Anti-Semitism is pathological projection stripped of self-reflection, not projection itself

Evidence

The morbid aspect of anti-Semitism is not projective behavior as such, but the absence from it of reflection. When the subject is no longer able to return to the object what he has received from it, he becomes poorer rather than richer. He loses the reflection in both directions: since he no longer reflects the object, he ceases to reflect upon himself, and loses the ability to differentiate. Instead of the voice of conscience, he hears other voices; instead of examining himself in order to decipher the protocol of its own lust for power, it attributes the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” to others. … The resistance of which the paranoiac individual incessantly complains is the consequence of the lack of resistance, the vacuum which he generates around himself. He cannot stop. The idea which finds no firm hold in reality, insists, and becomes an idee fixe. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 150

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the precise mechanism of the pathological in anti-Semitism: projective behavior without reflection, contrasted with healthy projection.
• DEEPTHINKING: Yes — dense claim that healthy projection requires reciprocation between subject and object, and that its absence produces paranoia’s self-confirming vacuum.
• XREF: connects to: Vandalizing cemeteries is anti-Semitism’s essence, not an excess — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 142; Anti-Semitism projects the subject’s own repressed impulses onto the victim — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 147; Capitalist anti-Semitism is the bourgeoisie’s self-hatred displaced onto Jews — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 132 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Capitalist anti-Semitism is the bourgeoisie’s self-hatred displaced onto Jews #expands (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 132
• Anti-Semitism’s appeal is destructive pleasure, not material gain #expands (0.72) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 125