Imagined cruelty in literature mirrors fascism’s actual domination of humans.

Evidence

That fatal love which Sade highlights, and Nietzsche’s ashamedly unashamed magnanimity which would go to any extreme to save the suffering from humiliation: cruelty as greatness, when imagined in play or fancy, deals as harshly with men as German Fascism does in reality. Whereas, however, the unconscious colossus of actuality, anti-individualistic capitalism, proceeds blindly on its course of annihilation, the rebellious though deluded individual is fulfilled by that same fatal love. And so that same icy and perverted love which in the world of things takes the place of straightforward love, is directed against men—who are misused as things. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 90

Categorization

• XREF: Direct anchor for the culture-industry chapter’s later thesis that mass art pacifies; the ‘imagined cruelty’ of Sade parallels how manufactured entertainment substitutes for action. — connects to: Fascist character reflects weak ego, externalized superego, and ego-alienated id — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 438; Fascism exploits a pre-existing split ego rather than creating it. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 312; Fascism rests on a long-term anthropological reshaping of social character. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 280 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Fascist character reflects weak ego, externalized superego, and ego-alienated id — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 438; Fascism exploits a pre-existing split ego rather than creating it. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 312; Fascism rests on a long-term anthropological reshaping of social character. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 280 (+1 more)