Adorno believed unconscious make-up mediates objective economic laws into prejudice

Evidence

To find out how objective economic laws operate, not so much through the individual’s economic `motivations’ than through his unconscious make-up, would require extensive and carefully planned specific research. We venture to suggest, however, that the solution to the problem would provide us with the true scientific explanation of the nature of contemporary prejudice. Our study has at least provided considerable raw material and a number of hypotheses for such an undertaking. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1839

Categorization

• XREF: Links to The Authoritarian Personality’s claim that prejudice is an expression of a character structure — and to the later critique that this psychologizes social causes. — connects to: Adorno treated individual psyche as the locus where objective social laws operate. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1838; Adorno traced Nazism to the deculturing of the middle classes by the culture industry — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1643; Allport’s theory of prejudice outlasted Adorno’s in empirical value — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2485 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Fanon grounded Adorno’s negative dialectics in materialist desire to theorize unconscious racism #expands (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1356
• Allport’s theory of prejudice outlasted Adorno’s in empirical value #complicates (0.75) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2485