The Institute’s anti-Semitism project sought to expose latent tendencies at subconscious levels

Evidence

The aim of the project was `to show that anti-Semitism is one of the dangers inherent in all more recent culture’. Historical research on mass movements since the Crusades, and on representatives of modern humanism such as Voltaire and Kant, were to show how deeply rooted anti-Semitism waseven in places where it had never been suspected. Experimentssuch as film presentationswere to expose latent anti-Semitic tendencies and serve to construct a typology, so that a tool would be available which would make it possible to detect the strength and quality of anti-Semitic tendencies deep in the most subconscious levels. In this way it would be possible to start combating them early enough. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1141

Categorization

• XREF: This experimental, typology-building empiricism foreshadows the Authoritarian Personality studies of the 1940s. — connects to: Early authoritarian personality research hoped to blame anti-Semitism on deviants — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1594; Collective delusions like anti-Semitism persist because they function as tolerated outlets within a culture — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1793; The Institute proposed approximating real-life conditions to visualize antisemitic reaction mechanisms. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1515 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Early authoritarian personality research hoped to blame anti-Semitism on deviants #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1594
• Collective delusions like anti-Semitism persist because they function as tolerated outlets within a culture #corroborates (0.70) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1793