Anti-Semitic rage targets those who appear to enjoy happiness the masses were denied.

Evidence

Liberalism had allowed the Jews property, but no power to command. The rights of man were designed to promise happiness even to those without power. Because the cheated masses feel that this promise in general remains a lie as long as there are still classes, their anger is aroused. They feel mocked. They must suppress the very possibility and idea of that happiness, the more relevant it becomes. Wherever it seems to have been achieved despite its fundamental denial, they have to repeat the suppression of their own longing. Everything which gives occasion for such repetition, however unhappy it may be in itselfAhasver or Mignon, alien things which are reminders of the promise of sex, or the proscribed animal which is reminiscent of promiscuitydraws upon itself that destructive lust of civilized men who could never fulfill the process of civilization. Those who spasmodically dominate nature see in a tormented nature a provocative image of powerless happiness. The thought of happiness without power is unbearable because it would then be true happiness. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1429

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the social-psychology of ressentiment (Nietzsche-Scheler) and to later theories of envy-driven moral outrage in stratified societies. — connects to: Anti-Semitic anger erupts because rights promises mock the cheated masses. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1429; Horkheimer and Adorno saw Jews as embodying happiness free of purposive rationality — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1288; Anti-Semitism is a manufactured discharge of anger, not an innate disposition. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 127 (+5 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that the masses destroy what they secretly long for rather than the oppressor — the maimed hate the image of unpowered happiness because it exposes their own suppression — is dense, counterintuitive, and sits with you.

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer and Adorno saw Jews as embodying happiness free of purposive rationality #expands (0.90) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1288
• Anti-Semitism expresses civilized people’s hatred for reminders of civilization’s failures #corroborates (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1420
• Anti-Semitic victims are interchangeable outlets for objectless anger #qualifies (0.80)
• Anti-Semitism is a manufactured discharge of anger, not an innate disposition. #complicates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 127
• Jews’ partial conformity to middle-class norms fueled antisemitic resentment. #qualifies (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1540
• Anti-Semites secretly imitate the Jews they claim to despise #complicates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 143
• Aristocracy’s anti-liberal struggle cynically mobilized the mob with antisemitic slogans #qualifies (0.72)