Horkheimer held that Jews’ apparent passivity masked rational insight into the futility of countermeasures

Evidence

The idea that one would have done much better in his place should be discarded as well as the usually erroneous opinion that the other person is utterly unaware of the dangers he has to face, reluctant to do something about them, unwilling and unable to learn from past experiences, in short, extremely unintelligent and malevolent. On the contrary, it is mostly true that he is well aware of the dangers and very eager to do something about them. The reasons for his acting like those who have perished and his repressing his fears are, particularly in the Jewish case, his secret insight into the fatality of the process, the overwhelming forces involved and the knowledge that in such a situation each counter-measure is double-edged. With regard to science, minorities are perfectly right when they are suspicious. Up to now, it has not served them so well, and such great authorities as Freud have repeatedly, implicitly and explicitly, stated its impotence to solve the pertinent problems of society. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1532

Categorization

• DEFINE: Encodes Horkheimer’s psychology-of-the-oppressed position — the belief that the victim’s paralysis is rationally grounded in the totality of forces against them, not ignorance.
• DEEPTHINKING: A dense, paradigm-critical view of the oppressed subject’s supposed irrationality as actually lucid calculation of overwhelming force — sits with the reader well beyond a single sentence.
• XREF: connects to: Horkheimer’s strategic indecision reflected a Jewish condition requiring Machiavellian skill for security — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1744; Horkheimer’s worldview drew on collective Jewish experience, not only Marxism — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 440; Horkheimer’s cautious tactical maneuvering stemmed from Jewish insecurity — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1744 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer’s cautious tactical maneuvering stemmed from Jewish insecurity #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1744
• Horkheimer and Adorno saw Jews as embodying happiness free of purposive rationality #qualifies (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1288