Civilizational progress does not automatically increase tolerance

Evidence

Here as in many other instances, the productivity of Freud’s approach lies in his questioning that which is generally accepted. Le Bon had noticed that the irrational crowd ‘goes directly to extremes’. Freud expands this observation and points out that the dichotomy between inand out-groups is of so deep-rooted a nature that it affects even those groups whose ‘ideas’ apparently exclude such reactions. By 1921, he was therefore able to dispense with the liberalistic illusion that the progress of civilization would automatically bring about an increase of tolerance and a lessening of violence against out-groups. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 195

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in falsifying Adorno on post-death culture: does this 1921 claim of non-progress in tolerance hold up against, say, post-WWII civil rights gains or post-1960s social toleration?