Page - 1 - in Rebels without a cause? - ‘Criminals’ and fascism in The Authoritarian Personality

https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795X20978506 Journal of Classical Sociology 1 –25 © The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1468795X20978506 journals.sagepub.com/home/jcs Rebels without a cause? ‘Criminals’ and fascism in The Authoritarian Personality Andreas Kranebitter University of Graz, Austria Abstract An important empirical basis for the interpretations of Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel- Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford in The Authoritarian Personality (TAP) were questionnaires and in-depth interviews conducted by William R. Morrow with prisoners at California’s San Quentin prison. A reconstruction of the historical approach exposes serious methodological shortcomings, some of which Morrow openly addressed in memoranda, revealing that the supposedly particularly authoritarian attitude of the prisoners was due, among other things, to their submission to the psychiatric authority in the authoritarian situation of the prison and due to the conditions of a hierarchical prisoner society. In TAP, the empirically inadequate survey was interpreted primarily in the context of psychoanalytic literature on crime at that time, in particular Robert Lindner’s Rebel Without A Cause, whose theory of pseudo rebellion permeated TAP. Focusing on the shortcomings of TAP, this article argues, enables its inspiring insights to be appreciated. Keywords Critical criminology, critical theory, fascism, psychoanalysis, Robert M. Lindner, The Authoritarian Personality, Theodor W. Adorno Introduction Several members of the Frankfurt School dealt with ‘criminality’ and social exclusion. One of the first books published by the Institute for Social Research in exile was Rusche and Kirchheimer’s (1939) Punishment and Social Structure, which shaped critical crimi- nology (Kunz, 2017) not least due to its impact on Michel Foucault (Foucault, 1977: 35). Despite forming an important strand of research stretching from Kirchheimer and Franz Corresponding author: Andreas Kranebitter, Archive for the History of Sociology in Austria, Managing Director, Department for Sociology, University of Graz, Universitätsstraße 15 Bauteil G/IV, Graz 8010, Austria. Email: andreas.kranebitter@uni-graz.at; Web: http://agso.uni-graz.at/ 978506 JCS0010.1177/1468795X20978506Journal of Classical SociologyKranebitter research-article2020 Article