Everything from patriotism to religion to family
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2025 3:41 am
MacDonald devotes many pages to an analysis of The Authoritarian Personality, which was written by Adorno and appeared in 1950. It was part of a series called Studies in Prejudice, produced by the Frankfurt school, which included titles like Anti-Semitism and Emotional Disorder. The Authoritarian Personality, which was particularly influential because, according to Prof. MacDonald, the American Jewish Committee heavily funded its promotion and because Jewish academics took up its message so enthusiastically.
The book's purpose is to make every group affiliation sound as if it were a sign of mental disorder. - and race - loyalty are sign of a dangerous and defective "authoritarian personality." Because drawning distinctions between different groups is illegitimate, all group loyalties - even close family ties! - are "prejudice." As Christopher Lasch has written, the phone number list book leads to the conclusion that prejudice "could be eradicated only by subjecting the American people to what amounted to collective psychotherapy - by treating them as inmates of an insane asylum."
But according to Prof. MacDonald it is precisely the kind of group loyalty, respect for tradition, and consciousness of differences central to Jewish identity that Horkheimer and Adorno described as mental illness in gentiles. These writers adopted what eventually became a favorite Soviet tactic against dissidents: Anyone whose political views were different from theirs was insane. As Prof. MacDonald explains, the Frankfurt school never criticized or even described Jewish group identity - only that of gentiles: "behavior that is critical to Judaism as a successful group evolutionary strategy is conceptualized as pathological in gentiles."
The book's purpose is to make every group affiliation sound as if it were a sign of mental disorder. - and race - loyalty are sign of a dangerous and defective "authoritarian personality." Because drawning distinctions between different groups is illegitimate, all group loyalties - even close family ties! - are "prejudice." As Christopher Lasch has written, the phone number list book leads to the conclusion that prejudice "could be eradicated only by subjecting the American people to what amounted to collective psychotherapy - by treating them as inmates of an insane asylum."
But according to Prof. MacDonald it is precisely the kind of group loyalty, respect for tradition, and consciousness of differences central to Jewish identity that Horkheimer and Adorno described as mental illness in gentiles. These writers adopted what eventually became a favorite Soviet tactic against dissidents: Anyone whose political views were different from theirs was insane. As Prof. MacDonald explains, the Frankfurt school never criticized or even described Jewish group identity - only that of gentiles: "behavior that is critical to Judaism as a successful group evolutionary strategy is conceptualized as pathological in gentiles."