“Identifying with the aggressor”: From the authoritarian to neoliberal personality

Abstract

This chapter seeks to provide a preliminary reconstruction of the concept of the “Authoritarian Personality”, which Theodor W. Adorno developed in collaboration with Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford, to try to understand the latent potential for fascism in the United States in the post-war period culminating in the eponymously titled volume published in the “Studies in Prejudice” Series. In contrast with the burgeoning contributions to the direct and largely uncritical appropriation and application of the concept in connection with the rise of the far-right, symbolized by Donald J. Trump, the current chapter urges some caution. More specifically, it argues that some of its key sociological and psychological assumptions need to be rethought. The concept of state capitalism needs to be supplanted with an analysis of neoliberalism. Moreover, the oedipal premises of orthodox Freudian psychoanalysis must be supplanted by a more dialogical and relational conception of the “identification with the aggressor” drawn from the work of Sandor Ferenczi.