Cynical Soberness or Mild Lunacy? Adorno on the Emotional Economy of Authoritarianism

This paper proposes a theoretical reflection on the work of Theodor Adorno, and especially his Freudian/Marxian theory of the emotional economy of authoritarianism. From the viewpoint of the current boost in authoritarian political project in both virtual but also in institutional spaces as well as in the party and state apparatuses throughout Europe, this perspective seems to offer some important tools for analysis. The permanence of Adorno’s perspective, best known from The Authoritarian Personality (1950), which analyses the potential of anti-Semitic and Fascist tendencies within the confines of democratic society, is connected with the idea that generalized sense of powerlessness in endemic to capitalist economy, and that utilizing and shaping this affectual base is central to authoritarian political project. The centrality of this approach seems only to have been underlined by what has been termed the post-foundational approach to populism. In this sense, Adorno’s perspective anticipates some of the more contemporary trends in the multidisciplinary study of authoritarianism and populism. According to Adorno, “conditions prevailing in our society tend to transform neurosis and even mild lunacy into a commodity which the afflicted can easily sell”. But importantly, for him “cynical soberness” is more characteristic of the authoritarian mentality than states of emotional intoxication. Subjective mechanisms of repression, introjection and projection, analysed by psychoanalysis, largely unknown to the individual herself, can according to Adorno be identified, seized upon and manipulated by political agents who recognize the underlying state of general impotence, but instead of challenging its root causes in capitalism, cynically play short-sighted power games to maximise their profit and influence. According to Adorno, an element of gratification is important to authoritarian propaganda and ideology, although this gratification is silently known by the manipulator (and to an extent even by the manipulated) to be inauthentic or pseudo. What causes pseudo-gratification is the feeling of being liberated from repression and inhibitions. The goal, in terms of affect economy, in eg. disseminating anti-minority propaganda or even physically attacking minorities, can be connected with the aims of pseudo-rationally regulating one’s psychic economy, ie. alleviating stress and feelings of inferiority. This goal should not be underestimated as it is at the core of the authoritarian political project, which silently legitimates such anti-democratic “care of the self”. This structural tendency hinges on the serious political problem of navigating intellectual and institutional spaces that have a long-standing habitual connection with such anti-democratic mechanisms or “valves for letting off steam”, while they might ostensibly operate underneath the blanket of democracy.