Gesammelte Werke

them once some rapport, however superficial it may be, has been established. This underlying wish which, in the last analysis, is the wish for truth itself, could be satisfied by explanations of the type we envisage. Such interviews might provide the prejudiced persons with a kind of relief and ignite what some psychologists call an »aha-experience.« It should not be over-looked that the basis for such an effect would be prepared by the narcissistic pleasure most people obtain from situations in which they feel important since interest is being focused on them.
    The counterargument can point to the indisputable fact that these people have to defend their own prejudice since it fulfills numerous functions, ranging from the pseudointellectual one which provides easy, smooth formulas for the explanation of every evil in the world, to the creation of an object of negative cathexis, a catalyzer for aggressiveness. If the prejudiced person really has to be regarded as a character syndrome, it does not seem likely that he will relinquish a goal-persistence which is determined by his inner structure rather than by the goal. The last observation, however, contains an element which goes beyond the plausible critique of our approach. It is not so much the goal but the prejudiced person that matters in prejudice. If, as has been said sometimes, anti-Semitism has very little to do with the Jews, the prejudiced person's fixation on the objects of his prejudice should not be emphasized. There is no doubt about the rigidity of prejudice, that is to say, the existence of certain blind spots in the prejudiced person's mind which are inaccessible to the dialectics of living experience. But this rigidity affects the relation between the subject and the object of hatred, rather than the choice of the object or even the obstinacy with which it is maintained. As a matter of fact, those who are rigidly prejudiced even show a certain mobility in regard to the choice of their object of hatred 8 . This was borne out by various cases studied in the
Research Project on Social Discrimination.
For instance, people who clearly belonged to the fascist character syndrome would – for some extraneous reasons such as being married to a Jewish woman – replace the Jews as objects of hatred by some other more or less surprising group, the Armenians or the Greeks. The instinctual urge is so strong in the prejudiced person and his relation to any object, his ability to form any real attachment, be the object loved or hated, is of such a problematic nature, that he may not even remain faithful to his chosen foe. The projective mechanism to which he is subject can be switched around according to the principle of least resistance and the opportunities afforded by the situation in which he finds himself. It may be expected that our manual will perhaps create a psychological situation in which the negative cathexis on the Jews is being shattered. This, of course, should not be misunderstood in the manipulative sense that one should replace the Jews by somebody else as targets of hatred in the anti-Semite's mind. But the feebleness, arbitrariness, and accidentality of the object choice
per se
may be turned into a force which would make the subjects doubtful about their own ideology. When they learn how little it matters whom they hate as long as they hate something, their ego might cease to side with hatred and the intensity of aggressiveness might subsequently decrease.
    It is our intention to use the mobility of prejudice for its own conquest. Our approach might turn the indignation of the prejudiced person against a truly adequate object: the agitator's devices and the spuriousness of fascist manipulation proper. On the basis of our explanations it will not be too difficult to make the subjects aware of the trickiness and insincerity of antidemocratic propaganda techniques. What matters in this respect is not so much the objective falsity of anti-Jewish statements as the implicit contempt for those at whom fascist propaganda aims, and whose weaknesses are systematically exploited. At this point, the forces of psychological resistance may work against antidemocratism rather than against enlightenment. Nobody, and least of all the potentially fascist character, wants to be treated as a sucker, and this is precisely what the agitator does when he tells his audience that they are the suckers of the Jews, bankers, bureaucrats, and other ›sinister forces.‹