The Authoritarian Personality

by Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson

Bringing together the findings of psychoanalysis and social science, this book grew out of an urgent commitment to study the origins of anti-Semitism in the aftermath of Hitler's Germany. First published in 1951, it was greeted as a monumental study blazing new trails in the investigation of prejudice. As offshoots of ethnocentrism, anti-semitism and fascism cast new and dark shadows on the world, the topic again demands study and social action. "The Authoritarian Personality" remains an important document for our time.

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, Sociology, History, Theory

976 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno was one of the most important philosophers and social critics in Germany after World War II. Although less well known among anglophone philosophers than his contemporary Hans-Georg Gadamer, Adorno had even greater influence on scholars and intellectuals in postwar Germany. In the 1960s he was the most prominent challenger to both Sir Karl Popper's philosophy of science and Martin Heidegger's philosophy of existence. Jürgen Habermas, Germany's foremost social philosopher after 1970, was Adorno's student and assistant. The scope of Adorno's influence stems from the interdisciplinary character of his research and of the Frankfurt School to which he belonged. It also stems from the thoroughness with which he examined Western philosophical traditions, especially from Kant onward, and the radicalness to his critique of contemporary Western society. He was a seminal social philosopher and a leading member of the first generation of Critical Theory.

Unreliable translations hampered the initial reception of Adorno's published work in English speaking countries. Since the 1990s, however, better translations have appeared, along with newly translated lectures and other posthumous works that are still being published. These materials not only facilitate an emerging assessment of his work in epistemology and ethics but also strengthen an already advanced reception of his work in aesthetics and cultural theory.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been debunked by contemporary social psychologists for its flawed execution, Freudianism, and confirmation bias. Having read some of these critiques first, I was surprised to find that the book was much more nuanced, compassionate toward its subjects (including the "high scorers") and liberal on matters of sexuality than most of the contemporary critics give it credit for. I can understand why it's had such a huge influence.

[Rainbow Albrecht · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Authoritarian Personality by the Frankfurt School figure Theodor Adorno was a milestone in the medicalization of dissent, aside from considerably more aggressive efforts in the Soviet Union where Communists like him had unlimited power. The dreadfully boring book was presented as a psychological treatise, wrapped in the cloak of science. It contained some quizzes measuring various politically incorrect attitudes, particularly about Jews, Blacks, foreigners, and even “zootsuiters”. The survey results were presented along with much Freudian commentary. It was four decades before “political correctness” acquired its present ironic sense, but this is one of the places where the original cultural Marxists were codifying the basics as early as 1950.

Its theme is that there’s something wrong with people who have those opinions. Calling someone crazy is a clever end run around actually having to debate their ideas. The book alleges that these views result from neurosis. It makes heavy use of Freudian catch-all stuff like repressed homosexuality and Daddy issues. In fact, it’s so obsessively overdone that it seems like Adorno himself was a “closet case” who got too many spankings as a child.

More here: https://rainbowalbrecht.wordpress.com...

[Steffi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Follow-up read inspired by my last book on Adorno’s speech from 1967, his classic studies on the ‘The Authoritarian Personality’ as part of the wider research project ‘Studies in Prejudice’ published in 1949/1950 (which includes the famous F-scale, measuring people’s fascist disposition. lol. I rated everyone I know :-)

I guess we’ve reached a point again in history where we have openly anti-democratic political leaders and movements and white supremacy, ethnonationalism and anti-semitism creeping from the fringe to the mainstream.

I don’t know where exactly fascism begins and ends but what is clear is that the post-war ‘democratic consensus’ in the West is no longer a consensus; we have leaders, including in the world’s two most powerful nations who are leading a fight of ‘the people versus parliament and the courts’ ie an explicit fight of the people against democracy with thinly veiled phantasies of destruction of everything that’s weak and ‘other’.

(Side note: things are moving so fast these days, with a constant break of ‘taboos’ that it’s hard to pinpoint when all this started but, looking back, for me there was a moment in January 2017 during Trump’s inauguration speech where he spoke of CARNAGE, it sounded like a prophecy and made me shiver. Less than three years later and so many things that seemed unimaginable under the ‘democratic consensus’ already happened.)

There’s some ‘comfort’ in reading theories of fascism in the sense of that the irrationality which fundamentally seems to underlie the fascist project follows some kind of rulebook, a scary one but at least it’s not like we’re not able to analyse what’s going on and build political counter strategies.

The theoretical premise of the book is important: building on theories of psychoanalysis, the study aims to identify personality types that have a fascist ‘potential’ or disposition but this is not to say that support for fascism - or any ideology - is an entirely individual psychological issue but exists in a structural, material, context, dialectically, I guess. If we don’t focus on changing this context - which is the essence of politics - we’ll not be able to win the struggle against fascism. ‘No to fascism’ should be rebranded to ‘No to conditions that breed fascism’ - this should be the yardstick of politics. Without reducing ideology to a simple extension of material conditions but reflecting on what impact social and econonic policies could have on ‘the masses’, ie if you take people’s fundamental existential security through ‘making the labour market more flexible’ in times of rapid change and transformation, then what kind of ideology can this insecurity breed and what kind of rhetoric and psychological techniques could appeal to such a society (a little simplistic, I know).

Obviously, much of the psychoanalytical theories, largely Freudian, in the study have since been updated (I don’t know much aka anything about the state of play in psychoanalysis) but I think reflections of this kind are a crucial piece within a broader analysis to make sense of why there is suddenly a mass support for ideologies which only recently were considered the prerogative of a lunatic fringe.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book in the 80's and found it so relevant to understanding certain people. Eerily, it became more and more relevant during the Bush years. The introductions could have been written today.

This is a sociological study, so it isn't a light read, but it is an important read.

[sologdin · Rating 3 out of 5]

there's a little stormtrooper in all'y'all cappy losers.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Adorno once flirted with empirical sociological research. Maybe this study should be supplemented today with a Second Part :: The Libertarian Personality. But wouldn't that be redundant?

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sobering analysis as to why people can be prejudiced and subject themselves to authoritarian leaders. Why do authoritarian leaders emerge? Although subject to much criticism, this book is an important milestone in exploring human behavior.

[David Lane · Rating 1 out of 5]

For gentiles, but apparently not for jews, rebellion against parental values is the epitome of mental health.

This book is pilpul to be used as a weapon against White society.

[Maybelle Wallis · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the themes in my debut novel, Heart of Cruelty, was how an abuser can hide in plain sight without being challenged. I studied the Jimmy Savile inquiry, in which it was evident that his celebrity status and his high position in the hierarchy somehow seemed to blind everyone to the harm he caused.

The Authoritarian Personality may shed some light on this. This work of sociology was written in the postwar years as an attempt to understand what it was that made ordinary people support and believe in the Nazis. Surveying their own countrymen, and women, sampled from different social classes in the USA, the authors discerned two contrasting personality types.

The liberal personality trusts other people, is sympathetic towards people who are less well off, and is critical of authority. The authoritarian personality distrusts strangers, has loathing or contempt for those of lower status, and respects people above them in the hierarchy, tending be exploitative in their social relationships and to judge people by their material wealth or social status rather than by moral or ethical values.

The authors’ premise is that the authoritarian personality type is more likely to support racial prejudice and discrimination, and therefore a dictatorial regime such as that in Nazi Germany. I believe that this is also the personality type of abusers, and of people who collude with them.

Published in 1950, this work is still deeply relevant today. Those personality types will never go away, and now we see the rise of populist, nationalist politics in many countries around the world. We spent the post WW2 era believing that Western democracy would automatically take us to a brighter, globally interconnected, peaceful future. Now we know that it is not so.

The way forward is not to despair but to find positive and pragmatic political leadership, which, rather than dwelling on fear and destructiveness, reminds us all of our common humanity and our abilities to change the world for the better.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book very interesting, but too (needlessly) long, I think. I put it away a few times because I got a little tired of it. But I finished it anyway because it offers an interesting mix of statistics and qualitative analysis on ethnocentrism and an exploration of its development in people. The investigation is over 50 years old, but I think the conclusions are still relevant and really help one understand how prejudice affects judgement and how authoritarian leaders emerge.

[Grant Volle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting book on the personality structures that might lead to support for fascist political measures. While this is in itself a highly dubious project, the study contains many useful insights into social psychology. It is a difficult read, because it contains some very detailed statistical analysis and a lot of psychoanalytical jargon, the latter of which is IMHO, largely unnecessary.

[Blaze-Pascal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read the introduction and conclusion. I am sold on the authoritarian personality and I think Adorno's insights are wonderful. I will go back and look at it more.

[Blinky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first book by Theodor W. Adorno and from this alone, the common classification as a philosopher appears erroneous, or at the very least - even in his time, and even then by a long shot - anachronistic. But naturally, considering this to be conclusive must be withheld in absence of any experience with his other works. I've been warned beforehand against the non-empirical approach of Frankfurter Schule and the supposed difficulty of comprehending the author's possibly obscurantist writing. Regarding the former, it may be said that this is not in itself a problem, except when statements are made regarding matters which are by nature empirical, and this certainly is the case here. While it seems to me misplaced to call the book non-empirical, especially within the corpus of Frankfurter Schule, in its interpretative approach it certainly insufficiently empirical to provide any solid, well-founded information in much of its textual body. Regarding the latter, I found the book, which I have read in its German translation, certain miniscule misinterpretations and mistranslations must be admitted to be present in, exceedingly comprehensible, though, as others have pointed out, a superficial terminology of psychoanalysis is prerequisite. Perhaps it is outstandingly comprehensible among the author's œuvre. There is an introductory section regarding methodology and the conceptualization and incremental refinement of questionnaires used to gather the data whose analysis forms the core of the book, which is informative regarding the methodology of psychological empirical research, at least if one is, as I was, entirely uninformed on the subject, although more recent information on that subject can certainly be gotten from other sources. This section, not for dense or complex writing, but because it requires some understanding of statistical analysis that is not my metier, I found difficult to comprehended in full and little information regarding the sujet is to be gotten from it without such background. It is here that the most interesting "hard science" sociological knowledge is unearthed in the statistical correlation between the belief in several logically unconnected viewpoints. It is this knowledge which has a continuing lineage in contemporary sociological research. I might add the disclaimer that methodological flaws have been pointed out by other reviewers and also in the sociological discourse and that it would additionally be unproductive to criticize, in itself, for basing the qualitative analysis upon Freudian psychoanalysis - this is not a point a reader is likely to miss and public opinion regarding the veracity of the method is divided. This methodological outlook leads to several counter-intuitive axioms, which are never explicated, but inform repeating patterns of interpretation, such as that when fear, or even mere expectation, of a thing or event is expressed, then it is desired. I'm not sufficiently familiar with psychoanalysis to adjucate on the matter whether these are par for the course if psychoanalysis are hypostatized, and would have thus passed without saying, or whether they are entirely facultative additions. Another notion central to qualitative analysis is that of a locutionary act's "real" semantics, opposed to, and handwaving, the literal meaning of interviewees' statements. This expression may simply be a brachylogy for the parapractic genealogy of an entirely intentional utterance, or it may be the literal claim, anticipating deconstructivism, that there is no meaning literal, or "in itself", to any speech act. This latter notion is incomprehensible to me even on a conceptual level, but perhaps more importantly, what value qualitative analysis would be to empirical research if the analyst is allowed to substitute any of a manifold of possible or imaginary meanings for the meaning of the analysandum, one is left to wonder. Fortunately, it appears that proto-deconstructivism is not the premise, as a rhetorical prestidigitation repeatedly encountered is the positing of a speculative interpretation, or speculation upon the genealogy, of interview data, the admission of the speculative nature, and the assertion that a certain passage quoted in the following makes the interpretation or genealogy indubitable - commonly, the passages quoted in support in passages that follow this argumentative structure do not exhibit, I would presume, intersubjective presence of a semic correspondence with the analysis. This claim of obviousness of the speculation in the passage quoted, unsupported by any argumentation, perhaps intiates the argumentative structure to rely upon "The Emperor's New Clothes Effect", as detraction from the proposed interpretation would involve the admission of the inability to see the supposedly-obvious, which is an admission of "inability", an attribution that at least Western readers, and perhaps any audience, will perhaps associate with flawfulness and shame, which one seeks to avoid. Such an argumentative structure is well insulated against the charge that the analysis may be partial, or does not go deep enough, as non-agreement will always involve at least the internal admission of incomprehension. Would the structure rely on quoting passages that would at least have some degree of semic correspondence to the analysis, the audience would be able to trace the analysis from the analysandum and go beyond it to find alternative or additional interpretations - in such a case, detraction could involve also inward certitude of comprehension. The qualitative analysis in general appears to be mostly arbitrary apodiction offered in two stages without any explanation of deductive reasoning, which may however be readily comprehensible to someone schooled in psychoanalysis, and in the second stage certainly are not to anyone without; these stages are (1) the unmasking of the supposed real meaning of the interviewee's utterances, and (2) the identification of the cause of the attitude held as having been betrayed by the utterance's real meaning with a specific way in which the interviewee has failed to address the oedipal conflict, except in the case of the "genuine liberals", who have addressed it successfully. All detractions from this conviction, which is not necessarily a political one, but an interpersonal outlook from which politics, if anything, follow, are traced back to the Oedipus conflict, as would be expected if one is aware of the psychoanalytic background of the book. It may be that the intention is to provide the discovery of the Oedipus complex as the cause of divergent political opinion is intended to be understood as a conclusion, but - also because of the intractable interpretation - it rather appears as axiomatic. Worse, however: the genealogy itself appears as an axiomatic necessesity as early as the supposed discovery of the lineage of "potentially fascist" attitudes as diverging from "pure rationality". An abstraction of the criticism leveled by Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia of a burgeois genealogy of psychoanalysis can be extended onto Freudo-Marxism, viz. that the Marxist "False Consciousness" category has been axiomatized onto the normativity of burgeois generation found in psychoanalysis, which results in a normativity in which material interest, the "class interest" of Marxism, is the only motivation that can be rationally pursued. But perhaps we should not get entangled in the problematicalities of identifying rationality with any motivation; it is perhaps sufficient to say that the demarcation that is drawn between the two is that any interest beyond material interest is in need of being explained by some psychic abberation or deformation. This, of course, ties into the larger Frankfurter Schule project of explaining the failure of revolution to come to pass in the developed Western industrial states, but it is arbitrary - material interest may itself be posited to be the product of psychic abberation, and many schools of thought have historically done so, or, as I do, and contemporary research concurs, one could instead posit that there are divergences in motivation that have causes of the same kind as the ubiquitous material interest.

An entire passage is devoted to seemingly on-the-fly (this is a curious feature of the book; passages which seem to expound a classification on the basis of a preconceived theory alternate with what appear to be passages of ad hoc, stream-of-consciousness reasoning) explaining personal experience reported by "fascists" as evidence in support of, or originating, their attitudes as being products of a perception deformed and aberrated by failure to solve the Oedipal complex. My personal reaction, of course, in absence of any evidence, is incredulity. Unless one hypostatizes that such evidence cannot exist, this seems to weaken the persuasiveness of the argument; if there is certitude that any evidence would be explained in terms of such an aberrant preconception, then I am left with the idea that such evidence may actually exist, but that the book, being capable of explaining it away, nonetheless reaches a predetermined conclusion, which makes it quite worthless in stating anything about the world. It would be interesting to see how far this explanatory mode reaches, whether it would include scientific evidence of interethnic differences in attributes beyond superficial anatomy, how this system would approach e.g. a book such as The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, but of course such a confrontation does not occur.
Additionally, it remains somewhat vague what "fascism" constitutes, and perhaps this vagueness is intentional in that there is much to gain towards the project of Frankfurter Schule in a filtrative laxitude of the definition. Prima facie, the reference is specificially to the "actual" fascist movements of Italy and Germany. "Fascist" here is already used with an imprecision that I am loathe to use it with, but the term is perhaps established enough in scholarship with this denotation to be applicable. However, unprecedented in non-marxist scholarship, but far more in line with the term's current usage in common parlance, is the generic denotation that the book seems to aim for, which is that of authoritarianism that can be, in addition to the original meaning, capitalist or conservative. The argumentation here strikes me as unclear, or at least not compendious - all the problematicalities of the qualitative analysis do not detract from the circumstance that the "high-scorers" did supply sufficient data via the questionnaires to come to the conclusion that they would reasonably be expected to support an authoritarian form of government, and in many cases one that would have peculiar similarities with Hitlerism, such as anti-semitism and racism (Italian "true" fascism was to my knowledge not anti-semitic, and racist only by culturalist proxy). However, such preferences are not discovered in all of the "high-scorers", and the question of whether those in whom they are present would not be willing to compromise and settle for "mere" authoritarianism is not addressed, even though these two factors have the implication that an authoritarian system of another kind may garner their support. The relation of Frankfurter Schule with the Soviet Union was ambiguous, and the idea that a substantial number of the identified "authoritarians" would perhaps have branched off into a classification as leftist authoritarianists if such a classification had been looked for is perhaps not far-fetched. Even if that is not the case, the ways in which a political system comes into power and transforms are complex and Adorno is clearly out of his depth, to an almost juvenile degree, when he dismisses out of hand (that is, never addresses) possibilities that his high-scorers may support the creation or transformation of a political system other than one equal to all the hallmarks characteristic of actual Hitlerism - such as the Soviet Union, which was, coincidentally, contemporarily to the creation of this book, ruled by Stalin. However, it may very well be that this implication is already subsumed in the definition of "fascism" as used in this book, and "fascism" really means simply that which can be reasonably assumed to be what the "high-scorers" actually support, that is generic authoritarianism, rather than being a rhetorical "trick" or gross negligence that disregards all other possible authoritarianisms for the common-language meaning of fascism.

To conclude, I was unable to interpret the conception of "fascism" advanced in this book as anything more definite than a vague streak of destructively extatic authoritarianism that could be anything from what is described in Isaac Bashevis Singer's Satan in Goray, to the Soviet Union under Stalin, to the so-called "Third Reich".

But what this does bring to the fore, though the book does not address it in depth, is a contradiction within "fascism" that I have long noticed, though have never seen made explicit - namely that fascism involves a sort of Nietzschean "dragonic tradeoff" - those who fight "anti-social", "destructive" elements of society become themselves nothing that is redeemed by anything but a might-makes-right morality and in that, their possible victory - certainly not by any cultural or conventionally ethical superiority, even if that is the original political basis. Indeed, this seems to be the demarcation that the book draws between the "genuine conservative" and the "potential fascist". I am also reminded of a quote by William Shockley that I cannot now remember ad verbatim, but the sense of which seems to me to have been that, while the presence of interracial differences and even a dysgenic process were acknowledged, it was conceded that the attempt to counteract by force would simply in itself serve to further the process performatively.
This contradiction was perhaps less significant historically, as the cultural and moral superiority over the pre-eminent enemy, the Jews, had to depend on factors other than civil refinement in the first place, but it certainly is of relevance today, where groups picked out for hostile treatment by "right-wing" groups and individuals are mostly elected on the basis of - imagined or actual - inferiority on a scale of civil sophistication - the superiority of a racial supremacist who commits to acts of violent crime on the basis that the targets of the act are prone to violent crime is a problem that seems to be so apparent to anyone caught in it that it would be interesting to see how it is resolved on a theoretical basis.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I'm all lost in the supermarket/I can no longer shop happily/I came here for a special offer, guaranteed personality".---The Clash, "Lost in the Supermarket"
"Every woman loves a Fascist".---Sylvia Plath, "The Munich Mannequins"

Living in Los Angeles I was once told by a female comrade of the leader of a leftist cult, "He's one of those guru types who has to exercise power over some group of people, no matter how small". What a perfect distillation of Theodore Adorno's THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY; the ne plus ultra study on the psychological roots of fascism. For Adorno the authoritarian personality is a combination meal of paranoia and consumerism, or as liberals call it, without irony, "mass society". The paranoiac---the embryo of the authoritarian---is the product of genuine conspiracies, just not the ones he/she is able to identify. He/she is sure a mysterious "They" or "Others" are out to destroy his/her kind. He/she is rigid in thought and emotion. Minutiae, e.g. dress, mannerisms, daily speech, looms large while political ideas are beyond their caring or understanding . (Plenty of us met these people in parochial school. The nuns and priests who cared more about hair length than stopping the Viet Nam War.) Above all, there is the perpetual search for perfection, both in personal life and in some past utopia ("the Golden Age "for Fascists) or future dreamscape, for totalitarians of the left. Adorno is arguing the opposite of Stanley Milgram in OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY. The authoritarian personality is not created by extreme situations a la' Milgram; rather it is hidden, like a crouching tiger, awaiting the right moment to pounce and seize your own mind. Yes, but why are there so many authoritarian personalities in the world? Adorno pondered the followers of Hitler, but we moderns in America can add Trump, DeSantis, Marjorie Taylor Greene et al---all wildly popular. The loss of identity under modern capitalism, with everything from the voter to the medical patient to children reduced to the status of a commodity means no tyrant or future dictator will ever have trouble finding followers and, after le pris de pouvoir, clerks. Sad to say, this book never goes out of currency and is equally applicable to the secular and religious worlds, left and right. BTW, this book comes with a useful test Let's see how high you rate on the authoritarian scale?

[Deniz · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the aftermath of World War II, following atrocities such as the Holocaust, social psychology was confronted with an urgent question: How could such extreme violence emerge within seemingly civilized societies? One of the most radical responses to this came from Adorno and his colleagues, who developed the Authoritarian Personality theory. This approach asserted that racism could not be explained solely through cognitive or sociocultural factors, but was also rooted in deep psychological pathology at the level of personality.

Adorno’s theory linked individuals’ susceptibility to fascist and racist ideologies to oppressive early childhood experiences and repressive family dynamics. Rigid discipline, conditional affection, and the idealization of obedience were believed to foster suppressed hostility toward parental figures. This repressed aggression, unable to be expressed directly due to fear of punishment, was redirected toward socially devalued out-groups, thus manifesting as racial prejudice. The result was a personality structure marked by a sadomasochistic dynamic, finding comfort in submission to authority while displacing aggression onto perceived societal scapegoats.

The authoritarian individual glorifies order, idealizes strong leadership, and adheres strictly to traditional values. Importantly, this psychological structure functions not merely as an individual predisposition, but as the psychosocial foundation of authoritarian regimes. Adorno’s contribution lies in his insistence that racism must be understood not only in terms of individual biases but in relation to broader historical and structural transformations brought about by modernity and industrialization. However, the radical core of this theory was eventually sidelined. As researchers increasingly focused on measuring authoritarianism through psychometric tools, the political and structural critique embedded in Adorno’s framework was lost to psychological reductionism.

[Filiz I. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Otoritaryen kişilik üzerine yapılmış deneyler ve bu deneyler üzerine kaleme alınmış birçok kitap bulmak mümkün, ancak yazar Adorno olunca kitabın konusuna olan ilgim yazarın etkisiyle ikiye katlandı. Adorno bu kitapta belli kişilere yönelttiği toplumsal, politik, kültürel sorular üzerinden kişilerin otoritaryen kişiliğe yatkınlık veya uzaklıklarını değerlendiriyor. Sorduğu soruları, Yahudiler başta olmak üzere zenciler gibi etnik gruplar üzerine temellendiriyor. Kitap baştan sona kadar deney katılımcılarının verdiği yanıtlar ile yanıtın hemen ardından yazarın yaptığı kişilik çözümlemeleri şeklinde ilerliyor. Kitabı kabaca üç bölümde değerlendirebiliriz. İlk bölüm antisemitizm, ikinci bölüm antikomünizm ve son bölüm ise din üzerine sorulara verilmiş yanıtları içeriyor diyebilirim. Kitabın en sonunda ise sonuç mahiyetinde yüksek (otoritaryen kişiliğe yakın) ve düşük (uzak) puanlıların tipler ve sendromlar bakımından kategorize edilişini okuyoruz. Kitap, psikanaliz ve psikoloji konularıyla ilgilenenlerin bir hayli ilgisini çekecektir. Benim için antisemitizm ve dinle ilgili bölümler ilgi çekiciydi, ancak antikomünizm ve sendikalar konusunda bir parça sıkıldığımı söylemeliyim. Okurken de yer yer dil ve anlatım bakımından okumayı zorlaştırıcı cümlelerle de karşılaştım. Kitap, birçok kriter üzerinden kişilerin yatkınlıklarını analiz ettiğinden kitapla ilgili birkaç cümlede özetlenebilecek genel bir çıkarım yapmak zor, ancak yapılan çalışmayı önemli buluyorum. Konuya ilgisi olanlara, çok akıcı olması yönünde özel bir beklentileri yoksa okumalarını tavsiye ederim.

[Susi Sni · Rating 4 out of 5]

In den 1940er Jahren wurde in den USA eine große empirische Studie durchgeführt, um herauszufinden, ob und wie man das faschistische Potential der Bevölkerung ermitteln kann, unabhängig etwa davon, ob die Menschen entsprechende Meinungen explizit äußern. Das Ergebnis ist eine Typologie verschiedener autoritärer Charakterstrukturen, die in diesem Buch anhand der geführten Interviews herausgearbeitet und vorgestellt werden. Die Grundannahme ist, dass die Menschen aufgrund verschiedener psychologischer Charakterstrukturen unterschiedlich auf eine vorurteilsvolle und repressive Gesellschaft reagieren – dass man also an Beidem arbeiten muss, wenn man tatsächlich progressive Veränderungen bewirken will. Der Fokus hier im Buch liegt allerdings auf der psychologischen Ebene.
Die Lektüre war sehr interessant und aufschlussreich, weil sie nicht nur historische Situationen, wie den Nationalsozialismus und das Amerika der 1940er-Jahre einbezieht, sondern leider immer noch sehr aktuell ist und verstehen hilft, wieso faschistische Agitation trotz oder gerade wegen ihrer Irrationalität so stark wirken kann.

Abgesehen von einem Kapitel zur statistischen Auswertung der Studie ist das Buch auch ohne Soziologiestudium gut verständlich, hilfreich ist allerdings, wenn man ein paar Grundbegriffe der Psychoanalyse schon mal gehört hat.

[Gregory Freeman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I was expecting

From its title I believed that this was going to be a deep introspective look at the psychological patterns and effects of the authoritarian mentality, but it was just the same information repeated over the span of a thousand pages. At several points I was about give up and stop reading but I soldiered through in the hopes that it would yield some useful information, however now that I have completed this work I find that I've learned very little. Bigoted individuals are prone to either be bad leaders or bad followers. This the sum total of the information that I have gained from this. It repeats this over and over and connects it with no greater historical context. I was hoping that it would look at this phenomenon and what attracts people to it. I glad to finally done with this and I most assuredly say that I have absolutely no intention to ever read it again. What few notes that I have taken have justified the two star rating. That's being very generous. I should have done a little more research into the book . I bought it on the title alone. It's a fascinating subject but this fails to add anything more to what I've come to understand as being a continuous threat to the people of the world. It's greatest sin is that it is just dull.

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book I just finished reading, "The Authoritarian Personality", mainly has to do with examining the psychological predisposition towards anti-Semitism in America after World War II. In this study, social critic Theodor Adorno conducted a range of interviews with men and women from various walks of life, seeking to outline the character-structure and relevant history, (discipline and attitudes towards women, lack of identification with a father-figure, etc.) that compose the personality of the person who is fertile ground in terms of receptivity the promotion of fascistic ideology. At one time in my life I would have been high scoring, now I am low scoring, people change it seems. Please note that I don't think I was a high-scorer in terms of anti-Semitism, but in relation to my views on the opposite sex, viz. excessive and externalized pseudo-admiration of women. Personally, I found I had more in common with the San Quentin population of questionnaire respondents that the San Francisco psychiatric clinic population.

[Bry Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is at the same time dated and relevant. The methodology isn't quite up to par, but the observations and sentiments are spot on.

I feel there are definitional and statistical challenges, obvious covariance across categories and the elephant in the room as to what is really being measured. I discounted the psychanalytical aspects, which are anachronistic at best.

Still, there is a lot to gain from the material, and it provides a strong foundation for future studies, which have in fact been performed.

My biggest negative comments are that the Jewish aspect is overspecified and so can likely be generalised to most categories of haters. Also, I feel that the use of the spectre of Fascism is intentionally polemic, when it seems that the correlation is toward authoritarianism.

I've avoided Adorno for the most part because I wasn't interested in his commentary on media culture. Reading this, I hope to explore some of his other material.

[Muhammed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Otoritaryen kişiliğin amilleri psikanaliz yöntem eşliğinde birçok katılımcının iştirakinin neticesinde değerlendirilerek sunulmuş. Otorite peşindeydim fakat psikanaliz çizgisini aşıp da iktidar safhasına ancak zaman zaman ulaşabildim.

[Devin Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dense and well reasoned on the study of Authoritarian Personality and who follows an authoritarian personality. Recontextualizes the love of "normal," parenting, relationship to religion and authority.

[Virginia Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important book. I read it as an undergrad student decades ago, and it remains relevant.

[Janez VonRenesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eine der seltenen empirischen Arbeiten aus dem Bereich der Kritischen Theorie. Brutal interessant. Liest sich aber tatsächlich wie eine Studie.

[ÖMRÜM UZUN · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adorno'nun bu kitabındaki (Otoritaryen Kişilik Üstüne) ''antisemit''i daha geniş bir anlamda ele almak ve toplulumuza çeşitli alanlarda uygulamak mümkün: Ermenilere bakış, Kürtlere, gay ve lezbiyenlere, ''laikçi'' kesimin türbanlılara, türbanlıların onlara... Bu nedenle kitabı ilgilenenlere şiddetle öneririm.

[John Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

only read parts of this book.

[Kitty Red-Eye]

Innvendinger mot påstander (metodisk problem++) her http://magasinetneo.se/artiklar/demok... - for øvrig interessant artikkel.