Adorno read astrology as an ideology serving dependent authoritarian personalities

Evidence

In “The Stars Down to Earth,” as the study was called, Adorno treated astrology as a “secondary” superstition, in the sense that it affected secondary groups like classes rather than primary ones like the family. Thus, although Adorno used psychoanalytical insights, with the help of Dr. Frederick Hacker, a trained analyst, they were not directed primarily at individuals but rather at groups. Or more precisely. they were used to explore the psychosocial layer between individual psyches and allegedly individual consciousnesses. The Freud Adorno was most interested in here was the Freud of Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.’° As a result, the study showed the convergence of the Institut’s critique of mass culture with its analysis of authoritarianism, which will he examined in the next chapter. Astrology, Adorno concluded, was an “ideology of dependence” 18 answering many of the irrational needs of types of people who were “high scorers” on The Authoritarian Personalit_y’s “F Scale.” — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 593

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘secondary superstition’ as a distinct analytic concept and ‘ideology of dependence’ as Adorno’s label for astrology.
• XREF: Connects to post-war mass culture critique via the Frankfurt School’s Freud reception; links to Horkheimer/Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment theme of reified consciousness. — connects to: Astrology resurged as political stress relief and meme-driven traffic content — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 603; Adorno traced jazz’s authoritarian implications to its military-march origins — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 568; Astrology columns presuppose and exploit their readers’ ego weakness and social powerlessness — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1957 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Astrology resurged as political stress relief and meme-driven traffic content #responds-to (0.75) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 603