Working-class anti-Semitism may be less irrational and more combatable than middle-class anti-Semitism.
Evidence
To reach an accurate assessment of results such as these and of possible counter-measures, it seemed to be necessary to distinguish between working-class anti-Semitism and middle-class anti-Semitism, as Adorno, in particular, emphasized in his suggestions for the report on the labour project. Might it not be the case that genuine experiences played a fundamentally larger part in the negative attitudes taken by workers towards Jews than was so for social classes higher up the scale? Must some account not be taken of the fact that workers, in their statements and behaviour, were less liable to put pseudo-democratic restrictions on themselves than members of the middle and upper classes? This might lead one to suppose that there was less covert anti-Semitism among the workers than in other classes, and that the anti-Semitic attitudes were less irrational among them and would be more easy to combat, through educational measures offering economic and political information, than was the case for the other classes. Considerations such as these never extended beyond the hypothetical stage. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 393
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the Frankfurt School’s broader Studies in Prejudice program and Adorno’s authoritarian personality work. Worth checking whether the class-specificity hypothesis survives in the published Anti-Semitism and Emotional Disorder series. — connects to: Working-class anti-Semitism may stem more from real experience than middle-class hatred — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1562; Antisemitic demagoguery found its natural audience in the lower middle class — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 139; Anti-Semitism stems from a broad psychological structure, not from specific ideological content. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 439 (+7 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Working-class anti-Semitism may stem more from real experience than middle-class hatred — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1562; Antisemitic demagoguery found its natural audience in the lower middle class — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 139; Anti-Semitism stems from a broad psychological structure, not from specific ideological content. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 439 (+7 more)
Broader Connections
- Working-class anti-Semitism may stem more from real experience than middle-class hatred
#corroborates(0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1562 - Antisemitism among the lower middle class arose from fear of proletarianization
#complicates(0.80) - Economic precarity of the lower middle class fueled sudden antisemitism
#complicates(0.78) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 141 - Anti-Semitism’s appeal is destructive pleasure, not material gain
#complicates(0.78) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 125 - Jews’ partial conformity to middle-class norms fueled antisemitic resentment.
#complicates(0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1540 - Anti-Semitism is a manufactured discharge of anger, not an innate disposition.
#complicates(0.74) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 127 - Rational counter-arguments fail against anti-Semitism rooted in domination
#complicates(0.73) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 126 - Antisemitic demagoguery found its natural audience in the lower middle class
#complicates(0.72) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 139 - Anti-Semitism stems from a broad psychological structure, not from specific ideological content.
#complicates(0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 439