Adorno's Authoritarian Personality

A group of authors published a study on the Authoritarian Personality in 1950. Theodor W. Adorno was one of them. They combined Freud's idea that suppression of instincts during childhood can have adverse effects in later life with an explanation for the rise of fascism and anti-Semitism. The Authoritarian Personality is the relationship of the authoritarian structure of families at the core of authoritarian states that could turn prejudice into fascist action, such as what happened in Germany. The study employed the so-called F-scale or (pre)fascism scale, which structured the authoritarian personalities into several traits. Adorno's contribution is deeply rooted in his intellectual biography.

Keywords Adorno, Theodor; Authority; Authoritarian Personality; Critical Theory; F-scale; Frankfurt School; Immanent Criticism; Personality; Phenomenology; Structural Functionalism; Totalitarianism

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Overview

The Frankfurt School

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) was a leading member of the so-called Frankfurt School who proposed critical theory. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Friedrich Pollock comprised the inner circle of that group. Horkheimer and Adorno were born into fairly wealthy bourgeoisie families and formed the intellectual core, while Pollock, son of a factory worker, stayed mostly busy with the finances and certain administrative tasks on which he and Horkheimer worked. After the Second World War, Horkheimer was left with little time for writing and the bulk of intellectual production was left to Adorno and offshoots of critical theory; the second and third generation of the Frankfurt School.

Both Horkheimer and Adorno had studied in the 1920s in Frankfurt under the Neo-Kantian scholar Hans Cornelius. Horkheimer, slightly older, became Cornelius's assistant and much of Adorno's work ever since that time was worked out in direct answer to problems introduced to Adorno by Horkheimer. The intellectual background of Adorno's writings as well as of the majority of the members of the Frankfurt School is clearly rooted in Hegel-Marxism. Given that most members of the Frankfurt School and Marxist circles at the time were descendants of rather wealthy families, it is often ironically remarked upon that social criticism was something that one must be able to afford.

Adorno's Background

Adorno wrote his dissertation in 1924, trying to prove that Husserl's Phenomenology is part of the positivist movement due to its roots in Greek philosophy. To become a full professor, German PhDs had to undergo (and still do) a second process after their dissertation which is called habilitation. Adorno had to enter two habilitation scripts since his first one was rejected by Cornelius.

Adorno biographers differ on the importance of this fact for his life's work. The most dominant interpretation sees Adorno's second habilitation on Kierkegaard in light of his last and unfinished book on aesthetic theory. It is widely considered that Adorno saw art as the one field that still allowed for escape and free thought, which could break the cage of total ideology that mass society and its culture-industry had lured the entirety of society into (Mueller-Doohm, 2003).

Another interpretation suggests that his rejected first habilitation on the concept of the unconscious in Kant and Freud foreshadowed the fundamental issues to which Adorno would later dedicate most of his work. Alexander Stingl goes so far as to suggest that Adorno's entire publishing career can be perceived as a continuous defense of his first habilitation, and thereby as a continuous defense against the authority of the hierarchy of the university (Stingl, 2009).

A central aspect of that first habilitation is Adorno's warning about the use of psychotherapy by the "wrong groups." The celebration of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy by a large group of people glossed over the danger that these techniques and the insight they offered into the human mind could also be used to manipulate society. The veiling or blinding that these techniques produced, for example, applied by the entertainment or advertisement industry, were addressed in his own writings, as well as in his famous 1944 co-production with Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment. The culture industry, under the guise of helping individualism, prestructures the world into decisions which are therefore no longer free and autonomous. The perfidy of the culture-industry and its manipulation is that the effect of the blinding is so total (totaler Verblendungszusammenhang) or can be called a total ideology, that people do not even realize this effect but instead celebrate the culture industry and its products as an agent of freedom and individual choice. This illusion has become so total that there is no escaping. The sole route of escape that Adorno and Horkheimer allowed for was either in some works of art and music — although Adorno was himself very selective in what he would allow to count as art; for example, he absolutely hated jazz. An intellectual route of escape was critical theory or its method of immanent criticism, which Adorno and Horkheimer would consider their "message in a bottle," which they would not live to see arrive. However, later generations would decipher and break the circle.

Adorno's cynicism is of course explained in his bearing witness to the horror of the Third Reich and his own fate as a refugee.

Further Insights

In 1950, a group of scholars from the University of California, Berkeley published The Authoritarian Personality, a study that Adorno helped create. The work is of course deeply influenced by Adorno's personal experiences, but also by his readings of Freud and his colleague and former member of the Frankfurt School, Erich Fromm.

During the Second World War, anti-Semitism was a subject of concern for the Jewish community in the United States, not only in regard to what was happening in the concentration camps in Nazi-Germany, but world-wide. Before 1933, German anti-Semitism was not the worst in Europe. Actually, German anti-Semitism was a relatively late development in Europe and many European Jews considered moving to Germany as a relatively safe territory. Additionally, anti-Semitism was felt to be on the rise in the United States, which had just experienced one of its worst financial crises and many angry people were looking for scapegoats.

Roosevelt's New Deal was not initially as popular as common history now paints it. Its critics went as far as calling it the Jew Deal, hoping to play on latent anti-Semitism (Feingold, 1995). A series of "Studies in Prejudice" sponsored by Horkheimer's committee was intended to uncover the roots of prejudices such as anti-Semitism, as well as its roots in the United States, while exposing how and why people move from internal sentiments of prejudice to outwardly acting on it. This project was lucrative and Horkheimer wrestled to get his friends involved. Adorno was actually a late addition; he was known for his lack of skill in empirical research and his distrust of the "American empirical orientation" in sociology, which came from his brief work on Paul Laszarsfeld's radio project; one of the first jobs Horkheimer could land for Adorno in the United States after he fled Germany via Britain.

The Authoritarian Personality

The subject matter of the Authoritarian Personality by Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford was the relationship of the authoritarian structure of families as the core of authoritarian states that could turn prejudice into fascist action, such as what happened in Germany. The study employed the so called F-scale or (pre)fascism scale, which structured the authoritarian personalities into several traits.

The F-scale was a psychometric personality test designed to give a quantitative (measured in numbers) representation of tendencies that could be qualified as Authoritarian. Among the variables measured were:

• Authoritarian aggression,

• Sex,

• Superstition,
• Conventionalism,
• Cynical attitude,
• Leaning to stereotypes, and
• Destructive attitude.

The approach followed the work of Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Reich, and Erich Fromm in several ways. The Freudian model predicts that a high severity of punishment in the family will result in a child's increased susceptibility to authority in later life, because children will then identify strongly with authoritarian figures. Reich transformed this mode into an explanation for the rise of Fascism. The most developed model can actually be found in Erich Fromm's study, Escape from Freedom. Fromm not only provided the most thorough analysis, but his idea confirms a certain aspect argued in the long-standing tradition of enlightenment philosophy; that people shun the responsibility that goes along with freedom and making choices and rather, transfer this responsibility to somebody they assume to have authority. This is not that far from Kant's postulation that the enemy of enlightenment and reason is comfort or convenience.

Neither Fromm nor Reich was adequately mentioned by the authors of the Authoritarian Personality. In the case of Reich, this may pertain to the fact that he was considered somewhat of a maverick in academic circles. In the case of Fromm, this was largely due to his split with the core group of the Frankfurt school over a grave dispute with Horkheimer on the correct interpretation of Freud. The famous psychologist Karen Horney, whose work was close to Fromm's, became occasionally a target for Adorno's attacks on positions on Freud he disagreed with. This line of attack was actually a weapon of choice for Adorno. He and Horkheimer rarely addressed the person or his work they were criticizing directly, but looked for somebody applying a similar or related theoretical construct to criticize.

Influence from Psychoanalysis

The divergence between Adorno and Fromm means that there was a common source in Freudian psychology which Fromm developed first. Adorno and his group took the lead from Fromm and developed the authoritarian personality in another direction.

In the work of psychoanalysis, the family structure was the primary agent of suppressing aggression and instinct and to develop a tendency in the child to follow authoritarian characters and release aggression onto minorities and weaker opponents. In the sociological view, society and the state promote this tendency by enforcing hierarchical structure throughout society. The group around Adorno seemed to believe that the family was to blame and that these aspects were almost impossible to revert in later life. Their research and the F-scale largely confirmed their postulates and could show that prejudice and the potential for authoritarianism existed.

Viewpoints

The Authoritarian Personality was a study that received a lot of attention in the United States after its publication. In many regards this attention is well deserved. The awareness that authoritarian tendencies and prejudice are a common phenomenon (and not just in Nazi Germany) is certainly an important contribution. Secondly, the interdisciplinary nature of the study, as well as several novel approaches and applications deserved praise.

Criticism

But on the other side, there was also a lot to criticize in that study. One of the major criticisms was that the Freudian premise was overstretched into an all-out explanation. The work of important predecessors such as Fromm was unduly ignored, it seemed, for there was no respective mention made in the publication. In regard to the statistical methods applied, several scholars have questioned the representation and reliability of the results.

One particular criticism was made in regard to the political ideology of the authors. It was argued that they were themselves leftist scholars and respectively had been searching for a connection between right wing extremism and the authoritarian personality, while neglecting that leftist extremism, too, could lean towards authoritarianism.

It must also be said that the F-scale was an untested instrument and has been subject to disputes ever since. Several important aspects are not taken into proper account by the F-scale, such as education, socioeconomic status, etc. A large number of individual variations can be much better explained by these other factors.

Adorno abandoned empirical research after the publication of the report and even began to preach against this kind of research. The often harsh critique in American sociological journals turned him against American science, and after his return to Germany, he would never set foot on American soil again. The reason for this can be identified in an essay by Edward Shils, which was a clear-cut and brutally honest analysis of The Authoritarian Personality (Wiggershaus, 2003).

True to form, instead of answering to this critique or taking up a discussion with Shils, Adorno picked another target. In 1951, Shils was one of the coauthors of the seminal structural-functionalist work, Toward a General Theory of Action, an effort to create a common frame of reference for social and behavioral sciences put together by a Harvard discussion group financed by the Carnegie Foundation and spearheaded by sociologist Talcott Parsons and anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn. Instead of attacking Shils or his psychological premises directly, Adorno wrote a critical review of an essay Parsons wrote in 1955 on the relation between sociology and psychology, which addressed the same points as did Shils. Not once does Adorno make mention of the influential Toward a General Theory, while at the same time the review defends in many aspects the central ideas of Adorno's failed first habilitation.

In sum, The Authoritarian Personality was an insightful project that can still serve as a template for similar studies. But the weaknesses of the methodology and application of psychology as an explanation are obvious. Adorno's reaction to criticism is unfortunate, for had he perceived this study as a work in progress, he would have had the unique chance of working on a lasting influence on empirical research and not only in philosophy and abstract sociological theory. However, in this regard, we also see the difference between German and American scholarship. American scholarship is generally more open to criticism and improvement and accepts that methods are in stages of transition, while German scholarship is itself very authoritarian and hierarchical, and the critical theorists from Frankfurt were no exceptions.

Terms & Concepts

Authority: Concepts of authority, domination, hierarchy and ruling classes have long been subjects of social ethical and sociological thought. The classic work on authority in sociology is Max Weber's distinction of ideal-types of political leadership and authority:

• The charismatic type
• The traditional type
• The legal-bureaucratic type

These ideal-types do not occur in their pure form, but are heuristic devices for analysis. Horkheimer and Adorno used Weber's ideas implicitly. For critical theorists and their Hegel-Marxist or Freudo-Marxist background, authority and leadership always leads back to theoretical abstractions of the idea of oppression.

Critical Theory: In 1937, Max Horkheimer defined the difference between traditional and critical theory. Traditional theory, according to Horkheimer stops at explaining the social facts, while critical theory hopes to change society through critical analysis. Horkheimer hoped to counter the climate of positivist science of his era and that critical theory could unmask the historic specificity of society and its dominating ideology as a total entity.

Frankfurt School: The original critical theorists began studying and working in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. In 1930, Max Horkheimer became the director of the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research, which he and his colleagues used to promote the study of society from Marxist theoretical positions. Many original members such as Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Otto Kirchheimer and Franz Neumann developed their own version of critical theory over time, splitting with Adorno and Horkheimer who remained the intellectual core of the Frankfurt School.

Immanent Criticism: Immanent criticism denotes a method of critical theory. This method means that criticism must come from within the system or within the frame of reference. Measuring and evaluating a system in its own categories and values, exposing its ambiguities is the process of immanent criticism, which will lead to change, according to critical theory.

Personality: The history of the concept of personality in the social sciences lies deep in the history of biology and philosophy in the nineteenth century and the German scholar Rudolf Hermann Lotze (1817 –1881), who thought that while resting in the soul, personality is shaped by civilization and society. The most important transformations occur in the works of William James (Principles of Psychology) and Pierre Janet (Les névroses), before modern psychology emerges from the work of Freud as a discipline, and the concept of personality is taken for granted.

Phenomenology: Created by Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), the philosophical discipline of phenomenology seeks to show that in "bracketing" away the assumptions we hold about the external world when viewing a phenomenon, we can actually reach the essence of this phenomenon. The consciousness as an act and the direction to the objects are two different things; there is no thought that is not directed at something or does not have intentionality. Therefore, our directedness to the object in intentionality also constitutes it. This speculation lead Husserl to another question, namely what happens when several people refer to an object in communication, what is it that they are referring to, if each subjective mind has its own intentionality and constitutes the object for each person in a unique way.

Structural Functionalism:

Structural functionalism argues that various elements in a social system evolved to perform certain tasks within the society by resolving a problem or the other. The economy as a subsystem of society for example emerged to resolve the problem of efficient allocation of resources. Systems can be analyzed in accordance to a presupposed from of order and the elements of the system are in state of mutual interdependence. Systems tend toward establishing or re-instating equilibrium.

Totalitarianism: A state in which all aspects of life are governed by the state and no private life exists anymore we speak of totalitarian states, such was the case in the Communist Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.

Bibliography

Adorno, T. W. (2003/1973). Gesammelte Schriften I: Philosophische Frühschriften. Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp.

Adorno, T. W. (2003/1962). Gesammelte Schriften II: Kierkegaard Konstruktion des Ästhetischen. Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp.

Adorno, T. W. (2003/1951). Gesammelte Schriften IV: Minima Moralia Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben. Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp.

Adorno, T. W. (2003/1970). Gesammelte Schriften VII: ästhetische Theorie. Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp.

Adorno, T. W. (2003 /1972). Gesammelte Schriften VIII: Soziologische Schriften 1. Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp.

Adorno, T. W. (1997/1975). Gesammelte Schriften IX.1 u. IX.2: Soziologische Schriften II (2 Vols.). Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp.

Benhabib, S. (1986). Critique, Norm and Utopia. A study of the foundations of Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.

Feingold, H. L. (1995). Bearing Witness: How America and its Jews responded to the Holocaust. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

Foucault, M. (2003). In Defense of Society. London: Palgrave MacMillan.

Fromm, E. (1941). Escape from freedom. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Fromm, E. (1976). To Have or to Be? New York: Harper & Row.

Horkheimer, M. (1947). Eclipse of Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (2000/1944). Dialektik der Aufklärung Philosophische Fragmente. Frankfurt aM: Fischer.

Jay, M. (1996/1973). The dialectical imagination: A history of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research 1923 - 1950. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Jay, M. (2003). Refractions of violence. New York: Routledge.

Ludeke, S. G., & Krueger, R. F. (2013). Authoritarianism as a personality trait: Evidence from a longitudinal behavior genetic study. Personality & Individual Differences, 55, 480-484. Retrieved October 23, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=89139137

McCarthy, T. (1978). The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

McCarthy, T. (1991). Ideals and Illusions. On Reconstruction and Deconstruction in contemporary Critical Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Müller-Doohm, S. (2003). Adorno. Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp.

Stingl, A. (2009). The Enlightenment in Adorno, Horkheimer and Focault: Immanent Critics versus Interpretative Analytics. Online Publication (in German) at pompeii-project.eu.

Stoner, A., & Lybeck, E. (2011). Bringing authoritarianism back in: Reification, latent prejudice, and economic threat. Conference Papers—American Sociological Association, 247. Retrieved October 23, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=85657775

Wiggershaus, R. (2001). Die Frankfurter Schule. Munich: dtv.

Ziege, E. (2012). Patterns within prejudice: Antisemitism in the United States in the 1940s. Patterns Of Prejudice, 46, 93-127. Retrieved October 23, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=74435016

Suggested Reading

Adorno, T. W. (2003). Vorlesung über negative Dialektik. Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp.

Adorno, T. W. (1975/1966). Negative Dialektik. Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp.

Demirovic, A. (1999). Der nonkonformistische Intellektuelle Von der Frankfurter Schule zur kritischen Theorie. Frankfurt aM: Suhrkamp.

Marcuse, H. (1998 /1956)). Eros and civilization: A philosophical inquiry into Freud. London: Routledge.

Martinussen, M., & Kroger, J. (2013). Meta-Analytic Studies of Identity Status and Personality: Introduction and Overview. Identity, 13, 189-200. Retrieved October 23, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=89866628

Richey, S. (2012). Campaign advertising and the stimulation and activation of the authoritarian personality. Political Communication, 29, 24-43. Retrieved October 23, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=71114887

Wolin, R. (1992). The Terms of Cultural Criticism: The Frankfurt School, Existentialism, Poststructuralism. New York: Columbia University Press.