Anti-Semitism’s appeal is destructive pleasure, not material gain

Evidence

Anti-Semitism as a national movement was always based on an urge which its instigators held against the Social Democrats: the urge for equality. Those who have no power to command must suffer the same fate as ordinary people. The covetous mobs—wherever they appeared—have always been aware deep down that ultimately all they would get out of it themselves would be the pleasure of seeing others robbed of all they possessed. The “Aryanization” of Jewish property brought scarcely more benefit to the masses in the Third Reich than the Cossacks got out of the miserable loot they carried away from the burning ghettos. The true advantage lay in half-understood ideology. The fact that the demonstration of its economic uselessness tends to increase rather than to lessen the attraction of the nationalistic panacea, points to its true nature: it does not help men but panders to their urge to destroy. The true benefit for the Volksgenosse lies in collective approval of his anger. The smaller the actual advantage are, the more stubbornly he supports the movement against his better judgment. Anti-Semitism has proved immune to the argument of inadequate “profitability.” It is a luxury for the masses. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 125

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses the rational-actor/economic-benefit explanation of fascism that rational-choice institutional accounts (Milgrom, Bernstein) would offer — a sharp counterpoint to the reader’s law-and-economics material. — connects to: Vandalizing cemeteries is anti-Semitism’s essence, not an excess — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 142; Anti-Semitism is pathological projection stripped of self-reflection, not projection itself — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 150; Anti-Semitism is a manufactured discharge of anger, not an innate disposition. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 127 (+4 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that demonstration of economic uselessness increases attraction, and that anti-Semitism is a pleasurable luxury, is a dense paradigm-level counter to instrumentalist explanations.

Broader Connections

• Anti-Semitism projects the subject’s own repressed impulses onto the victim #expands (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 147
• Rational counter-arguments fail against anti-Semitism rooted in domination #expands (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 126
• Jewish mannerisms trigger visceral antisemitic reactions regardless of the person’s character #corroborates (0.80) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 927
• Anti-Semitism is a manufactured discharge of anger, not an innate disposition. #complicates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 127