ABSTRACT
This chapter develops a psychoanalytic interpretation of antisemitism and sexism centred on intolerance of ambiguity as a core authoritarian disposition. Drawing on Critical Theory, psychoanalysis, and the empirical findings of the Studies in the Authoritarian Personality, it argues that antisemitism and misogyny function as distorted mechanisms of psychic regulation in subjects unable to tolerate emotional and cognitive ambivalence. The chapter reconstructs how unresolved Oedipal conflicts, shaped by patriarchal authority relations and gender hierarchies, are managed through splitting, projection, and authoritarian rebellion. Particular attention is given to the contradictory fusion of weakness and superiority in images of Jews and women, which allows repressed hostility towards parental authority − especially the father − to be displaced onto socially sanctioned targets. The analysis extends from National Socialism to contemporary Islamism, conceptualised as a form of “patriarchy without a father,” in which abstract collective authority replaces interpersonal mediation. The chapter further shows how rigid gender binarism, pseudo-masculinity, and pseudo-femininity serve as defences against doubt, complexity, and non-identity. Antisemitism emerges as the paradigmatic projection of ambiguity itself, personified in the figure of the Jew as simultaneously masculine and feminine, powerful and weak. By foregrounding intolerance of ambiguity, the chapter elucidates the psychosocial foundations linking antisemitism, misogyny, and authoritarian domination.
