ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the study’s usage of psychoanalytic thinking, as well as T. W. Adorno’s psychoanalytically informed engagement with the theme of prejudice elsewhere. It argues that while this turn has proved most valuable for the understanding of prejudice, the employment of the concept of ego strength as a proposed solution to the problem is problematic for several reasons. The chapter neglects the role of the unconscious as well as that of the other and of society. Advocation of uncritical adaptation is a consequence of this lack. The chapter suggests that Wilfred Bion’s conceptions of thinking and containment are better suited to illuminate Adorno’s understanding of prejudice in terms of destruction of experience and to describe the conditions for having experience. The concept of the authoritarian personality first appeared in a volume on authority and the family by the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt as a link between psychological dispositions and political leanings.
