Anti-Semites merely voice a society whose official norms legitimize prejudice

Evidence

It was a desperate hope. What Sartre said about the Jews was true of democracy: it had fanatical enemies and lukewarm defenders'. At the very moment when he reaches the summits of legal society,’ Sartre wrote in the third part of Réflexions sur la Question juive, dealing with the psychology of the Jew, another societyamorphous, diffused, and omnipresentappears before him as if in brief flashes of lightning and refuses to take him in.' And this other society was in fact almost omnipresent. It was part of what Adorno called the cultural climate’. The anti-Semite was only the spokesman for the ambiguity of a society whose official rational norms were being peddled for misuse as rationalizations in a climate of officially condoned prejudice and stereotyping. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1791

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Adorno’s ‘cultural climate’ concept and the theory of rationalization peddled as cover for prejudice. — connects to: The anti-Semite’s conflict mirrors a clash between prejudiced and democratic norms — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1792; Modern anti-prejudice norms only drive prejudice underground, not reduce it — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2099; Denouncing right-wing extremism can license the expression of commonplace prejudice. — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice: Society,…, 225 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Modern anti-prejudice norms only drive prejudice underground, not reduce it #corroborates (0.85) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 2099
• Modern prejudice surfaces only when people can act without appearing discriminatory #corroborates (0.85)
• People publicly express more or less prejudice than they privately hold. #expands (0.85)
• Denouncing right-wing extremism can license the expression of commonplace prejudice. #corroborates (0.80) — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 225
• Anti-Zionism serves as a respectable cover for anti-Semitism where direct prejudice is discredited #exemplifies (0.80)
• Antisemitism functioned as a structuring political concept, not a private prejudice #qualifies (0.80) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2136