Freud, the Frankfurt School, Antisemitism and the Left : A Brief History and Critique

Freud, the Frankfurt School, Antisemitism and the Left addresses the relationship between authoritarianism, antisemitism and the dangers posed of religious nationalism by exploring the history of the Frankfurt School’s research on authoritarianism and its relevance to today’s world.

Freud, the Frankfurt School, Antisemitism and the Left addresses the relationship between authoritarianism, antisemitism and the dangers posed of religious nationalism by exploring the history of the Frankfurt School’s research on authoritarianism and its relevance to today’s world. The Frankfurt school was the first to underscore the relationship between authoritarianism and antisemitism in their pioneering (psychoanalytically informed) research. Their efforts in Weimar Germany and the USA still influence contemporary research in sociology, social psychology and political theory, but focused solely on the authoritarianism and antisemitism of the Right, leaving the authoritarianism and antisemitism of the Stalinist Left largely unaddressed. That said, Left-wing authoritarians nowadays seldom resemble their Stalinist forebears due to their embrace of postmodernism and of Islamist movements that fuel the rise of Left-wing antisemitism. Their efforts in this direction are often rationalized as (or cloaked in) an ostensibly principled antizionist stance. Moreover, the contemporary Left’s antizionist rhetoric often echoes and imitates the flagrantly antisemitic antizionism of the Soviet Union; a palpable and troubling kinship of ideas which contemporary antizionist activists deliberately downplay or overlook completely. Drawing on recent work in the Frankfurt School tradition that addresses the astonishing resurgence of Left-wing authoritarianism and antisemitism in feminism, academia, and the psychoanalytic profession in the West; this book is extremely relevant for scholars, students, and professionals in the fields of psychoanalysis, feminism, Critical Theory, sociology of religion, religious studies, social psychology, and political psychology.