Gesammelte Werke

will be raised that we cannot anticipate any »depth-charge effect« of our vaccination. If our assumption of an underlying fascist character potential, which is in preestablished harmony with the agitators' devices, is correct, we cannot expect the debunking of their devices to substantially alter attitudes which seem to be reproduced rather than engendered by the agitators' harangues. As long as we do not really touch upon the interplay of forces within our subjects' unconscious, our approach must remain rationalistic even if it makes irrational dispositions its subject matter. Abstract insight into one's own irrationalities, without going into their actual motivation, would not necessarily function in a cathartic way. In the course of our studies we have met numerous people who admit that they ›know they shouldn't be prejudiced,‹ who even display some knowledge of the sources of their prejudice, and yet maintain it stubbornly. Neither the role of prejudice in the prejudiced person's own psychological household nor the strength of his resistance should be underrated. However, while these objections denote a definite limitation of our approach, they should not discourage us altogether.
    To start on a superficial level, the political naïveté of vast numbers of people – and by no means only the uneducated ones – is amazing. Programs, platforms, and slogans are taken at their face value. They are judged in terms of what appears to be their own immediate merit. Apart from a vague suspicion of the political rackets or the bureaucrats – a suspicion which, incidentally, is characteristic of the antidemocratic personality rather than of its opposite – the idea that political goals largely cover the interests of those who promote them is alien to many people. Even more alien, however, is the idea that one's own political decisions depend to a great extent on subjective factors of which one may not even be aware. The
shock
evinced by the dawning awareness of such a possibility may well help to bring about the aforementioned lever effect. Though our approach will not reorganize the unconscious of those whom we hope to reach, it may nevertheless reveal to them that they themselves, as well as their ideology, represent a
problem.
The chances to achieve this are augmented by the fact that outspoken anti-Semitism is still deemed disreputable, that those who indulge in it do so with a somewhat bad conscience, and that they therefore find themselves to a certain extent in a conflict situation. There can hardly be any doubt, however, that the transition from a naïve to a reflective attitude brings about a certain weakening of its violence. The element of ego control is enhanced even if the id is not touched. A person who realizes that anti-Semitism is a problem, and that being an anti-Semite is even more of a problem, will in all probability be less fanatic than somebody who swallows the bait of prejudice, hook and line.
    The possibility of revealing to the subjects their anti-Semitism for what it is: their own internal problem, is enhanced by the following psychological considerations. As has been mentioned, the prejudiced person externalizes all values, he stubbornly believes in the ultimate importance of categories such as nature, health, conformity to given patterns, etc. He displays definite reluctance against introspection and is incapable of finding fault with himself or those with whom he is identified. Clinical studies have no doubt that this attitude is largely a reaction formation. While being overadjusted to the external world, the prejudiced person feels insecure on a deeper level 7 . The unwillingness to search in oneself is first of all an expression of the fear of making unpleasant discoveries. In other words, it covers underlying conflicts. However, since these conflicts inevitably produce suffering, the defense against self-reflection is not unambiguous. Though the prejudiced person loathes seeing his own »seamy side,« he nevertheless expects some kind of relief from knowing himself better than he does. The dependence of many prejudiced persons on guidance from outside, their readiness to consult quacks of every description, from the astrologer to the human-relations columnist, are at least in part a distorted, externalized expression of their desire for self-awareness. Prejudiced persons, who are at first hostile to psychological interviews, very often seem to derive some kind of gratification from