ABSTRACT
The post-Second World War effort to trace the psychodynamics of 'prejudice' was understandably focused on the recent experience of fascism and Nazism and concern over the danger of their resurgence; but it was also highly productive. The image of the cultural nomad successfully captures a sense of the Jew as standing outside the social order, that is powerfully engrained in much anti-Semitic thinking. The usual criticism is that ego psychology, which emphasizes the role of the ego in mediating between unconscious impulses and the requirements of 'external reality', turns too readily into a conformist psychology stressing adaptation to social norms. The Frankfurt School theorists were very alert to the potential limitations of their psychological reading of anti-Semitism and balanced it by linking it closely to social and economic analysis. Reserve armies of the unemployed and the petty bourgeoisie love Hitler all over the world for his anti-Semitism, and the core of the ruling class agrees with that love.
