Rational explanations alone cannot justify anti-Semitism because domination is rooted in suffering.

Evidence

All the rational, economic, and political explanations and counter-argumentshowever accurate they may be in partcannot provide a justification, because the rationality associated with domination is also based on suffering … Anti-Semitism is a deeply imprinted schema, a ritual of civilization; the pogroms are the true ritual murders. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 361

Categorization

• DEFINE: Adorno’s phrase ‘anthropological theory of anti-Semitism’ — anti-Semitism framed as a behavioural phenomenon confirming the analysis of failed civilization.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that rational critique is itself implicated in the rationality of domination is the dense core of Dialectic of Enlightenment, not a one-sentence takeaway.