known fascist organizations. At the time when most of our data were collected fascism had just been defeated in war and, hence, we could not expect to find subjects who would openly identify themselves with it; yet there was no difficulty in finding subjects whose outlook was such as to indicate that they would readily accept fascism if it should become a strong or respectable social movement. In concentrating upon the potential fascist we do not wish to imply that other patterns of personality and ideology might not profitably be studied in the same way. It is our opinion, however, that no politico-social trend imposes a graver threat to our traditional values and institutions than does fascism, and that knowledge of the personality forces that favor its acceptance may ultimately prove useful in combating it. A question may be raised as to why, if we wish to explore new resources for combating fascism, we do not give as much attention to the »potential antifascist.« The answer is that we do study trends that stand in opposition to fascism, but we do not conceive that they constitute any single pattern. It is one of the major findings of the present study that individuals who show extreme susceptibility to fascist propaganda have a great deal in common. (They exhibit numerous characteristics that go together

to form a »syndrome« although typical variations within this major pattern can be distinguished.) Individuals who are extreme in the opposite direction are much more diverse. The task of diagnosing potential fascism and studying its determinants required techniques especially designed for these purposes; it could not be asked of them that they serve as well for various other patterns. Nevertheless, it was possible to distinguish several types of personality structure that seemed particularly resistant to antidemocratic ideas, and these are given due attention in later chapters. If a potentially fascistic individual exists, what, precisely, is he like? What goes to make up antidemocratic thought? What are the organizing forces within the person? If such a person exists, how commonly does he exist in our society? And if such a person exists, what have been the determinants and what the course of his development? These are questions upon which the present research was designed to throw some light. Though the notion that the potentially antidemocratic individual is a totality may be accepted as a plausible hypothesis, some analysis is called for at the start. In most approaches to the problem of political types two essential conceptions may be distinguished: the conception of ideology and the conception of underlying needs in the person. Though the two may be thought of as forming an organized whole within the individual, they may nonetheless be studied separately. The same ideological trends may in different individuals have different sources, and the same personal needs may express themselves in different ideological trends. The term ideology is used in this book, in the way that is common in current literature, to stand for an organization of opinions, attitudes, and values – a way of thinking about man and society. We may speak of an individual's total ideology or of his ideology with respect to different areas of social life: politics, economics, religion, minority groups, and so forth. Ideologies have an existence independent of any single individual; and those which exist at a particular time are results both of historical processes and of contemporary social events. These ideologies have for different individuals, different degrees of appeal, a matter that depends upon the individual's needs and the degree to which these needs are being satisfied or frustrated.

There are, to be sure, individuals who take unto themselves ideas from more than one existing ideological system and weave them into patterns that are more or less uniquely their own. It can be assumed, however, that when the opinions, attitudes, and values of numerous individuals are examined, common patterns will be discovered. These patterns may not in all cases correspond to the familiar, current ideologies, but they will fulfill the definition of ideology given above and in each case be found to have a function within the over-all adjustment of the individual. The present inquiry into the nature of the potentially fascistic individual began with anti-Semitism in the focus of attention. The authors, in common with most social scientists, hold the view that anti-Semitism is based more largely upon factors in the subject and in his total situation than upon actual characteristics of Jews, and that one place to look for determinants of anti-Semitic opinions and attitudes is within the persons who express them. Since this emphasis on personality required a focusing of attention on psychology rather than on sociology or history – though in the last analysis the three can be separated only artificially – there could be no attempt to account for the existence of anti-Semitic ideas in our society. The question was, rather, why is it that certain individuals accept these ideas while others do not? And since from the start the research was guided by the hypotheses stated above, it was supposed (1) that anti-Semitism probably is not a specific or isolated phenomenon but a part of a broader ideological framework, and (2) that an individual's susceptibility to this ideology depends primarily upon his psychological needs. The insights and hypotheses concerning the antidemocratic individual, which are present in our general cultural climate, must be supported by a great deal of painstaking observation, and in many instances by quantification, before they can be regarded as conclusive. How can one say with assurance that the numerous opinions, attitudes, and values expressed by an individual actually constitute a consistent pattern or organized totality? The most intensive investigation of that individual would seem to be necessary. How can one say that opinions, attitudes, and values found in groups of people go together to form patterns, some of which are more common than others? There is no adequate way to proceed other than by actually measuring, in populations, a wide

variety of thought contents and determining by means of standard statistical methods which ones go together. To many social psychologists the scientific study of ideology, as it has been defined, seems a hopeless task. To measure with suitable accuracy a single, specific, isolated attitude is a long and arduous proceeding for both subject and experimenter. (It is frequently argued that unless the attitude is specific and isolated, it cannot properly be measured at all.) How then can we hope to survey within a reasonable period of time the numerous attitudes and ideas that go to make up an ideology? Obviously, some kind of selection is necessary. The investigator must limit himself to what is most significant, and judgments of significance can only be made on the basis of theory. The theories that have guided the present research will be presented in suitable contexts later. Though theoretical considerations had a role at every stage of the work, a beginning had to be made with the objective study of the most observable and relatively specific opinions, attitudes, and values. Opinions, attitudes, and values, as we conceive of them, are expressed more or less openly in words. Psychologically they are »on the surface.« It must be recognized, however, that when it comes to such affect-laden questions as those concerning minority groups and current political issues, the degree of openness with which a person speaks will depend upon the situation in which he finds himself. There may be a discrepancy between what he says on a particular occasion and what he »really thinks.« Let us say that what he really thinks he can express in confidential discussion with his intimates. This much, which is still relatively superficial psychologically, may still be observed directly by the psychologist if he uses appropriate techniques – and this we have attempted to do. It is to be recognized, however, that the individual may have »secret« thoughts which he will under no circumstances reveal to anyone else if he can help it; he may have thoughts which he cannot admit to himself, and he may have thoughts which he does not express because they are so vague and ill-formed that he cannot put them into words. To gain access to these deeper trends is particularly important, for precisely here may lie the individual's potential for democratic or anti-democratic thought and action in crucial situations.

What people say and, to a lesser degree, what they really think depends very largely upon the climate of opinion in which they are living; but when that climate changes, some individuals adapt themselves much more quickly than others. If there should be a marked increase in antidemocratic propaganda, we should expect some people to accept and repeat it at once, others when it seemed that »everybody believed it,« and still others not at all. In other words, individuals differ in their susceptibility to antidemocratic propaganda, in their readiness to exhibit antidemocratic tendencies. It seems necessary to study ideology at this »readiness level« in order to gauge the potential for fascism in this country. Observers have noted that the amount of outspoken anti-Semitism in pre-Hitler Germany was less than that in this country at the present time; one might hope that the potentiality is less in this country, but this can be known only through intensive investigation, through the detailed survey of what is on the surface and the thorough probing of what lies beneath it. A question may be raised as to what is the degree of relationship between ideology and action. If an individual is making antidemocratic propaganda or engaging in overt attacks upon minority group members, it is usually assumed that his opinions, attitudes, and values are congruent with his action; but comfort is sometimes found in the thought that though another individual expresses antidemocratic ideas verbally, he does not, and perhaps will not, put them into overt action. Here, once again, there is a question of potentialities. Overt action, like open verbal expression, depends very largely upon the situation of the moment – something that is best described in socioeconomic and political terms – but individuals differ very widely with respect to their readiness to be provoked into action. The study of this potential is a part of the study of the individual's over-all ideology; to know what kinds and what intensities of belief, attitude, and value are likely to lead to action, and to know what forces within the individual serve as inhibitions upon action are matters of the greatest practical importance. There seems little reason to doubt that ideology-in-readiness (ideological receptivity) and ideology-in-words and in action are essentially the same stuff. The description of an individual's total ideology must portray not only the organization on each level but

organization among levels. What the individual consistently says in public, what he says when he feels safe from criticism, what he thinks but will not say at all, what he thinks but will not admit to himself, what he is disposed to think or to do when various kinds of appeal are made to him – all these phenomena may be conceived of as constituting a single structure. The structure may not be integrated, it may contain contradictions as well as consistencies, but it is organized in the sense that the constituent parts are related in psychologically meaningful ways. In order to understand such a structure, a theory of the total personality is necessary. According to the theory that has guided the present research, personality is a more or less enduring organization of forces within the individual. These persisting forces of personality help to determine response in various situations, and it is thus largely to them that consistency of behavior – whether verbal or physical – is attributable. But behavior, however consistent, is not the same thing as personality; personality lies behind behavior and within the individual. The forces of personality are not responses but readinesses for response; whether or not a readiness will issue in overt expression depends not only upon the situation of the moment but upon what other readinesses stand in opposition to it. Personality forces which are inhibited are on a deeper level than those which immediately and consistently express themselves in overt behavior. What are the forces of personality and what are the processes by which they are organized? For theory as to the structure of personality we have leaned most heavily upon Freud, while for a more or less systematic formulation of the more directly observable and measurable aspects of personality we have been guided primarily by academic psychology. The forces of personality are primarily needs (drives, wishes, emotional impulses) which vary from one individual to another in their quality, their intensity, their mode of gratification, and the objects of their attachment, and which interact with other needs in harmonious or conflicting patterns. There are primitive emotional needs, there are needs to avoid punishment and to keep the good will of the social group, there are needs to maintain harmony and integration within the self. Since it will be granted that opinions, attitudes, and values depend upon human needs, and since personality is essentially an organization of needs, then personality may be regarded as a

determinant of ideological preferences. Personality is not, however, to be hypostatized as an ultimate determinant. Far from being something which is given in the beginning, which remains fixed and acts upon the surrounding world, personality evolves under the impact of the social environment and can never be isolated from the social totality within which it occurs. According to the present theory, the effects of environmental forces in moulding the personality are, in general, the more profound the earlier in the life history of the individual they are brought to bear. The major influences upon personality development arise in the course of child training as carried forward in a setting of family life. What happens here is profoundly influenced by economic and social factors. It is not only that each family in trying to rear its children proceeds according to the ways of the social, ethnic, and religious groups in which it has membership, but crude economic factors affect directly the parents' behavior toward the child. This means that broad changes in social conditions and institutions will have a direct bearing upon the kinds of personalities that develop within a society. The present research seeks to discover correlations between ideology and sociological factors operating in the individual's past – whether or not they continue to operate in his present. In attempting to explain these correlations the relationships between personality and ideology are brought into the picture, the general approach being to consider personality as an agency through which sociological influences upon ideology are mediated. If the role of personality can be made clear, it should be possible better to understand which sociological factors are the most crucial ones and in what ways they achieve their effects. Although personality is a product of the social environment of the past, it is not, once it has developed, a mere object of the contemporary environment. What has developed is a structure within the individual, something which is capable of self-initiated action upon the social environment and of selection with respect to varied impinging stimuli, something which though always modifiable is frequently very resistant to fundamental change. This conception is necessary to explain consistency of behavior in widely varying situations, to explain the persistence of ideological trends in the face of contradicting facts and radically altered social conditions, to explain why people in the same sociological situation

have different or even conflicting views on social issues, and why it is that people whose behavior has been changed through psychological manipulation lapse into their old ways as soon as the agencies of manipulation are removed. The conception of personality structure is the best safeguard against the inclination to attribute persistent trends in the individual to something »innate« or »basic« or »racial« within him. The Nazi allegation that natural, biological traits decide the total being of a person would not have been such a successful political device had it not been possible to point to numerous instances of relative fixity in human behavior and to challenge those who thought to explain them on any basis other than a biological one. Without the conception of personality structure, writers whose approach rests upon the assumption of infinite human flexibility and responsiveness to the social situation of the moment have not helped matters by referring persistent trends which they could not approve to »confusion« or »psychosis« or evil under one name or another. There is, of course, some basis for describing as »pathological« patterns of behavior which do not conform with the most common, and seemingly most lawful, responses to momentary stimuli. But this is to use the term pathological in the very narrow sense of deviation from the average found in a particular context and, what is worse, to suggest that everything in the personality structure is to be put under this heading. Actually, personality embraces variables which exist widely in the population and have lawful relations one to another. Personality patterns that have been dismissed as »pathological« because they were not in keeping with the most common manifest trends or the most dominant ideals within a society, have on closer investigation turned out to be but exaggerations of what was almost universal below the surface in that society. What is »pathological« today may with changing social conditions become the dominant trend of tomorrow. It seems clear then that an adequate approach to the problems before us must take into account both fixity and flexibility; it must regard the two not as mutually exclusive categories but as the extremes of a single continuum along which human characteristics may be placed, and it must provide a basis for understanding the conditions which favor the one extreme or the other. Personality is a concept to account for relative permanence. But it may be

emphasized again that personality is mainly a potential; it is a readiness for behavior rather than behavior itself; although it consists in dispositions to behave in certain ways, the behavior that actually occurs will always depend upon the objective situation. Where the concern is with antidemocratic trends, a delineation of the conditions for individual expression requires an understanding of the total organization of society. It has been stated that the personality structure may be such as to render the individual susceptible to antidemocratic propaganda. It may now be asked what are the conditions under which such propaganda would increase in pitch and volume and come to dominate in press and radio to the exclusion of contrary ideological stimuli, so that what is now potential would become actively manifest. The answer must be sought not in any single personality nor in personality factors found in the mass of people, but in processes at work in society itself. It seems well understood today that whether or not antidemocratic propaganda is to become a dominant force in this country depends primarily upon the situation of the most powerful economic interests, upon whether they, by conscious design or not, make use of this device for maintaining their dominant status. This is a matter about which the great majority of people would have little to say. The present research, limited as it is to the hitherto largely neglected psychological aspects of fascism, does not concern itself with the production of propaganda. It focuses attention, rather, upon the consumer, the individual for whom the propaganda is designed. In so doing it attempts to take into account not only the psychological structure of the individual but the total objective situation in which he lives. It makes the assumption that people in general tend to accept political and social programs which they believe will serve their economic interests. What these interests are depends in each case upon the individual's position in society as defined in economic and sociological terms. An important part of the present research, therefore, was the attempt to discover what patterns of socioeconomic factors are associated with receptivity, and with resistance, to antidemocratic propaganda. At the same time, however, it was considered that economic motives in the individual may not have the dominant and crucial role that is often ascribed to them. If economic self-interest were the

only determinant of opinion, we should expect people of the same socioeconomic status to have very similar opinions, and we should expect opinion to vary in a meaningful way from one socioeconomic grouping to another. Research has not given very sound support for these expectations. There is only the most general similarity of opinion among people of the same socioeconomic status, and the exceptions are glaring; while variations from one socioeconomic group to another are rarely simple or clear-cut. To explain why it is that people of the same socioeconomic status so frequently have different ideologies, while people of a different status often have very similar ideologies, we must take account of other than purely economic needs. More than this, it is becoming increasingly plain that people very frequently do not behave in such a way as to further their material interests, even when it is clear to them what these interests are. The resistance of white-collar workers to organization is not due to a belief that the union will not help them economically; the tendency of the small businessman to side with big business in most economic and political matters cannot be due entirely to a belief that this is the way to guarantee his economic independence. In instances such as these the individual seems not only not to consider his material interests, but even to go against them. It is as if he were thinking in terms of a larger group identification, as if his point of view were determined more by his need to support this group and to suppress opposite ones than by rational consideration of his own interests. Indeed, it is with a sense of relief today that one is assured that a group conflict is merely a clash of economic interests – that each side is merely out to »do« the other – and not a struggle in which deep-lying emotional drives have been let loose. When it comes to the ways in which people appraise the social world, irrational trends stand out glaringly. One may conceive of a professional man who opposes the immigration of Jewish refugees on the ground that this will increase the competition with which he has to deal and so decrease his income. However undemocratic this may be, it is at least rational in a limited sense. But for this man to go on, as do most people who oppose Jews on occupational grounds, and accept a wide variety of opinions, many of which are contradictory, about Jews in general, and to attribute various ills of the world to them, is plainly illogical. And it is just as illogical to

praise all Jews in accordance with a »good« stereotype of them. Hostility against groups that is based upon real frustration, brought about by members of that group, undoubtedly exists, but such frustrating experiences can hardly account for the fact that prejudice is apt to be generalized. Evidence from the present study confirms what has often been indicated: that a man who is hostile toward one minority group is very likely to be hostile against a wide variety of others. There is no conceivable rational basis for such generalization; and, what is more striking, prejudice against, or totally uncritical acceptance of, a particular group often exists in the absence of any experience with members of that group. The objective situation of the individual seems an unlikely source of such irrationality; rather we should seek where psychology has already found the sources of dreams, fantasies, and misinterpretations of the world – that is, in the deep-lying needs of the personality. Another aspect of the individual's situation which we should expect to affect his ideological receptivity is his membership in social groups – occupational, fraternal, religious, and the like. For historical and sociological reasons, such groups favor and promulgate, whether officially or unofficially, different patterns of ideas. There is reason to believe that individuals, out of their needs to conform and to belong and to believe and through such devices as imitation and conditioning, often take over more or less ready-made the opinions, attitudes, and values that are characteristic of the groups in which they have membership. To the extent that the ideas which prevail in such a group are implicitly or explicitly antidemocratic, the individual group member might be expected to be receptive to propaganda having the same general direction. Accordingly, the present research investigates a variety of group memberships with a view to what general trends of thought – and how much variability – might be found in each. It is recognized, however, that a correlation between group membership and ideology may be due to different kinds of determination in different individuals. In some cases it might be that the individual merely repeats opinions which are taken for granted in his social milieu and which he has no reason to question; in other cases it might be that the individual has chosen to join a particular group because it stood for ideals with which he was already in

sympathy. In modern society, despite enormous communality in basic culture, it is rare for a person to be subjected to only one pattern of ideas, after he is old enough for ideas to mean something to him. Some selection is usually made, according, it may be supposed, to the needs of his personality. Even when individuals are exposed during their formative years almost exclusively to a single, closely knit pattern of political, economic, social, and religious ideas, it is found that some conform while others rebel, and it seems proper to inquire whether personality factors do not make the difference. The soundest approach, it would seem, is to consider that in the determination of ideology, as in the determination of any behavior, there is a situational factor and a personality factor, and that a careful weighing of the role of each will yield the most accurate prediction. Situational factors, chiefly economic condition and social group memberships, have been studied intensively in recent researches on opinion and attitude, while the more inward, more individualistic factors have not received the attention they deserve. Beyond this, there is still another reason why the present study places particular emphasis upon the personality. Fascism, in order to be successful as a political movement, must have a mass basis. It must secure not only the frightened submission but the active cooperation of the great majority of the people. Since by its very nature it favors the few at the expense of the many, it cannot possibly demonstrate that it will so improve the situation of most people that their real interests will be served. It must therefore make its major appeal, not to rational self-interest, but to emotional needs – often to the most primitive and irrational wishes and fears. If it be argued that fascist propaganda fools people into believing that their lot will be improved, then the question arises: Why are they so easily fooled? Because, it may be supposed, of their personality structure; because of long-established patterns of hopes and aspirations, fears and anxieties that dispose them to certain beliefs and make them resistant to others. The task of fascist propaganda, in other words, is rendered easier to the degree that antidemocratic potentials already exist in the great mass of people. It may be granted that in Germany economic conflicts and dislocations within the society were such that for this reason alone the triumph of fascism was sooner or later inevitable; but the Nazi leaders did not act as if they believed this to

be so; instead they acted as if it were necessary at every moment to take into account the psychology of the people – to activate every ounce of their antidemocratic potential, to compromise with them, to stamp out the slightest spark of rebellion. It seems apparent that any attempt to appraise the chances of a fascist triumph in America must reckon with the potential existing in the character of the people. Here lies not only the susceptibility to antidemocratic propaganda but the most dependable sources of resistance to it. The present writers believe that it is up to the people to decide whether or not this country goes fascist. It is assumed that knowledge of the nature and extent of antidemocratic potentials will indicate programs for democratic action. These programs should not be limited to devices for manipulating people in such a way that they will behave more democratically, but they should be devoted to increasing the kind of self-awareness and self-determination that makes any kind of manipulation impossible. There is one explanation for the existence of an individual's ideology that has not so far been considered: that it is the view of the world which a reasonable man, with some understanding of the role of such determinants as those discussed above, and with complete access to the necessary facts, will organize for himself. This conception, though it has been left to the last, is of crucial importance for a sound approach to ideology. Without it we should have to share the destructive view, which has gained some acceptance in the modern world, that since all ideologies, all philosophies, derive from nonrational sources there is no basis for saying that one has more merit than another. But the rational system of an objective and thoughtful man is not a thing apart from personality. Such a system is still motivated. What is distinguishing in its sources is mainly the kind of personality organization from which it springs. It might be said that a mature personality (if we may for the moment use this term without defining it) will come closer to achieving a rational system of thought than will an immature one; but a personality is no less dynamic and no less organized for being mature, and the task of describing the structure of this personality is not different in kind from the task of describing any other personality. According to theory, the personality variables which have most to do with determining the objectivity and rationality of an ideology are those

which belong to the ego, that part of the personality which appreciates reality, integrates the other parts, and operates with the most conscious awareness. It is the ego that becomes aware of and takes responsibility for nonrational forces operating within the personality. This is the basis for our belief that the object of knowing what are the psychological determinants of ideology is that men can become more reasonable. It is not supposed, of course, that this will eliminate differences of opinion. The world is sufficiently complex and difficult to know, men have enough real interests that are in conflict with the real interests of other men, there are enough ego-accepted differences in personality to insure that arguments about politics, economics, and religion will never grow dull. Knowledge of the psychological determinants of ideology cannot tell us what is the truest ideology; it can only remove some of the barriers in the way of its pursuit.

 B. Methodology  

1. General Characteristics of the Method To attack the problems conceptualized above required methods for describing and measuring ideological trends and methods for exposing personality, the contemporary situation, and the social background. A particular methodological challenge was imposed by the conception of levels in the person; this made it necessary to devise techniques for surveying opinions, attitudes, and values that were on the surface, for revealing ideological trends that were more or less inhibited and reached the surface only in indirect manifestations, and for bringing to light personality forces that lay in the subject's unconscious. And since the major concern was with patterns of dynamically related factors – something that requires study of the total individual – it seemed that the proper approach was through intensive clinical studies. The significance and practical importance of such studies could not be gauged, however, until there was knowledge of how far it was possible to generalize from them. Thus it was necessary to perform group studies as well as individual studies, and to find ways and means for integrating the two. Individuals were studied by means of interviews and special clinical techniques for revealing underlying wishes, fears, and defenses; groups were studied by means of questionnaires. It was not expected that the clinical studies would be as complete or profound as some which have already been performed, primarily by psychoanalysts, nor that the questionnaires would be more accurate than any now employed by social psychologists. It was hoped, however – indeed it was necessary to our purpose – that the clinical material could be conceptualized in such a way as to permit its being quantified and carried over into group studies, and that the questionnaires could be brought to bear upon areas of response ordinarily left to clinical study. The attempt was made, in other words, to bring methods of traditional social psychology into the service of theories and concepts from the newer dynamic theory of personality and in so doing to make »depth psychological«

phenomena more amenable to mass-statistical treatment, and to make quantitative surveys of attitudes and opinions more meaningful psychologically. In the attempt to integrate clinical and group studies, the two were carried on in close conjunction. When the individual was in the focus of attention, the aim was to describe in detail his pattern of opinions, attitudes, and values and to understand the dynamic factors underlying it, and on this basis to design significant questions for use with groups of subjects. When the group was in the focus of attention, the aim was to discover what opinions, attitudes, and values commonly go together and what patterns of factors in the life histories and in the contemporary situations of the subjects were commonly associated with each ideological constellation; this afforded a basis on which to select individuals for more intensive study: commanding first attention were those who exemplified the common patterns and in whom it could be supposed that the correlated factors were dynamically related. In order to study potentially antidemocratic individuals it was necessary first to identify them. Hence a start was made by constructing a questionnaire and having it filled out anonymously by a large group of people. This questionnaire contained, in addition to numerous questions of fact about the subject's past and present life, a variety of antidemocratic statements with which the subjects were invited to agree or disagree. A number of individuals who showed the greatest amount of agreement with these statements – and, by way of contrast, some who showed the most disagreement or, in some instances, were most neutral – were then studied by means of interviews and other clinical techniques. On the basis of these individual studies the questionnaire was revised, and the whole procedure repeated. The interview was used in part as a check upon the validity of the questionnaire, that is to say, it provided a basis for judging whether people who obtained the highest antidemocratic scores on the questionnaire were usually those who, in a confidential relationship with another person, expressed antidemocratic sentiments with the most intensity. What was more important, however, the clinical studies gave access to the deeper personality factors behind antidemocratic ideology and suggested the means for their investigation on a mass scale. With increasing knowledge of

the underlying trends of which prejudice was an expression, there was increasing familiarity with various other signs or manifestations by which these trends could be recognized. The task then was to translate these manifestations into questionnaire items for use in the next group study. Progress lay in finding more and more reliable indications of the central personality forces and in showing with increasing clarity the relations of these forces to antidemocratic ideological expression.

 2. The Techniques   The questionnaires and clinical techniques employed in the study may be described briefly as follows:   a. THE QUESTIONNAIRE METHOD. The questionnaires were always presented in mimeographed form and filled out anonymously by subjects in groups. Each questionnaire included (1) factual questions, (2) opinion-attitude scales, and (3) »projective« (open answer) questions. 1. The factual questions had to do mainly with past and present group memberships: church preference and attendance, political party, vocation, income, and so on. It was assumed that the answers could be taken at their face value. In selecting the questions, we were guided at the start by hypotheses concerning the sociological correlates of ideology; as the study progressed we depended more and more upon experience with interviewees. 2. Opinion-attitude scales were used from the start in order to obtain quantitative estimates of certain surface ideological trends: anti-Semitism, ethnocentrism, politico-economic conservatism. Later, a scale was developed for the measurement of antidemocratic tendencies in the personality itself. Each scale was a collection of statements, with each of which the subject was asked to express the degree of his agreement or disagreement. Each statement concerned some relatively specific opinion, attitude, or value, and the basis for grouping them within a particular scale was the conception that taken together they expressed a single general trend. The general trends to which the scales pertained were conceived very broadly, as complex systems of thought about wide areas of social living. To define these trends empirically it was necessary to obtain responses to many specific issues – enough to »cover« the area mapped out conceptually – and to show that each of them bore some relation to the whole. This approach stands in contrast to the public opinion poll: whereas the poll is interested primarily in the distribution of opinion with respect to a particular issue, the present interest was to inquire,

concerning a particular opinion, with what other opinions and attitudes it was related. The plan was to determine the existence of broad ideological trends, to develop instruments for their measurement, and then to inquire about their distribution within larger populations. The approach to an ideological area was to appraise its grosser features first and its finer or more specific features later. The aim was to gain a view of the »over-all picture« into which smaller features might later be fitted, rather than to obtain highly precise measures of small details in the hope that these might eventually add up to something significant. Although this emphasis upon breadth and inclusiveness prevented the attainment of the highest degree of precision in measurement, it was nevertheless possible to develop each scale to a point where it met the currently accepted statistical standards. Since each scale had to cover a broad area, without growing so long as to try the patience of the subjects, it was necessary to achieve a high degree of efficiency. The task was to formulate items which would cover as much as possible of the many-sided phenomenon in question. Since each of the trends to be measured was conceived as having numerous components or aspects, there could be no duplication of items; instead it was required that each item express a different feature – and where possible, several features – of the total system. The degree to which items within a scale will »hang together« statistically, and thus give evidence that a single, unified trait is being measured, depends primarily upon the surface similarity of the items – the degree to which they all say the same thing. The present items, obviously, could not be expected to cohere in this fashion; all that could be required statistically of them was that they correlate to a reasonable degree with the total scale. Conceivably, a single component of one of the present systems could be regarded as itself a relatively general trend, the precise measurement of which would require the use of numerous more specific items. As indicated above, however, such concern with highly specific, statistically »pure« factors was put aside, in favor of an attempt to gain a dependable estimate of an over-all system, one which could then be related to other over-all systems in an approach to the totality of major trends within the individual. One might inquire why, if we wish to know the intensity of

some ideological pattern – such as anti-Semitism – within the individual, we do not ask him directly, after defining what we mean. The answer, in part, is that the phenomenon to be measured is so complex that a single response would not go very far toward revealing the important differences among individuals. Moreover, anti-Semitism, ethnocentrism, and politico-economic reactionism or radicalism are topics about which many people are not prepared to speak with complete frankness. Thus, even at this surface ideological level it was necessary to employ a certain amount of indirectness. Subjects were never told what was the particular concern of the questionnaire, but only that they were taking part in a »survey of opinions about various issues of the day.« To support this view of the proceedings, items belonging to a particular scale were interspersed with items from other scales in the questionnaire. It was not possible, of course, to avoid statements prejudicial to minority groups, but care was taken in each case to allow the subject »a way out,« that is to say, to make it possible for him to agree with such a statement while maintaining the belief that he was not »prejudiced« or »undemocratic.« Whereas the scales for measuring surface ideological trends conform, in general, with common practice in sociopsychological research, the scale for measuring potentially anti-democratic trends in the personality represents a new departure. The procedure was to bring together in a scale items which, by hypothesis and by clinical experience, could be regarded as »giveaways« of trends which lay relatively deep within the personality, and which constituted a disposition to express spontaneously (on a suitable occasion), or to be influenced by, fascist ideas. The statements in this scale were not different in form from those which made up the surface ideology scales; they were direct expressions of opinion, of attitudes, or of value with respect to various areas of social living – but areas not usually touched upon in systematic presentations of a politico-socioeconomic point of view. Always interspersed with statements from other scales, they conveyed little or nothing to the subject as to the nature of the real question being pursued. They were, in the main, statements so designed as to serve as rationalizations for irrational tendencies. Two statements included in this scale were the following: (a) »Nowadays with so many different kinds of people moving around

so much and mixing together so freely, one has to be especially careful to protect himself against infection and disease« and (b) »Homosexuality is an especially rotten form of delinquency and ought to be severely punished.« That people who agree with one of these statements show a tendency to agree with the other, and that people who agree with these two statements tend to agree with open antidemocratic statements, e.g., that members of some minority group are basically inferior, is hardly to be explained on the basis of any obvious logical relation among the statements. It seems necessary, rather, to conceive of some underlying central trend which expresses itself in these different ways. Different people might, of course, give the same response to a statement such as the above for different reasons; since it was necessary to give the statements at least a veneer of rationality, it was natural to expect that the responses of some people would be determined almost entirely by the rational aspect rather than by some underlying emotional disposition. For this reason it was necessary to include a large number of scale items and to be guided by the general trend of response rather than by the response to a single statement; for a person to be considered potentially antidemocratic in his underlying dynamic structure, he had to agree with a majority of these scale items. The development of the present scale proceeded in two ways: first, by finding or formulating items which, though they had no manifest connection with open antidemocratic expressions, were nevertheless highly correlated with them; and second, by demonstrating that these »indirect« items were actually expressions of antidemocratic potential within the personality as known from intensive clinical study. 3. Projective Questions, like most other projective techniques, present the subject with ambiguous and emotionally toned stimulus material. This material is designed to allow a maximum of variation in response from one subject to another and to provide channels through which relatively deep personality processes may be expressed. The questions are not ambiguous in their formal structure, but in the sense that the answers are at the level of emotional expression rather than at the level of fact and the subject is not aware of their implications. The responses always have to be interpreted, and their significance is known when their meaningful

relations to other psychological facts about the subject have been demonstrated. One projective question was, »What would you do if you had only six months to live, and could do anything you wanted?« An answer to this question was not regarded as a statement of what the subject would probably do in actuality, but rather an expression having to do with his values, conflicts, and the like. We asked ourselves if this expression was not in keeping with those elicited by other projective questions and by statements in the personality scale. Numerous projective questions were tried in the early stages of the study, and from among them eight were selected for use with most of the larger groups of subjects: they were the questions which taken together gave the broadest view of the subject's personality trends and correlated most highly with surface ideological patterns.   b. CLINICAL TECHNIQUES, 1. The interview was divided roughly into an ideological section and a clinical-genetic section. In the first section the aim was to induce the subject to talk as spontaneously and as freely as possible about various broad ideological topics: politics, religion, minority groups, income, and vocation. Whereas in the questionnaire the subject was limited to the topics there presented and could express himself only by means of the rating scheme offered, here it was important to know what topics he would bring up of his own accord and with what intensity of feeling he would spontaneously express himself. As indicated above, this material afforded a means for insuring that the questionnaire, in its revised forms, more or less faithfully represented »what people were saying« – the topics that were on their minds and the forms of expression that came spontaneously to them – and provided a valid index of antidemocratic trends. The interview covered, of course, a much wider variety of topics, and permitted the expression of more elaborated and differentiated opinions, attitudes, and values, than did the questionnaire. Whereas the attempt was made to distill from the interview material what seemed to be of the most general significance and to arrange it for inclusion in the questionnaire, there was material left over to be exploited by means of individual case studies, qualitative analyses, and crudely quantitative studies of the interview material by itself. The clinical-genetic section of the interview sought to obtain,

first, more factual material about the subject's contemporary situation and about his past than could be got from the questionnaire; second, the freest possible expressions of personal feelings, of beliefs, wishes, and fears concerning himself and his situation and concerning such topics as parents, siblings, friends, and sexual relationships; and third, the subject's conceptions of his childhood environment and of his childhood self. The interview was conducted in such a way that the material gained from it would permit inferences about the deeper layers of the subject's personality. The technique of the interview will be described in detail later. Suffice it to say here that it followed the general pattern of a psychiatric interview that is inspired by a dynamic theory of personality. The interviewer was aided by a comprehensive interview schedule which underwent several revisions during the course of the study, as experience taught what were the most significant underlying questions and what were the most efficient means for evoking material bearing upon them. The interview material was used for estimation of certain common variables lying within the theoretical framework of the study but not accessible to the other techniques. Interview material also provided the main basis for individual case studies, bearing upon the interrelationships among all the significant factors operating within the antidemocratic individual. 2. The Thematic Apperception Test is a well-known projective technique in which the subject is presented with a series of dramatic pictures and asked to tell a story about each of them. The material he produces can, when interpreted, reveal a great deal about his underlying wishes, conflicts, and mechanisms of defense. The technique was modified slightly to suit the present purposes. The material was analyzed quantitatively in terms of psychological variables which are found widely in the population and which were readily brought into relation with other variables of the study. As a part of the case study of an individual an analysis in terms of more unique personality variables was made, the material here being considered in close conjunction with findings from the interview. Though designed to approach different aspects of the person, the several techniques actually were closely related conceptually one to another. All of them permitted quantification and interpretation in terms of variables which fall within a unified theoretical system.

Sometimes two techniques yielded measures of the same variables, and sometimes different techniques were focused upon different variables. In the former case the one technique gave some indication of the validity of the other; in the latter case the adequacy of a technique could be gauged by its ability to produce measures that were meaningfully related to all the others. Whereas a certain amount of repetition was necessary to insure validation, the main aim was to fill out a broad framework and achieve a maximum of scope. The theoretical approach required in each case either that a new technique be designed from the ground up or that an existing one be modified to suit the particular purpose. At the start, there was a theoretical conception of what was to be measured and certain sources – to be described later – which could be drawn upon in devising the original questionnaire form and the preliminary interview schedule. Each technique then evolved as the study progressed. Since each was designed specifically for this study, they could be changed at will as understanding increased, and since an important purpose of the study was the development and testing of effective instruments for diagnosing potential fascism, there was no compulsion to repeat without modification a procedure just in order to accumulate comparable data. So closely interrelated were the techniques that what was learned from any one of them could be applied to the improvement of any other. Just as the clinical techniques provided a basis for enriching the several parts of the questionnaire, so did the accumulating quantitative results indicate what ought to be concentrated upon in the interview; and just as the analysis of scale data suggested the existence of underlying variables which might be approached by means of projective techniques, so did the responses on projective techniques suggest items for inclusion in the scales. The evolution of techniques was expressed both in expansion and in contraction. Expansion was exemplified in the attempt to bring more and more aspects of antidemocratic ideology into the developing picture and in the attempt to explore enough aspects of the potentially antidemocratic personality so that there was some grasp of the totality. Contraction took place continuously in the quantitative procedures as increasing theoretical clarity permitted a boiling down so that the same crucial relationships could be

demonstrated with briefer techniques.

 C. Procedures in the Collection of Data  

1. The Groups Studied a. THE BEGINNING WITH COLLEGE STUDENTS. There were enough practical reasons alone to determine that the present study, which at the beginning had limited resources and limited objectives, should start with college students as research subjects: they were available for the asking, whether singly or in groups, they would cooperate willingly, and they could be reached for retesting without much difficulty. At the same time, other considerations favored the use of college students in a study of ideology. In the first place, the intellectual and educational level is high enough so that there needed to be relatively little restriction with respect to the number and nature of issues that might be raised – a very important matter in a study that emphasized breadth and inclusiveness. One could be fairly certain that college students had opinions about most of the various topics to be considered. In the second place, there could be relative certainty that all the subjects understood the terms of the questions in the same way and that the same responses had uniform significance. In the third place, however large a population one might be able to sample he would probably find that most of his generalizations had in any case to be limited to various relatively homogeneous subclassifications of the total group studied; college students form one group that is relatively quite homogeneous with respect to factors that might be expected to influence ideology. And they represent an important sector of the population, both through their family connections and through their prospective leadership in the community. It is obvious, however, that a study which used only college students as subjects would be seriously limited in its general significance. Of what larger population could a group of students at a state university be regarded as an adequate sample? Would findings on this sample hold for all the students at this university? For college students generally? For young people of the middle class? It depends upon what kind of generalization is to be made. Generalizations about the distribution of particular opinions or about

the average amount of agreement with this or that statement – the kind of information sought in poll studies – could hardly go beyond the students at the university where the survey was made. Results from an Eastern university or from a privately endowed institution might be quite different. The present concern, however, was not so much with questions of distribution as with questions of relationship. For example, there was less interest in what per cent of the general population would agree that »labor unions have grown too powerful« and that »there are too many Jews in government agencies« than in whether or not there was a general relationship between these two opinions. For the study of how opinions, attitudes, and values are organized within the individual, college students had a great deal to offer, particularly in the early stages of the work where the emphasis was upon improving techniques and obtaining first approximations of general relationships. This work could proceed without hindrance so long as the factors to be studied were present, and varied sufficiently widely from one individual to another. In this regard, the limitations of the college sample were that the relatively high intellectual and educational level decreased the number of extremely prejudiced individuals, and that some of the factors which were presumed to influence prejudice were rarely or never present. These considerations made it necessary to study various other groups of subjects. As it turned out, the strength of the various ideological trends was found to vary widely from one group to another, while the relationships found in the college group were very similar to those found elsewhere.   b. THE GENERAL NONCOLLEGE POPULATION FROM WHICH OUR SUBJECTS WERE DRAWN. When it became possible through increased resources to expand the scope of the study, there began an attempt to obtain as subjects a wide variety of adult Americans. The aim was to examine people who possessed in different degrees as many as possible of the sociological variables presumed to be relevant to the study – political, religious, occupational, income, and social group memberships. A list of all the groups (college and noncollege) from whom questionnaires were collected is given in Table 1 (I).  

Table 1 (I)  

Groups From Whom Questionnaires Were Collected a

No. of Cases

 

I. Form 78 (January to May, 1945) University of California Public Speaking Class Women 140 University of California Public Speaking Class Men 52 University of California Extension Psychology Class (adult women) 40 Professional Women (public school teachers, social workers, public health nurses) (San Francisco area) 63 Total 295

 

II. Form 60 (Summer, 1945) University of Oregon Student Women 47 University of Oregon and University 54 of California Student Women University of Oregon and University 57 of California Student Men Oregon Service Club Men (Kiwanis, Lions, 68 Rotary Clubs) (Total questionnaire) 68 Oregon Service Club Men (Form A only) b 60 Total 286

 

III. Forms 45 and 40 (November, 1945, to June, 1946) A. Form 45 University of California Extension Testing Class 59 (adult women) Psychiatric Clinic Patients (men and women) (Langley Porter Clinic of the University of California) 121 San Quentin State Prison Inmates (men) 110 Total 243

 

B. Both Forms 45 and 40 Alameda School for Merchant Marine Officers (men) 343 U.S. Employment Service Veterans (men) 106 Total 449

 

C. Form 40 Working-Class Women: California Labor School 19 United Electrical Workers Union (C.I.O.) 8 Office Workers 11 Longshoremen and Warehousemen (I.L.W.U.) (new members) 10 Federal Housing Project Workers 5 53

 

Working-Class Men: United Electrical Workers Union (C.I.O.) 12 California Labor School 15 Longshoremen and Warehousemen (I.L.W.U.) (new members) 26 United Seamen's Service 8 61

 

Middle-Class Women: Parent-Teachers' Association 46 California Labor School (middle-class members) 11 Suburban Church Group 29 Unitarian Church Group 15 League of Women Voters 17 Upper Middle-Class Women's Club 36 154

 

Middle-Class Men: Parent-Teachers' Association 29 Suburban Church Group 31 California Labor School (middle-class members) 9 69

 

California Service Club Men: Kiwanis Club 40 Rotary Club 23 63

 

George Washington University Women Students 132 Los Angeles Men (classes at University of California and University of Southern California, fraternity group, adult evening class, parents of students, radio writers group) 117 Los Angeles Women (same groupings as above) 130

 

Total 779

 

Total Forms 45 and 40 1,518 Overall Total of All Forms 2,099

 

a In most cases each group taking the questionnaire was treated separately for statistical purposes, e.g., San Quentin Prison Inmates, Psychiatric Clinic Men. However, some groups were too small for this purpose and were therefore combined with other sociologically similar groups. When such combinations occurred, the composition of the overall group is indicated in the table.

 

b Form A included the scale for measuring potentially antidemocratic trends in the personality and half of the scale for measuring politico-economic conservatism.

  The group within which a subject was functioning at the time he filled out the questionnaire was, of course, not necessarily the most important or representative of the various groups to which he belonged. The questionnaire itself was relied upon to give information about the group memberships deemed most relevant to the study, and subjects could be categorized on this basis regardless of the group through which the questionnaires were collected. The emphasis throughout was upon obtaining different kinds of subjects, enough to insure wide variability of opinion and attitude and adequate coverage of the factors supposed to influence ideology. The subjects are in no sense a random sample of the noncollege population nor, since there was no attempt to make a sociological analysis of the community in which they lived, can they be regarded as a representative sample. The progress of the study was not in the direction of broadening the basis for generalization about larger populations, but rather toward the more intensive investigation of »key groups,« that is, groups having the characteristics that were most crucial to the problem at hand. Some groups were chosen because their sociological status was such that they could be expected to play a vital role in a struggle centering around social discrimination, e.g., veterans, service clubs, women's clubs. Other groups were chosen for intensive study because they presented extreme manifestations of the personality variables deemed most crucial for the potentially antidemocratic individual, e.g., prison inmates, psychiatric patients. Save for a few key groups, the subjects were drawn almost

exclusively from the middle socioeconomic class. It was discovered fairly early in the study that the investigation of lower classes would require different instruments and different procedures from those developed through the use of college students and, hence, this was a task that had best be postponed. Groups in which there was a preponderance of minority group members were avoided, and when minority group members happened to belong to an organization which cooperated in the study, their questionnaires were excluded from the calculations. It was not that the ideological trends in minority groups were considered unimportant; it was rather that their investigation involved special problems which lay outside the scope of the present study. The great majority of the subjects of the study lived within the San Francisco Bay area. Concerning this community it may be said that the population increased rapidly during the decade preceding the outbreak of World War II, so that a large proportion were newcomers from all parts of the nation. During the war, when the area took on the aspect of a boom town, the influx was greatly intensified and, hence, it is probable that a large number of the present subjects were people who had recently come from other states. Two large groups were obtained in the Los Angeles area, several smaller groups in Oregon, and one group in Washington, D.C. Unless a person had at least a grammar school education, it was very difficult, if not impossible, for him to fill out the questionnaire properly – to understand the issues set forth in the scales and the instructions for marking the forms. The average educational level of the subjects in the study is about the twelfth grade, there being roughly as many college graduates as there were subjects who had not completed high school. It is important to note that the present samples are heavily weighted with younger people, the bulk of them falling between the ages of twenty and thirty-five. It will be apparent that the subjects of the study taken all together would provide a rather inadequate basis for generalizing about the total population of this country. The findings of the study may be expected to hold fairly well for non-Jewish, white, native-born, middle-class Americans. Where the same relationships appeared repeatedly as different groups – e.g., college students,

women's clubs, prison inmates – came under scrutiny, generalizations may be made with the most certainty. When sections of the population not sampled in the present study are made the subjects of research, it is to be expected that most of the relationships reported in the following chapters will still hold – and that additional ones will be found.

 2. The Distribution and Collection of Questionnaires   In approaching a group from whom questionnaires were to be collected, the first step was to secure the cooperation of the group leadership. This was never difficult when the leader was liberal in his outlook, e.g., the instructor of a class in public speaking, the psychologist at a Maritime School, a minister in the inner councils of a men's service club. The purposes and procedures of the study were explained to him fully, and he then presented the project of filling out the questionnaires to his group. When the group leadership was conservative, the procedure was more difficult. If it were made known that the study had something to do with social discrimination, it was not unusual for great interest in this »important problem« to be expressed at first and then for one delay to follow another until hope of obtaining responses from the group in question had to be abandoned. Among people of this type there appeared to be a conviction that it was best to let sleeping dogs lie, that the best approach to the »race problem« was not to »stir up anything.« A more successful approach to conservative leaders was to present the whole project as a survey of general public opinion, »like a Gallup poll,« being carried forward by a group of scientists at the University, and to count upon the variety and relative mildness of the scale items to prevent undue alarm. In collecting questionnaires from classes of students, whether in regular sessions of the University, in summer school, or in university extension, it was usual for the instructor of the class to handle the whole proceeding himself. In other instances it was usually necessary to combine the administration of the questionnaire with a talk to the group by a member of the study staff. He gave the instructions for filling out the questionnaires, aided in their collection, and then gave a talk on »Gauging Public Opinion,« coming only as close to the real issues of the study as he judged possible without arousing the resistances of his audience. Whether the group was judged to be liberal or not, the questionnaire was always presented to it as a public opinion inventory – not as a study of prejudice. The instructions given to the

groups follow:    

Survey of General Public Opinion: Instructions

We are trying to find out what the general public feels and thinks about a number of important social questions. We are sure you will find the enclosed survey interesting. You will find in it many questions and social issues which you have thought about, read about in newspapers and magazines, and heard about on the radio. This is not an intelligence test nor an Information test. There are no »right« or »wrong« answers. The best answer is your personal opinion. You can be sure that, whatever your opinion may be on a certain issue, there will be many people who agree, many who disagree. And this is what we want to find out: how is public opinion really divided on each of these socially important topics? It must be emphasized that the sponsors of this survey do not necessarily agree or disagree with the statements in it. We have tried to cover a great many points of view. We agree with some of the statements, and disagree with others. Similarly, you will probably find yourself agreeing strongly with some statements, disagreeing just as strongly with others, and being perhaps more neutral about still others. We realize that people are very busy nowadays, and we don't want to take too much of your time. All that we ask is that you: (a) Read each statement carefully and mark it according to your first reaction. It isn't necessary to take a lot of time for any one question. (b) Answer every question. (c) Give your personal point of view. Don't talk the questions over with anyone until you have finished. (d) Be as sincere, accurate, and complete as possible in the limited time and space. This survey works just like a Gallup Poll or an election. As in any other secret ballot, the »voters« who fill it out do not have to give their names.

  The cooperation of the groups, once they were presented with the questionnaire, was excellent, at least 90 per cent of those present usually handing in completed questionnaires. Some members of each group were, of course, absent on the day the questionnaire was administered, but since there was never any advance notice about this part of the program, there is no reason to believe that the responses of these absentees would have been generally different from those of the rest of the group. Subjects who were present but failed to hand in completed questionnaires fall almost entirely into two classes: those who made no attempt to cooperate and those who handed in incomplete questionnaires. It is to be suspected that the

former were more antidemocratic than the average of their group, while the slowness or carelessness of the latter is probably of no significance for ideology. There was one attempt to collect questionnaires by mail. Over 200 questionnaires with complete instructions were mailed to teachers and nurses, together with a letter soliciting their cooperation and covering letters from their superintendents. The return was a disappointing 20 per cent, and this sample was strongly biased in the direction of low scores on the scales for measuring antidemocratic trends.

 3. The Selection of Subjects for Intensive Clinical Study   With a few exceptions, the subjects from a given group who were interviewed and given the Thematic Apperception Test were chosen from among the 25 per cent obtaining the highest and the 25 per cent obtaining the lowest scores (high and low quartiles) on the Ethnocentrism scale. This scale, it seemed, would give the best initial measure of antidemocratic tendencies. If the group from which subjects were to be selected was one which held regular meetings, as was usually the case, the procedure was to collect the questionnaires at one meeting, to obtain the scale scores and decide upon suitable interviewees, and then to solicit further cooperation at the next meeting. In the few cases where the use of a second meeting was impossible, the request for interviewees was made at the time of administering the questionnaire, those willing to be interviewed being asked to indicate how they might be reached. In order to disguise the basis of selection and the purpose of the clinical study, the groups were told that the attempt was being made to carry on a more detailed discussion of opinions and ideas with a few of their number – about 10 per cent – and that people representing the various kinds and degrees of response found in the group were being asked to come for interviews. Anonymity was to be insured for the Interviews as well as for the group survey, if the subject so desired. In order to arrange this, subjects desired for individual study were referred to by the birth date which they had entered on their questionnaires. This could not be done, however, in those cases where subjects were asked to signify at the time of filling out the questionnaire whether or not they were willing to be interviewed. This may have been one reason why the response in these instances was poor. But there were other reasons why subjects of these groups were difficult to interview, and it is to be noted that the great majority of those secured under the birth date arrangement showed no concern about anonymity once their appointments had been made. Subjects were paid $3.00 for the two to three hours they spent in

the clinical sessions. In offering this inducement at the time of the request for interviewees, it was pointed out that this was the only way to insure that the staff of the Study would not be conscience-stricken for taking so much valuable time. The arrangement did indeed have this effect, but what was more important, it was a considerable aid to securing suitable subjects: most of those who scored low on the Ethnocentrism scale would have cooperated anyway, being somewhat attracted to psychology and willing to give their time in a »good cause,« but many of the high scorers made it plain that the money was the determining consideration. In selecting subjects for clinical study the aim was to examine a variety of high and low scorers. Considerable variety was assured by the device of taking a few from most of the different groups studied. Within a given group it was possible to achieve further variety with respect to group memberships and scores on the other scales. There was no attempt, however, to arrange that the percentage of the interviewed subjects having each of various group memberships was the same as that which held for the group from which they were drawn. The question of how well the high and low scorers who were interviewed represent all those who scored high or low on the Ethnocentrism scale is taken up in Chapter IX. [ 1 ] Very few »middle« subjects – the 50 per cent whose scores fall between the high and the low quartiles – were interviewed. It was believed that for the understanding of antidemocratic trends the most important first step was to determine the factors which most clearly distinguished one extreme from the other. In order properly to compare two groups it is necessary to have a minimum of thirty to forty subjects in each group, and since men and women, as it turned out, presented somewhat different problems and had to be treated separately, the study of high- vs. low-scoring men and the study of high- vs. low-scoring women involved four statistical groupings totaling 150. To conduct more interviews than this was for practical reasons impossible. The intensive study of representative middle scorers should form a central part of any future research along the lines of the present study. Since they are more numerous than either extreme, it is especially important to know their democratic or antidemocratic potentialities. The impression gained from a few interviews with middle scorers, and

from the examination of many of their questionnaires, is that they are not indifferent or ignorant with respect to the issues of the scales, or lacking in the kinds of motivation or personality traits found in the extremes. In short, they are in no sense categorically different; they are, as it were, made of the same stuff but in different combinations.

 Fußnoten   [ 1 Else Frenkel-Brunswik, »The Interviews as an Approach to the Prejudiced Personality,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 291–336.]  

 Part I The Measurement of Ideological Trends Chapter VII The Measurement of Implicit Antidemocratic Trends A. Introduction At a certain stage of the study, after considerable work with the A[nti]-S[emitism] and E[thnocentrism] scales had been done, there gradually evolved a plan for constructing a scale that would measure prejudice without appearing to have this aim and without mentioning the name of any minority group. It appeared that such an instrument, if it correlated highly enough with the A-S and E scales, might prove to be a very useful substitute for them. It might be used to survey opinion in groups where »racial questions« were too »ticklish« a matter to permit the introduction of an A-S or E scale, e.g., a group which included many members of one or another ethnic minority. It might be used for measuring prejudice among minority group members themselves. Most important, by circumventing some of the defenses which people employ when asked to express themselves with respect to »race issues,« it might provide a more valid measure of prejudice. The P[olitico-] E[conomic] C[onservatism] scale might have commended itself as an index of prejudice, but its correlations with the A-S and E scales did not approach being high enough. Moreover, the items of this scale were too explicitly ideological, that is, they might be too readily associated with prejudice in some logical or automatic way. What was needed was a collection of items each of which was correlated with A-S and E but which did not come from an area ordinarily covered in discussions of political, economic, and social matters. The natural place to turn was to the clinical material already collected, where, particularly in the

subjects' discussions of such topics as the self, family, sex, interpersonal relations, moral and personal values, there had appeared numerous trends which, it appeared, might be connected with prejudice. At this point the second – and major – purpose of the new scale began to take shape. Might not such a scale yield a valid estimate of antidemocratic tendencies at the personality level? It was clear, at the time the new scale was being planned, that anti-Semitism and ethnocentrism were not merely matters of surface opinion, but general tendencies with sources, in part at least, deep within the structure of the person. Would it not be possible to construct a scale that would approach more directly these deeper, often unconscious forces? If so, and if the scale could be validated by means of later clinical studies, would we not have a better estimate of antidemocratic potential than could be obtained from the scales that were more openly ideological? The prospect was intriguing. And experience with clinical techniques and with the other scales gave considerable promise of success. In attempting to account for the generality of A-S and of E, to explain what it was that made the diverse items of these scales go together, we had been led to the formulation of enduring psychological dispositions in the person – stereotypy, conventionalism, concern with power, and so forth. Study of the ideological discussions of individuals, e.g., Mack and Larry, [ 1 ] had had the same outcome: there appeared to be dispositions in each individual that were reflected in his discussion of each ideological area as well as in his discussion of matters not ordinarily regarded as ideological. And when clinical-genetic material was examined, it appeared that these dispositions could frequently be referred to deep-lying personality needs. The task then was to formulate scale items which, though they were statements of opinions and attitudes and had the same form as those appearing in ordinary opinion-attitude questionnaires, would actually serve as »giveaways« of underlying antidemocratic trends in the personality. This would make it possible to carry over into group studies the insights and hypotheses derived from clinical investigation; it would test whether we could study on a mass scale features ordinarily regarded as individualistic and qualitative. This second purpose – the quantification of antidemocratic trends at the level of personality – did not supersede the first, that of

measuring anti-Semitism and ethnocentrism without mentioning minority groups or current politico-economic issues. Rather, it seemed that the two might be realized together. The notion was that A-S and E would correlate with the new scale because the A-S and E responses were strongly influenced by the underlying trends which the new scale sought to get at by a different approach. Indeed, if such a correlation could be obtained it could be taken as evidence that anti-Semitism and ethnocentrism were not isolated or specific or entirely superficial attitudes but expressions of persistent tendencies in the person. This would depend, however, upon how successful was the attempt to exclude from the new scale items which might have been so frequently or so automatically associated with anti-Semitism or ethnocentrism that they might be regarded as aspects of the same political »line.« In any case, however, it seemed that the discovery of opinions and attitudes, in various areas other than the usual politico-socioeconomic one, that were associated with anti-Semitism and ethnocentrism, would give a more comprehensive grasp of the prejudiced outlook on the world. The new instrument was termed the F scale, to signify its concern with implicit prefascist tendencies. On theoretical grounds it was expected that the correlations of F with A-S and E would not approach unity. It was hoped that the F scale would catch some of the antidemocratic potential that might not be expressed when subjects responded to items which dealt directly with hostility toward minority groups. True, the items of the present A-S and E scales were, for the most part, so formulated as to allow the subject to express prejudice while maintaining the feeling that he was being democratic. Yet it was recognized that a subject might score relatively low on A-S or E and still, in the interview, where a confidential relationship was established and the interviewer was very permissive, reveal that he was prejudiced. More than this, it had to be admitted that a subject might refuse altogether to express hostility against minority groups and yet reveal features, e.g., a tendency to think of such groups in a stereotyped way or a tendency moralistically to reject social groups other than ethnic ones, which had to be taken as susceptibility to antidemocratic propaganda. If the F scale were to be regarded as a measure of antidemocratic potential – something which might or might not be expressed in open hostility against outgroups – then it

could not be perfectly correlated with A-S or E. Rather, the demand to be made of it was that it single out individuals who in intensive clinical study revealed themselves to be receptive to antidemocratic propaganda. Although it was not possible within the scope of the study to use the F scale alone as the basis for selecting interviewees, it was possible to relate F scale score to various other indices of antidemocratic personality trends as brought to light by other techniques. Such trends, it seemed, could exist in the absence of high A-S or E scores. However, the distinction between potential and manifest should not be overdrawn. Given emotionally determined antidemocratic trends in the person, we should expect that in general they would be evoked by the A-S and E items, which were designed for just this purpose, as well as by the F scale and other indirect methods. The person who was high on F but not on A-S or E would be the exception, whose inhibitions upon the expression of prejudice against minorities would require special explanation.

 B. Construction of the Fascism (F) Scale  

1. The Underlying Theory The 38 items of the original F scale are shown in Table 1 (VII), numbered in the order of their appearance on Form 78. If the reader considers that most of what has gone before in this volume was either known or thought about before construction of the F scale began, it will be apparent that in devising the scale we did not proceed in a strictly empirical fashion. We did not consider starting with hundreds of items chosen more or less at random and then seeing by trial and error which ones might be associated with A-S and E. For every item there was a hypothesis, sometimes several hypotheses, stating what might be the nature of its connection with prejudice.   Table 1 (VII)  

The F Scale: Form 78

2. Although many people may scoff, it may yet be shown that astrology can explain a lot of things. 3. America is getting so far from the true American way of life that force may be necessary to restore it. 6. It is only natural and right that women be restricted in certain ways in which men have more freedom. 9. Too many people today are living in an unnatural, soft way; we should return to the fundamentals, to a more red- blooded, active way of life. 10. It is more than a remarkable coincidence that Japan had an earthquake on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1944. 12. The modern church, with its many rules and hypocrisies, does not appeal to the deeply religious person; it appeals mainly to the childish, the insecure, and the uncritical. 14. After we finish off the Germans and Japs, we ought to concentrate on other enemies of the human race such as rats, snakes, and germs. 17. Familiarity breeds contempt. 19. One should avoid doing things in public which appear wrong to others, even though one knows that these things are really all right. 20. One of the main values of progressive education is that it gives the child great freedom in expressing those natural impulses and desires so often

frowned upon by conventional middle-class society. 23. He is, indeed, contemptible who does not feel an undying love, gratitude, and respect for his parents. 24. Today everything is unstable; we should be prepared for a period of constant change, conflict, and upheaval. 28. Novels or stories that tell about what people think and feel are more interesting than those which contain mainly action, romance, and adventure. 30. Reports of atrocities in Europe have been greatly exaggerated for propaganda purposes. 31. Homosexuality is a particularly rotten form of delinquency and ought to be severely punished. 32. It is essential for learning or effective work that our teachers or bosses outline in detail what is to be done and exactly how to go about it. 35. There are some activities so flagrantly un-American that, when responsible officials won't take the proper steps, the wide-awake citizen should take the law into his own hands. 38. There is too much emphasis in college on intellectual and theoretical topics, not enough emphasis on practical matters and on the homely virtues of living. 39. Every person should have a deep faith in some supernatural force higher than himself to which he gives total allegiance and whose decisions he does not question. 42. No matter how they act on the surface, men are interested in women for only one reason. 43. Sciences like chemistry, physics, and medicine have carried men very far, but there are many important things that can never possibly be understood by the human mind. 46. The sexual orgies of the old Greeks and Romans are nursery school stuff compared to some of the goings-on in this country today, even in circles where people might least expect it. 47. No insult to our honor should ever go unpunished. 50. Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn. 53. There are some things too intimate or personal to talk about even with one's closest friends. 55. Although leisure is a fine thing, it is good hard work that makes life interesting and worthwhile. 56. After the war, we may expect a crime wave; the control of gangsters and ruffians will become a major social problem. 58. What a man does is not so important so long as he does it well. 59. Human nature being what it is, there will always be war and conflict. 60. Which of the following are the most important for a person to have or to be? Mark X the three most important.

 

artistic and sensuous popular, good personality

drive, determination, will power broad, humanitarian social outlook neatness and good manners sensitivity and understanding efficiency, practicality, thrift intellectual and serious emotional expressiveness, warmth, intimacy kindness and charity

 

65. It is entirely possible that this series of wars and conflicts will be ended once and for all by a world-destroying earthquake, flood, or other catastrophe. 66. Books and movies ought not to deal so much with the sordid and seamy side of life; they ought to concentrate on themes that are entertaining or uplifting. 67. When you come right down to it, it's human nature never to do anything without an eye to one's own profit. 70. To a greater extent than most people realize, our lives are governed by plots hatched in secret by politicians. 73. Nowadays when so many different kinds of people move around so much and mix together so freely, a person has to be especially careful to protect himself against infection and disease. 74. What this country needs is fewer laws and agencies, and more courageous, tireless, devoted leaders whom the people can put their faith in. 75. Sex crimes, such as rape and attacks on children, deserve more than mere imprisonment; such criminals ought to be publicly whipped. 77. No sane, normal, decent person could ever think of hurting a close friend or relative.

  The major source of these hypotheses was the research already performed in the present study. Available for the purpose was the following material: results, such as those given in preceding chapters, from the A-S, E, and PEC scales; numerous correlates of E derived from questionnaire studies, that is, from responses to factual and short essay questions pertaining to such topics as religion, war, ideal society, and so forth; early results from projective questions; finally, and by far the most important, material from the interviews and the Thematic Apperception Tests. Another important source of items was research in fields allied to the present one in which the authors had previously had a part. Principal among these were several studies performed at the University of California on personality in relation to war morale and ideology, 2 and researches of the Institute of Social Research such as content analyses of speeches of anti-Semitic agitators and a study on anti-Semitic workers. 3 Finally, there was the general literature on anti-Semitism

and fascism, embracing both empirical and theoretical studies. It will have been recognized that the interpretation of the material of the present study was guided by a theoretical orientation that was present at the start. The same orientation played the most crucial role in the preparation of the F scale. Once a hypothesis had been formulated concerning the way in which some deep-lying trend in the personality might express itself in some opinion or attitude that was dynamically, though not logically, related to prejudice against outgroups, a preliminary sketch for an item was usually not far to seek: a phrase from the daily newspaper, an utterance by an interviewee, a fragment of ordinary conversation was usually ready at hand. (As will be seen, however, the actual formulation of an item was a technical proceeding to which considerable care had to be devoted.) As to what kinds of central personality trends we might expect to be the most significant, the major guide, as has been said, was the research which had gone before; they were the trends which, as hypothetical constructs, seemed best to explain the consistency of response on the foregoing scales, and which emerged from the analysis of clinical material as the likely sources of the coherence found in individual cases. Most of these trends have been mentioned before, usually when it was necessary to do so in order to give meaning to obtained results. For example, when it was discovered that the anti-Semitic individual objects to Jews on the ground that they violate conventional moral values, one interpretation was that this individual had a particularly strong and rigid adherence to conventional values, and that this general disposition in his personality provided some of the motivational basis for anti-Semitism, and at the same time expressed itself in other ways, e.g., in a general tendency to look down on and to punish those who were believed to be violating conventional values. This interpretation was supported by results from the E and PEC scales, where it was shown that items expressive of conventionalism were associated with more manifest forms of prejudice. Accordingly, therefore, adherence to conventional values came to be thought of as a variable in the person – something which could be approached by means of scale items of the F type and shown to be related functionally to various manifestations of prejudice. Similarly, a consideration of E-scale results strongly suggested that underlying

several of the prejudiced responses was a general disposition to glorify, to be subservient to and remain uncritical toward authoritative figures of the ingroup and to take an attitude of punishing outgroup figures in the name of some moral authority. Hence, authoritarianism assumed the proportions of a variable worthy to be investigated in its own right. In the same way, a number of such variables were derived and defined, and they, taken together, made up the basic content of the F scale. Each was regarded as a more or less central trend in the person which, in accordance with some dynamic process, expressed itself on the surface in ethnocentrism as well as in diverse psychologically related opinions and attitudes. These variables are listed below, together with a brief definition of each.  

a. Conventionalism. Rigid adherence to conventional, middle-class values. b. Authoritarian submission. Submissive, uncritical attitude toward idealized moral authorities of the ingroup. c. Authoritarian aggression. Tendency to be on the lookout for, and to condemn, reject, and punish people who violate conventional values. d. Anti-intraception. Opposition to the subjective, the imaginative, the tender-minded. e. Superstition and stereotypy. The belief in mystical determinants of the individual's fate; the disposition to think in rigid categories. f. Power and »toughness.« Preoccupation with the dominance-submission, strong-weak, leader-follower dimension; identification with power figures; overemphasis upon the conventionalized attributes of the ego; exaggerated assertion of strength and toughness. g. Destructiveness and cynicism. Generalized hostility, vilification of the human. h. Projectivity. The disposition to believe that wild and dangerous things go on in the world; the projection outwards of unconscious emotional impulses. i. Sex. Exaggerated concern with sexual »goings-on.«

  These variables were thought of as going together to form a single syndrome, a more or less enduring structure in the person that renders him receptive to antidemocratic propaganda. One might say, therefore, that the F scale attempts to measure the potentially antidemocratic personality. This does not imply that all the features of this personality pattern are touched upon in the scale, but only that the scale embraces a fair sample of the ways in which this pattern characteristically expresses itself. Indeed, as the study went on, numerous additional features of the pattern, as well as variations

within the over-all pattern, suggested themselves – and it was regretted that a second F scale could not have been constructed in order to carry these explorations further. It is to be emphasized that one can speak of personality here only to the extent that the coherence of the scale items can be better explained on the ground of an inner structure than on the ground of external association. The variables of the scale may be discussed in more detail, with emphasis on their organization and the nature of their relations to ethnocentrism. As each variable is introduced, the scale items deemed to be expressive of it are presented. It will be noted, as the variables are taken up in turn, that the same item sometimes appears under more than one heading. This follows from our approach to scale construction. In order efficiently to cover a wide area it was necessary to formulate items that were maximally rich, that is, pertinent to as much as possible of the underlying theory – hence a single item was sometimes used to represent two, and sometimes more, different ideas. It will be noted also that different variables are represented by different numbers of items. This is for the reason that the scale was designed with first attention to the whole pattern into which the variables fitted, some with more important roles than others.   a. Conventionalism 12. The modern church, with its many rules and hypocrisies, does not appeal to the deeply religious person; it appeals mainly to the childish, the insecure, and the uncritical. 19. One should avoid doing things in public which appear wrong to others, even though one knows that these things are really all right. 38. There is too much emphasis in colleges on intellectual and theoretical topics, not enough emphasis on practical matters and on the homely virtues of living. 55. Although leisure is a fine thing, it is good hard work that makes life interesting and worthwhile. 58. What a man does is not so important so long as he does it well. 60. Which of the following are the most important for a person to have or to be? Mark X the three most important.

 

artistic and sensuous popular, good personality drive, determination, will power broad, humanitarian social outlook neatness and good manners

sensitivity and understanding efficiency, practicality, thrift intellectual and serious emotional expressiveness, warmth, intimacy kindness and charity

  It is a well-known hypothesis that susceptibility to fascism is most characteristically a middle-class phenomenon, that it is »in the culture« and, hence, that those who conform the most to this culture will be the most prejudiced. Items referring to the holding of conventional values were included in order to gather data bearing on this hypothesis. Many of the early findings of the present study, however, gave evidence that the matter was not quite so simple. The correlation between conventional values and prejudice seemed to be positive but not very high; whereas unconventional people tended to be free of prejudice, it was clear that some conventional people were prejudiced while others were not. It seemed that, among the conventional group, what might make the difference was the deeper source of the conventionality, or rather the type of broader personality structure within which it had a functional role. If the adherence to conventional values was an expression of a fully established individual conscience, then we should expect no necessary connection between these values and antidemocratic potential. The same standards which render the individual easily offended by what he conceives to be the morally loose behavior of unassimilated minority group members or of »lower-class« people, would – if they are well internalized – cause him to resist the violence and delinquency which characterize the advanced stages of fascism. If, on the other hand, adherence to conventional values is determined by contemporary external social pressure, if it is based upon the individual's adherence to the standards of the collective powers with which he, for the time being, is identified, then we should expect a close association with antidemocratic receptivity. It is this latter state of affairs that we wish to call conventionalism – and to distinguish from mere acceptance of conventional values. The conventionalistic individual could in good conscience follow the dictates of the external agency wherever they might lead him and, moreover, he would be capable of totally exchanging one set of standards for another quite different one – as in a conversion from official Communism to Catholicism.

The scale items listed under Conventionalism afford the subject an opportunity to reveal whether or not his adherence to conventional values is of the rigid, absolutist character just described. For example, this would seem to be indicated by a mark of +3 on the item, »Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn.« However, a sound decision on this matter would depend on the individual's responses to items in the other categories. For example, extreme conventionalism going with a strong inclination to punish those who violate conventional values is a different thing from conventional values associated with a philosophy of live and let live. In other words, the meaning of a high score on this variable, as on any of the others, is to be known from the broader context within which it occurs.  

b. Authoritarian Submission 20. One of the main values of progressive education is that it gives the child great freedom in expressing those natural impulses and desires so often frowned upon by conventional middle-class society. 23. He is indeed contemptible who does not feel an undying love, gratitude, and respect for his parents. 32. It is essential for learning or effective work that our teachers or bosses outline in detail what is to be done and exactly how to go about it. 39. Every person should have a deep faith in some supernatural force higher than himself to which he gives total allegiance and whose decisions he does not question. 43. Sciences like chemistry, physics, and medicine have carried men very far, but there are many important things that can never possibly be understood by the human mind. 50. Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn. 74. What this country needs is fewer laws and agencies, and more courageous, tireless, devoted leaders whom the people can put their faith in. 77. No sane, normal, decent person could ever think of hurting a close friend or relative.

  Submission to authority, desire for a strong leader, subservience of the individual to the state, and so forth, have so frequently and, as it seems to us, correctly, been set forth as important aspects of the Nazi creed that a search for correlates of prejudice had naturally to take these attitudes into account. 4 These attitudes have indeed been so regularly mentioned in association with anti-Semitism that it was

particularly difficult to formulate items that would express the underlying trend and still be sufficiently free of logical or direct relations to prejudice – and we cannot claim to have been entirely successful. Direct references to dictatorship and political figures were avoided for the most part, and the main emphasis was on obedience, respect, rebellion, and relations to authority in general. Authoritarian submission was conceived of as a very general attitude that would be evoked in relation to a variety of authority figures – parents, older people, leaders, supernatural power, and so forth. The attempt was made to formulate the items in such a way that agreement with them would indicate not merely a realistic, balanced respect for valid authority but an exaggerated, all-out, emotional need to submit. This would be indicated, it seemed, by agreement that obedience and respect for authority were the most important virtues that children should learn, that a person should obey without question the decisions of a supernatural power, and so forth. It was considered that here, as in the case of conventionalism, the subservience to external agencies was probably due to some failure in the development of an inner authority, i.e., conscience. Another hypothesis was that authoritarian submission was commonly a way of handling ambivalent feelings toward authority figures: underlying hostile and rebellious impulses, held in check by fear, lead the subject to overdo in the direction of respect, obedience, gratitude, and the like. It seems clear that authoritarian submission by itself contributes largely to the antidemocratic potential by rendering the individual particularly receptive to manipulation by the strongest external powers. The immediate connection of this attitude with ethnocentrism has been suggested in earlier chapters: hostility against ingroup authorities, originally the parents, has had to be repressed; the »bad« aspects of these figures – that they are unfair, self-seeking, dominating – are then seen as existing in outgroups, who are charged with dictatorship, plutocracy, desire to control, and so forth. And this displacement of negative imagery is not the only way in which the repressed hostility is handled; it seems often to find expression in authoritarian aggression.   c. Authoritarian Aggression

6. It is only natural and right that women be restricted in certain ways in which men have more freedom. 23. He is indeed contemptible who does not feel an undying love, gratitude, and respect for his parents. 31. Homosexuality is a particularly rotten form of delinquency and ought to be severely punished. 47. No insult to our honor should ever go unpunished. 75. Sex crimes, such as rape and attacks on children, deserve more than mere imprisonment; such criminals ought to be publicly whipped.

  The individual who has been forced to give up basic pleasures and to live under a system of rigid restraints, and who there-fore feels put upon, is likely not only to seek an object upon which he can »take it out« but also to be particularly annoyed at the idea that another person is »getting away with something.« Thus, it may be said that the present variable represents the sadistic component of authoritarianism just as the immediately foregoing one represents its masochistic component. It is to be expected, therefore, that the conventionalist who cannot bring himself to utter any real criticism of accepted authority will have a desire to condemn, reject, and punish those who violate these values. As the emotional life which this person regards as proper and a part of himself is likely to be very limited, so the impulses, especially sexual and aggressive ones, which remain unconscious and ego-alien are likely to be strong and turbulent. Since in this circumstance a wide variety of stimuli can tempt the individual and so arouse his anxiety (fear of punishment), the list of traits, behavior patterns, individuals, and groups that he must condemn grows very long indeed. It has been suggested before that this mechanism might lie behind the ethnocentric rejection of such groups as zootsuiters, foreigners, other nations; it is here hypothesized that this feature of ethnocentrism is but a part of a more general tendency to punish violators of conventional values: homosexuals, sex offenders, people with bad manners, etc. Once the individual has convinced himself that there are people who ought to be punished, he is provided with a channel through which his deepest aggressive impulses may be expressed, even while he thinks of himself as thoroughly moral. If his external authorities, or the crowd, lend their approval to this form of aggression, then it may take the most violent forms, and it may persist after the conventional values, in the name of which it was undertaken, have been lost from

sight. One might say that in authoritarian aggression, hostility that was originally aroused by and directed toward ingroup authorities is displaced onto outgroups. This mechanism is superficially similar to but essentially different from a process that has often been referred to as »scapegoating.« According to the latter conception, the individual's aggression is aroused by frustration, usually of his economic needs; and then, being unable due to intellectual confusion to tell the real causes of his difficulty, he lashes out about him, as it were, venting his fury upon whatever object is available and not too likely to strike back. While it is granted that this process has a role in hostility against minority groups, it must be emphasized that according to the present theory of displacement, the authoritarian must, out of an inner necessity, turn his aggression against outgroups. He must do so because he is psychologically unable to attack ingroup authorities, rather than because of intellectual confusion regarding the source of his frustration. If this theory is correct, then authoritarian aggression and authoritarian submission should turn out to be highly correlated. Furthermore, this theory helps to explain why the aggression is so regularly justified in moralistic terms, why it can become so violent and lose all connection with the stimulus which originally set it off. Readiness to condemn other people on moral grounds may have still another source: it is not only that the authoritarian must condemn the moral laxness that he sees in others, but he is actually driven to see immoral attributes in them whether this has a basis in fact or not. This is a further device for countering his own inhibited tendencies; he says to himself, as it were: »I am not bad and deserving of punishment, he is.« In other words the individual's own unacceptable impulses are projected onto other individuals and groups who are then rejected. Projectivity as a variable is dealt with more fully below. Conventionalism, authoritarian submission, and authoritarian aggression all have to do with the moral aspect of life – with standards of conduct, with the authorities who enforce these standards, with offenders against them who deserve to be punished. We should expect that, in general, subjects who score high on one of these variables will score high on the others also, inasmuch as all three can be understood as expressions of a particular kind of

structure within the personality. The most essential feature of this structure is a lack of integration between the moral agencies by which the subject lives and the rest of his personality. One might say that the conscience or superego is incompletely integrated with the self or ego, the ego here being conceived of as embracing the various self-controlling and self-expressing functions of the individual. It is the ego that governs the relations between self and outer world, and between self and deeper layers of the personality; the ego undertakes to regulate impulses in a way that will permit gratification without inviting too much punishment by the superego, and it seeks in general to carry out the activities of the individual in accordance with the demands of reality. It is a function of the ego to make peace with conscience, to create a larger synthesis within which conscience, emotional impulses, and self operate in relative harmony. When this synthesis is not achieved, the superego has somewhat the role of a foreign body within the personality, and it exhibits those rigid, automatic, and unstable aspects discussed above. There is some reason to believe that a failure in superego internalization is due to weakness in the ego, to its inability to perform the necessary synthesis, i.e., to integrate the superego with itself. Whether or not this is so, ego weakness would seem to be a concomitant of conventionalism and authoritarianism. Weakness in the ego is expressed in the inability to build up a consistent and enduring set of moral values within the personality; and it is this state of affairs, apparently, that makes it necessary for the individual to seek some organizing and coordinating agency outside of himself. Where such outside agencies are depended upon for moral decisions one may say that the conscience is externalized. Although conventionalism and authoritarianism might thus be regarded as signs of ego weakness, it seemed worthwhile to seek other, more direct, means for estimating this trend in personality, and to correlate this trend with the others. Ego weakness would, it seemed, be expressed fairly directly in such phenomena as opposition to introspection, in superstition and stereotypy, and in overemphasis upon the ego and its supposed strength. The following three variables deal with these phenomena.   d. Anti-intraception

28. Novels or stories that tell about what people think and feel are more interesting than those which contain mainly action, romance, and adventure. 38. There is too much emphasis in colleges on intellectual and theoretical topics, not enough emphasis on practical matters and on the homely virtues of living. 53. There are some things too intimate or personal to talk about even with one's closest friends. 55. Although leisure is a fine thing, it is good hard work that makes life interesting and worthwhile. 58. What a man does is not so important so long as he does it well. 66. Books and movies ought not to deal so much with the sordid and seamy side of life; they ought to concentrate on themes that are entertaining or uplifting.

  Intraception is a term introduced by Murray 5 to stand for »the dominance of feelings, fantasies, speculations, aspirations – an imaginative, subjective human outlook.« The opposite of intraception is extraception, »a term that describes the tendency to be determined by concrete, clearly observable, physical conditions (tangible, objective facts).« The relations of intraception/extraception to ego weakness and to prejudice are probably highly complex, and this is not the place to consider them in detail. It seems fairly clear, however, that anti -intraception, an attitude of impatience with and opposition to the subjective and tender-minded, might well be a mark of the weak ego. The extremely anti-intraceptive individual is afraid of thinking about human phenomena because he might, as it were, think the wrong thoughts; he is afraid of genuine feeling because his emotions might get out of control. Out of touch with large areas of his own inner life, he is afraid of what might be revealed if he, or others, should look closely at himself. He is therefore against »prying,« against concern with what people think and feel, against unnecessary »talk«; instead he would keep busy, devote himself to practical pursuits, and instead of examining an inner conflict, turn his thoughts to something cheerful. An important feature of the Nazi program, it will be recalled, was the defamation of everything that tended to make the individual aware of himself and his problems; not only was »Jewish« psychoanalysis quickly eliminated but every kind of psychology except aptitude testing came under attack. This general attitude easily leads to a devaluation of the human and an

overevaluation of the physical object; when it is most extreme, human beings are looked upon as if they were physical objects to be coldly manipulated – even while physical objects, now vested with emotional appeal, are treated with loving care.  

e. Superstition and Stereotypy 2. Although many people may scoff, it may yet be shown that astrology can explain a lot of things. 10. It is more than a remarkable coincidence that Japan had an earthquake on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1944. 39. Every person should have a deep faith in some supernatural force higher than himself to which he gives total allegiance and whose decisions he does not question. 43. Sciences like chemistry, physics, and medicine have carried men very far, but there are many important things that can never possibly be understood by the human mind. 65. It is entirely possible that this series of wars and conflicts will be ended once and for all by a world-destroying earthquake, flood, or other catastrophe.

  Superstitiousness, the belief in mystical or fantastic external determinants of the individual's fate, and stereotypy, 6 the disposition to think in rigid categories, have been mentioned so frequently in the foregoing chapters and are so obviously related to ethnocentrism that they need little discussion here. A question that must be raised concerns the relations of these trends to general intelligence – and the relations of intelligence to ethnocentrism. Probably superstition and stereotypy tend to go with low intelligence, but low intelligence appears to be correlated with ethnocentrism to only a slight degree (see Chapter VIII). [ 7 ] It appears likely that superstition and stereotypy embrace, over and above the mere lack of intelligence in the ordinary sense, certain dispositions in thinking which are closely akin to prejudice, even though they might not hamper intelligent performance in the extraceptive sphere. These dispositions can be understood, in part at least, as expressions of ego weakness. Stereotypy is a form of obtuseness particularly in psychological and social matters. It might be hypothesized that one reason why people in modern society – even those who are otherwise »intelligent« or »informed« – resort to primitive, oversimplified explanations of human events is that so many of the ideas and observations needed for an adequate account

are not allowed to enter into the calculations: because they are affect-laden and potentially anxiety-producing, the weak ego cannot include them within its scheme of things. More than this, those deeper forces within the personality which the ego cannot integrate with itself are likely to be projected onto the outer world; this is a source of bizarre ideas concerning other peoples' behavior and concerning the causation of events in nature. Superstitiousness indicates a tendency to shift responsibility from within the individual onto outside forces beyond one's control; it indicates that the ego might already have »given up,« that is to say, renounced the idea that it might determine the individual's fate by overcoming external forces. It must, of course, be recognized that in modern industrial society the capacity of the individual to determine what happens to himself has actually decreased, so that items referring to external causation might easily be realistic and hence of no significance for personality. It seemed necessary, therefore, to select items that would express ego weakness in a nonrealistic way by making the individual's fate dependent on more or less fantastic factors.   f. Power and »Toughness« 9. Too many people today are living in an unnatural, soft way; we should return to the fundamentals, to a more red-blooded, active way of life. 35. There are some activities so flagrantly un-American that, when responsible officials won't take the proper steps, the wide-awake citizen should take the law into his own hands. 47. No insult to our honor should ever go unpunished. 70. To a greater extent than most people realize, our lives are governed by plots hatched in secret by politicians. 74. What this country needs is fewer laws and agencies, and more courageous, tireless, devoted leaders whom the people can put their faith in.

  This variable refers, in the first place, to overemphasis upon the conventionalized attributes of the ego. The underlying hypothesis is that overdisplay of toughness may reflect not only the weakness of the ego but also the magnitude of the task it has to perform, that is to say, the strength of certain kinds of needs which are proscribed in the subject's culture. The relations of ego and impulse, then, are at least as close as the relations of ego and conscience. Nevertheless,

they may be separated for purposes of analysis, and other variables of the F scale refer to the deeper strata of the individual's emotional life. Closely related to the phenomenon of exaggerated toughness is something which might be described as a »power complex.« Most apparent in its manifestations is overemphasis on the power motif in human relationships; there is a disposition to view all relations among people in terms of such categories as strong-weak, dominant-submissive, leader-follower, »hammeranvil.« And it is difficult to say with which of these roles the subject is the more fully identified. It appears that he wants to get power, to have it and not to lose it, and at the same time is afraid to seize and wield it. It appears that he also admires power in others and is inclined to submit to it – and at the same time is afraid of the weakness thus implied. The individual whom we expected to score high on this cluster readily identifies himself with the »little people,« or »the average,« but he does so, it seems, with little or no humility, and he seems actually to think of himself as strong or to believe that he can somehow become so. In short, the power complex contains elements that are essentially contradictory, and we should expect that sometimes one feature and sometimes another will predominate at the surface level. We should expect that both leaders and followers will score high on this variable, for the reason that the actual role of the individual seems to be less important than his concern that leader-follower relations shall obtain. One solution which such an individual often achieves is that of alignment with power figures, an arrangement by which he is able to gratify both his need for power and his need to submit. He hopes that by submitting to power he can participate in it. For example, a man who reports that the most awe-inspiring experience for him would be »to shake hands with the President« probably finds his gratification not in submission alone but in the idea that some of the big man's power has, as it were, rubbed off onto him, so that he is a more important person for having »shook his hand« or »known him« or »been there.« The same pattern of gratification can be obtained by acting in the role of »the lieutenant« or by functioning in a middle position in some clearly structured hierarchy where there is always somebody above and somebody below. The power complex has immediate relations with certain aspects

of ethnocentrism. An individual who thinks of most human relations in such terms as strong versus weak is likely to apply these categories in his thinking about ingroups and outgroups, e.g., to conceive of »superior« and »inferior races.« And one of the psychologically least costly devices for attaining a sense of superiority is to claim it on the basis of membership in a particular »race.«   g. Destructiveness and Cynicism 3. America is getting so far from the true American way of life that force may be necessary to restore it. 9. Too many people today are living in an unnatural, soft way; we should return to the fundamentals, to a more red-blooded, active way of life. 14. After we finish off the Germans and Japs, we ought to concentrate on other enemies of the human race such as rats, snakes, and germs. 17. Familiarity breeds contempt. 24. Today everything is unstable; we should be prepared for a period of constant change, conflict, and upheaval. 30. Reports of atrocities in Europe have been greatly exaggerated for propaganda purposes. 35. There are some activities so flagrantly un-American that, when responsible officials won't take the proper steps, the wideawake citizen should take the law into his own hands. 42. No matter how they act on the surface, men are interested in women for only one reason. 56. After the war, we may expect a crime wave; the control of gangsters and ruffians will become a major social problem. 59. Human nature being what it is, there will always be war and conflict. 67. When you come right down to it, it's human nature never to do anything without an eye to one's own profit.

  According to the present theory, the antidemocratic individual, because he has had to accept numerous externally imposed restrictions upon the satisfaction of his needs, harbors strong underlying aggressive impulses. As we have seen, one outlet for this aggression is through displacement onto outgroups leading to moral indignation and authoritarian aggression. Undoubtedly this is a very serviceable device for the individual; yet, the strong underlying aggression seems at the same time to express itself in some other way – in a nonmoralized way. It was assumed, of course, that primitive aggressive impulses are rarely expressed with complete

directness by adults, but must instead be sufficiently modified, or at least justified, so that they are acceptable to the ego. The present variable, then, refers to rationalized, ego-accepted, nonmoralized aggression. The supposition was that a subject could express this tendency by agreeing with statements which though thoroughly aggressive were couched in such terms as to avoid his moral censorship. Thus, some items offered justifications for aggression, and were formulated in such a way that strong agreement would indicate that the subject needed only slight justification in order to be ready for all-out aggression. Other items dealt with contempt for mankind, the theory being that here the hostility is so generalized, so free of direction against any particular object, that the individual need not feel accountable for it. Still another guiding conception was that a person can most freely express aggression when he believes that everybody is doing it and, hence, if he wants to be aggressive, he is disposed to believe that everybody is doing it, e.g., that it is »human nature« to exploit and to make war upon one's neighbors. It goes without saying that such undifferentiated aggressiveness could easily, by means of propaganda, be directed against minority groups, or against any group the persecution of which was politically profitable.  

h. Projectivity 46. The sexual orgies of the old Greeks and Romans are nursery school stuff compared to some of the goings-on in this country today, even in circles where people might least expect it. 56. After the war, we may expect a crime wave; the control of gangsters and ruffians will become a major social problem. 65. It is entirely possible that this series of wars and conflicts will be ended once and for all by a world-destroying earth-quake, flood, or other catastrophe. 70. To a greater extent than most people realize, our lives are governed by plots hatched in secret by politicians. 73. Nowadays when so many different kinds of people move around so much and mix together so freely, a person has to be especially careful to protect himself against infection and disease.

  The mechanism of projection was mentioned in connection with authoritarian aggression: the suppressed impulses of the authoritarian character tend to be projected onto other people who are then blamed out of hand. Projection is thus a device for keeping

id drives ego-alien, and it may be taken as a sign of the ego's inadequacy in carrying out its function. Indeed, in one sense most of the items of the F scale are projective: they involve the assumption that judgments and interpretations of fact are distorted by psychological urges. The subject's tendency to project is utilized, in the present group of items, in an attempt to gain access to some of the deeper trends in his personality. If the antidemocratic individual is disposed to see in the outer world impulses which are suppressed in himself, and we wish to know what these impulses are, then something may be learned by noting what attributes he most readily, but unrealistically, ascribes to the world around him. If an individual insists that someone has hostile designs on him, and we can find no evidence that this is true, we have good reason to suspect that our subject himself has aggressive intentions and is seeking by means of projection to justify them. A notorious example is Father [Charles Edward] Coughlin's referring to anti-Semitism as a »defense mechanism,« i.e., a protection of Gentiles against the supposed aggressive designs of the Jews. Similarly, it seemed that the greater a subject's preoccupation with »evil forces« in the world, as shown by his readiness to think about and to believe in the existence of such phenomena as wild erotic excesses, plots and conspiracies, and danger from natural catastrophes, the stronger would be his own unconscious urges of both sexuality and destructiveness.   i. Sex 31. Homosexuality is a particularly rotten form of delinquency and ought to be severely punished. 42. No matter how they act on the surface, men are interested in women for only one reason. 46. The sexual orgies of the old Greeks and Romans are nursery school stuff compared to some of the goings-on in this country today, even in circles where people might least expect it. 75. Sex crimes, such as rape and attacks on children, deserve more than mere imprisonment; such criminals ought to be publicly whipped.

  Concern with overt sexuality is represented in the F scale by four items, two of which have appeared in connection with authoritarian aggression and one other as an expression of projectivity. This is an example of the close interaction of all the present variables; since, taken together they constitute a totality, it follows that a single

question may pertain to two or more aspects of the whole. For purposes of analysis, sex may be abstracted from the totality as well as any of the other variables. Which of these variables are most basic must be determined by clinical study. In any case, it seemed that countercathexis (repression, reaction formation, projection) of sexual wishes was well qualified for special study. The present variable is conceived of as ego-alien sexuality. A strong inclination to punish violators of sex mores (homosexuals, sex offenders) may be an expression of a general punitive attitude based on identification with ingroup authorities, but it also suggests that the subject's own sexual desires are suppressed and in danger of getting out of hand. A readiness to believe in »sex orgies« may be an indication of a general tendency to distort reality through projection, but sexual content would hardly be projected unless the subject had impulses of this same kind that were unconscious and strongly active. The three items pertaining to the punishment of homosexuals and of sex criminals and to the existence of sex orgies may, therefore, give some indication of the strength of the subject's unconscious sexual drives.

 2. The Formulation of Scale Items   The considerations which guided the formulation of items in the scales described in previous chapters held as well for the F scale. There were several principles which, though a part of our general approach to scale construction, had particular significance for the present scale. In the first place, the item should have a maximum of indirectness, in the sense that it should not come close to the surface of overt prejudice and it should appear to be as far removed as possible from our actual interest. From this point of view, items such as 2 (Astrology) and 65 (Flood) were regarded as superior to items such as 74 (Tireless leaders) and 3 (Force to preserve). The latter two items, admittedly, could very well express certain aspects of an explicit fascist ideology, yet, as indicated above, statements touching upon the leader idea and the idea of force were definitely called for on theoretical grounds. More than this, there was a question of whether the aim of constructing a scale to correlate with E would be better served by the most indirect items or by the more direct ones, and in this first attempt it seemed the better part of wisdom to include some items of both kinds. A second rule in item formulation was that each item should achieve a proper balance between irrationality and objective truth. If a statement was so »wild« that very few people would agree with it, or if it contained so large an element of truth that almost everyone would agree with it, then obviously it could not distinguish between prejudiced and unprejudiced subjects, and hence was of no value. Each item had to have some degree of rational appeal, but it had to be formulated in such a way that the rational aspect was not the major factor making for agreement or disagreement. This in many cases was a highly subtle matter; e.g., social historians might conceivably agree that Item 46 (Sex orgies) is probably quite true, yet it was here regarded as a possible index of projected sexuality, the argument being that most subjects would have no basis on which to judge its truth and would respond in accordance with their feelings. Since each item contained an element of objective truth or rational justification, an individual's response to a particular item might conceivably be determined by this fact alone. Hence, no item

taken by itself could be regarded as diagnostic of potential fascism. The item's worth to the scale would have to be judged mainly in terms of its discriminatory power, and the meaning of an individual's response to it would have to be inferred from his total pattern of response. If a man marks +3 on Item 46 (Sex orgies) but marks -3 or -2 on Items 31 (Homosexuality) and 75 (Sex Crimes), it might be concluded that he is a man of knowledge and sophistication; but a +3 on Item 46, accompanying agreement with Items 31 and 75 would seem to be a fairly good indication of concern with sexuality. Finally, it was required of each item that it contribute to the structural unity of the scale as a whole. It had to do its part in covering the diverse personality trends that entered into the broad pattern which the scale purported to measure. While it was granted that different individuals might give the same response to a given item for different reasons – and this apart from the matter of objective truth – it was necessary that the item carry sufficient meaningfulness so that any response to it could, when responses on all items were known, be interpreted in the light of our over-all theory.

 C. Results with Successive Forms of the F Scale  

1. Statistical Properties of the Preliminary Scale (Form 78) The preliminary F scale, made up of the 38 items listed above, was administered as a part of questionnaire Form 78 to four groups of subjects in the spring of 1945. These groups were described in Chapter III, [ 8 ] and they are listed in Table 11 (III). The scoring of the scale followed the procedures used with the A-S, E, and PEC scales. Except in the case of negative items, a mark of +3 was scored 7, +2 was scored as 6, and so on. Items 12, 20, and 28 are negative (they state the unprejudiced position), and here, of course, a mark of +3 was scored 1, and so on. Table 2 (VII) gives the reliability coefficients, mean scores per item, and Standard Deviations for these four groups. The mean reliability of .74 is within the range ordinarily regarded as adequate for group comparisons, but well below what is required of a truly accurate instrument. It might be said that, considering the diversity of elements that went into the F scale, the degree of consistency indicated by the present figure is all that could be expected of this preliminary form of the scale. The question was whether by revision of the scale it might be possible to attain the degree of reliability that characterizes the E scale, or whether we might be dealing here – as seemed to be the case in the PEC scale – with areas of response in which people are simply not very consistent.   Table 2 (VII)  

Reliability of the F Scale (Form 78) a

Property Group Over-all b ABCD Reliability .78 .56 .72 .88 .74 Mean (total) 3.94 3.72 3.75 3.43 3.71 Mean (odd half) 3.80 3.59 3.60 3.22 3.55 Mean (even half) 4.08 3.87 3.91 3.64 3.88 S.D. (total) .71 .57 .70 .86 .71 S.D. (odd half) .87 .71 .85 .94 .84 S.D. (even half) .69 .65 .76 .84 .74

N 140 52 40 63 295 Range 2.12–5.26 2.55–4.87 2.39–5.05 1.68–5.63 1.68–5.63

 

a The four groups on which these data are based are: Group A: U.C. Public Speaking Class Women. Group B: U.C. Public Speaking Class Men. Group C: U.C. Extension Psychology Class Women. Group D: Professional Women.

 

b In obtaining the over-all means, the individual group means were not weighted by N.

  It may be noted that the Professional Women show considerably more consistency than do the other groups of subjects, their reliability coefficient of .88 being in the neighborhood of that regularly obtained with the E scale. Since these women are considerably older, on the average, than our other subjects, it may be suggested that the higher reliability is due to their greater consistency of personality. There appears to be no ready explanation for the low reliability found in the case of the Public Speaking Men. It may be noted that the Standard Deviation and the range for this group were also unusually small. Adequate explanation would require data from a larger sample of men and from an improved F scale. Examination of Table 2 (VII) shows that there are no extremely high and no extremely low scores in any of the groups and that the obtained means are near the neutral point. The relatively narrow distribution of scores – narrow as compared with those obtained from the other scales – may be in part a result of lack of consistency within the scale: unless the items are actually expressive of the same general trend, we could hardly expect an individual to respond to the great majority of them with consistent agreement or consistent disagreement. On the other hand, it is possible that the present sample does not contain subjects who are actually extreme with respect to the pattern which the F scale was designed to measure. This circumstance (lowered »range of talent«) would tend to lower the reliability coefficients. The F scale correlated .53 with A-S and .65 with E, in Form 78.

 2. Item Analysis and Revision of the Preliminary Scale   Data obtained from the initial four groups of subjects were used in attempting to improve the F scale – to increase its reliability and to shorten it somewhat, without loss in its breadth or meaningfulness. As with the other scales, the Discriminatory Power of an item provided the major statistical basis for judging its worth. Since it was intended that the F scale should not only have internal consistency but should also correlate highly with overt prejudice, attention was given both to the item's relation to the total F scale and to its ability to discriminate between high and low scorers on the A-S scale. An item's Discriminatory Power in terms of A-S (D.P. A-S ) is simply the difference between the mean score of the high A-S quartile on that item and the mean score of the low A-S quartile on the item. Table 3 (VII) gives for each item the mean score, the Discriminatory Power in terms of high vs. low scorers on F (D.P. F ), the D.P. F 's order of merit, the D.P. A-S , the latter's order of merit and, finally, the item's rank in a distribution of the sums of the D.P. F plus the D.P.A. A-S . This final rank order was a convenient index of the item's statistical »goodness« for our over-all purpose.   Table 3 (VII)  

Means and Discriminatory Powers of the F-Scale Items (Form 78) a

Item Mean D.P. F b Rank D.P. AS c Rank Final D.P. F D.P. AS Rank d (D.P. F + D.P. AS ) 2. (Astrology) 2.60 1.74 (22) 1.24 (11) (18) 3. (Force to preserve) 3.04 1.98 (18) 1.05 (17) (15) 6. (Women restricted) 2.93 1.75 (21) 0.41 (32) (26) 9. (Red-blooded life) 3.99 2.04 (15) -0.08 (35) (29) 10. (Pearl Harbor Day) 2.22 2.20 (9) 1.37 (6) (8) 12. (Modern church) 4.67 0.19 (38) -1.18 (38) (38) 14. (Rats ... germs) 4.44 1.60 (26.5) 0.85 (24) (23.5) 17. (Familiarity) 3.33 1.86 (19) 1.56 (4) (10) 19. (One should avoid) 3.63 0.76 (36) 0.70 (27) (35) 20. (Progressive education) 3.28 1.07 (33) -0.25 (37) (37) 23. (Undying love) 3.62 2.61 (4) 1.17 (13) (5) 24. (Things unstable) 5.01 0.79 (35) 0.88 (22) (33) 28. (Novels or stories) 3.02 1.29 (30) 0.76 (26) (27) 30. (Reports of atrocities) 4.20 0.43 (37) 0.66 (28) (36)

31. (Homosexuals) 3.22 2.16 (10) 1.18 (12) (13) 32. (Essential for learning) 3.31 1.67 (24) 1.10 (16) (20) 35. (Law in own hands) 2.50 1.42 (29) 0.62 (29.5) (28) 38. (Emphasis in college) 3.91 1.20 (31) 1.14 (15) (25) 39. (Supernatural force) 3.97 2.54 (6) 1.26 (9.5) (4) 42. (For one reason) 2.06 1.05 (34) 0.59 (31) (34) 43. (Sciences like chemistry) 4.35 2.79 (3) 0.97 (18) (6) 46. (Sex orgies) 3.64 2.11 (12.5) 0.93 (20) (14) 47. (Honor) 3.00 2.09 (14) 1.65 (3) (7) 50. (Obedience and respect) 3.72 3.09 (1) 1.55 (5) (2) 53. (Things too intimate) 4.82 1.99 (17) -0.23 (36) (32) 55. (Leisure) 5.20 2.11 (12.5) 1.26 (9.5) (11) 56. (Crime wave) 4.60 1.16 (32) 0.62 (29.5) (31) 58. (What a man does) 3.48 1.70 (23) 0.87 (23) (22) 59. (Always war) 4.26 2.59 (5) 1.91 (2) (3) 60. (Important values) 4.17 1.60 (26.5) 0.31 (34) (30) 65. (World catastrophe) 2.58 1.55 (28) 0.90 (21) (23.5) 66. (Books and movies) 4.10 2.48 (7) 0.38 (33) (19) 67. (Eye to profit) 3.71 2.21 (8) 0.78 (25) (17) 70. (Plots by politicians) 3.27 1.85 (20) 1.15 (14) (16) 73. (Infection and disease) 4.79 2.02 (16) 1.34 (8) (12) 74. (Tireless leaders) 5.00 1.66 (25) 0.94 (19) (21) 75. (Sex crimes) 3.26 2.81 (2) 2.07 (1) (1) 77. (No sane person) 4.12 2.12 (11) 1.36 (7) (9) Mean/Person/Item 3.71 1.80 0.89

 

a The four groups on which these data are based are: Group A: U.C. Public Speaking Class Women (N = 140); Group B: U.C. Public Speaking Class Men (N = 52); Group C: U.C. Extension Psychology Class Women (N = 40); Group D: Professional Women (N = 63). In obtaining the over-all means, the individual group means were not weighted by N.

 

b D.P. F is based on the difference between the high quartile and the low quartile on the F scale distribution.

 

c D.P. AS is based on the difference between the high quartile and the low quartile on the A-S scale distribution. E.g., the D.P. AS of 1.24 on Item 2 indicates that the mean of the low quartile on A-S was 1.24 points lower than the mean of the high quartile on A-S.

 

d For each item the sum of D.P. F +D.P. AS is obtained. The final rank of an item is the rank of this sum in the distribution of sums for the whole scale.

  The average D.P. F , 1.80, is considerably below that found in the case of the A-S or E scales. Yet it indicates that, in general, the items yield statistically significant differences between the high and the low quartiles. Sixteen D.P.'s are above 2, 18 fall in the range 1–2, and only 4 are below 1. The means are, in general, fairly satisfactory; they average 3.71, which is near the neutral point of 4.0, and only 9 means are definitely too extreme, i.e., above 5.0 or

below 3.0. As is to be expected, only 2 of the items with extreme means yield D.P.'s as great as 2.0. The D.P.'s in terms of A-S are, of course, much lower; yet there are 17 items which appear to be significantly related to A-S, i.e., have a D.P. A-S greater than 1.0. Since it is the total F pattern that we expect to correlate with A-S and E, it is not necessary that each single F item by itself be significantly related to the latter. In general, items which are most discriminating in terms of F tend to discriminate best in terms of A-S, though there are some striking exceptions. In deciding whether to retain an item for use in a revised scale most weight was given to the D.P. F and to the general principles guiding our scale construction; these things being equal, the greater an item's D.P. A-S , the greater its chances of being included in the revised scale. We may now inquire what it is that distinguishes the items which turned out well statistically from those that turned out poorly. Can any general statements be made about each of these two groups of items that can serve as guides in the formulation of new items? The first question concerns the nine groups of items chosen to represent the variables that entered into the conceptualization of F. Do most of the items with high D.P.'s pertain to a few of the variables? Are there some variables which simply do not belong to the pattern we are considering? Three of the clusters, Sex, Authoritarian Aggression, and Authoritarian Submission, had mean D.P.'s above 2.0, the remaining clusters having mean D.P.'s m the range 1.26–1.80. Projectivity (1.70), Destructiveness and Cynicism (1.56), and Conventionalism (1.26) were the least satisfactory. However, it is to be noted that every cluster has within it at least one item with a D.P. above 2.0. At this stage, therefore, it seemed best not to eliminate any of the variables but to give attention to improving or replacing the poorer items found in each cluster. Turning to a consideration of items which proved to be outstandingly good in the statistical sense, we note that Item 75 (Sex crimes) leads all the rest, i.e., has the highest sum of D.P. F plus D.P. A-S . This item represents rather well the ideal to which we aspired in formulating items for the F scale. Not only is there a wide distribution of responses, with a mean fairly near the neutral point, but the item combines, apparently in a very effective way, several ideas which according to theory have crucial roles in prejudice: the

underlying interest in the more primitive aspects of sex, the readiness for all-out physical aggressiveness, the justification of aggression by an appeal to moralistic values. More than this, the item seems to be sufficiently free of any logical or automatic connection with overt prejudice. That the next best item, 50 (Obedience and respect), should be outstandingly differentiating is not surprising since this kind of authoritarianism is a well-known aspect of the fascist outlook. The device of putting the authoritarianism in a context of child training seems to remove it from the surface of ethnocentrism; but whether or not this is true, the item pertains to an aspect of the fascist philosophy that could in no case be left out of account. Third in the rank order of goodness is Item 59, »Human nature being what it is, there will always be war and conflict.« This item, from the Destructiveness and Cynicism cluster, expresses several ideas which are particularly important in the F syndrome. In addition to an element of overt antipacifist opinion, there is contempt for men and acceptance of the »survival of the fittest« idea as a rationalization for aggressiveness. The next item, 39 (Supernatural force), seems to express very well the tendency to shift responsibility to outside forces beyond one's own control. This is a manifestation of what has been termed ego weakness; the item has also been placed in the Authoritarian Submission cluster on the ground that faith in a supernatural force is related to faith in ingroup authorities. It was not expected that the presence of religious feeling and belief would by itself be significant for prejudice; the aim in devising the present item was to compose a statement which was so extreme that not too many subjects would agree with it and which placed enough emphasis upon »total allegiance« and obedience »without question« so that the uncritically submissive person could distinguish himself. The mean of 3.97 and the D.P. F of 2.54 indicate that this aim was largely realized. Item 23 (Undying love), which ranked fifth in order of goodness, expresses extreme moral conventionality and ingroup feeling related to the family. It has a place in both the Authoritarian Submission and the Authoritarian Aggression clusters, because it includes both allegiance to the ingroup and a punishing attitude (»He is indeed contemptible«) toward those who violate this value. The statement is so exaggerated, so expressive, as it seems, of the »protesting too

much« attitude that we may wonder if strong agreement with it does not mask underlying but inhibited rebellious hostility against parents and parent figures. Concerning all five of these items it may be said that they are highly diverse in their surface content, that they pertain to various aspects of the underlying theory – superego, ego, and id are expressed – and that with the possible exception of Item 50 (Obedience and respect) they are highly indirect in the present sense of the term. Indeed, as one examines further the ranking of the items in terms of their Discriminatory Powers – (Sciences like chemistry), (Honor), (Pearl Harbor Day), (No sane person), (Familiarity), (Leisure), (Infection and disease) – he may note that, in general, items which are best in the statistical sense are those which seem best in their formulation and in terms of our over-all theory and method of approach. Items which turned out to be poor in the statistical sense are, in retrospect, easy to criticize. In some instances there was a failure in formulation: the statement was so unclear or ambiguous that many of the subjects, apparently, drew from it different implications from those intended. This would seem to have been true particularly of Items 12 (Modern church) and 20 (Progressive education). In other instances, e.g., Items 24 (Things unstable), 74 (Tireless leaders), and 58 (Crime wave), the statements contained too large an element of truth or rational justification and so appealed, as shown by the high mean scores, to both high and low scorers. Again, some of the items were too crude or openly aggressive, so that most of the high scorers as well as the low scorers tended to disagree. For example, Items 42 (For one reason) and 35 (Law in own hands) have both low means and low D.P.'s.

 3. The Second F Scale: Form 60   In preparing the new form of the questionnaire, the E and PEC scales were shortened so drastically that a comparatively long F scale (34 items) could still be used without allowing the total number of scale items to go above 60. Since we were still faced with the task of producing a reliable F scale, without sacrificing breadth or meaningfulness, it seemed the better part of wisdom not to undertake much shortening of it at this stage.   Table 4 (VII)  

The F Scale: Form 60

a. Conventionalism: Rigid adherence to conventional, middle-class values. 1. Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn. 6. A person who has bad manners, habits, and breeding can hardly expect to be liked and accepted by decent people. 53. One main trouble today is that people talk too much and work too little.

 

b. Authoritarian Submission: Submissive, uncritical attitude toward idealized moral authorities of the ingroup. 1. Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn. 7. Science has carried man very far, but there are many important things that can never possibly be understood by the human mind. 11. Every person should have complete faith in some supernatural power whose decisions he obeys without question. 23. Young people sometimes get rebellious ideas, but as they grow up they ought to get over them and settle down. 29. No sane, normal, decent person could ever think of hurting a close friend or relative. 32. What this country needs most, more than laws and political programs, is a few courageous, tireless, devoted leaders in whom the people can put their faith. 44. In order for us to do good work, it is necessary that our bosses outline carefully what is to be done and exactly how to go about it.

 

c. Authoritarian Aggression: Tendency to be on the lookout for, and to condemn, reject, and punish people who violate conventional values.

 

6. A person who has bad manners, habits, and breeding can hardly expect to be liked and accepted by decent people. 17. An insult to our honor should always be punished. 19. What the youth needs most is strict discipline, rugged determination, and the will to work and fight for family and country. 22. The trouble with letting everybody have a say in running the government is that so many people are just naturally stupid or full of wild ideas. 34. Sex crimes, such as rape and attacks on children, deserve more than mere imprisonment; such criminals ought to be publicly whipped, or worse. 39. There is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel a great love, gratitude, and respect for his parents. 49. Most of our social problems would be solved if we could somehow get rid of the immoral, crooked, and feebleminded people. 53. One main trouble today is that people talk too much and work too little. 58. Homosexuals are nothing but degenerates and ought to be severely punished.

d. Anti-intraception: Opposition to the subjective, the imaginative, the tender-minded. 16. When a person has a problem or worry, it is best for him not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things. 30. Some cases of feeblemindedness are caused by overstudy. 45. Nowadays more and more people are prying into matters that should remain personal and private. 53. One main trouble today is that people talk too much and work too little.

 

e. Superstition and Stereotypy: The belief in mystical determinants of the individual's fate; the disposition to think in rigid categories. 7. Science has carried man very far, but there are many important things that can never possibly be understood by the human mind. 11. Every person should have complete faith in some supernatural power whose decisions he obeys without question. 18. It is more than just chance that Japan had an earthquake on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1944. 24. Some people are born with the urge to jump from high places. 30. Some cases of feeblemindedness are caused by overstudy. 35. People can be divided into two distinct classes: the weak and the strong. 40. Some day it will probably be shown that astrology can explain a lot of things. 46. It is possible that wars and social troubles will be ended once and for all by an earthquake or flood that will destroy the whole world. 50. It's a mistake to trust anybody who doesn't look you straight in the eye.

 

f. Power and »Toughness«: Preoccupation with the dominance-submission, strong-weak, leader-follower dimension; identification with power figures; overemphasis upon the conventionalized attributes of the ego; exaggerated assertion of strength and toughness. 2. No weakness or difficulty can hold us back if we have enough will power. 5. Any red-blooded American will fight to defend his property. 17. An insult to our honor should always be punished. 19. What the youth needs most is strict discipline, rugged determination, and the will to work and fight for family and country. 32. What this country needs most, more than laws and political programs, is a few courageous, tireless, devoted leaders in whom the people can put their faith. 35. People can be divided into two distinct classes: the weak and the strong. 57. Most people don't realize how much our lives are controlled by plots hatched in secret by politicians.

 

g. Destructiveness and Cynicism: Generalized hostility, vilification of the human. 10. Human nature being what it is, there will always be war and conflict. 25. Familiarity breeds contempt. 41. The true American way of life is disappearing so fast that force may be necessary to preserve it.

 

h. Projectivity: The disposition to believe that wild and dangerous things go on in the world; the projection outward of unconscious emotional impulses. 36. Nowadays when so many different kinds of people move around so much and mix together so freely, a person has to be especially careful to protect himself against infection and disease. 45. Nowadays more and more people are prying into matters that should remain personal and private. 46. It is possible that wars and social troubles will be ended once and for all by an earthquake or flood that will destroy the whole world. 52. The wild sex life of the old Greeks and Romans was tame compared to some of the goings-on in this country, even in places where people might least expect it. 57. Most people don't realize how much our lives are controlled by plots hatched in secret by politicians.

 

i. Sex: Exaggerated concern with sexual »goings-on.« 34. Sex crimes, such as rape and attacks on children, deserve more than mere imprisonment; such criminals ought to be publicly whipped or worse. 52. The wild sex life of the old Greeks and Romans was tame compared to some of the goings-on in this country, even in places where people might least expect it.

58. Homosexuals are nothing but degenerates and ought to be severely punished.

  The 19 items from the F scale (Form 78) that ranked highest in order of goodness were retained, in the same or slightly revised form, in the new scale. Thus, statistical differentiating power of the item was the main basis of selection. As stated above, however, the items which came out best statistically were, in general, those which seemed best from the point of view of theory, so that retaining them required no compromise with the original purpose of the scale. Of these items, 5 were changed in no way; revision of the others involved change in wording but not in essential meaning, the aim being to avoid too much uniformity of agreement or disagreement and, hence, to produce mean scores as close as possible to the neutral point. Given 19 items of known dependability, the task was to formulate 15 additional ones which, singly, met the requirements of good items and which, taken together, covered the ground mapped out according to our theory. Here, criteria other than statistical ones played an important role. In attempting to achieve a maximum of indirectness we not only eliminated items which were too openly aggressive (they had low D.P.'s anyway) but retained, in a slightly revised form, Item 65 (World catastrophe) despite its relatively low D.P. (R.O. 23.5), because it expressed a theoretically important idea and appeared on the surface to be almost completely removed from »race« prejudice and fascism. In the name of breadth, Item 67 (Eye to profit), whose D.P. was not low (R.O. 21), was eliminated because of its too great similarity to the highly discriminating Item 59 (Always war). To cover a great variety of ideas as efficiently as possible, two or more of them were combined in the same statement, e.g., »Any red-blooded American will fight to defend his property « or »... people think too much and work too little.« With attention to these criteria, and to meaningfulness, contribution to the structural unity of the scale, and proper degree of rational justification, 4 items from the F scale (Form 78) whose D.P. rank orders were lower than 19, were revised and 11 new items were formulated to complete the new form. The 34 items, grouped according to the variables which they were supposed to represent, are shown in table 4 (VII).  

Table 5 (VII)  

Reliability of the F Scale (Form 60) a

Property Group Over-all b I II III IV V Reliability .86 .91 .89 .87 .81 .87 Mean (total) 3.32 3.39 3.82 3.74 3.25 3.50 Mean (odd half) 3.41 3.42 4.09 3.78 3.19 3.58 Mean (even half) 3.24 3.36 3.56 3.73 3.28 3.43 S.D. (total) .86 .96 .93 .81 .71 .85 S.D. (odd half) .97 1.03 .99 .77 .83 .92 S.D. (even half) .75 .96 .97 .93 .76 .87 N 47 54 57 68 60 286 Range 1.00–5.50 1.24–5.50 1.82–4.38 2.24–5.62 1.97–5.35 1.82–5.62

 

a The five groups on which these data are based are: Group I: University of Oregon Student Women. Group II: University of Oregon and University of California Student Women. Group III: University of Oregon and University of California Student Men. Group IV: Oregon Service Club Men. Group V: Oregon Service Club Men (A Part only).

 

b In obtaining the over-all means, the individual group means were not weighted by N.

  Reliability of the scale, mean score per item, S.D., and the range of scores for each of the five groups to whom the F scale (Form 60) was given are shown in Table 5 (VII). The reliability of the scale is a considerable improvement over that obtained with Form 78 (.87 as compared with .74); it is as high as that of the shortened E scale (.87 as compared with .86) and much better than the reliability of .70 for the shortened PEC scale. The mean scores are not quite so close to the neutral point as was the case with Form 78 (over-all mean of 3.5 as compared with 3.7); the range and the variability, however, are somewhat greater. 9 Inspection of the Discriminatory Powers of the items, as shown in Table 6 (VII), shows once again considerable improvement over Form 78. The mean D.P. F is now 2.15 as compared with 1.80 for Form 78. Three D.P.'s are above 3.0, 18 fall in the range 2.0–3.0, 12 are in the range 1.0–2.0, and only 1 is below 1.0. The mean D.P. in terms of E, 1.53, is notably greater than the mean D.P. A-S , .89, found with Form 78. There are 28 items with a mean D.P. E greater than 1.0; these F items are significantly related to ethnocentrism at

the 5 per cent level of confidence or better. Each of the variables that entered into the F scale – Conventionalism, Superstition, etc. – is represented by items that are satisfactorily differentiating. The correlation between the F scale (Form 60) and E is, on the average, .69. This is a considerable improvement over the results obtained with Form 78, where F correlated .53 with A-S and .65 with E, though it is still not quite as high as its intended functions require.   Table 6 (VII)  

Means and Discriminatory Powers of the F-Scale Items (Form 60) a

Item Mean D.P. F b Rank D.P. E c Rank Final D.P. F D.P. E Rank d (D.P. F + D.P. E ) 1. (Obedience & respect) 4.86 2.39 (14) 1.52 (17) (13) 2. (Will power) 4.44 2.50 (11) 1.46 (19) (12) 5. (Red-blooded American) 5.49 1.46 (29.5) 1.18 (25.5) (27) 6. (Bad manners) 5.30 1.80 (23) 1.56 (13.5) (22) 7. (Science) 4.98 1.71 (24) 1.32 (23) (25) 10. (War & conflict) 4.46 1.67 (26) 1.70 (10) (21) 11. (Supernatural power) 3.60 2.91 (4) 1.38 (21) (10) 12. (Germans & Japs) 3.71 3.16 (3) 2.83 (1) (1) 16. (Cheerful things) 3.15 2.08 (20.5) 1.18 (25.5) (23) 17. (Honor) 3.14 2.46 (12) 2.34 (4) (7) 18. (Pearl Harbor Day) 2.19 2.51 (10) 1.83 (9) (9) 19. (Discipline & determination) 3.68 3.17 (2) 2.28 (6.5) (3) 22. (Not everybody in gov't.) 2.74 1.46 (29.5) 1.17 (27) (28) 23. (Rebellious ideas) 4.30 2.70 (7) 2.29 (5) (5) 24. (Born with urge) 2.87 2.60 (8) 2.28 (6.5) (6) 25. (Familiarity) 3.30 2.08 (20.5) 1.33 (22) (20) 29. (No sane person) 3.55 2.82 (6) 1.95 (8) (8) 30. (Feebleminded) 1.84 1.43 (32.5) 0.91 (30) (30) 32. (Devoted leaders) 4.49 2.42 (13) 1.43 (20) (15) 34. (Sex crime) 3.43 2.83 (5) 2.52 (3) (4) 35. (Two classes) 1.44 0.73 (34) 0.38 (34) (34) 36. (Infection & disease) 4.80 1.68 (25) 1.03 (28) (26) 39. (Love for parents) 3.16 3.28 (1) 2.56 (2) (2) 40. (Astrology) 2.56 2.15 (17) 1.66 (11) (16) 41. (Force to preserve) 2.48 2.31 (15) 1.56 (13.5) (14) 44. (Bosses outline) 2.46 1.60 (27) 0.50 (33) (33) 45. (Prying) 3.48 2.52 (9) 1.56 (13.5) (11) 46. (Flood) 2.15 1.43 (32.5) 0.94 (29) (29) 49. (Rid of immoral people) 2.74 2.12 (19) 1.56 (13.5) (18) 50. (Mistake to trust) 2.12 1.45 (31) 0.84 (31) (31) 52. (Sex life) 3.18 2.13 (18) 1.50 (18) (19) 53. (Talk too much) 3.87 1.83 (22) 1.24 (24) (24) 57. (Plots) 4.24 1.55 (28) 0.63 (32) (32) 58. (Homosexuals) 2.29 2.20 (16) 1.54 (16) (17)

 

Mean/Person/Item 3.42 2.15 1.53

 

a The four groups on which these data are based are: Group I: University of Oregon Student Women (N = 47) Group II: University of Oregon and University of California Student Women (N = 54) Group III: University of Oregon and University of California Student Men (N = 57) Group IV: Oregon Service Club Men (N = 68) In obtaining the over-all means, the individual group means were not weighted according to N.

 

b D.P. F is based on the difference between the high quartile and the low quartile of the F scale distribution.

 

c D.P. E is based on the difference between the high quartile and the low quartile of the E scale distribution e.g., the D.P. E of 1.52 on Item 1 indicates that the mean of the low quartile on E was 1.52 points lower than the mean of the high quartile on E.

 

d For each item the sum of D.P. F + D.P. E is obtained. The final rank of an item is the rank of this sum in the distribution of sums for the whole scale.

 

 4. The Third F Scale: Forms 45 and 40 Although the F scale (Form 60) might be described as a fairly adequate instrument, it still had some obvious shortcomings, and it was hoped that these might be removed before the scale was used with numerous groups of subjects. It still contained a number of items so poor statistically that they contributed almost nothing to the purpose of the scale. Also, there were two items (numbers 12 and 18) which, despite their ranking 1 and 9 in order of goodness, had to be dropped in the early fall of 1945 because they had lost their war-period timeliness. More than this, experience had shown that when it came to working with highly diverse groups outside the University, a questionnaire shorter than Form 60 was highly desirable. The other scales having already been reduced to an absolute minimum, the F scale had now to bear some of the pruning. Yet, such pruning had to be extremely judicious if the scale was not to lose in comprehensiveness and if, as was hoped, its reliability and its correlation with E were to be raised. Thirty was the number of items decided upon. Revision consisted mainly in discarding seven items and adding three new ones. Two excellent items were discarded because, as mentioned above, they were no longer timely. Five items were taken out because they had relatively very low D.P.'s and because other items seemed to fulfill the same functions better: 44 (Bosses outline, R.O. 33), 50 (Mistake to trust, R.O. 31), 30 (Feebleminded, R.O. 30), 22 (Not everybody in government, R.O. 28), and 5 (Red-blooded American, R.O. 27). Several items which ranked low in terms of D.P. were thoroughly revised and kept in the new scale: 35 (Two classes, R.O. 34), 57 (Plots, R.O. 32), and 46 (Flood, R.O. 29). One of the three new items was the following: »The businessman and the manufacturer are much more important to society than the artist and the professor.« This is a slightly revised version of an item which appeared in the earlier forms of the PEC scale, where it had proved to be discriminatory both in terms of PEC and in terms of E. Since this item expresses rather well both conventionalism and anti-intraception, it appeared to be a promising addition to the F scale.

A second new item was, »It is best to use some prewar authorities in Germany to keep order and prevent chaos.« At the time this item was formulated – late summer 1945 – General Patton had been accused of using German Nazis and extremely conservative bigwigs to help carry out certain phases of the occupation. His critics argued that this was a poor way to secure the cooperation of democratic elements in Germany; his defenders pointed to the necessity for promoting efficiency and preventing chaos. The issue was a lively one; and it appeared that an item bearing upon it might give the high scorer a chance to express his admiration for military authority, his means-centeredness, his preoccupation with order vs. chaos. (That the item did not work very well is probably due to inadequate wording: we had not dared to be sufficiently explicit about which prewar authorities were to be used, so that »prewar« could be taken to mean »pre-Nazi.«) »Nobody ever learned anything really important except through suffering,« was the third of the new items. Here the temptation – constantly present during each revision of the F scale – to test a new hypothesis, or better, to obtain quantitative data bearing upon a phenomenon which in clinical study had appeared in relation to the general pattern of potential fascism, became too strong. The item was taken from an editorial in a prominent picture magazine, where it had appeared in a context of political reaction. It seemed well adapted to bring out the sado-masochistic theme believed to be prominent in the personality of the high scorer: he believes that he has suffered and, therefore, knows the important things and that those who have not succeeded in raising their status, i.e., the underprivileged, should suffer more if they hope to improve their lot. The item did not work very well, its rank in order of goodness for men being 29. (Its D.P., 1.70, is still significant at the 5 per cent level, however.) It seems that this was partly because many subjects thought it unreasonable (the mean was 2.54), and partly because, where it was agreed with, it probably appealed to different subjects for different reasons: if it tapped the deep-lying sado-masochistic structures in some high scorers, it also appealed to the surface masochism, and perhaps to the intraceptiveness, of some low scorers. The final F items, grouped according to the variables to which they pertain, are presented in Table 7 (VII).

Table 7 (VII)    

F-Scale Clusters: Forms 45 and 40

a. Conventionalism: Rigid adherence to conventional, middle-class values. 1. Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn. 12. A person who has bad manners, habits, and breeding can hardly expect to get along with decent people. 37. If people would talk less and work more, everybody would be better off. 41. The business man and the manufacturer are much more important to society than the artist and the professor.

 

b. Authoritarian Submission: Submissive, uncritical attitude toward idealized moral authorities of the ingroup. 1. Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn. 4. Science has its place, but there are many important things that can never possibly be understood by the human mind. 8. Every person should have complete faith in some supernatural power whose decisions he obeys without question. 21. Young people sometimes get rebellious ideas, but as they grow up they ought to get over them and settle down. 23. What this country needs most, more than laws and political programs, is a few courageous, tireless, devoted leaders in whom the people can put their faith. 42. No sane, normal, decent person could ever think of hurting a close friend or relative. 44. Nobody ever learned anything really important except through suffering.

 

c. Authoritarian Aggression: Tendency to be on the lookout for, and to condemn, reject, and punish people who violate conventional values. 12. A person who has bad manners, habits, and breeding can hardly expect to get along with decent people. 13. What the youth needs most is strict discipline, rugged determination, and the will to work and fight for family and country. 19. An insult to our honor should always be punished. 25. Sex crimes, such as rape and attacks on children, deserve more than mere imprisonment; such criminals ought to be publicly whipped, or worse. 27. There is hardly anything lower than a person who does not feel a great love, gratitude, and respect for his parents. 34. Most of our social problems would be solved if we could somehow get

 

rid of the immoral, crooked, and feebleminded people. 37. If people would talk less and work more, everybody would be better off. 39. Homosexuals are hardly better than criminals and ought to be severely punished.

d. Anti-intraception: Opposition to the subjective, the imaginative, the tender-minded. 9. When a person has a problem or worry, it is best for him not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things. 31. Nowadays more and more people are prying into matters that should remain personal and private. 37. If people would talk less and work more, everybody would be better off. 41. The businessman and the manufacturer are much more important to society than the artist and the professor.

 

e. Superstition and Stereotypy: The belief in mystical determinants of the individual's fate; the disposition to think in rigid categories. 4. Science has its place, but there are many important things that can never possibly be understood by the human mind. 8. Every person should have complete faith in some supernatural power whose decisions he obeys without question. 16. Some people are born with an urge to jump from high places. 26. People can be divided into two distinct classes: the weak and the strong. 29. Some day it will probably be shown that astrology can explain a lot of things. 33. Wars and social troubles may someday be ended by an earth-quake or flood that will destroy the whole world.

 

f. Power and »Toughness«: Preoccupation with the dominance-submission, strong-weak, leader-follower dimension; identification with power figures; overemphasis upon the conventionalized attributes of the ego; exaggerated assertion of strength and toughness. 2. No weakness or difficulty can hold us back if we have enough will power. 13. What the youth needs most is strict discipline, rugged determination, and the will to work and fight for family and country. 19. An insult to our honor should always be punished. 22. It is best to use some prewar authorities in Germany to keep order and prevent chaos. 23. What this country needs most, more than laws and political programs, is a few courageous, tireless, devoted leaders in whom the people can put their faith. 26. People can be divided into two distinct classes: the weak and the strong. 38. Most people don't realize how much our lives are controlled by plots hatched in secret places.

 

g. Destructiveness and Cynicism: Generalized hostility, vilification of the human. 6. Human nature being what it is, there will always be war and conflict. 43. Familiarity breeds contempt.

 

h. Projectivity: The disposition to believe that wild and dangerous things go on in the world; the projection outwards of unconscious emotional impulses. 18. Nowadays when so many different kinds of people move around and mix together so much, a person has to protect himself especially carefully against catching an infection or disease from them. 31. Nowadays more and more people are prying into matters that should remain personal and private. 33. Wars and social troubles may someday be ended by an earth-quake or flood that will destroy the whole world. 35. The wild sex life of the old Greeks and Romans was tame compared to some of the goings-on in this country, even in places where people might least expect it. 38. Most people don't realize how much our lives are controlled by plots hatched in secret places.

 

i. Sex: Exaggerated concern with sexual »goings-on.« 25. Sex crimes, such as rape and attacks on children, deserve more than mere imprisonment; such criminals ought to be publicly whipped, or worse. 35. The wild sex life of the old Greeks and Romans was tame compared to some of the goings-on in this country, even in places where people might least expect it. 39. Homosexuals are hardly better than criminals and ought to be severely punished.

  Reliability of the scale, mean score per item, S.D., and range for each of the fourteen groups (total N = 1518) taking Form 40 and/or 45 are given in Table 8 (VII). The average of the reliability coefficients is .90, their range .81 to .97. Not only is there a slight improvement in reliability over Form 60 (av. r = .87) and a very marked improvement over the original Form 78 (av. r = .74), but the scale has now been developed to a point where it meets rigorous statistical requirements. A reliability of .90 may be interpreted to mean that the scale can place individuals along a dimension – in this case a broad and complex dimension – with a small margin of error. In other words, the score attained by an individual can be relied upon in the sense that chance errors of measurement have been minimized, so that in a repetition of the scale, at a time when

political-socioeconomic conditions were generally the same as before, his new score would either be the same as his first or fall within narrow limits above or below it. The degree of reliability attained here is within the range which characterizes acceptable intelligence tests.   Table 8 (VII)  

Reliability of the F Scale (Forms 40 and 45)

Group N Reliability Mean S.D. Range

 

Form 40: George Washington Univ. Women 132 .84 3.51 .90 1.2–5.4 California Service Club Men 63 .94 4.08 1.03 1.8–7.0 Middle-Class Men 69 .92 3.69 1.22 1.3–6.7 Middle-Class Women 154 .93 3.62 1.26 1.1–6.7 Working-Class Men 61 .88 4.19 1.18 1.8–6.9 Working-Class Women 53 .97 3.86 1.67 1.3–6.6 Los Angeles Men 117 .92 3.68 1.17 1.1–6.0 Los Angeles Women 130 .91 3.49 1.13 1.2–5.8

  Mean a 779 .91 3.76 1.20 1.3–6.4  

Form 45: Testing Class Women 59 .89 3.62 .99 1.3–5.9 San Quentin Men Prisoners 110 .87 4.73 .86 2.0–6.8 Psychiatric Clinic Women b 71 .94 3.69 1.30 1.0–6.3 Psychiatric Clinic Men b 50 .89 3.82 1.01 1.7–5.9

 

Mean 290 .90 3.96 1.04 1.5–6.2

 

Form 40 and Form 45: Employment Service Men Veterans 106 .89 3.74 1.04 1.2–5.8 Maritime School Men 343 .81 4.06 .77 1.6–6.1

 

Mean a 449 .85 3.90 .90 1.4–5.9

 

Over-all mean 1518 .90 3.84 1.10 1.4–6.3

 

a In obtaining the combined group means, the individual group means were not weighted by N.

 

b Due to a substitution of forms, the F scale for the Psychiatric Clinic subjects contained only 28 items.

 

The means, though they vary from one group to another (a matter to be discussed later), are fairly close, on the whole, to the neutral point. As is to be expected from administration of the scale to a great variety of subjects, the range and the S.D. are greater than in previous forms. While no distribution curves have actually been made, the scatter diagrams indicate that they would be fairly normal in form (symmetrical but slightly platykurtic). a. INTERNAL CONSISTENCY. The Discriminatory Powers of the scale items, as shown in Table 9 (VII), are considerably higher on the average (2.85) than in the case of Form 60 (2.15). All of the items differentiate significantly between the high and the low quartiles. It is to be noted that numerous items taken over without change from Form 60 work much better here than in that instance. This is probably due in part to the fact that the diverse groups given Form 45–40 included more extreme scorers and in part to improvement of the scale as a whole: a good item differentiates the more sharply between the upper and lower quartiles the more successfully the total scale distinguishes individuals who are actually extreme with respect to the trends being measured. The fact that the D.P.'s are somewhat higher, on the average, for women than for men is deserving of some comment. This phenomenon would seem to be connected with the fact that there were three groups of men – Maritime School, San Quentin Inmates, and Working-Class Men – in whose cases the reliability of the scale was relatively low (.81-.88). Since these groups of men were less educated than most of our subjects, there is considerable likelihood that they failed to understand some of the scale items, a circumstance that would work against high D.P.'s as well as against reliability. Moreover, these are the three groups who, of all those studied, obtained the highest mean scores. It can be inferred from this that there was too much general agreement with some of the items, something which, as we have seen, tends to lower the D.P. This raises the question of whether we did not encounter in these groups not only more extreme manifestations of potential fascism than had been anticipated but also patterns of prefascist personality trends that the F scale did not adequately cover. Most of the work that went into the construction and revision of the scale was performed with groups of subjects in which the high scorers were, in the main, highly conventional. The procedure of retaining items

which differentiated best within these groups was probably not the best one for constructing an instrument which would work with maximum efficiency in groups where tendencies to psychopathy and delinquency were much more pronounced. This is a matter to be discussed in more detail later. Despite the absolute differences in the D.P.'s between men and women, items which work well for one sex tend, in general, to work well for the other. The correlation between the D.P. rank orders for the men and those for the women is .84. This is sufficient justification for averaging the D.P.'s of the two groups to obtain an over-all »order of goodness« for each item. Since the differences between men and women, in the present context, are probably as great as the differences between any two groups of the same sex in the present sample, it is highly probable that a correlation between the D.P. rankings of any two such groups would be in the neighborhood of .84. There appear to be no general or systematic differences between the items which work better for men and those which work better for women. Mean scores for the men's groups are somewhat higher on the average than mean scores for the women's groups. This phenomenon would seem to be due primarily to the three male groups discussed above whose scores are particularly high. If men and women of the same socioeconomic class are compared, the means are not significantly different. Moreover, items which appeal most strongly to the men are much the same as those which appeal most strongly to the women, the rank-order correlation between the means for men and those for women being .95. b. CORRELATIONAL ANALYSIS. As a part of an independent investigation, the E, PEC, and F scales (from Forms 40 and 45) were administered to 900 students in an Elementary Psychology Class at the University of California. It was decided not to include the data from this new college group among the general results of the present study because the total sample of subjects was already weighted too heavily on the side of young and relatively well-educated people. However, the 517 women from this psychology class constitute the only group in whose case the scales were subjected to an item-by-item correlational analysis. 10 The results of this analysis will be summarized here. B

Table 9 (VII)    

Means and Discriminatory Powers of the F-Scale Items (Forms 40 And 45) a

a These data are based on all fourteen groups taking Forms 40 and 45 (see Table 8 (VII)).

  Each item of the F scale was correlated with every other item. The average of the 435 coefficients was .13, the range – .05 to .44. 11 In addition, each item was correlated with the remainder of the scale, the mean r here being .33, the range .15 to .52. In the case of the E scale the mean interitem r was .42, and the mean item-total score r, .59. Whereas the E scale has about the same degree of unidimensionality as do acceptable intelligence tests (in the case of the 1937 Stanford-Binet Revision the average interitem r is about .38, the average item-total score r, .61), the F scale rates considerably lower in this regard. Despite the scale's relative lack of surface homogeneity, however, we are justified in speaking of an F pattern or syndrome, for the items do »hang together« in the sense that each is significantly correlated with the scale as a whole. It will be recalled in this connection that in constructing the F scale two purposes were held in mind: (a) to seek over a wide area for diverse responses that belonged to a single syndrome, and (b) to construct an instrument which would yield a reliable prediction of scores on E. It is clear that the first purpose has been in large part realized, although the search for additional items that would help characterize the F syndrome could be continued with profit. The fact that the individual F items correlate .25 on the average with the total E scale augurs well for the fulfillment of the second purpose – a matter to which we shall turn in a moment. Proof that the variables or groups of items used in thinking about the F scale are not clusters in the statistical sense, is contained in the data from the present group of 517 women. Although the items within each of the Form 45 F-clusters tend to intercorrelate (.11 to .24), the items in any one cluster correlate with one another no better than they do with numerous items from other clusters. We are justified in using these clusters, therefore, only as a priori aids to discussion.

 D. Correlations of the F Scale with E and with PEC   Correlations of F with the E and PEC scales, based on the three questionnaire forms and derived from all the groups used in the study, are shown in Table 10 (VII). The major result expressed in this table is that the correlation between E and F has increased with the successive revisions of the scale until it has reached a point (about .75 on the average in Forms 40, 45) where scores on the former can be predicted with fair accuracy from scores on the latter.   Table 10 (VII)  

Correlations of the F Scale with the A-S, E, and PEC Scales in the Several Forms of the Questionnaire

N F. A-S F. E F. PEC Groups taking Form 78: Public Speaking Class Women 140 .55 .58 .52 Public Speaking Class Men 52 .52 .56 .45 Extension Class Women 40 .49 .74 .54 Professional Women 63 .57 .73 .65

 

Over-all: Form 78 a 295 .53 .65 .54

 

Groups taking Form 60: Univ. of Oregon Student Women 47 .72 .29 Univ. of Oregon and Univ. of California Student Women 54 .78 .49 Univ. of Oregon and Univ. of California Student Men 57 .58 .43 Oregon Service Club Men 68 .69 .29 Oregon Service Club Men b 60 .22

 

Over-all: Form 60 286 .69 .34

 

Groups taking Form 45: Testing Class Women 59 .79 .54 San Quentin Men Prisoners 110 .59 .23 Psychiatric Clinic Women 71 .86 .62 c Psychiatric Clinic Men 50 .76 .57 c Working-Class Men and Women 50 .85 .70 Employment Service Men Veterans 51 .67 .62 d Maritime School Men 179 .56 .39 d

 

Over-all: Form 45 570 .73 .52

 

Groups taking Form 40: e George Washington Univ. Women 132 .69 .53

California Service Club Men 63 .80 .59 Middle-Class Men 69 .81 .71 Working-Class Men 61 .76 .60 Middle-Class Women 154 .83 .70 Working-Class Women 53 .87 .72 Los Angeles Men 117 .82 .58 Los Angeles Women 130 .75 .61 Employment Service Men Veterans 55 .72 .62 Maritime School Men 165 .62 .39

 

Over-all: Form 40 999 .77 .61

 

Over-all: All Forms 2150 .53 .73 .52

 

a In obtaining the over-all group means, the individual group means were not weighted by N.

 

b This group of Oregon Service Club Men received a short questionnaire form containing only the F scale and half of the PEC scale.

 

c For the correlations of F with PEC in the Psychiatric Clinic groups, the number of women was 45, the number of men 29, due to a substitution of forms.

 

d These F-PEC correlations are based on both Forms 40 and 45. Since it was considered highly unlikely that the presence or absence of 5 E items would affect the correlation of F and PEC, the two forms are taken together in order to have the advantage of the larger N's. The total N is 106 for the Employment Service Men Veterans, 343 for the Maritime School Men.

 

e In Form 40, it will be recalled, only the »A« half of the 10-item E scale was used.

  The correlation between F and E varies rather widely from one group to another, a matter that seems to depend mainly upon the reliability of the scales themselves. 12 Thus, in the San Quentin group, where the reliability of F is .87 and that of E only .65, the correlation between the two scales is at the lowest, .59; while in the case of the Working-Class Women, where the reliability of F climbs to .97, 13 the correlation is at its maximum, .87. It is obvious, therefore, that if the reliabilities of the two scales were increased (which can be done by increasing the number of items within each) the correlation between E and F would be very high indeed. 14 This is not to say, however, that E and F for all practical purposes measure the same thing. A correlation of .775 means that about two-thirds of the subjects who score in the high quartile on the one

scale, score in the high quartile on the other, and that there are practically no reversals, i.e., cases in which a subject is high on one scale but low on the other. If one wished to use the F scale alone in order to single out subjects who were practically certain to be highly ethnocentric, i.e., in the high quartile on the present E scale, it would be necessary for him to limit himself to those scoring at the very highest extreme on F, perhaps the top 10 per cent. As pointed out earlier, there are reasons why some discrepancy between the two scales should be expected. Surely there are some individuals who have the kind of susceptibility to fascist propaganda with which the F scale is concerned but who for one reason or another tend to inhibit expressions of hostility against minority groups (subjects high on F but low on E). And we have good reason to believe that there are other people who rather freely repeat the clichés of ethnocentrism – perhaps in accordance with the climate of opinion in which they are living – without this being expressive of deep-lying trends in their personalities (subjects high on E but low on F). Such »exceptions« will be taken up in more detail later. It is to be noted that the correlation between F and E is slightly higher on the average in the case of groups taking Form 40 than for groups taking Form 45. This means that F correlates slightly better with the A half of the E scale than with the total E scale, and that the correlation must be still lower in the case of the B half of the scale. In several groups taking Form 45 the correlations of E A and of E B with F were calculated, in addition to the correlation of total E with F. The results appear in Table 11 (VII). In each group E A .F is notably higher than E B .F, and about the same as E A + B .F. It may be recalled that the A half of the scale refers to highly generalized ethnocentrism and contains no A-S items, while the B half is made up of four A-S items and one Negro item. It happened that this Negro item was a relatively poor one in the statistical sense (rank order, 5 for men, 10 for women), but this is not enough to account for the superiority of the E A .F correlations. It seems, rather, that the F syndrome is actually more closely related to general ethnocentrism than to anti-Semitism. This is in keeping with the finding, reported earlier, that in Form 78 the F scale correlated more highly with the E scale than with the A-S scale. Although anti-Semitism is still to be understood primarily as an aspect of general ethnocentrism, there can be no doubt but that it has some

special features of its own. Some of these features are described in Chapter XVI. [ 15 ]   Table 11 (VII)    

Correlations of the F Scale with Each Half and with the Whole of the E Scale

Group N Correlations E A .F E B .F E A + B .F San Quentin Men Prisoners 110 .56 .45 .59 Employment Service 51 .66 .61 .67 Men Veterans Maritime School Men 179 .61 .40 .56 Testing Class Women 59 .77 .66 .79

 

Mean .65 .53 .65

  The F syndrome bears only a moderately close relation to politico-economic conservatism, the average correlation for Forms 45 and 40 being .57. Our interpretation is that high scores on PEC may proceed either from genuine conservatism or from pseudoconservatism, and that it is the latter which is most expressive of the personality trends which the F scale measures. This is in keeping with the finding that E, which is closely related to F, also shows only moderate correlation with PEC. The E.PEC correlation is about the same as the F.PEC correlation. It would appear that general ethnocentrism, as measured by the present scales, is mainly an expression of those personality structures which the F scale measures; politico-economic conservatism, while it may have this same source, may be more dependent than E upon factors in the individual's contemporary situation.

 E. Differences in Mean F-Scale Score Among Various Groups   We may turn now to a consideration of the mean F-scale scores of different groups. These means have been set forth in Table 12 (VII). It is well to recall here what was stated at the beginning (Chapter I, C), [ 16 ] that since no steps were taken to insure that each group studied was actually representative of a larger section of the population, we are in no position to generalize from the present results on mean scores, however suggestive they might be. (A large-scale community study would be necessary in order to produce a sound estimate of the relative amounts of fascist potential in different sections of the general population. The F scale, we believe, is worthy to be used in such a study, though it would have to be modified somewhat in order to be suitable for groups with little education.) It seems well to recall, too, that the group with which a subject filled out the questionnaire does not necessarily represent a group membership that is significant for the present study. The differences with which we are here concerned are not very large, while the variability within each group is marked. Only rarely is the difference between two groups greater than one S.D. In our view, we should find large group differences in mean F score only when membership in a group has some psychological significance, and this does not seem to be true of most of the present groups. (A study of the F-scale score in relation to group membership factors such as those covered by page 1 of the questionnaire (income, religion, etc.) would probably be rewarding. In view of the high correlation between F and E we should expect results generally similar to those found in the case of the latter scale, but discrepancies would be particularly interesting.) Nevertheless, some important sociological and psychological differences among the present groups are known to exist – indeed some of these groups have been described as »key« groups – and, if the F scale is valid, we should expect differences in mean score that are intelligible in the light of our general theory.   Table 12 (VII)

 

Mean F-Scale Scores of Groups Taking the Several Forms of the Questionnaire

Group N Mean S.D. Form 78: Public Speaking Class Women 140 3.94 .71 Public Speaking Class Men 52 3.72 .57 Extension Class Women 40 3.75 .70 Professional Women 63 3.43 .86

 

Over-all mean, Form 78 295 3.71 .71

 

Form 60: Univ. of Oregon Student Women 47 3.32 .86 Univ. of Oregon and Univ. of California Student Women 54 3.39 .96 Univ. of Oregon and Univ. of California Student Men 57 3.82 .93 Oregon Service Club Men 68 3.74 .81 Oregon Service Club Men (A Form only) 60 3.25 .71

 

Over-all mean, Form 60 286 3.50 .85

 

Form 45: Testing Class Women 59 3.62 .99 San Quentin Men Prisoners 110 4.73 .86 Psychiatric Clinic Women 71 3.69 1.30 Psychiatric Clinic Men 50 3.82 1.01

 

Over-all mean, Form 45 290 3.96 1.04

 

Form 40: George Washington Univ. Women 132 3.51 .90 California Service Club Men 63 4.08 1.03 Middle-Class Women 154 3.62 1.26 Middle-Class Men 69 3.69 1.22 Working-Class Women 53 3.86 1.67 Working-Class Men 61 4.19 1.18 Los Angeles Women 130 3.49 1.13 Los Angeles Men 117 3.68 1.17

 

Over-all mean, Form 40 779 3.76 1.20

 

Forms 40 and 45: Employment Service 106 3.74 1.04 Men Veterans Maritime School Men 343 4.06 .77

 

Over-all mean, Forms 40 and 45 449 3.90 .90

 

Over-all mean, Four Forms (78, 60, 45, 40): 2099 3.78

  Of all the fourteen groups taking Form 40–45, the San Quentin Inmates obtained the highest mean score, 4.73. This mean is significantly different (C.R. = 3.2) from that of the next highest

scoring group, the Working-Class Men, whose mean is 4.19. Between the San Quentin group and the lowes4t scoring group of men (Los Angeles Men, M = 3.68) the difference is very marked (C.R. = 7.8). In view of all that has been written concerning the close affinity of criminality and fascism, these results should not be surprising. Since the findings on the »key« San Quentin group are analyzed in detail in Chapter XXI, [ 17 ] further discussion here is unnecessary. Service Club Men and Working-Class Men do not differ significantly in mean F score. This will come as a surprise only to those who have become accustomed to explaining all important differences in social attitudes on the basis of socioeconomic group membership, and who look to the working man as the main carrier of liberal ideas. It is true, of course, as a matter of economic and social fact, that the crucial role in the struggle against increasing concentration of economic power will have to be played by the working people, acting in accordance with their self-interest, but it is foolhardy to underestimate the susceptibility to fascist propaganda within these masses themselves. For our part, we see no reason to suppose that the authoritarian structures with which we are concerned would be any less well developed in the working class than in other segments of the population. If it be argued that our sample of working-class men might be an unusually reactionary one, the answer is that approximately half of this sample come either from the militantly »liberal« United Electrical Workers Union (C.I.O.) or from classes at the California Labor School, and that there is no reason to suppose that men from the United Seaman's Service or new members of the I.L.W.U. – who constitute the remainder of the sample – are more conservative than working men generally. For that matter, the extremely high scoring San Quentin Inmates come in very large part from the working class, and there is good reason to suppose that their general outlook depends upon their background as well as upon the circumstance of their being in prison. It appears that differences among the present groups of men depend more upon the factor of contact with liberal organizations and liberal thought than upon socioeconomic group membership. This is the basis on which we would explain the relatively low means of the Middle-Class Men (3.69) and the Los Angeles Men

(3.68), both of which are significantly different (beyond the 5 per cent level) from that of the Service Club Men (4.08). The Middle-Class Men and the Service Club Men are quite similar with respect to economic and occupational status; the difference between them that is reflected in their F-scale mean lies, most probably, in whatever it is that disposes the former to appear at a meeting of the P.T.A. or the layman's league of a Presbyterian Church or at evening classes at the California Labor School, and the latter at a Service Club luncheon. This, in our opinion, is primarily a psychological matter; the difference lies in the degree of something which may be labelled, for the moment, a disposition toward liberalism or progressivism or humanitarianism. The Los Angeles Men, it will be recalled, were recruited primarily from the University and the movie communities. Thus, though their socioeconomic status was certainly no lower than that of the Service Club Men in the San Francisco area, the setting in which they were found was one of greater liberalism. The Maritime School Group, made up predominantly of men with working-class and lower middle-class antecedents who are out to raise their status, belongs on the basis of its mean (4.06) with the Service Club Men and the Working-Class Men, while the Psychiatric Clinic Men (M = 3.82) and the Employment Service Veterans (M = 3.74), who probably are more heterogeneous with respect to either class status or liberal affiliations, have intermediate positions in the rank order of means. It has been pointed out that the fact of the men in our total sample having a higher mean than the women is due primarily to the presence in the male sample of the outstandingly high scoring groups that have just been considered. The present data show that where social group membership is constant, the means for men are not significantly different from those of women. Thus, in the case of the Working-Class Women and the Working-Class Men, the C.R. is only 1.22, while the differences between men and women in the Psychiatric Clinic, the Los Angeles and the Middle-Class groups are practically negligible. It is to be noted, however, that in each case the men are slightly higher, and that in a larger sample the difference might become significant. Among the women's groups, the only difference that approaches significance is that existing between the Working-Class Women (M = 3.86), on the one hand, and the George Washington University

Women (M = 3.51) and Los Angeles Women (M = 3.49) on the other. If a true difference exists, the explanation would seem to be the same as that advanced in the case of some of the men's groups: that the latter groups of women have been in closer touch with liberal trends. It is of some interest to consider group differences in mean F score in relation to the mean E score of these same groups. In general, groups that score highest on F tend to score highest on E also. The most notable discrepancies occur in the cases of the George Washington Women, who are relatively much higher on E (M = 4.04) than on F (M = 3.51), and the Working-Class Men, who are slightly higher on F (M = 4.19) than on E (M = 3.92). It seems probable that in the case of this group of women, we have to deal with a regional difference: many observers have noted that there is more prejudice in the East than in the West. It may be, therefore, that although these College women were relatively liberal as a group, they were led by the prevailing climate of opinion to go fairly high on E. This is in keeping with the fact that the correlation between F and E in this group was one of the lowest obtained. The group of Working-Class Men is the only one in which the mean E score is lower than the mean F score. This is probably attributable to the success of indoctrination in antidiscrimination which occurs in the »liberal« unions to which a majority of these subjects belong. Apparently, however, this indoctrination did not go so far as to modify those attitudes centering around authoritarianism, which are more pronounced in this group than in most others. One might say that if this indoctrination were dispensed with, or if propaganda having an opposite direction were substituted for it, then the results from this group would fall into line with all the others. It has often been suggested that working-class people are relatively uninhibited in expressing the prejudice that they have and that this does not go very deep, while middle-class people are more restrained in giving vent to their – often deeper – prejudice. That nothing to support this formulation is to be found in the present data may be due most largely to the fact that our ethnocentric statements were for the most part fairly restrained, i.e., formulated in such a way that a pseudodemocratic person could agree with them and still maintain the illusion that he was not prejudiced.

 F. Validation by Case Studies: the F-Scale Responses of Mack and Larry   The responses of Mack and Larry on the F scale may now be compared with their remarks in the interview. In Table 13 (VII) are shown the scores of Mack and Larry, the group mean, and the D.P. for each of the 38 items in the F scale (Form 78), the items having been grouped according to the scheme of F-scale variables.   Table 13 (VII)  

Responses of Mack and Larry on the F Scale (Form 78)

Group Group Item Mack Larry Mean a D.P. a (N = 295) Conventionalism 12. (Modern church) 5 7 4.67 0.19 19. (One should avoid) 2 1 3.63 0.76 38. (Emphasis in the colleges) 5 2 3.91 1.20 55. (Leisure) 7 6 5.20 2.11 58. (What a man does) 6 1 3.48 1.70 60. (Important values) 5 5 4.17 1.60

 

Cluster mean 5.00 3.66 4.18 1.26

 

Authoritarian Submission 20. (Progressive education) 3 1 3.28 1.07 23. (Undying love) 6 7 3.62 2.61 32. (Essential for learning) 7 6 3.61 1.67 39. (Supernatural force) 1 1 3.97 2.54 43. (Sciences like chemistry) 1 2 4.35 2.79 50. (Obedience and respect) 6 2 3.72 3.09 74. (Tireless leaders) 2 1 5.00 1.66 77. (No sane, normal person) 6 5 4.12 2.12

 

Cluster mean 4.00 3.13 3.96 2.19

 

Authoritarian Aggression 6. (Women restricted) 2 1 2.93 1.75 23. (Undying love) 6 7 3.62 2.61 31. (Homosexuals) 6 6 3.22 2.16 47. (Honor) 5 2 3.00 2.09 75. (Sex crimes) 6 1 3.26 2.81

 

Cluster mean 5.00 3.40 3.21 2.28

 

Anti-intraception 28. (Novels or stories) 5 1 3.02 1.29

38. (Emphasis in colleges) 5 2 3.91 1.20 53. (Things too intimate) 3 5 4.82 1.99 55. (Leisure) 7 6 5.20 2.11 58. (What a man does) 6 1 3.48 1.70 66. (Books and movies) 6 2 4.10 2.48

 

Cluster mean 5.33 2.83 4.09 1.80

 

Superstition 2. (Astrology) 5 6 2.60 1.74 10. (Pearl Harbor Day) 1 1 2.22 2.20 39. (Supernatural force) 1 1 3.97 2.54 43. (Sciences like chemistry) 1 2 4.35 2.79 65. (World catastrophe) 1 1 2.58 1.55

 

Cluster mean 1.80 2.20 3.78 1.70

 

Power and »Toughness« 9. (Red-blooded life) 1 2 3.99 2.04 35. (Law in own hands) 1 1 2.50 1.42 47. (Honor) 5 2 3.00 2.09 70. (Plots) 7 2 3.27 1.65 74. (Tireless leaders) 2 1 5.00 1.66

 

Cluster mean 3.20 1.60 3.55 1.77

 

Destructiveness and Cynicism 3. (Force to restore) 3 5 3.04 1.98 9. (Return to fundamentals) 1 2 3.99 2.04 14. (Rats ...germs) 6 5 4.44 1.60 17. (Familiarity) 3 1 3.33 1.86 24. (Things unstable) 5 5 5.01 0.79 30. (Reports of atrocities) 6 5 4.20 0.43 35. (Law in own hands) 1 1 2.50 1.42 42. (For one reason) 1 1 2.06 1.05 56. (Crime wave) 5 5 4.60 1.16 59. (Always war) 7 1 4.26 2.59 67. (Eye to profit) 7 3 3.71 2.21

 

Cluster mean 4.09 3.09 3.74 1.56

 

Projectivity 46. (Sex orgies) 5 2 3.64 2.11 56. (Crime wave) 5 5 4.60 1.16 65. (World catastrophe) 1 1 2.58 1.55 70. (Plots) 7 2 3.27 1.65 73. (Infection and disease) 5 1 4.79 2.02

 

Cluster mean 4.60 2.20 3.78 1.70

 

Sex 31. (Homosexuality) 6 6 3.22 2.16 42. (For one reason) 1 1 2.06 1.05 46. (Sex orgies) 5 2 3.64 2.11 75. (Sex crimes) 6 1 3.26 2.81 Cluster mean 4.50 2.50 3.05 2.03 Over-all mean b 4.31 2.95 3.71 1.80

 

a The group means and D.P.'s are based on all four groups taking Form 78 (see Table 3 (VII), note a ).

 

b Over-all means are based on the sum of the 38 individual items, with no overlap.

  The mean F-scale scores of the two men seem to be in keeping with the earlier observation that they do not represent the most extreme cases found in the study. Mack's mean score, 4.31, is just inside the high quartile for the group of Public Speaking Men in which he was tested; it is only slightly above the average score of the Working-Class Men (4.19) and well below that of the San Quentin Group (4.73). Larry's mean score, 2.95, is barely low enough to be included in the low quartile for the Public Speaking Men. It is, however, well below any of the group means obtained in the study. Turning to the 9 variables within the scale, it may be noted that on 7 of them Mack's mean score is above the group mean. He deviates from the group most markedly in the case of Authoritarian Aggression. This is consistent with what was set down as one of the outstanding features of his interview, that is, his tendency to blame and to condemn on moral grounds a wide variety of individuals, groups, and agencies – F[ranklin] D[elano] R[oosevelt], the New Deal, the O.W.I., the Civil Service, in addition to various ethnic minorities. That homosexuals, sex criminals, those who insult »our honor,« and anyone who does not have undying love for his parents should be regarded in the same way is not surprising. It is to be noted, however, that he does not agree that »women should be restricted in certain ways.« This inconsistency may be interpreted in the light of the following quotation from the clinical section of his interview: 18  

»I hope to get married to the girl I'm going with now. She is an awfully nice companion. Most girls are interested only in a good time and want fellows with lots of money to spend. I didn't have the money for giving them a swell time. The girl I'm in love with now lived nine miles from me. She attended a rival high school. I dated her once in high school. When I got back from the army, I worked in a lumber mill. This girl had graduated from – and started teaching. Her uncle is the vice-president of the bank. I talked to him about buying an automobile that she was interested in. I looked it over for her, since I knew something about cars, and told her it was in good condition. I got started going

with her that way. I found out that she wasn't interested in money, but was interested in me in spite of my discharge from the army, my poor health, and prospects. She's just very good – not beautiful, but a tremendously nice personality. She is French with some Irish in her. She has a nice figure and is very wholesome. When we get married depends on circumstances. It's quite a responsibility. She wants to get married now; she is teaching in –. I'm under the GI Bill. If I get assurance of four years in college. I might get married this spring. We're well suited; I know she's interested in me, because I have so little to offer. We're both at the proper age. I intend to work part time. I don't like her teaching; I like to support my wife. I've always had that idea. But maybe under the circumstances, that won't be fully possible. She is a good cook and that is an asset, what with my stomach condition. When I tell her that you approve of our marriage, she will be pleased, but, of course, I'm always a man to make my own decisions.«

  It seems that Mack does believe that »a woman's place is in the home,« but was prevented by the logic of his situation at the time from saying so in his questionnaire. Sex, Anti-intraception, Conventionalism, and Projectivity, in the order named, are the other variables on which Mack is well above the group mean. Sex was not mentioned in the interview protocol given in Chapter II. [ 19 ] The following quotation from the clinical part of Mack's interview may, however, throw some light on his responses to the Sex items in the scale:  

(Where did you get your sex instruction?) »I never had any from my parents, though I did get some suggestions from my aunt; no real instruction. What I know I have picked up from reading. I've listened to men talk, but accepted little of it; I weighed it in the light of what I have read.« (What was your first sex experience?) »It was in 1940–41, the aftermath of a New Year's party in Washington. There was liquor. I was always a backward boy.«

  According to well-supported theory, it is precisely the kind of sexual inhibition and »backwardness« described here, and further expressed in the extreme conventionalism of the passage about plans for marriage, that lies behind the moralistic and punitive attitude toward the supposed sexuality of other people which is the main theme of the Sex items in the scale. The inconsistency seen in Mack's disagreement with the statement that »men are interested in women for only one reason« might be explained in the same way as was his response to Item 6 (Women restricted): agreement would

contradict too sharply the facts of his present situation. It is to be noted, however, that the item (For one reason) has a very low group mean and a low D.P. Mack's interview could serve well as a model of Anti-intraception. His emphasis upon practicality, efficiency, and diligence as ends in themselves, his tendency to ignore social and psychological determinants of human characteristics and human events, his failure to take into account possible inner sources of his opinions, the discrepancies between his expressed values and what appear to be his real motives, were outstanding features of his interview. The several Anti-intraception items of the F scale seem to have afforded him an excellent opportunity to express these same tendencies. An interesting discrepancy occurs in the case of Item 53 (Things too intimate), where his score of 3 is well below the group mean. This response is not very consistent with the pattern of values that he sets forth in his interview, but it seems quite consistent with what he does in the interview: as the above passage in which he discusses his approaching marriage well illustrates, he is able within the space of an hour to come to a rather free discussion of certain intimate matters with a stranger. True, his generally deferential behavior in the interview is probably an aspect of his Authoritarian Submission, but, more than this, there is a strong indication that however much Mack may assert his independence he is really a rather lonesome and troubled young man who would like to talk with someone who understood him. One familiar with Mack's interview might have expected him to go higher on Conventionalism. One of his major reasons for rejecting so many groups is that they violate conventional values, and his positive evaluations of ingroups are in the same terms – honesty, charity, thrift, diligence, etc. His ideas about work and about love and marriage seem to be utterly conventional. True, his mean score for Conventionalism is as high as it is for any other variable save Anti-intraception, and one reason why he does not stand out more sharply from the group is that the group mean itself is high – higher than for any of the other variables. Furthermore, the Conventionalism items, as a group, were not very discriminating, the mean D.P., 1.26, being the lowest of those obtained for the several variables. Item 19 (One should avoid), on which Mack's score is below the group mean, does not discriminate between the

high and low quartiles; that he should not agree with it seems consistent with his expressed value for independence. It is interesting that despite his rejection of religion in the interview, he refuses to criticize the modern church when invited to do so by Item 12. His conventionalism will not allow him to attack so well-established an institution. From Mack's interview (Chapter II) [ 20 ] we inferred that one reason he accuses various groups and agencies of wishing to establish a closely cohesive and selfishly exploitive ingroup was that he wished to do the same thing himself; unable to justify such antisocial wishes, he sees them as existing not in himself but in the world around him. This is projectivity in a rather extreme form, and if Mack had not gone above the group mean on this variable, in his scale responses, we should have had to conclude that something was radically wrong with the scale. His score of 7 on Item 70 (Plot) seems perfectly in keeping with what he had to say about politics in his interview. His responses to Items 46 (Sex orgies) and 73 (Infection and disease) are consistent with the picture of sexual inhibition given above. That he is well below the group mean on Item 65 (World catastrophe) seems attributable to the value for hard-headed scientificness which he expressed both in his interview and in his response to items under the heading of Superstition. It is notable that his scientific »realism« does not insure that he keeps his feet on the ground when it comes to interpreting social events. (Indeed, it seems to have the opposite effect, and one might inquire if this is not generally true.) Mack stands only slightly above the group mean on Destructiveness and Cynicism. This is a reminder of the fact that his interview leaves the impression of a relatively »mild case«; he makes no rabid statements, nor does he show any taste for violence. Attention to the individual items of the Destructiveness and Cynicism group shows that it is those pertaining to open or all-out aggression on which he scores at or below the mean, while he goes well above the mean on items that have to do primarily with cynicism. It is interesting to recall, in this connection, his outstandingly high score on Authoritarian Aggression. One might say that Mack cannot express aggression directly unless it is done in the name of some moral authority or unless it is against some group that has been rejected on moral grounds.

It might be suggested that another way in which Mack handles aggression is by means of cynicism. There was certainly no want of cynicism in his interview – the bureaus grab power, the civil servants think only of themselves, Roosevelt selfishly seeks a fourth term, etc. – and he obtains top scores on the items most expressive of this trend: 30 (Reports of atrocities), 59 (Always war), 67 (Eye to profit). This is, of course, hypothesizing that Mack has unconscious aggressive tendencies which are projected onto human nature and the world. Something like a high-water mark in cynicism is reached by Mack when he agrees, rather emphatically, with both Item 30 (Reports of atrocities are exaggerated) and Item 48 (Germans and Japs should be wiped out) of the E scale: in agreeing with the former he is saying that the Germans were not as bad as they were pictured; in agreeing with the latter he is saying that nevertheless we ought to wipe out as many of them as possible. On the strength of Mack's interview, we should expect him to obtain one of his highest mean scores on Authoritarian Submission. Glorification of such ingroup authorities as General Marshall, the War Department, the big capitalists, and God as »strictly a man,« was one of the interview's outstanding features. Yet his scale score on this variable (4.0) is at the group mean. Consideration of the items which pertain to this variable can effect some reconciliation of scale and interview, but it also reveals certain weaknesses in the Form 78 scale. The items on which Mack scores well above the mean – 23 (Undying love), 32 (Essential for learning), 50 (Obedience and respect), and 77 (No sane, normal person) – are those which express Authoritarian Submission in its purest form: three of them have to do with family loyalty and the third with authoritarian education. When it comes to the items which have to do with religion, however – 39 (Supernatural force) and 43 (Sciences like chemistry) – and in which ideas and feelings first experienced, presumably, in relationships with parents are now represented on a cosmic plane, his value for the objective-scientific comes to the fore and his scores are as low as they could be. One might say that Mack's submissive tendencies are insufficiently sublimated to permit their expression in abstract religious terms; the forces which are important for him are more tangible; they have concrete existence either in men or in physical objects. In this light, it is surprising that he does not agree with Item 74 (Tireless leaders).

This item, be it noted, has a very high group mean and a relatively low Discriminatory Power. It seems likely that for some of the truly submissive subjects, like Mack, the item is too open, comes too close home, so that in responding they go contrary to their strongest feeling, while the great majority of the subjects, for whom the item was not emotionally involving, responded in accordance with the element of objective truth in the statement. Rephrasing of this item in later forms seems to have improved it by minimizing the rational aspect and by putting the emphasis more squarely on leadership. Another poor item, it seems, is 20 (Progressive education). Liberals and potential fascists alike, very probably, are attracted by the word »progressive.« That Mack is no real supporter of progressive education is attested to by his enthusiastic endorsement of Item 32 (Essential for learning) which is about as clear a statement of educational reactionism as could be found. Mack is below the group mean on the rather unsatisfactory Power and »Toughness« cluster. All the items of this cluster have been discussed above. The correspondence between interview and scale lies in the fact that in neither place does he show any strong inclination to be a tough and aggressive fellow. It is in his admiration for power and in his willingness to submit to it, rather than in any wish to be an aggressive leader, that his potentiality for fascism lies. Enough has been said about Mack's extraceptive outlook, as seen both in his interview and in the scale responses discussed above, so that his very low score on Superstition is no more than is to be expected. The surprising thing, perhaps, is that he should agree with Item 2 (Astrology), when the great majority of the subjects do not. His agreement here suggests that his relative lack of superstition is not based upon a genuine identification with science as a way of life, but rather upon his general need to appear hard-headed and realistic and unlikely to be »taken in.« In general, there is rather close correspondence between Mack's interview and his scale responses. Discrepancies appear chiefly when the scale, which concentrates upon things thought to be generally significant, fails to catch something which is relatively specific and unique, and, more commonly, when the particular scale item is deficient and fails to discriminate between high and low scorers. There is reason to believe that the latter difficulty has been

largely overcome in the revisions of the scale. Turning to a consideration of Larry's case, it may be noted first, that he scores below the group mean on all the F scale variables save one, Authoritarian Aggression. He deviates most widely from the mean, in the low direction, on Power and »Toughness,« Projectivity, and Anti-intraception; then come Superstition and Authoritarian Submission; and he comes close to the mean on Destructiveness and Cynicism, Sex, and Conventionalism. Less can be said about the relative lack of these tendencies in Larry than about their operation in Mack. Larry agrees with none of the statements in the Power and »Toughness« cluster, and this accords with the interview's picture of him as a rather soft and agreeable young man. He agrees with only one of the Projectivity statements, Item 56 (Crime wave), and even here his score is barely above the group mean on a statistically poor item. His lack of this tendency was commented upon in the discussion of his interview, where his willingness to admit his – not too lofty – motives and his inclination to find the origins of his own views were noteworthy. A low score on Anti-intraception is certainly to be expected from a man who gives considerable attention to his own feelings, makes a positive value of pleasure, says he likes to »philosophize,« and discusses psychological determinants of prejudice – as Larry did in his interview. Inconsistencies appear in the case of Items 55 (Leisure) and 53 (Things too intimate), where he goes somewhat above the mean; the former may be taken as an expression of his conventionality, while the latter would appear to be connected with his special problem – »that disease« (tuberculosis) that he had. There was nothing in Larry's interview to suggest that he was superstitious and, hence, it is to be expected that he should obtain a low score on the Superstition variable. Why he should agree with the astrology item is a question. Perhaps it should not be surprising to find an element of mysticism in this weak and rather passive character. Authoritarian Submission was rather prominent in Larry's interview. He made it clear that he has a great deal of respect for his family and that he has had little occasion to rebel against them either in deed or in thought. That he is still below the mean makes it clear that in order to be high on this variable something more than ordinary respect for proper authority is required: the submission must be exaggerated or overdone, and it must be generalized to

include other objects besides family members. Two of the three items on which Larry goes above the mean – 23 (Undying love) and 77 (No sane, normal person) – refer specifically to ingroup feelings in regard to the family; the third, 32 (Essential for learning), gives him an opportunity to express his conventionality. Larry is below the group mean on Destructiveness and Cynicism, but the naive optimism and friendliness toward the world which he showed in his interview is enough to raise the question of why he is not still lower. One thing to note is that the items on which he goes up have, in general, high group means and low D.P.'s. It seems that these items approach close enough to being clichés so that most people agree with them, and Larry is enough of a conformist to go along. In connection with Larry's score on Sex, which is .55 below the group mean, the following quotation from the clinical section of his interview is enlightening. (Sex?) »No great problem. I thought about girls all the time, as boys will, and I looked at them. I started out with them at about 15. I liked them a lot and associated with them at school and in the neighborhood. You know, you have the usual sexual desires, but you don't let them bother you.« (Sex morals?) »I feel a girl should remain a virgin until 21 or 22 anyway. If she expects to marry soon after that, she should wait until after marriage, but if she is a career girl or doesn't want to get married, then an affair with an unmarried man is OK if they keep it quiet and secluded so the moral standards of others are not lowered. She should pick out one fellow to have a sex relation with, not carry on with several.« (You?) »Not until after I came out of the hospital, when I was 23 or 24. Since then I've had several affairs, lasting a few weeks or a month. I won't marry until I have more security. She almost has to be a virgin, though not necessarily. I lost respect for the women I slept with. I know that's selfish, but I guess that's the way most fellows are.«

  Although this is conventional enough – »the way most fellows are,« as Larry says – it does not bespeak the kind of inhibition which we conceive to lie behind high scores on the Sex items. Actually, Larry's score on this variable would have been very low were it not for his score of 6 on Item 31 (Homosexuality). It is possible that he is not free of worry in this area – but this is a matter that had best be left until it is time to discuss the clinical material itself. Enough has been said about Larry's conventionalism to make it appear reasonable that he should be close to the mean on this

variable. A problem is presented by the fact that he is actually above the mean on Authoritarian Aggression. True, his score is still far below that of Mack, but Larry's interview gave the impression of a young man who would hardly want to punish anybody, and it is a criticism of the scale that it fails to confirm this impression. The two items on which his score goes up are 31 (Homosexuals), which was discussed above, and 23 (Undying love). This latter item, though it has an element of punishment in it, also expresses Authoritarian Submission, and Larry's response is probably to be explained on the basis of his family loyalty. The group means and D.P.'s of the Authoritarian Aggression items are, relatively, quite satisfactory. It seems that in regard to the present variable, the F scale was not a fine enough instrument to give the true picture in Larry's case. The differences between Larry and Mack seem to be reflected fairly well in their F-scale responses. Mack scores higher than Larry on all the variables save one, Superstition. Mack is more than 2 points higher on Anti-intraception, Projectivity, and Sex, more than 1 point higher on Power and »Toughness,« Authoritarian Aggression, and Conventionalism, and 1.00 and .87 higher, respectively, on Destructiveness and Cynicism, and Authoritarian Submission. It is particularly interesting that the variables which are most differentiating, that is, Anti-intraception, Projectivity, and Sex, are those which seem to be at the greatest distance from the overt content of fascist ideology. They are variables that seem to have their sources deep within the personality and to be relatively impervious to superficial changes in the external situation. It will remain for later chapters to show that as we go deeper into the person the differentiation between high and low scorers becomes more clear-cut and dependable.

 G. Conclusion   The attempt to construct a scale that would measure prejudice without appearing to have this aim and without mentioning the name of any minority group seems to have been fairly successful. The correlation of .75 between the E and the F scale means that scores on the former may be predicted with fair accuracy from scores on the latter. That we have achieved the second purpose underlying the F scale – to construct an instrument that would yield an estimate of fascist receptivity at the personality level – has still to be demonstrated. Numerous variables in areas not ordinarily covered by studies of political, economic, and social ideology have been attacked directly; and they have been found to form a syndrome and to correlate significantly with antidemocratic trends in areas covered by the A-S, E, and PEC scales. This means, at the least, that the conception of a potentially fascistic pattern can be considerably extended, and that the hypothesis of central personality dispositions which give rise to this pattern is lent considerable support. It remains to be shown conclusively, however, that the variables with which the F scale has been concerned are, in reality, variables of personality. If it is true that they are, then they will be exposed directly as we consider findings from procedures designed especially for the investigation of personality and in which the individual is allowed to express himself spontaneously. If our major hypothesis is correct, then the clinical investigations soon to be reported should not only substantiate the findings of the present chapter, but give a deeper understanding of the potentially fascistic pattern and of its development within the individual.

 Fußnoten   [ 1 See below, pp. 248ff.]   2 Herbert S. Conrad and R. Nevitt Sanford, »Scales for the Measurement of War-Optimism: I. Military Optimism; II. Optimism on the Consequences of the War,« The Journal of Psychology 16 (1943), pp. 285–311; Idem, »Some Specific War Attitudes of College Students,« The Journal of Psychology 17 (1944), pp. 153–186; R. Nevitt Sanford, »American Conscience and the Coming Peace,« Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 38 (1943), pp. 158–165; R. Nevitt Sanford and Herbert S. Conrad, »High and Low Morale as Exemplified in Two Cases,« Character and Personality 13 (1944), pp. 207–227; R. Nevitt Sanford, Herbert S. Conrad and Kate Franck, »Psychological Determinants of Optimism regarding the Consequences of the War,« The Journal of Psychology 22 (1946), pp. 207–235; R. Nevitt Sanford and Herbert S. Conrad, »Some Personality Correlates of Morale,« Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 38 (1943), pp. 3–20.   3 T.W. Adorno, »Anti-Semitism and Fascist Propaganda,« Anti-Semitism: A Social Disease, ed. Ernst Simmel (New York: International Universities Press, 1946 [auch GS 8, s. S. 397ff.]); Idem, »The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas' Radio Speeches« [GS 9.1, s. pp. 7ff.]; Institute of Social Research, Studien über Autorität und Familie, ed. Max Horkheimer (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1936); Idem, Studies in Philosophy and Social Science 9 (1941); Idem, Studies in Anti-Semitism: A Report to the American Jewish Committee, 4 vols. (unpublished: August, 1944); Idem, Anti-Semitism within American Labor: A Report to the Jewish Labor Committee, 4 vols. (unpublished: May, 1945).   4 Erich Fromm ( Escape from Freedom [New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1941]), Erick H. Erikson (»Hitler's Imagery and German Youth,« Psychiatry 5 [1942], pp. 475–493), Arthur H. Maslow (»The Authoritarian Character Structure,« The Journal of Social Psychology 18 [1943], pp. 401–411), George B. Chisholm (»The Reestablishment of Peacetime Society,« Psychiatry 9 [1946],

pp. 3–21), and Wilhelm Reich ( The Mass Psychology of Fascism, trans. Theodore P. Wolfe [New York: Orgone Institute Press, 1946]) are among the writers whose thinking about authoritarianism has influenced our own.   5 Henry A. Murray, et al., Explorations in Personality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1938).   6 Although no items pertaining specifically to stereotypy appear in Form 78 of the F scale, several such items do find a place in the later forms; hence, it seems well to introduce this concept into the discussion at this point.   [ 7 Daniel J. Levinson, »Ethnocentrism in Relation to Intelligence and Education,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 280–288.]   [ 8 Daniel J. Levinson, »The Study of Anti-Semitic Ideology,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 57–101.]   9 It may be reported here that in the case of the University of Oregon Student Women Form 60 of the questionnaire was administered in two parts: Part A contained the F scale and one half of the PEC scale and Part B, administered a day later, contained the E scale and the other half of the PEC scale. The purpose of this proceeding was to test whether responses to the items of one scale were affected by the presence within the same questionnaire of items from other scales. Apparently this variation in the manner of administration made little or no difference. When the results for the University of Oregon Student Women (Group 1) are compared with those for the University of Oregon and University of California Student Women (Group 2) – a fairly similar group – the differences in reliability, mean score, and S.D. appear to be insignificant. The same is true in the cases of the E and PEC scales, and reference to Table 14 (IV) and to Table 5 (V) will show. The mean for the group of Oregon Service Club Men (Group V) who received only the A part of Form 60 does seem to be somewhat lower than that of the other group of Oregon Service Club Men. This difference cannot, however, be attributed to the difference in the form of the questionnaire. More important, probably, is the fact that Group V, in

contrast to the other group, received the questionnaire after having listened to a talk on »What to do with Germany.« There was at least an implicit connection between the content of the talk and the content of the F scale; as one of the subjects who sensed this connection said afterwards to our staff member, »You should have given the questionnaire before your talk.«   10 This analysis was made possible by a grant-in-aid from the Social Science Research Council.   11 Fisher's Z r was used in computing the average r.   12 The correlation between E and F does not seem to depend upon whether the two scales are administered at different times, or at the same time with items from the one scale interspersed among those of the other. The correlation obtained in the case of the University of Oregon Student Women, who were given Form 60 in two parts, is not only similar to that obtained, with the use of the regular Form 60, in the case of the University of Oregon and University of California Student Women, but it is virtually the same as the mean E. F correlation for all groups of subjects.   13 The reliability of the »A« half of the E scale, which was given as a part of Form 40 to that group, was not calculated.   14 The correlation coefficient which, theoretically, would result if two scales were perfectly reliable, i.e., if the average obtained r were corrected for attenuation, is about .9. This indicates a striking correspondence, though not a complete identity, of what is measured by the two scales.   [ 15 See below, pp. 265ff.]   [ 16 See above, pp. 173ff.]   [ 17 William R. Morrow, »Criminality and Anti-Democratic Trends: A Study of Prison Inmates,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 817–890.]  

18 Throughout the book, the interviewer's report of the interview is given in small type. Quotation marks within this material indicate a verbatim record of the subject's statements.   [ 19 R. Nevitt Sanford, »The Contrasting Ideologies of Two College Men: A Preliminary View,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 31–56.]   [ 20 Sanford, »The Contrasting Ideologies of Two College Men: A Preliminary View.«]  

 Part IV Qualitative Studies of Ideology Introductory Remarks [ 1 ] The present volume has so far offered findings from our research ranging from surface ideology to largely unconscious psychological traits of our subjects. The direction of research and the order of presentation were suggested by the nature of the ideological data themselves; they could not be derived solely from external factors, such as economic status, group membership, or religion; but rather the evidence pointed unmistakably to the role played by motivational forces in the personality. However, the study did not move mechanically from the ideological to the psychological; rather, we were constantly aware of the structural unity of the two. It thus seems permissible that we reverse the procedure now and ask: what is the meaning of the subjects' overt opinions and attitudes in the areas covered by the A-S, E, and PEC scales, when they are considered in the light of our psychological findings, particularly those deriving from the F-scale and the clinical sections of the interviews? By answering this question we may come closer to an integration of the various aspects of a study which is centered in the problem of the relationship between ideology and personality. As was natural, the material for this task was mainly taken from the nonclinical parts of the interviews. Not only did these data promise to yield additional evidence bearing on the major issues discussed thus far, but the wealth of detailed and elaborate statements which our subjects had formulated spontaneously and in their own way, offered numerous psychological leads. There is good reason to believe that the nonclinical sections of the interviews constitute through their inherent structure a link between ideology and personality. However, attention was not limited to this interrelationship; at the same time an attempt was made to obtain a more colorful picture of the various ideologies themselves than was possible as long as we limited ourselves to the standard questionnaires.

Since the data from the questionnaire and from the Thematic Apperception Test and the clinical parts of the interviews had been subjected to thorough statistical treatment, quantification of the present material, though desirable, did not seem necessary. The aim, rather, was to develop for the problem areas under consideration, a phenomenology based on theoretical formulations and illustrated by quotations from the interviews. This procedure, it was hoped, would yield not only more information about the specific structure of the ideologies and the manner in which personality is expressed in them but also a further differentiation of the guiding theoretical concepts themselves. The advantages of this supplementary procedure are several. It permits us to exploit the richness and concreteness of »live« interviews to a degree otherwise hardly attainable. What is lost for want of strict discipline in interpretation may be gained by flexibility and closeness to the phenomena. Rare or even unique statements may be elucidated by the discussion. Such statements, often of an extreme nature, may throw considerable light on potentialities which lie within supposedly »normal« areas, just as illness helps us to understand health. At the same time, attention to the consistency of the interpretation of these statements with the over-all picture provides a safeguard against arbitrariness. A subjective or what might be called speculative element has a place in this method, just as it does in psychoanalysis, from which many of our categories have been drawn. If, in places, the analysis seems to jump to conclusions, the interpretations should be regarded as hypotheses for further research, and the continuous interaction of the various methods of the study should be recalled: some of the measured variables discussed in earlier chapters were based on speculations put forward in this part. In view of the discussions in Chapters III [ 2 ] and IV [ 3 ] it was not deemed necessary to differentiate between A-S and E in the treatment of the interview material. While the generally close correlation of anti-Semitism and ethnocentrism could be taken for granted on the basis of previous results, more specific accounts of the nature of their interrelation, as well as of certain deviations, were incorporated into the first chapter of the present part (Chapter XVI). [4]

The chapter which discusses various syndromes found in high

and low scorers (XIX) [ 5 ] is also included in this part. Although from a strictly logical point of view it may not belong here, it seemed nevertheless appropriate to include it, since it is based almost entirely on interview material and focused on the interconnection between ideology and personality. The syndromes evolved in this chapter should be followed up by quantitative investigation.

 Fußnoten   [ 1 The author of these »Introductory Remarks« is not given.]   [ 2 Daniel J. Levinson, »The Study of Anti-Semitic Ideology,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 57–101.]   [ 3 Idem, »The Study of Ethnocentric Ideology,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 102–150.]   [ 4 See below, pp. 265ff.]   [ 5 See below, pp. 454ff.]  

 Chapter XVI Prejudice in the Interview Material 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 antiminority prejudice as a sociopsychological phenomenon per se, but rather to examine the relation of antiminority 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 parellel 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, 1 concentrated on the question of anti-Semitism, but at the same time was concerned with sociopsychological 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[rederick] 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.   List of Questions Pertaining to Jews

Do you think there is a Jewish problem? If yes, in what sense? Do you care about it? Have you had any experience with Jews? What kind? Do you remember names of persons involved and other specific data? If not, on what is your opinion based? Did you have any contrary experiences (or hear about such experiences) with Jewish individuals? If you had – would it change your opinion? If not, why not? Can you tell a Jew from other people? How? What do you know about the Jewish religion? Are there Christians that are as bad as Jews? Is their percentage as high or higher than the percentage of bad Jews? How do Jews behave at work? What about the alleged Jewish industriousness? Is it true that the Jews have an undue influence in movies, radio, literature, and universities? If yes – what is particularly bad about it? What should be done about it? Is it true that the Jews have an undue influence in business, politics, labor, etc.? If yes – what kind of an influence? Should something be done to curb it? What did the Nazis do to the German Jews? What do you think about it? Is there such a problem here? What would you do to solve it? 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? Do you favor social discrimination or special legislation? Shall a Jew be treated as an individual or as a member of a group? How do your suggestions go along with constitutional rights? Do you object to personal contacts with individual Jews? Do you consider Jews more as a nuisance or more as a menace? Could you imagine yourself marrying a Jew? Do you like to discuss the Jewish issue? What would you do if you were a Jew? Can a Jew ever become a real American?

  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 conflict in prejudice – the problems characterized in Chapter V [ 2 ] 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,« 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, 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 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). [ 3 ] It should be stressed that once again the 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, [ 4 ] 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, 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. 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 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 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 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 cui bono: 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. 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 conflict situation, something which is clearly set forth in a number of our interviews. We then take up what appears to be the resolution of this conflict: the underlying anti-Semitism of our cultural climate, keyed to the prejudiced person's own unconscious 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 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.

 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 per se, but with whom it is relatively accidental against what group their prejudice is directed. We content ourselves with two examples. 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:  

»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.«

  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 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, 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 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 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 M 1225a, 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:   (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. ... It would be less of a problem.«

  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.   »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.«

  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:   (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.«

  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 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 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), [ 5 ] 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 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 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 countercathexis, 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 5023, a »psychoneurotic with anxiety state,« Mexican by birth:   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.«

  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:  

He is of pure Italian extraction and naturalized here at the time of the first World 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 one.« »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.

  We may mention, furthermore, 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.

 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 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 »Weltanschauung« 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. 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:  

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.«

  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 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 equalled by the intensity of her vindictiveness.   »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, moneyminded. ... The 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. ... I think the percentage of very bad Jews is very much greater than the percentage of bad Gentiles. ... 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.«

  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 antidemocratic whose only hope lies in the maintenance of democratic rights. 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:  

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.«

  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. 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 following example shows the idea of Jewish omnipresence applied to personal experience, thus revealing its proximity to delusion. 6070, a 40-year-old woman, is high-middle on the E scale and particularly vehement about the Jews:   »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.«

  This quotation is remarkable for more reasons than that it exemplifies the »Jews are everywhere« complex. It is the expression of Jewish weakness – that they are »always crying« – which is perverted into ubiquity. The refugee, forced to leave his country, appears as he who 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 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, 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 »uncannyness.« »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:   »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.«

  The persecution fantasy of what the Jews 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. M

732c 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:  

»You never see a Negro driving (an ordinary car of which subject mentions a number of examples) but only a Cadillac or a Packard. ... They always dress gaudy. They have that tendency to show off. ... Since the Negro has that feeling that he isn't up to par, he's always trying to show off. ... Even though he can't afford it, he will buy an expensive car just to make a show. ...« 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.

  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«:  

»As far as being good and shrewd businessmen, that's about all I have to say about them. They're white people, that's one thing. ... Of course, they have the Jewish instinct, whatever that is. ... I've heard they have a business nose. ... I imagine the Jewish people are more obsequious. ... For example, somehow a Jewish barber will entice you to come to his chair.« Subject elaborates here a definite fantasy of some mysterious influence by Jews. ... »They're mighty shrewd businessmen, and you don't have much chance« (competing with Jews).

  The story about the barber seems to be a retrogression towards early infantile, magical patterns of thinking. F 359, 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:   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 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. (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.

  It is often advocated as the best means of improving inter-cultural 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 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 having experiences in order to prevent the growth of ideas which are malignant in the most literal, clinical sense.

 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 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; and at the same time, the anti-Semitic individual as such, the potentially fascist character, is certainly not a psychotic. 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: 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 malad-justment? 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): [ 6 ] 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 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, providing at once intellectual equilibrium, countercathexis, and a canalization of wishes for a »change.« Anti-Semitic writers and agitators from Chamberlain to Rosenberg and Hitler have always maintained that the existence of the Jews is the 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 cliché regularly makes the outgroup bad and the ingroup good, the anti-Semitic pattern of orientation offers emotional, narcissistic 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 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 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, 105, when asked, »What about other groups?« states:   »Well, the Jews are a ticklish problem – not the whole race; there are both good and bad. But there are more bad than good.«

  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, 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 nature of the term itself; it can be both a neutral issue of analysis and, as indicated by the every-day 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 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 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 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 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 5047, who scored low on the E scale but high on F and PEC.  

»Yes, I think there is a so-called Jewish problem and a Negro problem, but essentially 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 clichés.

  The term »problem« itself seems to suggest a too naive 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 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. F 116 is middle on the E scale, but when the question of the Jews is raised:  

(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 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 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.«

  »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 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. 5039, a 27-year-old student at the University of Southern California and a war veteran, who scores high on E:   »Yes, I think I can ... 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. ... 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. ...«

 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« 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« 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 out-group. 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 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 nonassimilated 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 the »two kinds« concept is spurious because it is thoroughly stereotyped itself. 5007, who scores high on all the scales, comments as follows:   »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.«

  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, 5051, the man who brings the Armenians into play:  

»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.«

  Research on anti-Semitism among Jews would probably corroborate this »pet« idea. In Germany at least, the »autochthonous« 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 »Ostjuden.« 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, M 1229m, 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.   (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.«

  This making of private exceptions is sometimes, as by the mildly anti-Semitic radio writer 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« cliché, 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, F 109:   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.«

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

Subject knows she's prejudiced; she thinks she needs educating too, by working with people of different races.

  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.  

(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 ... (pause) ... 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 ...!« (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 Jew creates feelings of tension. Squeaky voice, long, pointed nose. Couldn't name anti-Semitic groups in this country but think they exist.«

 

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, 5013, whose scale scores are generally high:  

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 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.

  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 semirealistic. But the construct of »two kinds of Negroes« often results in quite a different

connotation, as in the case of F 340a. She is high on F and PEC and middle on E.  

»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 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.‹«

  Here, the »two kinds« idea results in plain persecution fantasies.

 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. 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. ...« 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. 7 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 stams 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 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 anti-stereotypical 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. 5056, a 29-year-old housewife, with high scores on all the scales,   Stated that she and her husband have no particular dislike for 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.«

  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:

 

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.«

  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:  

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 noninvolvement in or detachment from the whole question of anti-Semitism.

  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 M 1230a, middle scorer of the Maritime School group:  

(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. ... And then the Negro problem. ... I try to be liberal, but I was raised in a Jim Crow state. ... I don't think I would ever fall in with giving the Negroes equal rights in every way. ... And yet, foreigners, you have a natural dislike for them. Yet, all of us were once foreigners ...«

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

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

 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 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 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 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 counter-tendencies, 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 cliché which seems to make this idea acceptable once and for all: that the Jews »brought it on themselves« no matter what »it« may be. M 107, 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«:   »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.«

  How the moralistic construct of Jewish responsibility leads to a complete reversal between victim and murderer is strikingly demonstrated by one subject, 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:   »No American can approve of what the Nazis did to the Jews. I really hope that 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.«

  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 5044, who is consistently high on all scales:  

»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.«

  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, M 359, 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:   (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 peoples. «

  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 Jew's supposedly unchangeably bad nature:   (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.«

  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 5012, a 21-year-old discharged naval petty officer, who scores high on all scales:   »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.«

  The high-scoring woman F 103, however, who used to be a social welfare student but has changed to decorative art, lets the cat out of the bag:

 

»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.«

  Here the interrelation between death-wish 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 highlights 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 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 of a rigidly conceived and hypostatized ingroup. The outgroup, the chosen foe, represents an eternal challenge. As long as anything different survives, the 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, 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 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 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 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.«  

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 ... 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 check,« 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. ... He did not seem aware that he was generalizing from his own particular experience and environment.

  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 boundless hostility is shown by this subject's answer to the specific question referring to Hitler's atrocities:   »Well, if I had been in Germany, I think I would have done the same. ... I suppose I could have been a Nazi. ... I think discipline is a good thing. ...«

  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 M 104, a former engineering student who has changed to law:  

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.«

  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 F 105. 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:  

»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.«

  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. 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 5006, a dentistry student and contractor who scores high throughout the questionnaire. He suffers from color-blindness and from psychogenic sexual impotence, determined, according to the interviewer, by a severe Oedipus complex. His radical wishes for the extermination of the Jews are probably conditioned by severe, early childhood traumata: projections of his own castration fear. His exaggerated ingroup identification seems to be concomitant with an underlying feeling of weakness: he simply does not wish to become acquainted with what is different, apparently because he deems it dangerous.   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.

  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:   »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.«

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

»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.«

  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. The tenets of individualism are altered by this subject as follows:   »They should be treated, I suppose, like individuals; but after all, they are all alike.«

  Of course »everyone can tell a Jew.« The distinction between inand outgroup obtains an almost metaphysical weight: even the imaginary possibility of the disappearance of the dichotomy is excluded:   »I couldn't be a Jew.«

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

»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.«

 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 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 Nathan der Weise, »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 quasi-natural incorrigibility 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 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 Lumpenproletariat 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 workingman 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 working men 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 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 numerus clausus 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 par excellence. 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 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, 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 F 114, a woman consistently high on all scales, who is a surgical nurse of partly Jewish descent:  

»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.«

  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 5055, an otherwise thoroughly liberal man of 73 years who scored low on all the scales. He feels   »that this protective philosophy of the Jews has led to a situation where they do stimulate antagonism in other people.«

  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 humiliations under which they know the Jews live. Here belongs the case of a 20-year-old, somewhat neurotic interior decorator, 5028, who is in open rebellion against his father but strongly attached to his mother:   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.«

  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 M 105 makes the following statement:  

»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.«

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

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.

  The psychological determination of this subject's hatred of the refugee competitors can be inferred the more safely since he acknowledges that   »There is no doubt that the Jews are talented in music.«

  He sets against this only the vague standard accusation:  

»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.

  The refugees, as those who are objectively weak, are regularly blamed for 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. 5043, a middle-aged housewife with extremely high scores on all the scales, alleges that the Jews   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.

  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. 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«:   »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.«

  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 of some kind of togetherness from which the

members of the real in-group pretend to be excluded. The aforementioned F 105 finds the formula:  

»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.«

  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 there-fore repulsive sensuality. Some insight into this matter is afforded by the 42-year-old woman, F 118, 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.   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 Jewish children.

  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 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 M 102, a subject scoring high on all scales:   »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.«

  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 F 113, 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«:  

»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.«

 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, e contrario, 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 hand, the general tendency towards intraceptiveness 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 M 910, 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 some-what primitive manner, to the difficulties of the minority haters, not to the object of their hatred:  

(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) ... and they're afraid they'll come back ... and they're afraid of them as competitors because they work harder. ...« (You fell it's mainly an economic conflict?) »Well, it isn't altogether economic, and I don't think it will be solved on an economic basis. ... 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 ... e.g., that there is no necessity for separaring 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. ... Of course, a lot of it is irrational.«

  As to the emphasis on dynamic factors versus supposedly innate qualities, the most striking illustration is provided by M 203, 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, 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:   »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.«

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

»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.)

  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 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 M 910. 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:  

»Well, I wouldn't be tricked into making a statement about any people as a group. The Japanese I've known I've liked very well. I know there are some Japanese who aren't so nice. ... We had a Japanese girl stand up with us at the altar and a Chinese girl too ... 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.«

  A similar line is followed in the Los Angeles interview 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:   »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 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.«

  An extreme example of fully conscious anti-stereotypy is 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,« 8 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:   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 ... but I don't think we should call it a Jewish problem; it really is a Christian problem ... question of educating the Gentiles who practice anti-Semitism.« When given the check list, she laughed and said: »Of course, one can't generalize ... these are the stereotypes used by the anti-Semites to blame the Jews for certain faults ... I don't think one should label any group like this ... 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 militant stand against anti-Semitism. She feels that anti-Semitism is one of the most dangerous trends in this country and feels that 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 ... if only we could make people see that some people are aggressive for certain reasons, usually because of insecurity, and Jews are not aggressive because they are Jews.«

 

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 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 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. M 113, a »religious low scorer« whose F scale shows higher trends and whose PEC scale was still higher:   (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.«

  Similarly, in M 320, 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.  

»I'm very much pro-Negro, myself. I think I'm in favor of almost any minority that's discriminated against unfairly ...« (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.«

  Or the young woman F 129, 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:  

(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.«

  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 5030 (see p. [320]). We give one further illustration: F 126, 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«:  

»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.«

  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. [275] 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 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 M 202, a 35-year-old construction engineer, with the lowest possible score on E, but with certain deviations from the usual 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.«  

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.

  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 M 310, 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:   (Characteristic Jewish traits?) »Well, I think it is true that Jews, as a group, are more concerned with money. ... Perhaps because persecuted for so long. ... 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.«

  Subjects whose scores are at the lowest extreme often tend simply to 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. M 112, a »quiet, reserved, well-mannered sophomore of 18 years,« whose scale scores are all low, simply subscribes to the »envy« theory:   (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.«

  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:  

»I think there is a Jewish problem – but I don't think that they are different ... not that there is anything inherent in them that they should be set apart or treated differently. ... There are historical reasons for their persecution ... 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. ... These terms might apply to some individuals, to Christians as well as Jews ... you have some aggressive people, but they are not aggressive because they are Jewish ... it's usually something that the other person does not like ... say they appear to be more intellectual and some succeed, outdoing others, this causes resentment, and then they are called aggressive. ...«

  An extreme of denial is achieved by the »easy-going« low scorer, M 1206a, 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:  

(Most characteristic traits of Negroes?) »Well, I don't think there is such a thing. They have the same traits the white men have. ... I don't believe any nationality has any characteristics. ...«

  Sometimes the intense emotions behind the denial of Jewish traits find a somewhat irrational expression. F 125 (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.  

»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.«

  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 M 115, 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:  

(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.«

  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. F 128, a 17-year-old girl, is low on F and PEC but slightly higher on E. She is studying social work and is interested in child welfare, but not »in any kind of a career«:  

»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.«

  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 performed, 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.« 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:  

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. ... 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. ... 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 direct political action.

  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 Chapters XIV [ 9 ] and XV, [ 10 ] they appear to be relatively free of destructive 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. 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 naively, in the establishment of personal contacts.  

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.«

  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. 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.«  

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 differem from each other that we cannot speak of there being something ›basically Jewish‹ about them.«

 J. Conclusion   It has often been said that anti-Semitism works as the spearhead of antidemocratic 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. M 106, 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:  

»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.«

  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 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«:  

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.«

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

 Fußnoten   1 Institute of Social Research, Anti-Semitism within American Labor: A Report to the Jewish Labor Committee, 4 vols. (unpublished: May, 1945).   [ 2 Daniel J. Levinson, »Politico-Economic Ideology and Group Memberships in Relation to Ethnocentrism,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 151–207.]   [ 3 Else Frenkel-Brunswik, »The Interviews as an Approach to the Prejudiced Personality,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 291–336.]   [ 4 Daniel J. Levinson, »The Study of Anti-Semitic Ideology,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 57–101.]   [ 5 Daniel J. Levinson, »The Study of Ethnocentric Ideology,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 102–150.]   [ 6 See below, pp. 332ff.]   7 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. We refer here to case 5057, discussed in detail in Chapter XIX, where the subject's bias is practically explained by himself as the outcome of resentment aroused by a childhood experience with a Jewish delictessen man. See the »rigid low scorer« in Chapter XIX [below, p. 492].   8 See the »rigid low scorer« in Chapter XIX [below, p. 492].   [ 9 Betty Aron, »The Thematic Apperception Test in the Study of Prejudiced and Unprejudiced Individuals,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 489–544.]  

[ 10 Daniel J. Levinson, »Projective Questions in the Study of Personality and Ideology,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 545–600.]  

 Chapter XVII Politics and Economics in the Interview Material A. Introduction The questionnaire findings on political and economic ideology have been analyzed in Chapter V. [ 1 ] 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 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 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 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 moulding 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 naive 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 antidemocratic 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 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 2 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 all scales, but still shows trends which look potentially fascist, then one might say that the scales and other techniques do not cover 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 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 political and economic ideology and later with a number of specific political issues. 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.

 B. Formal Constituents of Political Thinking  

1. Ignorance and Confusion 3 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 sociopsychological 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 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 »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 M 117, 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.  

(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.«

  To this man, the existence or nonexistence of capitalism in this country is simply a matter of »education.« A »bluffer« is the veteran M 732c, a high-scoring man with high-school education, who always starts with sentences which sound up-to-date but rarely finishes them:  

(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 ...«

  The subject's statements abound with qualifications and evasions:  

»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. ... I am not very well versed on. ...«

  Asked about the most dangerous threats to present form of government:  

»Well, let's see ... well, we might have another war in the U.S.A. Since the U.S. itself is a huge melting pot. ... I imagine in the U.S. there are a lot of people who hated to see Hitler die and are pro-German – and maybe one of these little

groups will ... catch on.«

  A San Quentin prisoner, M 621A, 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:  

»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 ... 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.«

  One of the most extreme examples in the high-scoring woman F 121, who »was never good at school work« and apparently had very little general education.  

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.«

  Again, 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:   »I hear that communists and socialists are both bad.«

  By contrast, 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:   »All of the people in the entertainment world who are communists are good guys.«

  On further questioning it comes out that according to his opinion:  

Communism seems to be a sort of social club which holds meetings and raises money for worthy causes.

  Somewhat exceptional is the statement of the moderately

low-scoring callhouse girl, 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:   »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.«

  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, F 128, who is middle on E and F but high on PEC:  

»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.«

  Interesting also is the low scorer, F 517, 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.   »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).«

  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 naive 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 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 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 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.

 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, 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 naive 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 and fallacious they may be, which help him to find his way through the dark, as it were. 4 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 »ununderstandable,« 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 stereotypy and 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 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. 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, moulded after industrial production, spread a whole system of stereotypes which, while still being fundamentally »ununderstandable« 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, »nonexperienced« 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. 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 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 nonexperienced 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. a. CASES OF POLITICAL TICKET THINKING. We limit ourselves to describing a few cases of political stereotypy. M 359 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 cliché-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 afterwards form a kind of ideological unit once a person is under the sway of political semi-information:   (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 workers, pay is unsufficient to attract the best calibre of men and no incentive plans, etc. (Threats to present government?) »Probably most dangerous threat to our 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.«

  The decisive twist is achieved by jumping from the very abstract idea of »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 cliché of an all-comprising democracy 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. M 1225a, a medium scorer who has been eighteen months at sea and is 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 clichés – 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:  

»For one thing they have too much power. Cross between the socialistic part of the union and the government ... seems to go to the other extreme. Government investigation ...« (subject seems rather confused in his ideas here). »The unions

... 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. ... Nine times out of ten the heads of the unions don't know anything of the trade. It's a good racket. ...«

  Most of his subsequent answers are closely in line with a general pattern 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.  

($25,000 limit on salaries?) »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.«

  In this case, clichés 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. F 139 belongs to the type which is to be characterized in Chapter XIX [ 5 ] 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:   »My favorite world statesman is Litvinov. 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.«

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

»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.«

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

»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.«

  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 M 359.   »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.«

  b. 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, M 116, prefers [Henry A.] Wallace to [Thomas E.] Dewey because   »Wallace is the better man and I usually vote for the better man.«

  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, M 102, employs almost literally the same expression as M 116:   »... put down Democratic, but I never thought much about the party. I don't vote for the party but for the best man.«

  Professed belief in political theories is no antidote for personalization. M 117, 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:  

»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 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.«

  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. F 114, 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). [ 6 ] 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. F 117, 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:   She feels that Dewey knows the value of money better than Roosevelt, because he came from a family that did not have too much.

  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, per contra, is the symbol of one's own frustrations and is unconsciously, i.e., sado-masochistically, 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 there-fore 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 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 brought into 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.

 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 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 pseudoconservatism, it may be appropriate to offer a few examples here. F 116, 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 [Wendell] Willkie and then for Dewey. She »wasn't against Roosevelt,« but her statement that »no man is indispensable« thinly veils her underlying hostility. She   »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.«

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

»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.«

  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 broad-mindedness and rationality of surface opinion seems to be conditioned by strong underlying, repressed irrationalities:   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.

  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) [ 7 ] that she is »not very proud« of her anti-Semitic bias. M 320, of the University Extension Testing Class, is a lowscoring man, hesitant, apologetic, shy, and unaggressive. He wants to become a landscape architect. His political views are consciously

liberal and definitely nonprejudiced. 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:   »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.«

  He first takes a mildly anti-strike attitude:  

»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 ... in a large company ... maybe they might be able to take it, all right, but in little shops ... and if it did go through, and even if it did not have disastrous (effects) on business closing ... 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. ...«

  Then he talks himself into a more definite stand against strikes, introduced by the still democratic »getting together« formula.  

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

  The last statement, rather confused, actually belongs to the high-scorer pattern concerning the inherent badness of human nature (cf. Chapter VII). [ 8 ] 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:  

»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. ...«

  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 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 M 118, 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.   »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.«

  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:  

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.

  The Canadian M 934, 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:  

»... I'm of a practical nature and I would not vote for the socialists ... especially if I thought they would get in.«

  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.   »I would vote ... only to maintain socialist opposition ... to keep the existing government from going too far to the right ... but don't think they have the experience to ... put their socialist program into effect ... and I think their program has to be modified.«

  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.«  

»Well ... I think they were ready for the job ... aren't trying to change social order in one fell swoop ... I think that is an evidence of their maturity.«

  This subject wants to be endowed with the prestige of a leftwing 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.

 4. Pseudoconservatism   Our analysis of the questionnaire findings on PEC (Chapter V) [ 9 ] 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 pseudoconservatives, the former supporting not only capitalism in its liberal, individualistic form but also those tenets of traditional Americanism which are definitely antirepressive and sincerely democratic, as indicated by an unqualified rejection of antiminority 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 pseudoconservative's ideology, we should stress that our assumption of a pseudoconservative 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 pseudoconservative rather than a genuine conservative. The psychological structure that corresponds to pseudoconservatism 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[hematic] A[pperception] T[est] is considered in relation to the clinical parts of the interviews. Traits such as 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 pseudoconservative 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 superego. 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 ascendent 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, antihumanistic meaning. The reason that the pseudoconservative 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 pseudoconservatism 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 pseudoconservative 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 pseudoconservatism is unfolded in the interviewer's description of M 109, another high-scoring man, a semifascist parole officer:   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 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. 10 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., 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.

  In summing up his position concerning medical insurance, he says:  

»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.«

  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, pseudosocialist, element of pseudoconservatism, actually defined only by antiliberalism, serves as the democratic cloak for antidemocratic wishes. Formal democracy seems to this kind of thinking to be too far away from »the people,« and the people will have their rights only if the »inefficient« democratic processes are substituted by some rather ill-defined strong-arm system. M 651A, another high-scoring man, a San Quentin prisoner, convicted of first-degree murder, is a good example of pseudodemocratism as a particular aspect of pseudoconservatism.   (What do you think of political trends today?) »We have got a persecutor in California for governor ... don't put that in. They call it a democracy ... democracy is the best type of government but (inefficient). ...«

  Subject criticizes President Roosevelt strongly, especially his NRA. 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:   »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 ... but there is so many little people who never have anything. ...« Subject mentioned his grandmother's only receiving $30 a month pension which, he says, she cannot live on ... law ought to be changed in that respect ... subject emphasizes the need of extending old-age insurance to people too old to benefit by recent legislation ... 11

  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 fall 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 pseudoconservative 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, F 105, a 37-year-old crippled, frustrated housewife with 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:  

»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 [Norman M.] Thomas 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.«

  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 pseudoconservative takes, the violently anti-Semitic San Quentin inmate, M 661 A, a robber. He plays, according to the interviewer, the bored décadent 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:  

»For one thing, I have never forgiven the Russians for the revolution. ... 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 ... 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, 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.«

  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. [362]) parole officer, M 109:  

(What about government controls over business?) »I half-approve. I certainly think that somebody should be over. ... 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.«

  That the idea of the »right people« is actually behind M 661A's political philosophy is shown by his explanation of why he objects to all revolutions:  

»They overthrow the established order ... and they are always made by people who never had anything. ... I've never seen a communist who came from the right strata of society. ... I did read George Bernard Shaw's (book on socialism).«

  One may differentiate between two kinds of pseudoconservatives: those who profess to believe in democracy and are actually antidemocratic, 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 661A belongs to the pseudoconservative group in the narrower sense and so does M 105, a pre-law student high on all scales, who stresses his conservative background while admitting overt fascist leanings:  

»Naturally, I get my Republican sentiments from my parents. But recently I have read more for myself, and I agree with them. ... 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. It's not America First, it's not really isolationist, but we believe that our country is being sold down the river.«

  The overt link between father-fixation as discussed in the clinical chapters (Part II) [ 12 ] 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.   »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.«

  Conversely, a striking example of pseudodemocratism in the narrower sense is offered at the beginning of the political section of the interview of the high-scoring man M 108, 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 profascist postwar defeatism. No matter how it goes, democracy must lose. Psychologically, the destructive »impending doom« pattern is involved. This defeatism is characteristic of another trait of pseudoconservative 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. M 106, 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:   »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.«

  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 [ 13 ] .  

»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.«

  Still, even this subject clings to the democratic cloak and refrains from overt fascism. Asked about the Jews in this country he answers:

 

»Same problem but it's handled much better, because we're a democratic country.«

  While pseudoconservatism 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, F 113, 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:  

»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 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.«

  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.   EXCURSUS ON THE MEANING OF PSEUDOCONSERVATISM. The introduction of the term pseudoconservative which may often be replaced by pseudoliberal and even pseudoprogressive, 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. 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 pseudoconservative 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 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 be regarded as a static one. Today's pseudoconservative 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 pseudoconservative 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. 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 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 countertendencies. 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 pseudoconservatives 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. F 5008 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 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 nonprejudiced. 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 pseudoconservatism 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 déclassé; 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 pseudoconservatism 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 »cooptation,« 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 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. 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. [307, above]), 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 prefascist, postinflation generation in Germany. 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 semierudition proves to be correct, one may expect that nonacademic »scientists« and »doctors« are strongly attracted by the fascist platform. 14

 5. The Usurpation Complex   The goal toward which the pseudoconservative mentality strives – diffusedly and semiconsciously – 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 pseudoconservative 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 pseudoconservatives 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. Pseudoconservative 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 pseudoconservatism 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 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; 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.« Pseudoconservatives 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. Pseudoconservatives 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 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. M 1223h 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.« M 1225a 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, M 1223h 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. M 208, who obtained a middle score on E and F and a high score on PEC, insists, according to his interviewer,   that President Roosevelt lost the popular vote by several thousand votes, according to counts he and his rather made following the news reports over the radio, implying that the official count had been incorrect.

  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:  

»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.

  M 656, 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   »the government we just had, the one that brought on the war, the Nazi-dictatorship.«

  The high-scoring man M 108, the aforementioned insect

toxicologist, is convinced that Roosevelt only carried out [Herbert] 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:  

»he usurped power that was necessary to do something – he took a lot more power than a lot. ... He has been in too long, and there were deals on the fire that we don't know about with Churchill or Stalin.«

  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: Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and 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 the »Robbers« to Demetrius. On a sociopsychological 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 oneself 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 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.

 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 M 664c, serving a San Quentin term of one year for forgery and check writing, professes to have been originally pro-Roosevelt.  

»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. ... We didn't need the war though.« (Why did we get into it?) »Started sending that iron over to Japan and then helping England. ...«

  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 F 140, 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.   (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.«

  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. F 101, 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:   »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.«

  With regard to domestic politics, F 359, the accountant in a government department who was quoted before (Chapter XVI, p. [280]), states quite clearly and in fairly objective terms the contradiction which seems at the hub of anti-Roosevelt sentiment:  

Subject did not like Roosevelt because of WPA. It creates a class of lazy people who would rather get $20 a week than work. She feels that Roosevelt did not accomplish what he set out to do – raise the standard of the poorer classes.

  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 ultraleftist 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. M 1223h, 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.« Similarly, the high-scoring married women F 117, 37 years old, employed in a Public Health Department,   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.«

  This is the exact opposite of the praise of Dewey, whose more humble origin is supposed to guarantee thriftiness. The »democratic cloak« of the pseudoconservative 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 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. 340ff.). [ 15 ] 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« 16 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 throughout fascist ideology. M 104, a high scoring young man of the Public Speaking Class, who changed from studying engineering to law is an example:  

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.

  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 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 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, M 711, an interviewer in government employment, with many of the typical »low« characteristics of mildness, gentleness, and indecision.   (Roosevelt) »seemed to be the only man the country had produced that seemed to have the qualifications for the assignment (of war). ... I'd say his ability to get along with other people ... had been pretty responsible in the unification of our country.«

 

The young woman, F 126, 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  

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.«

  The high-scoring man, M 102, 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«:   »Well, if another candidate had approached Roosevelt, I'd have voted for him. But, no other candidate approached his talent.«

  M 106, 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.  

»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.«

  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   »had infantile paralysis, and you appreciate what Roosevelt has done.«

  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 pseudoconservative and allow only for vague attacks about which

there is something half-hearted, as if they were being made with a bad conscience.

 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, 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 antibureaucratic and antipolitician 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 ununderstandable 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) [

17 ] and of the markedly anti-Semitic manager of a leather factory, M 359 (p. [348] of this chapter). Sometimes the invectives against politics terminate in tautologies: politics is blamed for being too political. M 1230a is a young welder who wanted to study engineering. He scores high on E but low on F and PEC.  

(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. ... Statesmanship is gone completely. ... Can't believe anything you read in the newspapers. We read the newspapers mainly to laugh. ...«

  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. F 120, a high-scoring woman, differentiates between Roosevelt and the bureaucracy. 18  

(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.«

  M 1214b, a medium scorer of the Maritime School, is antipolitical in a traditionalistic way, the ultimate direction of which is still undetermined.   »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 the politicians are too independent. This particular twist may indicate the underlying awareness of the weakness of the representatives of formal democracy [-TWA].) »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.

 

Finally, an example from a low scorer. M 112, asked about politics, simply states:   »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.«

  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 antipolitical low scorers may be caught by a fascist movement.

 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 daydream, 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 Consequences of the War« by Sanford, Conrad, and Franck. 19 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 cliché 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 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. M 345 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:   »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.«

  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 M 105, who comes as close to overt fascism as any of our subjects, the idea of natural qualities excluding an ideal society is related immediately to the most pressing issue: the abolition of war.

 

»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.«

  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, F 340B, 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.   »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, the Atlantic Charter 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.«

  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 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, M 662A, who comes fairly close to the »tough-guy« syndrome discussed in Chapter XIX [ 20 ] . When asked »what is an ideal

society like,« he answers: »Plenty of work for everybody; have all the strikes stopped.« To the naiveté 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 less to work – to him the ideal is that everybody 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 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, M 619, a low scorer of the San Quentin group, led by the prison situation to complete political resignation, still feels:   »... 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.«

  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 intensified, his own country, some of the utopian qualities he otherwise disavows. Only the low- to medium-scoring San Quentin murderer, M 628B, a man who has nothing to lose in life, says bluntly:   »This country educates people, but in the so-called American way. ... I don't believe this is the best country. Maybe in a materialistic way. ... I would not value my life by material things.«

  The undertone of this statement is, similar to M 619, 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. M 711:  

(What is ideal society like?) »That's an awfully difficult question. Isn't it based on the four freedoms?«

 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 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 F scale should be stressed. Abolition of the dole, 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 learned not to admit to his own consciousness. Examples: The extremely high-scoring San Quentin inmate, M 664C, 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.   »Christ, we licked those other countries and now we're gonna feed 'em. ... I think we ought to let 'em starve, especially them Japs. ... Lucky I don't have any

relations killed in this war, I'd go out and kill me some Japs. ... We're gonna have another depression and gonna have another war too in a few years.«

  By contrast, M 658, another high-scoring convict with certain psychopathic traits, turn his affects against the unemployed rather than against the Japanese:   »I believe everybody should have an opportunity. Should not be any unemployment. Only reason they are unemployed, they are lazy like me.«

  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 overcompensate 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. F 359, a high scorer who combines conventionality with somewhat paranoid ideas about the Negroes:   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 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.

  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 down-trodden 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.

 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 antidemocratic 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« 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. M 1230A, a high-scoring man of the Maritime School Group, states,   (What is an ideal society like?) »It would take generations of breeding to bring everybody to the same educational standards ... though not to have such great classes ... although I think we should always have class distinction ... some initiative to try to improve yourself.«

  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 should be some class distinction. Similarly, the Canadian M 934, a medium scorer, endorses the education idea as a »brake,« this time on the labor movement. He believes:  

»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.«

  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, F 104, majoring in Spanish and interested in business, the political demarcation line between her ingroup, the Republicans, and the Democrats coincides with that of education.   »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.«

  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, M 117:   »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 big proportion of U.S. politics is governed by the capitalistic system.«

  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.

 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.

1. Unions   The problem of unionism was heavily emphasized in our interview schedule because it is a very timely politico-economic topic, and because 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. 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 »outgrouped.« 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, antilabor attitudes among otherwise »progressive« people are particularly important for broader issues of prognosis. M 310, 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:   »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. ... I am for unions, but I think we should recognize that sometimes they become selfish-interest groups. ... 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.«

  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. M 112, a low-scoring college sophomore, senses the danger that cumbersome, mammoth unions might become undemocratic. He is antimonopoly in the sense that he hopes to stop social trends by

breaking down highly centralized units into smaller ones.  

»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.«

  M 620, a low-scoring convict, is typical of those who resent the interference of organized labor with the functioning of the machinery of production as a whole:  

(What do you think of political trends today?) »Well, I believe seriously that labor is going to have to acquire a sense of responsibility. ... 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. ... I believe both labor and business sort of ignore the little fellow. ... I am sort of bitter about this strike business. ... I feel labor should have more responsibility.«

  M 711, 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:  

(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 ... 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 ... 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 ... but I think wages and prices have to hit a stabilization. ...« (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. ... After all, didn't Hitler use the labor unions in his early days, increasing labor unions and making them stronger. ... 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. ... I certainly don't think they should be controlled as some of our senators seem to want them.«

  F 340B 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.   (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.«

  Although no scoring has been done, the impression created by careful 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 prolabor statements. The two examples to follow stem from San Quentin, both, of course, from low scorers. M 628B, a murderer:  

(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. ... I don't suppose the Constitution, but ... we don't live by it. ... This story of work hard, my boy, and you'll be great one day is fine ... but when you won't clothe and house, etc. the masses, I'll say that's an outrage. ...«

  M 619, 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.  

(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 ... of course, the unions in the beginning used pretty high-handed methods, but perhaps the end will justify the means they

took.«

  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. M 621A is serving a term in San Quentin for theft. He scores low on E and F but high on PEC.   »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 ... unions have no business in politics.«

  M 627, another San Quentin man, scores low on E and PEC but high on F. He is a psychopathic alcoholic convicted for what seems to be a minor sex offense.  

(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.«

  Finally just one example from a San Quentin high scorer, M 656A, who is by no means extreme:  

(P.A.C.?) »Well, I don't say they should go into politics, they should work through their representatives ... 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. ... As far as I am

concerned, politics shouldn't enter into business, and these unions are a business.«

  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. M 202, a construction engineer, scoring generally very low, is nevertheless strongly identified with the entrepreneurs. His interviewer, as was mentioned above (p. [324]), 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 antilabor stand should be given.  

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 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.

  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 women, F 316A, is structurally similar. She is a low scorer who turns violently antilabor on account of some grudges she has developed in her work as a junior chemist in an oil development company.   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 only $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 month. 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.«

  As to the high scorers, the key theme of their antilabor ideology is that of the 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. M 352, a shift foreman who calls himself a »head operator,« scores high on all scales.  

»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 ... politics and unionism shouldn't become too involved. The unions shouldn't become a political organization; and the A.F.L. has 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 ... 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 ... etc.«

  Here, as in many instances, critique is directed against the largeness of unions per se; with the romantic idea that purely local organization, being less institutionalized, would be better automatically. M 658, the San Quentin man quoted above, goes so far as plainly to advocate the abolition of unions:  

(Political trends today?) »Oh, I think we are going to be ruled by a lot of clowns, by a lot of labor unions. ... Look at all these working stiffs ... that don't know anything else, but how to drive a nail ... 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. ... 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 ... they're a detriment to the country.« (How should strikes be handled?) »Refuse to reemploy them, or fine them, I don't believe in sweat shops either, but this quittin' when you're making $150 a week 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, e.g., by theatre work, and then quitting for a while. Note subject's highly exaggerated fantasies of wartime wages.)

 

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

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

Both of them are antilabor. 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.

  F 5043, 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.  

»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 ... not even a place to live ... 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

antilabor and antistrike 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.«

  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 (5001 and 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 semifascist propaganda.

 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 is should be noted again that there is no sharp line between high and low scorers with regard to government interference, whilst the 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. F 340A, 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 »antiparanoid« trait of the American frame of mind which, incidentally, is among the strongest bulwarks against fascism as far as subjective factors are concerned.   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.«

  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, M 109, is reminiscent of F 340A 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 planing for the sake of all. (Cf. quotations on pp. [362, 366 above.]) 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 M 711, 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:   (Government control?) »I don't. There, again, that could be a road to a fascist state eventually. Certain controls would have to be exercised.«

  In spite of his leftist ideology this man shows symptoms of a confusion which may make him the prey of pseudoprogressive 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. M 204, 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:  

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.«

  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 naively 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,« M 664b:  

(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. ...If a man can't make a profit in his business, he'll close it down. ...«

  The San Quentin murderer, M 651a, who is serving a life sentence, is set against government interference, his point of view being that of the businessman who talks »common sense.«  

(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. ...But competitive business makes low prices. ...«

  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. 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 superbusiness is reflected in the minds of some of our subjects. M 115, a conventional but nonfascistic fraternity man, who scores low on E and F but high on PEC, is set against »this Marxian stuff,« but nevertheless, feels:   »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.«

  The unresolved contradiction between this man's strongly antisocialist and equally outspoken antimonopoly 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. M 118, 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.   »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.«

 

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.

 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 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 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. 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 thoroughgoing 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 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, M 664C, a high-scoring man, so full of fury and envy against everything that he does not even like the wealthy.   (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.«

  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 M 621A, of the San Quentin Group, a low scorer on E and F but a high scorer on PEC.   »They shouldn't do that. If a man has the ability, more power to him.«

  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 and health insurance are examples. 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 M 621A:  

(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.)

  One of the few exceptions is the wealthy Los Angeles couple, 5031 and 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, M 627, already quoted:  

»Well, the OPA is doing a good job if they control this black market.«

  This comes out most strongly in the interview of the San Quentin high scorer M 658, the man who wants to abolish labor unions.  

»If (the OPA) had an iron glove underneath their kid gloves, be all right. They fine a guy $100 – for making $100,000.«

  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. M 656A, 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 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, M 711, is enthusiastic:   »Public health insurance? Unqualifiedly yes ... important as almost any measure of ideal society.«

  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 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 antitaxation complex: The high-scoring man, M 105, who is violently anti-Semitic and associated with the »lunatic fringe,« says:   »It is the taxpayer's money that has been put into South America; other countries will think we are fools.«

  M 345, a radar engineer of the Extension Testing Class, who scores middle on E, low on F, but high on PEC, believes:   (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.«

  Again, the taxpayer's complex is not limited to high scorers. The low-scoring man, M 116, the deviate case of a conformist, conventional conservative definitely opposed to prejudice, strongly identified with his father, accepts his Republican views:

 

»... also because businessmen generally don't like the taxes.«

  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 antagonize the very same group from which totalitarian movements most likely draw their support.

 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, F 340B: »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 M 711:   (Major problems facing country?) »Hard question to answer ... Perhaps the main one is how we're going to fit in with the rest of the world. ... I'm a little concerned about what we seem to be doing in China. ... 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.«

  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.« M 662A, the San Quentin »tough guy,« high on all scales:  

(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. ...I'm for Russia, but ... I think sooner or later we're going to go to war with them.«

  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 humans. This is in keeping with our clinical knowledge of the male high scorers' psychological passivity (cf. p. 575). [ 21 ] The low scorers either want to outlaw the atom bomb or to make the secret public: M 627, the alcoholic sex-offender, low on E and PEC but high on F:   (Major problems facing this country?) »Well, I think this atom bomb.« (Solution?) ... »Well, it ought to be outlawed and money appropriated to see if we can't use that power for good.«

  F 515, the »genuine liberal« who is to be discussed in detail in Chapter XIX (p. [505, below]), pleads for international atomic control:  

»Truman doesn't want to give away the secret of the atom bomb – I think he should. It's already out anyway.«

  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 5003 characterized as highly neurotic:  

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.«

  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. 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:   He expects no warless world and thinks that the next war will be with Russia. »The United States has always ranged itself against dictatorship.«

  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 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 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 – 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 M 621A, who scores low on E and F but high on PEC. He expresses his true anti-Russian feelings by means of personalization:  

(Major problems facing country today?) »I think Russia. ...« (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. ...« (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 ... I didn't have any very definite ideas before.«

  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 M 204, suffering from anxiety neurosis, a moderate socialist and militant pacifist, with low scores on all scales, fits in:   He is a little skeptical about the Soviet Union, disapproving of their totalitarian methods, but being interested in »their interesting experiment.«

  Another example is M 310, a liberal of the Extension Testing Class with an unusually low score, assistant manager for an advertising agency, whose criticism touches upon formal democratism while at the same time he is repelled by the oligarchic aspects of Russian government:  

(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). ...« (You are critical of Soviet Russia?) »I don't like the concentration of political power in so few hands.«

  Sometimes this kind of critique assumes, with low scorers, the aspect of disagreement with American communists because of their wholesale endorsement of Russian politics. M 203, a teacher, »liberal but not radical,« with low scores on all scales:  

»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.«

  It should be noted that this man is an outspoken antifascist who finds it »disgraceful that [Theodor Gilmore] Bilbo 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 M 713A may serve. He is a young veteran, studying landscape architecture, whose scores are all low.  

(How do you feel about Soviet Russia?) »A very wonderful experiment. ... 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. ... I think we ought to approach it a little more gradually. ... If went into communism would just be like the army. ... Maybe take a hundred years – we are working gradually toward it.«

  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 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 battlefields and in international competition, rather than with the system, is corroborated by the San Quentin inmate M 619, who scores low on E and F but high on PEC, the man who does not believe in any real utopia:   »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.«

  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 outspoken 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 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.

 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 M 108, by whom the problem of communism is stated in terms of plain ethnocentrism:   (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.«

  F 111, 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:  

(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.«

  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, M 664B, an uneducated and unintelligent sex offender of the San Quentin group, with high scores on all scales, simply associates communism with the danger of war:   »If labor keeps getting more power, we'll be like Russia. That's what causes wars.«

  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 M 910 is of the following opinion:  

(How do you feel about Russia's government?) »I think there is very little difference between fascism and communism as it's practiced in Russia. The 1936 Constitution is a marvelous document. I think it's five hundred years ahead of our Constitution because it guarantees social rights instead of individual rights but when man hasn't any rights except as a member of the Communist Party. ... I think it's capitalistic. ...« (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. ... Russia has got the things right where she wants them. We think we're the leaders but we fool ourselves. ...« (Subject objects strongly to deceitful diplomacy.)

  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 F 106, a high scorer of the Public Speaking Class group, a young teacher:

 

(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.«

  Sometimes the identification of communism and fascism is accompanied by paranoid twists in the Elders of Zion style. M 345, our radar field engineer:   (What do you think of the P.A.C.?) »Never found any definite information on the C.I.O. ... but ... 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 Mein Kampf, telling exactly what he 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.«

  The mix-up of Comintern, CIO, and Mein Kampf is the appropriate climate for panic, and subsequent violent action. 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 for the others, particularly for »those foreigners,« from whom it has been imported anyway. This technique is employed by both high and low scorers. 5008, the liberal-minded Jefferson descendant:   »The communists may be able to do something in the Soviet Union, but they would utterly fail here.«

  In M 115, 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.«  

»... 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.«

 

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 M 1206a, of the Maritime School group, who believes that America will eventually become a socialistic country,  

thinks that Russia has a wonderful system of government – for Russia – »though I don't think we could transplant its system to this country ... though we should watch her and get ideas to build our own country better.«

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

»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 ... to try and convince as many people as he can. ...« Subject objects vigorously to red-baiting tactics. ... »I think that Russia will be the most democratic country in the world in time. ... Joe has been a little ruthless at times, but. ...«

  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 moulded after the needs of the population. F 359, the previously (pp. [280, 381]) quoted high-scoring accountant in a government department:   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.

  The interviews of other subjects show an unmistakably condescending overtone of this same argument, such as M 107, a

medical student who scores high on E but middle on F and PEC:  

»We can cooperate with Russia; if they want communism they have to have it.«

  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 anticommunism and fascist potential as measured by our scales should not be oversimplified. In some of our earlier studies the correlation between anti-Semitism and anticommunism was very high, 22 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 anticommunist 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 antidemocratic potential in the people, determines to a large extent the choice of the social objects of psychological aggressiveness.

 Fußnoten   [ 1 Daniel J. Levinson, »Politico-Economic Ideology and Group Memberships in Relation to Ethnocentrism,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 151–207.]   2 Levinson, »Politico-Economic Ideology and Group Memberships in Relation to Ethnocentrism.«   3 After completion of the study, the writer of this chapter became acquainted with the pertinent article by Ralph H. Gundlach, »Confusion among Undergraduates in Political and Economic Ideas,« Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 32 (1937), pp. 357–367.   4 This has been pointed out with regard to the imagery of the Jews. See Chapter XVI [above, pp. 265ff.].   [ 5 See below, pp. 454ff.]   [ 6 See above, pp. 185ff.]   [ 7 See above, p. 287.]   [ 8 See above, pp. 207ff.]   [ 9 Levinson, »Politico-Economic Ideology and Group Memberships in Relation to Ethnocentrism.«   10 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.«]   11 This case is described in detail in Chapter XXI under the name of »Ronald.« [William R. Morrow, »Criminality and Antidemocratic Trends: A Study of Prison Inmates,« The Authoritarian Personality,

pp. 817–890.]   [ 12 The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 291–486.]   [ 13 See above, p. 330.]   14 The role played by shady pseudo-medicine in Nazi Germany is sociologically linked to the ascendance of déclassé 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 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.   [ 15 Else Frenkel-Brunswik, »Parents and Childhood as Seen through the Interviews,« Chapter X, The Authoritarian Personality. ]   16 Cf. Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1945), pp. 418–420.   [ 17 R. Nevitt Sanford, »The Contrasting Ideologies of Two College Men: A Preliminary View,« Chapter II, The Authoritarian Personality. ]   18 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 Führer does not know about these things« – even when concentration camps were concerned.

  19 R. Nevitt Sanford, Herbert S. Conrad and Kate Franck, »Psychological Determinants of Optimism regarding the Consequences of the War,« The Journal of Psychology 22 (1946), pp. 207–235.   [ 20 See below, pp. 481ff.]   [ 21 Daniel J. Levinson, »Projective Questions in the Study of Personality and Ideology,« Chapter XV, The Authoritarian Personality. ]   22 Cf. Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford, »A Scale for the Measurement of Anti-Semitism,« The Journal of Psychology 17 (1944), pp. 339–370.  

 Chapter XVIII Some Aspects of Religious Ideology as Revealed in the Interview Material 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) [ 1 ] 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, 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 2 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 3 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 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. 4 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, is has maintained at least part of the social functions acquired throughout the centuries. This means that it has largely become 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 M 109, a high-scoring Roman Catholic who attends church regularly. He writes on his questionnaire that he considers religion a   »thoroughly important part of existence, perhaps it should occupy 2 to 5 per cent of leisure time.«

 

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 M 109'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. 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 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.

 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 F 5054, a woman who scored high on the ethnocentrism scale.  

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.

  The 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 5057, a person who sticks to the Church although he »does not believe in a personal God.«  

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.«

  A high-scoring young woman, F 103, 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 another prejudiced young woman, F 104, 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 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. 5 Among those who reject religion, a number of significant differences may be noted. As our quantitative results have shown, no mechanical identification of the non – or antireligious 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 antireligious 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 5064, the Boy Scout leader, discussed in Chapter XVI. [ 6 ] 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 pseudoconservative 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.

 C. Specific Issues  

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: »Man kann nur für 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 per se. One selects a »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 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, F 201, who is very frankly interested in »a stable society« in which class lines are clearly drawn.  

»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.«

  Ethnocentric subjects frequently think of religion as a practical aid in the mental hygiene of the individual. The statement of F 109 is characteristic.  

»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.«

  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. M 118, a moderately high scorer, shows clearly the element of arbitrariness in his religious belief, mixed up with pseudoscientific statements which take the stamina out of this belief.   »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.«)

  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. M 118 goes on to say:  

»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.« 7

  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 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 naive persons, such as the rather medium-scoring man M 629, who is serving a life sentence in San Quentin prison. He makes the extraordinary statement:   »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.«

 

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, 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, F 126, who obtained extremely low scores on both the A-S and the E scales.  

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.«

  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 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.

 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 5009, a devout Baptist, the interviewer reports:   ... sincerely feels deeply religious, believes in God, but has, as an educated man, occasional doubts concerning the life after death.

  And in the case of 5002:  

... 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.

  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 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). [ 8]

M 627, 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,  

»that every man should have his own way of worship as long as he believes in a power greater than himself.«

  This power has the form of external authority, but remains completely abstract, nothing but the projective concept of power as such.  

»Well, I have heard so many fellows talk about the powers they believed in ... and I tried to recognize the power in myself and just couldn't ... read all kinds of religious books ... but still kind of foggy.«

  The same line of thought is expressed by M 656A, who is serving a term for forgery, »Robert« in Chapter XXI.  

»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. ... I don't attend church often but ... try to live the right way.«

  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:  

»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.«

  This »abstract authoritarianism« in religious matters easily turns into cynicism and overt contempt for what one professes to believe. M 664C, asked about his religious views, answers:   »Oh, I don't pay much attention ... I believe in God and all that stuff but that is about all.«

  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 M 651.   »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. ...«

  Asked what is most important in religion, he says:  

»Belief, I think that belief is everything. That is the thing that holds you together.«

  When this is pursued by the interviewer who wants to find out something about the subject's own religious feelings, he answers:  

»... I believe when you die you are through. ... 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 ... it doesn't seem to be either merciful or just.«

  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 M 651, not quite consistently with his previous confession of religiousness for extraneous reasons, comes out with the statement that he:   believes in astrology because he doesn't believe in God.

 

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

 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 M 203 is characteristic of the former. He may be regarded as a genuine liberal with a somewhat abstract, rationalistic mentality. His antireligious 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 antireligious 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 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:   »But I was always pretty skeptical of it; I thought it kind of phony, narrow, bigoted and snobbish, hypocritical ... unsemantic, you might say. It violates the whole Christian ethics.«

  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 M 203, 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. 9 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, 5028 and 5058, like M 203, 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 M 202, our »conservative but not fascist« person (see pp. [324, 404]), who scores extremely low on the E scale.   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.

  In this case the antireligious 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. M 310, 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 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 easy-going low scorers such as M 711. 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:   »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.«

  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:   »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.«

  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:   »My religious curiosity did not last very long. Probably took up photography (laughs) about that time.«

  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. 10 He says:   »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) ... you get into semantics, really. Professional atheists ... just impress me as doing it because it seems to be a stunt. Don Quixote battling windmills.«

  This may be indicative of the easy-going person's suspicion of the »ticket,« his awareness of the tendency of any rigid formula to degenerate into a mere piece of propaganda. 11 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 ultra-montan conspiracy directed against Germany, transforming the tradition of Bismarck's Kulturkampf into a pattern of persecution mania.

 4. Religious Low Scorers   A clear-cut example of a religious low scorer is the somewhat sketchy interview of F 132, 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:   »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.«

  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.   »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 – an example to follow. Hope for an after-life. Yes, I believe in immortality.« 12

  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 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 »status quo« camps may be accompanied by a tendency of all persons who cling to religion, as a part of the status quo, also to assume other features of the 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.

 Fußnoten   [ 1 R. Nevitt Sanford, »Ethnocentrism in Relation to Some Religious Attitudes and Practices,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 208–221.]   2 Maurice Samuel, The Great Hatred (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1940).   3 Joshuah Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943).   4 A detailed theoretical analysis of the relationship between Christianity and anti-Semitism has been contributed by Max Horkheimer and T.W. Adorno, »Elemente des Antisemitismus,« Dialektik der Aufklärung (Amsterdam: Querido Verlag N.V., 1947) [GS 3].   5 The interaction between revivalism, religious subjectivism, and fascist propaganda has been analysed in detail by T.W. Adorno, »The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas' Radio Speeches« [GS 9.1, s. pp. 7ff.].   [ 6 GS 9.1, s. pp. 270ff.]   7 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.«   [ 8 William R. Morrow, »Criminality and Antidemocratic Trends: A Study of Prison Inmates,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp.

817–890.]   9 Cf. the section on F.D.R. in Chapter XVII [above, pp. 380ff.]   10 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.   11 More material on this subject is presented in Chapter XIX [see below, pp. 454ff.]   12 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 moulded 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.« [ The Authoritarian Personality, P. 35].)  

 Chapter XIX Types and Syndromes 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,« 1 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.« 2 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 raison d'être of which was the standard classification of manic-depression and dementia praecox? The present state of the discussion on typology is summed up by Anne Anastasi as follows:  

»Type theories have been most commonly criticized because of their attempt to classify individuals into sharply divided categories. ... [S]uch 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 uni-modal 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 maifests 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 200 college students (Ch. II). 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.« 3

  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 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; 4 and Boder has demonstrated in great detail in his study of »Nazi Science« the interconnections of psychological pro et contra schemes, the repressive function of categories such as Jaensch's »Gegentypus« and the arbitrary manipulation of empirical findings. 5 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« 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 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. 6 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 7 a rather categorical typology without bothering much about the methodological difficulties of which he must have been aware very well, and even, with apparent naïveté, constructing »mixed« types out of the basic ones. Freud was too much led by concrete 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 antitypological 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 »Structure of Personality« 8 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 an even higher 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 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 (»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 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 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 nonprejudiced 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 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.« 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 sado-masochistic »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: 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. b. Our typology has to be a 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 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. 9 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 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 naive 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 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 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 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 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 overall 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, 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 antiminority 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 a certain onesidedness, 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 [ 10 ] : 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 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. 11 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.

 B. Syndromes Found Among High Scorers   A rough characterization of the several types may precede their detailed presentation. 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 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 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 Tough Guy the repressed id tendencies gain the upper hand, but in a stunted and destructive form. Both the Crank and the 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 délire de toucher. 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.

 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 afterwards. 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 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 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. 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 pseudorational 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 antiminority 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. 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.«   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, 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.

  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.  

She was never severely disciplined; on the contrary, both parents tended to give in to her wishes and she was ostensibly their favorite. ... 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.

  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   that 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.

  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:   With regard to the Jews she feels that assimilation and education will eventually solve the problem.

  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.«   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.

  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«:  

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.«

  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 onus on some visible and highly personalized entity. This mechanism has been institutionalized. Persons such as our case 5043 probably never had negative experiences with Jews, but simply adopt the externally pronounced judgment because of the benefit they draw from it.

 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 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 5057, a 30-year-old welder, »extremely charming in manner,« whose case is summarized by the interviewer as follows:   He presents a personality and attitudinal configuration encountered rather frequently among skilled workers, and is neither vicious nor exploitive, but instead merely reflects the prejudices of his own ingroup in the fashion of the »Conventional« anti-Semite.

  His acceptance of his own situation as well as his underlying concern with status is evidenced by the description of his occupational attitude:  

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.

  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  

selected Christian Science because »it is a quieter religion than most. ... Religion should restrain you from overindulgences of any kind, such as drinking, gambling, or anything to excess.« ... He has not broken away from his grandparents' teachings and hasn't ever questioned his religious beliefs.

  Most characteristic of the subject's over-all attitude are the following data from his questionnaire:   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.«

  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 antiminority 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. Concerning other minorities his remarks are as follows:  

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.«

  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:  

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.«

  As to the relation between stereotypy and experience,  

»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- 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.« ... 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.«

 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 sado-masochistic resolution of the Oedipus complex, and it has been pointed out by Erich Fromm under the title of the »authoritarian-masochistic« character. 12 According to Max Horkheimer's theory in the collective work of which he [Fromm] wrote the sociopsychological 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 sado-masochistic 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 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 M 352 begins as follows:   (Satisfaction?) »Well, I'm the head operator – shift foreman – rotating schedules. ...« (Subject emphasizes »head« position) – small department – 5 in department – 5 in a shift – »I get personal satisfaction ... 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 ... is mine, and in the fact that in the ultimate decision, I should be 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 ... knowing that I am pleasing someone else also gives me satisfaction.«

  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:  

(What would more money make possible?) »Would raise our standard, automobile; move into better residential section; associations with business and fraternal, etc., would be raised ... 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 ... that fires you on to the next step higher. ...«

  His religious belief has something compulsive and highly punitive:

 

»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.«

  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.   »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.«

  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:  

»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. ... 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.«

  The genetic relation between the »Authoritarian« syndrome and the sado-masochistic resolution of the Oedipus complex is borne out by some statements of the subject about his own childhood:  

»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 ... finally he explained that those things cost money, and I must learn to put it back.« ... (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«) ... »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 on 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 ... a good provider. We always had everything we needed, but no unnecessary luxuries ... no whims provided for. ... Father felt they were luxuries that probably – felt they were unnecessary. ... Yes, rather austere. ...« (Which parent closest

to?) »I think my father. Although he beat the life out of me, I could talk to him about anything.« ... (Subject emphasizes that his father always gave everyone, including himself, a square deal.)

  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.  

»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.«

  Rigidity of the image of the Jew, visible already in the »Conventional« syndrome, tends to become absolute and highly vindictive:  

»To me a Jew is just like a foreigner in the same class as – say, oh, I was gonna say a Filipino. You would be pointed out ... they observe all these different religious days that's completely foreign to me – and they stick to it – they don't completely Americanize. ...« (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 ... probably have to pass some regulation prohibiting them.«

  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 is the psychological equivalent of the »no-pity-for-the-poor« ideology discussed in Chapter XVII. [ 13 ] 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:  

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.

  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.

 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. 14 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 nonauthoritarian 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 sociopolitical behavior that counts, determining whether a person is truly independent or merely replaces his dependency by negative transference. The latter case, when it is combined with an urge to take pseudorevolutionary 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 »Hochverräter« in his autobiography, is a perfect example. Here we expect to find the »Condottiere« which was included in the typology drafted by the Institute of Social Research in 1939, and described as follows:  

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. 15

  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 »Putsch.« 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 infancy. These individuals are the most »infantile« of all: they have thoroughly failed to »develop,« have not been moulded at all by civilization. They are »asocial.« Destructive urges come to the fore in an overt, nonrationalized 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. Robert M. Lindner's extensive case study, Rebel Without a Cause, 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:   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. 16

  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:  

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 emergent 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. 17

  Examples of the rebel-psychopath are to be found in our San Quentin sample. We think mainly of the psychopath, Floyd, our M 658, and the »Tough Guy,« Eugene, our M 662A, dealt with extensively in Chapter XXI. [ 18 ] 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 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.

 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 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 pseudoreality against which their aggressiveness can be directed without any 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. F 124  

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.

  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:  

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. ... 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.

  Her interest in internal and as far as possible external status is strongly colored by an overemphasis on »connections,« which suggests »ideas of reference«:  

She has been a »governess« in the home of President X's family ... and in President Y's son's family – first the older son, then the younger. Talked to Mrs. Y on the phone when she was in the White House at the time of the birth of the third child. And her sister worked for S. who later was governor of a southwestern state.

  As to her spurious »inner world,« semi-erudition, and pseudo-intellectuality, the following account is highly characteristic:  

She reads a great deal – »good« books – went through the schools in her Texas home town about equal to seventh grade now. She also draws and writes and was learning to play an instrument. One picture she drew here at school but never showed it to anyone. It was of two mountains and the sun in between shining on the valley in which the mist was rising. This just »came« to her, too, though she had never had any training. It was really beautiful. She writes stories, too. When

she was left a widow, instead of chasing after men like some women, she wrote stories. One was a fantasy for Mary Pickford. It would have been just right for her to play in, but of course, she'd never shown it to anyone. It was called Little May and O'June and had come to her once when she had her children on a picnic. A love fantasy about Little May (the girl) and O'June (the boy). Her daughter was very gifted, too. An artist ... who drew Texas Blue Bonnets – »the state flower, you know.« – saw her daughter's work and said, »You've got a real genius there.« He wanted to give the daughter lessons, but she refused, saying, »No, Mother, he would just spoil my style; I know how to draw what I want to draw.«

  With regard to race questions, her hatred shows the paranoid tendency towards stopping nowhere – in principle she would be willing to stigmatize every group she can lay her hands on and only reluctantly confines herself to her favorite foes.  

She thinks the »Japs, Jews, and Niggers should go back where they came from.« ... »Of course, then the Italians should go back where they belong in Italy, but – well, the three main ones who don't belong here are the Japs, Jews, and Niggers.«

  Her anti-Semitism shows strong traces of projectivity, of the fake mysticism of the »blood,« and of sex envy. The following statement reveals her attitudinal pattern:  

»The Jews feel superior to Gentiles. They wouldn't pollute their blood by mixing it with Gentiles. They would bleed us of our money and use our women for mistresses, but they wouldn't marry among us, and they want their wives spotless. The Y's entertained Jews quite often. I don't know if it was their money or what. That's why I didn't vote for Y the second time. I'd seen too many fat Jew women and hooked-nose men at their house. Of course, I've heard Pres. Roosevelt's mother had some Jewish blood, too.« Left the B's because they were Jews. They had a home like a palace and wanted her to stay. They said, »We knew it was too good to be true« ... when she was leaving.

  Striking is the similarity between the subject's way of thinking and a certain kind of crackpot religious movement, based on readiness to hear »inner voices« which give both moral uplifting and sinister advice:   The Catholics have been wonderful to her, and she admires them but wouldn't join their church. There was something inside her that said »No.« (She gestures her rejection.) She has an individualistic religion. Once she was out walking in

the early morning – the birds were singing – she raised her hands and her face to the sky, and they were wet. ... (She considered it a supernatural phenomenon.)

 6. The »Manipulative« Type   This syndrome, potentially the most dangerous one, is defined by stereotypy as an extreme: rigid notions become ends rather than means, and the whole world is divided into empty, schematic, administrative fields. There is an almost complete lack of object cathexis and of emotional ties. If the »Crank« syndrome had something paranoid about it, the »Manipulative« one has something schizophrenic. However, the break between internal and external world, in this case, does not result in anything like ordinary »introversion,« but rather the contrary: a kind of compulsive overrealism which treats everything and everyone as an object to be handled, manipulated, seized by the subject's own theoretical and practical patterns. The technical aspects of life, and things qua »tools« are fraught with libido. The emphasis is on »doing things,« with far-reaching indifference towards the content of what is going to be done. The pattern is found in numerous business people and also, in increasing numbers, among members of the rising managerial and technological class who maintain, in the process of production, a function between the old type of ownership and the workers' aristocracy. Many fascist-political anti-Semites in Germany showed this syndrome: Himmler may be symbolic of them. Their sober intelligence, together with their almost complete absence of any affections makes them perhaps the most merciless of all. Their organizational way of looking at things predisposes them to totalitarian solutions. Their goal is the construction of gas chambers rather than the pogrom. They do not even have to hate the Jews; they »cope« with them by administrative measures without any personal contacts with the victims. Anti-Semitism is reified, an export article: it must »function.« Their cynicism is almost complete: »The Jewish question will be solved strictly legally« is the way they talk about the cold pogrom. The Jews are provocative to them in so far as supposed Jewish individualism is a challenge to their stereotypy, and because they feel in the Jews a neurotic overemphasis on the very same kind of human relationships which they are lacking themselves. The ingroup-outgroup relationship becomes the principle according to which the whole world is

abstractly organized. Naturally, this syndrome can be found in this country only in a rudimentary state. As to the psychological etiology of this type, our material sets us certain limitations. However, it should be borne in mind that compulsiveness is the psychological equivalent of what we call, in terms of social theory, reification. The compulsive features of the boy chosen as an example for the »Manipulative« type, together with his sadism, can hardly be overlooked – he comes close to the classical Freudian conception of the »anal« character and is in this regard reminiscent of the »Authoritarian« syndrome. But he is differentiated from the latter by the simultaneity of extreme narcissism and a certain emptiness and shallowness. This, however, involves a contradiction only if looked at superficially, since whatever we call a person's emotional and intellectual richness is due to the intensity of his object cathexes. Notable in our case is an interest in sex almost amounting to preoccupation, going with backwardness as far as actual experience is concerned. One pictures a very inhibited boy, worried about masturbation, collecting insects while the other boys played baseball. There must have been early and deep emotional traumata, probably on a pregenital level. M 108   is going to be an insect toxicologist and work for a large organization like Standard Oil or a university, presumably not in private business. He first started in chemistry in college but about the third term began to wonder if that was what he really wanted. He was interested in entomology in high school, and while hashing in a sorority he met a fellow worker in entomology, and in talking about the possibility of combining entomology and chemistry, this man said he thought it would be a very good field to investigate a little further. He found out insect toxicology had everything that combined his interests, wasn't overcrowded, and that he could make a good living there, and that there wasn't likely to be a surplus as there would be in chemistry or engineering.

  Taken in isolation, the professional choice of this subject may appear accidental, but when viewed in the context of the whole interview, it assumes a certain significance. It has been pointed out by L. Lowenthal 19 that fascist orators often compare their »enemies« to »vermin.« The interest of this boy in entomology may be due to his regarding the insects, which are both »repulsive« and weak, as ideal objects for his manipulation. 20 The manipulative aspect of his professional choice is stressed by

himself:  

Asked what he expects to get from the job other than the economic side, he said that he hopes to have a hand in organizing the whole field, that is, in organizing the knowledge. There is no textbook, the information is scattered, and he hopes to make a contribution in organizing the material.

  His emphasis on »doing things« goes so far that he even appreciates people whom he otherwise hates, though in a terminology with destructive overtones. Here belongs his statement about Roosevelt, which was quoted in part in Chapter XVII [ 21 ] :   Asked about the good points of Roosevelt, he said, »Well, the first term he was in office he whipped the U.S. into shape. Some people argue he only carried out Hoover's ideas, but actually he did a good job which was badly needed ... he usurped power that was necessary to do something – he took a lot more power than a lot.« ... Asked whether his policies were good or bad, subject replied, »Well, at any rate, he was doing something.«

  His political concepts are defined by the friend-foe relationship, in exactly the same way as the Nazi theoretician Karl Schmitt defined the nature of politics. His lust for organization, concomitant with an obsession with the domination of nature, seems boundless:  

»There will always be wars.« (Is there any way of preventing wars?) »No, it's not common goals but common enemies that make friends. Perhaps if they could discover other planets and some way of getting there, spread out that way, we could prevent wars for a time, but eventually there'd be wars again.«

  The truly totalitarian and destructive implications of his dichotomous way of thinking become manifest in his statement about the Negroes:  

(What can we do about the Negroes?) »Nothing can be done. There are two factions. I'm not in favor of interbreeding because this would produce an inferior race. The Negroes haven't reached the point of development of Caucasians, artificially living and absorbing from the races.« He would approve of segregation, but that's not possible. Not unless you are willing to use Hitler's methods. There are only two ways of handling this problem – Hitler's methods or race mixture. Race mixture is the only answer and is already taking place, according to what he has read, but he's against it. It wouldn't do the race any good.

  This logic allows only for one conclusion: that the Negroes should be killed. At the same time, his way of looking at the prospective objects of manipulation is completely unemotional and detached: although his anti-Semitism is marked he doesn't even claim that you can   »tell the Jews by their appearance, they're just like other people, all kinds.«

  His administrative and pathologically detached outlook is again evidenced by his statement on intermarriage:  

He said that if he were an American businessman in Germany or England he'd probably marry first an American woman if he could, then he might marry a German or an English woman.

  However, »swarthy« people like Greeks or Jews have no chance in this experimental setup. It is true, he has nothing against his Spanish brother-in-law, but expresses his approval by the phrase that »you couldn't tell him from a white person.« He takes a positive attitude towards the church for manipulative purposes:   »Well, people want church; there is a purpose, it sets standards for some people, but for other people, it is not necessary. A general sense of social duty would do the same thing.«

  His own metaphysical views are naturalistic, with a strong nihilistic coloring:  

Asked about his own beliefs he said he's a mechanistic – there is no supernatural entity, not concerned with us as humans; it goes back to a law of physics. Humans and life are just an accident – but an inevitable accident. And then he tried to explain that – that there was some matter accrued when the earth was started and it was almost by accident that life started and it just kept on.

  As to his emotional structure:  

His mother is »just Mom«; he seems to have some respect for his father and father's opinions, but there was no real attachment any place. He said as a child he had a lot of friends, but on further questioning, he couldn't mention any closer

friends. He did a lot of reading as a child. Didn't have many fights – couldn't remember them – didn't have any more than any other boys. He has no real close friends now. His closest friends were when he was in the 10th or 11th grade, and he still keeps track of some of them, he said. (How important are friends?) »Well, they're especially important in younger years, and in your older years you don't enjoy life as much without them. I don't expect my friends to help me get along.« They're not needed so much at present age, but he supposed that at the interviewer's age it would be very important to have friends.

  Finally it should be mentioned that the only moral quality that plays a considerable role in the thinking of this subject is loyalty, perhaps as a compensation for his own lack of affection. By loyalty he probably means complete and unconditional identification of a person with the group to which he happens to belong. He is expected to surrender completely to his »unit« and to give up all individual particularities for the sake of the »whole.« M 108 objects to Jewish refugees not having been »loyal to Germany.«

 C. Syndromes Found Among Low Scorers   The following schematic observations may help towards orientation among the »low« syndromes. The Rigid low scorers are characterized by strong superego tendencies and compulsive features. Paternal authority and its social substitutes, however, are frequently replaced by the image of some collectivity, possibly moulded after the archaic image of what Freud calls the brother horde. Their main taboo is directed against violations of actual or supposed brotherly love. The Protesting low scorer has much in common with the »Authoritarian« high scorer, the main difference being that the further-going sublimation of the father idea, concomitant with an undercurrent of hostility against the father, leads to the conscientious rejection of heteronomous authority instead of its acceptance. The decisive feature is opposition to whatever appears to be tyranny. The syndrome of the Impulsive low scorer denotes people in whom strong id impulses were never integrated with ego and superego. They are threatened by overpowering libidinous energy and in a way as close to psychosis as the »Crank« and the »Manipulative« high scorer. As to the Easy-Going low scorer, the id seems to be little repressed, but rather to be sublimated into compassion, and the superego well developed, whereas the extraverted functions of the otherwise quite articulate ego frequently do not keep pace. These subjects sometimes come close to neurotic indecision. One of their main features is the fear of »hurting« anyone or anything by action. The construct of the Genuine Liberal may be conceived in terms of that balance between superego, ego, and id which Freud deemed ideal. In our sample the »Protesting« and the »Easy-Going« low scorers apparently occur most frequently. Emphasizing, however, once again that the low scorers are as a whole less »typed« than the high scorers, we shall refrain from any undue generalization.

 1. The »Rigid« Low Scorer   We may start with the »low« syndrome that has most in common with the over-all »high« pattern, and proceed in the direction of sounder and more durable »lowness.« The syndrome which commands first attention is the one which shows the most markedly stereotypical features – that is to say, configurations in which the absence of prejudice, instead of being based on concrete experience and integrated within the personality, is derived from some general, external, ideological pattern. Here we find those subjects whose lack of prejudice, however consistent in terms of surface ideology, has to be regarded as accidental in terms of personality, but we also find people whose rigidity is hardly less related to personality than is the case with certain syndromes of high scorers. The latter kind of low scorers are definitely disposed towards totalitarianism in their thinking; what is accidental up to a certain degree is the particular brand of ideological world formula that they chance to come into contact with. We encountered a few subjects who had been identified ideologically with some progressive movement, such as the struggle for minority rights, for a long time, but with whom such ideas contained features of compulsiveness, even of paranoid obsession, and who, with respect to many of our variables, especially rigidity and »total« thinking, could hardly be distinguished from some of our high extremes. All the representatives of this syndrome can in one way or another be regarded as counterparts of the »Surface Resentment« type of high scorer. The accidentalness in their total outlook makes them liable to change fronts in critical situations, as was the case with certain kinds of radicals under the Nazi regime. They may often be recognized by a certain disinterestedness with respect to crucial minority questions per se, being, rather, against prejudice as a plank in the fascist platform; but sometimes they also see only minority problems. They are likely to use clichés and phraseology hardly less frequently than do their political opponents. Some of them tend to belittle the importance of racial discrimination by labeling it simply as a by-product of the big issues of class struggle – an attitude which may be indicative of repressed prejudice on their own part.

Representatives of this syndrome can often be found, for example, among young, »progressive« people, particularly students, whose personal development has failed to keep pace with their ideological indoctrination. One of the best means for identifying the syndrome is to note the subject's readiness to deduce his stand towards minority problems from some general formula, rather than to make spontaneous statements. He also may often come forward with value judgments which cannot possibly be based on any real knowledge of the matter in question. F 139 is a religious educator.   For the past ten years she has considered herself very progressive. Lately she has little time to read, but her husband reads and studies constantly and keeps her up to date by discussion. »My favorite world statesman is Litvinov. 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 clear away during this war. Things are not settled yet though. There are many fascists in our own country who would fight Russia if they could.«

  The hollowness of her enthusiasm about Litvinov has already been noted in our discussion of stereotyped thinking in politics (Chapter XVII). [ 22 ] The same seems to be true of her assertion that she is an internationalist, followed up by her rhetorical question, »Would I be a true Christian if I weren't?« This is typical of the »deductive« way of thinking which seems to characterize the rigid low scorer. The present subject seems to proceed in the same way as she approaches minoritiy questions.   Subject believes that all people are one, and again she feels that is the only point of view possible for a true Christian.

  The somewhat sweeping expression »that all people are one« should be noted: a person free of stereotypy would rather tend to acknowledge differences and to take a positive stand towards differentiation. What is meant is probably »equal in the sight of God« and she deduces her tolerance from this general assumption. As mentioned in the chapter on politics, the superficiality of her progressivism is indicated by her highly aggressive attitude towards alcoholism, called by herself »one of her pet subjects,« which plays

almost the same role as do certain paranoid ideas in the »Cranks« among the high scorers. It may be recalled in this connection, that Alfred McClung Lee has demonstrated the close connection between prohibitionism and prejudiced ways of thinking. As a matter of fact, there is evidence enough that this »Rigid« low scorer has more than a sprinkling of the »high« mentality. There is the emphasis on »status,« with reference to her daughter:   »I feel badly about her school too – (names the school). The influx of people with lower educational and cultural standards than ours has had effect on the schools of course.«

  There are destructive fantasies, thinly veiled by »sensible« moral reflections:  

»The same with smoking. I am not really worried about it though. No one on either side of our family ever smoked or drank, with one exception. My husband's sister smoked. She is dead now.«

  There is a rationalization of punitiveness:  

»If I could bring about Prohibition tomorrow I would do it. I believe in preventing everything that doesn't make man better – that makes him worse. Some people say if you forbid something it makes people do it on the sly. Well, I say, how about murder, and robbery, and dope? We have prohibited them and some people still commit crimes, but we do not think of taking off the ban on them.«

  And there is, finally, official optimism, a characteristic reaction-formation against underlying destructiveness:  

»If one didn't always have hope and believe everything was moving upwards, one's Christianity wouldn't mean anything, would it?«

  Under changing conditions she might be willing to join a subversive movement as long as it pretended to be »Christian« and to »move upwards.«

 2. The »Protesting« Low Scorer 23   This syndrome is in many respects the counterpart of the »Authoritarian« high scorer. Its determinants are psychological rather than rational. It is based on a specific resolution of the Oedipus complex which has deeply affected the individuals in question. While they are set against paternal authority, they have at the same time internalized the father image to a high degree. One may say that in them the superego is so strong that it turns against its own »model,« the father, and all external authorities. They are thoroughly guided by conscience which seems to be, in many cases exhibiting this pattern, a secularization of religious authority. This conscience, however, is quite autonomous and independent of outside codes. They »protest« out of purely moral reasons against social repression or at least against some of its extreme manifestations, such as racial prejudice. 24 Most of the »neurotic« low scorers who play such a large role in our sample show the »Protest« syndrome. They are often shy, »retiring,« uncertain about themselves, and even given to tormenting themselves with all kinds of doubts and scruples. They sometimes show certain compulsive features, and their reaction against prejudice has also an aspect of having been forced upon them by rigid superego demands. They are frequently guilt-ridden and regard the Jews a priori as »victims,« as being distinctly different from themselves. An element of stereotypy may be inherent in their sympathies and identifications. They are guided by the wish to »make good« the injustice that has been done to minorities. At the same time they may be easily attracted by the real or imaginary intellectual qualities of the Jews which they deem to be akin to their desire to be »aloof« from worldly affairs. While being non-authoritarian in their way of thinking, they are often psychologically constricted and thus not able to act as energetically as their conscience demands. It is as if the internalization of conscience has succeeded so well that they are severely inhibited or even psychologically »paralyzed.« Their eternal guilt feelings tend to make them regard everyone as »guilty.« Though they detest discrimination, they may find it sometimes difficult to stand up against it. Socially, they seem usually to belong to the middle class,

but it is hard to define their group membership in more precise terms. However, our material seems to indicate that they are frequently to be found among people who underwent serious family troubles, such as a divorce of their parents. F 127  

is extremely pretty in the conventional »campus girl« style. She is very slight, blond, fair-skinned, and blue- She wears a becoming »sloppy Joe« sweater, daintily fixed blouse, and brief skirt, with bobby socks. She wears a sorority pin. She is very friendly and interested, seems to enjoy the discussion, but is quite vague in her answers about family life until the interview is quite well along. Then she suddenly decides to reveal the most important single fact in her life – her parents' divorce which she usually hides – and from that point on speaks with apparent freedom about her own feelings.

  She shows the characteristic neurotic concern with herself, indicative of a feeling of impotence: she has a somewhat magical belief in psychology, apparently expecting that the psychologist knows more about her than she does herself:  

What she would like above all is to be a psychiatrist. (Why?) »Because psychiatrists know more about people. Everyone tells me their troubles. I don't think there is anything more satisfying than to be able to help people with their problems. But I don't have the brains or the patience to be a psychiatrist. That is just an idea.«

  Her attitude towards the father is hostile:  

Father is a lawyer. At present he is enlisted in the army and is somewhere in the Pacific, in charge of a Negro battalion. (What does he think about that?) »I don't know what he thinks about anything.«

  Her social attitude is a combination of conformist »correctness,« the emphatic and self-confessed desire for »pleasure« (almost as if her conscience would order her to enjoy herself), and a tendency towards retiring internalization. Her indifference to »status,« though perhaps not quite authentic, is noteworthy.  

(Interests?) »Oh fun – and serious things too. I like to read and discuss things. I like bright people – can't stand clinging vines. Like to dance, dress up, go places. Am not much good at sports, but I play at them – tennis, swimming. I belong to a sorority and we do lots of war work as well as entertaining service men.« Subject names sorority. (That is supposed to be a good house isn't it?) »They say

so. I didn't think there was anything very special about it.«

  Her social progressiveness is characterized by both an element of fear and a conscientious sense of justice:  

(What do you think about poverty?) »I hate to think of it. And I don't think it is necessary.« (Who is to blame?) »Oh, I don't mean the poor people are. I don't know, but you would think that by now we could work out a way so that everyone would have enough.«

  Her anxiety makes her more aware of the fascist potential than most other low scorers are:  

»It would be terrible to have Nazis here. Of course there are some. And they would like to have the same thing happen. ... Lots of Jewish kids have a hard time – in the service, and in going to medical school. It isn't fair.« (Why the discrimination?) »I don't know unless it is the Nazi influence. No, it went back before that. I guess there always are some people who have ideas like the Nazis.«

  Her indignation is primarily directed against »unfairness.« The notion that »there are always people with ideas like the Nazis« is remarkable: a highly developed sense of responsibility seems to give her an understanding in social matters that goes far beyond her purely intellectual insight. Psychologically, the complete absence of prejudice in her case seems best understood as a superego function, since the girl relates a rather unpleasant experience which otherwise might well have made her prejudiced: she was kidnapped, as a child of four, by a Negro but:   »He didn't hurt me. I don't think I was even scared.«

  As to the genetic background of her attitude, the following clinical data are pertinent:  

»I am more like my father I am afraid and that isn't good. He is a very impatient man, overbearing, and everything for himself. He and I didn't get along. He favored my sister because she played up to him. But both of us suffered with him. If I even called my sister a name as kids will do when they fight, I got spanked, and hard. That used to worry my mother. For that reason she hardly ever punished us, because he did it all the time, and mostly for nothing. I was spanked constantly. I remember that better than anything.« (Do you think your mother and father loved each other?) »No, perhaps they did at first, but my

mother couldn't stand the way he treated us. She divorced him.« (She flushes and her eyes fill with tears as she says this. When interviewer commented that she had not realized the parents were divorced she says – »I wasn't going to say anything. I hardly ever do.«)

  As to neurotic traits: there are indications of a strong mother-fixation:  

»I don't want mother to ever get married again.« (Why?) »I don't know. She doesn't need to. She can have friends. She is very attractive and has lots of friends but I couldn't stand to have her marry again.« (Do you think she might anyway?) »No. She won't if I don't want her to.«

  And there are symptoms of sexual inhibition, based on her experience of the breakdown of her parents' marriage.  

(Boys?) »Oh, I don't get serious and I don't want them to. I neck a little of course, but nothing to give them any idea I am cheap. I don't like cheap fellows either.«

  Her statement that she does not want to commit herself because she is afraid of war marriages is probably a rationalization.

 3. The »Impulsive« Low Scorer   The case of an »impulse-ridden« low scorer has been described by Frenkel-Brunswik and Sanford. 25 They write:   The most markedly pathological case from among our lows [low scorers] showed in an extreme degree a pattern that was different from that which we have regarded as most typical of our low extremes. This girl was clearly impulse-ridden. Her ego was lined up with her id, so that sexual perversions, promiscuity and drinking orgies were made to seem permissible to her. ... In stating why she liked Jews she gave much the same reasons that the high extremes had given for hating them.

  There is reason to assume that this case represents a syndrome of its own, being in some respects the counterpart of the psychopathic high scorer. This syndrome stands out in all-adjusted people who have an extremely strong id, but are relatively free of destructive impulses: people who, on account of their own libidinous situation, sympathize with everything they feel to be repressed. Moreover, they are those who respond so strongly to all kinds of stimuli that the ingroup-outgroup relation has no meaning to them – rather, they are attracted by everything that is »different« and promises some new kind of gratification. If they have destructive elements, these seem to be directed against themselves instead of against others. The range of this syndrome seems to reach from libertines and »addicts« of all kinds, over certain asocial characters such as prostitutes and nonviolent criminals, to certain psychotics. It may also be noted that in Germany very few Nazis were found among actors, circus folk, and vagrants – people whom the Nazis put into concentration camps. It is difficult to say what are the deeper psychological sources of this syndrome. It seems, however, that there is weakness both in the superego and in the ego, and that this makes these individuals somewhat unstable in political matters as well as in other areas. They certainly do not think in stereotypes, but it is doubtful to what extent they succeed in conceptualization at all. Our illustration, F 205, is selected from the Psychiatric Clinic material:   She is a pleasantly mannered, attractive young college girl who is obviously

seriously maladjusted and who suffers from great mood swings, tension, who cannot concentrate on her school work and has no goals in life. ... Sometimes she is extremely upset, comes crying and »mixed up,« complains that she is not being helped fast enough. Therapist feels that she cannot stand any deeper probing, that therapy will have to be mostly supportive, because of her weak ego, possibility of precipitating a psychosis. Schizoid tendencies.

  She is set against prejudice with a strong accent on »interbreeding,« probably an expression of her own impulse for promiscuity: there should be no »boundaries«:  

(Prejudices?) »If there were interbreeding between races it might help in the combining of cultures – it may internationalize culture. I think there should be one system of education everywhere. It may not be practical – but perhaps selective breeding would be possible – an accumulation of good traits might come out. And the imbeciles could be sterilized.« (Quotes some study on heredity subject has learned about.) »It seems improvements aren't made fast enough. The whole society is ill and unhappy.«

  The last sentence indicates that her own discontent leads her, by the way of empathy, towards a rather radical and consistent critique of society. The keenness of her insight as well as her being attracted by what is »different« comes out even more clearly in her statement on minority problems:  

»There is a terrific amount of minority oppression – prejudice. There is a fear of minorities, a lack of knowledge. I would like to assimilate all groups – internationally. Would want the education of the world unified. The minorities themselves also keep themselves apart. It's a vicious circle. Society makes them outcasts and they react this way.« (Differences?) Interviewer tried hard to have subject describe differences between groups, but subject insisted: »All differences that exist are due to conditions people grow up in and also to the emotional responses (to discrimination).« (Jews?) »I don't see how they are different as a group. I have Jewish friends. ... Maybe they are more sensitive because of prejudice against them. But that's good.«

  According to the clinical data the girl is a genuine Lesbian, who was severely reprimanded because of her homosexuality, and became afterwards »rather promiscuous to determine whether she did react sexually to men.« »All emotionally upset in one way or the other,« she said. Her later history indicates that the Lesbian component is stronger than anything else.

It may be added that the Los Angeles sample contains three call-house girls, all of them completely free of prejudice and also low on the F scale. Since their profession tends to make them resentful about sex altogether, and since they profess symptoms of frigidity, they do not seem to belong to the »Impulsive« syndrome. However, only much closer analysis could ascertain whether the ultimate basis of their character formation is of the »impulsive« kind and has only been hidden by later reaction-formations, or whether their low score is due to a purely social factor, namely the innumerable contacts they have with all kinds of people.

 4. The »Easy-Going« Low Scorer   This syndrome is the exact opposite of the »Manipulative« high scorer. Negatively, it is characterized by a marked tendency to »let things go,« a profound unwillingness to do violence to any object (an unwillingness which often may approach, on the surface level, conformity), and by an extreme reluctance to make decisions, often underscored by the subjects themselves. This reluctance even affects their language: they may be recognized by the frequency of unfinished sentences, as if they would not like to commit themselves, but rather leave it to the listener to decide on the merits of the case. Positively, they are inclined to »live and let live,« while at the same time their own desires seem to be free of the acquisitive touch. Grudging and discontent are absent. They show a certain psychological richness, the opposite of constrictedness: a capacity for enjoying things, imagination, a sense of humor which often assumes the form of self-irony. The latter, however, is as little destructive as their other attitudes: it is as if they were ready to confess all kinds of weaknesses not so much out of any neurotic compulsion as because of a strong underlying sense of inner security. They can give themselves up without being afraid of losing themselves. They are rarely radical in their political outlook, but rather behave as if they were already living under nonrepressive conditions, in a truly human society, an attitude which may, sometimes, tend to weaken their power of resistance. There is no evidence of any truly schizoid tendencies. They are completely nonstereopathic – they do not even resist stereotypy, but simply fail to understand the urge for subsumption. The etiology of the »Easy-Going« syndrome is still somewhat obscure. The subjects in whom it is pronounced seem not to be defined by the preponderance of any psychological agency, or by retrogression to any particular infantile phase though there is, superficially seen, something of the child about them. Rather, they should be understood dynamically. They are people whose character structure has not become »congealed«: no set pattern of control by any of the agencies of Freud's typology has crystallized, but they are completely »open« to experience. This, however, does not imply

ego weakness, but rather the absence of traumatic experiences and defects which otherwise lead to the »reification« of the ego. In this sense, they are »normal,« but it is just this normality which gives them in our civilization the appearance of a certain immaturity. Not only did they not undergo severe childhood conflicts, but their whole childhood seems to be determined by motherly or other female images. 26 Perhaps they may best be characterized as those who know no fear of women. This may account for the absence of aggressiveness. At the same time, it is possibly indicative of an archaic trait: to them, the world has still a matriarchal outlook. Thus, they may often represent, sociologically, the genuine »folk« element as against rational civilization. Representatives of this syndrome are not infrequent among the lower middle-classes. Though no »action« is to be expected of them, one may count on them as on persons who, under no circumstances, ever will adjust themselves to political or psychological fascism. The aforementioned M 711   is very amiable, mild, gentle, casual, slow, and somewhat lethargic in both voice and manner. He is quite verbal, but very circumstantial. His statements are typically surrounded with qualifications to which he commonly devotes more attention than to the main proposition. He seems to suffer from pervasive indecision and doubt, to be pretty unsure of his ideas, and to have great difficulty in committing himself to positive statements on very many matters. In general, he tends to avoid committing himself to things, either intellectually or emotionally, and in general avoids getting involved in things.

  He describes his choice of profession as accidental, but it is interesting that he was originally a landscape architect – which may imply a desire for the restitution of nature rather than its domination – and later became an interviewer in government employment, a job that gives him the gratification of helping other people without his stressing, however, this aspect narcissistically. He is not indifferent to wealth and admits his wish for »security,« but is, at the same time, totally unimpressed by the importance of money per se. His religious attitude has been described in Chapter XVIII, [ 27 ] and it fits psychologically, in every detail, into the make-up of the »Easy-Going« syndrome. It may be added that he »does not believe in the Immaculate Conception« but doesn't think »it makes any difference.« When asked about discipline in childhood, he answers

»practically none,« »very undisciplined.« His strong attachment to his mother is emphasized without any inhibition: the only period of his childhood when there were any »bones of contention« was when his mother »exhibited her possessiveness. She didn't like the gals I went with.« What he himself likes about women is described as follows:   »Awfully hard to say when you're pretty sold on a gal. ... Seems to have all the things I like – fun to be with, brains, pretty. She likes me, which is important. We share things together.« (What enjoy doing together?) »Music, reading, swimming, dancing. Most of the things which don't require too much energy, which makes it good.«

  It is remarkable that there is no trace of hostility against the father – whom he lost very early – in spite of the mother-fixation. It is the imaginative gift of the father which lingers in his memory:  

(Pleasant memories of father?) »Lots of pleasant memories, because he spoiled us when he was home, always cooking up wonderful ideas for things to do.« (Mother and father got along?) »I think very well.« (Which parent take after?) »I don't know, because I didn't know my father very well.« (Father's faults?) »Don't know.«

  Most significant are his statements on race issues:  

(What think of minority group problems?) »I wish I knew. I don't know. I think that is one problem we should all be working on.« (Biggest problem?) »Negroes, in terms of numbers. ... I don't think we've ever faced the problem squarely. ... Many Negroes have come to the West Coast. ...« (Have you ever had Negroes as friends?) »Yes ... Not intimately, though have known a number that I've liked and enjoyed.« (What about intermarriage?) »I think it's a false issue. ... They say, ›What if your sister married a Negro?‹ I wouldn't have any feelings about it, frankly. ...« (Negro traits?) »No.«

  As to the Jews, he does not come to their »defense,« but actually denies that they are a »problem«:  

(What about the Jewish problem?) »I don't think there is a Jewish problem. There again, I think that's been a herring for agitators.« (How do you mean?) »Hitler, Ku Klux Klan, etc.« (Jewish traits?) »No ... I've seen Jewish people exhibit so-called Jewish traits, but also many non-Jewish people.« ... (Subject emphasizes there is no distinction along racial lines.)

  The danger implicit in the »Easy-Going« syndrome, i.e., too great reluctance to use violence even against violence, is suggested by the following passage:   (What about picketing Gerald K. Smith?) »I think Gerald K. Smith should have an opportunity to speak, if we are operating under a democracy.« (What about picketing as registering a protest?) »If a certain group wants to, they have a right to. ... I don't think it's always effective.«

  That the subject's attitude of noncommitment to any »principle« is actually based on a sense of the concrete and not purely evasive is indicated by the following highly elucidating passage:  

(Interviewer reads question ... about tireless leader and refers to subject as agreeing a little, asks for elaboration.) »I agree a little. However, the opposite of that, Huey Long, was a courageous, tireless leader and Hitler (laughs). It depends.« (How do you mean?) »Well, I admired Willkie; I admired Roosevelt; I admired Wallace. But, I don't think we should ever have leaders in whom the people put their faith and then settle back. People seem to seek leaders to avoid thinking for themselves.«

  This subject's interviewer concludes with the dialectical statement that »power is almost equivalent to the abuse of power.«

 5. The Genuine Liberal   By contrast to the pattern just described, this syndrome is very outspoken in reaction and opinion. The subject in whom it is pronounced has a strong sense of personal autonomy and independence. He cannot stand any outside interference with his personal convictions and beliefs, and he does not want to interfere with those of others either. His ego is quite developed but not libidinized – he is rarely »narcissistic.« At the same time, he is willing to admit id tendencies, and to take the consequence – as is the case with Freud's »erotic type.« 28 One of his conspicuous features is moral courage, often far beyond his rational evaluation of a situation. He cannot »keep silent« if something wrong is being done, even if he seriously endangers himself. Just as he is strongly »individualized« himself, he sees the others, above all, as individuals, not as specimens of a general concept. He shares some features with other syndromes found among low scorers. Like the »Impulsive,« he is little repressed and even has certain difficulties in keeping himself under »control.« However, his emotionality is not blind, but directed towards the other person as a subject. His love is not only desire but also compassion – as a matter of fact, one might think of defining this syndrome as the »compassionate« low scorer. He shares with the »Protesting« low scorer the vigor of identification with the underdog, but without compulsion, and without traces of overcompensation: he is no »Jew lover.« Like the »Easy-Going« low scorer he is antitotalitarian, but much more consciously so, without the element of hesitation and indecision. It is this configuration rather than any single trait which characterizes the »Genuine Liberal.« Aesthetic interests seem to occur frequently. The illustration we give is a girl whose character of a »genuine liberal« stands out the more clearly, since, according to the interviewer,   she is politically naive like the majority of our college women, regardless whether they are high or low.

  No »ticket« is involved. F 515  

is a 21-year-old college student. She is a handsome brunette with dark, flashing eyes, who exudes temperament and vitality. She has none of the pretty-pretty femininity so frequently seen in high subjects, and would probably scorn the little feminine wiles and schemes practiced by such women. On the contrary, she is extremely frank and outspoken in manner, and in build she is athletic. One senses in her a very passionate nature and so strong a desire to give intensely of herself in all her relationships, that she must experience difficulty in restraining herself within the bounds of conventionality.

  Apart from a semiprofessional interest in music she also »enjoys painting and dramatics.« As to her vocation, however, she is still undecided. She  

has taken nurses' aid training. She liked helping people in this way. »I enjoyed it. I feel that I could now take care of a sick person. It didn't bother me to carry bedpans and urinals. I learned that I could touch flesh without being squeamish. I learned to be tactful about certain things. And then it was patriotic! (slightly joking tone). People liked me.« (Why did they like you?) »Because I smiled, and because I was always making cracks – like I'm doing now.«

  Her views with regard to minorities are guided by the idea of the individual:  

»Minorities have to have just as many rights as majorities. They are all people and should have just as many rights as the majority. There should be no minorities; there should only be individuals and they should be judged according to the individual. Period! Is that sufficient?« (Negroes) »Same thing! Still as individuals. Their skin is black, but they are still people. Individuals have loves and sorrows and joys. I don't think you should kill them all or liquidate them or stick them in a corner just because they are different people. I would not marry one, because I should not want to marry a person who has a trait I don't like, like a large nose, etc. I would not want to have children with dark skins. I would not mind if they live next door to me.« (Earlier in the interview subject had brought out the fact that she had also to care for Negro patients during her nurses' aid work, and that she had not minded at all having to give baths to them, etc.) (Jews?) »Same! Well I could marry a Jew very easily. I could even marry a Negro if he had a light enough skin. I prefer a light skin. I don't consider Jews different from white people at all, because they even have light skins. It's really silly.« (What do you think are the causes of prejudice?) »Jealousy.« (Explain?) »Because they are smarter and they don't want any competition. We don't want any competition. If they want it they should have it. I don't know if they are more intelligent, but if they are they should have it.«

 

The last statement shows complete absence of any aspect of guilt feelings in her relation to the Jews. It is followed up by the joke:  

»Maybe if the Jews get in power they would liquidate the majority! That's not smart. Because we would fight back.«

  Her views on religion, with a slightly humorous touch, are centered in the idea of Utopia. She mentions the word herself, when referring to her reading of Plato. The gist of her religion is contained in the statement: »Perhaps we will all be saved.« This should be compared with the prevailing »anti-Utopian« attitude of our subjects. The description of both her parents contains elements of her own ego ideal, in quite an unconventional way:   »Father has been employed for 25 years in the freight complaint department of the – R.R. Co. His work involves the hiring of many men. He has about 150 people working under him.« (Subject described her father as follows:) »He could have been vice-president by now – he has the brains – but he does not have the go-get-it nature; he is not enough of a politician. He is broad-minded – always listens to both sides of a question before making up his mind. He is a good ›argumenter‹ for this reason. He is understanding. He is not emotional like mother. Mother is emotional, father factual. Mother is good. She has a personality of her own. She gives to all of us. She is emotional. She keeps Daddy very satisfied.« (In what way?) »She makes a home for him to come home to – he has it very hard at the office. It's living. Their marriage is very happy – everybody notices it. Their children perform too – people notice them! Mother is very friendly. Understanding. She gives sympathy. People love to talk to her. Someone calls her up on the telephone and they become lifelong friends just from having talked on the telephone! She is sensitive; it is easy to hurt her.«

  Her attitude towards sex is one of precarious restraint. Her boy friend  

wants to have sexual intercourse everytime that they have a date – in fact he wanted it the first time he dated her – and she doesn't want it that way. She cries every time he tries something, so she supposes it cannot be right for her. She thinks that friendship should precede sexual relations, but he thinks that sex relations are a way of getting to know each other better. Finally she broke with him three days ago (said with mock tearfulness). He had said, »Let's just be friends,« but she didn't want that either! The sex problem bothers her. The first time she danced with him he told her that he thought she wanted intercourse; whereas she just wanted to be close to him. She is worried because she didn't mean it the other way, but perhaps unconsciously she did!

  It is evident that her erotic character is connected with a lack of repression with regard to her feelings towards her father: »I would like to marry someone like my father.« The result of the interview is summed up by the interviewer:  

The most potent factors making for the low score in this case are the open-mindedness of the parents and the great love subject's mother bore all her children.

  If this can be generalized, and consequences be drawn for high scorers, we might postulate that the increasing significance of the fascist character depends largely upon basic changes in the structure of the family itself. 29

 Fußnoten   1 Gordon W. Allport, Personality: A Psychological Interpretation (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1937), p. 13.   2 Jules H. Massermann, Principles of Dynamic Psychiatry (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1946), p. 85.   3 Anne Anastasi, Differential Psychology (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937), pp. 230–232.   4 Allport, Personality: A Psychological Interpretation.   5 David P. Boder, »Nazi Science,« Twentieth Century Psychology, ed. Philip L. Harriman (New York: Philosophical Library, 1946), pp. 10–21.   6 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« ( Ibid., 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 décadence, 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. 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.

  7 Sigmund Freud, »Libidinal Types,« Psychoanalytic Quarterly 1 (1932), pp. 3–6.   8 Donald W. MacKinnon, »Structure of Personality,« Personality and the Behavior Disorders, ed. Joseph McVicker Hunt (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1944), vol. 1, pp. 3–48.   9 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 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.   [ 10 See above, pp. 332ff.]   11 Institute of Social Research, »Research Project on Anti-Semitism,« Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, IX, 1 (1941), pp. 133–137.   12 Erich Fromm, »Sozialpsychologischer Teil: Der autoritär-masochistische Charakter,« Studien über Autorität und Familie, ed. Max Horkheimer (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1936), pp. 110–135.   [ 13 See above, pp. 392ff.]   14 Institute of Social Research, Studien über Autorität und Familie. Cf. also in this connection, Erik H. Erikson, »Hitler's Imagery and German Youth,« Psychiatry 5 (1942), pp. 475–493.   15 Institute of Social Research, »Research Project on Anti-Semitism« [1941], p. 135.   16 Robert M. Lindner, Rebel Without a Cause, introd. Sheldon

Glueck and Eleanor Glueck, (New York: Grune & Stratton, Inc., 1944), p. 14 (orig. ital.).   17 Ibid., pp. 8–9.   [ 18 William R. Morrow, »Criminality and Antidemocratic Trends: A Study of Prison Inmates,« The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 817–890.]   19 Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Guterman, Prophets of Deceit (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949), pp. 55–58.   20 This, of course, covers only a superficial aspect. It is well known from psychoanalysis that insects and vermin serve frequently as symbols for siblings. The fantasies involved here may be traces of the little boy's wish to beat his little brother until he »keeps quiet.« Manipulativeness may be one form in which death wishes for the siblings are allowed to come to the fore. »Organizers« are frequently persons who want to exercise domineering control over those who are actually their equals – substitutes for the siblings over whom they wish to rule, like the father, as the next best thing, if they cannot kill them. Our insect toxicologist mentions frequent childhood quarrels with his sister.   [ 21 See above, p. 378.]   [ 22 See above, p. 351.]   23 This term was suggested by J.F. Brown.   24 It was pointed out in Chapter XVIII that religion, when it has been internalized, is an effective antidote against prejudice and the whole fascist potential, notwithstanding its own authoritarian aspects. [See above, p. 443.]   25 Else Frenkel-Brunswik and R. Nevitt Sanford, »Some Personality Factors in Anti-Semitism,« The Journal of Psychology 20 (1945) p. 287.  

26 The subject chosen as an illustration of this type »was brought up in a household of women – mother and grandmother.«   [ 27 See above, p. 449.]   28 Sigmund Freud, »Libidinal Types,« p. 4.   29 Cf. Max Horkheimer, »Authoritarianism and the Family Today,« The Family: Its Function and Destiny, ed., Ruth Nanda Anshen (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949), pp. 359–374.  

 List of Abbreviations The full names of organizations which appear in the text in abbreviated form are listed below as a reference aid.   A.M.A. American Medical Association A.F. of L. American Federation of Labor CCF Cooperative Commonwealth Federation C.I.O. Congress of Industrial Organizations FEPC Fair Employment Practice Commission G.M. General Motors I.L.W.U. International Longshoremen's and and Warehousemen's Union NRA National Recovery Act OPA Office of Price Administration OWI Office of War Information PAC Political Action Committee (of the C.I.O.) P.T.A. Parent Teachers Association UNO United Nations Organization WPA Works Progress Administration WPB War Production Board

  

The Stars Down to Earth: The Los Angeles Times Astrology Column A Study in Secondary Superstition

 Vorbemerkung Die Publikation der Abhandlung »The Stars Down to Earth« im »Jahrbuch für Amerikastudien« * scheint dem Autor als die einer Amerikastudie im wörtlichsten Sinne gerechtfertigt: die Untersuchung wurde in Amerika, an amerikanischem Material durchgeführt. Sie bildet einen wesentlichen Teil der Arbeit der Hacker-Foundation in Beverly Hills aus der Zeit von 1952 bis 53, als der Autor die wissenschaftliche Leitung jener Foundation innehatte. Nicht bloß ermöglichte die Foundation finanziell die Untersuchung, sondern der Autor ist ihr auch für vielfache wissenschaftliche Hilfe zu Dank verpflichtet. Er gilt in erster Linie Dr. Frederick Hacker, der wesentliche Anregungen, zumal mit Hinsicht auf die Verwandtschaft der psychologischen Funktion der Astrologie mit der des Traums, gab; dann Frau Liesel Seham, die, weit über ihre sekretarialen Pflichten hinaus, bei der Gestaltung des englischen Textes mit unermüdlichem Fleiß und größtem Verständnis half. Die Hacker-Foundation, die materiell von einer psychiatrischen Klinik getragen wird, setzt sich die wissenschaftliche Bearbeitung psychiatrischer und psychologischer Probleme zur Aufgabe. Ihre wesentlich psychoanalytische Orientierung traf mit sozialpsychologischen Intentionen zusammen, wie sie das Frankfurter Institut für Sozialforschung seit der Publikation des Kollektivwerks über »Autorität und Familie« (1936) verfolgte. Diese Intentionen setzte der Autor fort, als er die von ihm betreuten Arbeiten der Foundation soziologisch akzentuierte. Die Astrologiestudie fällt in mehr als einer Hinsicht in den Zusammenhang des Werkes »The Authoritarian Personality« von T.W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson und R. Nevitt Sanford, das als erster Band der von Max Horkheimer und S. Flowerman herausgegebenen Serie »Studies in Prejudice« 1950 erschien. Mit Rücksicht auf die theoretischen Erwägungen, die hinter der Studie stehen, darf auf das Kapitel »Kulturindustrie« aus der »Dialektik der Aufklärung« von Max Horkheimer und Theodor W. Adorno (Amsterdam 1947 [jetzt GS 3, s. S. 141ff.]), und auf die »Thesen gegen den Okkultismus« aus den »Minima Moralia« (Frankfurt 1951 [jetzt GS 4, s. S. 273ff.]) verwiesen werden.

Ihr Spezifisches jedoch hat die Studie darin, daß sie ihre theoretischen Kategorien auf ein höchst konkretes, wenn man will handfestes, Material anwendet. Dabei geht es nicht so sehr um die Dechiffrierung des Okkultismus selber in der zeitgenössischen Gesellschaft, als um die Erhellung der sozialpsychologischen Implikationen einer sehr breiten Schichten zubestimmten Zeitungsspalte. Dem Okkultismus ist sie, wie die Studie darlegt, nur begrenzt zuzurechnen; vielmehr repräsentiert sie sekundären, sozialpsychologisch kalkulierten Aberglauben. Dies Material wird einer »content analysis«, der inhaltlichen Deutung unterworfen, wie sie Massenkommunikationen gegenüber als eigenes Verfahren sich ausgebildet hat. Doch wurde die »content analysis« nicht nach amerikanischer Übung quantitativ vollzogen; nicht die Frequenz einzelner Motive und Formulierungen der astrologischen Spalte gezählt. Sondern es wurde durchaus qualitativ verfahren. Das Skelett der Interpretation stellte eben die Theorie bei. Auch insofern darf die Studie als Beispiel geistiger Wechselwirkung von Amerika und Deutschland gelten: amerikanisches Material wurde mit deutscher Methode behandelt. Allerdings könnten die qualitativ gewonnenen Resultate ihrerseits recht wohl mit orthodox-amerikanischen, quantitativen Techniken weiter verfolgt werden; andererseits ist gerade die astrologische Infektion durchaus internationaler Art, und die meisten der in Amerika herausgearbeiteten Kategorien wären auch auf analoge deutsche Publikationen anzuwenden. Dabei allenfalls hervortretende Differenzen könnten ihrerseits für die vergleichende Kultursoziologie relevant werden. Vorarbeiten in dieser Richtung wurden im Institut für Sozialforschung an der Frankfurter Universität durchgeführt. Auf Differenzen verschiedener Typen astrologischer Publikationen ist im Text eingegangen; sie finden sich selbstverständlich auch in Deutschland. So wenig ihre soziologische und psychologische Bedeutung zu unterschätzen ist, so wenig dürften doch sogenannte Niveauunterschiede am Wahrheitsgehalt der Sache selbst etwas ändern; viel eher sind sie im kommerziellen Hinblick auf verschiedene Konsumentenschichten geplant. Zudem bieten sie der Kritik gegenüber die willkommene Ausweichmöglichkeit, daß man jeweils auf eine richtige oder tiefe gegenüber einer falschen oder flachen Astrologie sich zurückziehen

kann. Die Vorsorge für Hilfshypothesen, mit denen nach Belieben das Fragwürdigste sich verteidigen läßt, gehört selbst zum Wesen von Systemen vom Schlag des astrologischen. Im übrigen zielt die Kritik gar nicht so sehr auf die Astrologie selber als auf ihre soziale Funktion, die »Botschaft«, das »message«, das sie den Konsumenten zukommen läßt und das sich als Sparte dem Betrieb der Kulturindustrie reibungslos integriert. Sozialpsychologische Untersuchungen in Amerika können Begriffe der Psychoanalyse in ihrer strengen, Freudischen Gestalt ohne weiteres voraussetzen. Da jedoch in Deutschland die vom nationalsozialistischen Regime verfemte Freudische Theorie auch nach dessen Sturz noch nicht zur wahrhaft eindringlichen Erfahrung gelangte und in weitem Maß durch Verwässerungen verdrängt ist, die dogmatisch als Fortschritt über Freud betrachtet werden, so schien es dem Autor angemessen, bei einer Reihe Freudischer Begriffe – und zwar genau denen, die in Deutschland heute noch den gleichen Schock ausüben wie vor dreißig Jahren – auf die wichtigsten Belegstellen zu verweisen. Meist wurde die deutsche Originalausgabe der Gesammelten Werke und nicht die englische Übersetzung zugrunde gelegt.   Frankfurt a.M. Institut für Sozialforschung T.W. Adorno Juni 1956

 Fußnoten   * Der Erstdruck der Arbeit erschien in: Jahrbuch für Amerikastudien. Im Auftrag der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien hrsg. von Walther Fischer. Bd. 2, Heidelberg 1957, S. 19–88. (Anm. d. Hrsg.)

 Introduction   The group of studies to which the content analysis of the Los Angeles Times astrology column belongs, sets as its aim the investigation of the nature and motivations of some large-scale social phenomena involving irrational elements in a peculiar way – fused with what may be dubbed pseudorationality. Various mass movements spread all over the world in which people seem to act against their own rational interests of self-preservation and the »pursuit of happiness« have been evident now for a considerable length of time. It would be a mistake, however, to call such mass phenomena entirely »irrational,« to regard them as completely disconnected from individual and collective ego aims. In fact, most of them are based on an exaggeration and distortion of such ego aims rather than on their neglect. They function as though rationality of the self-maintaining body politic had grown malignant and therewith threatened to destroy the organism. This malignancy, however, can be demonstrated only after the autopsy. Often enough the consequence of apparently rational considerations leads to ultimately fatal events – the most recent example being Hitler's shrewd and temporarily highly successful policy of national expansion which by its own logic inexorably led to his doom and world catastrophe. In fact, even when whole nations assume the role of profiteers of »Realpolitik,« this rationality is only partial and dubious. While the calculations of self-interest are pushed to extremes, the view of the totality of factors, and in particular, of the effects of such a policy upon the whole seems to be strangely curtailed. Overly shrewd concentration on self-interest results in a crippling of the capacity to look beyond the limits of self-interest and this finally works against itself. Irrationality is not necessarily a force operating outside the range of rationality: it may result from the processes of rational self-preservation »run amuck.« It is the pattern of interacting rational and irrational forces in modern mass movements upon which our studies hope to throw some light. The danger is by no means, as some theories such as Brickner's Is Germany Incurable? [ 1 ] would like to have it, a specific German illness, the collective paranoia of one particular

nation, but seems to spring from more universal social and cultural conditions. One of the most important contributions psychiatry and psychoanalytically-oriented sociology can make in this respect is to reveal certain mechanisms which cannot be grasped adequately either in terms of being sensible or in terms of delusions. Their investigation points to a definite basis in certain subjective dispositions though they certainly cannot be explained altogether psychologically. Psychotic character structure may sometimes, though by no means always, be involved. In view of the presupposition of psychological »susceptiblility« it may be assumed that they do not manifest themselves only in the sphere of politics that is at least on the surface realistic, but can be studied in other social areas as well, or even better, although the reality factor is rarely absent even from fads which somehow pride themselves on their own irrationality. Such an approach might be less hampered by rationalizations which in the field of politics are hard to discount. It also might violate fewer taboos and deep-rooted canons of behavior. Above all, it should be possible to analyze the inner structure of such movements on a small test-tube scale, as it were, and at a time when they do not yet manifest themselves so directly and threateningly that there is no time left for objective and detached research. The danger of ex post facto theories might thus be partially avoided. It is in this spirit that we take up the study of astrology, not because we overrate its importance as a social phenomenon per se, nefarious though it is in various respects. Accordingly, the specific nature of our study is not a direct psychoanalysis of the occult, of the type initiated by Freud's famous essay »The ›Uncanny‹« 2 and followed up by numerous scientific ventures, now collected by Dr. Devereux in Psychoanalysis and the Occult. [ 3 ] We do not want to examine occult experiences or individual superstitious beliefs of any kind as expressions of the unconscious. In fact, the occult as such plays only a marginal role in systems such as organized astrology. Its sphere has little enough in common with that of the spiritualist who sees or hears ghosts or with telepathy. In analogy with the sociological differentiation of primary and secondary groups, 4 we may define our area of interest as one of »secondary superstition.« By this we mean that the individual's own primary experience of the occult, whatever its psychological meaning and roots or its validity,

rarely, if ever, enter the social phenomenon to which our studies are devoted. Here, the occult appears rather institutionalized, objectified and, to a large extent, socialized. Just as in secondary communities, people no longer »live together« and know each other directly, but are related to each other through intermediary objectified social processes (e.g., exchange of commodities), so people responding to the stimuli we are here investigating seem in a way »alien« to the experience on which they claim their decisions are based. They participate in them largely through the mediation of magazines and newspapers, the personal advice of professional astrologers being too expensive, and frequently accept such information as reliable sources of advice rather than pretend to have any personal basis for their belief. The type of people we are concerned with take astrology for granted, much like psychiatry, symphony concerts or political parties; they accept it because it exists, without much reflection, provided only that their own psychological demands somehow correspond to the offer. They are hardly interested in the justification of the system. In the newspaper column to which this monograph is mainly devoted the mechanics of the astrological system are never divulged and the readers are presented only with the alleged results of astrological reasoning in which the reader does not actively participate. This alienation from experience, a certain abstractness enveloping the whole realm of the commercialized occult may well be concomitant with a substratum of disbelief and skepticism, the suspicion of phoniness so deeply associated with modern big time irrationality. This, of course, has historical reasons. The modern occultist movements, including astrology, are more or less artificial rehashes of old and bygone superstitions, susceptibility for which is kept awake by certain social and psychological conditions while the resuscitated creeds remain basically discordant with today's universal state of enlightenment. The absence of ultimate »seriousness« which, incidentally, makes such phenomena by no means less serious with regard to their social implications – is as significant of our time as the emergence of secondary occultism per se. It may be objected that organized fortune telling has from time immemorial had the character of »secondary superstition.« It has been separated for thousands of years from whatever could be called

primary experience through a division of labor that admitted only priests into the esoteric mystery and therefore always carried within itself the element of phoniness expressed in the old Latin adage that an augur laughs when he sees another. As always with arguments intended to discredit interest in the specific modernity of phenomena by stressing that there is nothing new under the sun, this objection is both true and false. It is true in as much as the institutionalization of superstition is by no means novel; it is false in so far as this institutionalization has reached, by means of mass production, a quantity which is likely to result in a new quality of attitudes and behavior, and in that the gap between the systems of superstition and the general state of mind has been widened tremendously. We may here refer only to the aforementioned detachment of large groups of believers from the »working« of superstition, and to their interest in net results rather than in supposedly supra-natural powers. They don't even see the sorcerers at work anymore, nor are they allowed to listen to their abracadabra. They simply »get the dope.« In addition, it should be stressed that in former periods, superstition was an attempt, however awkward, to cope with problems for which no better or more rational means were available at least so far as the masses were concerned. The sharp division between alchemy and chemistry, between astrology and astronomy is a comparatively late achievement. Today, however, the incompatibility of the progress of natural sciences, such as astrophysics, with a belief in astrology is blatant. Those who combine both are forced to an intellectual retrogression which formerly was hardly required. In a world in which, through popular scientific literature and particularly science fiction, every schoolboy knows of the billions of galaxies, the cosmic insignificance of the earth and the mechanical laws governing the movements of stellar systems, the geocentric and anthropocentric view concomitant with astrology is utterly anachronistic. We thus may assume that only very strong instinctual demands make it possible for people still – or anew – to accept astrology. Under present conditions, the astrological system can function only as »secondary superstition,« largely exempt from the individual's own critical control and offered authoritatively. It is necessary to stress this character of »secondary superstition« since it provides the key for one of the strangest

elements in the material we are investigating. This is just its pseudorationality, the very same traits that play such a conspicuous role in totalitarian social movements, its calculative though spurious adaptation to realistic needs. Again, this may have been germaine to fortune-telling since time immemorial. People always wanted to learn from occult signs what to expect and do; in fact, superstition is largely a residue of animistic magical practices by which ancient humanity tried to influence or control the course of events. But the sobriety, nay, the overrealism of our material at the expense of anything remotely reminiscent of the supra-natural seems to be one of its most paradoxical and challenging features. Overrealism in itself may be, in some directions, irrational, in the sense of that overdeveloped and self-destructive shrewdness of self-interest, pointed out before. In addition, it will be proved during the course of our study that astrological irrationality has largely been reduced to a purely formal characteristic: abstract authority. Our interest in secondary superstition naturally entails a lesser concentration on the psychological explanations of individual occult leanings than in the total personality setup of those who are susceptible to these rather ubiquitous stimuli. In order to approach the problem, psychiatric as well as socio-psychological categories will have to be utilized. In view of the interweaving of rational and irrational elements, we are mainly interested in the direct or indirect »messages« conveyed by the material to its consumers: Such messages combine irrationality (in as much as they aim at blind acceptance and presuppose unconscious anger in the consumers) and rationality (in as much as they deal with more or less practical everyday problems for which they pretend to offer the most helpful answer). Very often it seems as though astrology were only an authoritarian cloak while the matter itself is strongly reminiscent of a mental health column written for the trade in limited self-awareness and paternal support. The column attempts to satisfy the longings of people who are thoroughly convinced that others (or some unknown agency) ought to know more about themselves and what they should do than they can decide for themselves. It is this »mundane« aspect of astrology which particularly invites social and psychological interpretation. In fact, many of the messages are of a directly social or psychological nature. However, they rarely if ever adequately express social or psychological reality, but manipulate

the readers' ideas of such matters in a definite direction. Therefore, they must not be taken at face value, but subjected to some deeper probing.

 The Astrology Column of the Los Angeles Times   This study is in the nature of content analysis. About three months of the daily column »Astrological Forecasts« by Caroll Righter in the Los Angeles Times, November 1952 – February 1953, are interpreted. As a corollary, some observations on a number of astrological magazines are presented. We want to give a picture of the specific stimuli operating on followers of astrology whom we hypothetically regard as representative of the whole group of those who go for »secondary occultism,« and of the presumptive effect of these stimuli. We assume that such publications mould some ways of their readers' thinking; yet they pretend to adjust themselves to the readers' needs, wants, wishes and demands in order to »sell.« We regard this content analysis as an inroad to the study of the mentality of larger groups of a similar frame of mind. There are various reasons for choosing this material. Limitations of research facilities prevented real field work and forced us to concentrate on printed material rather than on primary reactions. Such material seemed to be most copious in astrology and was easily accessible. Also astrology probably has the largest following among the various occultist schools in the population. It is certainly not one of the extreme occultist trades, but puts up a façade of pseudorationality which makes it easier to embrace than, for example, spiritualism. No wraiths appear, and the forecasts pretend to be derived from astronomic facts. Thus astrology might not bring out so clearly psychotic mechanisms as those fashions indulged in by the real lunatic fringe of superstition. This may hamper our study as far as understanding of the deeper unconscious layers of neo-occultism is concerned. This potential disadvantage, however, is compensated by the fact astrology has caught on in such large sections of the population that the findings, in as much as they partly are confined to the ego level and to social determinants, may be generalized with greater confidence. Moreover, it is just »pseudorationality,« the twilight zone between reason and unconscious urges, in which we are specifically interested from the viewpoint of social psychology. For the time being our study has to limit itself to the qualitative.

It represents an attempt to understand what astrological publications mean in terms of reader reactions, on an overt level as well as on a deeper one. While this analysis is guided by psychoanalytic concepts, it should be pointed out from the very beginning that our approach as far as it largely involves social attitudes and actions must largely consider conscious or semiconscious phases. It would be inappropriate to think exclusively in terms of the unconscious where the stimuli themselves are consciously calculated and institutionalized to such an extent that their power of directly reaching the unconscious should not be regarded as absolute and where overt issues of self-interest continuously enter the picture. Frequently, surface aims are fused with vicarious gratifications of the unconscious. In fact, the concept of the unconscious can not be posited dogmatically in any study concerning the border area of psychological determinants and social attitudes. In the whole field of mass communications, the »hidden meaning« is not truly unconscious at all, but represents a layer which is neither quite admitted nor quite repressed – the sphere of innuendo, the winking of an eye and »you know what I mean.« Frequently one encounters a kind of »mimicking« of the unconscious in the maintenance of certain taboos which, however, are not fully endorsed. No light has so far been thrown on this somewhat obscure psychological zone, and our study should among other things contribute to its understanding. It goes without saying that the ultimate basis of this zone has to be sought in the truly unconscious, but it might be a dangerous fallacy to regard the psychological twilight of numerous mass reactions as straightforward manifestations of the instincts. So far as effectiveness upon actual reader mentality is concerned, our results must by necessity be regarded as tentative. They provide us with formulations, the validity of which can and should only be established by reader research. We may expect that the authors of our material know what they are doing and to whom they are talking, though they themselves may start from hunches or stereotyped assumptions concerning their readers which facts would not bear out. Moreover, there is little doubt that in any modern mass communications the idea is artificially fostered that one has to cater to the tastes of some group as a means to mould the communication material in a way fitting the mentality of those responsible for the

production or their designs. Shifting responsibility from the manipulators to the manipulated is a widespread ideological pattern. We must therefore be cautious not to treat our material dogmatically as a mirrored reflection of the reader's mind. Conversely, we do not try to make inferences through our analysis about the mentality of those responsible for the publications to be examined, particularly the authors. We do not think that such a study would lead us very far. Even in the sphere of art, the idea of projection has been largely overrated. Although the authors' motivations certainly enter the artifact, they are by no means so all-determining as is often assumed. As soon as an artist has set himself his problem, it obtains some kind of impact of its own, and, in most cases, he has to follow the objective requirements of his product much more than his own urges of expression when he translates his primary conception into artistic reality. To be sure, these objective requirements do not play a decisive role in mass media which stress consumer effect far beyond any artistic or intellectual problem. However, the total setup here tends to limit the chances of projection utterly. Those who produce the material follow innumerable requirements, rules of thumb, set patterns and mechanisms of controls which by necessity reduce to a minimum the range of any kind of self-expression. Certainly the author's motivations are but one source while the set patterns to which they have to stick seem far more important. While it would be very hard to trace back a production like the Los Angeles Times column to any single source in particular, it is integrated in such a way that the material speaks a kind of language of its own which can be read and understood even if we do not know much about the processes which led to the formulation of the language and infused it with meaning. It ought to be stressed that understanding of such a language cannot confine itself to its single morphemes, but always has to remain conscious of the total pattern in which these morphemes are more or less mechanically interwoven. Some particular devices cropping up in our material such as for example frequent reference to the family background of a person born on a certain day may appear completely trivial and harmless if seen in isolation. In the functional unity of the whole, however, they may obtain a significance far beyond the harmless and comforting idea which is indicated at first sight.

 Basic Situation of the Column   The column »Astrological Forecasts« by Carroll Righter appears in the Los Angeles Times, a conservative newspaper leaning far to the right wing of the Republican Party. Mr. Righter is well-known in movie circles and is supposed to be the private astrological counsellor to one of the most famous film »stars.« When he took up his work, he obtained considerable publicity also in television. However, his column does not indicate any particular tinge of Hollywood sensationalism or Southern California faddism. The whole outlook of the column is »moderate.« There are only isolated manifestations of obvious superstition or overt irrationalities. Irrationality is rather kept in the background, defining the basis of the whole approach: It is treated as a matter of course that the various prognoses and the corresponding advice are derived from the stars. Astrological niceties and astrological lingo except for the popular twelve signs of the zodiac are absent. The more sinister aspects of astrology such as emphasis on catastrophes and threatening doom hardly make themselves felt. Everything sounds respectable, sedate and sensible and astrology as such is treated as something established and socially recognized, an uncontroversial element of our culture, as though it were somewhat bashful of its own shadiness. Hardly ever does the practical advice tendered to the reader transgress the limits of what one finds in any column dealing with human relations and popular psychology. The only difference is that the writer leans on his distinctly magical and irrational authority which seems to be strangely out of proportion with the common-sense content of what he has to offer. This discrepancy cannot be regarded as accidental. The common-sense advice itself contains, as will be shown later, many spurious »pseudorational« elements, calling for some authoritarian backing to be effective. At the same time, the reluctance of the readers to be »sensible« in just the way the column advocates it, may make for a response which can only be overcome by conjuring up the image of some absolute power. This authoritarian element, incidentally, is also present in the popular psychological columns of which the column is reminiscent in so many respects: their authority is wielded by the expert rather

than by the magus while the latter also feels compelled to speak as an expert. Yet, the implicit irrationality of the column's claim to be inspired by the stars cannot be dismissed in as much as it sets the stage for its effect and fulfils a highly significant function in dealing with the anxieties and difficulties of those at whom the column is directed. Astrology, although it sometimes pretends to be chummy with theology, is basically different from religion. The irrationality of the source is not only kept remote, but is also treated as impersonal and thing-like: there is an underlying philosophy of what might be called naturalist supra-naturalism. This »depersonalized,« merciless aspect of the supposedly transcendent source has much to do with the latent threat spelled by astrology. The source remains entirely abstract, inapproachable and anonymous. This reflects the type of irrationality in which the total order of our life presents itself to most individuals: opaqueness and inscrutability. Naive persons fail to look through the complexities of a highly organized and institutionalized society, but even the sophisticated ones cannot understand it in plain terms of consistency and reason, but are faced with antagonism and absurdities, the most blatant of which is the threat brought to mankind by the very same technology which was furthered in order to make life easier. Who wants to survive under present conditions is tempted to »accept« such absurdities, like the verdict of the stars, rather than to penetrate them by thinking which means discomfort in many directions. In this respect, astrology is truly in harmony with an ubiquitous trend. In as much as the social system is the »fate« of most individuals independent of their will and interest, it is projected upon the stars in order thus to obtain a higher degree of dignity and justification in which the individuals hope to participate themselves. At the same time, the idea that the stars, if one only reads them correctly, offer some advice mitigates the very same fear of the inexorability of social processes the stargazer himself creates. This phase of astrology's own ambivalence is exploited by the »rational« side of the column. The aid and comfort given by the merciless stars is tantamount to the idea that only he who behaves rationally, i.e., achieves complete control over his inner and outer life, has any chance of doing justice to the irrational contradictory requirements of the existent by adjustment. Thus, the discrepancy between the rational and the

irrational aspects of the column is expressive of a tension inherent in social reality itself. »To be rational« means not questioning irrational conditions, but to make the best of them from the viewpoint of one's private interests. A truly unconscious aspect, primitive and possibly decisive, but never allowed to come to the fore in the column, should at least be suggested. Indulgence in astrology may provide those who fall for it with a substitute for sexual pleasure of a passive nature. It means primarily submission to unbridled strength of the absolute power. However, this strength and power ultimately derived from the father imago has become completely depersonalized in astrology. Communion with he stars is an almost unrecognizable and therefore tolerable substitute of the forbidden relation with an omnipotent father figure. People are allowed to enjoy communion with absolute strength in as much as it is considered no longer human. It seems likely that the fantasies about world destruction and ultimate doom appearing in more extremist astrological publications than the Los Angeles Times column are connected with this ultimately sexual content in as much as they are the last vestige of the individual expression of guilt feelings grown as unrecognizable as their libidinal source. Apart from this zone, the stars mean sex without threat. They are depicted as omnipotent, but they are very far away – even farther than the narcissistic leader figures described in Freud's »Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.«

 The Column and the Astrological Magazines   At this point, it may be pertinent to characterize briefly the difference between the column and astrological magazines such as Forecast, Astrology Guide, American Astrology, World Astrology, True Astrology, Everyday Astrology and other publications of the »pulp« type. While no systematic study of this material could so far be undertaken, it has been perused to a sufficient degree to allow a comparison with the Los Angeles Times column which contributes toward an understanding of the latter's proper setting. There are numerous shades in the magazine material ranging from very harmless, though utterly primitive, publications such as World Astrology, to wilder ones such as True Astrology or Everyday Astrology to paranoid ones such as American Astrology. No degree of secondary occultism has been forgotten. Our observations, however, seem valid for all these magazines on the basis of a cursory comparison. It goes without saying that such magazines directed at a nucleus of astrological followers rather than at the public at large contain more »technical« astrological material and try to impress the readers both with »esoteric« knowledge and with »scientific« elaborateness. Terms such as »house,« »square,« »opposition,« etc. occur all the time. Astrology is not taken for granted, but attempts with some violence to defend its »status.« Thus, the issue from which our examples are chosen, contains a polemic against some doctor of science who criticized astrology as a superstition and compared in with fortune-telling from the entrails of animals or from the flight of birds. 5 The magazines seem to be particularly sensitive about any such comparison. The doctor's charges are denied through the somewhat tautological assertion that astrology never busies itself with entrails or birds. It pretends to a higher level of scientificness than the supposedly more primitive forms of esoteric wisdom without, however, entering into the argument itself: the lack of a transparent interconnection between astronomical observations and inferences pertaining to the fate of individuals or nations. The only substantial difference more sophisticated astrologists can point out between themselves and the tribe of crystal-gazers is

their aversion to unqualified prophecies – an attitude presumably due to caution. They reiterate continuously that they are not determinists. Here they fall in line with the pattern of modern mass culture which protests the more fanatically about the tenets of individualism and the freedom of the will, the more actual freedom of action vanishes. Astrology attempts to get away from crude and unpopular fatalism by establishing outward forces operating on the individual's decision, including the individual's own character, but leaves the ultimate choice to him. This has significant sociopsychological implications. Astrology undertakes the constant encouragement of people to make decisions, no matter how inconsequential they may be. It is practically directed towards action in spite of all the lofty talk about cosmic secrets and profound meditation. Thus, the very gesture of astrology, its basic presumption that everyone has to make up his mind at every moment falls in line with what will later come out with respect to the specific content of astrological counseling: its leaning towards extroversion. Moreover, the idea that the freedom of the individual amounts to nothing more than making the best of what a given constellation of stars permits implies the very same idea of adjustment the affinity to which has been pointed out previously as one of the traits of astrology. According to this concept, freedom consists of the individual's taking upon himself voluntarily what is inevitable anyway. The empty shell of liberty is solicitously kept intact. If the individual acts according to given conjunctions, everything will go right, if he does not, everything will go wrong. Sometimes it is quite frankly stated that the individual should adjust himself to certain constellations. One might say that there is in astrology an implicit metaphysics of adjustment behind the concretistic advice of adjustment in everyday life. Thus the philosophy expressed by the speculations of the magazines provides us actually with some background for the understanding of the down-to-earth statements of the Los Angeles Times column. It may be reiterated that the climate of semi-erudition is the fertile breeding ground for astrology because here primary naiveté, the unreflecting acceptance of the existent has been lost whereas at the same time neither the power of thinking nor positive knowledge has been developed sufficiently. The semi-erudite vaguely wants to understand and is also driven by the narcissistic wish to prove

superior to the plain people but he is not in a position to carry through complicated and detached intellectual operations. To him, astrology, just as other irrational creeds like racism, provides a short cut by bringing the complex to a handy formula and offering at the same time the pleasant gratification that he who feels to be excluded from educational privileges nevertheless belongs to the minority of those who are »in the know.« In accordance with this kind of gratification, the whole atmosphere is much more grandiloquent and boastful of the wisdom of the initiated and bombastic predictions go to much greater extremes than the Times column. As was to be expected, there are frequent sinister hints such as those of the beginning of the new era heralding a major world catastrophe and implying a war between the United States and Russia in 1953 without however committing itself definitely on this score. Nevertheless, the caution prevailing in the Los Angeles Times column is also shown to a certain extent even in such scurrilous publications. Thus it is stated in one article with amazing frankness that there is no uniformity about the basic interpretation of heavenly signs among astrologists, probably an attempt to ward off any attacks based on the inconsistencies between various astrological forecasts. As a matter of fact, there are flagrant contradictions to be found among various articles in a single issue. The publisher and editor in one case wrote a lead article tuned to the impending doom idea and the prediction of a terrible battle in which the American »majority« – a notion which might have a racist slant while sounding democratic – is going to win. This, however, is followed immediately by another article which heralds the new year as one of bliss promising that it will relieve innumerable people of worries and pressures. Obviously an attempt is being made to cater to various layers of demands in the readers, to those more deep-lying ones where the spectacle of the twilight of the gods is hoped for as well as to the level where one wants to be reassured about a raise in one's salary. A kind of middle way between realism and paranoid fantasies is sought in the political harangues of the magazine. Several times, though always somewhat vaguely, the magazines accuse disruptive minorities, leaving it open who is meant. Some of the imagery reminds one of that used by fascist anti-Semitic agitators of the pseudoreligious brand. Thus reference is made to the apocalyptic

battle of Armaggedon which played a large role in the speeches of a Los Angeles »radio priest« who created quite a stir during the thirties. However, it is possible that such biblical imagery is used independently of the vernacular of political agitators and draws its strength from the tradition of revivalism. Nevertheless the heavy employment of the »impending doom« device is hardly accidental. It encourages the addressees' destructive urges and feeds on their discomfort in civilization, while at the same time stirring up a bellicose mood. Altogether, however, the American cultural climate seems to demand at least a veneer of common sense and realism. This leads to the truly unexpected features of the magazines which happen to be just the opposite of the eccentricities just referred to. There seems to be more implied than merely American common sense and realism. In the magazines, one finds entirely different zones, carefully kept apart from each other. On the one hand, there are general astrological speculations involving conjunctions, oppositions, houses, etc. They are being applied to mankind as a whole, or at least to the American nation as such. On the other hand, there are detailed predictions from what will happen on each day to any person born under a specific sign of the zodiac. The main difference between the Los Angeles Times column and the astrological magazines is that the column carries only the latter predictions and the horoscopes of children born on a particular day and omits the »speculative« and world-historical material contained in the magazines. However, if one compares predictions in the column and in the magazines, there is, apart from individual difference of style and preferences of the writers, a striking similarity. 6    

Winter Issue (1953) of Forecast »Daily Advice for Virgo,« p. 59.

MON. Feb. 16 – Don't attempt to tell someone what you think of them or to criticize unfavorably. Be wise and know that silence is the best part of valor today. Put your energies into some needed work or a job that has been awaiting your attention.

 

TUE. Feb. 17 – There seems to be considerable tension around you; see that you do not add fuel to the fire. Relax; read a good book or do something that will

occupy your mind and hands in a constructive manner. Retire early.

 

WED. Feb. 18 – All constructive effort, whether of a personal or business nature, should bring good results and benefit to you. Make dates, appointments, or interviews.

 

THU. Feb. 19 – Get started early with your personal plans; travel, write, seek aid or instruction, see lawyers, advisors or instructors, doctors, nurses, agents, or repairmen, friends or teachers.

 

FRI. Feb. 20 – Don't attempt to do the impossible; finish the routine work or job, and wait for a better time to start new or important projects. Enjoy some special friendship or a show in the evening.

 

SAT. Feb. 21 – The day can be slightly difficult unless you are willing to cooperate and adapt to present conditions. Don't be too critical; display a sense of humor.

 

SUN. Feb. 22 – Whatever it is that you want to do today, if it helps another in any way, do it. Work or pleasure shared will be pleasant and beneficial in many respects.

 

MON. Feb. 23 – You must exercise caution with all associates, and keep out of disputes or arguments which could lower you in the estimation of some important people.

 

TUE. Feb. 24 – This is a good time to take stock of your assets and see where you can make some advantageous changes or investments. See officials, make agreements or appointments, phone, visit or write.

 

WED. Feb. 25 – If you expect progress in anything today, you must put forth some extra effort and work. See that all jobs, tasks of a home nature and belated correspondence is brought up to date.

 

THU. Feb. 26 – Early hours of the day give the best chance for attending to any important matters or the starting of anything new. Be a little cautions in dealing with legal matters, foreign correspondence and financial affairs later.

 

FRI. Feb. 27 – Don't be too disturbed by news or commotions around you. Confine your efforts to the worth while activities in connection with your home or place of business. Keep calm, relaxed and ready to cooperate with all people.

 

SAT. Feb. 28 – Take it easy, and don't let your temper or impulses rule your better judgment. It pays to ignore the things or statements you don't like, and

take a constructive viewpoint of things.

   

Carroll Righter's »Astrological Forecast« Column for Saturday, January 31, 1953.

ARIES: Make your appearance more charming early. Then, contact co-workers and make plans for a more efficient and harmonious arrangement of future routine chores.

 

TAURUS: Attend to essential home duties early; then venture forth and make yourself more charming by means of beauty treatments, haircuts, dieting. In P.M. have fun; be happy.

 

GEMINI: Contact all and complete business and correspondence early. Later, pitch in and make home, family and property conditions more satisfactory through cooperative measures.

 

CANCER: Find out early just where you stand financially and then go out and attend to necessary red tape. Confer with associates who understand your urges; seek their help.

 

LEO: Decide early what you want, and then study your income and expenses; then, devise new imaginative ways to increase your revenue to take care of new expenses; seek abundance.

 

VIRGO: Consult a confidante early and plan for attainment of mutual desires; make sure you know your specific part in the arrangement. See all who can help your advance.

 

LIBRA: A good friend points the way to your desires: in appreciation, do as suggested; quietly channeling your efforts without fanfare, for, in this case, secrecy is best.

 

SCORPIO: Find out early exactly what an important person expects from you; then, contact a good friend who can help you; be readily cooperative and success will follow.

 

SAGITTARIUS: Early in the A.M. a prophetic hunch requires that you contact a powerful person who is able to make your inspiration a success. Be exact all through the day.

 

CAPRICORN: Make a working plan early for increasing joint revenue. Then, get in touch with new acquaintances who can use their expert knowledge to make the project a success.

 

AQUARIUS: Placate your opponent and huddle with a partner early in the A.M. Then, make a specific outline of an effective working arrangement and all concerned are delighted.

 

PISCES: Complete all your duties at breakfast time and leave the rest of the day free to have fun with all associates. Take no chances; discuss all points of interest.

  The striking feature which the personal predictions in the two kinds of publications have in common is their »practicability« and the almost complete absence of any reference to the major and mostly solemn speculations about the fate of mankind at large. It is as though the sphere of the individual were completely severed from that of the »world« or the cosmos. The slogan »business as usual« is accepted as a kind of metaphysical maxim. In view of the obvious absurdity of tendering petty advice to people who at the same time are fed with glowing images of all-embracing conflicts, this dichotomy calls for an interpretation. Mention should be made of the theory of Ernst Simmel that delusions such as totalitarian anti-Semitism are within the individual »isolated« and at the same time collectivized, thus preventing the individual from actually becoming psychotic. This structure is reflected by the dichotomy here under discussion. It is as though astrology has to provide gratifications to agressive urges on the level of the imaginary, but is not allowed to interfere too obviously with the »normal« functioning of the individual in reality. Rather than impairing the individual's reality testing, it at least superficially tries to strengthen his capacity. In this respect, some similarity to the function of the dream suggests itself. As is generally known since Freud, the dream is the protector of sleep by fulfilling conscious and unconscious wishes, which waking life is incapable of gratifying, by hallucinatory imagery. The dream content has often been likened in its function to psychotic delusions. It is as though the ego protected itself from the onslaught of instinctual material by its translation into dreams. This is relatively innocuous because it is generally confined to the ideational sphere. Only in isolated cases, such as sleep walking, does it gain control of the motoric apparatus. Thus it may be said that dreams not only protect sleep, but also the waking state in as

much as the »nightly psychosis of the normal« prevents the individual from psychotic behavior in his reality coping. Astrology offers an analogy to this split between irrationality of the dream and rationality of the waking state. The similarity may be characterized not so much by delusion as by the function of keeping the individual »normal,« whatever that may be, by channelizing and to a certain extent neutralizing some of the individual's more threatening id impulses. Yet the analogy has to be qualified in various directions. To the individual, astrological belief is not a spontaneous expression of his mental life, not »his own« as much of the dream content is, but is, as it were, ready-made, carefully prepared and predigested irrationality. In so far, the term »dream factory« applied to the movies applies also to astrology. It is precisely this predigested character of astrology which produces its appearance of being normal and socially accepted and tends to obliterate the borderline between the rational and the irrational that is generally so marked with regard to dream and waking. Much like the culture industry, [ 7 ] astrology tends to do away with the distinction of fact and fiction: its content is often overrealistic while suggesting attitudes which are based on an entirely irrational source, such as the advice to forbear entering into business ventures on some particular day. Though astrology does not have as wild an appearance as dreams or delusions, it is just this fictitious reasonableness that allows delusional urges to make their inroad into real life without overtly clashing with ego controls. Irrationality is covered up very carefully. Most of the raw material coped with as well as the advice tendered by astrological sources are extremely down-to-earth, in fact too much so, but their synthesis, the law according to which the reasonable attitudes are applied to »realistic situations,« is arbitrary and entirely opaque. This may be an adequate description of the configuration of the rational and the irrational in astrology which is actually the object of this study. The confusion of these elements is also likely to define the potential danger represented by astrology as a mass phenomenon. It is a moot point whether people who fall for astrology show, as it was taken for granted by Simmel, a psychotic predisposition, whether »psychotic characters« are especially easy to be caught by it. It may apply to the psychotic element in the normal as well and not require any special psychological susceptibility such as so-called

ego weakness. In fact quite a few astrology addicts seem to enjoy a rather strong ego in terms of reality functioning. The lack of manifestly delusional content, as well as the collective backing of astrology, makes it comparatively easy for the »normal« to embrace the apocryphal creed. It should also be noted that quite a few disciples of astrology accept it with a kind of mental reservation, a certain playfulness which tolerantly acknowledges its basic irrationality and their own aberration. Yet the fact that people »choose« astrology – which is not presented to them as natural as religion is to traditionally brought up persons, but requires some initiative on the adept's part – somehow indicates a lack of intellectual integration which may be partly due to the opaqueness of today's social world calling for intellectual short cuts and partly also to expanding semi-erudition. The ready-made, »alienated« character of astrology, however, should not lead us to the oversimplification that it is something entirely ego-alien. As a psychological device adopted by the individual, astrology is in some respects reminiscent of the symptoms of the phobic neurotic which channelize, focus and absorb his free-floating anxiety seemingly in terms of objects of reality. However, in phobias, no matter how rigidly structured, this channelization is by necessity impermanent and fluctuating. A phobia uses existent objects for the individual's own psychological needs. The realistic object of commercial astrology is specifically conceived and constructed in order to satisfy those psychological needs that astrologists assume to exist in their audience. In both cases, the psychological gain is extremely questionable in so far as it tends to hide actual circumstances and obstructs true recognition and correction. Interest in astrology, like a phobic symptom, may well absorb all other anxiety objects and may ultimately become an obsessive interest of the afflicted individual or group.

 The Underlying Psychology   In contrast to the magazines, an astrological columnist like Carroll Righter faces a more vaguely defined, but presumably larger number of people with divergent interests and worries who are attracted by the column and often seek some advice. The latter has to be of such a nature that it gives per se some vicarious aid and comfort to the readers who can hardly be expected to be really helped by the columnist. He knows neither the persons he addresses nor the specific nature of the wishes and complaints of any of them. 8 Yet his position of authority forces him to talk as if he knew and as if the constellations of the stars provided him with satisfactory, sufficient and unequivocal answers. He can neither afford to disappoint his readers by not committing himself at all nor to compromise his magical authority on which his sales value rests by blatantly false statements. He has to face the squaring of the circle. What he says must sound as though he had concrete knowledge of what problems beset each of his prospective followers born under some sign at a specific time. Yet he must always remain noncommittal enough so that he cannot be easily discredited. While being compelled to take some chances, he tries to reduce the danger of failure to a minimum. This explains the usage of some rather rigid stereotypes of style. E.g., he frequently employs expressions such as »Follow up that intuition of yours,« or »Display that keen mind of yours.« The word »that« seems to imply that the columnist, on the basis of astrological inspiration, knows exactly what the individual addressee who happens to read the column is like or was like at some particular time. Yet the apparently specific references are always so general that they can be made to fit all the time: everyone has some hunch or idea on any given day or may in retrospect flatter himself by thinking that he had one, and everyone, particularly the semi-erudite, would gladly accept being characterized as the owner of a keen mind. Thus, the paradox of the column is solved by the makeshift of pseudo-individualization. 9 But such nice little tricks alone do not dispense with the columnist's fundamental difficulty. He generally has to rely on his knowledge of the most frequently recurring problems prescribed by

the setup of modern life and of characterological patterns he had frequent occasion to observe. He figures out a number of typical situations in which a large percentage of his followers might at any time find themselves. He must especially concentrate on apparently ferreting out those problems, which the reader cannot solve by his own power and force him to look for outside help, and must not even shrink from questions which are difficult to solve rationally at all so that an irrational source of advice is sought, for it is presumably precisely from such situations that people turn to the column. This leads quite logically to the fact that the astrologist's advice reflects a number of more or less insoluble situations of the present phase, impasses which threaten each individual and stimulate each individual's hopes for some effective interference from above. Even within the framework of ubiquitous problems, however, a certain latitude of expression has to be maintained so that even truly unrealistic predictions and advice can still be reconciled to the reader's life situation and are not too easily discarded. In this respect the astrologist relies on a habit equally well-known to serious psychiatrists and to popular psychologists. People who have any affinity at all to occultism are usually prepared to react to the information they are craving in such a way as to make it fit their own system at almost any cost. Thus, he even might expose himself on a factual level unpunished so long as he figures out adequately those particular needs and wishes of his readers which are so strong that they are not likely to be shattered by confrontation with reality, provided only such confrontation is really on a purely intellectual level and does not subject the readers to dire consequences in their practical life. In fact, great care is taken by the columnist to avoid this while lavishing gratifications in the realm of the imaginary. In order to fulfill such exacting tasks, the columnist really has to be what is called in American slang, a »homespun philosopher.« It is perhaps this requirement which makes for the striking similarity between the column and its psychological counterparts. In this popular psychology, though shaped as it is primarily in terms of mass appeal, the knowledge of the phenomena as such, is often pertinent and the descriptions adequate. But their dynamic interpretation is either completely absent or faked: most of the time vulgar, pre-Freudian ego-psychology cloaked in what Theodor Reik

has called the social workers' lingo of »Psychoanalese.« 10 This attitude of popular psychological writings is not merely due to a lack of erudition. Since the columnist, even if he were equipped with a complete knowledge of Freud, cannot hope to change psychodynamically any of those to whom he speaks, he has to keep within the external zones of the personality. What really distinguishes »world[ly]-wise« institutions such as the column from real psychology is not so much observations and possibly not even the columnist's underlying interpretations, but the direction in which he moves and manipulates his reader's psychology. He continuously strengthens defenses rather than shatters them. He plays on the unconscious rather than attempting its elucidation beyond the most superficial phraseology. He caters above all to narcissism as one of the strongest and most easily approached defenses. Often his references to his readers' outstanding qualities and chances seem so silly that it is hard to imagine that anyone will swallow them, but the columnist is well aware of the fact that vanity is nourished by so powerful instinctual sources that he who plays up to it gets away with almost anything. Complementary to the narcissistic gratifications aimed at by the column is a more or less veiled suggestion of anxiety. The idea that the reader is somehow threatened must be maintained because only if some mild terror is exercised, he will seek help – analogous to advertising of drugs against body odor. Threat and relief are somehow intertwined in a way that can be spotted in various kinds of mental disorders. The kind of popular psychology on which the column relies takes it frequently for granted that most persons feel threatened, either in reality or at least psychologically, and that the column reaches them only if it establishes an intelligence with the reader in the zone of threat. Yet the threat must always be mild in order not to really shock the reader who would give up looking into a column which caused direct discomfort. Thus one of the most widely spread realistic threats, that of being fired, appears only in a diluted form, e.g., as conflicts with higher-ups, being »dressed down,« and similar unpleasantnesses. The term »firing« is not used a single time. A favorite threat, however, is that of traffic accidents. Here again one finds how various facets of the approach are blended: the danger of traffic accidents is ever-present in the congested Los

Angeles area. But it is singled out as if some specific prophetic knowledge were behind it, a claim that cannot easily be refuted due to the ubiquity of the threat itself. At the same time, a threat like that of a traffic accident does not hurt the readers' narcissism on account of the complete externalization of the threat. It has hardly any humiliating implications, public opinion does not brand the traffic sinner as a criminal. Finally, reference to this threat displays one of the most prominent features of the column: supposedly irrational and magical forebodings are translated into the advice of being sensible. The stars are invoked in order to reinforce the harmless, beneficial but trivial admonition: »Drive carefully!« Only very rarely examples turn up of more sinister threats such as that one has to be particularly careful in everything on one particular day unless one would incur serious risks.  

Ridding life of sinister acquaintance makes more assets obtainable. (November 19, 1952, Scorpio)

  In such moments the authoritarian whip cracks down, but it does so merely as a reminder in order to keep the readers at bay, and is never carried so far as to seriously distract from the gratifications they otherwise get from the column or to make them feel uncomfortable for more than the present moment. To get rid of an acquaintance seems, after all, not too great a sacrifice or too heavy a task. The gains the reader obtains in this particular area consist, apart from the potentiality of deep underlying gratifications to destructive urges provided by the threat itself, in the promise of help and mitigation, granted by a superhuman agency. While the subject has to follow closely what this agency indicates, he does not really have to act on his own behalf as an autonomous human being, but can content himself with relying on fate. He has to avoid things rather than to do them. He is somewhat relieved of his responsibility. This indicates the most important construct of the column – that of readers who are or feel themselves to be basically dependent, who find themselves incessantly in situations which they cannot cope with by their own powers and who are beset psychologically by what has come to be known as ego weakness, but is often expressive of weakness in reality. The columnist figures quite

reasonably that only the persons thus characterized are likely to rely on him unquestioningly and therefore calculates his every word in order to fit with the specific needs of the dependent – including those narcissistic defenses which help them to compensate for their feelings of weakness. This again is in harmony with that kind of popular psychology whose favorite term is »inferiority complex.« The columnist is quite familiar with certain forms of reaction likely to be encountered among the readers, carefully refrains from elucidating them and thus changing them, but utilizes them in order to fixate the reader to the »message« and thus to the column as an institution. By systematic pursuit of this procedure he tends to spread the pattern of dependence and to transform more and more people into dependent ones with whom he establishes what might properly be called a situation of secondary transference. The problem of the relation of certain neurotic traits to reality which is here implied involves grave methodological problems which can only be mentioned. Some revisionists such as Fromm and particularly Horney have oversimplified the matter by reducing neurotic traits such as the one here under consideration, dependence, to social realities such as »our modern competitive society.« Since characterological patterns are likely to be established much earlier than a child makes the specific experience of a highly differentiated social system, the etiology postulated by these writers seems to be doubtful and indicative of a relapse into pre-Freudian, rationalistic psychology. At the same time, however, it is equally dubious to sever psychodynamics altogether from its »social stage.« Suffice it to say here that neurotic syndromes and irrational susceptibilities of every kind are present within a large number of people at any time, but that some of them are worked upon specifically during certain periods and that modern mass media tend particularly to fortify reaction formations and defenses concomitant with actual social dependence. The link between the compulsive elements of the column and the underlying idea of the subject's dependence may very well be that compulsive systems are employed as defenses against »realistic« dependence without ever involving any behavior that might change the basic situation of dependence. It should be noted that the threat-help pattern of the column is closely related to divices more generally spread through contemporary mass culture. Herta Herzog has pointed out in her

study »On Borrowed Experience« 11 that the women's daytime serials or soap operas generally follow the formula »getting into trouble and out again,« a device which incidentally seems also to be valid for jazz which constantly employs and resolves some kind of »jam.« This formula is equally applicable to the astrological column. While there are continuous hints of conflict and unpleasantness, it implies that whoever is aware of these situations will somehow be taken care of. There is a soothing overtone to the whole column: it seems to reassure the reader incessantly that »everything will be fine,« overcoming his apprehensions by establishing some magical confidence in the good turn of events.  

... just keep your aims high, your goals clearly before you; then all's well. (November 21, Pisces) Remainder of day splendid in practically all ways. (December 6, Leo) ... unless you realize that in the afternoon all tension will dissolve into happy feeling. (December 31, Aries)

  Within this general pattern of the happy ending, however, there is a specific difference of function between the column and other mass communications. Soap operas, television shows and above all movies are characterized by heroes, persons who positively or negatively solve their own problems. They stand vicariously for the spectator. By identifying himself with the hero, he believes to participate in the very power that is denied him in as much as he conceives himself as weak and dependent. While the column also works with identifications, they are organized differently. There are no heroic figures in the column, and only general hints of charismatic persons such as the mysterious creative and powerful people from outside who occasionally crop up and tender the reader invaluable aid. By and large, people are taken for what they are. True, their social status is, as will be demonstrated later, vicariously raised by the column, but their problems are not hidden behind an imagery of ruggedness or irresistibility – in this respect, the column seems more realistic than the supposedly artistic mass media. For the column, the hero is replaced by either the heavenly signs or, more likely, by the omniscient columnist himself. Since the

course of events is referred to as something pre-established, people will not have the feeling, still present in hero worship, that by identification with the hero, they may have to be heroic themselves. Their problems will be solved either automatically or with the help of others, particularly of those mysterious friends whose image recurs throughout the column, provided one only proves confident in the stars. Impersonal power thus replaces the personalized one of the heroes and is transferred to his more powerful superiors. It is as if the column would try to make up by its identification with the reader's actual psychological and reality situation of dependence for the unrealistic element of the dogmatic reference to the stars. The column indulges in a symbolic expression and psychological fortification of the pressure that is being continuously exercised upon people. They are simply to have confidence in that which is anyway. Fate, while being exalted as a metaphysical power, actually denotes the interdependence of anonymous social forces through which the people addressed by the column will somehow »muddle through.« The semi-irrationality of »everything will be fine« is based on the fact that modern American society in spite of all its conflicts and difficulties succeeds in reproducing the life of those whom it embraces. There is some dim awareness that the concept of the forgotten man is outdated. The column feeds on this awareness by teaching the readers not to be afraid of being weak. They are reassured that all their problems will solve themselves even if they feel that they themselves are unable to solve them. They are made to understand – and in a way rightly so – that the very same powers by which they are threatened, the anonymous totality of the social process, are also those which will somehow take care of them. Thus they are trained to identify themselves with the existent in abstracto rather than with heroic persons, to concede their own impotence, and are thereby allowed as a compensation to go on living without too much worrying. This promise, of course, is contingent upon their being »good boys« (or girls) who behave according to given standards, but who also allow themselves, for therapeutic reasons, as it were, that range of pleasure which they need in order not to collapse under the requirements of reality, or under the impact of their own urges. It goes without saying that this is a remedy ultimately as problematic as the remedy offered by the movies though it may not

be so obviously spurious. Life actually does not automatically take care of people. But it does to a certain extent and where it doesn't, insecurity and threats make people susceptible to unfounded promises. They do not only play a role in the individual's psychological household, but also fulfill the function of a conservative ideology, generally justifying the status quo. An order of existence which expresses the promise to take care of everyone, must be substantially good. Thus the column promotes social conformity in a deeper and more comprehensive sense than merely by inducing conformist behavior from case to case. It creates an atmosphere of social contentment. This explains an outstanding peculiarity of the individual advice tendered by the column. It implies that all problems due to objective circumstances such as, above all, economic difficulties, can be solved in terms of private individual behavior or by psychological insight, particularly into oneself, but also into others. This is indicative of a function popular psychology is nowadays assuming to an ever-increasing extent. While psychology, when really carried through, is a medium of insight into oneself, criticism of oneself and concomitantly insight and criticism of others, it can also play the role a social drug. In particular, objective difficulties which doubtlessly always have their subjective aspects and are partly rooted in the subjects, are presented as though they were completely due to the individual. 12 This alleviates any critical attitude, even that towards oneself, since the individual is provided with the narcissistic gratification that he is really all-important while at the same time being kept under control. While the world is not so bad, he is given to understand that somehow problems arise within his behavior and action alone. Finding the right approach to himself is regarded as a sufficient condition for relieving all difficulties, thus partly making up for the feeling of weakness from which the whole approach starts. The pat formula »everything depends on man« is not only a half truth, but really serves to cloak everything that materializes over the heads of people. The column contains all the elements of reality and somehow catches the actual state of affairs but nevertheless constructs a distorted picture. On the one hand, the objective forces beyond the range of individual psychology and individual behavior are exempt from critique by being endowed with metaphysical dignity. On the

other hand, one has nothing to fear from them if one only follows objective configurations through a process of adaptation. Thus the danger seems to lie exclusively within the power of the powerless individual whose superego is continuously appealed to.  

Urge to tell off official would alienate helpful partner, so keep calm despite irritation: later material benefits will follow making more cooperative deal at home. (November 10, Aries) Sulking over disappointing act of influential executive merely puts you deeper in disfavor ... (November 10, Scorpio) Get away from that concern that seems to have no solution ... (November 10, Sagittarius) Your own A.M. fretfulness and lack of vision alone makes the morning unsatisfactory. (November 11, Libra)

  The constant appeal of the column to find fault with oneself rather than with given conditions, a subtle but highly objectionable modification of an element of modern depth-psychology, is only one aspect of the ideal of social conformity, promoted throughout the column and expressed by the implicit, but ubiquitous rule that one has to adjust oneself continuously to commands of the stars at a given time. While the problems of the individual spotted by the column denote, no matter how diluted and weak, areas in which everything is not well and in which the official optimism promulgated by the column meets some difficulties, the description of these problems and particularly the subsequent advice fulfill the function of re-establishing the established order, of enforcing conformity and keeping securely within the existent. Our asserting that the irrationality of the fate that dictates everything and of the stars that offer advice is really but a screen for society which both threatens the individual and grants it its livelihood, is borne out by the messages derived from the irrational source. They are indeed nothing but messages from the social status quo in the way it is conceived by the column. The over-all rule of the column is to enforce the requirements society makes on each individual so that it might »function.« The more irrational the requirements, the more they call for irrational justifications. Problems arising out of social conditions and antagonisms are reconciled by the column with

social conventionality, and in this aim, threat and help converge. The column consists of an incessant battery of appeals to be »reasonable.« If the »unreasonable,« i.e., instinctual urges, are admitted at all, it is only for the sake of reasonableness, namely in order to make the individual function better according to the rules of conformity. It has been noted in the discussion of the astrological magazines that their basic irrationality never leads to any renunciations of the normal, rational way of everyday behavior. This attitude, which, in the magazines, is complementary to sometimes wild fantasies, is the exclusive medium of the column. It strikes an unquestioning common-sense attitude, stresses accepted values and takes it for granted that this is a »competitive world« – whatever this may mean today – and that the only thing that really counts is success. Anything approaching the irresponsible is shunned, no connotation of the crank is tolerated. Here again the column is in harmony with the culture industry as a whole. The customary reference to »dream factory,« nowadays employed by the representatives of the movie industry themselves, contains only a half truth – it pertains only to the overt »dream content.« The message of the dream, however, the »latent dream idea« as promoted by motion pictures and television reverses that of actual dreams. It is an appeal to agencies of psychological control rather than an attempt to unfetter the unconscious. The idea of the successful, conforming, well-adjusted »average« citizen lurks even behind the fanciest technicolor fairy tale. Astrology is no exception to that rule. It does not teach its followers anything to which they are not accustomed by their daily experience; it only reinforces what they have been taught anyway consciously and unconsciously. The stars seem to be in complete agreement with the established ways of life and with the habits and institutions circumscribed by our age. The adage »be yourself« assumes an ironical meaning. The socially manipulated stimuli constantly aim at reproducing that frame of mind which is spontaneously engendered by the status quo itself. This attitude which would appear, if viewed merely rationalistically, as a »waste of effort,« is actually in line with psychological findings. Freud has stated repeatedly and emphatically that the effectiveness of psychological defenses is always of a precarious nature. If the satisfaction of instinctual urges is denied or postponed, they are

rarely kept under reliable control, but are most of the time ready to break through if they find a chance. This readiness to break through is enhanced by the problematic nature of the rationality that recommends postponement of immediate wish-fulfillment for the sake of later permanent and complete gratifications. One is taught to give up immediate pleasures for the sake of a future which only too often fails to compensate for the pleasures one has renounced. Thus rationality does not always seem as rational as it claims to be. Hence the interest of hammering over and over again into people's heads ideas to which they are already conditioned but in which they can never fully believe. Hence also their readiness to embrace irrational panaceas in a world in which they have lost faith in the effectiveness of their own reason and in the rationality of the total setup.

 Image of the Addressee   Perusal of the column over a longer period of time permits one to figure out the columnist's image of his reader, the basis of the techniques he employs. The over-all rule is that this picture must mainly be flattering, offer gratifications even before actual advice is tendered, but must be at the same time of such a nature that the addressee can still identify himself and his petty worries with the picture of himself he is constantly offered. No American data were available as to the sex distribution of astrology fans, but it seems reasonable to assume that their majority are women or at least that women are equally represented among them. The columnist is very likely well aware of this. Strangely enough, however, the implicit picture of the addressee, though rarely quite articulate, is predominantly male. The reader is presented as a professional person who has authority and has to make decisions; he is presented as a practical person, technically minded and able to fix things. Most characteristic of all, whenever the erotic sphere is touched upon, the addressee has to see an »attractive companion.« As a popular psychologist, the columnist seems to be better aware than many supposedly serious writers of the inferior status of women in modern society in spite of their supposed emancipation, their participation in professional life and the glamor heaped upon some of them. He seems to feel that women will usually feel flattered if they are treated as men as long as the specific sphere of their femininity and its conventional attributes are not involved which does not happen in the column; it is suggested to each housewife that she might be a V.I.P. Possibly the columnist draws even on some psychoanalytic knowledge of penis envy 13 when talking to an audience of women as though he were addressing men. An additional factor may be contributing to the male characterization of the addressee. Since the column is continuously tendering advice, wants people to act and takes the over-all attitude of the »practical,« it appears necessary to speak as though one would address those who really act, the decision makers – men. The more women are actually dependent, on a deeper level, the more

important it may be to them that they are treated as though they were the ones on whom everything depended though actually the treatment they are given by the column to which they are tied really enhances their own dependence. The standard image is that of a young person or one in his early thirties, vigorous in his professional pursuits, given to hearty pleasures which must somehow be held in check and prone to romance – rather a subtle gratification to presumably frustrated readers who are likely to identify themselves with the addressee if born under the astrological sign mentioned and transfer the imaginary addressee's qualities upon themselves. The addressee belongs to some church though no reference is made to which denomination and no specific dogma is ever expressed or mentioned. But it is taken for granted that he attends some service on Sunday as a »regular« person and a solemn semireligious tone is usually reserved for holidays. The image of religion is entirely conventionalized. Religious activities are restricted to leisure time and the reader is encouraged to attend some »good sermon,« as though he were to select a show.  

Fine for inexpensive entertaining, sports, recreation, romance. Attend worship, then keep living religion. (December 14, 1952, Cancer) Routine tasks seem dreary. Forget them. Go to church where you can find better religious ideas that are able to support your many burdens. (December 28, 1952, Capricorn)

  The addressee is sometimes presented as a car owner. Whereas this seems realistic enough in view of the tremendous number of car owners in greater Los Angeles, even here some cuddling might be involved in as much as one might expect to find among the devoted readers of the column quite a few persons who do not own cars but like the idea that they are treated as though they did. It should also be noted that no reference of the addressee's educational level is made. Whenever his personal qualities are summoned, they are either completely severed from what he might have learned, stressing merely »gifts« such as charm, »magnetism,« etc., or they pertain vaguely to his family back-ground. But it does not make any difference whether the addressee went through college, through high school or only to grammar school. This might

be indicative of the fact that the columnist's real image of the addressee differs significantly from the one he promotes. While he evinces the idea that the addressee is a superior person he is very careful not to draw a picture of this superiority which would be definite enough to alienate the reader by making him aware that he does not fit the picture at all. By far the most important feature of the addressee is his socioeconomic status. The image presented in this area may be called, with some exaggeration, that of the vice-president. The people spoken to are pictured as holding a superior place in life which forces them, as mentioned before, to make decisions all the time. Much depends on them, on their reasonableness, their ability to make up their minds. Representing them in so many words as impotent or unimportant small men is carefully avoided. One may think of the well-known technique of magazines such as Fortune which are written to give the impression that each of their presumably very numerous readers is a big shot in some major corporation. The vicarious gratification thus provided, the strong appeal exercised by the transference of the American ideal of the successful business-man upon the none-too-successful is obvious. Yet – and this is why the column addresses vice-presidents rather than presidents – the reality situation is never lost sight of. Whereas the illusion of importance and autonomy is superficially kept intact, the fact is not forgotten that these much desired assets are really not being fully enjoyed by the addressee. He is therefore presented as someone who although fairly high himself in the business hierarchy has essentially to depend on others who are even higher. Since this may be the situation even of some real vice-presidents, the feeling of humiliation is somewhat attenuated at the same time. Advice can be proffered that befits the underling without revealing that he really is an underling although on a deeper level he may very well be made to understand that he has only little to say. The addressee's ego ideal and his realistic experience of his actual place in life are somehow fused. At the same time, the hierarchical way of thinking often to be met among compulsive 14 lower-middle-class people is met halfway. Treating the addressee as an important link in the hierarchy is indicative of one of the basic psychological constructs of the addressee suggested by the setup of the column. While he is figured out probably quite realistically as a basically weak and dependent

person both with regard to his actual function in the social setup and to his psychological characteristics, he is not likely to admit his weakness and dependence. This defense is taken into account as much as the dependency needs themselves. Hence, the reactive picture of themselves developed by dependent people is strengthened. Here belongs, above all, hyperactivity. Continuous advice is given to take some action, to behave like a successful go-getter. What is thus emphasized is not so much the addressee's real ego power as his intellectual identification with some socialized ego ideal. He is led to interpret his actions as though he were strong and as though his activity would amount to something. The phoniness of this concept is indicated by the spuriousness of most of the activities encouraged by the column. »Pseudo-activity,« 15 a very widespread behavioral pattern in our society, is represented rather clearly by the column and the psychological calculations on which it is based. It would be one-sided, however, to reduce the psychological image of the addressee entirely to categories such as dependence and ego weakness and the infantile fixation specifically involved – orality. 16 The columnist is by no means committed to these categories which, particularly as far as ego weakness is concerned, would be inadequate even for a popular psychologist. The underlying ideas of the psychology of the addressees are much more polymorphous. The column starts from the generalized assumption that his readers are regressive, warped persons, and all the major dimensions of regression actually involved in most defects of intellect and personality, are somehow taken care of and catered to. In order to understand how this works, one will have to distinguish between the image of the addressee, which is projected by the column, and the columnist's real underlying estimate of his readers. While he creates the addressee in the image of the big shot with some worries, he reckons with an average lower-middle-class reader. Throughout psychoanalytic literature down to its current popularization, the affinity between the lower-middle-class mentality and certain infantile fixations has been recognized. Even the popular psychologist today has heard that the petty bourgeois is likely to be an anal character. 17 While the column neglects quite a few of the implications of anality such as sadism and stinginess (they are incompatible with the synthetic ego ideal it promotes), the

more general pattern of anality (and one of the most widespread of retrogressive personalities) is underscored the more heavily: compulsiveness. It is intrinsic to the astrological pattern itself: one believes he has to obey some highly systematized orders without, however, any manifest interconnection between the system and himself. In astrology as in compulsive neurosis, one has to keep very strictly to some rule, command, or advice without ever being able to say why. It is just this »blindness« of obedience which seems to be fused with the overwhelming and frightening power of the command. In as much as the stars as viewed in astrology form an intricate system of do's and don't's, this system seems to be the projection of a compulsive system itself. Just as advice from the stars enhances irrational authoritarian dependence and submissiveness, reference to inscrutable and inexorable laws which one somehow has to imitate by one's own rigid behavior strengthens the compulsive potential with the addressee. Numerous recommendations of the column which make a major affair of the painstakingly strict fulfillment of requirements and tasks which are actually meaningless and have very little influence on reality are plainly encouraging compulsive behavior. There are innumerable passages like the following ones:  

In P.M. more charm in environment brings desired peace ... (November 11, 1952, Sagittarius) Your own day to take those beauty treatments, get haircuts, do whatever increases your personal charm and sense of well-being. (November 13, 1952, Libra) In P.M. arrange cleaning, laundry, clothing, furnishing, diet problems. (November 21, 1952, Virgo)

  This is one of the major demonstrations of the fact that the psychological insight on the part of the columnist is not utilized in order to really develop psychological insight on the part of the reader but rather in the opposite direction, in order to maintain his defenses and to fixate him to irrational patterns, thus making him more obedient to the columnist, the self-styled spokesman of social norms. The underlying idea of compulsive behavior (if he fulfills this or that unpleasant duty, it will liberate him from guilt feelings and earn him some sort of compensation) is directly reflected by the

logic of the column. It should be stressed, however, that just as in the case of dependence, even here a realistic element is not altogether absent. Just as the exploitation of the addressee's susceptibility to psychological dependence exploits his truly dependent status in society, the compulsive traits worked out by the column are frequently those which are expected of those persons who are likely to believe in the column's revelations. To overrate the importance of fulfilling mechanical chores, may be a symptom of compulsive neurosis, but the little fellow who has no space for »creative« or spontaneous activities and who is expected to function as a cog in a bureaucratic machinery, must do his chores strictly and conscientiously, nothing less, but also nothing more. In fact, if he were to try to do more, he might be suspected as an »apple polisher« or as having big ideas in his head, as maladjusted to his job and might be fired. Realistic considerations of this kind are thoroughly blended by the column with psychological lore. Nevertheless, the »realism« in the addressee served so punctiliously by the advice of the column, is never entirely realistic. The overemphasis on realism in the actual content of the column is also calculated to make the addressee forget the irrationality of the whole system about which one should not think too much, whereas the almost complete absence of any hint at the sources of advice tendered therein mirrors the severe repression that always works upon the instincts of the compulsive. Nowhere is the relationship between realism and its counterpart so hard to distinguish as in the area of compulsiveness.

 The Bi-Phasic Approach   It has been mentioned before that the column aims at promoting conventional, conformist and contented attitudes and that any insight into negative aspects of reality are kept under control by making everything dependent on the individual rather than on objective conditions. The individual is promised the solution to everything if he complies with certain requiremems and avoids certain negative stereotypes. He is prevented from really acknowledging the very same difficulties which drive him into the arms of astrology. But the column is much too well aware of the seriousness of reality problems as well as of psychological ones to rely entirely on the effectiveness of its own ideology. It has to face people who find out from life experience continuously that everything does not run so smooth as the column seems to imply it does and that not everything takes care of itself. They are incessantly beset by irreconcilable and contradictory requirements of their own psychological economy as well as of social reality: the column constructs its addressee as being »frustrated.« It does not suffice to the column to simply deny the existence of these requirements and to comfort the frustrated; somehow the column has to take up these contradictions themselves if it really wants to tie the readers to its own authority. It fulfills this task which by necessity cannot be solved by the mere promulgation of a »positive« ideology, nor by any other content that could be easily refuted by everyday facts, rather ingeniously by its formal setup, thus fortifying an otherwise precarious balance of contradictory requirements, in the reader. The basic formal device employed here – and probably the most effective trick of the column as a whole – is derived from its principal medium, i.e. the time element. Astrology pretends basically that the stars determine what will happen or, if the approach is brought more »up-to-date,« what is advisable or inadvisable at any given day or hour. Thus frequently a certain general mood is maintained for a whole day, supposedly due to the basic constellations of this day, affecting every reader, no matter under which sign he may have been born. Here is the »Astrological

Forecast« for Sunday, November 20, 1952:  

ARIES (March 21 to April 19): A.M. bring many problems into open to test your self-control, ideas to be lived in daily tasks; P.M. your mind solves them, finds new avenues in which growth, expansion excellent. TAURUS (April 20 to May 20): You have good chance A.M. to think deeply into unusual ways to push ahead. P.M. dynamic official brings you chance to add to your revenue; show appreciation by trying suggestions. GEMINI (May 21 to June 21): A.M. finds you able to solve quietly present riddles in your way of life; discuss with understanding individual. P.M. splendid for forging ahead to new goals awaiting you all ways. CANCER (June 22 to July 21): Early A.M. feeling of well-being starts interesting day right; attend worship as your chosen outlet for expanding happiness; P.M. keep companions jolly by entertaining. LEO (July 22 to Aug. 21): Seek those early who lift your spirits, bring you solace; forget the humdrum in enjoying others; P.M. get together with friends, partners, for amusements, romance, sports. VIRGO (Aug. 22 to Sept. 22): Listen carefully to what both friends attachments suggest in lines improving conditions at home, with family; P.M. organize calendar to use good coming week wisely. LIBRA (Sept. 23 to Oct. 22): Calm hurt feelings of family, others important to your life, A.M., let them talk grievances out of their systems; P.M. enjoy neighbors, relatives, close associates; be charming. SCORPIO (Oct. 23 to Nov. 21): You have chance to coordinate higher ideals in everyday living by careful A.M. study; P.M. much activity at home brings into open improved plans for financial security. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 to Dec. 21): Doing job with routines thoroughly, avoiding costly commitments A.M. brings peace, contentment; P.M. use all that mental energy generated to improve all your affairs. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 to Jan. 20): Refusal to allow upset comrade to disturb your equanimity great assistance A.M. to all about; P.M. quietly look to present practical interests; plan to improve coming week. AQUARIUS (Jan. 21 to Feb. 19): Side-step those routine tasks that make you want to explode A.M., contact, enjoy good friend instead; P.M. use all that vitality to arrange new plan for attaining goals. PISCES (Feb. 20 to March 20): Morning fine for seeking out good friends, loved ones, making plans to have good time later; P.M. making secret arrangements to bring your talents to one able to aid is best.

  This establishes, first of all, the supremacy of time, but does not yet take care of conflicting requirements. However, this all important task, too, is shifted upon time. It has to fulfill the role of the ultimate decision maker. The problem of how to dispense with contradictory requirements

of life is solved by the simple device of distributing these requirements over different periods mostly of the same day. The fact that one cannot countenance two contradictory desires at the same time, that, as it is loosely called, one cannot have one's cake and eat it too, induces the advice that irreconcilable activities simply should be undertaken at various times indicated by celestial configurations. This again feeds on realistic elements: the order of everyday life takes care of a number of antinomies of existence, such as that of work and leisure or of public functions and private existence. Such antinomies are taken up by the column, hypostatized and treated as though they were simple dichotomies of the natural order of things rather than sociologically conditioned patterns. Everything can be solved, so runs the implicit argument, if one only chooses the right time, and if one fails, this is merely due to a lack of understanding of some supposedly cosmic rhythm. This indeed achieves a kind of equilibrium and satisfaction that could not be achieved if the contradictions were faced as such, i.e., as simultaneous and equally potent demands made by various psychological or outside agencies. They are all replaced by the more abstract but less offensive and affect-laden time concept. Thus, A.M., comprising the bulk of the work day, is frequently treated as representative of reality and the ego principle: people are advised to be particularly reasonable during the morning.  

Tax problems, money dealings with others easily attended to in morning ... (Saturday, November 15, 1952, Taurus) Looking straight at present obligations, duties, restrictions early shows right way to solve them simply and effectively. (November 16, 1952, Sagittarius) Keep smiling plodding at chosen tasks despite early, A.M. feeling nothing works right. Plan different clever methods quietly. (December 2, 1952, Leo) A.M. brings big chance to iron out any concerns regarding officials, executives, career, credits. (December 15, 1952, Taurus) A.M. finds many little duties that you'd best do early, freeing remainder of the day for much joy ... (January 1, 1953, Virgo) Early desire for fun can put a big dent in bankroll, so be economical. (January 2, 1953, Aries) A.M. finds your own desires conflicting with those of family member. Don't argue, cooperate to prevent lasting resentment.

(January 2, 1953, Taurus)

  Conversely, P.M., which generally includes at least a certain amount of leisure time, is handled as though it were the representative of the instinctual urges of the pleasure principle: 18 people are often admonished to seek pleasure, particularly the »simple pleasures of life,« to wit, the gratifications offered by other mass media during the afternoon or evening.  

Afternoon finds pleasures all about: enjoy thoroughly; relax in P.M. (November 16, 1952, Virgo) P.M. get out from present preoccupations; entertain; enjoy sports, romance. (November 17, Leo) A.M. finds need for secret huddle with member of family to eliminate present worry; later excellent influences prevail for you to enjoy amusements, romance, recreation. (November 19, 1952, Virgo) In P.M. enjoy sports, romance, entertainment, recreation. (November 21, 1952, Libra) P.M. enjoy pleasures, recreation, love. (November 23, 1952, Leo)

  By dichotomies of this kind a pseudosolution of difficulties is achieved: either-or relationships are transformed into first-next relationships. Pleasure thus becomes the award of work, work the atonement for pleasure. While this formal scheme of the column is derived from its medium, and mirrors the time schedule to which most people are subject it is again very shrewdly keyed to psychological dispositions frequently encountered in stymied personalities. Here again the semipopular concept of ego weakness first comes to mind. Erich Fromm has pointed out in his study »Zum Gefühl der Ohnmacht« (The Feeling of Impotence), from which we quote in a free translation:  

Faith in time lacks the sense of sudden change. It substitutes expectation that »in due time« everything will come out all right. Conflicts, which one feels unable to resolve oneself, are expected to be resolved by time without one's having to take the risk of deciding. Faith in time is found especially frequently with respect to one's own achievements. People not only console themselves over their unperformed performances, but also over not preparing for the performance by persuading themselves that they have so much time left and that there is no

reason to hurry. An example of this mechanism is the case of a greatly gifted author who wanted to write a book which, in his opinion, would rank among the most important of world literature. All he did was to pursue a series of thoughts about it, to indulge in fantasies about the epoch-making effect his book would produce and to tell his friends that it was almost finished. Actually, although he had »worked« on the book for seven years, he had not yet written a single line. As these people get older, they must cling even more stubbornly to the illusion that time will take care of things. Many, when they reach a certain age – usually the early forties – either sober up and abandon the illusion and make efforts to utilize their own powers or have a neurotic breakdown because life without the consoling illusion of time as a benefactor becomes intolerable. 19

  It may be added to Fromm's remark that the tendency he describes seems to be derived from an infantile attitude, possibly related to the child's fantasies of what will happen when he is »grown up.« What is at certain times realistic in children who know that they will grow and who have neither full disposal of their potential faculties nor the autonomy of making their own decisions, becomes neurotic when it is carried over into adult life. People with a weak ego or objectively incapable of molding their own fate show a certain readiness to shift their responsibility to the abstract time factor which absolves them of their failures and promotes their hope as though they could expect relief from all their ills from the very simple fact that things move on and more particularly that most sufferings are likely to be forgotten – the capacity of memory actually being linked with a strong development of the ego. This psychological disposition is both strengthened and utilized by the column which enhances the confidence in time by giving it the mystical connotation that time is somehow expressive of the verdict of the stars. Beyond such observations, the dichotomous interpretation of time can probably be understood in depth-psychological terms. A valid interpretation of this approach is probably obtained by the concept of the bi-phasic symptoms frequent in compulsive neurosis. Fenichel describes the mechanism as follows:   In reaction formation, an attitude is taken that contradicts the original one; in undoing, one more step is taken. Something positive is done which, actually or magically, is the opposite of something which, again actually or in imagination, was done before. This mechanism can be most clearly observed in certain compulsive symptoms that are made up of two actions, the second of which is a direct reversion of the first. For example, a patient must first turn on the gas jet and

then turn it off again. All symptoms that represent expiations belong in this category, for it is the nature of expiation to annul antecedent acts. The idea of expiation itself is nothing but an expression of belief in the possibility of a magical undoing. 20

  This mechanism is related to compulsiveness:  

Whereas some compulsive symptoms are distorted modes of perceiving instinctual demands and others express the anti-instinctual threats of the superego, still other symptoms obviously show the struggle between the two. Most of the symptoms of obsessive doubt can be covered by the formula: »May I be naughty, or must I be good?« Sometimes a symptom consists of two phases, one representing an objectionable impulse, the other the defense against it. Freud's »ratman,« for instance, felt compelled to remove a stone from the road because it might hurt somebody, and then felt compelled to put it back again. 21

  What results if expiation and undoing are obsessively institutionalized, is called:  

... a bi-phasic behavior. The patient behaves alternately as though he were a naughty child and a strict punitive disciplinarian. For obsessive reasons a patient was not able to brush his teeth. After not brushing his teeth for a while, he would slap and scold himself. Another patient always carried a notebook, in which he would make check marks according to his conduct to indicate praise or blame. 22

  Defenses and behavior patterns of this kind while actually neurotic are systematized and presented as normal and wholesome throughout the setup of the column. As a matter of fact, this principle of organization permeates it to such an extent that most of the specific devices now to be analyzed can and will be presented within the framework of the bi-phasic approach.

 Work and Pleasure   When children learn English in Germany, they are often taught as one of the first poems they are made acquainted with:  

Work while you work, play while you play. This is the way to be cheerful and gay.

  The idea is that by strictly keeping work and pleasure apart, both ranges of activity will benefit: no instinctual aberrations will interfere with seriousness of rational behavior, no signs of seriousness and responsibility will cast their shadow over the fun. Obviously this advice is somehow derived from social organization which affects the individual in as much as his life falls into two sections, one where he functions as a producer and one where he functions as a consumer. It is as though the basic dichotomy of the economic life process of society were projected upon the individual. Psychologically, the compulsive connotations based on a puritan outlook can hardly be overlooked: not only with regard to the bi-phasic pattern of life as a whole but also to notions such as cleanliness: neither of the two spheres must be contaminated by the other. While the advice may offer advantages in terms of economic rationalization, its intrinsic merits are of a dubious nature. Work completely severed from the element of playfulness becomes drab and monotonous, a tendency which is consummated by the complete quantification of industrial work. Pleasure when equally isolated from the »serious« content of life, becomes silly, meaningless an sheer »entertainment« and ultimately it is a mere means of reproducing one's working capacity, whereas the real substance of any nonutilitarian activity lies in the way it faces and sublimates reality problems: res severa verum gaudium. The complete severance of work and play as an attitudinal pattern of the total personality may justly be called a process of disintegration strangely concomitant with the integration of utilitarian operations for the sake of which this dichotomy has been introduced. The column does not bother about such problems, but sticks to the well-established »work while you work, play while you play«

advice. It thus falls in line with many phases of contemporary mass culture where maxims of the earlier development of middle class society are repeated in a congealed form although their technological and sociological basis does not exist anymore. The columnist is very well aware of the drudgery of most subordinate functions in a hierarchical and bureaucratic setup and of the resistance bred in those who have to do some work which is often completely alien to their subjective urges, which can be done as well by anyone else and which may have been reduced to so small mechanical functions that it cannot possibly be regarded as meaningful. They are continuously admonished to attend to this kind of work under the flimsy pretext that this is the way to comply with the order of the day. However, in this ideology there are some subtle significant changes in comparison with the old »work while you work« attitude. What people are supposed to do during A.M. is no longer supposed to be an autonomous activity moulded after the model of the independent entrepreneur. Rather they are encouraged to fulfill little and insignificant set tasks in a machinery. Thus, the admonition to work and not to allow oneself to be distracted by any instinctual interference has frequently the form that one should attend to one's »chores.«  

Dismal early A.M. forgotten by plunging into routine chores. (November 21, 1952, Leo) Keep plugging at chores ... (December 19, 1952, Sagittarius) Stick to attending chores ... (December 27, 1952, Sagittarius)

  Most of the time chores are to be done right away according to such advice, occasionally – and this is characteristic of the column's mosaic technique that brings the same basic categories into various configurations – to be postponed for more suitable times.  

It's unnecessary that you fuss so much with routine chores this morning. (November 10, 1952, Taurus)

  The term »chores« seems to conjure up unquestioningly accepting minor tasks as a superior law, guided not by insight into their

intrinsic necessity but only by fear of punishment. The column strives to overcome resistance against meaningless routine work by playing upon the compulsive libidinization that increases so often in reverse proportion to the importance of the chores. This psychological tendency is exploited even more where the idea of minor responsibilities is carried over to private existence. Activities such as washing one's car or fixing some household contraption, inferior though they may be, are still somewhat closer to the subject's own range of interest than the business routine, for those activities pertain to what belongs to him and is regarded as part of his »ego« realm whereas he often feels that what he does in business ultimately serves only others. This observation is fused with the columnist's knowledge of the tremendous and doubtlessly irrational role of »gadgeteering« in the psychological household of many people today. Labor-saving devices, primarily necessitated by objective conditions such as the scarcity of domestic help, are invested with a halo of their own. This may be indicative of a fixation to a phase of adolescent activities in which people try to adapt themselves to modern technology by making it, as it were, their own cause. It may be mentioned in this connection that the real psychodynamics of gadgeteering are still largely unexplored and that their study would be utterly timely in order to gain insight into the emotional ties between the objective setup of contemporary conditions and the individuals who live under these conditions. It seems that the kind of retrogression highly characteristic of persons who do not any longer feel they are the self-determining subjects of their fate, is concomitant with a fetishistic attitude towards the very same conditions which tend to be dehumanizing them. The more they are gradually being transformed into things, the more they invest things with a human aura. At the same time, the libidinization of gadgets is indirectly narcissistic in as much as it feeds on the ego's control of nature – gadgets provide the subject with some memories of early feelings of omnipotence. Since this type of cathexis shifts from ends to means which are treated as though they were things themselves, a close affinity to concretism can be observed. This is given away in the column by occasional, rather eccentric statements such as »buy interesting gadgets.«   Make more happiness there (your home) by more interesting gadgets ...

(December 3, 1952, Aquarius)

  As to pleasure, it is, according to the bi-phasic approach, mainly reserved for P.M. and for holidays as though there were an a priori understanding between celestial revelations and the present calendar system. For the sake of variation and in order not to make the bi-phasic monotony too obvious, there are exceptions to the rule. It would be erroneous, however, to assume that the bi-phasic division of work and pleasure puts both work and pleasure on an equal footing. Since the approach itself, the »division« of life into various functions which are supposed to be more productive if kept apart, is chosen under the auspices of psychological rationalization, the priority of the rational over indulgence, to put it crudely of the ego over the id, is strictly maintained. It is one of the major tenets of the column, possibly the most important of all, that pleasure itself is permissible only if it serves ultimately some ulterior purpose of success and self-promotion. There is a double reason for the conspicuous emphasis on this principle. On the one hand, the prevailing idea of conformity to what one is expected to do as well as the pretense to help people to master their everyday conflicts which often arise out of their resistance to routine work requires a strengthening of traditional working morals – possibly because in the present era, the more technology advances, tedious work seems to become superfluous and is therefore increasingly resented as long as it still goes on. The column has to take care of a specific social irrationality that gradually shows up today. On the other hand, the columnist knows of the guilt feelings frequently induced by pleasure. They are assuaged by making the reader understand that some pleasure is permissible in so far as it is a »release,« that he would, as popular psychology has learned by now, become a neurotic person unless he allowed himself some gratifications, and above all that there are many pleasures which fulfill immediately and directly some economically gainful purpose. Since this concept of pleasure for duty's sake is contradictory in itself, again some bizarreness shows up that sheds light over the whole area covered by the column. There is above all the monotonously frequent advice to »be happy.« (Cf., for example, November 27, 1952, Scorpio; November 28, 1952, Sagittarius; December 15, 1952, Sagittarius; December

16, Leo; December 23, Sagittarius.) Obviously it is directed at encouraging the reader to overcome what, in popular psychology, has come to be known as »inhibitions.« However, this encouragement becomes paradoxical inasmuch as instinctual needs contrary to the rule of rational interests appear to be commandeered by rational interests. Even that which is spontaneous and involuntary is being made part of arbitrariness and control. It is like a parody of the Freudian dictum that what is id should become ego. The former appears switched on, ordered, as it were, by conscience. One is forced to have fun in order to be well adjusted or at least appear so to others because only well-adjusted people are accepted as normal and are likely to be successful. One should here remember that psychological experiments have shown a high correlation between subjective sympathy with a face that has a happy look and, conversely, antipathy toward people who look unhappy. This aspect of universal externalization comes close to what has been called »fun morality« by Wolfenstein and Leites: »You've got to have fun (whether you like it or not).« 23 Instinctual requirements are freed from threatening aspects by being themselves treated as duties to be performed – the psychoanalytic concept of Genußfähigkeit (capacity for pleasure) already carries this fatal connotation within itself. At the same time, however, censorship is extended. Sexuality itself is being desexualized, as it were, by becoming »fun,« a sort of hygiene. It loses not only its more threatening and ego-alien impact, but also its intensity, its »flavor.« This tendency, clearly shown by the column, was pointed out in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, where he describes orgies deteriorated into social functions, while the adage most frequently uttered by the inhabitants of his negative utopia reads »everybody is happy nowadays.« The semitolerant integration of pleasure into a rigid pattern of life is achieved by the ever-recurring promise that pleasure trips, sprees, parties and similar events will lead to practical advantages. One will make new acquaintances, build up »connections« that prove helpful for the career if one walks out with business associates. Relations may become smoother and as implied indirectly one's position may become firmer and better remunerated. Sometimes there are even hints that if one takes out one's romantic interest one might benefit from the sound business intuitions of the

woman one loves.  

... enjoying congenial amusement with serious comrade clears path for successful association. (November 19, 1952, Cancer) ... entertain recent new influential acquaintances. (November 24, 1952, Virgo) ... woman comrade introduces, praises you to influential friend able to push you ahead. (November 26, 1952, Cancer) Much conversation with an official or associate, especially at a social function or sporting event, reveals your talents so that real support is quickly given. (January 3, 1953, Gemini) It's your day to have fun; so contact very active associates, take them to amusement places, and discuss practical goals in these surroundings for excellent results. (January 9, 1952, Cancer)

  In all these respects the image of the influential decision-maker is more or less subtly substituted by the reality of the salesman. It may be suspected that the columnist and his readers know in the depth of their hearts that the pleasures ordained are no longer pleasures at all, but really the duties as which they are rationalized, the rationalization containing more truth than the supposedly unconscious wish. In other words, more and more leisure time activity officially serving the purpose of fun or relaxation has actually been seized by rational self-interest and is attended not because anybody really likes it but because it is required in order to make one's way or maintain one's status. In one instance, a slip of the column gives this away: the addressee is advised to »accept all invitations« (Cf. November 17, 1952, Libra; also January 27, 1953, Pisces), obviously without caring whether he likes it or not. The consummation of this trend is the obligatory participation in official »leisure time activities« in totalitarian countries. The pleasures themselves are divided by the column into two classes, the simple ones and the unusual ones. It goes without saying that sympathy is with the simple, but sometimes the unusual ones are also encouraged, either merely for the sake of variation and »color« or possibly as a cautious means of admitting unorthodox or at least more expensive desires among the readers. What the unusual pleasures are is never hinted at: it is left up to the addressee whether

to think of foreign restaurants or sex variations.   Enjoy unusual amusements and outlets.

(November, 10, 1952, Cancer)

  The simple pleasures are again integrated within the prevailing pattern inasmuch as they are mainly characterized by inexpensiveness. The reader is constantly reminded that while it is all right to have some fun and to restore his balance, this should never be allowed to interfere with the well-planned budget. But the columnist's favorite pleasures are not only simple, but also »proven« (January 29, 1953, Aries and Gemini) and defined as radio and television (January 25, 1953, Scorpio). Gratification seems tolerable if it bears the stamp or social confirmation, if it is channelized through mass media, in other words, if it has become subject to a preconceived censorship before it even enters into the subject's experience. Thus, even in the realm where one is supposed to »let oneself go,« adjustment is promoted. Pleasure itself, if admitted, has to be predigested and somehow castrated. While the column seems broadminded enough to allow the addressee some »outlets,« they have to be essentially of a spurious nature in order to obtain the blessing of the columnist. Even where the reader is authorized to get away from the routine of his life, it has to be assured that his outbreak will lead him finally into some repetition of the self-same routine he wants to get away from.

 Adjustment and Individuality   The nucleus of the bi-phasic approach is the maintenance of the division of work and pleasure subjecting the latter to the former's rule. However, the bi-phasic compulsion seems to expand over many other areas analogous to bureaucratic setups that have, as was pointed out by Max Weber, an inherent tendency to expand. This pertains particularly to the problem of adjustment to which the handling of pleasure by the column leads. While the relation between the individual and his environment is in continuous interaction with the conflict between pleasure and duty, the antagonism between the individual and the universal cannot be altogether reduced to instinctual dynamics but pertains also to the objective sociological dimension. The bi-phasic is applied to this dimension as well as to psychology in a typical pattern of advice. At times, the readers are encouraged to be strong, rugged individuals, at other times, to adjust themselves, not to be stubborn, but rather to comply with requirements from outside. The classical liberal ideas of unlimited individual activity, freedom, and ruggedness are incompatible with the present developmental phase in which the individual is more and more required to obey strict organizational demands made by society. The same person can hardly be expected to be thoroughly adjusted and strongly individualistic at the same time. Yet, the individualistic ideology is maintained the more strongly, the less adequate it becomes to actual conditions. The conflicts thus induced must be taken care of by the column. It takes the individual apart as it were, into adaptive and autonomous components, thus implicitly endorsing the actual impossibility of the much-praised »integration.« However, in order to get the right perspective, the underlying contradiction should not be oversimplified. In fact, the two requirements not only contradict each other, but are continuously intertwined. Thus, even today success is contingent upon individual qualities which, though utterly different from the old ones, are by no means unequivocally defined by the often stressed ego weakness 24 only, but require at the same time considerable strength, namely the capacity of sacrificing oneself, as it were, for the sake of

maintaining oneself. Adjustment calls for individuality. Conversely, individual qualities themselves are a priori measured today in terms of potential success. Thus it is taken for granted that an »original idea« is something that will »sell« and prove itself on the market. In fact the psychological situation is rather paradoxical. He who wants to adjust himself to a competitive pattern of society or to its more hierarchical successor has to pursue his own particularistic individual interests rather ruthlessly in order to find recognition – he has, so to speak, to adjust through non-adjustment, through unwavering emphasis on his limited self-interests and their concomitant psychological limitations. Conversely the development of spontaneous individuality implies by necessity some degree of adjustment. Henri Bergson has pointed out in his Laughter, that the psychological calcifications which make an individual comical in an esthetic sense indicate some failure in his maturity and are bound up with his incapacity to cope with changing social situations, going as far as stating that, in a way, the concept of »character« denoting a rigidified personality pattern impervious to life experience is comical per se. Thus, the emphasis on individuality in abstracto, its severance from contacts with the outside world results in a way in its maladjustment. It induces compulsive behavior which we are tempted usually to attribute only to the opposite, to the pressure of an alienated and conventionalized reality. It is therefore dangerous, though easily understandable, in a social setup in which a fetish is made of the concept of adjustment to isolate the concepts of individuality and adjustment and to play up undialectically one against the other. It is this complex structure which provides the column with the opportunity to somehow find a common denominator for the contradictory requirements of being a personality and being, as it is called euphemistically, »cooperative.« The fact that one of the contradictory requirements often fulfills the other unwittingly is skillfully exploited. The encouragement of direct adjustment to outside forces often takes the form of glorifying, to use once again the terminology of popular psychology, the extrovert at the expense of the introvert. 25 It often seems that the column really does not expect an integration of social norms with the personality but rather wants the addressees to obey requirements from outside to the extent to which it has to be done while at the same time being led to fall back ruthlessly on a

kind of anarchic ruggedness as soon as they can get away with it – the configuration of rigid obedience and lack of true introjection of norms being itself a symptom of something wrong underneath. People are continuously reminded that they should not brood, but should seize their opportunity when it is time to act, that they should be »pleasant« to others, avoid quarreling and be »sensible.«  

... be very considerate at home where tension mounts if you display nervousness ... (November 19, 1952, Taurus) ... control desire to let fly with choice sarcastic comments. (November 21, 1952, Capricorn) Replace mulling over troubles by new interests. (December 9, 1952, Pisces) Temptation to bawl out co-workers should be sternly repressed. (December 9, 1952, Cancer) Be considerate of others. Work all questions out in cooperative fashion. (December 13, 1952, Scorpio) A.M. brings many problems into open to test your self-control ... (November 30, 1952, Aries) You really are explosive during morning without any apparent reason. It's just the planets testing your self-control. Keep calm. (December 31, 1952, Cancer) ... be more social ... (November 12, 1952, Virgo) Get out of yourself; make every new association possible ... (November 13, 1952, Aquarius) Much pleasure is yours by keeping around happy, cheerful personalities. (December 14, 1952, Cancer) Much happiness is easily yours now if you accept invitations ... (January 12, 1953, Leo) Attach yourself to all about you who are vital, dynamic and able to advance you quickly ... (January 13, 1953, Virgo) ... get out in the world; meet all those who can show you more modern ways ... (January 20, 1953, Scorpio) You are eager to get those plans into execution. Fine. Lose no time; contact all friends able to help; expand into new outlets in all directions. (January 3, 1953, Sagittarius) ... contact all possible and forcefully state your own desired aims in a charming manner. Discuss the future with practical friends. Act! (January 9, 1953, Pisces) Action! (January 18, 1953, Scorpio)

 

Most of these devices express an awareness of some difficulties on the part of the addressee. Thus precisely the kind of compulsive and isolated elderly women who must provide a good part of the astrological audience are often afraid of any new contact, if not of any contacts at all. The column somehow comes to their aid. »Psychotic characters,« in spite of their overrealistic defenses and success in isolating their delusions, are still continuously threatened by the loss of any relationship to reality and it is one of the aims of the column, inasmuch as it tries to »help,« to maintain this relationship on a superficial level. Similar experiences stand behind other advices on the same dimension. »Being pleasant« refers to the petty quarrels particularly characteristic of cranky women from the lower middle-classes, »not brooding« to the psychological habit of »ruminating« to be found in obsessive-compulsive persons. While the column strengthens their neurotic attitudes in certain directions, it tries to channelize them or to isolate them from their everyday functioning, to remove overt symptoms which might hinder the reader's efficiency. One specific advice promoting »extroverted« adjustment is the attack on the »inflated ego.« Reckoning with the narcissistic 26 sensitivities of the addressee, the columnist is careful not to blame him for such a deformity, but rather refers to threatening higher-ups and officials in such terms. However, it may safely be assumed that the underlying idea is to warn the addressee himself against having such unrealistic ideas about his own person.  

You feel dynamic, determined to put your plans in effect at all costs. However, do so cleverly without alienating others with big ego who resent other's success. (December 14, 1952, Scorpio) An executive or a government official with an inflated ego is likely to put a monkey wrench in your plans ... (January 29, 1953, Leo)

  So far as the higher-ups are concerned, the device attempts by reference to the »inflated ego« to mitigate the unpleasant impact of hierachical relationships. It is the higher-up, not the little man, who somehow appears unbalanced. His show of strength is presented as a symptom of inherent weakness in order to make it easier for the inferior to obey by suggesting that he is actually the stronger. The trivial psychological insight that pretentiousness is frequently a

mere reaction formation to the popular inferiority complex is utilized in order to make it easier for the addressee to cope with his own social dependence. The idolized extrovert does not overassert himself, but rather accepts what the world thinks of him as the ultimate yardstick for his evaluation. Defamation of the »inflated ego« is all-pervasive in popular psychological literature, including the works of the late Miss Horney. 27 Feeding upon reminiscences of the old psychiatric concept of delusions of grandeur, this stereotype comes pretty close to the idea expressed in nicknames such as »Café Größenwahn«: that the introvert, the retiring person is unjustifiedly haughty and that his withdrawal from the triviality and brutality of everyday life is actually indicative of weakness only and of a distorted picture of reality. The grain of truth contained in such notions is abused for conformist purposes. The world is right; the outsider wrong. Thus, as well as by the closely related pattern of anti-intellectualism, general leveling is promoted. According to this ideology nobody really should believe in himself and his intrinsic qualities, but should prove his metal by functioning within a given setup as well as the others do. According to the bi-phasic technique, however, at other times the readers are encouraged to be »individual.« But here something analogous to the treatment of pleasure can be observed, somehow leading to the suspicion that individuality itself is regarded as a kind of luxury which some people sometimes can afford and which has to be exalted as »a cultural good,« but which should never seriously interfere with the smooth running of the social machinery. Looking more closely at the individual qualities advocated by the column, we will discover that it practically never refers to the mature, experienced character defined by power of resistance against external pressure, never to a specific and strongly developed ego. Rather the supposedly positive aspects of individuality are isolated traits severed from the ego development – in fact, just the opposite of the ego, namely irrational gifts with a dash of the magical. The difficulty of stressing individuality in persons whose ego is assumed to be weak is overcome by substituting individuality with rudimentary archaic qualities which may be regarded as the »possession« of the individual independent of his ego formation. Just in as much as such qualities have little to do with the ego and his rationality, they are treated as though they were »unique« and

individualized in an absolute sense. When the column appeals to the addressee's individuality, it mentions almost invariably blessings such as »charm,« »personal magnetism.«   ... keep cheerful, exuding magnetism.

(November 14, 1952, Aquarius) ... improving your outlets and personal charm, unusually effective ... (November 12, 1952, Taurus) ... keep cheerful, exuding magnetism. (November 14, 1952, Aquarius) Your own personal charm enhanced by supplies available. (November 13, 1952, Libra) ... improve personal charm ... (November 17, 1952, Sagittarius) ... every ounce of your magnetic charm is more evident ... (November 18, 1952, Leo) ... bring out your magnetic charm ... (November 19, 1952, Aries) ... bring out your magnetic charm ... (November 19, 1952, Aries) Exude magnetism. (November 21, 1952, Libra) Exude charm. (November 27, 1952, Aries)

  or even their »own intuition«:  

... flash inspiration of brilliance shows method for improving joint undertaking. (November 10, 1952, Sagittarius) Use that fine mind in A.M. to bring into expression more workable plans in all departments of your affairs. (November 16, 1952, Virgo) Then your intuitions give you correct answers during afternoon. (November 16, 1952, Scorpio) Get that clever mind of yours busy early mapping big day to advance by threshing out ... (November 20, 1952, Scorpio)

  – the emphasis on irrational intuitiveness set against rational thinking being extremely popular in a rationalized world. 28 It seems that the individualistic categories here involved are treated as what has come to be known in economics as »natural monopolies.« Thus they are characteristically called »assets,« subject to the measuring

rod of success, of practicality, just as pleasure has been treated as a subfunction of work. If the individual lives up to the expectations of the column, he develops, stresses and shows off these qualities which he shares with no one else because their »rarity« gives them a sales value. Being different, thus, is integrated into the pattern of universal sameness as an object of barter. Individuality itself is submerged in the process of transformation of ends into means. The reader is incessantly encouraged to impress others with his individuality by making use of those »assets« which seem to be so highly coveted that everybody is prepared to attribute them to himself if he is given a chance to do so. Even this is not a wild and unrealistic construction on the part of the column, but reflects something that has been observed long ago. Aldous Huxley has described in one of his early novels a person who can switch his charm on and off at will. This seems to be by no means a unique experience. When people learn, in a competitive world, that certain manifestations, originally quite involuntary and irrational, such as a smile or a particular tone of voice, impress people in a favorable way, they actually learn to convert such expressive qualities into an »asset« and to display »that famous grin« at every befitting occasion. While the advice to be practical coincides with the idea of being realistic and in many respects actually amounts to realism, the underlying irrational mechanisms of compulsion manifest themselves in certain traits of the fostered sense of the practical which are irrational themselves and give a picture of what might be called a lack of sense of proportion, sometimes indicative of serious psychological deformities. These deformities usually follow the all-pervasive pattern of substituting ends for means. What is dubbed practical, sometimes assumes the weight of an » überwertige Idee « (an idea that plays in a person's stream of consciousness a disproportionate role determined by psychological factors). Viewed from reality, actions and attitudes are heavily emphasized, the effect and importance of which is actually of an extremely limited scope. Thus advice, innocuous but trite, of taking care of one's appearance plays a surprisingly large role in the column.   Also improve personal appearance ...

(November 12, 1952, Virgo)

Rather, get your personal appearance, health in better shape. (December 12, 1952, Aquarius) More charm to self, improvement to car, etc. possible by taking approved methods for »face-lifting« treatments. (November 13, 1952, Gemini) Your own day to take those beauty treatments, get haircuts, do whatever increases your personal charm and sense of well-being ... (November 13, 1952, Libra) ... get personal appearance improved to bring out your magnetic charm. (November 19, 1952, Aries) ... YOUR personal appearance must be impeccable ... (November 22, 1952, Taurus)

  Incessant stress suggests the exaltation of cleanliness and health to the level of ideals, a well-known trait of the anal syndrome. The psychotic symptom of paying extreme attention to the patient's own body which somehow seems to be alienated from »himself« is also pertinent. Cranks fall as easily for astrology as for health food movements, natural healing and similar panaceas. The sociological value of cleanliness is tied up with the cultural heritage of puritanism, a fusion of the ideal of sexual purity with that of a neat body – mens sana in corpore sano. At the back of this is the repression of the sense of smelling. All these irrational propensities are championed by the column's pseudorational pattern of externalization. What matters is what one looks like and not what one is; the means-for-ends idea has done away with the last vestige of anything existing for its own sake. Closely related is the frequent advice to »arrange property matters or discuss finances with the family.« They are above all indicators of the anal cathexis to tangible, fixed property, as it is represented to the addressee, mainly in the sphere of his private life since probably only a minority of the addressees own any business. But apart from these well-known psychological features some specific sociological considerations also enter the picture. The possibility of acquiring money and property, or even the chance of making a start for it, is much more limited for most people today than it was rightly or wrongly supposed to be during the hayday of classical liberalism. Yet the Horatio Alger myth is continuously upheld as one of the most important stimuli that induce people's efforts. Here again, the column looks for a way out. If one cannot gain property as of old, it is suggestively implied that by clever

disposition of what one has, by planning and scheduling in a manner appealing anyway to compulsive persons, the same success may be achieved that is now denied to expansive business enterprise. Making charts, time tables, schedules, and similar formalistic ventures serve as substitutes for the actual money making. This is why the idea of budgeting, making plans, and similar symptoms of unrealistic realism are favored by the column. It is as though the imaginary vice-president, since he is no vice-president after all, should at least playfully fulfill the latter's function, a device which by the way is also sometimes supplied in business education where office boys have to act symbolically as executives for one day.  

You have imagination, vision which you can reduce to exact expression – find out how others invest, increase income; then apply to your own responsibilities; pay bills. (November 13, 1952, Prices) Look to new methods to add to present income, lop off unnecessary expenses; getting in huddle with serious workers brings new aspect to your present obligations. (November 18, 1952, Scorpio) ... devise new avenues for making money ... (November 19, 1952, Scorpio) ... arrange improved methods for securing more income, happiness by cooperative measures. (November 20, 1952, Gemini) Work all angles that bring you added money, possessions, good things of life. (November 22, 1952, Capricorn)

  Yet the old concept of unbridled acquisitiveness is so deeply embedded in a business culture that it cannot be discarded or entirely repressed by spurious pseudo-activity though the columnist is well aware that it is no longer adequate to present day economy. Here the columnist finds a rather ingenious way out, falling back to astrology's otherwise concealed basis of superstition. There are quite a few hints of substantial material gains, but they are rarely if ever attributed to the reader's own work or to business profits, but almost always to highly improbable and irrational providential acts of fate.  

Unexpected help from hidden source makes all property conditions easier to solve ... (November 23, 1952, Aries) Persons, messages, calls from distance bring element of good fortune toward

securing determined wish ... Noon finds unexpected support secretly given you.

(November 26, 1952, Aries)

(December 6, 1952, Virgo) Unexpected benefits are probable but whatever you force through yourself will boomerang. (January 20, 1953, Aries)

  Through taking recourse to the simple technique of the fortune teller and discarding the column's usual reserve, the reader is assured that at some particular time pecuniary affluence will be heaped upon him if he is born under a particular sign of the day, or by using mysterious »friends« as the agents who bestow fabulous benefactions upon him. He is neither expected to believe that he could earn it nor to accept that he can never have it. Thus he is spoken to and given unreasonable promises like a child. Obviously the columnist figures out that the reader's wishes in this direction are so strong that he can get away with even such unreasonable promises on account of the momentary gratifications they provide though the reader knows in the depth of his heart that the promise will never be fulfilled. At this point the column profits from the same mentality which draws people to gambling, horse betting, and similar devices for making easy money. Propensity for irrational material gain seems to be contingent upon the shrinking chances of making big money as a pioneer or on a rational basis of calculation. Sometimes the wild promises made by the column take the form of referring to the addressee's »fondest« hopes or »deepest« desires.   Discuss your fondest hopes with relatives.

(January 27, Taurus)

  Such references are »blanks« which can and probably will be filled in by each adept of the column according to his specific emotional requirements. Just because his »fondest hopes« are concerned, he is temporarily prepared to accept the most improbable promises. What appears to be simply a linguistic mannerism of the column reveals itself in its over-all context as a very clever device to catch the addressee. It may also be that the rather abstract form »your fondest hopes« is one of the ways in which real, uncensored instinctual urges of the addressees are sanctioned by the columnist without the

possibility of his being put on the spot and having to take the responsibility for anything he might have said. While nursing hopes for considerable gains outside of the limitation of normal business processes, »a stroke of luck,« the column is not satisfied with entirely irrational promises. Sometimes the addressee is, though utterly cautiously and indirectly, encouraged not simply to rely on his luck, but, to borrow the phrase of Lessing's Riccaut de la Marlinière, to »corriger la fortune.« The form in which this idea crops up is the use of expressions such as »behind scenes activities« reference to which is often made in a positive sense.  

Behind-scenes huddle with personal expert with finances shows way to increase your assets. (November 17, 1952, Sagittarius) A.M. finds need for secret huddle with member of family to eliminate present worry. (November 19, 1952, Virgo) ... plan future secretly. (November 21, 1952, Capricorn) ... make quiet arrangements ... (November 21, 1952, Aquarius) This is your day to manipulate matters cleverly behind the scenes to improve your happiness ... (January 3, 1953, Leo) Much behind-the-scenes discussion can show intelligent ways to increase your revenue. (January 9, 1953, Aquarius) Behind-scenes activity to devise a better system for performing irksome chores will bring more contentment at home as well. (January 13, 1953, Aquarius)

  Apart from the constant advice »to strike a bargain,« to »improve property« and »make schedules,« the columnist fosters the idea that the addressee can get ahead in the business hierarchy only by finagling himself, by use of personal connections and sly diplomacy rather than by strict working activities. This has some rather evil implications. Within the pattern of modern mass delusions, the idea of conspiracies is always present – an idea doubtlessly of a projective nature. Encouraging »behind-the-scenes« activities is an inconspicuous form of conjuring up such tendencies usually projected upon out-groups. Those who persistently blame others for

indulging in conspiracies have a strong tendency to engage in plots themselves and this is taken up and reproduced in the column. In view of the somewhat risky character of this admonition, the bi-phasic approach here proves especially valuable to the column. The advice to finagle is countered – undone in the psychoanalytic sense – by interspersed reminders to be law-abiding and always to keep within the realm of the permissible, an advice that chimes in with the column's outward attitude of over-all conventionality and conformity.  

Strict adherence to the spirit as well as the letter of the law greatly please harassed higher-up ... (November 14, 1952, Capricorn)

  But morality too appears externalized: one has to account for one's actions to others, to wit, the higher-up, rather than to oneself. At the same time, the idea of accounting is not so much presented as a normal duty in business as it is pictured as a threat. The addressee is advised to behave in such a way that, when and if accounting comes, he will be spared by the thunderstorm with the undertone that by keeping his books either pedantically or cleverly things will blow over.  

Use utmost care in handling funds involving others ... (November 10, 1952, Gemini) ... see that every item of worldly affairs is exactly right so no criticism comes to you. (November 17, 1952, Pisces) Credit interests require more than usual care to prevent unintentional error that causes higher-up to look askance at your abilities; P.M. systematize joint concerns. (November 18, 1952, Pisces) ... be sure you account exactly bank, tax, property obligations. (November 22, 1952, Aries) ... arrange joint funds exactly. (December 6, 1952, Taurus) Your disinclination toward making present associations more lucrative necessitates careful approach to authority who would flare up unless exact picture is given. (January 3, 1953, Pisces) Take no chances with credit and career! When others demand accounting from you for present obligations, be grateful and give meticulous explanations.

(January 8, 1953, Capricorn) An authority will demand an accounting if you take any chances. (January 14, 1953, Capricorn) The A.M. requires exactness in all matters connected with those in authority. (January 15, 1953, Aries) Your financial problems show need for more systematizing and wisdom in handling. (January 21, 1953, Pisces)

  While the column implicitly seems to agree to the very wide-spread, though unofficial ideology that everything is permitted as long as one is not caught, the periodical reminder to readers to remain within the limits of the law is also indicative of the fact that the columnist presupposes very strong inclinations for law-breaking and anarchy in his readers which are the reverse of that social integration and rigid conformity overtly upheld. Ever-present destructive urges are ready to smash the very same control mechanism by which they are engendered.  

Carefully double check all your accounts, statements and joint obligations. That temptation to forsake duty for pleasure is not good. (January 21, 1953, Gemini) Use utmost care in handling funds involving others; postpone expensive pleasures until more propitious time; your security improves by finishing present obligations. (November 10, 1952, Gemini)

  One final irrational aspect of the idea of »being practical« emerging in the column may be mentioned. It is the idea that »your family background« will indicate to the addressee the right way.  

Your inherited background gives answers for right attitude to assume toward higher-ups who question your ability, view point. (November 23, 1952, Capricorn) Inherited, family principles are to your advantage in A.M. (December 7, 1952, Cancer) Your family background provides answer to your deepest needs at moment. (December 14, 1952, Libra) Your background provides correct answer to A.M. preoccupations, glumness. (December 21, 1952, Capricorn) The solid principles of your background conflict with your desire for risky, adventurous pleasures; stick to your proven outlets. (January 11, 1953, Scorpio)

In the A.M. your family background points the way to your advance in all directions. (January 18, 1953, Aries) Peace of mind today is attained through attention to practical problems and proven principles from your family background. (January 25, 1953, Virgo)

  This idea again is close to others being dealt with in this study, such as the treatment of personal qualities as natural monopolies or the bi-phasic idea of being modern and being conservative, the family background, of course, belonging to the conservative side. But above all, this device is another attempt to cope with the threatening disappearance of free competitive activity. The notion of those who »belong« plays an increasing role sociologically linked to »closed societies« and particularly observable in totalitarian countries. Conjuring up the »family background« may possibly be an appeal to those who, being native, white, gentile Americans and whose families have lived in the States a long time may fancy themselves as the »right people« and expect certain privileges. The »family background« is supposed to function as reassuring narcissistically and also realistically in as far as people with such a background might be admitted more easily to influential positions. Behind the family background lurks the idea of numerus clausus. But the range of the device is by no means limited to the happy few, but the majority is treated as a privileged group in order to counteract feelings of atomization and personal insecurity as part of the technique of modern mass manipulation pointed out by Karl Mannheim in his book Man and Society. In the column of December 21, those born under the sign of Capricorn are reassured that their background provides »correct answer to preoccupations, glumness.« On the surface this means that they can draw on their traditions in order to solve their problems – certainly not a very convincing promise. The real psychological message is rather »Think about the marvelous family you come from and you will feel elated and superior to those on whom you depend and who might have annoyed you.« It may be mentioned that a highly prejudiced subject studied in The Authoritarian Personality 29 remarked: »All my friends are from marvelous families.« Imaginativeness is often referred to. Here, however, something

shows up that is indicative of subtle psychological changes reflecting rather drastic social ones. The old idea that money can only be made through originality and new ideas and that success on the market depends not only on meeting demands by offers, but in either creating new demands or in offering something better and cheaper than what is at the moment available, is still maintained. But the column must acknowledge that the opportunity for the implementation of innovations and original ideas is extremely limited today for most persons. Thus, again cleverly relying on compulsive patterns, the emphasis on imaginativeness is presented mostly in terms of business administration and business organization. While, of course, the opportunity for really essential changes on these levels is also severely restricted, they still seem to be more in line with the over-all organization of professional life within which people find themselves caught than the idea of an inventiveness which presupposes a much more individualistic setup. Thus, the addressees are encouraged to make changes within the given organizatory framework, by necessity more or less routine provisions, which we may assume fall within the very narrow range of their influence or their knowledge and which have presumably little influence upon the real course of events. The concept of originality seems to have shrunk to the ideal of each person's becoming an efficiency expert in his own circumscribed realm.  

... you can replace by adopting unthought, untried new plan. Be open-minded. (November 10, 1952, Scorpio) You have imagination, vision which you can reduce to exact expression – find out how others invest, increase income; then apply to your own responsibilities; pay bills. (November 13, 1952, Pisces) ... your creative ideas are fine, attend to investments, too. (November 15, 1952, Gemini) Creative expressions unusually appealing so use your sense of neat touch, the artistic, to attain more success. (November 22, 1952, Libra)

  Modifications such as that of the concept of originality, indicate that the worldly wisdom that steers the column is by no means limited to popular psychology, but includes also economics as might be expected of an approach dedicated to the very sphere where psychological and rational motivations are fused. Some of the

»spread out« contradictory advice testifies to economic problems of old standing. Here belongs above all, the alternative advice to be »modern« and to be »conservative« related to, but not identical with the dimension of being »imaginative« and being »sensible.« Again both terms are introduced mostly with reference to business methods, techniques and improvements. Again individuality is involved. Only he who thinks by himself and offers something new is supposed to make good. On the other hand, it is traditionally accepted that those who have dared to make innovations but had only limited financial resources run the risk of being wiped out by financially stronger interests even if they think of some real novelty: the image of the starving inventor is well-known. Under present conditions the slogan »be modern« is apt to deteriorate into a mere sham. Real technological advancement is left to technological experts frequently far removed from the business setup whereas he who wants to make headway in a large scale business organization has generally to be »conservative« not so much perhaps, nowadays, for fear of bankruptcy, but for fear that as an employee one would appear as a crank, transgressing the place in the hierarchy if he continuously made or advocated innovations. While the column attempts to solve this impasse by simply demanding that the reader sometimes be »conservative,« sometimes »modern,« the real difficulty is dodged. Both advices which have their full meaning in the sphere of production only are transferred to the sphere of consumption which still gives the individual at least the illusion of a certain freedom of choice between what is advertized as excitingly modern and as cozily and quaintly old-fashioned. Even more often the term conservative is used in the loose meaning of pursuing a »conservative« financial policy, i.e., carefully avoiding unneccessary spending: frequently high-sounding statements of the column amount in practice to the recommendation of thriftiness. When the column advises the reader to be modern it seems almost imperative that he should buy modern equipment particularly for his home – an advice affiliated with gadgeteering. When he is advised to be conservative, it means that he should keep his expenditures under control. The relegation of the change between the modern and the conservative to the sphere of consumption, however, points itself to a somewhat self-contradictory situation. While the present huge offer of goods calls for modern minded people prepared to buy any

novelty, the buyer's mentality thus built up destroys reserves, threatens those to whom buying becomes a compulsion and is often presented as though it would potentially endanger the whole economic structure by undermining buying capacity itself. In order to make it right, as a real conformist, to everyone, the column has to promote sales and sales resistance, an ungrateful task to be mastered only by again spreading the advice over different periods of time.  

Your own ideas need revitalizing to keep up with present worldly conditions; fine for studying modern systems; a progressive associate helps greatly if asked. (November 16, 1952, Capricorn) Your associates all seem to be at sixes and sevens, nothing seems to make sense. Stick to tried, proven principles, then all goes along very smoothly. (December 4, 1952, Aries) Nothing seems easy to do, you can't find right articles of goods, foods, or other supplies. Be very conservative. Then you avoid mistakes that others, unaware it is a difficult day, are making. (December 4, 1952, Leo) Adopting more up-to-date attitude brings you protection. (December 9, 1952, Scorpio) ... use much care in all property matters, joint ventures; your hunches are poor. (January 6, 1953, Pisces)

  The term »modern« as used by the column, is frequently the equivalent of »scientific«:  

Forget past, worn-out systems, interests; look to modern trends in educational and scientific fields vital to your needs. (January 5, 1953, Capricorn) Getting down to brass tacks in an up-to-date scientific manner improving your outlets and personal charm unusually effective. (November 12, 1952, Taurus) This is your day to get out from your conservative, conventional outlets; see how rest of world lives, take to yourself modern methods that improve your efficiency. (November 12, 1952, Capricorn) Some of our long-standing views need to be brought up-to-date for present workableness. (November 16, 1952, Aries) Adopting more modern spiritual, educational, scientific principles gives more happiness, success in creative interests. (November 23, 1952, Gemini)

 

This involves the idea that one saves money by introducing innovations rather than running any risk. At the same time the admonition to be »scientific« airs a peculiar concern of the column. Astrology and occultism as a whole have, as indicated before, a strong urge to overcome suspicions of magical practices in a rationalized business culture. Science is the bad conscience of occultism and the more irrational the justification of its pretenses, the more it is stressed that there is nothing phony about it. While the column avoids controversies on the merits of astrology, but for good psychological reasons takes its authority for granted, it indirectly follows this urge by its studious bows to science in general. 30 Viewed psychoanalytically, the interpretation of astrological ambition to present an apocryphal cult as scientific in order to assuage a bad conscience probably does not go deep enough. The ideal of security, the conquest of anxiety, seems to be involved. There exists a compulsive fear of committing an error and, as a correlate, a high gratification in being »absolutely right« even if irreproachability may be obtained only by complete triviality and meaninglessness – a philosophy reminiscent of the pedantry of the anal character. The more dubious the statements craved for, the stronger the need for this type of protection. On top of early fixations, this attitude is reinforced in the Oedipal phase 31 by the fear of the father who discourages sexual curiosity and teaches the child that it is too stupid to understand and should confine itself to what is conventionally done and known rather than embark on any exploratory ventures – an attitude reflected by the column inasmuch as it always refers to fixed unalterable necessities and never goes beyond what is made to appear as »positive.« The reader of the column is always supposed to act according to prescriptions. The feeling that nothing can happen after withdrawal from sexual longing, related to castration fear, 32 replaces the enjoyment originally longed for: security itself may become a sexual substitute. Yet the irrationality of this displacement is never lost sight of entirely. This is mirrored rather exactly in viewing astrology as a science which promises absolute and unchallengable security (mainly because it cannot be put to the test) while the ultimate source of the security – the threat – is hidden and utterly unrecognizable. The hints of impending danger may be the last of heavily censored traces of castration fear. Certainly among the truly

unconscious messages of the column, one of the most effective should read »safety first,« a slogan which itself is to be regarded, apart from its rational merits, as a psychological hieroglyph.

 Ruggedness and Dependence   Closely related to the contradiction between adjustment and individuality is that between dependence and ruggedness. Viewed psychologically, the actual weakness of the individual in the social setup is concomitant with serious narcissistic losses which have somehow to be made up vicariously by the column. For the purpose, it draws again on some phenomena of reality. The psychological feeling of dependence seems to be on the increase. But giving up one's individuality requires the same effort and investment of libido formerly needed in order to develop individuality – in a way, the same »ruggedness.« Thus the column's task is twofold – in as much as the situation makes for subordination, it has to reassure its readers that they are nevertheless rugged individuals; in as much as the situation calls for real ruggedness, it has to assuage their own feeling of impotence. As to »aggressiveness,« it obviously goes with the ideal of being practical; as to subordination, this seems to be related to conscience and generally to a timid and withdrawn personality structure. A common denominator is sought for both types. It can easily be seen that the dimension here considered does by no means coincide with those previously stated. No mechanical parallelism between the three main dichotomies analyzed by our study would be adequate. Since the total approach of the column is, as may have crystallized by now, a definite pattern, a structural unit, everything is somehow connected with everything else, and the analytic isolation of various factors has always something of the arbitrary. Yet the isolating operations we have carried through are invited by the nature of the material. The column's model of ruggedness has very little in common with those irrational qualities of the individual it stresses otherwise; and the sense of obedience it promotes is equally distant from the salesman traits of the happy extrovert. The antagonism here under discussion expresses itself frequently in the habit of sometimes advising people to be definite, sometimes to think carefully before they act. The warning not to hesitate 33 is probably derived from the pressure of time under which most people have to work together with the impact of the

widespread, culturally conditioned taboo of »armchair thinking.« Yet today it is dangerous to practically anyone to act upon his own responsibility. People who make supposedly wrong decisions are rarely in a position to follow up these decisions independently, to make them good or to take subsequent actions by which the previous ones may be justified, but are generally called on the carpet if the decision does not agree with the policy set by higher agencies. This structural change typically involved in the bureaucratization of modern society, is met by the column's advice not to act hastily and irrevocably, particularly not to be led by impulse into actions, but rather to think carefully and particularly to discuss problems with others before acting.  

... discuss thoroughly with those familiar with true facts, operating principles. (November 25, 1952, Cancer) You see both sides of every question confronting you, are able to convince all colleagues of your stand. (November 25, 1952, Capricorn) You feel dynamic, determined to put your plans in effect at all costs. However, do so cleverly without alienating others with big ego who resent other's success. (December 14, 1952, Scorpio) Be careful that in haste to do chore and get to church or off on trip you do not damage articles of clothing. In P.M. confer with associate about new big venture. (January 4, 1953, Libra) Your determination to spend much on investments and pleasures is all right, but not now; await a better moment for this step – watch these suggestions. (January 7, 1953, Gemini)

  Concomitantly the general tendency of the column to prepare the addressees to act as members of »teams« comes to the fore. It is as though it had been accepted as a major ideological tenet that everything can be settled by majority decisions taken at some »meeting,« a caricature of democracy. At the same time, the continuous encouragement to talk things over with others appeals to the conviction of many people mentioned previously, that others know more about them and their own difficulties than they know themselves – an all-pervasive sense of self-alienation. It is in this connection that the concept of »understanding« crops up in the column. Sociologically the stress on understanding, being understood as well as understanding others, probably reflects social atomization, the reverse and concomitant of collectivization as

studied by David Riesman in The Lonely Crowd. The column calculates, probably correctly, that whoever is subject to cold, dehumanized, rigid, and alienated social relationships feels insufficiently understood. Objective estrangement is made up suggestively, synthetically, as it were, by ubiquitous »human interest.« Thus continuous advice is given to seek other persons who understand one and to try to understand others.  

Make sure you are most understanding with members of family who are distraught. (November 22, 1952, Scorpio) Be most careful with all in authority. Be understanding that they have problems. (December 18, 1952, Aries) Bombastic associate, enemy unable to find personal peace of mind tries to take you also deep into doldrums. Be understanding but don't fall for this dreary line. (December 30, 1952, Capricorn) Your personal resentments keep desired – and desirable – favors from you; so smile, see other fellow's view, be kind to officials, then, P.M. bring much happiness. (January 23, 1953, Capricorn)

  The latter advice is sometimes administered under the viewpoint that one is able to overcome one's own difficulties by identifying oneself with someone even worse off. Thus even humaneness is treated as a means rather than an end. It is as though finally the sphere of the internal itself were to be incorporated into the range of externalization by manipulating the active and passive phases of understanding. Inwardness is integrated into the machinery. While this can be partly explained by the tendency to transform objective problems into subjective and psychological ones, it also means that one should be prepared to give in to the supposedly higher wisdom of those whom one has to obey anyway. Psychological self-reflection is transformed into a tool furthering adjustment. Meekness towards the more powerful seems to do less damage to so-called self-esteem if cloaked as the outcome of higher insight either into oneself or into those whom one obeys. Not infrequently the bi-phasic admonition appears actually in behavioral terms. Sometimes the addressee as a successful business man has to be »dynamic,« sometimes he has to »give in.« It seems, however, that the advice to be strong and rugged is meted out rather reluctantly. While the veneer of the addressee's independence is

guarded, he is advised most of the time to be strong only with people weaker or at least on an equal footing with him, particularly with his family, but also occasionally with the »friends« whose function throughout the column is somewhat ambivalent. On the whole the column takes the idea of »ruggedness« less seriously than its counterpart. The idea of »giving in« is usually cloaked in such a way that all potentially unpleasant demands to be expected from the outside are presented as though they were well-meaning advice from other people. Here again, adjustment necessitated by stronger conditions is mitigated as an achievement of insight. The soft-pedalling is most of the time brought about by the device of personalization. The requirements of reality are constantly reduced to the human figures who might want or order something. These persons rather than the requirements themselves are continuously characterized. Generally they are well-meaning, experienced, friendly, but at the same time, powerful and somehow authority figures; sometimes, however, provision is made for negative experiences with them. These negative characteristics are generally stated in a way calling for pity with the strong rather than for their rejection. If it is envisaged that the addressee is being hurt by someone, he is made to understand that he is not to hit back but rather to assume an attitude indicative of his own inner superiority and to yield. The psychiatrically well-known pattern of »identification with the aggressor« 34 seems to be one of the column's basic positive ideas on human relationships. Perhaps it can be seen nowhere more clearly than here how the column, and the popular psychology to which it is related, strengthens defenses rather than dissolves them. Human relationships are viewed in an authoritarian way, organized according to an implicit hierarchy of the strong and the weak, and, accordingly, almost entirely on the ruggedness vs. dependence level.

 Categories of Human Relationships   We conclude our analysis of the typical ideas and techniques of the column by mentioning a few of the most important categories of human relations as conceived by the column.  

Family and Neighbors The column's attitude towards the family is largely one of conventional, official optimism which does not admit that anything might be wrong with the addressee's closest ingroup. To be sure, there are tensions but it is assumed that basically everything is love and harmony. One might say that the true problems of the family are brought out only negatively, namely by an almost complete neglect of the internalized, affective aspects of family life – here everything is extroverted too, and the family is viewed either as a resource of help and comfort  

... support comes from member of family to lighten present burdens. (November 10, 1952, Leo)

  or as a source of complaints and demands which one has to satisfy to a certain extent in order to have a tolerable life. Thus, certainly unconsciously, a picture of coldness is obtained due to the lack of anything like empathy with the others. The family is relegated to leisure time; in the bi-phasic organization of the column, it is mentioned almost exclusively with reference to P.M., in the same sphere in which the addressee is advised to fix his home or to go out. In certain situations, the addressee is advised to give in to the family. Typical is the assumption that he might be inclined to spend beyond his means – possibly for pleasures such as alcohol and gambling. Since the wife is the one who, in the last analysis, has to manage with the budget, the addressee is being taught to talk over financial matters with her although she is rarely referred to as such but mainly in the more abstract term »the family,« perhaps in order not to make him feel henpecked. In this pattern, the family functions

as the agent of social control of the addressee's instinctual urges. Following the same line, the caution of the wife, in talking over business matters, is sometimes supposed to prevent the husband from rebelling in his professional life and thus to endanger his job. Such bits of common sense are never stated in so many words, but in rather abstract terms allowing for various interpretations. Thus, the talking over of finances with the family might also serve the opposite purpose, namely of controlling the purse strings against the wife's inclination towards heavy spending. Here the wife, as »consumer« is regarded as more irrational than the husband as »provider.« Such apparent inconsistencies express fairly well the complexities of actual life situations. Anyway, the prevailing idea is that the family still is the only »team« knitted together by so strong common interests that one can rely on each other with little reservations and somehow make joint plans in order to cope successfully with a threatening and potentially hostile world. The family is constructed as a kind of protective organization built exclusively on the principle of give and take rather than as a spontaneous form of living together. This may well reflect certain structural changes in the modern family. 35 Therefore, the addressee has to »calculate« very carefully his relationships with his family. He has to pay for the help and solidarity he expects. There is the ever-present threat of nagging and it is this point where the column tends to emphasize the »giving in,« by a cautious soft-pedalled behavior and continuous consideration of what might invite the family's wrath. In this respect the family often appears as a kind of a threatening archaic clan whose verdicts prevail over the dependent subject. Behind the idea of nagging there is the correct expectation that the division between the spheres of production and consumption, of work and leisure, never runs smoothly. The fact that life itself tends to become increasingly a mere appendix to the business that should serve life needs involves an absurdity with which even the supposedly well-adjusted cannot possibly get away without conflict. The wife's nagging is, without her being aware of it, a protest against a situation often aggravated because the man who has to »control himself« during working hours and to repress his aggressions is prone to let them loose against those who are close to him, but have less power than himself. The worldly wisdom of the column is quite aware of all this as well as of

the fact that in such conflicts women are usually more naive than men and that the appeal to the latter's »reason« might help soften inevitable clashes.  

Tense situation at home, unless you dissolve easily with a smile, effects relations with everyone else as well; forget hurt feelings; work to increase savings. (November 14, 1952, Cancer) ... be very considerate at home where tension mounts if you display nervousness ... (November 19, 1952, Taurus) Use happy feeling early generated to charm loved ones into contentment. (November 19, 1952, Leo) Settle any arguments at home early; then make domicile more attractive for all there; later, discussing family finances, property matters brings better understanding. (November 20, 1952, Libra) Unsatisfactory family, property matter brings you big chance to show your ability to handle personal relations diplomatically, conscientiously. In P.M. plan budget. (November 21, 1952, Cancer) Make sure you are most understanding with members of family who are most distraught. (November 22, 1952, Scorpio)

  Their inevitability, the social reasons of which have been pointed out, is blamed upon the abstract time element, as though at some particular afternoon or evening trouble were brewing at home and that the addressee has to exercise particular self-control if he is to avoid a major quarrel. This, of course, reflects also the irrationality of the motives frequently leading to family flare-ups that occur in the wake of entirely insignificant events. Apart from this appeasement policy, the addressee is encouraged to »take the family out« or to have a »wonderful time« with them by inviting friends, an advice often tendered on holidays when the addressee is likely to do something of the sort anyway. This advice reminds one of the vicarious attempts at institutionalizing pleasure and human closeness, somehow after the fashion of Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Father's Day. Since it is felt, rightly or wrongly, that the warmth and closeness of the family is on the decline but since the family is retained for both realistic and ideological reasons, the emotional element of warmth and togetherness is rationalistically promoted just as a further means of smoothing out

things and keeping the partners together while the actual basis for their common joie de vivre seems to have gone. The strange situation in which people have to be pushed in order to do what is supposedly natural – the idea that one has to send flowers to one's wife not because one feels an urge to do so, but because one is afraid of the scene she makes if one forgets the flowers – is mirrored by the empty and meaningless nature of the family activities which the columnist sets in motion. He seems to accept thoroughly the idea of »having a wonderful time« by going together to the movies or to a night club. It might be asked how the column's family policy can be reconciled with our basic assumption that the real addressee is a middle-aged or elderly woman. To this it might be answered that the column, after it has set out to build up the image of a male addressee, has somehow to stick to its guns and to follow up this idea with a fair amount of consistency. No fully satisfactory explanation, however, seems available. In connection with the family, the role of neighbors in the column should be mentioned. They certainly may be expected to be more important in the life of lower-middle-class people than in that of the fictitious successful businessman. It should not be forgotten however, that the column appears in an extremely large city in which social figures, such as the »neighbor,« characteristic of primary communities where everyone knows everyone else, are certainly atypical. While the notion of the neighbor may be a simple carry-over from the olden days of the fortune teller who thinks in such terms, it fulfills at the same time the timely function of conjuring up a picture of village-like traditionalism, non-commercial mutual interests and possibly even biblical memories of the neighbor who is like yourself, which all helps to reconcile socially and often also psychologically isolated persons with their lot. At the same time, it cannot be ruled out entirely that, as a heritage of the pioneering period in the semirural parts of Greater Los Angeles, the neighbor still somehow survives and that there is a positive tradition of neighborly contact and readiness to help each other in the Western United States.

 Friends, Experts, Higher-ups   By far more important than the neighbors, in fact one of the most frequently mentioned topics of the column are the »friends.« Their continuous invocation is most conspicuous and calls for tentative explanation even if one assumes that the term »friend« has come to be vastly diluted and is often used as a mere synonym for acquaintance. More than anything else, the role of the friend in the column may be a carry-over of the crystal-gazer. Astrology's basic assumption of »friendly« and »hostile« conjunctions seems to conjure up human messengers of those powers. But this leaves open why so much is made of the friends while little or nothing is made of the foes. It might be remembered here that one of the most important facets of superstition – direct threat, terrorizing people by some unknown danger and thus inducing them to obey blindly – occurs in the material selected very rarely. One has the feeling that the friend-foe dichotomy, which by itself would fit very well into the bi-phasic approach and into a paranoid way of thinking has been subjected to some special censorship and that only the friends have been allowed to survive. The most important function of the friends in the column may be similar to an image often to be found in fortune-telling by cards where someone unexpected turns up and exercises the greatest influence. The friends come from outside, perhaps on account of the columnist's underlying construct that the addressee is unconsciously antagonistic to the family that is generally treated, on an overt level, in stubbornly optimistic terms. They suddenly appear and heap benefits upon the addressee, either by giving him sound advice leading to an increase of his income  

Vital friend gladly shows you how to enlarge joint venture with limited partner so that better results are produced to mutual advantage; show appreciation by trying suggestions. (November 12, 1952, Pisces) Contact optimistic friends who can aid your advance ... (November 22, 1956, Aries)

 

or by forthright donations  

... a good friend bestows unique benefit.

(November 10, 1952, Virgo) Making definite, concrete plan with partners, in public work, brings influential friends, support, so success easily obtained. (November 10, 1952, Cancer)

  or by appointments to influential jobs  

Purposeful friend, eager to see you succeed, brings opportunity for you to attain cherished goal ... (November 17, 1952, Capricorn) Faithful friends look on you with much favor, seeking to find the answer to your present perplexities, which come from expanding your consciousness to higher ambitions now. (November 18, 1952, Aquarius) ... later enjoying congenial amusement with serious comrade clears path for successful association. (November 19, 1952, Cancer) ... get together with attractive friends who are anxious to aid your advance forward. (November 19, 1952, Pisces)

  The general assumption is an extreme expression of dependency needs: the addressee is invariably advised to follow his friends and is made to understand that they are stronger than he, know better than he, but will take care of him.  

Recent, highly active friend believes in you, shows your partner how to utilize your talents to greater degree, more constructive and effective use. (November 26, 1952, Gemini) Careful, precise friends and potent partners combine to make your life more successful. Let them confer favors without interfering with their sensible course of action. (December 8, 1952, Scorpio) A generous companion, eager for your advancement, asks good friends to study new ways to forward your scientific, educational and spiritual aims. (January 3, 1953, Aquarius) Others have the power to make your life a success or failure according to the way you handle and impress them with your financial, practical abilities. (January 7, 1953, Aquarius)

  At the same time, potential anxieties and hostilities associated with

dependence are removed: the image of those on whom the addressee depends is unequivocally positive. This is the easier, the more they are outsiders: the less he knows their shortcomings. The parasitic aspect of dependency is brought out by the continuous reference to benefits to be expected from them. An attempt is made to transform narcissistic losses into the gain of getting rid of the burden of autonomous responsibility and, possibly, adding some masochistic gratifications. Viewed from this angle, reference to the friends again comes close to the »identification with the aggressor.« In fact it may be said that frequently the friends are but rather thin cloaks for the »higher-ups,« just as the family is a »screen« for the wife. The rationality of business relations is transfigured into love relationships in which the same ones one has to fear are those who mean one's best and whom therefore one has to love – an obvious transference from the Oedipal situation. Sociologically, it feeds on the awareness that everyone is replaceable in the economic process. The addressee is expected to feel that he is allowed to fulfill his social function as a kind of irrational benefaction given to the undeserving son by an ever-loving father. The directive given to the underling by his superior is interpreted as though it were given merely in order to help the underling in his failures and weaknesses – an infantile personalization of objectified relationships.  

... consult with influential friend about your progress. (November 22, 1952, Cancer) ... influential friend gives good pointer for securing wish, goal. (December 1, 1952, Cancer) Powerful friend really goes out of way to give you big shove forward, by explaining how he became successful, which can also apply to your choicest hopes. Be attentive. (December 8, 1952, Cancer) Powerful person unites in confidential arrangement to aid your advance forward toward practical ambitions. (December 26, 1952, Gemini) Prominent friends, realizing your most out-giving talents, abilities present interesting arrangement for bringing them to attention of all able to bring you success. Cooperate. (December 26, 1952, Cancer) Much conversation with an official or associate, especially at a social function or sporting event, reveals your talents so that real support is quickly given. (January 3, 1953, Gemini)

Executive, or responsible higher-up, if contacted by you will show right way to increase and expand present outlets. (January 3, 1953, Capricorn) An influential associate, in mood to forward your basic needs, shows how you can utilize each hour of the day to best advantage. (January 5, 1953, Cancer) A prominent person, more practical than you, willingly gives you good counsel, so listen attentively and follow this improved plan of action. (January 10, 1953, Aries) A powerful man readily gives you a bright new course of action if you evidence interest. Show your gratitude by following it carefully. (January 10, 1953, Taurus)

  Here again, the column tends to reinforce guilt feelings, compulsive patterns and various other unconscious motivations instead of working against them. It tends to make the socially dependent even more dependent psychologically. But all this does not exhaust the implications of the column's idea of the friend. The very vagueness of the term allows for its psychological utilization in various directions. One of them is the personalization of society at large. The column is incessantly concerned with the addressee's compliance with social norms. Their impact can be mitigated again if they do not appear on an objective but personal level somewhat reminiscent of the role of the raisonneur in the older comedy. Thus disinterested friends convey to the addressee what has to be done and what is best for him. They are like him, possibly involving the imagery of himself as well as of siblings on an unconscious level. It seems quite possible that this function of the friend in the implicit ideology of the column is related to significant changes in the pattern of authoritarianism which no longer invests real father figures with authority but replaces them by collectivities. The image of the friend invokes a collective authority consisting of all those who are like himself, but who know better since they are not beset by the same worries. There is something like the idea of the »Big Brother« as the ultimate authority of totalitarian states, as developed in Orwell's 1984, involved in the concept of the friends of the astrological column. Erik H. Erikson has developed the idea in psychoanalytic terms. The friends do not enforce anything, but they reveal to the addressee, as it were, that he, in his very isolation, is nevertheless one of them, that he is not isolated at all and that the irrational

benefactions they offer him are those offered by the social process itself. This picture of the messenger of society is of course easily fused with that of the higher-up who, inasmuch as he appeals to duty, is almost invariably a representative of superego demands.  

... influential man shows right way to adopt in daily living. (November 23, 1952, Aries)

  As to the friends as projections of the addressee himself, it stands out that in most cases, they represent his supposedly well-understood self-interest in a chemically pure form. It is as though his dialogue with himself when it comes to conflicts would be projected in such a way that he himself is permitted to speak like a child while his »adult« part, his ego, »speaks« to him reassuringly rather than threateningly as a friend inasmuch as it represents rationality against the momentary urges for pleasure. Yet at the same time, the friends also function in a way for the sake of his id by supposedly fulfilling desires which we may assume he would not dare fulfill himself. It is as though they were telling him, the child: »If you do what we tell you, if you only will be good, we will give you anything you want to have.« Two characteristics of the »friends« may be mentioned in this connection. First, they are often though not always introduced in the plural, which may perhaps be interpreted as sign of their representing either siblings or society at large. Lack of individualization, the notion that everybody can replace everybody else, is also conspicuous. Secondly, the image of the friend is sometimes substituted by that of the stranger or »interesting foreigner,« particularly when irrational promises and unexpected gains are concerned. While, on a more overt level, this may reflect the boredom of normal everyday life and resentment of the closed circle of people whom the addressee knows, the figure of the stranger, strongly affect-laden, may play a magical role and may help somehow to overcome suspicion of irrational promises by making their source as irrational as the promises themselves are. Incidentally, only the positive aspect of the stranger is emphasized while the negative one, like all hostility, is entirely repressed by the column. In depth-psychological reasoning one might assume that the kind of person talked to by the column is very in-groupish and does

not permit himself any »exogamic« wishes. The mysterious stranger takes care of such repressed urges. It is remarkable, however, that no traces of xenophobia, quite common in astrological magazines, appear in the column. This may best be explained by its »moderation.« Only the family background device suggests leanings of this kind. Finally the friend as a stranger may be symbolic of the very fact that an estranged society speaks, as it were, to the addressee. All these implications lead towards the expectation of some ambivalence toward the friends. It is given vent by the column rather subtly. There is a continuous distinction between »old« and »new« friends and the positive accent is surprisingly enough regularly on the new ones.  

You really want to tell off, force issue with one able to take away your present prestige; instead discuss with unusual associate best way to placate. (November 10, 1952, Capricorn) Good friend, in distress, looks to you for answer to present obligations; making new acquaintances takes you out of doldrums, brings surprise outlet for your talents. (November 10, 1952, Pisces) ... make new acquaintances tonight. (November 18, 1952, Sagittarius) ... make new acquaintances; listen to understand their methods of attaining success. (November 19, 1952, Taurus) Early get out in world, make new friends of those different in background ... (November 19, 1952, Sagittarius) ... contact recent acquaintances for best use. (November 20, 1952, Taurus) Your creative expressions please recent acquaintances who give you opportunity for added avenues, unknown before ... (November 20, 1952, Virgo)

  They to whom one is not yet accustomed, have something of the stranger and foreigner with whom they are sometimes directly identified. At least they are exciting and somehow promise pleasure; in a setup of standardization and threatening sameness, the idea of the unusual per se, is positively cathected. But above all, they fit within the present. Conversely, the old friends are at least occasionally presented as a burden, as people who are demanding and who somehow draw unwarranted claims from a relationship that

actually belongs to the past.  

Forget working angles with close companions; get out in the world ... (November 13, 1952, Capricorn) Old desires, old acquaintances seem for the moment pretty unsatisfactory ... (November 14, 1952, Sagittarius) Ridding life of sinister acquaintance makes more assets obtainable ... (November 19, 1952, Scorpio) Harassed friends try to pull you down to their level; ambitions seem long way off ... (November 21, 1952, Sagittarius)

  They might be tolerable as »pals« in good days, but the addressee should never take them too seriously, should not allow himself to be involved too deeply with them and is sometimes warned of them outright. Here we might get a glimpse into a strong appeal of the column as well as of the atmosphere of which it is expressive: the rejection of the past. Anything that is no longer »there,« that is no longer a fact is treated as absolutely nonexistent, in the words of Mephistopheles, »as good as if it had never been there,« and to be concerned with the past means only to be distracted from the tasks of the day. In spite of conventional morality and decency, the idea of loyalty is basically rejected by the column: what does not prove useful right here and now is to be abandoned. By applying this method to the »old friends«, the hostile phase of the relationship to the friends is rationalized and channelized in a way suitable to the column's over-all pattern of streamlined adjustment. Good are the friends who help you or at least band with you in order to reach some positive goal; the others are really relics of the past, exploit situations which are no longer valid, are therefore moralistically punished and left alone. Such traits reveal something of the cold undercurrent of the slick ideology promoted by the column. 36 Sometimes the column refers the addressee to the advice of the »expert.« The »expert« is a kind of in-between the higher-up (or society-at-large) and the closeness of the friend. While he is evaluated on the grounds of his objective merits as the man with the know-how, he is at the same time represented as being above vested interests, solely motivated by his objective knowledge of the matter itself and thus his advice is sugar-coated. The idea of the expert itself has gradually obtained a quasi-magical connotation, of which

the column is well aware. Through universal division of labor and extreme specialization he is not solely someone who has gathered special knowledge of some matter, but knowledge which other people, the non-experts, cannot master and in which they nevertheless have to trust implicitly since expertness is supposed to be based exclusively on rational processes. Thus the expert has gradually grown into the magus of the rationalized world whose authority has to be accepted unquestioningly without violating the taboo set upon blind authority. Since the column has continuously to reckon with the conflict between irrational authoritarian wants and needs and a rationalistic cultural veneer, the figure of the expert serves it very well.  

Unnecessary to try to carry all burdens alone; consult with experts, more experienced than self ... (November 12, 1952, Gemini) Behind-scenes huddle with personal expert with finances shows way to increase your assets. (November 17, 1952, Sagittarius) Get off with expert who is able to advise best methods to handle tense family problems requiring new approach ... (November 20, 1952, Aquarius) ... be economical in expenditures, co-operative with tax-experts. (November 22, 1952, Libra)

  The key figures in all personal relations as viewed by the column are the higher-ups, the bosses, both in their capacity in business life and in their psychological role of father substitutes; it is a safe guess that a very high percentage of all references to humans contained in the column, even if veiled by some of the categories so far discussed, actually refers to the higher-ups. Thus, during a sample period from November 10 to November 22 the categories of human beings mentioned by the column can be broken down as follows:   Category Number of times mentioned Strangers 1 Neighbor 2 Expert 5 Family 35 Friend 53 overlapping Higher-Up 48 overlapping

  Of course, they are treated more ambivalently and bi-phasically than the »friends.« On the one hand, they are a continuous threat mainly because they want some »accounting«; one has obligations towards them often beyond one's capacity, and has to obey them. But they are also blamed on a personal level for being pompous, pretentious and whatnot. Both threats, however, are mitigated, the objective one by reference either to the moral right or to the better insight of the higher-ups, their whims and irrationalities by the implication that they too have their worries, their inner problems which call for understanding, or, that they are simply ridiculous inasmuch as they are pompous or inflated personalities. Thus conflicts appear as though they need not be taken too seriously.  

... harassed higher-up who needs your perseverance to complete tough assignment ... (November 14, 1952, Capricorn) Annoyance over drudgeries eased by aiding worried associate with harder problems ... (November 16, 1952, Gemini)

  Often the friend's power is invoked as mitigating intermediary, softening up the higher-ups or taking the strain out of the relation.  

... painstaking friend cooperates with associates to bring your wish. (November 11, 1952, Scorpio) ... good friend willingly gives pointers best way you can secure personal ambitions. (November 17, 1952, Aquarius)

  The attitude toward the higher-ups recommended to the addressee is practically without exception that of giving in and respecting the hierarchical order. One of the favorite suggestions is to placate the higher-ups, the way a child would act towards his parents when they are »cross.« The emphasis is less on the fulfillment of duties per se as it is on a shrewd and flexible psychological attitude. The higher-ups must be »treated« skillfully, if one wants to keep in their good graces. In a genuinely hierarchical fashion, the relationship is depicted as that of the court favorite who wants to ingratiate himself with the princeling rather than to do his work satisfactorily.  

... keep steadfast in impressing higher-up with your innate abilities. (November 10, 1952, Aquarius) ... increase prestige by aiding officials, executives to make their jobs more successful. (November 13, 1952, Aquarius)

  At times the ungrumbling attitude towards superiors takes the paradoxical aspect of bribery. The weaker is supposed to invite the stronger, to take him out and to indulge in similar ventures in order to, as it is put euphemistically, achieve a satisfactory human relationship. 37   ... invite powerful persons into your home.

... bring into open your appreciation of higher-ups.

(December 13, 1952, Leo)

(December 24, 1952, Taurus) Attend a distinguished party or gathering; entertain influential individuals if time permits. (January 13, 1953, Capricorn) Invite influential higher-ups to party and impress with your abilities. (January 18, 1953, Libra)

  It is as though the notion of neo-feudalism which lurks in the back of the columnist's mind, would carry with itself the association of the serfs paying tribute to the master – an idea equally retrogressive socially and psychologically. Of course, the rationalization is always the egalitarian one that the higher-up and the addressee are socially on an equal footing and that the latter can invite his boss without any hesitation. The hint that such service will be appreciated is rarely absent. This idea is in accordance with the other pole of the bi-phasic approach to the higher-up. If the friends are often mere cloaks of the superiors, the higher-ups are frequently presented as friends somewhat reminiscent of a stern and demanding father who would use the intervals of his tyranny in order to assure his kids that he is their best friend and oppresses them only for their own sake. This goes together with a glorification of the image of the higher-up whose position of success is supposed to be the result of his innate qualities, as though those who have the office had also the brain: Wem Gott ein Amt gibt, dem gibt er auch den Verstand (On whom God bestows an office, he also bestows intelligence). Thus

hierarchical relationships are mirrored by the column in an apologetic and fetishistic manner.  

Friends, partners, opponents will listen with reason to any intelligent plan you submit, for they are open-minded, willing to replace hard-headed attitude with joint arrangement. (December 2, 1952, Aries) Executive, official very exact about every detail irks your lofty aims but shows right way for you to attain worldly honor, popularity, credit ... (December 3, 1952, Leo) Meticulous executive, higher-up shows how routines can be expanded wisely. (December 8, 1952, Sagittarius) A »dressing down« by executive, official or government is fine for it shows you how you are now faring financially. (January 10, 1953, Aquarius)

  Often simple prestige terms such as »important personality« are employed in order to add a halo to the higher-ups' more favorable position.   ... influential executive. ... influential executive. ... prominent persons ... ... prominent person ... ... driving, important person ...

(November 10, 1952, Scorpio) (November 26, 1952, Aries) (December 22, 1952, Libra) (December 24, 1952, Capricorn) (January 22, 1952, Gemini)

  The more generalized attitude to be derived from the dependent, shrewdly meek attitude towards the higher-ups is one of general reconciliation, particularly of placating opponents, of »playing up« to them. The columnist figures that to a degree everybody fails to live up to his duties and lays himself open to some kind of scolding either by an insatiable superior or by a nagging wife. Whenever the reader runs into such difficulties, he should, according to the column, not allow things to come to a head, but rather to seek a way out of it by taking a conciliatory attitude, talking in a friendly manner and winning over opponents who might finally be his best friends. The idea of talking plays an important role in this respect.

This is a final corroboration of the weight of orality within the psychological concept of the column. The addressee is encouraged to speak, speaking itself being a hybrid between a passive giving-in attitude and the aggressive impulses to »speak up against somebody.« This advice is the more promising since the oppressed really want to speak in the depth of their heart but have to repress this wish. An attempt is being made to put this urge into the service of realism and conformity. The net result of the practice furthered by the column is that conflicts should either be altogether avoided or settled by clever meekness – in fact, by a behavior reminiscent of that of the woman who wants to get the better of the man on whom she depends. By contrast, there are no concrete references to autonomous and independent behavior.

 Conclusion   In view of the limited and highly specific nature of the material scrutinized, no »generalization« in the strict sense seems to be possible. However, the material suggests certain perspectives of a somewhat broader nature. While largely having been drawn as inferences from the specific interpretations attempted, they should also provide a background for the whole study and particularly make it understandable why it was carried through. Though we are not primarily interested in astrology per se, as was pointed out before, it may be well to remember that the astrological fad, and analogous ones, are widespread enough and exercise sufficient influence as to warrant an investigation of their own. Though an increase of the astrological fashion cannot be »proved« for obvious reasons, since no comparative figures from the past are available, it seems quite likely. Thus, in German newspapers, the signs of the zodiac under which a person was born have come to be frequently mentioned in lonely-hearts advertisements. If one attributes such an increase to the mounting exploitation of superstitious leanings alone, a higher distribution of astrological material, this seems hardly to suffice as an explanation since this increase of material would scarcely work unless there were some susceptibility for it among the people. It is this susceptibility much more than astrology as such which deserves attention; we want to utilize our studies of astrology as a kind of key to more widespread social and psychological potentialities. In other words, we want to analyze astrology in order to find out what it indicates as a »symptom« of some tendencies of our society as well as of typical psychological trends among those this society embraces. Obviously, the first concept that comes to mind in this connection is that of social and psychological dependence. Our analysis of the Los Angeles Times column has pointed out in detail how dependency needs of the audience are presupposed, fostered and exploited continuously. However, in terms of the specificity of contemporary astrology, the concept of dependence as such seems to be somewhat too abstract as to lead us very far. Throughout

history in organized society, the majority of people were somehow dependent and in some phases probably more so than today. This, however, has to be somewhat qualified. No matter whether the individual is »freer« today in many respects than he used formerly to be, the socialization of life, the »seizure« of the individual by innumerable channels of organization has certainly increased. Suffice it to state as an illustration that the traditional dichotomy between work and leisure tends to become more and more reduced and that socially controlled »leisure activities« take over more and more of the individual's spare time. While the basic dependence of the individual on the social body, and in a highly irrational form, has always prevailed, this dependence was at least »veiled« to many people during the classical era of liberalism where people had come to think of themselves as self-sustaining monads. This veil has now been drawn apart and people begin to face their own dependence much more than they used to 80 years ago; largely because the processes of social control are no longer those of an anonymous market which decides the economic fate of the individual in terms of supply and demand. The intermediary processes between social control and the individual tend to vanish and the individual has once again to obey the direct verdict of the groups at the helm of society. It may be this mounting obviousness of dependence rather than an increase of dependence per se which makes itself felt today and prepares the minds of the people for astrology as well as for totalitarian creeds. Paradoxically, a higher amount of insight might result in a reversion to attitudes that prevailed long before the rise of modern capitalism. For, while people recognize their dependence and often enough venture the opinion that they are mere pawns, it is extremely difficult for them to face this dependence unmitigated. Society is made of those whom it comprises. If the latter would fully admit their dependence on man-made conditions, they would somehow have to blame themselves, would have to recognize not only their impotence but also that they are the cause of this impotence and would have to take responsibilities which today are extremely hard to take. This may be one of the reasons why they like so much to project their dependence upon something else, be it a conspiracy of Wall Street bankers or the constellation of the stars. What drives people into the arms of the various kinds of »prophets of deceit« is not only their sense of dependence and their wish to

attribute this dependence to some »higher« and ultimately more justifiable sources, but it is also their wish to reinforce their own dependence, not to have to take matters into their own hands – a wish, true, which is ultimately engendered by the pressure under which they live. One may say that the adepts of astrology frequently play and overplay their dependence; a hypothesis which would fit well with the observation that so many followers of astrology do not seem quite to believe but rather take an indulgent, semi-ironical attitude towards their own conviction. In other words, astrology cannot be simply interpreted as an expression of dependence but must be also considered as an ideology for dependence, as an attempt to strengthen and somehow justify painful conditions which seem to be more tolerable if an affirmative attitude is taken towards them. Anyhow, the world appears to most people today more as a »system« than ever before, covered by an all-comprising net of organization with no loopholes where the individual could »hide« in face of the ever-present demands and tests of a society ruled by a hierarchical business setup and coming pretty close to what we call »verwaltete Welt,« a world caught by administration. It is this reality situation which has so many and obvious similitaries with paranoid systems of thinking that it seems to invite such patterns of intellectual behavior, as well as compulsive attitudes. The similarity between the social and the paranoid system consists not only of the closedness and centralized structure as such but also of the fact that the »system« under which most people feel they work has to them an irrational aspect itself. That is to say, they feel that everything is linked up with everything else and that they have no way out, but at the same time the whole mechanism is so complicated that they fail to understand its raison d'être and even more, they suspect that this closed and systematic organization of society does not really serve their wants and needs, but has a fetishistic, self-perpetuating »irrational« quality, strangely alienated from the life that is thus being structured. Thus people even of supposedly »normal« mind are prepared to accept systems of delusions for the simple reason that it is too difficult indeed to distinguish such systems from the equally inexorable and equally opaque one under which they actually have to live out their lives. This is pretty well reflected by astrology as well as by the two brands of totalitarian states which also claim to have a key for

everything, know all the answers, and reduce the complex to simple and mechanical inferences, doing away with anything that is strange and unknown and at the same time fail to explain anything. The system thus characterized, the »verwaltete Welt,« has a threatening aspect per se. In order to do full justice to such needs as the one satisfied by astrology, one has to be aware of the ever-threatening impact of society. The feeling of being »caught,« the impossibility for most people to regard themselves by any stretch of imagination as the masters of their own fate, is only one of the elements of this threat. Another one, more deep-lying both psychologically and sociologically, is that our social system, in spite of its closedness and the ingenuity of its technological functioning, seems actually to move towards self-destruction. The sense of an underlying crisis has never disappeared since the first World War and most people realize, at least dimly, that the continuity of the social process and somehow of their own capacity of reproducing their life, is no longer due to supposedly »normal« economic processes but to factors such as universal rearmament, which by themselves breed destruction while they are apparently the only means of self-perpetuation. This sense of threat is real enough and some of its expressions such as the A- and H-bombs are about to outrun the wildest neurotic fears and destructive fantasies. The more people profess official optimism, the more profoundly they are probably affected by this mood of doom, the idea, correct or erroneous, that the present state of affairs somehow must lead towards a total explosion and that the individual can do very little about it. The sense of doom may today obtain a peculiarly sinister coloring by the fact that the present form of social existence seems to go down whereas no new and higher form of social organization appears on the horizon. The »wave of the future« seems to consummate the very fears that are produced by the conditions of the present. Astrology takes care of this mood by translating it into a pseudorational form, thus somehow localizing free-floating anxieties in some definite symbolism, but it also gives some vague and diffused comfort by making the senseless appear as though it had some hidden and grandiose sense while at the same time corroborating that this sense can neither be sought in the realm of the human nor can properly be grasped by humans. The combination of the realistic and the irrational in astrology may ultimately be

accounted for by the fact it represents a threat and a remedy in one, just as certain psychotics may start a fire and at the same time prepare its extinction. In spite of this comfort, astrology mirrors exactly the opaqueness of the empirical world and implies so little transcendent faith, is so opaque itself that it can be easily accepted by supposedly sceptical, disillusioned people. The intellectual attitude it is expressive of is one of disoriented agnosticism. The cult of God has been replaced by the cult of facts, just as the fatal entities of astrology, the stars, are themselves viewed as facts, things, ruled by mechanical laws. One could not grasp the specificity of astrology and of the whole frame of mind it stands for if one would simply call it a reversion to older states of metaphysics: what it is characteristic of is the transfiguration of a world of things into quasi-metaphysical powers. Auguste Comte's postulate that positivism should become a kind of religion is fulfilled ironically – science is hypostatized as an ultimate, absolute truth. The astrologist, as was pointed out in our brief survey of magazines, is very anxious to present it as a science. It may be mentioned in passing that just adherents of philosophical empiricism seem to be more susceptible for organized secondary superstition than speculative thinkers: extreme empiricism, teaching absolute obedience of the mind to given data, »facts,« has no principle such as the idea of reason, by which to distinguish the possible from the impossible, and thus the development of enlightenment overreaches itself and produces a mentality often no longer able to resist mythological temptations. It may also be mentioned that the modern science, which has replaced more and more categories which once interpreted events as though they were meaningful tends to promote a kind of opaqueness which at least for the uninitiated is hard to distinguish from an equally opaque and non-transparent thesis such as the dependence of the individual human fate on stellar constellations. While the astrological way of thinking is indicative of a »disillusioned« world, it enhances disillusion by surrendering the idea of the human even more completely to blind nature than it actually is. Yet astrology is not merely an enlarged duplicate of an opaque and reified world. While people have come to be conditioned in such a way as to be unable to think or conceive of anything that is

not like the existent, they want at the same time desperately to get away from the existent. The drabness of a commodity society which does not allow any quality to exist for its own sake, but levels down everything to a function of universal exchange seems to be unbearable, and any panacea is embraced that promises to gild it. Instead of the complicated, strenuous, and difficult intellectual processes which might overcome the feeling of drabness by understanding what really makes the world so drab, a desperate short cut is sought which offers both spurious understanding and flight into a supposedly higher realm. More than in any other respect, astrology resembles in this dimension other mass media such as the movies: its message appears as something metaphysically meaningful, something where the spontaneity of life is being restored while actually reflecting the very same reified conditions which seem to be dispensed with through an appeal to the »absolute.« The comparison of astrology with religious mysticism, dubious in more than one respect, is invalid particularly inasmuch as the mystery celebrated by astrology is empty – the movements of the stars, supposedly explaining everything, explain nothing, and even if the whole hypothesis were true it would have to be explained why and how the stars come to determine human life, an explanation that hasn't even been attempted by astrology. A veneer of scientific rationality has been fused with blind acceptance of undemonstrable contentions and the spurious exaltation of the factual. This strange structure of astrology is significant, however, because it can itself be reduced to an all-important mundane structure: the division of labor which is basic to the whole life process of society. One may well concede that the isolated elements of astrology are rational. On the one hand, there are stars and their laws as explored by the science of astronomy, and the astrologists seem to take care to keep their statements, as far as they are concerned with celestial events, strictly in line with those movements which actually take place according to astronomy. On the other hand, there is the empirical life of man, particularly with regard to typical social situations and psychological conflicts, and our analysis has shown that the astrologists display quite a keen and sensible insight into life; that they speak out of experience, without any traces of delusion. The »mystery« of astrology, in other words,

the element of irrationality and, incidentally the sole element that accounts for its mass appeal, is the way these two »unrelated« realms are related to each other. There is nothing irrational about astrology except its decisive contention that these two spheres of rational knowledge are interconnected, whereas not the slightest evidence of such an interconnection can be offered. This mystery, however, is not merely »superstition.« It is the negative expression of the organization of work, and, more specifically of the organization of science. There is but one world and its division into disconnected spheres is not due to being as such, but to the organization of human knowledge of being. It is in a way »arbitrary,« though unavoidable in terms of historical development, to keep, say, the science of astronomy and the science of psychology completely apart. This arbitrariness leaves its scars in knowledge itself; there is a break between the two sciences, continuity ends for all practical purposes, and the systematic attempts at a unification of the sciences remain extraneous and formalistic. The awareness of the gap is reflected by astrology. On the one hand, it is an attempt, once again in short-cut fashion, to bridge the gap and to relate, with a stroke, what is unrelated and what, one ultimately feels, must somehow be linked together. On the other hand, the very fact that the two realms are unrelated, that there is a void between them, a kind of no-man's-land, affords an ideal opportunity to settle there and to come forward with unsubstantiated claims. It is in fact this very unrelatedness, the irrationality in the relations between astronomy and psychology, for which there is no common denominator, no »rationale,« which affords astrology with the semblance of justification in its pretense to be mysterious, irrational knowledge itself. The opaqueness of astrology is nothing but the opaqueness prevailing between various scientific areas which could not be meaningfully brought together. Thus one might say that irrationality is in itself the outgrowth of the principle of rationalization which was evolved for the sake of higher efficiency, the division of labor. What Spengler called the modern caveman, dwells in the cavity, as it were, between organized sciences which do not cover the universality of existence. Of course, the basic deception, the arbitrary connection of the disconnected, could easily be grasped in terms of present scientific knowledge. But it is significant of the situation that this knowledge

is actually »esoteric« inasmuch as few people seem to be capable of drawing such consequences, whereas self-styled esoteric knowledge such as astrology has come to be extremely popular. It was pointed out before that astrology, just like racism and other intellectual sects, presupposes a state of semi-erudition. When evaluating astrology as a symptom of the decline of erudition, however, one has to be cautious not to indulge in superficial statements of official cultural pessimism. It would be irresponsible to allege such a decline in general and quantitative terms, not only because no valid comparison with former periods seems to be possible, but also because in many respects erudition is likely to be more widespread today than it used to be, i.e., layers of the population which formerly had no access to culture and knowledge are now brought into contact with the arts and sciences through the modern means of mass communications. The state of mind that can properly be called semi-erudite seems to be indicative of a structural change rather than of the distribution of cultural facilities. What is really happening is that, concomitantly with the ever-increasing belief in »facts,« information has a tendency to replace intellectual penetration and reflection. The element of »synthesis« in the classical philosophical sense seems to be more and more lacking; there is, on the one hand, a wealth of material and knowledge, but the relationship is more one of formal order and classification than one which would open up the supposedly stubborn facts by interpretation and understanding. The rigid dichotomy maintained in very influential philosophical schools today between logical formalism and a kind of empiricism that regards every theory only as the expression of expectations to be fulfilled by data later to be found is symptomatic of this intellectual situation. It is, in a way, mirrored by astrology too, and it may well be said that astrology presents the bill for the neglect of interpretative thinking for the sake of fact-gathering. There are, on the one hand, the »facts« both of stellar movements and well-known psychological reactions, but there is no real synthesis even attempted, no relationship that makes sense is established – and probably cannot be established between two spheres so widely divergent. Instead an entirely extraneous subsumption of human events under astronomical laws is attempted, externalization, as will be remembered, being an essential facet of astrology in all respects. The element of semi-erudition shows itself

in the failure of the mind to recognize the fallacy not of the material thus interconnected, but of the spuriousness of the link. Lack of »understanding,« disorientation in a complex and at the same time fatal social setup and also, possibly, confusion created through misunderstandings of the recent developments of natural sciences (particularly of the replacement of the concept of matter by that of energy which seems to invite wild constructs) contribute to the readiness to relate the unrelated – a pattern of thinking which, by the way, is well-known to psychiatry. Under this viewpoint, astrology may well be defined as an organized system of »ideas of reference.« While the naive persons who take more or less for granted what happens hardly ask the questions astrology pretends to answer and while really educated and intellectually fully developed persons would look through the fallacy of astrology, it is an ideal stimulus for those who have started to reflect, who are dissatisfied with the veneer of mere existence and who are looking for a »key,« but who are at the same time incapable of the sustained intellectual effort required by theoretical insight and also lack the critical training without which it would be utterly futile to attempt to understand what is happening. Precisely this type, both sceptical and insufficiently equipped intellectually, a type hardly capable of integrating the various intellectual functions torn apart by the division of labor, seems to be on the upsurge today. Thus astrology is an expression of the impasse reached by the division of intellectual labor not only in objective terms, according to its intrinsic structure, but also subjectively, being directed at those whose minds have been conditioned and warped by that division of labor. The astrological fad can mainly be explained as the commercial exploitation of this frame of mind, both presupposing and corroborating retrogressive tendencies. In as far it is part and parcel of the all-comprising pattern of the culture industry; in fact, the specific ideology promoted by a publication such as the Los Angeles Times column is pretty much the same as that emerging from the movies and television although the type of people at which it aims is probably somewhat different – there is some »division of labor« also among the various mass media, mainly with regard to the various kinds of customers which each medium attempts to ensnare. Primarily, astrological publications »sell« due to the objective and subjective characteristics so far outlined. In view of

this commercial success, astrology is taken up by more powerful economic agencies which take it away from the crystal-gazer atmosphere, as it were (just as the big studios took away the movies from the amusement park booths), purge it of its manifestly crazy traits, make it »respectable« and thus utilize it commercially on a large scale. This, of course, is only possible inasmuch as the inherent ideology of astrology harmonizes with what the interests vested in this area want to promote. It is of little importance whether, as it seems likely, conformity and obedience are a priori inherent in astrology or whether the ideology spotted by our analysis of the Los Angeles Times column is due to astrology's integration into a larger ideological framework. Speaking in general terms, the astrological ideology resembles, in all its major characteristics, the mentality of the »high scorers« of The Authoritarian Personality. It was, in fact, this similarity which induced us to undertake the present study. Apart from the features brought out in our analysis, some more traits of the high scorer cropping up in the column may be mentioned. Here goes the over-all externalization promoted by astrology, the idea that everything negative is due only to external, mostly physical circumstances, but that otherwise »everything is fine,« the continuous stress on conventional wholesomeness. All this is indicative of rigid psychological defenses against instinctual urges. The psychological syndrome, however, expressed by astrology and propagandized by its advice is only the means to an end, the promotion of a social ideology. It offers the advantage of veiling all deeper-lying causes of distress and thus promoting acceptance of the given. Moreover, by strengthening the sense of fatality, dependence, and obedience, it paralyses the will to change objective conditions in any respect and relegates all worries to a private plane promising a cure-all by the very same compliance which prevents a change of conditions. It can easily be seen how well this suits the over-all purpose of the prevailing ideology of today's culture industry; to reproduce the status quo within the mind of the people. It should not be overlooked that within the total setup of the ideology of mass culture, astrology represents a »speciality.« The nucleus of its doctrine as well as of its adherents shows many characteristics of a sect. But just this sect-like character, the claim of something particular and apocryphal to be all-comprehensive and

exclusive, is indicative of a most sinister social potential: the transition of an emasculated liberal ideology to a totalitarian one. Just as those who can read the phony signs of the stars believe that they are in the know, the followers of totalitarian parties believe that their special panaceas are universally valid and feel justified in imposing them as a general rule. The paradoxical idea of a one-party state – while the idea of »party,« being derived from »part« is itself indicative of a plurality – is the consummation of a trend feebly presaged by the opinionated, inaccessible attitude of the astrological adept who defends his creed by hook or crook without ever entering into a real argument, who has auxiliary hypotheses in order to defend himself even where his statements are blatantly erroneous and who ultimately cannot be spoken to, can probably not be reached at all, and lives on a kind of narcissistic island. It is this aspect which ultimately justifies the psychiatric emphasis given to our study, the interest psychiatry has to take in astrology and the psychiatric nature of many of our interpretations. Again, great care has to be taken not to over-simplify the relationship between astrology and psychosis. Some of the complexities of this relationship have been stated in the text itself (see above, pp. [33 ff]). It should be emphasized that there is neither justification for primitively calling adepts of astrology psychotics, while, as has been shown, it also serves the function of a defense against psychosis, nor to postulate that astrology as such is indicative of people becoming crazier and crazier, or that paranoia as such is on the increase. However, the hypothesis may be ventured that various historical situations and social settings favor various psychological syndromes and »bring out« and accentuate distinct types of possibilities ever-present in human beings. Thus nineteenth century liberalism with the idea of the small independent entrepreneur who accumulates wealth by saving has probably elicited character formations of the anal type more than, say, the eighteenth century, where the ego ideal was more largely determined by the feudal characterological imagery which would be called in Freudian terms »genital« 38 – although closer scrutiny would probably show that this aristocratic ego-ideal hardly had so much basis in fact as romantic desires would have it. Anyway, it seems that in eras of decline of social systems, with the insecurity and anxiety widespread in such eras, paranoid tendencies in people

are evinced and often channelized by institutions wishing to distract such tendencies from their objective reasons. Thus organized flagellantism and apocalyptic fantasies among the masses were characteristic of the first phase of the decay of the feudal system, and witch-hunting of the period of Counter-Reformation when an attempt was being made to artificially reconstruct a social order that by that time had become obsolete. Similarly, today's world, which offers such a strong reality basis for everybody's sense of being persecuted, calls for paranoic characters. Hitler was certainly psychologically abnormal, but it was just this abnormality which created the spell that allowed his success with the German masses. It may well be said that it is precisely the element of madness that paralyses and attracts followers of mass movements of all kinds; a structure to which it is a corollary that people never quite fully believe what they pretend to believe and therefore overdo their own beliefs, are prone to translate them into violent action at short notice. The movement »moral rearmament« would never have gained its momentum by its general humanitarian aims alone, but its exhibitionist rite of public confession and its hostile attitude against sex, so strongly reminiscent of the strengthening of defenses throughout other mass media, seem to act as a real stimulus. One may well compare the function of these confessions to the forced confessions of the supposed traitors in Russia and the satellite states behind the iron curtain, which far from disillusioning Communist followers in the free world often seem to cast a kind of magic spell and to be swallowed hook, line and sinker. Astrology has to be regarded as a little model of much greater social feeding on paranoid dispositions. Insofar it is a symptom of retrogression of society as a whole which allows some insight into the illness itself. It denotes a recurrence of the unconscious, steered for purposes of social control which is finally irrational itself. Perhaps it may be regarded as symbolic that, at the beginning of the era that seems to come to its end, the philosopher Leibniz who was the first to introduce the concept of the unconscious, was also the one who stated that, notwithstanding his tolerant and peaceable mind – he sometimes signed himself Pacidius – he felt profound contempt only for those activities of the mind which aimed at deception and named as the main example for such activities astrology.

 Fußnoten   [ 1 Richard Max Brickner, Is Germany Incurable? introd. Margaret Mead and Edward A. Strecker (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1943).]   2 Sigmund Freud, »The ›Uncanny‹« (1919) Collected Papers, trans. Joan Riviere, vol. 4 (London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1925), pp. 368–407.   [ 3 George Devereux, ed., Psychoanalysis and the Occult (New York: International Universities Press, 1953).]   4 Charles Horton Cooley, Social Organization: A Study of the Larger Mind (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909), Chapter III; Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1921), pp. 50, 56–57, 282–287.   5 It should be noted that the oafish attitude taken by the magazines against what it regards as inferior remnants of outdated superstition does not prevent it from at least a kind of official solidarity with competing rackets of a pseudoscientific tinge of our own time. Good fellowship among all those occupied with esoteric knowledge is promoted. One serious reference is made to »our numerological friends.«   6 The uniformity of the material, though it has certainly its psychological aspects or those of psychological calculation, is probably explained primarily by the fact that the magazines are published by a very few centralized agencies.   [ 7 »Cultural industry« appears in the original. This translation of Kulturindustrie has been replaced by the nearer equivalent, »the culture industry,« which has become standard in recent English translations of Adorno's works.]   8 In some respect he is in a position similar to that of the political

demagogue who has to make some promises to everybody and has to figure out what is likely to worry most the majority of his audience.   9 »By pseudo-individualization we mean endowing cultural mass production with a halo of free choice or open market on the basis of standardization itself.« T.W. Adorno, »On Popular Music,« Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, 9 (1941), p. 25.   10 Theodor Reik, Listening with the Third Ear: The Inner Experience of a Psychoanalyst (New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1948), pp. 458–463. Reik applies the term to the jargon of semiprofessionals. This jargon has, in the meantime, become socialized.   11 Herta Herzog, »On Borrowed Experience: An Analysis of Listening to Daytime Sketches,« Studies in Philosophy and Social Science 9 (1941), pp. 65–91.   12 Observations of a closely related nature were presented in the paper »Psychiatric Theory and Institutional Context,« read by Dr. Alfred H. Stanton at the 109th Annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (Los Angeles, May 7, 1953).   13 Sigmund Freud, »Einige psychische Folgen des anatomischen Geschlechtsunterschieds«, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 14: Werke aus den Jahren 1925–1931 (London: Imago Publishing Co., 1948), pp. 24ff.; Idem, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 15: Neue Folge der Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse (London: Imago Publishing Co., 1940), pp. 134ff.   14 Sigmund Freud, »Zwangshandlungen und Religionsübungen«, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 7: Werke aus den Jahren 1906–1909 (London: Imago Publishing Co., 1941), pp. 129–139. Idem, »Ueber libidinöse Typen,« Gesammelte Werke, vol. 14, p. 511.   15 Erich Fromm, »Zum Gefühl der Ohnmacht,« Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 6 (1937) pp. 95–118; T.W. Adorno, »On Popular Music,« Studies in Philosophy and Social Science 9 (1941), pp.

17–48.   16 Cf. Sigmund Freud, »Neue Folge der Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse: Angst und Triebleben«, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 15, pp. 105–106.   17 Cf. Ibid., p. 108; Idem, »Charakter und Analerotik,« Gesammelte Werke, vol. 7, pp. 203–209.   18 Cf. Sigmund Freud, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 11: Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse (London: Imago Publishing Co., 1940), pp. 369ff.; Idem, »Jenseits des Lustprinzips,« Gesammelte Werke, vol. 13: Jenseits des Lustprinzips; Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse; Das Ich und das Es (London: Imago Publishing Co., 1940), pp. 3ff.   19 Erich Fromm, »Zum Gefühl der Ohnmacht,« pp. 103–104.   20 Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1945), pp. 153–154.   21 Ibid., p. 270.   22 Ibid., p. 291.   23 Martha Wolfenstein and Nathan Leites, Movies: A Psychological Study (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1950), p. 21.   24 Cf. Hermann Nunberg, »Ichstärke und Ichschwäche«, Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse und Imago 24 (1939), pp. 49–61.   25 This dichotomy goes back to the characterological typology developed by C.G. Jungs Psychologische Typen (Zürich, 1921), pp. 473ff. It should be emphasized that just a psychologist who claimed to give metaphysical depth to supposedly shallow psychoanalytic concepts, is particularly prone to be taken up by commercial popularization.  

26 Cf. Sigmund Freud, »Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse: die Libidotheorie und der Narzißmus«, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 11, pp. 427–446.   27 Cf. Karen Horney, New Ways in Psychoanalysis (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1939); Idem, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle toward Self-Realization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1950); Idem, The Neurotic Personality of our Time (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1937).   28 It may be mentioned in passing that the historical origins of the concept of intuition coincide with the extreme great rationalistic systems of seventeenth century philosophy. Thus to Spinoza, intuition is the highest type of knowledge, though the term is used by him in a sense somewhat different from the current one. In Leibniz, the concept of the unconscious is introduced by ways of mathematical reflections on subliminal knowledge under the title of »petites perceptions.« The history of intuitionism is the night side of accidental rationalism.   29 Cf. T.W. Adorno, et al., The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950).   30 A study on science fiction would be worthwhile. This wide-spread fad may owe its tremendous popularity to its ingenious solution of the conflict between irrationality and common sense. The science fiction reader need no longer feel ashamed of being a superstitious and gullible person. The fantasies of his own making, no matter how irrational they are, and how much projective content of either individual or collective nature may be implied, appear no longer as irreconcilable to reality. Thus, the term »another world« which once had a metaphysical meaning, is here brought down to the level of astronomy and obtains an empirical ring. Ghosts and horrible threats often reviving repulsive freakish entitites of olden times, are treated as natural and scientific objects coming out of space from another star and preferably from another galaxy although to the best of today's biological knowledge, the »law of convergence,« would probably lead even on distant stars to developments much more similar to those on earth than it appears in

the secularizations of demonology enjoyed by the science fiction reader. Man's own reification and mechanization is projected back upon reality in the very widespread robot literature. Incidentally, science fiction consummates a long tradition of American literature dealing with the irrational while at the same time denying its irrationality. Edgar Allan Poe is in various respects the inventor of science fiction, no less than of the detective story.   31 Cf. Sigmund Freud, »Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse«, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 11, pp. 211ff.; 341 ff.   32 Cf. Ibid., pp. 383–384; Idem, »Hemmung, Symptom und Angst«, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 14, pp. 136–137; Idem, »Neue Folge der Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse«, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 15, pp. 93–94.   33 Cf. T.W. Adorno, »How to Look at Television,« The Quarterly of Film, Radio and Television 8 (spring, 1954) pp. 213–235.   34 Cf. Anna Freud, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense, trans. Cecil Baines (New York: International Universities Press, 1946), pp. 117–131.   35 Cf. Max Horkheimer, »Authoritarianism and the Family Today,« The Family: Its Function and Destiny, ed. Ruth Nanda Anshen (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949), pp. 359–374.   36 Attention should be drawn to the analogy with the well-known anti-Semitic division into »good« and »bad« Jews. Cf. Adorno et al., The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 622ff.   37 It may be mentioned in passing that the language of the column on the whole is euphemistic and that all negative aspects of life are expressed by neutral or even pleasant terms which one has to analyze pretty carefully in order to get at the reality basis. Most of the examples so far offered are at the same time examples of euphemism. The superstitious element in this device, the fear of summoning some demon by mentioning his name is well-known and probably utilized. On an overt level, the fear of offending

anybody plays a large role. Neither does the column want to offend the addressee by designating his weakness with its right name nor does the addressee want to offend the higher-up even in his thoughts.   38 Sigmund Freud, »Neue Folge der Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse«, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 15, p. 105.  

 Schuld und Abwehr Eine qualitative Analyse zum Gruppenexperiment Aus: Gruppenexperiment. Ein Studienbericht. Bearbeitet von Friedrich Pollock. Geleitwort von Franz Böhm. Frankfurt a.M.: Europäische Verlagsanstalt 1955. (Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie. Im Auftrag des Instituts für Sozialsforschung hrsg. von Theodor W. Adorno und Walter Dirks. Bd. 2.)   Das abgedruckte Kapitel »Schuld und Abwehr« wurde von Adorno allein geschrieben; die »Einleitung« zum Gesamtband, der »Colburn-Brief« sowie die »Vorbemerkung« zum dritten Teil des »Gruppenexperiments« – deren Kenntnis erforderlich ist, um das Adornosche Kapitel zu verstehen – stellen Kollektivarbeiten des Instituts für Sozialforschung dar.

 Vorwort   Die Studie, über die der Band berichtet, war die erste, die das Institut für Sozialforschung nach seiner Neugründung 1950 in Angriff genommen hat. Das Material, das ihr zugrunde liegt, wurde im Winter 1950/51 gesammelt. Die damit gesetzte Grenze seiner Aktualität ist vorweg zu ziehen. Der Beitrag erscheint dem Institut als wesentlich methodologischer Art. Um volle Verbindlichkeit zu gewinnen, bedürfte es nicht nur der im Text vielfach geforderten Verbesserungen des Verfahrens, sondern es wäre auch dringend erwünscht, daß man die Untersuchung selbst in der gegenwärtigen Situation wiederholen, ja daß man sie laufend weiterführen und ein Archiv von Bandaufnahmen und Protokollen anlegen könnte. Ein solches »Museum« käme nicht nur Soziologen und Psychologen zugute, sondern vor allem auch den Historikern, denen es primäres Quellenmaterial von ganz neuem Typus an die Hand gäbe. Zu einer derartigen Fortsetzung anzuregen, ist nicht die letzte unter den Absichten der Veröffentlichung. Das Gruppenexperiment entsprang unmittelbar aus der Formulierung der Aufgaben, die dem Institut bei seiner Wiedererrichtung im Frühjahr 1950 gestellt waren. Erziehung eines soziologischen Nachwuchses, Wiederbelebung der großen deutschen theoretischen Tradition, Verbindung dieser Tradition mit den neuen, vor allem in Amerika, Frankreich und England entwickelten empirischen Methoden, Ausbildung von Studenten in diesen Techniken durch Teilnahme an den Forschungen selbst – das waren wesentliche Gesichtspunkte. Es sollte ein Beitrag geleistet werden, die Oberfläche der öffentlichen Meinung, so wie sie sich offiziell bekundet, zu durchdringen und ein wissenschaftlich fundiertes Urteil zu ermöglichen, wie charakteristische Gruppen der Bevölkerung der Bundesrepublik zu weltanschaulichen und politischen Fragen tatsächlich stehen. Franz Böhm, der an der Wiedererrichtung des Instituts wesentlichen Anteil genommen und es unermüdlich gefördert hat, danken wir für sein Geleitwort [ 1 ] , das mehr über die thematischen Interessen der Studie sagt, als wir selbst uns zutrauen dürften. Uns bleibt nichts hinzuzufügen als die Bitte, man möge nun unsere Ergebnisse, über die wir selbst

bescheiden denken, nicht überschätzen und überfordern. Aufs Wissenschaftliche ist an dieser Stelle nicht näher einzugehen: das geschieht in der Einleitung. Hier möchten wir nur all denen danken, die uns geholfen und die an der Studie mitgewirkt haben. Die Durchführung der Erhebungen wurde geleitet von Diedrich Osmer, dem in Norddeutschland E. Herzog, in Süddeutschland C. Sauermann zur Seite standen. Ein großer Stab von Assistenten und Mitarbeitern nahm an der Leitung der Diskussionen, den Aufnahmen, den Transkriptionen und anderen Aufgaben der Materialsammlung teil. Die Auswertung erfolgte in weitem Maße kollektiv. Insbesondere wurde der Plan zur quantitativen Erfassung der Diskussionsbeiträge, das »Schlüsselverzeichnis«, in regelmäßigen gemeinsamen Sitzungen aller wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter hergestellt. Für beratende Mitwirkung bei der Auswertung haben wir zumal Hertha Herzog (New York) und Helmuth Plessner (Göttingen) zu danken. Besonderer Dank aber gebührt den vielen Personen und Stellen, die beim Zustandekommen der einzelnen Diskussionen mitgewirkt haben, sowie den Diskussionsrednern und -rednerinnen selbst. Dadurch, daß jeder von ihnen einen Abend geopfert und sich selbst geäußert hat, ist die Studie überhaupt erst möglich geworden. Im Mai 1953 hat das Institut auf einer zweitägigen Konferenz mit einem größeren Kreis von Gelehrten und Persönlichkeiten des öffentlichen Lebens Verfahrensweisen und Ergebnisse der Gruppenstudie besprochen. Die Diskussion hat sowohl für die weitere Interpretation des Materials als auch für künftige Forschungen fruchtbare Anregungen gebracht. Eine Gesamtredaktion der aus dem Kreise des Instituts auf dieser Tagung gehaltenen Vorträge wurde von Marianne Regensburger besorgt. Zunächst war vorgesehen, ihren Bericht zu veröffentlichen. Wenn wir uns dann doch entschlossen, von der Form eines Tagungsberichts abzusehen und auf die höchst umfangreichen Originalberichte zurückzugehen, so leitete uns dabei nicht nur das Interesse, die quantitativen Probleme eingehender zu erörtern, als in den Vorträgen geschehen konnte, sondern ebenso auch der Wunsch, mehr primäres Material vorzulegen. Das Urteil über unser Beginnen hängt wesentlich an der Kenntnis der konkreten Äußerungen, welche das Ganze tragen.

Mit unserem Entschluß ergaben sich aber neue, teilweise sehr schwierige Aufgaben der Darstellung. Sie haben die Verzögerung der Publikation verursacht. Die monographischen Einzeldarstellungen waren von verschiedenen Autoren verfaßt. Nicht nur wichen sie nach Stil, Charakter, Terminologie vielfach voneinander ab, sondern es gebrach überhaupt noch an der notwendigen Koordinierung. Sie sowohl als zusätzliche Analysen besorgte Friedrich Pollock, der von Anbeginn in der Leitung des Instituts mitwirkte. Unter Assistenz von Ernst Kux hat er die hier der Öffentlichkeit übergebene Fassung hergestellt. Monographien lagen vor von den folgenden Mitarbeitern: Theodor W. Adorno, Helmuth Beyer, Volker von Hagen, Peter von Haselberg, Lothar Herberger, Margarete Karplus, Rainer Köhne, Heinz Maus, Harald Mehner, Ivan Nagel, Diedrich Osmer, Karl Sardemann, Hans Joachim Sell, Gerhard Schmidtchen, Hermann Schweppenhäuser, Hans Sittenfeld, Jutta Thomae, Kurt Wolff. Selbstverständlich konnte nur ein geringer Teil des monographischen Materials verarbeitet werden. Außer den Genannten waren an der Untersuchung beteiligt: Fritz Beck, Jacques Décamps, Günther Flüs, Ludwig von Friedeburg, Paul Freedman, Rudolf Holzinger, Werner Kanz, Herbert Limmer, Monika Plessner, Christa von Ravenstein, Fritz Rudolph, F.R. Spieldiener, Hans Peter Stolberg. Zu danken haben wir auch all denen, die an den technischen Aufgaben der elektrischen Aufnahmen, der Transkriptionen, der Kontrolle der Protokolle teilnahmen, sowie den zahlreichen Studenten, die bei statistischen und anderen Aufgaben tätig waren. Die Veröffentlichung wurde möglich durch einen Druckkostenbeitrag der Forschungsgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft, der das Institut seinen aufrichtigen Dank ausspricht.   Frankfurt am Main, November 1954.   Max Horkheimer Theodor W. Adorno

 Fußnoten   [ 1 Vgl. Franz Böhm: Geleitwort, in: Gruppenexperiment, Ein Studienbericht, bearbeitet von Friedrich Pollock, Frankfurt a.M. 1955 (Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie, Bd. 2), S. IX ff.]  

 Einleitung Der Band, den das Institut für Sozialforschung an der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität hier vorlegt, bietet einen Arbeitsbericht über Untersuchungen, die 1950–51 durchgeführt und in den darauf folgenden Jahren ausgewertet wurden. Sie beziehen sich auf Meinungen, Einstellungen und Verhaltungsweisen der Bevölkerung der Bundesrepublik zu wesentlichen gesellschaftlichen und politischen Fragen. Die Absicht des Ganzen mag bezeichnet werden als Beitrag zur Erforschung der »öffentlichen Meinung«. Doch handelt es sich um einen ersten Schritt, und die Ergebnisse, inhaltliche sowohl als methodologische, müssen als durchaus vorläufig angesehen werden. Trotz ihres erheblichen Umfanges entsprechen die Untersuchungen dem Begriff der »pilot study«. Die Methoden konnten erst im Laufe der Arbeit entwickelt und überprüft werden, und viele der Schwierigkeiten traten erst allmählich hervor. Eine einheitliche, systematische Gesamtdarstellung war um des experimentellen Charakters und der Unvollständigkeit des Ganzen willen nicht möglich. Nirgends sollte der Eindruck von Geschlossenheit erweckt werden. Von den Schwierigkeiten ebenso wie von der Methode selbst vermittelt das Buch eine Vorstellung. Für eine pilot study sind die methodischen Ergebnisse ebenso wichtig oder wichtiger als die inhaltlichen. Diese haben notwendig etwas Tastendes und Vorläufiges; die Methoden aber und die kritischen Reflexionen, an die sie sich anschließen, sollen künftiger Forschung zugute kommen. Das Material ist denn auch nicht vollständig nach allen Gesichtspunkten analysiert, die sich aufdrängten. Es handelt sich um eine Auswahl, die auf die zentralen Probleme der Studie Licht werfen soll. Auch viele methodologische Fragen sind noch keineswegs geklärt. Forderungen so wichtiger Art, wie die Durchführung eines streng kontrollierten Vergleichs zwischen der Gruppendiskussionsmethode und den gebräuchlichen Formen der Meinungsforschung, wurden hier nicht berücksichtigt 1 ; in neueren Untersuchungen hat das Institut auch dazu manches beigebracht. Die Grenzen und Unzulänglichkeiten der Gesamtstudie sind zum Teil äußerlich bedingt. Wir begannen die Untersuchung unmittelbar, nachdem das Institut wiedererrichtet war. Die

Mitarbeiter mußten in den Methoden der empirischen Soziologie erst ausgebildet werden. Obwohl auch in Amerika, etwa in den Untersuchungen von R.F. Bales 2 , Gruppendiskussionen veranstaltet werden, war die Methode neu. Sie konnte und wollte sich nicht eingespielter Prozeduren bedienen. Aber darüber hinaus war mit tieferen Schwierigkeiten zu kämpfen, die nicht aus der Situation der Soziologie im Nachkriegsdeutschland sich erklären, sondern aus der Sache selbst. Unser Institut soll auf seinem Arbeitsgebiet der internationalen Verständigung in wissenschaftlichem Geist dienen. Es gehört deshalb zu seinen Aufgaben, von innen her zur Vereinigung der voneinander isolierten und heute fast hoffnungslos divergenten Richtungen der Soziologie beizutragen. Daß nach dem Unheil, an dem willkürlich dekretierendes und um die widerspenstigen Fakten unbekümmertes Denken gerade in Deutschland mitschuldig war, die empirischen Methoden weit nachdrücklicher zu benutzen waren, als man es hierzulande gewohnt ist, verstand sich von selbst. Insbesondere galt es, die geschliffenen amerikanischen Techniken der Sozialforschung beherrschen zu lernen. Andererseits aber durfte es nicht – und auch das ist eine spezifisch deutsche Gefahr – bei der bloßen Nachahmung jener Techniken bleiben. Die kritischen Motive waren zu ihrem Recht zu bringen, die sich aus der Tradition der deutschen Gesellschaftswissenschaft erhoben gegen eine am Modell der mathematischen Naturwissenschaften, der Anpassungslehre und behavioristischen Psychologie und der unmittelbar praktischen Verwendbarkeit einseitig orientierte Sozialforschung. Empirische Arbeit sollte auf sich selbst, ihre Grenzen und geistigen Voraussetzungen reflektieren. Nur dadurch kann sie jene Naivität überwinden, die so viele ihrer Resultate zur Oberflächlichkeit verurteilt, wenn sie nicht gar durch den Schein der Exaktheit über die Fragwürdigkeit ihrer Befunde täuscht. Von Anbeginn schwebte uns vor, uns nicht bei dem dinghaften Abguß gesellschaftlicher Verhältnisse und Vorgänge zu bescheiden, auf den das Ideal der Zähl-und Meßbarkeit als der bloßen Klassifikation von Gegebenheiten vereidigt ist, sondern durch theoretische Besinnung die Daten auf den tragenden Lebensprozeß der Gesellschaft zu beziehen und von ihm her zu erhellen. So plausibel nun aber ein derartiger Vorsatz, allgemein

formuliert, sich ausnimmt, so vieles steht seiner Verwirklichung im Wege. Kaum ist es übertrieben, von einer Quadratur des Zirkels zu reden. Die in der heutigen empirischen Soziologie durchwegs geforderte exakt quantifizierende Feststellung gesellschaftlicher Fakten einerseits und andererseits ihre verstehende Deutung im Sinne konsequenter, über die bloße Hypothesenbildung hinausgehender Einsicht, wie sie noch Max Weber als eigentliche Aufgabe der empirischen Soziologie betrachtete – das sind nicht, wie selbst Weber denken mochte, zwei Aspekte der Wissenschaft, die sich friedlich ergänzen. Sondern beide entspringen aus so weit voneinander abliegenden Impulsen der Erkenntnis, sind so tief mit konträren Philosophien verflochten, daß sie vielfach einander ausschließen. Heute ist die Spannung zwischen ihren Zielen ins Extrem angewachsen, und die beliebte Rede von ihrer Integration drückt eher die Not des Zustandes aus als die Möglichkeit, daß beides wahrhaft zueinander fände. Wer sozialwissenschaftlich am konkreten Material gearbeitet hat, weiß, wie groß der Abstand zwischen der Theorie der Gesellschaft und den exakt überprüfbaren Einzelaussagen über bestimmte gesellschaftliche Sektoren ist. Er geht weit über das hinaus, was man etwa mit der Forderung meint, es müsse noch mehr Material gesammelt werden, ehe man zur Theorienbildung oder Synthese schreiten dürfe, oder mit der Versicherung, die gesellschaftliche Theorienbildung sei nach mehr als zweitausendjähriger Geschichte ihrer strengen wissenschaftlichen Einlösung voraus, die erst jüngst begonnen habe. Es geht nicht um chronologische Differenzen, sondern um kategoriale. Weder läßt sich die gesellschaftliche Totalität, von der alles faktisch Einzelne abhängt, aus einer wie sehr auch gesteigerten Quantität des Faktenmaterials ablesen, noch läßt von empirischen Befunden aus die Theorie sich extrapolieren in einer Welt, in der die einzelnen sozialen Vorfindlichkeiten das Wesen kaum weniger verhüllen als ausdrücken. Dieser Bruch kommt dann in der Unvereinbarkeit der hier und dort gewonnenen Resultate an den Tag. Oftmals ist man – wenn auch nicht durchaus zu Recht – versucht zu denken, jeder Fortschritt in der Exaktheit und Objektivität der Forschungstechnik werde mit einem Verlust an Sinngehalt und umgekehrt jede Vertiefung der theoretischen Erkenntnis mit einem Verlust an bündiger Überprüfbarkeit bezahlt. Die Alternative reicht bis in die tägliche

Arbeit des Sozialforschers hinein, der ohne Unterlaß zu wählen hat zwischen generalisierbaren und erhellenden Erkenntnissen und noch bei der Formulierung seiner Fragebögen oder Interviewschemata sich verzweifelt bemüht, beides zugleich zu erreichen. Es ist Grund zur Annahme, daß diese methodologische Aporie nicht bloß von der Gestalt der soziologischen Wissenschaft und ihrer begrifflichen Apparatur herrührt, sondern von ihrem Gegenstand, der Gesellschaft, in der zwischen Besonderem und Allgemeinem kein rein logisches Verhältnis, sondern ein realer Antagonismus waltet. Solche Erwägungen stehen hinter der Konzeption unseres Experiments, selbstverständlich ohne daß sie eine Lösung beanspruchte. Die Gruppenuntersuchung fällt weder unter den üblichen Begriff einer »case study« noch den eines unter Laboratoriumsbedingungen kontrollierten Experiments 3 , obwohl sie mit beiden Forschungstypen Züge gemeinsam hat. An die case study gemahnt ihr Bestreben, den interdependenten Vorgängen des realen Lebens so nahe wie nur möglich zu kommen. Dabei verzichtet sie bewußt auf die Herausgliederung isolierbarer konstanter oder veränderlicher Variablen, wie sie zwar dem naturwissenschaftlichen Forschungsideal entspräche, nicht aber den komplexen Verhältnissen der realen Gesellschaft und der subjektiven Meinungsbildung. Andererseits hat die Gruppenuntersuchung mit dem Experiment zwei Eigenschaften gemeinsam. Die Versuchsteilnehmer werden nicht einfach in ihrem alltäglichen Lebenszusammenhang aufgesucht, sondern zum Zweck der Studie zusammengebracht. Vor allem arbeitet diese mit einem standardisierten »Grundreiz« und einer Reihe ebenfalls standardisierter Argumente und Gegenargumente, um eine gewisse Vergleichbarkeit zwischen den einzelnen Sitzungen zu garantieren. Die Planung unserer Untersuchung war geleitet von der Erfahrung, daß bei einer Studie nur dann etwas Produktives herauskommt, wenn man an Gedanken etwas hereinsteckt, das dann freilich im Verlauf der Forschung selbst wesentlich sich abwandelt. Insoweit unser Forschungsziel vorwiegend sozialpsychologisch war, also sich darauf bezog, wie gesellschaftlich relevantes Verhalten in Individuen zustandekommt, hat sich die Untersuchung in weitem Maße an der Tiefenpsychologie in ihrer Freudschen Gestalt orientiert. Freud hat zwar die von Autoren wie Le Bon und McDougall herausgearbeiteten charakteristischen kollektiven

Verhaltensweisen anerkannt, diesen aber nicht etwa ein selbständiges Gruppensubjekt zugrunde gelegt, sondern die psychologischen Massenphänomene aus der Psychodynamik der einzelnen von solchen Gruppen umfaßten Individuen hergeleitet. Entscheidend dabei ist der Mechanismus der Identifikation mit dem Kollektiv als solchem. Unser Material enthält eine Fülle von Belegen für die Gewalt solcher Identifikationsmechanismen 4 . Die Studie stellt sich in die Kontinuität der amerikanischen Untersuchungen, welche mit Hilfe der Freudschen Kategorien soziale Phänomene so vielfach erhellt haben – Untersuchungen, zu denen auch unsere eigenen Forschungen über das Vorurteil gehören 5 . Wenn gesagt werden darf, daß jene Untersuchungen nicht bloß in ihrer Anlage psychoanalytische Gedanken benutzten, sondern auch umgekehrt durch ihre Befunde psychoanalytische Aussagen empirisch bestätigten, so gilt das auch für die Gruppenuntersuchung. Für Mechanismen wie Projektion, Reaktionsbildung, verdrängtes Schuldgefühl, die allesamt in die Zone der Abwehr des Unbewußten durch das Ich gehören, wurden nicht nur vereinzelte Belege beigebracht, sondern wir stießen ohne Unterlaß auf Sachverhalte der subjektiven Meinung und Meinungsbildung, die durch ihren Widerspruch zur objektiven Realität, ihren irrationalen Charakter, geradezu den Gebrauch solcher Begriffe herbeizitierten. Sie erheischten gleichsam von sich aus psychoanalytische Interpretation. Die Interpretationsprobleme entfalteten sich erst ganz, als die Diskussionen selbst abgeschlossen waren, die Bandaufnahmen transkribiert vorlagen. Wie man spontanes, wesentlich qualitatives Material überhaupt quantifizieren könne 6 , war nur eine der Fragen, denen wir uns gegenüber fanden. Der quantitative Teil dieses Berichtes zeigt, wie wir sie zu beantworten versuchten. Schwerer noch wog, unter welche qualitativen Kategorien freies, nicht vorverschlüsseltes und kategorial vorgeformtes Material überhaupt zu bringen sei. Mit Einwänden wie dem des Hineininterpretierens und der subjektiven Willkür ist zu rechnen. Solche Einwände sind heute so automatisiert, daß sie im Gegensatz zu ihrem ursprünglich kritischen, antidogmatischen Impuls vielfach auf ein Denkverbot hinauslaufen. Der ganze Bereich dessen, was bei Max Weber noch Verstehen hieß, wird in Frage gestellt durch die unersättliche Forderung nach der Evidenz. Wir haben sie keineswegs leicht

genommen. Ein gewisser Schutz gegen die Gefahr des freien Assoziierens liegt schon in der Bewährung und Konsistenz der herangezogenen Theorie. Insgesamt ist an das aufgespeicherte Wissen und die Erfahrung zu erinnern, welche die Formulierung der Probleme zeitigt: im Fall der gegenwärtigen Untersuchung also etwa die Befunde der verzweigten Arbeiten des Instituts zum Autoritätsproblem 7 . Ein weiteres Element der Sicherung der Interpretationen ist die konsequente Anwendung des Grundsatzes, daß sie sich nicht auf die isolierte Meinung stützen sollen, die in Einzelaussagen zutage kommt, sondern auf übergreifende Zusammenhänge innerhalb der einzelnen Diskussionen sowohl wie zwischen den verschiedenen Diskussionen untereinander. Wird etwa in den Gruppendiskussionen, trotz der offenbaren Absurdität solcher Argumente, immer wieder das Lynchen gegen die Ermordung der Juden aufgerechnet, so zeigt sich darin eine soziale Tendenz an – die zur automatischen, irrationalen Abwehr und zum aggressiven Zurückschlagen –, die keineswegs ohne weiteres aus ein paar versprengten Einzeläußerungen über das Lynchen gefolgert werden könnte. Aber man soll sich überhaupt von der Diffamierung der subjektiven Komponente nicht terrorisieren lassen. Die große Philosophie von Platon bis Hegel hat ihren Kern in dem Nachweis, daß es keine bloßen Tatsachen, kein in sich unvermitteltes Unmittelbares gibt. Erst das spätere neunzehnte Jahrhundert hat daran vergessen, und wenn irgendwo das Verlangen nach Abkehr von dieser Epoche legitim ist, dann hier. In allen Tatsachen, selbst im vorgeblich bloß sinnlichen Eindruck steckt ein Stück formenden Intellekts, ja richtig verstanden selbst unser Interesse, das die Aufmerksamkeit auf diesen Baum oder dies Haus richtet. Wer ausmachen will, was dieser spezifische Baum, dies spezifische Haus eigentlich sei, muß über die Vereinzelung hinausgehen. In beide geht ein Umfassenderes ein – eigentlich die ganze Gesellschaft, die ganze Geschichte der über die Gegenstände urteilenden Menschen, die zugleich in den Gegenständen selbst sich verkörpert. Dies subjektive Element der Sachen und ihrer Erkenntnis steckt in aller Erkenntnis, die überhaupt mehr ist als bloßes Registrieren und Klassifizieren. Wir beugen uns nicht der Residualtheorie, der zufolge Wahrheit das ist, was übrig bleibt, wenn man die Zutaten des Subjekts abzieht. Das mag dort gelten, wo der Gegenstand nicht

selbst ein menschlicher, durch den Geist vermittelter ist; nicht jedoch im Umkreis des Gesellschaftlichen. In der Psychologie zumal hat das genaue Gegenteil statt. Ihre Erkenntnisse geraten um so reicher, genauer und tiefer, je mehr das urteilende Subjekt von sich selbst, seinen Innervationen, seiner Erfahrungsfähigkeit dazu gibt. Ein Rezept, wie man sich vor dem schlechten Subjektivismus, vor der Willkür einer der Sache von außen aufgezwungenen Konstruktion behüten könne, besitzen die Sozialwissenschaften so wenig, wie umgekehrt der deutende Gedanke von der Kontrolle durch Erfahrung dispensiert werden kann. Nicht besonders raffinierte Versuchsanordnungen, einzig der wissenschaftliche Takt vermag darüber zu wachen, daß das unabdingbare subjektive Element, an dem Spontaneität und Produktivität von Wissenschaft haftet, nicht ins Wahnhafte wuchere. Es wäre eine schlechte Wissenschaft, die um einer Schimäre absoluter Beweisbarkeit willen gegen das sich abdichtet, was aus dem Material aufleuchtet. Wir sind keineswegs blind dagegen, daß den quantitativen wie den qualitativen Interpretationen ein Schatten der Relativität anhaftet: dort die unvermeidlichen Reste starrer Zählmethoden, die dem Leben der Diskussionen und dem Sinn der Einzeläußerungen nicht ganz gerecht werden; hier die Gefahr, daß der Gedanke hinausschießt über das, was die Tatsachen im Sinne jener Normen der Interpretation hergeben, welche die Nachvollziehbarkeit jeder geistigen Operation durch jeden anderen Forscher desselben Sachgebietes verlangen. Die Frage nach der Gültigkeit der Interpretation ist untrennbar vom Verhältnis quantitativer und qualitativer Analysen. Je mehr, aus der besonderen Fragestellung der Untersuchung heraus, qualitatives Material und qualitative Deutung in den Vordergrund tritt, um so dringlicher wird es, soweit nur irgend möglich, die qualitativen Befunde quantitativ zu überprüfen oder, angesichts der Schranken, die uns statistisch in dieser Hinsicht gesetzt waren, wenigstens Möglichkeiten für eine solche Überprüfung aufzuzeigen. Offensichtlich ist es für die qualitative Analyse um so eher möglich, Folgerungen über den einzelnen Fall hinaus zu ziehen, je mehr Äußerungen des gleichen Typus durch die Auszählung sich feststellen lassen. Andererseits wäre es vergeblich, bei unserem Material die quantitative Analyse ohne die qualitativen Kategorien des

Verstehens zu unternehmen. Durch Techniken wie die Ausarbeitung eines qualitativ höchst differenzierten Schlüsselverzeichnisses für die quantitative Auswertung ist, unter Anlehnung an amerikanische Bestrebungen, der Versuch gemacht worden, quantitative und qualitative Verfahren nicht bloß sich wechselseitig ergänzen zu lassen, sondern in gewissem Umfange zu vereinen. Wir sind uns freilich darüber im klaren, daß die grundsätzlichen Divergenzen, von denen unsere Erwägungen ausgehen, auch durch solche Versuche bis heute noch nicht beseitigt worden sind, wenn anders sie sich überhaupt beseitigen lassen. Statistisch kommt das daran zutage, daß bei qualitativ reichen Auswertungsinstrumenten die für jede einzelne Kategorie sich ergebenden Zahlen so gering werden, daß ihnen einstweilen kaum Relevanz zugesprochen werden kann. Ein theoretisch befriedigendes, qualitativ definiertes Kategoriennetz der Quantifizierung macht praktisch die Verallgemeinerungen unmöglich, um derentwillen man zur Quantifizierung überhaupt geschritten ist, und endet selber wiederum beim Qualitativen. Wir haben daher in der endgültigen Darstellung es bei der Trennung in einen quantitativen und qualitativen Teil belassen, und nur gelegentlich auf ihren Zusammenhang hingewiesen. Das Verhältnis quantitativer und qualitativer Betrachtungen bietet nur den Teilaspekt eines umfassenderen – des für den Erkenntniswert des Ganzen eigentlich entscheidenden – Problems, der Frage, wie weit man die Resultate generalisieren darf. Es sei hier sogleich und mit allem Nachdruck hervorgehoben, daß die zahlenmäßigen Ergebnisse, isoliert betrachtet, keinen Anspruch auf Geltung machen dürfen, der über unseren Teilnehmerkreis hinausgeht. Auf diese Begrenzung der Gültigkeit unserer quantitativen Analyse wird im Text noch mehrfach hingewiesen werden. Ein gewisser Charakter der Konsistenz des gesamten Materials ebenso wie die Ergebnisse anderer Untersuchungen des Instituts bewegen uns allerdings dazu anzunehmen, daß die Generalisierbarkeit weiterreicht, als bei den Einschränkungen, die wir zu machen haben, und prinzipiell bei einer vorwiegend auf spontane Äußerungen abzielenden Methode zu erwarten wäre. Allerdings ist nicht zu verkennen, daß die Änderungen der objektiven gesellschaftlichen und politischen Situation während der letzten vier Jahre aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach die gegenwärtige Gültigkeit der Ergebnisse herabmindern. Eine vor kurzem

abgeschlossene Untersuchung des Instituts hat insbesondere dargetan, daß die Einstellung zur Demokratie in Deutschland sich erheblich, und zwar positiv, geändert hat, selbst bei extrem konservativen Gruppen wie den Bauern. Nicht zuletzt unter diesem Gesichtspunkt wäre die stetige Wiederholung von Gruppendiskussionen dieser Art in gewissen Zeiträumen geboten.

 Fußnoten   1 Aus den Vorarbeiten für eine derartige Kontrolluntersuchung ist im Anhang Material wiedergegeben, das zur Formulierung von Fragebogen für Repräsentativerhebungen zu unserem Thema dienen kann. Vgl. Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., Anhang, S. 495ff.   2 R.F. Bales: Interaction Process Analysis, Cambridge, Mass., 1951. Die grundlegende Differenz besteht darin, daß das Interesse von Bales sich durchweg auf die Gruppe als solche richtet, während unsere Studie an den Gruppenteilnehmern interessiert ist, und Probleme der Gruppendynamik nicht als Selbstzweck, sondern mit Hinblick auf die kollektiven Einflüsse auf das Individuum behandelt werden.   3 Hierunter versteht man in der empirischen Soziologie jene Experimente, die, angeregt von Kurt Lewin und im wesentlichen auf seiner topologischen Psychologie basierend, in den Vereinigten Staaten seit etwa zwei Jahrzehnten durchgeführt werden und deren Gegenstände die Erforschung von Gruppenstrukturen und Gruppenphänomenen sind. Diese Experimente zeichnen sich durch eine naturwissenschaftlichen Bedingungen nachgebildete Versuchsanordnung aus, bei der angestrebt wird, nur die unabhängigen Variablen zu manipulieren und alle anderen Faktoren konstant zu halten. Damit schaffen sie – durchaus bewußt – eine so künstliche Situation, daß man nur in den günstigst gelagerten Fällen ein der Realität angenähertes Ergebnis erwarten darf. Vgl. K. Lewin: Principles of Topological Psychology, New York 1936.   4 Vgl. das V. und VI. Kapitel [unten S. 147ff. sowie Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., S. 429ff.].   5 Vgl. die Serie »Studies in Prejudice«, herausgegeben von M. Horkheimer and S. Flowerman, New York 1950, insbesondere Band I: T.W. Adorno, E. Frenkel-Brunswik, D.J. Levinson, R.N. Sanford: The Authoritarian Personality.   6 Die Differenz des Quantitativen und Qualitativen ist von der

wissenschaftlichen Bearbeitung erst ins Material hineingetragen und darf nicht verabsolutiert werden. So wie alle Quantifizierung sich in den Sozialwissenschaften auf qualitative Tatbestände bezieht, die überhaupt erst durch Aufbereitung der Statistik zugänglich werden, so stammen die Kategorien des Verstehens, die quantitative Studien überhaupt erst sinnvoll machen, ihrerseits stets aus dem qualitativen Bereich. Wir können hier nicht die erkenntnistheoretische Problematik der Distinktion aufrollen, sondern halten uns an die Begriffe so, wie sie sich in der tatsächlichen Forschungspraxis herausgebildet haben. Die Gegensätze, die sich dabei offenbaren, weisen freilich zurück auf die sehr tief liegende Frage, was überhaupt die objektivierende Methode der Sozialwissenschaften ihrem Gegenstand widerfahren läßt. Festzuhalten ist, daß auch im praktischen Verfahren der Sozialwissenschaften die Trennung quantitativer und qualitativer Methoden nie rein durchzuführen ist. (Vgl. B. Berelson: Content Analysis in Communication Research, Glencoe, Ill., 1952, S. 135ff.)   7 Vgl. M. Horkheimer (Herausgeber): Studien über Autorität und Familie, Forschungsberichte aus dem Institut für Sozialforschung, Paris 1936.  

 Letzte Fassung des Grundreizes (Colburn-Brief) [ 1 ] Vom Ende des Krieges, an dem ich als Reservist teilgenommen hatte, bis August 1950 habe ich in Deutschland verschiedenen Dienststellen der Besatzungsarmee angehört. Die meisten meiner Mitarbeiter waren Deutsche aus den verschiedensten Gegenden und mit den verschiedensten Ansichten. Meine Tätigkeit hat mich auch sonst mit Deutschen aller Art zusammengeführt. Ich glaube, daß ich, soweit man sagen kann, die durchschnittlichen Deutschen und ihre Meinung aus erster Hand kennengelernt habe, vor allem auch, wie es den einfachen Leuten zumute ist. Von oberflächlichen Beobachtern wird viel Unsinn über Deutschland geredet und geschrieben. Die einen meinen, alle seien Nazis und alle hätten mit Schuld; die anderen sehen die Dinge rosig, weil sie natürlich als Sieger in bevorzugter Stellung sind und nach ihren eigenen angenehmen Erfahrungen zu schnell verallgemeinern. Vielleicht interessiert es Ihre Leser, einmal die Meinung eines nüchternen GI zu hören, der weder rachsüchtig ist, noch sich ein X für ein U vormachen läßt. Ich habe viel Gutes an den Deutschen beobachten können. Sie sind fleißig und nur selten widerspenstig. Sie sind sauber und ordentlich, und viele machen einen intelligenten Eindruck. Freilich weiß ich nicht, wie weit sie selbständig sind oder nur nachreden, was sie gehört haben. Irgendwelche Anzeichen von besonderer Roheit und Grausamkeit habe ich nirgends finden können, freilich auch nur wenig Anzeichen dafür, daß sie sich zu Herzen gehen ließen, was unter Hitler den Menschen angetan wurde. Doch haben sie selber – vor allem durch Luftangriffe – so viel durchgemacht, daß es ihnen schwer fällt, an fremdes Leid zu denken. Der einzelne Deutsche wirkt eher gutmütig. Die verheirateten Männer sind nett zu ihren Familien und möchten es gern wieder zu etwas bringen. Ich glaube, daß sich die Deutschen, die an einen hohen Lebensstandard gewöhnt waren, wirtschaftlich wieder in die Höhe arbeiten werden. Ihre glänzende technische Begabung wird sich erst richtig bewähren, wenn sie einmal in der Lage sind, ungehindert zu produzieren. Zu mir persönlich und zu den meisten meiner Bekannten sind sie im allgemeinen freundlich – besonders die Frauen – natürlich auch, weil sie uns alle für wohlhabend halten. Aber das ist nicht die ganze Geschichte. Trotz des vergangenen Unheils halten sich viele für besser und tüchtiger, als wir es sind. Davon, daß Hitler es angefangen hat, wollen sie nichts hören. Sie haben offenbar das Gefühl, die Welt hätte ihnen das größte Unrecht angetan. Sobald bei uns irgendetwas schlecht ist, fangen sie an sich zu entrüsten. Wenn wir es schwer haben, wie in Korea, hat man manchmal den Eindruck, daß sie sich darüber insgeheim freuen und nicht daran denken, daß wir allein sie vor den Russen beschützen. Daß man Fehler des eigenen Landes zugibt und offen darüber redet, erscheint ihnen als Schwäche. Gegen die Juden sind sie immer

noch feindselig und benutzen vor allem die DPs als Vorwand für einseitige Urteile. Nur ganz wenige geben offen zu, daß sie Nazis waren, und gerade die es zugeben, sind oft gar nicht die Schlechtesten. Schuld sei nur eine kleine Minderheit. In gewisser Weise ist das ja wahr, aber man findet doch heute in der Mehrheit nur wenige, die sich unzweideutig vom Geschehenen lossagen. Ganz besonders merkwürdig benehmen sie sich, wenn die Rede auf Rassenverfolgung in Amerika kommt. Sobald sie vernehmen, daß ein Neger in den Südstaaten gelyncht worden ist, reiben sie sich die Hände. Ich habe ihnen dann immer erzählt und erklärt, daß es sich bei uns um 10 oder 20 Fälle im Jahr handelt, während es bei ihnen um Millionen ging. Schließlich ist und bleibt bei uns Lynchen ja doch ein Verbrechen, das vom Staat verfolgt wird. Ihr Staat aber hat das Lynchen in unverhältnismäßig viel größerem Maßstab selbst besorgt. Gewiß standen sie unter Terror und hätten wenig mehr ausrichten können, als Hitler einmal im Sattel saß. Aber haben sie ihm nicht doch immer wieder zugejubelt? Einzelne habe ich von alledem überzeugen können, aber das ist wie ein Tropfen auf einen heißen Stein. Die Gefahr ist, daß sie morgen wieder einem Hitler oder Stalin nachlaufen, und der Meinung sind, daß ein starker Mann immer noch die für sie beste Politik machen wird. Wem wirklich an internationaler Verständigung gelegen ist, der muß sich darum kümmern, was praktische Demokratie eigentlich heißt, und sie in langer Arbeit verwirklichen. Man kann sie nicht gegen die Diktatur wie etwas Fertiges eintauschen, sondern muß für die anderen Menschen ebensoviel Verständnis haben wie für sich selbst. Wenn dieser Geist sich einmal in den Deutschen durchgesetzt hat, dann wird dies Volk wirklich einen großen Beitrag leisten können.

 Fußnoten   [ 1 Über das Gruppendiskussionsverfahren vgl. den ersten Teil (»Ziel, Methoden und Teilnehmerkreis«) des Gruppenexperiments, a.a.O., S. 13ff. sowie auch unten, S. 338 und S. 495ff.; zum »Colburn-Brief« insbesondere vgl. Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., S. 41ff.]  

 Dritter Teil Monographien zur Qualitativen Analyse der Diskussionen Vorbemerkung Warum wir einen wesentlichen Teil der Auswertungsarbeit der qualitativen Analyse haben zukommen lassen, ist in der Einleitung dargelegt. Die Fülle und Konkretion des Materials, das unsere Gruppenversuche gezeitigt haben, wäre sonst der Darstellung verloren gegangen. Von jener Fülle vermögen auch die qualitativen Analysen trotz aller Belege nur eine recht fragmentarische Vorstellung zu geben. Eigentlich war es unsere Absicht, als Anhang die wörtliche Übertragung einiger typischer Protokolle der Publikation beizufügen. Nur Raumbeschränkung hat uns daran gehindert. Die eigentliche Überzeugungskraft der qualitativen Befunde, ihr Zwingendes, teilt sich, solange nicht die Auswertungsmethoden weit über den gegenwärtigen Stand hinaus entwickelt sind, nur durch die Kenntnis des primären Materials mit: erst der lebendigen Erfahrung ganzer zusammenhängender Diskussionen zergeht der Schein von Willkür, der an der Auslegung von Einzelbelegen haftet, solange sie nicht im Strukturzusammenhang gesehen werden. Es bedarf kaum des ausdrücklichen Hinweises darauf, daß uns die Einwände der orthodoxen amerikanischen Sozialforschung gegen die qualitative Analyse wohlvertraut sind. Man kann sie nachlesen etwa in Dorwin P. Cartwright, Analysis of Qualitative Material, in Leon Festinger and Daniel Katz (ed.), Research Methods in the Behavioral Sciences, New York 1953, S. 434ff. Der Schwerpunkt jener Einwände ist das Argument, es könnten qualitative Analysen zwar an sich richtig sein, blieben aber solange bloße »Expertenmeinungen«, bis der Analytiker anderen Schritt für Schritt dartun könne, auf welche Weise er seine Einsichten gewonnen hat. Die dabei zugrunde liegende Hypothese, daß in den Sozialwissenschaften jeder qualifizierte Gelehrte gleichsam durch den anderen austauschbar sein müsse, daß jeder jeden gleichsam

kontrolliere, vermögen wir nicht zu teilen: sie sieht daran vorbei, daß die subjektiven Bedingungen gesellschaftlicher Erkenntnis weit differenzierter, auf sedimentiertes Wissen und theoretische Einsicht bezogen sind als beim stillschweigend als Vorbild anerkannten naturwissenschaftlichen Experiment. Die Forderung der Austauschbarkeit in der Soziologie setzt stillschweigend eine Identität der Geister voraus, und diese Fiktion verurteilte die Erkenntnis zur Sterilität. Nichts aber wäre unseren Intentionen entgegengesetzter, als daraus etwa eine Art soziologischer Esoterik ableiten zu wollen und die gesellschaftliche Einsicht zu einem Privileg jener Art von Intuition zu machen, die meist einzig in der Phantasie derjenigen besteht, die Erfahrungen von anderer Art als Zählen und Messen nur als magische Akte sich vorstellen können. Wir haben darum die qualitativen Analysen nicht nur mit mehr Belegen belastet, als der Darstellung vielleicht zuträglich ist, sondern auch allenthalben versucht, die Momente im Material herauszuarbeiten, auf welche die Analyse jeweils sich stützt, und die theoretischen Hintergründe zumindest soweit aufzudecken, wie notwendig ist, um verstehen zu lassen, wie wir zu den vorgetragenen Interpretationen gelangten. Die qualitativen Analysen wurden als Monographien angelegt. Es wurde Gestalt und Dynamik der Einstellung unserer Diskussionsteilnehmer zu einigen Themen untersucht, die für das Forschungsziel der Studie besonders relevant dünkten. Der erhebliche Umfang dieser Monographien nötigte uns zur Auswahl: wir mußten uns mit zwei vollständigen Texten begnügen. Die Auswahl bereitete Schwierigkeiten. Wir konnten weder systematisch noch nach der Wichtigkeit der untersuchten Themen verfahren. Die Untersuchung über Integrationsphänomene [ 1 ] mußte auf jeden Fall eingeschlossen werden, nicht bloß, weil sie sich auf die Gesamtstruktur der Diskussionen bezieht, sondern auch, weil sie gleichsam den formalen Rahmen erstellt für das Problem des Konformismus, die Identifikation mit dem Kollektiv, die inhaltlich zu den wichtigsten Ergebnissen zählt. Für die Monographie Schuld und Abwehr haben wir uns entschieden, weil sie erlaubt zu konkretisieren, daß die Gruppenmethode affektbesetzte, aus tieferen Schichten der Befragten stammende Äußerungen auslöst, an welche die traditionellen Fragemethoden nicht heranreichen. Zudem gibt die

Studie eine Art Phänomenologie dessen, was die Diskussionsteilnehmer selbst so gerne deutsche Neurose nennen, und was sich erst dann wird heilen lassen, wenn es seiner Struktur nach erkannt, ins Bewußtsein gehoben ist. Dies Ergebnis scheint uns weit wichtiger als die oft befremdenden Ansichten, welche unsere Versuchsteilnehmer zu jenen heikelsten Gegenständen geäußert haben und die, isoliert genommen und aus der psychischen Dynamik herausgelöst, falsch eingeschätzt würden. Gerade hier ist nochmals nachdrücklich daran zu erinnern, daß die qualitative Analyse ihr Wesen daran hat, Typen von Einstellungen und Meinungen herauszuarbeiten und nicht deren Distribution. Wir fragen nicht, wieviele Menschen etwa über die Schuldfrage nun auch wirklich so denken, »wie man halt in Deutschland denkt«, sondern auf welche charakteristischen Weisen sie versuchen, mit dem Komplex fertig zu werden, welche Rolle dabei die politische Ideologie spielt und wie umgekehrt die politische Ideologie nach den Bedürfnissen jener Bewältigung sich richtet. Vor allem aber wollten wir in der Beschreibung des in der Luft Liegenden den allgegenwärtigen Grundreiz bloßlegen, dem jeder damals in Deutschland Lebende ausgesetzt war.

 Fußnoten   [ 1 Vgl. Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., VI. Kapitel (Integrationsphänomene in Diskussionsgruppen), S. 429ff.]  

 Fünftes Kapitel Schuld und Abwehr Hier geben wir eine qualitative Analyse der Reaktionen unserer Versuchsteilnehmer auf die kritischen Äußerungen des Colburn-Briefes, die sich auf Konzentrationslager, Terror, Ausrottung der Juden, Angriffskrieg beziehen. Daß es sich dabei um Nervenpunkte handelt, wird zumal dadurch bestätigt, daß viele widersprechende Aussagen durch Form und Inhalt des Widerspruchs zugleich eben jene Thesen bestätigen, gegen die sie aufbegehren. Mehr als in jedem andern Teil der Untersuchung ist in diesem hervorzuheben, daß unsere Studie neben ihren methodologischen Aufgaben vor allem darauf abzielt, jenen transsubjektiven Faktoren auf die Spur zu kommen, welche die öffentliche Meinung in dem früher erörterten Sinn 1 charakterisieren. Wenn an die Nervenpunkte der Schuld gerührt wird, wird es besonders deutlich, wie viele der Angesprochenen fast mechanisch sich eines bereits fertig vorliegenden Vorrats von Argumenten bedienen, so daß ihr individuelles Urteil nur eine sekundäre Rolle zu spielen scheint: die eines selektiven Faktors im Verhältnis zu jenem Vorrat. Die qualitative Analyse des Materials, die sich solcher Kategorien wie der Abwehr des Schuldgefühls, der aggressiven Projektion, des Fortlebens nationalsozialistischer Propagandathesen bedient, kann zu einseitigen und ungerechten Vorstellungen Anlaß geben. Ganz abgesehen von der Frage, wie weit die vorgelegten Befunde verallgemeinert werden können, ist vorweg daran zu erinnern, daß der Colburn-Reiz gerade dadurch, daß er auf Kernpunkte abgestimmt war, möglicherweise pointiertere Reaktionen hervorgerufen hat, als der Meinung der Versuchtsteilnehmer an sich ohne weiteres zugeschrieben werden kann; daß diese vielmehr buchstäblich gereizt worden sind. Hierauf läßt sich zweierlei erwidern. Zunächst ist, wie wir gesehen haben, gerade die Vorstellung einer »Meinung an sich« problematisch 2 . Menschen haben in verschiedenen Situationen keineswegs notwendigerweise dieselbe Meinung und denken und handeln höchstwahrscheinlich anders, wenn jene sich ändern. Es war

intendiert, Bedingungen herzustellen, von denen man annehmen darf, daß sie den beim Prozeß der politischen und ideologischen Willensbildung vorwaltenden entsprechen. Die eindeutige Beantwortung der Frage, was die Deutschen noch sind oder nicht mehr sind, wird nicht angestrebt. Eine solche Fragestellung würde eine Identität des Bewußtseins mit sich selbst, eine Artikuliertheit und Stabilität der Meinung voraussetzen, die in der gegenwärtigen Realität kaum existiert. Man kommt wohl der Wahrheit am nächsten, wenn man Aussagen darüber macht, wie bestimmte Komplexe intellektuell und psychologisch verarbeitet werden, und daraus Rückschlüsse über gewisse Potentialitäten zieht, ohne an statische Befunde dort zu glauben, wo Meinung und Haltung selbst in weitestem Maße Funktion der je herrschenden Machtkonstellationen sind. Zu dem Einwand, daß wir unsere Teilnehmer durch den Grundreiz gereizt haben, haben wir ferner zu sagen, daß es aller psychologischen Theorie und Erfahrung ins Gesicht schlüge, wollte man annehmen, das in der Gereiztheit Geäußerte sei zufällig und gleichgültig. Was ein Wütender sagt, nachdem sein Affekt die rationale Kontrolle durchbrochen hat, ist doch auch in ihm. Es drückt ebensowohl sein Unbewußtes, latente und ichfremde psychologische Potentialitäten aus wie, auf einem weniger tief liegenden Niveau, den Vorrat vorbewußter, kurrenter Anschauungen, den er mit sich trägt und den er als voll Bewußter durch sein autonomes Urteil durchstreichen oder bestätigen mag. Unsere Studie nun ist in hohem Maße an der Erforschung der letzteren Schicht interessiert, der transsubjektiven Elemente, die im Vorbewußtsein, in den latenten Einstellungen bereit liegen. Auf die eigentlich tiefenpsychologische Deutung haben wir verzichtet, ohne psychoanalytische Perspektiven dort, wo sie sich aufdrängen, rigoros abzuschneiden. Jedenfalls verdient die Zwischenschicht, die in der Untersuchung hervortritt, auch dann volle Aufmerksamkeit, wenn sie weder in die individuell-psychologische Tiefendimension noch andererseits in das verantwortliche Bewußtsein reicht. Es offenbart sich dort eine Art von subjektiver sozialpsychologischer Disposition, die zwar unter den gegenwärtigen Verhältnissen nicht zur vollen Wirksamkeit kommt, deren aktuelle Bedeutung man auch nicht überschätzen darf, die aber, wenn sie sich abermals an starke

objektive Mächte anschlösse, wieder ungeahnte Gewalt gewinnen könnte. Jedoch selbst die einigermaßen extremen Reaktionen, die wir erörtern werden – wir wissen, daß in dem behandelten Problemkreis extreme Meinungen sich deutlich und schärfer artikulieren als gemäßigtere oder indifferente – dürfen nicht zu primitiv gedeutet werden. Um den Komplex Schuld und Abwehr wahrhaft zu begreifen, bedarf es weit subtilerer Methoden der Interpretation im kleinsten, als sie hier im allgemeinen verwandt werden können, wo ja vor allem die drastische Gestalt der Ideologie in Rede steht. Wir dürfen von der Annahme ausgehen, daß tatsächlich etwas wie eine latente Erfahrung von der Schuld vorliegt und daß diese Erfahrung verdrängt und rationalisiert wird. Aber sie muß die ÜberIch-Instanzen der meisten Versuchsteilnehmer in irgendeiner Weise belasten. Die mit höchstem Raffinement systematisch betriebene Erziehung zur Abschaffung des Gewissens konnte schließlich doch nur im engsten Kreise der »practitioners of violence« einigermaßen gelingen, während der überwältigende Teil der deutschen Bevölkerung von den wie sehr auch verblaßten moralischen Vorstellungen der bürgerlich-liberalen Welt herkam und immer noch ein gutes Stück von ihnen in sich trägt. Die Behandlung der Abwehrmechanismen ist sinnvoll nur unter einer Voraussetzung, die fast auf jedes einzelne der Abwehrargumente zutrifft und die nachdrücklich ein für allemal ausgesprochen werden muß. Wenn man Schuldgefühle und Verantwortung gegenüber dem von den Nazis Begangenen abwehrt, so bedeutet das nicht nur, daß man sich reinwaschen will, sondern ebenso auch, daß man, was begangen ward, eben doch unrecht fand und darum ablehnt. Wäre das nicht der Fall, so bedürfte es nicht des Eifers der Distanzierung. Wenn Apologetisches vorgebracht wird, liegt darin immer zugleich auch, daß man das, wofür man Entschuldigungen sucht, selbst unrecht findet und nichts damit zu schaffen haben möchte. Der Gedanke von der verdrängten Schuld darf nicht zu eng im psychoanalytischen Sinn genommen werden: nur soweit das Bewußtsein des begangenen Unrechts als eines Unrechts wach ist, werden die Abwehrmechanismen ins Spiel gebracht. Von all den Versuchsteilnehmern, die sich in Abwehr befinden, ist kaum einer so geartet, daß er etwa vertreten würde: es ist in Ordnung, daß sie

umgebracht worden sind. Sondern es handelt sich meist um den Versuch, die eigene überwertige Identifikation mit dem Kollektiv, zu dem man gehört, in Übereinstimmung zu bringen mit dem Wissen vom Frevel: man leugnet oder verkleinert ihn, um nicht der Möglichkeit jener Identifikation verlustig zu gehen, welche es Unzähligen psychologisch allein erlaubt, über das unerträgliche Gefühl der eigenen Ohnmacht hinwegzukommen. Man darf daraus folgern, daß die in Abwehr Befindlichen, auch wo sie Rudimente der Naziideologie vertreten, nicht etwa mit einer Wiederholung dessen sympathisieren, was geschah. Die Abwehr selbst ist ein Zeichen des Schocks, den sie erfuhren, und damit eröffnet sich ein Aspekt der Hoffnung. Nahe liegt auch der Einwand eines methodischen Zirkels zwischen der Methode und den Ergebnissen. Der Colburn-Brief war bereits konstruiert aufgrund unmittelbarer, nicht organisierter Erfahrungen der Ideologie. Man könnte also vermuten, daß eben die Ideologie, um deren beschreibende Analyse es geht, durch die Versuchsanordnung den Teilnehmern oktroyiert worden sei, indem sie mit jener Ideologie überhaupt bekannt gemacht werden; daß also die Untersuchung illegitim ihr eigenes Resultat produziere. Dieser Annahme widerspricht das Material. Wo Colburns Charakteristik der Deutschen irgend übernommen wird, geschieht das meist widerwillig, entschuldigend und mit beträchtlichen Modifikationen. Der Tiefe der durch den Grundreiz angerührten Emotionszentren entsprechen primitive, infantile Reaktionen von der Art der Freude des Kindes am Lob und seines momentanen Zurückschlagens bei allem, was ihm irgendwie Kritik dünkt. Die Grundstruktur der Reaktion auf den Brief ist die mehr oder minder blinde Identifikation mit der Nation als Kollektiv, dem Wir, dem verdinglichte andere Kollektive, wie »der« Amerikaner, gegenüberstehen. Wir haben in der qualitativen Analyse darauf verzichtet, über das hinaus, was im quantitativen Teil enthalten ist, nochmals etwas wie ein Auszählen von Argumenten zu versuchen. Nicht nur wären bei der notwendig weitgehenden kategorialen Differenzierung die Zahlen für die einzelnen Kategorien zu klein ausgefallen, um etwas zu besagen, sondern auch die Darstellung wäre der Gefahr des Mechanischen und Zerstückelten ausgesetzt gewesen. Im folgenden geben wir eine gedrängte Darstellung unseres

Verfahrens bei der Durchführung dieser qualitativen Analyse. Die ihr zugrundeliegenden Diskussionsprotokolle sowie die wichtigsten Tondrahtaufnahmen stehen im Archiv des Instituts für die wissenschaftliche Nachprüfung zur Verfügung. Wir hoffen, daß sowohl die fundierte Kritik als auch zusätzliche Studien zur Weiterentwicklung der hier angewandten Methoden zur Klärung zahlreicher noch offener Probleme der Interpretation und zur Berichtigung oder auch zur Bestätigung unserer Ergebnisse beitragen werden. Benützt wurden in diesem Kapitel hauptsächlich 25 Diskussionsprotokolle mit 1370 Seiten Text. Sie zerfallen in zwei Gruppen, eine von zwanzig und eine von fünf. Die größere umfaßt diejenigen, die die meisten Äußerungen zu den Komplexen: Mitverantwortung am Nationalsozialismus und am Krieg, Mitverantwortung an den Konzentrationslagern und an den Kriegsgreueln, Einstellung zu den Juden, Einstellung zu den DPs [Displaced Persons] enthielten. Fünf weitere Protokolle wurden aus dem Gesamtvorrat ohne Rücksicht auf die Themenstellung »Schuld und Abwehr« ausgewählt. Sie sollten die sozialen Gruppen repräsentieren, die in den zwanzig am wenigsten vorkamen, und damit das Bild einigermaßen abrunden. In der Bearbeitung wurde zwischen den beiden Gruppen der ausgesuchten Protokolle keinerlei Unterschied gemacht. Es mag die Frage auftauchen, warum nur ungefähr ein Fünftel der zur Verfügung stehenden Protokolle für die qualitative Analyse des Schuld und Abwehr-Problems benützt worden sind. Der Grund ist einzig der, daß eine Einbeziehung aller Protokolle einen prohibitiven und sachlich nicht gerechtfertigten Aufwand an Arbeit verursacht hätte. Die quantitative Verarbeitung sämtlicher Protokolle hat uns erlaubt, die in die vorliegende qualitative Analyse nicht ausdrücklich einbezogenen Diskussionen daraufhin nachzuprüfen, ob in ihnen wesentliche Abweichungen von den in den ausgewählten Sitzungen gefundenen Äußerungen vorkommen. Soweit das – ausnahmsweise – der Fall war, sind sie in der Bearbeitung des Stoffes berücksichtigt worden. Im allgemeinen haben aber auch diese Stichproben bestätigt, daß die im Text wiedergegebenen Reaktionstypen, und nur diese, in einer für das ganze Gebiet der politischen Ideologie charakteristischen Starrheit und Monotonie in unserem ganzen Diskussionsmaterial immer

wieder auftreten. Das Prinzip, nach dem die Protokolle, insbesondere die ersten zwanzig, zusammengestellt sind, bringt fraglos einen selektiven Faktor in die Untersuchung. Es hat sich nämlich im quantitativen Teil ergeben, daß in den Diskussionen durchweg eine größere Bereitschaft zu negativen als zu positiven Äußerungen besteht 3 . Danach könnte man annehmen, daß die Sitzungen, in denen die um Schuld und Abwehr gruppierten Themen eine besonders große Rolle spielen, auch besonders reich an negativen Äußerungen zu diesem Komplex sind und daß sich daher ein schiefes Bild der Ideologie ergibt. Es liegen jedoch sehr zahlreiche Äußerungen aus hier nicht analysierten Gruppen vor, die in Monographien zu ganz anderen Themen als Schuld und Abwehr, insbesondere in der Studie über Gruppe und Individuum und in der Sprachstudie, behandelt wurden und die gleichen Tendenzen zeigen. In sämtlichen 25 Protokollen wurden zunächst alle Stellen, die sich auf die Thematik der Studie beziehen, in ihrem Zusammenhang gelesen und der Kern der Äußerungen, vereinzelt auch Gedanken zu ihrer Interpretation, fortlaufend in drei Konvoluten notiert. Dann wurden die Notizen stichwortartig nach den Kernmotiven der Äußerungen und auch nach besonders charakteristischen Verhaltensweisen geordnet. Bei der ersten Niederschrift wurde so verfahren, daß von den Zitaten jeweils die herausgesucht wurden, welche die betreffende Kategorie am drastischsten illustrieren; doch wurde dabei keineswegs die Trennung in vorurteilsvolle, ambivalente und verständigungswillige Äußerungen der Versuchsteilnehmer mechanisch durchgehalten. Fraglos setzt die Auswahl besonders drastischer Zitate, in denen eine Kategorie gleichsam in ihrer reinen Form hervortritt, gewisse Akzente, die zwar der Ideologie Relief verleihen, den Einstellungen aber nicht ganz gerecht werden, sondern diese allzu kraß darstellen mögen. Wo im folgenden negative Äußerungen angeführt werden, handelt es sich jedoch vorwiegend um Belege immer wiederkehrender Motive. Die sehr umfangreiche erste Fassung der Analyse wurde mit dem Urmaterial verglichen, Wiederholungen beseitigt, Ergänzungen eingefügt und das Ganze erheblich gekürzt. Theoretisch wurde Askese geübt. Das hat zur Folge, daß die Interpretation durchweg im Bereich der Subjektivität der

Versuchsteilnehmer verbleibt, wie sie in ihren Äußerungen erscheint. Den variierenden Anteil der subjektiven und transsubjektiven Faktoren in den einzelnen Diskussionsbeiträgen ebenso wie das Überwiegen der einen oder anderen bei den einzelnen Reaktionstypen haben wir unerörtert gelassen. Ganz fern lag uns, die sachliche Problematik der Kollektivschuld zu untersuchen oder gar, in welchem Sinne auch immer, den Gestus der Anklage in empirische Untersuchungen zu übertragen. Was unsere qualitative Analyse zu Tage fördern kann, sind Sinnzusammenhänge, ideologische Syndrome. Auch wenn um der einfacheren Sprachweise willen nicht jedesmal wiederholt wird, daß wir weder generalisieren wollen noch über die Verteilung bestimmter Meinungstypen etwas aussagen können, gelten diese Einschränkungen. Dennoch lassen sich – positiv und negativ – Vermutungen darüber anstellen, ob diesen bei künftigen Untersuchungen besondere Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt werden sollte. So mag man zum Beispiel annehmen und systematisch prüfen, daß die soziale Differenzierung sich in den ideologischen Verhaltensweisen weniger oder unregelmäßiger bemerkbar macht, als man theoretisch erwarten würde 4 . Wenn bei der qualitativen Analyse zuweilen die Hypothese sich abzeichnet, daß die ärmsten Gruppen am ehesten zur Selbstbesinnung bereit sind, so wird diese Hypothese von den quantitativen Resultaten nicht erhärtet. Dagegen scheint die qualitative Beobachtung, daß Frauen verständniswilliger sind als Männer, auch quantitativ sich zu bestätigen. Es ist dabei wohl daran zu denken, daß das stets noch sozial anerkannte weibliche Ich-Ideal, das Verständnis, Güte, Barmherzigkeit und Weichheit einschließt, gerade dem hier behandelten Komplex gegenüber seine Rolle spielt.

I. Das Wissen vom Geschehenen   Wie sich die Teilnehmer an unseren Gruppendiskussionen zu der Frage der Schuld am nationalsozialistischen System stellten, der Schuld am Krieg, den es entfesselte, der Schuld an den Untaten, die es mit den Mitteln totaler Organisation durchführen ließ, das läßt

sich erst nach Klarstellung objektiver Sachverhalte beurteilen. Zunächst käme es darauf an, etwas darüber auszumachen, ob und in welchem Maße die von uns untersuchten Gruppen von den schlimmsten Dingen zu der Zeit, als sie begangen wurden, wußten. Die Antwort ist ungemein schwierig. Kein Zweifel, daß die Nationalsozialisten, indem sie die Todesfabriken nach Polen verlegten und die Vergasungen von einer kleinen Anzahl von Mordspezialisten durchführen ließen, versuchten, das Schlimmste nicht nur vor dem Ausland, sondern auch vor der einheimischen Bevölkerung geheim zu halten, oder vielmehr: nicht mehr davon durchdringen zu lassen, als ein zugleich vages und panisches Gefühl des Entsetzens. Zudem hat das Grauen selbst seinen eigenen Schleier produziert: gerade das über alle Begriffe Gehende konnte kaum einer, gleichgültig, ob er es mit den Nationalsozialisten hielt oder nicht, sich zugestehen; es ist schwer sich vorzustellen, wie man sonst überhaupt in Deutschland hätte weiter existieren können. Die triebökonomische Tendenz zur Abwehr des Wissens, wie sie ähnlich etwa an tödlich Erkrankten sich beobachten läßt, hat gewiß an die Geheimhaltung angeknüpft, auch und gerade bei denen, die mit den Untaten sich am wenigsten identifizierten und für die eben darum das volle Wissen am unerträglichsten gewesen wäre. Je maßloser die Grausamkeit mit Hilfe einer besonderen Erziehung zur Härte derjenigen, die sie begingen, sich steigerte, um so unwahrscheinlicher mutete sie zugleich das Bewußtsein all derer an, die noch irgend etwas von Begriffen wie Rechtssicherheit, Humanität und Unverletzlichkeit der Person erfahren hatten. Schweigegebote und drakonische Strafdrohungen für solche, die etwa aus den Lagern zurückkamen, taten ein übriges. Andererseits läßt sich kaum denken, daß, zumindest in den letzten beiden Kriegsjahren, angesichts der Zahl der Opfer gar nichts bekannt geworden sein soll. Überall verschwanden Juden bei Nacht und Nebel; wenn sie im Anfang etwa aus Theresienstadt noch schrieben, so hörte das rasch auf; viele Wehrmachtsangehörige müssen im Osten irgend etwas von den Einsatzkommandos gesehen haben, die ja auch außerhalb der hermetisch verschlossenen Todeslager am Werk waren; und bei aller Gefahr für diejenigen, die etwas erzählten, muß der Druck des Wissens so qualvoll gewesen sein, daß Urlauber genug sich fanden, die sich erleichterten, indem sie zu Hause wenigstens Andeutungen machten. Die

nationalsozialistische Ära, in der die öffentliche Information terroristisch gelenkt war, hat von Anbeginn als ihr Komplement das Gerücht gefördert, und Kriege sind ohnehin dessen Klima; so wird denn wohl jeder irgend etwas gehört haben. Aber gerade der apokryphe Charakter des Vernommenen, die Unsicherheit teils entstellter, teils unglaubhaft entsetzlicher Mitteilungen hat wiederum dazu beigetragen, das Gehörte durch eine Art Zensurmechanismus fortzuwischen. Heute vollends ist es fast unmöglich, die Situation zu rekonstruieren. Alles, was damals schon das Wissen, sei es objektiv verhinderte, sei es subjektiv verdrängen ließ, versammelt sich zur Selbstentlastung. Vermessen wäre es zu entscheiden, was an den gegenwärtigen Behauptungen über Wissen und Nichtwissen Wahrheit ist, was psychologischem Zwang unterliegt, wo die Lüge einsetzt.

 1. Vom Geschehenen nichts gewusst   Während unsere Studie in keiner Weise sich zutrauen darf, die Frage: wie viel hat man gewußt, oder gar wer hat etwas gewußt, zu beantworten, liefert sie Material genug für ein konkretes Bild dessen, wie im Winter 1950/51 Deutsche ihr Wissen oder Nichtwissen reflektierten. Die Berufung aufs Nichtwissen geht weit über die Sphäre des Grauens hinaus. Ein 35jähriger Jurist, der an einer Sitzung selbständiger Kaufleute in Norddeutschland teilnahm, betonte:  

Sch.: ... daß in ganz X mit ganz wenigen Ausnahmen die wenigsten gewußt haben bis zum Mai 1945, daß in Y ein KZ war. Und so weit ist das ja schließlich nicht von uns weg. (Protokoll 133, S. 11)

  Der pleonastische Ausdruck »mit ganz wenigen Ausnahmen die wenigsten« zeigt einen gewissen Übereifer, um so mehr als der Nachsatz dieses Nichtwissen unwahrscheinlich macht. Ähnlich problematische Beteuerungen des Nichtwissens kommen in einer Gruppendiskussion mit Honoratioren eines bayerischen Dorfes vor, die insofern ein Extrem darstellt, als es dabei zu Drohungen gegen den Assistenten kam, so daß der Versuchsleiter eine Prügelei befürchten mußte. Er stellte offen die Frage, wer von den Anwesenden etwas von den Vernichtungen gewußt habe und zu welchem Zeitpunkt. Darauf erfolgten Zwischenrufe: »Niemand – niemand – wohl gehört.« Unmittelbar nach den Zwischenrufen sagt ein 67jähriger Bauer:  

L.: Wohl gehört von Dachau, aber man hat nie gehört oder geahnt, daß dort Menschen gemordet werden. (Protokoll 16, S. 36) G.: ... meine Angehörigen – und darin glaube ich meine Mutter keiner Lüge zeihen zu müssen – hat, obgleich sie vielleicht 500 m von dem KZ-Lager gewohnt hat, nichts von dem KZ-Lager gewußt. (a.a.O.)

  Es ist schwer zu glauben, daß jemand, zu dem Gerüchte von Dachau drangen, nicht etwas von dem vernommen haben soll, was dort sich

zutrug. Daß die Greuel unter den Bedingungen des Dritten Reiches nur als Gerüchte und nicht authentisch bekannt wurden, wird von vielen Versuchsteilnehmern ohne weiteres so gewandt, daß sie gar nichts gewußt hätten, in Anlehnung an die herkömmliche Vorstellung von der Unzuverlässigkeit von Gerüchten und im Widerspruch dazu, daß ja im Dritten Reich Gerüchte die einzige vom offiziellen Propagandaapparat unabhängige Informationsquelle darstellten.

 2. Vom Geschehenen damals nichts gewusst   In einer Sitzung mit arbeitslosen Frauen, deren Tenor antifaschistisch ist, erscheint die These vom Nichtwissen weniger kraß, nämlich herabgestimmt auf die Aussage, man habe nicht vorhersehen können, daß es zu solchen Dingen käme. Diese These kommt den realen Bedingungen weit näher, zumal wenn man in Betracht zieht, daß die Nationalsozialisten vor der Machtübernahme offiziell immer wieder ihre Legalität betonten. Nur implizit gaben sie denjenigen die zu erwartenden Gewaltmethoden zu verstehen, die begierig danach waren, während sie es zugleich den sogenannten Mitläufern leicht machten, sich in die Gefolgschaft einzureihen, ohne in Gewissenskonflikte zu geraten. Charakteristisch ist die folgende Äußerung:  

X.: Nein, da hat man es noch nicht geahnt, daß es solche Ausmaße annehmen würde. Ich habe nie auf die Judenfrage geachtet, muß ich sagen, ich fasse das nicht, daß es sich dann so auswirken könnte. Das muß ich schon sagen. Das hat sich doch eigentlich alles erst nachher erwiesen. Das war für uns gar nicht so etwas, sonst hätte man doch bestimmt nicht dafür gestimmt. (Protokoll 34, S. 30f.)

  Man darf wohl eine derartige Äußerung, im Gegensatz zu den vorhergehenden, dem Typus der Verständigungswilligen zurechnen.

 3. Vom Geschehenen nichts wissen wollen   Von manchen verständigungswilligen Versuchsteilnehmern wird zwar ohne weiteres ausgeführt, daß sie selbst etwas wußten, aber sie betonen, daß sie keinen Glauben fanden. Dem kann die Überzeugungskraft nicht leicht abgestritten werden. In einer Sitzung, die sich aus politisch aufgeklärten Betriebsratsangehörigen zusammensetzte, sagt ein Sozialdemokrat und Antinazi:  

F.: Ich war immer ein Gegner des Nazismus – ich bin Sozialdemokrat, und wenn ich dann Dinge erzählte, die ich positiv wußte, so hat man mir selbst aus Arbeiterkreisen immer entgegengehalten: Nein, das ist unmöglich. Das konnten sie sich nicht denken, daß es so etwas gäbe. Ich bin der Meinung, daß die große Masse des deutschen Volkes wirklich nichts mit den Gemeinheiten, die Hitler hier inszeniert hat, zu tun hatte und auch nichts zu tun haben wollte. (Protokoll 24, S. 15f.)

  Hier kommt offen zum Ausdruck: daß in der Tat das Unmaß des Geschehens selber zu einem Bestandteil des Schleiers wurde, der es verdeckte und es dem Bewußtsein Ungezählter leicht machte, das scheinbar Unmögliche abzuweisen. Der Übergang von der Insistenz auf dem Nichtwissen zu Äußerungen, die ein Wissen anzeigen, scheint nicht unwesentlich durch die Gruppensituation bestimmt zu sein. Dabei spielt manchmal das Verhalten des Versuchsleiters eine Rolle, aber offenbar provozieren doch auch zuweilen Äußerungen von Versuchsteilnehmern, die jedes Wissen ablehnen, in der Gruppensituation Widerspruch und führen auf das Gegenteil. Öfters bleiben die Widersprüche ungeschlichtet stehen oder gehen in einer chaotischen Gesprächssituation unter, in der sich dann auch die Verantwortung für das Gesagte verliert. Um eine konkrete Vorstellung davon zu geben, sei ein längerer Abschnitt aus einer Diskussion zitiert, die sich dadurch auszeichnete, daß die Teilnehmer so leidenschaftlich am Gespräch teilnahmen, daß auch der Bandwechsel sie nicht zu einer Pause bewegen konnte.   L.: Kein Mensch, ... keiner bestimmt, und der Deutsche hatten geglaubt, daß die Juden alle vernichtet worden sind, das haben wir gar nicht geglaubt.

J.: Erst nach dem Krieg haben sie gesagt: der und der ist da gestorben und ist da kaputtgemacht worden. Vl.: Das haben Sie erst nach dem Kriege erfahren? Darf ich mal eine Gegenfrage stellen? Nun haben Sie doch auch hier mit jüdischen Händlern zu tun gehabt und Sie wußten doch, daß die dann auf einmal nicht mehr da waren. Haben Sie sich darüber keine Gedanken gemacht? G.: Wir haben uns schon gedacht, dem wird das Geschäft genommen worden sein, wenn er über Nacht nicht mehr gekommen ist, eines Tages und ... L.: Es wurde uns da so irgendwie beigebracht, die sind irgendwohin verschoben worden, und dort müssen sie arbeiten für sich selbst. Genau so, wie sie ja heute nach Palästina gehen, hat man gedacht, die sind irgendwo auf der weiten Welt in Ungarn oder irgendwo in Polen drin, net? G.: Man hat sich gedacht, die kriegen keine Handelskarte, was läuft dann der rum, wo er keine Handelskarte hat? (unverständliches Durcheinandersprechen) Na ja, man hat gesagt, die sind in den Konzentrationslagern und arbeiten. Vl.: Das möchte ich auch festhalten, meine Herren. Vielleicht können Sie sich doch dazu äußern. Also hier wird von einer Seite geltend gemacht, daß man erst im letzten halben Jahr praktisch etwas von Konzentrationslagern erfahren hat und wahrscheinlich auch von den nun auch wirklich vorgekommenen Vernichtungen. G.: Nein, ich müßte lügen ... Also, die Sache war natürlich über die Juden: wenn einer in Rußland war und hat das Spiel gesehen, da hat man dann erst kennt, daß die Juden in den Lagern gesammelt worden sind, und was dann geschehen ist. Man hat natürlich allerhand erfahren, selbst hat man auch irgend etwas gesehen. Aber das haben natürlich die Leute, die Bevölkerung, die bei uns herinnen, nicht gewußt, gar nichts gewußt. T.: Ich war in Riga in der Krankensammelstelle, net. Da habe ich Ausgang gehabt, nicht, und da gesehen, wie sie in die Fabriken geschafft worden sind und begleitet worden sind von der Fabrik wieder zurück, und da haben sie arbeiten müssen. Aber in Deutschland herinnen nicht. Aber mehr wußte ich nicht. Während des Krieges haben sie arbeiten müssen. G.: Davon hat die Bevölkerung in Deutschland nichts gewußt, gar nichts, daß die Juden da draußen das machen müssen, daß sie schaffen müssen. Aber wer hingekommen ist, der hat das wirklich gesehen. (Zuruf: Aber mit eigenen Augen gesehen.) (Protokoll 13, S. 15ff.)

  Die Passage zeigt den Zusammenhang zwischen der Situation des Gruppengesprächs und dem Zugeständnis des Wissens. Zunächst wird das Wissen geleugnet, freilich mit so fadenscheinigen Argumenten, daß den Versuchsteilnehmern offenbar selbst nicht wohl dabei ist; nach einer Intervention des Versuchsleiters aber fassen die Teilnehmer Mut und erleichtern sich durch konkrete

Hinweise, die in dem Ausdruck »mit eigenen Augen gesehen« kulminieren. Was mit eigenen Augen gesehen ward, bleibt hier wie an vielen anderen Diskussionsstellen ungesagt. Im übrigen wird trotz allem das Nichtwissen zwangshaft immer wieder repetiert.

 4. Etwas vom Geschehenen gewusst   Keineswegs setzt die komplexe Situation stets derart sich durch, daß auf die generelle Leugnung des Wissens einschränkende Erzählungen vom Gewußten folgen. Zuweilen kommen ganz adäquate Berichte vor. Manche Versuchsteilnehmer erinnern sich etwa an den Sachverhalt, daß einerseits der Terror das Bekanntwerden der Untaten weithin verhinderte, daß aber andererseits über ganz Deutschland eine Atmosphäre des Grauens sich verbreitete. Wo die Erinnerung daran klar hervortritt, ist von vornherein auf blinde Apologetik verzichtet, und die Redner, die in diesem Sinne sich äußern, können durchwegs zu den Verständigungswilligen gezählt werden. Eine Äußerung in einer Gruppe von Polizeibeamten, bei denen der demokratische Verständigungswille hervortritt, darf als typisch gelten für die Verbindung eines klaren Bewußtseins von Durchsickern mit eindeutiger Ablehnung des Nationalsozialismus:  

U.: Es wissen wenige in Deutschland und wußten wenige, was in den KZs vorgegangen ist. Aber es ist doch manches ... wo ich hingekommen bin, ist manches durchgesickert, und ich habe verschiedenes gesehen, da habe ich da zusehen müssen und habe mit dem Kopf geschüttelt. (Protokoll 28, S. 41)

  Die Gruppensituation führt dazu, daß nach einer Äußerung des Versuchsleiters ein zweiter Teilnehmer die Ansicht des vorhergehenden aufnimmt und in Beziehung zu der Frage der moralischen Verantwortung bringt:  

B.: Ich glaube, daß jeder von uns mehr oder weniger doch etwas gesehen hat. Aber, was uns gefehlt hat, war die Zivilcourage. (a.a.O., S. 42)

  In einer der verständigungswilligsten Gruppen, Primaner eines philosophischen Diskussionskreises, also einer Art intellektueller Elite, machte der Versuchsleiter den Versuch, das Problem des Wissens und Nichtwissens durch intensive Befragung zu entscheiden und sogar eine Art Auszählung herbeizuführen.  

Zwischenruf: Eine Abstimmung machen! Abzählen, welche, die hier sind, es gewußt haben, bewußt mehr oder weniger ... B.: Die meisten haben etwas gesehen, so wie ich z.B. den Brand der Synagoge da unten mit angesehen habe, aber bewußt hat es keiner miterlebt. A.: Ich möchte sagen, daß ich während des Krieges nach A evakuiert war, und ich war dort bei einem Polizeiwachtmeister einquartiert und konnte dort auch Gespräche mithören, die dieser Polizeiwachtmeister mit anderen Menschen geführt hat. Da fiel an einem Abend das Wort Buchenwald, und er sagte, daß nach diesem Lager Buchenwald Kraftfahrer mit Brot hineinführen, und daß sie alle verpflichtet wären, nichts darüber zu sagen, und in dem Falle, in dem sie darüber etwas aussagten, bestraft würden. Das war das einzige, was ich während des Krieges über die Vergasung erfahren konnte. Vl.: Ich frage aus einem bestimmten Grunde. Es wird sehr oft gesagt von Deutschen: Von diesen ganzen Geschichten haben wir nichts gewußt. Darf ich einmal fragen, wer überhaupt etwas wahrgenommen hat, daß Juden umgebracht worden sind, von Vergasung, KZ usw. Wer etwas erfahren hat oder nicht? (Zwischenrufe: Abstimmen! Abzählen!) Vl.: Ja, das sind 1, 2, 3, 4, also vier Herren, die etwas davon vorher erfahren hatten. H.: Ich glaube, daß viele unserer Eltern etwas gewußt haben, und da wir alle im Jungvolk waren und als Kinder eine sehr leichte Zunge haben, daß sie uns nichts gesagt haben, da sie befürchteten, selbst darüber den Kopf zu verlieren. F.: Mein Vater hat etwas gewußt wenigstens, hat aber nie gesagt, denn er wies jetzt darauf hin, daß er nichts darüber sprechen durfte, und daß es zu schrecklich wäre, darüber zu sprechen. Vl.: Die Jungen mal! U.: Es war mir zumindest bekannt, daß das Warschauer Ghetto bestand und ... Vl.: Das ist etwas anderes. O.: Ich habe die Großmarkthalle gesehen, wo Tausende von Juden hingebracht wurden, um in Transporten nach Polen weggeschafft zu werden. (Zwischenruf: Wir haben Transporte nach Polen gesehen und selbst Judentransporte, die nach Auschwitz gingen.) Vl.: Wußten Sie das? (Zwischenruf: Das wurde gesagt.) Vl.: Wußten Sie, daß Juden in großem Umfange deportiert wurden, ohne daß Sie wußten, daß sie dabei umgebracht wurden? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, also fünf Herren wußten von den Judendeportationen nichts. Gleichgültig, ob sie dort umgebracht wurden ... (Zwischenruf: Zur Geschäftsordnung! Hat man schon die Zahl der Anwesenden festgestellt?) (Zwischenruf: Jawohl, 21!) Vl.: Wer wußte nichts von KZs? Auch nur wenn andeutungsweise. Es sind tatsächlich verhältnismäßig wenig, die nichts wußten, von Dachau und KZs

usw.: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6! – Eine ganze Menge! – Herr U.? U.: Ich glaube, mir waren auch einige Details bekannt. Ein Bekannter von uns war Arzt und dessen Frau war Jüdin. Mein Vater unterhielt sich öfter mit ihnen, und er sagte auch damals ziemlich deutlich, gab er uns zu verstehen, so weit es möglich war, daß er wohl nachdem seine Frau fortkam, niemals mehr seine Frau wiedersehen würde, und er wies darauf hin, daß von den Juden, die fortkämen, keiner mit dem Leben davon käme. Ich glaube, das war ziemlich deutlich. N.: Ich habe noch eine bestimmte Erinnerung. Uns wurde einmal ein Mann zugewiesen, der in unserem Betrieb als Arbeiter beschäftigt war und der aus dem KZ entlassen worden war. Dieser Mann ist bei seinem Abgang verpflichtet worden, kein Wort zu sagen. Der Mann war derart ängstlich, auch nur darüber gefragt zu werden, und wenn überhaupt eine Andeutung in seiner Umgebung fiel, so hat er sich sofort weggemacht. Die Angst hat darauf hingedeutet, daß es schon ziemlich schlimm gewesen sein muß. (Protokoll 27, S. 50ff.)

  Abgesehen davon, daß ein offensichtlicher Zusammenhang besteht zwischen nicht-nationalsozialistischer Gesinnung und dem Zugeständnis des Wissens, ist die Stelle in vieler Hinsicht aufschlußreich. Sie beginnt wieder mit Leugnung des Wissens, aber dergestalt, daß die Leugnung das latente Zugeständnis schon in sich enthält: ein Sprecher formuliert, daß die meisten etwas gesehen hätten, aber bewußt keiner es miterlebte. Nachdem das Wort »Vergasung« gefallen ist, löst sich bei den Versuchsteilnehmern die Zunge. Einer macht eine letzte Anstrengung, das Wissen abzuleugnen, indem er es seinen Eltern zuschiebt, die ihm nichts davon gesagt hätten – im Einklang mit dem begreiflichen Bestreben jugendlicher Versuchsteilnehmer, ihre Jugend als Alibi anzuführen. Danach wird dann das spezifische Wissen freimütig einbekannt.

 5. Stellungnahme zum Geschehenen   Während sich nicht entscheiden läßt, wieviel zur Zeit der Terrortaten wirklich bekannt war, kann heute keiner mehr darauf sich berufen, daß er jetzt nicht wüßte, was geschah. Eine jegliche detaillierte Behandlung der Stellungnahme zum Geschehenen und ihrer Motivationen muß daher erörtern, ob und in welchem Maße unsere Teilnehmer die Tatsachen zugestehen oder leugnen. Kaum ist ein Zweifel daran, daß dabei eine scharfe Demarkationslinie zwischen Unbelehrbaren und Verständigungswilligen resultiert. Da gibt es zunächst diejenigen, die das Geschehene einfach abstreiten oder es für übertrieben erklären. Sie vermögen wiederum ihr Verhalten vielfältig zu rationalisieren. Daß niemand dabei war, daß sich keine Zeugen finden – denn fast alle, die es bezeugen könnten, sind ermordet worden, und die Augenzeugen aus der Nazisphäre, die überleben, haben alles Interesse daran zu verbergen, daß sie dabei waren –, wird zu einer Art juristischer Grundlage dafür gemacht, daß man, aus Mangel an primärer Evidenz, die Fakten nicht anzuerkennen braucht. Übrigens läßt sich oft bei Personen von paranoider Sinnesart beobachten, daß sie, wenn man ihnen in der Diskussion mit einwandfrei Erwiesenem begegnet, ihre Unansprechbarkeit durch ein unerwartetes »Woher wissen Sie das?« verteidigen, und da es kaum je möglich ist, für alles, was man weiß und mit Grund für wahr hält, die primäre Evidenz sogleich beizubringen, so haben psychotische Naturen eine gewisse Chance, mit der Frage nach dem Ursprung des Wissens zumindest vor sich selber momentan sich ins Recht zu setzen und auch andere zu beeindrucken.

 6. Leugnung des Wissens vs. Zugeständnis des Geschehenen   Zu einer eigentlichen Diskussion der Authentizität der Greuel kommt es in einer Gruppe, die zu den wenigen gehört, in denen schroffe Gegensätze wirklich argumentierend ausgetragen wurden. Hier polemisiert ein Redner gegen die Realität der Untaten, indem er sich wissenschaftlicher Phraseologie bedient, wobei die sichtbaren DPs als Ersatz für die Opfer gezählt werden, die man nicht mehr sieht:  

M.: Wenn man heute eine statistische Aufstellung von den Leuten macht, die im Konzentrationslager gesessen haben, bzw. dort umgekommen sind und denen, die heute sich in Deutschland rumtreiben und praktisch als verschleppte Personen sich ausgeben, daß man ruhig sagen kann, daß sich die Zahl verdoppelt hat. (Protokoll 83, S. 9)

  Verdoppelungen und Halbierungen von Zahlen gehören zum eisernen Bestand der Abwehr. Dagegen argumentiert nun ein verständniswilliger Teilnehmer:  

L.: Sie zweifelten ferner an, Herr M., daß die Zahl der in den Konzentrationslagern Ermordeten wirklich so ins Ungeheure steigt. Da möchte ich Sie fragen, ob Sie vielleicht nicht wissen, daß hier aus der ehemaligen Reichsbank in ... die Goldplomben dieser Ermordeten kistenweise, nicht nur einige, sondern zig Kisten, aus den Kellern dieser Reichsbank hier in ... herausgeholt worden sind. Und an diesen Kisten läßt sich wohl schon einmal – kann man sich doch schon einmal ein Bild machen, wieviel Menschen allein das schon gewesen sein mögen. Sie sagten, Sie hätten Auschwitz kennen gelernt. Sie deuteten das aber nur an, und führten dann weiterhin ein Gespräch an mit einer Frau, der ihre Tochter im KZ gewesen sein soll. – Da möchte ich darauf hinweisen, daß es unter den KZ auch verschiedene Stufen gab (Zuruf: Erholungsheime). Sie müssen unterscheiden zwischen normalen Konzentrationslagern für Deutsche, zwischen Konzentrationslagern für unerwünschte Ausländer und zwischen sogenannten Vernichtungslagern, in die die Russen, die Polen und die Juden reinkamen. (a.a.O., S. 12f.)

  Der erste Sprecher antwortete nicht ungeschickt im

charakteristischen »Woher wissen Sie das?« – Stil:  

M.: Wenn ich auch mal eine Gegenfrage stellen darf auf die Frage, die Sie an mich gerichtet haben: Wie kommt in diese Reichsbank, die Sie doch anführten in ... verplombte angebliche Kisten mit KZ ... also verstehen Sie, nehmen wir an, wie kommen die in die Reichsbank? Und wann sind diese Kisten rausbefördert worden einmal von den Amerikanern, nicht? Ob es sich nun um vergaste Häftlinge, oder ob es sich um den ehemaligen Schatz der Deutschen Reichsbank handelt, das steht noch nicht fest. Und das möchte ich erst mal klargestellt von den Amerikanern haben wollen, daß in den Kisten, die angeblich verplombt waren, vergaste KZ-Häftlinge dringewesen sind usw. (Heiterkeit). Das müssen mir die Amerikaner erst mal bestätigen, und schriftlich! (a.a.O., S. 13)

  Das Gelächter, das an den Witz mit den verplombten Kisten, in denen vergaste KZ-Häftlinge gewesen sein sollen, sich anschließt, zeigt unmißverständlich, wie das Unbewußte mancher Gruppen auf das Geschehene anspricht. Daß im Dritten Reich die Verdinglichung so weit getrieben wurde, daß Menschen buchstäblich zu Dingen, »fertig gemacht« wurden, wird im Sinne jener Komik wahrgenommen, die überall dort sich einstellt, wo Lebendiges als Totes behandelt wird, und solcher Humor spielt ins Einverständnis mit dem Mord hinüber. Der humanitär gesinnte Redner setzt sich zur Wehr, aber die wahnwitzige Wahrheit, für die er eintritt, hat es schwerer als der schlaue Menschenverstand, der sie leugnet.   L.: Nach 1945 hatte jeder Deutsche, wenn er es wollte, die Gelegenheit, sich davon ein Bild zu machen und sich zu überzeugen, durch Inaugenscheinnahme der KZs selbst, wie die Methoden dort waren. Und ich weiß nicht, ob Sie den KZ-Film »Todesmühlen« gesehen haben (Zuruf: doch!), anscheinend nicht. Ich habe ihn jedenfalls gesehen, ich habe auch die Kisten nicht in natura gesehen, sondern auf Bildern usw. Aber ich habe auch einen Teil der Nürnberger Protokolle gelesen, und die können Sie auch selbst nachlesen. Die liegen in der amerikanischen Bibliothek aus, das sind so an die 40 Bände; da ist alles protokollarisch genau festgelegt, die Aussagen der Nürnberger Verurteilten usw. Sie können sich da anhand des authentischen Materials genau informieren. Daß KZ-Häftlinge umgebracht worden sind, vergast worden sind, das habe ich selbst gesehen in der Nähe von Auschwitz. Ich bin oft drübergeflogen, ich habe die Schornsteine rauchen sehen und habe die KZ-Häftlinge vorher gesehen, wie sie auf unserem Flugplatz die Rollbahnen vergrößerten. Und als sie dann nicht

mehr konnten, dann wurden sie abgeschoben und stiegen dann als Rauchwölkchen gegen den Himmel. Ich wundere mich, daß diese offensichtlichen Tatsachen heute noch nicht geglaubt werden. (a.a.O., S. 13)

  Sein Gegner bringt darauf den geschäftsordnungsmäßigen Einwand vor, daß man »zu sehr vom Thema abkomme«, und befleißigt sich dann eines positivistischen Tatsachensinns, in dem das Abstruse und das Plausible sich verbinden. Seine Äußerung ebenso wie die Antwort darauf seien wiedergegeben.  

M.: ... ich möchte nur mal ganz kurz nochmal, die Argumente jetzt einbegriffen, beantworten, und zwar möchte ich davon ausgehen, daß man authentische Beweise als Sieger jederzeit hervorzaubern kann. Und daß man – wie Sie sagten, über Auschwitz geflogen sind und angeblich diejenigen, die die Rollbahnen gebaut haben, dann als Rauchwölkchen gegen den Himmel haben fliegen sehen (Zuruf: Sehr gut. Klopfen auf den Tisch). Wie können Sie das aus der Luft überhaupt als Flieger sehen? Erstens waren Sie nicht drin, nicht; zweitens kann man aus der Luft natürlich Vermutungen treffen, die man aber erst in jeder Hinsicht erst mal beweisen muß. Und wenn ich mich heute an das Nürnberger Gericht wende, dann kriege ich Akten vorgelegt, die unterschrieben sind von ... von Namen Müller oder sonstwie, Anklagen unterschrieben, die in keiner Weise den Tatsachen entsprechen. Und wenn ich heute für eine Unterschrift 500 Mark gebe, dann möchte ich denjenigen sehen, der sie nicht macht. L.: Ich stelle nur fest, daß Herr M. das alles anzweifelt, was von den Alliierten nach 1945 in den deutschen Konzentrationslagern festgestellt worden ist, daß er weiterhin anzweifelt die Aussagen der in Nürnberg Verurteilten und damit alles in Frage stellt, nicht. Wahrscheinlich stellt er sogar in Frage, daß wir 1939 den Krieg begonnen haben – (M.: Jawohl, das stelle ich jederzeit in Frage!) – und Sie stellen in Frage, daß wir Polen überfallen haben? (a.a.O., S. 13f.)

 7. Leugnung des Geschehenen   In einer extrem nationalsozialistischen Gruppe mit Honoratioren eines bayerischen Dorfes wird schlicht geleugnet, daß die Juden umgebracht worden sind:  

H.: Aber die, die man zuvor gekannt hat, die laufen jetzt alle wieder mitsamm' rum. (Protokoll 16, S. 4)

  Die angeblich große Zahl der DPs wird zum Vorwand, es so darzustellen, als sei den Juden eigentlich nichts geschehen. In einer Männergruppe aus einem Barackenlager, deren Teilnehmer eine gewisse gewerkschaftliche Schulung besitzen, findet sich die Aussage eines früheren KZ-Insassen, der die Greuel ebenfalls schlechterdings abstreitet:  

H.: Wir haben vorhin gesprochen von KZs da. Ich war drin in Buchenwald, eineinhalb Jahre, sagen wir fünfzehn Monate. Ich selbst kann nicht einmal bestätigen, daß dort Greueltaten begangen sein worden. (Zwischenruf: Das wollte ich wissen!) H.: Wissen Sie warum? Weil es gab drei Klassen: Grüne Bänder, blaue Bänder und rote Bänder. Grüne Bänder waren politisch, so wie ich hatte ein grünes Band, blaue Bänder waren Fluchtverdacht und rote Bänder waren allgemeine Zuchthäusler. Ich muß das eine sagen, die politischen KZler sind einwandfrei behandelt worden, das waren die Zuchthäusler, und die waren nicht mehr wert. Was war denn drinnen?: Frauenvergewaltigungen, Kindervergewaltigungen, Notzucht, Sadisten und alle Perversitäten. Die hätten sie können ruhig nach Millionen durch den Kamin jagen. (Protokoll 60, S. 40)

  Dieser Versuchsteilnehmer entspricht der Darstellung, die Bruno Bettelheim von den psychischen Veränderungen gegeben hat, denen KZ-Insassen nach ungefähr einem Jahr unterliegen: viele halten es in der extremen Situation nur aus, indem sie sich mit ihren Quälgeistern identifizieren, und bei dem Versuchsteilnehmer scheint diese Identifikation heute noch vorzuwalten 5 . Dafür spricht sein moralisches Einverständnis mit der schlechten Behandlung der Kriminellen, die pedantisch-administrative Aufzählung der verschiedenen Häftlingskategorien, insbesondere aber die

unbeschreibliche Roheit des Ausdrucks »durch den Kamin jagen«, der übrigens auch bei anderen Sprechern anklingt. Daß auf diese Weise selbst wirkliche Augenzeugen noch das ihre dazu beitragen, den Schleier zu verstärken, hat etwas Beängstigendes. Die Haltung des Experten greift hier auf ein Opfer über. Der frühere Häftling freut sich nachträglich an der strammen Disziplin:  

H.: Wie ich schon betont habe, es gab eben drei Klassen, drei Klassen gab es. Gab's die Unterschiede sehr groß. Von der dritten Klasse weiß ich nicht, wie die sind behandelt worden, auch nicht von der zweiten Klasse. Von der ersten Klasse, wo ich mit drin war, wenn wir über die Systeme sprechen: es gab das Preußensystem, der Drill. Früh um fünf raus, Leibesübungen. Ob es regnete oder schneite, das war egal. Leibesübungen, Baden, Waschen – oder Baden, wenn Badezeit war, Saubermachen, Kämmen, zum Friseur gehen, ob man Läuse hat, oder ob man keine Läuse hat, Haare schneiden, rasieren. Dann sind wir auf die Arbeitsstelle gegangen ... Es gab jedenfalls Schweine. Es gibt hier Schweine. Es gab da Schweine, gab es auch da Schweine. Es gab's. 's kam auch mal vor, daß einer wollte stiften gehen, der Posten war dafür verantwortlich – ist umgelegt worden. Selbstverständlich! Wenn ich Posten gewesen wäre, hätte ich ihn auch umgelegt, unbarmherzig, denn bevor ich mich werde einsperren lassen, soll der ins Gras beißen. Warum rennt er so fort! So war es. (a.a.O., S. 42)

 8. Zugeständnis des Geschehenen mit Einschränkung   Solchen Versuchsteilnehmern stehen diejenigen gegenüber, die vorsichtig, mit Einschränkung, das Geschehene zugestehen, um sich leichter damit abfinden zu können – die Vielleichtsager. Die Verhaltensweise, die hier in Rede steht, ist auf die Formel gebracht von einem Teilnehmer in einer Gruppe mit Arbeitslosen:  

X.: Ich möchte beinahe sagen, daß es uns zukommt, daß wir dieses oder jenes Greuel auf uns nehmen müssen. (Protokoll 48, S. 10)

  Das Zugeständnis erscheint den Versuchsteilnehmern durch die Gewalt der Tatsachen abgerungen, ohne daß sie es doch darum sich zu eigen machten. Sie sagen, was sie schon gar nicht mehr abstreiten können, und atmen dann auf.

 9. Spezifische Berichte über das Geschehene   Aber es fehlt auch nicht an spezifischen Angaben über das, was geschah. Im Anschluß an die von einem Versuchsteilnehmer vertretene These, daß »das kleine Volk nie erfahren hat, was in Auschwitz vorging«, berichtet die 45jährige Frau eines Bergmanns:  

Sch.: Es war mal bei unserem Nachbarn ein Ukrainer und sein Freund. Und der eine war so ein guter Mensch, bestimmt. Ich habe auch viel geschafft mit ihm zusammen am Ackerfeld. Und da mußte er von dort weg, und da ist er wo anders gekommen und dann kam er wieder mal zurück und hat gesagt: ach, Wirtin, du so gut. Ich wo jetzt bin, nix gut, viel schaffen, nicht viel essen, sagt er, und kalt. Paar Handschuh, hat er gesagt, nicht. Gut, hab ich ihm alles gegeben, hab ihm noch ein Brot unterm Arm gegeben und wieder los. Und nachher dann hat der andere alles erfahren, und sagte der: Ach, mein Freund in Auschwitz längst durch den Schornstein gegangen. Soviel weiß ich nur. (Protokoll 135, S. 12f.)

  Darauf kam das Gespräch auf Hadamar, den Ort, in dem Geisteskranke vergast wurden – eine Aktion, die nach Mitscherlichs Darstellung 6 zu aktiven Widerständen in Deutschland führte. Eine zweite Versuchsteilnehmerin faßt Mut zu erzählen, was sie weiß. Sie ist eine 34 jährige verwitwete Hebamme:   A.: Also meine Schwester hat mal oben – mit den Kindern verlagert in Schlesien. Da war ein großes Lager. Diese Gefangenen, die da waren, das waren Ausländer, der eine sprach so, der andere so. Die haben uns angebettelt, da waren's alle – die langen, schmalen Gestalten, ausgehungert. Aber ich habe so oft meine Schwester gefragt: Was ist das? Und in der Nacht – nun waren da oben die Angriffe ja nicht so, wie wir sie im Rheinland hatten – war das ganze Lager verschrien, aber wir haben nicht gewußt, was es war, bis kurz davor, daß eben alles drunter und drüber ging Ende des Krieges. Und da hatte meine ältere Schwester wohl immer sehr große Angst und hat gesagt: Kinders, wenn das Lager aufgemacht wird, dann geht's uns schlecht. Die waren so nett. Da mußten dann nachher die Frauen rein, da war ein alter Professor auch, das war auch ein Jude, den haben die Frauen gebadet. Meine Schwester war seinerzeit noch in anderen Umständen, die konnte da nicht hin. Da mußte dann die älteste Tochter für hin. Die mußte dann da in dem Lager saubermachen und aufräumen, ja, das war nach dem großen Zusammenbrach. Und eben weil das aber Ausgebombte waren, Evakuierte, dann haben die – sind die sehr nett

gewesen, selbst die aus dem Lager kamen und haben denen da nichts gemacht. Aber dann bei den Bauern im Ort usw., die hatten dann doch einiges darunter zu leiden wie die KZs. Das war ein KZ, aber im Anfang haben wir nicht gewußt, was da drin war. Ich war nur zu Besuch da, wenn ich runtergefahren bin aber meine Schwester selbst nicht. Dann haben sie denen Brot gegeben usw., wenn sie da durchgegangen sind. Das durfte ja natürlich der Aufseher nicht sehen. Aber die waren ausgehungert bis zum letzten. Aber ich habe immer gedacht, das sind einfach Gefangene, die irgend etwas verbrochen haben. Und meine Schwester hat's am Anfang auch nicht anders gewußt. Na ja, bei uns, wohl in diesen großen Fabriken, Krupp usw., die hatten ja alle diese Arbeitseinheiten – aus diesen Lägern. Die kamen da raus – also marschierten dann, aber sonst hat man davon nicht sehr viel gewußt. Wenn man da nicht in unmittelbarer Nähe von dem Lager war, dann wußte keiner etwas. (Protokoll 135, S. 13f.)

  Die Sprecherin hat offenbar die Absicht, durch ihre Erzählung darzutun, daß sie nichts wußte, aber gegen ihren Willen zeigt sich doch, daß ihr allerhand bekannt war. Ihre verwirrte, widerspruchsvolle Darstellung mag teils sich damit erklären, daß sie vergebens versucht, Nichtwissen und Erinnerung in Übereinstimmung zu bringen, teils aber damit, daß sie von der Erinnerung überwältigt wird und vor dem Aussprechen schauert. An einigen Stellen, wie bei der Erwähnung des alten jüdischen Professors, scheint es wiederum, als wäre über das Schlimmste ein Tabu verhängt: die Dinge nennen, heißt sie herbeiziehen, im Geist des Sprichworts, man solle den Teufel nicht an die Wand malen. Die eingehendsten konkreten Belege über Selbstbeobachtetes enthält die Sitzung einer Gruppe von vorwiegend armen Frauen, die durchweg gegen den Nationalsozialismus stehen. Mehrere Mitglieder dieser Gruppe haben in einem Viertel einer Großstadt gewohnt, in dem verhältnismäßig viele ärmere, kleinbürgerliche Juden lebten, die der Gewalttat besonders ausgesetzt waren. Die Sitzung ist eine derjenigen, in der die Hebelwirkung der Gruppendiskussionen am stärksten sichtbar wird:   L.: Wir haben sehr viel mit Juden zu tun gehabt, und die letzte Jude sind bei uns abgegange im August 1943. Und im Oktober hatte wir schon in der ... Straße ziemliche Angriffe gehabt mit schwere Brandbombe. Also da kann ich nur sage, daß der Jude ... daß vielleicht net so viel Neger umgebracht worde sinn in Amerika in einem Jahr wie bei uns vielleicht in 14 Tag umgebracht worde sinn nur in dieser Gegend zwischen ... bis runter in die ...

Straß, ... ich hab es miterlebt, wie bitter das war. Das ergreift mich heute noch, wie jeden Tag der Totewage ankam und morgens drei bis vier Leut wieder sich vergiftet hatte, Leut von 80 und 81 Jahr. Mei Mutter is jetzt 80 Jahre alt, und es würd mir sehr leid tun, wenn sie sehe würde, wenn se se nemme und hawwe se auf e Lastwage raufgeworfe. Ein Schwerkriegsbeschädigter von 1914, den hab ich auch sehr gut gekannt, der is in meim Alter, dem hawwe se die Krücke weggenomme, und da is er uff die Erd gefalle und da hawe se gesagt: Du Hund hast lang genug gelebt, und hawe ihn auch mit raufgeworfe uff den Wage. Des hat unser Viertel, wo ich jetzt wohn, net gesehe, des hat nix abgekriegt, und die glaube des net. (Protokoll 9, S. 11f.)

  Die Erzählung wird von einer Teilnehmerin damit quittiert, daß sie solche Dinge nicht erlebt habe, weil es eben nur den Armen so erging, ein Aspekt der Judenverfolgung, der bisher kaum analysiert worden ist:  

Ra.: Also, was Frau L. hier vorhin erzählt hat, war mir ziemlich neu, denn ich hab sowas nicht miterlebt, denn ich habe nur mit Westend-Juden verkehrt und war auch befreundet mit denen. Und meinen Bekannten ist eigentlich nichts passiert. Sie sind entweder – sie haben genug Geld gehabt, daß sie beizeiten weggekommen sind, und – (Zwischenruf: Das waren ganz Reiche, jawohl, das waren ganz Reiche.) (a.a.O., S. 16)

  Anschließend entwickelte sich der Dialog:  

Re.: Ich hab mich dafür also sehr geopfert, da ich selbst einer alten Frau geholfen hab und andere gehindert – kann man sagen – weggejagt und hätt ich selbst noch meine Hieb gekriegt, hier im ... viertel. Nur um anzuschauen, ich hab gedacht: setz dich mal aufs Rad und fährst da hin. Schutzleute und alles, die haben alles gewähren lassen. Und die, wo noch wegfahren wollten zum Flughafen oder irgendwohin, haben ihre Last gehabt, daß sie ins Auto reinschlupfen konnten. Da haben sie vorher noch eins kriegt mit einem Mordsstock oder sonst was. (Zwischenruf: Wann war das?) (Zwischenruf: Das habe ich selbst erlebt im ... weg.) Das war furchtbar, einfach die Möbel kaputtgeschlagen! Was können denn die Kinder dazu, die sind doch nicht geboren ... (unverständlich, es sprechen verschiedene) muß man doch von Glück sagen, daß man kein Jude ist. Man konnte doch gar nimmer auf die Straße. Was können die Judenkinder dafür, wenn die Eltern schon – die waren schon über 80 – ich kenn eine Schulkollegin, die ist vergast, der Bruder ist vergast, der hat sieben

Kinder und seine Frau eine deutsche Frau hat er geheiratet, die Mutter ist vergast und der Vater ist – es ist nur eine Schwester heimgekommen, die ist ganz allein, die anderen Angehörigen sind alle vergast worden. Durfte die mit zusehen, das hat die erzählt. B.: Ich halte das nicht für richtig, das damals; im ..., da hab ich das auch – daß zehn- und zwölfjährige Kinder die Leut mit Eisenstangen die Fenster und »Jud« und vollgespuckt und all das gemacht haben. Da hab ich mich reingemischt, war mein Mann dabei, und da hat es geheißen: Du siehst auch aus wie so ein Dreckjud, dich muß man auch mal wohinbringen! Da hat mein Mann gesagt: Auf, wir gehen los! und da bin ich zitternd fort. Die Kinder sind hinter mir hergegangen mit einem Stock und haben mir an den Beinen rumgefuschelt. Das vergeß ich mein ganzes Leben net, und das hab ich im ... weg ... (a.a.O., S. 16ff.)

  Nur die Drahtaufnahme vermittelt ganz, welche Aufregung die Versuchsteilnehmer ergriff. Eine dritte Versuchsteilnehmerin erinnert sich an eine Schreckensszene:  

B.: Eine feine Jüdin, die hat in der ... straße gewohnt, Ecke ..., im ersten Stock, eine Rechtsanwältin, und die hat im ersten Stock um Hilfe geschrien, da haben zwei junge Männer sie vom Fenster rausgeworfen, das habe ich gesehen, jawoll. Sie haben sie bei den Beinen und runtergeworfen, das hab ich gesehen, wie sie um Hilfe geschrien hat. (a.a.O., S. 20)

  Für die Teilnehmer dieser Gruppe scheint es übrigens besonders schockierend, daß die Greueltaten, die an den Juden verübt wurden, auch Menschen betrafen, die man gewohnt war, zur Oberschicht zu rechnen, wie denn allgemein eine hingerichtete Prinzessin mehr Mitleid findet als eine ermordete Viehmagd. Der Respekt vor dem früheren sozialen Status der Juden ist so groß, daß die Teilnehmerin, die die Diskussion durch ihren Widerstand antreibt, indem sie erklärt, sie habe »so etwas nicht erlebt«, sich mit Stolz darauf beruft, das komme daher, daß sie nur mit »Westendjuden« verkehrt habe. Aber auch die Sprecherin, welche die Schreckensszene berichtet, wie eine Jüdin aus dem Fenster geworfen wurde, versäumt nicht, hinzuzufügen, es wäre eine »feine« Jüdin, eine Rechtsanwältin, gewesen. Diese Reflexion auf reiche und feine Juden scheint anzuzeigen, daß es sich hier nicht allein um das Mitleid mit den Opfern handelt, sondern auch um das Entsetzen darüber, daß die festgefügte, an Eigentumsverhältnissen orientierte Ordnung der

bürgerlichen Gesellschaft durch den Nationalsozialismus verletzt wurde.

 II. Schuld   Wenn im vorigen Abschnitt das Problem des Wissens um das Geschehene aufgeworfen war, so ist nun die Konsequenz bei denen darzustellen, die dies Wissen leugnen: sie sind sich keiner Schuld bewußt. Die Analyse gilt also in weitestem Maße den nationalistisch Gesonnenen und in Abwehrstellung Befindlichen; die Verständigungswilligen sind nur insoweit herangezogen, als Motive der Abwehr, wenngleich mit anderem Sinn, auch bei ihnen vorkommen. Vorweg darf die These gewagt werden, daß bei den Verständigungswilligen auf der einen Seite die Abwehrmechanismen viel schwächer sind, Schuld viel mehr zugestanden wird, daß aber andererseits die ganze Frage bei ihnen im allgemeinen nicht so affektbesetzt ist wie bei den Nationalisten; daß sie, im Jargon der Diskussionen zu reden, viel weniger Schuldkomplexe haben als die, welche gegen die Schuld sich sperren; und dies keineswegs bloß im psychoanalytischen Sinn des Unbewußten. Auch in ihrem manifesten Denken spielt die Dimension schuldig-nichtschuldig nicht entfernt die Rolle wie bei den anderen.

 1. Negation der Schuld   Oft steht die generelle Negation der Schuld, aufs Nichtwissen gegründet, am Anfang der Diskussion, mottoartig. So heißt die erste Äußerung in der bereits zitierten Arbeitslosendiskussion:  

Z.: Also in der Grundhaltung gebe ich dem Briefschreiber im großen und ganzen recht. Dann allerdings weist der Brief eine Reihe von Punkten auf, die ich keineswegs befürworten kann. Es heißt, daß die Deutschen sich ihrer Schuld nicht so bewußt sein würden, wie es vielleicht erwartet wird, und das Ausland es wünscht. Dazu möchte ich sagen, daß der größte Teil des deutschen Volkes sich irgendeiner Schuld gar nicht bewußt ist, denn der überwiegende Teil des deutschen Volkes hat ja höchstwahrscheinlich nur so gehandelt, wie jedes andere Volk in der Welt auch gehandelt hätte. Man kann also nicht aus der Tatsache heraus, daß 95% der Deutschen gegen die Greueltaten, die sich unzweifelhaft in den Konzentrationslagern ereignet haben, nichts unternommen haben, sich nicht zu irgendwelchen Widerstandsbewegungen zusammengeschlossen haben – aus dieser Tatsache kann man nicht schließen, daß gerade das deutsche Volk den Eindruck hatte, daß es ihm relativ gut ging. Man muß die Dinge aus den realen Verhältnissen heraus betrachten, die damals herrschten. (Protokoll 48, S. 1)

  Das Eigentümliche an der Äußerung ist, daß der Gedanke, nach langen Interpolationen, an der entscheidenden Stelle beschädigt wird und abbricht. Die These lautet, der größte Teil des deutschen Volkes sei sich einer Schuld nicht bewußt. Man erwartet nun, daß, nachdem das Motiv angemeldet ist, die Deutschen hätten nichts gegen das Grauen unternommen, weiter argumentiert wird: daraus darf man aber keine Schuld ableiten, denn kein Volk hätte es anders gehalten. Statt dessen wird gesagt, man dürfe nicht schließen, daß gerade das deutsche Volk den Eindruck hatte, daß es ihm relativ gut ginge – eine These, die aus der Argumentation völlig herausfällt. Es ist wohl kaum zu weit hergeholt, wenn man unterstellt, daß diese Aberration dadurch bedingt ist, daß hier nun tatsächlich das unbewußte Schuldgefühl dem Sprecher einen Strich durch das Schema der Apologie machte. Sie steht prototypisch für ungezählte andere Fehlleistungen 7 . Soweit es die Übersicht über das Material erlaubt, ist die unqualifizierte Leugnung aller Schuld verhältnismäßig selten. Dazu

sind doch die Fakten zu nachdrücklich bekanntgemacht worden. Insgesamt schrecken die Diskussionsteilnehmer davor zurück, sich allzu grob ins Unrecht zu setzen, indem sie einfach die deutsche Unschuld reklamierten. Die Abwehr bedient sich subtilerer, vor allem rationalerer Mittel, unter denen die Aufrechnung der Schuldkonten wohl das wichtigste ist. Wichtig ist weiter die Bereitschaft, durch philosophische Reflexionen und begriffliche Distinktionen, durch Intellektualisierung mit dem Komplex fertig zu werden.

 2. Falsche Verinnerlichung der Schuld   Von der psychoanalytischen Entfaltung einer Theorie der Verdrängung von Schuld wird hier abgesehen. Es genüge der Hinweis, daß bei autoritätsgebundenen Charakteren die Dimension von Strafe und Strafbedürfnis viel wesentlicher ist als bei anders strukturierten Individuen. Soziologisch gesehen ist bei den Nichtnationalisten das Interesse, sich und Deutschland um jeden Preis reinzuwaschen, viel geringer als bei den Nationalisten. Es soll damit keineswegs behauptet werden, daß für die Nichtnationalisten die Frage der Schuld nicht wesentlich sei. Aber sie sind offenbar weit eher fähig, Gewissensprobleme zu verinnerlichen, es mit sich selber auszumachen und dann danach zu handeln als die anderen, bei denen sogleich die Reaktionsform des nach außen Schlagens, sich ins Recht Setzens sich herstellt und die in solchem Bemühen ebenso, weil sie sich selbst doch nie ganz glauben können, von dem kritischen Thema kaum loskommen. Bei ihnen wird das Motiv der Verinnerlichung verdreht: so in einer der Offiziersgruppen, wo sich die Berufung auf die Schuld gegen die »Propaganda« richtet, mit anderen Worten gegen alle von außen wider Deutschland erhobenen Anklagen. Der Subjektivismus verquickt sich mit Relativismus: wenn das Maß der Schuld bloß inwendig ist, wer soll dann über ihre Objektivität entscheiden können?  

Sch.: Ich hatte mir diesen einen Satz auch noch stehen gelassen, wie alles andere von meinen Herren Vorrednern behandelt wurde, zu der Meinung des Engländers 8 , daß wir seiner Meinung nach kein Schuldgefühl hätten für das, was passiert ist. Ich möchte doch eines erwähnen. Was ist Schuld? Schuld ist doch etwas, was von innen heraus kommen muß, dieses Gefühl für Schuld. Schuld kann nie kommen, wenn ein Außenstehender kommt und uns propagandistisch oder publizistisch klarzumachen versucht: Kinder, Ihr seid nun wirklich schuld, fühlt euch nicht nur schuldig, sondern wir wollen euch dieses Schuldgefühl von außen aufoktroyieren. Das ist das Eine. Das Zweite ist: Was ist der Maßstab für Schuld? Vl.: Wir müssen unterbrechen ... Kann ich kurz zusammenfassen? Er meinte, Schuldgefühl muß aus dem Innern kommen und kann nicht von außen her aufoktroyiert werden, und daß auch der Maßstab für die Schuld wesentlich sei. Sch.: Der Maßstab der Schuld ist doch in etwa subjektiv, also nach dem Empfinden. Die Rechtswissenschaftler sagen: eine Schuld muß mit Recht

zusammenhängen. Was heißt aber Recht? Was hat man uns in der Nazizeit gezeigt, was Recht ist? Es ist uns doch gezeigt worden, daß Recht Macht isr. Nicht nur, was im Gesetzbuch drinsteht, meine Herren, Recht ist doch Macht, das ist doch zweifellos klar, denn wenn vor einem Gericht der Ankläger und der Richter dieselben sind, dann ist das nicht mehr Recht, dann muß es doch Macht sein. Wie will man behaupten, wir müßten Schuldgefühle haben, wenn wir voraussetzen, daß Schuld Macht ist, daß Schuld auf Recht basiert, und daß Recht wieder Macht ist. Wo bleiben wir da mit unseren Begriffen? Wer fühlt sich für unsere Millionen Landsmänner, die aus dem Osten zurückgetrieben wurden, schuldig? Wer fühlt sich schuldig dafür, daß wir in der ersten Zeit hier verflucht knapp zu essen hatten, daß Leute erfroren sind, und daß Leute draufgegangen sind. Wer fühlt sich dafür schuldig? Kein Mensch! Denn vor den Gerichten, kommen wir einmal auf die Nürnberger Prozesse zu sprechen. Wir sagten: was wollt ihr von uns? Andere haben das ähnlich gemacht. Unsinn, hieß es dann, steht nicht zur Debatte jetzt, sondern eure Schuld steht zur Debatte. Bei Begriffen, die abstrakt sind, da muß doch ein allgemeiner Wert Maßstab sein, der allgemein gültig ist. Man kann nicht sagen: Ihr schlechten Deutschen. Ihr seid jetzt schuldig. Jetzt verurteilen wir euch. Alle anderen sind nicht schuldig. Das trifft vor allem auch für die Herren, die gewohnt waren, ihrem Fahneneid zu folgen. Wie kann man sich anmaßen, es ist einmalig in der Geschichte, wie es mir erscheint, daß vor einem Tribunal, das Partei war, die Generale auf Grund ihres Fahneneids, auf Grund der Befolgung der Pflicht – das ist das Grundprinzip eines jeden Soldaten, eines jeden Beamten – daß Männer auf Grund dessen, daß sie nach ihrer Pflicht gehandelt hatten, zum Tode, und dann noch durch den Strang – eine der schimpflichsten Todesarten, die einem Militär widerfahren kann – verurteilt worden sind. Ja hat man denn überhaupt ein Verständnis dafür gehabt von seiten der Besatzungsmächte, daß man nun nicht sagen kann: Ihr seid auf der einen Seite schuldig, wir sind besser als ihr – und es dann aber trotzdem schlechter macht. Wo sind denn die Psychologen gewesen? Ich komme jetzt auf etwas, was Herr Z. vorhin gesagt hat. Man macht uns den weiteren Vorwurf: Ihr habt kein Verständnis für andere Menschen. Ja, wer hat denn auf der anderen Seite das Verständnis aufgebracht: wir wollen euch zeigen, wie es besser gemacht wird. Und da fangen sie es genau so an, wie wir es gemacht haben und vielleicht noch schlimmer. Bei uns wurde doch noch der Schein gewahrt. Beim Nürnberger Gericht hat kein Mensch versucht, auch nur noch den Schein zu wahren. Das möchte ich noch hinzufügen, um auf die Sache mit der Schuld noch einmal zurückzukommen: Ist die Sache nicht auch rein propagandistisch zu werten? Denn jener Verbündete, der im Nürnberger Gericht noch der Freund war, der zusammen noch Richter und Ankläger war, ist im Laufe von drei Jahren propagandistisch zum Weltfeind Nummer 1 gemacht worden. Ist das nicht vielleicht der Beweis, der für uns Deutsche spricht, der zeigt, daß die Masse in Amerika gar nicht aufgeklärt worden ist, oder nur sukzessive aufgeklärt wird durch die jeweilige Propaganda, und um dann jeweils nach der positiven oder negativen Seite

hin beeinflußt zu werden. Die Deutschen haben in der Masse gar nicht gewußt, was in den KZ passiert ist. Es ist uns vorenthalten worden, oder wenn etwas herauskam, wurden wir durch die Propaganda so beeinflußt, daß wir es gutheißen mußten. (Protokoll 71, S. 31ff.)

  Ungewöhnlich ist die Insistenz, mit der Sch. auf das Problem der Schuld eingeht. Es fällt schwer zu entscheiden, ob er sich so eingehend damit beschäftigt, weil er im Ernst sich um Klarstellung bemüht, oder lediglich um die Abwehr wirksamer zu gestalten, oder schließlich, weil er unbewußt an das Problem fixiert ist, sich nicht davon freimachen kann. Am nächsten kommt man wohl dem Sachverhalt, wenn man annimmt, daß ein Verhalten wie das dieses Diskussionsteilnehmers überhaupt nicht von dem einen oder anderen solchen Faktor bestimmt wird, sondern daß diese Faktoren selber erst einem begrifflichen Klassifikationsschema angehören, das versucht, psychologische Ordnung ins Phänomen zu bringen, während in diesem, und zwar in verschiedenen Schichten des Ichs, all jene Momente sich verschränken und eigentlich gar nicht voneinander abgehoben werden können. – Daß hier Innerlichkeit einzig die Rolle der Ideologie spielt, enthüllt sich in den Worten des Redners. Der gleiche, der da sagt, Schuld sei etwas, was von innen heraus kommen muß, beruft sich darauf, daß im Gegensatz zu den Nürnberger Prozessen »bei uns doch noch der Schein gewahrt« wurde. Ganz abgesehen davon, daß man ja schwerlich der Gestapo, welche alle Rechtsgarantien außer Kraft setzte, wird attestieren können, daß sie den Schein gewahrt habe, dementiert die Berufung darauf, daß das Wahren des Scheins eine höhere moralische Kategorie sei, die Forderung von Innerlichkeit als dem Schauplatz echter Schuldgefühle.

 3. Wie soll die Schuld aussehen?   In mehr als einem Fall nimmt die kritische Besinnung über den Schuldbegriff den Charakter des formalistischen Kniffs an. So fragt ein Teilnehmer, scheinbar unberührt von aller Evidenz, mit pointierter Harmlosigkeit und Ursprünglichkeit:   M.: Inwiefern sollen wir schuldig sein?

(Protokoll 16, S. 18)

  Das Desiderat, den Begriff zu spezifizieren, also anzugeben, in welcher Hinsicht von Schuld die Rede sein könnte, vermischt sich trübe mit der rhetorischen Frage, welche die Schuld leugnet, indem sie die Unmöglichkeit unterstellt, anzugeben, worin sie eigentlich bestehen soll – eine Verfahrensweise übrigens, die an gewisse Spielregeln der zeitgenössischen Logik mahnt. Darüber hinaus spekuliert er auf die Wirkung einzelner unerwarteter, sich sehr präzis gebender Fragen, die eine bündige Antwort erheischen, wo es um komplizierte Zusammenhänge geht, den Angesprochenen in eine unangenehme Situation bringen und ihn verwirren. Fragen überhaupt, pointiert vorgebracht, haben oft ein aggressives Element. Später wird in derselben Sitzung Kritik geübt daran, daß man »zum Schuldbekenntnis aufgefordert« werde, wiederum mit der formalistischen Ausflucht, wie denn ein solches Schuldbekenntnis aussehen soll. Der berechtigte Widerwille gegen ideologische Veranstaltungen, leere öffentliche Schuldbekenntnisse, wird eingespannt, um der Kontroverse über die Schuld sich überhaupt zu entziehen:   H.: Jetzt kommt aber immer die Geschichte so raus, als ob die Amerikaner überhaupt, oder irgendeiner von den Ausländern sagt: Ja, jetzt gesteh es doch, jetzt gesteh es doch. Na, er hat es gestanden: jetzt wird er doch noch verknaxt, so wie man vor Gericht immer sagt: Gesteh's also, sag's, du stehst dich am besten dabei. Dazu denkt er, vielleicht komm ich doch ganz frei weg. Nein, jetzt wird er doch zu einem halben Jahr verknaxt. Wenn er alles gesagt hätte, wie es ist, dann hätten sie ihn vielleicht zu 3 / 4 Jahren verknaxt. (Zuruf: Das dürfte nicht stimmen.) Va.: So sieht es aus, wenn wir immer noch glauben, daß wir das einzige brave

und gütige Volk wären, und, nachdem wir Millionen umgebracht haben, daß wir jetzt Herr Jesus schreien, also weil jetzt die anderen zurückschlagen, nicht? Wenn ich einem eine Ohrfeige gebe, und er gibt mir eine kräftige zurück oder auch zwei, wie es die nun gemacht haben, dann muß ich mir immer sagen: Ich habe den ja gereizt. H.: Dann darf er nicht extra noch ein Geständnis wollen. L.: Ich glaube auch nicht, daß er ein Geständnis will, sondern daß wir die anderen Völker immer noch reizen, eine Gegenseitigkeit, daß wir tun, als ob wir nichts getan hätten. Vor allen Dingen sieht es doch gerade aus – ich möchte nicht zurückkommen auf ein Thema, das wir schon diskutiert haben – daß wir uns der Juden überhaupt nicht schämen. Es gibt ja noch viele, die sagen, das macht nichts, die hätten noch viel mehr vergasen sollen. Leider waren diese Stimmen lauter als diejenigen, die nun ehrlich sich sagen: Es war doch eine Schweinerei. H.: Das mag vielleicht der Grund sein. Also fragt man nicht dann, und da kommt die Antwort: Sind gar nicht schuldig. Also umgekehrt der Fall, was sollen wir dann sagen, oder wie sollen wir dieses Schuldbekenntnis formulieren? (a.a.O., S. 34f.)

  Abgesehen von der verräterischen Fehlleistung, »daß wir uns der Juden« (anstatt: der Untaten an den Juden) »überhaupt nicht schämen«, liegt hier offenbar wiederum die Anschauung zugrunde, Schuldbewußtsein sei etwas so Innerliches, daß es nicht von außen gefordert werden könne. Diese Idee von der Moralität in dem von Hegel kritisierten Sinne kommt aber am Ende dem eigenen Interesse des Schuldigen zugute. Indem er es lediglich mit sich selbst auszumachen hat, wird er der realen Verantwortlichkeit innerhalb der Gesellschaft enthoben, und die religiöse Steigerung des Gewissensanspruchs läuft real auf den Relativismus hinaus 9 . In einer der Diskussionen zeigt die Sorge darum, »wie das Schuldgefühl eigentlich aussehen soll«, ihr wahres Gesicht: das Schuldgefühl sei Geschwätz:   K.: Und mich würde nach wie vor interessieren, wie sich das Schuldgefühl, das er vermißt hat bei uns Deutschen, wie das ... trotz dieser Sachen, die alle auf dem deutschen Volk gelastet haben und heute noch lasten – und gerade die Jugend in vielleicht nicht absehbarer Zeit wieder so richtig zum Atmen kommt durch diese Folgen ... mir wird da immer wieder nicht klar ..., wie das ausschauen soll, in was für einer Form. Vl.: Ja, ich glaube, in der Form ..., daß wir uns nicht besser halten sollen ... als die Amerikaner, obwohl sie uns geschlagen haben, um hier mit Mr. Colburn zu sprechen. Und daß wir wieder gutmachen sollen all das, was wir in fremden Ländern und den Juden gegenüber getan haben. Und daß wir also

nicht widerspenstig sein sollen. Und daß wir uns nicht selbst bemitleiden sollen. Und daß wir versuchen müssen, alles wieder gut zu machen. B.: Ich glaube schon, daß er es so gemeint hat, aber ich bin denn der Meinung, um das von Ihnen zitierte Wort zu wiederholen, daß das ganze Schuldgefühl doch ein Geschwätz war. (Protokoll 96, S. 21)

  Hier funktioniert die Abwehr derart, daß das tatsächliche Geschwätz über die Schuldfrage, das eine kurze Zeit nach dem zweiten Krieg wie übrigens auch nach dem ersten in Mode war, benutzt wird, um das Schuldgefühl selber als »Geschwätz« zu diskreditieren. Latent ist gemeint, daß man, weil einen doch niemand von außen zum Schuldgefühl zwingen könne, bereits unschuldig sei. In der gleichen Gruppe wird dann so argumentiert, daß, weil es nicht möglich sei, sich das deutsche Schuldgefühl »vorzustellen«, die Rede von der Schuld sinnlos sei. Würde man den Gedanken weiter verfolgen, so wäre seine Konsequenz, daß aus der Tatsache der Abwesenheit eines Schuldbewußtseins das Fehlen der Schuld selber geschlossen werden müsse.  

K.: Also, ich glaube zumindest dieser Kreis – wenn wir wieder auf den Ausgangspunkt zurückgehen dürfen – daß Hitler die Verantwortung für die in Brand gesteckte Welt trägt usw. und somit auch das deutsche Volk schlechthin, daß dies zumindest dieser Kreis entschieden ablehnt. Mich würde es interessieren – und es tut mir sehr leid, daß ich den Briefschreiber nicht fragen kann, wie er sich eigentlich das Schuldgefühl der Deutschen vorstellt. (a.a.O., S. 18)

  Dieselbe Wendung kommt wörtlich in einer Flüchtlingsfrauen-Sitzung vor:  

D.: Darf ich mal gleich die Gegenfrage stellen, wie Sie sich das denken, oder die Menschen, die von unserer allgemeinen Schuld überzeugt sind, es sich vorstellen, daß wir vorher gegen diese Schuld hätten argumentieren sollen, denn wir alle haben ja, das kann ich wohl hier in aller Namen sagen, von Greueltaten nichts gewußt, nichts. (Protokoll 107, S. 12)

  Die Frage »Wie stellen Sie sich das eigentlich vor?« läuft darauf hinaus, daß der andere der Weltfremdheit, des mangelnden Realismus geziehen wird; wäre er nur dabei gewesen, hätte er nur

gesehen, wie unmöglich es war, etwas zu tun, so würden ihm solche Hirngespinste schon vergehen. Das Phänomen entspricht genau dem, was heute die Tiefenpsychologie mit dem Begriff der Veräußerlichung des Über-Ichs bezeichnet. Das Abstreiten subjektiver Schuldgefühle, die Leugnung der eigenen Schuld und die einer deutschen Schuld überhaupt geht assoziativ, mit kunstvoller Unlogik, ineinander über. Um den Diskussionen über die Schuld die richtige Perspektive zu geben, muß nachdrücklich gesagt sein, daß die Abwehr der Schuld als solche nicht mechanisch mit Nationalismus oder psychologischen Verdrängungen gleichgesetzt werden kann. Es gibt Äußerungen der Abwehr, und gerade solche, in denen der Schuldbegriff näher geprüft wird, denen im Zusammenhang die genau entgegengesetzte Bedeutung zukommt. Als Beleg sei ein Passus aus einer Lehrergruppe angeführt:  

F.: Ich habe die Schuld, nicht so sehr Empörer gewesen zu sein, daß ich ins KZ kam. Ich bin 1933 entschiedener Hitlergegner gewesen, aber niemals ein derartiger Empörer oder Verschwörer, daß man mich eingesperrt hat. Man hat mich auch nicht erwischt. Ich bin also ein Mitläufer und habe die Schuld des Mitlaufens. Ich frage mich, in welchem Augenblick dieser berühmten Jahre habe ich nun eine persönliche Schuld auf mich geladen, jedenfalls von heute aus gesehen? In welchem Jahr, an welchem Tag, in welchem Monat habe ich das nun getan? Oder wäre es Menschenpflicht gewesen, noch aktiver zu sein? Aber da muß dann auch gesagt werden, mit den Folgen für die Familie und so fort. Das ist vermutlich die Frage, die sich viele, viele aus meinen Reihen heute stellen. Aber ich weiß keinen Augenblick, in dem ich nun versagt haben würde. Das ist kein Versagen, wenn ich das Leben und das Dasein meiner Familie auch dabei berücksichtigt habe. (Protokoll 56, S. 18f.)

  Hier hat zunächst das Zugeständnis der Schuld nicht jenen formalistischen Klang, der dann nur die Wendung präludiert, die Sache sei erledigt. Doch ist das sophistische Element in dem Versuch, das Schuldproblem als solches zu diskreditieren, indem man verlangt, man solle Jahr, Monat oder Tag angeben, wo der Nichtaktive sich schuldig gemacht haben soll, nicht zu übersehen; der Passus klingt wie ein schwaches Echo der zenonischen Paradoxien. Andererseits aber ist die Verteidigung, daß man einem Einzelnen nicht moralistisch das Martyrium zumuten könne, das der offene und aktive Widerstand gegen die Nazis bedeutet hätte, wahr

und substantiell.

 4. Schuld ist eine kleine Clique   Nur hartgesottene Nationalsozialisten gehen so weit, die Tatsache der Ausrottung selbst zu leugnen. Damit aber ergibt sich für die weniger Entschiedenen – und das sind gerade die, welche sich überhaupt mit moralischen Problemen herumplagen – die Aufgabe, die Schuld am Begangenen möglichst plausibel so zu konstruieren, daß man makellos ausgeht. Das Autoritätsprinzip erlaubt es, den obersten Führern, die nicht mehr am Leben sind, alles zuzuschieben. Eine Art negativer Selektion wird unterstellt etwa in einer Sitzung arbeitsloser Frauen.  

B.: Aber man ist ja sprachlos – der größte Teil des deutschen Volkes, denn dem deutschen Volk liegt das Brutale ja gar nicht in dem Sinne; er ist ja wohl gutmütiger Art, als daß er dem anderen gegenüber, sagen wir, gleich derart die Freiheit nimmt und derart drangsaliert. Vl.: Es ist immer nur eine Frage. Wer die Macht anbetet, der ist nicht immer so gutmütig. B.: Nein. Vl.: Ja absolut nicht, trotz der Gutmütigkeit? B.: Das waren nicht Gutmütige da oben, ja das waren eben besondere Elemente da zusammengekommen. (Protokoll 34, S. 14f.)

  Die Formulierung »Das waren nicht Gutmütige da oben« entbehrt nicht des fratzenhaften Humors. Die Schonung, mit der da geredet wird, setzt sich im folgenden fort, wo sogleich eine Lanze für die Frauen der »Elemente« gebrochen wird, mit bequemem Übergang zur Selbstentlastung:  

B.: Wenn man heute z.B. Zeitungen liest, sagen wir mal »Neue Illustrierte« wie jetzt die einzelnen dazu schreiben, Frau von Schirach und die Emmi Göring und dergleichen, dann liest man ja aus diesen Berichten heraus, daß diese hohen Persönlichkeiten, die mit an der Regierung standen, daß die ganz und gar auch nicht damit einverstanden waren mit diesen – also Überspitzten, daß die auch versucht haben, von sich aus Juden freizubekommen und zu unterstützen. Aber, daß sie als einzelne genau so wenig zur Verhinderung tun konnten als wir tun konnten ... (a.a.O., S. 15)

 

In einer stark nationalsozialistisch gefärbten Gruppe männlicher Flüchtlinge greift ein Sprecher in einer langen Brandrede den Goebbels'schen Begriff des Greuelmärchens auf und geht von dort zur unverhüllten Verherrlichung des Nationalsozialismus über, nachdem er die Schuld auf die »Clique« begrenzt hat.  

R.: Ich möchte noch abschließend sagen, daß diese ganzen Greuelmärchen, wie man sie in den verschiedenen Illustrierten über den Nationalsozialismus liest, daß das zum größten Teil auch aufgeputschte Geschichten sind, die nur aus reiner Sensationslust geschrieben worden sind, daß doch nur eine kleine Clique vielleicht dagewesen ist, die diese Greueltaten auch im nationalsozialistischen Staat verübt hat. (Protokoll 109, S. 26)

  Die partielle Wahrheit, daß in der Tat die Durchführung der Terrorund Ausrottungsmaßnahmen einem sehr kleinen Personenkreis vorbehalten war, wird dadurch zur Unwahrheit, daß dieser kleine Kreis bis zu den beiden letzten Kriegsjahren vom Vertrauen einer großen Mehrheit getragen wurde und daß der Widerstand gerade gegen die Terrormaßnahmen sich nicht wirksam geltend machte, während in anderen Sektoren des Lebens der Gesellschaft, insbesondere in der Wirtschaft, die Kompromiß-Struktur der Willensbildung trotz der Form der Diktatur sich durchsetzte 10 . Die These von der kleinen Clique ist nur solange einleuchtend, als sie von jenen Momenten isoliert ist; wird sie im Kontext des historischen Prozesses gesehen, verliert sie einen großen Teil ihrer Überzeugungskraft. Abgesehen davon, daß die tatsächliche Durchführung der Morde von den Nazis einem beschränkten Personenkreis übertragen worden war 11 , hat das Dritte Reich durch seine gesamte politische und organisatorische Verfahrungsweise es darauf angelegt, die Bevölkerung in Mitläufer und Kerntruppen zu zerlegen, gar nicht viel anders, wie es dann das Schema der Denazifizierung abgab. Totalitäre Regimes sind – wie es auf der Ebene der politischen Analyse insbesondere Franz Neumann eingehend nachwies 12 – paradoxerweise pluralistisch. Das erlaubt es den Massen, je nach Bedarf sich mit dem Regime zu identifizieren oder von ihm zu distanzieren. Wo aber ein totalitäres Regime zerbricht, kann dann die Mehrheit die Greuel als das von sich fortschieben, was »die« verübt haben, und indem sie so vom Grauen und schlechten

Gewissen sich lossagen, haben sie es um so leichter, dem, was das Regime an Vorteilen bot, die Treue zu halten. Man muß diesen finsteren Zusammenhang durchschauen, wenn man das Abwehrproblem ganz verstehen will. Der ganze Mechanismus wird von einem Teilnehmer einer Gruppe von Polizeibeamten auf die einfache Formel gebracht:  

X.: Was der kleine Kreis der Gestapo verbrochen hat, war uns unbekannt, und somit konnten wir gar nichts unternehmen, weil wir nichts wußten. (Protokoll 28, S. 41)

 5. Unschuld Einzelner Gruppen   Mit der Virtuosität, welche die moralische Abwehr entwickelt und welche vielleicht äquivalent ist dem Maß an unbewußter Schuld, das man zu verdrängen hat, bedient sich eine andere Wendung einer an sich richtigen Einsicht: daß in einer nach Nationen oder nationalen Machtblöcken aufgespaltenen Welt, in der es an einer übergeordneten und unabhängigen völkerrechtlichen Instanz mit zureichenden Machtmitteln fehlt, der Sieger Recht hat und der Besiegte Unrecht. Diese formale Einsicht wird dazu benützt, die materielle Schuldfrage als unentscheidbar von vornherein zu diskreditieren. Weil es feststeht, daß der Sieger dem Besiegten Unrecht gibt – das etwa ist die innere Struktur jener Denkbewegung – deshalb läßt sich über Schuld und Unschuld im internationalen Maßstab überhaupt nichts ausmachen. Auf Grund solcher Argumentation wird jeder Richter als befangen abgelehnt und womöglich noch der Spieß umgedreht: man tritt selber als Verfolger auf, sobald der Richter, dessen Unabhängigkeit man anzweifelt, Vorhaltungen über das macht, was im Dritten Reich begangen wurde. So geht jede Möglichkeit der Selbsterforschung unter. Jugend, Generation und ähnliche vage Kategorien spielen häufig dort eine Rolle, wo die Verantwortung von bestimmten sozialen Gruppen abgewälzt werden soll; sei es, daß man eine Generation für etwas Schlechtes verantwortlich macht, meist die ältere, oder daß man eine andere, meist die eigene, von allem Bösen dispensieren will. Die Unschuld der Jugend wird betont in einer bayerischen Gruppe:   Pf.: Im großen und ganzen wird hier der große Fehler gemacht, daß die Jugend verurteilt wird. Ich glaube, die Jugend hat eigentlich gar keine Möglichkeit gehabt, irgendwie gegen dies anzukämpfen, daß man ... den Rassenhaß oder die Rassenverfolgung ... unterbrochen hätte. B.: Ja, da muß nun natürlich ... festgehalten werden: wir waren damals ich glaube ... sechs oder sieben Jahre alt im Jahre 1933, sind aufgewachsen mit Heil Hitler. Und dann, ich glaube, ich darf da ... etwas über ... sagen, nachdem wir ja alle aus ... und weiterer Umgebung zusammengekommen sind, sind gerade in dem sogenannten damaligen Gau ... als Beispiel die Kreuze aus den Schulzimmern nicht entfernt worden ... zweifellos war es nur dem damaligen Gauleiter, eben der hat sich damals auch verkracht mit

dem Führerhauptquartier. E.: Ich gebe Ihnen vollkommen recht, aber ich kann mich des Jahres 1938 erinnern ... wie die Schaufenster der Judengeschäfte zertrümmert wurden und wie die Menge gejault hat. B.: Haben Sie gejault? E.: Ich nicht! B.: Haben Sie mitgejault? ... Sie ...? Wir können ja ehrlich sein. Wer hat denn mitgejault? Ich, wenn ich mitgejault hätt', hätt' mei' Vater mir eine runtergehaut! Sch.: Ich glaube auch, damals in dieser Zeit 1938, wo diese Verfolgung der Juden praktisch angegangen ist, wer unter uns, also wir als die Jugend, damals praktisch Kinder – damals hatten wir also überhaupt keinen Grund, uns praktisch zu betätigen, überhaupt zu beteiligen. Während heute es etwas ganz anderes ist, als wir selber sehen, daß, was die Leute machen, irgendwie unrecht ist, während damals, was da geschehen ist, uns praktisch nichts angegangen ist. (Protokoll 96, S. 8f.)

  In derselben Sitzung wird das Abstraktum der Jugend glorifizierend verwandt:  

B.: Der Schritt ist bereits getan worden 1948, als, ich weiß nicht, als ein Jugendring in München die gesamte Jugend der Welt – Vertreter versteht sich – eingeladen hat zum internationalen Jugendtreffen in München. Von Indien war eine Dame da, und es war auch jüdische Jugend da, mit denen wir uns als Vertreter der deutschen Jugend sehr gut verstanden haben. Ich glaube, bei der Jugend fehlt es nicht. Ich kann mich hier an Unterhaltungen erinnern, die wir mit jüdischen Jugendlichen geführt haben, die durchaus unserer Meinung waren. Die sagten, wir, wir müssen uns verstehen. Und die Leute, die ... in München waren, die haben sich auch verstanden. Ich glaube, die Frage liegt vielleicht bei den älteren. Wie ja, ich glaube, wir als Jugendliche an der ganzen Sache zwischen 1933 und 1945 – ja vielleicht bis früher, bis in die Wilhelminische Ära ... den älteren einen bitteren Vorwurf machen müssen. E.: Da stimme ich Ihnen vollauf zu. K.: Daß Unrecht geschehen ist, das hat zumindest die Jugend in großem Maße eingesehen und – daß, was da irgendwie ... zu bereinigen war, daß wir da natürlich sofort bereit sind, den ersten Schritt zu tun, und zwar nicht nur vielleicht in irgendeinem Zusammenkommen wie es da in München geschehen ist, sondern immer wieder, daß wir, die Deutschen, also immer wieder diejenigen sein müssen, die als erste die Hand reichen müssen; aber von wegen einem Schuldgefühl in dem Sinne, daß wir praktisch überall und immer diejenigen sind, die an allem Unheil, was nun durch den Krieg hereingebrochen ist, daß wir auch als Jugend, die an und für sich keine direkte Schuld oder überhaupt keine Schuld praktisch, wenn wir so sagen

dürfen, tragen, daß wir da, nach wie vor, vielleicht für Zeit und Ewigkeit ein Schuldgefühl haben, was, von uns aus gesehen, was an und für sich gar keine Berechtigung hat. Pf.: Ja, zu der Sache von Herrn K. Stellung nehmend, wäre noch zu sagen: Die Schuldfrage, oder die, wo uns immer in die Schuhe geschoben wird, daß wir an allem Schuld sind; die Schuldfrage und der Haß ist ja von den Amerikanern kurz nach dem Krieg gefordert worden, indem es immer geheißen hat: Nazischwein! Nicht wahr ...? (a.a.O., S. 11ff.)

  Das hier verwandte Argument ist das Gegenstück zu dem beliebteren, daß, wo viele Vorwürfe erhoben werden, etwas daran sein müsse. Es wird mit einer Art Logik der Wahrscheinlichkeit operiert: Nach jedem Krieg wird gesagt, die Deutschen sind schuldig gewesen, und das kann doch wohl nicht der Fall sein, sondern jedes Ding hat seine zwei Seiten, und dieser Restbestand eines eingeschliffenen »common sense«-Schlusses bewirkt dann unausdrücklich die kühne Extrapolation: also sind wir unschuldig. Ebenso wie die Jugend sollen die Frauen besonders schuldlos sein. Ganz allgemein wird das ausgesprochen in den ersten Sätzen der bereits erwähnten Flüchtlingsfrauengruppe.  

D.: In einem der Sätze hieß es: Wir Deutschen hätten uns noch nicht zu Herzen genommen, oder vielmehr, wir hätten uns das Schlechte der Hitlerzeit noch nicht so zu Herzen genommen, daß wir daraus eine Schuld erblicken. Und da muß ich ganz offen und ehrlich sagen, daß wir deutschen Frauen uns von dieser sogenannten Schuld – so wie ich die deutschen Frauen kenne und mit ihnen darüber spreche – freifühlen. Da stimme ich nicht überein mit. F.: ... Ich bin der gleichen Meinung. Also uns ist alles unbewußt, was überhaupt geschehen war, und wir haben ja immer das Beste nur gewollt, wir Frauen. Und ich fühle mich auch keiner Schuld bewußt. (Protokoll 107, S. 1)

  Die Gruppenunschuld wird weiter urgiert in der Gruppe weiblicher Arbeitsloser. Der Versuchsleiter weist darauf hin, daß gerade während der ersten Jahre des Naziregimes viel über die in den KZs verübten Schandtaten durchgesickert sei, und erhält sofort die Antwort, die Frauen hätten sich wenig um Politik gekümmert, woran sich, als wäre es selbstverständlich, die Folgerung anschließt, sie hätten die Gerüchte ebenso wenig geglaubt wie etwa die Ritualmordlegende:  

F.: Ich glaube aber, ... das wußten vielleicht auch die Männer. Ich meine, wir Frauen, wir haben uns doch weniger um Politik gekümmert. Vl.: Zu Hause wurde gar nicht davon gesprochen? F.: Nein, es wurde wohl über Politik gesprochen. Bei uns war das auch nicht bekannt. Man stellte sich unter Konzentrationslagern Gefängnisse vor, so eine Art Gefängnis, aus denen man nicht schreiben kann, Zuchthaus so irgendwie in einer Form. Aber was da nun mit einem geschieht, das wußten wir nicht. Und daß sie wenig zu essen bekamen, das war das einzige, was man wußte. Aber mehr haben wir von den ganzen Konzentrationslagern nicht gewußt, und daß es da wahrscheinlich, also daß das längere Strafen sind, nicht. Mehr hat man nicht gewußt davon. Sch.: Ja, ich muß sagen, wenn ich da später mal gehört habe, daß es da sehr schlimm zuging, es wurde ja nie richtig darüber gesprochen, weil das dann sehr schwer bestraft wurde. Dann habe ich geglaubt, das wären Verleumdungen. Ich habe es nie geglaubt, wenn ich Andeutungen darüber hörte. Ich habe es dem Regime, unseren Deutschen nicht zugetraut, daß sie so etwas ... Vl.: Trotz des Horst-Wessel-Lied und all diesen schönen Liedern haben Sie es nicht geglaubt? Sch.: Nein, habe ich es nicht geglaubt, daß sie ... so etwas, wenn man es vom Russen gehört hätte, das hielt ich bei uns für ziemlich ... völlig unmöglich. H.: Wir glauben ja auch nicht, daß die Juden mit arischen Kindern ihr Unwesen getrieben haben. Also vom Glauben kann man nicht ausgehen, muß ich doch sagen. (Protokoll 34, S. 34)

 6. Kollektivschuld   Durchweg sind die Versuche des Individuums, gegen die kollektive Schuld anzugehen, weit stärker affektiv besetzt als die, der individuellen Schuld auszuweichen. Hinter der Ablehnung der These von der kollektiven Schuld steht nicht nur die Solidarität mit dem Volk und vermutlich nicht nur das politische Interesse, unangenehme Maßnahmen abzuwenden, die aus der Konstruktion der Kollektivschuld folgen könnten. Ein Hauptmotiv ist wohl auch der Drang des Individuums, nicht, wie etwa durch die Parteizugehörigkeit, verstrickt zu werden, sondern seinen Kopf aus der kollektiven Schlinge herauszuhalten. Wie sich in amerikanischen Untersuchungen ergeben hat, daß Versuchsteilnehmer, die Meinungen vorbringen, deretwegen sie ein schlechtes Gewissen haben, diese Meinungen häufig nicht als ihre eigenen vertreten, sondern sich verschanzen hinter die Formel »people say«, so geht es auch gelegentlich in den Diskussionen der Frage nach der Kollektivschuld zu, etwa in einer Arbeitslosengruppe, in der die Diskussionsteilnehmer sich für ihre eigene Ohnmacht durch gigantische Theoreme entschädigen:  

L.: Mein Kollege, Herr M., sprach von Militarismus und auch vom Krieg. Wer eigentlich hat die Schuld an dem Krieg gehabt, und ist Hitler schuldig am Krieg? Ich muß sagen, nach dem Hörensagen unter Kameraden: Wir haben Diskussionen gehört, daß Hitler nicht schuldig ist an dem Krieg, sondern Amerika, und daß Amerika versucht hat, Hitler als Vorposten nach Rußland zu schicken, damit für Amerika der Kommunismus in Rußland bekämpft würde und somit der Nationalsozialismus die ... Wenn das Programm in Rußland erfüllt würde, würde Amerika automatisch die Hand auf Rußland legen. Deutschland würde dann dadurch seine Aufgabe, die Hitler gegeben worden ist, erfüllt haben. Das ist leider nicht gelungen, und dadurch ist die politische Lage so, daß die Sozialfrage schwer lösbar ist. Die Sozialfrage ist an und für sich keine nationale Frage, sondern eine internationale Frage für sämtliche Völker, die verbunden sein müssen, d.h. Deutschland als Zentralland müßte Vertreter nach dem Ausland schicken, nach den verschiedenen Ländern, und diese Frage überall bearbeiten. Aber da es verschiedene Gegenrichtungen gibt, nehme ich an, daß die soziale Frage fast unmöglich zu lösen ist. Und auch die Grundlage der Demokratie, die natürlich darauf aufgebaut ist, die Sozialfrage zu lösen. Deshalb ist die Demokratie als Gesamtheit nicht möglich.

(Protokoll 48, S. 20) Z.: Aber eine Kollektivschuld, wie seinerzeit von Niemöller gesagt wurde, und wie sie auch abzulehnen ist, gibt es nicht. (a.a.O., S. 22)

  Die apokryphe Konstruktion, »daß Amerika versucht hat, Hitler als Vorposten nach Rußland zu schicken«, ist ein bloßer Vorwand für eine extrem nationalistische These. Daraus, daß die »soziale Frage« als eine »internationale Frage« charakterisiert wird, wird abgeleitet, daß Deutschland als »Zentralland diese Frage überall bearbeiten«, also wohl im Sinne von Hitler-Europa lösen müsse. Am Schluß ist wiederum die verunglückte Logik kennzeichnend für die Sache. Der Versuchsteilnehmer erinnert sich an die bekannten Äußerungen Niemöllers über die Kollektivschuld. Er setzt die Entrüstung über jene Äußerung als feststehend voraus und formuliert daher: »wie seinerzeit von Niemöller gesagt wurde, und wie sie auch abzulehnen ist« – mit anderen Worten, die Ablehnung der Kollektivschuld erfolgt bereits in einer Klausel durch Assoziation mit dem Namen Niemöller, ehe eigentlich geurteilt wird, und dann erst, im Angesicht einer causa judicata hinkt das Urteil nach, daß es jene Kollektivschuld nicht gebe. Das und die Formulierung »und wie sie auch abzulehnen ist« führt auf einen Sachverhalt, auf den man in Deutschland häufig stößt, der aber schwer zu beschreiben und noch schwerer theoretisch zu fassen ist, und auf den hier nur als auf ein sozialpsychologisches Problem verwiesen sei, weil er mit der Frage der politischen Ideologie heute zentral zusammenhängt. Es ist das jene sei's wirkliche sei's vom Sprechenden gesetzte oder fingierte communis opinio, jener Gestus dessen, daß man sich ja darin vorweg und ohne Umstände einig sei, der dazu dient, die eigentliche Besinnung über alles Problematische wegzuschieben. Alles wird mit einem Augenzwinkern als kollektiv vorentschieden behandelt und die Bestätigung des Einverständnisses anstelle der Einsicht in Sachen gerückt. Das in dem Teil über Gruppe und Individuum beschriebene Phänomen der »Gruppenmeinung« dürfte demselben Komplex angehören 13 . Psychologisch handelt es sich hier vermutlich um die Augenblicke, in denen der kollektive Narzißmus, die Lust dazuzugehören, ihre Erfüllung findet, indem sich die Einzelnen, die vom Wunsch beherrscht sind, etwas Kollektives hinter sich zu

haben, zusammenstimmen und tatsächlich so etwas wie Kollektivität bilden. In solchen Augenblicken fühlen sie sich so stark und sind zugleich gegen alles von außen Kommende so sehr abgedichtet, daß die Rationalität ausgeschaltet wird. Man braucht gar nicht darüber zu reden, ja gar nicht mehr zu denken. Das Urteil der Gruppe usurpiert das Urteil der Vernunft. Die Frage der Kollektivschuld ist ein Nervenpunkt von solcher Art, daß wer immer nicht die etablierte Meinung teilt nach dem Schema vom Vogel, der das eigene Nest beschmutzt, behandelt wird. Das ist vielleicht der Grund dafür, daß über diesen Punkt in den Diskussionen bei der großen Mehrheit der Teilnehmer Einigkeit zu herrschen scheint.

 7. Kriegsschuld   Die Empörung über die Annahme einer Kollektivschuld verbindet sich leicht mit der Ablehnung der Kriegsschuld und dem »Ohne uns«-Motiv.  

A.: Aber trotzdem bestreite ich die Kollektivschuld des deutschen Volkes am Kriege, denn nun haben wir den Krieg fünf Jahre hinter uns. Wenn der Deutsche absolut schuld war, dann hätte ja jetzt tiefster Friede herrschen müssen, denn der Deutsche hat ja nun nichts mehr. Er kann nichts mehr, und er tut auch nichts mehr, er will auch nichts mehr. Aber trotzdem ist der tiefe Frieden noch nicht da. Ich meine im Gegenteil, vom Frieden kann man doch heute gar nicht mehr reden. Vl.: Fräulein A., ich verstehe nicht ganz, was Sie damit meinen. Wir haben einen Krieg gehabt, und wir haben das erlebt, weil wir ja durch Hitler in den Krieg hineingerissen worden sind. Und nun gehen die Kriegshandlungen weiter. Diese Sachen sind eben eine Folge, daß einer angefangen hat. Nun geht es weiter. Wenn es irgendwo brennt, dann brennt es auch weiter. A.: Ja, aber wenn das Feuer gelöscht ist, und wenn es dann immer weiterbrennt an anderer Stelle, und dann kann auch derjenige nicht schuld sein, wo es mal zuerst angefangen hat. B.: Ja, das ist ja auch so. Wenn wir, sagen wir, keinen Hitler gehabt hätten und keinen Krieg angefangen hätten, dann wäre trotzdem der Bolschewismus dagewesen, und wäre dann einfach über Deutschland weggerollt. Und dann hätte Amerika jetzt schon den Bolschewismus, den wir erst aufgehalten haben, wo wir uns also in dem Krieg eigentlich dagegen gelehnt haben, und da hat die Welt gegen uns gestanden. Und jetzt sollen wir also zusammen mit der Welt wiederum doch gegen denselben Feind kämpfen, auch also wieder gegen den Bolschewismus stehen, gegen den wir eigentlich diesen Krieg gemacht haben, der uns vorgeworfen wird, und für den unsere Heerführer abgeurteilt worden sind. Und da will man uns nun wieder dafür begeistern. Wir sollen wiederum gegen denselben Feind kämpfen. Der größte Teil des Volkes sieht die Logik nicht ein. (Protokoll 34, S. 12f.)

  Wenn schon gar nichts mehr hilft, wird der ganze tatsächliche Gang der Weltgeschichte suspendiert und willkürlich ein anderer entworfen, nur damit man auf diese luftige Weise einleuchtend machen kann, daß es auch dann, also auf jeden Fall so gekommen wäre, und daß daher die Rede von Schuld des Grundes entrate. Aber gerade solche verwegenen Denkoperationen können sich auf höchst reale Tendenzen, wenn nicht der vergangenen, so dafür der

gegenwärtigen Realität stützen. Wenigen Argumenten wohl eignet solche Durchschlagskraft wie dem, daß man ja heute wieder das deutsche militärische Potential gegen Rußland benötige, während man seinerzeit Hitler, anstatt ihm zu helfen, Rußland niederzuwerfen, in die Flanke gefallen wäre. Kein Zweifel ist daran, daß alle restaurativen Kräfte in Deutschland von solchen Erwägungen zehren, unbekümmert darum, daß ja Hitler zunächst mit Rußland sich verständigte und den Krieg mit denselben westlichen Mächten vom Zaun brach, denen man jetzt vorwirft, daß sie nicht klug genug gewesen wären, ihn seinerzeit schon gegen Rußland gewähren zu lassen. Es verdient hervorgehoben zu werden, daß es nicht an Teilnehmern fehlt, welche die deutsche Kriegsschuld sans phrase zugestehen. Solche Äußerungen sind nicht selten; die Bereitschaft, die Verantwortung für den Krieg zu übernehmen, scheint größer zu sein als die, für die von den Nazis begangenen Greuel einzutreten. Ein Beispiel aus einer progressiven Gewerkschaftsgruppe mag hier genügen:  

B.: Also der Kollege H. hält uns hier einen Vortrag über den Nationalsozialismus. An und für sich nehme ich an, daß wir vom Thema abgewichen sind, denn hier war die Frage die Schuld des deutschen Volkes ... Die Ausführungen waren lediglich so, daß eben der Hitler schuld hat. Also darüber sind wir uns ja doch im klaren: Alle. Es ist wohl keiner hier, der anderer Meinung ist. (Protokoll 24, S. 19)

  Diese Stelle, die unwidersprochen blieb, gibt wohl die communis opinio der Gruppe einigermaßen wieder. Häufig wird der Kriegsschuld gegenüber so verfahren, daß nach dem Schulaufsatzschema äußerer Anlaß – tiefere Ursache zwar die Überfälle durch Hitler zugegeben werden, dann aber das Zugeständnis durch umständliche Spekulationen revoziert wird. Ein Beispiel für viele, vom Anfang einer in einem Barackenlager durchgeführten Sitzung:  

R.: Also er hat ... gegenüber Adolf Hitler gesprochen, daß wir den Krieg angefangen hätten. Das ist ganz gut und schön. Das kann man auch nicht bestreiten, aber wer hat den Krieg angefangen? Hat ihn das Volk angefangen, und wer ist da jetzt der Schuldige? Sind wir, das Volk, der Schuldige, oder die drüben in Amerika als Volk die Schuldigen, oder wer ist

nun der schuldige Teil? Das sind doch lediglich nur die Oberen, die das Geld in den Händen haben und die also die Macht entsprechend haben. Was haben wir dagegen machen können? Wer nicht gefolgt hat, der ist ins KZ gekommen. Da haben wir nichts machen können. (Protokoll 60, S. 2)

  Im Drang der Abwehr geht abermals die Logik in die Brüche: daß Deutschland den Krieg angefangen habe, »kann man auch nicht bestreiten«, »aber wer hat den Krieg angefangen?« Offenbar ist der latente Gedanke der, daß das »wer« mehrdeutig sei und daß dabei jedenfalls nicht an das Volk gedacht werden dürfe. Als Schuldige werden freilich nur die ganz unbestimmt beargwöhnten »Oberen, die das Geld in den Händen haben«, angeführt.

 8. Masstab für die Schuld   In der oben zitierten Offiziersgruppe wird über den Maßstab der Schuld des Einzelnen oder der Völker räsoniert, und es schließt sich an die Konstatierung der Definitionsschwierigkeiten an, daß, weil eben der Begriff nicht eindeutig sich fassen lasse, wir alle mehr oder weniger »schuld seien«. Scheinphilosophische Gewissenhaftigkeit der begrifflichen Klärung ist hier ein bequemer und zugleich narzißtisch angenehmer Vorwand: weil es unmöglich sein soll, über die begriffliche Form sich zu verständigen, soll die Sache selbst nichtig sein:  

Sch.: Ich bin der Überzeugung, daß, wenn wir das Thema Schuld aufwerfen, von Anfang an erst definieren, was wollen wir überhaupt unter Schuld verstehen, wo ist der Maßstab, mit dem die Schuld des einzelnen oder der Völker insgesamt gemessen werden soll, und sind wir nicht mehr oder weniger alle schuld? Wollen wir das nicht als Grundlage aufbauen, um dann werten zu können. Denn wie kann ich ein Urteil fällen, – dann brauche ich einen Maßstab, nach dem ich werten kann. Wenn dieser Maßstab vollkommen verwirrt wird von denen, die ihn mir bringen wollen. (Protokoll 71, S. 34)

  Die ausweichende Funktion solcher Erwägungen ist offenbar. Ähnliches bietet die Stelle aus der erwähnten bayerischen Honoratiorengruppe, in der erst zwischen einer außenpolitischen und einer moralischen Schuld unterschieden wird und dann beide abgewiesen werden:  

G.: Handelt sich hier um eine moralische Schuld oder um eine außenpolitische Schuld? Wenn es sich um eine moralische Schuld handelt, wenn sich die Fragestellung auf die moralische Seite bezieht, dann ... H.: Gehört in den Beichtstuhl! G.: ... dann gehört das, glaube ich, heute abend gar nicht hierher, weil die Amerikaner ja an sich genau so moralisch schuld sind, meiner Ansicht nach, genau so schlecht und gut sind wie wir auch. Wenn es sich um eine außenpolitische Schuld handeln sollte, dann aber glaube ich, sind die Ereignisse über diese Frage bereits hinweggerollt, denn wenn man ein Volk auffordert, in dieselbe Armee einzutreten, der man selbst angehört, um einen Weltfeind zu bekämpfen, dann ist die Schuldfrage erledigt, denn da kann es sich ja nur noch um ein gleichberechtigtes Mitkämpfen handeln. (Protokoll 16, S. 28)

  Die Stelle ist ungemein lehrreich. Fast scheint es, als wäre im Eifer der Abwehr die Kunst der begrifflichen Distinktion regrediert auf das alte sophistische Handwerk, den schwächeren Gedanken zum stärkeren zu machen. Zunächst klingt die Unterscheidung moralischer und außenpolitischer Schuld wie aus der pedantischen Disposition eines wissenschaftlichen Vortrags. Sie dient aber nicht der Klärung eines verwickelten Tatbestandes, sondern einer Departementalisierung der Zuständigkeiten, in der die Arbeitsteilung noch aufs Moralische übergeht und eben damit es auflöst. Für die moralische Schuld soll die organisierte Religion zuständig sein: der Beichtstuhl, und damit sind die Honoratioren jeglicher weiteren Sorge ledig. Die »außenpolitische Schuld« aber wird – gar nicht mit Unrecht – in die Konstellation der tatsächlichen Machtbeziehungen gerückt und daraus, daß sich die Politik der westlichen Alliierten der Bundesrepublik gegenüber geändert habe, die These deduziert, diese Art Schuld sei überholt. Hocherhobenen Hauptes wandelt das Subjekt über das Schlachtfeld der gemordeten Begriffe. In einer christlichen Arbeiterjugend-Sitzung fragt der Versuchsleiter, ob die Frage der Schuld durch die Remilitarisierung denn erledigt sei, und erhält darauf die Antwort:   B.: Ja, zweifellos ist die jetzt erledigt.

(Protokoll 96, S. 20)

  Der Redner führt das dann näher aus in einer Weise, die von vornherein den taktischen Gesichtspunkt allein gelten läßt; darauf erfolgt freilich sogleich der Widerspruch eines anderen Teilnehmers:  

B.: Denn wenn man uns jetzt wieder sagt: So jetzt müßt ihr eure Köpfe da vorn hinhalten, dann geht euch ja gar keiner mehr zur Wehrmacht. Das ist ja jetzt sehr klug, daß man sagt, na ja, eure Schuld, die sehen wir euch nach. Aber gleich im folgenden darauf, ja aber Soldaten brauchen wir schon. Sch.: Ja, ich bin der Meinung, entweder es war eine Schuld, dann ist sie vor fünf Jahren genau so als Schuld gewesen, und dann gilt sie auch heute noch als Schuld, oder es war keine Schuld in dem Maße; dann brauchen wir sie jetzt auch nicht so großzügig einfach ignorieren. Wenn es damals – wenn es wirklich eine Schuld ist, dann besteht die Schuld auch heute noch zurecht. Wenn es aber keine Schuld war, in dem Ausmaß, wie sie heut' gesehen wird,

dann brauchen sie sie heute nicht einfach so großzügig zuzudecken, deswegen, weil sie uns momentan wieder brauchen. (a.a.O., S. 20)

  B. macht abermals das früher bezeichnete wirksamste Motiv der Abwehr geltend und erspäht scharfsinnig die Schwächung der moralischen Position der Alliierten durch den Wechsel in der Politik Deutschland gegenüber. Sein Partner läßt sich davon nicht unterkriegen, aber ist doch einigermaßen verwirrt, wie es die Formulierung »oder es war keine Schuld in dem Maße, dann brauchen wir sie auch jetzt nicht so großzügig einfach zu ignorieren« anzeigt.

 III. Das Bild der Versuchsteilnehmer von sich selbst 14   Viele Sprecher begründen ihre Stellung zum Komplex der Schuld durch Überlegungen, die ihrer eigenen Beschaffenheit gelten. Solchen Überlegungen kommt darum besonderes Gewicht zu, weil sie spontan erfolgen und auf kritische Selbstbesinnung deuten. Zugleich aber helfen diese Überlegungen selbst zur Abwehr. Nicht nur wird Schuld damit abgewiesen, daß man auf die tatsächliche oder imaginäre gesellschaftliche Ohnmacht verweist, sondern subtil auch dadurch, daß man auf die eigene persönliche Lädiertheit rekurriert. Es wäre daher voreilig, wenn man derlei Aussagen ohne weiteres als tatsächliche Selbstbesinnung auffaßte. Auch diese kann zum Stereotyp degenerieren, das lediglich das Bewußtsein der eigentlichen Verantwortung von einem fernhält, indem das Subjekt sich zu einem Objekt der Pathologie verdinglicht, ohne daß die in solchen Urteilen implizite Kritik des Subjekts an sich selbst im Ernst vollzogen wäre. Andererseits enthalten solche Abwehrthesen Elemente der Wahrheit. Wenn zahlreiche Versuchsteilnehmer sich selbst oder die Deutschen allgemein als krank in einem wie immer auch gearteten Sinn charakterisieren, so werden sie darin bestätigt durch ungezählte Symptome von Konfusion und Verwirrtheit, die in den Diskussionen auftreten und sich besonders häufen, wenn von den eigentlich kritischen Zonen, den KZs, den Kriegsgreueln, der Ermordung der Juden die Rede ist.

 1. Die Deutschen sind Krank   Unsere Versuchsteilnehmer sind durch den Grundreiz zur Selbstreflexion angeregt worden. Im Colburn-Brief wurde von der Tendenz gesprochen, das Bewußtsein der Schuld abzuwehren. Gelegentlich wird diese Aussage Colburns unmittelbar akzeptiert. Das sieht dann so aus:  

G.: Die Reaktion der Deutschen darauf, die ist vielleicht gar nicht ehrlich. Aber es ist so, wenn man einem, der sich selber schuldig fühlt, das mehrfach und immer wieder vorhält, dann wehrt er sich irgendwie. Diese Reaktion ist vielleicht gar nicht ehrlich. Darum hat der Amerikaner keinen ehrlichen Eindruck, wie wir selbst über diese Dinge denken. Wir werden uns zum Teil selbst zur Wehr setzen, obwohl wir gar nicht immer der Ansicht sind, daß wir nicht schuldig sind und daß wir wirklich viel getan haben. Deshalb hat er keinen richtigen Eindruck von uns Deutschen. (Protokoll 134, S. 3f.)

  Die vorgebliche Ableitung des Abwehrmechanismus wird zu dessen Bestandteil. Die Einsicht in die Verdrängung der Schuld führt dazu, die Schuld selber in eine »Neurose« zu verzaubern:  

U.: Der Eindruck muß wohl bei jedem Ausländer entstehen, so wie Herr C. sagte, wir sind gleich in Abwehr, wir sind so ungefähr wie der Mann, der einmal ins Kittchen gekommen ist, nun vorbestraft ist und nun herumläuft und sagte: ›Ja ihr haltet mir das vor, aber da laufen doch so viele herum, die haben genau dasselbe getan, und die sind nun nicht vorbestraft, und ich bin es, ich finde das nun außerordentlich ungerecht.‹ Wir sind noch in dieser Art von Neurose, die sehr erklärlich ist, die jeden einzelnen tatsächlich befallen hat. Aus dieser typischen Abwehrstellung heraus erwecken wir den Eindruck, als ob das a) gar nicht so schlimm war, b) andere es auch täten, c) Verhältnisse etc. und dann die übliche Geschichte – wir haben es nicht gewußt. Dieses wiederum erzeugt in sehr vielen Ausländern die Meinung – entweder halten die Deutschen das gar nicht für wichtig und sind im Grunde noch Anhänger des verflossenen Systems und wollen es bloß nicht so sagen. Jedenfalls sie haben gar kein tiefes Schuldgefühl. – Herr C. sagte meines Erachtens nach mit großem Recht: ›Was hat man schon davon, wenn einem das immer entgegengehalten wird. Dann reagiert man darauf sauer, und daher kommt von der einzelnen Abwehrhaltung die

andere Abwehrhaltung.‹ So kommt anstelle der Überwindung der Neurose eine Steigerung derselben. (a.a.O., S. 5f.)

  Nach der Logik dieser Diskussion hieße die Überwindung der Neurose nichts anderes, als daß man keine Schuldgefühle mehr hat, gleichgültig ob diese berechtigt sind oder nicht. Das Wort Neurose spielt hier wie häufig technische Termini die Rolle einer Zauberformel: seine Erwähnung soll alle Probleme lösen, ohne daß auch nur deutlich würde, ob die Redner mit dem Begriff eine deutliche Vorstellung verbinden. Jedenfalls handelt es sich um eine bloß scheinbare Selbstreflexion. Es wurde aus dem psychologischen Allerweltsjargon das Motiv übernommen, daß bei einem selber irgend etwas nicht in Ordnung sei, daß man Komplexe habe, und damit glaubt man bereits ein übriges getan zu haben, ohne doch die Mühe und das Leiden auf sich zu nehmen nachzuforschen, was bei einem wirklich in Unordnung sein könnte: der leere Hinweis auf die Problematik des eigenen Ich dient nur noch dazu, die Verantwortung abzuschütteln. Im übrigen ist die Stelle durchaus zweideutig: Es geht aus ihr nicht bestimmt hervor, ob der Versuchsteilnehmer nun dem Vorwurf Colburns, die Deutschen befänden sich stets in Abwehrstellung, zustimmt oder ob er selber dem Abwehrmechanismus gehorcht. Immerhin ist die erste Möglichkeit die wahrscheinlichere. Die Einsicht in die eigenen Abwehrmechanismen scheint zu steigen mit dem Grad der politischen Aufklärung. In einer Sitzung von Betriebsräten antwortet ein Versuchsteilnehmer auf den Vorwurf des Colburn-Briefes, daß man die Schuld auf die leichte Achsel nehme, davon sich allzuleicht distanziere, recht klar:  

U.: Gut, dann möchte ich das hinnehmen. Man spricht ja von bösen Dingen, die man mal gemacht hat – wenn man von einer Nation spricht – nicht gerne. Vielleicht ist das ein psychologischer Moment, der hier zum Ausdruck kommt, und den man dann nicht richtig einschätzt. (Protokoll 24, S. 10)

  Im Zusammenhang mit antisemitischen Ausschreitungen wird von einer Teilnehmerin aus einer Modeschulgruppe über den Abwehrmechanismus reflektiert:  

N.: Aber er sieht bei uns natürlich in diesem Punkt eine gewisse Nervosität, weil wir an dieser Stelle natürlich ganz zu recht verwundbar sind, weil wir uns ja in dieser Richtung doch wirklich recht erheblich vergangen haben in den letzten zwölf Jahren und dann das schlechte Gewissen sich natürlich wesentlich schneller rührt, als wenn das für uns bis dato gar kein Problem gewesen wäre. (Protokoll 72, S. 33f.)

  Auffällig ist das »ganz zu recht«. Gemeint ist sicherlich, daß man eben um der Schuld willen Grund zum schlechten Gewissen hat; die Formulierung »ganz zu recht verwundbar« schillert jedoch bereits wieder in dem Sinne, daß man verlangen könne, daß an die Wunde nicht gerührt werde. Dreimal betont die Sprecherin, wie »natürlich« all das sei. Ein Beleg sei dafür gegeben, wie der Gedanke von der deutschen Erkrankung erst mit dem Appell ans Verständnis und dann dem Selbstinteresse an besserer Behandlung verkoppelt ist:  

B.: Ihr habt die deutsche re-education, die ganze Erziehung der Deutschen falsch angefangen. Ihr habt sie behandelt nicht wie eine kranke Volksseele – denn die Deutschen sind an sich krank, und die Empfindlichkeit, die wir haben, beruht zum Teil auf einer psychologischen Erkrankung – sondern ihr habt sie als ungezogene Kinder bestraft. Das ist eine falsche demokratische Erziehung. Man müßte an sie herangehen mit dem Gefühl der Milde, wenigstens für die große, breite Masse. Ein gesamtes Volk kann nicht schlecht sein, ebenso wie ein gesamtes Volk nicht gut ist, sondern das Gesamte ist ein Durchschnitt aus guten und schlechten Eigenschaften, und die Masse wird dann durch die Propaganda geformt und durch wenige Persönlichkeiten geführt, auch in der Demokratie. Hier ist der psychologische Fehler, den er seinen Landsleuten sagt, daß sie geschlossen ans Volk herangingen mit dem Gefühl, daß das deutsche Volk schlecht ist. (Protokoll 71, S. 7)

  Die von dem Redner eingeführte Unterscheidung zwischen einer »psychologischen Erkrankung« und der Behauptung, man habe »die Deutschen als ungezogene Kinder bestraft«, ist höchst problematisch. Denn die psychologische Erkrankung liegt genau in solchen infantilen Mechanismen, wie sie durch den Ausdruck »als ungezogene Kinder« bezeichnet werden. Wie wenig ernst es aber dem Versuchsteilnehmer mit seiner Verteidigung der angeblich kranken Deutschen gegen die Strafpolitik ist, geht aus dem verächtlichen Passus über den Durchschnitt und die Masse hervor,

die »durch die Propaganda geformt und durch wenige Persönlichkeiten geführt« werde. Während er den Amerikanern vorwirft, daß sie an die Deutschen herangingen mit dem Vorurteil, das Volk sei schlecht, praktiziert er in aller Naivität dasselbe Vorurteil.

 2. Keine Pflicht zur Selbstanklage   Rationalistisch faßt ein Teilnehmer der bayerischen Honoratiorengruppe die Frage auf. Bei ihm ist die Abwehr nicht eine Sache der Psychologie, sondern wird mit handfestem Interesse motiviert. Gerade das jedoch erlaubt ihm, zur Schuldfrage sich freimütig zu verhalten:  

H.: Jetzt passens auf. Ich glaube, wenn wir da von der moralischen Schuld sprechen, will ich mich mal zum Interpreten machen, wie einer vielleicht denkt, wenn er sich abends in sein Bett legt und die Decke über dem Kopf hat, daß ihn niemand sieht und hört und denkt. Das war das ganze Volk. Also der persönlich schaltet immer noch alles dabei aus und denkt sich ... und überlegt: ›Jetzt haben wir soviel Juden umgebracht, jetzt haben wir Deutschen – das haben zweifellos die Deutschen getan – jetzt haben die sich so und so z.B. in Griechenland benommen, jetzt haben sie sich so und so den Partisanen in Rußland gegenüber benommen usw. usw. in Frankreich usw. Das war an und für sich auch eine dreckige Sache und wir müssen uns in den Boden hinein schämen.‹ Das wird sich der Mann ganz gewiß für sich sagen. Aber er wird, wenn er den Kopf unter die Bettdecke tut, nichts davon sagen und erst recht nichts über die Landesgrenzen hinaus sagen, weil er sagt, dieses Geständnis, das benutzen die anderen, auch wenn es aus dem besten Herzen kommt, in der Weise, daß sie sagen, wir haben es schwarz auf weiß, und es werden jetzt die Konsequenzen daraus gezogen. Seiner eigenen Verbrechen braucht sich bekanntlich niemand anzuklagen. Das ist ein allgemeiner Rechtssatz. (Protokoll 16, S. 33f.)

  Das eigene Verhalten wird ausschließlich von politischen Erwägungen diktiert, ohne Rücksicht auf moralische Verpflichtungen.

 3. Volk ohne Raum   Gelegentlich wird der Versuch gemacht, dem vagen Bewußtsein von einem Unnormalen der Deutschen zu weniger verzerrtem Ausdruck zu verhelfen und dabei dieses Unnormale selbst aus objektiven Bedingungen abzuleiten, nicht ohne daß dabei die Ideologie vom »Volk ohne Raum« hineinspielte.  

H.: Ich möchte noch folgendes sagen: Wir dürfen nicht vergessen, daß wir also den Krieg verloren haben, und daß die gegen unser Volk eingestellten Mächte eine noch schwierigere Zwangslage gebracht haben als früher. Ich möchte ruhig den Ausdruck gebrauchen, daß Deutschland überhitzt ist, d.h. es ist direkt eine Kunst, auf diesem Stückchen Erde, auf dem wir leben, 50 Millionen oder noch viel mehr zu ernähren. Die Staaten, die uns Vorbild sein wollen und die uns sagen, ihr müßt anständiger oder demokratischer, verständnisvoller sein, die leben unter viel besseren Voraussetzungen. (Protokoll 48, S. 26)

  Anstelle der hochtrabenden Rede von der kollektiven Neurose, wie sie übrigens auch von Autoren wie C.G. Jung vertreten worden ist 15 , tritt hier der einfache Hinweis auf das »Überhitzte« des deutschen Zustandes, verbunden mit dem Appell ans »Verständnis« für die Deutschen.

 4. Unselbständigkeit   Die psychoanalytische Neurosentheorie läuft auf die Feststellung und Deutung infantiler Charakterzüge hinaus. In der apologetischen Selbstdiagnose spielen diese keine unwesentliche Rolle. Man kennt die Geschichte von dem Kind, das hinfiel, sich wehtat, mit geballten Fäusten auf die Mutter stürzte und anklagend schrie: du hast nicht auf mich achtgegeben. Diese Haltung, die insbesondere in der Verschiebung der deutschen Schuld auf das Ausland von großer Bedeutung ist, findet sich bereits in der Selbsteinschätzung der Versuchsteilnehmer angelegt. Neurotisch und unverantwortlich sein, das heißt für sie oft: unselbständig sein. Der Rekurs auf die eigene Infantilität kommt etwa in einer Korpsstudentensitzung vor. Es wird dabei freilich nicht die Nazizeit sondern die Demokratisierung erörtert.  

N.: Wenn ich bis gestern einer Diktatur angehört habe seit Jahrhunderten, kann ich morgen nicht freier Demokrat sein und kann diese Demokratie auch mit all ihrem Guten und zum Teil auch Schlechten beurteilen, ich kann mich selbst überhaupt nicht dreinfinden. Ich muß erst langsam eingeführt werden. Und das haben meines Erachtens die Amerikaner versäumt; daß er, vielleicht, wenn er diesen guten Willen geäußert hat, uns zu dieser freien Regierungsform überführen zu wollen, dies eben nicht ernst und zu kurz gemeint hat, daß er uns, in diesem Sinne gesagt, eben zu zeitig uns selbst überlassen hat, und wir haben noch gar nicht die nötige Erfahrung oder auch nicht die nötige Kritik dieser Sache gegenüber. (Protokoll 41, S. 22)

  Der Unsinn, daß »ich bis gestern einer Diktatur angehört habe seit Jahrhunderten«, erklärt sich aus der starken Wunschtendenz, die Situation der Unselbständigkeit sowohl für sich zu reklamieren, wie möglichst auch festzuhalten. Dieser Wunsch läßt den Sprecher vergessen, daß in historischen Zeiten das Hitlerregime wohl den einzigen Fall einer wirklichen Diktatur in Deutschland darstellt. Wichtiger jedoch ist die Klage darüber, daß »der Amerikaner« uns »zu zeitig uns selbst überlassen« habe. Es ist wohl legitim anzunehmen, daß hier nicht nur der Wunsch laut wird, geschützt und weiter der eigenen Entscheidung enthoben zu bleiben, sondern auch die tiefe und wohl unbewußte Enttäuschung über den Wechsel

der amerikanischen Politik, darüber, daß die Besatzungsmacht ihre Autorität nicht so nachdrücklich gezeigt hat, wie man es eigentlich erwartete. Die Folgerung, die aus dem angeblich oder wirklich pathogenen Zustand der Deutschen gezogen wird, ist durchwegs der Appell ans Verständnis der anderen Völker. Diese werden psychologisch in die Situation der Eltern manövriert, von denen das Kind abhängt, denen es vertraut und von denen es Verzeihung erwartet. Elementare Momente wie, daß viele Deutsche jahrelang von den Amerikanern ernährt wurden, tun dabei das Ihre. Hat man sich aber selber einmal als krank, unselbständig oder psychopathisch charakterisiert, so lassen die anderen Nationen es an dem danach postulierten psychologischen Verständnis fehlen. Nicht nur wird unzählige Male gesagt, sie hätten ein falsches Bild von den Deutschen, sondern regelmäßig wird das angeblich mangelnde Verständnis dem Ausland aufgerechnet. Die Struktur des Colburn-Briefes, der erst positive Aussagen über die Deutschen und dann Kritik bringt, bietet hierzu den bequemsten Ansatzpunkt. Charakteristisch ist eine Diskussionsstelle am Anfang der Sitzung mit einer Mädchengruppe, meist Flüchtlingen und Elternlosen.   I.: Ja, also der Sprecher, am Anfang ist er sehr höflich und will uns auch anerkennen, aber dann plötzlich irgendwie – also er greift uns an, er behauptet verschiedenes von der Herrentheorie und mit dem Judenproblem. Und so sagt er, daß wir noch erzogen werden müssen, und das sagt auch das Ausland dauernd, daß wir erzogen werden müssen zu Demokraten. – Das ist so die allgemeine Haltung und die allgemeine Auffassung des Auslandes, daß wir immer nur erzogen werden müssen. Vl.: Ja, Sie sagen, daß er die Deutschen in diesem Brief angreift. Ist das wirklich der Fall? – K.: Ja, ich möchte dazu sagen, daß er eine sehr gute Beobachtungsgabe hat, und daß wir ihm eigentlich fast ganz zustimmen können. Natürlich fängt er ein bißchen ungeschickt an, zum Schluß, und zwar insofern, daß er uns sehr hart angreift. Und das können wir ja nicht vertragen. Vl.: Und warum meinen Sie, daß wir das nicht vertragen können? Fräulein K. sagt, daß er wirklich die Wahrheit sagt, daß er gut beobachtet hat. Da dürften wir doch gar kein Schuldgefühl haben oder dürfen wir uns gar nicht angegriffen fühlen. Warum glauben Sie wohl, daß wir uns angegriffen fühlen? I.: Ja, weil wir eben vieles nicht wahrhaben wollen. Vl.: Ja, was denn? Können Sie es konkret sagen? Sie denken doch sicher an

bestimmte Dinge. Fräulein I.? I.: Ich meine, er behauptet zum Beispiel, daß wir allein schuldig an dem Ausbruch des Krieges sind. Vl.: Ja. I.: Und dagegen wehren wir uns natürlich. Denn wir wissen ja, daß auch das Ausland Vorbereitungen getroffen hat, und da können wir doch nicht einfach erklären, daß wir allein an dem Ausbruch schuld sind. Das wollen wir eben nicht wahrhaben. Vl.: Fräulein I. bestreitet also die deutsche Kriegsschuld. Nicht? I.: Ja. E.: Nein, sie verneint die Kriegsschuld nicht. Ich meine sie bezweifelt ... daß wir ganz allein schuld an dem Krieg sind. (Protokoll 59, S. 3ff.)

  An dieser Stelle hält sich die Einsicht in die eigenen Abwehrmechanismen mit der aktuellen Abwehr die Waage: es ist, als werde aus dem Naturgesetz, daß man Schuld von sich weist, nun auch die inhaltliche Wahrheit des Anspruchs gefolgert, daß man nicht schuldig sei, und es schimmert durch, daß »der Amerikaner«, »der uns sehr angreift«, im Unrecht ist, weil er den psychologischen Fehler begeht, daß er meint, die Deutschen müßten »erzogen« werden.

 5. Der Sieger ist verantwortlich   Absurd tritt der Vorwurf der Verständnislosigkeit hervor in einer Nachbargruppe, in der die Rollen ganz vertauscht sind: nachdem man selbst fehlte, hat man sich die andern ideal vorgestellt, und daß sie es nicht sind, führt zur vollkommenen Verkehrung.  

B.: Wir haben den Krieg gemacht und alles Unmenschliche, was man sich nur denken kann! Von einem Friedensbringer habe ich etwas ganz anderes erwartet, nicht? Daß man die Leute noch hungern läßt, wo gar kein Krieg mehr war. Meine Schwester hat immer betont, mein Schwager sei gestorben wegen Hunger. Ich nehme das auch an ... er hat noch mit meiner Schwester gesprochen und hat gesagt: Ich gehe heim. Also ist er verhungert, das weiß ich ganz bestimmt. F.: Meine Ansicht ist es ja auch gewesen: Speziell die amerikanische Besatzung, die hätte sich viel mehr Sympathien erworben, wenn sie vielleicht der deutschen Zivilbevölkerung oder wenigstens den ärmsten Leuten irgendwie mit Lebensmitteln und so weiter unterstützt hätten ... es kam zu spät, die Einnahme kam zu spät, meiner Ansicht nach viel zu spät, meiner Ansicht nach war es nur eine Strafe, die überhaupt vereinbart wurde zwischen den Alliierten. (Protokoll 42, S. 47f.)

  Die Forderung nach Verständnis zeigt hier besonders stark das infantile Modell des Appells an die Eltern. Von den Eroberern wird, als ob es selbstverständlich wäre, erwartet, daß sie die Besiegten ernähren. Zum Dank dafür wird ihnen in Aussicht gestellt, daß sie sich »mehr Sympathien erwerben« könnten. Im Bewußtsein dieses Versuchsteilnehmers hat sich die Situation bereits völlig umgedreht: die Besatzungsmacht soll nicht nur für das Wohl der ihr Anvertrauten sorgen, sondern obendrein noch um ihre Sympathien werben. Diese Umdrehung ist recht häufig. Kurz danach heißt es in derselben Sitzung, vielleicht unter der Nachwirkung jener Äußerung, nochmals ebenso drastisch:   Th.: Man hört schon mal, in der Straßenbahn und überall im Volk die Bemerkung: Sie sollen uns doch ganz als Kolonie ... Sie sollen uns doch amerikanisieren, damit wir endlich wissen, wo wir dran sind. So Gleichgültige gibt es auch. So gleichgültig ist der Deutsche geworden durch die jahrlange ... Unterdrückung und ... schlechte Erfahrung, die er gemacht hat, daß es ihm ziemlich gleichgültig ist, daß er kein nationales Empfinden

mehr hat, sondern er will Ruhe und Frieden haben. Es ist ihm ganz gleich, ob er praktisch Amerikaner ist oder Brite oder was. Er will nur Ruhe und Frieden haben, damit endlich mal die Kriegsjahre und die Hungerjahre vergessen werden, damit er zur Ruhe kommt. (a.a.O., S. 53)

  Abermals sind die Dinge auf den Kopf gestellt: das deutsche Volk soll jahrelang unterdrückt worden sein und schlechte Erfahrungen gemacht haben. In dem scheinbar wegwerfenden Wunsch, die Amerikaner sollten doch Deutschland zur Kolonie machen, bricht aber wieder das Tiefere durch, das vermutlich hinter allen derartigen Äußerungen steht: nicht nur der Wunsch, endlich aus aller leidigen Verantwortung entlassen zu werden, sondern auch der, daß die Autorität, der nährende Vater sich auch darin als Autorität erweist, daß er die Kinder streng anfaßt. Auf zwei spezifische Aspekte des Problems des Verständnisses soll hier wenigstens aufmerksam gemacht werden. Der eine sonderbare Gedanke, der sich zuweilen mit dem Vorwurf zu geringen Verständnisses für Deutschland assoziiert findet, ist der, daß aus irgendwelchen Gründen die anderen Völker besser sein müssen als die Deutschen. Wenn sie nach Ansicht der Versuchsteilnehmer das nicht sind, wird ihnen ein Strick daraus gedreht. Manchmal wird so gefolgert: wenn die Demokratie besser sein will als wir, müssen ihre Angehörigen sich auch besser benehmen; wenn sie es nicht tun, zeugt das gegen die Demokratie:  

V.: Wenn jemand schon Fehler gemacht hat, dann sollen es andere besser machen und nicht noch viel größere Fehler machen. (Protokoll 16, S. 30)

  Es wird, in durchaus unsubstanziierter Weise, zunächst ein schlechtes Benehmen der Besatzungsmacht konstruiert; dann werden die Angehörigen der Demokratie ohne weiteres mit dem System selbst gleichgesetzt und dann wird an sie der infantile Anspruch erhoben, sie sollten ein Vorbild sein, ohne daß die Frage nach dem Benehmen der Deutschen, solange sie Besatzungsmacht waren, auch nur aufdämmerte. Aber dieser Gedanke ist keineswegs auf wild nationalistische Gruppen beschränkt, sondern kommt auch in recht sachlichen Gruppen vor, wie etwa in einer der Flüchtlingsgruppen:

 

B.: Auf der anderen Seite ist es ja so gewesen, daß uns der Westen in Form von Amerika und den anderen Staaten beibringen will, menschlich zu handeln, und zwar stellen die das Menschenrecht, Völkerrecht usw. als obersten Grundsatz. Man muß aber sagen, daß gerade nach diesem Völkerrecht und nach diesem Menschenrecht bei uns in Deutschland ja nicht gehandelt worden ist in der Vergangenheit. Jetzt ist es natürlich anders ... jetzt versucht Amerika, das gutzumachen, und ich muß sagen, die sind bestrebt, den Widerwillen Frankreichs vor allen Dingen und auch Amerikas nun zu besänftigen und auch diese Völker für uns zu gewinnen und in dieser Hinsicht umzustimmen. Es ist aber so, wenn man nun nach dem Völkerrecht und nach dem Menschenrecht gehen will, dann darf man in einem besetzten Land nicht den Fehler machen und gerade denen das Gegenteil zeigen, sondern muß gerade bestrebt sein, diese Leute erst recht und zwar ziemlich genau nach dem Menschenrecht und diesem Völkerrecht behandeln. Und daher wurde von Deutschen den Amerikanern oft zum Vorwurf gemacht, daß sie bei diesen Nürnberger Prozessen – um die nochmals zu erwähnen – und bei diesen anderen Kriegsverbrecherprozessen, bei den Entnazifizierungsmaßnahmen uns doch gerade das Gegenteil von Menschenrecht und Völkerrecht gezeigt haben. Sie haben da genau so gehandelt, wie einst Hitler und die anderen diktatorischen Machthaber gehandelt haben – sie haben nämlich Rache geübt (Zuruf: Ja!) und nur ohne Ansehen der Person Menschen verurteilt, die keine kriminellen Fehler begangen haben, sondern Menschen bloß auf Grund einer gewissen Mitgliedschaft zu einer Partei oder auf Grund irgendeines Amtes verurteilt, um ihre Lebensposition gebracht, weil sie eben in der NSDAP waren und da vielleicht eine kleine Stellung hatten. (Protokoll 83, S. 6f.)

  Das Prinzip des rationalen Rechts und der Humanität soll hier ausdrücklich einer Gruppe zugute kommen, die sich rühmte, jene Prinzipien außer Kurs gesetzt zu haben – ganz ähnlich wie vor der Machtübernahme die Nationalsozialisten in Deutschland mit großem Geschick alle die Rechtsgarantien ausnutzten, die ihnen eben das parlamentarische System an die Hand gab, das sie stürzten. In einer Primanergruppe dagegen wird die Forderung des Verständnisses mehr im Sinne des Gewährenlassens vertreten:  

Gö.: Man soll uns doch gehen lassen. Es wurde ja betont, daß wir langsam uns wieder vorwärts entwickeln, und deshalb lehne ich ein zu tiefes Nachforschen in unser Verhalten ab. (Protokoll 27, S. 5)

  Die Logik, daß wegen der Langsamkeit der deutschen Entwicklung

ein »zu tiefes Nachforschen in unser Verhalten« abgelehnt wird, verdient besonders hervorgehoben zu werden. Der Abwehrmechanismus bedient sich einer Art bewußter Oberflächlichkeit.

 6. Man muss dabei gewesen sein   Die andere merkwürdige Argumentation ist die, daß die deutschen Dinge sich überhaupt nur dann richtig beurteilen ließen, wenn man dabei gewesen ist. Dieses Motiv nimmt etwa die folgende Gestalt an:  

Z.: Das alles kann er (scil.: der Engländer Colburn) nicht beurteilen, weil er die ganze massenpsychologische Wirkung nicht erkennen kann, die ganze Wissenschaft ist noch nicht so weit, zweitens, weil er diesen Wirbel nicht an Ort und Stelle erlebt hat. – Über die Abwehr der Deutschen und das Davonschieben – bin ich derselben Meinung. Wenn es einem jedesmal vorgehalten wird, kommt ein gewisser Selbsterhaltungstrieb seelisch dazu. (Protokoll 134, S. 7f.)

  Die Abwehr macht den Versuchsteilnehmer zum Experten, der den Stand einer ihm fremden Wissenschaft beurteilt. Da ja während des Krieges überhaupt kein Engländer in Freiheit dabei war, so soll durch diese Reflexion jedem außer den Interessierten das Recht zum Urteil aus der Hand geschlagen werden. Die Insistenz auf der lebendigen Erfahrung wird zu einem Manöver. Mit Hinblick auf die Nazizeit wird dasselbe Argument angewandt in der Modeschülerinnensitzung.  

Z.: Wir Deutschen haben unsere großen Fehler, aber auch unsere positiven Seiten. Dasselbe will ich von den Amerikanern behaupten ... Sie sind eine junge Generation, sie haben nicht die Vorbelastung einer alten Kultur und damit ihre Nachteile wie auch ihre Vorteile, als etwas Junges, darum auch ihre frappierende ehrliche Offenheit zum Teil. Sie sind nach Deutschland gekommen, haben nun auch den Nationalsozialismus ja immer aus der Ferne erlebt, niemals den Kern, das Zentrum des Nationalsozialismus kennengelernt. Denn es ist ja doch auch letzten Endes eine ureigene deutsche Angelegenheit und eine Angelegenheit, die mit dem ganzen deutschen Wesen sehr eng verknüpft ist. Und sie haben verschiedene Fehler gemacht, die man ihnen, wenn man es von ihrer Warte vielleicht betrachtet, verzeihen kann: sie haben gesiegt, sie sind nach Europa gekommen, es gab 1001 Probleme – ja nicht nur Deutschland – haben die ganze Denazifizierung angefangen, wahrscheinlich mit besten Vorsätzen, aber psychologisch falsch. (Protokoll 72, S. 8)

 

Was in Deutschland geschah, sei eine innerdeutsche Angelegenheit, die man nur an Ort und Stelle verstehen kann, und die vielleicht überhaupt andere Völker nichts angeht – die Nichteinmischungsideologie, die während der ersten sechs Jahre des Naziregimes vorherrschte, wirft ihren Schatten. Andererseits aber sollen die Amerikaner »Fehler« begangen haben, die man ihnen – mit allerhand Verklausulierungen – »vielleicht verzeihen kann«.

 IV. Realmomente der Abwehr: Wahrheit und Ideologie   Die Versuchsteilnehmer, welche die Gesamttendenz der Abwehr gegen den Vorwurf der Schuld zeigen, überlassen sich nur in extremen Fällen der ungezügelten Phantasie. Meist benutzen sie zur Abwehr reale Momente, die sie in den Zusammenhang ihrer Zwecke einschmelzen. Dies Verfahren heißt in der Psychologie »Rationalisierung«. Es wäre aber in der gesellschaftlichen Analyse oberflächlich, wollte man solche Motive lediglich ihrem psychologischen Stellenwert nach einschätzen und ihren sachlichen Gehalt übersehen. Für das Verständnis des gegenwärtigen deutschen Bewußtseins ist es von erheblicher Wichtigkeit festzustellen, welche Momente der Realität zur ideologischen Umformung sich darbieten.

 1. Propaganda   Bei den Realmomenten, auf welche die in Abwehr befindlichen Sprecher, und diese nicht allein, sich berufen, ist vorab an die Rolle der Nazipropaganda zu denken; an die verführende Kraft, die ihr in den Jahren vor der Machtübernahme durch Hitler innewohnte; an den Ausschluß jedes anderen Einflusses unter der Diktatur, bis die Bevölkerung der Goebbelsmaschine geistig völlig ausgeliefert war. Es war ungemein schwer und setzte nicht nur artikulierte politische Kenntnis, sondern auch ein unabhängiges Selbst voraus, dem Druck der Propaganda zu widerstehen. Wenn dieser Tatbestand heute in den Dienst der Abwehr gestellt wird, so wird er darum nicht an sich unwahr. So sagt z.B. ein 23jähriger Medizinstudent:  

E.: Erstens meine ich auch, was Herr A. schon sagte, daß die Propaganda sehr viel mitspielt. Denn ich war damals 14 oder 13, da hab ich den Jud-Süß-Film gesehen. Wenn man das sah – wirklich sich das alles abwickelte – konnte man unwillkürlich eine Wut kriegen und kriegte den Eindruck, das müssen schlechte Menschen gewesen sein. (Protokoll 41, S. 23)

  Denkt man daran, daß jede Gegenargumentation ausgeschlossen war und daß unter den Bedingungen der gegenwärtigen Kulturindustrie ohnehin sehr viele Menschen zwischen Realität und Propagandainhalten nur noch schwer zu unterscheiden vermögen, so ist die Wahrheit dieser Äußerungen um so einleuchtender, als dieser Student während des Krieges noch ein halbes Kind war. Er hat das Entscheidende der Propagandawirkung, der er ausgesetzt war, bezeichnet, nämlich daß der Harlan-Film nicht etwa bloß mit antisemitischen Thesen operierte, sondern die Schlechtigkeit der Juden unmittelbar optisch und akustisch demonstrierte. Es hat gewiß ein erhebliches Maß an Denkkraft und bewußtem Widerstand dazu gehört, sich der Wirkung dessen zu entziehen, was so plausibel als unmittelbare Evidenz sich gab. Die Propagandakraft jenes Streifens beruhte genau darauf, daß er nicht als Propaganda, sondern als Bild eines Wirklichen auftrat. Besonders nachdrücklich war selbstverständlich der Effekt der

Propaganda, die sich auf die Erfolge bezog, die das Hitlerregime von der Machtübernahme bis zur Wendung des Krieges 1942 davontrug. Der Glaube, daß eine Sache durch ihren Erfolg legitimiert werde, ist allen moralischen Einwänden zum Trotz Gesamtgut der abendländischen Zivilisation. Gerade hier konnte die nationalsozialistische Propaganda an Motive anknüpfen, die keineswegs von Hitler in die Welt gebracht wurden.  

Sch.: Das wurde doch immer wieder herausgestellt in Druck und Schrift, daß es überhaupt keine andere Regierungsform und Regierung gibt, die so was bewerkstelligen konnte. So war es doch damit. F.: Nun sagt dieser Amerikaner ja auch noch, daß die Deutschen immer von »Wir« redeten, und daß sie bestrebt wären, sozusagen immer ihr eigenes Volk zu verteidigen. Ja, das tut ja nun vielleicht jede Nation, möchte ich annehmen. Und es ist ja auch immerhin durch die Erfolge ein gewisses Selbstbewußtsein im deutschen Volk geweckt worden. Es ist ja innerpolitisch klar, daß die Leute da eher mitgegangen sind, wo sie Erfolge sehen, sowohl wirtschaftlich als auch außenpolitisch. Das weckt natürlich einen gewissen Idealismus, eine gewisse Begeisterung, gerade bei den jüngeren Leuten. Dazu kam die Wiederherstellung der Wehrhoheit, die gerade die jungen Leute sehr begeistert hat. Der viele zugejubelt haben, die sagten: Gott sei Dank, wir können mal wenigstens unsere eigene Meinung sagen, wir haben was hinter uns stehen. So weit haben die Leute ja nicht gedacht, was hinterher alles kommen würde. Aber durch diese ganze Sache war dann die Regierung so fest in den Sattel gekommen, daß sie tatsächlich keine Widerstandsgruppe im Lande mehr fand. (Protokoll 42, S. 6f.)

  Besonders auffällig ist die Wendung, man habe, nach der »Wiederherstellung der Wehrhoheit«, »mal wenigstens unsere eigene Meinung sagen« können. Denn nichts war ja unter der Diktatur unmöglicher, als die eigene Meinung zu sagen, und sonst heben das die Versuchsteilnehmer oft genug hervor. Wenn man abermals der Sprache folgen darf, so liegt eine Art Kompensationsphänomen vor: gerade weil man als Individuum die Meinung nicht mehr sagen durfte, hat man sich an den Glauben gehalten, man könne sie als Kollektiv – nämlich durch den Mund des Diktators – anderen Völkern sagen. Daher die überraschende Wendung. Ein Primaner schätzt die Propaganda weniger ideologisch ein:  

A.: Dann wurde das deutsche Volk 12 Jahre hindurch in einer modernen Diktatur

bearbeitet. Die Propaganda arbeitete auf Hochtouren, und ich erinnere mich noch an einen Satz, den Josef Goebbels über seine Rede im Sportpalast »Wollt Ihr den totalen Krieg« sagte. Er sagte, er hätte damals die Massen um sich so weit gehabt, daß er sie selbst zum Klettern auf die Bäume um den Sportpalast hätte veranlassen können, wenn er es gewollt hätte. Er hatte keine verantwortungsbewußten, keine urteilsfähigen Deutschen um sich, sondern Menschen, die in einer typischen Massenpsychologie um ihn standen. Nun ist nach dem Krieg hier in Deutschland manches anders geworden. Es ist aber das eine geblieben, und das besteht auch heute noch, nämlich Angst der meisten vor der Politik überhaupt. Wir kennen so viele Altersgenossen, und auch hier in unserem Kreis sind viele, die sagen: Ich werde nie einer politischen Partei oder einer politischen Gruppierung beitreten. Wir können auch sofort feststellen, wenn wir die deutschen Jugendorganisationen betrachten, daß hier nur ein Minimum sich mit politischen Fragen befaßt, und daß hier wirklich eine Aufgabe der Verantwortlichen ist, der politisch Interessierten, das Interesse des deutschen Volkes in seiner Gesamtheit zu erwecken. Gerade gestern abend hat Radio ... im Jugendfunk ein Interview durchgeführt, in dem drei Lehrlinge, ein Student und noch andere über diese Frage befragt wurden, und die allgemeine Antwort war: Wir können doch nichts erreichen, und es ist umsonst, was wir tun. (Protokoll 27, S. 11ff.)

  Hier ist die volle Einsicht in den manipulativen Charakter dessen gewonnen, was im allgemeinen unter dem Ausdruck Massenpsychologie verstanden wird. Weiter trifft die Erkenntnis zu, daß an den anthropologischen Bedingungen für diese Massenpsychologie auch durch den Sturz Hitlers nicht allzuviel sich geändert hat. Weil die Hitlerpropaganda stets den Widerspruch zwischen ihrem Inhalt und den realen Interessen der Massen verdecken mußte, war sie, gleich der gesamten Technik von Agitatoren, wesentlich psychologischer Art, und psychologisch war auch ihre Gewalt. Das scheint zumindest den gebildeteren unserer Versuchsteilnehmer offenbar zu sein, wie es etwa in der folgenden Äußerung gesagt wird:  

H.: Es liegt über dem Ganzen eine große Tragik, denn das deutsche Volk ist anständig. Es ist weder besser noch schlechter wie andere Völker, aber es hat nun einmal, wirklich verführt von einem Rattenfänger von Hameln, der zunächst sehr gute Gedanken hatte, die ja aber eben aus Gründen des Fehlens des Menschen eben leider nicht in die Tat umgesetzt wurden, dieses deutsche Volk ist dann wissentlich nachher in den Tod gegangen und hat

gestanden und gekämpft an der Front und in der Heimat, wie kein anderes Volk. (Protokoll 71, S. 30f.)

  Man mag am Vergleich dieser Aussage mit den vorher behandelten erkennen, daß inhaltlich identische Gedanken psychologisch und auch sachlich im Dienst ganz verschiedener Tendenzen stehen können und daher niemals isoliert interpretiert werden dürfen. Auch dieser Sprecher sieht die psychologische Gewalt des Agitators Hitler – daher das Bild des Rattenfängers von Hameln –, aber hier wird es lediglich dazu verwandt, die Verantwortung vom Volk fortzunehmen, das solcher angeblichen Magie ohnmächtig gegenübergestanden habe. Dabei wird nicht nur das Volk selber glorifiziert, sondern auch dem Rattenfänger werden »zunächst gute Gedanken« zugeschrieben. Die Kritik der faschistischen Propagandamethoden selbst wird nicht erreicht.

 2. Terror   Die Nazipropaganda wird als unwiderstehlich beschrieben und ist wahrscheinlich auch in weitem Maße so erfahren worden. Darin mahnt sie unmittelbar an den Terror, in den sie in der Tat überging; mit Recht ist gesagt worden, daß die KZs ebenso denen draußen wie drinnen galten; daß sie als wirksamstes Mittel Allmacht und Allgegenwart des Systems propagierten. Immer wieder findet sich in unseren Protokollen der Hinweis auf die Unmöglichkeit des Widerstandes, manchmal in apologetischem Zusammenhang, manchmal mit Beschämung und Trauer. Im Munde der Verständigungswilligen erscheint das Motiv von der Ohnmacht mit dem Akzent, daß man gern etwas getan hätte, aber unter dem Terrordruck es nicht vermochte, während die Unmöglichkeit des Widerstandes von den Nationalisten im allgemeinen ganz abstrakt als gegebenes Faktum hingestellt wird, ohne daß sie auch nur den Gedanken des Widerstandes ernsthaft ventilierten. Charakteristisch für die Art, in der von der großen Masse die Ohnmacht real erfahren wird, ist die folgende Stelle:   E.: Man konnte ja nichts dagegen unternehmen. Was wollten Sie denn machen? (Zwischenruf: Damals standen wir doch schon ...) Wir wurden mundtot gemacht. Wer den Mund aufgemacht hat, kam ins KZ. (Zwischenruf: Wir waren eben alle ...) Aber gut gemacht war doch damit nichts. Ich habe das in der eigenen Familie miterlebt. Da mußte man ganz schön den Schnabel halten, sonst wären wir alle ausgehoben worden. Vl.: Durch Denunziation in der eigenen Familie? E.: Nein, nein. Meine Stiefmutter war Jüdin, die haben sie geholt. Die ist nicht mehr wiedergekommen. Vl.: Wann ist das gewesen? Während des Krieges? E.: Im Jahre 1943. Mein jüngster Bruder, mein Stiefbruder, der war damals 17 Jahre alt, den haben sie geholt, weil er eben Mischling war. Vl.: Ja, und von dem haben Sie auch keine Nachricht wieder gehört? E.: Der hat geschrieben bis zum Schluß. Er war in Monowitz (?) bei Auschwitz, bis die Russen einrückten, und von da an haben wir nichts mehr gehört. Aber wir konnten gar nichts dagegen unternehmen. Hätte einer opponieren sollen, dann war man auch schon weg. Und so war's überall. Daß es dem

Einzelnen an der Zivilcourage gefehlt hat, kann man nicht sagen; er hätte nichts damit bezweckt. (Protokoll 43, S. 6f.)

  Diese Diskussionsteilnehmerin bleibt nicht bei der Konstatierung der Ohnmacht stehen, sondern kritisiert den beliebten Begriff der »Zivilcourage« mit der berechtigten These, daß unterm totalen Terror jener Begriff seinen Sinn verliert. Die Ohnmacht wird hier nicht zur Entlastung in Anspruch genommen; vielmehr malt sich die Sprecherin die Situation der Oppositionellen aus, mit denen sie sich identifiziert. Das Motiv der Vergeblichkeit individuellen Handelns heute ist verschmolzen mit dem Hinweis auf den Naziterror in der folgenden Äußerung:  

D.: Das ist gerade das Traurige; bei Hitler war es ja so, daß wir tatsächlich Schachfiguren waren. Und das Regime war eben so streng, daß wir gar nicht anders konnten. Wir waren ja so gefesselt und geknebelt, denn wenn wir uns irgendwie aufbäumten oder aufbäumen wollten, dann wurden wir entweder ins KZ gesteckt – also würden wir ins KZ gesteckt worden sein – oder je nachdem, wie unsere Schuld im Hitlerschen Sinn gewesen wäre, wären wir vielleicht auch geköpft worden. Also, je nachdem wie groß unsere Schuld gewesen wäre in puncto Auflehnung Hitler gegenüber, hätte man uns entweder ganz kalt gemacht oder eben soundsoviele Jahre ins KZ gesteckt. Und der Amerikaner bzw. ja – der Engländer sagt ja auch – wir hätten uns auflehnen müssen. Ja, wo bleibt denn da der Selbsterhaltungstrieb, denn ungefähr wollen wir mal sagen – ich weiß es nicht genau in Prozenten auszudrücken – aber wenn sich vielleicht alle aufgelehnt hätten, die nicht Hitlerscher Meinung waren, das wäre wohl bestimmt ein großer Teil in Deutschland – dann hätte ja bestimmt ein Viertel oder ein Drittel oder ich weiß nicht wie viele gehängt werden müssen. (Protokoll 34, S. 29f.)

  Mit dem Hinweis auf den Selbsterhaltungstrieb ist das Einfachste und Entscheidende über die Situation unter Hitler ausgesprochen. Der Vergleich mit den »Schachfiguren« aber kommt, auf die heutige Situation bezogen, noch ebenso vor wie mit Hinblick auf die Diktatur. Es ist bedeutsam für das Problem der Schuld, daß die Einzelnen nicht nur tatsächlich abhängig sind, sondern auch bereits vorweg sich als abhängige Schachfiguren betrachten, sich mit dieser Situation identifizieren und sie dadurch noch verstärken. Im übrigen klingt am Schluß des Zitats wohl durch, daß, wegen der großen Zahl

der Dissentierenden, Widerspruch eben doch vielleicht möglich gewesen wäre. Nur wird das nicht offen ausgesprochen. Die Identifikation des Individuums mit der gesellschaftlichen Macht, an der hier immerhin virtuell Kritik geübt wird, wird jedoch sonst häufig von unseren Versuchsteilnehmern positiv geltend gemacht, im Sinne der berüchtigten Maxime, daß wir alle in einem Boot sitzen. In einer mit norddeutschen Syndici durchgeführten Sitzung führt ein 48jähriger Jurist aus:  

M.: ... bis dann im Krieg natürlich hinzukam, daß man nun in einer Notgemeinschaft war und nun überzeugt war, jetzt kannst du eigentlich nicht mehr aus der Reihe brechen, weil ja deine Söhne und deine Väter an der Front stehn und tragen müssen – so daß wir nachher alle in eine Notsache hineinkamen, aus der wir nicht wieder herauskonnten. (Protokoll 134, S. 5)

  Dieses Motiv wird dann bei einigen geradezu zur Verherrlichung der kollektiven Disziplin, welche das vom Einzelnen Begangene deckt. Es ist das die Argumentation, die besonders aus der Ideologie des sogenannten »soldatischen Menschen« geläufig ist, wobei übrigens auffällt, daß zwar viel von der Unverletzlichkeit des Eides gesprochen wird, kaum je aber die Frage aufgeworfen, ob der Eid in Freiheit, aus eigener Verantwortung des Individuums oder selber unter Terrordruck geschworen wurde. So bekennt ein 54jähriger arbeitsloser Hilfsarbeiter:  

H.: Das ist eben die Frage: Wie weit kann ich einem Befehl folgen aus innerer Disziplin und innerer Notwendigkeit, und wie weit kann ich ihm nicht folgen. Für mich ist ein Befehl auch etwas Großes. Ich denke in diesem Sinne soldatisch. Für mich ist der Befehl als wichtig und etwas Ernstes zu nehmen, für mich ist Befehl keine Frage des Kadavergehorsams. (Protokoll 48, S. 9)

  Die Unterscheidung zwischen dem Kadavergehorsam und der Innerlichkeit, die den Befehl sich zu eigen macht, ist fragwürdig, wenn der Inhalt des Befehls derart ist, daß es des Kadavergehorsams bedarf, um ihn auszuführen. Der Sprecher möchte einerseits durch den Hinweis auf den Befehl die Verantwortung abschieben, andererseits aber auch sich vom Vorwurf des blinden Gehorsams befreien und bemerkt dabei nicht, daß er zwischen zwei kontradiktorisch einander gegenüberstehenden Thesen sich selber

fängt. Im übrigen ist hier ein Mechanismus im Spiel, auf den Nietzsche in »Menschliches Allzumenschliches« hingewiesen hat 16 . Der Tyrann kann sich dadurch von seinen Greueltaten distanzieren, daß er sie nicht selber verübt, sie kaum je selber zu sehen braucht, sondern sie seinen Sbirren überläßt, während diese sich lediglich als Vollzugsorgan des Befehls fühlen und um ihr eigenes Leben zittern, wenn sie nicht gehorchen: so kommen alle Beteiligten mit gutem Gewissen davon. In einer mehrfach zitierten Sitzung mit arbeitslosen Frauen, in der die Tendenz obwaltet, die Schuld den Männern aufzubürden und die Frauen zu entlasten, wird eine besonders schauerliche Episode durch den Gedanken an die Disziplin fortgewischt, ohne daß die Legitimation der Disziplin selber in Frage gezogen würde. Die betreffende Diskussionsstelle sei hier wiedergegeben:

B.: Als mein Mann Urlaub bekam, das hat er mir gesagt, in Krakau oder irgendwo – ich weiß nicht, wo er war – da wurden jüdische Frauen erschossen mit dem Säugling auf dem Arm. Da hab ich ihm gesagt: Und das willst du mir erzählen, daß das wahr ist? Da sagte er: Ich habe das selber gesehen. Das wollte ich meinem eigenen Mann nicht glauben, daß deutsche Soldaten es fertigkriegen, Frauen mit Kindern zu erschießen. Dann waren wir in einem Lokal, und da traf mein Mann dann einen Kameraden, und da sagte ihm mein Mann: Erzähl du das mal meiner Frau, mir nimmt sie das nicht ab. Ich habe das nicht glauben wollen, daß deutsche Soldaten Frauen erschießen, die ein Kind auf dem Arm haben. Ich habe nicht – trotzdem es mir zwei gesagt haben – mein eigener Mann hat es mir gesagt, ich habe das nicht glauben wollen. Da hat man gesagt: Die haben irgendein Verbrechen begangen, vielleicht einen Deutschen getötet oder sonstwas. Darum ist sie erschossen worden. D.: Ich möchte dazu sagen, daß den deutschen Soldaten, die das ausgeführt haben oder ausführen mußten, daß denen von Hitler also von oben irgendwie oder von den Generälen, da irgendwie Märchen erzählt wurden und von den Verbrechen, die diese Frauen gemacht haben, jedenfalls daß ihnen etwas erzählt wurde, damit sie die Wut oder den Haß oder was haben, diese Frauen zu erschießen, damit sie den Mut, oder wie man da sagen kann, dazu aufbringen, diese Frauen umzubringen. Es mußte ihnen irgend ein Verbrechen erzählt worden sein. H.: Sie mußten einfach ihrem militärischen Befehl gehorchen. Ihre persönliche Einstellung zu den Menschen und ihre persönliche Roheit hatten gar keine Bedeutung. Vl.: Ja, aber sehen Sie, dieses Problem, das Sie eben anschneiden. Sie sagen eben das einfach Gehorchen, das führt doch immer wieder zu dem Punkt zurück, von dem wir ausgegangen sind: Soll der Gehorsam so weit gehen, daß man von uns eben auch Verbrechen verlangen kann?

D.: Nein. Man darf nicht glauben, daß den Soldaten dann einfach erzählt wurde, die Frau hat das und das Verbrechen begangen, also einfach vorgelogen wurde, um den Soldaten den Mut auch zu geben, diese Frau umzubringen. A.: Den Soldaten haben sie gar nichts erzählt. Den Soldaten haben sie erzählt: Die wird erschossen und fertig. Die durften sich doch nicht dagegen auflehnen. Ein Soldat muß ja auch gehorchen. Wo soll denn das hinführen, wenn ein Soldat tut, was er will ... (Zuruf: Ja sicher!) In Kriegszeiten? Ein Soldat, der muß gehorchen. Das tun die andern Nationen ja auch. Die schießen uns ja auch tot, die gehorchen auch einem Befehl von ihren ... (Protokoll 34, S. 35f.)

  Manches der Diskussionsstelle verdient nähere Behandlung. Zunächst ist offenbar das Motiv der angeblichen Schuld der mit ihren Säuglingen erschossenen jüdischen Frauen erst nachträglich in dem Gespräch zwischen der Sprecherin und den deutschen Soldaten aufgekommen – sei es, daß die Soldaten, als sie ihren Schrecken bemerkten, sich schützen wollten, sei es, daß sie auf einem solchen Motiv um ihres eigenen Seelenfriedens willen insistierte. Nach diesem Schema muß durchweg der Ermordete schuldig gewesen sein. Das Kraftlose dieser Schuldlegende wird auch sofort bemerkt, aber die Geschichte so gewandt, als habe man den Soldaten etwas von der Schuld der Opfer erzählt, um sie dadurch in Wut zu bringen – eine kaum plausiblere Unterstellung, da ja im allgemeinen bei Befehlen an Soldaten keine Rücksicht darauf genommen wird, ob sie zum Töten in der rechten Stimmung sind. Das wird dann auch im weiteren Gang der Diskussion eingewandt, aber nun hat die Erörterung, ob die Soldaten blind gehorchen müssen oder man ihnen ihr Handeln zu begründen habe, von dem Nervenpunkt, der Ermordung der Frauen, abgelenkt. Am Schluß resultiert das Ganze in einem Abwehrgestus: nachdem einmal etabliert ist, daß Soldaten einfach gehorchen müssen, wird dazu übergegangen, die anderen Soldaten hätten das ja auch tun müssen: »die schießen uns ja auch tot«.

 3. Verallgemeinerungen   Um jene Verbindung von Wahrheit und Unwahrheit, von der die Abwehr zehrt, wenigstens einigermaßen transparent zu machen, ist einem Mechanismus Rechnung zu tragen, auf den die Betrachtung wiederholt stieß: bewußter oder unbewußter Mißbrauch der Wahrheit selber als Ideologie. Motive, denen als solchen Recht zukommt, treten in Zusammenhänge, in denen ihr Wahrheitsgehalt einzig noch die Funktion hat, von begangenem Unrecht abzulenken, Schuld in Unschuld zu nivellieren, und von einem vorgeblich höheren Standpunkt her, der das Subjekt aus seiner tatsächlichen Situation herausnimmt, es von jeglicher bestimmten Verantwortung zu entbinden. Innerhalb der gesellschaftlichen Verflechtung gibt es kaum ein Argument, das nicht, derart herausgebrochen und isoliert, für solche Zwecke verwendbar wäre, wie es denn überhaupt keinen Gedanken gibt, und wäre er an sich noch so wahr, der nicht, hypostasiert und der lebendigen Erfahrung entzogen, in Wahn und Lüge übergehen könnte. Die Bedeutung der Verwendung der Wahrheit als Ideologie sowohl für die apologetische Technik wie für die Triebökonomie des Einzelnen kann kaum überschätzt werden. Die subtilen Übergänge von wahren Prämissen zu falschen Konklusionen entziehen sich in der Eile des Gesprächs nur allzu leicht dem Gegenargument, die partielle Wahrheit eines Arguments wirbt Vertrauen auch für den Rest und für den wie sehr auch fragwürdigen Zweck. Psychologisch aber hilft die Wahrheit als Ideologie zum guten Gewissen. Man ist der Unannehmlichkeit der Lüge enthoben, die zu Konflikten mit dem Über-Ich führt, oder vielmehr es ist leicht, das Unbehagen an der Lüge zu verdrängen, wenn man die Lüge sich selbst so plausibel machen kann, daß es der Anstrengung des Begriffs bedarf, sie aufzudecken. Der einfache Sprachgebrauch hält für das Phänomen den Begriff der Verlogenheit bereit. Das Material der Gruppenstudie ist reich an Beispielen zu ihrer Phänomenologie. Man weiß, welche Rolle im totalitären Denken allgemein das Klischee, die erstarrte und darum falsche Verallgemeinerung spielt. Immer wieder ist die Analyse darauf gestoßen. Der Antisemitismus, der eine Reihe negativ besetzter Stereotype ohne Ansehen der

Person auf eine gesamte Gruppe überträgt, ist ohne das Verfahren der falschen Verallgemeinerung nicht zu denken; noch heute legt dafür der kollektive Singular für fremde Völker, der Russe, der Amerikaner, der Franzose, Zeugnis ab, der aus dem Kommiß in die alltägliche Rede eindrang. Der Zusammenbruch des Faschismus als eines Systems falscher Verallgemeinerungen hat viele gegen diesen usus hellhörig gemacht – sobald es um sie selber geht. Es scheint ein Gesetz der gegenwärtigen Sozialpsychologie zu sein, daß überall das am meisten erbittert, was man selber praktiziert hat. Die unbewußten Motive, nächstverwandt dem Projektionsmechanismus, mögen hier unerörtert bleiben; es genügt der Hinweis, daß man, sobald man gegen falsche Verallgemeinerungen sich ausspricht, es leicht hat, vom Nationalsozialismus sich zu distanzieren, dann aber auch, nachdem einem das ohne große Unkosten gelungen ist, sich selber ins Recht, den Verfolger von gestern in die Lage des Opfers von heute zu bringen, wie es etwa in dem »Fragebogen« des Herrn von Salomon praktiziert wird 17 . Während man mit größter Unbefangenheit über fremde Völker verallgemeinert, wird jede Kritik an deutschen Vorgängen entkräftet durch den Hinweis darauf, es handele sich um falsche Verallgemeinerungen. Der Grundreiz war so konstruiert, daß die Kritik äußerst vorsichtig und unter sorgfältigster Vermeidung oder Einschränkung von kollektiven Urteilen vorgebracht wurde 18 . Trotzdem aber wird er von manchen Diskussionsteilnehmern um seiner angeblichen Verallgemeinerung willen beanstandet, und mittelbar werden so die Vorwürfe des Colburn-Briefes bestätigt, indem der Effekt auf genau die Verhaltensweisen hinausläuft, die in dem Brief bezeichnet sind. Das zugrundeliegende Schema ist: »Colburn wirft uns vor, daß wir das Bewußtsein der Schuld von uns abwehren wollen, das ist eine falsche Verallgemeinerung, so sind wir nicht alle«; aber daraus wird dann unmerklich übergegangen zur Leugnung des Begangenen selber, also eben der Vorgänge, auf die jenes Bewußtsein sich beziehen müßte, dessen Absenz man bestreitet. Sehr bezeichnend ist die Rede eines 45jährigen Kaufmanns:   I.: Ich glaube, eines muß man einem solchen Briefschreiber zugute halten: Er hat sich erst einmal bemüht, sich in ein fremdes Land und in die Auffassungen dieses Landes hineinzuvertiefen und das vielleicht auch – man müßte ja

auch den Jahrgang dieses Briefes kennen. Ich glaube, es würden auch wir hauptsächlich denselben Fehler machen, im Ausland nach einem flüchtigen Überblick zu leicht die Dinge verallgemeinern zu wollen, und insofern darf man ihm vielleicht nicht den Vorwurf machen, aber die Tatsache, die auch schon die Herren vor mir geäußert haben, daß hier mit gewissen Verallgemeinerungen Sachen falsch betrachtet wurden, dieser Auffassung möchte ich mich eigentlich auch anschließen. Die Beurteilung der einzelnen Personen ist ja und kann ja in gar keinem Lande sehr unterschiedlich sein; denn es gibt ja in jedem Land von der schlechtesten bis zur besten Qualität des Charakters und der Neigung, der Fähigkeit und Begabung, alle diese Typen. In welchem Prozentsatz und welcher Mischung sie aktiv zum Tragen kommen und damit das Gesicht des Landes prägen, das ist vielleicht die entscheidende Frage für das Land. Aber da kommen wir dann auch zu der Feststellung, daß die Menschen im allgemeinen gar nicht so außerordentlich unterschiedlich sind, wenn man einen großen Kreis, also die Bevölkerung eines Landes als solches einbezieht. In der politischen Einsicht und in der politischen Beurteilung hat er wohl nach unserer Auffassung die meisten Fehler gemacht und sehr vieles dabei außer acht gelassen. Wenn man z.B. mit englischen Kaufleuten über Politik spricht, auch über die Politik Hitlers, dann stellt man fest, daß man sich mit ihnen genau so objektiv und ruhig unterhalten kann, wie mit irgendeinem anderen Menschen, den wir unter uns für vernünftig erklären wollen. Ich spreche hier nur von Engländern, weil es ein englischer Sergeant ist. Seine Kritik an dem Trotz und der kollektiven Abwehr aller schlechten Eigenschaften, die ist doch wohl ganz zwangsläufig eine Reaktion auf die Fehler der Verallgemeinerung der deutschen Kriegsschuld und dadurch ist es einfach die Abwehr dessen, was man nun an Unrecht über uns, auf uns gehäuft hat, nachdem wir vorher wahrscheinlich auch außerordentlich viel Unrecht gebracht haben. Die Verallgemeinerung, daß die Deutschen vielleicht allzu leicht geneigt sind, einem starken Mann nachzulaufen, wie eine Hammelherde, die – glaube ich – ist so abwegig, daß man sie kaum zu diskutieren braucht; das ist meine persönliche Meinung zu der Sache. (Protokoll 133, S. 3f.)

  An entscheidender Stelle liegt eine Äquivokation vor: der Redner spricht von der »Abwehr dessen, was man nun an Unrecht über uns, auf uns gehäuft hat«, wobei unklar bleibt, ob er an ungerechte Vorwürfe denkt oder an Unrecht, das man den Deutschen selbst angetan hat. Im Sinne der vorhergehenden Kritik falscher Verallgemeinerungen geht der Gedanke wohl auf Urteile über die Deutschen; durch den Nachsatz aber: »nachdem wir vorher wahrscheinlich auch außerordentlich viel Unrecht gebracht haben«, wird in die Sphäre des realen Unrechts und des Ausgleichs der Schuldkonten hinübergewechselt. Am Schluß wird dann einfach

apologetisch die deutsche Neigung für starke Männer bestritten. »Man braucht sie kaum zu diskutieren«, wie alles Peinliche; aber Vorsicht oder schlechtes Gewissen veranlassen den Versuchsteilnehmer zu dem Zusatz: »das ist meine persönliche Meinung zu der Sache«. Besonders unbeliebt ist bei unseren Sprechern das Stereotyp »des« Deutschen. Sobald sie es wittern, verwandeln sich viele in skeptische Nominalisten. So sagt ein Korpsstudent:  

E.: Ich wollte sagen, der Begriff »der Deutsche« ist sehr schwer ... also ... man wirft einfach mit dem Ausdruck rum. Ich habe zweieinhalb Jahre in der Schweiz studiert und habe viele Ausländer kennengelernt und auch so mir mal überlegt: Was ist eigentlich der Deutsche? Wie weit unterscheidet er sich wirklich von anderen Menschen. Und wir haben nun – wir leben unter ganz anderen Bedingungen wie in Amerika, und gewisse rassische Voraussetzungen sind da, aber so groß wie die Unterschiede, wie man sie vielleicht heute macht, habe ich nicht den Eindruck. Wir sind eben unter anderen Bedingungen aufgewachsen, daß aber der deutsche Mensch ein so großer Unterschied ist zwischen einem amerikanischen Menschen oder Schweizer Menschen oder englischen Menschen habe ich nicht den Eindruck. (Protokoll 41, S. 10f.)

  Es läßt sich nicht verkennen, daß hier eine Tendenz besteht, das Gegenteil der Stereotypie, die Betonung der Unterschiede so weit zu treiben, daß Relativismus herauskommt; daß also gerade wegen der unendlich weitgehenden, dann freilich wieder eingeschränkten Unterschiede es unmöglich sein soll, den einen Menschen mit dem gleichen Maßstab wie den anderen zu messen. Das positiv gefärbte Stereotyp dagegen, gewissermaßen die platonische Idee, ist von diesem Relativismus ausgenommen; es wird zwar bestritten, daß es »den Deutschen« gebe, aber der »deutsche Mensch« wird kritiklos zitiert. Gegen den verbreiteten oder wiederauflebenden Antisemitismus wird in erster Linie geltend gemacht, daß man nicht verallgemeinern dürfe. In der Tat ist die Stereotypie, die Verselbständigung des Urteils gegenüber der Erfahrung, die es trägt, eines der Kernstücke des Antisemitismus, und jegliche Selbstbesinnung verlangt, davon sich abzugrenzen. Andererseits zeigt sich auch hier, daß die Kritik des Prinzips der Verallgemeinerung selbst in weitem Maße im Dienste der Abwehr steht. Von diesem psychologischen

Hintergrund läßt sich auch bei kritischen Äußerungen gegen Verallgemeinerungen noch einiges erkennen; nämlich die Neigung, im Namen solcher Kritik nach dem bekannten Schema zwei Klassen von Juden zu konstruieren und die eine dann doch wieder stereotyp zu verurteilen. Ein Argument wie das gegen die Verallgemeinerung, das sich ja nicht nur gegen das Stereotyp, sondern auch gegen jeden über das unmittelbar Tatsächliche sich erhebenden Gedanken wenden kann, hat als solches keinen eindeutigen Inhalt und kann die verschiedensten Funktionen übernehmen, je nach dem Zusammenhang, in dem es erscheint. Es sind keineswegs bloß judenfreundliche Gruppen, in denen gegen antisemitische Verallgemeinerungen gesprochen wird. So heißt es in einer Sitzung der Christlichen Arbeiterjugend:  

E.: Ich glaube, daß hier grundsätzlich ein Fehler gemacht wird, indem von den Juden gesprochen wird, d.h. also, daß man ganz grob verallgemeinert. Ich habe mit Juden auch Erfahrungen und ich muß sagen, daß es unter den Juden zwar Schwarzhändler gibt, aber auch sehr anständige Menschen. Vl.: Das bestätigt auch Herr M. jetzt. E.: Und ich habe die Erfahrung gemacht, daß sich am Schwarzhandel nicht nur die Juden beteiligt haben, sondern ebenso sogar mehr reinrassige Arier. (Protokoll 96, S. 2f.)

  Daran schließt sich bequem an, daß zwar viele Deutsche »mitgemacht hätten«, daß aber eben doch »Ausländer und Juden« eine besondere Rolle gespielt hätten. Wenn Colburn seinerseits sich gegen Generalisierungen wendet, findet er keineswegs Sympathien. In seinem Brief kam ein Satz vor des Inhalts, die Hetze gegen die DPs sei darum ungerechtfertigt, weil vor der Währungsreform jeder, der es konnte, sich am Schieben beteiligt hätte. Das gibt den Diskussionsteilnehmern einer Gruppe von Einwohnern eines bayerischen Dorfes Anlaß zu wilden Rechenexempeln, die in einer antisemitischen Invektive enden:  

G.: Dann möchten wir nochmal auf den Brief zurückkommen, dann heißt's doch da, die Juden schreiben doch, jeder Deutsche hat geschoben. Ich glaube, daß die Juden noch mehr geschoben haben als wir. Das weiß da bestimmt jeder Deutsche heute, darf ich mal sagen, daß nur 1 / 10 Deutsche geschoben haben und 9 / 10 haben bestimmt nicht geschoben. J.: Ja, das glaube ich auch. Das waren ... bei den Juden war nicht 1% dabei, die nicht geschoben haben, weil die doch alle geschoben haben.

L.: Man darf unter Schieben nicht verstehen, ich meine, wenn sich einer, irgendeiner was besorgt hat, das er unbedingt notwendig braucht hat ... Wollen wir so sagen, der andere, der Schieber, der will sich bereichern, während der andere, der will nur leben. (Protokoll 13, S. 12f.)

  Die Wendung, »die Juden schreiben doch«, ist dunkel. Offenbar wird der Colburn-Brief auf jüdische Quellen zurückgeführt. Evident ist das klischeehafte Denken an der Sprachfigur: »bei den Juden war nicht 1% dabei, die nicht geschoben haben, weil die doch alle geschoben haben«. Der Begründungssatz ist völlig untauglich, die Funktion zu erfüllen, die ihm der Sprecher aufbürdet, einmal weil das Prädikat »die haben geschoben« mit dem zu Beweisenden, daß sie nämlich geschoben hätten, identisch ist, dann aber auch, weil sein eigener totaler Inhalt der, sei's auch in noch so geringem Grade, eingeschränkten These widerspricht. Unter der logischen Fehlkonstruktion liegt: man kann nicht einmal von einer noch so kleinen jüdischen Minorität sagen, sie habe nicht geschoben, weil es im Begriff »des« Juden – wie ihn das Stereotyp vermittelt – liegen soll, zu schieben. Am Schluß dann eine willkürliche Hilfskonstruktion: da man schon gar nicht bestreiten kann, daß auch Deutsche geschoben haben, wird ganz willkürlich, und ohne daß auch nur eine Möglichkeit des Unterscheidens absehbar wäre, diesen zugute gehalten, sie wollten »nur leben«, während die Juden »sich bereichern« wollen. Selbst in der sehr verständnisbereiten Primanergruppe nimmt die an sich berechtigte Kritik der Verallgemeinerung einen problematischen Akzent an. Die Stelle ist ein Schulfall der Subtilität, mit der wahre Einsichten psychologisch für Zwecke der Abwehr umfunktioniert werden:   E.: Ich möchte an meinen Vorredner anknüpfen und sagen, daß man sich doch vor Verallgemeinerungen hüten soll. Das gilt insbesondere für Herrn Colburn sowohl als auch für meinen Vorredner, der die deutsche Wissenschaft zum Beispiel dafür verantwortlich gemacht hat, daß ein Hitler zur Macht kommen konnte. Ich glaube, daß dieses deutsche Problem aus einer ganz anderen Sicht betrachtet werden muß; denn die deutsche Frage ist doch weitaus schwieriger als zum Beispiel die amerikanische Demokratie. Wenn man die Geschichte verfolgt, so ist es weitaus schwieriger, schon rein aus der geographischen Lage Deutschlands bedingt, hier eine klare Entscheidung zu fällen. Und so möchte ich ganz besonders betonen, daß das

psychologische Moment dieser Seite auch betont werden muß: wieso es zu allem dem gekommen ist. Wir dürfen nicht aus einzelnen Äußerungen verallgemeinernde Ansichten ableiten. Wenn mein Vorredner von einzelnen Berufsgruppen oder Wissenschaftlern sprach, die hier für etwas verantwortlich gemacht werden, so ist es doch so, daß in Deutschland eben die Frage der Demokratie aus einer ganz anderen Sicht betrachtet werden muß. Wie war denn die Lage nach dem ersten Weltkrieg? Das müssen wir berücksichtigen, und wenn ... daß mein Vorredner hier im Vergleich dazu von Amerika sprach, wenn er sagte: Ja, Amerika ist eine Demokratie, in der so etwas nicht vorkommen könnte, daß eine Diktatur an die Macht kommen könnte. Deshalb keine Verallgemeinerungen und keine ganzen Berufsgruppen oder ganze Völker oder Staaten für etwas verantwortlich machen. (Protokoll 27, S. 10f.)

  Die Mahnung, nicht zu verallgemeinern, läuft hier hinaus auf die Forderung, den Nationalsozialismus historisch zu verstehen – und zu verzeihen. Der vermutlich unbewußte Wille, den Übergang nicht abrupt erscheinen zu lassen, veranlaßt den Sprecher, eine lange Passage mehr oder minder inhaltsloser Sätze einzuschieben. Besonders wichtig ist es dem zukünftigen Studenten, durch Protest gegen Verallgemeinerungen »die Wissenschaften« reinzuwaschen.

 4. Hinweis auf Geschichte   Oft freilich erfolgt der Hinweis auf die Geschichte mit bestimmter Absicht; so sagte etwa der schon früher zitierte arbeitslose Hilfsarbeiter:  

H.: Die Frage, wer hier nun der größte Verbrecher gewesen ist: Es ist so furchtbar billig, wenn man gewonnen oder gesiegt hat, den Unterlegenen als Verbrecher hinzustellen. Das ist etwas, was ich ablehne. Selbstverständlich billige ich nicht, was Hitler zuletzt in seiner Enge, in die ihn die anderen eingekesselt haben, getan hat. Das auf keinen Fall. Aber ich weigere mich, denjenigen nachzulaufen, oder für diejenigen wieder die Kastanien aus dem Feuer zu holen, die nur Dreck auf uns werfen, uns als Verbrecher stempeln und uns für die gesamte Schuld, die aus ganz anderen Dingen herrührt, die viel tiefer gelagert sind, uns nun dafür verantwortlich zu machen. (Protokoll 48, S. 5)

  Diese Äußerung ist ein besonders schlagender Beleg für den Mißbrauch der Wahrheit als Ideologie. Denn daß die Ursachen des Nationalsozialismus tiefer gelagert sind als in dem angeblich verbrecherischen Wesen der Nationalsozialisten, trifft gewiß zu. Der vage, abstrakte und unverbindliche Hinweis auf die »tieferen Gründe«, auf die dabei selber keineswegs eingegangen wird, dient jedoch hier dem Zweck, zum Gegenangriff überzugehen. Der Sprecher verfährt dabei so, daß er aus der Anklage gegen Deutschland nun selber eine Schuld, die des »uns mit Dreck Bewerfens«, konstruiert und eine Art Gegenrechnung aufmacht. Bezeichnend ist die Verdrehung, welche das von Hitler Begangene zurückführt auf die »Enge«, in die ihn die anderen »eingekesselt« haben. Das einmal geäußerte Argument wirkt durch die Sitzung hindurch nach. Viel später sagt ein Diskussionsteilnehmer:   Z.: Die Probleme, die die Geschichte aufwirft, werden immer wieder auftreten und sind immer wieder vorgekommen. Wir können aus der Geschichte lernen, daß es immer Kriege gegeben hat. Und es ist meiner Ansicht nach kein Grund ersichtlich, der dazu führen könnte, daß es keinen Krieg mehr geben wird. Genau so, wie der letzte Krieg geführt worden ist, wird es künftig wieder Kriege geben. Und nun ist es eine billige Tatsache, daß die Sieger sich über die Besiegten erheben und ihnen die Schuldmotive

unterschieben. Dergleichen Methoden sind eine subjektive Beurteilungsbasis. Wir müssen uns davon freimachen. Wir können gar nicht weiter auf dem subjektiven Standpunkt stehen bleiben, sondern müssen irgendwie zu einer anderen Geschichtsauffassung kommen, die etwa darin ihren Ausdruck findet, daß man sich sagt, die Kriege, die stattgefunden haben, die Probleme, die es zu lösen gilt, sind letzten Endes geschichtlich notwendig, wenn sie aufgetreten sind. Sie sind nicht auf die Schuld irgend eines Einzelnen ... (Zwischenruf: Sehr richtig!) ... oder auf die Schuld einer Volksgruppe oder einer sonstigen sozialen Gruppe zurückzuführen, sondern sie werden aus der Struktur, die die Bevölkerung nun einmal hat auf der Erde, und auf Grund der Tatsache, daß sie sich dynamisch weiter entwickelt und zusammenfällt. (a.a.O., S. 33)

  Die »tieferen Gründe«, auf die hier rekurriert wird, sind denkbar oberflächlich: daß die Erfahrung es lehre, daß es Kriege immer geben müsse und daß darum überhaupt keine spezifische Verantwortung existiere. Die Reflexion auf höchst unverbürgte und selber der faschistischen Ideologie entlehnte allgemeinhistorische und soziologische Gesetze fungiert im Sinne eines Determinismus, der jeden Einzelnen und jede Gruppe freispricht. Die begründete Ahnung des Einzelnen, historischen Gewalten ausgeliefert zu sein, über die er selber nichts vermag, wird in einen Schicksalsbegriff aufgelöst, der das Individuum zur Passivität verdammt und zugleich entlastet. In einer großstädtischen Frauengruppe sagt eine Teilnehmerin: »Krieg wäre so oder so gekommen«, um im Namen dieser resignierten Feststellung sogleich, unter Benutzung des alten ideologischen Motivs vom Neid des Auslands, die Offensive zu ergreifen:  

Pf.: Deutschland war ja doch zu fleißig, hat zu viel gearbeitet. Wir waren über die gekommen, und das wollten sie nicht zugeben. Meiner Ansicht nach ist das wahrscheinlich – L.: Sie haben recht, Frau Pf. H.: Das spielt, glaube ich, bei allen Kriegen eine Rolle. W.: Der Meinung bin ich auch, daß er auch so gekommen wäre, der Krieg ... Wir haben zu lange im Frieden gelebt. Vl.: Sie glauben, die Menschen vertragen es nicht lange, im Frieden zu leben? W.: Das will ich nicht sagen damit, aber 20 Jahre – wenn es länger gedauert hätte, es wäre doch gekommen, auch ohne Hitler. Vl.: Auch ohne Hitler? Aus welchem Grund? W.: Weil es die Menschen wollen. Die wollten doch Krieg haben. 1914 hat es

immer geheißen ... 1939 – wann ist der Krieg – 1939, 1938, 1937 hat es doch schon immer gegärt, daß es Krieg gebe. – Die hatten gerüstet, die wollten das doch nochmals ausprobieren! Pf.: Und jetzt sprechen sie auch wieder vom Krieg. (Protokoll 43, S. 33f.)

  Die Vorstellung von der Unvermeidlichkeit des Krieges hat hier etwas Obsessives angenommen. Die Gruppe wiederholt in sturem Zwang immer wieder die gleiche These, ohne über die bloße Behauptung irgend hinauszukommen. Das Bild kompliziert sich durch die Vermittlung der gängigen Phrase von dem – vorab britischen – Neid auf das emporkommende tüchtige Deutschland und des Gedankens vom Krieg als kapitalistischem Ausweg. Ein Mitglied einer Flüchtlingsgruppe sagt:  

K.: ... das hat für mich nicht mit Hitler begonnen, das hat für mich nicht mit dem ersten Weltkrieg begonnen. Das liegt im vorigen Jahrhundert, am Ende der Aufteilung der Kolonialwelt, als wir Deutsche uns bemühten, auch dort irgendwo einmal als Kulturvolk etwas Land zu haben, da fing die feindseligste Haltung der Engländer uns gegenüber an. Da wollte man uns in der Welt nicht haben. Es kam dazu, der intelligente aber ebenso fleißige deutsche Arbeiter, wie er in der Welt als der bestgehaßte Mann nachher angesehen wurde. Das trug dazu bei, daß der erste Weltkrieg ausbrach. Und nun ist da die Lawine ins Rollen gekommen und nicht bei Hitler. (Protokoll 109, S. 33)

  Ähnlich ein Sprecher einer Nachbarschaftsgruppe:  

Pf.: ... Was war denn eigentlich bei uns los? Hier war ein Hitler, der angeblich den Krieg angefangen hat. Gewiß, er hat ihn angefangen. Aber warum hat er ihn angefangen? Kaiser Wilhelm hat ja eigentlich als solcher auch den Krieg angefangen. Es ist merkwürdig, daß immer die Deutschen anfangen sollen. Ich bin überzeugt, daß man einfach den Deutschen nicht hochkommen lassen will, daß man eben Gründe sucht und in Adolf Hitler einen Menschen fand, der politisch nicht reif ist, der eben reingefallen ist. Der Krieg wäre sowieso gekommen, ob nun ein paar Jahre früher oder zehn Jahre später. Aber man hätte Deutschland nicht groß werden lassen. (Protokoll 42, S. 32)

  Wieder soll es »merkwürdig« sein, daß die Deutschen immer die Kriege anfangen, und diese Regelmäßigkeit dünkt den Sprecher so unglaublich, daß er eine grundlose Denunziation dahinter wittert und dann Zuflucht nimmt zu der freilich noch unglaubhafteren

Konstruktion, daß »man« sich Hitler um seiner politischen Unreife willen ausgesucht habe, damit er den Krieg vom Zaun breche, der den späteren Siegern genehm war, eine Phantasie echt paranoiden Stils. Doch sitzt der Gedanke, daß man das Hochkommen Deutschlands gefürchtet habe, so tief, daß er sich keineswegs auf aggressive Nationalisten beschränkt, sondern auch bei Versuchsteilnehmern vorkommt, die sich um abwägendes Urteil bemühen. So sagt ein Polizeibeamter:  

W.: Ich glaube also, rein schuldig oder rein unschuldig, das gibt's in diesem Fall nicht. Es gibt nur eine überwiegende Schuld. Meine Meinung ist, daß Deutschland den größeren Teil der Schuld trug, daß der Krieg überhaupt zustande kam. Denn wir haben, soviel ich orientiert bin, durch den Überfall auf Holland usw. ganz einwandfrei Verträge verletzt, die bestanden, haben Neutralitäten zuschanden geritten. Ich glaube auch, das war auch in der Politik Hitlers bewußt gemacht worden. Und daß sich die Welt dagegen empört hat, war ja selbstverständlich. Daß auf der anderen Seite wir auch nicht völlig unschuldig waren, das ist ja auch wieder zu verstehen. Daß wir, nachdem wir den ersten Weltkrieg hinter uns gebracht haben und wirtschaftlich hochgekommen waren, daß wir wieder eine große Konkurrenz bedeuteten – also wieder der Kapitalismus – eine Gefahr bedeuteten, und so ist es doch letzten Endes zu den ganzen Verwicklungen gekommen. Natürlich, wir wollten auch größer werden wieder. Und zwar die Bevölkerungsziffern stiegen an, und wir brauchten Raum, brauchen wir heute noch. Und das wollte uns die Welt eben nicht zugestehen, daß wir diesen Raum bekommen konnten. Und so sind die Schuldfragen wohl verteilt, aber ich glaube, bei uns liegt die größere. (Protokoll 28, S. 35)

 5. Pseudosozialistische Stellungnahme   In der Sitzung einer Männergruppe aus einem Barackenlager wird eine alte sozialistische Idee über den Zusammenhang von Krieg und Kapitalismus in folgender Form vorgetragen:  

N.: Und ich glaube selbst, daß der Amerikaner noch vor dem Kriege mit seinem Kapital, ob es nun Opel oder General Motors oder sonst jemand gewesen ist, mit seinem Kapital Deutschland ja erst auf die Füße gebracht hat, daß es so weit kam, daß es imstande war, einen Krieg zu führen, und dann hinterher eben Deutschland als den Kriegsschuldigen auszuspielen, das ist eine ziemlich riskante Sache. Und im allgemeinen ist es ja so: man kann den einzelnen Menschen auch gar nicht dafür verantwortlich machen, was im großen und ganzen in der Weltpolitik geschieht. (Protokoll 60, S. 4)

  Die ökonomische Erklärung der Kriege wird hier so mißverstanden, als wären die Kriege Unternehmungen irgendwelcher einflußreicher Firmen. Unterstellt wird eine monströse Intrige einzelner Unternehmer, deren Zweck gewesen sein soll, die Deutschen ins Unrecht zu setzen. Auch das politische Bekenntnis zum Sozialismus schützt nicht vor der paranoiden Struktur des Denkens. Schließlich sei erwähnt, daß das wahre Wesen jener sozialistisch sich gebärdenden Argumentationsweise zuweilen daran sich enthüllt, daß sie mit antisemitischen Phrasen sich paart; so auch bei demselben Sprecher:  

N.: Also man muß doch sagen, irgendwie nehmen die, nützen sie die Kräfte, die Völkerkraft aus, um gegeneinander zu spielen. Und ich bin der Überzeugung, ob darüber eine noch viel größere Macht stehen muß, daß es, wie Herr O. eben sagte, das Großkapital ist, was ja oft mit dem Judentum verbunden ist. Herr O. sagte das. Man müßte beinahe daran glauben, daß die eben die Geschicke ebenso lenken, um einen gegen den anderen auszuspielen. (a.a.O., S. 15)

  Gegen Ende derselben Sitzung kommt es zu einer wirren Demagogenrede, in der alles durcheinandergerührt ist, was hier vorgelegt ward:  

B.: Damals hat Herr Gromyko, der stellvertretende Außenminister, gesagt in Rußland: »Der Amerikaner hat den Krieg politisch und wirtschaftlich verloren, indem er Europa besetzt hat.« – Wir unterhalten uns immer nur von einem Problem: Was ist da? – Was ist hier? Über die Hauptgründe haben wir uns überhaupt noch nicht unterhalten und mancher Mensch weiß überhaupt gar nicht, um was es sich dreht in der Welt. Um den wahren Sozialismus dreht es sich hier! Und der heißt Kommunismus! Lenin hat gesagt: »Was ist Kommunismus, und was ist Sozialismus auf der verschönerten Tour des Germanentums, das ist das Wohlergehen des internationalen Proletariats.« Und in diesem Sinne fragen Sie hier irgendeine Nation. Wenn ich heute aus mich herauskomme, das muß zu Protokoll hier gemacht werden, was ich hier sage, nicht daß eine lächerliche Lüge darüber gesetzt wird. In dem Sinne hat der da oben, der über alles regiert, hat mit der goldenen Kugel, er hat sie verkehrt gerollt, durch die Roulette. Und ich sage Ihnen heute: Die meisten der Menschen wissen gar nicht, worum es sich dreht, nämlich um den Sozialismus! Und das Proletariat innen in der ganzen Welt wacht einmal auf und schlägt das Raubtier zu Grunde, das ist das Kapital. Sie werden diesem egoistischen Raubtier die Macht niederstrecken!, indem sie die Gewehre unter sich zusammenfuchteln! Und Herr Lenin – eh Stalin, wie die Demokratie, die gibt es nie, ob in Amerika und sonst wo sie noch drüber zusammenschlagen, wo sie noch sind, ob es Bundesregierung, Bundesverwaltung und sonst was ist! Das Volk hat ihnen den Exempel jetzt gegeben auf die Richtlinien! Wir sind im Moment aufgewacht. Jetzt spricht der Sozialismus und wehe, wenn ihr verkehrt handelt. Dann kommt der feige Sozialismus, der Kommunismus. Wir werden euch jetzt zeigen, was hier gespielt wird. Ihr habt unsere Internationale mit den jungen wie mit den alten Juden verkalfakert. Dieses hört auf. Der gehört nach Palästina. Vor den Internationalen!, wo er hingehört! Und der Sozialismus mit seinem Gewehr bei Fuß wird unter sich international aufräumen und dieses Raubtier zuschanden machen. Daß er sich international versteht, das habe ich hiermit zu begründen. (a.a.O., S. 95f.)

  Und dann weiter nach einer Unterbrechung durch den Versuchsleiter:  

Stalin ist ein Bolschewik! Ein Raubmörder! Der wird von den eigenen Leuten gefressen, wenn es erst einmal losgeht, verstehen Sie? Wenn das Volk erst mal wach wird. Die Völker unter sich, die Nationen werden sich einig werden und werden sagen: So, unser sozialistisches Bestreben wird international aufwachen und diese Pest vertilgen, die uns heute auf die niederste Stufe gestellt hat! Dafür haben wir ja die Hände und Hammer, Sichel, wie die anderen ja gesagt haben. Wenn es da nicht geht, und wenn das nicht geht, haben wir ja noch Äxte, was ist?

Und wenn wir einen kriegen, dann werden wir ihn dahin drücken, wo er hingehört. Dann werden wir ihm mit dieser Hand den Schlund zerdrücken, daß er zum Abgrund herunter geworfen wird! – Ja, wir wollen das ja hier nicht so rausziehen, die sollen ja nur diese Sachen, daß sie sich überall verstückeln ... Gucken Sie mal: Warum heute der Amerikaner weint! Kein Mensch der Erde als Nation weint heute. Das ist der Amerikaner, weil er sagt: Diese Flut von oben, die hat sich hundertprozentig gesichert, die überrumpelt uns, und wir, mit ihr alle Deutschen, kommen mit in die Sintflut. Aber aus sich, durch die inneren Revolutionen, die da entstehen, da gibt es den Kampf gegen Kampf, da gibt es einen Brudermord, sagen wir, sind die Überbleibsel alle Sozialisten. Wir bauen uns einen neuen Staat auf. Das ist der sozialistische Staat, und wer gegen diesen Staat sich nochmals vergeht, kommt an den Baum des Lebens, das ist der Galgen. Den bauen wir da hin, und der wird da aufgehängt. (a.a.O., S. 96ff.)

  Einzig das Tonband gibt eine zureichende Vorstellung von dieser Rede, die in höchster Erregung, mit einer an Hitler gemahnenden Vehemenz vorgetragen wird. Herr B., ein vierschrötiger Apoplektiker, hatte während der ganzen Sitzung geschwiegen, und erst am Ende brachen seine gestauten Affekte los. Es ist Grund zur Annahme, daß sich unter den Schweigern und Wenigsprechern mehr Teilnehmer seines Typus finden. Daß es sich um einen im klinischen Sinne Paranoischen handelt, daran ist kaum ein Zweifel möglich. Zugleich aber lassen sich aus dem Unsinn einige rationale Motive herausschälen: die Ahnung von ökonomischen Zusammenhängen als Grund des Krieges und die Hoffnung auf den Sozialismus als den einzigen Ausweg aus der Verstrickung. Indem aber mit solchen Motiven der Sprecher hinter die bloßen Tatsachen aufs Wesentliche zu dringen versucht, emanzipieren sich gleichsam die Gedanken von der Kontrolle durch die Erfahrung und laufen Amok. Aus der Ahnung vom Ursprung des Krieges in sozialen Verhältnissen wird die wüste Phantasie von der Verschwörung finsterer Mächte, die es aufs Verderben abgesehen haben; der Traum vom Sozialismus vermischt sich mit wilden Drohungen gegen eben die Juden, an denen diese Drohungen verwirklicht sind, und am Ende bleibt nichts übrig als der nackte Destruktionstrieb. Wahrhaft symbolisch für die ganze Sphäre, in der die Rede zuständig ist, und die immer noch fortschwelt, ist die Definition: »der Baum des Lebens, das ist der Galgen«.

 V. Abwehr   Wenn die Wahrheit oder zumindest Elemente der Wahrheit von den Abwehrmechanismen verarbeitet werden, vollzieht sich durchweg eine Verschiebung. Man verkehrt die eigene Schuld in die der anderen, indem man Fehler, welche diese begangen haben oder begangen haben sollen, zur Ursache dessen erklärt, was man selbst getan hat. Dieser Mechanismus hat aber eine wohlbekannte psychologische Seite: die der Projektion. Eigene Triebregungen, eigenes Unbewußtes und Verdrängtes wird dem anderen zugeschrieben. Man wird damit den Anforderungen des eigenen Über-Ichs gerecht und findet zugleich Anlässe, unter dem Titel legitimer Strafe die eigenen aggressiven Neigungen auszulassen. Der Projektionsmechanismus liegt insbesondere bei der Paranoia, beim Verfolgungswahn vor. Die Neigung zu projizieren geht aber weit über den eigentlich psychotischen Bereich hinaus und findet sich in allen möglichen Graden bis ins normale alltägliche Verhalten. Während des Dritten Reiches hat man in Amerika projektive Neigungen geradezu als Schlüsselphänomen der deutschen Mentalität angesehen; das Buch »Is Germany Incurable?« von Richard M. Brickner 19 hat den ganzen Nationalsozialismus unter dem Gesichtspunkt einer kollektiven Paranoia interpretiert. Es kann hier weder untersucht werden, ob politische Bewegungen mit psychiatrischen Kategorien sich zureichend erklären lassen, noch ob tatsächlich die Neigung zur pathischen Projektion in Deutschland besonders ausgeprägt ist. Jedenfalls jedoch ist das Material der Gruppenstudie, das sich auf Schuld und Abwehr bezieht, reich an Beispielen dafür. Die am Ende des IV. Abschnitts (S. 230f.) behandelte Rede des Herrn B. ist ein besonders ausgeprägter, aber keineswegs ein Ausnahmefall. Es muß jedoch daran erinnert werden, daß das im folgenden vorgelegte Material nicht durchweg als projektiv im strengen psychologischen Sinne betrachtet werden darf. Der Projektionsmechanismus ist wesentlich mit Rationalisierung verbunden, und es fällt angesichts der Virtuosität des Rationalisierens oft überaus schwer, eine Grenze zu ziehen zwischen dem zweckmäßigen Versuch, durch Aufmachung eines Schuldkontos für den Partner sich selbst zu entlasten, und der

unbewußten und zwangshaften Übertragung eigener Neigungen und Triebtendenzen auf andere, denen man daraus Vorwürfe macht. Von Projektion im eigentlich psychiatrischen Sinne darf wohl nur dort die Rede sein, wo gegen andere erhobene Vorwürfe deutliche Züge der wahnhaften Phantasie tragen. Das Material wird von uns hier nicht nach dem Schema der Unterscheidung solcher pathischen Projektion und mehr oder minder rational gewählter Gegenvorwürfe gegliedert, sondern nach Themen, an die sich die Anklagen anschließen.

 1. Projektion auf das Ausland   Im Anschluß an den Colburn-Brief wird einmal die Tendenz zur Projektion von den Versuchsteilnehmern selbst erörtert. Dabei wird zunächst die Neigung, Sündenböcke zu suchen, mit Recht als allgemein unterstellt, von da aber unmerklich gleitend übergegangen zur Bestreitung der Schuld. Das Bindeglied ist, wie häufig, ein bloßes Wort. Der Assoziationsmechanismus tritt anstelle des Gedankens. Wenn die Deutschen die Schuld bei den anderen suchen, so liege das an der allgemeinen menschlichen Neigung, anderen die Schuld zuzuschieben. Eben dieser Ausdruck hält dann dafür her, das Ausland anzuklagen, das kraft eben des gleichen Mechanismus »alles den Deutschen zuschiebt«. Die sehr aufschlußreiche Stelle lautet:  

Gö.: Die Neigung, dem anderen die Schuld zuzuschieben, ist ja auch im menschlichen Verhältnis des einzelnen zum anderen, nicht nur in der Nation zur Nation ... Ich glaube, daß viele Menschen den Sündenbock mehr in anderen sehen als in sich selbst. I.: Also ich meinte, für das Ausland ist es doch jetzt leicht, alles den Deutschen irgendwie zuzuschieben, nachdem wir den Krieg verloren haben. Wir können uns ja gar nicht so richtig wehren. (Protokoll 59, S. 2)

  Die Wendung, daß viele Menschen den Sündenbock mehr in anderen sehen als in sich selbst, führt hier zur psychologischen Abwehr: der Projektionsmechanismus wird zwar erkannt, aber indem man sich selbst ebenfalls unter den Begriff Sündenbock subsumiert, wird zugleich auch die eigene Schuld wie eine bloße Einbildung behandelt, etwa wie in den Reden von der deutschen Neurose. Die abwälzenden Vorwürfe gegen das Ausland entbehren nicht ihres Wahrheitsgehaltes. Oft werden sie denn auch von intelligenten und progressiven Versuchsteilnehmern, wie z.B. denen einer Arbeiterjugendgruppe vorgebracht:   E.: Und ich glaube, Hitler wäre niemals an die Macht gekommen, bzw. es wäre 1935 Zeit gewesen, daß die Großmächte, die Alliierten eingegriffen hätten, als Hitler zu stark wurde, bzw. also im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes zu frech

wurde. 1938 haben wir es in München erlebt, wo tatsächlich die Entscheidung gefallen ist. Und wir stehen ja heute mehr oder weniger bald in einer ähnlichen Situation ... S.: ... ich glaube, das Ausland hat Hitler Dinge zugebilligt, die sie den Vorgängern Hitlers glatt abgeschlagen haben. Z.B. Flottenpakt und all diese Dinge. Die sind den Vorgängern Hitlers glatt abgelehnt worden, Einmarsch in das Rheinland usw., all diese Dinge. (Protokoll 96, S. 18f.)

  Das Wahrheitsmoment der Argumentation ist ebenso zwingend, wie sie gegenüber der Frage der deutschen Verantwortung ohnmächtig bleibt. Natürlich kann hier von paranoiden Tendenzen nicht die Rede sein. Wenn auch das Unrecht, das man selber begangen hat, dadurch nicht kleiner wird, daß andere es nicht verhindert haben, so ist es doch sehr tröstlich und gehört daher zu den beliebtesten Argumenten, daß die Verantwortung für Hitler und seine Untaten dessen Protektoren zufalle. Dabei wird die Rolle des Auslandes Hitler gegenüber nach Belieben retouchiert: aus der Tolerierung wird umstandslos aktive Förderung gemacht. Gelegentlich wird der Vorwurf gegen das Ausland konkretisiert durch Berufung auf die guten Beziehungen ausländischer Diplomaten zu Nazigrößen:  

U.: Das Ausland, Herr François-Poncet zum Beispiel, oder der englische Botschafter in Berlin, wußten über diese Vorgänge durch ihre Spionageabteilungen weitaus besser Bescheid als der normale Deutsche, sagen wir Parteigenosse. Und trotzdem hat sowohl Herr François-Poncet wie der englische Botschafter an sämtlichen Empfängen Hitlers teilgenommen. Ich weiß nicht, es waren weit über 60 Staaten, die Botschafter und Gesandte und sonst etwas in Berlin hatten. Aus welchem Grunde haben sie damals nicht, wenn sie tatsächlich davon überzeugt waren, daß es falsch war und daß es ein Verbrechen war und nicht in ihren Kram paßte, warum haben sie dann ihre Gesandten nicht zurückgezogen? Dann wären wir stutzig geworden, zumindest die dem Nationalsozialismus nicht ganz hundertprozentig verschrieben waren, denn dann hätten wir uns gesagt: Moment mal, wenn die weggehen, was ist da los eigentlich? – So mußten wir ja annehmen, daß alles in bester Ordnung war. Herr François-Poncet ging bei Göring ein und aus, er fuhr mit Himmler zur Jagd, zu demselben Mann, von dem er angeblich bereits 1938 wußte, daß er ein Menschenschlächter war. Wenn ich ein einigermaßen anständiger Kerl bin, dann setze ich mich nicht mit einem Mörder an einen Tisch. (Zuruf: Sehr richtig.) (Protokoll 109, S. 6f.)

  Ganz Analoges findet sich in der früher zitierten Diskussion mit Polizeibeamten:  

U.: ... Hätte man dem Weimarer Staat die Konzessionen gemacht von Seiten Englands, Frankreichs und auch der anderen Länder, die man später dem Hitler gemacht hat, dann wäre es in der Weimarer Republik auch besser gewesen. Die Diplomaten, die nachher nach Obersalzberg kamen, die kamen schon zu spät, denn die kamen erst, als wir eine Wehrmacht hatten und der Hitler auf den Tisch schlagen konnte. Da kamen die erst und wollten dann noch versuchen, den kommenden Krieg zu vermeiden. Da war es aber zu spät. Die Schuld haben die insofern, daß man der Weimarer Republik alle Konzessionen versagt hat, und man hat es ganz egoistisch beurteilt, nämlich die Lage Deutschlands und hat sozusagen ihm überhaupt nicht unter die Arme gegriffen, der jungen deutschen Demokratie. Und nachher hat man dem Hitler, und dann nachher die Konzessionen wegen Österreich. England hat sogar gesagt: Das interessiert mich nicht, wenn Hitler Österreich besetzt, Österreich ist ein deutsches Land. Laßt das ruhig nehmen, nachher, wie es genommen war, und es kamen auch die nichtdeutschen Länder dran, da saß das Messer an der Kehle, und da war die äußerste Konsequenz, daß sie zum Krieg schritten. (Protokoll 28, S. 48f.)

  In derselben Sitzung wird mit dem Scharfsinn, den die Apologeten durchweg an den Tag legen, der Finger an eine der wundesten Stellen gelegt:  

B.: Sehen wir die Sache nicht in einem zu kurzen Zeitraum. Wenn Amerika seinerzeit die Situation besser erkannt hätte, das gesamte Ausland die Situation besser erkannt hätte, hätte man einen Herrn Hitler nicht hoffähig gemacht, indem man Gesandtschaften, Botschaften usw. errichtet hat, Auslandsempfänge gegeben hat usw. Und außerdem liegt vielleicht auch gerade eine Schuld bei den außereuropäischen Ländern. Man hat den Leuten, die hier bei uns in Deutschland flüchteten, wir wollen mal ruhig sagen, ihre Existenz aufgegeben haben, damals gar nicht einmal ein Asyl gewährt, nur in ganz geringem Umfang ein Asyl gewährt und dann immer nur ein Asyl gewährt, wenn die finanziellen Voraussetzungen gegeben waren. Es war praktisch so, daß tatsächlich die armen Schlucker in Deutschland geblieben sind und haben das ganze Elend, die ganze Not mitmachen müssen, Konzentrationslager usw. usw. Aber die Leute, die es sich erlauben konnten, die waren weg, die waren drüben auch wieder aufnahmefähig. Für diese Leute hat man Asyl gehabt. Das ist aber nicht nur in Amerika so gewesen. Ich kenne einen Fall von Schweden, wo man über 400 Leute wieder zurückgeschickt hat. Und da liegt der Hase im Pfeffer.

Amerika sollte sich darauf besinnen, daß es wohl in größtem Maße, aber nicht allein das deutsche Volk, sondern daß sie erst einen Herrn Hitler lebensfähig gemacht haben. (a.a.O., S. 13f.)

  Die Tolerierung Hitlers wird erklärt mit bürgerlicher Solidarität, nur mit dem sonderbaren Akzent, daß der, dem diese Solidarität zugute gekommen sein soll, der deutsche Diktator, dadurch implizit entlastet wird.

 2. Schmachfriede von Versailles   Neben den Argumenten, die besagen, daß die anderen durch Duldung Hitlers die Verantwortung trügen, ist ungebrochen und unerschüttert noch jenes Klischee wirksam, welches nach 1918 die gesamte nationalistische Reaktion, und keineswegs Hitler allein, benutzte. Daß Hitler zur Macht kam, daran soll der »Schmachfriede von Versailles« schuld sein. So sagt zum Beispiel ein Exportkaufmann:  

Z.: In recht großem Umfang ist der Nationalsozialismus auch das Produkt der Verhältnisse gewesen, die durch den Versailler Frieden uns aufoktroyiert worden sind und die man viel zu lange hat bestehen lassen. Es ist also nicht die grundsätzliche Neigung zur Totalität, sondern es waren die Verhältnisse, die der Versailler Friede geschaffen hat, ... die dem Nationalsozialismus überhaupt die Grundlage gegeben hat. Dasselbe gilt auch heute. (Protokoll 133, S. 20)

  In einer Lehrergruppe ist schlicht vom »Schandvertrag« die Rede.  

F.: Dieser berühmte Friedensvertrag ist im Bewußtsein der Deutschen immer noch ein Schandvertrag. (Protokoll 56, S. 5)

  Eindeutig wird Hitler von Versailles hergeleitet in einer Offiziersgruppe:  

H.: Das Unglück wollte es doch, daß Versailles die Schuld des Krieges auf uns festnageln sollte, und das ist damit gewissermaßen mit die Geburt Hitlers gewesen, das kann man wohl sagen. (Protokoll 71, S. 28)

  Man hat es nicht so eilig mit dem Schlußstrich unter die Vergangenheit, wenn sie der Abwehr dient.

 3. Befreiung der Deutschen im Osten   Ein aus Oberschlesien stammender Diplomkaufmann erwähnt zwar nicht Versailles, möchte aber alles Unheil auf das im Osten den Deutschen zugefügte Unrecht zurückführen und im übrigen auf den ersten Weltkrieg in abstracto:  

B.: Wenn wir nun auf die Ursache dieses Krieges und auf die Wirkung dieses Krieges zu sprechen kommen, ... dann ist doch die Ursache dieses Krieges bestimmt nicht der deutsche Totalitarismus, oder wie man es nennt, oder Hitler gewesen, sondern die Ursache des Krieges ist doch bestimmt der erste Weltkrieg gewesen. Und greift man auf die Ursachen zurück, so wird man die Wirkung dann immer davon ableiten können. Denn Sie sagten selbst ja vorhin schon mal von Gleiwitz, und daß wir Polen angegriffen hätten usw. Ja, was war nun die Ursache? Die Ursache war doch wohl, daß Millionen von Menschen durch den verlorenen ersten Weltkrieg an Polen verkauft wurden und daß Amerika, England und Frankreich ihre Zustimmung dazu gegeben haben. Ich selbst bin als Pole geboren und bin in dieser sogenannten polnischen Heimat aufgewachsen. Ja, es war drüben so, daß wir als Deutsche als Menschen zweiter Klasse behandelt wurden, wir wurden als Vieh in die Gruben gejagt, wir waren für jede Arbeit recht. Und wir hatten natürlich das Bestreben, aus diesem Dreckland möchte ich sagen, Polen, wieder in unsere Heimat zu kommen, wo es uns früher besser ging. Denn jeder Mensch will da leben, wo es ihm besser geht, bzw. wo es ihm mal besser ging. Wäre diese Rache nach dem ersten Weltkrieg nicht durchgeführt worden, so wäre bei uns bestimmt nie ein Hitler zur Regierung gekommen, und es wäre der zweite Weltkrieg nicht ausgebrochen. Aber die Ursache für den zweiten Weltkrieg war die ungerechte Behandlung des deutschen Volkes nach dem ersten Weltkrieg, war der Verkauf deutscher Gebiete an Polen und an all die anderen Länder, war die Zerstückelung einer sogenannten nationalen Einheit. Wenn man diese nationale Einheit beseitigen wollte nach dem ersten Weltkrieg, so hätte man sie ganz abschaffen sollen ... nicht nur in Deutschland. Es war also nicht so, daß wir Polen angegriffen haben, sondern daß wir als Mutterland danach trachten mußten ... ihr Lebensschicksal vertreten, denen unter die Arme zu greifen und diese Mißstände zu beseitigen. (Protokoll 83, S. 27f.)

  Die scheinbare Rationalität der anfänglichen Erwägungen über die Komplexität der Kriegsursachen und die Behandlung der deutschen Minorität durch die Polen leitet die ausschweifende These ein, daß »wir nicht Polen angegriffen haben«, sondern als »Mutternation«

das »Lebensschicksal« der deutschen »Volksgenossen« vertreten. Dem Inhalt dieser Äußerung entspricht auch die Rede eines ehemaligen SS-Mannes aus einer Flüchtlingsgruppe, der unbeirrt am Nationalsozialismus festhält:  

R.: Sie sagten erst, daß objektiv nachgewiesen ist, daß wir tatsächlich die Schuld am zweiten Weltkrieg haben. Ich als Grenzlandbewohner, also vielleicht 20 Meter von der russischen Grenze oben im Baltikum ... kann Ihnen nur sagen, daß für Deutschland in dem Augenblick eine unmittelbare Bedrohung geschaffen wurde, ... wo der Russe die beiden Staaten vereinnahmte. In diesem Augenblick wurden in den beiden Staaten Armeen auf Armeen aufgestellt, wie man immer wieder hören konnte von Aussiedlern und Umsiedlern. Ich habe das selbst erlebt hart an der Grenze: schwerste Artillerie, Panzer, Soldaten über Soldaten, bis sie dann nachher eines Tages die Grenze zugemacht hatten; und daß in diesem Zeitpunkt deutsche Diplomaten es fertiggebracht haben, wie ein sehr guter Elektriker, ein Elektriker, den es überhaupt nicht gibt, einen Plus-Pol mit einem MinusPol, das heißt in diesem Fall Bolschewismus und Nationalsozialismus zu vereinigen. – Daß man aber heute zu diesen Diplomaten sagt, sie wären versoffene Sektreisende, das glaube ich nicht. Wir haben zu der Zeit damals auch Staatsmänner gehabt, die Köpfchen hatten. Wir waren damals gezwungen, diesen Krieg anzufangen, denn es blieb uns nichts anderes übrig. Uns wurde im Osten die Kehle förmlich abgeschnürt, und wo wären wir Ostpreußen geblieben, wenn zwischen uns die Polacken gehaust hätten? ... Wir wären mit Stumpf und Stiel ausgerottet worden. (Protokoll 109, S. 23ff.)

  Nach einer wirren Erörterung der Lage im Osten vor Ausbruch des Krieges, die in eine Verteidigung Ribbentrops und des deutsch-russischen Bündnisses mündet, wird der Angriff auf Polen als ein Notwehrakt geschildert, als einzige Alternative gegenüber dem »mit Stumpf und Stiel ausgerottet«-Werden.

 4. Bollwerk gegen den Bolschewismus   Sehr ähnlich dem Motiv von der Befreiung der Deutschen im Osten ist die zählebige Ideologie von Hitler als Bollwerk gegen den Bolschewismus, die wir hier in der Form zitieren, in der sie von einer arbeitslosen 41jährigen Sekretärin vorgebracht wird:  

D.: ... Es ... ist, glaube ich, vorgeworfen worden, von den Amerikanern und von den Engländern, daß wir, wie soll ich sagen, ... also den Russen angegriffen haben und darin eine Gebietserweiterung sahen, während das aber von Hitler nur gedacht ist, um den Bolschewismus in Deutschland nicht eindringen zu lassen. Und daß das die Amerikaner nicht genug erkannt haben, beweist eben, daß sie sich nicht genug mit den Russen abgegeben haben. In dieser Hinsicht hat Hitler, glaube ich, die richtige Erkenntnis gehabt, daß er ein Bollwerk gegen den Russen schaffen mußte. Es handelt sich hier weniger um eine Gebietsgewinnung, sondern um den Einbruch der östlichen Sphäre – wie soll ich sagen – nicht in Deutschland hereinkommen zu lassen. (Protokoll 34, S. 39)

 5. Jalta und Potsdam   In einer Gruppe von Flüchtlingsfrauen wird den Alliierten aufs Schuldkonto gesetzt, daß sie »die Russen so weit hereingelassen haben«.  

D.: Ja nun ist es aber so, daß sie ganz die Verantwortung dafür tragen, denn letzten Endes haben sie ja die Zerstückelung Deutschlands vorgenommen ... Und daher resultiert ja jetzt unsere entsetzliche Armut und unser zusammengepreßtes Leben und – ja, es ist mit schuld, weshalb sie hier so lange besetzen müssen letzten Endes, denn, wenn Jalta nicht so sich ausgewirkt hätte, wenn sie den Russen nicht so weit reingelassen hätten, sähe es ja vielleicht anders aus mit dem ganzen deutschen Volk. (Protokoll 107, S. 26)

  Im gleichen Geist werden in der bayerischen Honoratiorengruppe unter deutlicher Nachwirkung der NS-Propaganda Vorwürfe wegen des Potsdamer Abkommens gegen Roosevelt erhoben:  

G.: Das Potsdamer Abkommen ist meines Erachtens von Herrn Roosevelt auch mitunterschrieben worden und, soviel ich orientiert bin, hat er da ohne wesentliche Gegenargumente beigestimmt. Und das Potsdamer Abkommen war doch die Quelle vieler Übel, die wir heute innerpolitisch erleben. Also die ganze Flüchtlingsfrage, die Überantwortung der ostdeutschen Gebiete an Rußland und Polen, wie überhaupt die Trennung ... des Gesamtdeutschlands in zwei völlig entgegengesetzte Hälften. Das waren alles die Auswirkungen des Potsdamer Abkommens, und daran waren sowohl Stalin wie Churchill als auch Roosevelt beteiligt. M.: Wir haben genau so nicht gewußt, wie sich das Hitlerregime auswirkt, wie sich jetzt der Stalin ausgewirkt hat. Die haben genau so Stümper, wie wir gehabt haben. G.: Nicht nur das, aber sie mußten auf Grund ihrer viel größeren Erfahrungen und ihrer Lektüre, die sie haben, ... wissen, wie Stalin sich die Macht in Rußland allmählich gefestigt hat. Er hat sie von Anfang an gehabt, das steht außer Zweifel, daß er aber in der Ukraine, ich weiß nicht wieviel Menschen umgebracht hat, und zwar die bodenständige Bevölkerung, die Bauern, die er entweder ermordet oder verschickt hat ... das geht, soviel ich weiß, in die Millionen – ich kann's nicht behaupten. Diese Tatsachen, die wir als kleine Leute wußten, das mußten die Diplomaten – die ausländischen Diplomaten – längst wissen, und ich verstehe heute noch nicht, daß sie damals Stalin geringer eingeschätzt haben als Hitler, damals, als sie mit Stalin ein Bündnis gegen uns abgeschlossen haben.

(Protokoll 16, S. 31f.)

  Die Verzerrung liegt darin, daß den Alliierten zwar ihr – unfreiwilliges – Bündnis mit Stalin vorgeworfen wird, daß aber verdrängt ist, daß Hitler 1939 tatsächlich mit Stalin ein Bündnis schloß und daß schließlich er es war, der Rußland attackierte.

 6. Bombenangriffe   Authentische Fälle von Projektion liegen dort vor, wo die Handlungen, die von den anderen begangen worden sein sollen, offensichtlich nicht den Tatsachen entsprechen und zugleich an eigene Schuld gemahnen. Daß die Bombenangriffe auf offene Städte von der deutschen Luftwaffe angefangen wurden, wird vergessen und die Schuld für die totale Kriegsführung den Engländern zugeschoben:  

R.: Ich bin der Ansicht, daß einzig und allein das englische Volk Schuld hat an dem Weltkrieg, an dem zweiten Weltkrieg, der entstanden ist, und daß die Schuld dadurch noch größer wird, daß das englische Volk mit den verheerenden Bombenangriffen auf unsere Zivilbevölkerung angefangen hat. (Protokoll 109, S. 7)

  In anderen Gruppen wird die Schuld Hitlers und der Nationalsozialisten als liquidiert betrachtet durch die Bombenangriffe; so in der Betriebsratsgruppe:  

Pf.: Ich bin 63 Jahre alt und habe zwei Weltkriege mitbeobachten können. Ich habe selbst nie daran teilgenommen. Nach dem ersten Weltkrieg haben wir uns in den ersten drei Jahren weiter erholt als heute nach fünf Jahren. Beim Ausbruch des zweiten Weltkrieges oder vor Ausbruch des zweiten Krieges in dem Naziregime war ein Terror aufgezogen, dem sich der Mensch in den Fabriken, der Kollege nicht entgegensetzen konnte. Der Terror war so groß, daß wir kommandiert wurden zu allen möglichen Festen und Veranstaltungen. Nachdem nun die Greuel des Krieges einsetzten und die großen Bombenangriffe hier auf ... kamen, wie wir sie hier in allernächster Nähe beobachten konnten – so kann man da wirklich nicht heute von einer Schuld Deutschlands sprechen, denn das waren meines Erachtens nach keine strategischen Ziele, die man so ohne weiteres ... daß man ganze Ortschaften dem Erdboden gleichmachte. (Protokoll 24, S. 25)

  Häufig machen die Versuchsteilnehmer genaue Rechnungen auf, etwa unter Hinweis darauf, daß das Bombardement von Städten gegen Ende des Krieges militärisch schon nicht mehr notwendig gewesen sei. Charakteristisch dafür ist die folgende

Diskussionsstelle aus der Polizeibeamten-Gruppe:  

J.: Eins habe ich in meinem Leben nie vergessen, ... davon abgesehen, daß die Nazis die größten Gangster waren, die es gab; nur Gangster konnten auf derartige Weise Menschen umlegen. Aber daß der Amerikaner so human wäre, ist auch nicht der Fall. Ich war bei der Luftwaffe und habe aus nächster Nähe den Großangriff auf ... mitgemacht. Es war 100%ig, daß die Amerikaner wußten, daß in dieser Nacht 250000 bis 300000 Flüchtlinge in die Stadt aufgenommen worden waren und etwa eine Million Menschen sich in den Mauern von ... befanden. Es kamen damals die Amerikaner und haben nachts die ganze Stadt in Brand geworfen. Die Bevölkerung hatte keine Ahnung, wie man sich beim Bombenangriff benimmt. Nachdem die Stadt brannte und die Bevölkerung, die gar nicht geschult worden war, da kam die zweite Welle und warf Sprengbomben hinein. Und am Tage haben mehrere hundert amerikanische Fernjäger in die Kolonnen hineingeschossen. Und am anderen Tage hörte man »250000 Tote in ...«. Das ist eine Tatsache, die nicht wegzuleugnen ist. Wo haben die Amerikaner die moralische Überlegenheit hergenommen, ein derartiges Blutbad anzurichten? ... Ich sprach hier von ..., weil es ganz offensichtlich war, daß das mit dem Endsieg, den der Amerikaner ja jederzeit in der Tasche hatte, gar nichts zu tun hatte. Ich sehe es ein, wenn sie die anderen Städte bombardierten, da der Hitler tatsächlich jedes Haus zu einer Kriegsmaschine machte. – Ich sehe es ein, der Amerikaner wußte ja gar nicht, wo wird hier gebaut, wo wird Kriegsmaterial erzeugt. Hitler hat das auch getan; aber in diesem Punkt haben sie unfair gehandelt; da hätten sie auch etwas menschliches Rühren zeigen können. Th.: Die Nazis haben wenigstens noch die Entschuldigung, daß sie sich mehr an industrielle Schwerpunkte wandten, wenn sie dort drüben – bombardierten. Aber es stand ja fest, daß ... keine Industriestadt war, und ... man muß annehmen, daß man vorsätzlich mal ein Verbrechen begehen wollte. Anders kann man das nicht mehr bezeichnen. Denn da waren nur Flüchtlinge drin, und die Stadt war vorher nicht angegriffen worden, weil nichts drin war. Das kann man eben nicht vergessen ... (Protokoll 28, S. 52f.)

  Allerdings bleibt die Behauptung der militärischen Bedeutungslosigkeit von X. nicht unwidersprochen. Ein Sprecher sagt:  

U.: Was den Angriff auf ... betrifft, habe ich den ... aus 15 km Entfernung mitgemacht, und zwar war ich gerade selber mit dem Personenzug aus ... weggefahren, abends um dreiviertel sieben, und um halbacht kam der erste Angriff. Das war der Engländer ... soviel ich weiß ... Am nächsten Mittag kam der Amerikaner und am nächsten Abend kam nochmals ein englischer Angriff. Aber ich habe die Verhältnisse in ... gekannt, und ich bin ehrlich

genug zu sagen, daß nicht nur in ... auch Flüchtlinge, sondern es steckte auch sehr viel Militär drin. Denn ... lag damals nicht sehr weit hinter der Front. Ich kam von der Ostfront, und wir sind durch ... marschiert, am hellen Mittag, am 12. Februar. Da war ... noch vollständig ganz. Da haben wir gesagt: Hier ist überhaupt kein Krieg gewesen. Es war nicht weit weg von ..., da hörten sie schon die Kanonen. Das war der Russe. Der Angriff kam abends ... und da hatte man fast nichts getan, um die Leute zu schützen. (a.a.O., S. 54f.)

 7. Misshandlung deutscher Kriegsgefangener   Ein 54jähriger kaufmännischer Angestellter (Flüchtling) sagt im Verlauf eines langen Plädoyers:  

Pf.: Wenn die Amerikaner so ... unschuldig und so gerecht mit ihrem sogenannten Völkerrechtsgeschrei, was sie auf die Welt losgelassen haben, dann dürfen wir doch nicht übersehen, daß wir wahrscheinlich alle, zumindest doch die Herren, die Soldaten waren, die vielleicht auch eine amerikanische Kriegsgefangenschaft erlebt haben, daß wir dort Entgleisungen erlebt haben, die keineswegs etwas mit Menschlichkeit und auch nicht mit Völkerrecht zu tun haben. Ich war selbst in einem Stalag während des Krieges ... und ich kann Ihnen aus meinen Erfahrungen sagen, daß ich erschüttert war über die Auffassung der Amerikaner hinsichtlich der Genfer Konvention, hinsichtlich der Haager Konvention usw., daß sie sich rücksichtslos über jede, auch über die kleinsten menschlichen Empfindungen hinweggesetzt haben, daß sie sich nicht geniert haben, Ärzte, die das Genfer Abzeichen trugen, die also äußerlich gekennzeichnet waren, niederzuschlagen, daß sie die Revierbaracken, die Krankenbaracken ... 5–6000 Personen fassend, auf 100 reduziert haben usw. Das sind alles Dinge, die letzten Endes ja, nachdem das in der amerikanischen Armee ja auch üblich ist wie in der deutschen Armee, höhere Dienststellen sich um den Zustand der Gefangenen zu kümmern hatten, da gar keine Notiz davon nahmen. Ich erwähne das nur beiläufig, um damit zu sagen, daß letzten Endes die Entgleisungen, die während einer Kampfhandlung stattfanden, in den letzten zwanzig Jahren leider – muß ich sagen, weil ich den Weltkrieg mitgemacht habe und ein derartiges Verhalten von kämpfenden Soldaten nicht kannte – daß da eine gewisse Brutalität Platz gegriffen hat. (Protokoll 83, S. 20f.)

  Dieser Versuchsteilnehmer wirft zwar den Amerikanern Inhumanität vor, aber wie er selber zur Humanität steht, verrät der Ausdruck »Völkerrechtsgeschrei«, der genau jener Sprachschicht angehört, aus der das Wort »Humanitätsduselei« stammt. Die Schlußfolgerung, daß unterdessen eine gewisse Brutalität Platz gegriffen hat, läuft auf die Nivellierung jeglicher Schuld hinaus; durch den Krieg seien eben »die Menschen so brutal geworden«. Als weiteres Beispiel für die Beschuldigung, die Amerikaner hätten die Kriegsgefangenen brutal behandelt, sei die Äußerung eines Flüchtlings zitiert, der in Afrika gefangengenommen wurde:  

N.: ... wir bekamen die ersten Jahre in Amerika 6000 Kalorien am Tage. Wir bekamen Armeeverpflegung, wir hatten wunderbar zu essen. Aber was dann geschah, nach 1945, als wir den Krieg verloren hatten und die Schweizer Kommission hereinkam und sagte, sie legten nun ihr Mandat nieder ... und wir sind jetzt dem Amerikaner ganz allein der Obhut übergeben ... Was dann kam, das war mehr wie schauerlich, und ich kann mir vorstellen, wenn man hier von KZ spricht, daß hier einer im KZ bestimmt nichts Schlimmeres erlebt hat, als was man mit uns gemacht hat. (Protokoll 60, S. 49)

  Derselbe Sprecher gab in der gleichen Sitzung ein krasses Beispiel für die Projektion der Schuld an begangenem Unrecht auf andere:  

N.: Wir mußten das eben als Gefangene vergessen, ... vor allem, als der Krieg zu Ende ging 1945, hat man uns, also ich muß offen aussprechen, den Juden übergeben in den Staaten – es waren höhere Offiziere, oder die sogenannten Verpflegungsmanager, oder diese Betreuer, wie man sie nennen kann – bei uns hat man vielleicht gesagt politische Kommissare – dort hießen sie dann Betreuer. Das waren Juden, zum größten Teil deutsche Emigranten, und das waren natürlich die ekelhaftesten Menschen, die es gegeben hat. Die haben uns gleich mal auf eine Hungerration gesetzt, haben uns Photographien von Buchenwald hereingebracht, die mußten wir unter Knüppel-Garde-Bedeckung, mußten wir die Bilder betrachten. Wir mußten uns die schauerlichen Filme ansehen, als sie die Toten wieder ausgegraben haben, die angeblich aus KZs stammten, und wie sie die Leichen da rumgetragen haben. Und wenn da einer mal die Augen zu – die meisten hatten die Augen zu, nicht wahr, und wollten sich das gar nicht ansehn – der kriegte eins mit dem Knüppel ins Kreuz, damit er wieder wach wurde und so weiter. Das war auf jeden Fall nicht demokratisch. (a.a.O., S. 5)

  Brutal waren also nicht die SS-Leute, die die Juden marterten, sondern die Juden, die angeblich die Deutschen zwangen, die Untaten der SS zur Kenntnis zu nehmen. Daß deutsche Emigranten »die ekelhaftesten Menschen, die es gegeben hat«, gewesen sein sollen, dünkt diesen Versuchsteilnehmer »natürlich«. Hier ist die nationalsozialistische Denkweise ungebrochen gegenwärtig.

 8. Hungerperiode   Im geschlagenen Deutschland herrschte Hungersnot. Ohne amerikanische Hilfe wäre sie zur Katastrophe geworden. Diese Hilfe wird häufig vergessen und an ihrer Stelle werden den »Amis« wahre oder erfundene Episoden der ersten Besatzungszeit vorgeworfen. So etwa von einigen Teilnehmern der Nachbarschaftsgruppe:  

P.: Ich muß direkt sagen, hat das die amerikanische Regierung nicht gewußt? Warum hat sie das geduldet? Nach meinem Dafürhalten war diese ganze Hungerperiode – sie dauerte Gott sei Dank nur ein halbes Jahr – von oben runter angeordnet. Ich hatte später mal Gelegenheit mit einem amerikanischen Soldaten zu sprechen, weil ich in die Küche kam. Der hat mir auch gesagt, daß wir eben als Deutsche spüren sollten, wie wir es mit den anderen getan hätten. Also war es auch unmenschlich. Es war damals befohlen von einer Regierung, die ja auf der anderen Seite auf Menschlichkeit achtet. B.: ... seinerzeit – wie der Einmarsch von den Amerikanern war, da hat meine Schwester mir erzählt, daß mein Schwager eben verhungert wäre. Denn sie hätten ja nur einen ganz kleinen Laib Brot acht Tage gekriegt. Und da, wo wir waren, in der Rhön, da haben die amerikanischen Soldaten, da haben sie sich die Schinken von den Bauern geholt, haben nur das rohe Fleisch rausgeschnitten, das Fett haben sie weggeschmissen, sie haben es vertrampelt oder haben es verunreinigt – ich möchte das nicht sagen – damit andere es nicht brauchen konnten. Wir waren in einer Wirtschaft evakuiert. Das war ein Freund meines Mannes. Da ist manchmal die Wache gekommen vom Amerikaner, in die Wirtsstube. Die haben dann da ausgepackt, ihr Brot, und wenn sie nichts mehr essen konnten, dann haben sie das Brot angespuckt und nachher reingebissen und alles auf den Tisch geworfen, damit es kein anderer mehr essen konnte. G.: Ich fand es für unrecht, wenn sie uns auch besiegt haben. Die kamen hier rein und ließen das ganze Volk verhungern. Das ist doch ein Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit. Dann mit ihren Kalorien! Die Menschen hatten sie doch noch nicht mal! Ich möchte nicht wissen, wieviel Menschen da gestorben sind, alte und gebrechliche Leute. Und soundsoviel Kalorien nur, und immer nur Kalorien. Und die Menschen hatten sie noch nicht mal. Sie waren aufs Stehlen angewiesen. (Protokoll 42, S. 33f.)

  In einer bayerischen Bauerngruppe wird ein Vergleich zwischen der angeblichen Güte deutscher Soldaten und der sadistischen Roheit von Amerikanern angestellt:

 

J.: Im ganzen Osten haben wir das nie gesehen von deutschen Soldaten, sogar von der SS habe ich es gesehen, ja, daß – ham einem Russen, so verhungert ausgesehen hat, ein Stück Brot – ham wir ihm hingeschmissen. Ja, dagegen der Amerikaner hat er vor unseren Augen, wo wir direkt am Verhungern waren, ja, des in Schmutz hineingetreten vor uns und die Zigaretten nachher in Dreck neingetreten. Direkt hams runtergebissen vom Weißbrot: was habe ich, ja, was bin ich für ein Herr gegen euch, ihr seid bloß minderes Volk. (Protokoll 13, S. 9)

  Von den Funktionen solcher Geschichten ist nicht die geringste die, daß durchweg sogenannte konkrete Beispiele größere Beweiskraft haben als allgemeine Behauptungen, und daß außerdem auch Erzählungen wie die von dem geschändeten Brot und den in den Schmutz geworfenen Zigaretten selber von den Versuchsteilnehmern libidinös besetzt sind. Echt paranoid ist dabei, daß die Erfahrungen, die in das Schema des Verfolgungswahns nicht hineinpassen, so umgemodelt werden, daß das System doch stimmt. Daß die amerikanischen Soldaten keine Unmenschen sind, haben die Versuchsteilnehmer gesehen. Daß aber weder zunächst für den Sieger eine moralische Verpflichtung bestand, den Deutschen nach allem Geschehenen zu helfen, noch daß in den ersten Monaten 1945 die an Ort und Stelle verfügbaren Vorräte dazu vermutlich gar nicht ausgereicht hätten, wollen sie um keinen Preis zugestehen. Sie wollen durchaus verfolgt und gequält worden sein und erfinden darum einen Befehl von oben, von geheimnisvollen Mächten, der es ihnen erlaubt, ihre freundlichen Erfahrungen mit den Soldaten, die Erinnerung an den Hunger, den sie wirklich hatten, und die Verschiebung der eigenen Schuld auf andere zu vereinen. In diesem Sinn heißt es in einer Flüchtlingsgruppe:  

Th.: Meiner Ansicht nach war es nur eine Strafe, die überhaupt vereinbart wurde zwischen den Alliierten, daß man die Deutschen zwei Jahre, drei Jahre, vielleicht auch ... Ich habe gehört, daß sie uns ursprünglich bis 1952 hungern lassen wollten, und das hat man abgebrochen. Ich glaube, dann wäre bei uns die Hälfte der Menschen verhungert. Dadurch haben die Amerikaner sich sehr große Sympathien verscherzt. (Protokoll 42, S. 48)

  Es scheint diesen Rednern wiederum selbstverständlich, daß die Amerikaner um Sympathien bei den Deutschen zu werben haben

und nicht umgekehrt.

 9. Lynchen   Unter den Themen der Projektion steht das Lynchen obenan. Hier sehen die nationalistischen Versuchsteilnehmer ein Analogon zu den Rassenverfolgungen, welche die Nazis begangen haben, und stellen den Sachverhalt auf den Kopf. Der latente Gedanke, der hinter den Äußerungen über Lynchen steht, ist einfach: Ihr bringt Neger um, also könnt ihr uns keinen Vorwurf daraus machen, daß wir Juden umgebracht haben, wenn nicht gar: Ihr habt es uns ja gezeigt. Übrigens erklärt sich die Häufigkeit des Lynchmotivs in unserem Material wohl dadurch, daß der Colburn-Brief auf den Unterschied der Lynchfälle in den Südstaaten und der Ausrottungspolitik des Dritten Reiches eingeht. Reagiert wird jedoch nur auf das Thema als solches, kaum je auf die Differenz. Offen absurd ist die folgende Äußerung aus der Korpsstudentensitzung:  

O.: Ich wollte noch etwas zu dem Vorbringen des Amerikaners sagen, der eben sagte, bei uns wären die Menschen massenweise in Konzentrationslagern ermordet worden, während das bei ihnen, wenn einer gelyncht wird, ein Verbrechen ist. Das kann ja meines Erachtens überhaupt nicht verglichen werden, das ist ja etwas ganz anderes. Wenn bei uns im Dritten Reich ein Mensch gelyncht worden wäre, der wäre genau so verurteilt worden wie drüben in Amerika, denn das wäre purer Mord gewesen. Was bei uns geschah, das war letzten Endes unter Ausschluß der Öffentlichkeit. Das war etwas ganz anderes, das läßt sich gar nicht vergleichen. (Protokoll 41, S. 18f.)

  Moralische und institutionelle Kategorien sind hier – im Gefolge einer spezifisch deutschen Tradition – verschmolzen. Wird in Amerika von einem Mob auf eigene Faust Lynchjustiz begangen, so ist das Mord und Verbrechen. Im Dritten Reich gab es in der Tat kaum solche mehr oder minder spontanen Aktionen, sondern nur »Ausrottungsmaßnahmen«. Weil diesen aber der Charakter der Einzelspontaneität gefehlt hat, deshalb sollen sie minder verwerflich sein als die Exzesse in den Südstaaten. Daraus wird eine Apologie gemacht in der Diskussion der Modeschüler.   B.: Ich glaube, daß das von Anfang an im Plan des Nationalsozialismus bestand,

also daß die Juden aus Deutschland langsam aber sicher rausflogen. Aber ich finde, im Grunde genommen, ist das ... Rassenproblem damals eben zwischen Deutschen und Juden und jetzt in Amerika zwischen Negern und Weißen ganz verschieden. Denn damals war es tatsächlich gewollt hier in Deutschland ... Es war eben die Sache der Regierung gegen die Juden, während in Amerika es weniger eben durch die Regierung dieser Rassenhaß ... als eben durch vielleicht durch Jahrhunderte hindurch der einzelne Amerikaner gegen den einzelnen Neger ... Es ist vollkommen verschieden. Das ist an und für sich das Enttäuschende bei diesem Haß gegen den Neger. Der einzelne Amerikaner haßt den einzelnen Neger. Das ist viel schlimmer, als wenn eine Masse sich gegen eine Rasse wendet, denn die Masse, die hat nicht so viel Verantwortungsgefühl wie der einzelne. Z.: ... Nun glaube ich ja doch – darum möchte ich auch dieses Lynchen mit Rassendünkel absolut nicht vergleichen, denn selbst in der Zeit der Judenverfolgungen in Deutschland darf man nicht unterschätzen, daß der Jude für den Deutschen nicht das ist, was der Neger für den Amerikaner ist, nicht second class ... Ich habe sehr sehr viele jüdische Bekannte gehabt, und ich kenne von dem auch den Standpunkt über das Gros der Deutschen und die Meinung. Es hat mich sehr interessiert aus diesem Grund als Mensch, und in der Gleichartigkeit hat man den Juden ja, trotzdem man ihn verfolgt hat, und zwar seltsamerweise, nicht als second class behandelt. (Zwischenruf: Nein, gar nicht!) Also vom menschlichem Standpunkt hat man's nicht gesehen; man hat ihn so behandelt, weil er einen Stern trug, aus lauter äußeren Anlässen heraus. (Protokoll 72, S. 26f.)

  Daß man als Privatperson seine jüdischen Bekannten nicht als Menschen zweiter Klasse behandelt habe, wird zur Entschuldigung dessen aufgeboten, was die Regierung verübte. Man könnte über diese absonderliche Form von Abwehr – daß Massenmorde ohne Haß weniger schlimm seien als einzelne Untaten aus Haß – als über eine bloße Exzentrizität hinweggehen, würde nicht in anderen Gruppen die gleiche Linie verfolgt:  

F.: Es ist ja noch ein Unterschied, daß eben in Amerika diese Lynchmorde von der Bevölkerung selbst ausgeübt werden, während wir hier ja doch eigentlich kaum den Fall gehabt haben, daß die Leute auf der Straße einen Juden gegriffen oder aufgehängt hätten, oder so was ähnliches. Die tatsächliche Verfolgung der Juden erfolgte doch direkt von staatswegen und ist einem großen Teil des deutschen Volkes ... auch im Kriege, nicht zum Bewußtsein gekommen. Denn ich weiß mich noch genau zu erinnern. Ich war damals in Emden. Da wurden die Juden – abgesehen natürlich von den Vorfällen im November 1938 – da wurden die Juden nachher zu einem

Transport zusammengestellt. Und wo man sich erkundigt hat, hieß es: die Juden kommen jetzt nach Polen, im östlichen Polen, bei Lublin usw. Da wird ein großes Reservoir geschaffen, nicht wahr, da sollen alle Juden hin abgeschoben werden. Da konnte man nicht ohne weiteres (!) annehmen, daß diese Leute alle ums Leben gebracht werden sollen. Das ist doch ausgeschlossen. (Protokoll 42, S. 11)

  Der Wahnsinn hat nicht nur Methode, sondern kann sich wiederum auf eine Art von Scheinrationalität berufen: dadurch daß die Verbrechen nicht spontan von unten her, sondern »direkt von staatswegen« verübt wurden, hat man es der Bevölkerung besonders leicht gemacht, den Unbequemlichkeiten des Gewissens auszuweichen. Daß es nicht ganz gelang, zeigt freilich das »nicht ohne weiteres«.

 10. Fremdrassige   Bestimmend ist die Unterscheidung von Eigen- und Fremdgruppe als sozialpsychologische Substanz der Rassenlehre. Zu deren Behandlung wird übergegangen im Anschluß an eine Diskussion des Lynchens in einer BdJ [Bund deutscher Jugend]-Gruppe:  

I.: Ich glaube, man kann an sich die Grundtheorie der – jeglicher Rassenlehre auf einen einfachen Nenner bringen: zwischen allen Rassen bestehen Unterschiede, ohne daß damit ein Werturteil gesprochen wird. Wenn man eine Hand nimmt und sich in einen gesunden Finger ein Stück Golddraht stößt – irgendwie bei der Arbeit – so wird nach kurzer Zeit dieses Stück Golddraht im Finger anfangen zu eitern. Damit ist aber das Stück Golddraht nicht minderwertig, denn es ist gutes Gold und als solches Edelmetall; und auf der anderen Seite ist auch der Finger nicht schlecht, weil er nun anfängt zu eitern, sondern er ist ein vorher vollkommen gesunder Finger gewesen. Nur beides miteinander verträgt sich nicht. – Ich glaube, das ist auch das, was im Letzten die Menschen dazu bewegt, einen Unterschied zwischen den Rassen zu machen, der mehr dagegen gerichtet ist, daß sich die Rassen mischen, als daß ein Werturteil über irgendeine Rasse gesprochen wird und damit die Diffamierung einer farbigen Rasse oder aber von farbigen vielleicht der weißen Rasse gegenüber. (Protokoll 123, S. 7)

  Während hier in abstracto ein verständnisvoller, wertfreier Standpunkt prätendiert wird, verrät der vertraute Vergleich mit dem Eiter die unbewußte Reaktionsweise, die zugrunde liegt.

 11. Displaced Persons (Dps)   In der zur psychologischen Selbstbestimmung neigenden Lehrergruppe bemerkt ein Teilnehmer sehr zutreffend:  

F.: Nicht wahr, wir Deutschen verschieben unseren Haß auf die DPs. (Protokoll 56, S. 26)

  Tatsächlich spielten die DPs in der Abwehr eine zentrale Rolle. Es ist kaum zu viel gesagt, daß sie durchweg als Sündenbock fungieren und dazu benutzt werden, nachträglich zu rechtfertigen, was den Juden angetan wurde, oder wenigstens mildernde Umstände dafür beizubringen. Daß die Schimpfreden gegen die DPs noch vorhielten in einer Situation, in der in Deutschland nur noch eine ganz geringe Zahl sich fand, deutet darauf hin, daß die subjektiven Mechanismen, welche dieses Motivs bedürfen, wesentlicher sind als die reale Situation, aus der sie entsprangen. Die Vorwürfe schießen über jedes Ziel und sind meist auch gar nicht substanziiert. Die Liste der Äußerungen gegen die DPs ist bei weitem die längste, die sich bei der Analyse bestimmter Inhalte der Abwehr ergeben hat. Ein Sprecher identifizierte die DPs als Gewaltverbrecher, ein Vorwurf, der nur selten gegen die Juden erhoben wird:  

Pf.: Es ist ja so: es sind ja nicht bloß die Juden, es sind auch die DPs. Ich weiß da persönlich einen Fall von einem Taxichauffeur, der hat einen Transport gehabt ins Lager Landsberg von vier Juden, und als er eben den Fahrpreis verlangte, wurde er niedergeschlagen, und nur mit Hilfe von der MP [Military Police] konnten die Diebe gefaßt werden. Das sind die Juden, wo heute noch in Deutschland sind. (Protokoll 96, S. 6)

  Psychologisch handelt es sich wohl um die Projektion der an den Juden verübten Gewalttaten. Das reale Moment stellen vermutlich Ausschreitungen befreiter Fremdarbeiter und ähnlicher Gruppen unmittelbar nach dem Kriege bei. Je mehr die sogenannte bodenständige Bevölkerung sich selbst für bodenständig hält, desto größere Wut zeigt sie gegen die nicht bodenständige und rechnet es den aus ihrer Heimat Vertriebenen noch zum Bösen an, daß sie vertrieben wurden; so in einer

bayerischen Bauernsitzung:  

Vl.: Darf ich mal fragen: Haben Sie jetzt noch nicht wieder mit Juden geschäftlich zu tun? Zuruf: Nein, Nein! L.: Wenn die alten Juden wieder kämen ... G.: Aber die kommen ja nicht mehr ... L.: Wenn die alten wiederkämen, zu jeder Zeit, jederzeit wieder. J.: Wenn einer käme von denen, die zuerst da waren, dann ja. Aber was heute so kommt, das sind ja alles Juden halt, das ist kein Deutscher, der kann nicht mal deutsch sprechen, oder nur so gebrochen. Ja da habe ich sofort Angst, direkt Angst habe ich. Denn die ham ja nur was anderes im Kopf. Die wollen ja nur ausspekulieren, ob es da auf dem Hof Diebesgelegenheiten gibt. Das sind ja auch alles nur DPs. Vl.: Sie meinen also, die Juden oder ein DP, der auf Ihren Hof kommt, der von vornherein sich durch seine Sprache als solcher ausweist, dann haben Sie regelrecht Angst, weil Sie nicht wissen, was da passiert? J.: Ja, weil ich nicht weiß, was passiert bei Nacht. Die kommen ja nur, um bei Tag auszuspekulieren, weil ich sage, ein jeder anständiger Mensch geht nach Hause, wo er geboren ist. L.: Die Juden, es sind ja zum Teil ausländische Juden, die hier sind. Daher kommt es ja auch, daß bei den Deutschen der Judenhaß so groß ist. G.: Wo sind die denn überhaupt hergekommen? J.: Tausende sind hergekommen. Die auswärtigen Juden brauchen wir nicht. Die alten Juden können ja wieder kommen, denen tut kein Mensch was. Warum kommen die denn überhaupt nach Deutschland? (Protokoll 13, S. 18f.)

  Es ist schwer sich vorzustellen, daß diese Versuchsteilnehmer wirklich nicht wissen, daß die DPs nicht aus Übermut nach Deutschland gekommen sind: ebenso, daß ihnen, soweit sie aus dem Osten stammen, weithin die Möglichkeit abgeschnitten ist, dahin zurückzugehen, wo sie geboren sind, wie es einer der Teilnehmer an dieser Diskussion in unvorstellbarem Zynismus für ein Kriterium des »anständigen« Menschen ausgibt. Bezeichnend ist auch die Einteilung in die anständigen Juden, die mit unseren, nämlich den deutschen Juden gleichgesetzt werden, die ohnehin nicht zurückkehren können, weil sie großenteils tot sind, und den unanständigen, die damit gekennzeichnet werden, daß sie kein Deutsch sprechen können. Diese Aufteilung der Juden gehört in der ganzen Welt zum Arsenal des Antisemitismus 20 . Der archaische Haß gegen den Fremden schlechthin verbindet sich hier mit dem antisemitischen Stereotyp und dem Sadismus gegen den, der am

Boden liegt. Kraß tritt das archaische Motiv des Hasses gegen den Fremden als solchen, zumal gegen die Unheimlichkeit der fremden Sprache auch in der aus Flüchtlingen und Elternlosen rekrutierten Frauengruppe hervor:  

I.: Ich meine also, die Ostjuden nach dem Kriege, die haben sich auch nicht besonders beliebt gemacht. Es waren ja meistens Leute, die überhaupt nicht richtig deutsch sprechen, das ist ja auch schon unsympathisch, und dann haben sie sich meistens mit Schwarzhandel betätigt. Vl.: Haben sich nicht alle mit Schwarzhandel betätigt? Oder haben sich nur Juden mit Schwarzhandel betätigt? I.: Nein, also das will ich ja nicht sagen, aber diese fielen ja besonders auf, wenn sie da ihre schwarzen Geschäfte machten. In München und auch hier in ... waren ja bestimmte Straßen bekannt, wo man meistens Juden angetroffen hat. Ja besonders geschickt sind sie in Handelssachen. Das kann man ihnen ja nicht absprechen. Vl.: Nicht nur in Handelssachen. D.: Vielleicht wirkt sich dieser ganze Antisemitismus in Deutschland auch dadurch noch stärker aus, weil der Deutsche an sich doch fleißig ist, und ich möchte behaupten, zueinander auch ehrlich. Gerade im Gegensatz zu den Charakterzügen des Juden, der an sich faul und gerne andere für sich arbeiten läßt. I.: Entschuldigen Sie, aber ... D.: Ja, und auch eben immer darauf ausgeht, auf dem Geschäftswege andere zu betrügen, vor allem die Christen, die Nichtangehörigen seiner Rasse, und dadurch vielleicht auch ein besonderer Haß in Deutschland besteht. (Protokoll 59, S. 15f.)

  Der eigene Zustand und die eigene Sprache werden hier absolut gesetzt: wenn einer nicht Deutsch kann, so ist das schon »unsympathisch«. Die Anerkennung des jüdischen Geschicks in »Handelssachen« dient wie meist nur als Hülle für den stereotypen Vorwurf, die Juden wären faul und ließen andere für sich arbeiten, während die Deutschen ehrlich und »an und für sich«, also von Natur aus, fleißig seien. Die alte Wut über den Zwang arbeiten zu müssen und über jegliche Unterdrückung lebt sich aus in der Phantasie, daß es einer verhaßten und möglichst ohnmächtigen Gruppe zu gut gehe. Dabei erregt besonderen Haß die Tatsache, daß die DPs in mancher Hinsicht von den Amerikanern unterstützt worden sind. Die Frage, ob nicht die verjagten und dem grauenvollsten Schicksal nur eben entronnenen Menschen auf jenen

Schutz und bescheidene Vorteile, die ihnen gewährt wurden, ein moralisches Recht hatten, wird gar nicht aufgeworfen. Selbst daß die Amerikaner den halbverhungerten KZ-Insassen zunächst einmal etwas zu essen gaben, wird in einer Barackensitzung den DPs vorgerechnet; und die Entrüstung darüber führt zu einer antisemitischen Invektive, in der auch die Nachahmung eines fiktiven Gemauschels nicht fehlt:  

N.: Ich glaube, der Amerikaner hat auch einen großen Fehler gemacht, als er die Deutschen zum Selbstregieren den Anfang gegeben hat. Vor allem er öffnete die KZs. Wir hörten gerade vorhin, blau, grün, rot, was da all rauskam. Der Amerikaner machte keinen Unterschied. Er ließ erst mal alles frei. Die KZler, die waren erst alle die Männer. Die kamen hier dann ans Ruder und kriegten die dicken Karten, die kriegten mehr zu fressen. Die hatten auch mehr Geld, nicht wahr. Eine Menge Polen – wir haben das Leidwesen heute noch rumlaufen – überall sitzen die Polacken. Also wir sind den Leuten sehr schlecht gesinnt. Denn ich weiß nicht, ich kann jeden hier fragen, wenn hier irgendwo ein Überfall ist – mich selbst wollten sie vor vier Wochen im Wald zusammenhauen, drei Polen – wenn hier irgendwo ein Überfall ist, stecken die Polen dahinter, dieses Gesindel! Entweder haben die das in Polen nie anders gemacht, auf jeden Fall muß es einen Grund geben, daß man dieses Gesindel eben hinter Schloß und Riegel gesperrt hat. Daß man diesen Leuten aber hier Vorrechte gegeben hat und dann noch bei der Währungsreform mit 1:1 das ganze Geld ausgetauscht hat ... Was sind die geworden? Heute noch, es sind die letzten Schieber. Es sind immer noch Polen und Juden in der ... Straße usw. ... Ja, man soll doch erst mal dorten ausfegen; das ist der richtige Platz, und soll nicht bei uns herumkritisieren. Wir sind daran nicht schuld! Wir sind brave Arbeiter. Wir gehen früh zur Arbeit, kommen abends nach Hause, verdienen unser Geld mit unserm bißchen Arbeiten. Die dicken Herren mit den Brieftaschen, die gehen ... Ich kann mich erinnern: kurz vor der Währungsreform, da sind noch Juden rumgelaufen von X. und haben noch gefragt: »Hast du Mark? Wieviel? – Geb ich dir 10 Prozent!« usw. Die wollten, die haben ja die Mark 1:1 umgetauscht bekommen, egal, wieviel sie hatten. Ob der fünfzig oder hunderttausend Mark hatte, der hat es gekriegt. Davon haben sie dann Warenhäuser gebaut. (Protokoll 60, S. 52f.)

  Der Sprecher lebt noch völlig in der nationalsozialistischen Begriffswelt: die Polen, die sogenannten »Polacken«, tut er mit Bezeichnungen wie »Gesindel« und »Schieber« ab. Er macht keinen Unterschied zwischen den polnischen DPs und Juden, die man zu Recht »hinter Schloß und Riegel gesperrt hat«.

Die Diskriminierung der DPs hat eine spezifische Bedeutung für die Abwehr. Der Antisemitismus wird nachträglich zur Folge ihres Verhaltens gemacht. Damit wird auf der einen Seite die Existenz eines deutschen Antisemitismus während der Zeit, in der das Äußerste geschah, aus der Welt diskutiert, auf der anderen Seite werden die heute bemerkbaren antisemitischen Tendenzen gerechtfertigt mit angeblicher jüdischer Schuld. Erst heute, so läuft die Argumentation, gibt es eigentlich in Deutschland etwas wie Antisemitismus, und die Anklagen gegen die Vergangenheit erscheinen gleichzeitig nichtig und ex post facto legitimiert. Wiederum tritt dieses Motiv bei den zu subtileren Rationalisierungen unfähigen bayerischen Bauerngruppen am sichtbarsten hervor. So äußern sich die uns bereits bekannten Dorfhonoratioren wie folgt:  

L.: Jetzt haben wir den Judenhaß, der war früher gar nicht da! Vl.: Also Sie glauben, daß der Judenhaß jetzt größer ist bei Ihnen? J.: Früher haben wir den gar nicht gehabt. Da war der nicht groß, da haben wir gar keinen gehabt. (Zwischenruf: Eine Scheu hat man gehabt vor den Juden.) Gerade der Bauer auf dem Land, der finanziell etwas schlecht war, nicht, und hat da ein Geld irgendwie braucht ... die haben mit dem Juden gern geschäftet. (Protokoll 16, S. 5)

  Es bedürfte näherer Untersuchung, ob dieses Motiv gerade in Bayern besonderen Nährboden hat. Denkbar ist, daß wirklich dort die seit Jahrhunderten ansässigen Juden weitgehend mit der Bevölkerung integriert waren und daß auch die Bauern die Kreditgeber in vieler Hinsicht positiv – wenn auch mit ambivalentem Unterton, wie er in dem Satz: »eine Scheu hat man gehabt vor den Juden« durchklingt – beurteilten, daß aber der ganze Haß einer noch relativ geschlossenen hauswirtschaftlichen Gruppe sich gegen das als fremd und unassimiliert Erfahrene kehrt. Eine besonders prägnante Formulierung der Behauptung, daß die DPs erst den Judenhaß geschaffen hätten, findet sich in einer bayerischen Bauernsitzung:  

L.: Und deshalb kam ja auch der Haß wieder gegen die Juden. Der war ja vorher gar nicht so stark. Die Amerikaner glauben und behaupten, der Hitler habe uns den Haß eingeprägt. Das stimmt gar nicht, sondern erst hernach, wie wir

sie kennengelernt haben, was sie alles machen, nach dem Krieg. Die durften irgendwie ein Auto oder eine Schreibmaschine oder sonst irgendwas stehlen, kamen in die Synagoge rein und niemand durfte sie mehr holen. Doch wir wußten, daß sie drin waren. Das stimmt doch. Auch die Landbevölkerung glaubte das hundertprozentig nicht. Deshalb kam der Haß gegen die Juden, nicht durch Hitler, im Gegenteil, alle ham Mitleid gehabt. (Protokoll 13, S. 13f.)

  Das Wahnhafte der Stelle besteht in der wirren Vorstellung, »gestohlene Schreibmaschinen« seien in die Synagoge geschleppt worden. Unbekümmert um die Zeitordnung erklärt und rechtfertigt auch dieser Bauer den Antisemitismus mit dem, was angeblich von Juden verübt worden sein soll, nachdem die Millionen bereits ermordet waren.

 12. KZs gar nicht so schlimm   Bei der Gleichsetzung der DPs mit Verbrechern spielen manchmal Strafphantasien mit: sie sollen dorthin, wo sie hergekommen sind, ins KZ. Das wird gelegentlich offen ausgesprochen:  

M.: Zu den DPs möchte ich sagen, daß sich gerade unter den DPs, wie Herr B. schon sagte, Elemente befinden, die tatsächlich ins Zuchthaus, und man kann ruhig sagen: ins KZ gehören. Und wenn man davon ausgeht, daß im KZ dermaßen viel Leute umgebracht worden sind, da möchte ich dazu sagen, daß ich zum Teil Auschwitz kenne. (Zuruf: Kapo!) Nein, ich bin keiner von denen gewesen, die eventuell als ... (Zuruf: Hinter Stacheldraht, oder ...) ... nein auch nicht, weder hinter Stacheldraht, noch als Aufsichtspersonal dort gewesen bin. Aber ich möchte eins sagen, und das möchte ich, was mir zum Beispiel eine Frau in meiner Gefangenschaft in Holstein erzählt hat, und ich möchte es wörtlich wiedergeben, was sie gesagt hat: »Ich persönlich weiß nicht, was in Konzentrationslagern geschehen ist, aber ich bin mit meinem Kind in den Bombennächten über brennenden Asphalt gelaufen.« Und das kann ich jederzeit beurteilen, und nicht das, was dem Konzentrationslager an und für sich vorgeworfen wird. Und ich glaube, wenn man eine statistische Aufstellung machen würde, wer im Konzentrationslager gesessen hat, und wer heute hier draußen rumläuft, dann möchte ich sagen, daß sich die Zahl nicht nur verdoppelt, sondern sogar verdreifacht hat. Und man soll nun mal die Leute zeigen, bzw. die Anzahl der Leute, die in den Konzentrationslagern umgekommen sind. (Protokoll 83, S. 8f.)

  In der sonderbaren Konstruktion »ich kenne zum Teil Auschwitz« meldet sich das Bedürfnis des Versuchsteilnehmers an, einesteils als Experte sich aufzuspielen – wäre es auch als Experte des Grauens – andererseits aber sich doch nicht zu embrouillieren. Die zitierte Erzählung der Frau, die mit dem Kind in Bombennächten über brennenden Asphalt gelaufen sei, soll offenbar die Schrecken der KZs kompensieren. Die am Schluß mit der Geste des Wahrheitsfanatismus vorgetragene Forderung, man solle nun mal die Leute zeigen, die in den KZ umgekommen sind, ist selbstverständlich unerfüllbar und ein bloßes Ablenkungsmanöver. Es gehört zu den skurrilsten Ergebnissen der Untersuchung, daß zu wiederholten Malen von dem guten Ernährungszustand der

KZ-Insassen apologetisch gesprochen wird. So zum Beispiel in einer Flüchtlingsgruppe:  

U.: Da kam ein Jude aus Buchenwald, tadellos genährt, einwandfrei angezogen, der die Ausreisegenehmigung nach Shanghai hatte. Er mußte damals durch die Finanzverwaltung die Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung haben, daß er keine Steuerschulden an das Reich hatte. Ich habe dann hinterher von den Greueln gelesen, die angeblich in dieser Zeit dort geschehen sein sollen, und kann das zumindestens bis zu dieser Zeit kaum glauben, denn sonst wäre der Mann nicht wirklich so einwandfrei im Futter (!) gewesen, denn er war ganz rundlich und völlig normal, weder kaputtgeschlagen, noch sonst irgend etwas. (Protokoll 109, S. 6)

  Extrem kommt das Motiv in einer Barackensitzung vor:  

E.: Also wer die KZler gleich nach dem Umsturz gesehen hat, hat nur gesehen, daß es gutgenährte Menschen waren. (Protokoll 60, S. 40)

 13. Jüdische Rache   Das Verhalten der DPs und Juden nach dem Zusammenbruch wird von manchen als Rachsucht gedeutet, und im Namen einer Humanität, die während des Dritten Reiches nicht eben hoch im Kurs stand, wird diese Rachsucht verpönt.  

K.: Also ich bin der Ansicht, daß die Verbitterung, die kommt also von den Kreisen der Juden, hauptsächlich daher. Wenn die Juden für ein begangenes Unrecht an ihnen heute ein Recht dafür ableiten, daß sie ebenfalls Unrecht begehen, und daß sie dann eben ... da jetzt die unmöglichsten Sachen machen, nicht wahr, und gerade in so einer Zeit, wie eben vorhin schon betont worden ist, wo es wirklich um das nötige Essen gegangen ist, usw. Da ist jeder Mensch irgendwie empfindlich, und da reagiert man natürlich darauf. Und ich glaube, das ist ein wesentlicher Punkt. (Protokoll 96, S. 4)

  Rachsucht wird insbesondere den mit der Besatzungsmacht zurückgekehrten Emigranten zur Last gelegt und als Faktor des Unheils angeführt:  

B.: Dann kommt hinzu – das ist eine besonders traurige Rolle – die Rolle der deutschen Emigranten. Was die über Deutschland draußen erzählt haben werden und welche Darstellung – menschlich verständlich: sie sind ja ums Vermögen gebracht worden, sie haben ihre Angehörigen zum Teil in Deutschland verloren – das wird den Rest gegeben haben, daß das Bild, das über Deutschland und das deutsche Volk in dem Gehirn des einfachen Mannes abgezeichnet ist, völlig verzeichnet war. Nun kann man nicht verlangen, daß dieser Mann von heute auf morgen dieses völlig verzeichnete und auch weiter in seiner Presse verzeichnete Bild – bitte, sehen Sie sich die ausländische Presse, die französische Presse an – jetzt abrupt in wenigen Jahren abändert. Der Mann hat also allmählich versucht, seine Meinung zu wandeln. Die von uns heute abend erhobenen Vorwürfe gegen die Besatzungsmächte sind unbestreitbar berechtigt und richtig. Daran ist nicht zu zweifeln. Aber wir wollen zugeben, daß eben die gesamte Besatzungsmacht infiziert ist und durchsetzt ist mit deutschen Emigranten, mit den falschen Voraussetzungen nach Deutschland gekommen ist und uns von den Aspekten her jahrelang behandelt hat, die eben propagandistisch und zum Teil durch eigenes Erleben und Zeitungen lebendig waren. Das Bedrückende ist für mich, daß nun nach langen Jahren heute noch diese Besatzungsmacht in den entscheidenden Stunden ... nicht schneller umstellen kann.

(Protokoll 71, S. 35f.)

  Zweierlei verdient bei dieser Äußerung beachtet zu werden: einmal daß der Versuchsteilnehmer zugesteht, daß das Verhalten der Emigranten »menschlich verständlich« sei, ohne doch daraus die geringsten Konsequenzen zu ziehen: das negative Bild ist eben verzeichnet. Auf der einen Seite wird davon geredet, daß die finsteren Aspekte der Vergangenheit den Emigranten zum Teil »durch eigenes Erleben lebendig waren«, auf der anderen Seite aber werden diese Aspekte »falsche Voraussetzungen« genannt und es wird unterstellt, die Besatzungsmächte wären, wie von einer Krankheit, durch die »infiziert« gewesen, von denen man zugleich zugesteht, was ihnen angetan ward. Dann aber wirft es jähes Licht auf den Seelenzustand des Sprechers fast sechs Jahre nach Hitlers Sturz, daß er den Emigranten zuschreibt, daß auch heute, in der Periode des kalten Krieges mit Rußland, die Besatzungsmächte sich nicht schnell genug »umgestellt« haben. Der Versuchsteilnehmer, ein früherer Offizier, ist stillschweigend davon überzeugt, daß jenes Deutschland, für das er zu sprechen sich anmaßt, eigentlich mit dem heutigen Amerika einig sei und daß nur beklagenswerterweise die Amerikaner nicht rasch genug die Solidarität mit dem deutschen Nationalismus auf der ganzen Linie vollzögen. In einer durchaus versöhnlichen Jugendgruppe wird das vorgebliche »jüdische Rachegefühl« ebenfalls diskutiert:  

Pf.: Und jetzt sind wir wieder an dem Punkt angelangt ... Es ist so, die Juden, die wirklich guten Willens sind und die wirklich wieder aufbauen wollen ... die sind nach Palästina gegangen. Und die anderen, die mit dem Rachegefühl – also nicht alle, die jetzt noch da sind, aber ein Teil – und die vielleicht ihren Geldbeutel wieder dicker machen wollen, die bleiben jetzt noch da und wollen praktisch ihr Rachegefühl an uns Deutschen ... richtig auswerten. Und ... wenn ... Colburn ... da sagt: ... Die Deutschen sind wieder verbittert gegen die Juden, ich glaube, dann hat es in dem seine Berechtigung, daß das nicht verallgemeinert auf schlechthin die Juden, sondern daß spezialisiert auf die Juden, die eben jetzt in Deutschland sind und die eben das machen ... die jetzt praktisch ihr Rachegefühl an uns auslassen. B.: Ja, dann war es praktisch so, daß wir 1946 ein gutes Abkommen, ein gutes Einvernehmen mit den Juden gewollt hatten, und die Juden haben praktisch unsere Hand dann zurückgeschlagen. (Protokoll 96, S. 6f.)

 

Der nächstliegende Gedanke, was den Juden damit zugemutet wird, daß sie das alle Phantasie übersteigende Grauen vergeben und vergessen sein lassen sollen, nur weil eine vag definierte Jugend guten Willens sei, kommt diesem harmlosen Versuchsteilnehmer überhaupt nicht zum Bewußtsein.

 14. Wiedergutmachung   Wenn es aber an die Wiedergutmachung geht, hört die Gemütlichkeit auf:  

Sch.: Herr Doktor, Sie stellten an uns die Frage, ob wir uns irgendwie innerlich bewegt fühlen, etwas wieder gutzumachen. Da möchte ich eigentlich fragen: Finden Sie, daß wir materiell verpflichtet sind, wieder etwas gutzumachen, oder rein ideell? B.: Ich bin durchweg der Meinung, das, was wir an den Juden noch gutmachen könnten, das hat er sich schon reichlich geholt. Ich denke nur an die stetigen Äußerungen und stetigen materiellen Fragen eines Herrn Auerbach in München. (Protokoll 96, S. 9f.)

  Die Konstruktion der jüdischen Rachsucht ist der Spiegelreflex einer Verhaltensweise zahlreicher Versuchsteilnehmer. Den Juden wird vorgeworfen, daß sie auf dem Schein des Rechts bestünden, weil man selber das Unrecht nicht wieder gutmachen will, zumal wenn es sich um Rückerstattung jüdischen Eigentums handelt. Selten wird die Wiedergutmachungspflicht einfach abgelehnt, sondern durchweg formal anerkannt, aber durch Einschränkungen und Klauseln illusorisch gemacht. Kaum ein Gedanke ist zu absurd, um nicht eingesetzt zu werden, wenn es darum geht, den eigenen Besitz festzuhalten. Daß die Schwere der Verbrechen Wiedergutmachung ausschließt und daß man deshalb um diese ebensogut wie um das Zugeständnis von Schuld herumkomme, besagt eine Äußerung aus der bayerischen Honoratiorengruppe:  

H.: Ich kann mich entsinnen, daß z.B. der bayerische Ministerpräsident Hoegner schon einmal gesagt hat: Ja die Juden sollen nur kommen, wir nehmen sie gern auf, oder: wir haben unrecht getan, wir wollen das aber wieder gutmachen. Ich meine, die Praxis ist doch sogar da. Der Beweis, daß man ein Wiedergutmachungsministerium hat, daß man ein Gesetz hat und daß man so und soviel tut. Aber man soll nicht mehr extra was verlangen, man soll nicht immer wieder nachbohren und soll extra sagen: jetzt gesteh es und sag's doch usw., und immer wieder von neuem die Geschichte aufziehen: jetzt gleicht es sich schon fast aus. Man könnte solche schweren Dinge, die kann man gar nicht messen, und es ist ja auch klar bis auf das I-Tüpfchen ausgeglichen, und diejenigen, die Verluste und Schaden gehabt haben, die spüren es bis an ihr Lebensende.

(Protokoll 16, S. 35f.)

  Eindeutige Äußerungen zugunsten der Wiedergutmachung sind selten. Wo Versuchsteilnehmer sich dazu bekennen, sind sie, bezeichnenderweise, gerade vom Schuldkomplex frei, wie ein Teilnehmer an einer Betriebsrätegruppe:

K.: Dann ist meine Meinung die, daß man von Schuld eigentlich überhaupt nicht sprechen sollte, von keiner Seite, sondern daß man eigentlich hier nur an Wiedergutmachung denken sollte, von allen Seiten, denn schuldig sind wir alle. (Protokoll 24, S. 16)

 15. Strich darunter   Der Wunsch, überhaupt nicht mehr von Schuld sprechen zu müssen – gewissermaßen die Vorstellung, nach dem großen Konkurs seien alle Konten beglichen – ist mit dem spezifischen Widerstand gegen die Wiedergutmachung vielfach verschmolzen. In einer Gruppe ehemaliger Berufsoffiziere heißt es:  

A.: Aus der ganzen Problematik dieses Gesprächs um diesen Brief geht doch absolut die Notwendigkeit hervor, daß man nun die vielfachen Verstrickungen der Schuld, die durch alle Nationen gehen ... daß die nun endlich einmal wie der gordische Knoten gelöst würden, daß man also tabula rasa mit allen Vorwürfen gegenüber irgendwelchen Vergangenheiten macht, daß man sowohl die Vergangenheiten, die dem deutschen Volk irgendwie schuldhaft zugerechnet werden mögen, verschwinden läßt und gleicherweise wir hier in unserem deutschen Volk die berechtigten Schuldvorwürfe gegen die Alliierten fallen lassen müßten. (Protokoll 71, S. 38)

  Die Jugendgruppe, aus der schon einiges zur Frage der Wiedergutmachung der Schuld zitiert wurde, findet schließlich, daß alle Schuld bereits gesühnt ist:  

K.: Ich möchte dem Briefschreiber nicht noch einmal Material geben, daß er wieder sagen kann, die Deutschen, die bemitleiden sich selber. Aber ich möchte trotzdem sagen, wenn wir eine Schuld wirklich gehabt haben, und diese Schuld soll irgendwie gesühnt werden, dann sehe ich zumindest an dem, was das deutsche Volk wirklich alles mitgemacht hat und was es alles an Schrecken und an finanziellen Opfern und materiellen Opfern und auch irgendwie anderen Opfern dargebracht hat, dann sehe ich darin schon eine gewisse Sühne, wenn es eine Schuld war. (Protokoll 96, S. 21)

  In einer anderen Jugendgruppe, der BdJ-Sitzung, wird in aller Harmlosigkeit die Forderung »Strich drunter« erhoben mit dem Hinweis darauf, daß viele vom Geschehen nichts gewußt hätten:  

Z.: Da möchte ich zurückschalten auf die Nazizeit, wo auch ein sehr großer Prozentsatz – und ich glaube, gerade in den Kleinstädten, wo nicht alles hindrang – nichts wußte von diesen Methoden in KZs; oder wenn tatsächlich das eine oder andere gesagt worden ist, daß er es einfach nicht

glaubte, weil er den Menschen, dem das passierte, nicht gesehen hat. Und da darf man denn eben nicht von Kollektivschuld sprechen. Ich möchte natürlich nun nicht das heute aufrollen. Macht mal einen Strich drunter! Aber auch ich möchte sagen: jeder Mensch soll sich erst überlegen, ehe er einen anderen verurteilt. (Protokoll 123, S. 30)

  Angesichts der Schrecken, welche die Bevölkerung in den späteren Kriegsjahren durchmachte, Schrecken, die mit dem von den Nationalsozialisten Verübten zu einem Bild unartikulierten Grauens zusammengeronnen sind, ist es offenbar für viele unserer Teilnehmer, und keineswegs bloß für nationalistisch und faschistisch Gesonnene, außerordentlich schwierig, den Gedanken zu vollziehen, daß sie nun auch noch etwas wiedergutzumachen hätten. Es ist, als würde heute durch die Rede von der Schuld im Geist des Kollektivs die tief eingewurzelte Vorstellung der Äquivalenz von Verbrechen und Strafe verletzt. Gegenüber diesem elementaren Tatbestand nimmt der Hinweis auf die deutsche Schuld oder die Entwirrung der Verantwortlichkeiten nur allzu leicht etwas Nichtiges und Ideologisches an. Nur auf diesem Hintergrund, nicht in isolierend psychologischer Betrachtung lassen die Motive der Abwehr sich richtig einschätzen. Man braucht die dabei wirksame psychische Energie – die Verdrängung von Schuld und den Narzißmus der Identifikation mit der eigenen Gruppe – nicht zu verkennen und wird doch einsehen müssen, daß es fast unmöglich ist, von der Bevölkerung, welche die Katastrophe durchmachte, zu erwarten, daß sie ein spontanes Schuldgefühl aufbringe, während zugleich umgekehrt die krampfhafte Abwehr jeglichen Schuldgefühls das Symptom eines überaus gefährlichen sozialpsychologischen und politischen Potentials darstellt.

 VI. Elemente der Nationalsozialistischen Ideologie   Wie wir bereits gelegentlich angemerkt haben, zeigen viele der inhaltlichen Motive der Abwehr Rudimente der nationalsozialistischen Ideologie. Deren unmittelbare Bekundung unterlag im Zeitpunkt unserer Studie oft einer inneren Zensur, sicherlich aber einer äußeren, der Angst, sich politisch zu demaskieren. In der Nachkriegssituation haben sich daher die nationalsozialistischen Thesen etwas umgeformt. Die Indoktrination während der zwölf Jahre totalitärer Information, Propaganda und Erziehung ist zu tief gegangen, als daß sie durch eine Niederlage zu beseitigen gewesen wäre, die ohnehin, als Sturz des Reiches von der beherrschenden Stellung in Europa nicht bloß desillusionierte, sondern umgekehrt auch Legenden von der vergangenen Herrlichkeit erzeugte. Aber derlei Motive trauen sich nur gelegentlich offen ans Licht. Meist sind sie als Probleme, auf die man durch Hitler aufmerksam geworden sein will, als angeblich historische Einsichten und ähnliches getarnt oder wenigstens aus ihrem expliziten Zusammenhang herausgebrochen. Was fortlebt, sind faschistische Thesen, die sich der Momente entäußert haben, die von den Versuchsteilnehmern als allzu anstößig empfunden werden. Daß zu den Modifikationen nicht zuletzt der Mißerfolg Hitlers beigetragen hat, versteht sich von selbst. Oft finden die Versuchsteilnehmer einen Kompromiß von der Art, daß sie – wie es etwa auch in der neofaschistischen Literatur geschieht – den vorgeblich idealen Kern des Nationalsozialismus vom Mißbrauch oder die rühmliche Frühzeit der Hitlerdiktatur von der späteren »Entartung« unterscheiden. Bei all dem ist zu bedenken, daß der Faschismus nicht bloß durch die Propagandamaschine den Menschen von außen aufgezwungen worden ist, sondern daß durch gesamtgesellschaftliche, technologische und ökonomische Entwicklungstendenzen die Empfänglichkeit für totalitäre Systeme bis in die Psychologie des Einzelnen hinein vorgebildet war und auch heute noch weiter existiert. Es läßt sich meist nicht unterscheiden, wie weit es sich bei unseren nationalsozialistischen Versuchsteilnehmern um die Erbschaft der faschistischen Ideologie oder den Ausdruck jener fortdauernden anthropologischen

Bereitschaft handelt.

 1. Die »Guten Seiten« des Nationalsozialismus   Ein Kompromiß zwischen nationalsozialistischen Neigungen und der Hemmung, etwas zu sagen, was gegen die einstweilen noch als geltend angesehenen Machtverhältnisse geht, ist der scheinbar gerecht abwägende Hinweis auf die guten Seiten des Hitlerregimes aus der Syndicigruppe:  

M.: Es ist gar kein Zweifel, daß Millionen Menschen auf den Straßen gestanden haben und gewinkt haben, ganz gleich, ob es der einfache Arbeiter war oder ... Ich habe mir diese Dinge häufig überlegt, weil ich selbst nie hingegangen bin, und habe eine Lösung gefunden, die Stefan Zweig einmal bringt, der ja selbst einer der Verfolgten ist. Stefan Zweig sagt: »Hitler hat meinetwegen den Judenstern verfügt, dann haben fast alle Deutschen gesagt: Unrecht, die Leute so zu kennzeichnen. Oder er hat verfügt, sämtliche Straßenbahnen dürfen nicht von Juden benutzt werden. Dann haben die Deutschen gesagt: Es ist Unrecht. Dann haben sie eine Zeitlang nichts weiter gemacht als Arbeitslose zu beseitigen, Straßen zu bauen ... also Positives getan. Dann ging dieses Verbrechen, das vorher gemacht worden war, in dem Gedächtnis der Deutschen unter. Dies abwechselnde System: etwas Böses tun, mehr gute Sachen tun, das abwechselnd so, daß man sich schließlich daran gewöhnt hat.« (Protokoll 134, S. 4f.)

  Daß für die angeblich guten Seiten des Naziregimes, übrigens mit einer Verschiebung des Akzents der betreffenden Äußerung, welche die Propagandataktik anstelle der Sache selbst setzt, ein jüdischer Zeuge aufgerufen wird, verdient deshalb hervorgehoben zu werden, weil es immer wieder begegnet, daß Versuchsteilnehmer mit faschistischen Neigungen zur Rechtfertigung die wahren oder fiktiven Äußerungen von Juden in Anspruch nehmen. Offenbar wird es als besonders wirksam empfunden, wenn man, wäre es auch mit den kühnsten Konstruktionen, sich auf die Stimmen der Opfer selbst berufen kann. Die Popularität einer Figur wie Victor Gollancz im Nachkriegsdeutschland erklärt sich durch diesen Mechanismus. Wenn die Opfer selbst uns verstehen, so lautet der latente Gedanke, dann hat kein anderer das Recht, uns Vorwürfe zu machen, und auch wir selber brauchen es nicht. Es ist dies sozialpsychologische Phänomen, das generöse Gesten ehemals Verfolgter in ein zweideutiges Licht rückt.

Wenn die Quittung für den wirtschaftlichen Aufschwung erst seit 1939 allmählich präsentiert wurde, so drückt sich das im naiven Bewußtsein so aus, daß auf eine Zeit, in der Hitler Gutes getan hat, eine gefolgt sei, in der er Unheil anrichtete – übrigens ganz ähnlich, wie es dem traditionellen Bild vieler Tyrannen, insbesondere des Caligula entspricht. Zuweilen bestimmen derartige Einerseits-Andererseits-Raisonnements die Stimmung ganzer Diskussionsstellen, zum Beispiel in einer Frauengruppe aus einem hessischen Dorf:  

N.: Auf jeden Fall sind zu Hitlers Zeiten die arme Leut unterstützt worde – und heut – heut gibt kein Teufel mehr dene arme Leut was. Sch.: Wir hatten ein Heim, und heute müssen wir uns in der Welt rumschlagen ... auf der einen Seite war's besser und auf der anderen wieder nicht. A.: Also auf die Dauer wäre das auch mir dem Adolf Hitler nicht gut gegangen. Es war ein viel zu scharfes Programm, denn dann hätte er ja doch bestimmt manches nachsehen müssen. Sicher – er hat dem Arbeiterstand geholfen, er hat dem Bauernstand geholfen, sehr sogar, er hat auch in meinem Beruf – hat er viel getan, die Kinderbeihilfen usw., ... nicht – und das hat auch sehr viel ausgemacht. Aber ... (Protokoll 135, S. 19f.)

  Keineswegs selten sind in dergleichen Zusammenhängen unideologische Aussagen, in denen die einstige und teilweise fortbestehende Popularität des Nationalsozialismus auf materielle Interessen zurückgeführt wird. In einer Frauengruppe in einem Barackenlager hören wir:  

Z.: Also wir zu Hause, wir waren zum Beispiel mit acht Kindern, uns ist es ganz gut gegangen während dem Krieg. Die großen Buben haben Soldatengeld bekommen, und für die Kinder haben wir Kindergeld gekriegt, und wir haben uns ein eigenes Haus dann gebaut und haben es wieder verputzen lassen, und dann ist es schuldenfrei geworden und alles, während wir heute nichts mehr machen können. W.: Ich bin auch kinderreich, uns ging's auch besser im Krieg wie heute, und natürlich sind wir ausgebombt, und da haben wir nix mehr, und wir können uns heutzutage nix mehr anschaffen. B.: Ich finde, die Frauen hatten viel mehr Schutz ... wir hatten viel mehr Schutz gehabt als Frauen mit Kindern als wie jetzt, wenn man allein steht, von niemand hat man Hilfe. (Protokoll 91, S. 3f.)

 

Ähnlich in einer anderen Frauengruppe:  

H.: Das war überhaupt die Hauptsache, weshalb er gewonnen hat: damals hatten wir die große Arbeitslosigkeit. Er hatte allen Lohn versprochen und Arbeit, und deshalb hat er vielleicht zuerst den großen Zuspruch gehabt. Wir hatten zu arbeiten in Hülle und Fülle. (Protokoll 43, S. 10f.)

  Auch in der Primanergruppe:  

H.: Hitler kam und beseitigte den Notstand ... und da sind viele Leute dazu bewogen worden, diesem System nachzugehen. (Protokoll 27, S. 15)

  Und in der von uns oft zitierten Frauengruppe:  

O.: ... daß Deutschland schließlich durch die furchtbare Not und Arbeitslosigkeit der Jahre 1929, 1930 und 1932 – und daß sich so und so viel hunderttausend aus Not umgebracht habe. Man sprach nicht mehr von Selbstmord, sondern Freitod. Das war durch die Not bedingt, und dann sind die Leute in Arbeit gekommen, und da waren sie zuerst ganz zufrieden. (Protokoll 9, S. 4)

  So sehr der nationalsozialistische Begriff der Volksgemeinschaft ideologisch dazu herhielt, die Menschen über den Charakter der Diktatur zu betrügen, diese bot ihnen doch tatsächlich das Bewußtsein: es wird für uns gesorgt. Der Nationalsozialismus hat mit größtem Geschick den Widerspruch der spätliberalen Gesellschaft für seine Zwecke ausgebeutet, daß auf der einen Seite der Einzelne für sich selbst und sein materielles Schicksal einstehen soll, auf der anderen aber es in der Realität meist kaum vermag. Für den Entzug der Freiheit wurde wenigstens kurzfristige Sekurität gewährt, und die Erinnerung an diese Frist lebt heute noch fort. Versuche, die Naziideologie zu überwinden, die an diesem Tatbestand vorbeigehen und vor allem nicht aus ihm reale Konsequenzen ziehen, verfallen selber der Gefahr des hilflos Ideologischen. Ungern durchschauen im allgemeinen die Sprecher, daß die Erholung von der Wirtschaftskrise, auf die in den letzten Zitaten angespielt wird, in den ersten Jahren des Hitlerregimes vor allem ihren Grund hatte in der Bevorschussung eben jenes Krieges, der zur

Katastrophe führte. Isoliert, gleichsam unbefleckt von der Negativität, hält die Erinnerung an die guten Zeiten vor, und Pseudobefriedigungen wie die von KdF [»Kraft durch Freude«] gebotenen scheinen immer noch ihren Propagandawert zu besitzen. In einer norddeutschen Flüchtlingsgruppe wird gesagt:  

R.: Das große Ganze, der große Block, so wie wir damals gejubelt haben, und wir haben gejubelt, das kann keiner leugnen, und es war ja auch Grund zum Jubeln da, denn der kleinste Teil hatte – dem kleinsten Teil ging es schlecht. Und es ging zu dieser Zeit auch nur denjenigen schlecht, die gegen die Diktatur, gegen den Nationalsozialismus von vornherein waren. Denen ging es schlecht. Es kann sich, nur um ein Beispiel zu nennen, heute kein Arbeiter leisten, mit einem KdF-Dampfer nach Madeira zu fahren, es darf sich auch heute keiner erlauben, im Betrieb irgendwie dem Betriebsführer entgegenzutreten und sagen: für deinen Drecklohn arbeite ich nicht mehr. Früher konnte man das. Ich habe es selbst erlebt als Lehrling. Früher stand die Deutsche Arbeitsfront hinter einem. (Protokoll 109, S. 26f.)

  Ähnliches wird in einer Nachbargruppe ausgesprochen:  

U.: Denn ich meine, außer dem, daß der Krieg nun gekommen ist, ist ja eigentlich auch viel Gutes gemacht worden, nicht wahr. Wollen mal sagen, es sind Straßen gebaut worden usw. Und ich muß gerade sagen, es hatte jeder gut leben. (Protokoll 42, S. 4)

  Verräterisch ist die Wendung »außer dem, daß der Krieg nun gekommen ist«. Er erscheint als eine Art Betriebsunfall.

 2. Keine Parteien mehr   Man erinnert sich daran, wie wirksam die Naziparole des Kampfes gegen die Korruption war und ebenso die gegen das »Parteiunwesen«. Auch diese Propagandamotive haben das Dritte Reich überlebt. In der relativ fortschrittlichen Primanergruppe heißt es:  

H.: Es gibt bestimmt viele Leute, die sagen, diese Menge Leute, die in Bonn sitzen ... wenn einer nach Straßburg geschickt wird, da muß jeder einen Volkswagen haben oder gar einen Mercedes. Das sind Ausgaben. Das ist so ... heute wenn ... ein Diktator in der Lage ist – und tatsächlich ein Mann kommt, der energisch Schluß macht mit den unnötigen Ausgaben, über der Sache steht, über die Geschicke bestimmt, schneller arbeitet und uneigennütziger, ohne Parteirücksichten usw. Denn jeder Schritt, der heute gemacht wird, geschieht doch mehr oder weniger unter Fraktionszwang, unter Berücksichtigung auf die Stimmen bei den nächsten Wahlen für die Partei. (Protokoll 27, S. 16)

  Die Kleinlichkeit, mit der Regierungsmitgliedern selbst ihr »Volkswagen« als Verschwendung vorgerechnet wird, gehört ebenso zum eisernen Bestand faschistischer Propaganda wie die Lüge, daß der Diktator, der die Interessen einer höchst partikularen Gruppe vertritt, »ohne Parteirücksichten« handle, nachdem er alle Parteien außer der eigenen abgeschafft hat. Bezeichnend ist noch, daß der Redner, um sich als politisch orientiert zu geben, den Ausdruck »Fraktionszwang« verwendet, aber in einer falschen Bedeutung. Selbst von der Sprache der Demokratie sind hier nur leere Hülsen übrig. Gerade dieser Versuchsteilnehmer ist ein Beispiel für das Nachwirken nationalsozialistischer Parolen bei solchen, die dem eigenen Bewußtsein nach keineswegs faschistisch sind. Befragt, wie man zu einem solchen Idealdiktator kommen könne, antwortet dieser Primaner:  

H.: Das soll ja nicht einer sein, es können hundert Leute sein, die ausgesucht sind und wirklich solche, die einen Namen haben, wenn sie bekannt sind. (a.a.O., S. 16)

 

Hier ist der Begriff der Prominenz, die Verwechslung des bekannten Namens mit der sachlichen Qualität, blindlings zum Kriterium erhoben, ohne Rücksicht auf irgend einen politischen oder gesellschaftlichen Inhalt. Es zeigt sich hier die Affinität des politisch neutralen Prominentenkults, den die Kulturindustrie der Bevölkerung oktroyiert, mit totalitären Herrschaftsformen.

 3. Nazireaktionen   Ein 57jähriger Schmiedemeister hält eine Art nationalsozialistischer Versammlungsrede:  

Sch.: Meine Herren! Wenn wir verfolgen die Zeit bis 1933. Ich habe mich damals bestimmt politisch schon betätigt und ich habe festgestellt, daß es für den Deutschen nur eins gab, nachdem die Bürgerlichen zu einem gewissen Teil versagt haben, denn die haben sich hinter den Ofen verkrochen, auf deutsch gesagt, da standen sich zwei Momente gegenüber, einerseits der Kommunismus beziehungsweise Bolschewismus, andererseits der Nationalsozialismus. Jeder anständige Mensch und jeder anständige Deutsche, der noch deutsches Blut in den Adern hatte, der hat sich gesagt, ich nehme das kleinere Übel, das ist der Nationalsozialismus. Und wir haben es getan, ich selbst. Ich bin nicht zum Nationalsozialismus gegangen, um später einmal zu hören, der Nationalsozialismus hat Greueltaten verübt, sondern ich bin nur hingegangen, damit Deutschland wieder in Ordnung kommt, wo jeder sicher auf der Straße gehen kann, ohne daß er angefallen wird. Es war auch tatsächlich nachher so. Jeder Mensch konnte sich frei bewegen, er wurde nicht angefallen, wurde nicht erschlagen usw. Nein, nein. Vl.: Außer diejenigen, die damals anders gesonnen waren, die wurden allerdings überfallen auf der Straße. (Zuruf: Das stimmt nicht ... Wenn auch mal einer überfallen wurde, wäre noch nachzuprüfen, ob er nicht selbst die Schuld trug.) Sch.: Ich gehe weiter. Wir haben wohl von dem ersten Weltkrieg aus gelernt, was der Bolschewismus für eine zivilisierte Nation bedeutet, und deswegen haben wir den Kommunismus mit Strich und Faden abgelehnt. Wenn die anderen Völker uns heute sagen, ja wir haben den Krieg gewollt, und wir haben uns selbst den Bolschewismus auf den Hals gehetzt, den wir verachtet haben nach Strich und Faden, so sage ich, so haben die Westvölker noch lange nicht die Gefahr des Bolschewismus erkannt, und das ist auch jetzt bestätigt worden von gewissen Diplomaten, daß es in der Tat so gewesen ist. Wenn die vielleicht gewußt hätten, in was für eine Gefahr sie laufen, wo sie sich mit dem Bolschewismus verbunden haben, um den Nationalsozialismus zu bekämpfen, vielleicht hätten sie es nicht getan. Ich habe vor kurzem, eh, daß auch Hitler als solcher den Westmächten einen Frieden angeboten hat, und er wurde abgelehnt. Weiter: Als der Nationalsozialismus zusammengebrochen war, war doch ein Dönitz noch der Vollstrecker im deutschen Staat, der den Westmächten den Frieden angeboten hat und sagte: Laßt uns freie Hand, gebt uns unsere Waffen, laßt unsere Truppen frei. Wir werden den Bolschewismus jetzt bekämpfen. Wir werden ihn zum Teufel

jagen. (Zuruf: Sehr richtig.) Und was haben die Herren gesagt? Nein, das kommt nicht in Frage. Ihr sollt die Besiegten sein. Meine Herren! Hätten sie damals etwas mehr Köpfchen gehabt, wir wären heute besser dran, der nächste Krieg, der dritte Weltkrieg würde nicht vor der Tür stehen. Die Welt würde endlich mal frei sein vom Bolschewismus. Und das wurde abgelehnt. Deswegen heute: Wenn in Korea, im gewissen Sinne die Amerikaner dort sich zurückziehen müssen, bzw. UNO-Truppen, und sie werden heute von Partisanen niedergestochen, niedergemäht, meine Herren, was haben unsere Generale getan im Banditenkampf? Ich selber war im Banditenkampf mit fünfzig Jahren. Ich weiß, was das heißt, gegen den Feind, jemand zu kämpfen, den ich nicht sehe, der sich erst im letzten Moment entpuppt als ein Bandit, als ein Partisan. Ich glaube, Amerika hat ihre Anschauungen, die sie einmal gegen uns hatten, gegen unsere Generäle gehabt hat, zu einem gewissen Sinn geändert. Und ich hoffe, ... daß unsere Generäle, die heute noch hinter Schloß und Riegel sitzen und dem Tode geweiht sind, eines Tages frei werden und gesagt wird: Ihr habt eure soldatische Pflicht getan. (Protokoll 109, S. 18ff.)

  Es lohnt sich wohl, diese Rede etwas näher zu betrachten. Formale und inhaltliche Elemente lassen sich dabei kaum voneinander trennen. Aufschlußreich ist zunächst die Formulierung: »Ich bin nicht zum Nationalsozialismus gegangen, um später einmal zu hören, der Nationalsozialismus hat Greueltaten verübt.« Vielleicht will der Redner sagen, er sei in gutem Glauben und nicht mit grausamen Absichten der Partei beigetreten, aber die sprachliche Fehlleistung, wenn es um eine solche sich handelt, zeigt an, wie es heute in ihm aussieht: die Empörung richtet sich nicht gegen das Begangene, sondern gegen dessen Erwähnung. Die Begriffe »anständiger Mensch«, »anständiger Deutscher«, »deutsches Blut« werden durch Assoziation so aneinandergereiht, als wären sie Synonyme, und die vage Erinnerung an Redensarten der Empörung wie die, daß einem anständigen Menschen das Blut koche, werden in gleitende Verbindung gebracht mit der nationalsozialistischen Rassenlehre. Die Wendung »nach Strich und Faden« erscheint wiederholt: oft beißen sich aggressiv gestimmte Versuchsteilnehmer in irgendeinen ihnen besonders kraftvoll dünkenden Ausdruck, meist eine zugleich gebräuchliche und auffällige Formel, fest, die sie agitatorisch ausbeuten und aus der sie überdies eine Art von Autoritätsanspruch ziehen. Sie sind die Stimme des Volkes. »Nach

Strich und Faden« besagt so viel wie ganz und gar; der Nachdruck liegt auf dem Totalen der Gesinnung; es wird ein Phänomen nicht abgewogen, sondern unqualifiziert bis zum Äußersten gesteigert. Die Wendung »von gewissen Diplomaten« soll die politische Informiertheit des Redners unter Beweis stellen, ist zugleich aber so vage, daß er jeder bestimmten Aussage enthoben ist: Technik des Halbgebildeten. Zugleich sieht man bei dem Wort »gewissen« den drohenden Zeigefinger Hitlers, der, während er von unsäglichen Weltverschwörungen zu wissen vorgibt, es schlau verschmäht, die misera plebs, der er mit seinem Wissen imponiert, in seine Geheimnisse einzuweihen. – Wenn Hitler »als solcher« den Westmächten einen Frieden angeboten haben soll, dann hat der Ausdruck »als solcher« überhaupt keinen Sinn; er dient lediglich dazu, der ganzen Rede den Anschein präziser Ausdrucksweise und von Bildung zugleich zu verleihen. – Die absurde Idee, die Dönitz-Regierung hätte sich mit dem Westen verbünden und siegreich Rußland schlagen können, ist in den Diskussionen keineswegs selten. Ebenso wärmt der Redner die alte Alternative Nationalsozialismus oder Bolschewismus auf und verteidigt den Nationalsozialismus als kleineres Übel, ohne auf das Gegenargument einzugehen, daß vermutlich die Russen niemals zu der Drohung geworden wären, die sie heute sind, wenn Hitler nicht den Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion vom Zaun gebrochen hätte. – Besonders bezeichnend ist die Wendung, daß im Mai 1945 die Sieger »mehr Köpfchen« hätten zeigen sollen. Der Ausdruck, der in dieser Sitzung häufiger gebraucht wird, stammt aus der Sphäre des Kabaretts und der Konfektion, aus einer Sprachschicht, in der man etwa von »jüdischem Köpfchen« redete; er gehört in jenes zweideutige Bereich des Nachmachens jüdischer Phrasen und Gesten, in dem der Hohn auf die Opfer sich mischt mit der heimlichen Begierde, es ihnen gleichzutun. – Partisanen werden mit Banditen gleichgestellt und »unseren Generälen« kontrastiert: Echo der nationalsozialistischen Technik, politische Verbrecher mit Kriminellen zu identifizieren. Wenn es um die Generäle geht, kennt das Pathos kein Maß. Der Sprecher reiht einen geschwollenen Ausdruck an den anderen, gleichgültig, wie es der Logik dabei ergeht: sie sitzen »heute noch hinter Schloß und Riegel und sind dem Tode geweiht«. Am Ende wird dann die »soldatische Pflicht« beschworen, mit dem Hintergedanken, daß das »Soldatische« ein

Sonderbereich mit eigenen ethischen Normen und dem Charakter der absoluten Verpflichtung darstelle. Gerade einer solchen Rede, in der ein schwächlicher Intellekt sich mit Hilfe aller erdenklichen aufgeschnappten Motive aufplustert, läßt sich das Wesen der neuen nationalistischen Ideologie besonders deutlich entnehmen. Für diesen Mann hat sich nichts geändert: er erfährt keinen Konflikt zwischen dem Nationalsozialismus und der jetzigen Situation, sondern läßt sich mit dem trägen Strom der verschlampten Sprache treiben. Selbst daß die Nationalsozialisten den Krieg verloren haben, wird nur als eine Art Zwischenspiel in dem großen Kreuzzug angesehen, auf den er noch immer hofft. Sein Fanatismus sperrt sich jeglicher eingreifenden Erfahrung. Die unselbständig konfuse und zugleich starre Redeweise bezeugt die Ideologie selber. Eine offene Nazireaktion auf die Bombardierung der Städte kommt in der Rede eines neunzehnjährigen Maschinenschlossers zutage:  

Pf.: Es ist so, ich weiß einen Fall, es ist ja zur Genüge in der Zeitung gestanden, da ist ein Flugzeug abgeschossen worden. Die Besatzung ist abgesprungen und ist von der Bevölkerung irgendwie mißhandelt worden. Diese Menschen, die diese Flugzeugbesatzung mißhandelt haben, sind zum Teil zu schweren Zuchthausstrafen verurteilt worden. Kann man sich das verdenken? Wenn jetzt ... die haben die Stadt ... bombardiert, meine Eltern sind umgekommen ... ich hätt' so einen Burschen in die Finger gekriegt, ich hätt' den in tausend Stücke zerrissen, und heute müßte ich wegen meiner zehn Jahre Zuchthaus absitzen, weil ich den umgebracht hab? – Erstens war das unüberlegt gehandelt, zweitens finde ich das für eine Gemeinheit, so einen Menschen hernach zu verurteilen. (Protokoll 96, S. 23)

  Der Sprecher versteht es, die Situation so darzustellen, daß die grausamen Exzesse gegen die heruntergeschossenen Flieger als menschlich verständlich, ja als natürliche Regung der Pietät für die umgekommenen Eltern erscheinen und verleiht so der Abwehr ein hohes Maß an Plausibilität. Daß in Wahrheit Hilflose von Menschen jenes Typus, der sein Mütchen kühlt, wenn es ohne Gefahr geschehen kann, ermordet worden waren, wird von dem Versuchsteilnehmer vergessen. Es gehört zur Psychologie der Abwehr, daß je nachdem wie die Situation es erfordert, Argumente vorgebracht werden, die ihrem eigenen Sachgehalt nach sich widersprechen: Symptome dessen, daß der apologetische oder

psychologische Zweck die Objektivität ersetzt. So erscheint es in Zusammenhängen wie dem hier berührten als natürlich, daß heruntergeschossene Flieger, also Funktionäre des Militärapparats, der privaten Rache verfallen, während umgekehrt bei der Ermordung der Juden geltend gemacht wird, es handele sich hier um anonyme administrative Maßnahmen, die Einzelpersonen nicht zur Last gelegt werden können. Die Flieger werden gleichsam privat für die Bombenschäden haftbar gemacht, die Exekutoren der Ausrottungsmaßnahmen werden entlastet damit, daß sie dem Befehl gehorcht haben sollen.

 4. Herrenrasse   Aggressiver Nationalismus, blinde Überbewertung alles Deutschen im nationalistischen Sinn ist häufig 21 . Ein Schatten kritischer Selbstreflexion ist dem zuweilen gesellt, jedoch meist nur, um dem Selbstlob desto schärferes Relief zu verleihen. Herabgesunkener Nietzsche wird für nationalistische Zwecke bemüht in einer Sitzung arbeitsloser Frauen:  

R.: Ja, ich glaube, ein Deutscher kann da nur sagen: Natürlich nur Gleichberechtigung, denn auf anderer Basis können wir gar nicht mehr hochkommen, können wir überhaupt nicht leben, wollen wir mal sagen. Denn ein Deutscher ist doch nicht ein Herdentier, der sich von anderen knechten läßt, ist doch nicht ein Sklave oder Diener; denn ein Deutscher, jeder Deutscher ist doch ein Herrenmensch. (Protokoll 34, S. 44)

  Karl Mannheim hat darauf hingewiesen, daß unter den ideologischen Funktionen der Rassentheorie nicht die unwichtigste war, einer Majorität das Bewußtsein zu geben, Elite zu sein. In der absurden Sozialisierung des Begriffs »Herrenmensch« zeigt sich der nachhaltige Erfolg dieses Propagandatricks. Häufig werden die »deutschen Menschen« gewissermaßen als Generalpächter von Innerlichkeit und ähnlichen hohen Gütern präsentiert. Immer noch werden von manchen die Deutschen als eine Gemeinschaft besonderer Art, als menschlicher als andere Menschen, eine Art Gralsorden vorgestellt. In einer Gruppe von Waisen und Flüchtlingen sagt ein siebzehnjähriges, aus Ungarn geflüchtetes Mädchen:   M.: Der Amerikaner behauptet, die Deutschen wollten immer an die Macht gelangen – er sagt aber nicht – und das möchte ich gern hören von jemand – wie eigentlich der Deutsche die Macht ausnützt. Er hat sie eigentlich nicht ausgenützt bis jetzt. Das deutsche Volk ist sehr mißtrauisch und mit Recht. Nach meiner Ansicht ist nämlich das deutsche Volk das reinste, das es geben kann, wenigstens im seelischen Leben das reinste. Und die Ausländer sind mit sehr schlechtem Beispiel vorangegangen. Der Deutsche ist nämlich nicht so frei in seinen gesellschaftlichen Ansichten wie die Ausländer. Und er kann es nicht vertragen; er hat wohl ein sehr starkes Vorurteil, aber nach meiner Ansicht ist er der reinste Mensch, den es geben kann. Ich möchte

gerne hören, auf welche Weise eigentlich der Deutsche es ausgenützt hat und warum er an die Macht gelangen will. Ich kann es nicht glauben. Ich sehe auch nicht, wie er es ausgenützt hat. Er wollte ja erst versuchen, die Juden hinauszubekommen aus Deutschland, mit Recht, daß die Rassen nicht durcheinanderkommen. (Protokoll 59, S. 8f.)

  In dem Wort »rein« vermischt sich viel Trübes: die Rassenideologie, der sentimentale Glaube ans reine Herz, der regressive Drang zur Endogamie, zwangsneurotischer Ordnungswille (»daß die Rassen nicht durcheinanderkommen«). Politisch sind die Äußerungen ein Beispiel für die extremistische Stimmung, die gerade unter Auslandsdeutschen sehr verbreitet ist, die, eben weil sie ihre nationale Identifikation als gefährdet erfahren, das Moment der Stammeszugehörigkeit überspielen. Die Rolle der Auslandsdeutschen im Nationalsozialismus ist bekannt.

 5. Überbleibsel der Rassentheorie   Einzelne Nazitheorien erscheinen bis zu einem gewissen Grad qualifiziert. Wenn aber die Versuchsteilnehmer einmal recht im Zuge sind, so wird das rasch vergessen. Wird etwa einmal auf dem Gedanken von der natürlichen Verschiedenheit der Rassen insistiert, so nutzt es wenig, wenn zunächst einmal den Rassen, je nach ihrer Eigenart, gleiches Recht zugestanden wird: am Ende wird der Jude doch verbrannt, und die Nazis sollen Recht gehabt haben:  

N.: Das eine stimmt schon, daß durch die ganze Rassenlehre, kann man beinahe sagen, während des Nationalsozialismus die meisten Menschen, die sich früher mit diesem Problem überhaupt nicht beschäftigt haben, heute erst darauf gekommen sind (Zwischenruf: »Eben«), die Sache mal von dem Standpunkt aus anzusehen. Früher hat ja jemand, der sich nicht speziell mit diesen Themen beschäftigte, sich um Rassendinge überhaupt nicht gekümmert, ihnen gar nicht den Wert beigemessen, und vielleicht in manchem doch auch zu Unrecht ihnen nicht den Wert beigemessen. Denn Rassenproblem, in irgendeiner Form, besteht ja ganz bestimmt. Es ist eben wirklich nicht eine Rasse genau wie die andere. Das ist keine Wertordnung, sondern das, was bei den anderen als den Unterschied, den wir empfinden, ist ja nicht – daß wir sagen, der ist schlechter als wir, sondern der ist anders als wir. Und daß man dieses andere doch erst mal kritisch betrachtet, ist meiner Meinung nach eine ganz normale Reaktion, und es ist – ich finde – das ist auch eine positive Auswirkung dieser natürlich wesentlich übersteigerten Rassenlehre des Dritten Reiches, aber in mancher Beziehung war es bestimmt notwendig, daß die Leute sich da mal Gedanken drüber machten. Denn es sind bestimmt manche grundlegenden Fehler da auch früher begangen worden, daß man eben diese Probleme zu wenig beachtet hat, und die Amerikaner machen sich ja über diese Probleme genau dieselben Gedanken. (Protokoll 72, S. 30f.)

  Die Ausrottungspolitik ist hier neutralisiert: man hat sich eben über das Rassenproblem Gedanken gemacht. In der BdJ-Sitzung erweisen sich zusammen mit der Rassentheorie alle möglichen Stereotypen als höchst zäh. Anstelle der Arier und der Herrenrasse geht es hier nun um die weiße Rasse, welche die abendländische Kultur verteidigen soll:  

E.: Es geht ja hier nicht um Amerikaner oder um Engländer oder um die Russen,

sondern es dreht sich hier doch darum, daß wir die weiße Rasse, in diesem Fall die abendländische Kultur verteidigen wollen. Und wir als ... eben Zugehörige der weißen Rasse haben die Verpflichtung, da mit den Amerikanern zusammenzuarbeiten. Denn es wäre ja doch Wahnsinn, daß wir den Ast, auf dem wir mit den Amerikanern und Engländern zusammensitzen – um bildlich zu sprechen – selbst absägen, wenn wir sagen: Wir machen nicht mit. (Protokoll 23, S. 27)

  Die Stelle erlaubt Einblick in die subtilen Mechanismen der Anpassung der Rassentheorie an die veränderte politische Lage. Anstelle der »weißen Rasse« setzt der Sprecher »in diesem Fall« – also doch wohl im Gedanken an den gegenwärtigen Konflikt von Westen und Osten – die »abendländische Kultur«. Nicht selten verwandelt sich der faschistische Nationalismus in einen gesamteuropäischen Chauvinismus, so wie es etwa der Titel der Zeitschrift von Hans Grimm »Nation Europa« verrät. Das vornehme Wort Kultur tritt anstelle des verpönten Ausdrucks Rasse, bleibt aber ein bloßes Deckbild für den brutalen Herrschaftsanspruch. Der Schlüsselcharakter der Rasse ist dogmatisch fixiert in der folgenden Äußerung eines Volksschullehrers:  

A.: Daß es eine andere Rasse ist, ist doch wohl klar. Daß wir damit nicht die Rasse verfolgen wollen und daß wir die andere Rasse bestehen lassen und genau so anerkennen wollen, das ist ebenso klar. Aber sagen wir einmal, wenn wir ein Parlament hätten, und dieses Parlament würde sich nur aus Juden zusammensetzen – – nehmen wir einmal an – dagegen würde ich dann auch sein. (Protokoll 56, S. 52)

  Kein Zweifel, daß der Versuchsteilnehmer dem Antisemitismus bewußt fernsteht, aber die Rassentheorie verführt ihn dazu, eine unsinnige Fiktion wie die eines nur aus Juden bestehenden deutschen Parlamentes zu machen und dann gegen eine solche Möglichkeit mit der Miene des entrüsteten gesunden Menschenverstandes zu protestieren. Ähnliches findet sich in einer anderen Diskussion, wo ein Versuchsteilnehmer den Fall konstruiert, ein Neger könne deutscher Ministerpräsident werden, und dagegen polemisiert. (Protokoll 34, S. 22) Es darf gerade aus solchen Beispielen gefolgert werden, daß die nationalsozialistische Indoktrinierung viel tiefer ging als die

manifeste politische Überzeugung unserer Versuchsteilnehmer und, vermutlich, großer Sektoren des deutschen Volkes überhaupt. Der Konflikt zwischen der faschistischen Doktrin und dem, was man für zeitgemäß hält, betrifft auch den Antisemitismus. Ein häufiger Kompromiß zwischen schlechtem Gewissen wegen der Judenverfolgung und nationalsozialistischer Indoktrination ist, daß der Begriff der »rassischen Minderwertigkeit« durch den der »rassischen Fremdheit« ersetzt wird. Man berührt da eine Sphäre allgemeiner Konfusion, etwa in einer Flüchtlingssitzung:  

Vl.: Darf ich Sie noch bitten, etwas darüber zu sprechen, was Sie unter rassisch-fremd verstehen. G.: Rassisch-fremd – vielleicht kann ich sagen, es ist eine andere Rasse, nicht fremd, ja, sie ist uns nicht verwandt, diese Rasse. Vl.: Glauben Sie in diesem Kreise hier, daß es große Unterschiede menschlicher Rassen gibt? F.: Das glaube ich nicht. Unterschiede glaube ich wohl nicht, also daß man das nicht ansehen kann als Unterschied. Ich denke eben so: man kann sich nur zum Beispiel nehmen evangelisch und katholisch! (Zuruf: Nein.) Nee, ich meine, das paßt sich auch nicht, im Glauben schon nicht richtig zusammen. Und so ist es auch, nicht, in dieser Rasse. (Allgemeine Zustimmung) M.: Ja, aber deswegen braucht man sich doch nicht zu hassen. (Protokoll 107, S. 16f.)

  Diese Diskussionsteilnehmerinnen sind ihrem Bewußtsein nach verständigungswillig, können sich aber von der Begriffsapparatur der Rassentheorie nicht freimachen. – Die Rassenideologie hilft dazu, den Haß abzuleugnen und in ein bloßes Bewußtsein der Differenz zu verharmlosen, das dann aber doch zugunsten der Diskriminierung eingesetzt wird. Zur selbstkritischen Reflexion auf jene Rudimente kommt es in der Modeschulgruppe.  

O.: Ja, ich glaube, daß es doch so ist, daß, wenn wir heute hören »Jude«, daß wir doch irgendwie mal Abstand nehmen oder zumindest uns mal daraufhin den Mann oder die Frau nochmals besonders deutlich angucken. Wir sind durchaus nicht ... von vornherein negativ eingestellt, aber wir – wollen die Sache nochmals von vorne wirklich ansehen. Und ich glaube, es ist da irgendwie auch diese Erziehung vom Dritten Reich eben mit schuld. (Zwischenruf: Ja!)

Wir wollen's ganz gern jetzt anders machen – aber wir haben da noch irgendetwas in uns, wir sind leicht noch dadurch gehandicapt, daß das uns eben immer eingeredet worden ist. Wir wollen es objektiv beurteilen, aber – und wir werden auch sicher so weit kommen, aber wie gesagt, ich glaube, daß also ein kleines Vorurteil doch in uns drinsteckt in dem Moment, wo wir eben »Jude« hören. (Protokoll 72, S. 28)

  Der Zusammenprall von Rassentheorie und lebendiger Erfahrung ereignet sich an einer viel späteren Stelle der Diskussion:  

N.: Ich würde sagen: ... in einen Neger auf gar keinen Fall (nämlich verlieben) und in einen Juden – absolut möglich. (Zustimmung) B.: Also ich weiß es nicht. N.: Ich möchte noch eine Einschränkung machen: also ich halte das Verlieben für absolut möglich, aber ob ich dann aus reinen Vernunftgründen eine wirkliche eheliche Verbindung anstreben würde, das glaube ich nicht. Vl.: Haben Sie den Unterschied zwischen ... N.: Denn rein – sagen wir mal – gefühlsmäßig oder instinktiv, da mache ich schon einen Unterschied, da halte ich es für absolut möglich. So, wie ich es für unmöglich halte bei einem wirklich rassisch so Entgegengesetzten wie einem Neger oder Chinesen oder so etwas. Aber aus vernunftmäßigen Erwägungen würde ich zumindest nicht ganz hintenanstellen, sondern würde mir Gedanken darüber machen, wie weit sich das doch – doch die Sache eben kritisch zu betrachten wäre, weil es eben ein Jude ist. Vl.: Sie sehen also darin noch einen Unterschied? R.: Kritisch betrachten würde ich diesen Fall unbedingt auch, aber wenn ich diesen Juden wirklich lieben würde, dann könnte mich nichts daran – an einer Eheschließung – hindern, daß er ein Jude ist. N.: Doch! R.: Nein, mich nicht! N.: Doch insofern, als du ja bei der Eheschließung nicht nur die Verantwortung für dich selber und für den anderen Menschen trägst, sondern für die Kinder trägst, und die Verantwortung gerade eben leider Gottes heute doch von sehr vielen etwas gering eingeschätzt wird, und meiner Meinung nach ja einer der ersten Probleme und der ersten Punkte innerhalb einer Ehe ist, denn man, sagt man, entscheidet ja da nicht in dem Moment nur für sich selber, sondern für eine ganze Generation, die nach einem kommt, und die vielleicht dann unter diesem nicht so mit nur Vernunftgründen gefaßten Entschluß zu leiden hat. R.: Eine kritische Frage ist es auf jeden Fall. Man urteilt vielleicht im Moment sehr impulsiv, aber ich komme halt von meinem Zugeständnis nicht ab. M.: Ich möchte nicht ausschließen, daß man sich unbedingt in einen Neger verlieben könnte, weil er erstens schließlich ein Mensch ist wie wir, und

weil er dieselben seelischen und geistigen Qualitäten haben kann wie jeder andere Mensch. Aber eine Ehe würde ich auch für ausgeschlossen halten, und dasselbe möchte ich auch eigentlich von den Juden sagen. Vielleicht liegt es daran, daß ich eben auch religiös gebunden bin, und das spielt da natürlich auch eine sehr große Rolle. (Zustimmung) Vl.: Wollen wir mal unterstellen, daß das Glaubensbekenntnis das gleiche wäre ... (Zwischenruf: Das ist ja absolut möglich.) M.: Ja also, ich könnte mir vorstellen, daß, wenn man glaubensmäßig nicht gebunden wäre, dann könnte ich mir eine Ehe mit einem Juden so gut vorstellen wie mit irgendeinem anderen Christen ... (a.a.O., S. 40f.)

  Wenn die Anhänger der Rassentheorie sich mit Vorliebe auf einen natürlichen Rasseninstinkt berufen, so scheint die Stelle anzuzeigen, daß bei dem erotischen Tabu gegen Neger vielmehr der Faktor der sozialen Kontrolle entscheidet, und zwar in Gestalt der Angst aufzufallen. Ähnlich geht es noch lange weiter, wobei sich die Diskussionsteilnehmerinnen schließlich auf alle möglichen diffizilen, aber müßigen Fragen einlassen, wie die, ob Josefine Baker eine reinrassige Negerin ist u.a. Endlich rationalisiert sich das Vorurteil damit, daß die Mischlinge alle unglückliche Menschen seien.  

Z.: Ja, das sieht man nicht, was diese Menschen an Problemen haben. (a.a.O., S. 45)

  Dergleichen Reaktionsbildungen führen zuweilen zu absurdapologetischen Thesen: die Rassenmaßnahmen seien aus irgendwelchen Gründen gut für die Juden oder wenigstens um ihrer »Ehrlichkeit« willen moralisch zu empfehlen gewesen. Man darf annehmen, daß hier die unbewußten Schuldgefühle so stark sind, daß der Rationalisierungsmechanismus zu ihrer Abwehr zu den allerdrastischsten Mitteln greifen muß, selbst wenn diesen auch die bescheidenste Vernunft abgeht. In einer keineswegs antisemitischen Frauengruppe wird von einer Teilnehmerin behauptet:   Ra.: Und ich behaupte ja sogar, daß die Nürnberger Gesetze mit den Juden für den Juden seinerzeit gemacht worden sind. Ich habe Juden gekannt, die

eigentlich ganz zufrieden waren darüber ... Mir haben Juden vor 1933 gesagt: Der Hitler schafft uns unser Israel. Das hat mir ein Jude 1933 wieder gesagt: Da kriegen wir jetzt unser Israel. Das hat ja gestimmt, die kriegen ihr Israel. Und durch die Nürnberger Gesetze haben die Juden doch eigentlich das bekommen, was sie wollten. (Protokoll 9, S. 16)

  An einer viel späteren Stelle bringt die Rednerin denselben Gedanken noch einmal vor:  

Ra.: Der November 1938 ist doch überhaupt erst durch die Ermordung von dem Herrn Rath ausgelöst worden, und auch der Brand der Synagogen. Ich persönlich habe das alles für Schwindel gehalten, weil ich mir gesagt habe, die ganze Bewegung läuft doch darauf hinaus, daß die Juden nach Palästina kommen. Die Juden waren vielleicht damit einverstanden, daß diese frommen Synagogen alle wegkommen, damit sie später auch wegkommen. Das war meine persönliche Meinung. (a.a.O., S. 33)

  Die Versuchsteilnehmerin hat den Schwindel der vorgeblich spontanen Volksaktion gegen die Juden durchschaut, setzt aber anstelle der Lügen der Nationalsozialisten lediglich ihre eigene Wahnidee, vielleicht um auf diese Weise den Gedanken an das ihr sonst unerträgliche Grauen abzuschwächen. Beide Male tritt niemand, auch von den ausgesprochen judenfreundlichen Teilnehmerinnen, die mit Entsetzen an das Pogrom vom November 1938 denken, dem Unsinn entgegen. Es scheint überhaupt, gerade bei naiven Gruppen, sehr oft die bloße Autorität des Sprechers, die Tatsache, daß etwas gesagt wurde, zu genügen, daß selbst der offensichtliche Aberwitz, sofern er nur der Gruppenmeinung nicht offenbar widerspricht, eine Chance hat, akzeptiert oder geduldet zu werden. Ähnliches ist wohl in Gerichtsverhandlungen beobachtet worden; ein Sachverhalt, der es verdiente, allgemein bei Diskussionen, in denen angebliche Tatbestände festgestellt werden sollen, beachtet zu werden.

 6. Die Juden sind an allem selber schuld   Es bleibt aber nicht dabei, daß gewisse antijüdische Maßnahmen vom Typus der Absonderung auf Betreiben der Juden oder mit ihrem Einverständnis erfolgt sein sollen. Von antisemitischen Versuchsteilnehmern wird vielmehr offen behauptet, daß die Juden überhaupt an allem, was ihnen widerfuhr, selbst schuld seien. Ritualmordlegende, die jüdische Skrupellosigkeit, das Sich-Drücken von physischer Arbeit – keine antisemitische Anschuldigung gegen die Juden ist zu absurd, als daß sie nicht mit dieser Intention wiederholt werden könnte.  

H.: Daß Juden zu Osterfeiern arische Kinder schlachten usw., das kann man doch nicht aus der Luft greifen so etwas ... denn es ist ja also in früheren Zeiten schon gewesen, daß man immer sagte: der Jude, der fing mit einem Bauchladen an, und sein Warenhaus war das Ende. Nur Pfiffigkeit kann das ja nicht sein, denn andere Leute sind ja schließlich auch tüchtig und sind ja auch nicht auf den Kopf gefallen. Die sind eben skrupelloser, die Juden. Das ist schon, wie ich sagte, die gehen über Leichen, sind skrupelloser. Sie haben nicht diese Hemmungen wie die anderen. Vl.: An und für sich, ich meine, es gibt auch Christen, die diese Skrupellosigkeit haben ... Sie kennen ja die Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes ... und ... daß die Juden in der ganzen Welt vielfach nicht zu anderen Arbeiten zugelassen worden sind als zu den geschäftlichen Operationen. Sie waren nur Kaufleute und haben sich auf diesem Gebiet allein betätigt und haben infolge auch mehr Fertigkeiten wohl sich erworben ... Wenn Sie immer nur eine Sache tun, dann können Sie das natürlich immer etwas besser, nicht. H.: Und die Kehrseite davon war ja auch, daß Sie selten einen Juden gesehen haben, der sich durch Hände Arbeit ... (Protokoll 34, S. 17f.)

  Daß es zahlreiche jüdische Handarbeiter in Amerika gibt und bis zur Ausrottung auch im Osten Europas gab, ändert nichts daran, daß die Juden sich um ehrliche Arbeit drücken und von Wucher und Betrug leben sollen. Daß auch unter Juden, wo sie überhaupt etwas wie eine einigermaßen in sich geschlossene Gruppe darstellen, die gleichen Konflikte vorkommen wie in jeder anderen Gruppe, erschüttert nicht den Glauben daran, daß sie wie Pech und Schwefel zusammenhalten. Und die Schreckgespenster erfundener Talmudgebote, den Christen zu betrügen, und blutige Rituale –

Projektionen des Pogroms – spuken immer noch in den Köpfen. In der bayerischen Honoratiorengruppe gibt es dasselbe Argument, verschmolzen nun damit, daß man überall und zu allen Zeiten gegen die Juden vorgegangen sei und vorgehe:  

J.: Mit Pickel und Schaufel hat noch nie ein Jude gearbeitet, nur Gaunereien gemacht. M.: In den ganzen Balkanstaaten und überall hauen sie doch die Juden davon, das sieht man doch überall, das sind doch alles schließlich die. Wo kommen die denn her? Früher waren die Zigeuner ein wanderndes Volk – nicht? Und heute sind es eben die Juden. Und warum sind sie es? Weil kein Land sie nicht will, weil jedes Land sagt: Wir brauchen die Drohnen nicht, die schmeißen wir raus oder wir machen es ihnen derart bitter, daß sie gern gehen. Und wir. Wir natürlich müssen sie aufnehmen. H.: Also im Mittelalter durften die Christen ... keinen Zins nehmen, bis dann hinterher der kanonische Zins kam, also 3%, 4% ... Dem Juden war es gestattet, der war nicht an diese kanonischen Gesetze gebunden und der hat die Geschichte ausgenutzt, wo er sie ausnutzen konnte. Denn die, die zu ihm kamen, die konnten ja bei keinem anderen mehr etwas bekommen, die waren am Abschnappen, und jetzt sind sie also zum Juden gegangen und der war da frei in diesen Dingen und hat denen natürlich auch Prozente abgenommen, die oft ... deshalb wurde er auch plötzlich und ziemlich stark reich, und dann kam immer gleich eine große Bereinigung, daß sie wieder von diesen Geldplätzen verschwinden mußten. Sie mußten außerhalb wohnen, oder man hat sie sogar noch geplündert. An und für sich ist diese Sache, die da 1900 – kurz vor dem Kriege – gewesen ist, eine Form, wie sie schon in der Bibel steht, daß man von Zeit zu Zeit einmal den Juden wieder schwer eins ausgewischt hat ... (Protokoll 16, S. 9ff.)

  Was den Juden angetan wurde, etwa daß man ihnen die Seßhaftigkeit verwehrte, wird zu einem Argument gegen sie gemacht: das bloße Faktum des alten Antisemitismus figuriert als Rechtfertigung des neuen. Dabei wird das Pogrom hier gemildert zu einer Art Wiederherstellung vernünftiger Verhältnisse, Bereinigung, etwa wie man von Flurbereinigung spricht, wenn die Realteilung bäuerlichen Grundbesitz allzusehr zersplittert hat. Die historische Reflexion auf die Bedeutung des Zinsverbotes dafür, daß die Juden den Beruf des Geldleihers übernahmen, hat keine Macht über das Verdikt. Die Frauengruppe mit Flüchtlingen in einem Barackenlager, die zu den Ärmsten rechnen, die von der Studie erreicht wurden, ist ihrer gesamten Stimmung nach alles eher als antisemitisch. Das

ändert aber nichts daran, daß das Stereotyp von der Unehrlichkeit der Juden vorgebracht wird und die Versuchsteilnehmerinnen sich darüber beklagen, daß die Juden nicht wie jeder andere arbeiten und sich ernähren – nur daß hier das Motiv nicht unwidersprochen bleibt und daß es zu keinem Verdikt führt:  

X.: Der Jude ist an und für sich so, der ... kommt schneller wieder hoch wie einer von den Deutschen, der mit den Händen arbeiten muß. Der andere, der macht das irgendwie mit dem Geldsack und mit Schmuh ... R.: Da muß man auch sagen, der Jude ist doch ohne weiteres auch mal nach Deutschland eingewandert nur mit – ich meine, der hat sich in Deutschland großgemacht ... Aber sie hätten sie nicht sollen so auf die Art ... mißhandeln, wie sie es haben gemacht. Sie hätten sie können ... anständig rausweisen ... und Gelegenheit geben, daß sie sich weiter können auf eigener Scholle ernähren und arbeiten wie jeder andere. (Protokoll 91, S. 36)

  Ebenso wie der Vorwurf der Unehrlichkeit ist der verbreitet, daß die Juden rasch zu Geld kämen. Dagegen werden die jüdischen Ärzte, wie übrigens oft auch in der Zeit des Emporkommens des Nationalsozialismus, gerühmt – vermutlich weil ihr Beruf eine Sphäre ist, in der unmittelbar positive Erfahrungen gemacht werden konnten, während im Geschäftsleben keine wie immer geartete Erfahrung die Vorstellung widerlegt, daß die Juden alles nur zu ihrem Vorteil täten: wenn sie niedrige Preise nehmen, um die Konkurrenz zu unterbieten, wenn sie hohe nehmen, um die Kunden übers Ohr zu hauen. Auf diesen ganzen Komplex ebenso wie auch auf die kurrente Vorstellung von der »clanishness« der Juden und schließlich die Neigung, den Antisemitismus damit zu rechtfertigen, daß doch alle gegen die Juden seien, wirft Licht eine Stelle aus der BdJ-Gruppe:   I.: Dann war in ... 22 ein Jude, der nun aus dem Osten kam; der wurde einfach nicht für voll genommen, der wurde außerdem als Russe bezeichnet und wurde von ziemlich allen geschnitten, und sie sagten: Ja, der hat keinen guten Charakter; mit dem kann man nicht zusammenarbeiten. Der ist außerdem Jude. Also das ist nicht auf irgendwelche Reden oder sonstwas ... Th.: Das jüdische Volk ist auch vielleicht gerade durch die Art ihrer Geschäfte selbst schuld, daß sie von den einzelnen Völkerschaften gehaßt wird. Bei uns zum Beispiel in Schlesien, als die Polen einrückten, kamen auch bald die Juden nach. Die polnische Miliz brachte die Juden im geschlossenen Transport vom Zug unter Bewachung in die Stadt. Und nach acht Tagen

hatten diese Juden, die im Kaftan und schmutzig und zerlumpt angekommen sind, hatten sich soviel Vermögen von den Deutschen zusammengestohlen, daß sie sich Geschäfte aufmachen konnten, daß sie eine Vierzimmerwohnung mit allem Inventar hatten, und gingen dann daran, die Deutschen für billiges Geld auszukaufen. Gerade darin werden sich die Juden selbst schuld sein, denn der einzelne sieht das immer und wird von den Juden belästigt und sagt sich: Gott ja, warum? Und überträgt das also auf die anderen Artgenossen mit. Und daraus entsteht vielleicht der ganze Haß. Sch.: Wir waren der Meinung, daß die Juden sowieso immer ziemliche Geschäftemacher waren und die anderen ausgebeutet haben. Und deshalb waren sie auch wahrscheinlich nicht sehr beliebt unter anderen Völkern. K.: Ich finde aber, daß die Juden ziemlich zusammenhalten, es kann kommen wie es will, es kann einem schmutzig gehen, der andere ist reich; er guckt nicht, wie das gerade bei uns besonders jetzt in Deutschland ist, auf den anderen von oben herab, sondern er findet ihn gleichberechtigt. Er hilft ihm. Und das ist doch ein ziemlich guter Zug ... an den Juden. E.: Man kann eigentlich dem Juden auch gar nicht einen furchtbar großen Vorwurf machen für seine Eigenschaften, denn es sind ja nicht bloß die Juden, die diese Geschäftstüchtigkeit an sich haben, sondern es sind ja auch Menschen vom Balkan, die Hebräer im allgemeinen, zum Beispiel auch die Griechen. Also er ist nicht zu verurteilen unbedingt; und dann kommt noch etwas hinzu. Ich kenne sehr viele Juden, die hochintelligent sind. Und die Art, wie sie sich eben ernähren und wie sie sich hier in unserer Umgebung geben, die rührt eben vor allen Dingen daher, daß ... im Grunde genommen eine intelligente Rasse ist. Das ist wieder meines Erachtens darauf zurückzuführen, daß sie sich verhältnismäßig rein gehalten haben im allgemeinen, also daß da eine gewisse Zucht – es klingt etwas komisch – aber daß es eine Rasse in Reinkultur ist, und daß dann eben eine Intelligenz in dieser Form auftritt und daß sie nachher – ich will sagen – dann ist es nachher schon eine Dekadenzerscheinung, also eine Überzüchtung. K.: Herr E. griff ebenfalls die Griechen an. Und in Bezug auf Griechenland, ich war beim Deutsch-Griechischen Wirtschaftsverband eine Zeit angestellt, kann ich das behaupten: Der Grieche ist im Grunde genommen doch viel reeller als der Jude. Ebenfalls so muß ich dem Bezug Herrn E. recht geben, daß er sagte, der Jude ist im Grund genommen nicht schlecht. Besonders die jüdischen Ärzte haben ja sehr gut auch die Deutschen behandelt, und besonders die ältere Generation hatte zu ziemlich großem Prozentsatz mehr Zutrauen und Vertrauen zu jüdischen Ärzten als zu deutschen Ärzten. Und noch 1935/36 haben ja auch jüdische Ärzte ... immer noch Deutsche behandelt, trotzdem es ihnen quasi doch verboten war; aber sie dachten dann doch wieder an die Menschen im großen ganzen. Th.: Der einzelne Mensch wird sicher niemals ein ganzes Volk mit den Taten eines einzelnen identifizieren. Ich habe zum großen Teil nur schlechte Juden kennengelernt – bis auf zwei, und das waren einmal meine Chefs. Man muß eigentlich von dem Standpunkt ausgehen: gut, der Jude gibt mit der Münze,

du mußt ihm mit der gleichen Münze zurückgeben. Nur da kommt man bei Juden weiter. Und es gibt keine Juden, die irgendwelche handwerklichen Arbeiten ausführen; das sind alles Geschäftsleute. (Protokoll 123, S. 9ff.)

  Obwohl gerade in dieser Gruppe wirklich diskutiert und geltend gemacht wird, daß die Juden historisch zu Berufen wie dem des Geldwechslers gezwungen wurden, wird dann vorgebracht, es sei ihnen in »uralten jüdischen Schriften« vorgeschrieben, »die nichtjüdischen Bevölkerungsteile in allen Ländern zu schädigen« (a.a.O., S. 14). Daß die mythologischen Phantasien über den Talmud in der Verwaltungssprache erscheinen, ist für die Komplexion des neuen Antisemitismus höchst bezeichnend. Die Tendenz, antisemitische Reaktionen auf alle Völker des östlichen Mittelmeergebietes auszudehnen, ist recht verbreitet. Dafür versucht dieser Sprecher, mit der Besatzungsmacht, hier den Engländern, im Zeichen des Antisemitismus eine Art von Einheitsfront herzustellen: er nennt die Engländer »Kameraden«, ganz ähnlich wie die Nazis nach dem ersten Krieg eine faschistische Frontkämpfersolidarität zu konstruieren suchten. Mit der Wendung: »ich habe zum großen Teil nur schlechte Juden kennengelernt«, möchte der Versuchsteilnehmer sich als gerecht abwägend vorstellen und doch zugleich zu summarischen Urteilen kommen, und der Widerspruch manifestiert sich in der unlogischen Sprache. Als Ausnahme läßt er seine zwei »Chefs« zu – sei es aus allgemeiner Bindung an jegliche Autorität, sei es, weil er wirklich mit den Juden, die er kannte, gute Erfahrungen gemacht hat, dennoch aber vom antisemitischen Stereotyp nicht nachlassen will und deshalb die guten Erfahrungen als Ausnahmen rubriziert.

 7. Verteidigung der »Ehrlichen Nazis«   Schließlich haben wir gefunden, daß die faschistische Ideologie zuweilen überlebt in Gestalt der Unterscheidung guter und böser Nazis – analog zu der stereotypen von guten und bösen Juden – und daß dabei ein besonderes Licht auf die »ehrlichen« fällt, so als konstituiere die Unterscheidung zwischen den Nationalsozialisten aus Überzeugung und denen aus Interesse bereits ein moralisches Kriterium. Hierzu ein Zitat aus einer Sitzung mit Flüchtlingsfrauen:  

Gö.: Ich glaube, von Nazis kann man heute in Deutschland überhaupt nicht mehr sprechen. Überhaupt: dieses Wort Nazi ist uns allen unangenehm geworden, nicht wahr? Es ist eine Art Schimpfwort geworden. Und wieviel anständige, feine, ehrliche Männer sind in der Partei gewesen und haben wirklich mit ehrlichem Gewissen gearbeitet fürs Vaterland; die empfinden das doch als Beleidigung, immer mit diesem Wort Nazi belegt zu werden. (Zuruf: ... gekränkt zu werden!) Ja, es sind noch einige alte Nazis da; ja, die wird man vielleicht niemals ändern können, die sterben aber aus. Aber unsere junge Generation ist durch eine derartig harte Schule gegangen, daß die niemals, auch niemals im entferntesten wieder Nazis werden können. Das ist ganz ausgeschlossen. (Protokoll 107, S. 19)

  Zwei Motive gehen durcheinander: das, daß man vom Nationalsozialismus nichts mehr wissen will, und das, daß man nicht daran erinnert werden will, selbst Nazi gewesen zu sein. Doch scheint die Empörung mehr dem Gebrauch des Wortes Nazi zu gelten als der Sache, für die es steht. In der bayerischen Honoratioren-Gruppe wird versucht, unter den Nazis zwischen den bösen, »den verkrachten Existenzen«, und den guten, sich selber, zu unterscheiden:  

V.: Aber bis 35 waren es nur verkrachte Existenzen, die nicht vollwertig waren. Erst 37 sind dann nachher wir dazugegangen. Warum sind wir dazugegangen? Unser Bürgermeister hat gesagt, daß seinerzeit der ... ja seht Ihr nicht, wo führt denn das hin? Wir haben einen gehabt namens ... der hat umeinandergesungen und umeinandergeschrien: Stellt die Schwarzen 23 an die Wand! Da haben wir uns tatsächlich gesagt, wenn das schon so ist und

so sein muß, dann müssen wir auch ein bißchen, sonst nehmen die alles in die Hand, und wir hängen drin. (Protokoll 16, S. 15)

  Hier wird die Zeitordnung umgekehrt behandelt als sonst in der Abwehr. Erst sollen nur verkrachte Existenzen dabeigewesen sein, dann ist man, als anständiger Mensch, dazu gekommen, um Schlimmeres zu verhüten – eine Rationalisierung, die das Mitläufertum weithin deckt. Das vorgelegte Material ermächtigt wohl zu dem Schluß, daß zwar die nationalsozialistische Ideologie als in sich einheitlicher organisierter Denkzusammenhang nicht mehr existiert, da ihr insbesondere durch den Mißerfolg ihre stärkste integrierende Kraft entzogen ward, daß aber zahlreiche Einzelelemente des faschistischen Denkens, herausgebrochen aus ihrem Zusammenhang und darum oft doppelt irrational, noch gegenwärtig sind und in einer veränderten politischen Situation wieder manipuliert werden könnten. Die Modifikationen, die diese Elemente erfahren haben, entsprangen allesamt der Anpassung an die im Winter 1950/51 herrschenden politischen Konstellationen und Machtverhältnisse. Es ist die Tendenz des Faschismus, nicht etwa in der alten Form sich wiederherzustellen, sondern durch Anbiederung an die heute Stärksten, insbesondere auch durch Ausbeutung des Konflikts zwischen Westen und Osten, zu überwintern und die Stunde abzuwarten, auf welche die Exponenten der Gewaltherrschaft hoffen.

 VII. Die Ambivalenten   Wenn wir gelegentlich darauf hingewiesen haben, daß die Entscheidung über die Meinungsbildung in Deutschland heute in weitem Maße von Machtkonstellationen abhängt, so heißt derselbe Sachverhalt, psychologisch gewandt, daß die Menschen in ihrer Meinung ambivalent sind und daß je nach der objektiven Konstellation die eine oder die andere der wirksamen gedanklichen und psychologischen Kräfte die Oberhand gewinnen wird. Um also unsere Interpretationen vor der Gefahr der Harmlosigkeit nicht weniger als der weltfremden Übertreibung zu bewahren, empfiehlt es sich, das Phänomen der Ambivalenz, so wie es im Material zutage tritt, näher ins Auge zu fassen, ohne daß wir dabei etwa von vornherein ambivalente von eindeutigen Versuchsteilnehmern unterschieden. Ambivalenz ist eine allgemeine Bestimmung des ideologischen und sozialpsychologischen Komplexes, der uns befaßt. Freilich gibt es auch ambivalente Charaktere mit spezifisch ambivalenter Gesinnung. Wir beschränken uns auf einen Nervenpunkt, an dem Ambivalenz am deutlichsten spürbar ist: das Verhältnis zu den Juden.

 1. Ambivalenz bei Individuen   Vorangestellt sei eine Äußerung aus einer Arbeitslosensitzung:  

H.: Es ist selbstverständlich, daß der Jude aus Fragen der landschaftlichen Bedingtheit und des Zusammenlebens also ein gewisses Miterlebnis hat mit uns und auf einer freundschaftlichen Basis stehen kann. Ich war aber der Ansicht, und möchte dies betonen, daß man sich mit dem Juden im Guten auseinandersetzen sollte ... (Protokoll 48, S. 17)

  Das Verhältnis zu den Juden soll dieser Äußerung zufolge auf einer freundschaftlichen Basis möglich sein; der Sprecher, ein 54jähriger Hilfsarbeiter, würde ohne Frage den Vorwurf des Antisemitismus von sich weisen. Aber die »freundschaftliche Basis« ist löchrig. Indem das gemeinsame Element von Deutschen und Juden auf den vagen und geschichtsfremden Begriff der »landschaftlichen Bedingtheit« und den kaum minder vagen sozialen des »Zusammenlebens« beschränkt wird, ist Raum gelassen für die Unterstellung einer unaufhebbaren qualitativen Differenz, wie sie dann derselbe Versuchsteilnehmer unmittelbar vorher, und zwar unter Berufung auf einen Rabbinersohn, der das bestätigt haben soll, anführt:  

H.: So, wie sie ausgefallen ist, bedaure ich es außerordentlich (nämlich die Judenverfolgung). Damals war ich noch im Amt in ... da habe ich ruhig gesagt, wie die Kristallnacht 24 war, das ist eine Schweinerei, damit kann ich mich nicht identifizieren. Das will ich ruhig sagen. Seinerzeit habe ich mit einem Herrn, dem Sohn eines Rabbiners aus Leipzig, darüber gesprochen. Wir haben uns stark darüber auseinandergesetzt, daß der Jude eigentlich nicht zum deutschen Volkskörper gehörte und auch deswegen aus diesem Grunde niemals deutsch sein könne, und zwar aus Wesensgründen, wie z.B. ein Deutscher. (a.a.O., S. 7)

  Diese Qualifikation wirkt aber nun so nachdrücklich, daß, was auf der »freundschaftlichen Basis« erfolgt, von Anbeginn als eine »Auseinandersetzung« – und nicht etwa als eine humane Beziehung vorgestellt wird; nur daß eben die Auseinandersetzung »im Guten« erfolgen soll. Es wäre diesem Sprecher wohl am liebsten, wenn die

Juden selbst, wie es in einem während der Nazizeit kurrenten Witz über die Naumanngruppe hieß: »Raus mit uns« riefen. Im Licht des letzten Satzes besteht die Freundschaft in nichts anderem als im »sich nicht belügen« – also darin, daß man sich gegenseitig sagt, daß man nichts miteinander zu tun haben will. Hier ist die Toleranz und der Verständigungswille durchkreuzt von der Macht des Nazistereotyps von der »Artfremdheit«. Man darf wohl annehmen, daß die aggressive Strömung stärker ist als die Gewissenszensur und daß ein solcher Versuchsteilnehmer unter veränderten sozialen Bedingungen leicht zum Antisemitismus überlaufen würde, ohne daß er doch heute und hier als antisemitisch anzusprechen wäre. Ein Index für die ambivalente Stellung zu den Juden ist überhaupt die Tendenz zur bedingten Ablehnung der antisemitischen Maßnahmen der Nazis. Eine sehr typische Stelle aus einer arbeitslosen Frauengruppe sei angeführt:  

A.: Das finde ich auch, und das gilt genau so für die Judenfrage. Die Juden saßen an der Regierung. Nun sind die Juden ja eminent tüchtig, haben einen hellen Kopf durchschnittlich ... und haben es auch verstanden, an die höchsten Stellen zu gelangen und haben da nicht das Interesse des deutschen Volkes wahrgenommen, sondern ihr eigenes Interesse. Und deshalb hatte Hitler meiner Meinung nach recht, sie aus diesen gehobenen Stellungen herauszusetzen; bloß, er hätte sie nicht ... also er hätte an sich nicht an das Leben kommen dürfen. Das darf er nicht, aber aus den gehobenen Stellungen hatte er das Recht, sie herauszusetzen, weil das ja keine Deutschen sind und nicht im Sinne des deutschen Volkes also ihre Geschäfte ausgeübt hatten. Vl.: Also Ihrer Meinung nach, Fräulein A., waren Hitler und sein Regime berechtigt, die Juden auszuweisen aus Deutschland? A.: Nein, aus den gehobenen Stellungen zu setzen; er konnte ... war berechtigt, sie aus den ... leitenden Stellungen zu entlassen. Aber ich sagte ja schon, die Judenverfolgung durfte nicht so weit gehen, daß die Juden das Leben lassen mußten; das durfte nicht sein, denn, ebenso wie Fräulein W. hier eben sagte: Jeder Mensch hat das Recht auf Arbeit; ja ... das bestreite ich auch keinem Menschen. (Protokoll 34, S. 22f.)

  Zu demselben Thema äußert sich eine andere Teilnehmerin:  

D.: Ja ich möchte sagen – sofern sie das Allgemeininteresse nicht verletzen, sofern sie sich nicht auf eine Einseitigkeit festlegen, also daß vielleicht eine gewisse Schicht dadurch geschädigt wird, – die Arbeiterschaft – daß er nur für die hohen Herren im Volke sorgt, der ... dann ist natürlich die

Arbeiterschaft verbittert. Dieser leitende Jude müßte für alle Gesellschaftsschichten in Deutschland Verständnis aufbringen. Dann, möchte ich sagen, muß man ihn belassen in der hohen Stellung. (a.a.O., S. 24)

  In diesen Zitaten finden sich nicht nur demokratische und sozialistische Motive wie das vom »allgemeinen Recht auf Arbeit«, sondern auch, am Anfang, die Behauptung der hervorragenden Intelligenz der Juden – eine Generalisierung, die oft als Vorspann für antisemitische Äußerungen dient und die gleichsam auf dem Sprung steht, in die These von der jüdischen Schlauheit und der tumben Ehrlichkeit der eigenen Gruppe umzuschlagen. Auch hier folgt ihr die nicht substantiierte Behauptung, die Juden »seien an die höchsten Stellen gelangt« und hätten da nicht das »Interesse des deutschen Volkes« wahrgenommen, sondern ihr eigenes. Hitler wird verteidigt, weil er sie aus diesen allerhöchsten Stellen entfernt habe. Auch dem Ambivalenzphänomen gegenüber ist es angezeigt, nach einer Basis in der Realität zu suchen. Da stößt man etwa auf den längst bekannten Sachverhalt, daß die Juden oft der Bankier des kleinen Mannes waren, ihm mit Kredit aushalfen, aber dann den Wechsel präsentierten und den Haß auf sich zogen.  

O.: Das waren kleine Bauern, die hatten nicht das Geld, und wenn sie etwas brauchten, so ein Stück Vieh, dann sind sie zum Juden gegangen, denn beim Christen haben sie nichts gekriegt ohne Geld, und wenn die Zeit abgelaufen war und sie konnten es nicht bezahlen, da hat er dann das beste Stück geholt und das schlechte dagelassen. Vl.: Ich habe Sie so verstanden, als ob Sie gesagt hätten, die Juden hätten die Rhönbauern bemogelt. O.: Ja, ich war damals noch ein Kind, aber ich habe das nur vom Hörensagen gehört, weil mein Vater Schmied war. Also ich weiß das nicht. Die Bauern haben das meinem Vater immer wieder erzählt, daß der Jude nicht gedrängt hat, aber wenn sie das nicht bezahlen konnten, dann hat er ihnen die Kuh aus dem Stall geholt und hat ihnen die schlechte gegeben. Vl.: Ja, tut das der Christ nicht auch? O.: Das auch, aber da war viel Mogelei dabei. Vl.: Die Bauern waren doch intelligent genug, um nicht – um zu unterscheiden, ob das eine gute oder schlechte Kuh war. O.: Also das weiß ich eben nicht. Vom Viehjuden habe ich keine gute Meinung. (Protokoll 9, S. 28f.)

  Die wirtschaftliche Funktion der jüdischen Viehhändler wird hier

zugegeben und auch ihre gute Seite: sie sollen »nicht gedrängt haben«. Wenn aber dann der Viehhändler am Ende doch sein Geld haben wollte, dann verwandelt er sich in das habgierige Scheusal, das, wie im Anklang an eine sprichwörtliche Wendung gesagt wird, die gute Kuh aus dem Stall holt und die schlechte Kuh darin läßt.

 2. Ambivalenz in der Gruppe   Das Phänomen der Ambivalenz ist keineswegs stets an individuellen Äußerungen deutlich zu fassen. Oftmals kommt es zum Vorschein in einer gewissen Fluktuation des Diskussionsverlaufs, einem Schwanken zwischen positiven und negativen Aussagen, ohne daß diese Schwankung eigentlich sachlich argumentativ, in einem logischen Gang des Gesprächs begründet wäre. Man hat dann den Eindruck, daß die Teilnehmer, wenn sie auf einen kritischen Punkt kommen, am liebsten alles wieder zurücknehmen möchten, was gerade gesagt worden ist. Es sei hier eine Stelle aus der Primanersitzung zitiert, wo die Abwehr des Antisemitismus und die fast zwanghafte Neigung, mit Begriffen wie »jüdische Drahtzieher« und Schieber zu operieren, miteinander abwechseln. Übrigens ist es gerade diese Gruppe, in der ein Teilnehmer einmal das Bewußtsein der eigenen Ambivalenz erreicht:   U.: Ich möchte auf folgendes hinweisen: Wir haben hier in ... rund 500000 Einwohner und deutsche Staatsangehörige. Aber wir haben hier vielleicht 1200–1500 Juden. Ich kann mich auf keinerlei Zahlenmaterial stützen. Wenn nun aus diesen 1200 bis 1500 Juden nach man 5–6 Namen nennen kann und aus den 500000 10 oder 15 ... ich glaube, daß der prozentuale Anteil der Schieber doch verhältnismäßig größer ist als der der anderen Bevölkerung. Und außerdem – wenn vorhin behauptet wurde, daß geschoben wurde, auch von Deutschen – die eigentlichen Drahtzieher waren Juden. (Zwischenruf: Lieber Mann! Quatsch!) P.: Ich wollte zu dem, was Herr R. sagte, Stellung nehmen. Es wurde gesagt, daß die Juden Schieber waren, in den Zeiten, als alle Deutschen fast Schieber waren. Ich muß leider aus eigener Ansicht sagen – weil ich im Judengebiet wohne – daß auch heute noch die Juden die sind, die schieben, trotzdem es eigentlich nicht mehr viel zu schieben gibt. Trotzdem – einige Artikel sind auch heute noch knapp – sie werden gerade von Juden geschoben. Und außerdem wurde gerade vor kurzem eine große Razzia gemacht, die wohl beweisen kann, daß ... Wenn der Arbeitsbedarf für Juden – man sucht auch hier nicht gerade Arbeit – schwierig ist, daß sie sich in ihr neues Land Israel begeben und dort mithelfen, ihren neuen Staat aufzubauen, was doch ein Leichtes sein müßte. Sie fühlen sich aber hier sehr wohl und sind nicht gerade geneigt, ein schweres Leben auf sich zu nehmen. Also lieber hier ihren Schiebergeschäften nachgehen, wo sie relativ mehr verdienen und ein besseres Leben führen können.

Vl.: Sie meinen also, daß ein gewisser Antisemitismus nicht ganz unberechtigt ist. P.: Das will auch sagen, daß es nicht ohne weiteres verkehrt ist und wohl ein Antisemitismus im deutschen Volk vorhanden ist. (Protokoll 27, S. 29ff.)

  Hier wie so häufig tritt das Phänomen der Unansprechbarkeit bei dem Versuchsteilnehmer P. hervor. Er erkennt ganz richtig, daß es nach Abschaffung aller Rationierungen in Deutschland »eigentlich nicht mehr viel zu schieben gibt«; trotzdem aber »sind es auch heute noch die Juden, die schieben«. Die Ambivalenz ist bedingt durch den Zusammenprall lebendiger und vernünftiger Erfahrungen mit den eingefrorenen Stereotypen.

 3. Spezifisch ambivalente Haltung   Es gibt eine ambivalente Haltung einzelner Versuchsteilnehmer, die, verglichen sowohl mit der eindeutig antisemitischen wie mit der vorurteilsfreien, eine ganz spezifische Struktur hat. Die Ideologie, die hier zugrunde liegt, ist keineswegs bloß als Mitte zwischen den Extremen aufzufassen, sondern bedürfte der qualitativen Bestimmung ihres Wesens. Charakteristisch scheint zu sein, daß ihr gewisse traditionelle demokratische Impulse, wie der fürs gleiche Recht aller, der Haß gegen das Privileg zugrunde liegen, aber sich spezifisch gegen die Juden kehren, welche hier als »Schutzjuden« erscheinen, als eben die, welche Privilegien genießen, es besser haben, als es ihrem statistischen Anteil an der Bevölkerung entspräche, und die überhaupt gegen die demokratischen Spielregeln in irgendeiner Weise sich vergehen sollen. Mit anderen Worten, die Ambivalenten verbinden nicht Antisemitismus mit Antidemokratismus, sondern suchen gerade von der Demokratie her gegen die Juden zu argumentieren, ohne dabei die Frage aufzuwerfen, ob ihr Prinzip der Herausgliederung der Juden aus dem Universum der Staatsbürger nicht grundsätzlich gegen eben jenes demokratische Prinzip verstößt, auf das sie sich berufen. Die Reaktionsweise ist: wir haben nichts gegen die Juden, wir wollen sie nicht verfolgen, aber sie sollen nichts tun, was einem – ganz unbestimmten und willkürlich dekretierten – Interesse des Volkes widerspricht. Sie sollen insbesondere keinen überrepräsentativen Anteil an hochbezahlten und einflußreichen Berufen haben. Diese Art des Denkens, die im übrigen eine beträchtliche Tradition hat, eröffnet denjenigen, welche sich im Konflikt zwischen schlechtem Gewissen und Abwehr befinden, einen Ausweg. Sie können sich vor sich selber als human, aufgeschlossen und vorurteilsfrei behaupten und zugleich in praxi jede beliebige antisemitische Maßnahme als Akt ausgleichender Gerechtigkeit mit ihrer Überzeugung versöhnen, solange nur einigermaßen Legalität gewahrt bleibt. Zu der Pseudorationalität dieses Verhaltens gehört der abwägende Gestus, daß beide Teile Schuld haben müssen, auch wo es sich ums Ungeheuerliche handelt, und daß die Wiedergutmachung eigentlich an den Juden liegt. Selbst die Segregation der Juden wird hier

gelegentlich diesen zugeschrieben. Das folgende Beispiel zeigt, wie Gedankengänge dieses Typus abrollen. Der Versuchsleiter fragt in einer Gruppe von Volksschullehrern, ob die Stellung der Juden im deutschen Leben nach einem Proporz zu bestimmen sei:  

A.: Der Bevölkerungsanteil ging in eine bestimmte Anzahl Berufe. Es wird größtenteils auf Grund seiner Eigenschaften gewesen sein. Soweit ist es berechtigt. Aber es ist nicht nur bei den Juden so, sondern auch bei den Deutschen aus Lettland. Wer hat in Lettland an oberster Stelle gesessen? Nur die Deutschen. Und wie die Lettlanddeutschen nach Polen kamen, wenn einer drin saß, dann dauerte es nicht lange, dann saßen so und so viele gerade aus diesem Kreis drin in ihren Stellen. Vl.: Das ist für jeden Lebenskreis maßgebend. Jede Minderheit schließt sich eher zusammen, vertritt stärker ihre Interessen ... A.: Darin liegt denn die Gefahr meines Erachtens. Entweder sind sie keine Minderheit und sind Deutsche genau wie wir, oder wir schaffen eine Abgrenzung, und dann liegt in dieser Abgrenzung die Gefahr, und diese Abgrenzung hat ja bestanden. Vl.: Diese Abgrenzung, war die von den Juden oder von den Deutschen gewollt? A.: Das ist mir auch nicht ganz klar ... Ich weiß nicht, wie es entstanden ist, sondern nur, wie sie war. O.: Sie sagen, die Juden haben selbst schuld. Die saßen in der ausgesprochenen Minderheit in diesem Gerichtshof. Das ist noch keine Schuld der Juden. A.: Nein, das ist keine Schuld, sondern eine Tatsache. O.: Warum sollen sich die Juden ebenso benehmen wie die Deutschen? Sie sollen auch Juden bleiben, wenn wir sie nicht genau so anerkennen wollen wie wir. Sollen sie nicht auch in einem Gerichtshof sein? A.: Aber in einem gewissen Prozentsatz, wenn sie sich extra stellen. Wenn sie sich nicht extra stellen, würde die Frage nicht auftauchen. (Protokoll 56, S. 52ff.)

  Es darf angemerkt werden, daß vielleicht die ganze Gruppe, sozial kleinbürgerlich, zugleich aber relativ gebildet und zur Reflexion neigend, als ambivalent angesprochen werden darf. Häufiger jedoch als das formale Argument gegen den disproportionalen Anteil der Juden ist bei den Ambivalenten ein Schwanken zwischen der Ablehnung des von Nationalsozialisten Begangenen und dem Hinweis auf angebliche spätere jüdische Verfehlungen. In diesem Sinne ist eine Äußerung aus der Arbeiterjugendsitzung zu verstehen.  

K.: Ja, also ich bin der Ansicht, daß, was Herr B. soeben gesagt, daß das schon

Berechtigung hat, zumal in der Jugend. Denn es ist doch offensichtlich klar, daß zumindest der größte Teil oder der mir z.B. bekannt ist, daß das jeder eingesehen hat, daß am Anfang, also was gegen die Juden überhaupt während der ganzen Nazizeit gemacht worden ist, daß es wirklich ungerecht war, daß darüber auch kein Zweifel besteht, daß eventuell das nicht in Schutz genommen wird oder das sogar natürlich irgendwie abgelehnt wird. Da muß ich schon zustimmen. Aber was er dann anschließend gesagt hat, daß eben die Juden sich dann auch nicht sauber verhalten haben gerade in der Zeit, das ist schon wirklich Tatsache. (Protokoll 96, S. 1f.)

  Zwischen der Ausrottung der Juden und dem, was den DPs nach dem Krieg zugeschrieben wird, ist hier ein trüber Zusammenhang konstruiert. Zunächst wird, wenn auch in der bei unseren Versuchsteilnehmern so häufigen gewundenen und qualifizierten Weise, das den Juden zugefügte Unrecht widerwillig zugegeben. Dann wird gesagt, daß späterhin die »Juden sich auch nicht sauber verhalten« hätten – die Frage nach der Proportion oder dem Kausalnexus zwischen Auschwitz und dem Verhalten der DPs wird dabei außer acht gelassen. Als dann der Versuchsleiter das Fazit zu ziehen sucht und es dem Diskussionsredner leicht macht, indem er ihm sagt, er wolle doch wohl daraus nicht das Recht der Nationalsozialisten auf ihr Verhalten ableiten, antwortet der Sprecher: »Nein, vollkommen nicht!« Er nimmt also das Zugeständnis des Unrechts nachträglich wieder halb zurück – ein Schulfall für Ambivalenz.

 4. Gründe für Ambivalenz   Wenn die Ambivalenten humanitäre Ideen grundsätzlich akzeptieren, aber sie den Juden gegenüber mit Hilfe von allerhand Rationalisierungen so lange verbiegen, bis die Juden davon ausgenommen sind, kann es nicht verwundern, daß die Ambivalenten sich besonders gern auf authentische oder fiktive Beobachtungen stützen, die dartun sollen, daß die Juden selbst, oder wenigstens die orthodoxen und Ostjuden, auf die der heutige Antisemitismus weitgehend verschoben ist, gegen die Humanität sich verfehlten. Es ist in solchen Fällen sehr schwer zu entscheiden, wie weit der Sadismus der Versuchsteilnehmer auf jene Juden projiziert wird, denen man Grausamkeiten zuschreibt, und wie weit in Bräuchen von der Art des Schächtens wirklich Elemente enthalten sind, die gerade menschlich gesonnene Versuchsteilnehmer abstoßen. Die im folgenden gegebene Stelle über das Schächten erscheint jedenfalls in einem Zusammenhang, der als solcher keineswegs antisemitisch ist, und der Bericht soll eher das von den Nazis gezüchtete Gefühl der »Fremdheit« der Juden begründen, als eigentlich die Juden verdammen. Vielmehr grenzen die Teilnehmer einer Nachbargruppe sich energisch von dem an den Juden Begangenen ab. Die Stelle lautet im Zusammenhang:  

F.: Ich kann aus der Praxis sagen, daß ein jüdischer Bankier, mit dem ich zu tun habe, daß wir über diese Sache auch gesprochen haben. Es war in den Jahren 1934–35. Und daß er selbst der Ansicht war, daß hauptsächlich durch das Einströmen der ostgalizischen und polnischen Juden nach dem ersten Weltkrieg überhaupt erst die Spannung gegen die Juden in Deutschland so gewachsen ist. Denn die alten Familien, die saßen ja zum Teil seit Hunderten von Jahren hier, die waren direkt eingewachsen ... Da hat kein Mensch etwas dabei gefunden. Aber damals, wie diese Barmat und Kutisker und ähnliche Konsorten aus dem Osten gekommen sind, ist es nachher verallgemeinert worden. Da hieß es dann: die Juden! Es war aber tatsächlich: die Leute, die bei uns wohnten, sie waren ja tatsächlich keine Juden mehr. Sie waren ja eigentliche Deutsche geworden durch das jahrhundertelange Zusammenleben mit dem deutschen Volksstamm. Musiker, Dichter usw., wenn wir sie betrachten, die unterscheiden sich doch in nichts von unseren eigenen. Aber die Ostleute, die fielen natürlich auf. B.: Wir haben auch sehr viele Juden in der Praxis behandelt ... Und dabei sagte

gerade mal ein Herr Jude: die Ostjuden sind diejenigen, die uns einheimischen Juden kaputtmachen. Sehen Sie mal in ... Dann werden Sie alle finden ... Die sehen Sie sich einmal an. Und das ist unser Untergang. Und der Herr ... ist schon vor Hitlers Zeiten nach Australien. Der hatte hier ein Wäschegeschäft. G.: Damals war die Propaganda ... wenn gesagt wurde, das sind deutsche Juden, dann wurde gleich gesagt: das gibt es nie, deutsche Juden. Es ist immer die Rasse. Vl.: Frau B. sprach von der Zeit nach dem ersten Weltkrieg. Und dies ist aber aus der Zeit nach 1933? B.: Ja, das Volk ... das wurde doch durch die Propaganda sehr aufgewiegelt. Immer wenn einer was einwenden wollte, wurde das gleich zur Antwort gegeben. Das wären keine Deutschen, das wäre eine fremde Rasse. Vl.: Selbst wenn die Juden also jahrhundertelang in Deutschland lebten, wurden sie als fremde Rasse betrachtet? B.: Ich habe das auch oft gesehen in der Markthalle. Das waren die polnischen Juden, an der Sprache und an allem und an ihren Perücken hat man das gesehen. Die waren gar nicht fein. Wie sie sich da vorgedrängt haben, da war man gar nichts mehr. Die haben doch alles lebend gekauft, lebend geschächtet. Da durfte sich doch keiner rühren. Nur mal den Fisch mal anklopfen, da waren sie schon außer sich. Die haben alles lebend mitgenommen, im Netz. Und das zappelte dann. Und da gab es auch Hühner. Die sind gleich zum Schächter unten. Ich habe mir das ganz genau angesehen. Ich habe das auch empfunden, daß es Tierquälerei ist. Da stand der Judenmetzger. Der hat das Geflügel geschächtet ... Das habe ich nicht für richtig gehalten. (Zwischenruf: Wie machten die das denn?) Na, da ging er rein in die Kammer, das muß doch richtig ausbluten. Da wird richtig gequält. Das kriegt keinen auf den Kopf wie sonst das Vieh. Das wird doch gestochen und muß richtig ausbluten. Wo mir evakuiert waren in der Rhön, da habe ich das ja auch erzählt bekommen vom Metzger, die haben die Juden sehr gelobt. Das wären Händler. Die hatten da ihre koscheren Pfannen und das alles. Die hatten sie was reingeschrieben, weil sie sich da immer ihr Fleisch gebraten haben. Die haben immer gesagt: wenn die ein Stück Vieh abgeschlachtet haben, das war eine große Quälerei. Der Metzgermeister war auch gegen das Schächten. Vl.: Glauben Sie, daß dann solche Sachen, wie z.B. das Schächten auch irgendwie einen Antisemitismus ein bißchen angeregt hätten? F.: Freilich, das glaube ich doch. B.: Ich meine, das Tier spürt es ja auch. Es hieß ja immer: Quäle nie ein Tier zum Scherz, denn es fühlt wie du den Schmerz. Wenn ich das gesehen habe – die Judenfrauen, die haben mal reingegriffen in die Körbe, das habe ich alles gesehen, wenn sie die Hühner da betatscht haben und das Zeug ... Ich habe ja bestimmt nichts gegen die Juden gehabt, denn wir hatten ja viele Judenpatienten.

U.: Ich habe sehr viele Juden in der Praxis behandelt, auch noch 1938, nich. Vl.: Was wollten Sie von Ihrer Praxis erzählen? U.: Daß ich viele Juden behandelt habe. Während der ganzen Zeit und heimlich sogar, sogar abends oder morgens, hintenrum die Leute eingelassen habe und habe sie behandelt, solange wie's eben ging. Bin ich da auch mal gerade mit meiner Frau über den Bahnhofplatz gegangen. Da hat eine große Korona gesessen auf ihren Koffern usw. Das hat mich sehr unangenehm berührt. Da sagte ich zu meiner Frau, das ist nicht richtig, was da gemacht wird. Ich habe das also verdammt, muß ich gerade sagen. Ich habe gesagt, das kann uns eines Tages auch blühen, daß wir so bei einem Transport im Bahnhof sitzen, wie hier diese Leute, die doch eigentlich nichts verbrochen haben. (Protokoll 42, S. 17ff.)

  Daß die Frau sich das Schächten »ganz genau angesehen hat«, weckt immerhin Zweifel an der Empörung. Wenn von »einem Herrn Juden ...« die Rede ist, so ist das ein Ausdruck dafür, daß die Juden vom Volk weitgehend mit der bürgerlichen Oberschicht identifiziert wurden. Sie galten als Herr X., zugleich aber wird das demütigende Kollektiv »Jude« gebraucht, und daraus entsteht die grotesk-ambivalente Form »Herr Jude«. – Noch in der Äußerung des Mitleids mit den Opfern, die auf ihren Koffern sitzen, am Schluß der Stelle, setzt sich das Stereotyp durch: sie werden »Korona« genannt, so wie etwa ein Antisemit von Juden als von einer »Kille« redet. Dabei verschlägt wieder das Entsetzen dem Sprecher die Rede: man muß den Schluß sich genau ansehen, um zu finden, daß es sich um eine Deportationsszene handelt.

 5. Unbewusst ambivalente   In einem ähnlich ambivalenten Zusammenhang kommt in der Primanergruppe ein Teilnehmer auf das Schächten zu sprechen. Diese Gruppe mag typisch sein für junge Intellektuelle, die ernsten Willens sind, die faschistische Ideologie abzuschütteln, die aber in ihrer frühen Kindheit so mit nationalsozialistischem Stoff durchtränkt wurden, daß sie unbewußt und gleichsam gegen die eigene Absicht so reagieren, wie es ihnen eingehämmert ward – eine besondere Art von Ambivalenz, die recht verbreitet sein dürfte. Man muß abermals, um das Gewicht der einander widerstreitenden Elemente richtig einzuschätzen, einen größeren Zusammenhang lesen:   U.: Ich möchte einmal auf ein anderes Thema übergehen, das Mr. Colburn in seinem Brief auch erwähnt, und zwar ist das ziemlich heikel, das betrifft nämlich die Judenfrage. Er macht uns dabei den Vorwurf, daß sich in letzter Zeit, wenigstens in den letzten zwei Jahren wieder eine allgemeine, man kann sagen Hetze, man kann sagen Antipathie gegen die Juden in Deutschland erhebe, und außerdem erwähnt er, wenn ich mich recht entsinne, u.a., daß in Deutschland allgemein die Ansicht wäre, daß die Schieber – wie er sich beliebt auszudrücken – die DPs sind. Das würde von uns behauptet, und ich konnte aus seinen Worten entnehmen, daß er sich bei diesen Worten nicht ganz (?) ist. Zunächst etwas ganz Allgemeines darüber. Ich glaube, sagen zu können, daß die Judenhetze, wie sie im Jahre 1938 anläßlich der Affäre in ... stattfand, sich hier breitmachte, nicht nur in Deutschland war. Wenn man heute allgemein die Welt betrachtet, so wird man feststellen, daß die Juden, ich möchte nicht sagen verhaßt, sondern zumindest nicht gerade sehr beliebt sind, nicht allein in Deutschland sondern auch in anderen Ländern. Ich möchte dabei beispielsweise an Rußland denken. Weiterhin wäre zu sagen, daß uns allgemein der Vorwurf gemacht wird, daß wir damals gegen die Juden eingestellt waren. Es stimmt insofern nicht, da wir, zumindest ein großer Teil der Bevölkerung, sich mit den Maßnahmen, die die Diktatur in den vergangenen 12 Jahren veranlaßte, nicht einverstanden war. Ich möchte nicht darauf eingehen, was alles in den Zeitungen geschrieben wird und wurde, sondern kurz etwas Persönliches anführen, was ich persönlich erlebte. Ich wohnte damals im Ostend, das ist ein gemischtes Viertel gewesen mit sehr vielen Juden, reichen Juden. Ich glaube, daß, als 1938 diese Aktion plötzlich begann, zumindest meine Bekannten sehr dagegen waren und sich, ich möchte mich kraß ausdrücken, mit Abscheu abwandten. Worin liegt das nun begründet? Wir wohnen auch heute ... wieder in einem Viertel, wo sehr viele Juden sind. Ich kann sagen,

daß nach 1945–46 bei den meisten Menschen nichts gegen die Juden vorhanden war. Wenn man nun betrachtet, wie sich nun die ganze Sache entwickelt hat, da kommen wir auf die DPs und da ist doch nicht abzustreiten, daß ein großer Prozentsatz der DPs Juden sind oder aus Polen und anderen Staaten und sich sehr aktiv an Schiebungen und Schwarzhandel beteiligt haben, und dann vor 1947/48, vor der Währung, als wir noch einen ziemlich niedrigen Lebensstandard hatten, niedrig in bezug auf Essen und was dazu gehört, da mußte sich doch zumindest eine Abneigung gegen die damaligen Juden breitmachen, die in Hülle und Fülle lebten. Ich möchte daran denken, daß manche Juden irgendwo mit einem Karren ankamen und, als sie kaum vier Wochen da waren, da hatten sie einen Mercedes oder gar eine Ami-Limousine. Daß das nicht mit normalen Dingen zuging, ist ja klar. Weiterhin möchte ich sagen: gegenüber von uns wohnen sehr viele Juden, die streng religiös sind. Wir mußten nun die ganze Zeit über beobachten, wie während der Feiertage sich ein Herr unten breit machte und begann, Tiere zu schächten in einer nicht gerade angenehmen Weise. Daß das natürlich nicht jedermann gerade entzückt hat, ist vollkommen klar. Daß es auch nicht dazu beiträgt, eine sehr große Sympathie für unsere jüdischen Mitbürger aufzubringen, ist ebenfalls klar. Auch die Affaire Klibansky ist hier allgemein bekannt. Das ist das, was ich jetzt zur Judenfrage sagen wollte. R.: Ich glaube, daß das mit der Judenfrage gar nicht so brennend ist, wie hier Herr U. betont hat. Die Zeit, in der damals die Juden als Schieber auffielen, war eine Zeit, in der allgemein geschoben wurde. Und ich glaube, bei uns hat man bis in die höchsten Regierungskreise hinein geschoben, und die größten Geschäftsleute, die hatten mehr geschoben als jeder kleine DP usw. Ich glaube, daß es den Juden, die oft eine andere Sprache sprechen als wir, und den DPs, die Polen waren, heute sehr schwer ist, in Deutschland eine Arbeit zu finden, entweder in einem technischen oder kaufmännischen Betrieb. Wer will einen Juden oder DP haben? Das ist sehr schwierig. Sie müßten schon Facharbeiter sein. Und ich glaube, es wurden da Klibansky und Morgenbesser genannt – das sind zwei Namen, auf die sich die ganze Menge, die eventuell noch ein wenig antisemitisch eingestellt ist, stürzt. Ich möchte fragen, welche weiteren Namen sind hier bekannt? (Protokoll 27, S. 25ff.)

  Auch hier, ebenso wie bei der unmittelbar vorher angeführten Stelle, hat man das Gefühl, daß die antisemitischen Regungen zwar noch durchgelassen werden, aber doch nicht mehr die volle Kraft haben. Selbst das Schächten wird mit dem vorsichtigen Epitheton »nicht gerade angenehm« bedacht; ganz ähnlich wie umgekehrt unbelehrte Faschisten von den Nazigreueln in grotesk zurückhaltender Weise zu reden pflegen. Vielleicht stimmt es mit dieser vom eingeimpften Vorurteil sich emanzipierenden Haltung überein, daß sie, soweit

Feindseligkeit noch durchklingt, auf konkretere und weniger projektive Momente sich stützt, als es dort üblich ist, wo das faschistische Erbe ungebrochen gegenwärtig ist. Im einzelnen mag darauf hingewiesen sein, daß der Sprecher das »Thema der Judenfrage« »ziemlich heikel« nennt – ein Ausdruck, der die starke Affektbesetzung ebenso wie die Angst, überhaupt etwas dazu zu sagen, recht deutlich anzeigt. Auffällig ist, daß der Sprecher U. behauptet, es hätten im Ostend »viele reiche Juden« gewohnt, was nicht zutrifft. Hier macht sich ein projektives Moment geltend, das später noch stärker hervortritt, wenn der Versuchsteilnehmer von Juden redet, die nach dem Krieg »mit einem Karren kamen« und nach vier Wochen einen Mercedes oder gar eine amerikanische Limousine gehabt haben sollen. Bei vorurteilsvollen Personen herrscht eine seltsame Neigung dazu, gerade Gruppen von Gedemütigten besonderen Luxus zuzuschreiben; so ist in einem in der »Authoritarian Personality« analysierten Interview von den »provozierend luxuriösen Autos«, in deren Besitz in Amerika die Neger seien, die Rede 25 . Überhaupt sind Mechanismen wie die in unserer Analyse berührten international verbreitet und werden auf beliebiges Erfahrungsmaterial angewandt, ohne sich dadurch im wesentlichen zu verändern.

 VIII. Verständigungswillige   Wenn in der Analyse im wesentlichen subjektive Phänomene wie Verdrängung der Schuld und Abwehr und objektive wie nationalistische und faschistische Ideologie hervortreten, so liegen die Gründe dafür in der Thematik der Studie ebenso wie im Material. In diesem drängen sich Äußerungen, die eine Abwehrstellung zum Ausdruck bringen, gegenüber den entgegengesetzten auf; sie liefern einen überwältigend großen Teil des einschlägigen Inhalts unserer Diskussionsprotokolle. Das ist, wie wir gesehen haben, unter anderem darauf zurückzuführen, daß, wer sich in der Defensive befindet, stets zu ausführlich argumentierenden Reden neigt. Umgekehrt tendieren Menschen, die nicht wesentlich sich schuldig fühlen, oder solche, die einer Schuld bewußt ins Auge sehen – und diese Gruppe scheint in weitem Maße mit der der Verständigungswilligen zusammenzufallen – dazu, viel weniger über das zu reden, was für sie eben kein unbewältigtes Trauma ist. Bereits der Grundreiz war ja derart konzipiert – besonders die erste Fassung – daß die Abwehrmechanismen in Aktion traten. Die Natur dieser Mechanismen, die konkrete Gestalt, welche sie gerade bei denen annehmen, die einmal Nazis waren oder aus irgendwelchen Gründen sich mit diesen identifizieren und darum die Erinnerung ans Geschehene von sich abwehren müssen, war zu erforschen. Daher galt die Analyse hauptsächlich der kritischen Zone und nicht dem entgegengesetzten Potential. Sie wurde ergänzt durch Beobachtungen über ambivalente Äußerungen und ambivalente Charaktere. Die Bemerkungen, die sich nun über verständigungsbereite Verhaltensweisen anschließen, sollen lediglich in bescheidenem Maße die unvermeidliche Einseitigkeit korrigieren und den Überblick erweitern. Aus den angeführten Gründen kann es nicht unser Ziel sein, auf Grund dieses Materials eine zureichende Vorstellung von der Position der Verständigungsbereiten gegenüber dem Schuldkomplex zu geben. Das muß vielmehr einer künftigen, auf eine solche Aufgabe spezifisch ausgerichteten Untersuchung vorbehalten bleiben. Zunächst seien einige Hinweise auf die allgemeine Stellung der verständigungswilligen Versuchsteilnehmer den Juden gegenüber

erlaubt. Dabei ist das, was von ihnen nicht gesagt wird, vielleicht ebenso wichtig wie das, was ausgesprochen wird. Es spielt etwa der sogenannte jüdische Intellekt, den die Vorurteilsvollen so oft zweideutig anerkennen, bei den Vorurteilsfreien offenbar keine wesentliche Rolle. Daß letztere die Rassentheorie ablehnen, ist zu erwarten; bemerkenswert ist jedoch, daß sie überhaupt nicht so sehr darauf ausgehen, die Juden als eine Gruppe zu charakterisieren, sondern daß ihr Denken auf die Konstruktion starrer Gruppenbilder verzichtet. Differenzen werden nicht geleugnet, aber, anstatt auf natürliche, auf soziale Faktoren zurückgeführt. Durchweg überwiegt bei dieser Haltung soziales Denken im Sinne einer mehr oder minder ausdrücklichen Solidarität mit unterdrückten Schichten. Zuweilen werden auch die Juden selbst in diesem Sinne differenziert, die reichen, kapitalistischen den armen kontrastiert. Die Verständigungsbereiten heben überhaupt gerne einzelne jüdische Gruppen als besonders positiv hervor, vielleicht im Zusammenhang mit ihrer Insistenz auf der eigenen Erfahrung und ihrer grundsätzlichen Abneigung gegen Stereotype.

 1. Gegen stereotype   In der BdJ-Gruppe wird gegenüber einem der am meisten verbreiteten Stereotype auf die Existenz jüdischer Handarbeiter hingewiesen:  

E.: Fräulein K. sagte, daß die Juden als Handwerker überhaupt nicht auftreten. Und ich kann nur dazu sagen, daß in Amerika zum Beispiel die Juden eben eine ganz andere Stellung haben, als sie es in Deutschland und überhaupt im allgemeinen in Europa hatten, und daß es auch in Amerika unter den Juden Handwerker gibt, und zwar eine recht große Anzahl. Meines Erachtens können ja die Juden nicht untereinander handeln, denn ohne Arbeit entsteht ja kein Kapital, und ohne Kapital ist ja kein Handel zu treiben. Infolgedessen müssen die Juden – ob sie wollen oder nicht – in Israel ja doch auch Handwerker sein, auch andere Berufe eben annehmen als bloß eben die eines Geschäftemachers. (Protokoll 123, S. 12)

  Später heißt es in derselben Sitzung:  

A.: Ich habe mich an und für sich nicht gemeldet, aber ich möchte wohl sagen, daß dieses Problem tief in der Geschichte zu suchen ist. Im Mittelalter war es dem Juden nicht gestattet, wie Herr G. vorhin sagte, daß er ein Handwerk ausübe, weil sich die Zünfte dagegen stellten. Ebenfalls durfte er nicht das Kriegshandwerk, das damals sehr einträglich war, ausüben. Demzufolge waren sie ganz naturnotwendig gezwungen, eben durch Handel ihr Geld zu verdienen, und das hat sich dann von Generation zu Generation so weitergesteigert, daß sie heute wohl mehr oder minder zumindest eine gewisse Fähigkeit im Handel besitzen, im Geldverdienen ... Und ich weiß nicht, ob es nun ... die Schuld des Juden ist, daß viele ihm das vorwerfen, oder die Schuld derjenigen, die damals damit anfingen, den Juden in das Ghetto zu sperren und sagten: Du darfst nicht ein Handwerk ausüben usf. (a.a.O., S. 17f.)

  Solche Äußerungen entspringen dem einfachsten gesunden Menschenverstand. Dieser scheint bei den Verständigungsbereiten weit weniger durch Rationalisierungen, halbgebildete Theoreme und wahnhafte Spekulationen angegriffen als bei den anderen. Jüdische Züge werden keineswegs geleugnet, aber es wird versucht, sie abzuleiten, anstatt sie zu inkriminieren; wie im letzten Beispiel so auch in einer Gruppe elternloser und ostvertriebener

Mädchen in einem Zusammenhang, in dem allerhand Antisemitisches vorgebracht ward:  

E.: Sie haben zwar den Abraham hinten angepumpt, aber vorn haben sie ihn ins Ghetto gejagt. Und wann war das? 1800 ist in ... die Judengasse erst aufgemacht worden. Ich meine, das sind zwei Generationen, das sind Dinge, die wir eben nicht vergessen sollen. Ich meine, wir wollen doch vernünftig sein und wollen sehen, wie kommt überhaupt eine solche Situation zustande. Und diese Leute, die aus dem Ghetto kommen drüben von Warschau und Galizien, ja, das ist auch ein Kapitel für sich ... Wenn ... drüben, der russische oder galizische Bauer spricht vom Schwein und meint damit den Juden, dann ist es auch eine Situation, die zwangsläufig zu einer Abwehrstellung führen muß ... Wenn das Kind von Anfang an im Keller groß wird und lebt wie ein Vieh, ist es ganz klar, daß diesem Individuum schwer wird, sich in der Menschheit wieder zurechtzufinden. (Protokoll 59, S. 19f.)

  So ungeschickt das auch ausgedrückt ist, deutlich ist doch samt der Intention, »vernünftig zu sein«, die Einsicht, daß nicht etwa die Juden von sich aus zu all dem tendieren, was ihnen nachgesagt wird, sondern daß ihnen die Existenzform des Ghettos aufgezwungen wurde. In der Primanersitzung wird ebenfalls gegen antisemitische Verallgemeinerungen polemisiert:  

R.: Es sind drei bis vier Namen, so daß die Gefahr besteht, daß man verallgemeinert. Wir könnten viel mehr deutsche Namen nennen. Auch wir könnten hunderte von Namen nennen, sowohl im Osten wie im Westen, wo die größten Regierungsmänner, Kaufleute usw. schieben bis dort hinaus. Außerdem haben wir den Juden sehr viel Unrecht zugefügt, als daß wir mit solchen Bagatellen irgendwelche antisemitischen Gefühle wieder restaurieren könnten. Gerade heute die Friedhofsschändungen. Ich glaube, daß dies unangenehmere Vorkommnisse sind als jene Schiebungen von Juden ... in der Öffentlichkeit. (Zwischenrufe: Vorsicht! Vorsicht!) Es tut mir leid, daß hier schon wieder gerade in dieser Richtung gehende Gefühle ausgesprochen wurden. (Protokoll 27, S. 29)

  Das Motiv wird im Verlauf der Sitzung noch einmal aufgenommen:   W.: Ich wollte sagen, wenn an der ... Straße die Juden stehen, dann wird verschwiegen, daß an anderen Ecken ... auch noch andere Leute stehen, die

keine Juden sind. (Zwischenruf: Sehr richtig!) Und dann möchte ich sagen, die Juden schieben ja nicht, weil sie Juden sind, sondern, das möchte ich sagen, weil sie geschäftstüchtig sind. Die Geschäftstüchtigkeit müssen wir ablehnen, aber ich habe den Eindruck, daß sich manche Leute nur gegen die Juden wenden, weil dies aus einem gewissen Neid geschieht. Subjektiv mag das alles berechtigt sein, gefühlsmäßig auch. Aber ich glaube nicht, daß man eine ganze Rasse von Millionen Menschen nun diskriminieren kann ... weil hier ... einige Dutzend ... Und dann möchte ich folgendes sagen: Man sagt: die Juden nach Israel! Damit will man die Juden hier aus Ländern ausweisen, um sie einem eigenen Staat zuzuweisen. Diese Methode sollte meiner Ansicht nach überholt sein. Wer auswandern will, der mag es tun. Wer hier bleiben will, der kann es auch tun. Er muß darauf sehen, daß er nur die Gesetze befolgt. Aber es geht nicht an, daß man eine ganze Menschenrasse diskriminiert. Wenn hier eine gewisse antisemitische Stimmung herrscht, so ist die Begründung dafür meines Erachtens weniger in einer objektiven als subjektiven Haltung zu sehen, daß eben auf Grund der Beeinflussung durch den Nationalsozialismus eine gewisse Antipathie gegen die Juden besteht, und ich möchte mich entschieden dagegen wenden, daß man die Juden als solche angreift, sondern man sollte die Leute angreifen, die schieben, ohne in den Vordergrund zu stellen: Das ist ein Jude, das ist ein Katholik oder Atheist, oder was. (a.a.O., S. 35f.)

  Danach wird die Kritik der Verallgemeinerung auch auf die antideutschen Stereotypen ausgedehnt, wobei übrigens die recht aufschlußreiche Bemerkung fällt, daß auch der Sprecher, der sich am energischsten dem Verallgemeinern widersetzt, dabei undifferenziert von »dem Juden« rede.

 2. Ablehnung des Rassenprinzips   Weit bestimmter und eindeutiger als die Argumentationen, die sich um das formale Prinzip der Verallgemeinerung bewegen, sind diejenigen, die auf eine inhaltliche Ablehnung des Rassenprinzips hinauslaufen. Wenn die Nationalsozialisten seit H. St. Chamberlain immer wieder die Rassentheorie als Kernstück ihrer Doktrin in Anspruch nehmen, so ist diese Doktrin in der Tat wohl das Element, an dem sich die Geister scheiden. Doch ist festzustellen, daß unzweideutige Ablehnungen der Rassentheorie selten sind und zögernd, und daß Formulierungen wie die von der »etwas verstiegenen Rassentheorie« 26 überwiegen. Hierher gehört auch der Ausdruck: »völlig überspannte Dinge wie Rasse und Judentum« 27 . Unmißverständlich spricht eine 70jährige Frau, obwohl sie sich von dem Nazistereotyp »Neger und Juden« noch nicht freigemacht hat:  

H.: Ich habe noch nie was gegen die Juden gehabt. Ich habe von Kind auf Freunde in jüdischen Familien gehabt, und bin in jüdischen Familien verkehrt als Schülerin ... Das waren die edelsten Menschen, die ich mir denke. Mir hat noch nie ein Jude was getan; ich verurteile überhaupt all diesen Rassenkampf. Was kann der Mensch dafür, ob er schwarz oder weiß ist. Ich bin da viel großzügiger in meinem Denken. (Protokoll 43, S. 5)

  Unzweideutig ist auch die Äußerung aus der BdJ-Sitzung, derzufolge man an jeden Menschen als Menschen herantreten sollte.   Z.: Ich glaube, man sollte überhaupt auch – um auf das Rassenproblem noch zurückzukommen – an jeden Menschen als Mensch herantreten und sich nicht nur über Rassen, sondern auch über Nationalitäten hinwegsetzen. Und wenn wir nun sagen: Die Engländer haben auch, und die haben auch ... Wir sollten das nicht als Entschuldigung nehmen für das, was das Nazideutschland mit den Juden gemacht hat, sondern wir sollen doch versuchen, tatsächlich ohne Vorurteil ranzugehen und sehen, was kommt, und dann nicht den Juden verurteilen, sondern den Menschen, der da irgendwie dunkle Geschäfte oder charakterliche Schwächen gehabt hatte. Denn ich bitte Sie – ich möchte an die Zeit des Schwarzmarktes erinnern. Und der Schwarzmarkt ... ich glaube, die Hintermänner, die da verdient hatten, von denen wir nur sehr wenig wissen, schlimmer kann es der Jude ...

auch fast nicht gemacht haben. Ich meine, daraus bin ich schließlich zu der Erkenntnis gekommen, daß man den Juden schlechthin in keiner Weise verurteilen soll, sondern eben, wie gesagt, immer als Mensch zu Mensch zum Juden gehen ... Wir haben so und so viel Deutsche unter uns, die uns unsympathisch sind, soweit wir glauben, wir sind eben charakterlich besser, und er ist eben charakterlich schlechter usw. usw. Gerade der Deutsche – wenn es die anderen noch nicht tun, nun gut – dann sollen wir damit anfangen, von Mensch zu Mensch all unser Denken, all unser Handeln auszurichten. (Protokoll 123, S. 14f.)

  Ähnlich spricht sich ein Primaner aus:  

B.: Darf ich einmal etwas dazu sagen? Ich habe auch eine Abneigung gegen die Juden. Woher das kommt, möchte ich nicht erörtern. Ich möchte aber eins sagen, wie dem zu begegnen wäre. Wenn ich mich bemühe, dem Juden gegenüber objektiv zu sein und ihn so zu behandeln, wie ich jeden anderen Menschen behandeln würde, kann ich dann nicht für mich einen gewissen Antisemitismus, den ich in mir verspüre; woher er kommt, kann ich dann nicht mehr in mir haben. Ich glaube, es geht nicht nur mir so, sondern vielen Deutschen und vielen anderen Menschen. (Protokoll 27, S. 47)

  Dieser Primaner hat, vermöge der einfachen Verpflichtung zur Objektivität und Selbstbesinnung, die kathartische Methode der Psychoanalyse für sich entdeckt.

 3. Propaganda Schuld am Antisemitismus   Die verständigungsbereiten Versuchsteilnehmer, die die üblichen Begründungen des Antisemitismus, sei's durch Kritik der Rassentheorie ganz ablehnen, sei's mit gesellschaftlichen Argumentationen nur bedingt zulassen, erheben die Frage, woher der Antisemitismus rühre. Dabei erscheinen nun regelmäßig die Begriffe der Propaganda und der Hetze. Es zeigt sich darin das richtige Bewußtsein von dem nicht-spontanen, manipulativen Charakter des Antisemitismus; zugleich aber fungieren die verwandten Begriffe ein wenig auch als Zauberformel, die anstelle schwieriger und nur wenigen zugänglicher Reflexionen über die sozialen, politischen und ökonomischen Mechanismen treten, die den Antisemitismus hervorbringen. In der Sitzung mit großstädtischen Frauen erscheint im Zusammenhang mit der Propagandathese die auffallend seltene, aber den Tatsachen ganz angemessene Aussage, daß man vor Hitler kaum gewußt habe, ob man mit einem Juden oder Christen zusammen war:  

K.: Ich weiß sogar, daß vorher man kaum wußte, ob man mit einem Juden zusammensitzt oder einem Christen, und man ist dem Juden genau so gut gewesen wie dem Christen, und man hat da keinen großen Unterschied gemacht. Ich kann mich entsinnen, daß ich mit Menschen zusammen war, mit recht angenehmen Menschen, und habe dann erst erfahren, daß sie Juden waren, als sie ausgewandert sind. Also ich denke mir, daß die Antipathie überhaupt erst nach 1933 aufgekommen ist. (Protokoll 9, S. 30f.)

  Daß von Propaganda immer etwas hängen bleibt – ein Motiv, recht nahe verwandt dem der Abwehr, das sich darauf beruft, daß ein Widerstand nicht möglich gewesen sei – wird in einer Frauengruppe behauptet:  

D.: Und wenn es den Menschen immer wieder eingeimpft wird über Jahre hinaus, wenn er sich auch im Anfang dagegen wehrt, es wird immer etwas davon hängen bleiben und mit der Zeit auch vielleicht seine eigene Überzeugung werden. So ... ist es mit allen Fragen und Problemen, die eben vom nationalsozialistischen Staat aufgenommen wurden. E.: Darf ich auf ein konkretes Beispiel hinweisen, das war das Schild »Deutsches

Geschäft«. Diesem Schild konnte sich kein Kaufmann entziehen. Er hat sich entzogen, ich weiß es von Bekannten und von vielen, er hat es eben hingeklebt bekommen, wenn er es nicht gemacht hat. Und wenn er es weggemacht hat, dann wurden eben andere Repressalien gegen ihn ergriffen. Ich meine, das sind Tatsachen; ich meine, da kann man nicht sagen, das stand in dem Bereich von ihm, daß es gemacht wird. Sondern das schöne Schild, das gelbe mit dem schwarzen Deutsch, das wurde zu gewissen Zeiten eben aufgehängt. Das war natürlich in verschiedenen Städten und Landstrichen verschieden, mag sein. Aber wo's da war von der Arbeitsfront oder von irgendwelchen anderen Institutionen, der hat eben dann geglaubt, je mehr Schilder er hängt, desto ... besseren Platz kriegt er im Himmel. (Protokoll 59, S. 13)

  Zur Erklärung des Pogroms heißt es in einer anderen Sitzung:  

R.: Wir sind morgens aufgewacht, und da hat es geheißen, die Synagoge brennt. Wer war das? Das waren nur die Nazibuben. Es muß doch einer gemacht haben; und da war eben ein Führer da, aber das war doch kein Führer, das war ein Anstifter! Das ist doch meines Erachtens kein Führer net, wo so Jungen von 13–14 Jahre – die haben doch keine Macht da drüber, die durften des ... (Protokoll 9, S. 20)

  Dieselbe Frau sagt später:  

R.: ... durch ihre Vereine, was sie da eingepaukt kriegt habe.

(a.a.O., S. 24)

  Die Unselbständigkeit ist gesehen. Die Beteiligung von Kindern an den Ausschreitungen erzwingt die Einsicht, daß es sich zugleich um etwas Manipuliertes gehandelt haben muß. Die Unterscheidung von »Führer« und »Anstifter« indiziert, daß dieser Sprecherin etwas von dem anarchischen Element des autoritären Staates aufgegangen ist. Immerhin klingt die Stelle so, als wäre es der Hitlerpropaganda gelungen, den Ausdruck Führer selbst mit einem solchen Glorienschein zu umgeben, daß die Frau, wenn etwas Schändliches geschieht und sie nach den Manipulatoren sucht, nach einem anderen Wort als Führer greifen muß. In solchen minimalen Zügen leben auch in Gutwilligen Denkgewohnheiten des Dritten Reiches nach.

 4. Positive Beziehungen   Zahlreich sind Äußerungen der vorurteilsfreien Versuchsteilnehmer, in denen sie ausdrücklich von positiven Beziehungen zu Juden aus ihrem eigenen engeren Erfahrungskreis sprechen. Der Tenor dieser Äußerungen ist: »wir haben nichts gegen die Juden gehabt«. Belegt wird das häufig damit, daß man in jüdischen Geschäften gekauft habe; privater Verkehr tritt demgegenüber auffallend zurück. Reich an solchen Äußerungen ist etwa die Frauengruppe aus einem hessischen Dorf. Der Colburn-Brief wird abgewehrt, aber nicht aus Antisemitismus, sondern umgekehrt, weil man bestreitet, antisemitisch zu sein:  

K.: Ich finde es auch nicht richtig, wenn in dem Brief hier geschrieben wird, daß wir gegen die Juden noch heute feindlich eingestellt sind. Das hat doch eine Masse schon damals nicht getan. Und sogar ich bin selbst zu den Juden damals noch hingegangen, wo es wirklich gefährlich war. W.: Ich auch, ich war 1936 noch bei den Juden (Zustimmung). Besucht habe ich sie auch noch. Th.: Wir haben noch am zweitletzten Abend gekauft dort ... aber nur mit List ... Konnte ich ja nicht ... K.: Ich habe bestimmt damals nichts gegen die Juden und heute auch nichts. (Allgemeine Verneinung.) (Protokoll 135, S. 1f.)

  Allgemein wird in einer Flüchtlingsgruppe, die eine gewisse Besonnenheit zeigt, versichert, man habe nichts gegen die Juden gehabt, und zwar ebenfalls in Opposition zu der Stelle aus dem Colburn-Brief über das Wiederaufleben des Antisemitismus:  

M.: Und nun wurde in dem Brief doch gesagt, daß wir die Juden heute auch wohl noch hassen. War das nicht so? Vl.: Ja, das schreibt er, daß es Menschen gibt, die auch heute die Juden noch hassen. M.: Ja, dazu muß ich sagen, daß ich das nirgends eigentlich in Deutschland und hier unter uns beobachtet habe. Ich finde, wir haben sie auch früher eigentlich persönlich nicht gehaßt. Wir haben in einer kleinen Stadt gelebt. Da haben die Juden unter uns gewohnt. Unsere Nachbarn waren Juden oder Halbjuden; unsere Kinder haben miteinander gespielt, noch bis zum letzten Augenblick. Meine Tochter ging mit einem Mädchen, das eine Halbjüdin war, bis zuletzt zur Schule zusammen. Wir haben miteinander verkehrt, wir

haben uns noch nach der Flucht geschrieben, der hat sich selbst an uns gewandt. Also ein persönlicher Judenhaß, muß ich sagen, das ist doch niemals bei uns gewesen. (Protokoll 107, S. 15f.)

  Gerade diejenigen, die nicht Schuldbewußtsein verdrängen und keine krampfhafte Haltung der Abwehr einnehmen müssen, haben die Freiheit, das Wahre auszusprechen, daß nicht alle Deutschen Antisemiten seien. So heißt es in einer keineswegs politisch definierten, aber von Erfahrung getragenen Stelle der mehrfach in diesem Abschnitt zitierten Mädchengruppe:  

I.: Ich wollte nur sagen, daß ja nicht alle so judenfeindlich eingestellt waren und daß es sehr viele Leute gab, ganze Familien, die eben judenfreundlich eingestellt waren, und die auch mancher jüdischen Familie mal geholfen haben, und die dann, wenn die Juden nach Amerika kamen und überhaupt nach dem Ausland, die haben weitergeschrieben und die Verbindung bestand bis nach 1945 mit diesen Familien. Also nicht alle Deutschen waren hundertprozentig gegen die Juden. (Protokoll 59, S. 10)

  Bei arbeitslosen Frauen schließlich resultiert das summarische Urteil:  

X.: Diese Judenverfolgungen haben wir wohl alle, der größte Teil des deutschen Volkes verdammt. (Protokoll 34, S. 14)

  Die hier erkennbare Tendenz, große Gruppen vom Antisemitismus zu distanzieren, entspringt wohl ganz anderen Motiven als den früher behandelten, die eigene Gruppe reinzuwaschen. Zugrunde liegt viel mehr der Impuls, für das Volk zu reden, und die damit eng zusammenhängende Neigung, das Volk von jenen zu scheiden, die von jeher den Antisemitismus mit Arbeiterfeindschaft verbunden haben. Diese Versuchsteilnehmer wollen nicht etwa sich und ihre Gruppe herausstreichen; ihnen ist unerträglich, daß Menschen in der gleichen sozialen Lage wie sie ihren Abscheu gegen die Ablenkungsmanöver der Gewaltherrschaft nicht teilen sollten.

 5. Der kleine Mann nicht Antisemitisch   Wie in der Bewertung der Juden bei vielen der nicht-antisemitischen Versuchsteilnehmer das Klassenmoment, die Unterscheidung von kleinen und großen Juden hereinspielt, so macht sich das soziale Motiv auch in der subjektiven Abgrenzung des Antisemitismus geltend in der These, daß »der kleine Mann nicht Antisemit sei«. Es kommt dabei nicht auf die Wahrheit oder Unwahrheit des Satzes an, sondern vielmehr darauf, daß in ihm ein mehr oder minder deutliches Bewußtsein dessen sich anzeigt, daß der Antisemitismus den Interessen bestimmter einflußreicher Gruppen dient. Es war bereits eine Stelle aus der Diskussion einer ländlichen Frauengruppe zitiert, in der »eine Masse schon damals« nicht feindlich gegen die Juden eingestellt war. Etwas später heißt es in der gleichen Sitzung:  

A.: Also, die sind ja von den Oberen aufgepeitscht worden, das ist ja nur eine Hetze gewesen. Denn ich glaube, der kleine Mann, der hat nie etwas gegen den Juden gehabt. (Protokoll 135, S. 3)

  Konkretisiert wird das im weiteren Verlauf der Sitzung:

K.: Ja, was die kleine Bevölkerung anbelangt, die hat bestimmt ein Einsehen mit den Leuten gehabt. Sch.: Denen haben wir manchmal ... ein Stück Brot gegeben, nicht wahr, und die haben sich so bedankt dafür. (a.a.O., S. 15)

  Ähnlich konkret wird von einem Stammtisch von Handwerkern berichtet, die nicht antisemitisch gewesen wären:  

Th.: Dann war ich mal in einer bürgerlichen Äppelweinkneipe in der ... Straße. Da saß ich mal am Stammtisch durch Zufall – an diesem Stammtisch waren fast durchweg deutsche Handwerksmeister. Da kam auch das politische Gespräch auf die Juden. Die haben nur diese ... Juden gelobt. Sie wären in jeder Weise anständig gewesen, hätten anständig bezahlt, auch ihren Angestellten das dreizehnte Gehalt gegeben. Das wäre ganz üblich gewesen. Und bei Familienfeierlichkeiten, Taufe oder Todesfall usw. hätten sie immer eine Unterstützung der Juden gefunden. (Protokoll 42, S. 13f.)

  In der Sitzung von Gewerkschafts- und Betriebsratsmitgliedern erscheint derselbe Gedanke, bezogen auf die Arbeiterschaft:  

U.: Ich erinnere nur an die Zeitschrift »Der Stürmer«. Der Stürmer als solcher war bestimmt eine Zeitschrift, die man hier im allgemeinen, also in den Kreisen, wo ich als Arbeiter verkehrte, abgelehnt hat. Er wurde doch mit den Staatsmachtmitteln gewaltsam gestützt, und die Leute mußten das zum Schluß nachher wirklich schlucken. (Protokoll 24, S. 9f.)

  Es bleibt aber nicht bei der These, daß die organisierte Arbeiterschaft durch ihre Tradition gegen den Antisemitismus gefeit gewesen wäre, sondern es wird dann weiter – vermutlich ebenfalls mit Recht – an das spezifische Klima erinnert, das insgesamt antinazistisch gewesen sei:  

F.: Ich weiß, daß hier in ... wo ich seinerzeit wohnte, ganze Stapel von Wahlzetteln gefälscht wurden; die wurden einfach zurückgewiesen von den braunen Banditen seinerzeit und wurden für ungültig erklärt. Ich bin überzeugt, daß gerade hier in ... die Mehrheit gegen das Naziregime war, und ich kann nicht den Standpunkt teilen, daß 50:50 das deutsche Volk schuld ist an den Dingen, die da geschehen sind, und, was das anbetrifft, ... diese Massenlynchjustiz gegenüber den Juden, daß sie dem deutschen Volk tatsächlich nicht bekannt gewesen ist. (a.a.O., S. 15)

  Dieser Sprecher verschmäht den Unterschied zwischen Lynchen und Nazimaßnahmen: er nennt die letzteren »Massenlynchjustiz«!

 6. Zugeständnis und Verurteilung der Antisemitischen Massnahmen   Es liegt nah anzunehmen, daß vorurteilslose Versuchsteilnehmer den Antisemitismus überhaupt abstreiten oder seine Bedeutung verkleinern, und das zuletzt vorgelegte Material hat dieser Annahme Gewicht verliehen. Aber die Wahrheit ist komplizierter. Unterstellt man, daß bei den Versuchsteilnehmern, welche den Antisemitismus mehr oder minder generell leugnen, der Wunsch der Vater des Gedankens sei, so gibt es andererseits auch solche Vorurteilsfreie, die den Ernst der Fortexistenz der Naziideologie erkennen und ihre eigene Gesinnung gerade am Widerstand gegen das von ihnen Erkannte entwickeln. Die Trennung von »in-« und »outgroup« beschränkt sich als psychologisches Konstituens keineswegs auf diejenigen, bei denen sie ein Element der Ideologie bildet. Diejenigen Versuchsteilnehmer, welche den Antisemitismus leugnen, sind im allgemeinen eher harmlose, gutgläubige, etwas naive und nicht allzusehr mit Reflexionen belastete Menschen, während man die, welche die Tatsache des Antisemitismus sehen und schwernehmen, eher unter den bewußten und kritischen findet. Prononciert ist gerade bei diesen die Neigung, nicht etwa in allgemeinen Erwägungen sich zu ergehen, sondern auf ihre eigenen Erfahrungen zu rekurrieren. Dabei spielt die Hauptrolle die »Kristallnacht«, die sie solche Erfahrungen machen ließ; die verwaltungsmäßig durchgeführte Ausrottung tritt demgegenüber zurück. Die Empörung mißt sich nicht nach dem Umfang und der Größe des Verübten, sondern nach der Nähe der Specher zu den Ereignissen. In gewissen Situationen mag als Negativum dieser Haltung sich ergeben, daß gerade die warmer und unmittelbarer Regung Fähigen nur in geringem Maße von dem erreicht werden, was sich nicht in ihrer Nähe, im Bereich leibhafter Präsenz abspielt. Wie tief jedoch schockhafte Erfahrungen vom Unrecht zuweilen gehen, kommt in der Modeschulgruppe zutage:   M.: Das hat mir einen ungeheuren Eindruck gemacht. Ich war damals zwölf Jahre alt und seit der Zeit ist eigentlich bei mir so ungefähr der Knacks gekommen, daß ich mich mit Politik beschäftigt habe, falls man bei zwölfjährigen Mädchen überhaupt sagen kann, daß es sich mit Politik

beschäftigt hat. Aber seit der Zeit habe ich mir Gedanken gemacht. Das war irgendwie so ein Erlebnis, und seit der Zeit habe ich auch nicht mehr alles so hingenommen, wie ich das bis dahin getan habe, und es hat unbedingt 'nen Eindruck auf mich gemacht. (Protokoll 72, S. 29)

  Abermals hat die Erzählung auslösende Wirkung auf andere Teilnehmer. Eine 21jährige Kollegin fährt fort:  

R.: Ja, also ich habe auch in ... diese ganzen Judengeschichten erlebt und habe mir damals auch als zehnjähriges Kind gesagt: Das ist ja ein Irrsinn, oder, wenn ich es mir jetzt später überlege, da wurden aus den Häusern diese Möbel und Wertgegenstände zum Beispiel auch sichergestellt und weggetragen von SS-Leuten, und man wußte dann nicht wohin. Als Kind sagte man dann: Na ja, der nimmt des jetzt mit. Und man hat aber diese ganze Geschichte sehr eindrucksvoll auch erlebt, daß da der ganze Kram auf den Straßen angesteckt wurde, und man hat sich gesagt: Um Gottes willen, warum wird das alles kaputtgemacht? Also, es war ein Erlebnis für uns alle und kam doch immer mehr zu dieser deutlichen Überzeugung: Das ist ja Quatsch, was da gemacht wird. Was haben diese Menschen uns getan? Denn kein Jude hat uns gebissen. (a.a.O., S. 29)

  Das Allerwichtigste, die Unschuld der Millionen Opfer an dem was ihnen angetan ward, wird schlicht und ohne Klauseln ausgesagt:  

G.: Das waren Leute, die eigentlich nichts gemacht haben, die weggeführt wurden. Wenn jemand anders weggeführt wurde, wenn er sich politisch betätigt hat, wenn er ins KZ kam, aber der Jude konnte wirklich nichts dazu. (Protokoll 42, S. 21)

  Diesem Sprecher fällt das Zufällige und zugleich blind Fatale in der Wahl eines objektiven Feindes auf, die für totalitäre Regime so bezeichnend ist: die völlige Trennung von Urteil und Gesinnung verbreitet mehr als alles andere Schrecken vor der blind zupackenden Gewalt. In dem Barackenlager für Flüchtlinge herrschen besondere Spannungen mit den Einheimischen, und das mag dazu beitragen, daß diese Frauen mit anderen Verfolgten sympathisieren. Es kommt zu folgendem Gespräch:   Z.: Bei uns hat's mitten in der Nacht, haben sie die Juden in der Kreisstadt aus den Wohnungen geschmissen, die Möbel raus und die Judenkirche

angesteckt und alles. Der Jude, der war 63 Jahre alt oder 68 Jahr, der wo bei uns immer verkehrt hat, und hat uns die Wäsche und alles gebracht, der hat bitter bis in unsere Wohnung hat der geflennt. Sch.: Ja, wir haben in ... auch einen sehr guten Mann gehabt. Bei dem haben wir alles gekauft, der hat uns immer gut bedient. Und der Mann, der hat geweint wie ein kleines Kind, als er raus sollte. Dem haben sie das Geschäft abgenommen, da ist einer reingekommen von der Partei, und der mußte einfach raus mit seiner Familie. Und das waren wirklich schmucke Leute. Die haben bei dem Bäcker kein Brot mehr gekriegt, die sollen nichts mehr kriegen. Natürlich haben wir es ihnen heimlich eben (zu-) gesteckt, denn die Leute wollen ja auch nicht verhungern. Mich wollte ein Bäckermeister auf die schwarze Liste bringen. Es war doch so'ne schwarze Tafel, nitwahr. Wenn meine Mutter nicht hätte so gut mit dem Bäcker gestimmt, wäre ich auch ruffgekommen, bloß weil ich dem Juden gedankt habe. (Schlägt auf den Tisch) Und ich kann nicht an einem Menschen vorbeigehen und nicht danken, wenn er mich grüßt freundlich, niwahr, und er hat mir nichts getan. Das sehe ich gar nicht ein. I.: Bei uns war es so, da wurden die Juden rausgetrieben, wurden ins Gefängnis gebracht, und die Geschäftsbücher und alles verbrannt und zerrissen. Die durften mitnehmen, und dann wurden sie ... natürlich durften sie so und soviel mitnehmen, soviel Geld und wurden nachher nach Argentinien usw. ... Durften sie nachher weiterfahren von ... aus ... (Zwischenruf: Die armen Menschen, die sind gar nimmer zurückgekommen.) ... weiß ich nicht. Also, die haben's tatsächlich noch sehr gut gehabt, die haben auch so von der Bevölkerung noch Essen und so bekommen. Vl.: Wann war denn das? I.: Ja, wie die Juden alle rausmußten, nicht. Die wurden rausgebracht in die Gefängnisse und kamen ... Vl.: Wie bitte? (Zwischenruf: Manche Flüchtlinge haben noch mitnehmen können.) H.: Die haben sie doch rausgejagt. Wir haben in der Judenstraße gewohnt, das war ein Hohn, kann ich Ihnen sagen! Da habe ich zu meinem Mann gesagt: So gehen wir mal, noch mit weniger! Die hatten noch ein kleines Handwägelchen ... und da habe ich hinter der Gardine gestanden, da habe ich zu meinem Mann gesagt: So gehen wir! Vl.: Wo haben Sie das erlebt, Frau H.? H.: In ... Ich wohnte in einer Judenstraße, wo die Synagoge, da haben sie, wie heißt das, so ein Kinderheim, ganz kleine Kinder, die haben sie auf die Straße geschmissen, ich habe es gesehen. (Allgemeine Entrüstung) U.: Und die Synagogen, die sie angebrannt haben, das waren genau so Kirchen, wie es unsere Kirchen sind. (Zwischenrufe: Das war ein Hohn! Es sind doch auch Menschen!) H.: Und was hat ein kleines Kind damit zu tun? Daß sie so was auf die Straße schmeißen, nicht! B.: Das kann so wenig dafür, daß es ein Jude ist, wie wir Christen sind.

(Zustimmung)

(Protokoll 91, S. 33ff.)

  Hier schließt sich, wie öfters, das Motiv der Wiedervergeltung an die Detailschilderung an. Selbst das Mitleid vermag sich nicht ganz vom Eigeninteresse abzulösen: Unrecht wird verdammt, weil es auf die Eigengruppe zurückfallen kann. Es ist, als gewönne man Einblick in primitive Phasen der Identifikation, gleichsam in die Urgeschichte der Humanität.

 7. Anerkennung der deutschen Schuld   In den Analysen der Abwehr der Schuld am Begangenen war die Rolle aufgezeigt, die die Bilanz des Leidens und der Gedanke, alles sei überholt, spielt. Das wichtigste Gegenargument der Verständigungswilligen ist dagegen, daß unbestreitbar totaler Krieg sowohl wie Verfolgung der Zivilbevölkerung von Hitler ausging. Zu folgender Aussage kommt es in der oft zitierten Sitzung großstädtischer Frauen:  

B.: Der Hitler hat aber angefange. Er hat doch gesagt, er radiert alle Städte aus. Er hat doch in England so und so viel Kinnerheime und Kinner usw. vernichtet, daß die nachher komme. Und es ist doch ganz klar, wenn ich eine geschlage bekomm heute, dann stell ich mich net hin und sag: Dank schön! sondern ich geb sie ihm doppelt zurück. (Protokoll 9, S. 58)

  Grundsätzlich wird die deutsche Kriegsschuld von einem offenbar politisch geschulten Gewerkschaftsmann festgestellt:  

H.: Wenn man von einer Schuld spricht, dann, glaube ich, kann man voll bejahen, daß Deutschland doch Schuld hat an dem Krieg. Die aggressive Außenpolitik, die Deutschland getrieben hat in seinen Regimejahren, beweist es ja. (Protokoll 24, S. 18)

  In den vereinzelten Fällen führt diese Haltung zur Identifizierung mit dem ehemaligen Feind, und die Bombardierungen werden als verdient hingenommen. Gerade solche, die selbst ganz schuldlos sind, neigen zur moralischen Identifikation mit der Schuld. So in der Polizistengruppe:  

H.: Es wird zu viel gesprochen. Aber wir müssen uns Zeit lassen und für sich die Tatsachen vor Augen werfen, die die Ursachen zum heutigen Geschehen überhaupt aufwerfen. Wer ist denn daran schuld an den heutigen Geschehnissen? Wer ist denn schuld an dem ganzen Elend? Das brauchte alles nicht zu sein, wenn der Krieg nicht gekommen wäre. Und wer hat den Krieg entfacht? Die Regierung! Und die Regierung – wer ist denn das? Ich möchte sagen: das Volk. Und das sind wir dann, nicht wahr? Das Volk ist

mitschuldig geworden, selbstverständlich, insofern, als die Ausländer genügend durch die Presse – den Rundfunk vom Geschehenen in Deutschland ... erzählt bekamen. Und daß die Amerikaner hierherkamen und haben sich dann anständig ausgetobt und austoben wollten, ist klar ... nicht wahr. Die Greueltaten wurden damals vorgelebt. Immer wieder muß man sagen: Ursache ist der Krieg, und die Leiden müssen wir eben, ob wir wollen oder nicht wollen, tragen. (Protokoll 28, S. 55f.)

  Das Ganze kulminiert in dem Gedanken, daß die Schuld der deutschen Regierung zufalle, und daß kraft der Wahlen, die Hitler an die Macht brachten, das deutsche Volk Schuld trage. Wie ein Motto steht am Anfang der keineswegs politisch besonders artikulierten Sitzung katholischer Frauen der Passus:  

H.: Ich bin eine echte Deutsche, aber ich muß das doch sagen, der Mann (Colburn) hat in vielem sehr recht. Wir sind sehr überheblich, immer noch, nicht wahr. Und wir wollen uns damit noch immer nicht abfinden, daß wir die Schuldigen sind, nicht, und die Schuldigen waren ... die ganze Welt in Brand gesteckt haben. Wir haben tatsächlich auch diese Unordnung durch Hitler gebracht. (Protokoll 43, S. 1)

  Man darf wohl ohne Gewaltsamkeit einen Zusammenhang konstruieren zwischen der Betonung dessen, daß die Sprecherin eine »echte Deutsche« sei, und ihrer Identifikation mit der Schuld. Sie zieht aus dem in der Sprache der Diskussion üblichen »wir« die Konsequenz: wenn man sich schon sehr stark als Glied des Kollektivs erfährt und daraus Befriedigung zieht, muß man auch für das Negative einstehen. Der Tenor kehrt wieder in der weiter unten angeführten Aussage jener Frau, die sagt, daß sie, wenn sie stolz auf Goethe sei, ebenso auch sich als schuldbeladen wegen der Untaten an Juden fühlen müsse. Es herrscht also keineswegs blanke Identität zwischen Nationalbewußtsein und Abwehr der Schuld. Näher dürfte man der Wahrheit kommen, wenn man unterstellt, daß Menschen, welche dem Schuldbewußtsein krampfhaft sich entziehen, durchwegs auch solche sind, die ihr Nationalbewußtsein fingieren und übertreiben, gerade weil sie einer substantiellen Solidarität mit irgendwelchen anderen Menschen nicht fähig sind, während solche, die wirklich noch etwas vom Begriff des Volkes verspüren, eben darum auch auf sich nehmen, was das Volk als Ganzes betrifft.

 8. Sühnebereitschaft   Vielleicht ist jedoch für die Haltung der verständigungswilligen Versuchsteilnehmer maßgebend gar nicht so sehr das Zugeständnis von Schuld an sich, das ja auch in den Formen der Abwehr, die mit Bilanzen operieren, eine Rolle spielt, sondern vielmehr die Bereitschaft, das Geschehene, ohne daß man vom Gedanken daran und dem Widerstand dagegen besessen wäre, zur Sache der eigenen Verantwortung zu machen. Die Schwelle liegt nicht beim Zugestehen oder Leugnen objektiver Tatbestände, sondern bei der Tendenz des Individuums, sich selbst moralisch einzubeziehen. Man darf vielleicht sagen, daß eigentlich nur der vom neurotischen Schuldgefühl frei ist und fähig, den ganzen Komplex zu überwinden, der sich selbst als schuldig erfährt, auch an dem, woran er im handgreiflichen Sinne nicht schuldig ist. Eine 47jährige Hausfrau spricht das aus:  

G.: Wenn ich stolz darauf sein will, daß Goethe einer der unseren ist – und das bin ich – dann muß ich mich, dann fühle ich mich zum mindesten persönlich ... ebenso schuldbeladen, weil es ja die unseren waren, die die Dinge mit den Juden gemacht haben. Ich setze das durchaus gleich, ich für meine Person. Man muß die Dinge, die in der Familie geschehen, auf sich nehmen, man muß auch die Dinge, die in der Nation geschehen, auf sich nehmen. Und wenn ich etwa an einer Verfehlung meines Vaters nicht schuldig bin, so fällt es doch in etwas auf mich zurück, ebenso seine Verdienste. (Protokoll 59, S. 37f.)

  Und eine 56jährige katholische Teilnehmerin sagt:  

L.: Aber ich kann es unter Eid aussagen, was da an den Jude gesündigt worde is. Das is uns natürlich wieder – wir mußte selbst sühne. Ich nemm auch mei eigene Ausgebombtheit jederzeit als Sühne auf mich für die große Schuld, die an Unschuldige getan worde is. Es gibt ja auch unter uns Christe, da wolle mir uns gar nix weismache, genau so ein Pharisäer- und Judentum, versteckt und noch viel schlimmer, als unner den Jude. Aber der Amerikaner hat schon Recht, wenn er sagt, sie hawe in Deutschland mehr Jude ermordet als in einem Jahr Neger. Des is so. Ich darf an das Thema gar net komme, es regt mich so auf. (Protokoll 9, S. 12f.)

 

Diese Frau kommt auf ihre Erfahrungen zurück und beharrt bei dem Gedanken, daß sie das Selbsterlittene als Sühne auffaßt:  

L.: Also, ich habe Ihnen hier frei gesagt: ich bin zweimal ausgebombt worde und einmal ganz ausgebrannt, und ich habe viel miterleben müssen durch diesen verflixten Hitler, weil wir eben »schwarz« waren. Das bekenne ich ehrlich ein, habe auch viel Not gelitten, aber ich habe es eben so aufgenommen, daß es eben eine Sühne war für diese große Schuld, die das Volk tragen muß. Und da sucht sich unser Herrgott letzten Endes immer wieder solche Menschen aus, die weniger schuld an was sind. Und eine Sühne soll ja immer ein Unschuldiger leisten für eine Schuld. Das ist meine Ansicht gewesen für meine schwere Ausgebombtheit, denn ich habe bestimmt in meinem Leben noch net soviel verbrochen, daß ich da dreimal ausgebombt – ich habe diesen Kerl nicht anerkannt, das war noch das Schlimmste. Und wir sind schwer mitgenommen worden. Ich habe mir – ich bin sehr gut katholisch, das sage ich offen raus, und ich meine, ich würde nie meinem Herrgott sagen: Was hast Du mit mir gemacht? Aus dem einen Grund, weil ich – ich habe mir gesagt: es war so viel Schuld zu sühnen, also muß ein Teil des deutschen Volkes selbst diese Schuld wieder hier auf Erden sühnen. Denn irgendwo muß die ja gesühnt werden, und wenn unsere Kinder das vielleicht auch nochmals sühnen müssen. Solch schweres Blutvergießen – auch in der Hinsicht in der Heimat selbst – das muß gesühnt werden. Das wird auch noch gesühnt, was die all angerichtet haben, es rächt sich, (Zustimmung) in den zwölf Jahren, das rächt sich bitter. (a.a.O., S. 22f.)

  Die Studie enthält kein Material, das zu entscheiden gestattete, ob Gedanken wie die dieser Rednerin durchwegs auf religiöse Gebundenheit verweisen, oder gar, ob sie solcher Gebundenheit bedürfen. Doch ist die Seltenheit religiös getönter Äußerungen, trotzdem es auch unter den hier analysierten Protokollen nicht an kirchlich definierten Gruppen fehlt, selbst auffällig und wäre weiter zu verfolgen. Man sieht sich gedrängt zur Hypothese, daß, auch wo die Bevölkerung noch kirchlich orientiert ist, abgesehen von einem kleinen Kreis bewußter Christen, eine Verbindung zwischen den theologischen Lehrgehalten und ihren ethischen, sozialen und politischen Ansichten nicht besteht. Vielmehr scheinen in der Ideologie die verschiedenen Bereiche unverbunden, isoliert nebeneinander vorzukommen. Zur Erklärung der Gewalt, die von der nationalsozialistischen Ideologie auch nach dem Zusammenbruch des nationalsozialistischen Regimes ausgeht, vermöchte diese Einsicht manches beizutragen.

 Zum Verhältnis der Ergebnisse der quantitativen und qualitativen Analyse   Wenngleich unsere Untersuchung bewußt auf die Integrierung der Ergebnisse der quantitativen und der qualitativen Analyse verzichtet 28 , sei hier doch erlaubt, auf Zusammenhänge zwischen den Interpretationen aus dem Problemkreis Schuld und Abwehr mit einigem quantitativen Material hinzuweisen. Zunächst besteht eine wichtige arbeitstechnische Verbindung zwischen den beiden Methoden der Auswertung: die Ordnung des Inhalts aller Protokolle nach deskriptiven und interpretativen Kategorien hat für die Beurteilung der Einstellungen unserer Sprecher eine Vorarbeit geleistet, ohne die es schwer, wenn nicht überhaupt unmöglich gewesen wäre, in der zur Verfügung stehenden Zeit quantitativ fundierte Interpretationen zu leisten. Eine drastische Bestätigung der vorwiegend negativen Einstellung unseres Teilnehmerkreises – und nur von ihm sprechen wir – zum Schuldproblem sind die Durchschnittsziffern über das Verhältnis zwischen den Frequenzen positiver Äußerungen und denen der ambivalenten und negativen 29 . Hier zeigt sich die Abwehrstellung mit einer Prägnanz, die erlaubt, von einem übermächtigen transsubjektiven Faktor zu sprechen, der sich über alle subjektiven Unterschiede durchsetzt. Wenn wir Tafel 8 30 nochmals betrachten, dann fällt auf, wie die früher diskutierten Unterschiede in der Häufigkeit der Einstellungen zurücktreten hinter der Uniformität des Gesamtbildes. Gewiß zeigen sich die Frauen, die jüngste Altersgruppe und die Studenten zurückhaltender in ihrer ablehnenden Haltung als die anderen Gruppen. Aber dieser Unterschied ändert das Gesamtbild wenig, insbesondere im Hinblick auf die geringe Häufigkeit ihrer positiven Einstellung. Ganz aus dem Rahmen fällt lediglich die Bauerngruppe, deren nahezu totale Ablehnung jeder Schuld den negativen Gesamteindruck noch verstärkt. Die zutiefst ambivalente Einstellung den Juden gegenüber, die häufig in wenig verhüllten und gar nicht selten in offenen Antisemitismus übergeht, findet sich ebenfalls im quantitativen Material bestätigt 31 . Auch hier illustriert die Tafel Einstellung zu

den Juden 32 die relativ große Einförmigkeit des Verhaltens der Sprecher in den verschiedenen Diskussionsgruppen. Allerdings gibt es hier mehrere starke Abweichungen bei Einzelgruppen, sowohl in der Richtung auf ausgesprochen antisemitische Einstellung (Bauern, Akademiker), als auch auf nicht antisemitische (Hausfrauen). Daß bei unseren Teilnehmern die furchtbaren Tatsachen der nationalsozialistischen Judenverfolgungen im allgemeinen nicht zu einer radikalen Abkehr vom Antisemitismus geführt haben, wird durch die quantitative Analyse eindeutig bestätigt. Die aggressive Einstellung gegenüber dem Westen, die wir als einen Aspekt der Abwehr kennengelernt haben, spiegelt sich in der Ziffer von einundsechzig Prozent für die durchschnittliche Frequenz der negativen Äußerungen gegenüber nur neun Prozent für die der positiven und dreißig Prozent für die ambivalenten 33 . Auch hier erscheint die Wirksamkeit eines transsubjektiven Faktors mit großer Deutlichkeit. Schließlich zeigen die durchschnittlichen Frequenzen der Einstellung zu den für das Schuldproblem besonders relevanten Testthemen 34 , daß die Verständigungswilligen unter unseren Teilnehmern eine kleine Minderheit bilden 35 . Nur ein Sprecher unter neun zeigt bei diesen Themen Verständigungswillen an (11%), während fast jeder zweite ambivalent ist (46%) und 42% sich negativ äußern. Hinsichtlich der Einstellung einzelner Gruppen zum Schuldproblem bestätigen die »Profile« der Frauen und gelernten Arbeiter einerseits und die der Bauern andererseits die Extreme der positiven und negativen Verhaltensweisen, die uns bei der qualitativen Analyse aufgefallen sind. Die Beispiele für die Möglichkeit der Verifizierung der qualitativen Interpretationen durch die Ergebnisse der quantitativen Analyse ließen sich leicht erweitern. Doch hat uns der nicht genügend repräsentative Charakter der Zahlen für die deutsche Gesamtbevölkerung veranlaßt, auf eine solche Weiterführung der Konfrontierung der Ergebnisse beider Untersuchungsmethoden zu verzichten.

 Fußnoten   1 Vgl. I. Kapitel, Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., S. 17ff.   2 Vgl. I. Kapitel, Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., S. 17ff.   3 Vgl. IV. Kapitel, Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., S. 266, sowie ebd., S. 426, und Nachwort, ebd., S. 482ff.   4 Das wäre in Übereinstimmung mit den Ergebnissen der »Authoritarian Personality«, s. Adorno u.a., a.a.O., S. 280f.   5 Vgl. B. Bettelheim: Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations, in: The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, October 1943, Vol. 38, Nr. 4, S. 417ff., besonders den Absatz: The Final Adjustment to the Life in the Camp.   6 Vgl. Alexander Mitscherlich und Fred Mielke: Wissenschaft ohne Menschlichkeit, Heidelberg 1949, S. 190ff.   7 Diese Fehlleistungen werden behandelt in unserer Untersuchung über die Sprache des Teilnehmerkreises. Vgl. Unveröffentlichtes Manuskript im Institut für Sozialforschung.   8 Die Diskussion fand in der britischen Zone statt.   9 Es verdient angemerkt zu werden, daß die Möglichkeit eben dieser Entwicklung von Hegel in der Kritik an der Kantischen Ethik, welche der zweite Teil der Rechtsphilosophie enthält, vorhergesehen worden ist.   10 Vgl. hierzu O. Kirchheimer: Changes in the Structure of Political Compromise, in: Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, Vol. IX, 1941, No. 2, S. 264ff.   11 Vgl. T. Taylor: Die Nürnberger Prozesse, Zürich 1950.   12 Vgl. F. Neumann: Behemoth, New York 1943.

  13 Vgl. VI. Kapitel, Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., S. 429ff.   14 Das Thema dieses Abschnitts deckt sich nur zum Teil mit dem der quantitativen Untersuchung über die Urteile der Teilnehmer über die Deutschen (vgl. IV. Kapitel, Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., S. 203ff.). Gegenüber den Deutschen verhält sich die große Mehrheit der Sprecher kritischer als sich selbst gegenüber. Diese kritische Beurteilung des eigenen Volkes kann in doppelter Hinsicht zur Entlastung des Einzelnen dienen: der Sprecher läßt durchblicken, daß er gegenüber den Fehlern des eigenen Volkes nicht blind ist und sich gegen sie wehrt. Darüber hinaus aber wird geltend gemacht, daß man als Angehöriger eines »autoritätsgebundenen« und politisch unreifen Volkes mildernde Umstände für sich beanspruchen dürfe. In diesem Sinne verbindet sich das Urteil über die Deutschen bei vielen Sprechern mit der Selbstbeurteilung.   15 Vgl. C.G. Jung: Nach der Katastrophe, in: Aufsätze zur Zeitgeschichte, Zürich 1946, S. 75ff.   16 Vgl. Friedrich Nietzsche: Werke, Bd. 2: Menschliches Allzumenschliches, 1. Bd., Leipzig 1917, S. 103 (Aphorismus 101).   17 Vgl. E.v. Salomon: Der Fragebogen, Hamburg 1952, S. 560 u. passim.   18 Vgl. I. Kapitel, Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., S. 42ff.   19 Vgl. R.M. Brickner: Is Germany Incurable?, Philadelphia, New York 1943, S. 30ff.   20 Vgl. T.W. Adorno u.a.: The Authoritarian Personality, a.a.O., S. 622f. [jetzt Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 9. 1, Frankfurt a.M. 1975, S. 289f.].   21 Vgl. jedoch das IV. Kapitel, Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., S. 203ff.   22 Bezieht sich auf eine Organisation der britischen

Besatzungstruppen.   23 Gemeint sind die politisch aktiven Katholiken.   24 Der Name, den die Nacht vom 7. November 1938 im Volksmund trägt wegen der systematischen Zerstörung der jüdischen Ladengeschäfte und des jüdischen Eigentums in dieser Nacht. Es ist bemerkenswert, daß durch die ironische Hervorhebung der zerschlagenen Fensterscheiben die dem Rechtsgefühl der Einzelnen viel weniger leicht erträgliche Niederbrennung der Synagogen und unzählige schwerste Mißhandlungen, kurz der Pogromcharakter dieser Nacht, in den eines relativ harmlosen Sachschadens verkleinert wird.   25 Vgl. T.W. Adorno u.a.: The Authoritarian Personality, a.a.O., S. 616 [jetzt Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 9. 1, a.a.O., S. 279].   26 Protokoll 59, S. 10.   27 Protokoll 71, S. 30.   28 Vgl. die Einleitung, oben S. 139f.   29 Vgl. IV. Kapitel, Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., S. 216ff.; das Verhältnis ist 1:9, bzw. 1:10.   30 Vgl. IV. Kapitel, Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., S. 218.   31 Wir erinnern daran, daß das Verhältnis der durchschnittlichen Frequenz der positiven, d.h. ausgesprochen nicht antisemitischen Einstellungen zu derjenigen der ambivalenten und antisemitischen wie vier zu fünf zu fünf ist, d.h. auf vier nicht antisemitische Äußerungen entfallen fünf ambivalente und fünf antisemitische.   32 Vgl. IV. Kapitel, Gruppenexperiment, a.a.O., S. 220.   33 Vgl. ebd., S. 224 (Tafel 10).   34 Vgl. ebd., S. 238, Anm. 82.

  35 Vgl. oben, S. 302ff.  

 Anhang

 Empirische Sozialforschung * I. Begriff Dem strikten Wortsinn nach wären unter empirischer Sozialforschung alle wissenschaftlichen Bemühungen zur Erkenntnis von Gesellschaftlichem zu verstehen, die, im Gegensatz zur Spekulation, als ihren Rechtsgrund die Erfahrung gegebener Tatsachen betrachten. Es hat sich jedoch in der wissenschaftlichen Praxis ein engerer Begriff von empirischer Sozialforschung herausgebildet, der im Zeichen einer an den Naturwissenschaften orientierten Forderung von Exaktheit und Objektivität steht. Kriterien wie das der Verifizierbarkeit oder Falsifizierbarkeit von Aussagen, der Quantifizierbarkeit, der Wiederholbarkeit – also weitgehende Unabhängigkeit von den subjektiven Momenten der Forschung – spielen dabei eine wesentliche Rolle. Im folgenden soll vorwiegend von diesem engeren Begriff von empirischer Sozialforschung die Rede sein, wie ihn die organisierte Wissenschaft heute in weitem Maße vertritt. Doch werden, wo es notwendig dünkt, Verfahrensweisen, insbesondere solche qualitativer Art, hereingezogen, die in diesem engeren Begriff nicht aufgehen. Selbst die positivistisch orientierte empirische Sozialforschung verzichtet auf solche Verfahrensweisen nicht ganz.

 Fußnoten   * Der Artikel wurde von Adorno gemeinsam mit Jacques Décamps, Lothar Herberger, Heinz Maus, Diedrich Osmer, I. Rauter und Hans Sittenfeld geschrieben. (Anm. d. Hrsg.)

 II. Geschichte   Die Vorgeschichte der empirischen Sozialforschung führt ins 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, in die Zeit des Absolutismus. Die Statistik sollte die administrativen Aufgaben einer gelenkten Ordnung erleichtern. Während die Soziologie als eine Geschichtsphilosophie begann, die eine »politique scientifique« (Comte) postulierte, hat sie zugleich von Anbeginn an gesellschaftliche Fakten exakt zu erfassen gesucht und ihre Ergebnisse der Verwaltungspraxis zur Verfügung gestellt. Sie hat im Laufe ihrer Entwicklung Anregungen und Verfahrensweisen anderer Wissenschaften aufgenommen und ihrerseits diese beeinflußt. Im 18. Jahrhundert fällt sie großenteils mit den statistischen Bestandsaufnahmen, den »Staatsmerkwürdigkeiten« und der »Politischen Arithmetik« zusammen; noch F. Tönnies hat deshalb die empirische Soziologie mit der Statistik gleichsetzen wollen. Auch Untersuchungen, die in philanthropischer Absicht unternommen wurden, zählen hierher: so der Vergleich von Gefängnissen und Spitälern durch J. Howard (1762–1790) und die Darstellung des Zustandes der Armenbevölkerung durch Sir F.M. Eden (1766–1809). Früh werden auch Ermittlungen von Tendenzen in der öffentlichen Meinung angeregt, so von Defoe, Mirabeau und Condorcet. Im 19. Jahrhundert entfaltet sich die Sozialstatistik: A. Quételet (1796–1874), Fr. Le Play (1806–1882), E. Engel (1821–1896) und G. von Mayr (1841–1925). Charakteristisch sind vor allem die zahlreichen Erhebungen über die Lage der Arbeiter; sie werden teils privat vorgenommen wie von L.-R. Villermé (1782–1863) und Le Play, teils von staatlichen Untersuchungsbehörden wie die englischen über Kinderarbeit (1864 bis 1867), oder von Organisationen, die auf eine soziale Gesetzgebung dringen: die Enqueten des Vereins für Sozialpolitik. Die Bemühungen Le Plays werden in Frankreich und England (V. Branford und P. Geddes) fortgesetzt; sie sind sozialreformerisch gedacht und berühren sich mit der Sozialgeographie und Demographie (Soziale Morphologie). In Nordamerika lenken die Untersuchungen der Slum-Wohngebiete durch die Bewegung des »social settlement« und die sozialen

Reportagen bürgerlich radikaler Journalisten, der »muckrakers«, die Aufmerksamkeit der Öffentlichkeit auf fragwürdige politische und gesellschaftliche Verhältnisse. Für die Entwicklung der empirischen Sozialforschung ist der Einfluß des Positivismus entscheidend gewesen; die Anwendung »naturwissenschaftlicher« Methoden führt in der Völkerkunde und der Kriminologie zu korrelationsstatistischen Untersuchungen und zur klassifizierenden Typisierung, die eine Vergleichbarkeit der Befunde ermöglichen soll. Der Positivismus wirkt auch auf die jüngere historische Schule der Volkswirtschaftslehre, insbesondere den »Kathedersozialismus« ein, der von sozialpolitischen Maßnahmen, die sich auf sozialstatistische Erhebungen gründen, eine Regelung der »sozialen« bzw. der »Arbeiterfrage« erwartet. Erste, von Zeitungen gestartete Marktanalysen und Wahlprognosen (straw votes) bleiben wissenschaftlich unbeachtet. Zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts ist der Social Survey der »Gemeindestudien« für die empirische Sozialforschung kennzeichnend. Anfangs von privaten, auf Wohlfahrtspflege und Sozialreform bedachten Kreisen betrieben, werden bald auch munizipale Stellen interessiert, um allzu offenkundigen Schäden abzuhelfen. Das Muster bietet die von Ch. Booth (1840–1916) breit angelegte Untersuchung über »Life and Labour of the People of London«, die bereits 1886 begann und erstmals 1892–1897 veröffentlicht wurde. Zunächst bildet eine einzige Schicht, meist die proletarische, den Gegenstand der Forschung, so in B.S. Rowntrees 1901 publiziertem Buch »Poverty: A Study of Town Life« und in »Livelihood and Poverty« (1915) von A.L. Bowley, der als erster das Stichprobenverfahren in der Soziologie anwandte, oder im »Pittsburgh Survey« (1909–1914). 1912 wird in New York die Russell Sage Foundation mit dem Zweck gegründet, die Idee des Social Survey zu verbreiten und ihre Methoden zu entwickeln. Das Interesse konzentriert sich auf die Auswirkungen der Industrialisierung und Verstädterung in (städtischen und ländlichen) Gemeinden und Regionen. Verschiedene Seiten (ökonomische, politische, soziale, religiöse usw.) einer jeweils aus einem größeren Zusammenhang herausgehobenen und geographisch umgrenzten Erscheinung werden beobachtet, beschrieben, analysiert und koordiniert. Für die Methode hat sich in Deutschland seit 1913 nach dem Vorschlag des holländischen Ethnologen R. Steinmetz das

Wort Soziographie eingebürgert: zur Ermittlung objektiver Tatbestände in den Hochkulturen wird das ethnographische Verfahren der »Feldforschung« angewandt. In Amerika ist das Wort Sozialökologie (human oder social ecology; Ökologie) gebräuchlicher: das unmittelbare Studium (field study) des Abhängigkeitsverhältnisses der Individuen und Gruppen von ihrer (sozialen) Umgebung, durch das ihre Struktur und ihr Verhalten beeinflußt wird. Die Sozialökologie wurde von Rob. E. Park (1864–1944) und seinem Kreis in Chicago ausgebildet und bildet einen weiteren wichtigen Beitrag zur Entwicklung der modernen empirischen Sozialforschung. Neben den stadtsoziologischen Arbeiten dieser Forscher erlangen vornehmlich die Publikation von »The Polish Peasant in Europe and America« von W.I. Thomas und Fl. Znaniecki (1918–1920) sowie die 1929 erfolgte Veröffentlichung von »Middletown« des Ehepaares R.S. und H.M. Lynd Bedeutung: der Lebensprozeß einer sozialen Einheit, die eine Person, eine Gruppe, eine Stadt, eine Institution u.a.m. sein kann, wird in seinen einzelnen Phasen genau beschrieben, um die Beziehungen zu anderen Einheiten und den Zusammenhang mit der umgebenden Kultur offenzulegen. Seit der Jahrhundertwende hat zwar die Soziologie begonnen, sich mehr und mehr empirischer Methoden zu bedienen (in Frankreich z.B. Emile Durkheim und Maurice Halbwachs; in Deutschland Max Weber und Ferdinand Tönnies; in England das Ehepaar Sidney und Beatrice Webb; in Nordamerika Franklin H. Giddings und seine Schüler F. Stuart Chapin und William F. Ogburn). Für den Fortgang der empirischen Sozialforschung ist jedoch der Einfluß einerseits der behavioristischen Psychologie, andererseits der »Kulturanthropologie« entscheidend gewesen. Diese hatte die Soziologie gelehrt, das Verhalten der Individuen als von der Gruppe geprägt zu sehen. Auch im Behaviorismus wird von der (inneren) Motivation sozialen Handelns fast völlig abgesehen und die eindeutig konstatierbare Manifestation der Individuen bevorzugt. Soziale und kollektive Einstellungen und Verhaltensweisen werden zum Gegenstand der Sozialpsychologie, die ihrerseits mit der behavioristischen Soziologie verschmilzt. Der Social Survey über objektive Tatbestände wandelt sich in den Social Research von Attitüden und Verhaltensweisen, der ebenso zu administrativen Eingriffen führen wie zur Überprüfung

wissenschaftlicher Hypothesen dienen kann. In den 1930er Jahren erfährt die empirische Sozialforschung, im Zusammenhang mit dem Bedürfnis von Großunternehmungen nach Absatzplanung, durch die kommerzialisierte Markt- und Meinungsforschung einen äußerst nachhaltigen Antrieb. Ihre Entwicklung wird im zweiten Weltkrieg beschleunigt, als amtliche Stellen ihre Verfahrensweisen in weitem Maße heranziehen. Auch die Phänomene der modernen Massenkommunikation (Film, Presse, Radio, Fernsehen u.a.m.) werden in ihren Arbeitsbereich hereingezogen. Vielfach ruft man die Psychoanalyse zur Erhellung der inneren Dynamik von Ideologien und Vorurteilen zu Hilfe. Auch die Gruppendynamik, d.h. die Prozesse innerhalb einer Gruppe treten ins Blickfeld der empirischen Sozialforschung. Im Zeichen der Forderung strenger Exaktheit sucht man die Einstellungen und Verhaltensweisen zu messen: Experiment, Kontrolle und Vergleich rücken an die Stelle des »Verstehens«. Gegenwärtig wird die empirische Sozialforschung auf fast alle Sektoren des sozialen und politischen Lebens angewandt, so u.a. auch in der Betriebs-, der Stadt- und Agrarsoziologie, der politischen und der Religionssoziologie, der Raumforschung bzw. der Landesplanung, der Sozialhygiene, der Sozialarbeit, der Kriminologie, der Sexualwissenschaft. Sie wird ebenfalls für die Untersuchung einzelner sozialer Schichten, Gruppen, Institutionen, Normen, Wertsysteme wie für die interethnischer und internationaler Spannungen benutzt.

 III. Erhebungsgegenstände   Man muß die formale Charakteristik der Gegenstandsgebiete der empirischen Sozialforschung abheben von der Bestimmung ihrer Anwendungsmöglichkeiten. Der in Deutschland eingebürgerte Ausdruck »Markt- und Meinungsforschung« verkoppelt zwei Kategorien, die logisch auf verschiedene Ebenen gehören. Marktuntersuchungen sind eine Anwendung der Techniken der empirischen Sozialforschung und brauchen sich keineswegs auf die Ermittlung von Meinungen zu beschränken, sondern können ebensogut psychologische Motivationen einbegreifen (z.B. die von George Katona geleiteten Arbeiten des Survey Research Center des Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan). Umgekehrt operiert die Meinungsforschung, also die Ermittlung manifester Bewußtseinsinhalte sozialer Gruppen, auch unabhängig von Absatzfragen, z.B. im Bereich der Politik und der sozialen Ideologie. Unverkennbar ist freilich, daß gerade der am Begriff der »Meinung« orientierte Sektor der empirischen Sozialforschung stets noch Züge der Marktuntersuchungen trägt, die er ursprünglich zum Modell hatte. Grob lassen sich die Erhebungsgegenstände der empirischen Sozialforschung in zwei Gruppen gliedern: erstens die Ermittlung objektiver Tatbestände (z.B. das durchschnittliche Gesamteinkommen von Personen, die in irgendeiner Form Wohlfahrts- und Rentenempfänger sind), und zweitens subjektive Beschaffenheiten der zu erforschenden Gruppe. Hierher gehören: (1) ihre offenen, bewußten Meinungen, unter möglicher Berücksichtigung der Motivationen dieser Meinungen und ihres Zusammenhanges mit tragenden sozialen und psychologischen Strukturen. (2) »Attitudes«, d.h. sedimentierte und bis zu einem gewissen Grad generalisierte Anschauungsweisen, Reaktionsformen, Haltungen und Ideologien (z.B. Stellung zu Eigen- oder Fremdgruppen, moralische Anschauungen). (3) Reale Verhaltensweisen, die von (1) und (2) sich unterscheiden mögen. So ist z.B. nicht ausgemacht, daß eine Person, die im Sinne von (2) fremdenfeindlich ist, in der Tat auch zu

fremdenfeindlichen Aktionen bereit wäre. Die empirische Sozialforschung hat es also in ihren subjektiv gerichteten Untersuchungen ebensowohl mit Potentialitäten (z.B. der latenten Empfänglichkeit für gewisse Typen von Propaganda) zu tun, wie mit Aktualitäten (z.B. der offenbaren parteipolitischen Ansicht der Befragten). Die Probleme der empirischen Sozialforschung ergeben sich zum größten Teil daraus, daß, je mehr sie über die bloße Feststellung von kruden Tatsachen hinausgeht, ihre Methoden in wachsendem Maße verfeinert werden müssen. Das läßt sich dann wiederum mit der Forderung nach Objektivität oft nicht ohne weiteres vereinigen. Allgemein herrscht in der empirischen Sozialforschung eine Spannung zwischen der Relevanz, Fülle und Subtilität der zu gewinnenden Einsichten auf der einen Seite, und der drastischen Forderung nach Meßbarkeit, Wiederholbarkeit und Kontrollierbarkeit auf der anderen. Der wissenschaftliche Fortschritt der empirischen Sozialforschung vollzieht sich wesentlich, indem diese Spannung ausgetragen wird.

 IV. Verfahrensweisen   1. Beobachtung Die wissenschaftliche Beobachtung richtet sich auf ein bestimmtes Forschungsziel. Darum wird sie systematisch geplant, protokolliert und nach Möglichkeit kontrolliert. Sie ist weitgehend von der Mitarbeit der Beobachteten unabhängig und wird deshalb gern dort angewandt, wo ihre Mitarbeit zur Feststellung der Erhebungsdaten nicht erforderlich ist, bzw. wo Gefahren für die Zuverlässigkeit der Resultate daraus sich ergeben können, daß die beteiligten Personen sich in ihrem Verhalten auf die Untersuchung einstellen. a: Die teilnehmende Beobachtung (»participant observation«) besteht darin, daß der Beobachter sich in die zu beobachtende Gruppe einfügt und oft eine Funktion in dieser Gruppe übernimmt. Dabei muß seine Anwesenheit in der Gruppe deren Mitgliedern plausibel gemacht werden, wobei seine eigentlichen Forschungsaufgaben u.U. zu verdecken oder zu verheimlichen sind. Das Verfahren, das bisher vor allem in der Ethnologie verwandt wurde, eignet sich insbesondere zur Exploration. Es ergibt im allgemeinen reiche Beobachtungen, die sich entweder am chronologischen Ablauf der Ereignisse oder an bestimmten theoretischen Aspekten der Situation orientieren. b: Die systematische Beobachtung (»systematic observation«) beschränkt sich auf bestimmte Situationen und Vorgänge, für die sich Beobachtungskategorien antizipieren lassen. Hierbei wird der einzelne Beobachter häufig durch ein Team ersetzt, das arbeitsteilig verfährt und seine Beobachtungen in synchronisierte Schemata einträgt, die eine spätere Rekonstruktion des Ablaufs erlauben. Die systematische Beobachtung dient insbesondere Zwecken der Beschreibung und Diagnose und gestattet im allgemeinen eine Quantifizierung der Ergebnisse.

 2. Befragung   Die Befragung ist die zur Zeit am häufigsten angewandte Methode der empirischen Sozialforschung. Im Gegensatz zur Beobachtung geht sie von mündlichen oder schriftlichen Äußerungen der Befragten aus und ermittelt außer Tatsachen, die gegebenenfalls durch Beobachtungen zu kontrollieren sind, Meinungen, Attitüden, Wünsche, Hoffnungen, Befürchtungen, Absichten usw. Sie wird begrenzt durch ihre Abhängigkeit von dem, was der Befragte mitteilen kann und will, d.h. sie muß die Ausdrucksfähigkeit des Befragten berücksichtigen und bei der Analyse bedenken, daß der Befragte über wesentliche Bereiche, zumal unbewußte, keine unmittelbare Auskunft geben kann. Sie muß ferner beachten, daß der Befragte mit seinen Antworten unter Umständen bestimmte Absichten verfolgt, etwa sein soziales Prestige aufrechterhalten oder steigern, oder auch bestimmte Maßnahmen durchsetzen und vor wirklichen oder vermeintlichen Gefahren sich schützen will. Die Möglichkeiten der Befragung reichen vom freien Interview, in dem die Führung des Gesprächs weitgehend dem Befragten überlassen bleibt, bis zum völlig schematisierten Fragebogen mit vorgegebenen Antwortkategorien. Während die freie Befragung vorwiegend der Exploration dient, verlangen die Beschreibung und Analyse bestimmter Phänomene bereits ein gewisses Maß an Eingrenzung und Lenkung der Befragung etwa in Form eines Frageschemas, eines Interviewleitfadens usw.; die Überprüfung zugespitzter Hypothesen schließlich ist oft nur mit einem festen Fragebogen mit weitgehend vorgegebenen Antwortkategorien möglich. Je mehr die Befragung schematisiert ist, desto leichter ist sie quantifizierbar, desto enger aber auch in ihrem Material begrenzt auf quantifizierbare, d.h. vom Individuellen abstrahierende Daten, und um so mehr werden die spontanen Reaktionen der Befragten abgeschnitten, auf die es bei tiefer liegenden Problemen so sehr ankommt. Die Befragung läßt sich schriftlich, fernmündlich oder im persönlichen Gespräch, mit Einzelnen oder mit Gruppen durchführen. a: Bei schriftlichen Umfragen werden die Fragebogen den Befragten zur schriftlichen Beantwortung überlassen. Hier gibt es wiederum zwei Möglichkeiten:

(1) Die Befragung auf dem Postwege (»mail survey«). Dieses Verfahren hat den Nachteil, daß man im allgemeinen nur 10–25% der Fragebogen, nur in besonderen Fällen mehr, zurückerwarten darf, von denen überdies ein Teil nicht vollständig ausgefüllt ist. Der Ausfall verteilt sich nicht gleichmäßig auf alle Bevölkerungskreise, wodurch der repräsentative Wert der Untersuchung aufgehoben werden kann. Die Unmöglichkeit, Mißverständnisse aufzuklären und Lücken in der Beantwortung zu ergänzen, sowie die Notwendigkeit, den Befragten durch die Ausfüllung der Bogen nicht zu sehr zu belasten, diktiert zumeist erhebliche Beschränkungen in Zahl und Art der Fragen. Obwohl dieses Verfahren eines der ältesten Mittel sozialer Enqueten ist, wird es darum heute seltener angewandt. (2) Die Ausfüllung des Fragebogens durch den Befragten in Gegenwart eines Interviewers (»paper-and-pencil method«; »self-administered questionnaire«). Um insbesondere die Repräsentativität der Untersuchung zu sichern, d.h. eine möglichst vollständige Beteiligung der Befragten zu erreichen und den bei der Postumfrage immer möglichen Einfluß anderer Personen auszuschließen, werden die Befragten, wo es räumlich möglich ist (z.B. bei Betriebsumfragen oder Untersuchungen über Propagandaund Werbemittel), in einen Raum zusammengeholt, damit sie dort unter Aufsicht des Interviewers die vorgelegten Fragebogen ausfüllen. b: Die fernmündliche Befragung (»telephone survey«) findet in den USA vor allem bei der Feststellung des Hörerkreises von gerade ablaufenden Radio- und Fernsehsendungen (»coincidental method«) Verwendung. c: Das Interview ist gegenwärtig das beliebteste Erhebungsverfahren. Es wird im allgemeinen als eine zweckgerichtete Unterhaltung zwischen dem Interviewer und dem einzelnen Befragten verstanden. Das Ziel ist, möglichst vergleichbare Angaben über den Gegenstand der Untersuchung zu erhalten. Die Fragen werden direkt oder indirekt gestellt und die unmittelbaren Antworten im allgemeinen an Ort und Stelle aufgezeichnet. Im Unterschied zur schriftlichen Befragung können im Interview mögliche Mißverständnisse der Fragen und Unklarheiten der Antworten gleich geklärt werden. Dagegen

kommen eine Reihe von Unsicherheitsfaktoren ins Spiel: Inwieweit kann der Interviewer wirklich von seiner Individualität abstrahieren und als »Präzisionsmeßinstrument« fungieren? Inwieweit schafft das Interview eine künstliche Situation, die die Reaktion der Befragten präjudiziert und die Repräsentativität der Ergebnisse beeinträchtigt? Es haben sich verschiedene Typen des Interviews herausgebildet, die je nach Thema und Ziel der Untersuchung Verwendung finden: (1) Das schematisierte Interview. Ihm liegt ein fester Fragebogen mit vorgegebenen Antwortkategorien zugrunde; der Interviewer darf von der Formulierung und Reihenfolge der Fragen nicht abweichen; nicht oder mißverstandene Fragen dürfen lediglich wörtlich wiederholt werden. (2) Das intensive Interview (depth interview) geht zwar immer noch von einem mehr oder weniger verbindlich formulierten Fragebogen aus. Es wird aber weitgehend von vorformulierten Antworten abgesehen, um eine mögliche Beeinflussung insbesondere bei Problemen zu vermeiden, über die sich noch keine festen Ansichten und Meinungen herausgebildet haben. Der Interviewer ist im allgemeinen angewiesen, über die vorgeschriebenen Fragen hinaus zusätzliche zu stellen, die sich aus der Situation ergeben und geeignet sind, die Ansichten des Befragten im Detail zu ermitteln. Als besondere Technik hat sich hier. (3) das Trichterinterview (funnel technique) herausgebildet, in dem nur offene Fragen verwandt werden, die zunächst ganz allgemein gefaßt sind, dann, der Richtung folgend, die vom Befragten eingeschlagen wird, sich immer mehr verengen, bis der Standpunkt des Befragten präzisiert vorliegt. (4) Das freie Interview (non-structured interview). Noch weiter in dieser Richtung geht das freie Interview, in dem es weder vorgeschriebene Fragen noch vorformulierte Antworten gibt. Die Erhebungspunkte werden im allgemeinen in einer Liste zusammengestellt, evtl. mit detaillierten Unterfragen, um zu sichern, daß nichts vergessen wird. Die Reihenfolge ist jedoch für das Gespräch nicht bindend. Das mit dieser Technik gewonnene Material ist nicht ohne weiteres quantifizierbar, jedoch besonders ergiebig für die Aufstellung von Hypothesen, sowie für die

Interpretation quantitativer Ergebnisse. (5) Beim zentrierten Interview (focussed interview) ist es Aufgabe des Interviewers, die Aufmerksamkeit der Befragten auf bestimmte, zuvor analysierte Stimuli (etwa einen Film, eine Radiosendung, einen Zeitungsartikel usw.) und deren Wirkung zu lenken. (6) Demgegenüber konzentriert sich das an der Tiefenpsychologie orientierte klinische Interview (clinical interview) mehr auf die tieferen Bewußtseinsschichten als auf die unmittelbaren Wirkungen einer gegebenen Erfahrung. Wen auch hier der Interviewer völlige Freiheit in der Gesprächsführung hat, so sind ihm doch gewisse Grundfragen und gelegentlich testartige direkte Frageserien vorgegeben. d: Der Fragebogen sucht die Situationen der Einzelbefragungen unter vergleichbare und einheitliche Bedingungen zu bringen. Er kann sich, abgesehen von den allgemeinen Angaben zur Person, auf mehrere Themen richten (Omnibus-Fragebogen), oder sich auf einen Hauptgegenstand konzentrieren, den er von verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten aus angeht. Die Fragen können teils direkt, teils indirekt, teils projektiv gestellt werden. Der Form nach lassen sich geschlossene Fragen mit zwei (dichotomous questions) und mehr Alternativen (Mehrwahlfragen; multiple-choice oder cafeteria questions) und offene Fragen (open-end questions) unterscheiden. Bei Anlage des Fragebogens ist darauf zu achten, daß er sprachlich allgemein oder wenigstens für die befragte Gruppe verständlich ist, die Befragten nicht überfordert und keine Antworten suggeriert.

 3. Gruppendiskussionen   Unter »Gruppendiskussionstechnik« wird ein Verfahren verstanden, das dazu dient, über das Verhalten von Menschen und ihre Motivationen mehr zu erfahren, als es allein mit den üblichen Erhebungstechniken, insbesondere mit Fragebogen und Fragebogen-Interviews, möglich ist. Es versucht der Erfahrung Rechnung zu tragen, daß die Meinungen und Einstellungen der Menschen nicht isoliert, gleichsam im luftleeren Raum, entstehen und wirken, sondern in ständiger Wechselbeziehung zwischen dem Einzelnen und der unmittelbar oder mittelbar auf ihn einwirkenden Gesellschaft. Es berücksichtigt die Tatsache, daß entsprechend den Schwankungen des Affektlebens jeweils die mannigfaltigsten Tendenzen in den Vordergrund des Bewußtseins treten können, und die Meinungen daher häufig genug kontradiktorische Elemente enthalten. Die Methode unterscheidet sich von der üblichen Diskussionsleitungstechnik. Die Themen werden nicht als Besprechungspunkte einer »Tagesordnung« nacheinander abgehandelt, sondern in einem als Diskussionsgrundlage dienenden »Grundreiz« und einer Anzahl von »standardisierten Argumenten« (paarweise angeordnete Pro- und Kontra-Argumente) vorgegeben und frei diskutiert. Die Diskussionsleitung geschieht lediglich formal, d.h. der Diskussionsleiter argumentiert weder selbst mit den Teilnehmern, noch versucht er, ein »Diskussionsziel« zu erreichen. Die Auswertung der auf Band aufgenommenen und wörtlich transkribierten Diskussionen erfolgt quantitativ durch eine content analysis (s. IV, 11) der Diskussionsbeiträge. Da jedoch bloße Quantifizierung das Material bei weitem nicht auszuschöpfen vermag, ist in den meisten Fällen eine monographische (»qualitative«) Analyse erforderlich.

 4. Kontrolliertes Experiment   Um einen kausalen Zusammenhang zwischen zwei soziologischen Phänomenen nachzuweisen, bedient man sich des kontrollierten Experiments. Es setzt voraus, daß man eine Situation schafft, in der die Kontrolle der Wirkung des zu untersuchenden Faktors (= unabhängige Variable) möglich ist. Außerdem ist zu bedenken, daß es, je mehr sich die Situation des Experimentes von der Wirklichkeit entfernt, um so schwieriger wird, zu folgern, daß die Resultate auch in der gesellschaftlichen Realität Gültigkeit haben. Um die Kontrolle der Wirkung der unabhängigen Variablen zu ermöglichen, sind einige Voraussetzungen notwendig. (1) Es muß ein Teil der Versuchspersonen der unabhängigen Variablen ausgesetzt und im Anschluß daran die Verteilung in bezug auf die abhängigen Variablen ermittelt werden. (2) Um aber sicherzustellen, daß es sich dabei wirklich um die Wirkung des zu untersuchenden Faktors handelt, muß man auch bei Versuchspersonen, die der unabhängigen Variablen nicht ausgesetzt worden sind, die abhängigen Variablen kontrollieren. (3) Damit die Feststellung der Beziehung zwischen dem zu untersuchenden Faktor und dem Verhalten einwandfrei erfolgen kann, müssen in den beiden Gruppen der Befragten alle anderen Faktoren konstant gehalten werden. Die Kontrolle der zu untersuchenden Variablen erfolgt entweder so, daß man nur nach ihrer Einführung die Wirkung mißt (after-measurement), oder die Variablen werden vorher und hinterher gemessen (before-after-measurement). Die Vergleichbarkeit von Experimental- und Kontroll-Gruppe kann so hergestellt werden, daß man die für beide Gruppen notwendige Anzahl von Personen für die Untersuchung heranzieht und sie dann nach dem Zufallsverfahren der Experimental- und Kontroll-Gruppe zuordnet. Dieses Verfahren hat den Vorteil, daß man zur Beurteilung von Unterschieden die Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung heranziehen kann. Bei einem anderen Verfahren wird die Vergleichbarkeit der Gruppen dadurch hergestellt, daß man (nach der ersten Messung) die relativen Häufigkeiten für die wichtigsten abhängigen Variablen einander angleicht (frequency control).

Abgesehen vom Problem der Beurteilung von Unterschieden, bestehen für die Auswertung kontrollierter Experimente zwei Möglichkeiten. Entweder man vergleicht die Resultate beider Gruppen (Experimental- und Kontroll-Gruppe) nur am Ende des Experimentes oder aber man stellt die Verteilung der abhängigen Variablen schon vor dem Experiment fest und vergleicht dann den Unterschied zwischen der vorherigen und der nachherigen Messung beider Gruppen. In der Praxis empfiehlt sich oft eine Kombination der hier skizzierten Verfahren.

 5. Trend- und Panel-Untersuchungen   Die soziale Trend-Untersuchung setzt sich gewöhnlich aus einer Serie von Repräsentativ-Erhebungen zusammen. Während bei diesen sonst aber nur Verteilungen, Häufigkeiten und Korrelationen zum jeweiligen Zeitpunkt der Ermittlung festgestellt werden, ermöglicht sie die Übersicht über die gleichen Verhältnisse zu verschiedenen Zeitpunkten: sie erlaubt unter Umständen durch Interpolation der ermittelten Werte die Darstellung eines Entwicklungsverlaufes und gegebenenfalls durch Extrapolation eine Vorhersage der weiteren Entwicklung. Im Unterschied zum ökonomischen umfaßt der soziale Trend im allgemeinen den Gesamtverlauf von Entwicklungen in einem gegebenen Zeitabschnitt, soweit diese in Veränderungen von Einstellungen, Verhaltensweisen oder in Institutionen sichtbar werden. Im Panel-Verfahren werden dieselben Personen wiederholt befragt bzw. beobachtet, so daß eine Reihe von zeitlich aufeinander folgenden Feststellungen über eine einmal ausgewählte Gruppe gewonnen wird. Hierzu werden im allgemeinen Interviews bzw. schriftliche Befragungen, besonders in Form von Tagebüchern, verwandt. Die Zahl der aufeinanderfolgenden Erhebungen beträgt meistens zwei bis vier, selten mehr als sieben. Die Panel-Untersuchung ähnelt in ihrer Anlage dem kontrollierten Experiment (Feststellung der Ausgangssituation – Beeinflussung – Feststellung der Endsituation) und dient speziell der Analyse der Wirkung von Propaganda- und Werbemaßnahmen bzw. des Einflusses bestimmter vorausschaubarer Ereignisse (z.B. im Ablauf eines Wahlkampfes) oder auch der Beobachtung von Konflikten, die sich aus der gleichzeitigen Zugehörigkeit eines Individuums zu verschiedenen Gruppen ergeben, sowie der Erforschung von Konsumgewohnheiten. Sie beschränkt sich gewöhnlich auf das Studium kurzfristiger Änderungen von Meinungen, Attitüden und Verhaltensweisen. Während in der Trend-Untersuchung, bei der dieselben Tatbestände ebenfalls wiederholt, aber nicht bei denselben Individuen erhoben werden, gegenläufige Bewegungen sich gegenseitig aufheben und nur der Überhang als Gesamttrend

erkennbar wird, erlaubt das Panel-Verfahren, diese Entwicklungen in ihre Komponenten zu zerlegen. Es ermöglicht eine klarere Erkenntnis von Kausalzusammenhängen und eine genauere Bestimmung des Gewichtes der untersuchten Einflüsse. Gegenüber dem einmaligen Interview ist die Summe der über den Einzelfall zur Verfügung stehenden Informationen vervielfacht. Die Tatsache, daß die Unkosten der Auswahl der Befragten nur einmal entstehen, gibt dem Panel-Verfahren dabei den zusätzlichen Vorteil der Ersparnis. Die Problematik des Panel-Verfahrens liegt in der ständigen und oft bei den einzelnen Bevölkerungsteilen verschiedenen Abnahme der untersuchten Gruppe (»panel mortality«), der durch die Untersuchung selbst unter Umständen hervorgerufenen Anpassung der Befragten (Änderung ihrer Gewohnheiten, »Vorbereitung« auf die nächste Befragung usw. – »panel effect«) und in der statistischen Verarbeitung des umfangreichen Datenmaterials. Die beiden erstgenannten Probleme, aus denen sich eine laufende Verringerung der »Repräsentanz« des Panels ergeben kann, haben sich bisher z.T. als unbedeutend herausgestellt, zwingen jedoch vielfach zur Benutzung von Kontrollgruppen, d.h. Gruppen, die in ihrer Zusammensetzung dem Panel gleichen, jedoch nicht wie dieses wiederholt befragt, sondern nur einmal zur Untersuchung herangezogen werden. Durch einen Vergleich der Ergebnisse läßt sich dann die Entstellung ermessen, die durch das Panel-Verfahren hervorgerufen worden ist. Grundsätzlich ist auch noch das Problem zu klären, wieweit eine einmal (wenn auch zufällig, d.h. nach repräsentativen Techniken) ausgewählte Gruppe eben dadurch, daß sie zu einer Dauerinstitution wird, ihren statistischen Repräsentativcharakter verliert (ganz unabhängig vom psychologischen Panel-Effekt). Die insbesondere von Paul F. Lazarsfeld und seinen Mitarbeitern entwickelte Technik wurde bisher vor allem bei Studien des Wählerverhaltens (»The People's Choice«) und von Samuel A. Stouffer zur Analyse von Gruppenkonflikten (»The American Soldier«) benutzt. In der Marktforschung hat sie sich zur ständigen Beobachtung des Konsumentenverhaltens (»consumer panels«), zur laufenden Absatzstatistik (»Nielsen indices«), zur Ermittlung von Rundfunkhör-, Fernseh- und Zeitungslesegewohnheiten durchgesetzt, während Behörden in der Arbeitslosenstatistik und

beim Lebenshaltungskostenindex von ihr Gebrauch machen.

 6. Erhebungsmethoden   a. Vollerhebung und Stichprobe in der Sozialforschung: Viele Gründe, nicht zuletzt der mit einer Vollerhebung verbundene große Aufwand an Zeit und Geld, machen in den Sozialwissenschaften die Anwendung von Stichprobenverfahren erforderlich. b. Rückschlußproben und Auswahlfehler: Aus dem Ziel, vom Ergebnis einer Stichprobe auf die Grundgesamtheit (z.B. Bevölkerung eines Landes u.ä.) zu schließen, ergibt sich die Forderung, daß die Stichprobe dafür typisch sein soll; sie soll die Grundgesamtheit (»Universum«) möglichst genau repräsentieren. Die allererste Voraussetzung für einen Stichprobenplan ist, daß die Grundgesamtheit, aus der die Stichprobe ausgewählt werden soll, klar definiert wird. Würde man einmal das Ergebnis einer Stichprobe mit dem einer Vollerhebung vergleichen, so wäre es nicht überraschend, wenn zwischen beiden Ergebnissen ein Unterschied (der in der Regel sehr gering ist), bestünde. Dieser Unterschied kommt daher, daß eben nicht alle Personen der Grundgesamtheit erfaßt worden sind. Daraus ergeben sich zwei Probleme: (1) Wie kann eine Stichprobe ausgewählt werden, damit sie typisch (repräsentativ) ist? (2) Wie kann man die Stichprobenabweichung berechnen? c. Auf der Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie beruhende Verfahren: (1) Voraussetzungen: Bei allen Stichprobenverfahren, die auf der Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie aufbauen, können beide Probleme gelöst werden, während bei allen anderen Verfahren meistens nur das erste Problem lösbar ist. Die Grundvoraussetzung der auf der Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie beruhenden Stichprobenverfahren ist, daß jede Person der Grundgesamtheit (Universum) eine bekannte Wahrscheinlichkeit hat, in die Stichprobe zu kommen. Ist diese Voraussetzung erfüllt, dann kann der Sicherheits- und Genauigkeitsgrad für die Stichprobenergebnisse berechnet werden. Das bedeutet nichts anderes, als daß man angeben kann, in wieviel von hundert Stichproben (= Sicherheitsgrad) man ein Ergebnis, das innerhalb bestimmter Grenzen (= Genauigkeitsgrad) liegt, erhalten wird. (2) Die uneingeschränkte Zufallsstichprobe: Für die Anwendung

von Zufalls-Stichproben in der soziologischen Forschung ergeben sich verschiedene Möglichkeiten. Wenn alle Mitglieder der Grundgesamtheit z.B. auf einer Liste stehen, so ist es ohne weiteres möglich, daraus eine bestimmte Anzahl (= der Größe der Stichprobe) zufällig auszuwählen. Man bedient sich dazu am besten einer Zufallszahlentabelle. Diese Möglichkeit der Auswahl bezeichnet man als die uneingeschränkte Zufallsauswahl. (3) Die geschichtete Stichprobe: Weiter ist die geschichtete Stichprobe (»stratified sample«) zu erwähnen. Dabei wird sogar eine Erhöhung des Genauigkeitsgrades unter sonst gleichen Bedingungen erreicht, wenn zwischen dem Schichtungs- und dem Untersuchungsmerkmal eine korrelative Beziehung besteht. Für die Schichtung selbst ergeben sich, unabhängig von der Wahl des Schichtungsmerkmals (z.B. der Gegend), zwei Möglichkeiten: (3. 1) proportional zu schichten, d.h. jede Schicht muß den Anteil, den sie an der Grundgesamtheit hat, auch an der Stichprobe haben. (3. 2) optimal zu schichten, d.h. der Anteil jeder Schicht an der Stichprobe ist so zu wählen, daß unter sonst gleichen Bedingungen der größtmögliche Genauigkeitsgrad für das Gesamtergebnis erzielt wird. Erst innerhalb jeder Schicht werden dann die Untersuchungseinheiten zufällig ausgewählt. (4) Das Mehrstufen-Verfahren: Als drittes Verfahren gibt es die sogenannte Mehrstufenauswahl (multi-stage-sampling). Sie besteht darin, daß man erst eine Stichprobe aus Primäreinheiten auswählt (z.B. aus der Gesamtheit aller Orte eines Universums), und in diesen Orten dann die Sekundäreinheiten zieht (z.B. Einwohner). Das bedeutet, daß auf jeder Stufe aus der Gesamtzahl der vorhandenen Einheiten die notwendige Anzahl zufällig ausgewählt wird. (5) Die Flächenstichprobe: Weiterhin besteht die Möglichkeit der Flächenstichprobe (»area sample«). Ihr Prinzip ist im wesentlichen das einer Mehrstufenauswahl. Das schließt aber nicht aus, daß auch dabei noch nach bestimmten Merkmalen geschichtet wird. Eine Flächenstichprobe kann ungefähr wie folgt aussehen: man teilt das Untersuchungsgebiet auf in Primäreinheiten (z.B.

Regierungsbezirke), jede Primäreinheit in Sekundäreinheiten (z.B. Orte) usw. Die vorletzte Einheit könnten z.B. Häuserblocks sein. Aus ihnen wählt man dann zufällig eine entsprechende Anzahl aus, und nur für die ausgewählten Häuserblocks stellt man Einwohner-Listen oder Wohnungslisten auf, aus denen die Untersuchungseinheiten ausgewählt werden. d. Nicht auf der Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie beruhende Verfahren: (1) Quotenstichprobe: Von den nicht auf der Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie beruhenden Verfahren hat in der Sozialforschung die Quotenstichprobe die größte Bedeutung erlangt. Das Quotenverfahren beruht im wesentlichen auf der Annahme, daß zwischen den Quoten- und den Untersuchungsmerkmalen ein korrelativer Zusammenhang besteht. Die Freiheit, die die Interviewer in der Wahl der zu befragenden Personen im Rahmen der entsprechend den Anteilen einzelner Bevölkerungsgruppen errechneten Quoten haben, hat zur Folge, daß die Wahrscheinlichkeit, in die Auswahl zu kommen, für jede Person nicht mehr bekannt ist. Damit entfallen die Voraussetzungen zur Berechnung von Genauigkeits-und Sicherheitsgrad. (2) Andere Verfahren: Neben dem Quotenverfahren gibt es noch eine Reihe anderer Methoden, z.B. die Auswahl »aufs Geratewohl« (accidental sample) und »nach Gutdünken« (judgement sample). Eine Auswahl »aufs Geratewohl« wäre z.B., daß man Passanten anspricht, die man gerade trifft, ohne daß man etwa darauf achtet, ob sie bestimmte Merkmale haben. Eine Auswahl nach Gutdünken dagegen wäre, daß man nur Personen in die Erhebung einbezieht, von denen man annimmt, daß sie zu dem Untersuchungsgegenstand etwas zu sagen haben. Hier wären z.B. die sogenannten Experten-Umfragen zu nennen, sofern man nicht aus der Grundgesamtheit der Experten eine Zufallsauswahl trifft.

 7. Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten der quantitativen Auswertung   a. Die technischen Möglichkeiten: Technisch stehen für eine quantitative Auswertung zwei Möglichkeiten zur Verfügung: (1) Auszählung ohne maschinelle Hilfsmittel (nur möglich bei geringem Materialumfang). (2) Auszählung unter Benutzung des Lochkartenverfahrens. b. Aufbereitung: Beide Verfahren setzen voraus, daß das Material für eine Zählung entsprechend aufbereitet wird. Je nach der Fragestellung kann man die Angaben vor oder nach der Erhebung verschlüsseln. Bevor man aber die Antworten verschlüsseln kann, muß aus dem Material ein sogenanntes Schlüsselverzeichnis (scoring manual) entwickelt werden. Man faßt z.B. bei offenen Fragen gleichartige Kommentare (= Antworten) unter einem Oberbegriff zusammen. Erst wenn das Schlüsselverzeichnis aufgestellt ist, kann mit dem Verschlüsseln selbst begonnen werden. c. Auswertung: Im nächsten Arbeitsgang stellt man die Häufigkeit für die einzelnen Kategorien fest (Grundauszählung). In den meisten Fällen arbeitet man im weiteren Verlauf der Auswertung nicht mit absoluten, sondern mit relativen Häufigkeiten. Der folgende Schritt ist die Herstellung von Tabellen höherer Ordnung (breaks), um die Abhängigkeit einzelner Variablen untereinander festzustellen. Nachdem die Grundauszählung hergestellt worden ist, interessiert z.B. die Frage, ob sich die Meinung der Frauen von der der Männer in bezug auf eine bestimmte Frage unterscheidet. Hierüber erhält man durch die Aufstellung einer Tabelle zweiter Ordnung (zweifacher break) Aufschluß. Eine solche Tabelle stellt man her, indem man erst Frauen und Männer trennt und dann die Verteilung der Antworten auf die Antwortkategorien der zu untersuchenden Frage feststellt. Je nach der Größe der Stichprobe besteht die Möglichkeit, Tabellen zweiter, dritter Ordnung usw. (analytische breaks) aufzustellen. Sofern die zeitliche Reihenfolge einzelner Variabler feststeht, bieten zahlreiche Tabellen dritter und höherer Ordnung die Möglichkeit, Kausalbeziehungen auf die Spur zu kommen. Stellt man z.B. bei einer Rundfrage fest, daß zwischen dem Geschlecht und der Informiertheit zu einer bestimmten Frage ein

Zusammenhang (Korrelation) besteht, so wäre es voreilig zu folgern, daß hierfür das Geschlecht die Ursache ist. Vielmehr wäre als nächstes zu prüfen, ob z.B. vielleicht zwischen Geschlecht und Schulbildung auch eine Beziehung besteht. Ist das der Fall, dann gibt die simultane Tabellierung der beiden Variablen »Geschlecht« und »Schulbildung« mit der Informiertheit bei der zu untersuchenden Frage Aufschluß darüber, wie die Abhängigkeit dieser Variablen untereinander ist. d. Beurteilung von Unterschieden: Sofern die Untersuchung unter Benutzung einer Zufallsstichprobe durchgeführt worden ist, besteht die Möglichkeit, durch Berechnung der mittleren quadratischen Abweichung festzustellen, ob die Unterschiede nur dadurch bedingt sind, daß die Erhebung mit einer Stichprobe durchgeführt wurde, ob sie also zufällig sind, oder bei einer Vollerhebung auch auftreten würden. Ist aber der zahlenmäßige Umfang des Materials nicht so groß, so daß eine sehr weitgehende Aufgliederung nicht möglich ist, ohne dabei sehr kleine Zahlen zu erhalten, dann gibt es für die Verifizierung einer Hypothese noch die Möglichkeit, die Richtung der Differenzen bei der abhängigen Variablen zu Grunde zu legen: d.h. man hält die unabhängigen Variablen, die einen Einfluß auf die abhängige Variable haben können, konstant und untersucht dann, ob in der Mehrzahl der Endgruppen immer der Prozentsatz derselben Kategorie der abhängigen Variablen größer als der der anderen innerhalb derselben Endgruppe ist. Ist das der Fall, dann reicht das auch aus, um die entsprechende Hypothese zu verifizieren. e. Statistische Maßzahlen: Korrelations- und Assoziationskoeffizienten (Kendall) lassen sich verwenden, um den Inhalt von Tabellen höherer Ordnung weitgehend zusammenzufassen. Diese Koeffizienten sind eine Maßzahl für den Zusammenhang von Variablen. Es handelt sich dabei nicht um funktionelle Zusammenhänge im mathematischen Sinne, sondern nur um stochastische Zusammenhänge, bei denen zunehmenden x -Werten zunehmende (= positive Korrelation ) oder abnehmende (= negative Korrelation) y -Werte entsprechen. Man sollte allerdings keinen der Korrelationskoeffizienten benutzen, ohne geprüft zu haben, ob seine Voraussetzungen vom Untersuchungsmaterial erfüllt werden.

 8. Konstruktion von Skalen   Im Bestreben, zu meß- und vergleichbaren Daten zu kommen und die qualitativen Unterschiede von Meinungen, Attitüden, sozialen Beziehungen usw. in quantifizierbare umzuformen, sind Skalentechniken entwickelt worden, die vielfach angewandt werden. Die Skala reicht von einem positiven Extremwert über eine neutrale Mittelposition zu einem negativen Extremwert, bzw. von einem Nullwert zu einem Extremwert. Auf diesem sogenannten Kontinuum werden die Positionen bestimmter Meinungs- oder Verhaltensabstufungen metrisch festgelegt und die Äußerungen der befragten Individuen oder Gruppen danach gewichtet. Jede Skala muß standardisiert sein und soll bei Wiederholung unter denselben Verhältnissen zu denselben Ergebnissen führen. Die Meßwerte ergeben sich aus den Stellungnahmen der Individuen zu einer Anzahl von Behauptungen, bzw. ihrem Verhalten bei bestimmten Gelegenheiten. Die ausgewählten Themen müssen psychologisch auf die zu messende Meinung oder Attitüde bezogen, über die ganze Skala hin trennscharf (discriminatory) und zahlreich genug sein, um Zufallsentstellungen auszuschließen. a: Bei der Thurstone-Skala (method of equal appearing intervals) werden die Skalenwerte der »items«, der einzelnen Fragen oder Behauptungen, durch die Zentralwerte der Urteile einer relativ großen Expertenjury bestimmt und verteilen sich in ungefähr gleichen Abständen über die gesamte Skala. Aus der Zustimmung oder Ablehnung zu den so in bestimmter Reihenfolge festgelegten »items« ergeben sich die Positionen der befragten Individuen oder Gruppen auf der Skala. b: In der Likert-Skala (method of summated ratings) werden die »items« ausgewählt, die am besten mit den Gesamtwerten korrelieren (sie liegen meist an den Endpunkten der Thurstone-Skala) und die größte Trennschärfe aufweisen. Die Befragten werden um eine meist in fünf Stufen qualifizierte Stellungnahme zu den »items« gebeten. Die gewichteten individuellen Ergebnisse werden nach Art der Punktwertung im Sport summiert, die Skalenpositionen der Einzelnen oder Gruppen dann nach der Höhe der jeweils erreichten Punktzahl bestimmt. c: Bei der Guttmann-Skala (scalogram analysis) sollen die

»items« eindimensional sein, d.h. die Zustimmung zu einem bestimmten »item« muß die Zustimmung zu allen anderen weniger extremen »items« einschließen und mit der Ablehnung aller extremeren »items« zusammengehen. Größere methodische Strenge wird um den Preis der inhaltlichen Breite erkauft. d: Die Bogardus-Skala (social distance scale) gilt einer spezifischen soziologischen Fragestellung. Sie gründet sich auf Angaben der Befragten über ihre Gefühle anderen Bevölkerungsgruppen gegenüber. Daraus läßt sich eine verschiedene sozialpsychologische Distanz zu jenen Gruppen ablesen. e: Darüber hinaus gibt es noch eine Reihe anderer Methoden wie die der Rangordnung bestimmter Gegenstände, Eigenschaften usw., oder des Paarvergleichs, in dem jedes vorgegebene »item« mit jedem anderen verglichen wird. Während bei den bisher aufgeführten Techniken die Befragten selbst ihre Position anzugeben haben, werden gelegentlich auch Techniken angewandt, bei denen erst der Interviewer die Befragten oder Beobachteten nach Maßgabe abgestimmter Feststellungen einzustufen hat (interviewer rating).

 9. Projektive Tests   Projektive Tests nehmen bei der Untersuchung psychologischer und sozialpsychologischer Probleme einen immer größeren Raum ein. Insoweit es die empirische Sozialforschung mit Motivationen von Meinungen, Ideologien und Verhaltensweisen, oft solchen unbewußter Art, zu tun hat, wird sie durch ihren eigenen Gegenstand auf psychologische Fragestellungen gelenkt. Für ihre besonderen Zwecke empfehlen sich nun psychologische Testmethoden aus zwei spezifischen Gründen: einmal erlauben die Tests, auf Grund der bereits akkumulierten Kenntnis der Bedeutung ihrer Ergebnisse, dynamische und strukturelle Interpretationen, die sonst so eingehende psychologische Analysen erfordern würden, daß sie die Möglichkeiten der Soziologie überschritten; dann lassen sich die meisten Tests quantifizieren. Zugleich ist es bei manchen möglich, psychologische Reize ins Spiel zu bringen, die ihrerseits der gesellschaftlichen Realität entnommen sind, unmittelbar sozialpsychologische Bedeutung besitzen und sozialpsychologische Aussagen über die Versuchsperson (Vp) gestatten. Psychologisch bezeichnet man mit Projektion (Freud) den unbewußten Vorgang, daß Affekte, Gedanken, Wünsche, Eigenschaften usw. einer Person von ihr auf Objekte oder Personen ihrer Umwelt übertragen und meist »negativ besetzt« werden. Die Testvorlagen sollen diesen Mechanismus auslösen, indem sie auf die Vp eine stimulierende Wirkung ausüben. Um eine möglichst große Variationsbreite der Antworten zu erhalten, sind die Vorlagen zuweilen ganz unstrukturiert oder haben wenigstens ein vages, mehrdeutiges Motiv zur Grundlage. Die Vp erhält nur sehr allgemeine Instruktionen. Zeitbeschränkung wird ihr im allgemeinen nicht auferlegt. Die projektiven Tests können sowohl zur Einzeldiagnose als auch zur Auffindung von Gruppenmerkmalen herangezogen werden. Der Schwerpunkt der Untersuchung kann mehr auf charakteristischen Merkmalen einer Persönlichkeit, einer Gruppe oder auf Beziehungen zwischen Person und Umwelt liegen. Im folgenden werden projektive Tests aufgeführt, die in der Sozialforschung angewandt werden bzw. angewandt werden können.

Der Rorschach-Test besteht aus 10 Tafeln mit Klecksbildern, die von der Vp gedeutet werden sollen. Die Auswertung wird nach einer höchst entwickelten Spezialtechnik vorgenommen, die viel Übung erfordert. Der Test wurde vielfach in der empirischen Sozialforschung angewandt, z.B. zur Feststellung von Unterschieden zwischen Völkern und zur Feststellung des Grades der kulturellen Anpassung verschiedener primitiver Volksstämme (z.B. Indianer) an westliche Völker und zuweilen auch in der Marktforschung. Es scheint jedoch, daß er bei individueller Anwendung erfolgreicher ist, da er nur formale Charakteristiken der Persönlichkeit liefert und im Zusammenhang inhaltlich-sozialpsychologischer Probleme nicht die notwendige Trennschärfe besitzt. Dasselbe gilt auch für die Abwandlungen des Tests: z.B. den Z-Test (Zulliger), bei dem einige aus der Rorschach-Serie ausgewählte Vorlagen zur gleichzeitigen Untersuchung mehrerer Vpen projiziert werden. Der TAT (Thematic Apperception Test) und der FPT (Four Picture Test) bestehen je aus einer Reihe thematisch verschiedener und mehrdeutiger Bilder. Im Gegensatz zum Rorschach-Test, der beabsichtigt, die Struktur und den Grad der Organisation einer Persönlichkeit zu untersuchen, steht beim TAT und FPT das Inhaltliche (Wünsche, Konflikte usw.) einer Persönlichkeit im Vordergrund. Die teilweise sehr komplizierten Verfahren zur quantitativen Auswertung wurden von Murray und Tomkins entwickelt. Sowohl TAT als FPT sind für die Untersuchung sozialpsychologischer Probleme von großem Nutzen. Während von einer über die Einzeluntersuchung hinausgehenden Anwendung des FPT bisher nichts bekannt geworden ist, wurde der TAT bereits bei folgenden Untersuchungen verwendet: Studium der Persönlichkeitsmerkmale kleiner Gruppen (group projection), Einstellung von Personen oder Personengruppen zu Minoritäten, zu modernen Institutionen und gesellschaftlich wichtigen Berufsgruppen, sowie zur Untersuchung völkerpsychologischer Probleme, wobei das Schwergewicht entweder auf dem Individuum oder auf der Feststellung grundlegender Eigenschaften bestimmter Kollektive liegen kann. Es hat sich bei sozialwissenschaftlicher Problemstellung als ratsam erwiesen, die Testbilder so zu ergänzen, daß wenigstens manche eine der Vp vertraute Situation mit

vertrauten Personen zeigen, um Identifikation und Projektion zu erleichtern. Der Rosenzweig-Bild-Enttäuschungs-Test (frustration) ist der Idee nach mit den eben genannten TAT und FPT sehr verwandt. Die Vorlagen zeigen stets zwei Personen in einer Enttäuschungs- oder Konfliktsituation. Es wird von der Vp erwartet, daß sie auf die dargestellte Situation spontan reagiert. Die Auswertung beschäftigt sich in erster Linie mit verschiedenen Reaktions-Typen. Dieser Test entspricht den Erfordernissen der Sozialforschung in weitem Maße. Er eignet sich besonders gut dazu, das Verhalten der Vp zu Fremdgruppen zu studieren. Von J.F. Brown wurde er in einigen Untersuchungen so abgewandelt, daß er sich auch dazu verwenden läßt, Einstellungen gegenüber Minoritäten zu ermitteln. Auch den, ebenfalls in der empirischen Sozialforschung häufig verwandten, projektiven Fragen liegt das allgemeine Prinzip der projektiven Methode zugrunde. An die Vp werden direkte Fragen gerichtet, die sich meist auf fiktive Situationen beziehen. Da diese Fragen von der realen Situation einigermaßen unabhängig sind, hofft man, aus den Antworten Rückschlüsse auf die Persönlichkeitsstruktur der Befragten ziehen zu können. Eine solche Frage ist z.B.: »Was halten Sie für das ärgste Verbrechen, das einer begehen kann?« oder: »Was würden Sie tun, wenn Sie nur noch ein Jahr zu leben hätten?« Die Interpretation gilt besonders der in den Reaktionen zutage kommenden Charakterstruktur. Verschiedene Zeichen-Tests (Wartegg-Test, Baum-Test, Draw-a-man-Test usw.) werden zusätzlich verwandt, weil sie mit wenig Zeitaufwand durchzuführen sind. Die Interpretation dieser Tests ist allerdings schwierig. Sie erfordert viel Einfühlungsvermögen, Erfahrung und Verständnis für graphischen Ausdruck. Der Szeno-Spiel-Test, der sowohl diagnostischen wie therapeutischen Zwecken dient, wird bei Umweltschwierigkeiten von Kindern angewandt und eignet sich auch als Gruppen-Test. Andere projektive Tests, wie z.B. der Szondi-Test zur Triebdiagnostik, der Pfister-Farb-Pyramiden- oder auch die Graphologie usw. seien hier nur erwähnt, da sie bisher meist für Einzeldiagnosen angewandt wurden. Ebenso sei auf den Film als projektive Testmethode nurmehr hingewiesen. Seine Anwendungsmöglichkeiten sind vielseitig, aber noch nicht sehr

entwickelt.

 10. Gruppenforschung   Zu Beginn der zwanziger Jahre dieses Jahrhunderts wurde in zunehmendem Maße versucht, dem Wesen der Gruppe nicht, wie bisher nur, durch Begriffsbestimmungen, sondern durch empirische Untersuchungen näherzukommen. Dabei beschränkte man sich darauf, Einzelphänomene zu studieren und in ihnen nach dem Vorhandensein allgemeiner Gesetzmäßigkeiten zu suchen. Die erste Phase dieser Entwicklung ist durch relativ simple Ansätze und Fragestellungen gekennzeichnet, z.B. den Vergleich der Leistungen von Kindern in Einzel- und Gruppensituationen. Entscheidende neue Impulse erhielt die Gruppenforschung erst vor etwa 15 Jahren in den USA unter dem Einfluß der Betriebssoziologie und der sozialpsychologischen Interessen der amerikanischen Armee. Ihre Ziele waren vornehmlich pragmatisch: durch wissenschaftliche Erforschung der Determinanten der verschiedenen Gruppenphänomene sollten Wege zur Steigerung der »Produktivität« von Gruppen (z.B. in der Wirtschaft, der Verwaltung und der Armee), zur Beseitigung bzw. Milderung sozialer Spannungen (religiöse, ethnische, Arbeitnehmer-Arbeitgeberkonflikte usw.) und zur Erzielung eines reibungsloseren Funktionierens gesellschaftlicher Gebilde gefunden werden. Eine der Hauptfragen ist die nach den »Grundvariablen«. Deshalb versucht man, den Gruppenprozeß in seine Elemente zu zerlegen und diese isoliert zu untersuchen. Als Gegenstände der Gruppenforschung wurden bisher die folgenden Komplexe behandelt: (1) die innerhalb einer Gruppe bestehende Kohäsion (»cohesiveness«). Sie wird aufgefaßt als die Resultante aller auf die Gruppenmitglieder wirkenden anziehenden und abstoßenden Kräfte; (2) die Bildung von Gruppennormen (»group standards«) und der von der Gruppe auf ihre Mitglieder ausgeübte Druck, sich den Normen zu unterwerfen und konformistisch zu verhalten (»pressure towards uniformity«); (3) die Strukturen von Gruppen und die von den einzelnen Mitgliedern innerhalb dieser eingenommenen Positionen. Unter »Struktur« wird dabei eine Differenzierung der Gruppe nach

unterscheidbaren Teilen, sowie deren Verhältnis zueinander verstanden. Es wird unterschieden zwischen formellen und informellen, soziometrischen, Kommunikations-, Macht- und zahlreichen anderen Strukturen; (4) der »Kommunikationsprozeß«, und zwar sowohl zwischen den Mitgliedern einer Gruppe wie zwischen verschiedenen Gruppen als Ganzes; (5) Integrations- und Desintegrationsphänomene; (6) die Bedeutung der »Führerrolle« (»leadership«), sowie die Auswirkungen unterschiedlicher Verhaltensweisen der »Führer« auf die Anziehungskraft, Produktivität, Zusammenarbeit und Atmosphäre in Gruppen. Über das Wesen der Gruppe bestehen verschiedene Vorstellungen. Zahlreiche Autoren betrachten das Verhalten einer Gruppe als »die Summe des Verhaltens der einzelnen Mitglieder«, von einigen wird die Gruppe als ein »Organismus« aufgefaßt, während die von der Gestaltpsychologie beeinflußten Forscher in der Gruppe eine »Gestalt« sehen, deren Eigenschaften mehr, d.h. qualitativ anders sind als die Summe der Eigenschaften ihrer Teile. Dementsprechend unterscheiden sich die Ansätze und Methoden, mit denen die Untersuchung von Gruppenphänomenen unternommen wird. Einige Forscher (z.B. Bales u.a.) richten ihr Hauptinteresse auf eine möglichst vollständige Erfassung der in Diskussionsgruppen auftretenden verbalen und nichtverbalen Kommunikationen zwischen den Mitgliedern (»interactions«), andere (z.B. Cattell) wollen voneinander unabhängige Gruppendimensionen durch statistische Analyse von ihnen zugeordneten Variablen, z.B. Populationsvariablen (soziologische und psychologische Merkmale der Mitglieder), Strukturvariablen und »Syntality«-Variablen (»Charakter«- oder »Persönlichkeits«-Merkmale der als Organismus aufgefaßten Gruppe) bestimmen. Eine vornehmlich psychoanalytisch orientierte Auffassung zielt auf die Erforschung der dem Verhalten der Gruppenmitglieder zugrunde liegenden Motivationen und Emotionen ab. Von der Lewin-Schule schließlich, die bisher die größte Anzahl von Gruppenuntersuchungen durchgeführt hat, wurde die topologische und Vektor-Psychologie mit ihren Begriffen wie »Vektor«, »Feld«, »Valenz«, »Lokomotion« und »Barriere« unmittelbar auf die Gruppe übertragen.

Die Gewinnung des für die Analyse benötigten Materials erfolgt auf vielfältige Weise unter Verwendung von Fragebogen, Tests und Protokollen, in denen durch ausgebildete Beobachter die Äußerungen und Verhaltensweisen der Gruppenmitglieder, sowie das Auftreten von Gruppenphänomenen festgehalten werden. Dabei bedient man sich sowohl der »freien Beobachtung« wie auf den speziellen Untersuchungsgegenstand zugeschnittener Kategoriensysteme und einer Kombination beider Verfahren mit bisweilen mehreren Beobachtern. Als rigoroseste Form des soziologischen Experiments werden »Laboratoriumsstudien« durchgeführt, daneben jedoch auch »action research« (Gruppenexperimente, bei denen versucht wird, Änderungen in den Verhaltensweisen der Teilnehmer hervorzurufen) und »Feldstudien« (Untersuchungen natürlicher Gruppen in ihrer natürlichen Umgebung). Ein anderes Verfahren zur Untersuchung von Gruppen ist die von Moreno zuerst angewandte und von anderen weiterentwickelte Soziometrie. Sie geht von der Voraussetzung aus, daß der zwischen zwei Gruppenmitgliedern in bezug auf gemeinsames Handeln in einer spezifischen Situation bestehende »psychische Abstand« sich durch Ermittlung der möglichen Beziehungsschemata (A wählt B, B wählt A; A wählt B, B ignoriert A; A wählt B, B lehnt A ab; A ignoriert B, B wählt A; A lehnt B ab, B wählt A usw.) messen lassen. Die Antworten auf die entsprechenden Fragen werden graphisch im »Soziogramm« oder mathematisch auf einer Matrix dargestellt. Aus den Häufungen bzw. dem Fehlen von »Wahlen« lassen sich der Grad der Beliebtheit der Mitglieder (»attraction-repulsionpattern«) sowie Cliquenbildungen usw. ablesen.

 11. Empirisch-soziologische Analyse geistiger Produkte (content analysis)   Man hat, angeregt insbesondere durch Harold D. Lasswell, die Methoden der empirischen Sozialforschung auch auf geistige Gebilde anzuwenden begonnen. Diese erscheinen dabei im Zusammenhang von »communication research«: sie werden als Übermittlung bestimmter Inhalte an gesellschaftliche Gruppen betrachtet. Um gesellschaftliche Reaktionen auf Geistiges streng objektiv zu begreifen, will man das dingfest machen, was in derlei »Kommunikationen« überhaupt kommuniziert wird. Zugunsten der Erkenntnis der sozialen Wirksamkeit von »Kommunikationen« wird von dem Problem ihres eigentlichen geistigen Gehalts abgesehen. Statt dessen leitet man aus den Befunden Rückschlüsse auf den Bewußtseinsstand derer ab, an welche die Kommunikationen sich wenden und auf die sie oftmals zugeschnitten sind, oder auf die Beschaffenheit der Gruppen, die hinter den Kommunikationen stehen, auf ihre Ideologie und ihre realen oder psychologischen Ziele. Der content analysis werden unterworfen: alle Formen von Propaganda, gedrucktes Material der verschiedensten Art, z.B. Magazine, Filme, Fernsehsendungen, auch Musik (z.B. Standardisierungsphänomene der Schlager) usw. Solche content analysis soll meist »systematisch«, »objektiv« und weitgehend quantitativ sein, also etwa die Frequenz von Ideen in einem bestimmten Text zählen. Formale Charakteristiken syntaktischer und semantischer Art werden ebenfalls behandelt. Die Methode scheint am angemessensten, wenn ihre Gegenstände dem Bereich kultureller Massenproduktion – Radiosendungen, Reden von Demagogen – angehören, also selber bereits weitgehend mechanisch konstruiert sind, wesentlich durch den Gedanken an ihre Wirkung bestimmt werden, und keinen eigentlichen Sinnzusammenhang enthalten. Je differenzierter und höher organisiert dagegen ein geistiges Gebilde, um so problematischer wird das Verfahren samt seiner Vorstellung von »Objektivität«: die content analysis eines Kunstwerkes nach Standardmethoden wäre absurd. Lasswell hat in seinem Aufsatz »Why Be Quantitative?« 1 versucht, das Verfahren gegen die sich aufdrängenden Einwände zu verteidigen. Viele Anhänger der quantitativen content analysis lassen die

Notwendigkeit einer Ergänzung durch qualitative Untersuchungen, wie sie längst vor Erfindung des Terminus von zahlreichen kultursoziologischen Autoren durchgeführt worden sind, gelten.

 V. Soziologie und empirische Sozialforschung   Die empirische Sozialforschung scheint sich als Teil dem Gesamtgebiet der Soziologie einzufügen. Sie wäre zu unterscheiden von Gesellschaftstheorie, formaler Soziologie, institutioneller Soziologie – also der soziologischen Analyse objektiver Einrichtungen und Kräfte der Gesellschaft –; etwa auch, unter inhaltlichen Gesichtspunkten, von politischer Soziologie, Wirtschaftssoziologie, Verwaltungssoziologie usw., obwohl hier überall empirische Methoden ebenfalls herangezogen werden können. Überhaupt sind die einzelnen Disziplinen der soziologischen Gesamtwissenschaft keineswegs streng und verbindlich voneinander abgegrenzt. Ebensowenig ist die Absonderung von benachbarten Disziplinen, wie der theoretischen Nationalökonomie, der Kulturgeschichte, der Ethnologie, der Sozialphilosophie eindeutig vollzogen. Darin darf indessen kaum ein Mangel an wissenschaftlicher Systematik erblickt werden. Vielmehr bilden die konkreten Wissenschaften, die sich auf den Menschen beziehen, eine Einheit, die nur gewaltsam durch wissenschaftliche Arbeitsteilung sich auflösen läßt. Würde man sich aber selbst über den Ort der empirischen Sozialforschung im Ganzen der Soziologie verständigen, so wäre damit nur recht wenig geleistet. Die einzelnen soziologischen Disziplinen liegen nicht neutral nebeneinander, sondern durchdringen sich wechselseitig und stehen in vielfacher Spannung. Unverkennbar zeigt die empirische Sozialforschung heute eine Tendenz, den Primat zu beanspruchen. Was ihren Kriterien sich nicht unterwirft, sei unwissenschaftlich, oder bestenfalls bloße Anweisung auf zukünftige empirische Erfüllung. Die gesamte empirische Sozialforschung ist polemisch zugespitzt nicht bloß gegen die gesellschaftsphilosophische Spekulation, sondern auch gegen Zentralkategorien der älteren, selbst bereits weitgehend empirisch orientierten Soziologie, wie der des »Verstehens«. Man will sich ans Gegebene halten und bei überschaubaren einzelnen Forschungssektoren bescheiden. Die Frage nach dem gesellschaftlichen Sinn von Phänomenen gilt vielfach für müßig, die nach der gesellschaftlichen Gesamtstruktur, die dem Einzelnen

solchen Sinn verleiht, wird allenfalls auf spätere Synthesen vertagt. Trotz vereinzelter Ausnahmen 2 ist zumal das gesellschaftskritische Motiv der Soziologie aus dem Betrieb der empirischen Sozialforschung zugunsten von »Realsoziologie« verbannt. Insofern stellt sie die radikale Konsequenz aus der Forderung nach »wertfreier« Soziologie dar, wie sie vor 50 Jahren von Max Weber und seinem Kreis erhoben wurde. Gewiß wird von den Einsichtigen unter den empirischen Sozialforschern nicht länger aufrechterhalten, daß ihre Arbeit ohne Theorie möglich, daß das Instrumentarium der Forschung eine von jedem »Vorurteil« gereinigte tabula rasa sei, die sich den zu sammelnden und zu klassifizierenden Fakten darbiete. Bereits das vieldiskutierte Problem der Selektion der zu bearbeitenden Gegenstände macht diese primitive Form von Empirismus unmöglich. Aber die Theorie wird doch mehr als notwendiges Übel, als »Hypothesenbildung« geduldet, denn daß sie ihrem vollen Gewicht nach eingesetzt würde. Die von der empirischen Sozialforschung vollzogenen Erwägungen über die Rolle der Theorie tragen meist den Charakter des apologetischen, widerstrebenden Zugeständnisses. Demgegenüber ist zunächst darauf hinzuweisen, daß die Lücke zwischen der Theorie der Gesellschaft und der empirischen Sozialforschung ihren Grund keineswegs bloß in der relativen Jugend der empirischen Sozialforschung hat. Sie wird sich kaum derart ausfüllen lassen, daß bei längerer Entwicklung die Theorie durch weitere Häufung der ohnehin kaum mehr übersehbaren Befunde ohne Rest eingelöst und dadurch überflüssig gemacht würde. Verglichen mit den zentralen Fragen der gesellschaftlichen Struktur, von denen das Leben der Menschen abhängt, erfaßt die empirische Sozialforschung nur schmale Sektoren. Die Beschränkung auf herausgeschnittene, scharf isolierte Gegenstände – also gerade jene Annäherung der empirischen Sozialforschung an die Naturwissenschaften, die aus dem Bedürfnis nach Exaktheit laboratoriumsähnliche Bedingungen zu schaffen trachtet – verwehrt nicht bloß temporär, sondern prinzipiell die Behandlung der Totalität der Gesellschaft. Das bringt mit sich, daß die Aussagen der empirischen Sozialforschung häufig den Charakter des Unergiebigen, Peripheren, oder den von Informationen zu administrativen Zwecken tragen, wofern sie nicht von vornherein in

relevante theoretische Fragestellungen sich einfügen. Unverkennbar ist die Gefahr einer Stoffhuberei, wie sie von Robert S. Lynd in seinem Buch »Knowledge for what?« nachdrücklich charakterisiert wurde. Durchs Bestreben, sich an hieb- und stichfeste Daten zu halten und jede Frage nach dem Wesen als Metaphysik zu diskreditieren, droht der empirischen Sozialforschung die Beschränkung aufs Unwesentliche im Namen unbezweifelbarer Richtigkeit. Oft genug werden ihr die Gegenstände durch die verfügbaren Methoden vorgeschrieben, anstatt daß die Methode nach dem Gegenstand sich richtete. Die Wesensgesetze der Gesellschaft sind nicht das Gemeinsame möglichst reichhaltiger empirischer Befunde. Vielfach ist das Empirische – man denke nur an die von der empirischen Sozialforschung ermittelten »Meinungen« – bloß ein Epiphänomen. Worauf es ankommt, wird durch abstraktiv gewonnene Aussagen zuweilen schief wiedergegeben, wenn nicht gar verdeckt. Während die empirische Sozialforschung auf ihre Objektivität pocht, indem sie in Anlehnung an die Naturwissenschaften die Subjektivität des Beobachters zu eliminieren trachtet, haftet sie selber in vielen ihrer Anwendungen an der bloßen Subjektivität derer, an die ihre Fragebogen und Interviews sich wenden; an ihrer Meinung, Haltung, Verhaltensweise. An Stelle der Bedingungen, unter denen die Menschen leben, oder der objektiven Funktion, welche sie im gesellschaftlichen Prozeß einnehmen, rücken dann deren subjektive Spiegelungen. Aber es wäre abwegig, etwa daraus, daß von empirischen Untersuchungen erfaßte Arbeiter ihrer eigenen Meinung nach sich nicht als Arbeiter fühlen, abzuleiten, daß es heute keine Arbeiter mehr gibt. Die Problematik zumal des Ausdrucks »Meinungsforschung« hat ihren eigentlichen Grund darin, daß die Meinung, die dabei als letztes Datum aufgesucht und dann wissenschaftlich verarbeitet wird, selbst unendlich vermittelt, gesellschaftlich produziert ist, und daß an »Meinungen«, das Willkürliche und seinem eigenen Begriff nach von der Frage nach Wahrheit Unabhängige, weiter reichende Entscheidungen über das Wahre strikt nicht angeschlossen werden können. Möglichkeiten der Korrektur sind gewiß in der empirischen Sozialforschung selbst enthalten. So können z.B. Meinungserhebungen ergänzt werden durch Forschungen über jene Gruppen, welche die Meinung »machen«. Freilich drohen auch

solchen Untersuchungen die entscheidenden objektiven Mechanismen zu entgleiten. Andererseits ist der Wert der empirischen Sozialforschung als eines Mittels unbestechlicher Aufklärung des gesellschaftlichen Denkens, als eines der Entzauberung soziologischer Konstruktionen, welche die Beziehung zur tragenden Wirklichkeit eingebüßt haben, außer Frage. Ihre Zukunft dürfte nicht zuletzt davon abhängen, ob sie das kritische Bewußtsein ihrer selbst findet und aus jener ihrer aufklärerischen Funktion die ganze Konsequenz zieht.

 Fußnoten   1 In: Lasswell und Leites (Hrsg.): Language of Politics, New York 1949, Kap. 3, S. 40–52.   2 Z.B.P.F. Lazarsfeld: Remarks on Administrative and Critical Communication Research, in: Studies in Philosophy and Social Science 9 (1941). S. 2–16.  

 Vorurteil und Charakter * In New York ist vor einiger Zeit eine fünfbändige Buchreihe »Studien über Vorurteil« 1 erschienen, die das gegenwärtige Deutschland ernstlich angeht. Das gilt in doppeltem Sinne. Hauptgegenstand der ausgedehnten Forschungen, die darin zusammengefaßt werden, ist der Antisemitismus. Obwohl die Bücher sich nicht in erster Linie auf Europa beziehen, sind die gleichsam im Reagenzglas gewonnenen Einsichten bedeutsam vor allem für die Diagnose des Hasses, der auf einen Unterschied der Religion oder der Rasse zurückgeht. Zugleich aber sind die Bücher größtenteils das Werk emigrierter deutscher und österreichischer Gelehrter. Von den hier Berichtenden hat Max Horkheimer die Forschungsabteilung des »American Jewish Committee« organisiert und auch das Programm der Forschungen entworfen und ist dauernd mit ihnen verbunden gewesen; er zeichnet für die Reihe als erster Herausgeber. T.W. Adorno hat gemeinsam mit dem Psychologen Nevitt R. Sanford von der kalifornischen Staatsuniversität in Berkeley die Untersuchungen geleitet, deren Resultate in einem der Bände, dem umfangreichen Kollektivwerk »The Authoritarian Personality« 2 , niedergelegt sind. In dem Augenblick, in dem wir versuchen, in Deutschland zum Studium gesellschaftlicher Gegenstände das Unsere beizutragen, ist es wohl angebracht, wenn wir auf jene Gesichtspunkte der amerikanischen Arbeiten hinweisen, an die unsere deutschen Forschungen unmittelbar anknüpfen sollen. Es handelt sich hier vor allem um Befunde, die – wie sich aus den Untersuchungen selbst ergeben hat – von besonderen wirtschaftlichen, politischen und vermutlich auch geographischen Bedingungen bis zu einem gewissen Grad unabhängig sind, nämlich die sozialpsychologischen Voraussetzungen des modernen totalitären Wahns und darüber hinaus des ethnischen und nationalistischen Vorurteils überhaupt. Im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchungen stand der Zusammenhang politischer Ideologien mit einer bestimmten psychologischen Beschaffenheit derer, die sie hegen. Dieser Zusammenhang, bislang nur auf einigermaßen vage, vermutungsmäßige Weise bekannt, ist nun eindeutig und unter der strengsten statistischen Kontrolle der modernen amerikanischen

Sozialwissenschaft bewiesen. Entscheidendes hat sich ergeben über die psychologischen Mächte, die einen Menschen anfällig für die Reklame des Nationalsozialismus oder anderer totalitärer Ideologien machen. Man kann von jetzt an mit Grund vom »autoritätsgebundenen Charakter« und seinem Gegensatz: dem freien, nicht blind an Autorität gebundenen Menschen, reden; mit Grund, weil diese Unterscheidung nicht länger auf die Ebene der bloßen Redeweise verwiesen bleibt, vielmehr ihre Gültigkeit in der Realität dargetan ist. Wohlverstanden: es geht nicht etwa darum, das Auftreten totalitärer Systeme einfach psychologisch zu erklären. Die Gewalt solcher massenfeindlichen Massenbewegungen rührt von mächtigen politischen und wirtschaftlichen Interessen her, und ihre Anhänger, die sich nicht umsonst Gefolgschaft nennen, sind keineswegs ihre bestimmenden Träger. Dennoch bedürfen die Nutznießer jener Bewegungen in der modernen Massengesellschaft der Massen. Die Studien nun zeigen die unbewußten seelischen Bedingungen auf, unter denen Massen für eine Politik gewonnen werden können, die ihren eigenen vernünftigen Interessen entgegengesetzt ist. Die dafür anfälligen Charaktere sind selber das Produkt gesellschaftlicher Entwicklungen, wie etwa des Zerfalls des mittleren Eigentums. Mit solchen geschichtlichen Vorgängen ändert sich die Beschaffenheit der Menschen bis in ihre innerste Zusammensetzung hinein. Die Strukturwandlungen der Gesellschaft als eines Ganzen verwirklichen sich nicht bloß in einer eigenen Dynamik, die verhältnismäßig unabhängig von den Einzelnen ist, sondern auch durch die Einzelnen selber hindurch. Diesem Kräftespiel zwischen Gesellschaft und Einzelmensch gilt die Aufmerksamkeit der sozialpsychologischen Studien, von denen hier die Rede ist. Entsprechend ist der Gesamtplan angelegt, soweit er sich auf sozialpsychologische Grundfragen bezieht. Einerseits werden die »Reize« herausgearbeitet und untersucht, mit denen Agitatoren, vor allem die bewußt völkischen, arbeiten, um Menschen einzufangen; dabei wird unterstellt, daß diese Reize recht genau den Neigungen und Verhaltensweisen jener psychologischen Typen entsprechen, die zur Gefolgschaft gewissermaßen vorherbestimmt sind. Andererseits sind zahlreiche Personen daraufhin untersucht worden, ob zwischen ihren allgemeinen politischen Ansichten, ihrer Stellung zu völkischen, sozialen und religiösen Minderheiten und ihrer

persönlichen Struktur eine bestimmte Beziehung besteht und, wenn ja, wie diese zu verstehen ist. Was die Agitatoren anlangt, so wurden eine große Anzahl ins Einzelne gehender Untersuchungen (insbesondere von Radioreden und Broschüren) vorgenommen, die dann zu einer systematischen Behandlung der Technik der sogenannten »rabble rousers« führten, der kleinen Gruppe antisemitischer, mit Hitler offen sympathisierender amerikanischer Hetzapostel. Die Ergebnisse sind zusammengefaßt in dem Buch »Prophets of Deceit« von Leo Löwenthal und Norbert Guterman. Die auffallende Ähnlichkeit des hier ausgebreiteten Materials mit der Hitlerpropaganda ist wohl nur zum Teil auf deren Einfluß zurückzuführen. Gewiß ist dieser Einfluß in manchen politischen Parolen unverkennbar. Aber gerade was die psychologischen Zugmittel anlangt, so wird hier wie dort auf dieselben instinktmäßigen Grundlagen im Publikum spekuliert. Die rhetorischen Tricks sind überall gleich. Die Gleichförmigkeit des Materials ist derart, daß eigentlich an einer einzigen Rede alles sich entwickeln ließe, und nur das Gebot wissenschaftlicher Zuverlässigkeit, die Vorsicht gegenüber allzu schnellen Verallgemeinerungen machte es notwendig, Tausende von Flugblättern, Broschüren und aufgenommenen Reden heranzuziehen und sich durch den ganzen Wust von schlau auskalkuliertem Unsinn hindurchzuwühlen. Starres, klischeehaftes Denken und unablässige Wiederholung sind nun einmal Mittel der Reklame vom Stil Hitlers. Sie schleifen die Reaktionsweisen ab, verleihen den Plattheiten eine Art von Selbstverständlichkeit und setzen die Widerstände des kritischen Bewußtseins außer Kraft. So lassen sich denn aus all diesen Reden und Haßtraktätchen eine überaus geringe Anzahl stets wieder verwandter, standardisierter und mechanisch verbundener Tricks herauspräparieren, ganz ähnlich wie bei der Propaganda des Dritten Reichs. Da ist etwa das Klischee des Redners selbst. Er stellt sich hin als den großen kleinen Mann, der genau ist wie alle anderen und doch ein Genius, ohnmächtig und doch vom Widerschein der Macht verklärt, durchschnittlich und doch ein Halbgott: nicht anders hat Hitler sich den »Soldaten des Ersten Weltkriegs« oder den »Trommler« genannt. Da ist die Aufteilung der Welt in Schafe und Böcke, in die Guten, zu denen man selber gehört, und die Bösen, den eigens für solchen Zweck erfundenen Feind. Jene sind gerettet,

diese verdammt, ohne Übergang, Einschränkung, Selbstbesinnung, ganz wie Hitler in der berühmten Stelle von »Mein Kampf« rät, man müsse, um sich wider einen Gegner oder Konkurrenten wirksam durchzusetzen, diesen in den schwärzesten Farben malen. Da ist die Behauptung, der Agitator, der es doch stets mit einer mächtigen Clique halten möchte und sich ihr als zuverlässiger Büttel empfiehlt, stehe ganz allein, bedroht, verfemt, auf nichts gestützt als auf die eigene Kraft. So sprach Hitler von den paar isolierten Kameraden, die in München sich zusammengefunden hätten, um Deutschland zu retten, nur auf sich allein vertrauend. Der psychologische Sinn dieser und einiger anderer Tricks wird als Grund ihrer Wirksamkeit dargestellt. Man kann zum Beispiel sich selbst gleichsetzen mit dem großen kleinen Mann und doch zu ihm aufblicken: er befriedigt das Bedürfnis nach Nähe und Wärme und zugleich nach Bestätigung dessen, was man ohnehin ist, dann aber auch das Bedürfnis nach einer »Idealgestalt«, der man sich freudig unterwirft. Die Aufteilung der Welt in Schafe und Böcke zielt allemal auf die Eitelkeit ab. Die Guten werden als die vorgestellt, denen man selber gleicht, und das Schema erspart einem, als Guter sich erst zu bewähren, denn alles ist ja längst vorentschieden. Die Bösen aber liefern den Schein eines Rechtsgrundes dafür, daß man die eigenen sadistischen Instinkte, im Namen der gebührenden »Strafe«, auf die jeweils bezeichneten Opfer losläßt. Der Hinweis auf die eigene Isoliertheit und Einsamkeit endlich trägt nicht nur dazu bei, das Bild des Führers zu heroisieren – der traditionelle Held ist immer einsam –, sondern er beschwichtigt auch das allgemein verbreitete Mißtrauen gegen Propaganda und Reklame, das in dem Sprecher mit Recht einen bloßen Agenten von interessierten Hintermännern vermutet. Überall kommt es dem Agitator darauf an, den Zuhörern durch die Rede an sich Ersatzbefriedigung zu verschaffen. Sie werden von der Wirklichkeit weggelockt und darin geübt, überhaupt mit Ersatz vorlieb zu nehmen. Das Interesse an dieser Sphäre der bewußt – »psychotechnisch« – betriebenen Verdummung ist keineswegs bloß akademisch. Kennt man den bescheidenen Vorrat der Tricks und das Wesen ihres Effekts, so sollte es möglich sein, die Massen dagegen zu »impfen«, so daß sie sie als abgefeimte, aber auch abgebrauchte Instrumente erkennen, sobald sie ihnen vorkommen. Wer sich über die beabsichtigten Wirkungen Rechenschaft ablegt, wird nicht länger

ihnen naiv verfallen, sondern sich schämen, so dumm sich zu erweisen, wie die Demagogen ihn einschätzen. Sachlich-aufklärende Broschüren, die solche Widerstände zu wecken vermögen, die Mitwirkung von Rundfunk und Film, die Bearbeitung der wissenschaftlichen Resultate für den Schulgebrauch sind praktische Mittel, der Gefahr des völkischen Massenwahns für die Zukunft energisch vorzubeugen. Sie planmäßig zu entfalten und anzuwenden, ist heute nicht weniger zeitgemäß, als anderen Seuchen und Epidemien vorzubeugen. Die Forschungen über Rolle und Beschaffenheit der totalitären Charakterstruktur in der Bevölkerung selber sind in dem Buch »The Authoritarian Personality« dargestellt. Sie sind insofern den Untersuchungen über die Agitatoren verbunden, als eine Reihe von Kategorien wie die des stereotypischen Denkens, des verkappten Sadismus, der Machtanbetung, der blinden Anerkennung alles Schlagkräftigen hier wie dort verwandt werden. Das Material der Forschungen 3 selber jedoch stammt unmittelbar aus der Bevölkerung. Es handelt sich um eine Verbindung dessen, was man in weiterem Sinne »Meinungsforschung« nennt, und tiefenpsychologischer Untersuchungen, die sich weitgehend der Freudschen Begriffe und Methoden bedienen. Thema ist die Wechselwirkung zwischen der politischen Weltansicht und den individuellen seelischen Strebungen. Die vielschichtige Natur des Forschungsgegenstandes ließ es von Anbeginn als ratsam erscheinen, die gleichen Kernfragen mit einer Reihe voneinander unabhängiger Methoden zu behandeln. Die Ergebnisse gewinnen an objektiver Überzeugungskraft, je mehr sie in verschiedenen Forschungsweisen übereinstimmend hervortreten. Verteilt wurden über zweitausend Fragebogen mit Aussagen, die von der Versuchsperson zu bejahen oder zu verneinen waren. Diese Aussagen bezogen sich teils auf die Stellung der Befragten zu ethnischen und religiösen Minderheiten, teils auf Ansichten über aktuelle politische und wirtschaftliche Fragen. Manche jedoch hatten es mit ganz privaten Meinungen und Verhaltensweisen zu tun. Sie standen in keinem offenen Zusammenhang mit Politik oder Vorurteil, ließen dafür jedoch zwingende psychologische Rückschlüsse zu. Bei fortschreitender Arbeit und kritischer Verfeinerung ergab sich nun eine vollständig befriedigende statistische Beziehung zwischen den Antworten, die sich auf

psychologisch motivierte Neigungen und Abneigungen bezogen, und den Religions- und Rassenvorurteilen. Überraschenderweise war diese Entsprechung höher sogar als die zwischen den bewußten Vorurteilen und den politisch-ökonomischen Überzeugungen. Mit anderen Worten: dafür, ob einer dazu neigt, schwächere Gruppen zu verfolgen, und auf die entsprechende Haßpropaganda anspricht, ist es viel entscheidender, ob er ein Mensch von bestimmter Charakterstruktur ist, als ob etwa seine Ansichten konservativ und im üblichen Sinn »reaktionär« sind. Damit war schon grundsätzlich die Annahme bestätigt, daß es einen »Gefolgsmenschen«, einen für die totalitäre Propaganda gleichsam vorbestimmten Typus gibt. Zugleich erlaubte es die hohe statistische Entsprechung zwischen den »psychologischen« Antworten und den Antworten über Minderheiten, diese in den Fragebogen allmählich kaum mehr oder gar nicht mehr zu erwähnen. Man kann durch simple Fragen für soziale Gruppen einer bestimmten Größe mit Gewißheit erschließen, ob sie vorurteilsfrei oder nicht sind, ohne daß der Name der bedrohten Minderheit, handle es sich um Flüchtlinge, Andersgläubige oder fremde Hautfarben, auch nur erschiene. Um eine Vorstellung von den »psychologischen« Aussagen zu geben, ein Beispiel. Zu jenen Aussagen, die am bündigsten den Unterschied zwischen völkischen und frei denkenden Personen erkennen lassen, gehörten folgende: »Die Jugend braucht in erster Linie strikte Disziplin, robuste Entschlossenheit und den Willen, für Familie und Vaterland zu arbeiten und zu kämpfen«; »Die Menschen können in zwei sich deutlich voneinander abhebende Klassen eingeteilt werden: die Starken und die Schwachen«; »Kein gesunder, normaler, anständiger Mensch könnte je daran denken, einem nahen Freund oder einem Verwandten weh zu tun«. Natürlich erlaubt eine einzelne derartige Aussage noch keine psychologischen Rückschlüsse, wohl aber ihre Gesamtheit. Der Sinn der jeweils hervortretenden Struktureinheiten war zunächst aufgrund theoretischer Überlegungen vorausgesetzt. Eine Hauptaufgabe bestand nun darin, festzustellen, ob diese psychologische Deutung der in den Fragebogen enthaltenen Aussagen in der Tat zutraf. Das wurde geleistet, indem ungefähr ein Zehntel der gesamten untersuchten Gruppe, und zwar die besonders »totalitären« und die besonders vorurteilsfreien Charaktere, oft über mehrere Sitzungen hin, persönlich befragt wurden. Die Interviews

waren so angelegt, daß sie über die »kritischen« Interessenzonen der Studie, insbesondere Kindheitsgeschichte und Verhältnis zur Familie, Klarheit brachten, ohne daß diese Punkte besonders betont gewesen wären. Zugleich waren die Befragungen derart organisiert, daß auch sie statistisch verarbeitet werden konnten, so daß sich die »qualitativen« Ergebnisse unmittelbar verwenden ließen, um die »quantitativen« Ergebnisse des Fragebogens zu überprüfen. Weiter wurde den Versuchspersonen eine Reihe von Bildern gegeben, die stofflich verschiedenen Deutungen Raum lassen; die von den Einzelnen gewählten Deutungen gewährten dann Einsicht in ihre Vorstellungs-, Wunsch- und Phantasiewelt (»Thematic Apperception Test«). Schließlich wurden neben den Gruppen, auf die sich die Untersuchung zunächst erstreckte (wie Studenten, Angehörige des Mittelstandes und Techniker), auch abseitige soziale Gruppen, wie Gefängnisinsassen oder Patienten einer Nervenklinik, behandelt. Auch andere moderne psychologische Experimente, die zur Scheidung von Charaktertypen beitragen können, wurden angewandt. Die Deutung des Materials blieb nicht dabei stehen, die Fragebogen und »klinischen« Daten isoliert auszuwerten, sondern wandte rückblickend diese psychologischen Befunde auf die Deutung von Meinungen, Ideologien und politischen Haltungen an. Unmöglich, die Ergebnisse in ihrer Fülle auch nur andeutungsweise darzustellen. Der totalitäre Charaktertyp erweist sich insgesamt als relativ starre, unveränderliche, immer wieder auftretende und überall gleiche Struktur, auch wenn die politischen Ideologien noch so verschieden sind; der nichtfaschistische Persönlichkeitstypus begreift nicht nur differenziertere Menschen unter sich, sondern gewährt auch weit größeren Möglichkeiten der Differenzierung und verschiedenen Arten von Menschen Raum. Die Gesamtstruktur des totalitären Charakters – der »Rahmen«, innerhalb dessen die verschiedenen Typen von »Gefolgsmenschen« vorkommen – ist wesentlich gekennzeichnet durch Autoritätsgebundenheit, ein Befund, wie er schon in den »Studien über Autorität und Familie« sich abzeichnete, die 1936 vom Institut für Sozialforschung bei Alcan, Paris, veröffentlicht worden waren. Diese Autoritätsgebundenheit bedeutet in einer Zeit, in der die alten feudalreligiösen Autoritäten geschwächt sind, die bedingungslose Anerkennung dessen, was ist und Macht hat, und den irrationalen

Nachdruck auf konventionelle Werte wie äußerlich korrektes Benehmen, Erfolg, Fleiß, Tüchtigkeit, physische Sauberkeit, Gesundheit und entsprechend auf konventionelles, unkritisches Verhalten. Innerhalb dieses Konventionalismus wird hierarchisch gedacht und empfunden: man verhält sich unterwürfig zu den idealisierten moralischen Autoritäten der Gruppe, zu der man sich selber rechnet, steht aber zugleich auf dem Sprung, den, der nicht zu dieser gehört oder den man glaubt für unter einem stehend ansehen zu dürfen, unter allerhand Vorwänden zu verdammen. Die populäre Wendung von der Radfahrernatur trifft den autoritätsgebundenen Charakter recht genau. Die Veräußerlichung seines Lebensgefühls, die in der Anerkennung jeglicher gegebenen Ordnung liegt, wenn sie nur mit drastischen Machtmitteln zu verfahren weiß, verbindet sich mit tiefer Schwäche des eigenen Ichs, das sich den Anforderungen der Selbstbestimmung angesichts der übermächtigen sozialen Kräfte und Einrichtungen nicht mehr gewachsen fühlt. Der für die totalitäre Ordnung vorherbestimmte Typus sperrt sich gegen jegliche Selbstbestimmung, die seine falsche Sicherheit gefährden könnte, und verachtet alle eigentlich subjektiven Kräfte: die geistige Regung, die Phantasie. Er macht es sich leicht, indem er die Welt nach zweigeteilten Klischees beurteilt und ist geneigt, die unveränderliche Natur oder gar okkulte Mächte für alles Übel verantwortlich zu machen, nur um sich an etwas Allgewaltiges anlehnen zu können und den Konsequenzen eigenen, verantwortlichen Denkens auszuweichen. Auf Macht ausgerichtet und Macht als solche verehrend, betont der in Wahrheit schwächliche Gefolgsmann seine Männlichkeit, ja seine Brutalität, so wie die totalitäre Frau aus Konventionalismus die eigene Weiblichkeit übertreibt und verherrlicht. Unter all dem liegt das tiefe »Unbehagen in der Kultur« und, trotz dem unablässig positiven, offiziell optimistischen und weltbejahenden Gerede, trotz dem zur Schau getragenen Konservatismus, der unbewußte Wunsch nach Zerstörung – selbst der eigenen Person. Zynismus und Menschenverachtung bezeugen immer wieder diese unbewußten Motive. Da jedoch der totalitäre Charakter sie sich selber nicht einzugestehen wagt, so sieht er sie in andere hinein, vor allem in die von ihm erwählten oder ihm vorgeschriebenen Feinde. Immerzu phantasiert er von verbotenen und schlimmen Dingen, die in der Welt vorgehen, besonders auch von sexuellen Ausschweifungen der

anderen. Die »Dekadenz« der Opfer ist ein Schlagwort der totalitären Henker aller Schattierungen. Psychologische Einzeluntersuchungen haben dem allgemeinen Bild des Typus noch Wesentliches hinzugefügt, wie etwa, daß die betreffenden Charaktere durchweg in ihrer Kindheit, sei es durch einen strengen Vater, sei es durch Mangel an Liebe, »gebrochen« wurden und, um überhaupt seelisch weiterleben zu können, ihrerseits wiederholen, was ihnen selber einmal widerfuhr. Daher rührt ihre auffällige Beziehungslosigkeit, die Flachheit ihres Empfindens, auch den ihnen angeblich nächsten Menschen gegenüber. So normal sie sich gebärden und im Sinne eines gewissen praktischen Wesens tatsächlich auch sind, so tief beschädigt erscheinen sie zugleich. Die Fähigkeit, überhaupt lebendige Erfahrungen zu machen, ist ihnen weithin abhanden gekommen. Um sie im Ernst zu verändern, wird es darum nicht genügen, sie zu belehren oder ihnen andere Überzeugungen beizubringen, sondern es gilt, bei ihnen durch tiefgehende erzieherische Prozesse die Fähigkeit zu bilden oder wiederherzustellen, ein spontanes und lebendiges Verhältnis zu Menschen und Dingen zu gewinnen. Während sie »veräußerlicht« sind in dem schon angedeuteten Sinne, daß sie alles Unannehmbare, Negative außerhalb der eigenen Person, meist in einem bloß Physischen oder dem übermächtigen Schicksal suchen, sind sie zugleich, ohne es zu ahnen, Gefangene ihres eigenen geschwächten Ichs, im tiefsten unfähig zu allem, was über das beschränkte eigene Interesse oder das ihrer Gruppe hinausgeht. Latente Homosexualität spielt dabei eine erhebliche Rolle. Als sinnfälligstes Ergebnis des Ganzen ist anzusprechen, daß Forschungsinstrumente, vor allem eine »Skala«, entwickelt worden sind, die es gestatten, zwischen autoritätsgebundenen und innerlich freien Menschen verbindlich, unabhängig von privaten Vorlieben und Neigungen des Betrachters zu unterscheiden, ohne daß dabei eine oberflächliche, rein mechanische Aufteilung vorgenommen worden wäre. Es gehört zu den empfindlichsten Schwierigkeiten der modernen Soziologie, daß zwischen statistisch-allgemeinverbindlichen Befunden und spezifischen, das Wesen des Individuums und die Dynamik seines Verhaltens erschließenden Methoden ein Bruch klafft. Oft genug sind die statistischen Daten unanfechtbar, aber ohne Bedeutung für tiefere

Zusammenhänge, während Analysen, die sich auf Einzelfälle konzentrieren, zwar in solche Zusammenhänge hineinführen, aber mit einem Moment von Zufälligkeit behaftet scheinen. Die Studie über den autoritätsgebundenen Charakter überwindet diese Schwierigkeit. Die statistischen Fragen beziehen sich durchweg auf das Kräftespiel, das tiefer in den Menschen waltet, die Behandlung der Einzelfälle aber steht unter so strenger Kontrolle, daß sie der Zufälligkeit des erforschten wie des erforschenden Individuums weithin entzogen ist. So ergeben denn die Forschungsinstrumente ein verhältnismäßig zuverlässiges und zugleich sinnvolles Bild der menschlichen Kräfte und Gegenkräfte, die mobilisiert werden, wann und wo immer totalitäre Bewegungen und ihre Propaganda erheblichen Umfang annehmen. Trotzdem legt die Unterscheidung zwischen vorurteilsvollen und vorurteilsfreien Menschen, der Leitfaden der Untersuchung, den Verdacht nahe, als sei sie selber nicht frei vom Schematisieren, als mache sie sich mitschuldig an jener Aufteilung der Welt in Gerettete und Verdammte, die nicht bloß bei den vorurteilsvollen Charakteren ihre große Rolle spielt, sondern heute überall dort auftritt, wo Menschen von terroristischen Verwaltungen als Dinge hin- und hergeschoben werden. Es war nicht die letzte unter den Aufgaben der Studie, durch wache Selbstkritik dieser in ihrer eigenen Betrachtungsweise steckenden Gefahr zu begegnen. In dem dahin zielenden Bestreben wurde sie vor allem durch Daten aus dem Bereich der politischen und wirtschaftlichen Ideologie gefördert. Es stellte sich nämlich heraus, daß in diesem Bereich gewisse Bewußtseinsformen wirksam sind, die man eigentlich nur bei vorurteilsvollen Charakteren erwarten sollte. Dabei handelt es sich vor allem um formale Beschaffenheiten des heute vorherrschenden Denkens überhaupt. So ist etwa Stereotypie der Urteilsbildung keineswegs auf die vorurteilsvollen Charaktere beschränkt, sondern macht sich oft genug auch bei den vorurteilsfreien geltend, – unter diesen hat sich ein »starrer« Typus deutlich auskristallisiert. Ebenso weit verbreitet ist eine gewisse gesellschaftliche Indifferenz, die sich vor allem in Unkenntnis der einfachsten politischen und wirtschaftlichen Tatsachen ausdrückt. Eng damit zusammen hängt die Neigung, solche Tatsachen zu »personalisieren«, das heißt, überall dort, wo es darauf ankäme, über unpersönliche Verhältnisse sich zu unterrichten und sie zu durchdenken, sie statt dessen mit

irgendwelchen berühmten Einzelpersonen und »Führern« gleichzusetzen. Diese und viele andere den beiden Grundtypen mehr oder weniger gemeinsamen Züge werden in der Studie aus dem »kulturellen Klima« erklärt. Das aber herrscht keineswegs bloß in einem Lande, sondern dürfte auf der ganzen Welt zu finden sein und gesellschaftliche Veränderungen ausdrücken, die sich unabhängig von Landesgrenzen vollziehen. Bei den hier besonders in Rede stehenen Gemeinsamkeiten geht es um das, was wir in anderem Zusammenhang »Ticket«-Denken nannten. Der Prozeß der Mechanisierung und Bürokratisierung verlangt von den Menschen, die ihm unterworfen sind, Anpassung in einem neuen Sinn: sie müssen, um den Anforderungen gerecht zu werden, die das Leben in all seinen Bereichen an sie stellt, bis zu einem gewissen Grad sich selber mechanisieren und standardisieren. Je lockerer die Abhängigkeit ihres Schicksals von ihrem eigenen, selbständigen Urteil wird, je mehr sie darauf angewiesen sind, in übermächtige Organisationen und Institutionen sich einzufügen, um so besser fahren sie, wenn sie des eigenen Urteils und der eigenen Erfahrung sich begeben und selber die Welt schon so verhärtet und verwaltungsmäßig sehen, wie es im Sinn jener Organisationen liegt, die über ihr Fortkommen entscheiden. Der Anspruch individueller Urteilsbildung macht sich nur noch als eine Art Störungsfaktor im Ablauf des gesteuerten Lebensprozesses geltend: nicht nur, daß sich die Menschen durch die Anwendung fertig bezogener Klischees und Wertungen das Leben bequemer gestalten und sich den Leitern als zuverlässig empfehlen, – sie finden sich auch schneller und bleiben von der unendlichen Mühe befreit, durch die Kompliziertheit der modernen Gesellschaft hindurchsehen zu müssen. In den totalitären Staaten aller politischen Bekenntnisse hat diese Genormtheit des Bewußtseins sich bis ins Absurde gesteigert, aber auch die anderen müssen sehr mit ihr rechnen. Es liegt auf der Hand, daß sich die hier gekennzeichnete Denkweise an sich, schon vor der Entscheidung für eine der gleichsam fertig zur Auswahl stehenden Ideologien, der Beschaffenheit der »vorurteilslosen Charaktere« annähert, obwohl sie auch bei solchen sich findet, die ihrer rein seelischen Artung nach nicht zu diesen Charakteren zählen. Danach waren die wirklich freien Menschen keineswegs einfach bloß die, welche kein Vorurteil haben, und schon gar nicht waren sie durch eine bestimmte

politische Überzeugung zwangsläufig bestimmt. Vielmehr setzt Freiheit die bewußte Erkenntnis jener Prozesse voraus, welche zur Unfreiheit führen, und die Kraft des Widerstands, die weder vor diesen Prozessen romantisch in die Vergangenheit flüchtet, noch sich ihnen blindlings verschreibt. Der ganze Ernst der Fragestellung aber liegt darin, daß diese Prozesse ja nicht etwa in erster Linie Veränderungen sind, die sich mit den Menschen an sich zutragen, sondern daß sie in Sachverhalten gründen, die von Willen und Natur der einzelnen in hohem Maße unabhängig scheinen. Nicht wenig wird für die zukünftige Entwicklung davon abhängen, ob es gelingt, diese in letzter Instanz doch von Menschen geschaffenen Sachverhalte als solche zu erkennen und ihnen damit den Anschein des schicksalhaft Unausweichlichen zu nehmen, der seinerseits ihre finstere Gewalt noch steigert. Das jedoch sind Überlegungen, die zwar als leitende Ideen unsere Studien angeregt haben und wiederum durch sie hindurch sichtbar werden, die aber als solche weder bündig in empirische Methoden umsetzbar sind, noch den unmittelbaren Zweck der Untersuchungen umreißen. Es gehört zum Sinn, ja zur wissenschaftlichen Methode von Forschungen wie der über den »autoritätsgebundenen Charakter«, daß sie nicht einzig und allein der in sich ruhenden Wissenschaft dienen, sondern sich auch praktisch anwenden lassen, – sind doch ihre Fragestellungen selber aus einer realen Problematik erwachsen. Die Wechselwirkung von Forschung und Praxis, die für die Naturwissenschaften längst selbstverständlich ist, bahnt sich mit solchen Untersuchungen auch für die Sozialwissenschaft an, ohne daß darüber etwas von deren Einsicht in umfassende Zusammenhänge geopfert würde. Bereits darin, daß die Existenz des Gruppenhasses nicht als selbstverständlich und notwendig hingenommen, sondern zu einem Gegenstand objektiver Forschung gemacht wird, liegt etwas Distanzierendes: die zerstörerische Gesinnung verliert etwas von der sturen Gewalt, die ihr eigen ist, solange sie selber naiv ist und von anderen naiv hingenommen wird. Die Studien, von denen hier die Rede war, erwecken die Selbstbesinnung, während zugleich die Kenntnis der verwundbaren Zonen des totalitären Charakters es erlaubt, die wirksamsten gesellschaftlichen und psychologischen Gegenmittel systematisch zu erproben. Die Einsicht in die Tiefendimensionen des sozialen Vorurteils und des Gruppenhasses

kann für weitausgreifende, schon in der frühen Kindheit ansetzende Erziehungspläne fruchtbar gemacht werden. Es ist unsere Absicht, uns in kommenden Arbeiten mit dieser Aufgabe zu befassen.

 Fußnoten   * Der Bericht wurde gemeinsam von Max Horkheimer und Adorno geschrieben. (Anm. d. Hrsg.)   1 Studies in Prejudice, edited by Max Horkheimer and Samuel Flowerman, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, Harper and Brothers, New York.   2 By T.W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford. New York 1950.   3 Sie wurden von dem Research Project on Social Discrimination angestellt, einem Gemeinschaftsunternehmen des Instituts für Sozialforschung und der Berkeley Public Opinion Study Group.  

 Starrheit und Integration Ohne daß es mir im Augenblick möglich wäre, auf die weittragenden Grundsatzfragen einzugehen, die Klaus Eyferths Vergleich zwischen der sozialpsychologischen Typologie Jaenschs und der der »Authoritarian Personality« aufwirft 1 , gestatte ich mir einige wenige Bemerkungen zu dem so anregenden Aufsatz. Sie wollen nicht in die Diskussion selbst eingreifen, also etwa die Frage erörtern, ob nicht doch unter den formalen Analogien zwischen den beiden Versuchen der Typenbildung inhaltlich höchst divergente Strukturen sich verbergen, sondern lediglich einige Punkte aufklären, welche sonst die Diskussion vorbelasten könnten. Mit anderen Worten, ich möchte es vermeiden helfen, daß der »Authoritarian Personality« Thesen zugeschrieben und dann diskutiert werden, die dort in Wahrheit nicht gemeint sind. Eyferth hält für ein wichtiges Ergebnis der an die »Authoritarian Personality« anschließenden Kontroverse, vor allem des kritischen Buches von Christie und Jahoda, den Nachweis, daß die »Authoritarian Personality« »in ihrer Ausrichtung auf die ethnozentrische und faschistische Persönlichkeit nur eine Ausprägung des ideologisch starr festgelegten Typus erfaßt hatte« 2 . Nun trifft es in der Tat zu, daß auf diesen Typus in den inhaltlichen Analysen der Hauptakzent fällt – wesentlich wohl darum, weil es an Versuchspersonen in der Stichprobe fehlte, die nach den Parolen der kommunistischen Partei sich richteten; aber auch weil in der Situation, in der das Werk entstand – es ist konzipiert 1943–44, und der größte Teil des Materials wurde noch vor Kriegsende gesammelt – die Zusammenhänge von Triebstruktur einerseits, faschistischen Meinungen und Haltungen andererseits besonders aktuell waren. Daß jedoch gerade Qualitäten wie die der Rigidität und andere Züge des autoritätsgebundenen Charakters auch bei den mit Rußland Sympathisierenden angetroffen werden können, ist nicht nur in dem Buch wiederholt ausgesprochen, sondern ich habe in meinem Entwurf einer Typologie (Chapter XIX, Types and Syndromes) ausdrücklich den Typus des autoritätsgebundenen »low scorer« beschrieben (The »Rigid« Low Scorer; p. 771–776; Bd. 9. 1, S. 492ff.). Was also unter diesem Aspekt dem Buch entgegengehalten wurde, steht bereits darin. Offen freilich bleibt die Frage – und sie

ist meines Wissens bis heute noch nicht empirisch zureichend behandelt worden – ob nicht trotz der fraglosen formalen Übereinstimmungen, um die es hier geht, die Differenzen zwischen beiden Gruppen Autoritätshöriger sich nicht doch auch auf charakterologische Momente beziehen, oder ob sie wirklich bloß solche des gleichsam zufälligen und auswechselbaren ideologischen Inhalts sind. Einstweilen ist es nicht einmal möglich zu entscheiden, ob dabei tatsächlich eine bündige Alternative besteht oder ob nicht beide Möglichkeiten, und am Ende auch noch Zwischenstufen, in der in Rede stehenden Gruppe sich finden. Übrigens möchte ich den ursprünglich von C.G. Jung stammenden Begriff des Konkretismus, den ich in die sozialpsychologische Terminologie eingeführt habe, nicht ohne weiteres mit dem der autoritätsgebundenen Persönlichkeit gleichsetzen. Gerade unter jugendlichen »Rebellen« dürfte der Konkretismus sehr verbreitet sein – wobei freilich das Potential zu bedenken bleibt, daß gerade solche Charaktere zur Autoritätshörigkeit umschlagen. Weiter: Eyferth führt aus, daß ich »die faschistische Bewegung in Deutschland aus der autoritär bestimmten deutschen Familienstruktur mit starkem Vater-Sohn-Konflikt« ableite (S. 167). Hier handelt es sich um ein Mißverständnis meiner Intention, das ich gern richtigstellen möchte. Die Theorie, die der »Authoritarian Personality« zugrunde liegt, gilt psychologischen Potentialitäten, die in gewissen objektiv-gesellschaftlichen und politischen Situationen sich aktualisieren. Nichts liegt mir ferner als ein Phänomen wie den Faschismus psychologisch zu deduzieren, und ich hielte es für verhängnisvoll, wenn man geschichtliche Tendenzen, in denen die Macht von Interessen und Verhältnissen über den Köpfen der Menschen sich durchsetzt, in bloße Subjektivität aufweichen wollte. Sollte das in der »Authoritarian Personality« nicht so deutlich herauskommen, so dürften andere Publikationen, insbesondere die »Dialektik der Aufklärung« von Horkheimer und mir, daran keinen Zweifel lassen. Immerhin ist auch in der »Authoritarian Personality« selbst auf die Frage eingegangen; vor allem in der Einleitung zu Kapitel XVII, »Politics and Economics in the Interview Material«: »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.« (p. 654; Bd. 9. 1, S. 333), aber auch in den einleitenden Bemerkungen zu Teil IV. Daß die spezifische Fragestellung des Buches sozialpsychologisch war, besagt nicht, daß es sich zutraue, das Problem des Faschismus sozialpsychologisch lösen zu können. Der Bereich, in dem die gesellschaftliche Objektivität mit psychologischen Determinanten kommuniziert, wird in dem Buch als der des »kulturellen Klimas« bezeichnet; seine Bedeutung ist sicherlich nicht unterschätzt. Mit Rücksicht auf die Genese des autoritätsgebundenen Charakters aber möchten Horkheimer und ich gerade der weitverbreiteten, vor allem in dem Buch »Father Land« 3 vertretenen These widersprechen, daß der Triumph des Faschismus in Deutschland etwas mit der angeblich patriarchal-autoritären Struktur der deutschen Gesellschaft und den daraus resultierenden Konflikten zu tun habe. Diese Theorie geht von einer Sozialstruktur aus, die in Deutschland schon zur Zeit der Weimarer Republik sich verändert hatte und die heute vollends vergangen ist. Viel eher dürfte die kurz nach dem Zusammenbruch von 1918 erschienene Arbeit von Paul Federn 4 die kritische Zone berühren, indem sie tiefenpsychologisch dem Problem einer Gesellschaft nach dem Sturz der Monarchie nachgeht. Imagines wie die Hitlers scheinen eher der Ersatz für nichtexistente Vaterfiguren, als daß sie diesen selber glichen. Der Hitler-Imago waren väterliche Züge recht fremd. Orwells Begriff des big brother kommt einer solchen Imago viel näher: der einer ins Unendliche vergrößernden Projektion des schwachen Ich, nicht der traditionellen väterlichen Autorität. E.H. Erikson hat auf jenen Wechsel wiederholt hingewiesen. Vielleicht kommt diese wie immer auch fragmentarisch andeutende Klarstellung des Sinnes der »Authoritarian Personality« der Diskussion ihrer Befunde zugute.

 Fußnoten   1 Vgl. Klaus Eyferth, Starrheit und Integration. Ein Vergleich der typologischen Forschungen von E.R. Jaensch und T.W. Adorno, in: Psychologische Rundschau 10 (1959), S. 159–169 (Heft 3, Juli '59).   2 A.a.O., S. 162.   3 Vgl. Bertram Schaffner, Father Land. A Study of Authoritarianism in the German Family; New York: Columbia University Press 1948.   4 Vgl. Paul Federn, Zur Psychologie der Revolution: Die vaterlose Gesellschaft; in: Der Österreichische Volkswirt 11 (1919), S. 571–574 und S. 595 bis 598. – Als erweiterter, selbständiger Druck unter demselben Titel: Wien, Anzengruber-Verlag 1919.  

 Replik zu Peter R. Hofstätters Kritik des Gruppenexperiments 1 Hofstätters Bemühungen wählen sich zum Kanon das generöse Geleitwort, das Franz Böhm zu dem »Gruppenexperiment« 2 geschrieben hat: so als wäre es ein integraler Bestandteil des Werkes und meldete Ansprüche an, die dann im Text nicht befriedigt werden. Nicht anders ist Hofstätters effektsichere These zu verstehen, es wirke »die nüchterne Feststellung des Nachwortes nach der großartigen Ankündigung des Geleitwortes recht enttäuschend« (Hofstätter, S. 105), während Einschränkungen wie die von Hofstätter zitierte schon in der Einleitung (vgl. Gruppenexperiment, S. 10 bis 11) und an zahlreichen anderen Stellen vorkommen. In Wahrheit gibt das Geleitwort den Eindruck wieder, den auf einen wachen und in deutschen Dingen überaus erfahrenen Gelehrten und Politiker der Band machte; es ging weit über das hinaus, was die Autoren sich von ihrem Experiment erhofften. Dessen Namen trägt das Buch nicht umsonst. Hofstätter aber behandelt es, als werde darin behauptet, die Studie wäre der »nicht-öffentlichen Meinung habhaft geworden«. Er hält ihm einen Zerrspiegel vor. Ihn amüsiert, daß Franz Böhm rühmt, die Studie habe die inoffizielle, aber als Potential überaus wirksame »nicht-öffentliche Meinung« dazu verhalten, »zu erscheinen« und ihre »Botschaften zu Protokoll zu geben« (Hofstätter, S. 97), während zugleich Böhm zufolge festgehalten wurde, »was jeder in Deutschland reisende Besucher, Feriengast und Journalist von allen Dächern pfeifen hört, wenn er nur einigermaßen aufmerksam ist«. Einem so rigoros empirisch gesonnenen Wissenschaftler wie Hofstätter ist aber doch gewiß vertraut, in welchem Maße die Sozialforschung sich damit beschäftigen muß, Tatbestände, die der unmittelbaren vorwissenschaftlichen Erfahrung zugänglich sind, wissenschaftlich in den Griff zu bekommen. Gern erführe man von ihm, welche der von ihm für exemplarisch gehaltenen empirischen Untersuchungen dem Bekannten, aber Unbewiesenen so viel Neues hinzufügen wie das »Gruppenexperiment«. Begnügte sich die Studie mit dem bloßen Referat dessen, was man von den Dächern pfeifen hört, so wäre er gewiß der erste, die Unwissenschaftlichkeit einer solchen

Prozedur anzuprangern; nimmt man es aber auf Band auf, so ist er enttäuscht, weil man es ja von den Dächern pfeifen höre. Der von Hofstätter erfundene, dann der Studie zugeschriebene und endlich triumphal kritisierte Spruch »in ira veritas« mag ja überaus anfechtbar sein; ganz gewiß aber ist Hofstätter selber nicht sine ira et studio zu Werke gegangen. Bezeichnend seine Klage darüber, daß der Sammelband von Christie und Jahoda über die »Authoritarian Personality« im »Gruppenexperiment« nicht berücksichtigt sei: geht doch aus dem Vorwort des »Gruppenexperiments« hervor, daß Untersuchung und Auswertung in die Jahre 1950 bis 1954 fielen, also ehe jenes Buch vorlag. Daß es aber insgesamt der »Authoritarian Personality« gewidmet ist; daß diese in Amerika eine ganze Literatur auslöste und die Fragestellung der Sozialpsychologie dort eingreifend veränderte; daß zahllose Experimente mit der F-Skala durchgeführt wurden, ist einem so gediegenen Kenner der amerikanischen Sozialwissenschaft wie Hofstätter gleichgültig. Er hat es wesentlich mit der Methodologie zu tun, nicht mit der Fülle an Material, die der Band, im vollen Bewußtsein aller Probleme der Auswertung, vorlegt. In der Tat war der Versuch, individuelle und kollektive Meinungen in statu nascendi zu begreifen, anstatt sie in eine geronnene Form zu bringen, die im Bewußtsein der Meinungsträger gar nicht gegeben sein mag, wesentlicher als die inhaltlichen Ergebnisse, die nirgends als bündig erwiesen reklamiert wurden. Vielmehr bezeichnet die Untersuchung sich selbst als »experimentellen Beitrag« zur Lösung einer von der empirischen Sozialforschung bisher nur unzulänglich gestellten Aufgabe »mit all dem Vorläufigen und Fragwürdigen, das sich angesichts der Paradoxie der Aufgabe selbst kaum vermeiden läßt, und ganz gewiß nicht bei den ersten Schritten« (Gruppenexperiment, S. 31). Solche Qualifikationen finden sich im Buch immer wieder – häufiger, als es dem literarischen Geschmack der Autoren entspräche, die freilich im voraus wußten, mit welchen eingeschliffenen Reaktionsweisen ihrer Leser sie zu rechnen hatten. Schon auf der ersten Textseite, im Vorwort der Autoren (V), ist gesagt:   »Es sollte ein Beitrag geleistet werden, die Oberfläche der öffentlichen Meinung, so wie sie sich offiziell bekundet, zu durchdringen und ein wissenschaftlich

fundiertes Urteil zu ermöglichen, wie charakteristische Gruppen der Bevölkerung der Bundesrepublik zu weltanschaulichen und politischen Fragen tatsächlich stehen.«

  Hofstätter aber redet über den Beitrag, als wolle dieser selbst bereits für jenes Urteil gelten. Das entzöge sich dann, so läßt er zumindest durchblicken, dem Anspruch auf Überprüfbarkeit der Resultate (siehe Hofstätter, S. 98). Dort, wo der Band diesem Anspruch nicht gerecht wird, nämlich bei der qualitativen Analyse und der Frage, welches Gewicht der je ausgewählten Äußerung gebühre, ist auf das Primärmaterial, die getreuen und mehrfach überprüften stenografischen Transkriptionen der Protokolle hingewiesen. Den Autoren wäre es lieber gewesen, wenn sie einige der Protokolle im Original hätten abdrucken können, aber auch dann wären sie dem eifernden Einwand ausgesetzt gewesen, sie hätten diese Protokolle willkürlich ausgewählt. Es bliebe also nichts anderes übrig, als Gelehrte, die sich mit den Angaben über die Auswahlprinzipien nicht zufrieden geben, einzuladen, die gesamten Protokolle an Ort und Stelle durchzuarbeiten. Was freilich das Kriterium der Nachprüfbarkeit selbst anlangt, so hat das Buch nicht nur dessen Recht bestätigt, sondern auch dessen Problematik diskutiert. Nicht nur im Vorwort wird davon gehandelt, sondern vor allem auf S. 57f., wo ausgeführt ist, es müßten die   »Beziehungen der Kategorien aufs Material ... notwendigerweise dem subjektiven Urteil der Bearbeitung einen größeren Spielraum lassen als bei quantitativer Aufbereitung von Umfrageergebnissen«.

  Zu ergänzen wäre, daß dies nach herkömmlicher Redeweise subjektive Urteil nicht aus der Luft gegriffen ist, sondern aus theoretischer Überlegung kommt, die durchweg der Text selber vorträgt. Vor allem aber wird auf S. 30f. eine »Antinomie der empirischen Forschung« entfaltet:  

»Die empirische Sozialforschung steht einer Art Antinomie gegenüber. Je exakter ihre Methoden sind, um so mehr sind diese Methoden in Gefahr, an Stelle des eigentlich erfragten Gegenstandes einen in ›operational terms‹ definierten zu setzen, mit anderen Worten, die Problemstellung selber bereits auf das mit dem Umfrageverfahren Ermittelbare einzuengen und das gesellschaftlich

Relevante zu vernachlässigen.«

  Diese dann näher erläuterte Kritik disqualifiziert keineswegs die orthodoxen Research-Methoden; der Band enthält denn auch, unter den durch die Gruppenmethode diktierten Beschränkungen, quantitative Analysen. Glaubt Hofstätter, die Initiatoren des »Gruppenexperiments« an »indirekte Verfahrensweisen« erinnern zu müssen, denen sie nicht genug Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet hätten, so vergißt er, daß auf den Seiten 496 bis 500 Material geboten ist, das aus den Diskussionen stammt, und mit dessen Hilfe »die Formulierung zahlreicher indirekter Fragen« erleichtert werden könnte, durch die über tabuierte oder affektbesetzte Einstellungen quantifizierbare Auskunst erlangt werden kann, »ohne daß es dem Befragten bewußt wird«. Was das Institut für Sozialforschung, gerade in der »Authoritarian Personality«, zur Ausbildung der indirekten Methode beitrug, wird von Hofstätter übergangen. Aber zugrunde liegen dem Gruppenexperiment Erwägungen, welche das Monopol von Quantifizierung und quasinaturwissenschaftlicher Verifizierbarkeit in Frage stellen. Wollte die Wissenschaft auf derlei Selbstbesinnungen verzichten, so verkäme sie zur bewußtlosen Technik. Selbstverständlich hat Hofstätter das Recht, an ihnen seinerseits Kritik zu üben. Statt dessen aber ignoriert er sie und unterstellt stillschweigend den verbindlichen Charakter dessen, was im Anfang der Studie in Zweifel gezogen ist. So erzielt er den Eindruck, allgemeingültige Spielregeln seien verletzt, wo diese selber das methodische Problem bilden. Die Methode des Gruppenexperiments entsprang in der Problematik des Umfrageverfahrens. Dabei bemühte sie keineswegs, wie man nach einer Bemerkung Hofstätters denken könnte, das landesübliche, organizistische und irrationalistische Klischee, Fragebogen und Interview wären gegenüber der angeblichen Ganzheit des Menschen oder der Gemeinschaft zu mechanistisch; Hofstätter dürfte sich kaum darüber täuschen, daß dieser Denksphäre gegenüber das Institut nicht minder skeptisch als er selber ist. Aber in der Praxis der Meinungsforschung werden sehr häufig die im Interview gewonnenen Aussagen der Befragten, ohne nähere Bestimmung ihres Ursprungs und ihrer Geltung, als die »festen, fixierten Meinungen der Individuen« angesehen, der aus

ihnen destillierte statistische Durchschnitt als öffentliche Meinung betrachtet. Parameter solcher Art können – etwa im Gruppenvergleich, also für die soziologische Analyse der Bedingungen bestimmter Verbalreaktionen – erheblichen Erkenntniswert haben (vgl. Gruppenexperiment, S. 20). Falsch aber ist die gegen Situation, Variabilität des Reagierens und vor allem gegen die realen Differenzen gesellschaftlich-politischer Macht und Ohnmacht blinde Reduktion auf ein allenfalls bei Wahlen angemessenes statistisches Modell. Demgegenüber wurde versucht, in der Gruppendiskussion eine der Realität nähere Ermittlungssituation zu schaffen. In ihr soll eine Art von öffentlicher Meinung beobachtet und der Analyse zugänglich gemacht werden, die nicht nach der Schimäre der bestimmten Meinung eines jeden Individuums über alles und jedes konstruiert ist. Diese Situation sollte ein aktuelles soziales Verhalten zeitigen, das »öffentliche Meinung« spiegelt und stiftet zugleich. Sie hat zum Medium das Gespräch und die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen den miteinander Redenden; offizielle Zensuren werden ausgeschaltet, neue Kontrollen innerhalb der Gruppen herbeigeführt. Notwendig aber war für eine solche Untersuchungssituation, und das ist im Text mit aller Deutlichkeit gesagt, die Erarbeitung neuer Auswertungsverfahren. Denn die je einzelnen Individuen und ihre Äußerungen sind in der freien Gruppendiskussion, im Gegensatz zum Interview, nicht ohne weiteres kommensurabel. So kann das Schweigen eines Teilnehmers zu einem Thema bedeuten, daß er die mit seinen eigenen Ansichten übereinstimmenden Äußerungen eines Vorherredenden nicht wiederholen möchte; gelegentlich aber auch, daß er unter der sozialen Kontrolle sich innerhalb der Gruppe die Äußerung mißlicher Ansichten verbietet; dem Integrationskapitel (vgl. Gruppenexperiment, S. 429ff.) zufolge nimmt im Fortgang der Diskussion die Kraft der Gruppenkontrolle tendenziell zu, bis eine mehr oder minder artikulierte »Gruppenmeinung« sich durchsetzt. In der weiteren Arbeit am Gruppendiskussionsverfahren hat das Institut für Sozialforschung daraus Konsequenzen gezogen. Nicht so sehr isolierte Reaktionen der einzelnen Teilnehmer am Gespräch als die Resultante ihres Zusammenspiels gewährt Aufschluß über die je zu untersuchende öffentliche oder nicht-öffentliche Meinung. Eine Nachuntersuchung des Materials der Gruppenstudie ebenso wie ein neuerlich mit Gruppendiskussionen durchgeführtes Experiment

haben die weitgehende inhaltliche wie psychologisch-dynamische Übereinstimmung der Gruppenmeinungen dargetan, die sich in verschiedenen Diskussionsgruppen gleicher sozialer Zusammensetzung auskristallisieren. Insofern führen die Forschungen des Instituts über Hofstätters Kritik bereits hinaus. Der Versuch, durch statistische Aufbereitung der von den je einzelnen Teilnehmern geäußerten Meinung zu quantitativen Aussagen über die Beschaffenheit der öffentlichen Meinung zu gelangen, wird den immanenten Bedingungen der Methode noch nicht wirklich gerecht. Das im »Gruppenexperiment« trotz vielfacher Bedenken verwandte, aus der Umfragemethode stammende Verfahren zur Quantifizierung des Diskussionsmaterials war ein Notbehelf. Es sollte einen groben Überschlag über die immer wiederkehrenden Meinungsklischees und die in ihnen sich abzeichnenden Grundeinstellungen ermöglichen. Was Hofstätter dagegen anmeldet, hätte sein Recht, wäre nicht die begrenzte Verallgemeinerungsfähigkeit der gewonnenen Zahlen im »Gruppenexperiment« selbst bis zum Überdruß betont worden. Um so überraschender, daß Hofstätter die zuvor von ihm kritisierten Zahlen selbst heranzieht, sobald sie – nach einiger Umprozentuierung – seine These von der Harmlosigkeit des »autoritär-antidemokratischen Syndroms« zu stützen scheinen. So rechnet er die im »Gruppenexperiment« auf die Gesamtheit der Sprecher bezogenen Prozentwerte für positive, ambivalente und negative Einstellung auf die Gesamtheit der Teilnehmer um und unterschiebt dabei implizit den Schweigern »nicht negative Einstellung«. Das erlaubt ihm die befriedigte Feststellung, man könne angesichts dieser Zahlen von einer Erbschaft der faschistischen Ideologie in Deutschland schlechterdings nicht mehr sprechen als in irgendeinem anderen Land der westlichen Welt – obwohl es dort ja schließlich keine faschistische Ideologie zu beerben gab. Nicht besser steht es um Hofstätters Beanstandung:   »Ob man als ehrlicher Demokrat im Winter 1950/51 wirklich für die Remilitarisierung sein mußte und ob man sich als ein solcher jeder kritischen Äußerung über die Politik der westlichen Besatzungsmächte zu enthalten hatte, kann im Rahmen dieses Referats nicht überprüft werden. Diese Sachverhalte erscheinen aber den Verfassern völlig unzweifelhaft.« (Hofstätter, S. 102)

 

Aber eine Anmerkung (S. 127 des »Gruppenexperiments«, Anm. 19) lautet:  

»Die Bewertung der Zustimmung zur Remilitarisierung als positive, der Ablehnung als negative Einstellung soll nichts anderes zum Ausdruck bringen, als daß in den Syndromen der demokratischen und antidemokratischen Meinungsäußerungen die Ablehnung der deutschen Aufrüstung häufiger bei den Gegnern der Demokratie vorkommt. Keineswegs soll diese Einordnung eine Stellungnahme zu den äußerst verwickelten Problemen der Remilitarisierung bedeuten. Sie soll auch keineswegs besagen, daß radikale Ablehnung gleichbedeutend mit antidemokratischer Gesinnung sei, was ein Unsinn wäre.«

  Auf S. 488 ist bemerkt, daß es darauf ankomme, das Problem der Wiederaufrüstung »in einen umfassenderen Zusammenhang einzufügen«. Erwähnt wird dort  

»eine gesellschaftstheoretische Konstruktion der komplexen Stellung zur Wiederaufrüstung, welche die vielfach einander widerstreitenden Momente der geäußerten Ansichten als solche eines geschichtlichen Prozesses zu begreifen trachtet«.

  Die Monographie, die dem gewidmet ist, konnte in den Band nicht aufgenommen werden; Hofstätter aber verfährt, als läge eine simple These vor und kein weit ausgreifender Gedankenzusammenhang. Die Zurechnung der Remilitarisierungsfreunde zu der Grobkategorie der »Positiven« geschah einzig, weil im Zusammenhang der Protokolle die damals noch populäre Ohne-uns-Parole mit der Ablehnung des nachhitlerischen Staatswesens verkoppelt schien. Daß es sich dabei weder um einen bündigen Befund noch um einen statisch zu interpretierenden Sachverhalt handelte, war den Autoren so bewußt wie Hofstätter, und der Text läßt keinen Zweifel daran. Er jedoch entwirft das Bild einer an der Politik der Besatzungsmacht orientierten, voreingenommenen Gesinnung der Studie. Wollen aber auch die Maßzahlen des quantitativen Teils keineswegs als statistisch exakt genommen werden, so übertreiben sie dennoch durchaus nicht das Gewicht der sich ausdrückenden antidemokratischen Disposition. Eher bewerten sie deren Entfaltung im Diskussionsverlauf zu gering. Zustimmende oder bedingt zustimmende Argumente etwa zu den Themen Demokratie, Schuld, Juden und zum Verhältnis zu den Westmächten finden sich vor allem zu Beginn der Diskussionen – zu einem Zeitpunkt also, wo

der Colburn-Brief noch am frischesten in der Erinnerung der Sprecher wirkt –; solange nämlich die Ungewißheit über die Reaktionen des zunächst noch eine Art offizieller Instanz repräsentierenden Diskussionsleiters Rücksichten aufs demokratische Credo nehmen läßt. Je offenkundiger aber im Verlauf der Diskussion einerseits die Neutralität des Diskussionsleiters, andererseits die Gleichgestimmtheit der »Negativen« mit anderen Teilnehmern wird, um so ungehemmter traut sich das von Hofstätter gering veranschlagte Potential vor. Oft schon nach kurzer Zeit, vor allem in sozial homogenen Gruppen, bilden sich pointiert ethnozentrische, autoritär-antidemokratische Gruppenmeinungen heraus, denen gegenüber die tendenziell demokratiefreundlichen Teilnehmer ohnmächtig protestieren oder verstummen. Nach den Beobachtungen der Diskussionsleiter und Assistenten waren dabei auch die Schweiger nicht unbeteiligt: vielfach bekundeten sie in Mimik, Gestik und Zurufen ihr Einverständnis mit der herrschenden Meinung. Im Institut wird an der Entwicklung von Beobachtungsverfahren für nicht- Indices dieser An gearbeitet, die mit der Beschreibung sich durchsetzender Grundmeinungen und Grundhaltungen verbunden werden sollen. Aus all dem erhellt der prinzipielle Unterschied des Ansatzes der Gruppendiskussionen und der »indirekten Verfahrensweisen«, die Hofstätter gegen jene ausspielt. Indirekte Methoden der Befragung untersuchen psychologische Dimensionen eines Gegenstandsbereiches im einzelnen Individuum, mit der Absicht, dessen Struktur zu ermitteln und in Korrelation zu anderen Daten zu bringen; die Gruppendiskussionsmethode dagegen gilt sei's kontrollierten, sei's verdrängten Dispositionen oder Potentialen, die sich im Kollektiv manifestieren. Nicht die einzelnen Individuen bilden das Substrat der Untersuchung; sie sind selbst nur funktionell, nämlich mit Rücksicht auf ihr Verhältnis zur »Gruppenmeinung«, zu nehmen. Gruppendiskussionsverfahren und indirekte Befragung ergänzen sich somit; – im Anhang des Buches ist davon die Rede. Hofstätter mißtraut der Tiefe der Schichten, in welche das Gruppenexperiment dringt. Dabei ist ein Irrtum im Spiel. Philosophisch heißt Tiefe etwas ganz anderes als psychologisch: das lebendige Wesen gegenüber dem stereotypen Fassadenphänomen. In der psychologischen Dimension, der von Bewußt-Unbewußt, jedoch

erweist sich gerade die durch die Distanz vom Bewußtsein charakterisierte Tiefe, im Gegensatz zu der des Ichs, vielfach selbst als stereotyp, nämlich als primitiv und undifferenziert, so wie es phänotypisch von Le Bon beschrieben, genotypisch von Freud herausgearbeitet wurde. Hofstätter nutzt ein quid pro quo aus, indem er die Vorstellung von Tiefe, die an tiefen Gedanken oder tiefen Kunstwerken gewonnen ist, auf das amorphe Unbewußte überträgt. Im übrigen sollte man die Kirche im Dorf lassen, unsere eigene Studie nicht weniger als Hofstätter. Es ist durchaus möglich, daß die sogenannten tieferen Motivationen, die inoffizielle Meinung, auf die wir stießen, gar nicht so sehr tief sind; daß es sich, psychoanalytisch gesprochen, mehr um Vorbewußtes als um Unbewußtes handelt, vielfach sogar um ganz artikulierte Meinungen. Soweit wäre der Kritik Hofstätters zuzustimmen, aber er dürfte am letzten seine Freude daran haben, denn dann ist die nicht-öffentliche Meinung keine Art Gespenst im Schrank, kein Schlaf der Welt, an den man besser nicht rührt, sondern eine recht präsente Drohung, weit weniger harmlos selbst als das, was Hofstätter verharmlosen zu müssen meint. Er freilich bezweifelt, daß das Experiment überhaupt etwas wie immer auch Latentes aufdecke. Der Grundreiz »überreize« die Versuchspersonen; er veranlasse sie zu Reaktionen, die ihrem Eigentlichen, gleichgültig ob manifeste oder latente Meinung, nicht entsprechen: das ist mit dem »in ira veritas« intendiert. Wohlweislich verschweigt Hofstätter, daß die Frage des »Überreizens« im Buch thematisch ist: der Grundreiz dürfe   »die Teilnehmer nicht überreizen, sie nicht in eine Abwehrhaltung bringen und zu unnatürlichem Reagieren provozieren« (Gruppenexperiment, S. 42).

  Weiter wird auf Seite 50 beschrieben, wie der Grundreiz im Verlauf des Experiments mehrfach modifiziert wurde, um »die Reizwirkungen des Briefes gleichsam vom Psychologischen auf das Objektive umzuzentrieren«. Das von Hofstätter S. 99 wiedergegebene Zitat lautet im Zusammenhang:   »Zu dem Einwand, daß wir unsere Teilnehmer durch den Grundreiz gereizt haben, haben wir ferner zu sagen, daß es aller psychologischen Theorie und Erfahrung ins Gesicht schlüge, wollte man annehmen, das in der Gereiztheit Geäußerte sei zufällig und gleichgültig. Was ein Wütender sagt, nachdem sein

Affekt die rationale Kontrolle durchbrochen hat, ist doch auch in ihm. Es drückt ebensowohl sein Unbewußtes, latente und ichfremde psychologische Potentialitäten aus, wie, auf einem weniger tief liegenden Niveau, den Vorrat vorbewußter, kurrenter Anschauungen, den er mit sich trägt, und den er als voll Bewußter durch sein autonomes Urteil durchstreichen oder bestätigen mag.« (Gruppenexperiment, S. 279)

  Dagegen erinnert Hofstätter an die altbekannte Unverantwortlichkeit dessen, was man in der Wut, überhaupt nach Lockerung der Ich-Kontrolle, herausstößt. Diese an Kriterien des bewußten Ichs gemessene Unverantwortlichkeit soll Befunde abwerten, die sich auf das beziehen, was gerade jenen Kriterien nicht gehorcht. Aber nirgends erweisen sich die Einwände Hofstätters als untriftiger denn an dieser zentralen Stelle. Selbst in seiner krassesten Form bietet der Grundreiz überaus gemäßigte Kritik. Sie wird zwar, um aufrechtzuerhalten, es spreche ein Besatzungssoldat; um überhaupt für alle Gruppen kommunizierbar zu bleiben; und nicht zuletzt, um das Selbstgefühl der Gruppe zu schonen, etwas undifferenziert und schulmeisterlich vorgebracht, aber enthält nichts, was nicht etwa ein ausländischer Reisender nach seinen Beobachtungen damals auch hätte formulieren können. Überdies waren die kritischen Punkte sorgfältig mit anerkennenden Äußerungen ausbalanciert. Bei dem Versuch, sich gegen die angeblichen Vorwürfe des Sergeanten zu verteidigen, fielen denn auch immer wieder Äußerungen der Sprecher, die selber genau bestätigten, was jener konstatiert hatte. Angesichts dessen verliert der formal so einleuchtende Vorwurf, die Versuchsanordnung habe in die Menschen etwas hineingetragen, was sich gar nicht in ihnen finde, sehr an Gewicht. Unterdessen hat sich ergeben, daß auch ohne Grundreiz, dank der sozialpsychologischen Rückendeckung, welche die Diskussionsgruppe den Teilnehmern gewährt, inhaltlich die gleichen Klischees produziert werden, die Hofstätter als bloße Reaktionen auf den Grundreiz abtun möchte. Schließlich war ja der Grundreiz selbst nicht in einem Vakuum ausgedacht. In seine Formulierung waren die konkreten Erfahrungen eingegangen, welche die Veranstalter der Studie mit der damals in Deutschland inoffiziell herrschenden Meinung machten. Zur Zeit der Diskussionen so wenig wie im Forschungsbericht und wie heute wollen sie – wie aus Hofstätters Kritik herauszulesen wäre – das faschistische Potential, auf das die Studie stieß, mit dem Verhalten der deutschen

Bevölkerung gleichsetzen. Schon 1950, zur Zeit des beginnenden Wirtschaftswunders, trat das politische Interesse gegenüber dem wirtschaftlichen zurück. Wohl aber enthüllt das Experiment sozialpsychologische Dispositionen zu einer politischen Ideologie,  

»die zwar unter den gegenwärtigen Verhältnissen nicht zur vollen Wirksamkeit kommt, deren aktuelle Bedeutung man auch nicht überschätzen darf, die aber, wenn sie sich abermals an starke objektive Mächte anschlösse, wieder ungeahnte Gewalt gewinnen könnte« (Gruppenexperiment, S. 280).

  Um dieses ideologische Potential herauszuarbeiten nicht weniger als weil zureichende quantitative Techniken für die Behandlung der Diskussionen noch nicht zur Verfügung standen, bevorzugt die Auswertung die qualitative Analyse. Die von Hofstätter (vgl. S. 102) vermißten Korrelationskoeffizienten wurden darum nicht errechnet, weil sie eine statistische Prätention erhoben hätten, die das Material nicht rechtfertigt. Was über eine drastische Überschlagsrechnung von Gruppeneinstellungen hinausgegangen wäre, wäre vorweg problematisch gewesen. Hofstätters Kritik sucht die Studie in eine mittlerweile recht beliebte Zwickmühle zu bringen. Der Quantifizierung wird, vor dem Hintergrund der deutschen Tradition, Oberflächlichkeit vorgeworfen; man müsse bei Fragebogen mit »Verheimlichungsund Entstellungsabsichten« (Hofstätter, S. 99) rechnen, – nachdem übrigens im »Gruppenexperiment« Hofstätters eigenes Buch als Referenz für die Problematik der Interviewsituation genannt ist (vgl. Gruppenexperiment, S. 29). Der qualitativen Analyse aber werden aus dem quantitativen Bereich stammende Forderungen wie die nach Evidenz und beliebiger Überprüfbarkeit präsentiert; offenbar sieht Hofstätter wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse so lange als »bloße Behauptung« an, bis sie durch quantitative Methoden oder »intensiviertes Gespräch« (Hofstätter, S. 103) – gewiß doch nur eine unter vielen Möglichkeiten qualitativer Erkenntnis – erhärtet sind. Der Handhabung »interpretativer Kategorien« wird die »Gefahr totalitärer Willkürlichkeit« nachgesagt (Hofstätter, S. 102). Demgegenüber sei eine Stelle aus dem »Gruppenexperiment« angeführt:   »Einzig der wissenschaftliche Takt vermag darüber zu wachen, daß das unabdingbare subjektive Element, an dem Spontaneität und Produktivität von

Wissenschaft haftet, nicht ins Wahnhafte wuchere. Es wäre eine schlechte Wissenschaft, die um einer Schimäre absoluter Beweisbarkeit willen gegen das sich abdichtet, was aus dem Material aufleuchtet. Wir sind keineswegs blind dagegen, daß den quantitativen wie den qualitativen Interpretationen ein Schatten der Relativität anhaftet: dort die unvermeidlichen Reste starrer Zählmethoden, die dem Leben der Diskussionen und dem Sinn der Einzeläußerungen nicht ganz gerecht werden; hier die Gefahr, daß der Gedanke hinausschießt über das, was die Tatsachen im Sinne jener Normen der Interpretation hergeben, welche die Nachvollziehbarkeit jeder geistigen Operation durch jeden anderen Forscher desselben Sachgebietes verlangen ... Je mehr, aus der besonderen Fragestellung ... heraus, qualitatives Material und qualitative Deutung in den Vordergrund tritt, um so dringlicher wird es, so weit nur irgend möglich die qualitativen Befunde quantitativ zu überprüfen, oder, angesichts der Schranken, die uns statistisch in dieser Hinsicht gesetzt waren, wenigstens Möglichkeiten für eine solche Überprüfung aufzuzeigen.« (Gruppenexperiment, S. 9f.; vgl. auch S. 265f.)

  Daß bei qualitativen Analysen das subjektive Moment nicht zu eliminieren ist, und daß der Einsatz der Erfahrung und Reaktionsfähigkeit des Psychologen geradezu die Bedingung der Fruchtbarkeit seiner Funde ist, wird mittlerweile selbst vom orthodoxen Social Research anerkannt (vgl. Barton und Lazarsfeld, Some Functions of Qualitative Analysis in Social Research, in: Sociologica, Frankfurt 1955, S. 321ff.). Jenes »subjektive Moment« beschränkt sich keineswegs auf die meist von Gegnern trivialer Weise bemühte Intuition, sondern beruht »auf einem Grundbestand an Theorie und auf Erfahrungen der täglichen Praxis, ebenso wie auf den Ergebnissen vorausgegangener wissenschaftlicher Untersuchungen« (Gruppenexperiment, S. 58). Von all dem nimmt Hofstätter keine Notiz. Statt dessen setzt er das subjektive Moment dem bösen Willen gleich: ihm zufolge geht es der Studie »im wesentlichen um ein Entlarven« (Hofstätter, S. 103). So etwa stellt man sich die Psychoanalyse in jenen Bereichen »totalitärer Willkür« vor, wo man den Geist unter Berufung auf seine zersetzende Wirkung an die Kandare zu nehmen liebt; kaum erwartet man derartiges beim Verfasser eines Buches über Tiefenpsychologie. Er definiert die Psychoanalyse insgesamt als »die agonische Kunst eines intensivierten Gesprächs, das therapeutische Zwecke verfolgt« (Hofstätter, S. 103). Hielte man sich an diese schlicht von der Therapie abgezogene Bestimmung für das ganze psychoanalytische

Bereich, so wäre eine jegliche analytische Charakterologie und Sozialpsychologie – also ein entscheidender Teil der tiefenpsychologischen Literatur – ab ovo ausgeschlossen; man kann sich kaum denken, daß Hofstätter das im Ernst verlangt. Er wird schwerlich der Sozialpsychologie verwehren wollen, auf die in jener Literatur verbuchten Einsichten zurückzugreifen; schwerlich ihr die Pose der tabula rasa zumuten und erwarten, daß jede Untersuchung beginne, als habe man vor ihr über den Sinn der registrierten Phänomene nichts gewußt. Solche wissenschaftliche Askese schlüge in unerträgliche Verarmung um. Notwendig ist es, im therapeutischen Einzelfall jene Gespräche zu führen, auf welche Hofstätter den Gebrauch psychoanalytischer Begriffe einengen möchte; aber jeder analytische Therapeut könnte ihn darüber belehren, daß in den analytischen Gesprächen stets wieder, bis zur quälenden Monotonie, dieselben typischen Sachverhalte hervortreten. Es läge, bescheiden gesagt, nicht im Interesse der wissenschaftlichen Arbeitsökonomie, typische Befunde nicht zu verwerten, ohne welche die Sozialpsychologie Gefahr läuft, sich wesentliche Zusammenhänge zu versperren. Vor allem aber übersieht Hofstätter, daß gerade der Nachdruck, der auf jene typischen Sachverhalte und die zugleich in ihnen zutage kommenden objektiven Tatbestände – die Erbschaft totalitärer Willkür, der Manipulation des Bewußtseins – fällt, die einzelnen Individuen, wenn man schon in solchen Begriffen denken mag, entlastet. Er operiert so, als würdigte der Nachweis der Wirksamkeit jener der Analyse längst vertrauten Mechanismen und der Gewalt, welche die faschistische Ideologie noch nach der Katastrophe des Systems ausübt, die herab, denen die Ideologie eingebläut ward. Er appelliert damit an nichts anderes als an jenen kollektiven Narzißmus, den die Studie selbst als den mächtigsten jener verhängnisvollen Mechanismen betrachtet. Daß »die sich über 150 Seiten erstreckende qualitative Analyse ... im Grunde eine einzige Anklage« (Hofstätter, S. 103) sei, ist – nicht nur im Grunde – eine falsche Anklage. Wirken die aus einer überwältigenden Fülle mit äußerster Vorsicht ausgewählten Belege derart auf Hofstätter, so liegt das nicht an der Studie, sondern am Material. Keineswegs auch ist »das Hauptanliegen der qualitativen Analyse das Problem des deutschen Schuldbekenntnisses« (Hofstätter, S. 102), sondern es wurde eine ganze Reihe qualitativer

Studien durchgeführt, aus denen, mit Rücksicht auf den zur Verfügung stehenden Raum, zwei Texte ausgewählt und gekürzt werden mußten:  

»Die Auswahl bereitete Schwierigkeiten. Wir konnten weder systematisch noch nach der Wichtigkeit der untersuchten Themen verfahren. Die Untersuchung über Integrationsphänomene mußte auf jeden Fall eingeschlossen werden, nicht bloß, weil sie sich auf die Gesamtstruktur der Diskussionen bezieht, sondern auch, weil sie gleichsam den formalen Rahmen erstellt für das Problem des Konformismus, der Identifikation mit dem Kollektiv, die inhaltlich zu den wichtigsten Ergebnissen zählt. Für die Monographie Schuld und Abwehr haben wir uns entschieden, weil sie erlaubt zu konkretisieren, daß die Gruppenmethode affektbesetzte, aus tieferen Schichten der Befragten stammende Äußerungen auslöst, an welche die traditionellen Fragemethoden nicht heranreichen. Zudem gibt die Studie eine Art Phänomenologie dessen, was die Diskussionsteilnehmer selbst so gerne deutsche Neurose nennen, und was sich erst dann wird heilen lassen, wenn es seiner Struktur nach erkannt, ins Bewußtsein gehoben ist. Dies Ergebnis scheint uns weit wichtiger als die oft befremdenden Ansichten, welche unsere Versuchsteilnehmer zu jenen heikelsten Gegenständen geäußert haben, und die, isoliert genommen und aus der psychischen Dynamik herausgelöst, falsch eingeschätzt würden.« (Gruppenexperiment, S. 276f.)

  Die Intention ist also der einer Anklage genau entgegengesetzt. Ein Negatives feststellen und aussprechen, damit es geändert werde, und: die Individuen anklagen, die im Bann jener Negativität stehen – das kann doch wohl nur von einem verwechselt werden, der selber auf die Studie so reagiert, wie er es zu Unrecht den Diskussionsteilnehmern dem Grundreiz gegenüber unterstellt. Nirgends ergeht denn auch im Buch, direkt oder indirekt, eine »Aufforderung zur echten Seelenzerknirschung« (Hofstätter, S. 103); sie wäre jener Art Gegenaufklärung vorzubehalten, die man wohl am besten mit Clair-Obskurantismus übersetzte. Hofstätter sieht »kaum eine Möglichkeit, wie ein einziges Individuum das Grauen von Auschwitz auf sich zu nehmen imstande wäre« (Hofstätter, S. 103). Das Grauen von Auschwitz haben die Opfer auf sich nehmen müssen, nicht die, welche, zum eigenen Schaden und dem ihres Landes, es nicht wahr haben wollen. Für die Opfer und nicht für die Nachlebenden war die »Frage der Schuld verzweiflungsträchtig« (Hofstätter, S. 104), und es gehört schon einiges dazu, diesen Unterschied in dem nicht umsonst so beliebten Existential der Verzweiflung verschwimmen zu lassen.

Aber im Hause des Henkers soll man nicht vom Strick reden; sonst gerät man in den Verdacht, man habe Ressentiment. Hofstätter meint, man »könnte (und sollte vielleicht) dieses Grauen in einem Bußritual zu bannen versuchen« (S. 103). Der Psychologe dürfte wissen, daß Bußrituale Menschen, die in keiner verpflichtenden theologischen Ordnung mehr leben, nicht anderen Sinnes machen; der homo religiosus aber, als der Hofstätter in solchen Wendungen reden mag, müßte sich empören über eine Buße, die aus praktisch-psychologischen Rücksichten, also therapeutisch und nicht um ihres sakralen Gehalts willen, geübt wird. Wird er aber von dem angeblich »gereizten Ton« (Hofstätter, S. 103) der Kommentare zu einzelnen Äußerungen »peinlich berührt«, so braucht er nur aufmerksam die von ihm zitierte Stelle aus der bayerischen Diskussionsgruppe nachzulesen, um sich dessen zu versichern, daß hier die Teilnehmer nicht »Einsicht in die sachlichen Grenzen des Gruppenexperiments« (Hofstätter, S. 104) bewähren, sondern mit überraschender Subtilität den Gedanken an Schuld wegwischen. Sie suchen durch begriffliche Scheindistinktionen die Sache aus der Welt zu schaffen, die von den Begriffen bezeichnet wird. Hofstätters Absicht ist apologetisch: das verblendet ihn gegen das Phänomen, dessen Umriß in der Studie sichtbar wird. Die Methode soll nichts taugen, weil die Sache verleugnet werden soll, die hervortritt. Solche Absicht fährt Hofstätters eigenem Positivismus in die Parade: er gibt die Position des Werkes nicht sachgerecht wieder. Aber wäre selbst mehr an seinen zusammengetragenen Vorwürfen, als daran ist, es bliebe die Konzeption der Wissenschaft, die er verficht, ohne als Kritiker ihr selbst zu genügen, überaus fragwürdig. Die Funktion des sozialwissenschaftlichen Positivismus hat sich gründlich verändert. Einmal wollte die Insistenz auf hieb- und stichfesten Fakten befreien von Dogma und Bevormundung. Heute gibt sie sich nur allzu willig dazu her, den Gedanken, der den sturen Befund durchdringt und übersteigt, als unwissenschaftlich und womöglich ideologisch zu verdächtigen. Indem Interpretation, die mehr als bloße Verdoppelung der Fakten ist, tendenziell abgeschnitten wird, behalten die Fakten recht in dem doppelten Sinne, daß sie da sind und hingenommen werden müssen, ohne daß nach dem Wesen gefragt würde, das hinter ihnen sich versteckt; und daß sie, im

Lichte solchen Respekts, zugleich auch als respektabel legitimiert werden. Aber die Sozialwissenschaft, die sich aus Angst vor der organisierten Gedankenkontrolle das Recht auf Kritik rauben läßt, verkümmert dadurch nicht bloß, verfällt nicht bloß der Stoffhuberei eines einzig noch auf Verwaltungszwecke zugeschnittenen Research, sondern verdummt auch und verfehlt genau jene Realität, die treu zu spiegeln ihr höchster, wenngleich nicht gar zu hoher Ehrgeiz ist. Die Realität ist im Fall des Gruppenexperiments genau jene nicht-öffentliche Meinung, deren Gewalt Hofstätter bestreitet. Es genüge das freilich nicht empirisch überprüfbare Gedankenexperiment, im Jahre 1932 wären Gruppendiskussionen und Interpretationen von der Art der von uns publizierten verfügbar gewesen. Man hätte wohl einiges daraus zu lernen, auch Konsequenzen zu ziehen vermocht. Die Wissenschaft Hofstätterschen Stils hätte freilich intervenieren und die Befunde wegen mangelnder Generalisierbarkeit, mangelnder Exaktheit, Willkür der Auslegung anschwärzen können. Sie hätte aber damit nicht der Wahrheit geholfen, sondern dem Unheil.

 Fußnoten   1 Vgl. Peter R. Hofstätter, Zum »Gruppenexperiment« von F. Pollock. Eine kritische Würdigung, in: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 9 (1957), S. 97ff. (Heft 1).   2 Vgl. Gruppenexperiment. Ein Studienbericht. Bearbeitet von Friedrich Pollock. Mit einem Geleitwort von Franz Böhm. Frankfurt a.M. 1955. (Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie. 2.)  

 Vorwort zu Werner Mangolds Gegenstand und Methode des Gruppendiskussionsverfahrens * Nicht ganz selten fallen der empirischen Sozialforschung Materialien zu, die sich nach Thematik und Gehalt auf wesentliche gesellschaftliche Fragen beziehen, aber ihrer Aufbereitung und Auswertung nach den etablierten Methoden widerstreben. Man pflegt das von alters her mit der Jugend der Disziplin zu erklären, deren Methodologie immer noch nicht ausgebildet und verfeinert genug sei, während freilich Analoges aus den Frühzeiten der Naturwissenschaften kaum berichtet wird. Der wahre Grund der Verlegenheit liegt wohl eher in der spezifischen Beschaffenheit der soziologischen Gegenstände, vorab in den irrationalen Aspekten der Gesellschaft, die sich den mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Verfahrungsweisen nicht so bruchlos einfügen, wie es dort postuliert wird, wo man auf der rigorosen Ausbildung der soziologischen Methodologie besteht. Das jedoch dispensiert nicht davon, wann immer Materialien zur Verfügung stehen, die viel versprechen, mit denen man aber nicht recht fertig ward, sich anzustrengen, sie methodologisch zu bewältigen, anstatt sie der Wissenschaft verloren gehen zu lassen. Das ist die Situation der Befunde, welche das Gruppenexperiment des Instituts für Sozialforschung ergab, über das im zweiten Band der Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie berichtet wurde. Schwer wird es dem Unbefangenen, sich der Evidenz der Folgerungen zu verschließen, die aus den Äußerungen der Gesprächsteilnehmer mit Rücksicht auf den zur Zeit des Experiments herrschenden Stand des objektiven Geistes in Deutschland gezogen wurden. Ebenso schwer aber ist es, solche Plausibilität in hieb- und stichfeste Urteile über den repräsentativen Charakter der untersuchten Meinungen und Haltungen umzusetzen. Wenn den Inhalt der qualitativen Analysen jener Studie vielfach die Widerstände bilden, welche das öffentliche, zumal das von Franz Böhm so genannte nichtöffentliche Bewußtsein der Anamnese des Hitlerschen Grauens entgegensetzt, dann wiederholen sich diese Widerstände, ganz wie es der Psychoanalyse vertraut ist, der Studie selber gegenüber. Sie heften sich an ihre vorgeblichen oder

wirklichen methodologischen Mängel. Was sie zeigt, wird abgewehrt, weil es nach den eingespielten Regeln des Wissenschaftsbetriebs der objektiven Gültigkeit entrate. In einer öffentlichen Kontroverse ist all das zur Sprache gebracht worden 1 . Dabei aber konnte das Institut für Sozialforschung, das zunächst die Gruppendiskussionsmethode vornehmlich um der konkreten Fülle des Materials und der Realitätsnähe der Forschungssituation willen entwickelt hatte, sich nicht bescheiden. Das Buch von Mangold will weiterführen. Es fällt in die Kontinuität der Arbeit des Instituts; ebenso darin, daß es dem analysierten Stoff nach auf unsere Gruppendiskussionen sich stützt, wie darin, daß es der Verbesserung des Gruppendiskussionsverfahrens sich widmet. Die Schwierigkeiten bei der Auswertung von Gruppenexperimenten waren uns von Anbeginn bewußt; sie sind im Anhang des älteren Buches rückhaltlos ausgesprochen. Erinnert sei, außer an die bei dieser Technik sich aufdrängenden Bedenken, die sich auf Repräsentativität, Quantifizierung und Verallgemeinerung beziehen, an die Frage des Gewichts der Äußerungen der einzelnen Sprecher in der Diskussionssituation; an die Frage, wessen »Meinung« sie eigentlich aussprechen, für welche realen Kommunikationssituationen die Äußerungen gelten; schließlich, in welchem Verhältnis die Sprecher und die Schweiger zueinander stehen. Manche dieser Schwierigkeiten bereitet auch das traditionelle Interview; bei der Technik der Gruppendiskussion sind sie besonders auffällig. Eine Reihe von methodologischen Teiluntersuchungen gingen der Arbeit von Mangold voraus: von Lothar Herberger, Volker von Hagen und Erwin Kohl. Sie berücksichtigt deren Resultate, auch erreichbare ausländische Publikationen über das Verfahren, legt jedoch das Hauptgewicht auf das Urmaterial: sowohl die Diskussionen des alten Gruppenexperiments wie spätere empirische Studien des Instituts, in denen dieselbe Technik verwendet wird. Ihr Ziel ist es, Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Methode für die systematische und kontrollierte Ermittlung von Meinungen, Einstellungen und Verhaltensweisen zu bestimmen und daraus nicht nur Vorschläge für die Auswertung, sondern auch solche für die konkrete Ausgestaltung des Verfahrens selbst abzuleiten. Als Hauptergebnis mag gelten: in Diskussionsgruppen können informelle Gruppenmeinungen sich ausdrücken, die auch in der

Realität Bewußtsein und Attitüden der Diskussionsteilnehmer wesentlich bestimmen. Diesen informellen Gruppenmeinungen gegenüber werden die Meinungen und Einstellungen der Einzelnen weithin untergeordnet. Jene kollektiven Meinungen verselbständigen sich zu faits sociaux im Sinne Durkheims und sind keineswegs mit den Meinungen aller Einzelnen, nicht einmal stets mit denen der Mehrheit, identisch, sondern entsprechen dem realen oder imaginären Geist der Großgruppe, mit welcher die Sprechenden jeweils sich identifizieren. Das Gruppendiskussionsverfahren eignet sich daher vorab dazu, solchen informellen Gruppenmeinungen auf die Spur zu kommen. Insbesondere wird dargetan, daß unter den Angehörigen sozialer Großgruppen jeweils gleichartige informelle Gruppenmeinungen verbreitet sind, vor allem zu Fragen, von denen die Mitglieder der Großgruppe objektiv gleichermaßen betroffen sind. Das läßt sich zumal am Vergleich von Diskussionsgruppen identischer sozialer Zusammensetzung herausarbeiten. Daß auch Mangolds Arbeit zahlreiche Fragen offen läßt, sollte, um Mißverständnisse zu vermeiden, nachdrücklich betont werden. Noch fehlt es an präziseren Bestimmungen der Struktur informeller Kommunikations- und Verhaltenssituationen. Offen ist, welches Gewicht informelle Gruppenmeinungen im Verhältnis zu mehr oder minder offiziell etablierten Normen und Kontrollen haben; ebenso, welche Wechselwirkung zwischen den sogenannten Einzelmeinungen, den Meinungen der informellen Gruppen und den Massenmedien besteht. Dergleichen Aspekte können kaum an dem bisher vorliegenden Material zureichend behandelt werden, sondern bedürften eigens gezielter, neuer Untersuchungen. Zu bedenken ist endlich, daß exponierte Einzelmeinungen, die dem Gruppenkonsensus nicht sich einfügen, gerade als Extrem Licht auf ein Potential werfen können, das unter veränderten gesellschaftlichen Umständen Gewalt über die Gruppen gewinnen mag. Die wissenschaftliche Entfaltung solcher qualitativen Momente wird freilich kaum dem rein objektivierenden, von dem angeblich bloß subjektiven Faktor des Analysierenden absehenden Verfahren gelingen. Ihre Objektivität, das Begreifen der Sache selbst, bedarf nicht eines Weniger, sondern eines Mehr an Subjektivität: an Erfahrenheit und interpretativer Kraft des einzelnen Forschers. Die damit aufgeworfenen erkenntnistheoretischen und

methodologischen Kontroversen jedoch liegen jenseits der Aufgabe, die Mangolds Buch sich gesetzt hat. Seine Konzeption verdankt es der Kritik an den üblichen Maßstäben und Standards der Sozialforschung, soweit sie der Realität, deren adäquate Erfassung sie gewährleisten sollen, äußerlich bleiben. Der Versuchung, den Gegenstand von den verfügbaren Methoden her zu bestimmen und nicht, wie es der eigenen Intention exakter empirischer Forschung entspricht, die Methode dem Gegenstand fügsam zu machen, vermag der Research-Betrieb häufig nur schwer sich zu entziehen. Indem Mangold die immanenten Bedingungen der Diskussion mit denen der Realität konfrontiert, in der Individuen Meinungen austauschen und zu kollektivem Verhalten zusammenfinden, liefert er mehr als einen bloß methodologischen Beitrag: seine Ergebnisse regen nicht zuletzt auch dazu an, den Gegenstand der sogenannten Meinungsund Einstellungsforschung im Hinblick auf seine realen Erscheinungsformen und gesellschaftlichen Wirkungen differenzierter und damit präziser ins Auge zu fassen.   Frankfurt am Main, Herbst 1959

 Fußnoten   * Vgl. Werner Mangold, Gegenstand und Methode des Gruppendiskussionsverfahrens. Aus der Arbeit des Instituts für Sozialforschung. Frankfurt a.M. 1960. (Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie. 9.) – Das Vorwort wurde gemeinsam von Max Horkheimer und Adorno geschrieben. (Anm. d. Hrsg.)   1 Vgl. Peter R. Hofstätter, Zum Gruppenexperiment von F. Pollock, in: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 9 (1957), S. 97ff. Dazu Theodor W. Adorno, Replik, ebd., S. 105ff. [GS 9.2, s. S. 378ff.].  

 Editorische Nachbemerkung

 In einer seiner letzten Arbeiten, einem 1968 entstandenen autobiographischen Essay, schrieb Adorno, er habe es gleichermaßen ›als ihm gemäß und als objektiv geboten‹ empfunden, »Phänomene zu deuten, nicht Fakten zu ermitteln, zu ordnen, zu klassifizieren, gar als Information zur Verfügung zu stellen« (Theodor W. Adorno, Stichworte, Frankfurt a.M. 1969, S. 113f. [GS 10.2, s. S. 703]). Für das Denken Adornos wie für die kritische Theorie insgesamt gab es so wenig eine ›reine‹ Soziologie wie ›reine‹ Philosophie. Wohl hat Adorno sich keine Illusionen über die Möglichkeit erlaubt, die wissenschaftliche Arbeitsteilung rückgängig machen zu können. Er scheint, im Gegenteil, was einmal Sache der Philosophie war, weithin an die Einzelwissenschaften zediert zu haben, indem er soziologischen, psychologischen, musikund literaturwissenschaftlichen Fragestellungen fast häufiger als den spezifisch philosophischen sich zuwandte. Dennoch stellen seine Arbeiten nur sehr bedingt Beiträge zu den genannten Disziplinen dar: der unbedingte Primat des Inhaltlichen gegenüber den leer gewordenen Abstraktionen der traditionellen Philosophie, den Adorno verfochten hat, wollte stets auch der Departmentalisierung des Geistes Widerpart leisten. Ausgesprochen oder unausgesprochen unternahm Adorno in allen seinen Arbeiten die Kritik eben jener Arbeitsteiligkeit, welche immer mehr einzelne wissenschaftliche Disziplinen der traditionellen Philosophie entrissen und zu gegeneinander abgeblendeten Fächern, zur gegenwärtigen Gestalt des Wissenschaftsbetriebs verfestigt hatte. Philosophische Reflexion auf die gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen dieses Betriebs suchte bei Adorno sowohl für die Einzelwissenschaften kritisches Bewußtsein, die Frage nach der Legitimation des Faktischen, wie für die Philosophie ›gegenständliche Wahrheit‹, die Fülle des Konkreten zurückzugewinnen. Derart resultiert aus der Komplexion der Adornoschen Theorie selber das Unbefriedigende, in einer Gesamtausgabe seiner Werke zwei Bände »Soziologischen Schriften« vorbehalten zu müssen: weder gehen die in diesen beiden Bänden versammelten Arbeiten in ›bloßer‹ Soziologie auf, noch erschöpft Adornos ›Soziologie‹ sich in ihnen. Adorno hatte zwar Soziologie im Nebenfach studiert, in eine produktive Beziehung zu soziologischer Arbeit kam er jedoch erst seit 1931, als der Freund Max Horkheimer die Leitung des Frankfurter Instituts für Sozialforschung übernommen hatte und die

»Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung« herauszugeben begann. Erste Zeugnisse von Adornos Befassung mit der Soziologie sind die Abhandlungen »Zur gesellschaftlichen Lage der Musik« und »Über Jazz«, die 1932 und 1936 in der »Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung« publiziert worden waren, sowie eine Kritik der Mannheimschen Wissenssoziologie, die damals unveröffentlicht blieb und in umgearbeiteter Form in die »Prismen« aufgenommen wurde. 1938 trat Adorno dann dem nach New York emigrierten Institut für Sozialforschung als Mitglied bei; gleichzeitig übernahm er die Leitung der Music Study des Princeton Radio Research Project. Seither datieren die umfangreichen empirisch-soziologischen Untersuchungen, an denen er maßgeblich mitarbeitete. Nach seiner Rückkehr aus dem Exil übernahm Adorno an der Frankfurter Universität einen Lehrstuhl für Philosophie und Soziologie und, zunächst noch gemeinsam mit Horkheimer, das Direktorium des neuerrichteten Instituts für Sozialforschung. Während der Jahre von 1949 bis zu seinem Tod wandte er den wohl größten Teil seiner Zeit an die Soziologie: neben seine Mitarbeit an den zahlreichen, kollektiv durchgeführten empirischen Projekten des Instituts trat die Tätigkeit als akademischer Lehrer. Von der Intensität und Energie, mit der Adorno beidem sich widmete, vermag eine Ausgabe seiner Schriften naturgemäß kaum einen Eindruck zu vermitteln. Soweit Adornos soziologische Publikationen aus diesen Jahren nicht unmittelbar einer Theorie der gegenwärtigen Gesellschaft galten, konzentrierten sie sich wesentlich auf die Frage des Verhältnisses von empirischer Sozialforschung und soziologischer Theoriebildung. Diese von Adorno initiierte Fragestellung beherrschte unter dem Etikett des Positivismusstreits jahrelang große Teile der etablierten Soziologie in der Bundesrepublik. Wer über Adornos Soziologie, wenn anders man überhaupt von einer solchen sinnvoll sprechen kann, sich informieren will, dürfte keinesfalls mit dem Studium der vorliegenden zwei Bände »Soziologischer Schriften« sich bescheiden. Eine Anzahl von soziologischen Arbeiten hat Adorno selbst in die Essaysammlung »Prismen« sowie in die beiden Bände »Kritischer Modelle«, die »Eingriffe« und die »Stichworte«, aufgenommen (vgl. GS 10). Seine Beiträge zur Kunst- und Literatursoziologie finden sich in den »Noten zur Literatur« (vgl. GS 11) und in dem Band »Ohne Leitbild« (vgl. GS 10.1), diejenigen zur Musiksoziologie in den

musikalischen Schriften (vgl. GS 12 bis 19) vereinigt. In den »Vermischten Schriften« (vgl. GS 20.2) schließlich werden kleinere Texte, vor allem Rezensionen und Vorworte zu Arbeiten anderer Autoren, abgedruckt werden, die gleichfalls soziologisch orientiert sind. Weiter werden die »Vermischten Schriften« Arbeiten zu Fragen der politischen Erziehung enthalten, die mit soziologischen zumindest sich überschneiden. Hingewiesen sei darauf, daß die philosophischen Schriften Adornos (vgl. GS 1 bis 7) nicht nur zentral in sozialwissenschaftliche Methodenfragen eingreifen, sondern daß in ihnen auch die Theorie der Gesellschaft selber vorangetrieben wird. Daß Soziologie, wie Adorno sie verstand, mit Geschichtsphilosophie zusammenfällt, läßt kaum irgendwo eindringlicher sich lernen als an der »Dialektik der Aufklärung« und der »Negativen Dialektik«. – In den vorliegenden zwei Bänden wird gesammelt, was – neben den vom Autor selbst in Bücher aufgenommenen soziologischen Arbeiten einerseits, andererseits den durch ihre musiksoziologische Thematik unter die musikalischen Schriften aufzunehmenden Texten – an im engeren Sinn soziologischen Schriften von Adorno vorhanden ist. Es ließ einigermaßen zwanglos in eher theoretische Arbeiten, welche in Band 8 abgedruckt werden, und in empirische Untersuchungen sich aufteilen: die letzteren finden sich in den beiden Teilen von Band 9 zusammengestellt.

 Zu »Soziologische Schriften I« (Band 8)   Sieht man ab von der »Authoritarian Personality« – einem Kollektivwerk, für das neben Adorno Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson und R. Nevitt Sanford als Autoren zeichnen – und dem Band »Sociologica II«, in dem Reden und Vorträge Horkheimers mit solchen von Adorno zusammengefaßt wurden 1 , dann findet Adornos Name sich auf keiner selbständigen Buchpublikation spezifisch soziologischen Inhalts. Wohl aber plante er kurz vor seinem Tod, einen derartigen Band mit dem Titel »Integration-Desintegration« zusammenzustellen. Der erste Teil der »Soziologischen Schriften I« umfaßt diejenigen Arbeiten, die der Autor in diesen Band aufzunehmen beabsichtigte 2 . Ihre Anordnung mußte vom Herausgeber getroffen werden. Über die Druckvorlagen ist im einzelnen zu bemerken:   Gesellschaft (I), in: Evangelisches Staatslexikon. Hrsg. von Hermann Kunst u.a. Stuttgart, Berlin 1966, Sp. 636–643. – Die kurzen Literaturangaben, die im Erstdruck sich finden, haben keinen Bezug auf den Adornoschen Text; sie dürften von der Lexikon-Redaktion hinzugefügt worden sein.   Die revidierte Psychoanalyse, in: Max Horkheimer und Theodor W. Adorno, Sociologica II. Reden und Vorträge. Frankfurt a.M. 1962. (Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie. Bd. 10.) S. 94–112. – In den »Drucknachweisen« zu den »Sociologica II« (ebd., S. 241f.) heißt es: »Ursprünglich ein Vortrag in der Psychoanalytischen Gesellschaft zu San Francisco, April 1946; publiziert in: Psyche, VI. Jahrgang, 1952, Heft 1, S. 1ff.« Während der Herausgeber in den »Gesammelten Schriften« sonst der Regel folgte, von Adorno auf Englisch geschriebene Texte in der Originalsprache abzudrucken, soweit nicht der Autor selber eine Übersetzung ins Deutsche angefertigt hatte, glaubte er, im Fall der »Revidierten Psychoanalyse« ausnahmsweise anders verfahren zu sollen: Adorno war der Auffassung, daß die Übersetzung von Rainer Koehne seine Intentionen besser wiedergebe als das – nie veröffentlichte – amerikanische Original.

 

   

 

 

 

Zum Verhältnis von Soziologie und Psychologie, in: Sociologica. Aufsätze, Max Horkheimer zum sechzigsten Geburtstag gewidmet. Frankfurt a.M. 1955. (Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie. Bd. 1.) S. 11–45. Postscriptum, in: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 18 (1966), S. 37–42 (Heft 1). Theorie der Halbbildung, in: Horkheimer und Adorno, Sociologica II, a.a.O., S. 168–192. – In den »Drucknachweisen« heißt es: »Vortrag auf der Berliner Tagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, Mai 1959. Publiziert in: Der Monat, 11. Jahrgang, September 1959, S. 30ff.« Ein weiterer Abdruck findet sich in: Soziologie und moderne Gesellschaft. Verhandlungen des 14. Deutschen Soziologentages. Stuttgart 1959. S. 169–191. Kultur und Verwaltung, in: Horkheimer und Adorno, Sociologica II, a.a.O., S. 48–68. – In den »Drucknachweisen« heißt es: »Ursprünglich ein Vortrag, gedruckt in: Merkur, XIV. Jahrgang, 1960, Heft 2, S. 101.« Ein weiterer Abdruck findet sich in: Vorträge, gehalten anläßlich der Hessischen Hochschulwochen für staatswissenschaftliche Fortbildung. Bd. 28. Bad Homburg v.d.H.u.a. 1960. S. 214–231. Aberglaube aus zweiter Hand, in: Horkheimer und Adorno, Sociologica II, a.a.O., S. 142–167. – In den »Drucknachweisen« heißt es: »Eine vorläufige, sehr abweichende Fassung in: Psyche, Jahrgang 12, Heft 1, 1959, S. 561ff. 3 Der volle amerikanische Originaltext erschien im Jahrbuch für Amerikastudien, Band 2, 1957. – Die Untersuchung wurde in Amerika und an amerikanischem Material durchgeführt, als der Autor, 1952–53, die Hacker-Foundation in Beverly-Hills, Cal., wissenschaftlich leitete. Dieser und Dr. Frederick Hacker, der die Durchführung der Studie ermöglichte und vielfache Anregungen beitrug, gebührt der Dank des Autors.« Theodor W. Adorno und Ursula Jaerisch, Anmerkungen zum

 

 

 

 

 

 

sozialen Konflikt heute, in: Gesellschaft, Recht und Politik. Hrsg. von Heinz Maus u.a. Wolfgang Abendroth zum 60. Geburtstag. Neuwied, Berlin 1968. (Soziologische Texte. Bd. 35.) S. 1–19. Soziologie und empirische Forschung, in: Horkheimer und Adorno, Sociologica II, a.a.O., S. 205–222. – In den »Drucknachweisen« heißt es: »Ursprünglich ein Vortrag zur Eröffnung einer Diskussion im Institut für Sozialforschung, März 1957. Publiziert in: Wesen und Wirklichkeit des Menschen, Göttingen 1957, S. 245ff.« Über Statik und Dynamik als soziologische Kategorien, in: Horkheimer und Adorno, Sociologica II, a.a.O., S. 223–240. – In den »Drucknachweisen« heißt es: »Entstanden aus einem kurzen Diskussionsbeitrag zum Amsterdamer Soziologenkongreß, August 1956. Gedruckt in: Neue Deutsche Hefte 81, Mai/Juni 1961, S. 47ff.« Hinzuzufügen ist, daß es bei dem Aufsatz um die umgearbeitete Fassung der »Bemerkungen über Statik und Dynamik« sich handelt, die abgedruckt wurden in: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 8 (1956), S. 321–328 (Heft 2). Notiz über sozialwissenschaftliche Objektivität, in: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 17 (1965), S. 416–421 (Heft 3). Einleitung zu Emile Durkheim, »Soziologie und Philosophie«, in Emile Durkheim, Soziologie und Philosophie. Aus dem Französischen von Eva Moldenhauer. Frankfurt a.M. 1967. S. 7–44. Einleitung zum »Positivismusstreit in der deutschen Soziologie«, in: Theodor W. Adorno, Hans Albert, Ralf Dahrendorf u.a., Der Positivismusstreit in der deutschen Soziologie. Neuwied, Berlin 1969. (Soziologische Texte. Bd. 58.) S. 7–79. Spätkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaf?, in: Spätkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaft? Im Auftrag der

Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie hrsg. von Theodor W. Adorno. Stuttgart 1969. (Verhandlungen des 16. Deutschen Soziologentages.) S. 12–26. – Von dem Vortrag existiert eine von Adorno so genannte »Rundfunkfassung«, die auch hektographiert verbreitet worden ist. Sie ist zwar später als der abgedruckte Text entstanden, stellt indessen – ein wahrscheinlich einziger Fall in der literarischen Produktion Adornos – eine Version dar, in der der Autor durch sprachliche Vereinfachungen, insbesondere auch durch die Verdeutschung von Fremdwörtern, dem Publikum des Rundfunks entgegenzukommen versuchte; diese Rundfunkfassung ist jetzt zugänglich auf Theodor W. Adorno, Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit. Reden und Gespräche. Auswahl und Begleittext von Rolf Tiedemann, München 1999, DerHörVerlag. (AUDIO BOOKS. Stimmen der Philosophie.) 5 CD: ISBN 3-89584-730-5; 2 MC: ISBN 3-89584-630-9. Für den vorliegenden Abdruck wurde deshalb auf die Fassung zurückgegriffen, die Adorno vor dem 16. Deutschen Soziologentag gehalten und die er auch allein zum Druck gegeben hat.

  In einem zweiten Teil der »Soziologischen Schriften I« hat der Herausgeber weitere Aufsätze und Vorträge theoretischen Charakters zusammengestellt; sie wurden zum Teil von Adorno selbst an verschiedenen Stellen publiziert, zum Teil lagen sie nur im Manuskript vor. Der Herausgeber hat gezögert, ob in diesen Zusammenhang nicht ebenfalls die »Soziologischen Exkurse« gehörten, findet in diesem Band sich doch Adornos Begriff von Soziologie prägnanter als anderswo, vor allem aber mit größtem didaktischen Geschick dargestellt (vgl. Institut für Sozialforschung, Soziologische Exkurse. Nach Vorträgen und Diskussionen. Frankfurt a.M. 1956. [Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie. Bd. 4.]). Wie maßgeblich jedoch Adornos Mitarbeit an den »Exkursen« immer war, »die Autorschaft des Buches gehört dem Institut für Sozialforschung als Ganzem« (a.a.O., S. 8). Deshalb sind auch der Bericht über »Vorurteil und Charakter« – der im Anhang zu den »Soziologischen Schriften II« sich findet – und der Ideologie-Aufsatz nicht nach den Fassungen, in denen sie in die »Exkurse« eingingen, sondern in der ursprünglichen Form

abgedruckt worden, für die Adorno allein bzw. gemeinsam mit Horkheimer verantwortlich zeichnete. Als Druckvorlage dienten für die Texte des zweiten Teils der »Soziologischen Schriften I«:   Über das Problem der individuellen Kausalität bei Simmel, nach dem Typoskript im Nachlaß; Erstdruck in: Frankfurter Adorno Blätter VIII, München 2003, S. 42ff.   Reflexionen zur Klassentheorie, nach dem Typoskript im Nachlaß.   Thesen über Bedürfnis, nach dem Typoskript im Nachlaß.   Anti-Semitism and Fascist Propaganda, in: Anti- Semitism. A Social Disease. Ed. by Ernst Simmel. New York 1946. pp. 125–137.   Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda, in: Psychoanalysis and the Social Sciences, Vol. 3, ed. by G. Róheim, New York 1951, pp. 279–300.   Bemerkungen über Politik und Neurose, in: Der Monat 65, Jg. 6 (1953/54), S. 482–485.   Individuum und Organisation, in: Darmstädter Gespräch. Individuum und Organisation. Hrsg. von Fritz Neumark. Darmstadt 1954. S. 21–35. Wiederabdruck in: Die Herausforderung. Darmstädter Gespräche. Hrsg. von Heinz Winfried Sabais. München 1963. S. 135–147.   Gesellschaft (II), nach dem Typoskript im Nachlaß; Erstdruck in: Frankfurter Adorno Blätter VIII, München 2003, S. 143ff.   Beitrag zur Ideologienlehre, in: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 6 (1953/54), S. 360–375 (Heft 3/4).   Zur gegenwärtigen Stellung der empirischen Sozialforschung in

   

   

 

Deutschland, in: Empirische Sozialforschung. Frankfurt a.M. 1952. (Wissenschaftliche Schriftenreihe des Instituts zur Förderung öffentlicher Angelegenheiten. Bd. 13.) S. 27–39. Ein weiterer Abdruck unter dem Titel »Die Soziologen und die Wirklichkeit. Über den Stand der Sozialforschung in Deutschland« findet sich in: Frankfurter Hefte 7 (1952), S. 585–595 (Heft 8). Teamwork in der Sozialforschung, nach dem Typoskript im Nachlaß. Zum gegenwärtigen Stand der deutschen Soziologie, in: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 11 (1959), S. 257–280 (Heft 2). Meinungsforschung und Öffentlichkeit, nach dem Typoskript im Nachlaß. Gesellschaftstheorie und empirische Forschung, in: Th. W. Adorno, H. Albert u.a., Soziologie zwischen Theorie und Empirie. Soziologische Grundprobleme. Hrsg. von Willy Hochkeppel. München 1970. (sammlung dialog. Bd. 39.) S. 75–82. – Ursprünglich ein Vortrag im Bayerischen Rundfunk. Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften, in: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 14 (1962), S. 249–263 (Heft 2). Wiederabdruck in: Theodor W. Adorno, Hans Albert, Ralf Dahrendorf u.a., Der Positivismusstreit in der deutschen Soziologie. Neuwied, Berlin 1969. S. 125–143.

  Die beiden ersten Texte des Anhangs zu den »Soziologischen Schriften I« folgen den Typoskripten im Nachlaß Adornos; der »Diskussionsbeitrag zu ›Spätkapitalismus oder Industriegesellschaft?‹« wurde zuerst in den Verhandlungen des 16. Deutschen Soziologentages abgedruckt (vgl. a.a.O., S. 100–106). – In den »Soziologischen Schriften I« ist am Ende jeder Arbeit das Entstehungsjahr angegeben worden, welches nicht in allen Fällen mit dem Jahr des Erstdrucks übereinstimmt.

Zu »Soziologische Schriften II« (Band 9.1 und 9.2)   Das Verhältnis von Sozialphilosophie und empirischer Forschung ist 1931 von Horkheimer, in seiner Antrittsvorlesung bei der Übernahme der Leitung des Instituts für Sozialforschung, bestimmt worden: Eine »Auffassung, nach welcher der Einzelforscher die Philosophie als eine vielleicht schöne, aber wissenschaftlich fruchtlose, weil unkontrollierbare Übung ansehen muß, der Philosoph dagegen sich vom Einzelforscher emanzipiert, weil er auf ihn bei seinen weittragenden Entschlüssen nicht warten zu können meint, wird gegenwärtig durch den Gedanken einer fortwährenden dialektischen Durchdringung und Entwicklung von philosophischer Theorie und einzelwissenschaftlicher Praxis überwunden. [...] Nicht dadurch wird die chaotische Spezialisierung überwunden, daß man schlechte Synthesen spezialistischer Forschungsergebnisse unternimmt, und nicht dadurch kommt andererseits unbefangene Empirie zustande, daß versucht wird, das theoretische Element darin auf nichts zu reduzieren: sondern indem die Philosophie als aufs Allgemeine, ›Wesentliche‹ gerichtete theoretische Intention den besonderen Forschungen beseelende Impulse zu geben vermag und zugleich weltoffen genug ist, um sich selbst von dem Fortgang der konkreten Studien beeindrucken und verändern zu lassen.« (Max Horkheimer, Die gegenwärtige Lage der Sozialphilosophie und die Aufgaben eines Instituts für Sozialforschung, Frankfurt a.M. 1931, S. 10f.) Das in diesen Sätzen enthaltene Programm war auch für Adorno verbindlich, als er, vom Fach her Philosoph, seit 1938 empirischen Untersuchungen sich zuwandte. Daß auch diese Untersuchungen im Rahmen der »Gesammelten Schriften« Adornos zum Abdruck gelangen, sollte indessen nicht vergessen machen, daß es dabei in größerem oder geringerem Maß um kollektive Arbeiten sich handelt. Bei den Texten der »Soziologischen Schriften II« gilt das vor allem für die Auszüge aus der »Authoritarian Personality« und dem »Gruppenexperiment«: in die abgedruckten, von Adorno geschriebenen Teile der beiden Studien sind gleichwohl Anregungen, Korrekturen und Beiträge aus Diskussionen mit anderen Mitarbeitern des Instituts für Sozialforschung eingegangen. Ebenso ist freilich darauf hinzuweisen, daß Adornos Arbeiten mit empirischen Materialien sich nicht auf die vier Analysen der

vorliegenden Bände beschränken; insbesondere an den Forschungsberichten, die das Institut für Sozialforschung unter Adornos Direktorat erstellte, ist er entscheidend beteiligt gewesen. Mit der einen Ausnahme des Kapitels über die F-Skala in der »Authoritarian Personality« stellen alle empirischen Untersuchungen Adornos qualitative Inhaltsanalysen dar. Mit ihrer Methode stand er in Opposition zur etablierten Sozialforschung, in der stets noch ein Primat der Quantifizierung herrscht. Daß die nach dem naturwissenschaftlichen Postulat des science is measurement verfahrende Gesellschaftswissenschaft – der Adorno im amerikanischen Exil sich konfrontiert sah und die nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg auch in der Bundesrepublik weitgehend sich durchsetzte – ein Korrektiv zu der in der deutschen Tradition verbreiteten Verabsolutierung des Geistes bildet, hat Adorno gleichwohl nicht verkannt. Ihm zufolge ist die quantifizierende Sozialforschung, die ihre Instrumente nicht zufällig in der Marktforschung gewonnen hat, am Modell des auf dem Markt zu konstatierenden Tauschverhältnisses orientiert. Die Gesellschaft selber ›quantifiziert‹ ununterbrochen: im ubiquitären Tauschverhältnis werden die qualitativen Differenzen der auszutauschenden Produkte auf ihre abstrakte Einheit, auf die durchschnittliche gesellschaftliche Arbeitszeit reduziert, welche zu ihrer Herstellung erforderlich ist. Quantifizierende Soziologie ist insofern durchaus »ein richtiges Bewußtsein, als sie jene in ihrem Objekt liegende Quantifizierung [...] sich zu eigen macht«. Sie ist in eins damit jedoch auch Ideologie, indem sie ihrerseits das Zählen, die quantitative Methode verabsolutiert und Theorie nur noch in der Form von Hypothesen zuläßt, in deren Verifizierung oder Falsifizierung durch die Empirie die der Soziologie erreichbare Erkenntnis bereits sich erschöpfen soll. Die qualitativen Analysen Adornos versuchen dagegen, die gesellschaftliche Theorie in der Praxis der Forschung selber zur Geltung zu bringen; die faits sociaux nicht als eine Art tabula rasa zu behandeln, sondern in jenen ihr Gewordensein zu entziffern, Geschichte zum Sprechen zu verhalten. Wenn »fruchtbare theoretische Erkenntnis anders als in engster Fühlung mit ihren Materialien nicht möglich ist«, dann läßt doch umgekehrt »an der Gestalt des in wissenschaftliche Praxis umgesetzten Empirismus« sich einsehen, »daß die volle, unreglementierte Breite der Erfahrung durch die empiristischen Spielregeln beengter ist, als es im Begriff

der Erfahrung selbst liegt« (Adorno, Stichworte, a.a.O., S. 148 [GS 10.2, s. S. 738]). Was Adorno nicht zuletzt auch in seinen qualitativen Contentanalysen vorschwebte, hat er als »eine Art Restitution von Erfahrung gegen ihre empiristische Zurichtung« (ebd.) bezeichnet.   Von den vier Studien der »Soziologischen Schriften II« ist die Monographie über die psychologische Technik des faschistischen Agitators Martin Luther Thomas die früheste 4 : sie wurde 1943 beendet und blieb zu Lebzeiten Adornos unveröffentlicht. Der im vorliegenden Band zum erstenmal abgedruckte amerikanische Originaltext folgt dem Typoskript in Adornos Nachlaß 5 . Die »Authoritarian Personality«, fraglos Adornos gewichtigster Beitrag zur empirischen Sozialforschung, entstand zwischen 1944 und 1949 in Kalifornien. Der Autor berichtete über das Zustandekommen der Untersuchung: »Noch in unserer New Yorker Zeit hatte Horkheimer, angesichts des Grauenvollen, das in Europa geschah, Untersuchungen über das Problem des Antisemitismus in die Wege geleitet. Wir hatten, gemeinsam mit anderen Mitgliedern unseres Instituts, das Programm eines Forschungsprojekts entworfen und publiziert, auf das wir dann vielfach rekurrierten. [...] Das Kapitel ›Elemente des Antisemitismus‹ in der ›Dialektik der Aufklärung‹ [...] war verbindlich für meinen Anteil an den später mit der Berkeley Public Opinion Study Group durchgeführten Untersuchungen. Sie fanden in der ›Authoritarian Personality‹ ihren literarischen Niederschlag. [...] Horkheimer hatte mit einer Gruppe von Forschern an der University of California in Berkeley [...] Fühlung genommen. [...] Horkheimer übernahm 1945 die Leitung der Research-Abteilung des American Jewish Committee in New York und ermöglichte damit, daß die wissenschaftlichen Ressourcen der Berkeleygruppe und unseres Instituts ›gepooled‹ wurden, und daß wir über Jahre hin umfangreiche Forschungen durchführen konnten, die sich an gemeinsame theoretische Reflexionen anschlossen. Ihm ist nicht nur der Gesamtplan der Arbeiten zu verdanken, die in der Reihe ›Studies in Prejudice‹ bei Harper's zusammengefaßt wurden. Auch die ›Authoritarian Personality‹ ist, ihrem spezifischen Gehalt nach, ohne ihn undenkbar. [...] Die Berkeleystudie war so organisiert, daß Sanford und ich als Direktoren fungierten, Frau Brunswik und Daniel Levinson als

Hauptmitarbeiter. Von Anbeginn aber geschah alles in vollkommenem team work, ohne irgendwelche hierarchischen Momente. Der Titel der ›Authoritarian Personality‹, der uns allen gleichen ›credit‹ zuweist, gibt durchaus dem tatsächlichen Sachverhalt Ausdruck.« (Adorno, Stichworte, a.a.O., S. 132 u. 134f. [GS 10.2, s. S. 721]) – In den vorliegenden Band wurden diejenigen Kapitel der »Authoritarian Personality« aufgenommen, die Adorno entweder allein oder in Zusammenarbeit mit den übrigen Autoren verfaßt hat. Druckvorlage bildete die erste Ausgabe: The Authoritarian Personality. By T.W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson, R. Nevitt Sanford in collaboration with Betty Aron, Maria Hertz Levinson and William Morrow. New York: Harper & Brothers 1950. (Studies in Prejudice. Vol. 1.) Die Abhandlung »The Stars Down to Earth« schrieb Adorno 1952 und 1953, während eines neuerlichen Aufenthaltes in den USA. Über die Entstehung der Untersuchung berichtet der Autor selbst in einer »Vorbemerkung« (vgl. GS 9.2, s. S. 11–13). Der vorliegende Abdruck folgt der bislang einzigen Publikation in: Jahrbuch für Amerikastudien. Im Auftrag der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien in Verbindung mit Eduard Baumgarten u.a. hrsg. von Walther Fischer unter Mitwirkung von Bernhard Fabian. Band 2. Heidelberg: Carl Winter 1957. S. 19–88; dieselbe Publikation befand sich auch als Sonderdruck im Buchhandel. »Schuld und Abwehr« schließlich, die einzige Analyse empirischen Materials, die Adorno deutsch schrieb, bildet das fünfte Kapitel des »Gruppenexperiments«. Unser Abdruck folgt der ersten Auflage: Gruppenexperiment. Ein Studienbericht. Bearbeitet von Friedrich Pollock. Mit einem Geleitwort von Franz Böhm. Frankfurt a.M.: Europäische Verlagsanstalt 1955. (Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie. Bd. 2.) S. 278–428. Der von Adorno geschriebene Text ist im Erstdruck nicht mit seinem Namen gezeichnet worden. Über das »Gruppenexperiment« als Ganzes, die erste größere Studie, welche das nach Deutschland zurückgekehrte Institut für Sozialforschung durchführte, unterrichtet das »Vorwort« zu dem Band (vgl. GS 9.2, s. S. 127–130). Wie bereits bei der »Authoritarian Personality« hätte eine wissenschaftliche Beschäftigung mit Adornos Texten auf die Zusammenhänge zu rekurrieren, in denen sie in den Originalausgaben stehen.

Eine Anzahl kleinerer Arbeiten, die an die Untersuchungen der »Soziologischen Schriften II« sich angeschlossen haben, werden als Anhang abgedruckt. Als Druckvorlagen dienten im einzelnen:   Theodor W. Adorno, J. Décamps, L. Herberger u.a., Empirische Sozialforschung, in: Handwörterbuch der Sozialwissenschaften, 6. Lieferung, Stuttgart u.a. 1954, S. 419–432.   Max Horkheimer und Theodor W. Adorno, Vorurteil und Charakter, in: Frankfurter Hefte 7 (1952), S. 284–291 (Heft 4).   Starrheit und Integration, in: Psychologische Rundschau 10 (1959), S. 292–294 (Heft 4).   Replik zu Hofstätters Kritik des »Gruppenexperiments«, in: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 9 (1957), S. 105–117 (Heft 1).   Max Horkheimer und Theodor W. Adorno, Vorwort zu Werner Mangold, Gegenstand und Methode des Gruppendiskussionsverfahrens. Aus der Arbeit des Instituts für Sozialforschung. Frankfurt a.M. 1960. (Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie. Bd. 9.) S. 5–8.

 Zum Text   Die Textrevision beschränkte sich bei beiden Bänden der »Soziologischen Schriften« im wesentlichen auf die Korrektur von Druckfehlern und seltenen offenkundigen Versehen. In den »Soziologischen Schriften I« weichen einige Arbeiten vom Wortlaut der angegebenen Druckvorlagen ab: hier wurden Änderungen, die Adorno selbst in seinen Handexemplaren vorgenommen hatte, in den Text integriert. Zitate und Verweise sind nach Möglichkeit kontrolliert und, wenn nötig, korrigiert worden. In den Erstdrucken der »Authoritarian Personality« und des »Gruppenexperiments« beziehen die Querverweise sich auf die ursprünglichen Ausgaben: die Herausgeber haben eine Umstellung auf den vorliegenden Abdruck vorgenommen. Im Erstdruck der »Authoritarian Personality« finden sich darüber hinaus Nummern-Verweise auf eine Bibliographie am Ende des Buches: diese Verweise sind ebenfalls als Fußnoten gebracht worden. Hinzufügungen der Herausgeber im Text sowie Fußnoten, welche die Herausgeber für die »Soziologischen Schriften II« neu- oder umformuliert haben, wurden in eckige Klammern gesetzt. Der Dank der Herausgeber gilt, neben den genannten Verlagen der Erstveröffentlichungen, dem Frankfurter Institut für Sozialforschung, das die Adornoschen Beiträge zur »Authoritarian Personality« wie zum »Gruppenexperiment« für den vorliegenden Band freigab. – Die amerikanischen Arbeiten sind von Susan Buck-Morss textkritisch durchgesehen worden, die deutschsprachigen von Rolf Tiedemann.   Oktober 1974

 Fußnoten   1 Da Adorno in die von ihm selbst geplante Sammlung soziologischer Schriften alle seine Beiträge zu den »Sociologica II« aufnehmen wollte, sei an dieser Stelle der »Frankfurt, Frühjahr 1962« datierte Text mitgeteilt, den Horkheimer und Adorno den »Sociologica II« voranstellten: So wenig wie der erste Band der Sociologica erhebt der zweite Anspruch darauf, dem Thema oder der Form der Aufsätze nach eine Einheit zu bilden. Texte verschiedensten Inhalts, darunter viele Gelegenheitsarbeiten, werden nebeneinander gebracht. Sie entfalten weder einen geschlossenen theoretischen Gedanken, noch berichten sie über zusammenhängende Forschungen. Gleich einer anderen Publikation des Instituts sind sie Exkurse; nur daß sie nicht einmal die Absicht haben, Hauptkategorien der soziologischen Wissenschaft zu erörtern. Einzig in der gemeinsamen Erfahrung und Absicht der Autoren ist begründet, was etwa ihre Einheit ausmacht. [Absatz] Die Arbeiten wurden jeweils unter dem Namen eines der Verfasser früher publiziert, hier sind sie mit den Initialen gezeichnet. Für das Ganze tragen beide die Verantwortung. Wo immer die Versuchung bestehen mag, den einen gegen den anderen auszuspielen, vergäße man, daß beide nur aneinander so sich entfalten konnten, wie sie heute sind. (Max Horkheimer [und] Theodor W. Adorno, Sociologica II. Reden und Vorträge. Frankfurt a.M. 1962. [Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie. Bd. 10.] S. 1.)   2 Wiederholt sprach Adorno von Arbeiten, die er zusätzlich für den projektierten Band schreiben wollte, so von einem Titelaufsatz über Integration und Desintegration in der heutigen Gesellschaft und von einer Arbeit zur Soziologie des Sports; zur Niederschrift ist er nicht mehr gekommen.   3 Während der amerikanische Text in den »Soziologischen Schriften II« abgedruckt ist, mag hier eine »Vorbemerkung« ihren Platz finden, die Adorno zu jener »vorläufigen« deutschen Fassung schrieb: Der hier publizierte Text gibt die Resultate einer Untersuchung, die der Autor 1953 im Rahmen der Hacker-Foundation in Beverly Hills durchführte, deren

wissenschaftliche Leitung damals in seinen Händen lag. Das Ausgangsmaterial bildete die täglich erscheinende Horoskopspalte einer großen, republikanischen amerikanischen Zeitung, der Los Angeles Times, für die Zeit von November 1952 bis Februar 1953. [Absatz] Der englische Originaltext ist gedruckt im Jahrbuch für Amerikastudien, Band II 1957, bei Carl Winter. Zur deutschen Veröffentlichung entschloß sich der Autor angesichts der Übereinstimmung der amerikanischen und deutschen Zeitungshoroskope nach Grundhaltung und Tendenz: die Überlegungen des Textes dürften hier wie dort zutreffen. Doch wurde auf die im Original angeführten wörtlichen Belege weitgehend verzichtet; vor allem, wo sie spezifisch amerikanische Situationen betreffen oder Stereotype verwenden, die von den in deutschen Zeitungen üblichen abweichen. Die Struktur des Materials wird dadurch nicht berührt. [Absatz] Da es dem Autor nicht möglich war, eine neue, selbständig geformte deutsche Version herzustellen, und er mit der Übersetzung eigener Texte aus dem Amerikanischen keine günstigen Erfahrungen gemacht hat, wurde die Übersetzung Frau Marianne von Eckardt anvertraut, die sich der Aufgabe mit ungewöhnlichem Verständnis und größter Intensität unterzog: es sei ihr aufs herzlichste gedankt. Es dünkte dem Autor richtig, ihre Übersetzung in allem Wesentlichen unverändert zu lassen und nur geringfügige Retouchen anzubringen, ohne etwa den Versuch zu machen, die Abhandlung sprachlich seinen deutschen Arbeiten anzuähneln. Die unvermeidlichen, recht erheblichen Kürzungen, auch gewisse gedrängte Zusammenfassungen längerer Abschnitte, wurden von Frau von Eckardt in voller Übereinstimmung mit der Redaktion der »Psyche« und dem Autor durchgeführt. (Th. W. Adorno, Aberglaube aus zweiter Hand. Zur Sozialpsychologie der Zeitungshoroskope, in: Psyche 12 [1958/59], S. 561.)   4 Vorangegangen sind Analysen zur Music Study des Princeton Radio Research Project, die zwischen 1938 und 1941 entstanden. Adorno hatte die Absicht, sie unter dem Titel »Current of Music. Elements of a Radio Theory« zu einem Buch zusammenzufassen. Die erhaltenen, sehr umfangreichen Materialien werden in einem Band der »Nachgelassenen Schriften« Adornos durch Robert Hullot-Kentor herausgegeben.

  5 Eine Übersetzung der Thomas-Studie ins Deutsche erschien in dem Band Theodor W. Adorno, Studien zum autoritären Charakter. Aus dem Amerikanischen von Milli Weinbrenner. Vorrede von Ludwig von Friedeburg. Frankfurt a.M. 1973. (suhrkamp taschenbuch. Bd. 107.) S. 360–483.  

 Bildanhang

Abbildung 1

 

Table 9 (VII): Means and Discriminatory Powers of the F-Scale Items (Forms 40 And 45)