It remains narrow and con- stricted, in danger of being overwhelmed by emotional impulses from within or
authoritative
commands from without.
Adorno-T-Authoritarian-Personality-Harper-Bros-1950
A rough cor- respondence between order in the genetic sequence and degree of depth within the contemporary personality structure is assumed, the earliest reac- tion tendencies being regarded as those which now lie deepest within the personality.
It may be noted at once that fear of weakness occupies the most central position on the chart. Deriving, as we have seen, chiefly from the deep-lying tendencies toward dependence on the one hand and toward subinission, pas- sivity and homosexuality on the other, this fear necessitates several protective devices which lead to a variety of behavior patterns and general attitudes at the surface level. The fear has to be denied, allayed, and if possible, overcome.
? W e observe in Mack, therefore, attempts to conceal weakness by verbal denial and by presenting a fac;ade of toughness, to get rid of weakness by projecting it onto other people, chiefly outgroups, and then condemning them on this score, to overcompensate for weakness by strivings for power and status and to allay the sense of weakness by aligning himself with power- ful individuals and groups.
Little more need be said, it seems, concerning Mack's straightout verbal denial of weakness. It is simply that all through his interview he is at pains to tell us that he is not weak but strong and that if at any time he has appeared to be weak, then this was entirely justified by external circumstances. Of particular importance for Mack's susceptibility to fascist propaganda is the fact that the need to excuse weakness sometimes leads him into distortions of reality; he exaggerates the power and misreads the intentions of outgroups accQrding to the formula, "If I appear to be weak, it is because they are so
? od ifit Hostility toward (and fear
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FIGURE 1 (XX)
THE GENETIC ASPECTS OF MACK'S PERSONALITY
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? 8o2 THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
strong and out to take unfair advantage of me. " The mechanism is the same as that which underlies the "persecution complex" so regularly associated with repressed homosexuality, though the conflict in Mack seems much less intense than that found in clinic patients. What we see on the surface here is the self- pity implicit in his thesis that he has done well considering all that he has had to contend with, and his projective thinking about such outgroups as the Jews, the New Deal, and the Washington bureaus. There can be little doubt that the problem with which Mack is struggling here was first presented to him in connection with his childhood relations with his father: "How can I be expected to oppose, to be strong and independent, to become a man, when father is so strong. " That he has been able to transpose the whole complex into the area of group relations saves him from having to oppose any individ- ual or group that is really strong, and at the same time-since his ideas are now shared for various reasons by many other people-to achieve an appearance of "normality" that he would not have were he to concentrate on a single private "enemy. "
Mack has made some attempt to conceal weakness by contriving a tough exterior. The leather jacket and the "nice equipment, for example a good rifle" are probably intended as unmistakable signs of masculinity. Mack is unable, however, to behave aggressively,6 and hence the device of over- compensatory toughness does not serve him as well as it does many prejudiced men. But if he is unable to be physically tough, he can at least be tough- minded. His general attitude of anti-intraception can be understood as pri- marily an attempt to ward off any suggestion of "softness" that might be implicit in a more human way of looking at things.
The most primitive mechanism for dispelling a sense of weakness is the projection, "I am not weak, they are. " Mack makes some use of this mech- anism, though not in the crudest possible way. It is not so much that he sees weakness where none exists; rather, he thinks of people and groups in rigid categories of weak versus strong, and if any weakness is actually there it is what first strikes his eye, as it were, and he reacts to it in a particular way. His main concern is not to be in any way identified with weakness. Religious people, Jewish refugees, and women may actually be, in one sense or another, weak, but for Mack this is the main fact about these groups of people and he must at all costs set them apart from himself. If one asks why he cannot have pity for weak people but instead actually hates them, the answer is two- fold. In the first place, they remind him too much of his own weakness and all the dreadful fear with which it is associated. Second, and probably more important, he believes weak people to be dangerous. When he says that Jews "should not resent" their persecution we can readily infer that he believes they do resent it and will seek revenge in time. Women and Ne-
6 Cf. in this connection J. F. Brown's findings, from the use of the Rosenzweig Picture- Frustration Test, on "passive anti-Semitism" (r6).
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY 803
groes, as the T. A. T. analysis made clear, are regarded in this same way. It is to be granted that the strictness of Mack's mother, and later attempts of the sister and the aunt to carry out her policy, helped to teach Mack that women could be aggressive, but there is reason to believe that his notions about the dangerous aspects of "weak" people are based primarily upon a projection. The feeling of being persecuted aroused in him the strongest impulses to violence ("the young man looks like he might commit murder if oppressed") and he imagines that "downtrodden" people are similarly motivated.
Fear of the weak woman, as has been pointed out, would largely explain Mack's sexual backwardness, and this in turn offers sufficient basis for the moralistic sex attitudes expressed on the questionnaire and in the interview. How is the rejection of women to be reconciled with the fact that Mack idealizes his mother and intends to marry a girl with a "tremendously nice personality"? Here it must be considered that Mack actually has two con- ceptions of women: the "bad," weak, dangerous, exploitive, sexual woman who drags one down, and the good, wholesome, asexual one who gives. It is the former with whom one dares to have sex relations as "the aftermath of a New Year's party"; the latter is described mainly contrasting her with the former; she is not interested primarily in "a good time" or "in spending fellows' money" or in anything "sordid. " Undoubtedly the imagery of this "good" woman derives in part from the imagery of the mother "who devoted her last strength to us kids. " Certainly Mack would like to recapture some of the love and comfort that he received from his mother, provided this mo- tive on his part can be adequately rationalized. It must be pointed out, how- ever, that his appreciation of his mother seems somewhat overdone, enough so to suggest that his idealization of her is based partly on bad conscience and is an attempt to undo hostility that was directed against her. One cannot be very optimistic about the prospects for Mack's forthcoming marriage. While on the one hand he wants more than any woman can give him, on the other hand, he feels it would be weak to ask his wife for anything at all. And this is not to mention the problem of how sex is to be introduced into the picture without spoiling it altogether. ?
It has already been suggested that Mack's strivings for power and status- his desire to "raise" himself-may be regarded as largely overcompensatory. Indeed, it would be very surprising if some kind of counteractive activity did not have a place among the devices he employs for overcoming the sense of weakness. From this point of view we can understand why it is that the needs for affiliation and recognition when they appear in the T. A. T. are expressed mainly as a desire for having the members of his group look up to him, and why being an officer in the DeMolay and in his class at business school is im- portant to him. The crucial role of the status drive in determining Mack's
general ideology was first indicated in the analysis of his remarks concerning vocation and income. There it seemed clear that for him "going up" meant
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
going up in a hierarchy; in his mind the existence of dominant groups and submerged groups was "natural" and, far from being concerned with chang- ing this state of affairs, his aim was to have membership in the groups that were dominant. This is something different from the ordinary, everyday desire to improve one's lot in a sociological sense. It seems that here again Mack's thinking about group relations is dominated by the rigid categories of "strong" and "weak. " In the light of the foregoing personality analysis we may say that, once again, Mack brings to his interpretation of group rela- tions images and attitudes which have remained unchanged since their genesis in the childhood relations with his father. That one was weak and the other strong was then the salient fact, and the persistence of this idea is a part of the fixation upon the traumatic situation of childhood. Since Mack could not con- ceive of himself opposing the irresistibly strong father, his attempt at a solu- tion was to convince himself that his father was "good" and so to align himself with him. This corresponds exactly with Mack's present approach to group relations. He does not oppose any group that is, in actuality, strong; instead, he argues that the strong ones are the good ones, and even while ad- miring and being subservient to them he overcomes weakness through gain- ing a sense of participation in their power.
This last is, of course, one aspect of the general attitude which we have termed authoritarian submission, and which we have previously seen to be an outstanding feature of Mack's manifest personality. To say that this atti- tude rests upon an attempt to overcome weakness through identification with power is to mention only one of its major sources. In so far as authori- tarian submission is a means for overcoming weakness it stands as a kind of defense against the underlying homosexual submission and passivity; it re- mains to be pointed out that this surface trend offers at the same time gratifi- cation for these very same needs. In glorifying strong groups and individuals -"father figures"-he is expressing the need for a father's love and support and guidance, for a God who is "strictly man, greater than any on this earth, one that would treat us as a father would his son. " Whereas most channels for the expression of this need are closed because they pass too close to weakness, it can in certain circumstances come into the open and be gratified: Chiefly when the strong man or strong group is strong enough, strong enough so that there is a chance for participation in real power and strong enough so that submission can be readily excused. If one should ask why Roosevelt, who was almost universally experienced in this country as a father figure, was not happily accepted and admired by Mack instead of being rejected as a "dictator," the answer would seem to be that he was not strong enough:7 he "would come off second best in a contest with Winnie," while as for Gen- eral Marshall, "nobody could alter his position. "
How authoritarian submission promotes political conservatism and moral 7 This point has been elaborated in Chapter XVII.
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY 805
conventionalism in this subject has been described in sufficient detail in Chap- ter II. Lacking a firmly internalized superego, a result of the failure to achieve a basic identification with the father, Mack looks outside of himself for guidance as to what to do and what not to do, and turns naturally to the authorities that seem strongest and most commonly accepted. He cannot, however, admit that this is the case, but clings to the illusion that he has a stubborn nature and is a man to make his own decisions.
This last suggests that Mack's relations with his authorities are not entirely harmonious, that he is not altogether comfortable with the arrangements that he has made. This is no more than we should expect from a consideration of the sources of his authoritarianism. It springs originally, as we have seen, from hostility toward his father. This hostility led to submission based on fear and, although -submission offers other rewards as well, the element of fearful neces- sity still has an important role in Mack's attitude toward authority. It is this circumstance that gives his adherence to conventional standards the aspect of rigidity; since they have never been fully integrated with the ego, it is neces- sary to adhere to them strictly lest they be thrown overboard altogether.
Mack's hostility against minority groups and other groups and individuals is almost always justified by him on moral grounds. And the morality to which he appeals is that of the external authorities to which he is subservient. His manifest aggression is, so to speak, in the name of authority. He arranges things so that his conscience and his deepest antisocial impulses operate in collaboration. But if we ask what is his conception of the outgroup and why it provokes him so we are led back to the same sources that gave rise to his conceptions and attitudes concerning ingroup authorities. Outgroups are hated, as we saw in Chapter II, for being selfishly and ruthlessly aggressive.
(That outgroups are also "weak" may be a logical contradiction, but it is not a psychological one; Mack's thinking about social and political matters is dominated by unconscious processes and, hence, cannot be expected to con- form with the rules of logic. 8) The power-seeking features of the outgroup, no less than the admirably strong aspects of the "good" ingroup, can be understood as derivatives of the infantile imagery of the father. Since Mack dared not oppose his father but could only submit to him, it became necessary to convince himself that the father was good. But this did not dissipate the original hostility against the father. Nor did Mack attempt to handle it by turning it against himself; one of the outstanding features of his case is the relative absence of self-criticism. What he did was displace the hostility onto outgroups; or better, the frustrating, punishing, persecutory features which had to be denied in the father were seen as originating in outgroups who could then be hated in safety, because they were not strong in actuality, and in good conscience, because the traits ascribed to them were those which the
8 Cf. Freud's discussion of "exemption from mutual contradiction" as one of the characteristics of unconscious processes.
? 8o6 THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
ingroup authorities would condemn. Thus it is that each "good" trait that the father is said to have is the opposite of a "bad" trait which belongs to the image of the Jew: while the father's "greatest contribution was denying him- self pleasures to take care of us kids" the Jews are not "interested in human- ity," while the father was renowned for his "honesty," one has to be careful of Jewish clothiers. At the same time, when it comes to the one trait in the father which Mack is almost inclined to criticize, that is, social withdrawal, one finds that it too looms large in the imagery of the Jew: they refuse "to mingle and become a part of our people," "they would rather be alone. " If the Jews have thus to bear the brunt of Mack's ambivalent feelings toward his father, there might be some comfort for them in the fact that his feelings toward them are also somewhat ambivalent. It may be recalled that Mack's explanation for what he supposes to be Jewish pressure on Congress and for the fact that Jews have been "fully repaid" for their part in the war effort is that "they are businessmen," and we know that he has nothing but admira- tion for businessmen, especially those who represent a "concentration of wealth in a certain class," i. e. , "the big capitalists. " Unfortunately, however, it is very doubtful that the Jews could ever benefit from the positive phase of Mack's ambivalence, for their supposed inability makes them more dan- gerous to him. The separation of the good father image from the bad is an essential of Mack's personality adjustment and he could no more see "good"
? in his image of the Jew than he can see "bad" in his father.
As far as our material goes the only outlets for the expression of aggression that Mack has is through his ethnocentrism, that is, through authoritarian
aggression against various kinds of outgroups. There is, however, one other. manifestation of underlying aggression which may afford some vent for his feelings, and that is cynicism. This prominent tendency in our subject has been described in Chapters II and VII. It seems clear enough now that its major source is the bottled-up resentment with which the present analysis has been so largely concerned. We must understand, however, that in cyni- cism the destructiveness is directed against the self as well as against the world. 9 It is not only that the subject's own aggressiveness is projected onto other people, who are then accused of being acquisitive and warlike, but con- tempt for other people seems to be closely related to contempt for himself. In Mack's case-and this probably holds generally for authoritarian personali- ties-the self-contempt derives from his sense of weakness and this, as we have seen, is the aftermath of his surrender to his father. This surrender can- not be wholly excused, and as long as he cannot permit himself to feel ag- ? gressive toward those who are actually strong, there will be a nagging re- minder that he, in reality, is weak. He tries to free himself from this thought
9 On the topic of cynicism Sanford, Conrad, and Franck (108) have published findings based on a questionnaire similar to those employed in the present study.
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY 807
by projecting the contemptibleness onto mankind, and thus there is some basis for saying that he hates others because he hates himself.
To complete the picture it is necessary to return now to the topic of Mack's dependence. The sense of deprivation that followed the loss of his mother, and the growing feelings that because of his weakness people might leave him out or take advantage of him, seem to have generated in him a general attitude of acquisitiveness and, more specifically, a feeling that somebody ought to give him something. The highest praise of mother, father, sister, or fiancee is that they gave or will give to him, and one of the major character- istics of "bad" people is that they are selfish or "not interested in humanity. " It is not difficult to infer that his concern with justice is primarily concern with getting something. A man who can speak sentimentally of justice in one breath and almost in the next speak of barring Hitler's victims from this country on the ground that they are "Europe's misfits" is hardly employing the term "justice" in its basic sense. But apparently his acquisitiveness en- counters his conventional moral standards and has to be reacted against. He is very careful to assure us that he has "repaid" what he got from others, and he is moralistically temperate in stating his objectives with respect to income. The importance of this conflict about acquisitiveness for Mack's social out- look lies in the fact that it supplies the basis for another accusation against outgroups. They are said to be "materialistic" and "money-minded. " This seems to be in part a projection, since outgroups are accused of doing exactly what he and his own group do but would like to deny, and in part a mere complaint about the fact that the world goes its own way without paying much attention to him and his wants.
A remarkable feature of Mack's dependence is that although it has been rendered ego-alien and as an unconscious force leads to the misjudgment and rejection of other people, so much of it still finds expression in behavior.
(This has been brought out in the above discussion of underlying depend- ence. ) This is testimony to his outstanding facility in rationalization, some- thing that is made possible, as it seems, by his unwillingess to look at himself.
This brings us to a place where we must consider Mack's stereotypy, a characteristic of his thinking that is highly pronounced and, clearly, of the greatest significance for his prejudice. In one sense, his stereotyped thinking about social phenomena seems to be related to his general attitude of anti- intraception and to be dependent, in part at least, upon the same underlying conditions. It might be said that one reason why Mack's explanations of social phenomena are so primitive and oversimplified (for example, differences among ethnic groups are categorical and due to differences in blood strain) is that he is unable to make any use of social or psychological theories of determination. This can hardly be due to a lack of intelligence or of informa- tion, for an examination of his interview leaves a strong impression that with regard to those factors he is above the average for college students. A stronger
? 8o8 THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
argument could be made for the view that his is an educational deficiency, that he simply has not been subjected to instruction about man and society. But this is such a widespread phenomenon in this country that it can hardly be used to explain why Mack stands out from the group. Besides, he could have made some use of the social and psychological viewpoints that are available, but he chose not to. And, for that matter, the fact that anti-intra- ceptive education is so widespread has itself to be explained, and we can well believe that factors of individual psychology have an important role to play. In Mack's case at least there is a strong suggestion that he cannot reckon with either the sociology or the psychology of other people because he cannot examine the conditions or determinants of his own behavior. Ideas or observa- tions that would be necessary to lend breadth or depth to his view of the world or of himself cannot enter the picture, because they would arouse too much anxiety. It is as if-to put it somewhat dramatically-he can see only what he has seen before and learn only what he already knows. In our con- sideration of Mack's anti-intraception we were given reason to believe that he has to avoid introspection or attention to human factors in order to main- tain his sense of being tough-minded. The fuller analysis of his personality shows that his problem is much more serious: he has to deal with a variety of strong unconscious impulses which are not integrated with the ego and which he feels-not without good cause-might get out of hand. In short, the task of maintaining his repressions imposes a heavy burden upon him. This state of affairs has been described, in previous chapters, as ego weakness, and Mack's case offers an excellent illustration of this concept. The problems with which he was faced as a child-problems centering around the loss of his mother and the necessity for making an adjustment to the "distant" father -were too much, they were more than the undeveloped ego could handle. Primitive defenses, chiefly repression and countercathexis, were necessary; and since that time, the ego has had to devote so much energy to maintaining these defenses that it could not develop normally.
It remains narrow and con- stricted, in danger of being overwhelmed by emotional impulses from within or authoritative commands from without. Since the inner impulses are more to be feared than the outer authorities there is rigid adherence to the stand- ards of the latter, but since these authorities are not accepted in any funda- mental way this adherence could be given up altogether in circumstances that made it safe to do so. Since the traumatic experiences of childhood have not been integrated with the ego, the categories with which the child struc- tured the world have persisted, in more or less unmodified form, to dominate contemporary thinking. Since there is little that is truly inside the personality, there can be little tolerance of inner conflict and little self-criticism; instead there is an attitude of hostile watchfulness toward a world that is largely alien.
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY 809
C. THE CONTRASTING CASE OF LARRY
We may now tum to the case of Larry. A final appraisal of Mack and a judgment of the implications of his case can better be made after the two cases have been compared.
At the time of recording Larry's interview, the interviewer made the fol- lowing observations:
Larry is conventional, conservative, well-mannered, deferent, quiet, and a con- formist. Overtly he could be described as a passive, feminine type. He is a good example of the weak, unadjusted man who reads Dale Carnegie and becomes well- mannered, friendly, articulate, outgoing, but empty.
In appearance, he is slight, short, becoming bald-headed, rather feminine in gen- eral. He is openly dependent, highly articulate, and highly involved in the interview, making great effort, and appearing to enjoy it very much, remarking so especially at the end and being concerned with the general nature and purpose of the study. In spite of his highly conservative politics and his big-business personal goal, there is something very naive and unworldly about him.
The clinical section of Larry's interview follows.
(What were you like as a child? ) "I seldom got any spankings. I was very active and played a lot of games. I don't want to brag, but I was well liked, like by the neighborhood women, who said I was a nice boy, if you know what I mean. That was until I was about ro. But outside the home, like in school and the neighborhood, away from home, I was more mischievous. I got into little difficulties. My brother, who is two and a half years older than I, and I were always together. We were fighting, jealous of each other, then friendly, going to the show or something. He was huskier, more athletic; I was always small, still am. My brother was more studi- ous, conservative, wouldn't take chances, quiet. I admired him for this, for being a good big brother; for having a nice build, being nice looking, having good judg- ment; I admired him a lot, but I always maintained my own independence. "
(Early experiences? ) Age 3-an uncle passed away. "I remember his body in the house; it stayed there all day; then the hearse came and took it away. He used to hold me on his knee; I liked him a lot. I was the baby of the family. And his wife was especially nice. She used to pet me and play with me a lot. Then, another time- 1 guess about age 3 also-I remember wandering into the bull pen on the farm; and then the bull came for me, and the hired man just barely saved me, and I was really scared to death. I remember my mother's being there nearby and how scared she was too. Another memory I have, age 3 or 4, I remember how my brothers would catch rabbits on the farm. The rabbits would get into a lot of long pipes that we had in the back yard and my brothers would force the rabbits out with long poles and catch them as they came out the other end of the pipe. They would either knock them over the head as they came out, or sometimes they would catch them alive. What impressed me particularly was being able to touch a wild animal, and it couldn't run away, and I would rub its fur. Then, at the same period, on the farm, I have another memory, of sitting on a horse which belonged to my brothers and being held on it, half afraid and half jubilant over riding. "
? 810 THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
(Larry is extremely effortful here and apparently has thought about these things considerably. They come out fairly easily. )
(Experiences with father? ) "I remember at age 212 my father whipped my oldest brother very severely and my mother took all the children and went into town to separate from my father. I remember we went to the lawyer's office and had to stay there overnight because there was nowhere else. The next morning my father came in and found us, and he and my mother settled their differences. That's the only dif- ficulty that I've ever known between them. There's never been an argument since, they've gotten along swell. I've had a wonderful home. (Is father very severe? ) He wasn't strict in the sense of many rules, but when he told us to do something, we had to do it. We got few whippings, but when we did, they were plenty bad. (What about you? ) I didn't get as many as my brothers did. I'dmaneuver out of them. I didn't get any after the age of 12. I remember my brother got one even when he was 15. That was when I learned how to maneuver out of things-I just kept out of his way. When I was younger, I did whatever might avoid his punishment. My mother spanked us more often, but not so severely. W e feared our father through our mother, that is, we feared she'd tell him and he'd punish us. Her main threat was not 'I'll spank you,' but 'I'll tell your father. ' Her own spankings were so mild that we almost enjoyed them. "
(Fears? ) "I was afraid of the dark till age r6 or r8, my last years of high school, but I overcame it. I don't fear animals, except snakes, which I still fear and dislike. " (Nightmares? ) "I had them, but I don't recall any particular ones. " (Larry brought up nightmares himself, asking if that were a fear. ) "One fear I had was in a big farmhouse we lived in when I was a kid, and it creaked in the wind, and I'd lie awake for an hour or more, thinking someone was there and being afraid. I remem- ber lying awake sometimes most of the night; sometimes I'd go into my mother's
bed.
"I still have unpleasant dreams; I don't know if they're nightmares. One was that
my heart was stopping; or that I was sick and wouldn't get well. One was that my leg was getting amputated; I'd have to feel it just to see that it was still there. That was probablyon accountofthe war, though. Recently I dreamed I was awake, in bed, and someone was just about to grab me. I couldn't move or yell; I was just completely paralyzed there, but at the last minute I woke up. Or I'll dream that I can't see people or writing around me; it's like being blind. They can see, but I can't quite make things out. "
(Adolescence? ) "I went through it smoothly into manhood. I didn't notice any great change in my life. (Sex? ) No great problem. I thought about girls all the time, as boys will, and I looked at them. I started going out with them at about 15. I liked them a lot and associated with them at school and in the neighborhood. You know,
? you have the usual sexual desires, but you don't let them bother you. (Sex morals? ) I feel a girl should remain a virgin until2 r or 22 anyway. If she expects to marry soon after that, she should wait until after marriage, but if she is a career girl or doesn't want to get married, then an affair with an unmarried man is O. K. if they keep it quiet and secluded so the moral standards of others are not lowered. She should pick out one fellow to have a sex relation with, and not carry on with several. " (This is another example of Larry's highly articulate and theorized views on a subject. )
(You? ) "Not until after I came out of the hospital, when I was 2 3 or 24. Since then I've had several affairs, lasting a few weeks or a month. I won't marry until I have more security. She almost has to be a virgin, though not necessarily. I lost respect for the women I slept with. I know that's selfish, but I guess that's the way most fellows are. "
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY 8I I
(Ideal wife? ) "She shouldn't work, no career. She should stay at home, love me, raise a family, not expect too much in the way of fine clothes and a good time. She should have a good reputation, be attractive, not taller than I, nor too short, say 2 or 3 inches shorter; she should be intelligent and a college graduate; congenial, easy to get along with, sympathetic, a good mother, stick with me through thin and thick, even if I get sick. She shouldn't drink to excess, but drinking moderately is all right. She shouldn't get too friendly with other men-you know how some married women put their arms around other men, and things like that-but she should be friendly with men. She should have a good home background, come from a good family. Wealth is immaterial. "
(Ideal husband? ) "He should give her happiness, through security, home, car, enjoyment and entertainment; money to travel, and so on. He should be a good father to the children, shouldn't give the wife any worries; he shouldn't get drunk, and he should be faithful to his wife. "
(Good father? ) "He should be devoted to his children, give them the proper clothing, food, education; he shouldn't spoil them, give them cars in high school, and like that; but be good to them; he should take them on vacations; discipline them in a kind but firm way, teach them the proper morals when they are young, and give them the right environment. "
(What were you good at in school? ) "History and economics. I wasn't very good or very bad at anything. I had a C plus average. I didn't work hard in high school; I just slid along. I liked sports, and I played basketball for four years in high school, although I was too slight and light to get very far. Languages were especially dif- ficult, and math. Then I went to junior college for a year; then I got sick and was in a sanitarium for four years. I got out, worked, and I've been back in school for a semester now. I'm living at a cooperative house. "
Most of the outstanding features of Larry's personality seem to belong to one or the other of two syndromes: the one centering around dependence, passivity, and feminine identification, the other around subservience to an internalized but relatively narrow and restricting superego. Both of these patterns are more pronounced in this subject than in most unprejudiced men. Whereas some acceptance of dependence, passivity, and femininity appears regularly in men who score low on the scales, Larry's "softness" would seem to be fairly extreme by any standard. His conservatism, conven- tionalism, and authoritarian aggression-trends which in his case can be at- tributed mainly to the superego-are sufficiently pronounced so that he exhibits a number of features which are found more commonly among high than among low scorers. He actually scores high on the PEC scale, and there is reason to believe that his liberal sentiments with respect to minority issues are of fairly recent origin. The contrasts between Larry and Mack are never- theless marked. The fact that the two men are similar in certain respects- passivity and conventionalism have loomed large in the discussion of Mack's case-should help us to see what circumstances made the crucial differences.
Numerous manifest traits of Larry's can be grouped on the basis that they express a general pattern of dependence, passivity, and feminine identifica- tion. He quite openly expresses his desire for understanding and support, and
? 812 THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
his readiness to accept the material help which he expects will be offered to him. He wants to be liked, and to this end he is prepared to inhibit aggression and to be generally pleasing in his relations with others. More than this, he wants pleasure and comfort and relaxation-and he wants to be assured of a bountiful and dependable source of supply. He has a basic "taking in" attitude toward the world. What prevents him from being grasping, it seems, is his conviction that there is plenty for everybody. This conviction even permits him to be generous. He wants everybody to have plenty and to be happy-himself included. What holds for material supplies holds also for people: he is ready to take them in too, that is, to be identified with them and to share their feelings, just as he is ready to give out his own feelings. This attitude leaves him sensitive to rejection, but? at the same time able to sympa- thize with those whom he conceives as downtrodden-an essential feature of his positive attitudes toward minority groups. Relatively free from the idea that softness might leave him open to attack, he is able to indulge in tendencies which in men like Mack are automatically associated with dan- gerous weakness: he can experience the human, emotional aspects of things; he can be subjective and introspective, enjoy fantasy life and "philosophiz- ing," admit having fears, anxieties, and doubts. Consistent with all this is the fact that he can have close relationships with women, whom he conceives to be not very different from himself.
These trends are on the surface in Larry; they are directly expressed in his overt behavior. The contrast with Mack lies in the fact that in him trends of this very same kind operate below the surface and he is very concerned to deny and counteract them. What is it that has made the difference? Most important, it would seem, were the differing circumstances connected with the childhood relationships with the mother. It was in this area that Mack was subjected to severely traumatic experiences, whereas Larry's early relation- ship with his mother was close and for the most part highly gratifying. Indeed the mother looms as the central figure in Larry's childhood. There is reason to believe that she took good care of him and that he became strongly attached to her. The attitude of love-seeking was carried over into his rela- tions with other women, whose love he sought to obtain and to hold by being a "good boy. " It seems that he is still bent on obtaining the kind of gratifica- tion he received as a child, and that to a considerable extent he succeeds in doing so-through having found modes of behavior that are more or less acceptable socially. (Mack, for his part, was forced to repress his dependent needs in childhood, and so was not able to find suitable modes for their expres- sion; hence, he remains comparatively frustrated, unhappy, and self-pitying. ) Larry is not, however, altogether secure with respect to the needs under dis- cussion. He did not receive enough gratification in childhood, nor does he receive enough now, so that he can take love and support for granted. He is still susceptible to frustration and sensitive to rejection: The circumstance of
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY 8I 3
there being much but still not enough gratification would account, in large part, for Larry's identification with his mother in childhood. Identification was a means for getting close to her and holding on to her, and of protecting himself from having to feel rejected and hostile. It seems, however, that the identification is a comfortable one, and that it must have been based more upon love than upon fear.
An additional reason why Larry is able to be comfortable and relaxed with his feminine identification lies in the fact that his mother was to a suf- ficient extent strong and protective. We are told that when the father was too hard on one of the boys, the mother took all the children and went to see her lawyer. She thus made it plain that she was not afraid to oppose the father and that she was a real source of protection. Larry could be on the side of this woman, be identified with her, without feeling that he was plac- ing himself in a hopelessly weak position. This is in crucial contrast to Mack and many other prejudiced men, who cannot possibly come close to or be identified with the mother, no matter how "sweet" or "devoted" she might be, because she is conceived as too weak or inconsequential. Apparently, it is easier for a boy to identify himself with a feminine role, which he associates with the weakness and suffering of the underdog, when the weakness is not seen as hopeless nor the suffering as intolerable.
But if Larry's passivity and amiability is mainly a derivative of his child- hood dependence on the mother, it has at the same time another function within the personality. It serves as a defense against his underlying aggressive impulses. Several of his responses in the interview and to the Projective Questions seem to show a particular concern with the inhibition of aggres- sion, e. g. , after describing the good time he would have if he had only six months to live, he adds "all this without hurting anyone"; and "a feeling that I have hurt someone" is one of the moods or feelings most disturbing to him. His concern with "true comradeship" and his solicitude for persecuted peo- ple suggest that, to some extent at least, he loves in order that he might not hate. The hypothesis of underlying aggression is supported by the T. A. T. , which gives evidence of "strong underlying hostile impulses. " These im- pulses are- directed both against women and against men. Hostility against women is aroused by rejection or the threat of it, and can be understood as an aspect of the mother-dependence discussed above. (This is different from Mack, whose aggression against women is aroused by the fear that they might drag him down to their level. ) Hostility against men is fused with antisocial rebellion, and the conflict between these tendencies on the one hand and the demands of conscience on the other is much more intense than is common among low-scoring men. Here, it appears, Larry is expressing attitudes built up on the basis of experiences with his father. There is nothing in the inter- view material to indicate that the father was unusually provoking, but he certainly enforced his will, administered some whippings, and was cast by
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
the mother in the role of feared disciplinarian. This would be reason enough why Larry should have hostile and rebellious feelings. More than this, the T. A. T. offers the strong suggestion that Larry reproaches his father for not loving him enough, and that part of the interview in which Larry tells what a father should be seems to be in keeping with this suggestion. But what is particularly important, Larry must also have loved his father and become to some extent identified with him. This would account for the fact that rebel- lious aggression goes against Larry's conscience and leaves him feeling_guilty and remorseful. It is to ward off such feelings that he must praise his father, remain subservient to his family's ideals, and exhibit other conservative tend- encies more characteristic of high-scoring men. This brings us to the most crucial differences between Larry and Mack. The two subjects differ in the quality and intensity of their aggression and in the way of dealing with it. Larry takes responsibility for his aggression; though it is not conscious now, it seems to have been conscious at one time so that he could actually imagine himself taking revenge in one way or another upon his father. With Mack, as we have seen, the aggression appears to be out of touch with the rest of the personality; it is something which is entirely disclaimed, but which might suddenly explode in a blindly impulsive way.
It may be noted at once that fear of weakness occupies the most central position on the chart. Deriving, as we have seen, chiefly from the deep-lying tendencies toward dependence on the one hand and toward subinission, pas- sivity and homosexuality on the other, this fear necessitates several protective devices which lead to a variety of behavior patterns and general attitudes at the surface level. The fear has to be denied, allayed, and if possible, overcome.
? W e observe in Mack, therefore, attempts to conceal weakness by verbal denial and by presenting a fac;ade of toughness, to get rid of weakness by projecting it onto other people, chiefly outgroups, and then condemning them on this score, to overcompensate for weakness by strivings for power and status and to allay the sense of weakness by aligning himself with power- ful individuals and groups.
Little more need be said, it seems, concerning Mack's straightout verbal denial of weakness. It is simply that all through his interview he is at pains to tell us that he is not weak but strong and that if at any time he has appeared to be weak, then this was entirely justified by external circumstances. Of particular importance for Mack's susceptibility to fascist propaganda is the fact that the need to excuse weakness sometimes leads him into distortions of reality; he exaggerates the power and misreads the intentions of outgroups accQrding to the formula, "If I appear to be weak, it is because they are so
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THE GENETIC ASPECTS OF MACK'S PERSONALITY
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? 8o2 THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
strong and out to take unfair advantage of me. " The mechanism is the same as that which underlies the "persecution complex" so regularly associated with repressed homosexuality, though the conflict in Mack seems much less intense than that found in clinic patients. What we see on the surface here is the self- pity implicit in his thesis that he has done well considering all that he has had to contend with, and his projective thinking about such outgroups as the Jews, the New Deal, and the Washington bureaus. There can be little doubt that the problem with which Mack is struggling here was first presented to him in connection with his childhood relations with his father: "How can I be expected to oppose, to be strong and independent, to become a man, when father is so strong. " That he has been able to transpose the whole complex into the area of group relations saves him from having to oppose any individ- ual or group that is really strong, and at the same time-since his ideas are now shared for various reasons by many other people-to achieve an appearance of "normality" that he would not have were he to concentrate on a single private "enemy. "
Mack has made some attempt to conceal weakness by contriving a tough exterior. The leather jacket and the "nice equipment, for example a good rifle" are probably intended as unmistakable signs of masculinity. Mack is unable, however, to behave aggressively,6 and hence the device of over- compensatory toughness does not serve him as well as it does many prejudiced men. But if he is unable to be physically tough, he can at least be tough- minded. His general attitude of anti-intraception can be understood as pri- marily an attempt to ward off any suggestion of "softness" that might be implicit in a more human way of looking at things.
The most primitive mechanism for dispelling a sense of weakness is the projection, "I am not weak, they are. " Mack makes some use of this mech- anism, though not in the crudest possible way. It is not so much that he sees weakness where none exists; rather, he thinks of people and groups in rigid categories of weak versus strong, and if any weakness is actually there it is what first strikes his eye, as it were, and he reacts to it in a particular way. His main concern is not to be in any way identified with weakness. Religious people, Jewish refugees, and women may actually be, in one sense or another, weak, but for Mack this is the main fact about these groups of people and he must at all costs set them apart from himself. If one asks why he cannot have pity for weak people but instead actually hates them, the answer is two- fold. In the first place, they remind him too much of his own weakness and all the dreadful fear with which it is associated. Second, and probably more important, he believes weak people to be dangerous. When he says that Jews "should not resent" their persecution we can readily infer that he believes they do resent it and will seek revenge in time. Women and Ne-
6 Cf. in this connection J. F. Brown's findings, from the use of the Rosenzweig Picture- Frustration Test, on "passive anti-Semitism" (r6).
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY 803
groes, as the T. A. T. analysis made clear, are regarded in this same way. It is to be granted that the strictness of Mack's mother, and later attempts of the sister and the aunt to carry out her policy, helped to teach Mack that women could be aggressive, but there is reason to believe that his notions about the dangerous aspects of "weak" people are based primarily upon a projection. The feeling of being persecuted aroused in him the strongest impulses to violence ("the young man looks like he might commit murder if oppressed") and he imagines that "downtrodden" people are similarly motivated.
Fear of the weak woman, as has been pointed out, would largely explain Mack's sexual backwardness, and this in turn offers sufficient basis for the moralistic sex attitudes expressed on the questionnaire and in the interview. How is the rejection of women to be reconciled with the fact that Mack idealizes his mother and intends to marry a girl with a "tremendously nice personality"? Here it must be considered that Mack actually has two con- ceptions of women: the "bad," weak, dangerous, exploitive, sexual woman who drags one down, and the good, wholesome, asexual one who gives. It is the former with whom one dares to have sex relations as "the aftermath of a New Year's party"; the latter is described mainly contrasting her with the former; she is not interested primarily in "a good time" or "in spending fellows' money" or in anything "sordid. " Undoubtedly the imagery of this "good" woman derives in part from the imagery of the mother "who devoted her last strength to us kids. " Certainly Mack would like to recapture some of the love and comfort that he received from his mother, provided this mo- tive on his part can be adequately rationalized. It must be pointed out, how- ever, that his appreciation of his mother seems somewhat overdone, enough so to suggest that his idealization of her is based partly on bad conscience and is an attempt to undo hostility that was directed against her. One cannot be very optimistic about the prospects for Mack's forthcoming marriage. While on the one hand he wants more than any woman can give him, on the other hand, he feels it would be weak to ask his wife for anything at all. And this is not to mention the problem of how sex is to be introduced into the picture without spoiling it altogether. ?
It has already been suggested that Mack's strivings for power and status- his desire to "raise" himself-may be regarded as largely overcompensatory. Indeed, it would be very surprising if some kind of counteractive activity did not have a place among the devices he employs for overcoming the sense of weakness. From this point of view we can understand why it is that the needs for affiliation and recognition when they appear in the T. A. T. are expressed mainly as a desire for having the members of his group look up to him, and why being an officer in the DeMolay and in his class at business school is im- portant to him. The crucial role of the status drive in determining Mack's
general ideology was first indicated in the analysis of his remarks concerning vocation and income. There it seemed clear that for him "going up" meant
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
going up in a hierarchy; in his mind the existence of dominant groups and submerged groups was "natural" and, far from being concerned with chang- ing this state of affairs, his aim was to have membership in the groups that were dominant. This is something different from the ordinary, everyday desire to improve one's lot in a sociological sense. It seems that here again Mack's thinking about group relations is dominated by the rigid categories of "strong" and "weak. " In the light of the foregoing personality analysis we may say that, once again, Mack brings to his interpretation of group rela- tions images and attitudes which have remained unchanged since their genesis in the childhood relations with his father. That one was weak and the other strong was then the salient fact, and the persistence of this idea is a part of the fixation upon the traumatic situation of childhood. Since Mack could not con- ceive of himself opposing the irresistibly strong father, his attempt at a solu- tion was to convince himself that his father was "good" and so to align himself with him. This corresponds exactly with Mack's present approach to group relations. He does not oppose any group that is, in actuality, strong; instead, he argues that the strong ones are the good ones, and even while ad- miring and being subservient to them he overcomes weakness through gain- ing a sense of participation in their power.
This last is, of course, one aspect of the general attitude which we have termed authoritarian submission, and which we have previously seen to be an outstanding feature of Mack's manifest personality. To say that this atti- tude rests upon an attempt to overcome weakness through identification with power is to mention only one of its major sources. In so far as authori- tarian submission is a means for overcoming weakness it stands as a kind of defense against the underlying homosexual submission and passivity; it re- mains to be pointed out that this surface trend offers at the same time gratifi- cation for these very same needs. In glorifying strong groups and individuals -"father figures"-he is expressing the need for a father's love and support and guidance, for a God who is "strictly man, greater than any on this earth, one that would treat us as a father would his son. " Whereas most channels for the expression of this need are closed because they pass too close to weakness, it can in certain circumstances come into the open and be gratified: Chiefly when the strong man or strong group is strong enough, strong enough so that there is a chance for participation in real power and strong enough so that submission can be readily excused. If one should ask why Roosevelt, who was almost universally experienced in this country as a father figure, was not happily accepted and admired by Mack instead of being rejected as a "dictator," the answer would seem to be that he was not strong enough:7 he "would come off second best in a contest with Winnie," while as for Gen- eral Marshall, "nobody could alter his position. "
How authoritarian submission promotes political conservatism and moral 7 This point has been elaborated in Chapter XVII.
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY 805
conventionalism in this subject has been described in sufficient detail in Chap- ter II. Lacking a firmly internalized superego, a result of the failure to achieve a basic identification with the father, Mack looks outside of himself for guidance as to what to do and what not to do, and turns naturally to the authorities that seem strongest and most commonly accepted. He cannot, however, admit that this is the case, but clings to the illusion that he has a stubborn nature and is a man to make his own decisions.
This last suggests that Mack's relations with his authorities are not entirely harmonious, that he is not altogether comfortable with the arrangements that he has made. This is no more than we should expect from a consideration of the sources of his authoritarianism. It springs originally, as we have seen, from hostility toward his father. This hostility led to submission based on fear and, although -submission offers other rewards as well, the element of fearful neces- sity still has an important role in Mack's attitude toward authority. It is this circumstance that gives his adherence to conventional standards the aspect of rigidity; since they have never been fully integrated with the ego, it is neces- sary to adhere to them strictly lest they be thrown overboard altogether.
Mack's hostility against minority groups and other groups and individuals is almost always justified by him on moral grounds. And the morality to which he appeals is that of the external authorities to which he is subservient. His manifest aggression is, so to speak, in the name of authority. He arranges things so that his conscience and his deepest antisocial impulses operate in collaboration. But if we ask what is his conception of the outgroup and why it provokes him so we are led back to the same sources that gave rise to his conceptions and attitudes concerning ingroup authorities. Outgroups are hated, as we saw in Chapter II, for being selfishly and ruthlessly aggressive.
(That outgroups are also "weak" may be a logical contradiction, but it is not a psychological one; Mack's thinking about social and political matters is dominated by unconscious processes and, hence, cannot be expected to con- form with the rules of logic. 8) The power-seeking features of the outgroup, no less than the admirably strong aspects of the "good" ingroup, can be understood as derivatives of the infantile imagery of the father. Since Mack dared not oppose his father but could only submit to him, it became necessary to convince himself that the father was good. But this did not dissipate the original hostility against the father. Nor did Mack attempt to handle it by turning it against himself; one of the outstanding features of his case is the relative absence of self-criticism. What he did was displace the hostility onto outgroups; or better, the frustrating, punishing, persecutory features which had to be denied in the father were seen as originating in outgroups who could then be hated in safety, because they were not strong in actuality, and in good conscience, because the traits ascribed to them were those which the
8 Cf. Freud's discussion of "exemption from mutual contradiction" as one of the characteristics of unconscious processes.
? 8o6 THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
ingroup authorities would condemn. Thus it is that each "good" trait that the father is said to have is the opposite of a "bad" trait which belongs to the image of the Jew: while the father's "greatest contribution was denying him- self pleasures to take care of us kids" the Jews are not "interested in human- ity," while the father was renowned for his "honesty," one has to be careful of Jewish clothiers. At the same time, when it comes to the one trait in the father which Mack is almost inclined to criticize, that is, social withdrawal, one finds that it too looms large in the imagery of the Jew: they refuse "to mingle and become a part of our people," "they would rather be alone. " If the Jews have thus to bear the brunt of Mack's ambivalent feelings toward his father, there might be some comfort for them in the fact that his feelings toward them are also somewhat ambivalent. It may be recalled that Mack's explanation for what he supposes to be Jewish pressure on Congress and for the fact that Jews have been "fully repaid" for their part in the war effort is that "they are businessmen," and we know that he has nothing but admira- tion for businessmen, especially those who represent a "concentration of wealth in a certain class," i. e. , "the big capitalists. " Unfortunately, however, it is very doubtful that the Jews could ever benefit from the positive phase of Mack's ambivalence, for their supposed inability makes them more dan- gerous to him. The separation of the good father image from the bad is an essential of Mack's personality adjustment and he could no more see "good"
? in his image of the Jew than he can see "bad" in his father.
As far as our material goes the only outlets for the expression of aggression that Mack has is through his ethnocentrism, that is, through authoritarian
aggression against various kinds of outgroups. There is, however, one other. manifestation of underlying aggression which may afford some vent for his feelings, and that is cynicism. This prominent tendency in our subject has been described in Chapters II and VII. It seems clear enough now that its major source is the bottled-up resentment with which the present analysis has been so largely concerned. We must understand, however, that in cyni- cism the destructiveness is directed against the self as well as against the world. 9 It is not only that the subject's own aggressiveness is projected onto other people, who are then accused of being acquisitive and warlike, but con- tempt for other people seems to be closely related to contempt for himself. In Mack's case-and this probably holds generally for authoritarian personali- ties-the self-contempt derives from his sense of weakness and this, as we have seen, is the aftermath of his surrender to his father. This surrender can- not be wholly excused, and as long as he cannot permit himself to feel ag- ? gressive toward those who are actually strong, there will be a nagging re- minder that he, in reality, is weak. He tries to free himself from this thought
9 On the topic of cynicism Sanford, Conrad, and Franck (108) have published findings based on a questionnaire similar to those employed in the present study.
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY 807
by projecting the contemptibleness onto mankind, and thus there is some basis for saying that he hates others because he hates himself.
To complete the picture it is necessary to return now to the topic of Mack's dependence. The sense of deprivation that followed the loss of his mother, and the growing feelings that because of his weakness people might leave him out or take advantage of him, seem to have generated in him a general attitude of acquisitiveness and, more specifically, a feeling that somebody ought to give him something. The highest praise of mother, father, sister, or fiancee is that they gave or will give to him, and one of the major character- istics of "bad" people is that they are selfish or "not interested in humanity. " It is not difficult to infer that his concern with justice is primarily concern with getting something. A man who can speak sentimentally of justice in one breath and almost in the next speak of barring Hitler's victims from this country on the ground that they are "Europe's misfits" is hardly employing the term "justice" in its basic sense. But apparently his acquisitiveness en- counters his conventional moral standards and has to be reacted against. He is very careful to assure us that he has "repaid" what he got from others, and he is moralistically temperate in stating his objectives with respect to income. The importance of this conflict about acquisitiveness for Mack's social out- look lies in the fact that it supplies the basis for another accusation against outgroups. They are said to be "materialistic" and "money-minded. " This seems to be in part a projection, since outgroups are accused of doing exactly what he and his own group do but would like to deny, and in part a mere complaint about the fact that the world goes its own way without paying much attention to him and his wants.
A remarkable feature of Mack's dependence is that although it has been rendered ego-alien and as an unconscious force leads to the misjudgment and rejection of other people, so much of it still finds expression in behavior.
(This has been brought out in the above discussion of underlying depend- ence. ) This is testimony to his outstanding facility in rationalization, some- thing that is made possible, as it seems, by his unwillingess to look at himself.
This brings us to a place where we must consider Mack's stereotypy, a characteristic of his thinking that is highly pronounced and, clearly, of the greatest significance for his prejudice. In one sense, his stereotyped thinking about social phenomena seems to be related to his general attitude of anti- intraception and to be dependent, in part at least, upon the same underlying conditions. It might be said that one reason why Mack's explanations of social phenomena are so primitive and oversimplified (for example, differences among ethnic groups are categorical and due to differences in blood strain) is that he is unable to make any use of social or psychological theories of determination. This can hardly be due to a lack of intelligence or of informa- tion, for an examination of his interview leaves a strong impression that with regard to those factors he is above the average for college students. A stronger
? 8o8 THE AUTHORIT ARIAN PERSONALITY
argument could be made for the view that his is an educational deficiency, that he simply has not been subjected to instruction about man and society. But this is such a widespread phenomenon in this country that it can hardly be used to explain why Mack stands out from the group. Besides, he could have made some use of the social and psychological viewpoints that are available, but he chose not to. And, for that matter, the fact that anti-intra- ceptive education is so widespread has itself to be explained, and we can well believe that factors of individual psychology have an important role to play. In Mack's case at least there is a strong suggestion that he cannot reckon with either the sociology or the psychology of other people because he cannot examine the conditions or determinants of his own behavior. Ideas or observa- tions that would be necessary to lend breadth or depth to his view of the world or of himself cannot enter the picture, because they would arouse too much anxiety. It is as if-to put it somewhat dramatically-he can see only what he has seen before and learn only what he already knows. In our con- sideration of Mack's anti-intraception we were given reason to believe that he has to avoid introspection or attention to human factors in order to main- tain his sense of being tough-minded. The fuller analysis of his personality shows that his problem is much more serious: he has to deal with a variety of strong unconscious impulses which are not integrated with the ego and which he feels-not without good cause-might get out of hand. In short, the task of maintaining his repressions imposes a heavy burden upon him. This state of affairs has been described, in previous chapters, as ego weakness, and Mack's case offers an excellent illustration of this concept. The problems with which he was faced as a child-problems centering around the loss of his mother and the necessity for making an adjustment to the "distant" father -were too much, they were more than the undeveloped ego could handle. Primitive defenses, chiefly repression and countercathexis, were necessary; and since that time, the ego has had to devote so much energy to maintaining these defenses that it could not develop normally.
It remains narrow and con- stricted, in danger of being overwhelmed by emotional impulses from within or authoritative commands from without. Since the inner impulses are more to be feared than the outer authorities there is rigid adherence to the stand- ards of the latter, but since these authorities are not accepted in any funda- mental way this adherence could be given up altogether in circumstances that made it safe to do so. Since the traumatic experiences of childhood have not been integrated with the ego, the categories with which the child struc- tured the world have persisted, in more or less unmodified form, to dominate contemporary thinking. Since there is little that is truly inside the personality, there can be little tolerance of inner conflict and little self-criticism; instead there is an attitude of hostile watchfulness toward a world that is largely alien.
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY 809
C. THE CONTRASTING CASE OF LARRY
We may now tum to the case of Larry. A final appraisal of Mack and a judgment of the implications of his case can better be made after the two cases have been compared.
At the time of recording Larry's interview, the interviewer made the fol- lowing observations:
Larry is conventional, conservative, well-mannered, deferent, quiet, and a con- formist. Overtly he could be described as a passive, feminine type. He is a good example of the weak, unadjusted man who reads Dale Carnegie and becomes well- mannered, friendly, articulate, outgoing, but empty.
In appearance, he is slight, short, becoming bald-headed, rather feminine in gen- eral. He is openly dependent, highly articulate, and highly involved in the interview, making great effort, and appearing to enjoy it very much, remarking so especially at the end and being concerned with the general nature and purpose of the study. In spite of his highly conservative politics and his big-business personal goal, there is something very naive and unworldly about him.
The clinical section of Larry's interview follows.
(What were you like as a child? ) "I seldom got any spankings. I was very active and played a lot of games. I don't want to brag, but I was well liked, like by the neighborhood women, who said I was a nice boy, if you know what I mean. That was until I was about ro. But outside the home, like in school and the neighborhood, away from home, I was more mischievous. I got into little difficulties. My brother, who is two and a half years older than I, and I were always together. We were fighting, jealous of each other, then friendly, going to the show or something. He was huskier, more athletic; I was always small, still am. My brother was more studi- ous, conservative, wouldn't take chances, quiet. I admired him for this, for being a good big brother; for having a nice build, being nice looking, having good judg- ment; I admired him a lot, but I always maintained my own independence. "
(Early experiences? ) Age 3-an uncle passed away. "I remember his body in the house; it stayed there all day; then the hearse came and took it away. He used to hold me on his knee; I liked him a lot. I was the baby of the family. And his wife was especially nice. She used to pet me and play with me a lot. Then, another time- 1 guess about age 3 also-I remember wandering into the bull pen on the farm; and then the bull came for me, and the hired man just barely saved me, and I was really scared to death. I remember my mother's being there nearby and how scared she was too. Another memory I have, age 3 or 4, I remember how my brothers would catch rabbits on the farm. The rabbits would get into a lot of long pipes that we had in the back yard and my brothers would force the rabbits out with long poles and catch them as they came out the other end of the pipe. They would either knock them over the head as they came out, or sometimes they would catch them alive. What impressed me particularly was being able to touch a wild animal, and it couldn't run away, and I would rub its fur. Then, at the same period, on the farm, I have another memory, of sitting on a horse which belonged to my brothers and being held on it, half afraid and half jubilant over riding. "
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(Larry is extremely effortful here and apparently has thought about these things considerably. They come out fairly easily. )
(Experiences with father? ) "I remember at age 212 my father whipped my oldest brother very severely and my mother took all the children and went into town to separate from my father. I remember we went to the lawyer's office and had to stay there overnight because there was nowhere else. The next morning my father came in and found us, and he and my mother settled their differences. That's the only dif- ficulty that I've ever known between them. There's never been an argument since, they've gotten along swell. I've had a wonderful home. (Is father very severe? ) He wasn't strict in the sense of many rules, but when he told us to do something, we had to do it. We got few whippings, but when we did, they were plenty bad. (What about you? ) I didn't get as many as my brothers did. I'dmaneuver out of them. I didn't get any after the age of 12. I remember my brother got one even when he was 15. That was when I learned how to maneuver out of things-I just kept out of his way. When I was younger, I did whatever might avoid his punishment. My mother spanked us more often, but not so severely. W e feared our father through our mother, that is, we feared she'd tell him and he'd punish us. Her main threat was not 'I'll spank you,' but 'I'll tell your father. ' Her own spankings were so mild that we almost enjoyed them. "
(Fears? ) "I was afraid of the dark till age r6 or r8, my last years of high school, but I overcame it. I don't fear animals, except snakes, which I still fear and dislike. " (Nightmares? ) "I had them, but I don't recall any particular ones. " (Larry brought up nightmares himself, asking if that were a fear. ) "One fear I had was in a big farmhouse we lived in when I was a kid, and it creaked in the wind, and I'd lie awake for an hour or more, thinking someone was there and being afraid. I remem- ber lying awake sometimes most of the night; sometimes I'd go into my mother's
bed.
"I still have unpleasant dreams; I don't know if they're nightmares. One was that
my heart was stopping; or that I was sick and wouldn't get well. One was that my leg was getting amputated; I'd have to feel it just to see that it was still there. That was probablyon accountofthe war, though. Recently I dreamed I was awake, in bed, and someone was just about to grab me. I couldn't move or yell; I was just completely paralyzed there, but at the last minute I woke up. Or I'll dream that I can't see people or writing around me; it's like being blind. They can see, but I can't quite make things out. "
(Adolescence? ) "I went through it smoothly into manhood. I didn't notice any great change in my life. (Sex? ) No great problem. I thought about girls all the time, as boys will, and I looked at them. I started going out with them at about 15. I liked them a lot and associated with them at school and in the neighborhood. You know,
? you have the usual sexual desires, but you don't let them bother you. (Sex morals? ) I feel a girl should remain a virgin until2 r or 22 anyway. If she expects to marry soon after that, she should wait until after marriage, but if she is a career girl or doesn't want to get married, then an affair with an unmarried man is O. K. if they keep it quiet and secluded so the moral standards of others are not lowered. She should pick out one fellow to have a sex relation with, and not carry on with several. " (This is another example of Larry's highly articulate and theorized views on a subject. )
(You? ) "Not until after I came out of the hospital, when I was 2 3 or 24. Since then I've had several affairs, lasting a few weeks or a month. I won't marry until I have more security. She almost has to be a virgin, though not necessarily. I lost respect for the women I slept with. I know that's selfish, but I guess that's the way most fellows are. "
? GENETIC ASPECTS OF THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY 8I I
(Ideal wife? ) "She shouldn't work, no career. She should stay at home, love me, raise a family, not expect too much in the way of fine clothes and a good time. She should have a good reputation, be attractive, not taller than I, nor too short, say 2 or 3 inches shorter; she should be intelligent and a college graduate; congenial, easy to get along with, sympathetic, a good mother, stick with me through thin and thick, even if I get sick. She shouldn't drink to excess, but drinking moderately is all right. She shouldn't get too friendly with other men-you know how some married women put their arms around other men, and things like that-but she should be friendly with men. She should have a good home background, come from a good family. Wealth is immaterial. "
(Ideal husband? ) "He should give her happiness, through security, home, car, enjoyment and entertainment; money to travel, and so on. He should be a good father to the children, shouldn't give the wife any worries; he shouldn't get drunk, and he should be faithful to his wife. "
(Good father? ) "He should be devoted to his children, give them the proper clothing, food, education; he shouldn't spoil them, give them cars in high school, and like that; but be good to them; he should take them on vacations; discipline them in a kind but firm way, teach them the proper morals when they are young, and give them the right environment. "
(What were you good at in school? ) "History and economics. I wasn't very good or very bad at anything. I had a C plus average. I didn't work hard in high school; I just slid along. I liked sports, and I played basketball for four years in high school, although I was too slight and light to get very far. Languages were especially dif- ficult, and math. Then I went to junior college for a year; then I got sick and was in a sanitarium for four years. I got out, worked, and I've been back in school for a semester now. I'm living at a cooperative house. "
Most of the outstanding features of Larry's personality seem to belong to one or the other of two syndromes: the one centering around dependence, passivity, and feminine identification, the other around subservience to an internalized but relatively narrow and restricting superego. Both of these patterns are more pronounced in this subject than in most unprejudiced men. Whereas some acceptance of dependence, passivity, and femininity appears regularly in men who score low on the scales, Larry's "softness" would seem to be fairly extreme by any standard. His conservatism, conven- tionalism, and authoritarian aggression-trends which in his case can be at- tributed mainly to the superego-are sufficiently pronounced so that he exhibits a number of features which are found more commonly among high than among low scorers. He actually scores high on the PEC scale, and there is reason to believe that his liberal sentiments with respect to minority issues are of fairly recent origin. The contrasts between Larry and Mack are never- theless marked. The fact that the two men are similar in certain respects- passivity and conventionalism have loomed large in the discussion of Mack's case-should help us to see what circumstances made the crucial differences.
Numerous manifest traits of Larry's can be grouped on the basis that they express a general pattern of dependence, passivity, and feminine identifica- tion. He quite openly expresses his desire for understanding and support, and
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his readiness to accept the material help which he expects will be offered to him. He wants to be liked, and to this end he is prepared to inhibit aggression and to be generally pleasing in his relations with others. More than this, he wants pleasure and comfort and relaxation-and he wants to be assured of a bountiful and dependable source of supply. He has a basic "taking in" attitude toward the world. What prevents him from being grasping, it seems, is his conviction that there is plenty for everybody. This conviction even permits him to be generous. He wants everybody to have plenty and to be happy-himself included. What holds for material supplies holds also for people: he is ready to take them in too, that is, to be identified with them and to share their feelings, just as he is ready to give out his own feelings. This attitude leaves him sensitive to rejection, but? at the same time able to sympa- thize with those whom he conceives as downtrodden-an essential feature of his positive attitudes toward minority groups. Relatively free from the idea that softness might leave him open to attack, he is able to indulge in tendencies which in men like Mack are automatically associated with dan- gerous weakness: he can experience the human, emotional aspects of things; he can be subjective and introspective, enjoy fantasy life and "philosophiz- ing," admit having fears, anxieties, and doubts. Consistent with all this is the fact that he can have close relationships with women, whom he conceives to be not very different from himself.
These trends are on the surface in Larry; they are directly expressed in his overt behavior. The contrast with Mack lies in the fact that in him trends of this very same kind operate below the surface and he is very concerned to deny and counteract them. What is it that has made the difference? Most important, it would seem, were the differing circumstances connected with the childhood relationships with the mother. It was in this area that Mack was subjected to severely traumatic experiences, whereas Larry's early relation- ship with his mother was close and for the most part highly gratifying. Indeed the mother looms as the central figure in Larry's childhood. There is reason to believe that she took good care of him and that he became strongly attached to her. The attitude of love-seeking was carried over into his rela- tions with other women, whose love he sought to obtain and to hold by being a "good boy. " It seems that he is still bent on obtaining the kind of gratifica- tion he received as a child, and that to a considerable extent he succeeds in doing so-through having found modes of behavior that are more or less acceptable socially. (Mack, for his part, was forced to repress his dependent needs in childhood, and so was not able to find suitable modes for their expres- sion; hence, he remains comparatively frustrated, unhappy, and self-pitying. ) Larry is not, however, altogether secure with respect to the needs under dis- cussion. He did not receive enough gratification in childhood, nor does he receive enough now, so that he can take love and support for granted. He is still susceptible to frustration and sensitive to rejection: The circumstance of
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there being much but still not enough gratification would account, in large part, for Larry's identification with his mother in childhood. Identification was a means for getting close to her and holding on to her, and of protecting himself from having to feel rejected and hostile. It seems, however, that the identification is a comfortable one, and that it must have been based more upon love than upon fear.
An additional reason why Larry is able to be comfortable and relaxed with his feminine identification lies in the fact that his mother was to a suf- ficient extent strong and protective. We are told that when the father was too hard on one of the boys, the mother took all the children and went to see her lawyer. She thus made it plain that she was not afraid to oppose the father and that she was a real source of protection. Larry could be on the side of this woman, be identified with her, without feeling that he was plac- ing himself in a hopelessly weak position. This is in crucial contrast to Mack and many other prejudiced men, who cannot possibly come close to or be identified with the mother, no matter how "sweet" or "devoted" she might be, because she is conceived as too weak or inconsequential. Apparently, it is easier for a boy to identify himself with a feminine role, which he associates with the weakness and suffering of the underdog, when the weakness is not seen as hopeless nor the suffering as intolerable.
But if Larry's passivity and amiability is mainly a derivative of his child- hood dependence on the mother, it has at the same time another function within the personality. It serves as a defense against his underlying aggressive impulses. Several of his responses in the interview and to the Projective Questions seem to show a particular concern with the inhibition of aggres- sion, e. g. , after describing the good time he would have if he had only six months to live, he adds "all this without hurting anyone"; and "a feeling that I have hurt someone" is one of the moods or feelings most disturbing to him. His concern with "true comradeship" and his solicitude for persecuted peo- ple suggest that, to some extent at least, he loves in order that he might not hate. The hypothesis of underlying aggression is supported by the T. A. T. , which gives evidence of "strong underlying hostile impulses. " These im- pulses are- directed both against women and against men. Hostility against women is aroused by rejection or the threat of it, and can be understood as an aspect of the mother-dependence discussed above. (This is different from Mack, whose aggression against women is aroused by the fear that they might drag him down to their level. ) Hostility against men is fused with antisocial rebellion, and the conflict between these tendencies on the one hand and the demands of conscience on the other is much more intense than is common among low-scoring men. Here, it appears, Larry is expressing attitudes built up on the basis of experiences with his father. There is nothing in the inter- view material to indicate that the father was unusually provoking, but he certainly enforced his will, administered some whippings, and was cast by
? THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
the mother in the role of feared disciplinarian. This would be reason enough why Larry should have hostile and rebellious feelings. More than this, the T. A. T. offers the strong suggestion that Larry reproaches his father for not loving him enough, and that part of the interview in which Larry tells what a father should be seems to be in keeping with this suggestion. But what is particularly important, Larry must also have loved his father and become to some extent identified with him. This would account for the fact that rebel- lious aggression goes against Larry's conscience and leaves him feeling_guilty and remorseful. It is to ward off such feelings that he must praise his father, remain subservient to his family's ideals, and exhibit other conservative tend- encies more characteristic of high-scoring men. This brings us to the most crucial differences between Larry and Mack. The two subjects differ in the quality and intensity of their aggression and in the way of dealing with it. Larry takes responsibility for his aggression; though it is not conscious now, it seems to have been conscious at one time so that he could actually imagine himself taking revenge in one way or another upon his father. With Mack, as we have seen, the aggression appears to be out of touch with the rest of the personality; it is something which is entirely disclaimed, but which might suddenly explode in a blindly impulsive way.
