Publishing left-wing workers’ conformist psychology would have aided the right politically

Evidence

One of the findings of the inquiry, for example, would have come as no surprise to a reader of Fromm’s Development of Christian Dogma. Left-wing political attitudes could be shown to be a form of vicarious satisfaction for workers who had otherwise moved into psychological conformity with class society. If published and presented with scientific rigour, the observation that the majority of politically left-wing workers were similar in character to all the other members of bourgeois-capitalist society would not have made the left more watchful and more united; instead, it would have made the right more confident of its victory. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 475

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Frankfurt School’s strategic suppression of uncomfortable empirical findings, echoing themes in intellectual history about how politically inconvenient research gets shelved. — connects to: Identical political beliefs can serve different psychological functions; Whether betrayed workers turn left or right depends on available political outlets — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1852
• QUESTION: To what extent did Horkheimer’s suppression of Fromm’s findings constitute scientific self-censorship versus legitimate method concerns?

Broader Connections

• Identical political beliefs can serve different psychological functions #complicates (0.75)