21. The Social Psychology of Authority

The belief in the inevitability of proletarian revolution came undone in the aftermath of the First World War and set into motion currents of thought and practice that crystallized into what gets identified as “critical theory.” Where orthodoxy held that the workers of the world were destined to overthrow their oppressors, the war dispelled this myth and revealed that nationalism, racism, and charisma trumped progressive social and political movements. The famous Frankfurt School was decisive in mining the various strains of critique from the classical tradition and synthesizing them with elements of contemporary thought, especially from psychoanalysis. One of the most fruitful lines of inquiry centered on the sadomasochistic character and its manifestation in the domains of politics and society. Authoritarianism and the authoritarian personality are still vitally important problems at the heart of the critical theory project. This chapter maps out the development of the theory of authoritarianism, where it succeeded, and where it failed, and points the way for fresh analyses of authoritarianism in the era of imperialism and totalitarianism.