Seite - 9 - in Rebels without a cause? - ‘Criminals’ and fascism in The Authoritarian Personality

Kranebitter 9 How much of these manifestly expressed attitudes can still be interpreted as an expression of deeper personality structures in this interview situation? Put differently: how much of this response behaviour was actually a survival strategy, as Ray (1984: 266) has asked, ‘to appear agreeable to the authorities’ in a threatening institution like San Quentin? Improvisations attested to the innovative nature of the study. Sociological surveys and interviews with delinquents in prison had not been done before the 1930s (cf. Savelsberg et al., 2015: 239), not to mention interviews inspired by psychoanalysis (cf. Moser, 1970). The authors also tried to validate their interpretations of the respondents’ state- ments by using other sources, ‘various non-prison social service reports and other mate- rial’ (Levinson and Morrow, 1946: 7). But these attempts merely expanded the problem without solving it. Documents by other state authorities were not ‘neutral’ sources but rather a documentation of strategic representations made by various actors in the interac- tion processes of a successful criminalisation – a ‘trophy collection of criminal police successes‘ (Doßmann and Regener, 2018: 43). All this raises the question of what was actually measured by the San Quentin questionnaires. How the prison situation shaped responses. In the published version, the potential influ- ence of the prison situation on the prisoners’ responses is discussed for only one item: ‘If and when a new world organisation is set up, America must be sure that she loses none of her independence and complete power in matters that affect this country‘ (Adorno et al., 1950: 128). Here, it is conceded that the high level of approval is not necessarily a manifestation of extreme nationalism but may be a projection of the prisoners’ lack of freedom onto the nation as a whole (Adorno et al., 1950: 824). Interestingly, in the mem- orandum, the interpretation of this very item originally went the other way, with Levin- son and Morrow concluding that there was in fact a penchant for fascism within the San Quentin group as a whole: There is no reason to believe that the response to this item was influenced by the administrative situation; it would seem to reflect the general reactionism politically and ethnocentrically, of this group. One of the main conclusions from the data, both clinical and questionnaire, is that this group, while it has rebelled in a legal sense, has not rebelled ideologically; we see here, as we saw in Germany, the recruiting ground for a Fascist movement (Levinson and Morrow, 1946: 2f.) How this change of heart came about between 1946 and 1950 cannot be determined in the archives. Apparently, however, the authors had thoroughly discussed the interpreta- tion of this item and opted for the opposite interpretation in the publication, which emphasised the influence of the interview situation – without revising the concluding comparison with Nazi Germany. A thorough reflection of the prison situation on the response behaviour would have been necessary for all items, not merely this one isolated case. The entire frame of refer- ence for the respondents was the prison, not outside society. The San Quentin low scorers were said to be free from rigid and stereotypical thinking (Adorno et al., 1950: 828). At the same time, Morrow criticised them for not doing something active against inequality