Prejudice must be fought at its structural core, not symptom by symptom

Evidence

The authors of The Authoritarian Personality said nothing directly about how widespread the character structure lying behind anti-Semitism was, or what its future might hold; but in the foreword Horkheimer took the view that it was threatening to take the place of the individualistic, democratic character type. Since this character structure continued to exist, the Berkeley group came to the conclusion that the fact that the various aspects of personality formed a structural whole implied that any defence measures undertaken must be directed towards the structure of the prejudiced personality as a whole. `The major emphasis should be placed, it seems, not upon discrimination against particular minority groups, but upon such phenomena as stereotypy, emotional coldness, identification with power, and general destructiveness.’ — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1814

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Berkeley group’s structural whole notion of the authoritarian personality — intervention targets the personality structure, not individual prejudices.