Chapter XVI

 

Prejudice in the Interview Material

A. Introduction

Our study grew out of specific investigations into anti-Semitism. As our work advanced, however, the emphasis gradually shifted. We came to regard it as our main task not to analyze anti-Semitism or any other antiminority prejudice as a sociopsychological phenomenon per se, but rather to examine the relation of antiminority prejudice to broader ideological and characterological patterns. Thus anti-Semitism gradually all but disappeared as a topic of our questionnaire and in our interview schedule it was only one among many topics which had to be covered.

Another investigation, carried through parellel to our research and partly by the same staff members of the Institute of Social Research, i.e., the study on anti-Semitism within labor,¹ concentrated on the question of anti-Semitism, but at the same time was concerned with sociopsychological issues akin to those presented in the present volume. While the bulk of the material to be discussed in this chapter is taken from the section on prejudice of the Berkeley interviews, an attempt was made to utilize, at least in a supplementary form, some of the ideas of the Labor Study as hypotheses for further investigation. This was done as a part of the work carried out in Los Angeles. In collaboration with J.F. Brown and F[rederick] Pollock we drew up an additional section of the interview schedule devoted to specific questions about Jews. These questions were derived for the most part from the material gathered through the »screened interviews« of the Labor Study. The aim of this new section of the interview schedule was to see if it was possible to establish certain differential patterns within the general structure of prejudice. The list of questions follows. Not all of these questions were put to every subject, nor was the exact wording of the questions always the same, but most of the ground marked off by the questions was covered in each case.

 

List of Questions Pertaining to Jews

Do you think there is a Jewish problem? If yes, in what sense? Do you care about it?

Have you had any experience with Jews? What kind? Do you remember names of persons involved and other specific data?

If not, on what is your opinion based?

Did you have any contrary experiences (or hear about such experiences) with Jewish individuals?

If you had – would it change your opinion? If not, why not?

Can you tell a Jew from other people? How?

What do you know about the Jewish religion?

Are there Christians that are as bad as Jews? Is their percentage as high or higher than the percentage of bad Jews?

How do Jews behave at work? What about the alleged Jewish industriousness?

Is it true that the Jews have an undue influence in movies, radio, literature, and universities?

If yes – what is particularly bad about it? What should be done about it?

Is it true that the Jews have an undue influence in business, politics, labor, etc.?

If yes – what kind of an influence? Should something be done to curb it?

What did the Nazis do to the German Jews? What do you think about it? Is there such a problem here? What would you do to solve it?

What do you blame them most for? Are they: aggressive, bad-mannered; controlling the banks; black marketeers; cheating; Christ killers; clannish; Communists; corrupting; dirty; draft dodgers; exploiters; hiding their identity; too intellectual; Internationalists; overcrowding many jobs; lazy; controlling movies; money-minded; noisy; overassimilative; overbearing; oversexed; looking for privileges; quarrelsome; running the country; too smart; spoiling nice neighborhoods; owning too many stores; undisciplined; unethical against Gentiles; upstarts; shunning hard manual labor; forming a world conspiracy?

Do you favor social discrimination or special legislation?

Shall a Jew be treated as an individual or as a member of a group?

How do your suggestions go along with constitutional rights?

Do you object to personal contacts with individual Jews?

Do you consider Jews more as a nuisance or more as a menace?

Could you imagine yourself marrying a Jew?

Do you like to discuss the Jewish issue?

What would you do if you were a Jew?

Can a Jew ever become a real American?

 

The additional interview material taught us more about prevailing overt patterns of anti-Semitism than about its inner dynamics. It is probably fair to say that the detailed questions proved most helpful in understanding the phenomena of psychological conflict in prejudice – the problems characterized in Chapter V^[2] as »pseudo-democratism.« Another significant observation has to do with the reactions of our interviewees to the list of »bad Jewish traits« presented to them. Most answers to this list read »all-inclusive,« that is to say, very little differentiation takes place. The prejudiced subjects tend to subscribe to any reproach against the Jews, provided they do not have to produce these objections themselves but rather find them pre-established, as if they were commonly accepted. This observation could be interpreted in different ways. Either it may be indicative of the »inner consistency« of anti-Semitic ideology, or it may testify to the mental rigidity of our high scorers, and this apart from the fact that the method of multiple choice may itself make for automatic reactions. Although our questionnaire studies gave evidence of marked consistency within anti-Semitic ideology, it would hardly be enough to account for the all-inclusiveness of the present responses. It seems that one must think in terms of automatization, though it is impossible to say conclusively whether this is due to the »high« mentality or to the shortcomings of our procedure. In all probability, the presentation of extreme anti-Semitic statements as if they were no longer disreputable but rather something which can be sensibly discussed, works as a kind of antidote for the superego and may stimulate imitation even in cases where the individual's »own« reactions would be less violent. This consideration may throw some light upon the phenomenon of the whole German people tolerating the most extreme anti-Semitic measures, although it is highly to be doubted that the individuals themselves were more anti-Semitic than our high-scoring subjects. A pragmatic inference to be drawn from this hypothesis would be that, in so far as possible, pseudorational discussions of anti-Semitism should be avoided. One might refute factual anti-Semitic statements or explain the dynamics responsible for anti-Semitism, but he should not enter the sphere of the »Jewish problem.« As things stand now, the acknowledgment of a »Jewish problem,« after the European genocide, suggests, however subtly, that there might have been some justification for what the Nazis did.

The whole material on ideology has been taken from 63 Los Angeles interviews in addition to the pertinent sections of those gathered in Berkeley (see Chapter IX).^[3]

It should be stressed that once again the subjective aspect is in the foreground. The selection of our sample excluded an investigation into the role played by the »object« – that is to say, the Jews – in the formation of prejudice. We do not deny that the object plays a role, but we devote our attention to the forms of reaction directed towards the Jew, not to the basis of these reactions within the »object.« This is due to a hypothesis with which we started and which has been given strong support in Chapter III,^[4] namely, that anti-Semitic prejudice has little to do with the qualities of those against whom it is directed. Our interest is centered in the high-scoring subjects.

In organizing the present chapter, we start with the general assumption that the – largely unconscious – hostility resulting from frustration and repression and socially diverted from its true object, needs a substitute object through which it may obtain a realistic aspect and thus dodge, as it were, more radical manifestations of a blocking of the subject's relationship to reality, e.g., psychosis. This »object« of unconscious destructiveness, far from being a superficial »scapegoat,« must have certain characteristics in order to fulfill its role. It must be tangible enough; and yet not too tangible, lest it be exploded by its own realism. It must have a sufficient historical backing and appear as an indisputable element of tradition. It must be defined in rigid and well-known stereotypes. Finally, the object must possess features, or at least be capable of being perceived and interpreted in terms of features, which harmonize with the destructive tendencies of the prejudiced subject. Some of these features, such as »clannishness« aid rationalization; others, such as the expression of weakness or masochism, provide psychologically adequate stimuli for destructiveness. There can be hardly any doubt that all these requirements are fulfilled by the phenomenon of the Jew. This is not to say that Jews must draw hatred upon themselves, or that there is an absolute historical necessity which makes them, rather than others, the ideal target of social aggressiveness. Suffice it to say that they can perform this function in the psychological households of many people. The problem of the »uniqueness« of the Jewish phenomenon and hence of anti-Semitism could be approached only by recourse to a theory which is beyond the scope of this study. Such a theory would neither enumerate a diversity of »factors« nor single out a specific one as »the« cause but rather develop a unified framework within which all the »elements« are linked together consistently. This would amount to nothing less than a theory of modern society as a whole.

We shall first give some evidence of the »functional« character of anti-Semitism, that is to say, its relative independence of the object. Then we shall point out the problem of cui bono: anti-Semitism as a device for effortless »orientation« in a cold, alienated, and largely ununderstandable world. As a parallel to our analysis of political and economic ideologies, it will be shown that this »orientation« is achieved by stereotypy. The gap between this stereotypy on the one hand and real experience and the still-accepted standards of democracy on the other, leads to a conflict situation, something which is clearly set forth in a number of our interviews. We then take up what appears to be the resolution of this conflict: the underlying anti-Semitism of our cultural climate, keyed to the prejudiced person's own unconscious or preconscious wishes, proves in the more extreme cases to be stronger than either conscience or official democratic values. This leads up to the evidence of the destructive character of anti-Semitic reactions. As remnants of the conflict, there remain traces of sympathy for, or rather »appreciation« of, certain Jewish traits which, however, when viewed more closely, also show negative implications.

Some more specific observations about the structure of anti-Jewish prejudice will be added. Their focal point is the differentiation of anti-Semitism according to the subject's own social identifications. This survey of anti-Semitic features and dynamics will then be supplemented by a few remarks on the attitudes of low-scoring subjects. Finally, we shall offer some evidence of the broader social significance of anti-Semitism: its intrinsic denial of the principles of American democracy.

B. The »Functional« Character of Anti-Semitism

 

The psychological dynamisms that »call for« the anti-Semitic outlet – most essentially, we believe, the ambivalence of authoritarian and rebellious trends – have been analyzed in detail in other sections of this book. Here we limit ourselves to some extreme but concrete evidence of the fact that anti-Semitism is not so much dependent upon the nature of the object as upon the subject's own psychological wants and needs.

There are a number of cases in which the »functional« character of prejudice is obvious. Here we find subjects who are prejudiced per se, but with whom it is relatively accidental against what group their prejudice is directed. We content ourselves with two examples. 5051 is a generally high-scoring man, one of a few Boy Scout leaders. He has strong, though unconscious, fascist leanings. Although anti-Semitic, he tries to mitigate his bias by certain semirational qualifications. Here, the following statement occurs:

 

»Sometimes we hear that the average Jew is smarter in business than the average white man. I do not believe this. I would hate to believe it. What the Jews should learn is to educate their bad individuals to be more cooperative and agreeable. Actually there is more underhandedness amongst Armenians than there is amongst Jews, but the Armenians aren't nearly as conspicuous and noisy. Mind you, I have known some Jews whom I consider my equal in every way and I like very much.«

 

This is somewhat reminiscent of Poe's famous story about the double murder in the Rue Morgue where the savage cries of an orangutan are mistaken by bystanders as words of all kinds of different foreign languages, to wit, languages particularly strange to each of the listeners who happen to be foreigners themselves. The primary hostile reaction is directed against foreigners per se, who are perceived as »uncanny.« This infantile fear of the strange is only subsequently »filled up« with the imagery of a specific group, stereotyped and handy for this purpose. The Jews are favorite stand-ins for the child's »bad man.« The transference of unconscious fear to the particular object, however, the latter being of a secondary nature only, always maintains an aspect of accidentalness. Thus, as soon as other factors interfere, the aggression may be deflected, at least in part, from the Jews and to another group, preferably one of still greater social distance. Pseudodemocratic ideology and the professed desire to promote militantly what he conceives to be American ideals are marked in our Boy Scout leader, 5051, and he considers himself not conservative but »predominantly liberal«; hence he tempers his anti-Semitism and anti-Negroism by referring to a third group. He summons the Armenians in order to prove that he is not »prejudiced,« but at the same time his formulation is such that the usual anti-Semitic stereotypes can easily be maintained. Even his exoneration of the Jews with regard to their supposed »smartness« is actually a device for the glorification of the ingroup: he hates to think that »we are less smart than they.« While anti-Semitism is functional with regard to the object choice on a more superficial level, its deeper determinants still seem to be much more rigid.

An extreme case of what might be called »mobile« prejudice is M 1225a, of the Maritime School group. Though his questionnaire scores are only medium, the interview shows strong traces of a »manipulative« anti-Semite. The beginning of the minorities section of his interview is as follows:

 

(What do you think of the race-minority problem?) »I definitely think there is a problem. I'd probably be prejudiced there. Like the Negro situation. They could act more human. ... It would be less of a problem.«

 

His aggression is absorbed by the Negroes, in the »idiosyncratic« manner that can otherwise be observed among extreme anti-Semites, all of whose aggression appears to be directed against Jews.

 

»I wouldn't sail on a ship if I had to sail with a Negro. To me, they have an offensive smell. Course, the Chinese say we smell like sheep.«

 

It may be mentioned that a subject of the Labor Study, a Negro woman, complained about the smell of the Jews. The present subject concentrates on the Negroes, exonerating the Jews, though in an equivocal way:

 

(What about the Jewish problem?) »I don't believe there is much of a problem there. They're too smart to have a problem. Well, they are good business men.« (Too much influence?) »I believe they have a lot of influence.« (In what areas?) »Well, motion picture industry.« (Do they abuse it?) »Well, the thing you hear an awful lot about is help the Jews, help the Jews. But you never hear anything about helping other races or nationalities.« (Do they abuse their influence in the movies?) »If they do, they do it in such a way that it is not offensive.«

 

Here again, anti-Semitic stereotypy is maintained descriptively whereas the shift of actual hatred to the Negroes – which cannot be accounted for by the course of the interview – affects the superimposed value judgments. The twist with regard to the term »problem« should be noted. By denying the existence of a »Jewish problem,« he consciously takes sides with the unbiased. By interpreting the word, however, as meaning »having difficulties,« and emphasizing that the Jews are »too smart to have a problem,« he expresses unwittingly his own rejection. In accordance with his »smartness« theory, his pro-Jewish statements have a rationalistic ring clearly indicative of the subject's ambivalence: all race hatred is »envy« but he leaves little doubt that in his mind there is some reason for this envy, e.g., his acceptance of the myth that the Jews controlled German industry.

This interview points to a way in which our picture of ethnocentrism may be differentiated. Although the correlation between anti-Semitism and anti-Negroism is undoubtedly high, a fact which stands out in our interviews as well as in our questionnaire studies (cf. Chapter IV),^[5] this is not to say that prejudice is a single compact mass. Readiness to accept statements hostile to minority groups may well be conceived as a more or less unitary trait, but when, in the interview situation, subjects are allowed to express themselves spontaneously it is not uncommon for one minority more than the others to appear, for the moment at least, as an object of special hatred. This phenomenon may be elucidated by reference to persecution mania which, as has been pointed out frequently, has many structural features in common with anti-Semitism. While the paranoid is beset by an over-all hatred, he nevertheless tends to »pick« his enemy, to molest certain individuals who draw his attention upon themselves: he falls, as it were, negatively in love. Something similar may hold good for the potentially fascist character. As soon as he has achieved a specific and concrete countercathexis, which is indispensable to his fabrication of a social pseudoreality, he may »canalize« his otherwise free-floating aggressiveness and then leave alone other potential objects of persecution. Naturally, these processes come to the fore in the dialectics of the interview rather than in the scales, which hardly allow the subject freely to »express« himself.

It may be added that subjects in our sample find numerous other substitutes for the Jew, such as the Mexicans and the Greeks. The latter, like the Armenians, are liberally endowed with traits otherwise associated with the imagery of the Jew.

One more aspect of the »functional« character of anti-Semitism should be mentioned. We encountered quite frequently members of other minority groups, with strong »conformist« tendencies, who were outspokenly anti-Semitic. Hardly any traces of solidarity among the different outgroups could be found. The pattern is rather one of »shifting the onus,« of defamation of other groups in order to put one's own social status in a better light. An example is 5023, a »psychoneurotic with anxiety state,« Mexican by birth:

 

Being an American of Mexican ancestry, he identifies with the white race and feels »we are superior people.« He particularly dislikes the Negroes and completely dislikes Jews. He feels that they are all alike and wants as little as possible to do with them. Full of contradiction as this subject is, it is not surprising to find that he would marry a Jewess if he really loved her. On the other hand he would control both Negroes and Jews and »keep them in their place.«

 

5068 is regarded by the interviewer as representing a »pattern probably quite frequent in second-generation Americans who describe themselves as Italian-Americans.« His prejudice is of the politico-fascist brand, distinctly colored by paranoid fantasies:

 

He is of pure Italian extraction and naturalized here at the time of the first World War. He is very proud of this extraction and for a long time in the early days of Mussolini was active in Italian-American organizations. He still feels that the war against Italy was very unfortunate. Concerning the other minorities he is quite prejudiced. The Mexicans he feels are enough like the Italians so that if they were educated enough it would be all right. At the present time, however, he feels that they need much education. He believes that the California Japanese were more than correctly handled and that those about whom there is no question should be gradually allowed back. He described the Negro situation as a tough one. He believes there should be definite laws particularly with regard to racial intermarriage and that the color line should also be drawn »regarding where people can live.« »Despite what they say, the Southern Negroes are really the happiest one.« »The trouble with Jews is that they are all Communists and for this reason dangerous.« His own relations with them have only been fair. In his business relations he says they are »chiselers« and »stick together.« Concerning a solution to this problem, he says, »The Jews should actually educate their own. The way the Jews stick together shows that they actually have more prejudice against the Gentiles than the Gentiles have against them.« He illustrates this with a long story which I was not able to get in detail about some acquaintance of his who married into a Jewish family and was not allowed to eat off the same dishes with them.

 

We may mention, furthermore, 5052, an anti-Semitic man of Spanish-Negro descent, with strong homosexual tendencies. He is a nightclub entertainer, and the interviewer summarizes his impression in the statement that this man wants to say, »I am not a Negro, I am an entertainer.« Here the element of social identification in an outcast is clearly responsible for his prejudice.

Finally, reference should be made to a curiosity, the interview of a Turk, otherwise not evaluated because of his somewhat subnormal intelligence. He indulged in violent anti-Semitic diatribes until it came out near the end of the interview that he was Jewish himself. The whole complex of anti-Semitism among minority groups, and among Jews themselves, offers serious problems and deserves a study of its own. Even the casual observations provided by our sample suffice to corroborate the suspicion that those who suffer from social pressure may frequently tend to transfer this pressure onto others rather than to join hands with their fellow victims.

C. The Imaginary Foe

 

Our examples of the »functional« character of anti-Semitism, and of the relative ease by which prejudice can be switched from one object to another, point in one direction: the hypothesis that prejudice, according to its intrinsic content, is but superficially, if at all, related to the specific nature of its object. We shall now give more direct support for this hypothesis, the relation of which to clinical categories such as stereotypy, incapacity to have »experience,« projectivity, and power fantasies is not far to seek. This support is supplied by statements which are either plainly self-contradictory or incompatible with facts and of a manifestly imaginary character. Since the usual »self-contradictions« of the anti-Semite can, however, frequently be explained on the basis that they involve different layers of reality and different psychological urges which are still reconcilable in the over-all »Weltanschauung« of the anti-Semite, we concern ourselves here mainly with evidence of imaginary constructs. The fantasies with which we shall deal are so well known from everyday life that their significance for the structure of anti-Semitism can be taken for granted. They are merely highlighted by our research. One might say that these fantasies occur whenever stereotypes »run wild,« that is to say, make themselves completely independent from interaction with reality. When these »emancipated« stereotypes are forcibly brought back into relation with reality, blatant distortions appear. The content of the examples of stereotyped fantasy which we collected has to do predominantly with ideas of excessive power attributed to the chosen foe. The disproportion between the relative social weakness of the object and its supposed sinister omnipotence is by itself evidence that the projective mechanism is at work.

We shall first give some examples of omnipotence fantasies projected upon a whole outgroup abstractly, as it were, and then show how the application of such ideas to factual experience comes close to paranoid delusion.

5054, a middle-aged woman with fairly high scores on all the scales, who is greatly concerned with herself and characterized by a »domineering« manner, claims that she has always tried »to see the other side« and even to »fight prejudice on every side.« She derives her feelings of tolerance from the contrast with her husband whom she characterized as extremely anti-Jewish (he hates all Jews and makes no exceptions) whereas she is willing to make exceptions. Her actual attitude is described as follows:

 

She would not subscribe to a »racist theory,« but does not think that the Jews will change much, but rather that they will tend to become »more aggressive.« She also believes that »they will eventually run the country, whether we like it or not.«

 

The usual stereotype of undue Jewish influence in politics and economy is inflated to the assertion of threatening over-all domination. It is easy to guess that the countermeasures which such subjects have in mind are no less totalitarian than their persecution ideas, even if they do not dare to say so in so many words.

Similar is case 5061a, chosen as a mixed case (she is high-middle on E, but low on F and PEC), but actually, as proved by the interview, markedly ethnocentric. In her statement, the vividness of the fantasies about the almighty Jew seems to be equalled by the intensity of her vindictiveness.

 

»My relations with the Jews have been anything but pleasant.« When asked to be more specific it was impossible for her to name individual incidents. She described them, however, as »pushing everybody about, aggressive, clannish, moneyminded. ... The Jews are practically taking over the country. They are getting into everything. It is not that they are smarter, but they work so hard to get control. They are all alike.« When asked if she did not feel that there were variations in the Jewish temperament as in any other, she said, »No, I don't think so. I think there is something that makes them all stick together and try to hold on to everything. I have Jewish friends and I have tried not to treat them antagonistically, but sooner or later they have also turned out to be aggressive and obnoxious. ... I think the percentage of very bad Jews is very much greater than the percentage of bad Gentiles. ... My husband feels exactly the same way on this whole problem. As a matter of fact, I don't go as far as he does. He didn't like many things about Hitler, but he did feel that Hitler did a good job on the Jews. He feels that we will come in this country to a place where we have to do something about it.«

 

Sometimes the projective aspect of the fantasies of Jewish domination comes into the open. Those whose half-conscious wishes culminate in the idea of the abolition of democracy and the rule of the strong, call those antidemocratic whose only hope lies in the maintenance of democratic rights. 5018 is a 32-year-old ex-marine gunnery sergeant who scores high on all the scales. He is suspected by the interviewer of being »somewhat paranoid.« He knows »one cannot consider Jews a race, but they are all alike. They have too much power but I guess it's really our fault.« This is followed up by the statement:

 

He would handle the Jews by outlawing them from business domination. He thinks that all others who feel the same could get into business and compete with them and perhaps overcome them, but adds, »it would be better to ship them to Palestine and let them gyp one another. I have had some experiences with them and a few were good soldiers but not very many.« The respondent went on to imply that lax democratic methods cannot solve the problem because »they won't cooperate in a democracy.«

 

The implicitly antidemocratic feelings of this subject are evidenced by his speaking derogatorily about lax democratic methods: his blaming the Jews for lack of democratic cooperation is manifestly a rationalization.

One more aspect of unrealistic imagery of the Jew should at least be mentioned. It is the contention that the Jews »are everywhere.« Omnipresence sometimes displaces omnipotence, perhaps because no actual »Jewish rule« can be pretended to exist, so that the image-ridden subject has to seek a different outlet for his power fantasy in ideas of dangerous, mysterious ubiquity. This is fused with another psychological element. To the highly prejudiced subject the idea of the total right of the ingroup, and of its tolerating nothing which does not strictly »belong,« is all-pervasive. This is projected upon the Jews. Whereas the high scorer apparently cannot stand any »intruder« – ultimately nothing that is not strictly like himself – he sees this totality of presence in those whom he hates and whom he feels justified in exterminating because one otherwise »could not get rid of them.« The following example shows the idea of Jewish omnipresence applied to personal experience, thus revealing its proximity to delusion.

6070, a 40-year-old woman, is high-middle on the E scale and particularly vehement about the Jews:

 

»I don't like Jews. The Jew is always crying. They are taking our country over from us. They are aggressive. They suffer from every lust. Last summer I met the famous musician X, and before I really knew him he wanted me to sign an affidavit to help bring his family into this country. Finally I had to flatly refuse and told him I want no more Jews here. Roosevelt started bringing the Jews into the government, and that is the chief cause of our difficulties today. The Jews arranged it so they were discriminated for in the draft. I favor a legislative discrimination against the Jews along American, not Hitler lines. Everybody knows that the Jews are back of the Communists. This X person almost drove me nuts. I had made the mistake of inviting him to be my guest at my beach club. He arrived with ten other Jews who were uninvited. They always cause trouble. If one gets in a place, he brings two more and those two bring two more.«

 

This quotation is remarkable for more reasons than that it exemplifies the »Jews are everywhere« complex. It is the expression of Jewish weakness – that they are »always crying« – which is perverted into ubiquity. The refugee, forced to leave his country, appears as he who wants to intrude and to expand over the whole earth, and it is hardly too far-fetched to assume that this imagery is at least partly derived from the fact of persecution itself. Moreover, the quotation gives evidence of a certain ambivalence of the extreme anti-Semite which points in the direction of »negatively falling in love.« This woman had invited the celebrity to her club, doubtless attracted by his fame, but used the contact, once it had been established, merely in order to personalize her aggressiveness.

Another example of the merging of semipsychotic idiosyncrasies and wild anti-Jewish imagery is the 26-year-old woman, 5004. She scores high on the F scale and high-middle on E and PEC. Asked about Jewish religion, she produces an answer which partakes of the age-old image of »uncannyness.« »I know very little, but I would be afraid to go into a synagogue.« This has to be evaluated in relation to her statement about Nazi atrocities:

 

»I am not particularly sorry because of what the Germans did to the Jews. I feel Jews would do the same type of thing to me.«

 

The persecution fantasy of what the Jews might do to her, is used, in authentic paranoid style, as a justification of the genocide committed by the Nazis.

Our last two examples refer to the distortions that occur when experience is viewed through the lens of congealed stereotypy. M 732c of the Veterans Group, who scores generally high on the scales, shows this pattern of distorted experience with regard to both Negroes and Jews. As to the former:

 

»You never see a Negro driving (an ordinary car of which subject mentions a number of examples) but only a Cadillac or a Packard. ... They always dress gaudy. They have that tendency to show off. ... Since the Negro has that feeling that he isn't up to par, he's always trying to show off. ... Even though he can't afford it, he will buy an expensive car just to make a show. ...« Subject mentions that the brightest girl in a class at subject's school happens to be a Negro and he explains her outstandingness in the class in terms of Negro overcompensation for what he seems to be implying is her inherent inferiority.

 

The assertion about the Negro's Cadillac speaks for itself. As to the story about the student, it indicates in personalized terms the aspect of inescapability inherent in hostile stereotypy. To the prejudiced, the Negro is »dull«; if he meets, however, one of outstanding achievement, it is supposed to be mere overcompensation, the exception that proves the rule. No matter what the Negro is or does, he is condemned.

As to the »Jewish problem«:

 

»As far as being good and shrewd businessmen, that's about all I have to say about them. They're white people, that's one thing. ... Of course, they have the Jewish instinct, whatever that is. ... I've heard they have a business nose. ... I imagine the Jewish people are more obsequious. ... For example, somehow a Jewish barber will entice you to come to his chair.« Subject elaborates here a definite fantasy of some mysterious influence by Jews. ... »They're mighty shrewd businessmen, and you don't have much chance« (competing with Jews).

 

The story about the barber seems to be a retrogression towards early infantile, magical patterns of thinking.

F 359, a 48-year-old accountant in a government department, is, according to the interviewer, a cultured and educated woman. This, however, does not keep her from paranoid story-telling as soon as the critical area of race relations, which serves as a kind of free-for-all, is entered. (She is in the high quartile on E, though low on both F and PEC.) Her distortions refer both to Negroes and to Jews:

 

Subject considers this a very serious problem and she thinks that it is going to get worse. The Negroes are going to get worse. She experienced a riot in Washington; there was shooting; street-car windows were broken, and when a white would get into the Negro section of the car, the shooting would start. The white man would have to lie on the floor. She did not dare to go out at night. One day the Negroes were having a procession and some of them started pushing her off the sidewalk. When she asked them not to push, they looked so insolent that she thought they would start a riot, and her companion said, »Let's get out of here or we will start a riot.« A friend of hers told her that she had asked her maid to work on a Thursday, but the maid had refused because she said it was »push and shove« day – the day they shoved the whites off the sidewalk. Another friend of hers in Los Angeles told her not to let her maid use her vacuum cleaner because they tamper with it in such a way as to cause it to tear your rugs. One day she caught the maid using a file on her vacuum cleaner and asked her what she was doing. The maid replied, »›Oh, I'm just trying to fix this thing.‹ They just want to get revenge on whites. One cannot give them equal rights yet, they are not ready for it; we will have to educate them first.« Subject would not want to sit next to a Negro in a theatre or restaurant. She cited the case of a drugstore man who addressed a Negro janitor, a cleaner, as »Mr.« »You just can't do that to them or they will say, ›Ah'm as good as white folks.‹« (Outcome?) »I think there will be trouble.« She expects riots and bloodshed.

(Jews?) »Well, they are to blame too, I think. They just cannot do business straight, they have to be underhanded – truth has no meaning for them in business.« ('What has been your personal experience?) She cited the case of a friend who is interested in photography and bought some second-hand cameras from pawn shops. One day when he was in one, a woman came in with a set of false teeth. She was told that they were not worth anything (there was some gold in them). Finally, the Jew gave her a few dollars for them. As soon as she had gone out, he turned to the man and said, »She didn't know it, but see that platinum under here?« In other words the teeth were worth many times what he gave for them. Subject's friend did not get gypped because he knew them and called their bluff.

 

It is often advocated as the best means of improving inter-cultural relations that as many personal contacts as possible be established between the different groups. While the value of such contacts in some cases of anti-Semitism is to be acknowledged, the material presented in this section argues for certain qualifications, at least in the case of the more extreme patterns of prejudice. There is no simple gap between experience and stereotypy. Stereotypy is a device for looking at things comfortably; since, however, it feeds on deep-lying unconscious sources, the distortions which occur are not to be corrected merely by taking a real look. Rather, experience itself is predetermined by stereotypy. The persons whose interviews on minority issues have just been discussed share one decisive trait. Even if brought together with minority group members as different from the stereotype as possible, they will perceive them through the glasses of stereotypy, and will hold against them whatever they are and do. Since this tendency is by no means confined to people who are actually »cranky« (rather, the whole complex of the Jew is a kind of recognized red-light district of legitimatized psychotic distortions), this inaccessibility to experience may not be limited to people of the kind discussed here, but may well operate in much milder cases. This should be taken into account by any well-planned policy of defense. Optimism with regard to the hygienic effects of personal contacts should be discarded. One cannot »correct« stereotypy by experience; he has to reconstitute the capacity for having experiences in order to prevent the growth of ideas which are malignant in the most literal, clinical sense.

D. Anti-Semitism for What?

 

It is a basic hypothesis of psychoanalysis that symptoms »make sense« in so far as they fulfill a specific function within the individual's psychological economy – that they are to be regarded, as a rule, as vicarious wish-fulfillments of, or as defenses against, repressed urges. Our previous discussion has shown the irrational aspect of anti-Semitic attitudes and opinions. Since their content is irreconcilable with reality, we are certainly entitled to call them symptoms. But they are symptoms which can hardly be explained by the mechanisms of neurosis; and at the same time, the anti-Semitic individual as such, the potentially fascist character, is certainly not a psychotic. The ultimate theoretical explanation of an entirely irrational symptom which nevertheless does not appear to affect the »normality« of those who show the symptom is beyond the scope of the present research. However, we feel justified in asking the question: cui bono? What purposes within the lives of our subjects are served by anti-Semitic ways of thinking? A final answer could be provided only by going back to the primary causes for the establishment and freezing of stereotypes. An approach to such an answer has been set forth in earlier chapters. Here, we limit ourselves to a level closer to the surface of the ego and ask: what does anti-Semitism »give« to the subject within the concrete configurations of his adult experience?

Some of the functions of prejudice may doubtless be called rational. One does not need to conjure up deeper motivations in order to understand the attitude of the farmer who wants to get hold of the property of his Japanese neighbor. One may also call rational the attitude of those who aim at a fascist dictatorship and accept prejudice as part of an over-all platform, though in this case the question of rationality becomes complicated, since neither the goal of such a dictatorship seems to be rational in terms of the individual's interest, nor can the wholesale automatized acceptance of a ready-made formula be called rational either. What we are interested in, for the moment, however, is a problem of a somewhat different order. What good does accrue to the actual adjustment of otherwise »sensible« persons when they subscribe to ideas which have no basis in reality and which we ordinarily associate with malad-justment?

In order to provide a provisional answer to this question, we may anticipate one of the conclusions from our consideration of the political and economic sections of the interview (Chapter XVII):^[6] the all-pervasive ignorance and confusion of our subjects when it comes to social matters beyond the range of their most immediate experience. The objectification of social processes, their obedience to intrinsic supra-individual laws, seems to result in an intellectual alienation of the individual from society. This alienation is experienced by the individual as disorientation, with concomitant fear and uncertainty. As will be seen, political stereotypy and personalization can be understood as devices for overcoming this uncomfortable state of affairs. Images of the politician and of the bureaucrat can be understood as signposts of orientation and as projections of the fears created by disorientation. Similar functions seem to be performed by the »irrational« imagery of the Jew. He is, for the highly prejudiced subject, extremely stereotyped; at the same time, he is more personalized than any other bogey in so far as he is not defined by a profession or by his role in social life, but by his human existence as such. For these reasons, as well as for historical ones, he is much better qualified for the psychological function of the »bad man« than the bureaucrats or politicians, who, incidentally, are often but handy substitutes for the real object of hatred, the Jew. The latter's alienness seems to provide the handiest formula for dealing with the alienation of society. Charging the Jews with all existing evils seems to penetrate the darkness of reality like a searchlight and to allow for quick and all-comprising orientation. The less anti-Jewish imagery is related to actual experience and the more it is kept »pure,« as it were, from contamination by reality, the less it seems to be exposed to disturbance by the dialectics of experience, which it keeps away through its own rigidity. It is the Great Panacea, providing at once intellectual equilibrium, countercathexis, and a canalization of wishes for a »change.«

Anti-Semitic writers and agitators from Chamberlain to Rosenberg and Hitler have always maintained that the existence of the Jews is the key to everything. By talking with individuals of fascist leanings, one can learn the psychological implications of this »key« idea. Their more-or-less cryptic hints frequently reveal a kind of sinister pride; they speak as if they were in the know and had solved a riddle otherwise unsolved by mankind (no matter how often their solution has been already expressed). They raise literally or figuratively their forefinger, sometimes with a smile of superior indulgence; they know the answer for everything and present to their partners in discussion the absolute security of those who have cut off the contacts by which any modification of their formula may occur. Probably it is this delusion-like security which casts its spell over those who feel insecure. By his very ignorance or confusion or semi-erudition the anti-Semite can often conquer the position of a profound wizard. The more primitive his drastic formulae are, due to their stereotypy, the more appealing they are at the same time, since they reduce the complicated to the elementary, no matter how the logic of this reduction may work. The superiority thus gained does not remain on the intellectual level. Since the cliché regularly makes the outgroup bad and the ingroup good, the anti-Semitic pattern of orientation offers emotional, narcissistic gratifications which tend to break down the barriers of rational self-criticism.

It is these psychological instruments upon which fascist agitators play incessantly. They would hardly do so if there were no susceptibility for spurious orientation among their listeners and readers. Here we are concerned only with the evidence for such susceptibility among people who are by no means overt fascist followers. We limit ourselves to three nerve points of the pseudocognitive lure of anti-Semitism: the idea that the Jews are a »problem,« the assertion that they are all alike, and the claim that Jews can be recognized as such without exception.

The contention that the Jews, or the Negroes, are a »problem« is regularly found in our interviews with prejudiced subjects. We may quote one example picked at random and then briefly discuss the theoretical implications of the »problem« idea.

The prelaw student, 105, when asked, »What about other groups?« states:

 

»Well, the Jews are a ticklish problem – not the whole race; there are both good and bad. But there are more bad than good.«

 

The term »problem« is taken over from the sphere of science and is used to give the impression of searching, responsible deliberation. By referring to a problem, one implicitly claims personal aloofness from the matter in question – a kind of detachment and higher objectivity. This, of course, is an excellent rationalization for prejudice. It serves to give the impression that one's attitudes are not motivated subjectively but have resulted from hard thinking and mature experience. The subject who makes use of this device maintains a discursive attitude in the interview; he qualifies, quasi-empirically, what he has to say, and is ready to admit exceptions. Yet these qualifications and exceptions only scratch the surface. As soon as the existence of a »Jewish problem« is admitted, anti-Semitism has won its first surreptitious victory. This is made possible by the equivocal nature of the term itself; it can be both a neutral issue of analysis and, as indicated by the every-day use of the term »problematic« for a dubious character, a negative entity. There is no doubt that the relations between Jews and non-Jews do present a problem in the objective sense of the term, but when »the Jewish problem« is referred to, the emphasis is subtly shifted. While the veneer of objectivity is maintained, the implication is that the Jews are the problem, a problem, that is, to the rest of society. It is but one step from this position to the implicit notion that this problem has to be dealt with according to its own special requirements, i.e., the problematic nature of the Jews, and that this will naturally lead outside the bounds of democratic procedure. Moreover, the »problem« calls for a solution. As soon as the Jews themselves are stamped as this problem, they are transformed into objects, not only to »judges« of superior insight but also to the perpetrators of an action; far from being regarded as subjects, they are treated as terms of a mathematical equation. To call for a »solution of the Jewish problem« results in their being reduced to »material« for manipulation.

It should be added that the »problem« idea, which made deep inroads into public opinion through Nazi propaganda and the Nazi example, is also to be found in the interviews of low-scoring subjects. Here, however, it assumes regularly the aspect of a protest. Unprejudiced subjects try to restore the objective, »sociological« meaning of the term, generally insisting on the fact that the so-called »Jewish problem« is actually the problem of the non-Jews. However, the very use of the term may be partially indicative, even with unprejudiced persons, of a certain ambivalence or at least indifference, as in the case of 5047, who scored low on the E scale but high on F and PEC.

 

»Yes, I think there is a so-called Jewish problem and a Negro problem, but essentially I believe that it is really a majority problem.« He felt that there was a need for more education of the ignorant masses and for improving economic conditions so that there would not be a necessity for seeking a scapegoat. Generally, his understanding of the problems seemed to be quite sound, and he expressed disagreement with anti-Semitism and discrimination against Negroes. However, the manner in which he approached the matter and his tendency to treat it as a purely academic problem seemed to indicate that he was not thoroughly convinced of his statements and was merely using verbal clichés.

 

The term »problem« itself seems to suggest a too naive idea of common-sense justice, following the pattern of democratic compromise in areas where decisions should be made only according to the merits of the case. The man who speaks about the »problem« is easily tempted to say that there are two sides to every problem, with the comfortable consequence that the Jews must have done something wrong, if they were exterminated. This pattern of conformist »sensibleness« lends itself very easily to the defense of various kinds of irrationality.

The statement that the Jews are all alike not only dispenses with all disturbing factors but also, by its sweep, gives to the judge the grandiose air of a person who sees the whole without allowing himself to be deflected by petty details – an intellectual leader. At the same time, the »all alike« idea rationalizes the glance at the individual case as a mere specimen of some generality which can be taken care of by general measures which are the more radical, since they call for no exceptions. We give but one example of a case where traces of »knowing better« still survive although the »all alike« idea leads up to the wildest fantasies. F 116 is middle on the E scale, but when the question of the Jews is raised:

 

(Jews?) »Now this is where I really do have strong feeling. I am not very proud of it. I don't think it is good to be so prejudiced but I can't help it.« (What do you dislike about Jews?) »Everything. I can't say one good thing for them.« (Are there any exceptions?) »No, I have never met one single one that was an exception. I used to hope I would. It isn't pleasant to feel the way I do. I would be just as nice and civil as I could, but it would end the same way. They cheat, take advantage.« (Is it possible that you know some Jewish people and like them without knowing they are Jews?) »Oh no, I don't think any Jew can hide it. I always know them.« (How do they look?) »Attractive. Very well dressed. And as though they knew exactly what they wanted.« (How well have you known Jews?) »Well, I never knew any in childhood. In fact, I never knew one until we moved to San Francisco, 10 years ago. He was our landlord. It was terrible. I had a lovely home in Denver and I hated to leave. And here I was stuck in an ugly apartment and he did everything to make it worse. If the rent was due on Sunday, he was there bright and early. After that I knew lots of them. I had Jewish bosses. There are Jews in the bank. They are everywhere – always in the money. My next-door neighbor is a Jew. I decided to be civil. After all, I can't move now and I might as well be neighborly. They borrow our lawn mower. They say it is because you can't buy one during the war. But of course lawn mowers cost money. We had a party last week and they called the police. I called her the next day because I suspected them. She said she did it so I asked if she didn't think she should have called me first. She said a man was singing in the yard and woke her baby and she got so upset she called the police. I asked her if she realized that her baby screamed for 3 months after she brought him home from the hospital. Ever since then she has been just grovelling and I hate that even worse.«

 

»Knowing better« is mentioned not infrequently by high scorers: they realize they »should« not think that way, but stick to their prejudice under a kind of compulsion which is apparently stronger than the moral and rational counteragencies available to them. In addition to this phenomenon, there is hardly any aspect of the anti-Semitic syndrome discussed in this chapter which could not be illustrated by this quotation from a truly »all-out,« totalitarian anti-Semite. She omits nothing. Her insatiability is indicative of the tremendous libidinous energy she has invested in her Jewish complex. Acting out her anti-Semitism obviously works with her as a wish-fulfillment, both with regard to aggressiveness and with regard to the desire for intellectual superiority as indicated by her cooperation in the present study »in the interests of science.« Her personal attitude partakes of that sinister contempt shown by those who feel themselves to be »in the know« with respect to all kinds of dark secrets.

 

Her most characteristic attitude is one of pessimism – she dismisses many matters with a downward glance, a shrug of the shoulders, and a sigh.

 

The idea of the »Jew spotter« was introduced in the Labor Study, where it proved to be the most discriminating item. We used it only in a supplementary way, in work with the Los Angeles sample, but there can be no doubt that people who are extreme on A-S will regularly allege that they can recognize Jews at once. This is the most drastic expression of the »orientation« mechanism which we have seen to be so essential a feature of the prejudiced outlook. At the same time, it can frequently be observed that the actual variety of Jews, which could hardly escape notice, leads to a high amount of vagueness with regard to the criteria according to which Jews might be spotted; this vagueness does not, however, interfere with the definiteness of the spotter's claim. One example for this configuration will suffice. It is interesting because of the strange mixture of fantasy and real observation.

5039, a 27-year-old student at the University of Southern California and a war veteran, who scores high on E:

 

»Yes, I think I can ... of course, you can't always, I know. But usually they have different features: larger nose, and I think differently shaped faces, more narrow, and different mannerisms. ... But mainly they talk too much and they have different attitudes. Almost always they will counter a question with another question (gives examples from school); they are freer with criticism; tend to talk in big terms and generally more aggressive – at least I notice that immediately. ...«

E. Two Kinds of Jews

 

The stereotypes just discussed have been interpreted as means for pseudo-orientation in an estranged world, and at the same time as devices for »mastering« this world by being able completely to pigeonhole its negative aspects. The »problematizing« attitude puts the resentful person in the position of one who is rationally discriminating; the assertion that all the Jews are alike transposes the »problem« into the realm of systematic and complete knowledge, without a »loophole,« as it were; the pretension of being able unfailingly to recognize Jews raises the claim that the subject is actually the judge in matters where the judgment is supposed to have been pronounced once and for all. In addition, there is another stereotype of »orientation« which deserves closer attention because it shows most clearly the »topographical« function and because it crops up spontaneously with great frequency in the interview material. It is even more indicative of the »pseudorational« element in anti-Semitic prejudice than is the manner of speaking about the »Jewish problem.« We refer to the standard division of Jews into two groups, the good ones and the bad ones, a division frequently expressed in terms of the »white« Jews and the »kikes.« It may be objected that this division cannot be taken as an index of subjective attitudes, since it has its basis in the object itself, namely, the different degrees of Jewish assimilation. We shall be able to demonstrate that this objection does not hold true and that we have to cope with an attitudinal pattern largely independent of the structure of the minority group to which it is applied.

It has been established in previous chapters that the mentality of the prejudiced subject is characterized by thinking in terms of rigidly contrasting ingroups and outgroups. In the stereotype here under consideration, this dichotomy is projected upon the outgroups themselves, or at least upon one particular out-group. This is partly due no doubt to the automatization of black and white thinking which tends to »cut in two« whatever is being considered. It is also due to the desire to maintain an air of objectivity while expressing one's hostilities, and perhaps even to a mental reservation of the prejudiced person who does not want to deliver himself completely to ways of thinking which he still regards as »forbidden.« The »two kinds« stereotype thus has to be viewed as a compromise between antagonistic tendencies within the prejudiced person himself. This would lead to the supposition that people who make this division are rarely extreme high scorers; a supposition which seems to be largely borne out by our data. In terms of our »orientation« theory we should expect that the »two kinds« idea serves as a makeshift for bridging the gap between general stereotypy and personal experience. Thus, the »good« outgroup members would be those whom the subject personally knows, whereas the »bad« ones would be those at a greater social distance – a distinction obviously related to the differences between assimilated and nonassimilated sectors of the outgroup. This again is at least partly corroborated, though it will be seen that the »two kinds« idea is in many respects so vague and abstract that it does not even coincide with the division between the known and the unknown. As a device for overcoming stereotypy the »two kinds« concept is spurious because it is thoroughly stereotyped itself.

5007, who scores high on all the scales, comments as follows:

 

»Most of the Jews I have known have been white Jews, and they are very charming people. Jews are aggressive, clannish, overcrowd nice neighborhoods, and are money-minded. At least the ›non-white Jews.‹ My experiences have been of two sorts. Some Jews are amongst the most charming and educated people I know. Other experiences have been less friendly. On the whole, I think Jews in the professions are all right, but in commerce they seem to be quite objectionable.«

 

Here it can be seen clearly how the over-all stereotypy, as suggested by the list of »objectionable Jewish traits,« struggles with the stereotype of a dichotomy, which in this case represents the more humanitarian trend. It is conceived in terms of acquaintances vs. others, but this is complicated by a second division, that between »professional« Jews (supposedly of higher education and morality) and »business« Jews, who are charged with being ruthless money-makers and cheats.

This, however, is not the classical form of the »two kinds« idea. The latter is expressed, rather, by the above-mentioned Boy Scout leader, 5051, the man who brings the Armenians into play:

 

»Now take the Jews. There are good and bad amongst all races. We know that, and we know that Jews are a religion, not a race; but the trouble is that there are two types of Jews. There are the white Jews and the kikes. My pet theory is that the white Jews hate the kikes just as much as we do. I even knew a good Jew who ran a store and threw some kikes out, calling them kikes and saying he didn't want their business.«

 

Research on anti-Semitism among Jews would probably corroborate this »pet« idea. In Germany at least, the »autochthonous« Jews used to discriminate heavily against refugees and immigrants from the East and often enough comforted themselves with the idea that the Nazi policies were directed merely against the »Ostjuden.« Distinctions of this sort seem to promote gradual persecution of Jews, group by group, with the aid of the smooth rationalization that only those are to be excluded who do not belong anyway. It is a structural element of anti-Semitic persecution that it Starts with limited objectives, but goes on and on without being stopped. It is through this structure that the »two kinds« stereotype assumes its sinister aspect. The division between »whites« and »kikes,« arbitrary and unjust in itself, invariably turns against the so-called »whites« who become the »kikes« of tomorrow.

Evidence of the independence of the division from its object is offered by the all-around high scorer, M 1229m, of the Maritime School group, who divides the Jews in a manner employed by other Southerners with regard to the Negroes. Here a certain break between general race prejudice and a relative freedom of more personal attitudes and experiences seems to exist.

 

(Jewish problem?) »Not a terrific problem. I get along with them. Jews in the South are different from those in the North. Not so grasping in the South.« (Daughter marrying a Jew?) »O.K.; no problem. Large number of Jewish families in Galveston. No prejudice against Jews in Texas.«

 

This making of private exceptions is sometimes, as by the mildly anti-Semitic radio writer 5003, expressed as follows:

 

He doesn't know about Jews. »Some of my best friends are Jews.«

 

In spite of the innumerable jokes, both European and American, about the »some of my best friends« cliché, it survives tenaciously. Apparently it combines felicitously the merits of »human interest« – supposedly personal experience – with a bow to the superego which does not seriously impede the underlying hostility.

Occasionally the concessions made to personal acquaintances are explained by the interspersion of racial theories, and thus a mildly paranoid touch is added. An example is the generally »high« woman, F 109:

 

Father Scotch-Irish, mother English-Irish. Subject is not identified with any of these. »I have an age-old feeling against Jews, some against Negroes. Jews stick together, are out for money; they gyp you. Jews are in big businesses. It seems they will be running the country before long. I know some people of Jewish descent who are very nice, but they're not full-blooded Jews. Jews have large noses, are slight in stature, little sly Jews. The women have dark hair, dark eyes, are sort of loud.«

 

This girl student, by the way, to whom the »education« idea is all-important, is among those who show traces of bad conscience.

 

Subject knows she's prejudiced; she thinks she needs educating too, by working with people of different races.

 

The intrinsic weakness of the »best friend« idea, which simulates human experience without truly expressing it, comes into the open in the following quotation, where the line between the friend and the »kikes« is drawn in such a way that even the »friend« is not fully admitted.

 

(Jews?) »There are Jews and Jews. I have a very good girl friend who is a Jew – never enters into our relationship except that she is in a Jewish sorority.« (Would you want her in your sorority?) »Well ... (pause) ... I don't think I'd have any objections.« (Would you let in all Jewish girls?) »No. One Jew is alright but you get a whole mob and ...!« (What happens?) »They get into anything and they'll control it – they'll group together for their own interests – the kike Jew is as dishonest as they come. Find them on Fillmore Street in San Francisco. I have had no experience with kike Jews. I think that's created in my family. Father feels strongly against them – I don't know why.« (Nazis?) »That's unnecessary – they have a right to exist – no reason for excluding them as long as they don't try to overstep the rights of others. I knew a lot of Jews in high school. They kept pretty much to themselves. Don't think I'm echoing. I would like Jews as long as they don't reflect typical Jewish qualities. Typical Jewish nose, mouth, voice. The presence of a Jew creates feelings of tension. Squeaky voice, long, pointed nose. Couldn't name anti-Semitic groups in this country but think they exist.«

 

Particular attention should be called to the statement of this girl, described by the interviewer as being »tight all over,« that the presence of a Jew creates feelings of tension. There is reason to believe that this is a common experience. It would hardly suffice to attribute this uneasiness solely to repressed guilt feelings, or to the effect of some »strangeness« as such. At least the concrete aspects of this strangeness in social contacts needs further elucidation. We venture the hypothesis that it is due to a certain discomfort and uneasiness on the Jew's own part in non-Jewish Company, and on a certain antagonism of the Jews, deeply rooted in history, against »genial« conviviality and harmless abandonment of oneself in order to enjoy the moment. Since this may be one concrete factor making for anti-Semitism, independent of traditional stereotypy, this whole complex should be followed up most carefully in future research.

As to the evidence for our assertion that the »two kinds« idea is not object-bound but rather a structural psychological pattern, we limit ourselves to two examples. The student nurse, 5013, whose scale scores are generally high:

 

Feels towards the Japanese and the Mexicans and Negroes very much as she does toward the Jews. In all cases she holds to a sort of bifurcation theory, that is, that there are good Japanese and that they should be allowed to return to California, but there are bad ones and they should not. The Mexicans also fall into two groups, as do the Negroes. When it is pointed out to her that people of her own extraction probably also fall into good and bad groups, she admits this but feels that the line between the good and the bad is not as great in her case. She feels that the Negro problem is probably of greater importance than the other minorities but says that she speaks at the hospital to the colored nurses and doctors. At this point she related a long anecdote about taking care of a female Negro patient who had told her that the Negroes had brought their problems on themselves by aspiring to equality with the whites. She feels that this was a very wise Negress and agrees with her.

 

In the case of Southerners, the »two kinds« idea is frequently applied to the Negroes, those in the South being praised, and those who went away being denounced for demanding an equality to which they were not entitled. In so far as the Southern »white man's nigger« is more subservient and a better object of exploitation in the eyes of these subjects, this attitude, with its patriarchal and feudalistic rationalizations, can be called semirealistic. But the construct of »two kinds of Negroes« often results in quite a different connotation, as in the case of F 340a. She is high on F and PEC and middle on E.

 

»The Negroes are getting so arrogant now, they come to the employment office and say they don't like this kind of a job and that kind of a job. However, there are some who are employed at the employment office and they are very nice and intelligent. There are nice ones and bad ones among us. The Negroes who have always lived in Oakland are all right; they don't know what to do with all those who are coming in from the South either. They all carry knives; if you do something they don't like, they ›will get even with you, they will slice you up.‹«

 

Here, the »two kinds« idea results in plain persecution fantasies.

F. The Anti-Semite's Dilemma

 

If anti-Semitism is a »symptom« which fulfills an »economic« function within the subject's psychology, one is led to postulate that this symptom is not simply »there,« as a mere expression of what the subject happens to be, but that it is the outcome of a conflict. It owes its very irrationality to psychological dynamics which force the individual, at least in certain areas, to abandon the reality principle. The conception of prejudice as a symptom resulting from a conflict has been elucidated in earlier chapters. Here, we are concerned not so much with the clinical evidence of conflict determinants as with the traces of conflict within the phenomenon of anti-Semitism itself. Some evidence bearing on this point has already been presented in the last sections. The »problem« idea as well as the dichotomy applied to the outgroup represent a kind of compromise between underlying urges and hostile stereotypes on the one hand, and the demands of conscience and the weight of concrete experience on the other. The subject who »discusses« the Jews usually wants to maintain some sense of proportion, at least formally, even though the content of his rational considerations is spurious and his supposed insight itself is warped by the very same instinctual urges which it is called upon to check.

The standard form under which conflict appears in statements of high-scoring subjects is, as indicated above, »I shouldn't, but. ...« This formula is the result of a remarkable displacement. It has been pointed out that the anti-Semite is torn between negative stereotypy and personal experiences which contradict this stereotypy.⁷ As soon as the subject reflects, however, upon his own attitude, the relation between stereotypy and experience appears in reverse. He regards tolerance as the general law, as the stereotype as it were, and personalizes his own stereotyped hostility, presenting it as the inescapable result either of experience or of idiosyncrasies which are stronger than he is himself. This can be accounted for partly by the officially prevailing democratic ideology which stams prejudice as something wrong. It has also to be considered that the superego, being constituted as the psychological agency of society within the individual, regularly assumes an aspect of universality which easily appears to the subject, driven by wishes for instinctual gratification, as »rigid law.« This, however, hardly tells the whole story. The discrepancy between experience and stereotype is put into the service of the prejudiced attitude. The prejudiced subject is dimly aware that the content of the stereotype is imaginary and that his own experience represents truth. Yet, for deeper psychological reasons, he wants to stick to the stereotype. This he achieves by transforming the latter into an expression of his personality and the anti-stereotypical elements into an abstract obligation. This displacement is enhanced by his innermost conviction that the supposed stereotypes of tolerance are not so strong socially as he pretends. He realizes that while he appears to rebel against the slogans of democracy and equality, for reasons that are strictly personal, he is actually backed by powerful social trends. And yet he will claim, at the same time, that he acts as a sincere and independent person who does not care what others think. Moreover, he relies on the idea that one's own feelings are always stronger than conventions, that he simply has to follow them, and that his prejudice is a kind of fatality which cannot be changed. This seems to be a common pattern by which the anti-Semite's conflict situation is rationalized in a way favorable to prejudice.

This pattern manifests itself objectively in a characteristic contradiction: that between general pretensions of being unbiased, and prejudiced statements as soon as specific issues are raised. 5056, a 29-year-old housewife, with high scores on all the scales,

 

Stated that she and her husband have no particular dislike for any group of people. (This statement is interesting when contrasted with her very high E-score, and with the statements which follow.) »The Negro, however, should be kept with his own people. I would not want my niece marrying a Negro, and I would not want Negro neighbors.« To subject there is quite a Negro problem – »it is probably the most important minority problem.« She prefers »the way things are in the South; the Negroes seem so happy down there. Actually, they should have a separate state. This doesn't mean that we should snub them. The separate state would be very good, because, although we should govern them, they could run it themselves.«

 

The underlying conflict could not be expressed more authentically than in the contradiction contained in the last statement. The subject tries to display an unbiased attitude toward Jews:

 

It is interesting to note that she objected rather strongly to discussing the Jews and the Negroes in the same context and protested when they were presented contiguously in the interview. »I would just as soon have Jews around – in fact, I have some Jewish friends. Some are overbearing, but then some Gentiles are overbearing too.«

 

But as soon as it comes to her »personal« attitude, she falls for the stereotype and resolves the conflict by an aloofness which amounts for all practical purposes to an endorsement of anti-Semitism:

 

When asked about Jewish traits, she first mentioned »the Jewish nose.« In addition, she believes Jews have a certain set of personality traits all their own, which will never change. »They want to argue all the time; some are greedy (though some aren't, in fact, some are generous); they talk with their hands and are dramatic in their speech.« She believes the dislike of the Jews is increasing, to which trend she objects. »Think we're being selfish when we act that way just as we accuse the Jews of being.« She doesn't like to hear attacks on the Jews, but she wouldn't defend them by argument. This seems to be both a function of her dislike for argumentation as well as a certain attitude of noninvolvement in or detachment from the whole question of anti-Semitism.

 

The subjective mirroring of the conflict between stereotype and experience in reverse, resulting in rigidity of the supposed experience, is clearly exemplified in the statements of M 1230a, middle scorer of the Maritime School group:

 

(What do you think of the problem of racial minorities?) »Well, for the foreigners coming in, it's quite a question. This is supposed to be a melting pot. But shouldn't let too many of them in. ... And then the Negro problem. ... I try to be liberal, but I was raised in a Jim Crow state. ... I don't think I would ever fall in with giving the Negroes equal rights in every way. ... And yet, foreigners, you have a natural dislike for them. Yet, all of us were once foreigners ...«

 

The anti-Semite's dilemma may be epitomized by quoting verbatim the following statements of the girl student 5005, who is high on both the E and F scales, but low on PEC.

 

»I don't think there should be a Jewish problem. People should not be discriminated against, but judged on their individual merits. I don't like it to be called a problem. Certainly I'm against prejudice. Jews are aggressive, bad-mannered, clannish, intellectual, clean, overcrowd neighborhoods, noisy, and oversexed. I will admit that my opinion is not based on much contact, however; I hear these things all the time. There are very few Jewish students in my school, and I have already referred to my good contact with the one girl.«

 

Here the contradiction between judgment and experience is so striking that the existence of prejudice can be accounted for only by strong psychological urges.

G. Prosecutor as Judge

 

In terms of ideology, the anti-Semite's conflict is between the current, culturally »approved« stereotypes of prejudice and the officially prevailing standards of democracy and human equality. Viewed psychologically, the conflict is between certain foreconscious or repressed id tendencies on the one hand and the superego, or its more or less externalized, conventional substitute, on the other. It is hard to predict or even to explain satisfactorily, on the basis of our data, which way this conflict will be decided in each individual case, though we may hypothesize that as soon as prejudice in any amount is allowed to enter a person's manifest ways of thinking, the scales weigh heavily in favor of an ever-increasing expansion of his prejudice. We are furthermore entitled to expect this result of the conflict in all cases where the potentially fascist personality syndrome is established. If the conflict within the individual has been decided against the Jews, the decision itself is almost without exception rationalized moralistically. It is as if the internal powers of prejudice, after the defeat of the counter-tendencies, would consummate their victory by taking the opposing energies, which they have defeated, into their own service. The superego becomes the spokesman of the id, as it were – a dynamic configuration, incidentally, which is not altogether new to psychoanalysis. We might call the urges expressing themselves in anti-Semitism the prosecutor, and conscience the judge, within the personality, and say that the two are fused. The Jews have to face, in the prejudiced personality, the parody of a trial. This is part of the psychological explanation of why the chances of the Jews making a successful defense against the prejudiced personality are so slim. It may be noted that the judiciary practice in Nazi Germany followed exactly the same pattern, that the Jews were never given a chance, in the Third Reich, to speak for their own cause, either in private law suits or collectively. It will be seen that the expropriation of the superego by the fascist character, with underlying unconscious guilt feelings which must be violently silenced at any price, contributes decisively to the transformation of »cultural discrimination« into an insatiably hostile attitude feeding upon destructive urges.

There is a clear index of the conquest of the superego by anti-Semitic ideology: the assertion that the responsibility for everything the Jews have to suffer, and more particularly, for the genocide committed by the Nazis, rests with the victims rather than with their persecutors. The anti-Semite avails himself of a cliché which seems to make this idea acceptable once and for all: that the Jews »brought it on themselves« no matter what »it« may be. M 107, the young man who marked every question on the questionnaire scale either +3 or -3 but averaged high on all three scales, is a good example of this pattern of rationalization, following the dubious logic of »where there is smoke there must be fire«:

 

»I never understood why Hitler was so brutal toward them. There must have been some reason for it, something to provoke it. Some say he had to show his authority, but I doubt it. I suspect the Jews contributed a great deal to it.«

 

How the moralistic construct of Jewish responsibility leads to a complete reversal between victim and murderer is strikingly demonstrated by one subject, 5064, another one of the Los Angeles Boy Scout leaders and a butcher by trade. He scores high on both the E and F scale although lower on PEC. While still officially condemning the German atrocities, he makes a surprising suggestion:

 

»No American can approve of what the Nazis did to the Jews. I really hope that the Jews will do something about it before we come to any such position here. The solution is in the education, particularly of the minority.«

 

This type of mental perversion seems to utilize an idea taken from the stock of traditional liberalistic wisdom: God helps those who help themselves. The Jews are in jeopardy, therefore it is up to the Jews. In a cultural climate where success has come to be a major measuring rod for any value, the precarious situation of the Jews works as an argument against them. The affinity of this attitude and the »no pity for the poor« theme, to be discussed in the chapter on politics, can hardly be overlooked. The same line of thought occurs in the interview of another Boy Scout leader, the Austrian-born and somewhat over-Americanized 55-year-old 5044, who is consistently high on all scales:

 

»The Jews should take the lead rather than the Gentiles. After all, the Jews are the ones who may get into serious trouble. They shouldn't walk on other people's feet.«

 

While the Jews »bring it upon themselves,« the Nazis' extermination policy is either justified or regarded as a Jewish exaggeration itself, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. The high-scoring man, M 359, departmental manager for a leather Company, is one of those who have »a large number of very close Jewish friends.« Despite this he is high on both the E and PEC scales, although lower on F. Nor does it prevent the following interview episode:

 

(Nazi treatment?) »Unable to convince myself that the treatment was limited to Jews. This seems to me to be Jewish propaganda to solicit sympathy and help by overemphasizing their hardships, though I have no sympathy for the Nazi's treatment of peoples.«

 

The mercilessness accompanying the semi-apologetic attitude towards the Nazis can be seen in this subject's pseudorational statements on Palestine: while apparently wishing to »give the Jews a chance,« he simultaneously excludes any prospects of success by referring to the Jew's supposedly unchangeably bad nature:

 

(Solution?) »Sending them to Palestine is silly because it's not big enough. A good idea to have a country of their own, but big enough so that they can go ahead with their daily pursuits in a normal way, but the Jews would not be happy. They are only happy to have others work for them.«

 

The explanatory idea that the »Jews brought it upon themselves« is used as a rationalization for destructive wishes which otherwise would not be allowed to pass the censorship of the ego. In some cases this is disguised as a statement of fact; e.g., by 5012, a 21-year-old discharged naval petty officer, who scores high on all scales:

 

»I don't want anything to do with them. They are a nuisance, but not a menace. They will get whatever they deserve as a result of their behavior.«

 

The high-scoring woman F 103, however, who used to be a social welfare student but has changed to decorative art, lets the cat out of the bag:

 

»I don't blame the Nazis at all for what they did to the Jews. That sounds terrible, I know, but if the Jews acted the way they do here, I don't blame them. I've never had any bad personal experiences with Jews, it's just the way they act. Don't help your fellow man; that's their creed.«

 

Here the interrelation between death-wish and moralistic rationalization becomes truly terrifying. Particularly noteworthy is the subject's underscoring of her own irrationality, in spite of her rationalization concerning the Jews' innate badness. Her confession that she never had any bad experiences with Jews highlights an important aspect of the whole phenomenon of anti-Semitic extremism. It is the fantastic disproportion between the Jewish »guilt« – even as conceived by the anti-Semite himself – and the judgment that is pronounced. In previous sections the role played by the theme of »exchange« in the mentality of the prejudiced person has been discussed. Frequently our high-scoring subjects complain that they never get their full share, that they are being exploited by everybody. This sense of victimization goes hand in hand with very strong underlying possessive and appropriative desires. Accordingly, when the subjects speak about the »justice« to be meted out to the Jews they express their own desire for an unjust state of affairs in which the exchange of equivalents has been replaced by distribution according to unmediated and irrational power relationships. This is expressed negatively towards the Jews: they should get more punishment – infinitely more – than they »deserve.« Ordinarily, it would never occur even to a very aggressive person that somebody who is bad-mannered or even a cheat should be punished by death. Where the Jews are concerned, however, the transition from accusations which are not only flimsy but unsubstantial even if they were true, to suggestions of the severest kinds of treatment seems to work quite smoothly. This is indicative of one of the most pernicious features of the potentially fascist character.

The logical property of stereotypes, that is, their all-comprehensiveness which allows for no deviations, is not only well adapted to meet certain requirements of the prejudiced outlook; it is, by itself, an expression of a psychological trait which probably could be fully understood only in connection with the theory of paranoia and the paranoid »system« which always tends to include everything, to tolerate nothing which cannot be identified by the subject's formula. The extremely prejudiced person tends toward »psychological totalitarianism,« something which seems to be almost a microcosmic image of the totalitarian state at which he aims. Nothing can be left untouched, as it were; everything must be made »equal« to the ego-ideal of a rigidly conceived and hypostatized ingroup. The outgroup, the chosen foe, represents an eternal challenge. As long as anything different survives, the fascist character feels threatened, no matter how weak the other being may be. It is as if the anti-Semite could not sleep quietly until he has transformed the whole world into the very same paranoid system by which he is beset: the Nazis went far beyond their official anti-Semitic program. This mechanism makes for the complete disproportion between »guilt« and punishment. The extreme anti-Semite simply cannot stop. By a logic of his own, which is of an archaic nature, much closer to associational transitions than to discursive inferences, he reaches, after having started from relatively mild accusations, the wildest conclusions, tantamount in the last analysis to the pronouncement of death sentences against those whom he literally »cannot stand.« This mechanism was encountered in the »screened« interviews of the Labor Study where subjects frequently »talked themselves into anti-Semitism.« Our interview schedule, more strictly standardized, prevented us from catching the latter phenomenon. Yet we have striking testimony of the disproportion between guilt and punishment in some of our cases. It is here that the »expropriation« of the superego by the anti-Semite's punitive moralism obtains its full significance. This removes the last obstacle to psychological totalitarianism. There are no inhibitions left by which the associational crescendo of destructive ideas could be checked. Hatred is reproduced and enhanced in an almost automatized, compulsive manner, which is both utterly detached from the reality of the object and completely alien to the ego. It may be added that, viewed sociologically, the disproportion between guilt and punishment shows that to the extreme anti-Semite the whole idea of rational law has become a sham even though he dwells on orderliness and legalitarian niceties. He is ready to sacrifice his own ideology of equivalents as soon as he has the power to get the major share for himself. Psychologically, the idea of eternal Jewish guilt can be understood as a projection of the prejudiced person's own repressed guilt feelings; ideologically, it is a mere epiphenomenon, a rationalization in the strictest sense. In the extreme case, the psychological focal point is the wish to kill the object of his hatred. It is only afterwards that he looks for reasons why the Jews »must« be killed, and these reasons can never suffice fully to justify his extermination fantasies. This, however, does not »cure« the anti-Semite, once he has succeeded in expropriating his conscience. The disproportion between the guilt and the punishment induces him, rather, to pursue his hatred beyond any limits and thus to prove to himself and to others that he must be right. This is the ultimate function of ideas such as »the Jews brought it upon themselves« or the more generalized formula »there must be something to it.« The extreme anti-Semite silences the remnants of his own conscience by the extremeness of his attitude. He seems to terrorize himself even while he terrorizes others.

The sham trial of rationalizations put on by the prejudiced person sometimes makes for a kind of defense of the Jews. But this psychological defense is all too reminiscent of the technique of the Nazi courts. It is permitted only in order to satisfy the formalized and hollow wish for legality, the empty shell of expropriated conscience. The defense must always remain impotent. Whatever good is said about the Jews sounds like an ironical or hypocritical variation of standard blames. Thus, reference is frequently made to the mythical »good family life« of the Jews, a comment which, however thinly, veils the accusation of conspiratorial clannishness; and this is accompanied by insincere protestations of envy of these Jewish qualities, the implication being that the anti-Semitic subject gets the worst deal in life because his noble nature prevents him from the practice of connivance. Still another type of mock-defense can be observed in our interviews. It is the assertion that the Jews are so clever; that they are »smarter« than the Gentiles, and that one has to admire them on this account. The mechanism at work here involves a double set of values which makes itself felt throughout contemporary culture. On the one hand, there are the »ideals« of magnanimity, unselfishness, justice, and love to which one has to pay lip service. On the other hand, there are the standards of achievement, success, and status which one has to follow in one's actual life. This double set of values is applied to the Jews in reverse, as it were. They are praised for their supposed or actual living up to the standards which the anti-Semite himself actually follows and simultaneously, they are condemned for their violation of the very same moral code of which he has successfully rid himself. The phraseology of conscience is used in order to take back the moral credit given to the chosen foe in order to appease one's own conscience. Even the praise apportioned to the Jews is used as supporting evidence for their pre-established guilt.

The point being developed here, as well as other features of the prejudiced mentality, is illustrated by the following description of 5039, a 27-year-old veteran student, high on E and middle on the other scales, who is described by the interviewer as a »rather egocentric person.«

 

In rebelling against his father's teachings, he has dissociated himself from the church, but nevertheless strongly identifies himself as a Gentile in contrast to the Jews. He explained this on the basis of having grown up in a neighborhood ... where he was the only Gentile in a Jewish community and where he was made to feel that he was an »outsider.« He feels that there is a basic conflict in the religious teachings and upbringing of Christians as against Jews, which is largely responsible for the incompatibility of the two groups. He stated that the Christian religion stresses the pacifistic teaching of »turning the other check,« thus causing youth to become »maladjusted and submissive,« whereas the Jewish religion spurs youth to achievement and aggression, on the basis that »your fathers have suffered, therefore it is now up to you to prove yourself.« Therefore, he feels that a truly religious Christian is bound to be »outdone« by ambitious and aggressive Jews. ... He did not seem aware that he was generalizing from his own particular experience and environment.

 

That the objectivity of these reflections about the supposedly realistic education instigated by Judaism is a mere fake and actually serves as a pretext for boundless hostility is shown by this subject's answer to the specific question referring to Hitler's atrocities:

 

»Well, if I had been in Germany, I think I would have done the same. ... I suppose I could have been a Nazi. ... I think discipline is a good thing. ...«

 

Whereas this subject's statements on Jewish smartness are overtly hostile, and limited to the imagined disadvantages of Gentiles in competition with Jews, the smartness idea is sometimes expressed with an air of mock humbleness. An example is afforded by the high-scoring man M 104, a former engineering student who has changed to law:

 

He said »you hear that our country is run by Jewish capitalists, that Jewish capitalists wield all the power here. If this is true, it means that our own people aren't smart enough. If our people know the way the Jews are, and can't do the same thing, more power to the Jews. If they know how the Jews work, they should be able to do it just as well.« He doesn't »want to admit that the others aren't as smart as the Jews, and that's what it would mean if this country is run by Jewish capitalists. If they're smarter than we are, let them run it.«

 

But the magnanimous ending of the quotation has sinister implications. A tiny shift of emphasis suffices to transform it into the idea that the Jews, because of their sinister cleverness, run the country, that we have to get rid of them and that, since Jewish smartness makes constitutional procedures ineffective, this can be done only by violent means. That the idea of Jewish omnipotence through smartness is a mere projection becomes nowhere clearer than in the case of the consistently high-scoring woman F 105. She is crippled as a result of infantile paralysis in early childhood. She consummates the idea of Jewish smartness – of the Jews »taking over the business affairs of the nation« – by the expectation of a bloody uprising of the Jews which is but a superficially veiled projection of her own wish for anti-Jewish pogroms:

 

»The white people have decided that we're the thing – the white vs. black and yellow. I think there's going to be a Jewish uprising after the war. I'm not against the Jews. Those I've had contact with were very nice. Of course, I've seen some I didn't like, too.« (What didn't you like about them?) »They're loud and they seem to like attention. They're always trying to be at the top of something. I've heard stories about how they'll stab friends in the back, etc., but I have still to see to believe.« (Uprising?) »I think there will be bloodshed over it in this country.« (Do you think it will be justified?) »There's no doubt that they're taking over the business affairs of the nation. I don't think it's right that refugees should be taken care of the way they are. I think they should take care of their own problems.«

 

It is noteworthy that when coming into the open with the »bloodshed« idea, this subject does not state clearly whose blood is going to be spilled. While putting the blame for the riots she wishes for upon nonexistent Jewish rioters, she leaves it open that it will be the Jews, after all, who are going to be killed. There may be more to this, however. To extreme anti-Semites the idea of bloodshed seems to become independent, an end in itself as it were. On the deepest level, they do not differentiate so very strictly between subject and object. The underlying destructive urge pertains both to the enemy and to oneself. Destructiveness is truly »totalitarian.«

As a summary of the structure of anti-Semitic extremism dealt with in this section, we present in some detail the comments on the Jews of the only interviewee who openly endorses the idea of genocide. This is 5006, a dentistry student and contractor who scores high throughout the questionnaire. He suffers from color-blindness and from psychogenic sexual impotence, determined, according to the interviewer, by a severe Oedipus complex. His radical wishes for the extermination of the Jews are probably conditioned by severe, early childhood traumata: projections of his own castration fear. His exaggerated ingroup identification seems to be concomitant with an underlying feeling of weakness: he simply does not wish to become acquainted with what is different, apparently because he deems it dangerous.

 

He is a native-born American, and his grandfather was brought to this country at four. He has never been out of America, nor does he want to go out. Once he went to Tijuana and »that was enough.« He has great pride in being an American.

 

To him, the minorities are characterized, above all, by their potential strength: »The trouble with the Jews is that they are too strong.« The strength of the outgroups is expressed in symbols of potency – fertility and money:

 

»Of course, there is a problem. The Negroes produce so rapidly that they will populate the world, while the Jews get all of the money.«

 

As to the basis of his anti-Semitism, he has the following to say:

 

»I have never had any good experiences with them.« (This is qualified in a second interview where he remembers, as a college athlete, being taken on a private yacht to Catalina by Jews who were »very nice.«) They have invariably attempted to cheat him and his family in business and are in every way inconsiderate. He tells a long story which I was not able to get verbatim about buying a fur coat as a Christmas present for his mother, at which time the Jewish salesman misread the price tag, quoting a price $100 cheaper than it actually was. They closed the sale and he insisted on taking the coat after the salesman's error had been noticed. This gave him considerable satisfaction, and he said, »That was a case where I out-Jewed a Jew.«

 

His references to bad experiences are quite vague except in the case where he »out-Jewed the Jew« – another indication of the projective character of the »smartness« theme. The qualification in favor of the rich Jewish yacht owner shows the complication of anti-Semitism through class consciousness, particularly in cases of such strong upward social mobility as that found in this subject. It took even the Nazis some time to convince themselves, their followers, and the wealthiest Jewish groups that the latter should share the fate of poor cattle dealers and immigrants from Eastern Europe.

The tenets of individualism are altered by this subject as follows:

 

»They should be treated, I suppose, like individuals; but after all, they are all alike.«

 

Of course »everyone can tell a Jew.« The distinction between in- and outgroup obtains an almost metaphysical weight: even the imaginary possibility of the disappearance of the dichotomy is excluded:

 

»I couldn't be a Jew.«

 

As to the relation between guilt and punishment and its outcome, he finds a formula which cannot be surpassed:

 

»I think what Hitler did to the Jews was all right. When I was having trouble with a competing contractor, I often thought, I wish Hitler would come here. No, I don't favor discrimination by legislation. I think the time will come when we will have to kill the bastards.«

H. The Misfit Bourgeois

 

Our analysis has led us to the extreme consequence of anti-Semitism, the overt wish for the extermination of the Jews. The extremist's superego has been transformed into an extrapunitive agency of unbridled aggression. We have seen that this consequence consummates the intrinsic irrationality of anti-Semitism by establishing a complete disproportion between the »guilt« and the punishment of the chosen victim. Anti-Semitism, however, does not exhaust itself in the old formula by which it is characterized in Lessing's Nathan der Weise, »tut nichts, der Jude wird verbrannt« – the Jew is going to be burnt anyway, no matter how things are, or what could be said in his favor. Irrational and merciless wholesale condemnation is kept alive by the maintenance of a small number of highly stereotyped reproaches of the Jews which, while largely irrational themselves, give a mock semblance of justification to the death sentence. By constructing the nature of the Jew as unalterably bad, as innately corrupt, any possibility of change and reconciliation seems to be excluded. The more invariant the negative qualities of the Jew appear to be, the more they tend to leave open only one way of »solution«: the eradication of those who cannot improve. This pattern of quasi-natural incorrigibility is much more important to anti-Semites than is the content of the standard reproaches themselves, the latter being frequently quite harmless and essentially incompatible with the inferences to which they lead those who hate. While these reproaches are so widespread and well known that further evidence of their frequency and intensity is unnecessary, it is worthwhile to follow up some of their aspects which came out clearly in our interviews and which seem to throw some additional light on the phenomena concerned.

It is profitable to examine these reproaches from a sociological point of view. Our sample, in contrast to that of the Labor Study, was predominantly middle class. The San Quentin Group is the only striking exception, but its qualification of Lumpenproletariat as well as the prison situation, with its intrinsic emphasis on »official« moral values, makes it impossible to compare this group with the rest of the sample in terms of working-class identification. This identification is usually not very strong even among workers in this country. The general middle-class character of our sample colors the specific nature of the decisive accusations made against the Jews. If our basic hypothesis concerning the largely projective character of anti-Semitism is correct, the Jews are blamed, in social terms, for those properties which by their existence, sociologically ambiguous though it may be, impinge on sensitive spots in the class identification of the different prejudiced groups. To the true proletarian, the Jew is primarily the bourgeois. The workingman is likely to perceive the Jew, above all, as an agent of the economic sphere of the middle-man, as the executor of capitalist tendencies. The Jew is he who »presents the bill.«

To the anti-Semitic members of the middle classes, the imagery of the Jew seems to have a somewhat different structure. The middle classes themselves experience to a certain degree the same threats to the economic basis of their existence which hang over the heads of the Jews. They are themselves on the defensive and struggle desperately for the maintenance of their status. Hence, they accentuate just the opposite of what working men are likely to complain about, namely, that the Jews are not real bourgeois, that they do not really »belong.« By building up an image of the Jew out of traits which signify his failures in middle-class identification, the middle-class member is able subjectively to enhance the social status of his ingroup which is endangered by processes having nothing to do with ingroup-outgroup relations. To the middle-class anti-Semite, the Jew is likely to be regarded as the misfit bourgeois, as it were, he who did not succeed in living up to the standards of today's American civilization and who is a kind of obsolete and uncomfortable remnant of the past. The term »misfit« is actually applied to the Jew by some of our prejudiced subjects. The less the Jew qualifies as a legitimate member of the middle classes, the more easily can he be excluded from a group which, in the wake of monopolization, tends toward the numerus clausus anyway. If the usurper complex to be discussed in the section on politics and economics really belongs to an over-all pattern, the Jew functions, for the potentially fascist mentality, as the usurper par excellence. He is the peddler, impudently disguised as a respectable citizen and businessman.

The most characteristic anti-Jewish remarks appearing in our interviews fall within this frame of thinking, although motifs of a more »proletarian« anti-Semitism, such as the idea of the Jewish exploiter or of the Jews dodging hard manual labor, are not lacking. The division between proletarian and middle-class anti-Semitism should not be exaggerated. The traits ascribed to Jews by working men have often the aspect of the »misfit bourgeois« too. What appear to the worker as symptoms of capitalist exploitiveness can easily be transformed by the middle classes into the reproach of dishonesty, a flagrant violation of bourgeois ethics, one of the main tenets of which is, after all, the praise of good honest labor. The stereotypes here in question transcend the frontiers of the classes; it is only their function that changes, and hence the difference in emphasis.

The construct of the »misfit bourgeois« can easily be articulated according to three major groups of motifs: first, that of Jewish weakness and its psychological correlates, second, the middle-class identification of the Jews as an overcompensation that has essentially failed, third, the intrinsic disloyalty of the Jews to the class with which they vainly attempt to identify themselves, a disloyalty which is viewed as an expression of their abortive identification and of their nature as an objectionable, isolated, and »clannish« ingroup. The first two of these objections may have some basis in reality. There is considerable evidence, e.g., the recent studies by Anton Lourie, of Jewish masochism and its basis in religious psychology. The third objection seems to be predominantly projective and one of the major rationalizations of the wish to »get rid of the whole bunch.«

The idea of Jewish weakness is epitomized by F 114, a woman consistently high on all scales, who is a surgical nurse of partly Jewish descent:

 

»I have a cousin who was in love with me and wanted to marry me. He was more Jewish than I. I loved him, but wouldn't marry him. I told him why – because he's Jewish. He is now married to a Gentile with two children. He's more anti-Semitic than I. That's true of so many Jews – like they were lame or hunchback. They hate it or resent it.«

 

It is perhaps characteristic that such overt statements on Jewish weakness are made frequently either by persons who are themselves being identified with the Jews or – with a more positive accent – by low-scoring subjects. The prejudiced individual, whose hatred is stimulated by weakness, rather tends to stress, on the surface, the strength of the Jews who »wield undue influence« and »own everything.« An example of the low-scorer's attitude towards Jewish weakness is the statement of 5055, an otherwise thoroughly liberal man of 73 years who scored low on all the scales. He feels

 

»that this protective philosophy of the Jews has led to a situation where they do stimulate antagonism in other people.«

 

In cases of extreme low scorers the awareness of Jewish weakness sometimes leads to identification: they assume the role of Jews themselves, consciously in order to antagonize anti-Semitic acquaintances, unconsciously, possibly, in order to atone for anti-Semitism by at least figuratively suffering the same humiliations under which they know the Jews live. Here belongs the case of a 20-year-old, somewhat neurotic interior decorator, 5028, who is in open rebellion against his father but strongly attached to his mother:

 

The subject and his sister are alike in that they both admire Jewish people. He told of jokes that they had played upon some of their father's relatives who are extremely anti-Semitic by pretending that a great grandfather on the maternal side was Jewish. The subject explained that many persons in his mother's family »look a little Jewish because they have long noses.« The paternal cousin to whom they were talking »almost committed suicide« at the thought. The subject volunteered the comment that perhaps one reason he likes Jews is that he »has never known any who were objectionable.«

 

To the prejudiced person, the imagery of Jewish weakness, combined as it is with the rationalization of strength, sometimes strikes a peculiar note, remarkable because of its close harmony with one of the standard themes of American fascist agitators. It is the image of the Jewish refugee who is depicted simultaneously as strong (»He takes the jobs away from our American boys«) and as weak (»He is a dirty outcast«). There is reason enough to believe that the second motive is the decisive one. The high-scoring man M 105 makes the following statement:

 

»A lot of Jewish immigrants are coming to this country. They get a soft life, and they take over. You can't deal with one, and a lot of them are awful dirty, though they have money.«

 

Aggressiveness against the refugees comes to the fore even in cases which are otherwise, according to the interviewer, only mildly anti-Semitic. 5036 is a jazz musician, at the present time drawing unemployment insurance. He is high on E and F, although lower on PEC.

 

Although he denies any outgroup antagonisms, many of these are implicit and at the surface level. He is most vehement in his belief that refugees should not assume citizenship and should be sent home when time and conditions permit it.

 

The psychological determination of this subject's hatred of the refugee competitors can be inferred the more safely since he acknowledges that

 

»There is no doubt that the Jews are talented in music.«

 

He sets against this only the vague standard accusation:

 

»but they are so clannish and aggressive and loud that sometimes I can't stand them.« On several occasions he claims that the aggressiveness and selfish demands of Jews within smaller bands he had tried to organize caused their failure. »These Jews would never really get a feeling of pride in the organization. They would always leave you the minute they had a better offer; and in trying to meet offers they had, I went broke twice.« On the other hand, he says some Jews are undoubtedly outstandingly cultured people.

 

The refugees, as those who are objectively weak, are regularly blamed for having a domineering attitude and a drive for power. While there may be some basis for the objection of aggressiveness in certain institutionalized Jewish reaction formations, such as the Jewish habit of »pleading,« this stereotype helps at the same time to alleviate the anti-Semite's discomfort about violating the principle of democratic asylum: it is not he but the fugitives who are supposed to disregard the rules of hospitality. 5043, a middle-aged housewife with extremely high scores on all the scales, alleges that the Jews

 

are loud and often aggressive. (Here she gave an example of women at the market who push themselves forward.) She specifically distinguishes between »refugees« and other Jews and feels that the »type we have been getting in the neighborhood lately« is definitely clannish, unintelligent, and generally undesirable.

 

The stereotype of Jewish aggressiveness shows a characteristic of anti-Semitic thinking which deserves closer investigation. It is the mixing, in allegations against the Jews, of crudely physical acts of aggression with hypotheses of a more psychological nature. Just as the idea of »Jewish blood« ranges from the fear of »pollution of the race,« where the term blood is used only figuratively, to the hysteria of bodily »poisoning« inflicted by Jewish blood donors, the imagery of aggressiveness ranges from the Jews using their elbows when standing in a queue to their allegedly ruthless business practices. This suggests the retrogressive, »mythological« feature of some anti-Semitism. Mental dispositions are translated into physical reality both in order to soothe the fear of the incomprehensible »alien mentality« and to add a sense of the real to that which is actually only projective. This retranslation probably throws some light on the over-all insistence of the anti-Semite on Jewish physical traits.

5067 »is a portly, rather maternal-looking woman who looks all of her forty-eight years.« She was chosen as a mixed case with high E and PEC. She does not differentiate at all between the physical and the psychological aspect of Jewish »aggressiveness«:

 

»I do not like their coercive aggression in business. They are not only aggressive, but they should also be segregated. They are always pushing people aside. I noticed nearly every time when there was pushing in the innumerable lines we had to wait in during the war, it was a Jew who started the pushing. I feel a real revulsion towards Jews.«

 

In other cases, the idea of aggressiveness is used in the exclusively social sense of »intrusiveness.« Sometimes one gets a glimpse into the mechanism behind this standard reproach. It probably has to do with the all-pervasive feeling of social isolation, which is overcompensated for in innumerable middle-class »social activities.« Against this background of emotion the Jews, as the classic agents of circulation, are perceived and probably envied as those who are not isolated, but have »contacts« everywhere. This idea is closely associated with that of clannishness, which also implies the imagery of some kind of togetherness from which the members of the real in-group pretend to be excluded. The aforementioned F 105 finds the formula:

 

»They seem to know everybody; they pull strings; they are like a clan, more united than any race. They have friends everywhere who can do the right thing.«

 

Finally, it should be mentioned that there is some evidence in our material that the basis of the stereotype »aggressiveness« lies in repressed sexuality. The Jews are supposed to be unencumbered by the standards of Puritan morality, and the more strictly one adheres oneself to these standards, the more eagerly are the supposed sex habits of the Jews depicted as sordid. What goes uncensored in the case of Jewish »rich food« becomes intolerable in the sphere of supposedly uninhibited and there-fore repulsive sensuality. Some insight into this matter is afforded by the 42-year-old woman, F 118, a public health nurse – a person, incidentally, whose outgroup hatred is focused on organized labor rather than on minorities and whose score on A-S is middle, while she scores high on PEC and F.

 

She could not imagine herself marrying a Jew. She then proceeded to relate that actually she once had an opportunity to marry a Jew. One time, when she returned home for the summer after being in New York for a while, she met a very intelligent lawyer who worked in the same office as her brother. He was very well-educated and knew languages. She had dates with him and saw quite a lot of him for three weeks, until one day he said to her, »There is one thing I want to tell you about myself. You have never met my family and I had not intended that you should meet them. However, there is one thing that I want to ask you, and that is whether you would object to marrying a Jew?« She said that it was as if she had been struck a great blow. He did not look Jewish, his name was not Jewish, and he even sang in the choir of her church, so that she never suspected that he was Jewish. She just sat there without saying a word – and that was his answer. She then went on to add that it was very bad for him, because all the girls staying in her boarding house then found out that he was Jewish and it also became known at his place of work and made things bad for him there. Subject saw him again ten years later and felt that he did look more Jewish, but added that that was perhaps because she now knew that he was Jewish. The thing that is most impossible to her in the idea of marrying a Jew is the thought of bearing Jewish children.

 

It is noteworthy that the resistance of this woman was brought about only by her knowledge of the man's Jewish descent, not by any of his own characteristics. It is hardly going too far to assume that the stereotype has re-enacted old childhood taboos against sexuality and that it was only afterwards that these were turned against the Jew as an individual. Primary attraction is the basis for subsequent repulsion.

The close relations of the ubiquitous idea of clannishness to the reproach of aggressiveness has become obvious in previous examples. Suffice it to say here that clannishness appears as the justification for excluding the aggressive »intruder«: he always »remains a Jew« and wants to cheat those by whom he wishes to be accepted. At the same time, the idea of clannishness consummates the imagery of Jewish togetherness, of a warm, family-like, archaic and very »ingroup-like« texture of the outgroup which seems to be denied to those who are thoroughly formed by American civilization and obey the rules of technological rationality.

The underlying attractiveness of the Jewish »clan« is accentuated by the statement of M 102, a subject scoring high on all scales:

 

»The Jewish kids I knew in high school were the sons and daughters of the prominent Jewish businessmen, and they were very clannish. It's hard to say what ought to be done about it. It doesn't seem to bother them what people think. That is a natural characteristic. It doesn't do any good to try to exclude them from business because some of them are the smartest businessmen we have. Most of them are out of Germany by now, and I suppose they'll get back. Some are very crafty about sticking together and getting ahead in business, getting capital. People in Germany will feel the need of Jewish businessmen and they will pool their capital and make a start there.« (What about Jewish women?) »Some of them are very attractive, and some are very clannish. They are dominated by the men; it's all in their creed.«

 

The more patriarchal structure of the Jewish family, whether it be real or imagined, seems to work as an element of sexual attraction. Jewish women are supposed »to do everything for men« – just what the Gentile American girl is expected not to do. At the same time, however, the idea of sexual fulfillment tends to diminish, in American culture, the social value of the women who offer this fulfillment. Here again, the praise of one Jewish quality is prone to tilt over into its opposite.

How the idea of clannishness can sometimes obtain features of an obsession laden with violent resentment is shown in the case of F 113, a young woman who is high on the E scale but somewhat lower on F and PEC. She is an attractive, somewhat neurotic girl of 26, a subject from the Extension Class group. She resents both Jewish names and those who dared to change them. When speaking about Jewish acquaintances, she makes a point of their owning »a chain of burlesque houses,« being rich as well as somewhat disreputable. In her statement about Jewish family life, it is remarkable how closely some observations which have a ring of truth are knit together with somewhat paranoid ideas about the selfishness determining the Jewish behavior in question and with a harsh evaluation of it as a »guilt«:

 

»The worst experience with them I had was when I was overseas operator in Hawaii a couple of years ago. I had to monitor all the calls that went to New York so I listened to just thousands of conversations. And ninety percent of them were rich Jews calling up their families. That is the only really good thing I can say for them – their devotion to their families. But all purely selfish. The money they spent – and the time – on just purely selfish calls.« (Business calls?) »Well I worked mostly at night. But the other girls said it was the same people making business calls during the day.« (How did you know they were Jews?) »Their voices and the things they said. Selfish.« (Could there have been Jews you didn't recognize?) »I don't think so. You get so you always know a Jewish voice.«