Working-class anti-Semitism may stem more from real experience than middle-class hatred

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. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1562

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. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1562

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to Fromm’s class-vs-character studies (ch21) and the finding that economic class doesn’t align with psychological structure. — connects to: American workers’ anti-Semitic image of Jews omitted the radical-communist stereotype; Antisemitism among the lower middle class arose from fear of proletarianization; Antisemitic demagoguery found its natural audience in the lower middle class — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 139 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Whether this class-distinction hypothesis about anti-Semitism was ever tested empirically — the passage itself notes it never got beyond the hypothetical stage.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1562

Broader Connections

• Antisemitism among the lower middle class arose from fear of proletarianization #qualifies (0.75)
• Capitalist anti-Semitism is the bourgeoisie’s self-hatred displaced onto Jews #complicates (0.72) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 132
• Economic precarity of the lower middle class fueled sudden antisemitism #qualifies (0.72) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 141
• Antisemitic demagoguery found its natural audience in the lower middle class #expands (0.70) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 139