The Frankfurt School on Sources of Anti-Semitism and Other Nazi Psychoses

Am finally reading the nearly 1000-page 'Authoritarian Personality,' a project of 'the Frankfurt School' broadly construed. My G-d, what a tour de force...

If you think you know 'critical theory' or 'cultural Marxism' (the latter term a reactionary misnomer) and are not familiar with this work, please consider a 'reset' by first (a) provisionally suspending all presuppositions, then (b) reading IN or ALL OF this work (even Adorno's and Peter Gordon's introductory reflections alone, or just the table of contents, will prove eye-opening), and finally (c) reconstructing your 'hot take' into a new 'COOL, CALM, COLLECTED take.'

Relentlessly interdisciplinary (philosophy, political-economy, psychology, social psychology, sociology, anthropology, ...), relentlessly empirical (qualitative AND quantitative empirical), and not only 'in spite of that' but IN VIRTUE OF that a most penetrating coherent whole, the work is a monument to what a serious 'research program' can be.

And one key upshot, defenders of Israel and of Jewish political self-determination more broadly will find, is how readily pretty much EVERYTHING found here about Nazi-era anti-semitism carries over to contemporary social-hysterical 'anti-Zionism.' Hardly surprising, when you think about it, but fascinating in its comprehensive 'phenomenology' nonetheless.

How have I never read this before, even after hearing of it quite often from my first undergraduate political psychology course onward? Bad boy.